There are several things wrong with Dark Phoenix. I’m tempted to say everything is wrong with it, except that the picture is largely in focus and the credits appear to be correctly spelled. Other than that, though…
If Disney really wanted to throw $200-million up on the screen and flick a match at it, it would make sense that they would hire Simon Kinberg to direct this movie. Kinberg has labored long in the X-Men vineyards, as both writer and producer. In fact, he cowrote X-Men: The Last Stand, the widely reviled (but not unprofitable) 2006 entry in the series. That movie attempted to incorporate within its tumult the tale of Jean Grey, the Dark Phoenix, a hallowed story arc in the Marvel comics universe. Kinberg has since admitted that the script he coauthored (with Zak Penn) failed in this regard. So when it was decided to take another whack at the Phoenix story, who better to bring in to write it—all on his own this time—than Simon Kinberg? And who better to direct the movie than, again, Simon Kinberg—a man who has never directed any sort of movie before, let alone one of the big galumphing blockbuster variety.
Here we have the result of those unfortunate decisions. The picture has a sometimes cheesy look—at one point there’s an exterior sequence, situated on a suburban street, that might have been shot somewhere just off the New Jersey Turnpike, so lacking is the setting in any sort of visual interest. We’re also treated, yet again, to the sight of an angry super-mutant towering up into the air with a menacing scowl, preparing to rain down havoc on the lesser characters gibbering away below. And while we’re long past the point where complaining about an over-reliance on digital effects in these movies will be greeted with anything but mockery, there can be no ignoring the mistily unconvincing CGI with which this film is so generously endowed. (There’s one strong action sequence toward the end, set on a train, but it’s hard not to think of Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer while you’re watching it.)
The actors are fine, but their characters, after 19 years of wearing out their welcome, seem as weary as we are. (They may soon be getting some overdue R&R now that Disney, which owns Marvel, has also engulfed Fox—which owned the X-Men, along with the pitiful Fantastic Four—and will presumably be stirring its newly acquired mutants into Marvel’s well-established MCU.) Peacenik Professor Xavier (James McAvoy), still serenely gliding around in his wheelchair, is now so tight with once-hostile humanity that he has a hotline to the U.S. president installed in his office. (When something goes wrong out in space, Xavier rallies his forces and then tells NASA, “Not to worry, Mission Control, help is on the way.”) Meanwhile, Xavier’s brooding frenemy Eric Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) has moved his rival Brotherhood of Mutants to a commune in the woods, along with his kooky Magneto helmet, which he keeps tucked away in a box.
Back at Xavier’s mutant school in upstate New York, we find a new generation of young oddballs thronging the halls—something the OG X-Men are noticing, too. In fact, one of them, Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), has decided it’s time to move on and she wants Hank McCoy—her furry blue squeeze, Beast—to come with her. The familiar contingent of other super-folk is also on hand—snowy-haired weathergirl Storm (Alexandra Ship), super-speedy Quicksilver (Evan Peters), blue-tailed teleportist Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and laser-eyed Cyclops (Tye Sheridan). But these ancillary X-Men are given little to do. This is, after all, a movie purportedly about Jean Grey (Sophie Turner, of Game of Thrones), the telekinetic telepath known, in her more dangerous moods, as Dark Phoenix.
Jean’s backstory is sketched in quickly. (One good thing to be said for this picture: it clocks in at less than two hours.) At the beginning, in 1975, we witness the catastrophe that deprived little Jean of her parents and led her into the sheltering arms of Professor Xavier. Years later, in 1992, when Xavier dispatches the X gang on that aforementioned space mission (the real-life U.S. Space Shuttle Endeavour is being besieged by a fierce CGI force of some sort), Jean is chosen to board the distressed ship and stabilize it. Unfortunately, she is attacked by the intergalactic entity, which sets up shop in her mind, to chaotic effect. (One of the main characters will not be bouncing back from a violent encounter with this Dark Phoenix manifestation of Jean’s personality.)
Jean’s unhinged behavior soon draws the attention of a detachment of wandering aliens whose homeworld has been destroyed by the same “Phoenix Force” that is afflicting Jean. The leader of this group is an icy character called (in the credits, at least) Vuk, played by Jessica Chastain in white hair and white eyebrows. (She seems primed for some serious Edgar Winter cosplay.) Despite her deep-space origin, Vuk has a sadistic dislike of the weak and the hobbled that has an unpleasantly terrestrial familiarity. Badmouthing Xavier, whom Jean holds in such affectionate regard, Vuk asks, “Are you a scared little girl who answers to a man in a chair? Or are you the most powerful person on the planet?” Subsequently confronting Xavier himself, Vuk tells him, “She’s not your little girl anymore.” (If I may slip into spoiler territory for a moment, there follows here a scene of such baffling and repellent sadism with Vuk using her mind to lift Xavier to his useless feet and fling him around in a transport of pain—that defies understanding. There’s no payback for this later in the film, and there’ll be no sequel in which to address it, and it’s hard to imagine an explanation for this scene’s inclusion in the movie that wouldn’t be entirely insufficient.)
There are in addition some inane girl-power flourishes (in a script written by a man). These reach a peak in an exchange between Xavier and an angry Mystique, who’s tee’d off that the professor has turned into a fame whore and no longer does any of the hard work of guarding the world. “The women are always saving the men around here,” she says. “You might wanna think about changing the name to ‘X-Women.'”
In significant ways, the story here is as much about Xavier as it is about Jean Grey. Burdened with bad makeup (Turner’s heavily penciled eyebrows have a presence all their own), Jean makes her way through the story only rarely displaying the turbulent emotions that are said to trigger the Dark Phoenix. (Kinberg is clearly not an actor’s director.) Xavier, on the other hand, is taken to task at length for his long-ago protective behavior toward Jean (as he saw it), which is now being reevaluated as manipulative and sexist. For a movie that’s set back in the ’90s, this one feels clangingly up-to-date.
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After a period of unnatural stability, in which the offshore Yuan traded in a tight range of 6.90 and 6.95 since May 13 the Yuan finally broke out of the channel and tumbled 0.5%, the most in three weeks to at low as 6.9625 vs the dollar, the lowest level since November 2018, after the chief of China’s central bank said Beijing has “tremendous” room to adjust monetary policy if the trade war with the U.S. deepens, and hinted there’s no line in the sand for the currency, meaning the key “psychological” level of 7 does not exist in times of trade war.
The yuan had stabilized in recent weeks as authorities voiced support for the currency, following a rout in early May that pushed it near 7 per dollar level not breached since the global financial crisis. It still lost about 2.5% in May, among the worst in Asia.
“We have plenty of room in interest rates, we have plenty of room in required reserve ratio rate, and also for the fiscal, monetary policy toolkit, I think the room for adjustment is tremendous,” PBOC governor Yi Gang in an interview with Bloomberg in Beijing.
When asked if his upcoming meeting with Steven Mnuchin this weekend would get negotiations with the U.S. back on track, Yi said it would probably be a “productive talk, as always,” though the topic of the trade war would be “uncertain and difficult.” The two are scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting in Japan. This is the first publicly announced meeting since the trade talks fell apart last month and could pave the way for a meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, who will likely be in Japan at the end of the month for the G-20 leaders’ summit.
Commenting on the recent yuan move, Yi said that “recently, it’s a little bit weaker, because the tremendous pressure from the U.S. side.” When asked if there’s a red line for the exchange rate, Yi said no number is more important than another.
That was all FX traders needed to hear to start selling the yuan.
“The trade war would have a temporary depreciation pressure on renminbi, but you see, after the noise, renminbi will continue to be very stable and relatively strong compared to emerging market currencies, even compared to convertible currencies,” Yi said, using the yuan’s official name. “I’m very confident renminbi will continue to be stable at a more or less equilibrium level.”
“A little bit of flexibility of renminbi is good for the Chinese economy and for the global economy because it provides an automatic stabilizer for the economy,” he said. “The central bank of China is pretty much not intervening in the foreign-exchange market for a long time, and I hope that this situation will continue, not intervening.”
A growing number of economists predict that the worsening trade war and job market outlook could prompt the central bank to take bolder easing steps.
“Looking forward, our base case is that an escalating trade war will push key gauges below the PBOC’s tolerance threshold, triggering 50 basis points of rate cuts and another 150-200 bps of reserve requirement cuts by year-end,” David Qu, an economist with Bloomberg Economics in Hong Kong, wrote in a recent report. That would most likely send the yuan below 7.00 for the first time in years and provoke a furious response from the White House.
In his Bloomberg interview, Yi gave no indication that the government was considering more fiscal stimulus now to counteract the effect of the trade war.
“Our fiscal policy this year is probably the largest and strongest fiscal reform package, in terms of the tax cuts, and also in terms of having more efficient fiscal resources allocation between the central government and the local government,” Yi said. “The current package is able to cover the cases where the situation is getting a little bit worse, but of course, if the situation gets tremendously worse, they will open the discussion. But right now they haven’t discussed that scenario yet.”
Discussing the plunge in the yuan, Bloomberg’s Benjamin Dow writes this morning that “Yi’s failure to set a red line is rightly scaring money out of the CNH, but it should come as no surprise. 7/$ was already in view back in 1Q before the market became overly optimistic about a U.S.-China trade deal, and little has changed since then.” He then explains China’s strategy in terms of the Russian response to Western sanctions:
The calculus the PBOC and other policymakers can employ is redolent of what the Russian government did earlier this decade amid the oil crash and Western sanctions — let the ruble slide to help exports, and also stretch forex reserves that come from dollar-priced commodities and energy sales. China’s forex pile in the form of U.S. Treasuries and other reserves play a similar role for Beijing, and that means a chance for weaker local currency in order to stretch that stimulus.
And so with China one step closer to allowing the yuan to slide below 7, one can be sure it won’t go unnoticed by the White House, BBG’s Richard Jones writes. And, “as much as the U.S. administration has been waging war by using tariffs, don’t be surprised if the White House starts trying to jawbone the USD lower too.”
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2XAiCt2 Tyler Durden
Late last year, when President Trump first raised the possibility that the Federal Reserve could cut interest rates, everybody dismissed this as more unhinged ramblings from a president who, they said, didn’t understand monetary policy or the business cycle, or the needs of savers.
But things have changed dramatically since then. And the same sell-side strategists who once dismissed the presidet have now reworked their forecasts in a way that makes it seem like they’re trying to one up each other for the most dovish forecasts. Barclays is currently in the lead, forecasting three rate cuts before the end of the year.
Now, strategists at the big banks are scrambling to adjust their forecasts fast enough: The team at the biggest American bank by assets in the US now sees two cuts – one in September and another in December. And while JPM’s archrivals over at Goldman Sachs have yet to throw in the towel on rates, they have released a more ominous view on the trade war.
On Friday, President Donald Trump repeated his criticism of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate increases and said the stock market would be 10,000 points higher had the Fed kept rates lower during an interview with Fox News Laura Ingraham.
Without the rate increases, “the stock market would be up 10,000 points more, but now we have a very conservative approach,” Trump said in a taped interview with Fox News that was broadcast Thursday night
It’s just another example of how bankers who once dismissed Trump as ‘crazy’ have come around to his line of thinking.
Dec 2018:
Goldman – “4 more rate hikes”
Trump – “Fed should be cutting rates now”
Everyone – “Trump is insane”
June 2019:
Everyone – “Fed should be cutting rates now”
The bookmakers give Boris a 1 in 3 shot of becoming the next PM. Focus on reality, not bookie odds.
The “Stop Boris” campaign is in full swing, but it’s as likely to be as much of a success as the “Anybody But Trump” Campaign in 2016.
Stop Boris Theory
Boris has to beat out all of the other Brexiteers. He may fail.
If Boris survives to the final round, he still has to beat out someone who promises to secure a deal.
Tories will rally around the second choice.
For starters, don’t confuse betting odds with true odd. Betters are not reliable predictors of elections. Bookies arrange their books (or at least attempt to), based on bets people make. The bookies don’t care who wins or loses if their books are properly balanced. Betting is not a scientific poll.
Tory peer Lord Hayward said there was a “striking antipathy” towards the former Foreign Secretary in traditional Tory areas like the Home Counties.
The peer said whoever becomes the next Tory leader must win over those who voted Leave in 2016 if the party is to stand any chance of victory.
However, he said they must also be “transfer-friendly”, meaning they appeal to floating voters more interested in competent government.
By that measurement, Mr Johnson scores badly compared to leadership rivals Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt. “Boris is pitching to MPs at the moment saying ‘I am the one who will win’,” Lord Hayward said.
Remainer Sap
Hayward does not provide “expert analysis”.
Instead, Hayward provides heaping cups of Remainer sap in the form of the same misguided Remainer theories that led to the demise of Theresa May.
Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party provides all the evidence one needs.
MP’s Rally Around Boris
Eurointelligence provides excellent analysis of what’s really taking place.
We are full of admiration for the sporting spirit of the British media. But leadership race feels to us like a bit of a misnomer for what is currently dominating Tory and UK politics. It is not really a race. It may not even be a competition. Boris Johnson has been in pole position from the start, and he is now building on his lead.
The Times has a story this morning that three Remain-supporting Tory junior ministers are supporting Johnson. They said that he is the only candidate who can save the party from extinction. Self-preservation – not Brexit – has suddenly become the main issue for the Tories. Johnson is the only candidate with a chance to defeat Jeremy Corbyn in a general election. MPs have strong views on Brexit. But they have even stronger views on the importance of holding their own seats. They are supporting the leader most likely to ensure their political survival.
The main effect of Farage on British politics is not his own election results, but his impact on the Tories. Like Farage, Johnson draws on the benefit of a simple message. Farage frames the argument as one of Brexit versus betrayal. For Johnson it is a choice between Brexit and the extinction of the Tory party.
The whole stop-Boris campaign some MPs talked about never made sense to us because of the way the vote is structured. Starting Thursday next week, MPs will vote for a shortlist of two candidates in four elimination rounds. The remaining three votes will take place June 18, 19 and 20. Johnson has so far received public endorsements by forty MPs, which will be enough to get him into the third round of voting. Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt have twenty-six each.
Tory members will then choose one of the two from the shortlist. We know that Johnson is the strong favourite among the party faithful. If he were to drop out for some reason, we expect the winner to be one of the other Brexiteers – Dominique Raab for instance. We doubt that Tories will vote for Gove, given his support for Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement. A recent story in the Daily Telegraph claimed Gove proposed a Brexit extension until 2020 in a cabinet meeting. That makes him essentially unelectable in view of the Farage threat. We cannot see the Tories voting for any candidate who fails to deliver Brexit before general elections. And these might arrive early, given the narrow majority in the House of Commons.
Self-Preservation
Eurointelligence commented “MPs have strong views on Brexit. But they have even stronger views on the importance of holding their own seats.”
Bingo.
Change UK Provides Lesson in Reality
The misguided set of eleven “Change UK” MPs is now down to five.
“Change UK” is a new political party formed by former Labour and Tory MPs who wanted to Remain.
Six of Change UK’s 11 MPs, including its spokesman, Chuka Umunna, and interim leader Heidi Allen, have abandoned the fledgling party after its dire performance at the European elections.
Message is Clear
Change UK will soon vanish. It elected zero MPs in the EU parliament elections and will elect zero MPs in the next UK general election.
Six Change UK politicians already abandoned the party out of self-preservation.
The best way for politicians to keep their job is to deliver Brexit.
Neither Hunt nor Gove will do that.
One way or another a die-hard no-deal Brexiteer (Johnson or Dominic Raab) will properly deliver Brexit.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2MykFg0 Tyler Durden
It took almost seven years, but the Chicago Police Department has finally fired an officer who tried to solicit sex from an underage girl in return for helping get her mother’s impounded car back. Darius Alexander was placed on desk duty with pay in June 2012 after the girl’s mother alerted the department of his actions. But the police board didn’t receive charges against him until August 2018. At that point he was suspended without pay until the board could consider the department’s recommendation to fire him. Alexander spent almost half of his 13-year career with the department on desk duty.
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In a sign that Huawei is increasingly reliant on adversaries of NATO and the West to bolster its grip om global 5G dominance as Washington conspires to run it out of the west, the Guardian reports that the Chinese telecoms giant has struck a deal with an unlikely ally, Russian Telecoms giant MTS, to develop a 5G network in Russia over the coming year.
According to the Guardian, the agreement was signed on the sidelines of a meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow, on the sidelines of a critical annual Russian economics forum.
The deal will see “the development of 5G technologies and the pilot launch of fifth-generation networks in 2019-2020.” MTS said in a statement on Wednesday.
In a statement, Huawei’s Chairman Guo Ping said he was “very happy” with the agreement “in an area of strategic importance like 5G.”
During the meeting in Moscow, Putin repeatedly praised Xi as a “close friend,” noting that they had met nearly 30 times over the past six years. The trip is Xi’s eighth to Russia since 2012.
In a statement on the issu, Huawei’s Guo Ping, one of the company’s chairmen on rotation, said he was “very happy” with the agreement “in an area of strategic importance like 5G.”
Huawei, the Chinese technology company considered a security threat by the US, has signed a deal with Russian telecoms giant MTS to develop a 5G network in the country over the next year. This even as dozens of telecoms companies in the US and Europe have preemptively cut ties with the Chinese internet giant, opening another front in the US-China trade conflict.
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via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2WrVC35 Tyler Durden
It took almost seven years, but the Chicago Police Department has finally fired an officer who tried to solicit sex from an underage girl in return for helping get her mother’s impounded car back. Darius Alexander was placed on desk duty with pay in June 2012 after the girl’s mother alerted the department of his actions. But the police board didn’t receive charges against him until August 2018. At that point he was suspended without pay until the board could consider the department’s recommendation to fire him. Alexander spent almost half of his 13-year career with the department on desk duty.
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“Although Turkey has been violating Cyprus’s sovereignty since 1974, the current highly volatile internal political and economic situation in Turkey has made the Turkish government get even more aggressive in the eastern Mediterranean…. For Mr. Erdogan’s plans to succeed, Cyprus needs to be eliminated.” — Harris Samaras, an expert on the Cypriot EEZ and chairman of the international investment banking firm Pytheas.
“Mr. Erdogan is aware that it will be impossible for Turkey to achieve its goals of regional hegemony if US interests in particular, but also French ones, develop a firm foothold in Cyprus. This is his biggest fear.” — Harris Samaras.
“The East Med Pipeline, then — which has been started with the blessing of the US — is of the utmost importance. At the last trilateral meeting of Israel, Cyprus and Greece, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was present and supported the project. If it goes ahead, it will be a major slap in the face for Turkey’s energy plans.” — Harris Samaras.
“Concrete steps should be taken to stop Turkish violations against Cyprus’s EEZ. Sanctions should be imposed at the level of the European Council to the persons and companies responsible for the drilling. All pre-accession funds to Turkey should be blocked, and Turkish access to loans by the European Investment Bank should be eliminated. Additional options, if Turkey escalates the situation further, are imposing sanctions on Turkey’s banking sector and freezing the accession process altogether. The US also needs to lift the irrational arms embargo it imposed on the Republic of Cyprus in 1987, and help it to rearm and modernize its ability to defend itself, while keeping the UN peace keeping mission (UNFICYP) intact.” — Theodoros Tsakiris, assistant professor of energy policy and geopolitics at the University of Nicosia.
According to Harris Samaras, an expert on the Cypriot EEZ and chairman of the international investment banking firm Pytheas, “The East Med Pipeline… is of the utmost importance. At the last trilateral meeting of Israel, Cyprus and Greece, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was present and supported the project.”
Pictured: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets in Jerusalem with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on March 20, 2019. (Image source: Israel Government Press Office)
Turkey’s latest provocation against the Republic of Cyprus — drilling for gas in the Cypriot Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the eastern Mediterranean — has elicited harsh reactions from the international community.
Likening Turkey’s encroachment to “a second invasion,” Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said that the action constitutes a “violation of international law;” his Foreign Ministry submitted a map delineating its EEZ boundaries with Turkey to the United Nations. In addition, Cypriot Foreign Minister Nicos Christodoulides said that his government is seeking an international arrest warrant for the crew of “Fatih,” the drilling vessel that Ankara dispatched to Cypriot waters.
EU High Representative and Vice President, Federica Mogherini promptly issued a statement “urgently call[ing] on Turkey to show restraint, respect the sovereign rights of Cyprus in its exclusive economic zone and refrain from any such illegal action to which the European Union will respond appropriately and in full solidarity with Cyprus.”
The U.S. State Department also urged Turkey to halt the drilling.
“[T]he attempts of the third parties to act as an international court in determining maritime boundaries is unacceptable. In this context, the statement of the US calling Turkey by expressing that “there exists Greek Cypriot claims over the area” is neither constructive nor compatible with international law, given the fact that there is no valid maritime delimitation agreement in the region.”
In a recent interview with the Gatestone Institute, Harris Samaras, an expert on the Cypriot EEZ and chairman of the international investment banking firm Pytheas, explained:
“Although Turkey has been violating Cyprus’s sovereignty since 1974, the current highly volatile internal political and economic situation in Turkey has made the Turkish government get even more aggressive in the eastern Mediterranean. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling AKP party have to save face by sustaining the dogma of supranationalism that granted him and his party power.
“Another factor that triggered Turkey here was the confirmation of commercial hydrocarbons within Cyprus’ EEZ and the announced interest of oil and gas conglomerates, such as ExxonMobil, ENI and Total to continue their activities. Last year, ENI was obstructed by Turkey’s gunboats from continuing operations. But ExxonMobil was not. Why? Because it was accompanied by the US Navy, so Turkey could not do anything.
“Meanwhile, the natural gas discoveries by ExxonMobil have demonstrated that Cyprus could eventually establish a liquefaction plant to serve Cypriot and regional deposits. This would almost automatically transform Cyprus into a regional hydrocarbon hub, and at the same time reduce Turkey’s energy importance, plans and investments.
“Politically, the biggest regional threat to Turkey’s targeting of Cyprus is Israel. The strongest energy link for Israel is Cyprus, a democratic, EU member state. So, for Mr. Erdogan’s plans to succeed, Cyprus needs to be eliminated. Moreover, Egypt is a significant regional force with the Zhor natural gas fields in its arsenal. Despite past differences, Israeli and Egyptian relationships have improved.
“Mr. Erdogan is aware that it will be impossible for Turkey to achieve its goals of regional hegemony if US interests in particular, but also French ones, develop a firm foothold in Cyprus. This is his biggest fear.
“In addition, Turkey’s relationship with Russia has strengthened in recent years. If Turkey ends up installing Russian S-400s, Mr. Erdogan knows that his geopolitical span and influence will be in many ways limited, as they will come into direct conflict with US and Israeli interests. ‘Neutralizing’ Cyprus, the weakest link in the equation, in many ways disarms Israel’s regional geopolitical effectiveness.
“The East Med Pipeline, then — which has been started with the blessing of the US — is of the utmost importance. At the last trilateral meeting of Israel, Cyprus and Greece, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was present and supported the project. If it goes ahead, it will be a major slap in the face for Turkey’s energy plans.”
Theodoros Tsakiris, assistant professor of energy policy and geopolitics at the University of Nicosia, told Gatestone:
“Turkey started targeting the Cyprus’ EEZ in 2011, when it signed a demarcation agreement of its continental shelf with the Turkish occupied area of Cyprus that only Turkey recognizes as an independent state — the so-called ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ (TRNC). Not only are the Turkish activities in Cyprus’s EEZ illegal, but the Turkish ships are also causing serious difficulties for Cypriot and international companies operating in the area. In February 2018, for example, the Turkish navy blocked the attempted drilling of the Italian oil company ENI in the demarcated Cypriot EEZ. Meanwhile, more Turkish drilling ships may be on their way.
“Concrete steps should be taken to stop Turkish violations against Cyprus’s EEZ. Sanctions should be imposed at the level of the European Council to the persons and companies responsible for the drilling. All pre-accession funds to Turkey should be blocked, and Turkish access to loans by the European Investment Bank should be eliminated. Additional options, if Turkey escalates the situation further, are imposing sanctions on Turkey’s banking sector and freezing the accession process altogether. The US also needs to lift the irrational arms embargo it imposed on the Republic of Cyprus in 1987, and help it to rearm and modernize its ability to defend itself, while keeping the UN peace keeping mission (UNFICYP) intact.”
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/31eyWC2 Tyler Durden
As Statista’s Martin Armstrong points out, when compared to 2017, the overall number of diagnoses per 100,000 population went from 763.6 to 804.9, representing a rise of 5.4 percent.
As Statista’s infographic shows, one of the STIs with the largest increase was Gonorrhoea which saw a massive increase of 25.4 percent. The 2018 rate of 101.1 represents the most cases since at least 2012 (the earliest year with which figures can accurately be compared due to methodology changes.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Wvaopy Tyler Durden
Speaking at a weekly news conference in Moscow, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova offered a tribute to those who died on the western front of World War Two but her comments likely irked many war veterans in Britain where the 75th anniversary on Wednesday of the largest seaborne invasion in history was marked at a ceremony in Portsmouth attended by Queen Elizabeth and world leaders including Donald Trump and Angela Merkel.
As Reuters reports, Russia told the West on Wednesday the Normandy landings on D-Day in 1944 did not play a decisive role in ending World War Two and that the Allied war effort should not be exaggerated.
“It should of course not be exaggerated. And especially not at the same time as diminishing the Soviet Union’s titanic efforts, without which this victory simply would not have happened,” she said.
“As historians note, the Normandy landing did not have a decisive impact on the outcome of World War Two and the Great Patriotic War. It had already been pre-determined as a result of the Red Army’s victories, mainly at Stalingrad (in late 1942) and Kursk (in mid-1943),” Zakharova told reporters.
The Soviet Union lost over 25 million lives in what it calls the Great Patriotic War, and Moscow under President Vladimir Putin has taken to marking victory in the war with a massive annual military parade on Red Square.
The month of May and the fireworks are now behind us. The country and the world celebrated Victory Day, which is a holiday of war veterans, home front workers, and all the people of Russia and other victorious nations. There was a grand parade on Red Square and a wreath laying ceremony at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The march of the Immortal Regiment – a civil initiative that has acquired a truly global dimension – took place again not only in Russia, but in many other countries as well, with the participation of hundreds of thousands of Russians, our compatriots abroad and citizens of other countries – all people who cherish the memory of Victory and the memory of those who worked to bring it closer.
There’s another date ahead – June 22, the day of memory and grief for those who died during the Great Patriotic War. We will be remembering those who fell in battles, were tortured to death in captivity and concentration camps, or died of hunger and the toils of war. Preparations are beginning for celebrating the 75th anniversary of Victory in 2020, which, of course, will be held at a level appropriate to the scale of the feat and the greatness of the spirit of the heroes of that war. One can’t help thinking about it: what does May 9 mean for the peoples who were on the verge of annihilation, and why do some people loathe this holiday today?
As someone who is part of the first post-war generation, who grew up on the stories told by war veterans and family tales about the war, I believe the answers to these questions are obvious. The peoples of the Soviet Union and other countries became the object of the inhuman ideology of Nazism, and then the victim of aggression on behalf of the most powerful, organised and motivated war machine of that time. At the cost of terrible sacrifices, the Soviet Union made a decisive contribution to defeating Nazi Germany and, jointly with the Allies, liberated Europe from the fascist plague. The victory laid the foundation for the post-war world order based on collective security and state-to-state cooperation, and paved the way to creating the UN. These are the facts.
Unfortunately, however, the memory of Victory is not sacred to all around the world. It is regrettable that there are individuals in Russia who picked up the myths spread by those who want to bury this memory, and who believe that time has come to stop solemn celebrations of Victory Day. The greater the anniversary numbers become, the more we come face to face with the desire to forget.
Bitter as it is to witness, we see the attempts to discredit the heroes, to artificially generate doubts about the correctness of the path our ancestors followed. Both abroad and in our country we hear that public consciousness in Russia is being militarised, and Victory Day parades and processions are nothing other than imposing bellicose and militaristic sentiment at the state level. By doing so, Russia is allegedly rejecting humanism and the values of the “civilised” world. Whereas European nations, they claim, have chosen to forget about the “past grievances,” came to terms with each other and are “tolerantly” building “forward-looking relations.”
Our detractors seek to diminish the role of the Soviet Union in World War II and portray it if not as the main culprit of the war, then at least as an aggressor, along with Nazi Germany, and spread the theses about “equal responsibility.” They cynically equate Nazi occupation, which claimed tens of millions of lives, and the crimes committed by collaborationists with the Red Army’s liberating mission. Monuments are erected in honour of Nazi henchmen. At the same time, monuments to liberator soldiers and the graves of fallen soldiers are desecrated and destroyed in some countries. As you may recall, the Nuremberg Tribunal, whose rulings became an integral part of international law, clearly identified who was on the side of good and who was on the side of evil. In the first case, it was the Soviet Union, which sacrificed millions of lives of its sons and daughters to the altar of Victory, as well as other Allied nations. In the second case, it was the Third Reich, the Axis countries and their minions, including in the occupied territories.
However, false interpretations of history are being introduced into the Western education system with mystifications and pseudo-historical theories designed to belittle the feat of our ancestors. Young people are being told that the main credit in victory over Nazism and liberation of Europe goes not to the Soviet troops, but to the West due to the landing in Normandy, which took place less than a year before Nazism was defeated.
We hold sacred the contribution of all the Allies to the common Victory in that war, and we believe any attempts to drive a wedge between us are disgraceful. But no matter how hard the falsifiers of history try, the fire of truth cannot be put out. It was the peoples of the Soviet Union who broke the backbone of the Third Reich. That is a fact.
The attacks on Victory Day and the celebration of the great feat of those who won the terrible war are appalling.
Notorious for its political correctness, Europe is trying to smooth out “sharp historical edges” and to substitute military honours for winners with “neutral” reconciliation events. No doubt, we must look forward, but we must not forget the lessons of history either.
Few people were concerned that in Ukraine, which gravitates towards “European values,” the former Poroshenko regime declared a state holiday the day of founding the Ukrainian Insurgent Army – a criminal organisation responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of civilian Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians, Poles and Jews (although in Israel, whose people survived the Holocaust, May 9 is an official holiday, Victory Day). Other glaring examples from neighbouring countries include Nazi Germany-like torchlight processions of neo-Banderites along the main streets of the Hero City of Kiev, and the marches of veterans and supporters of Waffen-SS in Riga and Tallinn. I would like to ask those who do not like the tears of our veterans during parades and who criticise the “militarised” events in honour of Victory: how do you like this kind of “demilitarisation” of consciousness in a European way?
No one will admit this, of course, but here are the facts: the United States, NATO and the EU let their junior partners, who are using blatant Russophobia to build their careers, get away with quite a lot. These guys get away with everything, including glorification of Nazi henchmen and hardcore chauvinism towards ethnic Russians and other minorities for the sole purpose of using them to keep Western alliances on anti-Russian positions and to reject a pragmatic dialogue with Moscow on an equal footing.
Occasionally it appears that the purpose of such connivance on behalf of the West is to relieve of responsibility those who, by colluding with Hitler in Munich in 1938, tried to channel Nazi aggression to the east. The desire of many in Europe to rewrite that shameful chapter of history can probably be understood. After all, as a result, the economies of a number of countries in continental Europe started working for the Third Reich, and the state machines in many of them were involved in the Nazi-initiated genocide of Russians, Jews and other nations. Apparently, it is no accident that the EU and NATO members regularly refuse to support the UN General Assembly resolution on the inadmissibility of glorifying Nazism, which was advanced by Russia. The “alternative vision” of World War II among Western diplomats clearly does not stem from the lack of historical knowledge (although there are problems in this department as well). As you may recall, even during the Cold War such blasphemy did not exist, although it would seem that an ideological face-off was a perfect setting for it. Few dared to challenge the decisive role of the Soviet Union in our common Victory back then and the standing our country enjoyed during the post-war period, which our Western allies recognised without reservations. Incidentally, it was they who initiated the division of Europe into “areas of responsibility” back in 1944, when Churchill raised this issue with Stalin during the Soviet-British talks.
Today, distorting the past, Western politicians and propagandists want to make the public doubt the fair nature of the world order that was approved in the UN Charter following World War II. They adopted a policy seeking to undermine the existing international legal system and to replace it with a certain “rule-based order.” They want to create this order based on the principle of “he who is stronger is right” and according to the “law of the jungle.”
This primarily concerns the United States and its peculiar perception of 20th century history. The idea of “two good wars” is still widespread there, as a result of which the United States secured military dominance in Western Europe and a number of other regions of the world, raised confidence in its strength, experienced an economic boom and became the world leader.
Just as enthusiastically as the Europeans, the Americans are creating an image of “militaristic Russia.” However, most of their own history is a sequence of endless wars of conquest. Over 243 years of “American exceptionalism,” interventionism has become an integral part of Washington’s foreign policy. Moreover, the US political elite think of the use of force as a natural element of “coercive diplomacy” designed to resolve a wide range of issues, including domestically.
Not a single election campaign in the United States is complete without the candidates trying on a toga of a commander-in-chief in action. The ability to resort to the use of force for any reason is proof of an American politician’s prowess. There are many examples of such stereotypes being implemented under various “plausible” pretexts: Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989, Yugoslavia in 1999 and Iraq in 2003. At the same time, America honours its fallen soldiers regardless of what cause they fought for. Memorial Day is celebrated in May, and no one has any suspicions of “militarism” when naval parades and air shows with the participation of military equipment take place in various US cities.
We are essentially accused of preserving the memory of our fathers and grandfathers, who laid down their lives in a sacred liberation war, giving them military honours, and celebrating Victory Day widely and with pride. Was it Russia or the Soviet Union that unleashed two world wars? Is it us who today operate an extensive network of military bases that were created to control the entire world?
For diplomats and politicians, May 9 is also a good occasion to recall that the Allies referred to themselves as the United Nations in 1945. They stood shoulder to shoulder during the war, conducted Arctic convoys and fraternised on the Elbe. French pilots in the Normandie-Neman fighter regiment fought the enemy on the Soviet-German front. Awareness of the common threat in the face of the inhuman ideology of National Socialism had helped the states with different political and socioeconomic models to overcome differences. The belief that the defeat of Nazi Germany will mark the triumph of justice and the victory of light over darkness was the unifying factor.
After the war, the Allies built a new architecture of international relations based on the ideal of equal cooperation between sovereign states. The creation of the UN was supposed to warrant that the sad fate of its predecessor, the League of Nations, will not be repeated. The founding fathers learned the lessons of history well and knew that without the “concert of the great powers” – that is, the unanimous consent of the leading countries of the world which hold permanent seats at the Security Council – the world cannot enjoy stability. We must be guided by this commandment today as well.
This year, as we took part in Victory Day celebrations, we once again told everyone willing to listen: “Yes, just like our ancestors we are ready to decisively repel any aggressor. But Russians do not want war, and do not want to go through horror and suffering again.” The historical mission of our nation is to guard peace. The peace we are trying to preserve. Therefore, we are offering a hand to anyone who wants to be good partners to us. Our Western colleagues have long had our proposals which open realistic ways to overcoming confrontation and putting up a reliable barrier to all those who allow for the possibility of a nuclear war. These proposals were further reinforced by an appeal made by the CSTO member states to the North Atlantic Alliance in May to begin a professional depoliticised dialogue on strategic stability issues.
I am confident that the citizens of Russia and other countries will be watching parades in honour of the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory on May 9, 2020 and joining the ranks of the Immortal Regiment with St George ribbons attached to their lapels with thoughts of peace in their minds. The memory of those who fell in battle fighting the enemies of the homeland, the enemies of civilisation, will remain alive as long as we mark the great holiday of victorious nations, the holiday of salvation and the holiday of liberation. And there is no need to be embarrassed about the grandiose scale of this celebration.
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Of course, as we noted previously, when asked “who beat Hitler?” The answer very much depends who is being asked…
In 1945, most French people thought that the Soviet Union deserved the most credit for Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II – even though the Soviets did not play much of a role in France’s liberation, relative to the US and Britain.
By 1995 and 2004, however, the French had changed their minds, and were crediting the US as the biggest contributor to victory in Europe (survey data from the French Institute of Public Opinion)…
Assessing the “biggest contributor to victory” in a rigorous way is exceptionally difficult. They tend to devolve into comparisons of counterfactuals, and the truth is that nobody has any strong idea how the war would have turned out absent US involvement, or if the German-Soviet non-aggression pact had held, etc. Soviet Union’s successful resistance of Nazi invasion and subsequent reclamation of Eastern Europe was the most important of many factors in defeating Germany. As historian Richard Overy Explains In His book Why the Allies Won :
If the defeat of the German army was the central strategic task, the main one was the conflict on the eastern front. The German army was first weakened and then driven back, before the main weight of Allied ground and air forces was brought to bear in 1944. Over four hundred German and Soviet divisions fought along more than 1,000 miles. Axis divisions between 1941 and 1945. The scale and geographical extent of the eastern front dwarfed all earlier warfare. Losses on both sides far exceeded anywhere else in the military contest. The war in the east was fought with a ferocity almost unknown on the western fronts. The battles at Stalingrad and Kursk, which broke the back of the German army, drew from the soldiers of both sides the last ounces of physical and moral energy.
If you are looking at the human toll of the war, the Soviets clearly incurred the heaviest losses. Tony Judt’s Postwar cites Estimates Suggesting There Were 8.6 million Soviet Military Deaths and over 16 million civilian Deaths in World War II. The US lost 418.500 Military and Civilians in all theaters of the war – still a staggering figure, but not on the scale as Sami Soviet Losses. Of course, it’s possible – and highly preferable! – to contribute to the success of the process. But it’s worth reflecting on just how massive the sacrifice the Soviet people made was.
“The victors are those who write History. It is this one that is written in our school books, not the true History as it unfolded, but a History that caresses the camp of the winners. History has ceased long ago to be the sum of the humanities today it belongs only to a handful of individuals. “
