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Overnight Clashes Follow Venezuelan Officers’ Failed Attempt To Lead Anti-Maduro Coup

Venezuela remains on edge after in the pre-dawn hours of Monday morning a small group of soldiers attempted to launch a military coup against the Maduro regime, but failed, resulting in the arrests of 25 members of the Venezuelan National Guard who temporarily gained control of a police station located a short distance from the presidential palace in Caracas, and the apprehension of two others at another location, in total 27 detained — all of which sparked riots in local neighborhoods, some of which appear to have continued throughout the night. 

Barricade erected during a protest Monday near to a National Guard outpost in Caracas, Venezuela. Image source: Reuters

Following the mutiny and subsequent successful government crackdown, which further involved the rebellious unit briefly kidnapping several officials and stealing weaponry in the Cotiza neighborhood, pockets of anti-Maduro protests were sparked in the capital city demanding the release of the detained soldiers, whose actions the government condemned as “treasonous” and “motivated by the dark interests of the extreme right,” according to a statement announced on state TV. Maduro’s right-hand man, Diosdado Cabello, also boasted on Twitter while speaking of the rebels: “They were neutralized, surrendered and captured in record time.”

Hours prior to the crackdown on the coup attempt, a series of videos were published to social media showing what are purported to be the coup leaders standing in darkness with a spokesman demanding that Venezuelans rise up to support the coup. In one video a man who identified himself as Luis Bandres said, “You all asked that we take to the streets to defend the constitution. Here we are. Here we have the troops, it’s today when the people come out to support us.”

And in another video a heavily armed man appeals to the public with “You wanted us to light the fuse, so we did. We need your support.” This appears to have driven at least some in the vicinity of where the military rebellion was launched to the streets, angry at what’s being called President Nicolas Maduro’s “illegitimate” election to a second six-year term, as the AP reports:

At daybreak in the adjacent neighborhood of Cotiza, a group of shirtless young men, some with their faces covered, built a barricade across the street with a burning car, heavy sewer grates and a large chunk of concrete.

An angry group of women shouted that they have lived for too long without running water and tear gas fired by security forces choked their children.

“Freedom! Freedom!” they chanted. “Maduro has to go!”

“We must defend our homeland,” Maria Fernanda Rodriguez, a 36-year-old manicurist, told The Associated Press, her eyes welling from the tear gas.

International reports suggest some of these initial protests were snuffed out by riot police, but sporadic clashes continued in some places through the evening.

But the socialist country, currently suffering from what’s being widely described as “inflation approaching 2 million percent” and a shortage of everything from food to medicine to diapers and baby formula, remains on edge as opposition leaders are now calling for mass protests in the coming days in the wake of the defeated attempt at triggering a broader military revolt.

Clashes appeared ongoing through the night in the neighborhood in which the military revolt began. 

Specifically, opposition leaders in the legislature have called for nation-wide protests to be held Wednesday following the government-stacked Supreme Court declaring it would throw out recent measures by the National Assembly that declared Maduro’s presidency illegitimate.

But thus far the brief military uprising appears to have been a very isolated event as the officers involved are low-ranking with little sway to start a domino effect of defections, which would have to dent the higher ranks first. The televised government statement following the arrests emphasized that the military remains loyal to the state with the words, “The armed forces categorically reject this type of action…”.

Unconfirmed videos circulating on social media throughout Monday evening appear to show citizens erecting barricades in Cotiza and possibly other neighborhoods while setting fires to objects amidst a continuing police crackdown seeking to tame the unrest. But the unrest could grow as opposition congressional leader Juan Guaido becomes bolder in his denunciations of Maduro. 

Throughout the night their appeared intermittent violence on Caracas’ streets between protesters, police, and what some say are the “colectivo armado” — fiercely loyal pro-regime militias that typically move in packs on motorcycles targeting anti-Maduro opposition activists.

According to the AP, Guaido is fanning the flames while stopping short of condoning any violent acts, however he’s appealing straight to the military ranks:  

Juan Guaido, a 35-year-old newly seated as president of congress, appealed to the military, urging them to demand Maduro abandon power in a nationwide protests Wednesday — a historic date commemorating the end of Venezuela’s military dictatorship in 1958.

“We are not asking you to mount a coup. We are not asking you to shoot,” Guaido said in a video circulated on social media. “On the contrary, we are asking you not to shoot at us, but rather to defend together with us the right of our people to be heard.”

Earlier this month Guaido was arrested and briefly detained by secret police following a speech wherein he implied he was the only legitimate authority in Venezuela.

This comes after months of both the Trump administration and US Congressional leaders becoming increasingly unrestrained in publicly calling for outright regime change.

After Monday’s coup attempt Florida Senator Marco Rubio went so far as to encourage more such military defections. 

Rubio claimed military forces have been deployed to the streets amidst protests and internet access had been cut across parts of the country. 

Meanwhile Venezuelan Foreign Minister Arreaza just days ago told Democracy Now that “Nothing that the opposition does is without the permission or authorization of the State Department… They say, ‘We have to make consultations with the embassy. We have to make consultations with the Dept of State.'”

Monday’s short-lived mutiny was not the first time the Maduro government has faced military insurrection. There’s been a series of significant incidents over the past few years, including last August’s explosive-laden drone attack as Maduro addressed a military parade in Caracas, and a firefight between three rebel military members and security forces at Fort Paramacay in the northern city of Valencia in 2017. 

Perhaps the most extreme and notable attack came in June of 2017, when ex-policeman Oscar Perez dropped grenades on the regime loyalist-dominated Supreme Court while flying above in a stolen helicopter.

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UBS Tumbles On “Very Poor” Results As Clients Pull $13 Billion

The parade of weak bank earnings continued on Tuesday when UBS, one of the first major European banks to report, announced that it had missed analysts’ profit estimates (though it did record a rise in full-year profits) due to outflows from its key global wealth management division.

UBS

Here’s a summary of its earnings report courtesy of Bloomberg:

  • UBS reports $7.9b in net new money outflows in global wealth management in 4Q, while asset management business saw outflows of $4.9b.
  • UBS says seen some normalization in markets in early 2019
  • Expects 1Q client activity affected by volatility, geopolitics, trade disputes
  • Market volatility remains muted, which is less conducive to client activity
  • 2018 dividend CHF0.70/shr
  • Targets to buy back $1b worth of shares in 2019 vs CHF750m in 2018
  • 4Q adj. pretax profit (excl. litigation costs) $1.01b vs company- compiled est. $1.04b
  • Global wealth management adj. pretax $912m vs est. $943m
  • Investment bank adj. pretax $30m vs est. $229m
  • Challenging markets affected equities, corporate client solutions revenues
  • 4Q adj. cost/income ratio 97%
  • Personal & corporate banking adj. pretax $375m vs est. $397m
  • Asset management adj. pretax $134m vs est. $119m
  • Investment bank adj. pre-tax profit $30 million vs $229 million company compiled est.
  • 4Q net $696m vs est. $729m
  • End-Dec. CET1 capital ratio 13.1%; CET1 leverage ratio 3.8%

The bank’s net profit attributable to shareholders for 2018 was $4.897 billion, compared with $969 million in 2017. That’s compared with a Reuters estimate of $4.906 billion. The bank warned about further weakness in its wealth management unit as it expects investors will continue to pull money out due to rising protectionism, increased market volatility and geopolitical tensions. Withdrawals at the bank’s global wealth management unit totaled almost $8 billion in Q4, while another $5 billion flowed out of it asset-management business.

UBS shares (-4.7%) led a drop in European bank shares…

UBS

…after its earnings report, which Citigroup analysts described as “very poor.”

“These are very poor results, and come as somewhat of a negative surprise so soon after the upbeat investor day,” analysts including Andrew Coombs at Citigroup wrote in a note to investors. In wealth management “the fourth quarter is usually seasonally weak, but this is disappointing.”

UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti, who is expected to face questions on succession planning on Tuesday, said the “normalization” in markets in early 2019 could benefit the bank’s bottom line for Q1.

“We have seen sine normalization in markets early in 2019, we will stay focused on balancing efficiency and investments for growth, in order to keep delivering our capital return objectives while creating sustainable long-term value for shareholders,” Sergio Ermotti, UBS chief executive officer, said in a statement Tuesday.

In an attempt to boost its sagging share price, the bank also announced its plans to purchase $1 billion of its shares in 2019, above the $751 million purchased in 2018.

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China Threatens Retaliation As US Confirms Plan To Extradite Huawei CFO

Despite China’s demands that the US government use the shutdown as an excuse not to make a formal extradition request for Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, DOJ officials have reportedly told a Canadian diplomat that the DOJ will submit its formal extradition request by the Jan. 30 deadline (the US has 60 days from the day of Meng’s arrest in Vancouver to formally ask for extradition).

The news, which was first published Tuesday by Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail, sent the offshore yuan lower as Chinese officials accused the US of “abusing” the extradition system in the Meng case. According to the report, David MacNaughton, Canada’s ambassador to the US, met with senior White House and State Department officials about the Meng case.

Meng

MacNaughton also reportedly expressed to Washington Canada’s unhappiness that it had been drawn into the dispute, and that several of its citizens are now facing retaliation from Beijing.

“We do not like that it is our citizens who are being punished,” he was quoted as saying. “[The Americans] are the ones seeking to have the full force of American law brought against [Meng] and yet we are the ones who are paying the price. Our citizens are.”

He also said the US had expressed its appreciation that Ottawa would honor the extradition agreement, and said that Canada would continue to press Beijing about releasing Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, the two Canadian nationals arrested on vague “national security” charges in the wake of Meng’s arrest.

In a warning issued after the report, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying threatened that China would “take action” in response to the US’s decision, adding that the extradition convention was “an abuse” of power.

“Everyone has to be held responsible for their own actions. Both the US and Canada should be aware of the seriousness of the case and take steps to rectify the mistake.”

A Huawei executive speaking in Davos also vaguely accused the US of trying to exercise “supremacy”. Deputy Chairman Ken Hu told a panel that no one country should exercise “supremacy” in the global economy, a comment apparently directed at the US and its attempts to push Huawei out of Western markets.

“We are at the turning point of the restructuring of the global economy…the current globalization is the result of competition and cooperation based on comparative advantage. It’s not the pursuit of any single country for absolute primacy.”

Meng’s next court appearance is set for Feb. 6, which will be to set a date for her extradition hearing. Once the US submits its formal extradition request, the Canadian Department of Justice will have 30 days to decide whether to approve the request and begin extradition proceedings.

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Anti-Trump Frenzy Threatens To End Superpower Diplomacy

Authored by Stephen Cohen via The Nation,

Baseless Russiagate allegations continue to risk war with Russia…

The New Year has brought a torrent of ever-more-frenzied allegations that President Donald Trump has long had a conspiratorial relationship – why mince words and call it “collusion”? – with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.

Why the frenzy now? Perhaps because Russiagate promoters in high places are concerned that special counsel Robert Mueller will not produce the hoped-for “bombshell” to end Trump’s presidency. Certainly, New York Times columnist David Leonhardt seems worried, demanding, “The president must go,” his drop line exhorting, “What are we waiting for?” (In some countries, articles like his, and there are very many, would be read as calling for a coup.) Perhaps to incite Democrats who have now taken control of House investigative committees. Perhaps simply because Russiagate has become a political-media cult that no facts, or any lack of evidence, can dissuade or diminish.

And there is no new credible evidence, preposterous claims notwithstanding. One of The New York Times’ own recent “bombshells,”published on January 12, reported, for example, that in spring 2017, FBI officials “began investigating whether [President Trump] had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests.” None of the three reporters bothered to point out that those “agents and officials” almost certainly included ones later reprimanded and retired by the FBI itself for their political biases. (As usual, the Times buried its self-protective disclaimer deep in the story: “No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials.”)

Whatever the explanation, the heightened frenzy is unmistakable, leading the “news” almost daily in the synergistic print and cable media outlets that have zealously promoted Russiagate for more than two years, in particular the Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN, and their kindred outlets. They have plenty of eager enablers, including the once-distinguished Strobe Talbott, President Bill Clinton’s top adviser on Russia and until recently president of the Brookings Institution. According to Talbott, “We already know that the Kremlin helped put Trump into the White House and played him for a sucker…. Trump has been colluding with a hostile Russia throughout his presidency.” In fact, we do not “know” any of this. These remain merely widely disseminated suspicions and allegations.

In this cult-like commentary, the “threat” of “a hostile Russia” must be inflated along with charges against Trump. (In truth, Russia represents no threat to the United States that Washington itself did not provoke since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.) For its own threat inflation, the Timesfeatured not an expert with any plausible credentials but Lisa Page, the former FBI lawyer with no known Russia expertise, and who was one of those reprimanded by the agency for anti-Trump political bias. Nonetheless, the Times quotes Page at length:

“In the Russian Federation and in President Putin himself you have an individual whose aim is to disrupt the Western alliance and whose aim is to make Western democracy more fractious in order to weaken our ability…to spread our democratic ideals.”

Perhaps we should have guessed that the democracy-promotion genes of J. Edgar Hoover were still alive and breeding in the FBI, though for the Times, in its exploitation of the hapless and legally endangered Page, it seems not to matter.

Which brings us, or rather Russiagate zealots, to the heightened “threat” represented by “Putin’s Russia.” If true, we would expect the US president to negotiate with the Kremlin leader, including at summit meetings, as every president since Dwight Eisenhower has done. But, we are told, we cannot trust Trump to do so, because, according to The Washington Post, he has repeatedly met with Putin alone, with only translators present, and concealed the records of their private talks, sure signs of “treasonous” behavior, as the Russiagate media first insisted following the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki in July 2018.

It’s hard to know whether this is historical ignorance or Russiagate malice, though it is probably both. In any event, the truth is very different. In preparing US-Russian (Soviet and post-Soviet) summits since the 1950s, aides on both sides have arranged “private time” for their bosses for two essential reasons: so they can develop sufficient personal rapport to sustain any policy partnership they decide on; and so they can alert one another to constraints on their policy powers at home, to foes of such détente policies often centered in their respective intelligence agencies.

(The KGB ran operations against Nikita Khrushchev’s détente policies with Eisenhower, and, as is well established, US intelligence agencies have run operations against Trump’s proclaimed goal of “cooperation with Russia.”)

That is, in the modern history of US-Russian summits, we are told by a former American ambassador who knows, the “secrecy of presidential private meetings…has been the rule, not the exception.” He continues, “There’s nothing unusual about withholding information from the bureaucracy about the president’s private meetings with foreign leaders…. Sometimes they would dictate a memo afterward, sometimes not.” Indeed, President Richard Nixon, distrustful of the US “bureaucracy,” sometimes met privately with Kremlin leader Leonid Brezhnev while only Brezhnev’s translator was present.

Nor should we forget the national-security benefits that have come from private meetings between US and Kremlin leaders. In October 1986, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met alone with their translators and an American official who took notes—the two leaders, despite their disagreements, agreed in principle that nuclear weapons should be abolished. The result, in 1987, was the first and still only treaty abolishing an entire category of such weapons, the exceedingly dangerous intermediate-range ones. (This is the historic treaty Trump has said he may abrogate.)

And yet, congressional zealots are now threatening to subpoena the American translator who was present during Trump’s meetings with Putin. If this recklessness prevails, it will be the end of the nuclear-superpower summit diplomacy that has helped to keep America and the world safe from catastrophic war for nearly 70 years—and as a new, more perilous nuclear arms race between the two countries is unfolding. It will amply confirm a thesis set out in my book War with Russia?—that anti-Trump Russiagate allegations have become the gravest threat to our security.

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Caterers At UK Airports Are Stockpiling In-Flight Meals To Prepare For ‘No Deal’ Brexit

In the days after the UK’s chaotic no-deal Brexit, as companies scramble to re-engineer supply chains to account for time-consuming customs checks on goods entering the country from the EU, air travelers leaving the UK (passport in hand) can rest assured that, even if their flights linger on the runway for hours, at least they will have a tasty in-flight meal to enjoy as they lash out at Theresa May and her government on Twitter.

That’s because the world’s biggest caterer of airplane meals, snacks and beverages has already stockpiled enough supplies to last about ten days in a warehouse in Peterborough, England, Bloomberg reports.

Brexit

Following the historic defeat of her Brexit withdrawal deal last week, Theresa May has apparently reasoned that winning over intransigent Tories and members of the DUP would be her best shot at winning support for a “Plan B” deal, which she is expected to introduce on Monday (to be sure, “Plan B” is expected to include only minor differences from “Plan A”).

With the way forward as muddled as ever, May has little choice but to keep fostering scary headlines about the possible fallout from a ‘no deal’ Brexit – a strategy we have dubbed “Project Fear” – in the hope that, once their backs are against the wall and their alternatives have been whittled down to ‘her deal or no deal’, MPs will do the “sensible” thing and back May’s deal.

Brexit

And now, Gate Gourmet, an airline services company that supplies 10 airports in the UK, has filled warehouses across the country with enough supplies to give them a 10-day buffer following a hard Brexit, which the company’s executives fear could be disruptive to their supply chain.

Gate Gourmet, which serves 20 airlines at 10 U.K. airports, is accumulating enough pizza, ice cream and roast duck (for business class) to see passengers through about 10 days of disruption. Chilled items are being held at a warehouse in Peterborough, England, while mountains of snack boxes, peanuts and toilet rolls are piling up at a room-temperature facility in London.

“Companies could be in difficulty if they haven’t prepared themselves and ensured a continuity of supply,” Stephen Corr, the Zurich-based firm’s managing director for Western Europe, said in an interview. “We’ve been gradually increasing inventory levels of products from the European Union to ensure that any initial disruption at the U.K. border can be covered.”

Companies across the UK are already stockpiling everything from autoparts, plane wings, newsprint, beer and cancer drugs at specialist warehouses. Gate Gourmet produces most of its meals in Spain and Germany, which could create problems if the trading relationship between the UK and the EU suddenly reverts to WTO rules. Because of this pre-Brexit Day rush, one of the warehouses used by Gate Gourmet is already 98% full.

That means using the Calais-Dover sea crossing that’s expected to become a pinch-point following the introduction of time-consuming customs checks if Britain exits the EU without a deal. Before being sent to the airport for reheating aboard the plane, the cooked food is stored in Peterborough.

The site, run by a Chiltern Cold Storage, is now 98 percent full with everything from frozen meat for restaurants to vegan meals and dog food, as suppliers the length and breadth of Britain call on its services, according to Operations Director Tom Lewis.

With Brexit Day just 75 days away, more companies are triggering their ‘hard Brexit’ contingency plans. And with May about as close to passing a deal as she was last summer (that is to say, not close at all), we can’t help but wonder if all of this stockpiling could create some distortions in the UK’s PMI numbers if Brexit Day comes and goes without a catastrophe.

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Adamowicz’s Assassination Is Being Exploited To Politically Polarize Poland

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

Gdańsk mayor Paweł Adamowicz of the Civil Platform (or PO) opposition party died after being stabbed in the heart by a deranged assailant at a charity concert on Sunday, who deceived security in order to get onstage and then give a crazed rant after the attack attempting to justify his crime on the alleged grounds that the mayor’s party wrongly imprisoned him.

All of Poland is mourning Adamowicz’s death and even his political rivals made speeches denouncing his assassination, but there are already some voices that are trying to make this into a partisan issue in order to score points ahead of this May’s European Parliamentary elections and besmirch the credibility of the ruling Law & Justice Party (also known by its Polish abbreviation as PiS).

The Washington Post published a provocative piece titled “Polish mayor and opposition leader dies after a stabbing, prompting fears of further divisions”, which advances the narrative that the rhetoric being espoused by some members of the ruling party and their supporters contributed to this tragedy.

This is almost the exact same storyline that the US Mainstream Media promotes whenever a mentally ill American goes on a killing spree and any faint trace of a political motive could be found or manufactured. It’s probably not a coincidence that the Washington Post’s political victim of this innuendo-filled smear piece is a party allied to Trump, with whom the outlet’s owner Jeff Bezos is in a heated ideological rivalry and who his paper never tires of attacking.

People in Poland are gathering for solemn vigils to honor Gdansk Mayor, 53-year-old Pawel Adamowicz. who died Monday after being stabbed at a fundraising event the night before.

PiS’ “grey cardinal” Jaroslaw Kaczynski also just entered into a EuroRealist alliance with Italy’s Salvini that threatens to politically shake up the EU if they and their allies come out on top in this May’s European Parliamentary elections, so they and Trump’s enemies have a motivation to try to discredit them ahead of the vote by implying that the Polish ruling party’s rhetoric and that of their supporters played a role in Adamowicz’s assassination.

It’s regrettable that the American style of unprincipled partisan politics is now being imposed on Poland and it says a lot about the unethical means to which some of the opposition’s proponents will go in order to undermine their rivals, making Adamowicz’s assassination a dark moment in Polish history for more reasons than one.

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“Our Name Is Our Soul” – Greek Protesters Hurl Molotov Cocktails At Police Over Macedonia Name

In one of the most violent protests on the streets of Athens since the Greeks last narrowly avoided an all-out economic collapse back in 2015, thousands of angry Greeks gathered outside the Parliament in Athens on Sunday to protest an agreement between the Greek government and the government of Macedonia that aimed to put to rest a long-simmering conflict between the two neighbors over – of all things – the formal name of the former constituent of Yugoslavia.

Fire

In an accord that will help clear the way for Macedonia to potentially join the EU, Macedonia has agreed to change its name from the “Republic of Macedonia” to the “Republic of Northern Macedonia” under a deal between the two countries that was ratified in both Athens and Skopje.

Protesters tossed Molotov cocktails and attacked police, who responded by tear gassing the crowd.

Greece

Greece

Greece

Greece

But nationalist Greeks, who have long objected to Macedonia claiming the name “Macedonia” (which is also the name of a province in Northern Greece), have been infuriated by the deal. Many believe that the use of the name Macedonia implies a territorial claim on the Greek province, according to CNN.

“Giving away the name Macedonia means giving away our land. The aim of the protest rally is to send a message to politicians. Our name is our soul,” Giorgos Tatsios, a member of the rally’s organizing committee, said.

The protesters waved flags and chanted slogans including “Macedonia is Greece” and “Hands off Macedonia.”

Giorgos Golas, 46, who traveled to Athens for the day to attend, said living in the northern Greek town of Ptolemaida made him feel “vulnerable.”

“We don’t want an agreement that does not protect us from minority issues being raised or territorial claims.”

Greek police said 60,000 people took part in the rally, which was held ahead of a vote in Parliament that could take place as early as next week. The agreement is widely expected to be ratified, despite all opposition parties opposing the deal. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said he believes its his “patriotic duty” to ratify the agreement, despite its unpopularity.

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The Vatican Surrenders To China

Authored by Lawrence Franklin via The Gatestone Institute,

  • The Vatican may learn the hard way that the Communist Chinese government does not honor its agreements. Beijing may attempt to extort even more concessions from the Vatican, just as the Chinese regime demands ever more surrender of sovereignty from western companies that do business in China.

  • It is also highly dubious that the Vatican will purchase peace by this pact: the regime will continue to persecute the Church. If the Communist regime is true to form, thousands more crosses will be taken down from Christian churches, especially in areas that have a high Christian population.

  • The courageous elders of Chinese Catholicism, who have endured decades of government persecution and regime efforts to divide the Church, may be seen by their flocks as having been bypassed by the Vatican. Many, if not most, Chinese Catholics are likely to view this agreement as a cynical political betrayal by the Vatican rather than a faith-based decision.

  • “In light of this dismal record, it seems that prudence and caution would seem to be the order of the day in Vatican negotiations with the totalitarians in charge in Beijing, at whose most recent Party Congress religion was once again declared the enemy of Communism.” — George Weigel, Catholic author and political analyst.

Pictured: The Sacred Heart Cathedral in Guangzhou, China. (Image source: Zhangzhugang/Wikimedia Commons)

Pope Francis has surrendered partial control of the Chinese Catholic Church to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). His Holiness agreed to grant the Party considerable authority over personnel matters. After decades of refusing to give China the right to appoint Catholic bishops, as a condition for normalization of relations, the Vatican finally conceded to the regime’s demand to allow the CCP a decisive role in the selection of bishops to head Catholic dioceses.

The Vatican’s concession came despite the CCP’s continued persecution of the unofficial, independent, underground Catholic Church in China. Yet the Vatican probably does not view this as a defeat but rather as a means to an end. The diplomatic hierarchy of the Catholic Church may be confident that the truth of its spiritual message will endure long after the CCP dissolves into the same historical trash bin as other totalitarian ideologies have done.

The Church’s consenting to fold its independent political posture into the Chinese regime’s Communist Party apparatus gives Beijing the authority to appoint bishops politically acceptable to the CCP. In granting China this right, the Vatican implicitly is recognizing the legitimacy of the regime’s CCP instrument to infiltrate and control Roman Catholicism in China, which is the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA).

Pope Francis has also reinstated several pro-regime bishops whom the Vatican had once excommunicated because they willingly agreed to follow Communist China’s directives, while forsaking their loyalty to the Church in Rome. Finally, the Holy See’s bureaucracy also accepted Beijing’s demand to reduce and restructure the Catholic Church’s 137 dioceses across China.

This last Vatican concession may shred the religious authority of several bishops secretly appointed to some of these eliminated dioceses by Pope Francis and previous popes. For almost 70 years, after the CCP’s successful takeover in China, Catholics have either attended churches approved by the government’s Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association or churches aligned with the Vatican. Some Catholics even attend Mass in private homes to avoid surveillance by agents of the regime.

After a series of recent meetings between the Holy See and China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs, Pope Francis dispatched a delegation in mid-December to meet with leading bishops of the pro-Vatican “Underground Church” and Chinese government officials. The delegation was ostensibly in China to pursue “practical steps” to implement the provisional agreement the Holy See had reached with China.

In reality, the Papal delegation may have been sent to China to make certain that the agreement’s final implementation proceeded smoothly. The delegation included the Vatican’s President-Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli. The Archbishop carried a document signed by the Holy See’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin and by Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

The delegation’s Papal directive instructed at least two prominent Catholic bishops of the “Underground Church” to retire or share their official duties with bishops approved by the CCP. While the exact wording of the Holy See’s letter remains secret, some Vatican observers, presumably reflecting the Pope’s decision to reverse years of resisting Beijing’s demands, cited a few reasons for giving in. First, the Church probably needs to eliminate confusion among Catholics in China over the schism between Vatican-approved and regime-approved bishops. Another possible reason for the Vatican’s apparent flexible stance is that a Church-state compromise would be necessary to improve pastoral care for existing Catholic faithful. The decision by the Vatican not to publish the letter, however, may suggest that the regime is also demanding that the Holy See break relations with Taiwan before it can normalize diplomatic ties to China. This supposition is based on the character of Beijing’s previous agreements establishing bilateral relations with other countries, including Panama. Other countries that cut ties to Taiwan in order to open up embassies in China include the tiny African country of São Tomé and Príncipe as well as El Salvador. The prerequisite that states desiring formal ties with China must first sever formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan rests on Beijing calls its “One China” policy.

Communist China considers Taiwan an integral part of China, and thus rejects Taiwan’s claim that it represents the legitimate government of China.

The Vatican’s public relations officers seem to have tried to put the best face on the agreement with Beijing. Gregory Burke, the recently resigned Director of the Holy See’s Press Office, suggested that this pact with the CCP was designed to be pastoral, not political, implying that it would help unify Chinese Catholics. The Vatican, however, in a seeming effort to douse speculation, has refused to reply to inquires whether the agreement is a first step in establishing diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China. About half of the 98 dioceses have no Vatican-approved bishops, thereby often leaving their parishes without clerics to administer to believers. It is clear from Beijing’s anti-Catholic harassment campaign that the Communist Party leadership is determined to co-opt, if not destroy, the independence of the Church in China. Regime harassment includes the dispatch of internal security police to strip churches of their statues, and the removal of crosses from steeples. Sometimes bibles are confiscated if seen in public. Masses are often celebrated in private homes to avoid being monitored by the state. On one occasion in early 2018, an entire Catholic Church was demolished, prompting a street demonstration by parishioners.

Perhaps the Vatican might be privately concerned that the CCP’s continued opposition could complicate evangelization efforts among the Chinese people. The Vatican’s desire to reach an agreement with Beijing may also be, in part, a reaction to the regime’s efforts to sow dissent in the Church by supporting the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association as an alternative church. With President Xi Jinping’s endorsement, at the October’s 19, 2018 Chinese Communist Party Congress, Beijing launched a “Sinicization” campaign to bring all religions in line with Chinese culture and values. This government tactic is probably designed to co-opt or to curb the growth of an independent Catholic Church, thereby enhancing Communist Party control of religion in China. One report alleges that Catholic evangelization of the Chinese people is stagnating in marked contrast to the rapid expansion of Protestant Christianity in the country. This disparity underscores the significance of Cardinal Filoni’s presence in the Vatican delegation to China’s Catholic Bishops: Filoni is responsible for the Vatican’s worldwide evangelizingcampaigns.

The Vatican’s pact with Beijing is evoking a good deal of intense criticism from both leading Catholic intellectuals and human rights crusaders. Retired Cardinal of Hong Kong Joseph Zen bitterly critiqued the agreement as “an incredible betrayal,” tantamount to giving “the flock to the wolves.” The China Director of Human Rights Watch, Sophie Richardson, stated that “the Pope has effectively given Chinese leader President Xi Jinping a stamp of approval when the latter’s hostility to religious freedom couldn’t be clearer.”

Even while Beijing and the Vatican were negotiating the future status of the Catholic Church in China, the Communist regime continued its pressure on the Underground Catholic Church to go along with its efforts to get the Vatican to comply with the state’s wishes on the administration of the Catholic Church in China. The government harassed and arrested Bishop Joseph Guo Xijin during the years-long negotiations between the Holy See and China. During the talks, another Catholic prelate, 88 year-old pro-Vatican Bishop Peter Zhuang, was hauled before China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs. Although Bishop Zhuang was released into the custody of a Vatican delegation, the event was held in the presence of Chinese Party officials, where he was coerced to retire in light of the Vatican-China deal.

Perhaps the true intention of the Communist regime was best characterized by Jesuit China expert at Santa Clara University, Father Paul Mariani, in December, 2018:

“The government has not given up its hope for control. They want the Church to be another tool of the state. That’s common in China, across labor unions or NGOs – they all have to fall under the party at some level.”

The Vatican may learn the hard way that the Communist Chinese government does not honor its agreements. Beijing might well attempt to extort even more concessions from the Vatican just as the Chinese regime demands ever more surrender of sovereignty from western companies that do business in China. These demands can include a requirement to form joint ventures with a Chinese company, with China holding a majority interest, the demand that all critical data be stored locally, and scrubbing any language to which Beijing objects.

It is also highly dubious that the Vatican will purchase peace by this pact: the regime will continue to persecute the Church. If the Communist regime is true to form, thousands more crosses will be taken down from Christian churches, especially in areas that have a high Christian population. In 2015, in Zhejiang Province, in the southeastern city of Wenzhou, where one in eight citizens are Christian, approximately 1,200 crosses were forcibly torn from their moorings.

The only likely benefit that the Vatican could derive from this Munich-style pact with the Chinese regime may be an official invitation to Pope Francis to visit China. That privilege, however, might well be outweighed by the potential harm for the future of Catholicism in China. The courageous elders of Chinese Catholicism, who have endured decades of government persecution and regime efforts to divide the Church, may be seen by their flocks as having been bypassed by the Vatican. Many Chinese Catholics, realizing that their hierarchy was reluctantly fused by the Vatican into a union with the state-controlled church, might retreat into private homes to attend Catholic services. Many, if not most, Chinese Catholics are likely to view this agreement as a cynical political betrayal by the Vatican rather than a faith-based decision.

The eminent American Catholic author George Weigel sums up the Vatican’s past failed policies of negotiation with totalitarian regimes:

“In light of this dismal record, it seems that prudence and caution would seem to be the order of the day in Vatican negotiations with the totalitarians in charge in Beijing, at whose most recent Party Congress religion was once again declared the enemy of Communism.”

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Death Of Russiagate? Mueller Team Tied To Mifsud’s Network

Via Disobedient Media,

In April last year, Disobedient Media broke coverage of the British involvement in the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, asking why All Russiagate Roads Lead To London, via the quasi-scholar Joseph Mifsud and others.

The issue was also raised by WikiLeaks’s Julian Assange, just days before the Ecuadorian government silenced him last March. Assange’s Twitter thread cited research by Chris Blackburn, who spoke with Disobedient Media on multiple occasions covering Joseph Mifsud’s ties to British intelligence figures and organizations, as well as his links to Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign, the FBI, CIA and the private cyber-security firm Crowdstrike.

We return, now, to this issue and specifically the research of Chris Blackburn, to place the final nail in the coffin of the Trump-Russia collusion charade. Blackburn’s insights are incredible not only because they return us to the earliest reporting on the role of British intelligence figures in manufacturing the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, but because they also implicate members of Mueller’s investigation. What we are left with is an indication of collusion between factions of the US and UK intelligence community in fabricating evidence of Trump-Russia collusion: a scandal that would have rocked the legacy press to its core, if Western establishment-backed media had a spine.

In Disobedient Media’s previous coverage of Blackburn’s work, he described his experience in intelligence:

“I’ve been involved in numerous investigations that involve counter-intelligence techniques in the past. I used to work for the 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism, one of the biggest tort actions in American history. I helped build a profile of Osama bin Laden’s financial and political network, which was slightly different to the one that had been built by the CIA’s Alec Station, a dedicated task force which was focused on Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Alec Station designed its profile to hunt Osama bin Laden and disrupt his network. I thought it was flawed. It had failed to take into account Osama’s historical links to Pakistan’s main political parties or that he was the figurehead for a couple of organizations, not just Al-Qaeda.”

“I also ran a few conferences for US intelligence leaders during the Bush administration. After the 9/11 Commission published its report into the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon it created a public outreach program. The US National Intelligence Conference and Exposition (Intelcon) was one of the avenues it used. I was responsible for creating the ‘View from Abroad’ track. We had guidance from former Senator Slade Gorton and Jamie Gorelick, who both sat on the 9/11 Commission. We got leaders such as Sir John Chilcot and Baroness Pauline Neville Jones to come and help share their experiences on how the US would be able to heal the rifts after 9/11.”

“The US intelligence community was suffering from severe turf wars and firewalls, which were hampering counter-terrorism efforts. They were concentrating on undermining each other rather than tackling terrorism. I had mainly concentrated on the Middle East, but in 2003 I switched my focus to terrorism in South Asia.”

Counter Terrorism, Not Counter Intelligence, Sparked Probe

In an article published by The Telegraph last November, the paper acknowledged the following:

“It forces the spotlight on whether the UK played a role in the FBI’s investigation launched before the 2016 presidential election into Trump campaign ties to the Kremlin… Mr. Trump’s allies and former advisers are raising questions about the UK’s role in the start of the probe, given many of the key figures and meetings were located in Britain… One former top White House adviser to Mr. Trump made similar insinuations, telling this newspaper: “You know the Brits are up to their neck.” The source added on the Page wiretap application: “I think that stuff is going to implicate MI5 and MI6 in a bunch of activities they don’t want to be implicated in, along with FBI, counter-terrorism and the CIA.” [Emphasis Added]

The article cites George Papadopoulos, who asked why the “British intelligence apparatus was weaponized against Trump and his advisers.” Papadopoulos has also addressed the issue at length via Twitter. In response to the Telegraph’s coverage of the issue, Chris Blackburn wrote via Twitter:

“The Telegraph story on Trump Russia acknowledges that activities involving counter-terrorism are at the heart of the scandal…not counter-intelligence. If the [London Centre for International Law Practice] was British state, not private, some Commonwealth countries are going to be seriously pissed off.”

Blackburn spoke with Disobedient Media, saying:

“If you factor in the dreadful reporting to discredit Joseph Mifsud and leaks, it is pretty clear something rather strange happened to George Papadopoulos during the campaign while he was shuttling around Europe and the Middle East. He was working with people who have intelligence links at the London Centre of International Law Practice. A recent article in The Telegraph also alludes to MI5, MI6, and CIA using counter-terrorism assets which would tie into the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP), and its sister organizations, doing counter-terrorism work for the Australian, UK and US governments. They quote anonymous officials who believe that their intelligence agencies used counter-terrorism personnel to kick start the investigation/scandal.” [Emphasis Added]

Blackburn discussed this differentiation with Disobedient Media:

“Counter-terrorism is obviously involved in more kinetic, violent political actions-concerning mass casualty events, bombings, assassinations, poisonings, and hacking. But, the lines are blurring between them. Counter-intelligence cases have been known to stretch for decades- often relying on nothing more than paranoia and suspicion to fuel investigations. Counter-terrorism is also a broader discipline as it involves tactical elements like hostage rescue, crime scene investigations, and explosive specialists. Counter-Terrorism is a collaborative effort with counter-terrorism officers working closely with local and regional police forces and civic organizations. There is also a wider academic field around countering violent, and radical ideology which promotes terrorism and insurgencies. Cybersecurity has become the third major discipline in intelligence. The London Center of International Law Practice, the mysterious intelligence company that employed both Papadopoulos and Mifsud, had also been working in that area.”

Continuing, Blackburn pinpointed the significance of defining counter-terrorism as the starting point of the investigation, saying: “It shows that there is a high probability that intelligence was deliberately abused to make Papadopoulos’ activities look like they were something else. As counter-terrorism and counterintelligence are close in tactics and methods, it would seem that they were used because they share the same skill sets – covert evidence gathering and deception. It’s basically sleight of hand. A piece of theatre would be more precise. However, we don’t know if the FBI knew it was real or make-believe. It’s more likely that the CIA played the FBI with the help of close allies who were suspicious and frightened of a Trump presidency.”

Mueller’s Team And Joseph Mifsud

Zainab Ahmad, a member of Mueller’s legal team, is the former Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York. As pointed out by Blackburn, Ahmad attended a Global Center on Cooperative Security event in 2017. In recent days, Blackburn wrote via Twitter:

“Zainab Ahmad is a major player in the Russiagate scandal at the DOJ. Does she work for SC Mueller? She was at a GCCS event in May 2017. Arvinder Sambei, a co-director of the [London Centre of International Law Practice], worked with Joseph Mifsud, [George Papadopoulos] and [Simona Mangiante]. She’s a GCCS consultant.”

Blackburn told this author:

“Zainab Ahmad was one of the first DOJ prosecutors to have seen the Steele dossier. In May 2017, she attended a counter-terrorism conference in New York with the Global Center on Cooperative Security (GCCS), an organization which Joseph Mifsud, the alleged Russian spy, had been working within London and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.”

Zainab Ahmad (AHMAD). Image via the Combatting Terrorism Center, West Point

“Richard Barrett, the Former Chief of Counter-Terrorism at MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence department traveled with Mifsud to Saudi Arabia to give a talk on terrorism in 2017. Ex-CIA officers, US Defense, and US Treasury officials were also there. The London Centre of International Law Practice’s relationship to the Global Center had been established in 2014. The Global Center on Cooperative Security made Martin Polaine and Arvinder Sambei consultants, they then became directors at the London Centre of International Law Practice.”

“The Global Center on Cooperative Security’s first major UK conference was at Joseph Mifsud’s London Academy of Diplomacy (LAD). Mifsud then followed Arvinder Sambei and Nagi Idris over to the London Centre of International Law Practice. Sources have told me that Mifsud was moonlighting as a specialist on counter-terrorism and Islamism while working at LAD which explains why he went to work in counter-terrorism after LAD folded.”

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Global Center on Cooperative Security is connected to various elements that popped up in the Papadopoulos case. The fact that a prosecutor on Mueller’s team was at Global Center before Mueller was appointed as special counsel is also troubling.”

Days ago, The Hill reported on Congressional testimony by Bruce Ohr, revealing that when served as a DOJ official, he warned FBI and DOJ figures that the Steele dossier was problematic and linked to the Clintons. Critically, The Hill writes:

“Those he briefed included Andrew Weissmann, then the head of DOJ’s fraud section; Bruce Swartz, longtime head of DOJ’s international operations, and Zainab Ahmad, an accomplished terrorism prosecutor who, at the time, was assigned to work with Lynch as a senior counselor. Ahmad and Weissmann would go on to work for Mueller, the special prosecutor overseeing the Russia probe.” [Emphasis Added]

This point is essential, as it not only describes Ahmad’s role in Mueller’s team but places her at a crucial pre-investigation meeting.

Last year, Blackburn noted the connection between Mifsud and Arvinder Sambei, writing: “LCILP director and FBI counsel, works with Mike Smith at the Global Center. They ran joint counter-terrorism conferences and training with Mifsud’s London Academy. Sambei then brought Mifsud over to the [London Centre of International Law Practice]. [Global Center works with Aussies, UK and US State too.”

Sambei has been described elsewhere as a “Former practising barrister, Senior Crown Prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service of England & Wales, and Legal Adviser at the Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ), Ministry of Defence.” [British spelling has been retained]

Arvinder Sambei. Image via the Public International Law Advisory Group

That Sambei has been so thoroughly linked to organizations where Mifsud was a central figure is yet another cause of suspicion regarding allegations that Joseph Mifsud was a shadowy, unknown Russian agent until the summer of 2016. She is also a direct link between Robert Mueller and Mifsud.

Blackburn wrote via Twitter: “Arvinder Sambei helped to organize LCILP’s counter-terrorism and corruption events. She used her contacts in the US to bring in Middle Eastern government officials that were seen to be vulnerable to graft. Lisa Osofsky, former FBI Deputy General Counsel, was working with her.” Below, Arvinder is pictured at a London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP) event.

Arvinder Sambei, pictured at an LCILP event. Image via Chris Blackburn, Twitter

As Chris Blackburn told this author:

“Mifsud and Papadopoulos’s co-director Arvinder Sambei was also the former FBI British counsel working 9/11 cases for Robert Mueller. She also runs a consultancy which deals with Special Investigative Measure (SIMs) which is just a posh description for covert espionage and evidence gathering. She has worked for major intelligence and national law agencies in the past. She wore two hats as a director of London Centre and a consultant for the Global Center on Cooperative Security (GCCS), a counter-terrorism think tank which is sponsored by the Australia, Canada, UK and US governments. Alexander Downer’s former Chief of Staff while at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade now works for the Global Center. Mifsud was also due to meet with Australian private intelligence figures in Adelaide in March 2016. So. Australia is certainly a major focus for the investigation.” [Emphasis Added]

Below, former FBI Deputy General Counsel Lisa Osofsky is pictured at a London Centre for International Law Practice event. Osofsky also served as the Money Laundering Reporting Officer with Goldman Sachs International. Since 2018, she has served as the Director of the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO).

Lisa Osofsky, pictured at an LCILP event. Image via Chris Blackburn, Twitter

An Embarrassment For John Brennan?

Disobedient Media previously reported that Robert Hannigan, then head of British spy agency GCHQ, flew to Washington DC to share ‘director-to-director’ level intelligence with then-CIA Chief John Brennan in the summer of 2016. This writer noted that “The Guardian reported Hannigan’s announcement that he would step down from his leadership position with the agency just three days after the inauguration of President Trump, on 23 January 2017. Jane Mayer, in her profile of Christopher Steele published in the New Yorker, also noted that Hannigan had flown to Washington D.C. to personally brief the then-CIA Director John Brennan on alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. What is so curious about this briefing “deemed so sensitive it was handled at director-level” is why Hannigan was talking director-to-director to the CIA and not Mike Rogers at the NSA, GCHQ’s Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partner.”

Blackburn told Disobedient Media:

“Former Congressman Trey Gowdy, who has seen most of the information gathered by Congress from the intelligence community concerning the Russia investigation, said that if President Trump were to declassify files and present the truth to the American public, it would “embarrass John Brennan.” I think that is pretty concrete for me, but it’s not definitive. I know the polarization and spin in Washington has become perverse, but that statement is pretty specific for me. If Brennan is involved, it is most probably through Papadopoulos who sparked off the ‘official’ investigation at the FBI. He also made sure the Steele dossier was spread through the US government.”

Blackburn added: “Chris Steele was also working on FIFA projects, and a source has told me that he was working to investigate the Russian and Qatari World Cup bids. The London Centre of International Law Practice has been working with Majed Garoub, the former Saudi legal representative of FIFA, the world governing body for soccer. He’s also been working against the Qatari bid. Steele likes to get paid twice for his investigations.”

“Mifsud has also been associated with Prince Turki the former Saudi intelligence chief, Mifsud and the London Academy of Diplomacy used to train Saudi diplomats and intelligence figures while Turki was the Saudi Ambassador to London. Turki is a close friend of Bill Clinton and John Brennan. Nawaf Obaid was also courting Mifsud and tried to get him a cushy job working with CNN’s Freedom Project at Link Campus in Rome. He also knows John Brennan. Intelligence agencies like to give out professional gifts like this plum academic position for completing missions. In the US, it is widely known that intelligence agencies gift the children of assets to get them into prestigious Ivy League schools.”

At minimum, we can surmise that Mifsud was not a Russian agent, but was an asset of Western intelligence agencies. We are left with the impression that the Mifsud saga served as a ploy, whether he participated knowingly or not. It seems reasonable to conclude that the gambit was initially developed with participation of John Brennan and UK intelligence. Following this, Mueller inherited and developed the Mifsud narrative thread into the collusion soap opera we know today.

Ultimately, we are faced with the reality that British and US interests worked together to fabricate a collusion scandal to subvert a US Presidency, and in doing so, intentionally raised tensions between the West and a nuclear-armed power.

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