Author: admin

Authored by Alex Gorka via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

All over the world, public attention has been riveted on Russia’s reemergence as a military superpower, now that President Vladimir Putin has revealed his new weapon systems in his address to the Federal Assembly on March 2. The US ambitions to attain arms superiority have come to naught. But its anti-Russian policy cannot be reduced to mere attempts to achieve military supremacy. The countries of the former Soviet Union have become a political battlefield, with the US and its allies doing their best to decrease Russia’s influence.

With America’s tacit approval, the GUAM bloc, chaired this year by Moldova, is being revived.

Last March, the prime ministers of Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Azerbaijan held a meeting (Baku was represented by its deputy PM) in Kiev. It was the first high level meeting since 2008. The cooperation agreement signed by those foreign ministers last October mentions a free trade zone. The GUAM organization is expected to hold a summit this June. Three of its members – Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia – act as tools for advancing America’s interests in the region. With the blessing of the US, they signed EU association agreements in 2014. The 2018 foreign-policy priorities list drafted by Moldova includes mention of the US, the Visegrad group, and Japan. According to Chisinau, the countries of the former Soviet Union – long-standing partners with which it shares historical ties – don’t deserve such an honor.

The speakers of parliament from these three countries took part in a security conference in the Moldovan capital titled “Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine: Eastern Partnership and Current Security Challenges,” which was held on March 2 and attended by about 150 senior officials and experts from different countries. Of course US lawmakers and pundits were among the participants. As usual, the Atlantic Council, an American think tank that always supports neo-cons and anything anti-Russian, could not miss the chance to kindle anti-Moscow sentiments. Damon Wilson, its executive vice president, announced that the US was carefully watching over Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia, claiming that they “wish to become part of our family,” as he put it.

The parliamentary leaders seized the opportunity to issue a joint statement condemning Russia’s military presence in what they believe to be their respective states’ territories. The document was published in English to reflect the pro-Western tilt of the three-state group. They are “concerned profoundly” over Russian troops in Moldova (1,000 troops and 500 peacekeepers stationed in Transnistria) and what they call “occupation” and “intervention” in some parts of Ukraine and Georgia.

As usual, Moscow is blamed for supporting “separatist movements” and other nefarious acts. The speaker of the Georgian parliament, Irakli Kobakhidze, said an anti-Russian alliance is needed, because only if they are united can these nations stand up to the “challenges” coming from Moscow. “We need joint strategies to face Russia’s aggression,” chimed in Andriy Parubiy, the speaker of the Ukrainian Rada. To dispell any doubts about the new groups’ allegiance to NATO, he emphasized that “On this occasion I would like to speak of the threats faced not only by our region, but also by the Euro-Atlantic zone.”

The idea of reviving this alliance that was designed to counter Russia has failed. Azerbaijan refused to take part in any conference with such a clear anti-Russian agenda. That event demonstrated that there is no unity on Russia within the ranks of GUAM. So, GUAM is actually GUM – a group of three states that have been heavily influenced and pressured by the Americans and which are being used to “contain” Russia and forced to serve as NATO springboards.

These three states could maintain friendly relationships with everyone and stick to a neutral policy. Cooperation with the Eurasian Union could benefit their economies. Good relations with Moscow would not hinder their ties with the EU or other institutions or states, including the US. They could simply refrain from taking sides and concentrate on the well-being of their people. But no, they have chosen to adopt an attitude that is hostile to Russia and join those who are confrontational toward Moscow.

On March 2 the three member states actually announced the creation of a new anti-Russian alliance that will negatively affect the political landscape in Eurasia. The immediate objective is to push Russia out and pull the US in.

Ukraine is a divided nation, plunged in crisis, and unable to fight its own entrenched corruption.

Moldova is facing an election in the fall and the so-called pro-Russian forces are predicted to win.

In Georgia, the idea of NATO membership does not have the support of the majority of the population, according to a recent poll. But the governments of these states are pushing the NATO agenda. They coordinate their political activities in order to counter Moscow in any way they can. For instance, they always vote for Ukraine in the PACE, strongly oppose the Nord Stream gas project, and continue to move closer to NATO.

Moldova has announced its decision to buy lethal weapons from NATO members. Its government is chomping at the bit to join “Western institutions.” Ukraine is home to a US naval facility and is scheduled to receive American lethal arms. Tbilisi is pursuing a “more NATO in Georgia and more Georgia in NATO” policy.

What brings them together? All three states are ruled by oligarchs who obstruct reforms. With their economies in dire straits, the ruling elites promise their people paradise if they join the EU and NATO and become good friends of the US. Adopting an anti-Russia policy is their payment for Western aid and support. Their own national interests and sovereignty are being exchanged for crumbs dropped from the master’s table. 

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2oWii7R Tyler Durden

As part of the government’s new nuclear safety policy, as of today, every Belgian citizen can come to a pharmacy and get free iodine pills.

Belgium has two nuclear plants, Tihange and Doel, with a total number of seven reactors, and is one of the world’s most nuclear-reliant nations…

In 2017 alone, there were seven incidents at the facilities.

Free distribution of iodine tablets has started in Belgium as a precautionary measure in the event of a nuclear catastrophe, the Belgian Pharmaceutical Association told Sputnik on Tuesday. Before March 6, only those living within 20 kilometers (12 miles) from nuclear sites were entitled to receive the medication free of charge.

As SputnikNews reports, Belgium’s neighbors, Germany and the Netherlands, are concerned over the safety of the kingdom’s ageing nuclear reactors.

In 2016, Germany requested Belgium to shut down its two reactors because of defects found in their pressure vessels, but the kingdom refused. In September 2017, citizens of Aachen, a western German city located 70 kilometers (43 miles) away from the Belgian Tihange, started getting free iodine tablets.

In 2016, the Netherlands started distributing the pills to people who lived within a 100-kilometre (62-mile) radius of the neighboring Dutch Borsselle and Belgian Doel plants.

So how would a population react to their government offering iodine pills – just in case… Fear, of course!

Scared people are not rational, they’ll buy virtually anything that promises to alleviate their fear. Every totalitarian, every proponent of curtailing freedom, knows this. It’s the equivalent of the smoking hot babe: fear sells government.

“Not reassuring“

Free iodine tablets distributed as of today across Belgium in case of disaster at one of country’s ageing nuclear power plants. Not reassuring. https://t.co/pjmEZa8pIG

— Justin Stares (@JustinStares) March 6, 2018

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2IaW4aO Tyler Durden

Authored by Jeffrey Snyder via Alhambra Investment Partners,

There may come a time not too much further down the road when Brexit will have been not quite forgotten but placed into a second tier of European disintegration. In that top level, if it should continue, would reside all on its own Itexit. The Italians not the Britons will goad the question of the euro, and therefore the whole of the European experiment.

By now, the formula is a familiar one. If you are against tighter integration and European Union, then you are a fascist xenophobe, a racist of the first order. Rather than dissuade voters, this has, it appears, worked against those using the slurs who fervently hope to keep the experiment for much longer.

Complete vote tallies are not yet available, but by all accounts the Italians in heavy turnout voted heavily yesterday for anti-establishment, anti-euro parties. Though the Italian parliament could be in for a mess in the near future, euroskepticism and anti-establishment fever dominated to a much greater degree than anticipated (for yet another election). Even the mainstream commentary written ostensibly to describe what’s going on can’t refrain from locking out reality:

After establishment parties managed to contain populists in German, French and Dutch elections over the past twelve months, their defenses were overwhelmed in Italy as voters rebelled against two decades of lackluster economic growth and a surge in immigration. The upshot is a far more unpredictable partner for European leaders such as Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron as they face the U.S. threat of a trade war while trying to reform the bloc.

This Bloomberg article (predictably) distills Italian economic angst as “two decades of lackluster economic growth” for the transparent purposes of delegitimizing voter dissatisfaction. A more honest paragraph would have been, “It’s been bad for twenty years, why are they now rebelling? Immigrants.” It wouldn’t have been any more true, just stripped of its obvious bias and the misanthropic intentions behind it.

It is technically true that Italy’s economy has been one of the more chronic underperformers, and yet it still can also be the case where that underperformance has changed. Up until 2008 or so, Italians may have been characterized as if not satisfied then at least apathetic about the lackluster nature of their economy under the euro. I don’t think that’s actually true, however, as the EU itself was popular in that country up until the worldwide “dollar” panic.

What explains the revolt now is the recovery from that panic; or the lack thereof. As I’ve written before, the dynamic becomes explosive simply because the Italians, like Americans and everyone else, have been told repeatedly that their economy has not just recovered but recently it is booming. For many, it might be.

That’s not the issue, however, as in any economy there are always proportions doing well and those not doing well. When far too many reside, and stay, in the former, that’s where trouble starts. And when those people left out of whatever economy hear repeatedly that things are really good and they can’t find exactly where that may be, mistrust and blame are surely the only guaranteed results.

The irrational fear of robots is of the same predicament. In not being given any candid answers, people will make up their own minds as to why they can’t seem to experience these boom times. Immigration is a similar if more complex issue (we have to take into account social as well as economic factors).

But even that general review understates the severity of the problem to a considerable extent. Even those who are employed, which is significantly less in Italy as a proportion of the population, they aren’t making much if any progress, either. This lack of opportunity can and does become palpable, a frustration that must be met with honest assessment but in this lost decade rarely if ever is.

Economists don’t countenance anything but recovery. It doesn’t matter how much evidence is stacked up against it, they will claim it’s there, or if pressed that it will be here tomorrow.

This view starts with a conclusion and then seeks evidence for it. The technocracy is defended at all costs, even when it’s most striking feature is its total incompetence. In July of 2012, Mario Draghi promised to “do whatever it takes” to preserve the currency, and thus in political terms to keep the integration dream alive.

Most people saw it as a noble gesture, the hard-pressed efforts of a committed statesman to help out the ordinary folks of Europe suffering under financial repression for reasons they couldn’t understand. These people should have instead heard Mario Draghi for what he was, an utterly confused near lunatic:

The euro is like a bumblebee. This is a mystery of nature because it shouldn’t fly but instead it does. So the euro was a bumblebee that flew very well for several years. And now — and I think people ask “how come?”– probably there was something in the atmosphere, in the air, that made the bumblebee fly. Now something must have changed in the air, and we know what after the financial crisis.

Like his predecessor Jean-Claude Trichet or Ben Bernanke, his counterpart at the Federal Reserve in the US, Mario Draghi has no idea what happened in 2008, or, for that matter, what happened again in 2011. His central bank like all central banks is trying to fix a problem they can’t understand, and the effect of doing so is that nothing ever gets fixed.

People might be understandably upset by that fact. It doesn’t take much to acknowledge that these voters might have a case, legitimate criticisms that have nothing whatsoever to do with the darker side of Europe’s tragic history. Economics, however, is the most fragile discipline perhaps ever invented; it prevents even a modicum of honest introspection, largely because it is more of a political force (farce) than a scientific one.

Nowhere is that more evident than in Europe. The risk to the European political situation is not really all that complex. It is easily attributed to the one thing nobody is allowed to question:

The threat to the euro is today greater than it was in 2012, and for that Draghi has completely failed. It comes not in Target II imbalances and Greek default penalties, but in political upheaval tied directly to what it is that Mario Draghi can’t seem to figure out. He can promise all he wants, but Europe’s fate will not be determined by his euro.

It’s recovery or bust for Europe, the same choices as are being faced around the rest of the world for the very same prolonged stagnation. In China, as noted earlier, they are moving in preparation, it appears, for the bust. European voters might seem as irrational, but only if you think the euro was and is like a bumblebee in the capable hands of the brilliant technocratic beekeepers.

It hasn’t been two decades of economic problems, just the last one has been more than enough to turn Italy against that which it once enthusiastically embraced. The breakup began in monetary destruction, nurtured by mistake after mistake, and now moves ever closer to completion drawn forward upon technocratic uselessness covered only by political shrillness. Are we really supposed to wonder why it hasn’t been a winning formula at the ballot box?

If anything, I think Italians, the British, Americans, etc., have until recently all shown remarkable restraint. They gave the technocrats the benefit of the doubt time and again, with dubious policies and experiments and then promises that haven’t come close to being kept. Ten years is a long, long time for nothing being accomplished. That’s really all there is to it. It’s just that simple. 

You want to save Europe? You can start by ending all this blatantly dishonest boom nonsense.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2H9wNg3 Tyler Durden

Update: During President Trump’s joint press conference with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven today, he reminded everyone that he was right about his view of immigration policies in Sweden.

“Now that you spend some time with our prime minister, how do you view Sweden, in general?” the reporter asked.

“What is your take? And also on our immigration politics?”

“Certainly you have a problem with the immigration,” Trump replied.

“It’s caused problems in Sweden. I was one of the first ones to say it. I took a little heat, but that was okay, because I proved to be right.”

*  *  *

As we detailed earlier, in the latest installment of our focus on Sweden, the New York Times diverted from the establishment media playbook, publishing an astonishing report detailing Sweden’s increasing problem with immigrant gangs using hand grenades and Kalashnikovs in crime sprees across the country — more than a year after the dying liberal paper scolded President Trump for bringing awareness to the issue.

The NYT — which titled the weekend piece “Hand Grenades and Gang Violence Rattle Sweden’s Middle Class,” uncovers the troubling truth of what the mainstream media was not permitted to share with the rest of the world for the past year: weapons of war ended up in the hands of refugee gangs on the streets of Sweden.

Weapons from a faraway, long-ago war are flowing into immigrant neighborhoods here, puncturing Swedes’ sense of confidence and security. The country’s murder rate remains low, by American standards, and violent crime is stable or dropping in many places. But gang-related assaults and shootings are becoming more frequent, and the number of neighborhoods categorized by the police as “marred by crime, social unrest and insecurity” is rising. Crime and immigration are certain to be key issues in September’s general election, alongside the traditional debates over education and health care.

The article centers on the death a 63-year-old man in the town of Varby Gard, a suburb of Stockholm. He was killed in early January after an object on the ground exploded outside a subway station. He had picked up an item believing it was a toy that turned out to be a live hand grenade — killing him instantly.

According to NYT, the M-75 hand grenade was manufactured in vast quantities for the Yugoslav national army and then seized by paramilitaries during the civil war in the 1990s. Each grenade packed with plastic explosives and 3,000 steel balls, is well suited for close combat and urban warfare, and perhaps why it is the weapon of choice of rogue refugee gangs in Sweden.

The NYT says Stockholm’s Police have graphed the hand grenade incidents in the country and have found a troubling relation: out of control hand grenade attacks coincide with the influx of refugees starting in 2015 and beyond:

Affixed to the wall in Mr. Appelgren’s office in Stockholm’s Police Headquarters is a chart showing the increase in the use of hand grenades. Until 2014 there were about a handful every year. In 2015, that number leapt: 45 grenades were seized by the police, and 10 others were detonated. The next year, 55 were seized and 35 detonated. A modest decrease occurred in 2017, when 39 were seized and 21 were detonated.

“I think we’re going to see, if we don’t stop it, more drive-by shootings with Kalashnikovs and hand grenades,” Appelgren warned.

“They throw rocks and bottles at our cars, and they trick us in an ambush. When will it happen that they ambush us with Kalashnikovs? It’s coming,” he added.

Even Linda Staaf, head of intelligence at the Swedish Police National Operations Department (NOA) said, “Research is needed to provide a precise answer on whether the use of hand grenades has increased in Sweden, but we do believe that in part it has become a trend.”

Now the security situation in Sweden is so critical that Prime Minister Stefan Lofven recently said, he will do whatever it takes, including sending in the Swedish Armed Forces to end the horrible gang violence conducted by refugees.

Swedish PM: We could “DEPLOY THE ARMY” to tackle gang criminality in Sweden.

This is a serious admission that something is very wrong in Sweden.

Could this be why they sent out leaflets to 4.7 million households warning people what to do in case of war?https://t.co/tsX8Crl54N pic.twitter.com/xbU3eg2D1X

— PeterSweden (@PeterSweden7) January 17, 2018

Last month, we reported that Sweden is preparing to distribute civil defense brochures to some 4.7 million households, warning them about the onset of war. Put two and two together, and it seems the country is gearing up for a civil war on its streets, as the country’s military is preparing to battle heavily armed refugees who have stockpiled hand grenades and Kalashnikovs.

This time last year, Trump drew harsh criticism from mainstream media outlets including the NYT for making common sense observations — linking the mass Muslim immigration wave to an uptick in crime in Sweden.

My statement as to what’s happening in Sweden was in reference to a story that was broadcast on @FoxNews concerning immigrants & Sweden.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 19, 2017

Here is how the NYT called out Trump:

One of his viewers agreed, and in that moment was born a diplomatic incident that illustrates the unusual approach that President Trump takes to foreign policy, as well as the influence that television can have on his thinking. After watching the program, Mr. Trump threw a line into a speech the next day suggesting that a terrorist attack had occurred in Sweden the night before.

Just like that, without white papers, intelligence reports, an interagency meeting or, presumably, the advice of his secretary of state, the president started a dispute with a longtime American friend that resented his characterization and called it false. The president’s only discernible goal was to make the case domestically for his plans to restrict entry to the United States.

The Swedes were flabbergasted.

“We are used to seeing the president of the U.S. as one of the most well-informed persons in the world, also well aware of the importance of what he says,” Carl Bildt, a former prime minister of Sweden, said by email on Monday. “And then, suddenly, we see him engaging in misinformation and slander against a truly friendly country, obviously relying on sources of a quality that at best could be described as dubious.”

One year later, the NYT is now reporting on the same issue it once demonized President Trump for. The concerning factor at play is if the Prime Minister triggers the Swedish Armed Forces to halt the refugee crime spree, which it could very well unfold into a civil war in the no-go zones throughout the country. Sweden’s civil defense is preparing to send out some 4.7 million survival brochures to households warning about the onset of a war. Sweden is a “shithole.”

Last year, when Fox News and Trump noted Sweden’s immigrant crime problem, NYT pushed back. Now, NYT reports on Sweden’s immigrant crime problem. https://t.co/Wo753MCjtd and https://t.co/aPz5IKKMYo pic.twitter.com/H0pHXfNefc

— Byron York (@ByronYork) March 4, 2018

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2I6V9s2 Tyler Durden

Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

When talking about nuclear weapons, it is necessary to clarify some important points before delving into complicated reasoning.

Nuclear weapons are here to stay, and anyone who believes in a progressive denuclearization of the globe is sadly mistaken. Try asking any Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, Russian or American policy-maker what they think about abandoning their nuclear weapons and they will tell you that it will never happen. To believe that a country would be willing to simply abandon its most powerful weapon and means of deterrence is simply unrealistic. Nevertheless, I would like to emphasize in this article how nuclear weapons are crucial to a stable future world order. Any reasonable person possessing a magic wand would wish to make vanish a weapon that is capable of eliminating humanity. The problem is that in the real world, this possibility does not exist and nukes are here to stay.

There is the valid argument that the absence of nuclear weapons would have greatly altered the balance during the Cold War, leading to a massively devastating war between the two superpowers of the time, even if only fought conventionally. In this two-part series I will try to argue how nuclear weapons can, especially in the future, be a guarantor of peace rather than posing the threat of global destruction. One always has to keep in mind the great risk that humanity has placed itself in with the invention of such a destructive weapon: they are a sword of Damocles hanging over the destiny of humanity. For this reason, a balance between great powers is necessary in order to ensure that a nuclear catastrophe can never happen.

In order to be able to advance this analysis in a sensible and realistic way, it is necessary to recall the history of the last century and observe the behaviour of the nations involved. Without focusing too much on the details, it is commonly recognized that the prelude to the First and Second World Wars was characterized by growing clashes between the powers. The composition of the international framework was varied, with countries like Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, the United States and the Russian Empire/Soviet Union in constant competition with each other, stemming from their strong growth at the time combined with their imperialist tendencies. History has shown how a multipolar environment with several powers competing provides the perfect recipe for conflict, resulting in the millions of deaths we saw in the two world wars. In international relations, a multipolar environment is generally held to be unstable and difficult to control and predict by a single power. Not surprisingly, Multipolarity refers to a situation where several powers compete with each other without any one of them being able to dominate one or more of the others. Such an unstable balance has often resulted in one or more of these powers triggering devastating conflicts in an effort to achieve regional or global hegemony.

The conclusion of the Second World War ended the period of Multipolarity, with only two competing global powers remaining on the world stage. The Soviet Union and the United States achieved their maximals aims in terms of post-war influence, fundamentally reorienting international relations. The substantial military and strategic balance between these two powers, leading to a bipolar world order, was characterized by nuclear weapons, a technological innovation that would forever alter the nature of the balance of power between countries.

On August 6, 1945, the world became aware of the destructive power of the atomic bomb when Japan lost about 80 thousand citizens in Hiroshima in a blink of an eye. The second atomic bomb dropped on the city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, ushered in a new and delicate reality governing international relations. The balance of power turned decisively in favour of the United States, with all global risks that this entailed. It is now in the public domain that Truman intended to scare Stalin, and impose a new global order favouring the United States, through the practical demonstration of nuclear power visited on Japan. Declassified documents show that the plan for global domination was already in the minds of American military planners before the conclusion of the Second World War. Since the USSR was the only remaining rival power, it should not come as a surprise that the CIA and other policy-makers were contemplating decapitating the Soviet Union with nuclear strikes. The intent was to get rid of the only existing adversary and pave the way for American military, economic, political and cultural domination over the entire globe.

The first part of this analysis leads us to the first counterintuitive conclusion. Although all of humanity is aware of the devastating consequences of nuclear weapons, it was not until August 29, 1949, with the first Soviet nuclear test, that a new balance of power was established. In this context, the term Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was coined, referring to the capacity of nuclear-armed powers to obliterate each other in a nuclear exchange. Therefore, such an exchange would not benefit either party, since it would only bring about a nuclear winter from which no winner could emerge.

The pressing need to balance the United States drove the Soviet Union to develop its own nuclear weapons. This need for deterrence remains valid today, with North Korea recently demonstrating this by developing nuclear weapons to deter aggressive US foreign policy. Since the 1950s, Washington has sought to overthrow North Korea’s political leadership and expand its sphere of influence throughout the country, as it did with South Korea in the years following the Korean War. But thanks to Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons, US plans for invasion and conquest have had to be downsized to empty threats and bluster. The frustration evident in the statements of Washington’s hawks derives from the impotence that North Korea’s nuclear deterrent reduces them to. In reality, however, North Korea’s conventional deterrence alone is enough to give pause to the designs of any potential aggressor designs, a subject I have covered.

That nuclear weapons alter the balance of power in international relations remains as valid today as it ever did. It is important to reach another parallel conclusion concerning situations experienced during the Cold War. Historical examples have emerged recently whereby Russian or American military personnel risked unleashing a nuclear apocalypse as a result of electronic malfunctions or incorrect risk perceptions. But it is nevertheless unsurprising that no nuclear exchange resulted from any of these instances. Human reasoning, even among mortal enemies, pauses to consider the consequences of Armageddon, at the critical moment exercising sufficient doubt on the matter to avert resorting to the most destructive weapon ever created by man.

I have previously maintained that a nuclear war would not favour anyone and would therefore be highly unlikely. The counterargument often offered is that of the risk of an accident or miscalculation resulting in nuclear conflagration. Yet even this scenario presented itself several times during the Cold War and failed to result in thermonuclear war. Errors are inherent in technology, but history has shown the propensity for good sense to prevail when the stakes are so high.

The case of the Cuban missile crisis is illustrative. Although the US and the USSR were not on the verge of nuclear war in 1962, the tensions reached during those few months are still remembered as one of the most delicate and dangerous moments in history. The reason is clearly linked to all that we have discussed thus far. A war between powers in a bipolar world order would certainly have seen the attempt of one side to overpower the other in an effort to achieve global hegemony. It is easy to imagine a war between superpowers escalating to nuclear warfare, with disastrous consequences for humanity. Once again, we should not be surprised by a de-escalation of the situation. A clarifying call between JFK and Khrushchev ended the Soviet attempt to mirror the threat posed by the Americans in Europe by deploying its own weapons to Cuba, thereby violating the Monroe Doctrine. (In 1962, Washington deployed in Turkey the famous Jupiter missiles, which Moscow considered an existential threat that threatened the doctrine of MAD by nullifying Moscow’s retaliatory second-strike capability.

Thanks to a balance of power in a bipolar environment and the danger posed by a nuclear exchange, the possibility of direct conflict between the great powers was avoided throughout the Cold War. In the next and final article, I intend to explain why nuclear-armed powers in a Multipolar World Order decrease the likelihood of a nuclear apocalypse, as counterintuitive as it may seem.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2I7UVRx Tyler Durden

It doesn’t matter whether the price of bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency) is rising or falling. The exchanges that execute the bulk of global crypto transactions are winning either way.

As Bloomberg points out, while investors have fixated on the massive price appreciation across cryptocurrency pairs, in reality, it’s the exchanges that are pulling in the real money. The largest exchanges are generating as much as $3 million a day in fees – an amount that could eventually reach more than $1 billion for the year.

And that’s using the lowest range of the fee scale…

“The exchanges and transaction processors are the biggest winners in the space because they’re allowing people to transact and participate in this burgeoning sector,” said Gil Luria, an equity analyst at D.A. Davidson & Co, who reviewed the methodology for the revenue estimates.

“There’s a big business there and it would not surprise me if they’re making hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and possibly even billions a year.”

Tokyo-based Binance, which has a reputation for listing almost every ICO, and Hong Kong-based OKEx are handling the largest volume of trading, equal to about $1.7 billion daily. Based on fees of 0.2 percent, which are higher than OKEx’s 0.07 percent for the most active traders, Binance is probably bringing in the most cash. Binance, which first launched in July, has experienced growth that’s unprecedented, even for the world of cryptocurrencies.

Huobi, Bitfinex, Upbit and Bithumb, all of which are also based in Asia, are next in the rankings. These exchanges process between $600 million and $1.4 billion of trading volume and charge fees of 0.3 percent on average.

More than half of the crypto currency trading happens on Asia-based exchanges, according to data compiled by smart contract platform Aelf. “They don’t make users go through the know-your-customer process until withdrawal,” Slaughter said. “It’s a complicated process. You can lose customers in the two or four hours that it takes. In Binance, you can go from not having an account to having funds on an account in less than 20 minutes.”

South Korean exchange Upbit, which is among the top five in trading volume, only started operating in October. It’s controlled by Dunamu Inc., which also owns Kakao Talk, the most popular messaging app in Korea. Upbit is integrated in Kakao Talk and lists over 120 cryptocurrencies, thanks to a partnership with the US-based exchange Bittrex.

All of the exchanges are privately held and only a few years old, which often means it’s difficult to pinpoint financial information or details about their management – and indeed, as we’ve pointed out before, some of the largest exchanges have attracted the scrutiny of regulators due to their shady business practices. HitBTC, the 10th largest, doesn’t provide any information on who runs it or where the firm is based, even as customers asked these questions on the exchange’s forum. Bit-Z, WEX and EXX, among the 20 biggest by trading volume, are some of the others that don’t provide those details either.

However, competition from established financial institutions – like, say, Goldman Sachs –  public companies and traditional financial firms may push crypto exchanges to be more transparent and even reduce costs.

“More conventional businesses like banks and funds are likely to acquire crypto platforms at some point to make sure they have a strategic foothold in the market,” he said. “It’s a no-brainer. Financial services is where all the real business revenue in crypto is,” said Chris Slaughter, co-founder of crypto investment platform Samsa.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2HfAOjd Tyler Durden

Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

I’m not a fan of Communist China.

It’s a vicious totalitarian regime that routinely employs censorship, surveillance, and brutal police state tactics to intimidate its populace, maintain its power, and expand the largesse of its corporate elite.

Just recently, in fact, China – an economic and political powerhouse that owns more of America’s debt than any other country and is buying up American businesses across the spectrum – announced its plan to make its president, Xi Jinping, president for life.

President Trump jokingly thinks that’s a great idea.

Trump thinks the idea of having a president for life is so great, in fact, that America might want to move in that direction. “Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday,” joked Trump.

Here’s the thing: we already have a president for life.

Sure, the names and faces and parties have changed over the years, but really, when you drill down under the personalities and political theater, you’ll find that the changing names and faces are merely cosmetic: no matter who sits on the throne, the office of the president of the United States has, for all intents and purposes, become a unilateral power unto itself.

Although the Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers, in recent years, American presidents (Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc.) have claimed the power to completely and almost unilaterally alter the landscape of this country for good or for ill.

The powers amassed by each successive president through the negligence of Congress and the courts—powers which add up to a toolbox of terror for an imperial ruler—empower whomever occupies the Oval Office to act as a dictator, above the law and beyond any real accountability.

The presidency itself has become an imperial one with permanent powers.

As law professor William P. Marshall explains, “every extraordinary use of power by one President expands the availability of executive branch power for use by future Presidents.” Moreover, it doesn’t even matter whether other presidents have chosen not to take advantage of any particular power, because “it is a President’s action in using power, rather than forsaking its use, that has the precedential significance.”

In other words, each successive president continues to add to his office’s list of extraordinary orders and directives, expanding the reach and power of the presidency and granting him- or herself near dictatorial powers.

So you see, we have been saddled with a “president for life”—i.e., a dictator for life—for some time now.

This abuse of presidential powers has been going on for so long that it has become the norm, the Constitution be damned.

The government of laws idealized by John Adams has fallen prey to a government of men.

As a result, we no longer have a system of checks and balances.

All of the imperial powers amassed by Barack Obama and George W. Bush—to kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which he might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to operate a shadow government, and to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountability—were inherited by Donald Trump.

These presidential powers—acquired through the use of executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements and which can be activated by any sitting president—enable past, president and future presidents to operate above the law and beyond the reach of the Constitution.

These are the powers that will be passed along to each successive heir to the Oval Office.

This is what you might call a stealthy, creeping, silent, slow-motion coup d’etat.

Donald Trump has already picked up where his predecessors left off: he has continued to wage war, he has continued to federalize the police, and he operates as if the Constitution does not apply to him.

As tempting as it may be to lay all the blame at Trump’s feet for the totalitarian state of the nation right now, remember that he didn’t create the police state.

He merely inherited it, along with the dictatorial powers of the presidency.

If we are to return to a constitutional presidency, we must recalibrate the balance of power.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the only thing that will save us now is a concerted, collective commitment to the Constitution’s principles of limited government, a system of checks and balances, and a recognition that they—the president, Congress, the courts, the military, the police, the technocrats and plutocrats and bureaucrats—answer to and are accountable to “we the people.”

As historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. points out, “Holding a President to strict accountability requires, first of all, a new attitude on the part of the American people toward their Presidents, or rather a return to the more skeptical attitude of earlier times: it requires, specifically, a decline in reverence… The age of the imperial presidency has produced the idea that run-of-the-mill politicians, brought by fortuity to the White House, must be treated thereafter as if they have become superior and perhaps godlike beings.”

Schlesinger continues:

“If the nation wants to work its way back to a constitutional presidency, there is only one way to begin. That is by showing Presidents that, when their closest associates place themselves above the law and the Constitution, such transgressions will be not forgiven or forgotten for the sake of the presidency but exposed and punished for the sake of the presidency.”

In other words, we’ve got to stop treating the president like a god and start making both the office of the president and the occupant play by the rules of the Constitution.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2Fhet8i Tyler Durden

A Utah Teenager who supports ISIS has been arrested after a backpack bomb failed to detonate at Pine View High School.

17-year-old Jack Whalen and his friends noticed a bag near a vending machine that was “smoking and sizzling.” After administrators evacuated the school’s 1,100 students, the bomb squad moved in and determined that it contained an explosive device which had the “potential to cause significant injury or death,” according to police. 

“I could smell a smoke smell and my friends actually saw it before I did,” said Jack Whalen, the teen who found the bag containing a “round, really fat” canister. 

NEW: @sgcitypubsafety is charging the suspects “failed attempt to detonate a homemade explosive” inside Pine View High School yesterday with:

76-10-402: Manufacture, possession, sale, use or attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction prohibited.

📸 –> Jack Whalen pic.twitter.com/gJQ5Q8OZ74

— D.J. Bolerjack (@DJBolerjack) March 6, 2018

NEW: Student who found smoking bag with device in it also looked inside that bag & found “A box of matches, there was a canister in it…”

“That [canister]was round, really fat, and it had a little lid on it.”
More details about this students find at 6. pic.twitter.com/GcmjCrtlas

— D.J. Bolerjack (@DJBolerjack) March 6, 2018

The suspect is an ISIS-supporting male classmate enrolled in the Junior ROTC program – who admitted to another incident at a neighboring high school in which he replaced the American flag with the ISIS flag, along with graffiti saying “ISIS IS COMI–“

Invoved in the response were the St. George Police, the Washington County Bomb Squad, Washington County Sheriff’s Deputies, a bomb-sniffing police dog named Jax and his handler, and the local FBI.

Upon a search of the suspect’s home, Police found bombmaking materials and evidence of his support for the Islamic State.

“Based on our investigation we can confirm this was a failed attempt to detonate a homemade explosive at the school,” police said in a statement. “It was also determined that the male had been researching information and expressing interest in ISIS and promoting the organization.”

The suspect has been preliminarily charged with the manufacture, possession, sale, use or attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, with more charges pending. 

“There were several factors that came into play yesterday which led to a positive outcome,” police said in their statement. “We’d like to recognize and thank the students who notified faculty and the [school resource officer] of the suspicious backpack. Their immediate action played a large role in this incident ending with no injuries.”

Officer Lona Trombley of the St. George Police Department issued the following statement:

There were several factors that came into play yesterday which led to a positive outcome. First, we’d like to recognize and thank the students who notified faculty and the SRO of the suspicious backpack. Their immediate action played a large role in this incident ending with no injuries.

Second, the School Resource Officer program which allowed an officer to immediately be on scene to access and address the situation appropriately. He was then able to call inappropriate teams, such as; the Washington County Bomb Squad and Jax, the bomb-detecting K-9 from Dixie Regional Medical Center, to identify and disarm the explosive device. We’d also like to say thank you to the Bomb Squad and to Jax and his handler for responding to the call out.

Third, the Washington County School District, who have implemented drills to practice for incidents such as this, which led to a quick and seamless evacuation of the school.

Finally, we’d like to thank the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI, who responded to assist with everything from the investigation itself to barricading roads.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2FotUYs Tyler Durden

FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok reportedly ignored “an irregularity in the metadata” indicating that Hillary Clinton’s server may had been breached, while FBI top brass made significant edits to former Director James Comey’s statement specifically minimizing how likely it was that hostile actors had gained access.

Sources told Fox News  that Strzok, who sent anti-Trump text messages that got him removed from the ongoing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, was told about the metadata anomaly in 2016, but Strzok did not support a formal damage assessment. One source said: “Nothing happened.”

In December, a letter from Senate Homeland Security Committee Chair Ron Johnson (R-WI) revealed that Strzok and other FBI officials effectively “decriminalized” Clinton’s behavior through a series of edits to James Comey’s original statement.

The letter described how outgoing Deputy Director Andrew McCabe exchanged drafts of Comey’s statement with senior FBI officials, including Strzok, Strzok’s direct supervisor, E.W. “Bill” Priestap, Jonathan Moffa, and an unnamed employee from the Office of General Counsel (identified by Newsweek as DOJ Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson) – in a coordinated conspiracy among top FBI brass.

It was already known that Strzok – who was demoted to the FBI’s HR department for sending anti-Trump text messages to his mistress – downgraded the language describing Clinton’s conduct from the criminal charge of “gross negligence” to “extremely careless.”

Notably, “Gross negligence” is a legal term of art in criminal law often associated with recklessness. According to Black’s Law Dictionary, it is defined as “A severe degree of negligence taken as reckless disregard,” and “Blatant indifference to one’s legal duty, other’s safety, or their rights.” “Extremely careless,” on the other hand, is not a legal term of art.

18 U.S. Code § 793 “Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information” specifically uses the phrase “gross negligence.” Had Comey used the phrase, he would have essentially declared that Hillary had broken the law.

In order to justify downgrading Clinton’s behavior to “extremely careless,” however, FBI officials also needed to minimize the impact of her crimes. As revealed in the letter from Rep. Johnson, the FBI downgraded the probability that Clinton’s server was hacked by hostile actors from “reasonably likely” to “possible.” 

“Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account,” Comey said in his statement.

By doing so, the FBI downgraded Clinton’s negligence – thus supporting the “extremely careless” language. 

The FBI also edited Clinton’s exoneration letter to remove a reference to the “sheer volume” of classified material on the private server, which – according to the original draft “supports an inference that the participants were grossly negligent in their handling of that information.” Furthermore, all references to the Intelligence Community’s involvement in investigating Clinton’s private email server were removed as well. 

Director Comey’s original statement acknowledged the FBI had worked with its partners in the Intelligence Community to assess potential damage from Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server. The original statement read: 

W]e have done extensive work with the assistance of our colleagues elsewhere in the Intelligence Community to understand what indications there might be of compromise by hostile actors in connection with the private email operation. 

In summary; the FBI launched an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private server, ignored evidence it may have been hacked, downgraded the language in Comey’s draft to decriminalize her behavior, and then exonerated her by recommending the DOJ not prosecute. 

Meanwhile, a tip submitted by an Australian diplomat tied to a major Clinton Foundation deal launched the FBI’s counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign – initially spearheaded by the same Peter Strzok who worked so hard to get Hillary off the hook. 

And Strzok still collects a taxpayer-funded paycheck.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2G1Xq7h Tyler Durden