Mar 142023
 
 March 14, 2023  Posted by at 9:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  78 Responses »


Louis Anquetin Girl Reading a Newspaper 1890

 

Kremlin Explains Its ‘Only Option’ In Ukraine (RT)
Doubts In Ukraine About Readiness To Mount Offensive -WaPo (RT)
Xi Jinping Plans To Visit Moscow As Early As Next Week (TASS)
Germany Is Not An Independent Nation – Patrushev (RT)
Russia Insists On Objective Investigation Into Nord Stream Attack (TASS)
Hungarian Defense Minister: Europe Can Send Troops To Ukraine (Az.)
‘Yanukovich Case’ Tantamount To Kiev’s Confession Of Coup – Former PM (TASS)
Jan. 6 Attorney Alleges FBI Criminally Altered Evidence (ET)
US Heading For Another Great Depression – Trump (TASS)
Money Troubles (Kunstler)
Sorry, No Empathy, No Bailouts And YES I MEAN IT (Denninger)
Are The Evil Gods Returning? Or Is Evil Is Inside Us? (Ugo Bardi)
House Dems Use Hearing to Attack Both Free Speech and a Free Press (Turley)
mRNA Vaccine Contamination Much Worse Than Thought (DS)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RFK Trump

 

 

TUCKER: Should the United States support regime change in Russia?
TRUMP: No. We should support regime change in the United States, that’s far more important.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ischinger wants a “peace process” led by only one side of the conflict: US, UK, Germany and France. WTF?

Kremlin Explains Its ‘Only Option’ In Ukraine (RT)

There are currently no conditions for a peace settlement in Ukraine, meaning Russia has no other option but to keep fighting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has argued. “The absolute priority for us remains and will always remain reaching the goals that we’ve set for ourselves. At this point in time, they can only be achieved through military means,” the official told journalists on Monday. Peskov was reacting to an article penned by veteran German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger, who served as chair of the Munich Security Conference for over a decade. In a piece published by the Der Tagesspiegel daily on Sunday, Ischinger urged Western leaders to “start thinking about a peace process now” and create a special political contact group for the Ukraine conflict.

“In addition to arms deliveries and financial support, we have to offer perspectives to the growing chorus of questions by critics,” he argued. According to Ischinger’s proposal, the contact group would be led by the US, UK, Germany and France, with other nations and international organizations, including NATO, forming an “outer circle” of participants to lend legitimacy to any draft documents. The group’s task would be to prepare a ceasefire agreement and other paperwork to form the backbone for a post-conflict period. It would work alongside the so-called Ramstein Group, which funnels Western military aid to Ukraine. Ischinger stressed that the new initiative would not put pressure on Ukraine to negotiate.

The veteran German diplomat suggested a list of questions that the group would ask themselves, including: “Should a ceasefire agreement be endorsed by the UN Security Council?”, “Will there be a demilitarized buffer zone?”, and “Should the people in Crimea hold a referendum to decide who they belong to?”. Kiev has declared the full return of territories it claims as Ukrainian as a precondition for peace talks. Its national security council has also banned talks with Russia for as long as President Vladimir Putin remains in office. Moscow has argued that the Ukrainian government has effectively made peace talks impossible, and that Kiev has adopted its stance based on orders from the US, which is aiming to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.

Macgregor

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“Unfortunately, they are all already dead or wounded..”

Doubts In Ukraine About Readiness To Mount Offensive -WaPo (RT)

Kiev’s forces have been so “degraded” by a year of fighting against Russia that some Ukrainian officials doubt their ability to execute a planned spring offensive, the Washington Post has reported. The conflict has taken many of the most seasoned Ukrainian troops, with the arrival of inexperienced draftees changing the profile of the country’s military, the US paper pointed out on Monday. US and European officials have estimated that up 120,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the launch of Russia’s military operation last February, it added. Kiev keeps information abouts losses secret, even from its Western backers. “Unfortunately, they are all already dead or wounded,” a battalion commander in Ukraine’s 46th Air Assault Brigade, identified only by his call sign, Kupol, told the paper about his experienced troops.

And the poorly trained rookies that he’s been getting recently “just drop everything and run” as soon as the battle begins, the commander added. Another problem faced by Ukrainian troops is a shortage of ammunition, including artillery shells and mortar bombs, the Washington Post said, citing those fighting on the ground. “You’re on the front line. They’re coming toward you, and there’s nothing to shoot with,” Kupol said, describing the situation. “We don’t have the people or weapons,” an unnamed senior Ukrainian government official told the paper. He explained that casualties incurred by the side mounting an offensive are usually two or three times higher than on the defending side. “We can’t afford to lose that many people,” the official added.

“If you have more resources, you more actively attack. If you have fewer resources, you defend more. We’re going to defend. That’s why if you ask me personally, I don’t believe in a big counteroffensive for us. I’d like to believe in it, but I’m looking at the resources and asking, ‘With what?’ Maybe we’ll have some localized breakthroughs,” the source said. The official called the number of tanks promised to Kiev by the US and its allies “symbolic,” while some of other officials who talked to the paper didn’t believe that Western weapons would be able to reach the frontline in time. The newspaper also cited a US official, who said that – despite some gains on the battlefield recently – ammunition, manpower and motivation problems were even worse on the Russian side. However, no facts were provided to back this claim. As for Ukraine, the stakes will be “particularly high” in the coming months as Kiev’s Western supporters watch to see if the country can reclaim the initiative, the Washington Post noted.

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Zelensky wants to meet with Xi. He will not like that.

Xi Jinping Plans To Visit Moscow As Early As Next Week (TASS)

Chinese President Xi Jinping intends to visit Moscow as early as next week, Reuters reported on Monday, citing sources. According to its information, the Chinese leader expects to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. No details were given. The Wall Street Journal reported in February that the Chinese president’s trip to Moscow could take place in April or May. Last December, Putin, in talks with Xi Jinping via video conference call, invited him to come to Moscow in the spring of 2023. In February, the Russian president received Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), member of the CCP Politburo Wang Yi in the Kremlin. Putin then expressed the hope that this visit would give an additional impetus to the development of bilateral relations between Moscow and Beijing. The previous face-to-face meeting between the Russian leader and his Chinese counterpart took place in September 2022 in Samarkand during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit.

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“..this scenario would seem plausible only to people who “cannot think logically.”

Germany Is Not An Independent Nation – Patrushev (RT)

Germany is facing an inevitable economic decline after losing its access to Russian energy, but cannot do anything about it because it is not a sovereign nation, the secretary of the Russian National Security Council has claimed. “Germany tried for many years to build its economy on a combination of cheap Russian energy and advanced German technologies. Like no one else, it realizes that the terrorist attack against the [Nord Stream pipelines] will definitely cause the German economy to decline further,” Nikolay Patrushev said in an interview published in Argumenti i Fakti newspaper on Monday. The advantages that German businesses enjoyed by getting access to Russian fuel has long irritated the governments of the US and the UK, he continued.

But Berlin is not at liberty to continue cooperating with Moscow, “because the German nation is not independent.” “Washington imposes on Berlin its economic and environmental agenda and keeps a 35,000-strong military force on its soil. For years, the White House controlled [former chancellor] Angela Merkel, and now it forces the German leadership to side with the version of the pipeline sabotage that is advantageous to the US authorities,” Patrushev said, describing America’s treatment of Germany as “humiliating.” The remarks were part of Patrushev’s comments on the sabotage of the undersea pipelines, which were built to supply Germany with Russian natural gas. The Nord Stream links were ruptured by powerful explosions last September in what Russia has called a blatant terrorist attack.

A series of articles published by Western media this month claimed that Western intelligence services believe that a “pro-Ukrainian group” not associated with any government was behind the attack. Patrushev argued that, considering the training and equipment that such a complicated operation required, this scenario would seem plausible only to people who “cannot think logically.”

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“Berlin is well aware that close economic cooperation between Germany and Russia has never satisfied Washington and London..”

Russia Insists On Objective Investigation Into Nord Stream Attack (TASS)

Moscow insists that an objective international investigation with its participation should be carried out on the Nord Streams sabotage. The one-sided versions being heard now do little to explain anything, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said. “I emphasize that any accusations that are not supported by the results of an impartial investigation cannot be trusted. Therefore, Moscow insists on an objective investigation with the participation of Russia and other interested countries. Without this, voicing one-sided subjective versions of the terrorist attack does not explain anything,” he told the Argumenty i Fakty weekly on Monday.

According to Patrushev, Russia still did not know for certain who was behind the terrorist attacks at the Nord Stream gas pipelines, and the country has not been included in the investigation of this “unprecedented terrorist act”. He stressed that the situation was also complicated by the planting of a fake leak published without any reference to the real source. “Resolving to cover up the true patrons of the crime, the pro-government Anglo-Saxon media, following orders from above, laid the blame on a certain group of Ukrainian terrorists. In essence, they once again pointed to the terrorist nature of the current Kiev regime. At the same time, the authors of the information campaign thought that no one would object to this version,” the Russian Security Council Secretary stressed.

In his opinion, the idea that the US and the UK were not involved in the terrorist attack “is obviously driven by the calculation that the audience lacks the ability to think logically, including the method of denial.” “Since newspapers are emotionally claiming that the act of sabotage was carried out by a group of Ukrainian terrorists, the question to ask is whether such a group exists at all and if it’s capable of doing such things. It’s no secret that activities like this require special ops units that are properly trained and equipped,” Patrushev noted. According to the security chief, the US and England certainly have such capabilities. Other NATO countries also use combat swimmers for sabotage tasks but only “with the consent and support of the country that determines the main agenda for NATO,” the official explained.

Patrushev also suggested considering who benefited from the attack. “Were the blasts advantageous for Ukraine or Germany? Kiev neither lost nor gained anything from the gas pipeline destruction. Moreover, such an act is not advantageous for the Zelensky regime, which actually begs Berlin to give more military and other aid, and has no use for such an act,” he said. Germany, who for many years has been trying to build its economy based on a combination of cheap energy resources from Russia and advanced German technology, knows better than anyone else that the attack on the pipeline would definitely lead the economy of Germany to a further decline, added the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. “At the same time, Berlin is well aware that close economic cooperation between Germany and Russia has never satisfied Washington and London,” he recalled.

Along with that, Patrushev pointed out that it has long been clear that today’s German state was not independent: Washington imposed its economic and environmental policy on Berlin and kept a 35,000-strong military contingent on its territory. “It is known that for many years the White House controlled [former German Chancellor] Angela Merkel, and today it is forcing the German leadership to go along with the US authorities’ version of the pipeline sabotage. Perhaps that is why [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz was urgently summoned to Washington for a meeting with [US President Joe] Biden. By doing so, the US continues to humiliate Germany, showing it its place,” he concluded.

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We’re working on it. But other than 30,000 Poles, which other country is ready to send troops?

Hungarian Defense Minister: Europe Can Send Troops To Ukraine (Az.)

Europe’s tendency to supply Ukraine with lethal weapons and armored vehicles could lead to the deployment of troops to the conflict zone, Minister of Defense of Hungary Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky said, Report informs. “Now we are at the point where we need to participate; we need to get involved, first by voting for sanctions, then with money, then only with defense means; now we already see that they are sending tanks, Leopard, fighter jets are also on the way, and if this continues, soldiers will be needed if Ukrainian human resources run out,” he said.

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“.. In October 2016, Ukraine’s new authorities stripped Yanukovich of the title of president..” That’s 2,5 years after the coup.

‘Yanukovich Case’ Tantamount To Kiev’s Confession Of Coup – Former PM (TASS)

The Kiev regime’s charges against the ex-president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, of illegal border crossing and incitement to desertion are tantamount to a confession a coup d’état was staged in Ukraine in 2014, Ukraine’s former prime minister Nikolay Azarov (2010-2014) said on Monday. “In any unclear situation in Ukraine the Kiev regime blames Yanukovich. It is alleged that on February 23, Yanukovich fled Ukraine and encouraged about 20 of his guards, who were members of the state bodyguard service, to emigrate. What idiot has concocted this case?! First, they themselves were yelling at the top of their lungs that Yanukovich had quit on his own and left the territory of Ukraine on February 21. Now they themselves have admitted that Yanukovich was on the territory of Ukraine on February 21, which means that there was no quitting on his part,” Azarov he wrote on his page on a social network.

The former prime minister urged Ukrainians to independently assess the inconsistency of the Kiev regime’s actions. On March 10, the Office of Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General announced that a district court in Kiev would hold hearings in absentia on the case of illegal border crossing and incitement to desertion against Yanukovich. The other defendant in this case is Konstantin Kobzar, the former chief of the head of state’s bodyguards. According to investigators, on February 23, 2014, Yanukovich and Kobzar illegally crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border twice and smuggled at least 20 people across it. On the same day, if the Prosecutor General’s Office is to be believed, Yanukovich, while staying on the territory of a military unit of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, was “instigating” his bodyguards commit desertion.

Yanukovich served as Ukraine’s president from 2010 to 2014. During the coup d’état in February 2014, he was essentially ousted from office by force and, faced with a threat to his personal safety, had to flee the country. In October 2016, Ukraine’s new authorities stripped Yanukovich of the title of president, and a month later launched criminal proceedings against him in absentia on charges of treason. In 2019, a court in Kiev sentenced Yanukovich in absentia to 13 years in prison.

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“Miller’s hidden messages reveal casual discussions among the FBI regarding the monitoring of codefendant Rehl’s trial strategy, Rehl’s defenses and ‘interesting’ points, and ways the government can get around Rehl’s defenses..”

Jan. 6 Attorney Alleges FBI Criminally Altered Evidence (ET)

Rogers Roots, an attorney representing Dominic Pezzola, a Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach defendant, alleged on Sunday that the FBI had committed crimes by altering evidence and requested that the court appoint a special master to review the evidence. Roots’s move came days after the testimony of FBI Special Agent Nicole Miller, who was involved in the agency’s investigations of the Jan. 6 defendants. When cross-examining Miller, Nick Smith, an attorney representing Proud Boys member Ethan Nordean (listed as co-defendant on Pezzola’s case), revealed classified FBI emails that were hidden in a tab in an Excel spreadsheet, which included a directive to Miller to “destroy” 338 pieces of evidence and “edit out” an FBI agent from an informant report.

“Destroying evidence is a federal crime. It actually falls under a federal crime under more than one statute. The same goes with altering documents, altering records, that is a federal crime,” the John Pierce Law attorney told The Epoch Times in an interview on Sunday. In a filing on Sunday, Roots requested that Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee presiding over the case, either dismiss the case in its entirety or appoint a special master to independently review the FBI messages that were revealed in court. “The unceremonious and uninhibited nature of Miller’s discussion of committing these serious crimes suggests an FBI culture of corruption and lawlessness that must be immediately stopped, and fully investigated,” Roots said in the filing. A key question about these leaked messages is whether they fall under the scope of evidence in the case.

Roots said in the filing that the messages show a violation of due process, reiterating his argument in an earlier filing that the FBI’s monitoring of communications between a co-defendant, Zachary Rehl, and his attorney violated the Sixth Amendment, which prohibits invasion of the right to counsel (Matter of Fusco v. Moses). “Miller’s hidden messages reveal casual discussions among the FBI regarding the monitoring of codefendant Rehl’s trial strategy, Rehl’s defenses and ‘interesting’ points, and ways the government can get around Rehl’s defenses,” Roots said in the Sunday filing. In the filing, Roots requested the court dismiss Pezzola’s case with prejudice, appoint a special counsel, appoint a special master, schedule extensive evidentiary hearings, and release Pezzola from custody.

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“We will have a great depression far bigger and more powerful than that of 1929. As proof, the banks are already starting to collapse!!!”

US Heading For Another Great Depression – Trump (TASS)

Former US President Donald Trump has blamed the incumbent, Joe Biden, for the economic problems of the United States and predicted a new Great Depression. “With what is happening to our economy, and with the proposals being made on the largest and dumbest tax increase in the history of the USA Joe Biden will go down as the Herbert Hoover (US President in 1929-1933) of the modern age. We will have a great depression far bigger and more powerful than that of 1929. As proof, the banks are already starting to collapse!!!” he wrote on his social network Truth Social on Monday.


On Friday, the California Department of Financial Protection announced the bankruptcy of the 16th largest bank in the US, Silicon Valley Bank. It serviced primarily employees of the high-tech sector workers and venture capital-funded companies, including some of the industry’s most well-established brands. According to CNN, this was the largest bank failure in the United States since the 2008 financial crisis. The Great Depression was a global economic crisis that began on October 24, 1929 with the stock market crash in the United States. It lasted until 1939. Industrial cities were the hardest hit, construction almost stopped, farm produce prices plummeted and mass unemployment ravaged the country.

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“..the interest rate hikes that Mr. Powell spoke of so confidently only days ago just got stashed into his folder labeled “Fuggeddabowdit.”

Money Troubles (Kunstler)

Since banks today exist in a vast matrix of interconnected obligations — promises to pay this-and-that — fear grows that the rot from one bank, such as SVB, will infect many other banks that are no longer able to keep their promises about paying this-and-that, leading to a daisy-chain of things not getting paid. For an economy, that’s about the same as the blood ceasing to circulate in a body. The practice in situations such as this (say, as in 2008-09) is for the governing authorities — who supposedly rule over the banking world like gods — to rush to rescue these outfits with “liquidity,” money (or representations of it) as required to re-balance things, or, maybe provide the impression of re-balancing until something else can be figured out. The Jupiter and Minerva of American banking, Jay Powell and Janet Yellen, were faced with just that sort of call for divine intervention over the weekend as fear seeped into every nook and crevice of the money world that wealth was flaring away in the long-feared-of conflagration out of the dumpster banking had become.

Sunday morning, Ms. Yellen told CBS News “bailouts, no way” but by the afternoon Mr. Powell cried “bailouts, way,” and they had to get their story straight. They offered up $25-billion to bail out depositors for a smoldering system that will arguably require a trillion dollars or more of liquidity to quench the spreading fires. One thing looks for sure: the interest rate hikes that Mr. Powell spoke of so confidently only days ago just got stashed into his folder labeled “Fuggeddabowdit.” So, the campaign to control inflation must now yield to the urgent need to create a whole lot of money to spray over those fires.

You may have noticed that the value of your money has been slip-sliding away the past year or so. Peanut butter at five bucks a jar, and all. The situation at hand kind of guarantees that we’ll be seeing a whole lot more of that. And then the gods of money will have lost control of the interest rate console altogether. No more tweaking the broken knobs. More inflation will prompt US treasury paper holders to dump what they can while there’s still some value to retrieve. But the US has to issue more debt for all the bail-outs and theoretical buyers of new debt will perforce bid up the rates to keep up with inflation… and yet the US can’t possibly bear the burden of paying higher interest on its debt. Looks like the business model for running the USA is breaking down before our eyes.

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“What was featured in the stupidity of 2008? Allowing banks to run with no reserves..”

Sorry, No Empathy, No Bailouts And YES I MEAN IT (Denninger)

The so-called “Chief Risk Officer” at SVB had a masters in….. public administration. Anyone care to bet if she passed any form of advanced mathematics — you know, like for example Calculus or Statistics? Do you think she understood exponents and why this graph made clear that concentration of risk and duration was stupid and likely to blow up in everyone’s face — including hers? How about Bill Ackman and the others on the Internet screaming for a bailout? How about the CFOs of public companies like Roku that stuck several hundred million dollars in said bank? Was it not widespread public knowledge (and available to anyone who took 15 minutes to do research, which you’d think someone would do before putting a hundred million bucks somewhere) that this institution was chock-full of VC-funded startup companies which, historically fail 90% of the time and their debt becomes impaired or even worthless?

Where are the indictments for fiduciary malfeasance among these people? It takes a literal five minutes with Excel to prove to yourself that if debt is rising faster than GDP no matter the interest rate eventually the interest payments on that debt will exceed all of the economy. This of course is impossible because you cannot use over 100% of anything as its not there, but long before you reach that point you’re going to have trouble putting food on the table, fuel in the vehicle and paychecks are going to bounce. It was for this reason that one of the first sections in my book Leverage, written after the 2008 blowup which I chronicled and laid bare upon the table featured exactly this chart.

The last bit of insanity was just 15 years ago by my math. Did we fix it? No. What was featured in the stupidity of 2008? Allowing banks to run with no reserves. Who did that? Ben Bernanke, who got it into the TARP bill that eventually passed and which I reported on at the time. It accelerated that which was already going to happen because Congress is full of people who think trees grow to the moon, leverage is never bad and exponents are a suggestion. Oh by the way, your local Realtor thinks so to as does, apparently, the former SVB “risk officer” who, it is clear, didn’t understand exponents — or didn’t care. The simple reality is that it must always cost to borrow money in real terms.

This means the rate of interest must be positive in said real terms, which means across the curve rates must be higher than inflation — again, in real terms, not in “CPI” which has intentional distortions in it such as “Owner’s Equivalent Rent” when you’re not renting a house, you’re buying it. Had said “CPI” actually had home prices in it then it would have shown a doubling in many markets in that section of the economy over the last three years. In other words housing alone would have resulted in a roughly 10% per year inflation rate, plus all the other increases, which means the Fed Funds rate should have been 300bips or so beyond that all the way back to 2020 — which would put Fed Funds at about 13% for the last three years. It isn’t of course but if it had been then all those “housing price increases” would not have happened at all. Incidentally even today the Fed Funds rate is below inflation and thus the crazy is still on.

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“We were mistreated by dumb bureaucrats, not by the minions of evil deities..”

Are The Evil Gods Returning? Or Is Evil Is Inside Us? (Ugo Bardi)

[..] sometimes you have the sensation that something truly evil is moving in the world. Naomi Wolf expressed the idea most clearly in a recent post of hers. I could not explain the way the Western world simply switched from being based at least overtly on values of human rights and decency, to values of death, exclusion and hatred, overnight, en masse — without reference to some metaphysical evil that goes above and beyond fallible, blundering human agency. … “What we have lived through since 2020 is so sophisticated, so massive, so evil, and executed in such inhumane unison, that it cannot be accounted for without venturing into metaphysics. Something else, something metaphysical, must have done that. And I speak as a devoted rationalist.”

Lately, I’ve been thinking along similar lines. I even argued that worshiping the evil deity Baphomet could be a good idea for really nasty people who want to dominate the world. Overall, though, I think it is not the right explanation. No matter how inexplicable the rise of evil can look, it is still something that comes from inside us, not from the outside. Evil is us, eventually. The recent release of the “Lockdown Files” in Britain supports this idea. These files contain the messages sent and received by Matt Hancock, the British Secretary of State for Health and Social Care during the lockdown period in Britain. In these messages, Hancock doesn’t sound evil. He just writes as if he cared only about himself, and his personal prestige. He wanted to “own the exit,” and he didn’t care about the British people, whom he evidently considered a band of morons. We were mistreated by dumb bureaucrats, not by the minions of evil deities.

Now, I have a stated policy that I call the “Grokking Strategy” that consists in listening to everyone and trusting no one. So, I am perfectly willing to consider the hypothesis that the Hancock files are a psyop designed to divert the public’s attention away from the hidden forces that governed the reaction to the pandemic. On the whole, though, I think these files are genuine. They make sense, and they also match other examples of the same kind. For instance, we recently saw similar leaks of messages sent and received by the Italian equivalent of Hancock, Mr. Roberto Speranza, Minister of Health of the Italian government during the lockdown period. We can’t swear on the authenticity of these leaked messages, but they fit with the personality of Mr. Speranza. Like Hancock, he was clearly trying to “own the exit.” In late 2020, he published an autobiographical book designed to show how he had been valiantly fighting the virus and eventually had succeeded in squashing it. The book was quietly removed from the market when it turned out that the pandemic was not over. Now a printed copy is a rare collector’s item.

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The Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger hearing was unreal.

House Dems Use Hearing to Attack Both Free Speech and a Free Press (Turley)

“At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” Those words were first asked by lawyer Joseph Welch in his confrontation with Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) during the Senate’s infamous Army-McCarthy hearings. This week, nearly 70 years later, Welch’s words seem more relevant than ever after House Democrats savaged two journalists who attempted to explain a government effort to censor citizens. It was only the latest of a series of hearings in which FBI agents and other whistleblowers, experts and journalists have been personally attacked for raising free-speech concerns. Last week’s hearing showed definitively that we live in a post-decency era.

The latest attacks came as journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger testified about breaking the “Twitter Files” story, detailing how the FBI and other agencies secretly sought to censor or ban citizens from social media. In her opening statement, Delegate Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands), the ranking member of the House Judiciary subcommittee, attacked them as “so-called journalists” and said they were “a direct threat” to the safety of others by reporting the censorship story. Taibbi pushed back, saying that “I’m not a ‘so-called’ journalist” and giving a brief description of his award-winning career at Rolling Stone magazine and other publications. Yet other committee members also attacked the honesty of the two journalists. And after failed efforts to claim they were Elon Musk’s corrupt “scribes,” or limited by him in their investigations, the committee members attacked their ethics.

The witnesses were attacked on everything but their choice of socks. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) even claimed that “being a Republican witness today certainly casts a cloud over your objectivity.” When Wasserman Schultz impugned the two journalists’ honesty and ethics, she immediately “reclaimed (her) time” to prevent them from defending themselves. When the subcommittee chair gave them a chance to answer her claims, Wasserman Schultz and her Democratic colleagues objected that a witness was allowed to defend himself after being blocked from doing so. In an earlier attack, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) prevented Taibbi from answering a question and dismissed his effort to defend his position, saying: “This is how it works now. I’ll ask the question and you try to provide an answer if you can.”

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“100 times greater than previously reported..” But Pfizer knew…

mRNA Vaccine Contamination Much Worse Than Thought (DS)

The contamination of mRNA vaccines with DNA is far greater than initially thought at up to 35%, and the DNA’s role in inducing human cells to produce the spike protein long term has been confirmed, according to the latest research. Earlier this month, the Daily Sceptic reported on the work of Dr. Kevin McKernan and his team who had subjected the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna to deep sequencing analysis and found alarming levels of DNA contaminants known as plasmids. These are small circular DNA molecules that in principle can self-replicate in bacterial and human cells and induce the cell to produce the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein long term. Each vaccine dose was found to contain billions of these plasmids.

Japan deaths

The Moderna vaccine appeared to contain DNA contamination at around the ‘safe’ level set by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) at the equivalent of one part per 3,000 mRNA molecules, though it’s not clear how safe this level really is. The Pfizer vaccine, on the other hand, was found to contain DNA contamination at 10 times the ‘safe’ level, at one plasmid per 350 mRNA molecules. The DNA is part of the vaccine manufacturing process, providing the blueprint for the mRNA, but it should have been removed to at least the ‘safe’ level, though was not for reasons that are unclear. Now, Dr. McKernan and his team have undertaken further analysis and found that the level of DNA contamination is much greater than originally reported, with up to 35% of the vaccine product being this DNA contamination. They write:


This equates to 20-35% of the nucleic acid in each vaccine being expression vector. This is several orders of magnitude over the the EMAs limit of 330ng/mg. With these levels of contamination, RT activity from LINE-1 is not a prerequisite for genome integration. Molecular biologist Dr. Jessica Rose explains that this means each dose may contain trillions of DNA molecules, 100 times greater than previously reported: “The left-over expression vectors used to manufacture the mRNAs are at contamination levels 100-fold higher than originally proposed and imply trillions of DNA molecules per dose. This has implications for integration into our genome.”

Dowd
https://twitter.com/i/status/1635330030845980673

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Walking oats

 

 

 

 

Frens

 

 

Godfather

 

 

Heron

 

 

Shelter

 

 

 

 

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Mar 272019
 


Robert Frank Funeral, St. Helena, South Carolina 1955

 

 

Bit unusual, but why not. I was reading British press earlier, trying to figure out what the fcuk is going on in London two days before March 29, and in an article in the Guardian I saw this comment, and thought it should be saved for posterity.

Since the article is/was one of those live updates ones, which tend to get very long, and moreover at the point I read it it already had well over 11,000 other comments, posting it here seemed to be the way to go to achieve that.

It was posted by someone who named themselves Tintenfische (German for squid, octopus?!), and that’s all I know about this person(s), who imagines a speech someone should stand up and deliver in the house. I think it says exactly what needs to be said, what politicians should say, in Britain where civil unrest is much closer than anyone wants to see, in the US where very similar scenarios are playing out, and in many other countries.

The failure of party politics is everywhere to be seen.

 

 

Tintenfische: Speech I wish someone would have the courage to give.

 

As I stand in Parliament today I see the faces of friends and colleagues I’ve worked alongside, struggled alongside, triumphed and lost alongside. Good men and women all from both sides of the house.

We and the parties we represent have fought for our beliefs and battled for our constituents for centuries. We’ve done what we believed to be right, we’ve fought battles we believed should be fought and shown the people across the globe how democracy when at its best is the only route to freedom. In this place too I’m confronted with history. It was here that our predecessors decided to stand up to fascism, where we ended slavery and wrote into law that no man or woman, no matter their race, colour, who they fall in love with or who they pray to is less than any other of us. We declared as a house that injustice must be fought, that evil opposed and democracy triumphed. 

Great things have been done in this place, great things by great men, great women and even greater parties. However my friends that legacy is now at an end.

We have failed.

We have failed and our failure has broken this house and the institution we love. We have failed and with that too comes the failure of party politics.

None of us can run from that reality, none of us can hide, deny or challenge that reality. We have through partisan means on both sides of this house broken government of this once united nation. I could list the decisions, the politics, the loyalties which delivered this rupture. I could name names, point out lies and tell of moments when through advantage, greed or idiocy we decided to do what was best for our parties rather than our country, what was best for us rather than our constituents. I could list all those many many occasions when we as servants of the people failed the people, but what would be the point?

The truth is none of us are innocent, none of us escape blame. We as the leaders of this country could have stopped a collapse but we all chose this place and control over it as being more important than those outside. We chose ourselves and our parties ahead of our people.

But what else could we do? We could have stood up, we could have protested, we could have denied our own leaders but to what end? We all believe that we and the parties we represent are best placed to do what is right for this country. We all think that the shared policies, morals and ethics of ourselves and our parties are the right way for a country to be run. If we didn’t believe we knew best we wouldnt be here. But there’s the problem, circumstance has shown this not to be the case. Now we stand atop of a divided, fractured nation one which may never be able to be reformed and that has happened because of us. It is our fault. By following those certainties of righteousness and rightness both of ourselves and of our parties we have precipitated this collapse. We are now the problem.

 

So what’s to be done? We could just carry on, we could just continue down this same path which every day makes this country more divided, more ungovernable, more leaderless. We certainly could do that and looking around this room it’s easy to see so many of us already resigned to the path of destruction. Resigned to a rapid decline because we’re all too Cowed too timid to say no.

But we could also say no. We could as one house say to the country “I’m sorry but no. We can’t make these decisions, we’re not good enough. We can’t do anything but fail you or your future from here on in”. The people elected us to represent them it is true but we’re no longer capable of that, our parties are no longer capable of that. It is no longer in the national interest that we continue to represent the people when we can’t even govern ourselves.

We need to change ladies and gentlemen, we need to be better. We need to be greater than the sum of our parts. Each and everyone of us needs to decide who and what we our, who we represent. We need to turn away from the saftey and comradeship of party loyalty and act and vote on what we believe to be right, what we believe to be in the best interests of our nation, not what our leaders tell us is best because if we’ve failed then our leaders are double damned by their double failure. 

What I’m asking is extreme, I’m asking you my fellow members to destroy the parties you all represent. I’m asking you for the sake of the nation to walk away from rosette loyalty and remember your oaths. I’m asking you to do the right thing.

We are no longer able to govern, we cannot lead and we cannot decide. We must return the question of our place in the world back to the people and once that’s done we must dissolve this house and our parties and a new slate be mined because right now not one of us is fit to stand in this place and claim leadership of this disunited kingdom.

 

 

Jul 312018
 
 July 31, 2018  Posted by at 8:46 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  4 Responses »


René Magritte The son of man 1946

 

‘Prophet Of Doom’ Predicts Stock Market Will Plunge More Than 50% (MW)
Prepare For Biggest Stock-Market Selloff In Months – Morgan Stanley (MW)
US Treasury Raises 2018 Borrowing Need To $1.33 Trillion (ZH)
QE Turns Ten (Stephen Roach)
Fruits of the Great 2017 GOP Tax Cut Scam (Lendman)
Britain’s Borrowing Binge Continues As Brexit Looms (Ind.)
Brexit: UK Warns EU Of Tit-For-Tat Measures Over Financial Services (G.)
Trump Offer To Meet Iran President Rouhani Dismissed By Both Sides (G.)
The Ubiquity of Evil (Craig Murray)
World’s Largest King Penguin Colony Has Declined By 90% (G.)
Charities Damned For ‘Abject Failure’ In Tackling Sexual Abuse (G.)

 

 

We take John Hussman seriously.

‘Prophet Of Doom’ Predicts Stock Market Will Plunge More Than 50% (MW)

John Hussman, president of Hussman Investment Trust, describes himself as an economist, a philanthropist, and a “realist optimist often viewed as a prophet of doom” on his Twitter profile. That last bit may be the one investors care about on Monday as the stock market shows signs of unraveling on the back of the tech sector’s stumble. Hussman’s claim to fame includes forecasting the market collapses of 2000 and 2007-2008. Since then, however, he’s also become known as a permabear for his repeated calls for sharp stock market declines and his oft-repeated mantra of “overbought, overvalued, overbullish” as the bull market continues into its ninth year by some measures. Hussman says he’s learned from and addressed past errors.

In his most recent call, he argued that measured “from their highs of early-2018, we presently estimate that the completion of the current cycle will result in market losses on the order of -64% for the S&P 500 index, -57% for the Nasdaq-100 Index, -68% for the Russell 2000 index, and nearly -69% for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.” He admits the numbers seem extreme but says they are backed up what he refers to as the “Iron Law of Valuation.” “The higher the price investors pay for a given set of expected future cash flows, the lower the long-term investment returns they should expect. As a result, it’s precisely when past investment returns look most glorious that future investment returns are likely to be most dismal, and vice versa,” he writes.

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Tech.

Prepare For Biggest Stock-Market Selloff In Months – Morgan Stanley (MW)

The U.S. stock market has been partying all throughout July, and a hangover is coming. That is according to analysts at Morgan Stanley, who said that Wall Street’s rally is showing signs of “exhaustion,” and that with major positive catalysts for trading now in the rearview mirror, there’s little that could continue to propel equities higher. “With Amazon’s strong quarter out of the way, and a very strong 2Q GDP number on the tape, investors were finally faced with the proverbial question of ’what do I have to look forward to now?’ The selling started slowly, built steadily, and left the biggest winners of the year down the most. The bottom line for us is that we think the selling has just begun and this correction will be biggest since the one we experienced in February,” the investment bank wrote to clients.

The decline “could very well have a greater negative impact on the average portfolio if it’s centered on tech, consumer discretionary and small-caps, as we expect.” A correction is technically defined as a decline of at least 10% from a recent peak. Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA and the S&P 500 corrected in early February, on concerns that inflation was returning to markets. While the Dow remains in correction territory—meaning it hasn’t yet risen 10% from its low of the pullback—the S&P exited just last week, following its longest stint in correction territory since 1984. The Nasdaq Composite Index never fell into correction.

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Infinity and beyond.

US Treasury Raises 2018 Borrowing Need To $1.33 Trillion (ZH)

America’s funding needs are starting to grow at a dangerous pace. Even before the NYT reported of Trump’s startling suggestion of a further $100 billion tax cut in the form of an inflation-adjusted capital gains tax cost basis which mostly benefits the wealthy, earlier today the U.S. Treasury said it expects to borrow $56 billion more during the third quarter than previously estimated, while market participants expect shorter-dated Treasuries to absorb the brunt of the new supply as the Trump administration grapples with a mushrooming budget deficit.

In the Treasury’s latest quarterly Sources and Uses table, it revealed that it expects to issue $329 billion in net marketable debt from July through September, and $56 billion more than the $273 billion estimated three months ago, in April. assuming an end-of-September cash balance of $350 billion, matching its previous estimate. It also forecast $440 billion of borrowing in the final three months of the year, with a $390 billion cash balance on December 31. The borrowing estimate for the third quarter is the highest since the same period in 2010 and the fourth largest on record for the July-September quarter, according to Reuters. In the second quarter, net borrowing totaled $72 billion, slightly below the earlier prediction of $75 billion.

The US fiscal picture continues to darken as a result of rising social security costs, military spending and debt service expenses while corporate tax income is declining after last year’s tax reforms. As a result, the federal budget deficit is expected to reach $833 billion this year, up from $666 billion in the budget year ended last September, a number that is well below the net funding demands for the US Treasury. The new projections put total net borrowing at $769 billion for the second half of 2018 and a whopping $1.33 trillion for the whole year.

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The Fed has been granted far too much power. We’re going to regret that.

QE Turns Ten (Stephen Roach)

November 2018 will mark the tenth anniversary of quantitative easing (QE) — undoubtedly the boldest policy experiment in the modern history of central banking. The only thing comparable to QE was the US Federal Reserve’s anti-inflation campaign of 1979-1980, orchestrated by the Fed’s then-chair, Paul Volcker. But that earlier effort entailed a major adjustment in interest rates via conventional monetary policy. By contrast, the Fed’s QE balance-sheet adjustments were unconventional and, therefore, untested from the start.

[..] The most important lesson pertains to traction — the link between Fed policy and its congressionally mandated objectives of maximum employment and price stability. On this count, the verdict on QE is mixed: The first tranche (QE1) was very successful in arresting a wrenching financial crisis in 2009. But the subsequent rounds (QE2 and QE3) were far less effective. The Fed mistakenly believed that what worked during the crisis would work equally well afterwards. An unprecedentedly weak economic recovery – roughly 2% annual growth over the past nine-plus years, versus a 4% norm in earlier cycles – says otherwise. Whatever the reason for the anemic recovery – a Japanese-like post-crisis balance-sheet recession or a 1930s style liquidity trap – the QE payback was disappointing.

From September 2008 to November 2014, successive QE programs added $3.6 trillion to the Fed’s balance sheet, nearly 25% more than the $2.9 trillion expansion of nominal GDP over the same period. A comparable assessment of disappointing interest-rate effects is reflected in recent “event studies” research that calls into question the link between QE and ten-year Treasury yields. A second lesson speaks to addiction – namely, a real economy that became overly reliant on QE’s support of asset markets. The excess liquidity spawned by the Fed’s balance-sheet expansion not only spilled over into equity markets, but also provided support for the bond market. As such, monetary policy, rather than market-based fundamentals, increasingly shaped asset prices.

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QE, tax cuts, it’s all just a great wealth transfer.

Fruits of the Great 2017 GOP Tax Cut Scam (Lendman)

David Stockman estimates the great GOP tax cut heist will increase the federal debt to around $35 trillion by 2028. Most discretionary US spending goes for militarism, war-making, corporate welfare, and police state harshness. According to Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), the fruits of last year’s great GOP tax cut heist were as follows: 4.3% of workers got wage hikes or bonuses – 6.7 million out of 155 million. Only a handful of employers provided them so far – 407 out of 5.9 million. Corporate predators are getting 11-fold as much in tax breaks as they’re giving workers in extra pay and bonuses – $77 billion v. $7 billion.

Corporate predators are spending 88 times the amount on stock buybacks as on worker wage hikes and bonuses – $7 billion v. $617 billion. Trump’s highly touted “middle class miracle” was a colossal Big Lie. It’s been a bonanza for corporate predators, high net-worth households, and real estate tycoons like himself – a scam for ordinary Americans. It’s ballooning the deficit, social benefits being slashed to help pay for it, a clearly transparent wealth transfer scheme. Economists know tax cuts don’t create jobs and stimulate growth unless benefits help workers substantially. When money is in the pockets of ordinary people, they spend it, best accomplished through higher wages, at least keeping pace with inflation.

Post-9/11, America has been thirdworldized to benefit corporate predators and high net-worth individuals at the expense of working households. Ordinary Americans have been scammed to make privileged ones richer. Separately, according to Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), healthcare insurers intend instituting huge premium increases in 2019. They’ll range from around 12% to a whopping 91% requested by a Maryland insurer.

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Credit Cards ‘R’ Us.

Britain’s Borrowing Binge Continues As Brexit Looms (Ind.)

Britain’s credit card fuelled spending binge continues apace, according to the latest figures from the Bank of England. Lending via plastic rose by an annualised 9.5 in June, outpacing other forms of unsecured credit (8.5 per cent). Mortgage lending, by contrast, ticked up by a more modest 3.2 per cent. The release of the figures followed a report by the Office for National Statistics that last week found UK consumers collectively spent more than they earned in 2017, the first time that has happened in almost 30 years. It looks like we’re due a repeat this year. How much of a worry is this? Regulators say most people can afford to repay what they have borrowed.

However, the Prudential Regulatory Authority, that oversees institutions’ financial soundness, last year undertook a review of consumer lending that resulted in what could be read as a shot across the industry’s bows. The Financial Conduct Authority, meanwhile, tweaked its rules in July, making it clear that it wanted lenders to asses not just whether consumers can repay what they have borrowed but whether they can do so “affordably and without this significantly affecting their wider financial situation”. It follows a speech in March by Jonathan Davidson, the watchdog’s director of supervision, in which he said that “a firm whose business model is predicated on selling products to customers who can’t afford to repay them is not acceptable, nor is it a sustainable long-term strategy”.

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Yeah, the UK is really in a position to utter threats.

Brexit: UK Warns EU Of Tit-For-Tat Measures Over Financial Services (G.)

UK negotiators have told their counterparts in Brussels that about 7,000 European-based investment funds that rely on British clients for their cash and profits will be hit by regulators unless the EU changes its position on the City of London after Brexit. As frustration grows within Whitehall at what is seen as a dogmatic position taken by the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, the British side has upped the ante by making an implicit threat to EU interests. A section of a UK presentation made to the European commission’s negotiators last week, and seen by the Guardian, says that unless Brussels allows all UK sectors of the City of London to continue to operate after Brexit as they do today, at least initially, obstacles to European financial interests operating in the UK could also be put in place.

The British government says the EU’s “equivalence regime”, under which UK providers would have the right to offer financial services in the European economic area after Brexit, does not cover enough sectors or provide adequate assurances to UK-based banks and fund managers. The UK also wants equivalence decisions to be made collaboratively between Brussels and Whitehall on whether parts of the financial sector will be able to continue to operate across the Channel as regulations diverge after Brexit. As it stands, a declaration of equivalencecan be easily revoked with only 30 days’ notice under existing EU legislation. The EU is resisting, and insists it will not offer a bespoke deal on financial services. It says that what works for US financial services providers will have to work for the UK.

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Peace with Russia, peace with Iran, that’s not the playbook, Donald.

Trump Offer To Meet Iran President Rouhani Dismissed By Both Sides (G.)

Donald Trump has said he would “certainly meet” Iranian president Hassan Rouhani without preconditions, a move that was later rejected by Trump’s own administration and one of Rouhani’s advisers. Speaking during a joint news conference with Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, Trump said he would meet Iran “anytime they want to”. “I’ll meet with anybody,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with meeting.” Asked whether he would set any preconditions, Trump was clear. “No preconditions, no. If they want to meet, I’ll meet any time they want,” he said. “Good for the country, good for them, good for us and good for the world. No preconditions. If they want to meet, I’ll meet.”

Trump’s apparently spontaneous overture marked a significant shift in tone and follows escalating rhetoric in the wake of his dumping in May of the landmark Iran nuclear accord. The administration is set next month to begin reimposing sanctions that had been lifted under the 2015 deal and has been ratcheting up a pressure campaign on the Islamic republic that many suspect is aimed at regime change. After the comment, secretary of state Mike Pompeo appeared to contradict Trump, listing preconditions that had to be met first. He told CNBC on Monday: “If the Iranians demonstrate a commitment to make fundamental changes in how they treat their own people, reduce their malign behaviour, can agree that it’s worthwhile to enter in a nuclear agreement that actually prevents proliferation, then the president said he’s prepared to sit down and have a conversation with him,” he said.

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Murray on his time as a UK diplomat.

The Ubiquity of Evil (Craig Murray)

I had served as First Secretary in the British Embassy in Poland, and bumped up startlingly against the history of the Holocaust in that time, including through involvement with organising the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. What had struck me most forcibly was the sheer scale of the Holocaust operation, the tens of thousands of people who had been complicit in administering it. I could never understand how that could happen – until I saw ordinary, decent people in the FCO facilitate extraordinary rendition and torture. Then I understood, for the first time, the banality of evil or, perhaps more precisely, the ubiquity of evil. Of course, I am not comparing the scale of what happened to the Holocaust – but evil can operate on different scales.

I believe I see it again today. I do not believe that the majority of journalists in the BBC, who pump out a continual stream of “Corbyn is an anti-semite” propaganda, believe in their hearts that Corbyn is a racist at all. They are just doing their job, which is to help the BBC avert the prospect of a radical government in the UK threatening the massive wealth share of the global elite. They would argue that they are just reporting what others say; but it is of course the selection of what they report and how they report it which reflect their agenda.

The truth, of which I am certain, is this. If there genuinely was the claimed existential threat to Jews in Britain, of the type which engulfed Europe’s Jews in the 1930’s, Jeremy Corbyn, Billy Bragg, Roger Waters and I may humbly add myself would be among the few who would die alongside them on the barricades, resisting. Yet these are today loudly called “anti-semites” for supporting the right to oppose the oppression of the Palestinians. The journalists currently promoting those accusations, if it came to the crunch, would be polishing state propaganda and the civil servants writing railway dockets. That is how it works. I have seen it. Close up.

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Bye my friends. I’m going to miss you. Something bad.

World’s Largest King Penguin Colony Has Declined By 90% (G.)

The planet’s largest colony of king penguins has declined by nearly 90% in three decades, researchers have warned. The last time scientists set foot on France’s remote Île aux Cochons – roughly half way between the tip of Africa and Antarctica – the island was blanketed by 2m of the penguins, which stand about a metre tall. But recent satellite images and photos taken from helicopters show the population has collapsed, with barely 200,000 remaining, according to a study published in Antarctic Science. Why the colony on Île aux Cochons has been so decimated remains a mystery.

“It is completely unexpected, and particularly significant since this colony represented nearly one third of the king penguins in the world,” said lead author Henri Weimerskirch, an ecologist at the Centre for Biological Studies in Chize, France, who first set eyes on the colony in 1982. Climate change may play a role. In 1997, a particularly strong El Niño weather event warmed the southern Indian Ocean, temporarily pushing the fish and squid on which king penguins depend south, beyond their foraging range. “This resulted in population decline and poor breeding success for all the king penguin colonies in the region,” Weimerskirch said.

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This goes back to 2002. Nothing has changed.

Charities Damned For ‘Abject Failure’ In Tackling Sexual Abuse (G.)

Charities have shown “complacency verging on complicity” in responding to sexual abuse that is endemic across the sector, according to a damning report by MPs. In the report, the international development committee (IDC) said the aid sector had a record of “abject failure” in dealing with longstanding concerns about exploitation by its own personnel and appeared more concerned for their reputations than for victims. The response to abuse claims has been reactionary and superficial, it added. MPs called for the establishment of an independent aid ombudsman to support survivors and for a global register of aid workers to prevent abusers moving through the system.

Stephen Twigg, the committee chairman, said the sector’s failure to deal with the issue had left victims at the mercy of those who sought to use power to abuse others. The report, published on Tuesday, also criticised the UN, which it said had failed to display sustained leadership in tackling abuse, and said the historical response of the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) was disappointing. The committee launched its inquiry into sexual exploitation and abuse after revelations that Oxfam covered up claims that its staff had used sex workers while working in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The sector has faced intense scrutiny, with further allegations of sexual misconduct emerging at Save the Children.

Twigg said the aid sector was first made aware of concerns in 2002, when a report by the UN agency for refugees (UNHCR) and Save the Children documented cases of abuse. Despite this, and a series of other warnings, little action was taken. “There are so many reports that go back over this period of 16 years and the system has failed to respond anything close to adequately over the period,” the Labour MP said. “This is 16 years of failure by the entire international system of governments, the UN and the aid sector.”

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