Sep 04

Today’s News 4th September 2019

  • Revealed: Russian S-400s Already Operational In Turkey, Satellite Images Confirm

    Early last week Turkey announced the start of a second round of S-400 component deliveries from Russia at a moment Turkish President Erdogan met with Putin in Moscow to hold talks on Syria developments. But it already appears the first batch — delivered in July at Mürted Air Base near Ankara — has gone operational, new satellite images reveal. 

    Leading commercial satellite imaging site ImageSat International announced Tuesday that “for the first time observed, the recently arrived from Russia to Turkey S400 is in operational mode and deployed in Ankara.” 

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    ImageSat noted that according to the newly published images the system’s launchers are not yet loaded, yet “the radars are stationed and deployed”. 

    “It is probably that some of the observed was arrived in Ankara by Russia in the second shipment, after the first shipment occurred on July 2019,” according to the analysis. 

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    There’s a likelihood the current site observed is a “trial and test” deployment, but could also become the permanent operational site, according to ImageSat. 

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    Turkish media reports suggest the second batch of deliveries for the advanced Russian air defense system will be complete within several weeks; the S-400s are expected to be fully deployed and operational across Turkey by April 2020. 

    Most importantly, what the now confirmed hasty deployment of the first S-400 system in Ankara confirms is that Erdogan has been completely unfazed by recent threatened US sanctions and the cancellation of Turkey’s participation in the US F-35 program.

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    File photo: Russian S-400s in Syria. Source: Russian Defense Ministry

    With about 100 Lockheed F-35 jets hanging in the balance, which Washington could permanently block, it’s clear Turkey is not looking back. 

  • Could Brexit Leave The UK Vulnerable To Pressure From US Hawks?

    Authored by Barbara Boland via The American Conservative,

    By unyoking London from Europe, a no deal Brexit would unleash a titanic shift in global alliances that could strengthen Washington’s hand and help it achieve its “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran.

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    That’s an ironic turn of events for populists in the United Kingdom, who support Brexit because it will allow the British people to determine their own fate.

    But for some in Washington, Brexit represents a golden opportunity to negotiate with a United Kingdom unencumbered by Europe. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo admitted as much when he was asked whether our relationship with the UK will be strengthened by Brexit.

    “I think it’s the case,” Pompeo said Thursday on the Hugh Hewitt Show.

    “We’ll have a clear line with [the UK]. We won’t have the EU as a middleman that has put constraints on our capacity to do lots of good things across not only the economic sector but the security sector and the diplomatic sector as well.  … I’m confident that that very special relationship will continue to grow.”

    Note that Pompeo specifically mentioned “the security sector” when listing how Brexit will help the U.S. That’s of particular importance now because the Trump administration has been pressuring European nations to back its withdrawal from the Iran deal and reimpose sanctions on Iran. So far, they have been reluctant to do so.

    In recent months, the U.S. has claimed that Iran was responsible for attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz and the downing of an American surveillance drone. At Washington’s urging, the British Royal Navy seized an Iranian oil tanker entering the Mediterranean. The U.S. then unsuccessfully maneuvered to prevent the UK from releasing the vessel.

    After the government of then-prime minister Theresa May missed two deadlines to negotiate an exit deal with the EU, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was elected on a promise that he would finally deliver on the June 2016 referendum and withdraw the UK from the European Union, deal or no deal.

    Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament last Wednesday makes the current Brexit deadline of October 31 look inevitable, because he has effectively reduced his opponents’ ability to reverse the referendum via legislation by running out the clock.

    Brexiteers have long argued that London will have far greater freedom to negotiate its own trade pacts after it leaves the 28-nation European Union. But they may be in for a surprise: if Britain leaves the EU without a deal, it will likely find itself more susceptible to American leverage.

    That’s because, without an agreement, the UK will need to quickly secure a trade deal with the U.S. That deal is likely to come with strings attached—Washington may request that Britain take a harder line against Iran, or cooperates with efforts to squeeze Chinese telecom giant Huawei, which the U.S. deems a national security risk.

    While it’s still unclear how Johnson will navigate foreign policy, there are early indications that London will toe Washington’s line.

    In early August, Johnson’s government agreed to join the U.S. in Operation Sentinel, a mission that’s supposed to provide freedom of navigation for commercial shipping and “deter provocations” in the Strait of Hormuz, according to U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

    “The UK is determined to ensure her shipping is protected from unlawful threats and for that reason we have today joined the new maritime security mission in the Gulf,” British Defense Minister Ben Wallace told reporters.

    “The mission will see the Royal Navy working alongside the U.S. Navy to accompany merchant vessels through the Strait of Hormuz,” the British government claimed in a statement, adding that British forces will play a “leading role” in the operation.

    The UK also called for other governments to cooperate, labeling it a “truly international problem.” In a sign that may presage trouble, the mission is already being “rebranded” in the hopes of encouraging more participation. So far, only Australia and Bahrain have joined in support.

    The possibility that Brexit will force London will give in to Washington on foreign policy is being seriously considered by multiple European diplomats, British politicians, and foreign policy experts at the core of Brexit and Iran policymaking.

    Undoubtedly aware of how Brexit will increase Washington’s leverage, notorious Iran war hawk and Trump national security advisor John Bolton voiced the administration’s full-throated support of even a no-deal Brexit, adding that “we are prepared to proceed as rapidly as the Brits are.”

    While Parliament is recessed, there is a small window wherein Johnson’s government could assist in deescalating tensions with Iran. The UK could attempt to convince the Islamic Republic not to drastically exceed their agreed-upon uranium enrichment levels. That’s what France and Germany are urging.

    But if there’s an irreparable break in talks with the EU, it’s much more likely that Britain will find herself even more deeply wedded to the “special relationship” with the United States—with all that entails for foreign policy.

  • Fewer People In Hong Kong Tend To Identify As Chinese

    Hong Kong has been embroiled in mass protests for weeks after the local government attempted to push through a bill allowing extradition to mainland China.

    In the years since the handover, Beijing has been respectful of Hong Kong’s economic power and unique way of life – particularly freedom of expression and legal independence.

    The demonstrators took the streets due to what they consider an attempt to undermine that way of life. And, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, in the years after the handover, the share of people in Hong Kong identifying as Chinese increased, reaching 38.6 percent in 2008.

    Dissatisfaction with Beijing’s policies towards Hong Kong has seen that share decline significantly in recent years and it stands at just 10.8 percent today, according to the most recent polling from Hong Kong University.

    Infographic: Fewer People In Hong Kong Tend To Identify As Chinese | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Meanwhile the share of people identifying as Hongkongers has increased dramatically over the last decade, hitting 53 percent in 2019.

  • The Twilight Of The Global Order

    Authored by Ana Palacio via Project Syndicate,

    We live in an era of hyperbole, in which gripping accounts of monumental triumphs and devastating disasters take precedence over realistic discussions of incremental progress and gradual erosion. But in international relations, as in anything, crises and breakthroughs are only part of the story; if we fail also to notice less sensational trends, we may well find ourselves in serious trouble – potentially after it is too late to escape.

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    The recent G7 Summit in Biarritz, France, is a case in point. Despite some positive developments – French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, was praised for keeping his American counterpart, Donald Trump, in check – little was achieved. And, beyond the question of substantive results, the summit’s structure portends a progressive erosion of international cooperation – a slow, steady chipping away at the global order.

    It is somewhat ironic that the G7 presages the future, because it is in many ways a relic of the past. Formed in the 1970s, at the height of the Cold War, it was supposed to serve as a forum for the major developed economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

    After the fall of the Soviet Union, the G7 continued to shape global governance on issues ranging from debt relief to peace operations and global health. In 1997, the G7 became the G8, with the addition of Russia. Still, the body epitomized an era of Western preeminence in an institutionalized liberal world order in full bloom.

    That era is long gone. The 2008 financial crisis hobbled the body’s core members, which, together with the rise of the emerging economies, especially China, meant that the group no longer possessed the critical mass required to guide world affairs.

    The larger and more diverse G20, formed in 1999, thus gradually overtook the G8, formally replacing the latter as the world’s permanent international economic forum a decade later. In an increasingly complex and divided global environment, the G20’s flexible policymaking style – including a preference for non-binding commitments – was regarded as more viable than the hard-law methods of older multilateral institutions.

    The G8 drifted along as a mere caucus. When Russia’s G8 membership was suspended in 2014 – a response to its invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea – it became even less weighty, though more cohesive, with its members sharing a more consistent worldview. (Some, including Trump, now call for Russia’s reintroduction to the group.)

    But even that slight advantage was demolished with Trump’s election in 2016. His administration began attacking allies and rejecting shared rules, norms, and values. The situation reached a nadir at the 2018 G7 Summit in Quebec, where a petulant Trump criticized his host, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and publicly disavowed the summit’s final communiqué as soon as it was issued.

    Against that backdrop, this year’s summit in Biarritz elicited great trepidation. With little hope for consensus on any consequential issue, the meeting’s French hosts focused on keeping up appearances, choosing expediency over impact. Goals were kept vague. In fact, Macron announced before the event that there would be no final statement, declaring that “nobody reads communiqués.”

    But that decision represented a major loss. Final communiqués are policy documents, providing important signals about significant compromises to the international community. The 2018 declaration, which Trump rejected, was 4,000 words long, identifying a set of shared priorities and common approaches to addressing them.

    The Biarritz summit, by contrast, ended with a 250-word statement that was so vague and anodyne as to be all but meaningless. On Iran, for example, G7 leaders could agree only that they “fully share two objectives: to ensure that Iran never acquires nuclear weapons and to foster peace and stability in the region.” On Hong Kong, they reaffirmed “the existence and importance of the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984 on Hong Kong” and called hollowly “for violence to be avoided.” On Ukraine, France and Germany promised to organize a summit “to achieve tangible results.”

    To be sure, some positive steps were taken in Biarritz. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s surprise appearance created a potential opening for future US-Iran talks. Pressure was placed on Brazil to respond to the fires that are decimating the Amazon. And the US and France broke an impasse over a French tax on tech giants. But any high-level international gathering produces these kinds of limited actions, merely by facilitating interaction among world leaders.

    Many have recognized the shortcomings of the latest G7 summit. But, drawn to calamity as we so often are, assessments often center on the body’s possible collapse next year, when the G7 summit will be hosted in the US by Trump, who will go nowhere near the lengths to which Macron went to hold the last one together. (On the contrary, Trump’s interest in the summit seems to revolve around his desire to hold it at his struggling golf resort in Doral, Florida.)

    But this perspective fails to recognize the full implications of the Biarritz summit: it signals a broader shift in international governance away from concrete policy cooperation toward vague statements and ad hoc solutions. To some extent, the G20 pioneered this approach, but at least it had vision and a set direction. That can no longer be expected.

    Unless leaders take stock of the current trend, the conclusion of the Biarritz summit will be a marker of the world order’s future – ending not with a bang, but with a whimper.

  • Emerging Market Central Banks Panic With Most Rate Cuts Since Financial Crisis

    The global growth outlook is the lowest since the last financial crisis, and central banks, especially ones in emerging markets, have already started to cut interest rates to make sure growth doesn’t collapse.

    Manufacturing across large parts of South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East are reeling from a global structural slowdown, amplified by the US and China trade war, have triggered emerging central banks to cut rates by the most in a decade, reported Reuters.

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    Emerging central banks took notice when major central banks including the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank started to cut interest rates this summer, all in an attempt to lessen the impact of a global synchronized slowdown.

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    Central banks across 37 emerging market economies recorded a net fourteen rate cuts in August, the most since policymakers dropped rates to zero after the global financial crash in 2008/09.

    August marked the seventh straight month of net rate cuts followed by a tightening cycle that ended in early 2019. July recorded a net eight rate cuts. Cuts by Mexico and Thailand in August took markets by surprise.

    After nine straight months of rate hikes in 2018, emerging central banks battled the fallout from a firm dollar, increasing inflation, and weaker local currencies.

    Here’s a complete list of the recent emerging market central bank policy decessions:

    • PARAGUAY – The central bank cut its policy rate by 25 basis points to 4.25% on Aug. 21.

    • INDONESIA – The central bank, hoping it can spur faster growth at home despite a global slowdown, surprisingly cut its key interest rate for a second time in two months on Aug. 22.

    • MEXICO – Policymakers cut on Aug. 15 the key lending rate by 25 basis points to 8.00%- the first reduction since June 2014, citing slowing inflation and increasing slack in the economy, and fuelling expectations that further monetary policy easing could be on the way.

    • EGYPT – Egypt’s central bank cut the overnight deposit rate by 150 basis points to 14.25% on Aug. 22, its first cut since February, after July inflation figures came in significantly below expectations

    • MOZAMBIQUE – The central bank cut its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points on Aug. 14 to 12.75%.

    • JAMAICA – Jamaica’s central bank cut its interest rate by 25 basis points to 0.50% on Aug. 28.

    • NAMIBIA – Policymakers reduced the lending rate by 25 basis points to 6.5% on Aug. 14.

    • MAURITIUS – The central bank on Aug. 9 cut the repo rate by 0.15 basis points to 3.35%.

    • PERU – The central bank cut the benchmark interest rate to 2.5% on Aug. 9 amid growing expectations for an economic slowdown in the world’s No.2 copper producer, but stressed its decision did not necessarily mean the start of an easing cycle.

    • SERBIA – The Serbian central bank surprised markets by cutting its benchmark interest rate another 25 basis points to 2.5% on Aug. 8, the second cut in as many months, to further bolster lending and growth.

    • THE PHILIPPINES – The central bank cut its benchmark interest rate on Aug. 8 and kept the door open for further easing to buttress the economy after growth slipped to its weakest in 17 quarters, hurt by tepid government spending and private sector investment.

    • BOTSWANA – The central bank cut the lending rate by 25 basis points to 4.75% on Aug. 29.

    • INDIA – The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) lowered its benchmark interest rates for a fourth straight meeting on Aug. 7 with a slightly bigger than expected cut, underscoring its worries about India’s near-five year low pace of economic growth.

    • BELARUS – The central bank said on Aug. 7 it was cutting its main interest rate to 9.5% from 10% with effect from Aug. 14 and that the intensity of inflationary processes had slowed in the second quarter.

    • THAILAND – Policymakers unexpectedly cut the benchmark rate on Aug. 7, expressing worry about strength of the baht and aiming to help support faltering growth.

    • JORDAN – The central bank of Jordan reduced its main rate in early August by 25 basis points to 4.5%.

    • HONG KONG – The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) cut its base rate charged through the overnight discount window by 25 basis points to 2.5% on Aug. 1, its first cut since late 2008, in line with the U.S. Federal Reserve’s move. Hong Kong’s monetary policy moves in lock-step with the Fed as its dollar is pegged at a tight range of 7.75-7.85 per dollar.

    • MOLDOVA – The central bank raised its main interest rate to 7.5% from 7% on July 31 to fight rising inflation caused by wage increases and higher food prices.

    • SAUDI ARABIA / BAHRAIN / UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – Central banks of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – whose currencies are all pegged to the U.S. dollar – cut key interest rates to preserve monetary stability on July 31 after the Federal Reserve lowered U.S. interest rates for the first time in over a decade.

    • BRAZIL – In its first rate cut since March 2018, the central bank cut its benchmark interest rate to a new low of 6.00% on July 31, an aggressive first move in a widely anticipated easing cycle to inject life into a moribund economy and prevent inflation from slipping too far below target.

    • AZERBAIJAN – The central bank said on July 26 it had cut its refinancing rate to 8.25% from 8.50%.

    • RUSSIA – Policymakers cut the key interest rate on July 26 and flagged that one or two more cuts were possible later this year as Russia faces sluggish economic growth and slowing inflation.

    • TURKEY – The central bank slashed its key interest rate by a bigger-than-expected 425 basis points to 19.75% on July 25 to spur a recession-hit economy, its first step away from the emergency stance adopted during last year’s currency crisis.

    • SOUTH AFRICA – The central bank cut its main lending rate as expected on July 18, but struck a cautious tone that suggested future cuts in borrowing costs were not a foregone conclusion despite benign inflation.

    • UKRAINE – Policymakers cut the main interest rate by half a percentage point to 17% on July 18, citing a downward inflation trend which is expected to continue in coming months and could pave the way for further monetary easing.

    • SOUTH KOREA – The central bank delivered a surprise interest rate cut on July 18, and shaved this year’s growth forecast to the lowest in a decade, as a brewing dispute with Japan piled more pressure on the trade-dependent economy.

    • PAKISTAN – Policymakers hiked the main interest rate by 100 basis points on July 16 to 13.25%, citing increased inflationary pressures and a likely near-term rise in prices from higher utility costs.

    • DOMINICAN REPUBLIC – Policymakers cut interest rates by 50 basis points to 5% on June 30.

    • COSTA RICA – The central bank cut the key policy rate to 4.50% from 4.75% from June 20.

    • CHILE – Chile’s central bank unexpectedly cut the benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points to 2.5% on June 7 as it braced for a sharper economic slowdown because of the U.S.-China trade dispute.

    • SRI LANKA – The central bank cut its key interest rates by 50 basis points on May 31, as widely expected, to support its faltering economy as overall business and consumer confidence slumped following deadly bomb attacks.

    • TAJIKISTAN – The central bank reduced the refinancing rate to 13.25% from 14.75% on May 31.

    • KYRGYZSTAN – Policymakers in the Central Asian nation cut the benchmark rate to 4.25% from 4.50% on May 28, citing slowing inflation.

    • ANGOLA – Angola’s central bank cut its benchmark lending rate by 25 basis points to 15.5% on May 24.

    • ZAMBIA – The central bank in Lusaka raised the benchmark lending rate to 10.25% from 9.75% on May 22 to counter inflationary pressure and support macroeconomic stability.

    • MALAYSIA – The central bank on May 7 became the first in Southeast Asia to cut its key interest rate this year, by 25 basis points to 3.0%, moving to support its economy at a time of concern about global growth.

    • RWANDA – Rwanda’s central bank cut its key repo rate by 50 basis points on May 6 to 5.0%.

    • MALAWI – Malawi’s central bank cut its benchmark lending rate by 100 basis points on May 3 to 3.5%.

    • CZECH REPUBLIC – The Czech National Bank raised interest rates on May 2, using a window of opportunity created by easing economic risks abroad to stem rising domestic inflation by fine-tuning a tightening cycle it had paused at the end of 2018.

    • KAZAKHSTAN – Policymakers cut the policy rate by 25 basis points to 9.00% on April 15 in an expected move taken after President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev ordered them to make credit more affordable.

    • NIGERIA – In a surprise move, the central bank cut its benchmark interest rate to 13.5% from 14% on March 26 as part of an attempt to stimulate growth in Africa’s biggest economy and signal a “new direction”.

    • GEORGIA – The central bank cut its refinancing rate to 6.5% from 6.75% on March 13, citing forecasts suggesting that annual inflation would stay close to its 3% target this year.

    • TUNISIA – Policymakers in Tunisia raised the key interest rate to 7.75% from 6.75% on Feb. 19 to combat high inflation – the third such hike in the past 12 months.

    The reason emerging market central banks were delivering the most cuts in a decade last month is that the world is likely in a trade recession that could significantly worsen into 1H20.

    Many emerging market countries have export-driven economies to the developed world, and when demand slows down, their economies suffer the most.

    Rate cuts from August will take at least one year to filter into emerging markets, which means economic data from the 37 regions will likely stay depressed for some time.

  • Resurrecting The American Economy With Stalinism 2.0

    Authored (satirically) by Dmitry Orlov via Club Orlov blog,

    Donald Trump has recently ordered US corporations to move production out of China and into the US. Easier said than done!—or, rather, undone. Moving production to China (and, in case of IT, to India) allowed US corporations to benefit from the large wage differential and an easier regulatory environment in order to be more profitable. They spent these excess profits by buying back their own stock, paying generous dividends to their shareholders and using their artificially inflated stock prices to justify exorbitant executive salaries and bonuses.

    Along the way, they impoverished American workers by depriving them of gainful deployment, eroded the skill base of the American population and, perhaps most importantly, destroyed demand for their products because more and more Americans could no longer afford them. As these trends played out, making China prosperous and the US increasingly distressed and impoverished, with close to 100 million working-age people permanently jobless, US corporations could no longer profit from their offshored production to the same extent, and so they took advantage of low interest rates to borrow huge sums of money and use it to continue buying back their own shares, paying dividends and continuing with the exorbitant executive compensation.

    By now, many of the major US corporations are financial zombies, waiting for an uptick in interest rates to drive them into bankruptcy. And it is these zombies that are being tasked with bringing production back to the US. Good luck with that! Which is to say, it is highly unlikely that such an effort could possibly succeed. But even if it could succeed, would it solve the problem—which is that the US is gradually degenerating into a bankrupt third world country? Perhaps not, because, you see, the entire theory of “making America great again” is based on a fallacy—which is that China became the world’s largest economy (by purchasing power) and the world’s factory simply by virtue of the fact that American corporations offshored production to it.

    No, China’s stunning success primarily has to do with its superior economic planning and social governance. Call it Stalinism 2.0. Under Stalin, the USSR was able to produce steady double digit growth rates through a combination of central planning and market mechanisms. It also had some 4 million political prisoners, which, for a country of 200 million, seems a bit much, but that’s politics, not economics. When it comes to managing the economy, Stalinism, and especially Stalinism 2.0—its modern, Chinese version—was and is a stunning success. Fundamentally, it is a recipe for building socialism using capitalist (mainly state-capitalist) means with whatever market elements are found to be effective.

    Just bringing back production from China would not save the US. To achieve results comparable to China’s, the US would have to make some changes, to bring it more in line with Stalinism 2.0.

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    I will now sketch out a few of these changes, to give you a sense of what would be involved.

    First, the political system in the US is a mess. There are two political parties that agree about a few things—endless war, endless borrowing—and argue all the time. This is an unproductive waste of time. Eliminate them and replace them with a single party. Call it the Communist party, if you like; it doesn’t matter, since nobody knows or cares what communism is anyway. The purpose of the one party is to hand down the decisions made at the federal level down to every last inhabitant and make sure that they are obeyed. Don’t want to make America great again? OK, then, you must be a terrorist. Welcome to the Gulag! There is also the problem of states: there are too many of them, and each has its own legislature, executive branch, court system and so on. Eliminate all of that, group the states into regions, and make the regional authorities into federal departments: Department of the Northeast, Department of the West, etc.

    Next, something has to be done about the exorbitant legal costs. The US has more lawyers per capita than any other country in the world and the legal profession is privatized and self-governing—basically a law onto itself. Worse yet, the legal system is a jumble of federal, state and local laws. Finally, the courts are allowed to base their decisions on precedent, which is an outrage, because this allows them to reinterpret laws and to second-guess legislators. Lawyers should either work directly for the government, and be paid based on a single schedule, or not be allowed to work at all. Case law should be done away with completely and replaced with just two sets of laws: a criminal code and a civil code, both at the federal level. Juries should be eliminated and replaced with panels of judges and, for more routine cases, with magistrates.

    The medical system in the US accounts for a quarter of the economy, and it is all a waste. Cuba spends around 5% per capita on medical care relative to what the US spends, and it has much better health outcomes. Medical practice should be treated as a public service and de-privatized. Medical priorities should be established based on national priorities, with the highest priority assigned to maintaining a healthy, productive workforce. To this end, children’s health care should be prioritized above all else, since healthy children are the basis of the future workforce, while retirees and those not economically active should be afforded a modicum of mainly palliative care for the purpose of maintaining public morale. Geriatric medicine in the US currently accounts for 35% of all medical spending; this needs to be brought down to roughly 2%.

    Since much of the industrial base in the US is either obsolete or has been dismantled and sold off as production was moved offshore, it needs to be built up more or less from scratch. To this end, the federal government should seize large areas of land, declare them federal economic development zones and construct industrial clusters on them, complete with worker housing, schools, clinics and other resources. The housing should be high-density housing, in the form of high-rise apartment buildings, and served using public transportation. The sites for these zones should be chosen based on proximity to resources and on logistics. Large sections of suburban sprawl currently used as commuter housing can be bulldozed to make room for them.

    Many other, more minor changes would need to be made as well.

    For instance, the obsolete Imperial system of weights and measures, still in use in Liberia, Myanmar and, most curiously, the US, needs to be done away with. Any use of Imperial measures should be outlawed. The mentally ill, who are currently allowed to wander the streets in the US, need to be locked up. To improve social cohesion the use of languages other than English should be disallowed. Mandatory reeducation programs should be set up for those who fail to follow the dress code, behave in an impolite manner or use bad grammar or foul language. And so on and so forth…

    But perhaps most importantly, it must be understood that repatriating production to the US and redeveloping the industrial base will not be a profitable venture, at least not initially. At the outset, and for at least the duration of the first Five-Year Plan, it will definitely lose money. Borrowing it is a bad idea; the federal government is already $21 trillion in debt. Instead, this money needs to be confiscated from the top 1% of the population which owns close to 40% of the country’s wealth.

    Doing so will yield roughly $50 trillion—more than enough to fund this project.

    This is best done as part of a Cultural Revolution: round up the one-percenters, make them wear dunce caps and march them through the streets while pelting them with fruits and vegetables and heaping verbal abuse on them. Oh, and take away all of their money and sentence them to a lifetime of free public service.

    These may seem like significant changes, and indeed they would be. But there are reasons to believe that if they are made and Stalinism 2.0 is imposed on the US and followed faithfully, then there is a chance that America can indeed be made great again. And so, good luck and God bless!

  • Bahamas Makes "Urgent Plea" To Jet-Ski Owners: Help With Dorian Rescue After "Historic Tragedy"

    The government of Bahamas is making a desperate plea to jet ski owners to help with rescue efforts in the wake of Hurricane Dorian, according to Bloomberg. 

    The country’s National Emergency Management Agency sent out an “urgent plea” for those who owned jet skis, small boats, trucks and buses to meet at a shopping mall on Grand Bahama in order to organize a post-hurricane rescue effort. Grand Bahama is an island of about 50,000 people in the Northern Bahamas that bore the worst of Hurricane Dorian over the weekend. 

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    The storm is moving away from the islands currently, albeit slowly. Carrying sustained winds of about 120 miles per hour, the storm itself is only moving at about 1 mile per hour. It was a Category 3 hurricane as of 8AM New York time on Tuesday. 

    Video of the storm’s devastation continue to surface on social media:

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    As we reported over the weekend, Hurricane Dorian wrought devastation on the Bahamas Sunday night into Monday morning as it hammered the small Caribbean nation with sustained winds of 180 mph, and some gusts ranging up to 220 mph. The Category 5 storm inflicted massive amounts of property damage and destroying critical components of the Bahamanian infrastructure.

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    The fate of Florida remained uncertain as the storm continued its slow creep across the Atlantic. As of 3 am Monday morning, the storm was 125 miles away from the state’s east coast, Bloomberg reports.

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    “This is probably the most sad and worst day of my life to address the Bahamian people,” Minnis said Sunday evening, crying during a press conference at the headquarters of the National Emergency Management Agency. “This will put us through a test that we’ve never confronted before.”

  • Helmand Province: Drug Lab On A Global Scale?

    Authored by John Brennan via Off-Guardian.org,

    In Afghanistan, “the world’s first narco-state” operates under US Marines very nose…

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    All the latest news on Afghanistan is about Donald Trump’s peace agreement with Taliban and the possible end of America’s longest war. However, it is happening against a background of another acute problem and this one seems even more serious than a path home for 14,000 American troops before the 2020 United States presidential election.

    The problem is Afghan heroin.

    The Guardian has named Afghanistan “the world’s first true narco-state”. If one accepts this thesis, then the capital of the country is not Kabul, the city being suffered from bloody terrorists’ attacks, but the southern Province Helmand, where the river of the same name runs.

    Helmand, one of the few regions in Afghanistan appropriate for agriculture, has become the world’s biggest center for opium production. According to the data of the United Nations for 2018, 69% Afghan opium crop is cultivated in this province.

    The USA was always seeking for control over Helmand. Until 2010, this province was the area of responsibility of the British Contingent. The British Army set up a military Camp Bastion, located northwest of the administrative center of Helmand Province. It was the largest British overseas military base built since the Second World War. The airfield at Camp Bastion was equipped to handle all types of aircrafts. After 2010, US aircrafts alongside with land troops were stationed there under the pretext of war with the Taliban.

    In 2014 the base was handed over to Afghan National Army and renamed Camp Shorab. Nevertheless, American troops got there 3 years later. Since April 2017 300 US Marines have been stationed on this base. The official mission of this contingent is the training of Afghan security forces. US Marines train local military and police to fight with the Taliban and drugs.

    But the facts show otherwise. The United States isn’t interested in combating Afghan opium industry, but rather takes control over heroin trade routes out of Afghanistan. In this scheme Camp Shorab is some sort of the hub between Afghan drug mafia and dealers in Europe and the Middle East.

    In 2016 Obaidullah Barakzai, a member of the National Assembly of Afghanistan, alleged that military units of Afghan National Army conducted bloody battles with the Taliban in Helmand only in order to allow western powers to take control over deposits of uranium and drugs trafficking.

    Commenting on foreign military involvement in drug trafficking, he said:

    It’s impossible for a few local drug smugglers to transfer opium in thousands of kilos. This is the work of the Americans and British. They transport it by air from Camp Shorab.”

    Barakzai had been the target of numerous attacks from the Taliban. On 23 March 2019 he was shot in Kandahar province. He also had experienced the death of his son at the hand of the Taliban.

    Local citizens confirm the words of the late politician. They say that poppy fields are at arm’s length from the military base, where US Marines are located. Afghans, speaking only on condition of anonymity, confirm that there is a close connection between owners of heroin laboratories and American troops who buy drugs in large quantities.

    In this context, the bombing campaign code-named “Iron Tempest”, conducted by the US Air Force from November 2017 to February 2019, has raised a number of questions. The aim was to take out drug laboratories in Afghanistan by airstrikes. But, according to the research of Dr. David Mansfield (London School of Economics), the attacked laboratories had not been active at the time of the airstrike and the heroin produced there was transferred to an unknown location.

    Close relations between Afghan drug mafia and US military give Washington an opportunity to make billions, which remain unaccounted. This money could be spent on specific tasks: back up terrorist organizations or overthrow unwanted regimes in the Middle East.

    This is not merely a claim. The United States has already used such a scenario in the latter half of 1980s. It caused a political scandal known as “The Iran-Contra affair”.

    Certain administration officials of the Reagan Administration secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo. Funds from the arms deal were used to support armed conflict in Nicaragua.

    It’s clear that Washington is interested in maintaining Afghanistan as narco-state despite the rising number of drug-addicted servicemen stationed in this country with training mission. It means that there is no chance to solve Afghanistan’s opium problem as long as US military keep staying there.

  • Australian Feds Seize Hundreds Of Illegal Firearms From Citizens

    Australian special police forces seized a total of 475 guns across the country in a week-long crackdown on illegal firearms, according to AAP (via Yahoo).

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    Dubbed Operation Athena, the crackdown targeting firearms trafficking involved all police jurisdictions – including the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Border Force and the Department of Home Affairs. 

    According to Detective Superintendent Peter Brigham from the Victoria Police State Anti-Gangs Division, trafficking of illegal firearms remains a key law enforcement issue across the country. 

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    “The community should be reassured we are getting results. We’re arresting people and charging them with serious offences, and we are continuing to seize illicit firearms from criminals every week,” he said. 

    In Victoria, 91 guns were seized and 12 people arrested – who face a total of 44 charges. 

    Police also served 10 new firearms prohibition orders and conducted a number of searches in relation to existing orders in the state.

    “The results from the week of action not just in Victoria but right across the country are testament to the work that’s being done by a number of agencies to target those involved with the trafficking and use of illicit firearms, and try and prevent further harm to our communities,” Det. Sup Brigham said.

    In New South Wales, 81 fire arms were confiscated, while in South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia, 14 warrants were executed by the ABF, in relation to the recent detection of suppressors at the border. –Yahoo

    Also confiscated were a number of suppressors and unsecured ammunition. 

    “Our clear message is do not attempt to import firearms, parts or accessories without a proper permit. If you do, we will seize these items and pursue appropriate criminal charges. Under the Customs Act, possible charges include ten years imprisonment, a fine of up to $525,000, or both,” said ABF Commander Graeme Grosse.

    Gun ownership is heavily regulated in Australia due to restrictions put in place following the April 1996 Port Arthur Massacre, in which 35 people were killed and 23 wounded when gunman Martin Bryant opened fire at the Port Arthur Bay’s Broad Arrow Café with an AR-15.

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