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A sense of “risk off” has returned to the the market, with 10Y yields sliding, the dollar rebounding from session lows and the Turkish Lira resuming its plunge, renewing concerns about emerging market contagion, leading to a “red return” across global market monitors, following yesterday’s torrid surge in the S&P500.

The USDTRY surged over 8% on Friday, infecting risk sentiment in a generally subdued and low volume session.

There wasn’t one specific catalyst for the latest sharp selloff, although some cited the latest credit measures to help domestic corporates as potentially increasing pressure on banking system.

In its latest steps to shield the economy and mitigate the impact of “economic attacks on our country”, Albayrak’s finance ministry on Friday said that non-financial companies’ credit worthiness wouldn’t be affected by failure to service debt amid the recent rout. Credit lines to firms would remain open, and pricing and repayment periods would be kept flexible, it said. The finance ministry also said that:

• It would limit breaches due to lira decline in loans won’t be taken into consideration; banks won’t demand loan closings in such instances
• Banks won’t demand additional collateral for corporate loans whose collateral value have declined due to lira depreciation
• Force majeure may be declared on loan repayment delays, dud cheques and protested bills. Thus, companies’ access to credit won’t be impaired

In other words, the government is giving banks a blank slate to continue business as usual even if they are on the verge of collapse, not only intensifying the deterioration of the economy, but breaking down traditional risk signaling pathways.

Another reason behind today’s slide was potential risk-shedding before week long Turkish public holiday and upcoming S&P comments on Turkish rating.

Overnight, President Trump stated that Turkey has taken advantage of US for many years and are now holding US pastor, while he added the US will not pay anything for the release an innocent man but are cutting back on Turkey. Separately, a report in Middle East Eye said that Turkey is ready to release Pastor Brunson but the US is offering nothing in return.

TRY traders are also spooked as we may see the the outcome of the appeal court’s consideration of Pastor Brunson’s release request today: it is expected some time this week after the second criminal court rejected the request on Wednesday. On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin also threatened more sanctions overnight over Brunson’s ongoing detention, suggesting further headline risk for US-Turkey tensions. “It still looks like we’re headed to more conflict,” Kathy Jones, chief fixed-income strategist at Charles Schwab Inc. “Neither side seems to be backing down yet.”

Meanwhile, that other closely watched FX pair, the USDCNH briefly pushed lower on reports that the U.S. will pressure for a stronger yuan, however the move was s not sustained given similar reports from WSJ yesterday; and as a result the offshore Yuan was trading around 6.87, just fractionally lower than the Thursday close. Also notable, the offshore yuan interbank rates (Hibors) rose sharply in delayed response to yesterday’s liquidity move via forwards.

European and U.S. equity futures grind lower, in cash equities the bank and auto sectors underperform in typical risk-off manner. S&P index futures were little changed as investors await further developments in the renewed dialog between the U.S. and China. Attention will shift later to leading indicators and University of Michigan Confidence Index, while the only big company to report earnings is Deere & Co. According to Bloomberg, Department-store stocks will be in focus after Nordstrom boosted forecasts and surged after hours, as well as chip stocks after Nvidia and Applied Materials disappointed investors with their outlook.

In Europe, tech shares weighed on the Stoxx Europe 600 Index after disappointing results from U.S. chipmakers including Nvidia and Applied Materials. And while most Asian stocks advanced, Chinese shares slid again as U.S. President Donald Trump prodded Beijing to offer more at the bargaining table in their first major negotiation planned in more than two months. The Shanghai Composite tumbled to a new two year low.

Emerging-market stocks were relatively steady following a seven-session sell-off that brought them to the brink of a bear market, although if the TRY plunge continues contagion may re-emerge: as noted above, the market convulsions were again on show on Friday, as the lira slid to as low as 6.32 per dollar, bringing its losses for the year to more than 40%.

Today’s instability followed news of a possible breakthrough in the U.S.-China trade dispute which brought some calm to markets whipsawed by the brewing financial crisis in Turkey and renewed angst over technology stocks. Traders are catching their breath after a sell-off in commodities and emerging-market stocks, which are on the brink of their worst weekly performance since the February volatility blow-up, signaling the trade war remains the wildcard for many markets.

“I don’t think we’re quite out of the woods yet,” Marcus Miholich, a managing director at State Street Global Advisors Ltd., told Bloomberg TV in Sydney. “Investors have definitely taken note of these tensions and have reallocated into more defensive sectors and defensive names. Given we don’t seem to have the light at the end of the tunnel just yet, that will continue.”

In other geopolitical news, US administration official said President Trump and Russian President Putin agreed in principle that Iran should exit Syria, although the official added that Russia sees this as a difficult task. US Pentagon report stated China has been expanding fleet of long-range bombers during last 3 years and are ‘likely’ training for missions which target the US.

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index headed for a third straight week of gains, and rebounded from session lows on Friday as the Turkish Lira slumped. The euro hit a one-week high versus the Swiss franc as risk sentiment keeps improving and filled option-related supply above 1.14 versus the greenback.

The euro extended its advance and gained as much as 0.4% to touch 1.1419 high as stops above 1.14 were triggered, before falling back below that handle. Yen and New Zealand dollars led gains against the greenback, with many short-term accounts citing yuan performance as a driver for the moves; USD/JPY fell as much as 0.4% to 110.49 low with the pair continuing to consolidate between 110-111. The pound erased gains as leveraged supply near highs absorbed buying pressure; the currency headed for its sixth weekly loss.

Treasuries extend gains as the lira weakens, with the UST curve led by 10-year. The yield on 10-year TSYs dropped 1 bp to 2.85%, the lowest in more than four weeks. Italy’s 10-year yield rose less than one basis point to 3.12%.

Elsewhere, oil climbed despite a surprise gain in U.S. crude stockpiles, while zinc fell, heading for its worst weekly performance since 2011. Oil prices are up this Friday but are still set to end the week in the red for the third week in a row. WTI and Brent are both up ~0.25% on the day as energy specific news flow remains light. In the metals scope, Gold is up marginally off the back of USD weakness and testing the USD1180/OZ level to the upside, but is still set for its largest weekly fall in 15 months. Precious metals are slightly in the green with all of silver (+0.2%), platinum (+0.4%)and palladium (+0.1%) up on the day.

Expected data include Conference Board U.S. Leading Index and University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. Deere reports earnings.

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 futures down 0.1% to 2,841.25
• STOXX Europe 600 up 0.06% to 381.65
• MXAP up 0.5% to 161.95
• MXAPJ up 0.5% to 521.93
• Nikkei up 0.4% to 22,270.38
• Topix up 0.6% to 1,697.53
• Hang Seng Index up 0.4% to 27,213.41
• Shanghai Composite down 1.3% to 2,668.97
• Sensex up 0.8% to 37,952.37
• Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 0.2% to 6,339.23
• Kospi up 0.3% to 2,247.05
• German 10Y yield fell 1.5 bps to 0.305%
• Euro up 0.3% to $1.1412
• Italian 10Y yield fell 5.1 bps to 2.844%
• Spanish 10Y yield fell 0.5 bps to 1.44%
• Brent futures up 0.5% to $71.80/bbl
• Gold spot up 0.3% to $1,177.61
• U.S. Dollar Index down 0.3% to 96.33

Top Headlines from Bloomberg

• President Donald Trump prodded China to offer more at the bargaining table as the two countries prepared for their first major negotiation in more than two months in an effort to head off an all-out trade war
• U.S. Treasury Department will seek to pressure China to lift the value of yuan in coming trade talks, NYT reports, citing unidentified person briefed on the plans
• In government offices and think tanks, universities and state-run newsrooms, there is an urgent debate underway about what many in Beijing see as the hidden motive for Washington’s escalating trade war against President Xi Jinping’s government: A grand strategy, devised and led by Trump, to thwart China’s rise as a global power
• Australian central bank chief Philip Lowe said he’d still like to see the nation’s currency weaken further and sees interest rates remaining at a record low “for a while yet”
• Oil headed for the longest run of weekly declines in three years, dragged down by everything from an emerging-market rout to rising global supplies and lingering concerns over a spat between the world’s biggest economies
• Investors withdrew money from a range of asset classes over the past week analysts at Jefferies write in research note, citing EPFR Global data for week ended Aug. 16.
• NYT: U.S. Treasury will seek to pressure China to lift the value of yuan in coming trade talks, according to people familiar
• Fed’s Powell speech on monetary policy at Jackson Hole confirmed for 10 a.m. New York time on Aug. 24; full agenda to be released at 8 p.m. New York time on Aug. 23.
• Eurozone July CPI unrevised y/y at 2.1%; Core CPI unrevised at 1.1%
• China People’s Daily: China has ‘big room’ for macro-economic control; will take more proactive policies to stabilize trade, including pushing forward signing of free-trade agreements
• Mnuchin says Turkey faces more sanctions if pastor not released

Asian equity markets were mostly higher as the region tracked the performance on Wall St where all majors gained as sentiment was buoyed by trade optimism from the announcement of upcoming US-China trade talks. ASX 200 (+0.1%) and Nikkei 225 (+0.4%) were both higher although the former somewhat lagged after having stalled at fresh highs last seen in over a decade, while gains in Japanese exporters were contained by a stable currency. Hang Seng (+0.4%) and Shanghai Comp. (-1.3%) both initially conformed to the positive risk tone amid the trade-related hopes, continued PBoC liquidity efforts and as Hong Kong-heavyweight Tencent also rebounded from post-earnings losses, although the Shanghai Comp. eventually gave back its gains and then some, as sentiment deteriorated across the mainland. Finally, 10yr JGBs saw mild gains as prices rebounded from the prior day’s weakness and with the BoJ also in the market under its bond buying programme. PBoC injected CNY 90bln via 7-day reverse repos for a net weekly injection of CNY 130bln vs. neutral last week.

Top Asian News

• Turkey-Exposed Cos. May Be Back in Focus After Mnuchin Comments
• U.S. Said to Seek to Pressure China to Lift Yuan in Talks: NYT
• Interest Rates in China Below the U.S. Level Risks Outflows
• Apple Supplier Luxshare Said to Plan Camera Module IPO: Nikkei

European equities have started the day marginally lower (Euro Stoxx 50 -0.3%) as we approach the week’s end. The AEX is currently the underperforming bourse, with losses lead by Vopak (-7.0%) (whom are also at the foot of the Stoxx 600) after missing expectations on all of net profit, EBITDA and revenue. AP Moeller Maersk (+4.7%) also reported earnings, wherein revenues came in above least years results. The co. also confirmed source reports it is looking to spin-off it’s drilling unit and list it on the NASDAQ so as to focus on their transport business. Air France appointed the Ex-COO of Air Canada last night, Ben Smith, as CEO. Despite opening higher Air France shares reversed course amid protests from French unions about the Canadian’s appointment, and are currently down 4.0%.

Top European News

• Tycoon Deripaska Weighs Moving Sanctioned Companies to Russia
• Barclays Scraps Long Stance on Italy Bonds After Latest Selloff
• Draghi’s Richer Toolbox Keeps ECB Calm as Turkey and Italy Rage
• Air France-KLM’s New CEO Faces Immediate Union Threat of Strike
• Atlantia Gains on Report of Talks to Pay Fine on Bridge Collapse

In FX, the dollar index saw some downside deviation from the relatively tight range around 96.500 that has been prevalent since the Try-led EM exodus subsided amidst reports (albeit dated) that the US will urge China to revalue the Yuan during trade negotiations scheduled for next week. The index dipped just under 96.300 amidst broad Usd declines, but still restrained trade overall. TRY/YUAN – The Lira maintained enough recovery momentum to trade a fraction above 5.7500 vs the Dollar, but stopped short of Thursday’s circa 5.7000 high that is very close to a key Fib level and in volatile conditions reversed to hit 6.0000+ levels. Meanwhile, the PBoC halted a run of daily Cny depreciations via the official mid-point fix to leave the offshore Cnh off recent lows and also bolstered by the provision of 7 day liquidity. NZD/AUD – Highlighting the considerably improved risk tone, the Kiwi is making a more concerted effort to form a base at 0.6600 vs its US counterpart, while the Aud has extended above 0.7250 again, though still unable to reach 0.7300 with technical resistance just a head of the big figure and the RBA reiterating no rush or rationale to raise rates anytime soon (Governor Low overnight and message rammed home by Ellis earlier today). EUR/JPY – The next best G10s, as the single currency revisits 1.1400 vs the Greenback where big option expiries run off today (1.9 bn from the big figure to 1.1410) and Usd/Jpy retreats from 111.00 again and also eyes hefty expiry interest, with 2.2 bn at the110.50 strike.

In commodities, oil prices are up this Friday but are still set to end the week in the red for the third week in a row. WTI and Brent are both up ~0.25% on the day as energy specific news flow remains light. In the metals scope, Gold is up marginally off the back of USD weakness and testing the USD1180/OZ level to the upside, but is still set for its largest weekly fall in 15 months. Precious metals are slightly in the green with all of silver (+0.2%), platinum (+0.4%) and palladium (+0.1%) up on the day.

US Event Calendar

• 10am: Leading Index, est. 0.4%, prior 0.5%
• 10am: U. of Mich. Sentiment, est. 98, prior 97.9; Current Conditions, prior 114.4; Expectations, prior 87.3

via RSS https://ift.tt/2BjGGK3 Tyler Durden

Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The catastrophic bridge collapse in Italy this week has prompted a public outcry over the country’s crumbling infrastructure and how it is putting lives at risk. But the question the public in Italy and across Europe should be asking is: why are their governments spending extra tens of billions of dollars on NATO militarism, while neglecting vital civilian infrastructure?

When the iconic Morandi motorway viaduct came crashing down this week over the city of Genoa – with a death toll so far of 39 people – the consensus among Italian news media and members of the public is that the bridge was a disaster waiting to happen.

Nearly 200 meters of the motorway flyover section spanning a river, houses and an industrial area collapsed while dozens of cars and trucks were passing. Shocked witnesses described the scene as “apocalyptic” as vehicles plunged 40 meters along with concrete and iron girding to the ground below.

Lack of due maintenance has been blamed for why the bridge collapsed. Weather conditions at the time were reportedly torrential rain storms and lightning. But those conditions can hardly explain why a whole motorway viaduct wobbled and crashed.

The Morandi Bridge was built 51 years ago in 1967. Two years ago, an engineering professor from Genoa University warned that the viaduct needed to be totally replaced as its structure had seriously deteriorated. There seems little doubt that the disaster could have been avoided if proper action had been taken by the authorities rather than carrying out piecemeal repair jobs over the years.

Italian media reports say the latest is the fifth bridge collapse in the country over the past five years, as cited by the BBC.

Now the Italian government is calling for a nationwide survey of roads, tunnels, bridges and viaducts to assess public safety amid fears that other infrastructure facilities are prone to deadly failure.

What should be a matter of urgent public demand is why Italy is increasing its national spending on military upgrades and procurements instead of civilian amenities. As with all European members of the NATO alliance, Italy is being pressured by the United States to ramp up its military expenditure. US President Donald Trump has made the NATO budget a priority, haranguing European states to increase their military spending to a level of 2 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Trump has even since doubled that figure to 4 per cent.

Washington’s demand on European allies predates Trump. At a NATO summit in 2015, when Barack Obama was president, all members of the military alliance then acceded to US pressure for greater allocation of budgets to hit the 2 per cent target. The alleged threat of Russian aggression has been cited over and over as the main reason for boosting NATO.

Figures show that Italy, as with other European countries, has sharply increased its annual military spending every year since the 2015 summit. The upward trend reverses a decade-long decline. Currently, Italy spends about $28 billion annually on military. That equates to only about 1.15 per cent of GDP, way below the US-demanded target of 2 per cent of GDP.

But the disturbing thing is that Italy’s defense minister Elisabetta Trenta reportedly gave assurances to Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton that her government was committed to hitting its NATO target in the coming years. On current figures that translates roughly into a doubling of Italy’s annual military budget.

Meanwhile, the Italian public have had to endure years of economic austerity from cutbacks in social spending and civilian infrastructure.

Rome’s new coalition government comprising the League and Five Star Movement has called for a reversal in austerity policies and has vowed to increase public investment. Its leaders, like deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, have also at times expressed a lukewarm view of NATO.

After this week’s bridge disaster, the populist coalition government has renewed its calls for more investment in public services.

Nevertheless, why then is Italy’s defense minister giving assurances that the country will adhere to Washington’s demands for increasing its NATO budget? Minister Trenta, who belongs to the Five Star Movement, says her government remains committed to buying up to 90 units of the US new-generation F35 fighter jet.

Aggregate figures show that Italy spent nearly $300 billion over the past decade on military. The previous decade’s outlay was even higher in constant dollar terms, before the financial crash in 2008. And yet the Italian government – despite its populist appeal – is planning to allocate even more resources to military over the coming years in order to meet Washington’s ultimatum for the NATO 2 per cent of GDP target. A target figure that seems wholly arbitrary and abhorrent in the light of so many urgent social needs and neglected public infrastructure.

If Italian motorway bridges are collapsing now, the future for public safety looks even bleaker when more of the country’s economy is diverted to satisfy US-led NATO demands.

Moreover, this dilemma is not confined to Italy. All European members of NATO are being railroaded by Washington to significantly expand their military budgets. President Trump has lambasted European states as “free loaders” cadging off “American protection”. Trump has singled out Germany for harassment to boost its military budget. After all the hectoring, the Europeans seem to be responding too. At the annual NATO summit held last month in Brussels, the Norwegian secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg boasted that non-US members had increased their national military budgets by an aggregate $40 billion in one year alone.

A cruel irony is that last year NATO planners complained that Europe’s infrastructure of roads, tunnels and bridges needed significant upgrades to facilitate mass-transport of military forces in case of a war with Russia. The implication was that European governments would have to increase their national spending on civilian transport networks specifically to facilitate NATO military requirements.

That is tantamount to a parasite craving for more blood from its host. Already European infrastructure is in disrepair largely because of economic austerity enforced by disproportionate spending on NATO militarism. At a time when public need for social investment is acute, European governments are obeying orders from Washington to plough more financial resources into subsidizing the American military-industrial complex. All this madcap, irrational expenditure is supposedly to keep European citizens safe from Russian threats.

All too evidently, however, the biggest threat to European citizens is the way Washington and its NATO racket is bleeding Europe of financial resources – resources which instead should be spent on building safe roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

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Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

The five states surrounding the sea – Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan – have reached difficult compromises on sovereign and exclusive rights as well as freedom of navigation

The long-awaited deal on the legal status of the Caspian Sea signed on Sunday in the Kazakh port of Aktau is a defining moment in the ongoing, massive drive towards Eurasia integration.

Up to the early 19th century, the quintessentially Eurasian body of water – a connectivity corridor between Asia and Europe over a wealth of oil and gas – was exclusive Persian property. Imperial Russia then took over the northern margin. After the break up of the USSR, the Caspian ended up being shared by five states; Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

Very complex negotiations went on for almost two decades. Was the Caspian a sea or a lake? Should it be divided between the five states into separate, sovereign tracts or developed as a sort of condominium?

Slowly but surely, the five states reached difficult compromises on sovereign and exclusive rights; freedom of navigation; “freedom of access of all the vessels from the Caspian Sea to the world’s oceans and back” – in the words of a Kazakh diplomat; pipeline installation; and crucially, on a military level, the certitude that only armed forces from the five littoral states should be allowed in Caspian waters.

No wonder then that President Putin, in Aktau, described the deal in no uncertain terms as having “epoch-making significance.”

A sea or a lake?

So is the Caspian now a sea or a lake? It’s complicated; the convention signed in Aktau defines it as a sea, but subject to a “special legal status.”

This means the Caspian is regarded as open water, for common use – but the seabed and subsoil are divided. Still a work in progress, the devil is in the details in sorting out how the seabed is divided.

According to the draft text, published two months ago by Russia’s Kommersant, “the delimitation of the floor and mineral resources of the Caspian Sea by sector will be carried out by agreement between the neighboring and facing states taking into account generally recognized principles and legal norms.” Stanislav Pritchin, director of the Center for Central Asia and Caucasus Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, described this as the best possible compromise, for now.

The maritime boundaries of each of the five states are already set; 15 nautical miles of sovereign waters, plus a further 10 miles (16 km) for fishing. Beyond that, it’s open water.

In Aktau, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev frankly admitted that even to reach this basic consensus was a difficult process, and the key issue of how to share the Caspian’s underground energy wealth remains far from solved.

Two offshore oil rigs on the Caspian sea. Photo: iStock

Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov, quoting from the final text, emphasized that, “the methodology for establishing state base lines shall be determined in a separate agreement among all the parties according to this convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea. This is a key phrase, especially important for our Iranian partners.”

The reference to Iran matters because under the deal Tehran ended up with the smallest share of the Caspian seabed. Diplomats confirmed to Asia Times that up to the last minute President Rouhani’s team was not totally satisfied with the final terms.

That was reflected in Rouhani’s comment that the convention was “a major document” even as it did not solve for good the extremely complex dossier.

What Rouhani did emphasize was how “gratifying” was the fact his Caspian partners privilege “multilateralism and oppose unilateral actions that are developing in some countries.” That was not only a direct reference to the Caspian partners supporting the JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal, but also a veiled reference to President Trump’s threat that “anyone doing business with Iran will not be doing business with the United States.”

Rouhani and Nazarbayev in fact held a separate meeting dedicated to increased economic cooperation, including the mutual drive to use their national currencies on trade, bypassing the US dollar.


These waters are off-limits to NATO

Iran-Kazakhstan economic cooperation is bound to follow Iran-Russia parameters. Putin and Rouhani, who enjoy a warm, close personal relationship, spent quite some time in Aktau discussing issues far beyond the Caspian, such as Syria, Gazprom investment in Iranian gas fields, and how to deal with Washington’s sanctions offensive.

Both were adamant in their praise of a key stipulation of the deal; there will be no NATO roaming the Caspian. In the words of Rouhani, “the Caspian Sea only belongs to the Caspian states.” Putin for his part confirmed Russia plans to build a new deepwater port in the Caspian by 2025.

A panoramic view of Baku, Azerbaijan from the Martyrs Lane viewpoint, near the center of Baku. Photo: iStock

In the turbulent geoeconomic realm that I defined years ago as “Pipelineistan,” the deal will allow a lot of leeway; from now on, pipelines to be laid offshore require consent only from neighboring states, rather than from all “Caspian Five”.

A major consequence is that Turkmenistan may finally be able to lay down its own 300 km-long trans-Caspian underground pipeline to Azerbaijan – a project that was never exactly encouraged by Russia. This pipeline will allow Turkmenistan to diversify from its massive exports to China by tapping the European market via Baku, in direct competition with Gazprom.

Ashgabat may finally be on its way towards a win-win; not only Baku could use more gas imports to compensate for production shortfalls, but Moscow seems inclined to restart imports of Turkmen gas.

From now on, the game to watch in the Caspian is how deeper energy/economic cooperation may go, in the spirit of true Eurasia integration, even with China not directly involved in the affairs of the sea. Chinese companies though are heavily invested in the Kazakhstan oil business and are major importers of Turkmenistan gas.

Historically, Persia always maintained a demographic, cultural and linguistic pull across most of Central Asia. Persia remains one of its organizing principles; Iran is a Central Asian as much as a Southwest Asian power.

This should be contrasted with Caspian nations still heavily influenced by Soviet atheism and Turkish shamanism. A particularly interesting case to watch will be Azerbaijan – which is part of the Western sphere of influence via pipelines such as the BTC (Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan), which crosses Georgia all the way to the Turkish Eastern Mediterranean.

This was The Art of the Deal – Central Asian-style. What’s already established is that the Caspian 2.0 is a major multilateral win for Eurasia integration.

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The Swiss Federal Council has decided against signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) adopted at the United Nations last year. A working group had advised that the arguments against outweighed potential opportunities of joining. 

A total of 122 states, including Switzerland, adopted the treaty at the UN in July 2017 (although the nine nuclear powers were not part of that group). The TPNW will enter into force when at least 50 countries ratify it. Signatories have obligations not to develop, test, produce, acquire, possess, stockpile, use or threaten to use nuclear weapons. The agreement also prohibits the deployment of nuclear weapons on national territory and assistance to any country involved in prohibited activities. 

Activists with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). Photo: AFP

As SwissInfo.ch reports, Switzerland’s seven-member executive body took the decision not to sign based on an interdepartmental working group report published in June. The government acknowledged that there were “humanitarian, international law and peace policy considerations” in favour of acceding to the treaty but felt it was not the right moment. 

“It is the Federal Council’s opinion, however, that in the current international context, the TPNW entails risks in terms of both the continued advancement of disarmament diplomacy and Switzerland’s security policy interests. Furthermore, the TPNW contains a number of provisions whose interpretation and implications can only be tentatively gauged at the current time,” said a government statement.

While Treaty supporters argue that a failure to sign the treaty by Switzerland could have an impact on the country’s humanitarian credentials…

“If Switzerland does not sign this treaty, people will question our status as a champion of humanitarian rights and disarmament. I think [failure to sign] would undermine our credibility in this area,” Beatrice Fihn, head of the Geneva-based International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) said during an interview on RTS recently

Ambassador Sabrina Dallafior, who represents Switzerland at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, defended the cautious position taken by Bern in relation to the signing of the treaty in March, skeptically pointing out that:

“We are not sure that this treaty will really be a step towards the elimination of nuclear weapons because the countries which have the atomic bomb are not a party to it, although we are convinced that they should be implicated, them and their allies. This treaty should not be against them but with them.”

As The Local reports, the Swiss working group report itself notes that should Switzerland sign up to the TPNW, it would, in extreme cases of self-defence “reduce its freedom of action and abandon the option of explicitly placing itself under a nuclear umbrella within the framework” of self-defence alliances “not least with nuclear weapon states or their allies” – taken by Swiss daily Tages Anzeiger to be a reference to NATO.

Switzerland said it would “closely monitor further developments and remain committed in this matter” and would re-examine its position in the future as necessary.

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Authored by Martin Sieff via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Through the 1990s, during the terms of US President Bill Clinton, NATO relentlessly and inexorably expanded through Central Europe. Today, the expansion of that alliance eastward – encircling Russia with fiercely Russo-phobic regimes in one tiny country after another and in Ukraine, which is not tiny at all – continues.

This NATO expansion – which the legendary George Kennan presciently warned against in vain – continues to drive the world the closer towards the threat of thermonuclear war. Far from bringing the United States and the Western NATO allies increased security, it strips them of the certainty of the peace and security they would enjoy if they instead sought a sincere, constructive and above all stable relationship with Russia.

It is argued that the addition of the old Warsaw Pact member states of Central Europe to NATO has dramatically strengthened NATO and gravely weakened Russia. This has been a universally-accepted assumption in the United States and throughout the West for the past quarter century. Yet it simply is not true.

In reality, the United States and its Western European allies are now discovering the hard way the same lesson that drained and exhausted the Soviet Union from the creation of the Warsaw Pact in 1955 to its dissolution 36 years later. The tier of Central European nations has always lacked the coherence, the industrial base and the combined economic infrastructure to generate significant industrial, financial or most of all strategic and military power.

In fact the current frustrating experience of NATO, and the long, exhausting tribulations that faced Soviet diplomats and generals for so many decades was entirely consistent with the previous historical record going back at least until 1718.

From 1718 until 1867 – a period of a century and a half – most of Central Europe, including even regions of Poland at the end of the 18th century, were consolidated within the Austro –Hungarian Empire, However even then, the Habsburg multi-national empire was always militarily weak and punched beneath its weight. After Emperor Franz Josef recklessly proclaimed his famous Compromise of 1867, the effectiveness of the imperial army was reduced to almost zero. The autonomous and feckless conduct of the Hungarian aristocracy ensured a level of confusion, division, incompetence and ineptitude that was revealed in the army’s total collapse against both Russia and Serbia in the great battles of 1914 at the start of World War I.

Germany moved in to occupy and consolidate the region in both world wars. But far from making Germany a global giant and enabling it to maintain its domination of Europe, the Central European regions – whether as part of Austro-Hungary during World War I or as independent nation-states allied to the Nazis in World War II – proved miniscule and worthless against the alliances of Russia, the United States, Britain and France that the Germans fought against in both global conflicts.

After the Soviet Union militarily destroyed the genocidal military power of Nazi Germany in World War II, Russia’s Great Patriotic War, the political consolidation of East Germany and Poland were strategically necessary for Russia’s security. But occupying and organizing the rest of the region was not. Far from strengthening the Soviet Union, those nations weakened and distracted it. Today, NATO is repeating the Soviet Mistake and that fatal move is inexorably draining the alliance of all its strength and credibility.

NATO is also repeating the disastrous mistake that France made in 1920-21 when it created a “Little Entente” of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania to supposedly counterbalance the revival of Germany. The plan failed completely.

Today those very same nations – enthusiastically joined by Hungary, Poland and the three little Baltic states – are relentlessly distorting both NATO and the EU. They generate weakness and chaos in the alliances they are in – not unity and strength.

As I have noted before in these columns, the great British historian Lord Correlli Barnett drew the important distinction between militarily powerful nations that are generators and exporters of security and those, either tiny or disorganized, pacifist and weak nations that have to import their security from more powerful states.

One might call such small countries “feeder” or “parasite” states. They siphon off energy and strength from their protector partners. They weaken their alliance partners rather than strengthening them.

The consistent lessons of more than 300 years of Central European history are therefore clear: Leading and organizing the tier of Central European nations in the Warsaw Pact did not strengthen the Soviet Union: Instead, those activities relentlessly weakened it.

Incorporating most of the small nations in Central Europe into any empire or alliance has never been a cause or generator of military or national strength, regardless of the ideology or religious faith involved. At best, it is a barometer of national strength.

When nations such as France, Germany, the Soviet Union or the United States are seen as rising powers in the world, the small countries of Central Europe always hasten to ally themselves accordingly. They therefore adopt and discard Ottoman Islamic imperialism. Austrian Christian imperialism, democracy, Nazism, Communism and again democracy as easily as putting on or off different costumes at a fancy dress ball in Vienna or Budapest.

As Russia rises once again in global standing and national power, supported by its genuinely powerful allies China, India and Pakistan in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the nations of Central Europe can be anticipated to reorient their own loyalties accordingly once again.

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Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“It takes a remarkable force to keep nearly a million people quietly indoors for an entire day, home from work and school, from neighborhood errands and out-of-town travel. It takes a remarkable force to keep businesses closed and cars off the road, to keep playgrounds empty and porches unused across a densely populated place 125 square miles in size. This happened … not because armed officers went door-to-door, or imposed a curfew, or threatened martial law. All around the region, for 13 hours, people locked up their businesses and ‘sheltered in place’ out of a kind of collective will. The force that kept them there wasn’t external – there was virtually no active enforcement across the city of the governor’s plea that people stay indoors.Rather, the pressure was an internal one – expressed as concern, or helpfulness, or in some cases, fear – felt in thousands of individual homes.”

– Journalist Emily Badger, “The Psychology of a Citywide Lockdown”

It has become way too easy to lockdown this nation.

Five years ago, the city of Boston was locked down while police carried out a military-style manhunt for suspects in the 2013 Boston Marathon explosion. 

Four years ago, the city of Ferguson, Missouri, was locked down, with government officials deploying a massive SWAT team, an armored personnel carrier, men in camouflage pointing heavy artillery at the crowd, smoke bombs and tear gas to quell citizen unrest over a police shooting of a young, unarmed black man.

Three years ago, the city of Baltimore was put under a military-enforced lockdown after civil unrest over police brutality erupted into rioting. More than 1,500 national guard troops were deployed while residents were ordered to stay inside their homes and put under a 10 pm curfew.

This year, it was my hometown of Charlottesville, Va., population 50,000, that was locked down while government officials declared a state of emergency and enacted heightened security measures tantamount to martial law, despite the absence of any publicized information about credible threats to public safety.

As Tess Owen reports for Vice:

One year after white supremacists paraded through the streets, the face of downtown Charlottesville was transformed once again – this time with checkpoints, military-style camps for National Guard, and state police on every corner. When residents woke up Saturday, all entrances to the downtown mall were blocked off, apart from two checkpoints, where police looked through people’s bags for lighters, knives or any other weapons. Up above, standing atop a building site, two national guard members photographed the individuals coming in and out… A National Guard encampment was set up in McGuffey Park, between the children’s playground and the basketball court, where about 20 military police officers in camouflage were snoozing in the shade of some trees. A similar encampment was set up a few blocks away.

More details from journalist Ned Oliver:

Downtown Charlottesville felt like the green zone of a war-torn city Saturday. More than a thousand local and state police officers barricaded 10 blocks of the city’s popular pedestrian district, the Downtown Mall, to prepare for the one-year anniversary of the white supremacist rally last year that left dozens injured and one dead. To enter, people had to submit to bag checks and searches at one of two checkpoints… Preparations aside, unlike last year, no white supremacist groups had said they were going to visit the city, and, by week’s end, none had. Instead, it was a normal day on the mall except for the heavy security, a military helicopter constantly circling overhead, and hundreds of police officers milling around.

Make no mistake, this was a militarized exercise in intimidation, and it worked only too well.

For the most part, the residents of this city—once home to Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s third president, author of the Declaration of Independence, and champion of the Bill of Rights—welcomed the city-wide lockdown, the invasion of their privacy, and the dismantling of every constitutional right intended to serve as a bulwark against government abuses.

Yet for those like myself who have studied emerging police states, the sight of any American city placed under martial law—its citizens essentially under house arrest (officials used the Orwellian phrase “shelter in place” in Boston to describe the mandatory lockdown), military-style helicopters equipped with thermal imaging devices buzzing the skies, tanks and armored vehicles on the streets, and snipers perched on rooftops, while thousands of black-garbed police swarmed the streets and SWAT teams carried out house-to-house searches—leaves us in a growing state of unease.

Watching the events of the lockdown unfold, I couldn’t help but think of Nazi Field Marshal Hermann Goering’s remarks during the Nuremberg trials. As Goering noted:

It is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.

As the events in Charlottesville have made clear, it does indeed work the same in every country.

Whatever the threat to so-called security—whether it’s civil unrest, school shootings, or alleged acts of terrorism—government officials will capitalize on the nation’s heightened emotions, confusion and fear as a means of extending the reach of the police state.

These troubling developments are the outward manifestations of an inner, philosophical shift underway in how the government views not only the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, but “we the people,” as well. 

What this reflects is a move away from a government bound by the rule of law to one that seeks total control through the imposition of its own self-serving laws on the populace.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much for the American people to march in lockstep with the government’s dictates, even if it means submitting to martial law, having their homes searched, and being stripped of one’s constitutional rights at a moment’s notice.

In Charlottesville, most of the community fell in line, except for one gun-toting, disabled, 71-year-old war veteran who was arrested for purchasing cans of Arizona iced tea, a can of bug spray and razor blades, all of which were on the City’s list of temporarily prohibited, potentially “dangerous” items. Incidentally, the veteran’s guns (not among the list of prohibited items) caused no alarm. 

Talk about draconian.

This continual undermining of the rules that protect civil liberties will inevitably have far-reaching consequences on a populace that not only remains ignorant about their rights but is inclined to sacrifice their liberties for phantom promises of safety. 

Be warned: these lockdowns are just a precursor to full-blown martial law.

The powers-that-be want us acclimated to the sights and sounds of a city-wide lockdown with tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, Blackhawk helicopters and armed drones patrolling overhead.

• They want us to accept the fact that in the American police state, we are all potentially guilty, all potential criminals, all suspects waiting to be accused of a crime.

• They want us to be meek and submissive.

• They want us to report on each other.

• They want us to be grateful to the standing armies for their so-called protection.

• They want us to self-censor our speech, self-limit our movements, and police ourselves.

As Glenn Greenwald notes in The Intercept:

“Americans are now so accustomed to seeing police officers decked in camouflage and Robocop-style costumes, riding in armored vehicles and carrying automatic weapons first introduced during the U.S. occupation of Baghdad, that it has become normalized… The dangers of domestic militarization are both numerous and manifest. To begin with… it degrades the mentality of police forces in virtually every negative way and subjects their targeted communities to rampant brutality and unaccountable abuse… Police militarization also poses grave and direct dangers to basic political liberties, including rights of free speech, press and assembly.”

Make no mistake: these are the hallmarks of a military occupation.

Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests. Drones. Lethal weapons. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Stun grenades. Arrests of journalists. Crowd control tactics. Intimidation tactics. Brutality.

We are already under martial law, held at gunpoint by a standing army.

Take a look at the pictures from Charlottesville, from Baltimore, from Ferguson and from Boston, and then try to persuade yourself that this is what freedom in America is supposed to look like.

A standing army—something that propelled the early colonists into revolution—strips the American people of any vestige of freedom.

It was for this reason that those who established America vested control of the military in a civilian government, with a civilian commander-in-chief. They did not want a military government, ruled by force. Rather, they opted for a republic bound by the rule of law: the U.S. Constitution.

Unfortunately, with the Constitution under constant attack, the military’s power, influence and authority have grown dramatically. Even the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which makes it a crime for the government to use the military to carry out arrests, searches, seizure of evidence and other activities normally handled by a civilian police force, was greatly weakened by both Barack Obama and George W. Bush, who ushered in exemptions allowing troops to deploy domestically and arrest civilians in the wake of alleged terrorist acts.

Now we find ourselves struggling to retain some semblance of freedom in the face of police and law enforcement agencies that look and act like the military and have just as little regard for the Fourth Amendment, laws such as the NDAA that allow the military to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens, and military drills that acclimate the American people to the sight of armored tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, and combat aircraft patrolling overhead.

We’ve already gone too far down this road.

Add these lockdowns onto the list of other troubling developments that have taken place over the past 30 years or more, and the picture grows even more troubling: the expansion of the military industrial complex and its influence in Washington DC, the rampant surveillance, the corporate-funded elections and revolving door between lobbyists and elected officials, the militarized police, the loss of our freedoms, the injustice of the courts, the privatized prisons, the school lockdowns, the roadside strip searches, the military drills on domestic soil, the fusion centers and the simultaneous fusing of every branch of law enforcement (federal, state and local), the stockpiling of ammunition by various government agencies, the active shooter drills that are indistinguishable from actual crises, the economy flirting with near collapse, etc.

Suddenly, the overall picture seems that much more sinister.

The lesson for the rest of us is this: once a free people allows the government to make inroads into their freedoms or uses those same freedoms as bargaining chips for security, it quickly becomes a slippery slope to outright tyranny. And it doesn’t really matter whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican at the helm, because the bureaucratic mindset on both sides of the aisle now seems to embody the same philosophy of authoritarian government. 

Remember, a police state does not come about overnight.

It starts small, perhaps with a revenue-generating red light camera at an intersection.

When that is implemented without opposition, perhaps next will be surveillance cameras on public streets. License plate readers on police cruisers. More police officers on the beat. Free military equipment from the federal government. Free speech zones and zero tolerance policies and curfews. SWAT team raids. Drones flying overhead. City-wide lockdowns.

No matter how it starts, however, it always ends the same.

Remember, it’s a slippery slope from a questionable infringement justified in the name of safety to all-out tyranny. 

These are no longer warning signs of a steadily encroaching police state.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the police state has arrived.

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Glassdoor is out with its annual report on the 25 highest-paying jobs in America, over half of which, 13, are in the technology sector. 

Taking the top three spots, however, are physicians, pharmacy managers and pharmacists – with average salaries of $195,842, $146,412 and $127,120 respectively. 

In tech, enterprise architects, software development managers, software engineering managers and software architects were the highest paid professions, with the lowest average salary at over $100,000. 

The report gathered salary data from millions of employees, examined job titles that received a minimum of 100 salary reports over the past year, and used algorithms to estimate the median annual base pay. C-suite-level jobs were excluded from the report. –Bloomberg

“Technology and health care are the two industries that are making the greatest impact on the economy,” said Glassdoor community expert Sarah Stoddard. “There’s a high demand but short supply for those roles, driving up salaries.”

Top Ten: 

Meanwhile, about 70% of those surveyed said salary is a key factor in determining a career, while 27% of Americans say they “don’t have a good sense of their career path” and 25% say they feel like they’re “on a treadmill going nowhere,” according to a Wednesday LinkedIn survey of 2,000 professionals. 

And despite men dominating the country’s highest paying jobs, tech companies employ nearly twice as many males as females vs. health care, according to a 2017 report by Linkedin. 

Interestingly, over half of employed Americans are looking to leave their current jobs, according to a July Gallup survey, while the average American remains in the same job for approximately a decade.

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Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

As governments raise taxes to cope with their unending spending habits, people are increasingly being forced to supplement their own income with loans. And according to most financial experts, this debt problem is so big that it will usher in a global economic collapse of epic proportions.

According to the Institute of International Finance’s latest Global Debt Monitor, the amount of debt held in the world rose by the biggest amount in two years during the first quarter of 2018. It grew by $8 trillion to hit a new all-time high of $247 trillion, up from $238 trillion as of December 31, 2017.  And that’s up by $30 trillion from the end of 2016.

Global debt is staggering to the point most of it will never be repaid and as governments continue their spending sprees and the debts keep mounting, the future of the economy looks bleak. There is more than enough economic data out there to show there could be an economic collapse and stock market crash in 2018. Bill Gross stated in 2017 that “our highly levered financial system is like a truckload of nitroglycerin on a bumpy road”. One wrong move and the whole thing could blow sky high, wrote the Epic Economist. Once this bubble pops, it will fling the globe into a financial crisis of epic proportions never before seen.

According to Financial Times, it is becoming clear that the global monetary policy is now caught in a debt trap of its own making. Continuing on the current monetary path is ineffective and increasingly dangerous. But any reversal also involves great risks. It stands to reason that the odds of another crisis blowing up will continue to rise. –Ready Nutrition

The Epic Economist also has a video out detailing how all of this came to pass.  It’s easy enough to understand, yet most still can’t get past their own preconceived notions and biases to comprehend that this will be the fault of governments and those who continue to look to rulers or masters to solve their problems.

“It is all about taking money from us and transferring it into government pockets. And then, taking money from government pockets, and transferring it into the hands of the elite. It’s a game that’s been going on for generations and its time for the humanity to say that ‘enough is enough’.” -Epic Economist

The future of the global economy doesn’t look promising based on the vast amount of debt and wealth being transferred from people to their masters.  We are living in economic slavery and until humanity understands that, the only other option is an economic crisis.

It comes as a bit of a surprise the infamous Keynesian economist Bernanke would express concerns over the government’s inability to decrease spending.  But now that he has, will Americans heed the warning and protect themselves against the next financial crisis? –SHTFPlan

There are ways to prepare for a financial crisis, although an ongoing and global crash could complicate things for preppers. But there are still ways to prepare and an open and educated mind is step one.  If you still believe the government and global elites have your best interests in mind, you probably also don’t anticipate a global economic crash, and therefore, are not going to prepare.  For the rest of us, taking on a “prepper’s mindset” will give you the upper hand in any financial crisis.

“If we have learned one thing studying the history of disasters, it is this: those who are prepared have a better chance at survival than those who are not.” -Tess Pennington, author of The Prepper’s Blueprint

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A Pentagon whistleblower was stripped of his security clearance and demoted after complaining about questionable government contracts with both FBI informant spy Stefan Halper and a company headed by Chelsea Clinton’s “best friend” for whom then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arranged meetings, reports the Washington Times. 

Adam Lovinger, a Trump supporter and 12-year veteran of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA), filed a whistleblower reprisal complaint with the Defense Department’s inspector general in May against ONA boss James Baker – who hired Halper, 73, to “conduct foreign relations” and kept the details of the spy’s contracts “close to the vest.” Baker was appointed chief of the ONA in 2015 by Obama Defense Secretary, Ashton Carter.

At that point, Lovinger wouldn’t have known was a spy working with the FBI/DOJ on operation “Crossfire Hurricane” – the code name for the Obama administration’s counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign.  

In an internal October 2016 email to higher-ups, Mr. Lovinger wrote of “the moral hazard associated with the Washington Headquarters Services contracting with Stefan Halper,” the complaint said. It said Mr. Baker hired Mr. Halper to “conduct foreign relations,” a job that should be confined to government officials.

…

In the fall of 2016, as the election loomed, Mr. Lovinger sent emails to Mr. Baker and other officials at the Office of Net Assessment complaining about the entire outside contracting process. He also said the office failed to write papers on long-term threats presented by radical Islam, China and Iran.

And in September 2016, Lovinger sent an email directly to Baker summing up the perceived problems, which reads in part: 

“Some of our contractors distribute to others their ONA work for personal and professional self-promotion,” wrote Lovinger. “Another part is the growing narrative that ONA’s most high-profile contractors are known for getting paid a lot to do rather peripheral work.”

“On the issue of pay, our contractors boast about how much they get paid from ONA. Such boasting, of course, generates jealously among those outside the club, and particularly from those who have tried to secure ONA contracts unsuccessfully.”

“On the issue of quality, more than once I have heard our contractor studies labeled ‘derivative,’ ‘college-level’ and based heavily on secondary sources. One of our contractor studies was literally cut and pasted from a World Bank report that I just happened to have read the week before reading the contractor study itself. Even the font was the same.”

Halper – an Oxford University professor, former US government official and longtime FBI / CIA asset (who was married to the CIA deputy director’s daughter at one point), received over $400,000 for a 2016 contract which Lovinger complained about. 

According to USASpending.gov, Mr. Halper was paid $411,000 by Washington Headquarters Services on Sept. 26, 2016, for a contract that ran until this March. –Washington Times

In total, the American citizen teaching abroad received over $1 million from contracts dated between 2012 and 2016.

Lovinger’s attorney, Sean M. Bigley, filed the second of four complaints on July 18 with the Pentagon’s senior ethics official, claiming that Lovinger’s bosses punished him on May 1, 2017 by abusing the security clearance process to yank his credentials and relegate him to clerical chores. Lovinger’s complaint also names the Washington Headquarters Services, a support agency within the Pentagon that awarded the Halper contracts. 

“As it turns out, one of the two contractors Mr. Lovinger explicitly warned his ONA superiors about misusing in 2016 was none other than Mr. Halper,” wrote Bigley in the ethics complaint, which referred to the contracts as “cronyism and corruption.”

“Nobody in the office seemed to know what Halper was doing for his money,” said Bigley. “Adam said Jim Baker, the director, kept Halper’s contracts very close to the vest. And nobody seemed to have any idea what he was doing at the time. He subcontracted out a good chunk of it to other academics. He would compile them all and then collect the balance as his fee as a middleman. That was very unusual.”

A longtime CIA and FBI asset who once reportedly ran a spy-operation on the Jimmy Carter administration, Halper was enlisted by the FBI to spy on several Trump campaign aides during the 2016 U.S. election, including Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.

Halper’s $411,575 award came three days after a September 23 Yahoo! News article by Michael Isikoff about Trump aide Carter Page, which used information fed to Isikoff by “Steele dossier” creator Christopher Steele. The FBI would use the Yahoo! article along with the largely unverified dossier as supporting evidence in an FISA warrant application for Page. 

The unassuming university professor approached Page during an election-themed conference at Cambridge on July 11, 2016, six weeks after the September 26 DoD award start date. The two would stay in contact for the next 14 months, frequently meeting and exchanging emails.

He said that he first encountered the informant during a conference in mid-July of 2016 and that they stayed in touch. The two later met several times in the Washington area. Mr. Page said their interactions were benign. –New York Times

And as the Daily Caller reported, Halper used a decades-old association with Paul Manafort to break the ice with Page. 

Page noted that in their first conversation at Cambridge, Halper said he was longtime friends with then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort. A person close to Manafort told TheDCNF that Manafort has not seen Halper since the Gerald Ford administration. Manafort and Page are accused in the Steele dossier of having worked together on the campaign’s collusion conspiracy, but both men say they have never met. –Daily Caller

Halper would continue to spy on Page after the election. Two days after the second installment of Halper’s 2016 DoD contract, On July 28, he emailed Page with what the Trump campaign aide describes as a “cordial” communication, which did not seem suspicious to him at the time. 

In the email to Page, Halper asks what his plans are post-election, possibly probing for more information. “It seems attention has shifted a bit from the ‘collusion’ investigation to the ‘ contretempts’ [sic] within the White House and, how–or if–Mr. Scaramucci will be accommodated there,” Halper wrote. 

Clinton connection

The other complaint lodged by Lovinger concerns a string of contracts totaling $11 million to Long Term Strategy Group – a D.C. consulting firm headed by self-described “best friend” of Chelseal Clinton, Jacqueline Newmyer Deal.

In October, the Washington Free Beacon reported that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arranged meetings in 2009 between Deal and Pentagon officials to discuss contracts – to which Deal says no award “resulted directly or indirectly from the actions or influence of Secretary Clinton.”

According to one 2009 email, Clinton said she recommended Deal to Michele Flournoy, the newly installed undersecretary of defense for policy, who was seeking young women to mentor.

Deal, a specialist in China affairs who worked at the White House as a press aide for First Lady Clinton in the 1990s, wrote back to Clinton saying she would meet Flournoy on May 5, 2009, and stated “thank you very much for making this happen.”

Later that month, Deal thanked Clinton for “all your encouragement and help with DoD, ” shorthand for the Defense Department. –Free Beacon

In a statement, Deal said: “Jacqueline Deal and the Long Term Strategy Group (LTSG) are justifiably proud of their collaboration with the US Department of Defense across multiple administrations over the last two decades, beginning under the administration of President George W. Bush. LTSG’s work has consistently earned the highest respect and confidence of its clientele in government and has won LTSG a reputation for producing research and analysis of exceptional quality.”

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