Figmund Sreud
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China’s position on Gaza War:
“… the China-Israel bilateral trade is less than US$25 billion. Until 2018, China was a major investor in Israel, especially in the tech sector. However, due to the mounting US pressure over Chinese investments coming with potential “security risks”, China’s investments have cooled down. These investment and trade trends are shaping China’s options to navigate the present crisis. On the one hand, these trends explain a) why China has taken a pro-Arab position, and b) why China fears a wider war in the region. Not only, a wider war could impact billions of dollars but also put almost a million Chinese nationals based in the region working on numerous projects in serious jeopardy. Evacuating these many people will be a nightmare.
Beijing learnt a crucial lesson when NATO invaded Libya in 2011. When NATO invaded Libya in 2011, it cost China a lot. According to figures released by the Chinese government itself, 75 Chinese companies, including 13 state-owned companies, were involved in Libya in about 50 joint projects. More than 35,000 Chinese workers were there.
https://journal-neo.su/2024/01/23/understanding-chinas-navigation-of-the-gaza-war/
F.S.
Yet another review of book by Emmanuel Todd, La Défaite de l’Occident:
“… the French author reminds us of a number of other important factors: that despite the collapse of the USSR, the US itself has been in crisis since the 1980s, where the disappearance of Protestantism has led America from neoliberalism to nihilism. In Britain, from financialisation to loss of a sense of humour. The nullification of religion has led the European Union to suicide, although according to Todd – Germany is due for a revival. And that in 2016-2022 – Western nihilism merged with the nihilism of modern Ukraine, born from the decay of the Soviet system. Together – NATO and Ukraine face a stabilised Russia, a great power again, now conservative, reassuring to the rest of the world – which is unwilling to follow the West in its adventure.
https://journal-neo.su/2024/01/21/the-fall-of-the-west/
F.S.
You, Go! Orange One, …
Donald Trump is projected to win New Hampshire primary, according to The Associated Press,
F.S.
Interesting snap-shot into Canadian real estate, … considering an ongoing fiasco!
An active real estate agent looks into the members of Canadian parliament and finds over half members own multiple properties. Subsequently asks questions: During a housing crisis is this a moral issue?, Should MP’s be using their government salary to purchase rental properties and remove housing supply from we the citizens?
As a bonus, some other juicy stuff in this vid, especially about Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and non-financial Finance Minister, …plus aMember of Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland, Christia Freeland. Story on her starts at ~ 9:15 mark. Have-a-peek!
F.S.
Nice cartoon, … [ nothing to fret about, …really!]
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores-average-baseline?country=~CAN
Loadings of Russian and Kazakhstan oil onto marine tankers at Russia’s second-largest export terminal on the Baltic Sea, Ust-Luga, have resumed at around midday on Monday after coming to a standstill in the early morning hours on Sunday when captains ordered vessels to be pulled back to sea due to security concerns, marine traffic data suggests.
At least two drones have been reported in Russian news outlets as being spotted over the gas condensate facilities operated by Russian producer Novatek before explosions took place, triggering widespread fire. The gas condensate plant is located next to the oil export terminal.[…]
Canada’s leaders will learn that Wargames are expensive and are dangerous. – zerosum
—————————————-Yes, … but on this Red Sea mission, Canada only sent out, so far, the old bed pan, “HMCS Calgary” (FFH 335) – by now grossly outdated “patrol frigate” that by design had an original expiry date 2012, … while being commissioned in 1995. So no great loss if it is sent to the bottom of Red Sea to serve as an artificial reef!
Btw, currently envisaged replacement programme is for first vessel of the similar type probably not entering service until the early/mid 2030s.
“If you get rid of the empire, this world could be taken over by tyrants., … imagine that!
Welcome to the Empire
I see oil hasn’t moved out of the seventies since the Red Sea troubles? Maybe things aren’t exactly as advertised? – Red
————————————-In the financial circles, all I hear is it’s same old, same old Israel/Palestinian fracas, it will fade out in a month or less, … just like for last seventy+ years!. Fools, …
Anyway, WTI pricing is -0.90% in last 5 days, -16.53% in last 3 months, -6.75% YTD. Unprecedented trend,I say, … and have been dabbling in oil business since about late ‘70s.
F.S.
Helmer: … amongst all other things, reports CENTCOM is saying nothing at all about the fate of the two US Navy F-18 pilots, shot down by Houthi air defence during the first raid on Friday morning and missing at sea since then. Pentagon concealment of the shoot-down — the first air battle success of its kind– has been camouflaged by a half-dozen press releases about the hospitalization and health of the Defense Secretary, General Lloyd Austin.
… all other info in:
Report from Davos into my in-Box:
A Turbulent Year May Lie Ahead—CEOs at Davos Are Optimistic, from 14 minutes ago by Dow Jones
14 minutes ago by Dow Jones
By Chip Cutter and Emily Glazer
DAVOS, Switzerland—CEOs and business leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum are feeling increasingly confident about the U.S. economy and the strength of consumer demand, despite protracted conflicts around the world, a looming U.S. election and worries about new trade disruptions.
The dueling sentiments on display this week reflect hopes of a so-called soft landing in the U.S., as inflation cools and the labor market remains strong. Many leaders also expect the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates this year, potentially opening up more dealmaking and spending.
“The mood is worried, but positive,” said Martine Ferland, chief executive of the consulting giant Mercer. “It feels to me a bit less threatening from an economic standpoint.”
On the sidelines of the annual gathering of more than 800 CEOs and chairs, business leaders ticked off their reasons for confidence about the economy. PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta said he is encouraged by what he described as a stabilizing job market and falling prices for some commodities. Honeywell CEO Vimal Kapur noted demand for air travel remains strong. At the mining giant BHP, meanwhile, CEO Mike Henry said the appetite for copper, iron ore and other materials remains high worldwide.
The concern is that geopolitical events could strain confidence among CEOs and make it harder for companies to run their businesses or ship their products around the world. A series of attacks in recent weeks by Houthi militants on commercial ships passing through the Red Sea showed supply chains remain vulnerable, said Paul Knopp, CEO of KPMG in the U.S.
There are also elections in more than 60 countries in 2024, impacting roughly half of the global population. Besides the U.S. in November, countries including India, Indonesia and the United Kingdom have elections planned for later this year.
Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel, said the uncertainties are real but the chip maker is well-positioned.
“Geopolitically, I think it’s going to be a turbulent year,” Gelsinger said. “You have lots of elections going on. We have two active wars in the world that affect supply chains in a meaningful way.”
Many CEOs say they are engaged in various forms of scenario planning around the U.S. election involving their leadership teams and boards of directors, hoping to devise strategies regardless of what happens in the coming months.
They are gaming out either another four years of the Biden administration or a second term of former President Donald Trump, who won the Iowa caucuses Monday with the largest margin in the history of the first Republican presidential nominating contest. The outcome of the election could impact government policies, including trade and infrastructure, and the appetite for companies to invest in new projects depending on interest rates.
On the sidelines in Davos, few CEOs wanted to publicly weigh in on their election predictions, though many said they had been trading notes with peers on possible election outcomes.
The collective support for Ukraine present at last year’s forum is in the rear view mirror today, as there is growing panic about the U.S. election and the state of U.S. democracy, said Ian Bremmer, political risk expert and president of the Eurasia Group.
“Europeans in particular, really want to be reassured that the U.S. is not falling apart [or] going to be absent for them,” he said.
Bremmer said worry about the U.S. extends beyond who voters choose as their next president, listing Congress, the fight over Ukraine funding, the nation’s position on NATO, trade and industrial policy as issues of concern.
Even with the geopolitical concerns, Sanjiv Bajaj, chairman of Indian financial services behemoth Bajaj Finserv, said he is feeling optimistic about the global economy as the new year kicks off.
India’s economy in particular has been growing at a robust pace and its stock market has been flying higher, drawing in investors around the globe. Prices of everything from gold to stocks have soared, giving wallets a boost.
Bankers and financial executives say the big risks, like the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, aren’t priced well into markets, leaving them wary of the potential for sizable drops or dramatic swings in oil and energy prices.
“I have never seen geopolitics be such a critical, almost decisive, factor,” said JPMorgan Chase’s co-head of global investment banking Viswas Raghavan.
Expectations of a series of Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts pushed stocks to new heights at the end of 2023. Stocks fell to start the new year but staged a comeback in recent trading days.
The S&P 500 closed Friday within 0.3% of a record high set just over two years ago. U.S. markets were closed Monday to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Still, it’s too soon to breathe a sigh of relief, said Anne Walsh, chief investment officer of Guggenheim Partners Investment Management. She said that though many investors and business leaders have embraced a soft landing, so-called “tail risks” have grown.
Despite the tumult in the world, a number of CEOs said they remain optimistic.
“The world crises keep stacking one on top of the other,” said Blake Moret, CEO of industrial automation company Rockwell Automation. “But, for the moment, for the economy, the underlying demand continues to be positive.”
Gunjan Banerji, Marie Beaudette, David Benoit, Kimberly S. Johnson, Kim Last, Cara Lombardo and James Mackintosh contributed to this article.
Write to Chip Cutter at chip.cutter@wsj.com and Emily Glazer at Emily.Glazer@wsj.com
Copyright 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.Link Dinh on death of Gonzalo Lira
… in part:
“It’s easy enough for me to state all this from the safety of Namibia, but Lira was in Kharkiv. Though a “fish on the chopping block,” to borrow a Vietnamese phrase, he gave us invaluable insights and observations from the war zone without self censorship. It’s this bravery that gained Lira admirers worldwide. Scott Ritter, though, shamefully suggested he was colluding with Ukrainian intelligence. To do what, Scott?
On 3/6/22, Lira correctly predicted Western sanction will hurt the West much more than Russia. On 3/23/22, Lira concluded the US was committing suicide, but let me to tweak his assessment slightly. With Jewjabs, unchecked illegal immigration, woke education, cancel culture, cowed intellectuals, Jewjewed media, crumbling infrastructure and lying, pedophilic leaders, America is being murdered with a thousand cuts by Uncle Sam’s puppeteer. This is undeniable to anyone paying the least attention, but that’s asking a lot. Here’s a clue: Sam’s increasingly naked genocidal lust mirrors Israel’s, so locked in the sickest 69, they’ll sink together.
Lira was among the few who remembered the Jewjab murdered Tiffany Dover. Sometimes, Lira was wrong, as when he thought Zelensky would soon be assassinated by the US itself. So what? Bold and blunt, Lira literally risked his life to make statements about Zelensky, Putin, Biden and NATO, etc. Among the cowed, Lira stood tall, so that will be his legacy.
Tragic News Predawn
https://linhdinh.substack.com/p/tragic-news-predawnJohn Helmer latest: Putin fence-seats!
“Not since Moses held out his hand and got the Israelites’ god to blow an easterly wind to part the Red Sea, has there been such a prodigious feat on that stretch of water. In the hours following the US and UK bombing and missile attacks on Yemen on Friday morning, the Kremlin ordered that a fence be constructed in the middle of the Red Sea on which President Vladimir Putin (lead image) has told Russian officials to sit.
KREMLIN TRIES TO SIT ON THE FENCE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RED SEA
Alberta shut down its fleet of whirligigs because it’s just too cold and blades might just shatter due to materials turning brittle! True…
“One of the first lessons any new engineering student learns in their materials class is “cold brittle behaviour” of materials. When it gets really cold, like -30 C or colder, many materials lose much of their strength and are prone to shattering. This applies to wind turbines as much as it applies to car bumpers.”
Most of Alberta’s wind fleet slowly shut down Thursday night, but not for lack of wind
https://pipelineonline.ca/alta-wind-shutdown-due-to-cold/
Alastair Crooke essay this a.m.:
Gut Feelings Make for Strategic Errors – U.S. Lured Into Battlescape in Gaza, Yemen and Now Iraq
ICJ-Case is HOPELESS for Israel. But Technicalities Might Save It After All.
________________That, currently, is a secondary issue, … or none issue in fact!
For as long as Russia continues to tolerate ( … read: support Israel covertly!), Israel is safe doing what it is doing: … exterminating Palestinians, regardless of court’s ruling! Qualifier, though: … as long as Iran is not overtly attacked by Israel or the U.S. and/or “coalition of the willing”.
But, if Iran is attacked, directly, the situation will change immediately and drastically. Conflict will expand rapidly and gravely, …
… fwiw,
F.S.
Interesting:
Landmark Research Reveals the Origins of Multiple Sclerosis
Scientists found that MS began to spread globally through the migration of livestock herders in Eastern Europe 5,000 years ago.
https://gizmodo.com/multiple-sclerosis-origin-genes-europe-yamnaya-1851160087
Note: My family has been ‘touched’ by MS. My wife is currently at well advanced stage of this horrendous disease.
F.S.
… and here we have a most recent example of what happens when your EV flames up in your attached garage to your adobe, … and how it is all handled by your typical emergency services:
… go, EV-ing! Go, …
F.S.
WSJ.com at your service! Yes, … from my in-Box this a.m.:
Who Are the Houthis? What to Know About the U.S., U.K. Strikes in Yemen
From their perch on the eastern side of the Red Sea, the Yemen-based rebels pose what could be one of the biggest threats to global shipping and, by extension, the world economy.
In recent weeks, the Houthis have launched over two dozen drone and missile attacks on commercial shipping bound for the Suez Canal, what they say is a response to Israel’s war against Hamas. Major shippers are now diverting vessels south around the Cape of Good Hope, adding some 40 days to voyages in what could be a far more damaging disruption than when the Ever Given cargo carrier got wedged in the canal in 2021.
Now, with a U.S.-led coalition launching more than a dozen strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, here is a look at where the Houthis came from, and what they might be hoping to achieve.
The Houthis are among the combatants in Yemen’s long-running civil war.
They are named after religious and political leader Hussein Al-Houthi, who launched an insurgency in the 1990s against what he saw as the corrupt Yemeni government.
He gathered widespread backing among the northern tribes, who, like him, are Zaydis, a branch of Shia Islam that calls on its adherents to stand up against injustice wherever they see it.
Houthi was killed in a battle with Yemeni forces in 2004 at age 45, but the group, now under the leadership of his brother, Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi, has since gained significant territory in a long-running civil war.
More formally known as Ansar Allah, or Supporters of God, the Houthis are still vying for control of Yemen, the country that lies on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula. The Zaydi see themselves as Yemen’s only rightful rulers. The Houthis took control of the capital, San’a, in 2014. But the group also receives funding and military support from Iran, another Shia power, and shares ties to Hezbollah, the Shia political and military group in Lebanon.
The Houthis’ adversaries in the south and east of the country are backed by Iran’s regional rivals, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
That conflict is now largely frozen. But the Houthis have also emerged as a significant player in the conflict now threatening to spread across the Middle East after targeting the shipping lanes in the Red Sea leading to the Suez Canal, particularly the narrow strait of Bab el-Mandeb, or the Gate of Tears.
The Houthis claim they are trying to target vessels with links to Israel. Along with Iran and Hezbollah, they have positioned themselves as part of what Tehran calls the “axis of resistance” toward Israel’s campaign to eradicate the Hamas militant group in Gaza. Like Iran, the Houthis see the destruction of Israel as a fundamental part of their mission, borrowing Tehran’s thinking for their own slogan, “God is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam.”
While a Bahamas-flagged vessel that was boarded in November has ties to an Israeli billionaire, there haven’t been many other Israeli connections among the other attacks.
Security analysts suggest the Houthis are instead trying to create a systemic threat in the pivotal waterway to pressure Israel’s allies to compel it to withdraw from Gaza. The rebels know well the value of economic targets: The Houthis have hit Saudi oil facilities during the civil war.
America had been reluctant to directly confront Iran and its proxies since the start of the war in Gaza, but a U.S.-led coalition launched more than a dozen strikes on Houthi targets early Friday local time, two days after the rebels defied an ultimatum to halt their attacks. The strikes were conducted by the U.S. and U.K. and supported by Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands and were designed to reduce the Houthis’ capability to continue their campaign.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East, said the strikes targeted radar and air-defense systems along with storage and launch sites for drones and missiles. A U.S. submarine, several destroyers and jet fighters, and part of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike group took part, a U.S. defense official said.
U.S. and British forces previously responded to the Houthi threat by shooting down missiles and drones fired by the group. The U.S. Navy recently sank Houthi boats that had fired on commercial ships.
Russia on Friday requested an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the strikes. The Houthis, meanwhile, described them as “American-Zionist-British aggression against Yemen,” reporting blasts in San’a in addition to Hodeida, Saada, Dhamar and elsewhere, but said they were undeterred. One official threatened to hit U.S. bases in the region if the U.S. and U.K. strike more targets.
“This is a brutal aggression,” Nasr al-Din Amir, a Houthi official, told The Wall Street Journal. “They will undoubtedly pay its price, and we will not waver in our stance to support the Palestinian people, regardless of the cost.”
Iran on Friday said it condemns the U.S.-led attack, warning that it would add to “insecurity and instability” in the region, Iranian state media reported.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry in a statement called for restraint and expressed “great concern” about the strikes, while emphasizing “the importance of preserving the security and stability of the Red Sea region.”
President Biden, meanwhile, said, “I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and the free flow of international commerce as necessary.”
The Houthi attacks have disrupted shipping in waters through which 8% of the world’s oil supply traveled, on average, in 2023 and risk raising consumer prices on everything from electronics to coffee. Container volumes through the Suez Canal from mid-December to Jan. 7 fell more than 60% from the same period a year earlier—from 3.3 million boxes to 1.3 million boxes as the result of the ship diversions.
The Suez is used by about one-third of global container cargo and about 30% of freight bound for U.S. East Coast ports, according to Everstream Analytics, a supply-chain risk-management company. The disruption is having an effect in Europe. Tesla plans to halt production at its biggest factory in Europe for two weeks, raising the specter of a new supply-chain crisis for European manufacturers dependent on parts from China and other Asian countries. “The considerably longer transportation times are creating a gap in the supply chains. Due to a lack of components, we are therefore forced to suspend vehicle production in the Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg,” Tesla said. Other Europe-based automakers say they haven’t seen any shortages of components as yet, but are closely watching the situation.
Shipping executives said the strikes would prompt shippers to keep away from the Red Sea for now until there is clarity about whether the route is safe or not.
Christopher Long, intelligence director at British maritime-security company Neptune P2P, said, “There will be a period of 24 to 72 hours where shipping will take a hiatus…Longer-term, it will depend on the Houthis” and if Iran resupplies them with drones and missiles.
—This article may be periodically updated.
Write to James Hookway at James.Hookway@wsj.com
Copyright 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
F.S.
Psst! This guy thinks we’re early on in a new secular change that will make the coming decade look and feel very different in the economy, markets and society from what we’ve become accustomed to over the past several decades!
F.S.
Crooke
Beneath the gimcrack and baubled veneer, the western meta-narrative “from Plato to NATO, that superior ideas and practices whose origins lie in ancient Greece, and have been transmitted down the ages so that those in the West today, are the lucky inheritors of a superior cultural DNA” has transpired to be nothing more than the faded tinselry of hollow narrative.
Interesting, proverbial techtonic plates are a-shifting! This is now being even acknowledged by CIA shills such as George Friedman, a former STRTFOR founder, … and currently of https://geopoliticalfutures.com/welcome/
F.S.
And so they huff and they puff, … and puff still some more! – from my in-box mid-day today:
U.S.-Led Coalition Warns Houthis to Stop Ship Attacks, from 1 hour ago by Dow Jones
1 hour ago by Dow Jones
By Michael R. Gordon, Gordon Lubold and Nancy A. Youssef
WASHINGTON—The U.S., Britain and key allies issued a final warning to the Houthi Yemeni rebel group Wednesday to cease its attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea or bear the consequences.
“Ongoing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea are illegal, unacceptable, and profoundly destabilizing,” says the statement issued by 12 nations. “The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and free flow of commerce in the region’s critical waterways.”
The U.S. military has prepared options to strike the Iran-backed rebel group, U.S. officials say.
Should the U.S., Britain and other nations use force, potential targets could include launchers for antiship missiles and drones, targeting infrastructure such as coastal radar installations, and storage facilities for munitions. Among the challenges to striking Houthi targets is that many of their weapons systems are mobile, the officials said.
The Biden administration has been cautious about using force, seeking to protect the prospects for a diplomatic resolution to the Yemen conflict and avoid becoming entangled in a tit-for-tat confrontation with Houthis, whom some American officials view as an unpredictable wild card.
Houthi fighters overthrew the Yemeni government in 2014, which led Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations to mount a military campaign against the rebels. Months of talks between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, who are backed by Iran, have produced a road map that the U.S. hopes could lead to resolution of the conflict.
But the conflict between Hamas and Israel has spurred the Houthis to launch missiles and drones at Israel and shipping traffic in the Red Sea.
As of Tuesday, the Houthis have carried out 24 attacks on commercial ships since mid-November, according to the U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East. Tensions escalated further last week when Houthi fighters on four small boats fired at U.S. helicopters that came to the rescue of a Singapore-flagged vessel in the Red Sea. The U.S. Navy helicopters returned fire, sinking three of the Houthi boats.
The Houthi attacks have had an effect on the global economy. Most oil tankers and containerships are still avoiding that route and going around Africa. On Tuesday, the Danish shipping company A.P. Moller-Maersk said it would avoid the Red Sea route.
“Nearly 15 percent of global seaborne trade passes through the Red Sea, including 8 percent of global grain trade, 12 percent of seaborne-traded oil and 8 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas trade,” the joint statement read. “International shipping companies continue to reroute their vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, adding significant cost and weeks of delay to the delivery of goods, and ultimately jeopardizing the movement of critical food, fuel, and humanitarian assistance throughout the world.”
The U.S. and Britain led the effort to issue a fresh multinational warning to the Houthis. For days, diplomats discussed the text as they sought to broaden the list of the number of nations that were prepared to join it.
The final list of signatories was: the U.S., Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Britain.
An emergency United Nations Security Council meeting on the Houthi threat to shipping in the Red Sea has been scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at the request of the U.S., Britain, France and other nations.
The USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier battle group is in the region along with other American naval assets, British ships and ships from other nations.
The Houthis have said their attacks are a response to the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and were quick to join the fighting. On Oct. 19, the Houthis launched land-attack cruise missiles and drones at Israel, according to U.S. officials. Those weapons systems were designed by Iran, according to American intelligence.
The USS Carney guided-missile destroyer, which was sailing in the northern Red Sea, shot down several of the cruise missiles, while one was intercepted by Saudi Arabia, according to people familiar with the episode.
The Houthis soon turned their sights to commercial ships, including by using the same kind of ballistic missiles that Iran has provided to the group, U.S. intelligence says. Houthi officials have said they are aiming only at ships linked to Israel, but the Pentagon has tracked attacks on vessels flagged or owned in other countries.
Houthi attacks against international shipping have been carried out by drones, small boats and missiles, “including the first use of anti-ship ballistic missiles against such vessels,” the joint statement noted.
On Tuesday evening, the Houthis launched two missiles that landed in the Red Sea, without causing any damage, U.S. Central Command said. On Wednesday, the Houthis claimed they had targeted a Malta-flagged container ship they said was bound for an Israeli port. The group attacked the ship after its crew “refused to respond to calls from the Yemeni naval forces, including fiery warning messages,” a spokesman for the group said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the U.S. and Houthi reports referred to the same incident.
“The Houthis appeared to be striking maritime targets given that they have failed to strike Israel on land,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank that has highlighted the threat it says Iran poses to the U.S. and its allies. “Iran is using the Houthis to generate economic costs that it hopes will pressure Washington to wind down Jerusalem’s war against Hamas.”
Some U.S. officials have expressed hope that Israel’s plans to lower the intensity of its fighting in Gaza might lead to a reduction of the Houthi attacks on commercial ships and thus ease the pressure on the U.S. and Britain to respond.
The Obama administration carried out cruise missile strikes in 2016 against coastal radar sites in areas controlled by the Houthis, which the Pentagon described at the time as “limited self-defense strikes” after the Houthis fired missiles at a U.S. destroyer.
Iranian state media said Monday that an Iranian destroyer was moving toward the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb strait, a key crossing between the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.
William Mauldin contributed to this article.
Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com, Gordon Lubold at gordon.lubold@wsj.com and Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com
Copyright 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.Alastair Crooke latest:
Trickery, Humiliation, Death – and the Timeless Hunger for ‘Honour and Glory’
@zerosum – “the narrative is being controlled”
————————————-Yes, agreed. Still, it’s beyond my comprehension to even ponder who is it that is in control of all of this? How is it even possible? Yet is seems that it is, …
F.S., … stumped.
Damn the torpedos! “Intel has chosen to approve an unprecedented investment of $25 billion and to establish its new factory right here in Israel,” Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich wrote in a post on X on Tuesday. […]
… The company confirmed the investment plans on Tuesday.[…]
Intel will build $25 billion chip factory in Israel’s ‘largest investment ever’
… really?
F.S.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/26/tech/intel-israel-investment/index.html
Brilliant Whitney! You have to hear this one out! Here is just one of the commenters comment:
“Imagine if the world had 100 journalists of her caliber. She is so amazing. Brilliant, fun, clever, humble.”
F.S.
From my inBox this a.m. – Wall Street Journal, with its editorials, continues goosing Middle East situation. Reading that with keeping in mind today’s Alastair Crooke’s musings, and I surmise a very turbulent start to 2024. ( … btw, oil price is finally reacting, up ~ 2.75% today, this moment U$75.74/bbl)
Iran Adds to Pressure on U.S. With Nuclear Program Acceleration,
from 59 minutes ago by Dow Jones
59 minutes ago by Dow Jones
By Laurence Norman
Iran has tripled production of nearly weapons-grade uranium in a move likely to deepen its confrontation with the West as Tehran helps allied militias to attack Israel and U.S. forces in the region.
Iran’s decision to triple its production rate of near-weapons-grade uranium marks the collapse of quiet diplomatic efforts between Washington and Tehran to ease tensions. It comes amid a proliferation of flashpoints between the U.S. and Iran, whose proxies have repeatedly traded fire with U.S. forces in the Middle East since the bloody conflict between Israel and Hamas erupted on Oct. 7. U.S. and European navies are also shooting down drones launched by the Iran-backed Houthis in the Red Sea.
The Pentagon said Saturday that a drone launched from Iran struck a chemical tanker in the Indian Ocean, signaling a widening risk to shipping after Yemeni rebels started attacking vessels in the Red Sea.
In a report to International Atomic Energy Agency member states, Director-General Rafael Grossi said that agency inspectors had confirmed on Dec. 19 and Dec. 24 an increased production of highly enriched uranium at both of Iran’s main nuclear facilities that the agency said Tehran had started on Nov. 22.
The increase took Iran’s production of 60% enriched uranium back to the rate of nine kilograms a month, where it stood early this year, before Tehran curbed work on the most dangerous part of its nuclear program.
Iran is the only country in the world that isn’t a declared nuclear power currently producing 60% enriched uranium, which can be converted to weapons-grade material within days. U.S. officials have said it would take Iran less than two weeks to convert enough 60% material into a form that could be used in a nuclear weapon.
Experts say Iran already has a sufficient stock of highly enriched uranium to fuel three weapons.
Iran says its nuclear program is for purely peaceful civilian use. U.S. officials have said in recent months that they have no evidence Tehran is currently working on completing its ability to build a nuclear weapon.
In its confidential report to member states, the agency also said that Iran had also linked its centrifuges again in a way that would allow it to start producing weapons-grade material even faster, a move likely to deepen concerns that Tehran is considering stepping over the 90% weapons grade threshold.
The agency said that Iran had connected up two sets of advanced centrifuges using so-called modified sub-headers. The agency discovered in January that Tehran had previously produced a small amount of 83% highly enriched uranium, a level just shy of weapons grade.
U.S. and European officials have warned that if Iran produces weapons-grade material, it would spark a crisis that could prompt a sharp escalation in economic and diplomatic pressure on Tehran. Israel has warned it could take military action against Iran if Tehran starts producing uranium enriched to 90%.
After a series of indirect talks in Oman in the spring, where the hosts played go-between for senior U.S. and Iranian officials, Tehran and Washington floated steps the U.S. hoped would reduce tensions and avoid a crisis ahead of U.S. elections in November.
The diplomacy took place because of the collapse of negotiations in the summer of 2022 on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, which lifted broad international sanctions on Iran in exchange for tight but temporary restrictions on its nuclear work.
U.S. officials sketched out several steps they hoped Iran would take. They included a prisoner swap that took place in September, a halt to firings by Iranian proxies at U.S. forces in the region, and a curbing of Iran’s nuclear program, in particular a sharp reduction or pause in Tehran’s production of highly enriched uranium. Iran began throttling back in June.
In exchange, the U.S. was prepared to give Iran access to billions of dollars trapped under U.S. sanctions. Washington also sent signals it wouldn’t sharpen its enforcement of oil sanctions on Iran and would be open to resuming talks about Tehran’s nuclear program.
Further indirect negotiations were scheduled to take place in Oman in mid-October but the U.S. canceled them after Tehran came out in support of the Hamas terrorist attack of Oct. 7, which Israel says killed more than 1,200 people.
The U.S. mission to the IAEA in Vienna didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Iran’s nuclear-program acceleration adds another potential flashpoint between Tehran and Washington at a time of heightened volatility across the region over Israel’s conflict in Gaza, which authorities in the Hamas-controlled Strip say has cost more than 20,000 lives.
There have been almost daily attacks by Iranian proxies in Iraq and Syria against U.S. forces. On Monday, the U.S. said it struck three drone facilities used by a Shiite militant group and other groups in Iraq in response to a series of attacks by the groups on American positions in Iraq and Syria, including an attack Monday in northern Iraq, in which three U.S. troops were wounded, including one critically.
The U.S. has sent two aircraft carrier strike groups to the eastern Mediterranean, followed by a nuclear submarine, to bolster deterrence against Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful militia, in a bid to prevent a conflict between Israel and Lebanon. More recently, it created a special naval task force in the Red Sea to deal with broadening attacks against commercial shipping from Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen.
Iran also continues to aid Russia in its war with Ukraine, part of a growing axis between Iran and Washington’s top international foes.
The breadth of Iran-linked provocations in the region and beyond has led to a sharper debate in the Biden administration over how to approach Tehran in the coming months if the Gaza conflict dies down, U.S. officials say.
While parts of the administration still favor finding diplomatic solutions to ease the range of tensions, officials say there are louder voices than previously arguing that the breadth of Tehran’s militia-linked capabilities has reached an unprecedented level and that it needs to be tackled.
Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.comJesus, Gaza, and the Murder of Useless People
https://www.unz.com/article/jesus-gaza-and-the-murder-of-useless-people/… The different stories of his birth, told by Mathew and Luke in the New Testament, which are the bases for Christmas, are not filled with sugar plum fairies and sleighs filled with useless, unnecessary consumer goods.[…]
… Mathew and Luke’s birth narratives are replicated again and again throughout history, presently and most conspicuously in Gaza and the West Bank, as the massacre of the innocents continues under today’s King Herod, Benjamin Netanyahu, the client king of Washington, not Rome, while U.S. politicians, including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who claims to be a defender of children and opposed to U.S. war policies, support this genocide with rhetorical justifications that the Trappist monk Thomas Merton called the unspeakable:
It is the void that contradicts everything that is spoken even before the words are said; the void that gets into the language of public and official declarations at the very moment when they are pronounced, and makes them ring dead with the hollowness of the abyss. It is the void out of which Eichmann drew the punctilious exactitude of his obedience . . .
Israel Paying a Heavy Price for Its Crimes
https://kevinbarrett.substack.com/p/israel-paying-a-heavy-price-for-its
Following will most likely ring a bell for Dr. Day!
Postcards from the End of [the] America[n Empire]
California COVID Nurse exposes deadly COVID-19 Hospital Protocols (Remdesivir), and flood of COVID-19 Vaccine Injuries
http://linhdinhphotos.blogspot.com/2023/12/california-covid-nurse-exposes-deadly.html
F.S.
Interesting article by a Jew, Russian Jew, … now residing in Sweden. Traveling world a lot. Difficult to decipher. Prolific writer in the past, not so now. At one point and another suggested in his writings that he was – once – a member of Knesset, but kicked out out of it not long after, … that he is a son of one of the past prime ministers. He claims to “love” Palestinian people, … is proponent of “One State Solution” – Israel annexing West Bank and Gaza.
Anyway, … the article, it’s dated December 3, 2023 … large snip up front:
Gaza and Muslim Immigration to Europe
https://www.unz.com/ishamir/gaza-and-muslim-immigration-to-europe/We are trying our best to figure out – why is Jewry so keen to import as many Muslims to Europe and USA as possible, and at the same time prepare the Gaza genocide? Do they do it out of sheer idealism? Out of compassion (hard to believe)? Or out of silliness? Could it be that this calculating people didn’t take into account that Muslims might react to genocide against Palestinians? Granted, Europeans and Americans did their fair share of protesting, but Jews knew they could shut down the Goyim any time they wanted simply by uttering the magic Jewish spell “Holocaust – Auschwitz”.
Yet Jews understand better than anyone that their “fellow Semites” from the Middle East have not accepted the yoke of Holocaust Guilt. Jews are more aware than anyone that Muslims still chafe over the fact that their Palestinian brothers have been kept in an “open air concentration camp” for the last 50 years. So how can we explain the apparent tactical error when the ADL and other Jewish organizations twisted the arms of European and American leaders to accept hordes of fighting age Muslims just before an Israeli incursion into Gaza? Surely no! They do not make such mistakes!
When on Friday in Dublin a Muslim émigré from Algeria stabbed an Irish family and incited an anti-Muslim pogrom, we finally got the missing piece of this puzzle. I was waiting for “the rest of the story”, and it was unveiled at a crucial point in the drama – just as Dublin demonstrated en masse against the brutal murder of Gaza children, just when the Irish parliament threatened to expel the Israel ambassador, just as reports of anti-Semitism reached new highs. Just then it seemed that the Jews were beset from all sides, and that the whole world was against them. Of course, in every good story the darkest tidings come just before the dawn.
Jews are professional victims. They are good at it. They are willing to play the bad guy, but only in stories where Jewry is eventually vindicated and expendable Jews martyred. Jewish leaders believe that revenge is best served cold. […]
F.S.
