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NATO and COVID-19: a Parasitical Disease in Europe

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 12, 2020

The decision to go-ahead with NATO’s biggest-ever war games in Europe at a time of heightened fears over the coronavirus sure raises questions about the military alliance’s stated purpose of maintaining security.

NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg has said the Defender-Europe 20 exercises will not be cancelled due to the flu-like disease which has now spread to every country in the European Union causing hundreds of deaths so far.

Over the next five months some 17 allied NATO members will participate in military maneuvers across seven European states: in Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. All of the host nations have reported infections from the COVID-19 virus. “Host” being an operative word when it comes to also talking about the relationship with the U.S.-led NATO alliance.

Germany’s health minister Jens Spahn is quoted as saying that the coronavirus outbreak has “become a global pandemic” and the “worst has yet to come.”

In all, 37,000 troops are involved in the Defender-Europe 20 war games, the biggest contingency since the end of the Cold War nearly three decades ago. The U.S. is sending 20,000 personnel. Most of those troops will return to bases located in at least 20 American states. Thus, the risk factor of spreading the disease across Europe and the U.S. is significantly increased by the NATO events.

Going ahead with the European war games looks especially ill-advised given that U.S. forces in Asia-Pacific have cancelled similar military exercises that were scheduled in South Korea out of fears about coronavirus (COVID-19).

The Defender-Europe 20 events underway come amid reports that the U.S. Commander in Europe, Lt. General Christoper Cavoli, may have been infected after attending a recent military conference in Wiesbaden, Germany.

The top health advisor to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Brig. General Paul Friedrichs has also admitted that the number of COVID-19 cases among the Pentagon’s armed forces may be far higher than is being reported.

The seeming lack of cautionary measures by the U.S.-led NATO alliance is in contrast to growing public concerns for containing the disease. Italy – which has recorded the second highest fatalities worldwide after China – has placed a total lockdown on public travel for its 60 million population. Airlines across Europe have cancelled thousands of flights as some carriers go out of business altogether.

Sporting events across Europe including major soccer matches are being cancelled or will be held without attendance by fans. The six-nations rugby tournament has been thrown into disarray from match fixtures being rescheduled; a big match between Ireland and France due this weekend is postponed until October.

In Britain there are calls for parliament to be suspended after health minister Nadine Dorries was reported to have been infected. Boris Johnson’s government has been accused of complacency in dealing with the virus.

U.S. President Donald Trump has also come under fire for not taking sufficient containment measures or providing adequate resources such as testing kits. The official number of U.S. cases of COVID-19 is relatively low so far, but that is thought to be due to limited testing.

It would therefore seem reasonable in this context of pandemic risk that such a multinational event like NATO’s Defender-Europe 20 be called off. As it proceeds, the war games appear to a perfect vector for accelerating disease spread between two continents and beyond. Indeed, not parking these war games seems the height of carelessness.

How fitting that NATO should be so unresponsive to real need. This lumbering 29-nation military organization which consumes a combined annual budget of $1 trillion is a creature of habit and slavish ideology. Nearly 30 years after the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the world has moved on. But not, it seems, NATO. It continues to hold its war games supposedly defending Europe from “Russian invasion”.

If NATO can’t adjust to such glaring world realities as the end of the Soviet Union three decades ago, then no wonder its response to coronavirus is hardly fleet-footed. It’s the military equivalent of a dinosaur whose functioning is no longer supported by its environment.

The irony is that NATO’s obscene military largesse is crushing public finances that would otherwise be more usefully spent, such as building up healthcare infrastructure that would help mitigate crises like the coronavirus. Many other societal needs are chronically neglected because of exorbitant military budgets among NATO members. Donald Trump brags that he has cajoled European allies to fork out hundreds of billions more dollars on military budgets.

The coronavirus is but a stress-test on whole societies that have become hollowed out by excessive militarism and the corporate capitalist super-structure it serves.

Even before the coronavirus problem emerged in China earlier this year, the NATO war games in Europe (and elsewhere) have been a cause for much criticism. The geopolitical tensions that this U.S.-led militarism is engendering towards Russia and China have been deplored. Moscow has denounced the Defender-Europe 20 event as a “rehearsal for war” which is completely disconnected from reality. The inveterate Cold War ideology that drives NATO is imposing insecurity and risk of war on Europe in a way that makes a mockery of NATO claims about being dedicated to “security and defense”.

The reckless risk-taking with regard to inflaming a coronavirus pandemic is typical of NATO’s obsolete purpose. Like the disease itself, NATO is a parasite on host nations draining vital public resources. This organization should be “self-isolating”… 30 years too late.

March 12, 2020 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

This Isn’t a “Saudi-Russian” Oil War. It’s a Saudi & Russian War on Shale

MBS couldn’t get Russia to join him in aggressive cuts, so he forced it to join him in aggressive pumping — but Russia is not his target

By Marko Marjanović | Anti-Empire | March 11, 2020

The media is so eager to see Putin behind everything that it can’t see it is the Saudis who started this, and it’s US oil they’re targeting exactly as they already did once before.

At OPEC+ in Vienna Russia offered to extend the current cuts for another three months and then meet again. Saudi Arabia instead wanted to take another 1.5 million bpd from the market.

When Russia balked the Saudis made a 180-degree turn and declined the extension of existing cuts, slapped a big discount on their oil, and started warming up their spare capacity to start flooding the market come April 1st when the current OPEC+ quotas expire.

The 67-year old Putin wanted to continue the current neither here nor there approach. The 34-year old MBS wanted to try something radical and new. At least ostensibly he wanted more cuts that could lift all producers for which he needed Russia’s cooperation. When he couldn’t get it he instead went the flooding route for which he did not.

The media did MBS a huge favor by failing to notice it was he — the supposed US ally — who blew up the OPEC+ cuts and not Putin. (A typical headline: How Putin spurned the Saudis to start a war on America’s shale oil industry)

The media committed another mistake. It keeps deluding itself this is “Saudi-Russian” war where US energy is merely collateral damage:

This is silly. Just because MBS started flooding after talks with Russia didn’t go his way the media assumes his pumping is directed against Russia. When in fact every indication is that he wanted Russia as a partner, if not in radical cuts for which he needed its acquiescence, then at least in radical pumping for which he did not.

Whatever Russia’s previous preferred path it now has no choice but to fight for market share which will only increase the pressure on shale further. In other words, despite Moscow’s unwillingness the Saudis have in the end added Russian strength to their own, just for a different strategy.

Sure enough, Saudi Arabia is not in a great state to wage a long campaign, but it may not have to. Shale has never been weaker. The Saudis tried to drive it out before, between 2014 and 2017, and failed. Frackers found ways to slash cost and financial markets propped them up with even more loans.

Neither is likely this time around. Most cost-cutting that was possible has likely already been made, and with the next great recession and a drop in demand around the corner financial markets aren’t standing in line to get into energy that barely makes sense even now

Riyadh needs $85 oil to balance its budget. It can not hope to outlast Russia which can live on $40. But a 6-month flooding campaign to see if it can’t, together with Russia, collapse US shale isn’t the dumbest idea ever.

In fact, precisely the fact MBS needs oil at $85 is what would make him more desperate to try radical means to get there, whether they’re deep cuts or unrestricted production.

Call it the MBS stress test of the US oil bubble in an election year. Truly Trump has great friends…

March 11, 2020 Posted by | Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Must… have… oil…

Climate Discussion Nexus | March 11, 2020

The implosion of investment in Canadian energy, most recently the cancellation of the Teck Frontier oilsands mine and Warren Buffett bailing on Quebec’s giant Énergie Saguenay LNG plant, brings home that if all this airy talk of transitioning away from fossil fuels actually lands, it will land on us very hard. (Mind you poor shy Canada finally got the world’s attention, if it’s any consolation.) As Anjli Raval warns in a major piece in The Financial Times, other countries are expanding their capacity as we crush ours because “The world runs on oil.” It accounts for 34% of world energy consumption, followed by its hydrocarbon cousins coal (27%) and natural gas (24%). But, as climate activists are often reminded in vain about their own lifestyles and protest accessories, “the fossil fuel has also quietly seeped into other aspects of our lives: from paint, washing detergents and nail polish to plastic packaging, medical equipment, mattress foams, clothing and coatings for television screens. Last year, global demand reached a record 100 million barrels a day”. And in Canada we’re part of the demand. Just increasingly not the supply.

Raval’s piece is not triumphal. Far from it. She says oil is bad. Bad bad bad. “Even as our thirst for oil seems insatiable, it is becoming politically and environmentally toxic. As the world wakes up to the catastrophic impact of climate change, from rising sea levels and drought to wildfires and crop failure, scientists have warned of a need to rapidly shift away from fossil fuels. Yet when it comes to oil demand, there is little sign of this happening. Our usage has jumped 62 per cent over the course of a few decades — up from 61.6 million b/d in 1986.” Almost as if we didn’t believe all that talk we keep… emitting.

Raval says “How the world can provide abundant energy supplies while dramatically reducing emissions has become one of the defining issues of our time. The challenge is huge. In order to keep global warming ‘well below’ a 2 C increase, the IEA says the world would need to stomach a fall in oil consumption to 67 million b/d by 2040. Environment analysts argue that we need to learn to survive on far lower levels — about 10 million b/d — and ultimately remove it from our energy system entirely.” Ah. Analysts. Cousins of experts.

If the challenge is huge, the response is not. She notes that “Governments are beginning to take some action, from incentivizing the purchase of low emissions vehicles to funding cleaner energy research.” But doing actual stuff that might matter is a lot harder because, wait for it, oil is vital. “While coal and gas are starting to be displaced by lower-cost renewables in electricity generation, oil has a stranglehold over the transport sector, and the petrochemicals industry is a fast-growing consumer of refined products. Aside from the commercial interests of oil-producer nations and corporations, there is a practical question: How will the world function without a material on which we depend so deeply?… Throughout history, energy has been at the heart of how civilizations have prospered.”

In keeping with the realism of half of the piece, she’s very clear that crude oil did wonders to advance prosperity, a sentiment with which we entirely agree. Then she goes unreal: “Yet humanity’s improved well-being has come at the expense of the planet’s. The earth has warmed by 1 C since pre-industrial times and is likely to heat up by another 2 C by the turn of the century — overshooting the targets of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.”

If so, what happens? Well, we all might sort of die. “A 2018 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report showed warming beyond 1.5 C risked irreversible changes — from the mass extinction of species to extreme weather and ecosystem changes that threaten global stability.” Scary yet vague. We’re not quite ready to open the sixth seal. But we still commend the piece because it is quite realistic about the situation if not the future.

“Even after the world began moving from coal to other fuels, coal did not disappear. With the emergence of each new source, we have simply added it to the mix rather than replace old ones.” And she quotes Greta Thunberg (who else?) on the urgency of getting not to “net” zero but “real zero”. (Sort of like Canada’s energy industry the way things are going.) But Raval warns, “Cars, trucks and other road vehicles make up more than 40 per cent of global oil usage. When you add in aircraft, ships and trains, transport accounts for about 60 per cent. So any attempt to reduce our oil habit hinges on this sector.” Buildings and industry are also big, so pretty much the stuff that we do that makes us warm, fed and happy or at least entertained. So maybe we can go for “offsets such as planting trees.” It’s gonna take quite a few.

Next Raval makes a daffy claim indeed. She quotes “Jason Bordoff, who heads the Centre on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University” that “Ultimately, the world has to make value judgments about what temperature target it wants to hit.” Value judgements?

To hear the great and good tell it, we already did. We know what temperature target we want to hit. And we’re also arrogant enough to think we don’t just know the ideal temperature (for some reason it’s what we had in 1950, not 1850 or 1150), we also know how to hit it. Except for the tricky bit where we risk turning First World countries into Third World countries and kill vast numbers in Third World countries gone Fourth World by shutting off their path out of poverty because otherwise bad things will happen.

No really. Raval says “The world’s addiction to oil is often compared with tobacco. But while smoking is something people can choose to do, using energy is not…. Yet the cost of climate change could be far greater — and the world is running out of time.”

The piece does at least make plain just how high the cost of giving up oil would be in theory unless and until we find something better. Meanwhile in Canada we’re toying with demonstrating it in practice.

March 11, 2020 Posted by | Economics, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

CIA conducts cyber-espionage on China for 11 years

By Lucas Leiroz | March 6, 2020

The Chinese cybersecurity company Qihoo 360 published a note stating that the CIA has been conducting cyber espionage in strategic sectors of China for 11 years. The allegations come from a survey conducted by the company based on the “Vault7” series of documents, published by WikiLeaks, detailing a wide range of activities conducted by the CIA in electronic surveillance and cyber warfare.

On its website, the Chinese company claims that Chinese industrial sectors are being spied on by a criminal group of hackers called APT-C-39, which is known to belong to the CIA. Among the areas victimized by illegal CIA surveillance are aviation, scientific research, oil industry, internet companies and government agencies. The attacks were traced back to 2008. The regions most affected by espionage are Beijing, Guangdong, Zhejiang.

In the survey, cyber weapons found to be used exclusively by the CIA, such as Fluxwire and Grasshopper, were detected, leading to the possibility of a hacking organization at state level. The survey was also able to locate the working hours of the spies, which, interestingly, coincides with the American workday.

In the company’s website we can read: “Qihoo 360 data have shown that the cyber-weapons used by the organization and the cyber weapons described in the CIA Vault 7 project are almost identical. The CIA Vault 7 weapons show from the side that the United States has built the world’s largest cyber weapons arsenal. It has not only brought serious threat to the global network security, but also demonstrate the APT organization’s high technical capabilities and professional standards (…) In addition, considering the uniqueness and time span of the use of the APT-C-39 cyber weapon, Qihoo 360 gave the conclusion that the group’s attack was initiated by the state-level hacking organization”.

However, the results achieved by the research are even more accurate. The Chinese company managed to track down the person individually responsible for using these cyber weapons, an American hacker named Joshua Adam Schulte. The data suggest that Joshua created, developed and applied these cybernetic weapons. At the time of the attacks, Joshua was a member of the National Clandestine Service (NCS) – a unit that belongs to the CIA – working on the Science and Technology Directorate. (DS&T); today, he is serving time for espionage in the USA. The hacker’s active participation in American cyber war projects poses him as a significant threat with international dimensions, in addition to raising questions about the true nature of his arrest.

The reflections we can draw from reading this news are very interesting. Cyber space was recognized a few years ago as a battleground for modern warfare – as important or more than land, sea and air; in this intangible zone, entire nations face each other through attacks, espionage and constant surveillance, using true hidden armies, unknown to the general public, and very powerful weapons, which are capable of causing real problems in the material world. The most curious thing is that all of this takes place in a lawless area, where absolutely everything is allowed, without any legal or moral boundaries.

Countries such as China, Russia and North Korea have long been criticized in the West for undertaking projects to create and develop “intranets”, that is, national computer networks, unplugged from the world network. In the West, false experts claim that such projects have a “dictatorial” content, being a form of censorship. However, cases like this remind us of the importance of such projects and the need for legal status for the cyber world.

If the cyber world is a war zone, international law must provide basic rules so that the coexistence between nations in this new battlefield takes place in a peaceful, simple and ethical way, with mutual respect between the belligerents. The absence of such legal delimitations legitimizes that absolutely any act of war or espionage involving the cyber world is carried out – mainly by the prevailing hegemonic power. However, such absence of mechanisms in the international sphere also justifies the establishment of intranets and unplugged networks, since, in the absence of a relevant international treaty, the merit remains for the decision of local governments, according to their interests.

The United States is seeking to assert itself as a global cyber police; it wants to assert in the virtual world the same hegemony that they have at sea. To this end, they undertake spy, attack and information theft projects, institutionalizing criminal hacking networks as secret units of this hidden war. China is certainly not the only target. The discovery of hacker invasion in the networks of the main industrial sectors in this country is just a sign of something much bigger and deeper. Not only great military and economic potencies have their internal information stolen, but also less developed countries are victimized by the American global cyber police, who quietly and perversely acts to gain control over the entire world.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

March 6, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Russia seeks to ‘create conditions so that NOBODY wants to fight us’ – Putin

RT | March 2, 2020

Vladimir Putin has confided that US President Donald Trump privately lamented the “insane” US military budget. He also says Russia protects itself by making the costs of attacking the country too high for anyone to contemplate.

“The US has outstripped us” in terms of annual defense expenditure, the Russian president said in a new episode of news agency TASS’s ‘20 Questions to Vladimir Putin’ series. But being the world’s largest military spender doesn’t really make Donald Trump particularly happy, Putin said.

“Donald told me that they have adopted an insane [military] budget for the next year, $738 billion.”

The US commander-in-chief, who likes to talk up his country’s military hardware during overseas trips while bragging about the armed forces, tends to be more reserved in private, according to Putin. “He told me that the costs were too high, but he had to do it,” he said, describing his counterpart as “an advocate of disarmament, as he says.”

In terms of military spending, Russia trails behind China, Saudi Arabia, the UK, France, and Japan, with a defense budget worth $48 billion, although its lower cost base gives it more purchasing power than most western states. “Moreover, our annual expenditures are falling. In contrast, other countries’ spending has been rising,” Putin stated.

“We are not going to fight against anyone. We are going to create conditions so that nobody wants to fight against us.”

Putin also explained why Trump – who already dismantled the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty the US signed with the old Soviet Union – is reluctant to talk non-proliferation and arms control.

“That is another question, this is a question which relates to the understanding of security and how to ensure it… We can discuss this topic,” the Russian president replied without going into details.

Another crucial treaty which now hangs in the balance is the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which dramatically reduced the number of nuclear warheads and the means of delivery.

The current edition of the pact, known as New START, was signed by former US President Barack Obama and his then-Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev in 2010. It is set to expire in February next year.

While Moscow has signaled its readiness to prolong the treaty immediately, the US has kept silent on the matter.

March 2, 2020 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Guyana: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Prior to 2020 Elections

teleSUR | March 1, 2020

The small Caribbean country of Guyana is on the brink of becoming one of the largest oil-producing nations in the world thanks to the 2015 discovery of major offshore oil deposits.

This newfound wealth set into motion a transformative period for the country, which is one of the poorest nations in South America as more than 36 percent of its people are living in poverty.

But as in many cases, the blessing and promise of billions of dollars in revenue to fill the state’s coffers have also been marred in corruption scandals and caused in 2018 a major political crisis that will be resolved on March 2 as hundreds of thousands of Guyanese head to the polls.

The Guyanese people have been waiting for this day ever since President David Granger received a motion of no confidence in Dec. 21, 2018 with 33 votes against 32. A decision later upheld by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in 2019.

The no-confidence motion, a first in the nation’s history, on the leader of the Partnership for National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU/AFC) party was led by former president and opposition leader Bharrat Jagdeo of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C).

Jagdeo stated Granger “sold” the country’s “patrimony” to Exxon Mobil, accusing the government of mismanaging oil resources and granting the transnational overly generous contract terms.

The government, on the other hand, has insisted that it got the best deal it could and is banking on new oil wealth to transform the economy of the English-speaking country of just 750,000.

So as people head to the polls to elect a new five-year administration amid the recent oil boom, Guyana’s situation could be summarized into the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good

In May 2015 ExxonMobil shocked the world and the Guyanese as the company announced the discovery of significant oil deposits in the Liza-1 well, followed by Payara, Liza Deep, Snoek, Turbot, Ranger, and Pacora by early 2018.

ExxonMobil and Hess reported that new discoveries contained estimated resources exceeding eight billion barrels of oil equivalent – one of the world’s largest reserves-, potentially producing 750,000 barrels per day by 2025. In rough estimates, this placed the oil wealth at over US$300 billion.

In a nation with a per capita income of under US$4,000, the findings meant a game-changer.

The revenue is expected to generate an estimated US$168 billion over the life of the project until 2056, representing 120 times Guyana’s annual budget, which in 2019 stood at US$1.4 billion.

By 2024 the amount of money coming in could lift income per person from US$5,000 to US$19,000, nearly the same as in Poland. All the wealth promised for impoverished Guyana hopes of tremendous economic growth in the years ahead. The International Monetary Fund forecasts an 85.6 percent GDP growth in the small nation.

By 2030 the government’s share of earnings from oil could reach US$10 billion in real terms, more than double last year’s GDP. However, not everything that glitters is gold.

The Bad

But Guyana is no stranger to oil exploration and drilling. Since the 1940s transnational companies had operated in the Guyana basin and in small wells. Yet the 2015 find was so unexpected it took even Exxon by surprise as, by April 2016, the United States oil giant had a problem.

The company had recently found oil off the coast in the Stabroek oil block but its license was about to expire in only two years, putting in jeopardy the company’s increasingly valuable asset.

So in early April 2016, the company began a powerful negotiation campaign by confronting two inexperienced Guyanese officials with a new draft license to be signed within ten weeks.

“Exxon did not want to change the favorable financial terms from its 1999 license, despite having recently found significant oil reservoirs that would customarily allow the government to ask for more,” a report titled ‘Signed Away’ by international watchdog Global Witness states.

The Guyanese government despite having a strong bargaining position when the contract came up for renegotiation in 2016 was outmaneuvered by the international company, due to “inexperienced” bureaucrats according to the report.

Guyana’s Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman ended up giving Exxon largely the same tax terms as before it found oil and then the company regained parts of the license area it was supposed to give up.

Also, and within months of signing Stabroek, Exxon agreed to buy portions of two additional licenses from companies that had obtained them under apparently suspicious circumstances. Only three days after getting its new license, Exxon announced its massive find.

The agreement left Guyana with a two percent royalty and a 50 percent profit share after the company recoups its costs. Granger has defended that the attractive terms were needed to secure investment in a risky new location.

However, for German-based company Open Oil -which specializes in providing financial analysis of natural resource investments for public policy purposes – Guyana lost a lot.

“If the royalty had been at 10 percent and standard corporate income tax (CIT) of 25 percent had been applied, both of which are well within international norms, the resulting government take would have been 69 percent, and Guyana would earn US$55 billion more during the life of the Stabroek field, up until 2056,” their report reads.

On average, Guyana will lose over US$1.3 billion a year over the life of the project from signing in 2016 until expiry. With the additional money, the country could have doubled its annual US$172 million health budget, US$251 million education budget, US$185 million infrastructure budget, and still have US$700 million left each year.

“This is a story about how an aggressive company negotiated an exploitative deal with a minister who may not have been working in Guyana’s best interests,” Global Witness’ commented on the matter. Supposedly the opposition voted to end granger’s government in order to renegotiate these contracts, which they thought to be unfair for Guyana.

And this is where things get ugly.

The Ugly

As Granger’s administration came to a halt by the opposition’s vote, the reassuring argument to the Guyanese people was that oil contracts would have been revised and renegotiated. The March 2 elections were meant to prove this thesis as the issue was the deciding factor, or at least it seemed so for campaign purposes.

With elections looming, the People’s Progressive Party presidential candidate announced in January that Exxon’s contract wouldn’t be renegotiated, despite the numerous warnings of the lopsided nature of the agreement.

“Exxon is a different case,” Ali told Reuters after a campaign rally in the contested western Essequibo region, adding that he would administer the deal better after reviewing terms.

For Associate Fellow in the energy, environment and resources program at Chatham House, Valerie Marcel, although the stakes are high in the elections as that the winning party will reign over the country’s oil revenues there is no real difference regarding the party’s policies approaching the oil boom.

Both are on a similar path with the development strategy set up by Granger, support the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and a sovereign wealth fund, and mainly imitate their approach to licenses and future agreements.

“Exxon was a pioneering investment,” Ali reiterated. “But those that came after that time they were not pioneering, so they have to be examined in totality.”

However, others have not yet confirmed significant commercial finds. Tullow has made several discoveries in the past year, but the company has yet to find enough reserves to make the project work so Exxon continues to be the main winner in all this transaction.

If asked what’s really at stake in Guyana’s election, the answer might be as unpleasant as it sounds: nothing. As the good tidings of newfound immense natural resources for one of the poorest nations in the continent have been marred by power struggles and the ugliness of transnational greed over sovereign interests.

See also:

Guyana Polls Close, Results Not Expected Before Friday

March 2, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Economics | | Leave a comment

Coronavirus: The “Cures” Will Be Worse Than the Disease

By James Corbett – corbettreport.com – February 29, 2020

It’s spreading. It’s mutating. It’s going viral.

Am I talking about coronavirus? No! I’m talking about theories about coronavirus.

It’s a natural virus. / No, it’s a manmade bioweapon!

It’s less deadly than the regular flu. / It’s worse than the Spanish Flu! / It’s flying bat AIDS!!

The numbers are being underreported. / The numbers are being inflated!

It was patented in 2015! / No, it really wasn’t.

It was unleashed by accident. / It was unleashed on purpose. / It doesn’t even exist!

Yes, there are as many theories about coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) as there are people talking about it. The reality is that I don’t know the truth about what this virus really is or where it came from and neither do you.

But there’s something that we do know for sure regardless of where this virus came from or whether it even really exists. The hype and fear and panic and pandemonium surrounding this (supposed) outbreak is going to be far worse than the disease could ever be. Because, as I’ve been screaming about for over a decade now, a bioweapon attack (real or manmade, false flag or otherwise) is the perfect cover for a slew of agenda items on the globalist checklist. And the more the population panics, the more they play into the globalists’ hands.

Here are five items on The Powers That Shouldn’t Be’s wishlist that are being delivered on a silver platter as people scurry around panicking about coronavirus.

1) Unprecedented surveillance and control of population

As Corbett Reporteers will know by now, China is in many ways the model for the technocratic Brave New World of the 21st century. Social credit scores and facial recognition CCTV networks and government-controlled internet are just the most obvious examples of how governments will seek to surveil and control their populations in the future. So it shouldn’t be surprising that China, as the epicenter of this new coronavirus outbreak, is pioneering new and hitherto undreamt of ways to keep their population in line during the crisis.

The first thing to note is the sheer scale of what the Chinese government is attempting here. The quarantine imposed in Wuhan last month, encompassing a city of 11 million people, was already the largest quarantine in human history. But when that quarantine expanded to include the entire province of Hubei—a population of 57 million people—the scope of the lockdown became nearly unimaginable. How can such a quarantine possibly be maintained?

Well, as we’ve all seen, it can be done by good old-fashioned brute force. When in doubt, just weld the sick person’s door shut so they can’t leave their room!

But to really manage millions of people, you need technological help. And so the Chinese government has been deploying every tool in its arsenal to monitor and maintain restrictions on citizens and their movements.

Flying drones to harass anyone walking around without a mask? Check.

A nationwide video surveillance system called—you can’t make this up—Skynet to help spot quarantine evaders? Check.

A color-coded rating on a smartphone payment app to identify people as low or high-risk for carrying the virus based on their payment and travel history? Check.

If you can think of a creepy and invasive way of tracking and controlling the population, you can bet your bottom dollar that the Chinese government has already thought of it (and is likely already using it).

But here’s the real question: When this is all over, do you think the government will simply shelve these technologies and systems? Or do you think that once this level of control becomes normalized that the authoritarians in the Chinese Communist Party will continue using it?

And here’s the even realer question: Do you think there’s a government anywhere around the world that wouldn’t use this technology on its own population if given a convenient excuse (like, say, a freakout over a novel coronavirus)?

The answers to these questions are obvious, but just look at the prisoner conditioning that has been taking place at the airports for the past two decades. Even people like myself who grew up pre-9/11 can scarcely believe there was a time where you could hop on a plane with little more than a step through a metal detector. What? You want to bring a water bottle through security!? What are you, crazy? In just two decades, the entire experience of air travel has been utterly transformed, and no declaration of victory in the so-called “War on Terror” will ever bring back the old security screening practices. For the average American, the TSA is just a fact of life now.

And for those who live for long enough in a quarantine crackdown, complete government surveillance of every citizens movements, purchases and interactions will just be a fact of life. These tools of control are here to stay, and the longer these quarantines last and the greater the areas effected, the further it will go in conditioning the public to accept it.

2) A blank check for Big Pharma and the WHO

When a detective is looking to solve a crime, it’s important to ask cui bono. Although it may be circumstantial, establishing who benefits from a crime at least points you to some suspects.

In this case, though, the question of who benefits has a simple answer: WHO benefits, of course. The World Health Organization, that is. As the United Nations body tasked with directing international health and leading the response to global health concerns, the WHO always grows in power in the wake of every crisis.

During the swine flu non-crisis and the ebola non-crisis and the zika non-crisis the WHO was led by Director-General Margaret Chan. It was under Chan’s watch, remember, that the WHO declared the 2009 swine flu outbreak a “global pandemic,” a move that automatically triggered billions of dollars of vaccine purchases by various governments. This was a blatant cash grab, of course, and even the Council of Europe was compelled to note that the members of the WHO council that made the pandemic declaration were also sitting on the boards of the vaccine manufacturers who stood to benefit from that decision.

With the Covid-19 outbreak, too, the WHO is playing a game with the pandemic declaration, only this time its motivation is precisely the opposite. In 2017, the World Bank issued a $425 billion bond in support of its Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility. Investors in that bond issue will lose everything if a global pandemic is declared before July . . . a key reason, some suggest, why the WHO is refusing to call coronavirus a pandemic despite it quite clearly meeting the criteria.

So who is heading the WHO this time around? Well, it’s not Margaret Chan anymore. She stepped down in 2017 and was replaced by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, an Ethiopian politician and academic who, William Engdahl notes, is the first WHO director-general who isn’t even a medical doctor. Instead, after earning his degree in biology at the University of Asmara in Eritrea and serving in a junior position at the Ministry of Health under the Marxist dictatorship of Mengistu, he:

“[. . .] then went on to become Minister of Health from 2005 to 2012 under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. There he met former President Bill Clinton and began a close collaboration with Clinton and the Clinton Foundation and its Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI). He also developed a close relation with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As health minister, Tedros would also chair the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria that was co-founded by the Gates Foundation. The Global Fund has been riddled with fraud and corruption scandals.”

Oh, you mean the Gates Foundation and their GAVI Alliance for vaccination that are the WHO’s biggest donors? The Gates Foundation that helped host the Event 201 “high-level pandemic exercise” in New York last October that war gamed out the entire coronavirus scenario we’re currently living through? Right.

And how are WHO going to save the day? With Big Pharma drugs, naturally! Governments are already lining up to pledge tens of millions of dollars to fund the effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine. And that’s just the funding to develop the vaccine. There are many more billions waiting for the big pharma manufacturers who can deliver the first vaccine to market.

Yes, coronavirus is going to be a big payday for some rich and well-connected people in the international medical mafia. But don’t worry, the politicians are going to get in on the fun, too . . .

3) An excuse to implement medical martial law

A decade ago, in the midst of the swine flu hype, I released an episode of The Corbett Report podcast on medical martial law. In that episode I laid out the various ways that governments around the world (including, of course, the US government) have been quietly passing legislation that would enable them to implement martial law in the event of a global pandemic. This would allow them to quarantine and incarcerate citizens suspected of infection, and would allow the government to administer whatever medications (including vaccinations) it deemed necessary to stop the spread of the infection.

In the US specifically, this legislation took the form of The Model State Emergency Health Power Act, a piece of legislation that was drafted by the Center for Disease Creation (CDC). The act grants government the power to quarantine, force vaccinate, and mobilize the military to help implement emergency procedures as deemed necessary to contain the outbreak. It is designed to be forwarded in each state legislature so that the states could harmonize their emergency pandemic plans, essentially creating a federal system enabling medical martial law. As the ACLU notes:

“The Act lets a governor declare a state of emergency unilaterally and without judicial oversight, fails to provide modern due process procedures for quarantine and other emergency powers, it lacks adequate compensation for seizure of assets, and contains no checks on the power to order forced treatment and vaccination.”

Regardless, at last count the act has been the basis for 133 pieces of legislation in 33 different states.

And, sure enough, the citizens of the developed, Western world who thought that martial law was only for banana republics and exotic Eastern countries are about to get a taste of this bitter medicine on the back of the coronavirus hype.

Australia just activated its emergency pandemic plan despite not having a reported case of human-to-human transmission of Covid-19. The plan grants the government the power to cancel public events, force people to work from home, close childcare centers and otherwise impose mandates and restrictions on the daily lives of its citizens as it sees fit.

Not to be outdone, the Swiss Federal Council has just declared a “special situation” which allows the council to issue emergency police ordinances “without a basis in federal law.” Some of the powers explicitly assumed by the council include the power to mandate vaccinations, order quarantines and ban events or close institutions.

Now Britain, the US, and other countries are dusting off their own emergency plans and preparing to get in on the martial law bonanza.

Of course, this is not only the perfectly predictable response to the current outbreak hype, it was the predicted response. That’s right, as noted above, the high-level exercise dubbed Event 201 that was held last October and which simulated a global coronavirus pandemic featured extensive discussion about the need to implement medical martial law in order to bring the virus in check.

Thus we saw Stephen Redd of the CDC opining during the exercise that “governments need to be willing to do things that are out of their historical perspective [sic] . . . It’s really a war footing that we need to be on.”

Likewise, Brad Connett of medical supply manufacturer Henry Schein Inc declared that “it can happen quickly. A martial [law]-type plan–they may not say that, exactly–but a martial [law]-type plan can go into effect and stimulate change very quickly.”

It certainly can. And what room do you believe the governments that implement martial law are going to leave for dissent on the issue? Why, none, of course. But how are they going to stop the spread of information in this age of 24/7 always-connected social media?

Funny you should ask, because that leads us to our next New World Order agenda item.

4) An excuse to crack down on the internet

In New World Next Year 2020—the annual year-end New World Next Week wrap up episode—I predicted that 2020 was going to be The End of the Internet As We’ve Known It! At the time I formulated that prediction, the 2020 (s)election circus and the inevitable wave of censorship that it would bring about weighed heavily on my mind. As it is, it’s quite possible that coronavirus will be the convenient excuse for governments to flex their internet censorship muscles.

Zero Hedge has already had its Twitter account suspended for posting the details of a particular Chinese scientist working in the Wuhan bio lab that some suspect was the origin of the outbreak. This was done in the name of Twitter’s policy about “abuse and harassment,” but given that the website did nothing more than post the already publicly available contact information for the scientist, it seems more likely that this is part of a campaign to control the narrative on coronavirus from the get go.

As I write this editorial, the front page of Google News (which I strongly advise against using as a source of information, for the record) is filled with “Fact Checks” about various coronavirus theories that are floating around the internet.

Given the current state of online censorship, can there be any doubt that governments around the world will jump at the excuse to scrub dissenting voices from the internet? As alternative information about the virus, its origins, and the vaccines that are intended to “cure it” flood the net, a propaganda campaign unlike any we have seen before will be waged to portray the purveyors of this information as a threat to public order. They will be purged from the internet accordingly, with (no doubt) the approval of a large proportion of the population. And with that precedent set, it will only be a matter of time before any information that challenges the ruling power is deemed a “threat to public order” and wiped from the internet.

Lest there be any doubt that the online purge is an aspect of the pandemic scenario that is particularly important to TPTSB, it should be noted that Event 201 dwelled extensively on how to “stop the spread of misinformation.” Their answer: Internet shutdowns and censorship, of course!

5) Precipitating economic crisis

Given that I make my living online, the prospect of internet shutdowns and censorship crackdowns are worrying to me. But before you become too distraught over the plight of the poor podcaster, let’s put this crisis into perspective: Assuming that the virus does go pandemic, it is quite likely that this will be the largest economic disruption of our lifetime.

This is the point where I would put forward some facts to back up such a bold statement, but given that we just saw the worst week in the markets since the financial crisis, including the worst two day point drop in Dow Jones history, I doubt that it’s really necessary to elaborate.

As mass quarantines expand, public events are canceled, businesses are shuttered, and economic activity generally grinds to a halt, it doesn’t take a genius to deduce that we are in for a global economic crisis of nearly unthinkable proportions. But the real disruptions are going to start long before we get to that point.

Given that the mass quarantines have started in China, a.k.a. the most important link in the global just-in-time supply chain, we are going to see significant difficulties for many manufacturers producing basic consumer goods in the very near future. Smartphones. Cars. Even, in a perverse bit of irony, medical supplies. So much of the global economy that depends on Chinese manufacturing is already experiencing shutdowns and shortages. And this is only the razor thin edge of what promises to be a gigantic wedge.

Here’s the worst part: These disruptions are already baked into the cake. Even if everyone on the planet was suddenly cured of their disease overnight and all quarantines were lifted, the effects of these last few weeks of lockdowns and closures would still continue to ripple their way through the global economy for months. But as the fear and hype spreads from continent to continent and the mass disruptions expand, these effects will get worse and worse.

I would expand on this point, but I have a feeling this is going to become a dominant and recurring topic of review in these editorials in the future. Let me just say this for now: Regardless of whether coronavirus is natural or manmade or even whether it exists at all, the economic effects of this event are going to be very real and very profound. Given that I write for the International Forecaster and have been documenting the Ponzi scheme that is the modern global economy for over a decade now, I’m often asked when the scam will collapse and the long-predicted global financial crisis will hit. Well, it’s very possible that the crisis has now officially hit and the decades of pie-in-the-sky negative-interest-rate helicopter-funny-money insanity that has papered over our grim economic reality is about to come crashing down all at once.

Conclusion: Coronavirus panic is a giant boost for the globalist agenda

I recently heard a suggestion that if this does eventuate into a global pandemic then it will set the globalist agenda back by decades. After all, an event like this will surely teach us all a hard lesson in national self-sufficiency and the inherent danger of an overextended, just-in-time global supply chain, right?

Of course not. No, that’s the conclusion that a rational person thinking about the crisis in a rational way would come to. So of course the globalists are going to force feed us the exact opposite idea: That a crisis like this will demonstrate how we need even more global integration amongst all levels of public and private society.

Don’t believe me? Just read the press release that Johns Hopkins and the Event 201 participants put out last month just before “Wuhan” and “coronavirus” became topics of daily conversation:

“The next severe pandemic will not only cause great illness and loss of life but could also trigger major cascading economic and societal consequences that could contribute greatly to global impact and suffering. Efforts to prevent such consequences or respond to them as they unfold will require unprecedented levels of collaboration between governments, international organizations, and the private sector.”

Oh, that’s right. This is another chance to “fail forward.” After all, as that great globalist soothsayer Rahm Emanuel told us during the last financial catastrophe, the global elitists’ mantra is to “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Do you really think this “crisis” (whether real or imaginary) would be any exception?

February 29, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

No More Air Travel is What Net Zero Means

By Harry Wilkinson – GWPF – 27/02/20

No-one can be surprised at the judges’ decision to block a third runway at Heathrow. Collectively, the country has failed to grasp the implications of deep decarbonisation.

Many people will regard the decision to block a third runway at Heathrow as an unwelcome intrusion of judges into our democratic system. They will be bemused that those judges cited the Paris Agreement to justify their decision, when one can hardly see China*, or indeed any other signatory to the Paris Agreement, blocking vital airport expansion because of that same treaty.

But to blame the judges is to miss the point. All they have done is to take the commitments of that accord and the Government’s pledge to achieve net zero emissions at face value. It is simply a matter of fact that such expansion cannot be reconciled with reducing our emissions, at least in the short term. This is what net zero means. It means to abandon the pursuit of growth, the pursuit of new opportunities, of new trading links, of progress and resign the country to a new era of eco austerity. Today brings that decision, and the government’s shameful failure to be upfront about its implications, into sharp focus.

When the Paris Agreement was signed it was heralded as an extraordinary moment in the fight against climate change. Green journalists parroted this view, useful as it was to the politicians and activists desperate to show that some progress had been made. Those familiar with the details could see that all it really did was to confirm countries’ existing plans. China, India, and other developing countries were allowed to continue increasing their emissions, and the EU reaffirmed its own emissions targets. America’s inclusion was more significant, but it wasn’t long until Trump announced his intention to withdraw.

The end result is to leave Britain uniquely vulnerable to the economic consequences of rapid decarbonisation policies. While the more cautious approach of Eastern European countries will act as brake for the EU, Britain is faced with a fundamental political choice as it leaves. It can choose to embrace the free market and technological progress, which will lead to the more efficient use of resources and indeed come to reduce the consumption of almost every natural resource. Or it can continue with an opportunity-destroying, insular and unilateral approach of state-mandated decarbonisation in one country. Time to choose.

*China, by the way, is planning to build 216 new airports by 2035.

February 27, 2020 Posted by | Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Brazil in Search for False Enemies

By Lucas Leiroz | February 25, 2020

Recently, the Brazilian Ministry of Defense published a dossier on possible threats to national security over the next two decades. The document, however, is far from showing any sign of seriousness, being full of unfounded predictions, which call into question even the quality of the academic training of the military involved – or their commitment to the truth.

In the document, the Brazilian military set up a series of hypothetical scenarios and warn that France could become a real threat to Brazil in the coming years. The reason is due to a brief tension and war of words between the Presidents Jair Bolsonaro and Emmanuel Macron over the past year, due to the environmental crisis and bushfires in the Amazon Rainforest. For Brazilian generals, this is already a sufficient basis to see France as a real threat to national security, ignoring notable facts, such as that both countries are the biggest trading partners in military industry and that the tension between Bolsonaro and Macron has already calmed down months ago, in addition to the fact that the French interest in starting a transcontinental war over the Amazon territory is absolutely minimal.

Continuing with forecasts, the document testifies to a future of great tensions in South America, with Venezuela and Guyana fighting conflicts in the north and Bolivia and Chile in the south, in addition to the installation of Chinese and American military bases across the continent. Brazil, aligning itself with the USA, will act as a mediator of regional conflicts and will receive advanced armaments from Washington. The document also foresees the installation of three American military bases in Colombia and a conflict between this country and Venezuela. It is also speculated that Argentina will grow economically with oil exploration and that it will align with China, but that Brazil will veto the installation of Chinese bases in the neighboring country.

Brazil’s role in internal tensions and international geopolitics will depend exclusively on its good relations with the United States. The dossier speculates that China will overtake the United States as an economic power, but that Washington will remain the global military leader. Brazilian alignment with American hegemonic power, then, will be a matter of survival and will allow Brazil to mediate regional conflicts, pacify neighboring countries and curb Chinese influence in South America. The generals go even further with their unfounded speculations and claim that Brazil will arouse the fury of “ultranationalist groups in Southeast Asia” that, in retaliation, will launch biological weapons against the Brazilian population on the occasion of the musical festival “Rock in Rio” in its 2039 edition.

In brief summary, the document creates a hypothetical scenario in which Brazil’s alignment with the United States will no longer be a matter of political will, but of necessity and survival. In practice, a group of more than 500 military researchers created a myth to justify alignment with Washington, using predictions that lack meaning and material bases. The ultimate goal is simply to forcibly instill the belief that Brazil should become an American ally.

But the Brazilian military does not stop there. Recently, the Russian ship Yantar approached the Brazilian coast, having anchored for a few days in the state of Rio de Janeiro. When the ship was about 50 miles away from the beaches of Rio, the Brazilian Navy issued a communication signal that was not answered immediately. It happens, however, that the vessel responded to the communication attempts issued later, which was not enough for the Brazilian Navy to retreat in its false alarm that the Russian ship would be performing espionage services on the Brazilian coast, spreading the lie through several media agencies and creating an unnecessary tension atmosphere.

The scandal made by the Brazilian Navy would make any specialist in military and intelligence operations laugh. Do they really believe that such a vessel would be used for espionage purposes with such public exposure? Would the Brazilian State be irresponsible to the point of creating such an atmosphere of tension with Russia for absolutely nothing?

The scenario leads one to believe that it is not a collective idiocy of Brazilian generals, but rather a very well-designed project to create an environment of fear in relation to everything that is not of interest to the United States. Chinese military presence in South America, Russian espionage, French threat, regional wars, biological terrorism – these are all imaginary threats meticulously created by the military who are no longer interested in national defense, but in the country’s subordination to the hegemonic global power.

Brazil seems to be experiencing one of the worst moments in its history. Again, the higher generals are more committed to external interests than to the defense of their own country and seem to be willing to do anything to see Brazil become an American dependency.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

February 25, 2020 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Deconstructing the election to Iran’s Majlis

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | February 24, 2020

Iran’s parliamentary election on Friday took place in extraordinary circumstances. The pandemic fear over coronavirus significantly impacted the voter turnout, which is estimated to be around 42% (as compared to 62% in the 2016 election to the Majlis). A dozen people have died so far in Iran and a few dozen diagnosed with the virus outbreak. There are conflicting reports. Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Armenia have closed their border with Iran.

The election presages a robust comeback by the conservative faction known as the Principalists. In the 2016 election, the reformists, conservatives and independents won 41%, 29% and 28% of the vote respectively. But this time around, the reformists have been marginalised and the Principalists will dominate the 290-member Majlis with a commanding majority. The Principalists won all 30 seats from Tehran, which is traditionally a key battleground.

There are many underlying factors behind the popular discontent that the election results reflect — in particular, the anger at the 2015 nuclear deal’s failure to bring jobs and social improvements (as promised by President Hassan Rouhani), corruption, mounting social inequality, inflation and poverty rates, water shortages, spiralling cost of living and high unemployment. Strikes and protests among teachers and the working class became frequent in the recent years.

The US sanctions have devastated social conditions, driving up inflation and poverty rates. A report last year by the Iranian parliament’s research office acknowledged that some 57 million of Iran’s 80 million population would live in poverty.

Having established control over the Majlis, the Principalists will most certainly make a determined bid to capture the presidency in the August 2021 election when Rouhani completes the second term in office and must step down as stipulated by the constitution. A politically surcharged climate will prevail in the coming 18-month period.

Rouhani’s capacity to manoeuvre will be severely restricted and as a weakened president, he will have to depend on cooperation of the Principalists, which may not be forthcoming.

One peculiarity of the struggle is that it is also a reflection of differences over foreign policies, especially the standoff with the US. Broadly, the Principalists are hardliners in regard of Iran’s relations with the West, while the reformists have keenly (but vainly) sought Iran’s integration into the world economy by improving the country’s relations with the West.

Thus, the “big picture” is that the Trump administration’s maximum pressure approach has pushed Iran to the right. The assassination of the iconic IRGC general Qasem Soleimani in a US drone attack in January set in motion long-term shifts in Iran’s domestic politics.

Soleimani’s killing prompted the regime to resort to extreme measures to disqualify a broad swathe of moderate and centrist candidates from running in the parliamentary elections.

If Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal dealt a mortal blow to Rouhani’s prestige and created a mass perception that the US is an undependable interlocutor with whom constructive engagement is simply not feasible, the killing of Soleimani has totally discredited Rouhani’s approach towards the US, which eschewed confrontation and placed the accent on diplomacy.

Put differently, the regime is circling the wagons, as it were, sensing an existential threat to the Velayat-e faqih — or guardianship of the Islamic jurist — which is the Shia Islamist system of governance since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, built on the rule of the clergy over the state.

Several western analysts had warned that the Trump administration’s policies would inevitably discredit the reformists and shift Iran’s political calculus toward the right, with negative consequences for regional security. But such warnings fell on deaf ears.

It almost seems now as if the hardliners in the Trump administration preferred to have the Principalists at the helm of affairs in Tehran. Indeed, no sooner than the conservative surge in the Majlis election appeared, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has floated an inflammatory idea, during a visit to Saudi Arabia this week, that in the coming months, he and Trump will make a major decision about whether to petition the UN to invoke what is known as “snapback” on a set of international sanctions on Iran that were lifted as part of the 2015 nuclear accord.

Such a move has been rumoured for some time but this is the first acknowledgement by the Trump administration. The idea is to “to deal a deathblow to the nuclear deal” and to provoke Tehran to react.

Tehran has already warned that any move to reimpose blanket UN sanctions on Iran will compel it to expel the IAEA inspectors and resume its pre-2015 nuclear programme. Iran may even quit the NPT (as North Korea did.)

In sum, as two well-known American experts Julia Masterson and Samuel M. Hickey wrote recently in an essay in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists titled The US has a backup plan to kill the Iran nuclear deal. It could spark a crisis at the UN :

“A snapping back of UN sanctions on Iran could also lead Iran to kick out international nuclear inspectors, resume additional nuclear activities, and threaten a regional war involving great powers, historic adversaries, and non-state actors across the Middle East. In short, it would manufacture a crisis that the world can ill afford.”

A reconciliation with the West seems all but out of the question for the foreseeable future. The ascendance of the conservatives will likely see Iran’s withdrawal from previous commitment to the 2015 nuclear deal. Free of international control, Tehran can redefine its stance as it wishes.

A concerted effort by Tehran to broaden and deepen relations with China and Russia can be expected. Iran will rely on China and Russia for investment and technology transfers in line with the pivot to “resistance economy”, dispensing with imported goods.

February 25, 2020 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

No Airports, No Imports–Welcome To Year Zero!

By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | February 21, 2020

I took a quick look at this story the other day, but have now had time to read the report it was based on:

To many people, “saving the planet” means little more than building wind farms, planting trees and using less plastic. However it is gradually beginning to dawn on the public that the impact on their lives will be substantial.

Even then though, things like scrapping gas boilers and moving to electric cars have been something that “won’t happen for decades, so why worry now?”

However a new study, sponsored by the UK Government, has warned that huge changes to our lifestyles will be necessary, and much sooner than we think, if zero emission targets are to be met.

The report by UK FIRES, called Absolute Zero, calls for all UK airports to be shut by 2050, because there are no practical alternatives for zero emission flight. But as part of this timetable, all airports other than Heathrow, Glasgow and Belfast must shut by 2030.

In a stroke, air travel will be effectively banned for most of the country, as Heathrow simply would not have the capacity to handle more than a small proportion of demand. (Heathrow currently carries a quarter of UK passengers).

But that is just one item on a long list of changes to be forced on the British public. The report concludes that we cannot bank on technological innovations coming to our rescue.

If you thought that we could simply rely on renewable energy, forget it. As UK FIRES points out, even with rapid growth of renewables, we will still need to cut our energy use by 40%, even before air travel and shipping are factored in. And all of this without accounting for the projected population increase.

So forget about electric cars being the solution, because we will not have enough electricity to power them. The recommendation from UK FIRES – have 40% less cars on the road. Their suggestion – use the train more, ignoring the sky high prices, the fact that railways offer very limited routes and how you are supposed to travel around when you get to your destination. The idea that we will all willingly give up our cars to travel by rail or bus is utterly naive.

The report also conveniently ignores the high carbon dioxide footprint in building electric cars in the first place.

Heating is another area where we must cut emissions. UK FIRES expect us to buy heat pumps, seemingly oblivious to the fact they will cost each household a good £10k more than our conventional boilers. They also don’t appear to realise that heat pumps are incapable of supplying the heat we need in the middle of winter, or that the power grid simply could not cope with that sort of spike in demand even if they could.

Or maybe they do! Their guidance includes using heating for less time, in fewer rooms and wearing warm clothes in winter.

Our diet does not escape either, as we will have to give up eating beef and lamb, not to mention frozen ready meals. While we are expected to rely on arable farming instead, they also want fertiliser use to be drastically reduced.

Meanwhile the construction industry is likely to grind to a halt, as cement is phased out. Unfortunately the actual making of cement releases emissions, regardless of the source of the energy used.

Forget about housebuilding, new hospitals and infrastructure, they want us to concentrate on retrofit and adaptation of existing buildings.

Ironically, as even the report admits, we don’t know how to install new renewables or make new energy efficient buildings without cement.

If all of this was not bad enough, they want to ban all imports by 2050, unless they can come via rail, which might be a problem given that we are an island! Of course, we don’t have zero emission freight ships at the moment, and are unlikely to in the foreseeable future.

Quite how we are expected to feed ourselves without importing food is a mystery, unless we return to 1940s style rationing. And you can forget about all of those other things we get from abroad now.

What about, for instance, computers and electronics? We will quickly become an international backwater, without access to the latest technology. It would be like the country returning to 1990s style Nokia phones, VHS and floppy discs!

Some may be substituted by UK made goods, but it is hard to see how industrial capacity could be built back up with the restrictions planned on construction, energy use and industrial emissions.

But it is not only the emissions from shipping which concerns the authors. They also say we must be responsible for all emissions from the production of imported goods.

So how, you might ask, are we supposed to live in this glorious, emission free future?

UK FIRES says we must not worry! We can apparently carry on doing the things we enjoy most, totally emission free. Things like sports, social life, eating, hobbies, games,computing, reading, TV, radio, volunteering and sleeping! According to the report, “we can all do more of these without any impact on emissions.”

Indeed, with the economy and industry destroyed, most of us will have much more time on our hands for these pursuits! (Climate scientists and bureaucrats excluded, naturally).

Nowhere in this dismal little report is there any acknowledgement of the fact that the UK only generates 1% of global emissions. The report starts by stating:

We have to cut our greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050: that’s what climate scientists tell us, it’s what social protesters are asking for and it’s now the law in the UK.

Wrecking the economy is not something we should do, just because a few eco-loon protestors are asking for it. And laws can, of course, be changed.

We must however thank the authors of this report for bringing home the very real and damaging effect that the mad rush to decarbonise will have on peoples’ lives.

And, as they have rightly stated, these changes will have to start being put into practice very soon, certainly during this decade.

For too long, the impact and cost of the Climate Change Act has been deliberately hidden from the public. Partly this has been the result of a political conspiracy between all of the major political parties and establishment in general. It has also been aided and abetted by all of the media, with a handful of notable exceptions.

But their dirty little secret cannot be covered up for much longer.

February 22, 2020 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

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