Month: February 2020

Authored by Tom Luongo via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

For months now I’ve been convinced that Hillary Clinton will be entering the fray that is the Democratic Party primary season. The affair to date has been a nothing short of high comedy.

Recent events have me more convinced than ever that she will be returning, like some zombie whose head we forgot to cut off, to haunt voters one more time this fall.

After the beginning of an obvious (and planned) PR campaign last week with the release of a big campaign ad documentary on Netflix and a big splash in the Hollywood Reporter Hillary finally stopped being coy. And she announced this week that she now ‘has the urge’ to run again against Donald Trump.

Save us, please, from Hillary’s urges…. Shudder.

And she did so making sure that everyone knew what she thought of the real front-runner for the nomination, Bernie Sanders.

As various anointed ones have dropped out of the race – Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Robert O’Rourke – others have faltered despite huge ad spends while the media and pollsters do their level best to convince us all that Joe Biden’s a serious candidate to take on Donald Trump this fall.

In fact, the only reason Biden is still in the race is to make the impeachment theater going on right now seem relevant and cogent. But, like Biden himself, it is neither.

Then again neither is Hillary, but never underestimate this woman’s narcissistic solipsism.

If you look back on the race to date it’s clear that most of the people running are there to try and distract voters away from the two candidates that resonate most with voters, Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard.

Yes, Gabbard is polling low but if you look at poll numbers versus money spent and/or raised to this point, she’s clearly got cache and the ability to build a real following. And as the field shrinks those distractions become irrelevant. Her poll numbers are rising the more the field winnows.

Neither of them is acceptable in any way to the DNC. They are outsiders within their party. I’m no fan of Bernie Sanders. In fact, I think he’s a terrible candidate — because, you know, commie! — but that’s not the point of this article.

Bernie is surging in the early states and panic is setting in with the DNC. And they must have a plan to stop him from running away with the nomination otherwise we could have two outsiders headlining this fall’s reality show.

And that plan starts with the impeachment and potential removal of Donald Trump.

The impeachment is a distraction for Trump but it is a real problem for the Senators running for the Democratic nomination. They have to spend all day listening to Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler lie while they could be out campaigning and raising money.

This hurts Bernie the most because Bernie is the one who will get zero help from the DNC’s big donors. None of them are behind him and with good reason. He’s hostile to most of them (and most of us as well, but that’s a different article).

Of the people running for President as Democrats the only person less acceptable to Wall St. than Elizabeth Warren is Bernie Sanders. Warren’s entire campaign has been designed to push Bernie farther left by out-lefting him at every turn. Bernie says 70% top marginal tax rate, Warren says 77%. Bernie wants debt restructuring? Warren says forgive all student loan debt.

Her job is to make Bernie as unacceptable to mainstream U.S. voters as possible. Unfortunately, that makes Bernie more and more acceptable to a lot of people voting in the Democratic primaries. And this Catch-22 is beginning to show up in the polls for Iowa and New Hampshire.

Then there’s the serious money behind Pete Buttigieg trying to create slightly gayer version of Barack Obama. Again, he’s just another distraction to suck support away from Sanders and keep the field relatively close and the odds of an uncommitted primary season high.

Because the goal is to get to a brokered convention this summer. So, the impeachment was slowed down to hurt Sanders, Warren and Amy Klobuchar and help give Biden the bump he needs to get some momentum coming into Iowa.

It’s not working.

But I also don’t think it’s going to matter. If you keep watching the headlines the attack dogs are out in full to discredit and hurt Sanders. They know he’s a real force to be reckoned with. And worse, his attack dog, Gabbard, has been muzzled by keeping her off the debate stage so she can’t take anyone else out, like she roasted that pig Kamala Harris last summer.

But I truly feel the DNC is looking to steal the nomination again from Sanders. And the impeachment of Trump continues to somehow, against all odds, get worse for him, even though his party is supposed to be in charge of the proceedings.

I told everyone back in September when Nancy Pelosi announced she was going through with the impeachment process that this was all about getting rid of Trump. But it was in October when Hillary went after Tulsi Gabbard that  Gabbard’s response was beyond epic and I wrote about it then.

Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a …

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 18, 2019

… concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know — it was always you, through your proxies and …

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 18, 2019

… powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.

It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 18, 2019

Gabbard throws down the gauntlet here outing Hillary as the mastermind behind the DNC strategy of allowing the current crop of future losers to fall all over themselves to alienate as many centrist voters as possible.

This paves the way for Hillary to swoop in on her broom, pointed hat in hand, and declare herself the savior of the Democratic Party’s chances to defeat Donald Trump next November.

So, Hillary’s running, the DNC is trying to stop Bernie and Tulsi Gabbard is still an also-ran in New Hampshire and Iowa, polling between 5% and 7%. So what?

Well, I feel at this point it’s been game-planned by Gabbard and Sanders that they know what’s coming. I felt the endorsement from Joe Rogan of Sanders was timed to distract from Hillary’s attack on Bernie in that Hollywood Reporter piece.

Rogan is far more influential than the dead tree media Hillary’s publicist works with. And her attack dogs were out in full to attack Rogan and smear Sanders with their typical guilt-by-association nonsense.

I don’t tweet much folks, but this one gets to the truth of what’s going on in the murk and slime of Democratic Party politics.

If you ever wanted proof that hyper-sensitive identity politics was nothing more than a cheap political tool of the worst kind. I give you Joe Rogan is a Nazi.

Wake up, get unwoke … profithttps://t.co/la7bgSKS7f

— Tom Luongo (@TFL1728) January 24, 2020

Sanders and Gabbard know the DNC is out to destroy him. And the question then becomes what’s next?

What do they do to combat this? Gabbard is not running for re-election in Hawaii. She says she’s committed to running for President. I don’t think she’s getting the nomination and, frankly, I don’t think she is either.

She just filed a defamation of character lawsuit against Hillary for the smears Hillary threw around I linked to above. She puts financial pressure on Hillary knowing that the Clintons couldn’t drum up support and dollars last year during their expensive speaking tour no one went to.

Gabbard denies any kind of third party run, getting the Ron Paul treatment from the media. But, she’s a very acceptable person to a lot of disaffected Trump voters like myself. She speaks to them and can help carry Bernie as his running mate if he somehow makes it through the convention to be the Democratic nominee.

So, yes, Gabbard isn’t running for re-election because she’s running as Sanders’ Vice-Presidential candidate.

And it may not be for the Democratic party in the end. That’s the part you have to factor in here.

Game-planning this out, these two are running a real insurgency within the DNC to either get the nomination or split off and run as Independents. This is Bernie’s last kick at the can. He’s already gotten the gold watch from the DNC in 2016, living the high life only a high member of the Politburo can.

Gabbard has burned all the bridges within the DNC she can, almost gleefully. That makes her a person of integrity, of authenticity, in a U.S. political wasteland of charlatans, reality show hucksters and outright thieves.

The quicker she climbs out of the basement in Pelosi’s House, the better off she’ll be.

I don’t put it past either of these people to think that preventing Hillary from regaining control of the Democrats and spoiling her return is the best outcome for America, even if it re-elects Donald Trump.

But, if Trump is removed to make way for Hillary, then the Race to 270 electoral votes becomes a non-binary affair.

As the list of countries both shutting their borders to China and canceling major carrier flights in and out of the country grows, Russia is set to take drastic action by airlifting its nationals out of the country via Air Force planes. 

“The evacuation of Russian nationals from China on the Aerospace Force’s aircraft is scheduled for February 3-4, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday,” reports TASS news agency, which further indicated the evacuation order came directly from President Putin.

This also after the first two cases of coronavirus in Russia were confirmed on Friday. Two Chinese nationals have been quarantined in the Siberian region of Tyumen and the far eastern Zabaykalsky region, and are expected to recover. 

Russian authorities promptly restricted direct flights to China and shut the massive land border with China, which extends over 4,000km. No doubt this will have significant economic impact for both countries, given China remains Russia’s largest and most important trading partner. 

Peskov announced further in the Kremlin statement: “Due to the fact that it has taken certain time to finalize the coordination of flight information by the Chinese side, the evacuation of Russian nationals from China by planes of the Aerospace Force will be carried out on February 3-4.”

Russian media reports have indicated there remain 300 Russians in Wuhan, with another 341 across Hubei province. Peskov also indicated Saturday that while all Russian nationals will be taken out by Monday and Tuesday, “They will start carrying out [evacuation] flights as of today.”

And Russia’s embassy in China said in a Sunday statement: “We have established contact with 202 fellow countrymen and 130 of them have expressed readiness to leave the Hubei province.” 

Russia joins a growing list of others who have sent emergency charter flights or military aircraft to take evacuate their citizens trapped in quarantined Wuhan, including the US, France, Germany, Britain, Canada, Japan, Spain and others.

But then a crucial question remains: at this late point could the evacuation flights set to commence Monday simply be unwittingly be bringing the deadly virus back into Russia? 

Russian authorities have said they will take extreme precautions, including making each returnee spend at least 14 days in quarantine. 

Authored by Eoin Higgins via CommonDreams.org,

Over 3,000 supporters Sen. Bernie Sanders came out to rally for the White House hopeful in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Saturday night, a showing that the Vermont senator’s backers said is all the polling needed to show the momentum that’s made Sanders a frontrunner in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

“Our campaign has officially held the three largest rallies in Iowa,” Bernie 2020 Iowa state director Misty Rebik said in a statement. “We’ve knocked over half a million doors in the last month. That is what we mean by ‘Not Me, Us.'”

Sanders was expected Saturday night to place first in the influential and “gold standard” Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll, but the poll was shelved after the campaign of former South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg claimed a supporter had encountered an irregularity with the pollsters.

“Release the poll or don’t, I think we’ve got a pretty good idea already of who’s ahead,” tweeted Iowa Starting Line editor Pat Rynard.

The only poll that mattered before the only poll that matters has been canceled.

The Des Moines Register and CNN decided late Saturday not to release their highly anticipated poll of Monday’s Iowa caucuses after a potential error was brought to their attention by the campaign of Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana. — NBC

Turnout at the Cedar Rapids event stunned observers. 

This is why they trashed the final Iowa poll. @BernieSanders has a dominant lead and the establishment shit itself. pic.twitter.com/YIsDypiaHW

— Ben Hauck 🔥🌹 (@fightdenial) February 2, 2020

NBC News reporter Alex Seitz-Wald, on the ground in Iowa, said Sanders had drawn the largest crowd of the four front-runners Saturday.

“Crowds ain’t everything,” tweeted Seitz-Wald, “but they ain’t nothin either.”

Pete demanded to speak with the manager, and got the Iowa poll pulled. Perfect. https://t.co/KFq1aWFUEC

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) February 2, 2020

The poll, which is conducted by expert J. Ann Selzer, is widely respected as one of the top political polls in the country and paints a good picture of where Iowans are two days before the state goes to vote. 

Turnout on Monday is expected to exceed 2016, when around 171,000 people came out to choose a winner in the open Democratic primary. Des Moines area Democratic strategist Jeff Link told HuffPost he expected “close to 2008” levels of turnout on Monday, close to 240,000. 

This is the third campaign event I have been to today. Biden and Buttigieg each had a couple hundred. Sanders campaign says there are 3,000 people here in Cedar Rapids. pic.twitter.com/UAsOdORYH1

— Scott Detrow (@scottdetrow) February 2, 2020

As Common Dreams reported, Sanders is headed down the home stretch with a strong team on the ground and is using his “Not me, us” slogan as a rallying cry for voters. 

The senator called for a collective movement of compassion in a tweet Saturday.

“Our job is to give people hope,” said Sanders. “If we stand together, there is nothing that we cannot accomplish.”

As China sends 14,000 military medical staff to the Wuhan hospital region, the government’s official death toll on Saturday night topped 300, with more than 14,550 cases reported globally.

Fear of a deadly outbreak continues to mount over the weekend. So much so, that the Malaysian government had to tell its citizens that coronavirus won’t turn them into zombies. 

The official Twitter account for the Malaysian Ministry of Health tweeted Friday, dismissing rumors that coronavirus will spark a zombie apocalypse, reported China News Asia. 

The ministry tweeted, “The claim that individuals infected with this virus will behave like zombies is not true … Patients can recover.”

Tiga fakta novel coronavirus 2019 yang perlu ditular.

1. Tidak benar dakwaan individu yang dijangkiti virus ini berkelakuan seperti ZOMBIE. ❌

2. Pesakit boleh SEMBUH. ✔️Rawatan simptom yg dialami pesakit. Jika demam, rawatan untuk baik demam.

— KKMPutrajaya (@KKMPutrajaya) January 31, 2020

“The death rate is low (between two to three percent) as compared to MERS-CoV (around 34 percent) and SARS (about 10 percent),” the ministry added in the series of tweets directed at calming citizens and avoid panicking in the streets. 

Tiga fakta novel coronavirus 2019 yang perlu ditular.

1. Tidak benar dakwaan individu yang dijangkiti virus ini berkelakuan seperti ZOMBIE. ❌

2. Pesakit boleh SEMBUH. ✔️Rawatan simptom yg dialami pesakit. Jika demam, rawatan untuk baik demam.

— KKMPutrajaya (@KKMPutrajaya) January 31, 2020

The Royal Malaysia Police arrested six people for spreading misinformation about coronavirus last week, a statement from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission said.

So far, eight people in the country have been confirmed to have contracted the virus — all were Chinese nationals. 

As far as coronavirus not turning people into zombies, here are several videos from China detailing otherwise: 

#Coronarivus #ChinaVirus The coronavirus begins to mutate and turn people into zombies. pic.twitter.com/K7234qsH7X

— Coronavirus (@nCoV20192) February 2, 2020

Footage from Wuhan, China as CoronaVirus outbreak rings alarm bells across the world.
This video is scary – people passing out on street, bodies lying around, overcrowded hospitals.
You have seen this in Zombie films.
Now watch them in real life!pic.twitter.com/oeXj32mP65

— Soumyadipta (@Soumyadipta) January 28, 2020

VIDEO: Victim of #coronavirus shakes uncontrollably, left seeking attention in the corridor of a hospital in #Wuhan. #wuhanvirus #PRC #China

Source: Badiucao pic.twitter.com/Kca11ZFaVo

— Trần Thái Hòa (@TrnThiHa14) January 26, 2020

Really Scary *CoronaVirus* Epidemic, Video from China.people falling down like birds.situation looks very bad.
In India More Scarier. M00DI virus. pic.twitter.com/a8dtzzYS7Y

— Retweet Sarkar℠ (@GoSlowplz) January 28, 2020

Governments across the world are concealing the severity of the deadly outbreak to avoid full-blown social destabilization, in their respected countries. 

Breaking moments ago, a man has been shot on a busy London street after reports at least one person was stabbed, reported BBC News.

The incident occurred in Streatham High Road around 2:30 PM and appeared to be a “terrorist-related” incident.

Metropolitan Police have tweeted, “A man has been shot by armed officers in #Streatham. At this stage it is believed a number of people have been stabbed. The circumstances are being assessed; the incident has been declared as terrorist-related.”

#INCIDENT A man has been shot by armed officers in #Streatham. At this stage it is believed a number of people have been stabbed. The circumstances are being assessed; the incident has been declared as terrorist-related. Please follow @metpoliceuk for updates

— Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) February 2, 2020

The Daily Star said a witness on Twitter suggested a female “cyclist was stabbed in the back,” as well as another person, but that is an unofficial report and has yet to be confirmed by authorities. 

Others have said a man stabbed the cyclist with “a knife grabbed from a restaurant and police shot him” and the man fell to the ground. 

Here’s a video that appears to show the knife-wielding man on the ground after being shot by a police officer. 

#BREAKING MAN SHOT DEAD BY #Police IN #Streatham #London @UKStreetCrime1

A man is said to have been shot dead after wielding a knife in London, we await more info pic.twitter.com/JUKDoRaqxc

— The Reality Report (@WeAreTRR) February 2, 2020

Another video of the scene shows a massive police presence with a helicopter in the sky. 

#BREAKING UPDATE:
Police in #London #streatham have locked down the whole area after a possible terror attack.
2 people stabbed.
Reports of several injured.
Police shot the suspect. #NewsFlash pic.twitter.com/sd2mEkOvJM

— News flash (@BRNewsFlash) February 2, 2020

Developing…  

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Market Correction Goes Viral

Over the last few weeks, the message from the newsletter has been repetitive:

“The markets are overbought, overextended, overly complacent. A correction is coming so reduce and rebalance portfolio risks.” 

Despite those issues, the markets continued to push higher leaving readers with the assumption the “warnings” were wrong. 

As noted last week, there have only been a few points over the previous 25-years where investors were so extremely lopsided in their positioning.  We have shown many charts of investors being “all in” to equities over the last three weeks, but here is the latest Fund Manager’s Survey, which shows cash balances at 6-year lows.

The importance of these measures is not meant to be a “timing” signal to buy or sell positions. These measures are more valuable when thought about as an “accelerator” in a car. When markets are rising, investors press down on the accelerator, taking on more equity risk. As long as the road is straight, and visibility is good, it seems there are no consequences for driving at high speeds. However, if the road suddenly turns, or a hazard presents itself, bad outcomes happen very quickly. 

The same is true for the markets. As markets are rising, investors ignore the warning signs, and the flashing yellow lights, under the assumption, there is no risk ahead. This is why we discussed taking profits a couple of weeks ago, which was simply how we “eased our foot off the gas” as signs were warning of a “sharp curve ahead.” 

I apologize for the analogy, but the message is important. The reason that investors do so poorly over time is the inability to manage risk. Risk is never a function of how much money you make when markets are rising; it is a measure of “your ability to survive the crash.” 

This past week, the road took a sharp right as the “Coronavirus” begin to impact overly optimistic views of a global reflation. While media headlines have run rampant with commentary suggesting investors shouldn’t worry about the virus, we wrote on Thursday, this time is different than 2003. To wit:

“Following a nearly 50% decline in asset prices, a mean-reversion in valuations, and an economic recession ending, the impact of the SARS virus was negligible given the bulk of the ‘risk’ was already removed from asset prices and economic growth. Today’s economic environment could not be more opposed.”

With global growth already slow, and the U.S. dragging its feet along at roughly 2% annual growth, there isn’t much room to absorb the impact of an event that potentially curtails consumption. Here was the important point in our recent article:

“China itself is a much more crucial player in the global economy than it was at the time of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, in 2003. It occupies a central place in many supply chains used by other manufacturing countries—including pharmaceuticals, with China home to 13 percent of facilities that make ingredients for U.S. drugs—and is a voracious buyer of raw materials and other commodities, including oil, natural gas, and soybeans. That means that any economic hiccups for China this year—coming on the heels of its worst economic performance in 30 years—will have a bigger impact on the rest of the world than during past crises.

That is particularly true given the epicenter of the outbreak: Wuhan, which is now under effective quarantine, is a riverine and rail transportation hub that is a key node in shipping bulky commodities between China’s coast and its interior.”

Importantly, as percentage of global GDP, China is 4x the size it was in 2003. 

Don’t dismiss the risk of a viral contagion on an already weak global economy, at a time when asset prices are grossly deviated from actual profits, and GAAP earnings.

Is The Correction Over?

Since taking profits out of our portfolios, this leads us to the obvious question of whether or not the “Coronavirus Correction” is over?

From an investment standpoint, this is a fairly tricky question which brings up what we term in our practice as an “equity risk duration match.” 

On a very short-term basis, there is a potential for a reflexive bounce. If your “investment duration,” or rather your “investment holding period” is very short, there may be a “trading” opportunity for you. However, if your “duration” is a longer time-frame, like ours, then the short-term oversold bounce is likely an opportunity to “reduce risk” further into. 

As they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” 

China’s mask shortage problem is so acute that the local government of Xiamen, which is located 1,200 km away from Wuhan, in East China’s Fujian Province has launched a lottery system for mask purchases through its official WeChat account Friday as China grapples to contain the coronavirus outbreak.

The step by the government, first reported by the Global Times, was reportedly launched in a bid to curtail the public gathering in the stores so as to reduce the possible risks of contracting the virus.

“You can still buy masks from local stores but we encourage you to buy it through our platform. Since you don’t need to wait on the queue in the crowds, it will reduce the risks for cross-infection,” a customer service rep told the Global Times.

The lottery is only available to the locally registered residents or the social security payees, according to the service provider. The winners will be notified via text message and unsuccessful applicants can directly participate in the subsequent lottery again.

There are drawbacks: the winners don’t have the option of choosing the type and prices of the masks as they depend on the stores, not the platform. Despite that each winner can only buy six masks from designated local stores, the service has still drawn many participants to try their luck, a service provider said, refusing to reveal the total number of applicants.

According to analysts, the masks shortage is the result of the inadequate production capacity during the Chinese Spring Festival which partly overlapped the coronavirus outbreak. It’s also the result of unprecedented demand.

And while the minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei said the ministry will take more powerful measures to ensure market supply, and odd site was observed in the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic, Wuhan, where a local account has shared a video of thousands of boxes of supplies donated worldwide have been piled up in the open by the Wuhan Red Cross.

全球捐的医用物资都被武汉红十字会露天堆积。只需一场大雨，就全不卫生了

所有物资必须经过红会，为什么？凭什么？各种网购渠道都有自己的派送系统，非常成熟，为什么非要用红会？

百姓生死攸关，也绝不放开高效的民间力量，因为红会不是民间组织，而是党的附属机构！

pic.twitter.com/lP7jmsVoom

— 新闻大吐槽 (@TuCaoFakeNews) January 31, 2020

The account notes that “it only takes one heavy rain to make everything unhygienic” and asks “All supplies must pass through the Red Cross. Why? On what grounds? Various online shopping channels have their own delivery systems and are very mature. Why use a Red Cross? People’s lives are at stake, and they will never let go of efficient folk power, because the Red Cross is not a non-governmental organization, but a subsidiary organization of the party!”

The efficiency of Chinese state distribution services notwithstanding, in a surprising twist roughly a month after the start of the coronavirus pandemic, a new theory is now being propounded, one according to which the virus is spreading not by air but by human feces.

Big discovery! Traces of the novel #coronavirus was found in the feces of some confirmed patients in Shenzhen, South China’s Guangdong Province pic.twitter.com/JqD7c0cuTp

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) February 1, 2020

According to a report by Zijian Feng, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, “The initial focus of case detection was on patients with pneumonia, but we now understand that some patients can present with gastrointestinal symptoms.”

Which is ironic: China still considers an unknown number of coronavirus fatalities to be the result of pneumonia, and to keep the death count low has been putting down pneumonia as the source of death as the WSJ reported recently. Now doctors can add “deadly diarrhea” to the list of non-coronavirus reasons for death.

That said, while Bloomberg does not explicitly say it, the theory is built on rather flimsy foundations, and appears to almost be a diversion from something else:

The novel coronavirus was detected in the loose stool of the first U.S. case — a finding that hasn’t featured among case reports from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak. However, that doesn’t surprise scientists who have studied coronaviruses, nor doctors familiar with the bug that caused SARS.

* * *

Doctors have reported diarrhea infrequently in 2019-nCoV patients admitted to Wuhan hospitals, though it’s been more prominent among reported cases outside the city, including members of a Shenzhen family infected in Wuhan, and more recently in the first U.S. case in Washington state. That patient experienced a two-day bout of diarrhea from which a sample tested positive.

In any case, any theory can be presented for public consumption – no matter how questionable – as long as it deflects from the worst-case scenario: that the version of coronavirus, whose R0 some now estimate is as high as 4, was not man-made.

Summary:

• 14,550 confirmed cases worldwide, 19,544 suspected cases, 304 deaths, 2,110 in serious/critical condition, 328 in China treated and released; 138,000 under observation
• First death outside China recorded in the Philippines
• 24 countries reporting cases
• Philippines, New Zealand join list of countries several restricting travelers from China

* * *

Local officials in Hubei weren’t kidding when they warned that Saturday would be the worst day so far for confirmed cases/deaths related to the coronavirus outbreak. China’s body count climbed above 300, and the first death outside the mainland was recorded in the Philippines. Scientists predict that exponentially more cases are active in China, but the true number either haven’t yet been diagnosed, or the Chinese government is simply suppressing it for obvious PR purposes. Anecdotal reports also claim the death toll is higher than the 304+.

Even though the man who died in Manila was from Wuhan, now that the virus has proved lethal outside the confines of China’s deeply overburdened health-care system, even more countries have decided to defy the WHO and restrict entry for travelers from China. New Zealand, Iraq, Indonesia and the Philippines have joined the growing list of countries – including the US, Japan, Australia, Canada, Taiwan, etc. – who are imposing travel restrictions on people who have either recently been to China, or recently traveled to Hubei Province (or if they have a passport from Hubei).

“This is the first reported death outside China,” Rabindra Abeyasinghe, the World Health Organisation representative to the Philippines, said.

But that wasn’t all we heard from the WHO on Sunday. The organization, which just declared the outbreak a dangerous global pandemic, warned governments around the world to prepare for controlling domestic outbreaks.

“Countries need to get ready for possible importation in order to identify cases as early as possible and in order to be ready for a domestic outbreak control, if that happens,” WHO official Gauden Galea told The Associated Press in Bejing on Saturday.

Though the virus is the enemy, the people who carry it are also often treated with suspicion during outbreaks, and it appears this trend has finally peaked both inside and outside China. Two days ago, the New York Times published a story documenting what it described as ‘growing xenophobia’ in Japan, directed at Chinese whom locals feared might carry the virus. Inside China, videos have shown mobs surrounding families from Hubei. Government propaganda has directed a large swath of the country to stay inside until the outbreak subsides. It could be weeks before that happened. Businesses inside China have posted signs warning people from Hubei to stay away; in Japan and Hong Kong, signs are directed at all mainlanders.

Across China, the total number of cases under observation is now a whopping 137,594, an increase of over 19,000 from 118,478.

Outside China, the WHO reports roughly 130 confirmed cases of the virus in more than 20 countries outside of China and Taiwan. The Philippines reported the first death attributable to the virus outside of China. Other tallies put the number of confirmed cases outside China higher. Late Saturday in the US, new cases were confirmed in South Korea and India.

Chinese doctors are now claiming that the virus can be spread via fecal matter, as well as droplets passed through the air.

Expecting a bloodbath when markets open tomorrow (late Sunday evening in the US), Chinese financial regulators have already announced a massive $173 billion (Rmb1.2 trillion) support package. According to the FT, China’s central bank said on Sunday that it would provide the lending facilities to money markets as stock markets reopen following the LNY extended holiday, during which western markets logged heavy selling. Hong Kong markets also took a beating when they reopened for the second half of the week. BBG noted that the sum will come to $21 billion on a net basis, practically nothing, after covering the roll of previous liquidity injections.

The Huoshenshan Hospital, one of two hospitals being rapidly constructed in Wuhan, has finished construction, according to Chinese state media. It will begin admitting coronavirus patients on Monday, hopefully relieving some of the overwhelming burden on the city’s existing medical infrastructure. The Global Times reported that the hospital will be run by Huawei’s “remote consultation platform” which will improve efficiency. Nearly 2,000 PLA personnel are reportedly being dispatched to run a hospital that reportedly has been outfitted with what appear to be jail cells.

Wuhan #Huoshenshan Hospital has finished construction and will admit #coronavirus patients on Monday. #Huawei‘s “remote consultation platform” will also put into use there, improving the efficiency of diagnosis and treatment. #2019CoV pic.twitter.com/4zUDXjts75

— The Business Source (@GlobalTimesBiz) February 2, 2020

When it’s all said and done, economists inside and outside China have warned that the outbreak could shave a percentage point or more off of GDP, potentially pushing the rate of growth below 5% – not that many economists trust the Chinese data anyway.

Back in the US, the country is waiting with baited breath to see whether a suspected 9th case of the virus – this time, in NYC – will be confirmed. The Pentagon recently approved a request for quarantine housing for 1,000 people, according to Epoch Times.

Across the world, dozens of airlines have suspended flights to and from China, some as far out as April.

Does that sound like everything is under control to you?

Authored by Ramzy Baroud via Counterpunch.org,

Massive natural gas discoveries off the eastern coast of Israel and Palestine is slated to make Tel Aviv a regional energy hub. Whether Israel will be able to translate positive indicators of the largely untapped gas reserves into actual economic and strategic wealth is yet to be seen.

What is certain, however, is that the Middle East is already in the throes of a major geostrategic war, which has the potential of becoming an actual military confrontation.

Unsurprisingly, Israel is at the heart of this growing conflict.

“Last week, we started to stream gas to Egypt. We turned Israel into an energy superpower,” Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, bragged during a cabinet meeting on January 19.

Netanyahu’s self-congratulating remarks came on the heels of some exciting financial news for the embattled Prime Minister, as both Jordan and Egypt are now Tel Aviv’s clients, receiving billions of cubic meters of Israeli gas.

For Netanyahu, pumping Israeli gas to two neighboring Arab countries constitutes more than just economic and political advantages – it is a huge personal boost. The Israeli leader is trying to convince the public to vote for him in yet another general election in March, while pleading to Israel’s political elite to give him immunity so that he can stay out of prison for various corruption charges.

For years, Israel has been exploiting the discovery of massive deposits of natural gas from the Leviathan and Tamar fields – located nearly 125 km and 80 km west of Haifa respectively – to reconstruct regional alliances and to redefine its geopolitical centrality to Europe.

The Israeli strategy, however, has already created potentials for conflict in an already unstable region, expanding the power play to include Cyprus, Greece, France, Italy, and Libya, as well as Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, and Russia.

On January 2, Netanyahu was in Athens signing a gas pipeline deal, alongside Greek Prime Minister, Kyriako Mitotakis, and Cyprus President, Nicos Anastasiades.

The EastMed pipeline is projected to travel from Israel to Cyprus, to Greece and, ultimately, to Italy, thus transporting eastern Mediterranean gas directly to the heart of Europe.

A few years ago, this scenario seemed unthinkable, as Israel has, in fact, imported much of its natural gas from neighboring Egypt.

Israel’s Tamar field partly rectified Israel’s reliance on imported gas when it began production in 2003. Shortly after, Israel struck gas again, this time with far greater potential, in the massive Leviathan field. On December 31, 2019, Leviathan began pumping gas for the first time.

Leviathan is located in the Mediterranean Sea’s Levantine Basin, a region that is rich with hydrocarbons.

“Leviathan is estimated to hold over 21 trillion cubic feet of natural gas—enough to fill Israeli power-generation needs for the next 40 years, while still leaving an ample supply for export,” wrote Frank Musmar in the BESA Center for Strategic Studies.

Egypt’s share of Israeli gas – 85 billion cubic meters (bcm), with an estimated cost of $19.5 billion – is acquired through the private Egyptian entity Dolphinus Holdings. The Jordanian deal was signed between the country’s national electricity company NEPCO, and American firm, Noble Energy, which owns a 45% stake in the Israeli project.

Jordanians have been protesting Israel’s gas deal en-masse, as they view economic cooperation between their country and Israel as an act of normalization, especially as Tel Aviv continues to occupy and oppress Palestinians.

The echoes of the popular protests have reached the Jordanian parliament which, on January 19, unanimously voted in favor of a law to ban gas imports from Israel. Israel is diversifying beyond exerting regional economic dominance to becoming a big player on the international geopolitical stage as well. The EastMed pipeline project, estimated at €6bn, is expected to cover 10% of Europe’s overall need for natural gas. This is where things get even more interesting.

Turkey believes that the deal, which involves its own regional rivals, Cyprus and Greece, is designed specifically to marginalize it economically by excluding it from the Mediterranean’s hydrocarbon boom.

Ankara is already a massive energy hub, being the host of TurkStream, which feeds Europe, with approximately 40% of its needs of natural gas coming from Russia. This fact has provided both Moscow and Ankara not only with more than economic advantages but geostrategic leverage as well. If the EastMed pipeline becomes a reality, Turkey and Russia will stand to lose the most.

In a series of successive, and surprising moves, Turkey retaliated by signing a maritime border deal with Libya’s internationally-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), and by committing to send military support to help Tripoli in its fight against forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar.

“Turkey will not permit any activity that is against its own interests in the region,” Fuat Oktay, Turkey’s Vice-President, told Anadolu News Agency, adding that “any plan that disregards Turkey has absolutely no chance of success.”

Although European countries were quick to condemn Ankara, the latter has succeeded in changing the rules of the game by staking a claim to vast areas that are also claimed by Greece and Cyprus as part of their so-called exclusive economic zones (EEZ).

Not only will Turkey be drilling in Libya’s territorial waters for natural gas, but in disputed water near Cyprus as well. Ankara is accusing Cyprus of violating “the equal claim to discoveries”, an arrangement that followed the military conflict between both countries in 1974.

If the issue is not resolved, the EastMed pipeline project could potentially turn into a pipedream. What seemed like a lucrative deal, with immense geopolitical significance from an Israeli point of view, now appears to be another extension of the wider Middle Eastern conflict.

While the EU is eager to loosen Russia’s strategic control over the natural gas market, the EastMed pipeline increasingly appears unfeasible from every possible angle.

However, considering the massive deposits of natural gas that are ready to fuel struggling European markets, it is almost certain that the Mediterranean natural gas will eventually become a major source of political disputes, if not a war.

China has gone from constructing ghost cities to now erecting hospitals to treat coronavirus patients. As we’ve reported, China could be hiding the true number of confirmed cases and deaths, and in some cases, not reporting the deaths at all, and “immediately” hauling the bodies down the street to a local crematorium, effectively burning the evidence.  

The government’s official death toll on Saturday night topped 300, with more than 14,550 cases reported globally. 

China is attempting to show the world, it has been proactive and responsible during the outbreak, and in one way that it can optically please everyone that it has everything under control, is to build a hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of where the deadly virus supposedly began.

UK researchers have warned upwards of 75,000 could be infected in Wuhan, as more than 137,600 have been placed under observation across China. 

While China and the World Health Organization (WHO) attempt to calm fears of a deadly virus outbreak, the actions by Beijing in locking down dozens of cities and quarantining 50 million people or more, suggest the situation remains severe. 

RT News reports that Wuhan’s new 25,000-square-meter hospital, one of two new facilities commissioned in response to the coronavirus outbreak, has been completed. 

Construction started on Jan. 24, has made national press and headlines across the world for China’s quick response in handling the epidemic. Though as we’ve noted before, China stalled for weeks if not a month, with minimal action in attempting to contain the virus and notify world health officials about the developing incident, hence why confirmed cases are now seen across the world.

State-owned China Global Television Network (CGTN) published satellite images of the facility’s construction, declaring the hospital was completed on Saturday and can start receiving patients next week. 

#BREAKING Construction work of Huoshenshan Hospital, #Wuhan‘s makeshift hospital built for treating pneumonia patients infected with the novel #coronavirus completed Sunday morning; the hospital will officially start services from Monday pic.twitter.com/njpeB8xqmG

— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) February 2, 2020

Here’s another video showing the prefabricated building, basically built with shipping containers, will house several thousand beds. 

Huoshenshan Hospital has been completed in #Wuhan on Sunday.

Only 10 days to build
•4,000+ workers
•1000s of equipment
•days and nights of work
•34,000-square-meter
•1000 beds available on Monday #Coronarivus pic.twitter.com/eF6osLJcV4#WuhanCoronavirus

— Coronavirus (@CoronaVirusEn) February 2, 2020

Allegedly, a video from inside the hospital is circulating social media channels on Sunday morning. Each room appears to be airtight, with bars on the windows so the infected patients cannot escape.

#Breaking: Just in – Video footage from inside the finished 1000 bed hospital building just outside the outskirts of #Wuhan, showing a very tough quarantine measure system to contain the #CoronaVirus in #China. And they are still building another 2 of these in the #Hubei province pic.twitter.com/fsJ7OlLAxS

— Sotiri Dimpinoudis (@sotiridi) February 2, 2020

If the patients die from coronavirus, state-owned Global Times said, “victims should be cremated close by and immediately. Burials or transfer of the bodies not allowed. Funerals not allowed to avoid the spread of the virus: National Health Commission.”

Bodies of #nCoV2019 victims should be cremated close by and immediately. Burials or transfer of the bodies not allowed. Funerals not allowed to avoid spread of the virus: National Health Commission (File Photo) pic.twitter.com/IsAHnuY4Rk

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) February 2, 2020

We pointed out Saturday that the body burning could be happening right down the street from the Wuhan hospitals, at a local crematorium.

We noted Thursday night that over 100,000 Chinese had been placed under observation for suspected coronavirus. 

The virus has uncontrollably spread across China, forcing the Trump administration on Friday to restrict entry into the US from the outbreak area. 

The 8th US coronavirus case was confirmed on Saturday in Massachusetts, and a suspected one is being tested in New York City. 

Putting the coronavirus in the context of the deadly SARS epidemic, the coronavirus pandemic has now officially exceeded SARS in cumulative cases in just two weeks.