Category: zerohedge

Authored by Andrew Moran via LibertyNation.com,

Today’s brand of the left-leaning politician is all about substituting what sounds good for what actually works. Modern politics, whether in the U.S. or Europe, is about taking a chainsaw to everything that produced even a modicum of success to appease the deities espousing progressive orthodoxy. There is no better example of this than fossil fuels, energy sources that have lifted us out of destitution and darkness and given us incredible wealth the world had never witnessed. What is the left interested in doing? Confiscation, cronyism, centralization, and coercion to combat climate change. The European Union will achieve these objectives through the boondoggle-in the-making Green Deal.

What Is The Green Deal?

The European counterpart is a bit more realistic than the American version, aiming for net-zero emissions within 30 years rather than in a decade. But that is probably the best thing you can say about this proposal, which was approved by the European Parliament – some policymakers had requested even greater ambitions to be inserted inside the climate change scheme. Overall, the Green Deal is bad economics that will affect the already dreary conditions of Europe and exacerbate the slowdown.

The Green Deal begins by the European Commission examining every European Union law and regulation and then modifying them to align with the bloc’s new climate objectives. If you thought the E.U.’s regulations were already egregious, just you wait until March 2021 when the bureaucrats will submit a package containing all the statist goodies. At least Great Britain will not have to.

Policymakers want to implement a circular economy, one that emphasizes the sustainability factor in how the continent produces stuff. Its objective is to consume fewer materials and ensure there is more concentration on reusing and recycling.

Like the Green New Deal (GND), the E.U.’s flagship program is to “at least double or even triple” the renovation rate of buildings. Today, this figure stands at about 1%, so bumping up that figure would require a concoction of interventions and mandates to ensure buildings are more efficient.

One provision is to introduce carbon tariffs for nations that refuse to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions at a comparable rate to Europe. Another aspect that has cronyism written all over it is amplifying public-private partnerships to support research and innovation in technologies that lead to low-carbon steel generation, green batteries, and better nutrient management by farmers.

A common word used throughout the Commission’s plan is “promotion.” Officials want to promote alternative sustainable fuels. They want to promote electric vehicle use. They aim to promote deforestation-free agricultural products. They desire to promote a reduction in air travel and more rail and water transportation of freight. Promotion is a kinder word for coercion.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen believes this is the region’s “moon moment”:

“We do not have all the answers yet. Today is the start of a journey. This is Europe’s man on the moon moment. Our goal is to reconcile the economy with our planet and to make it work for our people.”

Euros And Cents

So, how much will all this cost? Over in the U.S., the GND has a price-tag of around $93 trillion. The GD is estimated to receive E.U. support funding of $100 billion. This is a steal until you realize that this is not the total cost that will be required to reach the E.U.’s objectives. It is essentially seed money to get things going, a so-called transition mechanism. The final tally will likely be a lot higher.

The other potential cost is the industries that could be impacted by this initiative. Analysts are sounding the alarm that established businesses would be seriously affected by the decarbonization push and the greater focus on renewable sources. An example of this would be coal.

Coal is indeed dying a slow death, with the primary assailant being the free market. However, coal’s demise is being accelerated by the state, even though it continues to be an important market in Eastern Europe – consumption and production. Although coal has been gradually diminishing, it still employs tens of thousands of people, and the latest estimates say as many as 160,000 people could be out of work within the next decade or so because of the E.U.

And you have to think that this is also a jab at Russia. In the last few years, Russia has been supplying the rest of Europe with a lot of energy. Moscow’s dominance in the energy industry has been so immense that it is constructing more pipelines to gain a greater market share of Europe’s gas market. However, should the GD become the law of the land, the pipelines may be demolished or out of order since they would no longer adhere to the standards of the climate strategy.

The greatest cost might be the lost economic growth.

“The Green Deal is the most fundamental shift in European energy policy we have seen in 20 years. Companies in the sector should not underestimate the disruption it will bring,” Nick Butler wrote in The Financial Times.

Clear, Simple, And Wrong

Every proposal to fight climate change and save the planet is based on the concentration of power and the aggressive expansion of regulatory implementation and enforcement. Policymakers refuse to allow the free market to create innovative solutions to environmental problems, effectively admitting that the planet is too important to leave up to the inhabitants. Only the government, and those it handpicks to receive the benefits of public spending, can be Mother Nature’s best friend. Unfortunately, this reckless abandon of innovation and industry, which is far too common in the region, will be another step toward Europe’s ruin. As H.L. Mencken wrote, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” The E.U. knows this all too well.

Over the past couple of years European capitals have been pursuing war crimes charges against anti-Assad ‘opposition’ fighters once widely referred to in Western press as “moderate rebels”. In an irony which is certain to be ignored by the same US mainstream media that shilled for them in the first place, the CIA and Pentagon had for years through the first half of the war backed the anti-Assad jihadist insurgency with millions of dollars and weapons. 

One such so-called ‘moderate rebel’ arrested days ago in France is Islam Alloush — a former leader and spokesman for Jaish al-Islam, which also happens to be the very Saudi-backed group that had been in control of eastern Ghouta outside of Damascus at the time of the alleged April 2018 Douma “chemical attack”.

According to the AFP, Alloush was detained in the city of Marseille following criminal complaints filed last year by human rights groups, which detailed a history of war crimes, torture and kidnapping against civilians and activists. 

He “is among the senior officials of Jaish Al Islam,” who led some 20,000 combatants in the jihadist militia, and “caused terror to reign in the rebel areas it controlled, mainly in eastern Ghouta, which it lost control in April 2018,” according to a joint press release issued by the human rights groups which helped track his whereabouts to the south of France.

Not only had he been freely moving about Europe for what appears to be at least a year… it gets better: this brutal jihadist warlord and terrorists was actually in France on a student visa.

According to international reports on the case: 

The man, born in 1988, is said to be a former spokesperson for the group and was in France on an Erasmus student visa. He was taken into custody in the southern port city of Marseille.

After 48 hours in police custody, he was brought before a Parisian  judge who charged him with “acts of torture,” “war crimes” and “complicity in enforced disappearances.”

The International Federation for Human Rights described the group that Alloush had long been spokesman for in a statement: “Mainly active in Eastern Ghouta, in the suburbs of Damascus, Jaysh al-Islam has been regularly accused of committing international crimes against the civilians living under its rule, starting in 2011 until 2018” — including the disappearance of four prominent human rights lawyers and activists. 

You can’t make this up

Jeish al-Islam spokesman, Islam Alloush’ s letter to université de Provence asking for EU-funded erasmus scholarship

He boasts about his 50k followers on Twitter

Presents himself as Researcher Specialized in #Syria ‘s conflict pic.twitter.com/xScMxqSX9q

— EHSANI2 (@EHSANI22) February 2, 2020

“The group numbered up to more than 20,000 fighters and carried out a reign of terror in the rebel areas it controlled, mainly in the Eastern Ghouta, until it lost control over them in April 2018,” the rights organization said.

Among Jaish Al Islam’s past exploits: putting Alawite civilians inside cages to use as “human shields”: 

It must be additionally recalled that it was this very group which first issued claims that pro-Assad forces launched a chemical attack on the town of Douma in April 2018.

Without a shred of evidence the mainstream media and the US government blindly ran with the narrative of “another Assad gas attack” (and the US unleashed over 100 tomahawk missiles on Damascus) — this based on the “trust” of Islam Alloush and others now convicted of horrifying war crimes. 

Authored by Cyril Widdershoven  via OilPrice.com,

Since the end of the 1990s Egypt has dreamt of becoming an East Mediterranean gas and energy hub.

The discoveries offshore in the Nile Delta at the end of the 20st Century, that kickstarted the LNG boom sparked hope, but regional and internal conflicts which led to the removal of president Husni Mubarak and the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood have significantly slowed down the country’s energy industry.

However, new discoveries made in the last couple of years, combined with strong results offshore Cyprus, Israel and possibly even the coming years in Lebanon have brought new hope. The so-called East Med Gas Forum, in which most littoral states are participating is seen as one of the main drivers of new energy developments. Led by Egypt-Israel and the Greece-Cyprus quartet, a new start was made to reshape the region’s energy market, with as crown jewel, Egypt’s LNG liquefaction capacity in Idku and Damietta. The combined reserves of the participants, especially Egypt’s elephant-sized fields Zohr and Noor, combined with Israel’s offshore wealth, could supply the European market. The EU and even the U.S. promote the so-called East Med Offshore Gas Pipeline project connecting the East Mediterranean with the Balkans and possibly Italy. The region is optimistic and strategies are being implemented at a remarkable speed. Even with Turkish military and political obstruction constraining or even threatening some of the projects, progress is made.

However, politicians and energy operators have maybe underestimated the environment they are working in. A global gas glut is emerging, threatening not only LNG exporters such as Australia, Qatar, Mozambique and others, but also the East Med Energy Hub dreams of the EMGF. Some of the region’s projects are already facing headwinds.

In a remarkable move, Cairo has cancelled several tenders in 2019 as market prices offered were below expectations. Analysts stated that some bidders even offered prices which were below the break-even cost prices of production. Still, the members of the forum are not yet concerned at all it seems. Egypt believes that operational costs as its LNG plants should be very low, regarding the fact that the plants are already paid off, and all capacity is installed. If global LNG landing prices fall below Cairo’s production costs, the nation will have a real issue.

The position taken at present by the Egyptian oil ministry to sell LNG under term agreements with a target selling price of $5/MMBtu, rather than on the spot market, is a risky one. With a market able to get all volumes needed on the spot market, where prices are much lower, the real question is, if there will be any bidders interested in the prices as announced in the tender.

Globally prices have plummeted. Large Asian buyers such as China, Japan and South Korea are enjoying much lower prices. The JKM benchmark for Asian LNG spot prices has fallen by 50% since the beginning of 2019 from around $8/MMBtu to a little over $4/MMBtu. Long-term deals such as Egypt is offering are a risky proposition for any buyer. For example, selling an 18-month FOB deal at $5/MMBtu is very challenging at present. East Mediterranean nations can count on stiff competition from Qatar, Australia and others. And by now, most analysts expect that global gas and LNG markets will see a “lower for longer” price environment. 

The coming months will be decisive for Egypt’s LNG industry. The only parties interested at present could be new entrants to the market, or parties looking for some structural deals. If these, however, are not available, Egypt and its East Med partners could be facing a scenario in which LNG exports will be low or maybe even non-existing.

In the meantime, Egypt’s gas production increase is impressive, the country produces more from its Zohr field than it can physically export. LNG exports from Egypt more than doubled year on year in 2019 to 4.8 Bcm of gas equivalent. On top of that, Cairo has started to import Israeli gas.

Egypt’s local market demand is still too low to absorb the current glut, and pipeline exports to Jordan are still very low. To counter the influx of Israeli gas (6 million cubic meter per year), Egypt is forced already to consider restarting its 2nd LNG plant in Damietta (5 million metric tons/year). A restart is currently being discussed by the operator Union Fenosa Gas (UFG), a 50-50 joint venture between Eni and Spain’s Naturgy.

The LNG global market glut situation needs to be addressed not only by Egypt but all EMGF parties the coming months. The immense volumes available now and need to be monetized soon.  Egypt would do well to focus Eastern European markets (including the Balkans). In this market, it will have to find a way to compete with, Russia, Norway and Qatar. Price levels could be plummeting even further in the short term, so Cairo must make sure to sell its existing LNG inventory soon.

The Forum’s parties should take a realistic view on their offshore gas wealth, and dreaming about a major multibillion treasury trove like Qatar’s is maybe not realistic. A long-term vision is much needed, and Cairo needs to develop a clear understanding of its potential markets, which might not just be North or West, but possibly even in the East.

OPEC’s main oil producer, and Egyptian ally Saudi Arabia is still in dire need for additional gas volumes. Redirecting the former Arab Gas Pipeline (AGP), which was meant to export Egyptian gas to Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, to Saudi Arabia could be hitting two birds with one stone. Integrating regional energy and security while monetizing reserves.

TomTom has released its 2019 Traffic Index which shows levels of traffic congestion in 416 cities across 57 countries.

You will find more infographics at Statista

In Europe, Moscow is the most gridlocked city with commuters there experiencing 59 percent extra travel time each year due to the city’s traffic problems. As Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, that equates to 225 extra hours stuck behind the wheel or nine days and nine hours each year.

Istanbul is the second-most congested city in the European category of the ranking at 55 percent, followed by Kiev’s 53 percent.

Authored by Judith Bergman via The Gatestone Institute,

On January 20, Iran’s only female Olympic medalist, Kimia Alizadeh, defected from Iran. “I am one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran whom they’ve been playing for years,” she wrote.

Then, last month, the Islamic Republic’s female chess master, Mitra Hejazipour, 27, removed her hijab during a chess tournament in Moscow and was promptly removed from the national chess team.

Hejazipour said that she had decided “not to have a share in this horrendous lie and not to play the game of ‘We love the hijab and have no problem with it’ anymore…”

“It creates many limitations for women and deprives them of their basic rights. Is this protection? I say definitely not, it is solely and merely a limitation.”

For years, women in Iran have been arrested and imprisoned for refusing to wear the mandatory headscarf and even for protesting its use. Between January 2018 and August 2019, at least 12 people were given prison sentences ranging from six months to 33 years for publicly removing their headscarves and other public acts of civil disobedience against compulsory hijab and 32 people were arrested for such acts, according to Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).

According to the website:

“Millions of women who do not conform to the state’s dictates regarding mandatory dress codes are stopped by the police each year for ‘improper hijab,’ and tens of thousands are referred to the judiciary in court cases each year… hijab protestors are… typically prosecuted under charges related to ‘morality,’ such as ‘encouraging people to corruption and prostitution…'”.

“The Iranian authorities are employing the full machinery of the state to crush opposition to forced hijab, but with more than half the population against it, the tide is increasingly against them,” said CHRI’s Executive Director Hadi Ghaemi.

As women in Iran protested the regime and the mandatory hijab, women in Sweden — who are represented by “the first feminist government in the world” — were championing the hijab on several recent occasions, illustrating the curious cultural transformations there.

In January, readers of the Swedish edition of Elle magazine picked Imane Asry, a hijab-wearing social media influencer with 150,000 Instagram followers, as winner of its “Look of the Year” competition.

“This prize is for all of us who did not see ourselves in the fashion magazines because we did not fit in… This is an acknowledgement that it is more than time that we begin to normalize the hijab in the fashion industry. Fashion is for everybody,” Asry told Elle.

 

 

 

 

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From the archives

A post shared by IMANE ASRY (@fashionwithfaith) on Dec 24, 2019 at 10:41am PST

Swedish Elle readers are obviously free to choose whomever they see fit to be “look of the year”. It is, however, perplexing that female readers in a self-proclaimed feminist nation choose a woman who wears the hijab, when a study commissioned by Swedish authorities has shown that wearing a hijab for many women and children in Sweden is far from being a voluntary choice.

As previously reported by Gatestone Institute, a 2018 study commissioned by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency and written by researchers at the Centre for Societal Security (CTSS) at the Swedish Defence University, showed that radical Islam had spread to several Swedish cities and that this meant that in some areas, “There are parents…who put veils on their three-year-olds”. The authors of the study also mentioned that schools and other local authorities did not know how to deal with the challenges created by the radical Islamists.

One example was when a Muslim schoolgirl wanted to take off her headscarf to play hairdresser with the other children, the Swedish school staff did not allow it out of respect for her parents’ wishes. In an example from a Swedish preschool, a little girl did not want to wear her headscarf but the Swedish personnel forced it on her, “even though it felt wrong”, because it was the parents’ wish.

These are not the only examples of Swedish teachers appearing unbothered by considerations about little girls’ rights not to have the hijab forced upon them. In the city of Skurup, municipal authorities recently prohibited wearing of headscarves in the city’s schools. At one school, Prästmosseskolan, six female non-Muslim teachers wore hijabs to protest the decision. The headmaster said that he would never make a student remove their veil; that he considered the decision discriminatory and in contravention of the Swedish constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion. Around 250 Muslims demonstrated against the decision to ban the veil. “The ban is about taking Muslim women’s rights to their bodies away and removing their democratic rights and choices. It is a racist policy”, said Tasnim Raoof, chairman of the organization Malmö’s Young Muslims.

“Those of us who have fled gender apartheid dictatorships, where women risk their lives to protest the veil, know and have experienced what chastity laws mean… The veil, also in the West, marks the difference between the pure (chaste) and the unclean… woman,” wrote Maria Rashidi, a Swedish-Iranian human rights activist whose husband burned her face with acid when she requested a divorce, and Sara Mohammad, a Swedish-Iraqi human rights activist, who fled Iraq after her brother threatened to kill her if she did not marry the man that her family had chosen for her. The added:

“The veil signals chastity ethics that can be linked to daughters’ responsibilities for the family’s honor… But our feminist government chooses to prioritize collective religious rights over the human rights of children and women… As long as influential journalists see gender apartheid as ‘culture’ and those in power support the organizations that sanction it, oppression based on honor will continue“.

Meanwhile, this fall, a new Islamic party, Nyans (“Nuance”) was formed in Sweden. The party wants “Islamophobia” to be classified as a separate crime and is opposed to debates about banning the hijab.

“It isn’t the veil that should be fought, but oppression. At the same time, parents have the right to raise their children according to their culture and religion,” said spokesperson of the new party, Mikail Yüksel. He has reported Skurup municipality to the Justice Department and the Ombudsman for banning the veil in the municipalities’ schools, by claiming that it goes against Swedish law. Yüksel was formerly a member of Swedish party Centerpartiet, but was excluded from it after he was accused of having concealed his affiliation with the far-right, ultranationalist Turkish movement the “Grey Wolves”. Yüksel reportedly said that he had been open about being offered to start a Swedish chapter of the Grey Wolves in Sweden, but that he had declined.

Writer and columnist Ann Heberlein likened Elle to the Scripture for fashion enthusiasts around the world, which is why its stance matters.

“What is the message Elle wants to communicate by letting ‘modest fashion’ win the Look of the Year anno 2020? Well, that women should cover their bodies, take responsibility for the man’s sexuality by not tempting him, being modest and humble. Don’t take too much space, don’t be too visible, don’t provoke. I think it is a sad message to communicate to women,” Heberlein, who holds a doctorate in ethics, suggested in her opinion piece in Nyheter Idag.

On February 1, World Hijab Day will be marked in countries all over the world, including in Sweden. Will anyone use that occasion to stand up for the many women and children who do not want to wear one?

Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

What the future will bring for the 2019nCoV novel Wuhan coronavirus is still unclear. An epidemic it already is, but is it also a pandemic? Some 20 countries have reported infections, but it still could all fizzle out; 305 deaths can be forgotten by next week. Nobody can tell you how this will play out, not even the most experienced and/or smartest virologists and other experts.

Because there’s no telling what viruses will do, not even for them, and because while they have some idea about the infinitesimal size and lifespan of viruses, “ordinary” people have no grasp of either, and that includes managers, planners and politicians. Whether in the rich west or in “up and coming” China.

The timeline is quite literally terribly obvious. In early December -and it could have been even earlier-, it was obvious to doctors and Communist Party (CCP) politicians in Wuhan that something was wrong. But their painfully predictable reaction was to hope this would pass. Never a bad word should be uttered about the Party, and nothing said that could embarrass it.

December passed, as news was getting worse and more obvious due to a large number of “pneumonia” patients. Chinese doctors published an article in the Lancet this week (this week, 6 weeks after the fact!) saying human-to-human transmission had been established by mid-December.

But the code of silence was not broken, even when a man died from the virus on January 9. It took until mid-January before word got out, a full week later. By then millions of people had left and/or entered Wuhan, a city of 11 million, potentially infecting millions of other Chinese and perhaps people abroad. 5 million later left the city for Lunar New Year.

On January 10, the virus was defined and the sequence was shared, but testing didn’t start for another week; patients were registered as pneumonia sufferers, including those that died (we have no idea how many there were).

Then, mid January, doctors starting testing for the virus. The first “exported” case was noted in Thailand on January 13, but it still took more time for the potential threat to be realized and reported. The Party boys were still hoping it would all pass. Can you blame them? They are civil servants, they don’t know anything about viruses, or their threat.

Ironically, over 300 civil servants (Party officials) and health care workers were sanctioned very recently for not doing enough. The Party makes sure the blame is put on individuals, not on itself. Even if all they’ve done is follow the party line. It’s very simply how the system works. And not just in China. If the virus might come to a town near you, check where the blame is placed. It won’t be the president or prime minister, health workers will be first in line, civil servants second.

It’s good to note how fast the novel virus has spread. If only to show what those who are determined to keep such a thing silent are up against. Can’t be easy. 291 cases on Jan 20, 14,562 cases 13 days later. Those are exponential numbers, even if the number of fatalities “only” rose by 46 overnight.

It’s also good to keep in mind that the main threat in viruses is their ability to mutate and become deadlier. This virus now has at least those 14,562 hosts which they can use to mutate in. Hong Kong University doctor and epidemiologist Gabriel Leung and his team said in a Jan 31 report: “In our baseline scenario, we estimated 75,185 infections as of Jan 25.” . And they were reporting on Wuhan alone. In other words, well over 5 times as many hosts and chances for the virus to mutate in just one city. In a city of 11 million people, numbers like that are perhaps not that extreme.

Back to politics.

We have had two phases so far.

1 is first discovery followed by total silence.

2 is damage control, and deflecting all blame from the Party.

We are now in phase 3.

The WHO, which was caught napping as much as the Party in phase 2, lavishes great praise on that same Party now for its “extraordinary safety measures”. Locking down entire cities (increasingly people are not even allowed to leave their homes), speed-building hospitals, you name it. And the WHO is not the only entity praising the Party.

The reason why there is so much emphasis on this is that the CCP is desperate to show everyone, at home and abroad, that it is in control. That there is no reason to worry, at least not due to actions by the Party. If other countries have problems, that is not the Party’s fault.

And also, the Party will take it from here, no need for foreign assistance. They’ll allow in some doctors, preferably WHO related, and they have asked both the US and EU for medical equipment and doctors’ uniforms, hazmat suits, that sort of thing, just so nobody asks any further questions: see, we do accept help! We’ll let you know if we need anything.

Other than that, the Party is in full control, thank you very much. And if Chinese people start protesting the failures of the Party so far, as they are, that is none of anyone else’s business. “We” have it under control”. Ask the WHO, they said so too.

If the Party is allowed to get away with this behavior aimed at self-preservation above anything else, including human lives of both Chinese and foreigners, something bad is sure to happen. Maybe not this time, maybe this one will fizzle out. But the next one, or the one after that, will not.

It is obvious how dangerous this is, putting the interests of the Party, or the economy, above the risk of spreading global pandemic. But is is also obvious why it happens. And it wouldn’t or couldn’t happen only in China. Though the country in its present state is a ideal breeding ground.

Flights are halted. Hundreds of millions will soon be in lockdown. Exports will plunge, because production will. Which will hit the west as much as China. Just so the Party can say it did what had to be done, and so it will stay in power. Xi Jinping knows his power depends on the economy, but he thinks he has what it takes to hold on to power even when the economy tanks.

He can simply declare force majeure, he can tell his people how much worse things would have been had he not decided to lock down everything.

We’ve been following the numbers of infections and fatalities now for 2 weeks or so, even as we know they don’t mean much, they’re just Party propaganda. The Party will release what it thinks it must, but no more. Perhaps we need other sources; these will come if and when things get out of hand. Not that we know they will.

Xi can claim today that he has control. He can say things are not too bad, but we don’t really know, he’s issuing the numbers. What we do know, and there’s the crux, is that he was 6 weeks late in starting to acknowledge the epidemic, in contacting the outside world, in acknowledging his mistakes, and in acknowledging that such mistakes are baked into the model that keeps him in power.

Phase 1 is complete denial, not a word.

Phase 2 is damage control, massaging the numbers downward.

Phase 3 is “close all the doors, not to worry, nothing to see here, we got this, no you can’t come in, too risky!”

But, yeah, praise him while you can. The only praise he cares about is from people just as clueless as he is anyway.

The Party is a highly effective vehicle for protecting its own interests and survival. For other things, perhaps not so much. Viruses can be quite deadly at times. Combine them with politics and the risk factor rises exponentially.

Tragedy assured. Just not every single time.

*  *  *

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The Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter has suffered a long list of problems that we’ve frequently noted. Now a new report from Bloomberg, citing a Pentagon annual assessment, specifies how the stealth fighters can’t shoot straight. 

The Pentagon has already spent upwards of $428 billion on the F-35 program, which will cost taxpayers $1.5 trillion over its 55-year lifespan.

Already, there have been a host of problems with the stealth fighters, including more than 800 software errors.

And the newest problem: A General Dynamics GAU-12/U Equalizer, a five-barrel 25 mm Gatling-type rotary cannon, mounted on some F-35s, has “unacceptable” accuracy of hitting ground targets.

The Pentagon’s new report said the Air Force’s cannon mounted inside the plane, has “unacceptable” accuracy due to “misalignments” in the gun’s mount that didn’t meet specifications.

The report also said mounts for the cannons are cracking, forcing the Air Force to limit the weapon’s use. The F-35 program office has “made progress with changes to the gun installation” to improve accuracy.

The report notes 873 software errors in the plane, as of 4Q19. The good news, it’s down from 917 in 3Q18.

“Although the program office is working to fix deficiencies, new discoveries are still being made, resulting in only a minor decrease in the overall number” and leaving “many significant,” the assessment said.

There was also mention that the planes could be susceptible to cybersecurity “vulnerabilities.”

Here are other unresolved glitches of the F-35 program that we mentioned last year (the partial list via Defense News):

• When the F-35B vertically lands on very hot days, older engines may be unable to produce the required thrust to keep the jet airborne, resulting in a hard landing.
• After doing certain maneuvers, F-35B and F-35C pilots are not always able to completely control the aircraft’s pitch, roll and yaw.
• Supersonic flight in excess of Mach 1.2 can cause structural damage and blistering to the stealth coating of the F-35B and F-35C.
• Cabin pressure spikes in the cockpit of the F-35 have been known to cause barotrauma, the word given to extreme ear and sinus pain.
• The spare parts inventory shown by the F-35’s logistics system does not always reflect reality, causing occasional mission cancellations.
• If the F-35A and F-35B blows a tire upon landing, the impact could also take out both hydraulic lines and pose a loss-of-aircraft risk.
• Possible maneuvering issues when the aircraft is operating above a 20-degree angle of attack.
• The F-35’s logistics system currently has no way for foreign F-35 operators to keep their secret data from being sent to the United States.

Despite the ongoing problems that many F-35s are not combat-ready and have many issues that are putting American pilots in severe disadvantages for a dogfight, Congress continues to order more planes.

As of 3Q19, the F-35 program has 490 planes, many of which could be suffering from computer errors and guns that don’t hit targets.

Authored by Derrick Broze via TheMindUnleashed.com,

On Monday, forty organizations signed a letter calling on an independent government watchdog to recommend a ban on U.S. government use of facial recognition technology.

The letter was drafted by the digital privacy advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and signed by organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Color of Change, Fight for the Future, Popular Resistance, and the Consumer Federation of America. The letter calls on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) to “recommend to the President and the Secretary of Homeland Security the suspension of facial recognition systems, pending further review.“

The PCLOB was originally created in 2004, as an independent agency that advises the administration on privacy issues.

“The Congress specifically found that new surveillance powers ‘calls for an enhanced system of checks and balances to protect the precious liberties that are vital to our way of life and to ensure that the Government uses its powers for the purposes for which the powers were given’,” the letter states.

The organizations challenge the PCLOB to “examine the more significant public concerns about the use of facial recognition in public spaces.” They also call on the board to address concerns that facial recognition software can be used by “authoritarian governments to control minority populations and limit dissent could spread quickly to democratic societies.“

The letter from EPIC mentions a recent New York Times investigation of a facial recognition service used by more than 600 law enforcement agencies across the country.  As the Mind Unleashed recently reported, Manhattan-based Clearview AI is collecting data from unsuspecting social media users and the Chicago Police Department (CPD) is using the controversial facial recognition tool to pinpoint the identity of unknown suspects. The Times investigation shows that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are also using the controversial tool.

The MIT Technology Review believes EPIC’s letter is “one of the biggest efforts so far in the fight to stem the use of facial recognition technologies.“

And while these 40 organizations call on the PCLOB to make an official recommendation, there are already examples of push back against facial recognition. San Francisco and Somerville, Massachusetts recently became the first local governments to ban the use of facial recognition tools. The European Commission is also considering a ban on facial recognition in public for five years. In June 2019, the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy & Technology released a report titled “America Under Watch: Face Surveillance in the United States” which calls for a moratorium on facial recognition technology.

In June 2019, I also noted that “the editorial board of the Guardian also recently spoke out about the privacy threats, calling the technology ‘especially inaccurate and prone to bias.’ The editorial board also noted that a recent test of Amazon’s facial recognition software by the American Civil Liberties Union found that it falsely identified 28 members of Congress as known criminal.“

Whether or not the PCLOB or some other government agency chooses to take action on a moratorium on facial recognition, it is imperative that consumers begin educating themselves about the technology and take steps to protect their privacy. While we are limited in how often our faces are scanned in public, we can voluntarily opt-out of facial scanning at airports, grocery stores, and other locations.

We cannot depend on the government to protect our privacy and liberty. We must take action and guard what little privacy remains before it’s too late.

India’s economy is rapidly decelerating and could be headed for a financial crisis.

As an emergency response to plunging growth rates and falling energy consumption, along with a manufacturing hub grinding to a halt, the government has just announced a massive $40 billion fiscal injection in its budget for 2020/21 to prevent a hard landing, reported Reuters.

Emergency fiscal measures by government are typically for an economy that is in a recession or certainly headed towards one. 

However, India isn’t in a recession, but growth rates are rapidly decelerating and now being referred to as “great slowdown.” 

“Look at electricity generation growth, it’s falling off the bottom, and it’s never been like this ever. So this is the sense in which I would say this is not just any slowdown, this is the great slowdown that India is experiencing and we should look at it with all seriousness …and the economy seems headed for the intensive care unit,” former Indian Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian warned last month. 

Economic growth in the country is expected to fall under the 5-handle this year, will be the weakest since the global financial crisis in 2008-09. 

Industrial production growth is collapsing: 

Business confidence is also crashing: 

Subramanian also warned that as the economy stalls, corporate debt and increasing non-performing assets could produce shocks in the country’s banking sector that may lead to slower growth rates in credit, thus slowing the economy even further. 

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced Saturday that 2.83 trillion Indian rupees ($39.82 billion) would be allocated for agriculture, farming, alternative energy, and infrastructure projects for the 2020/21 fiscal year. 

Sitharaman also said the government would spend $50.65 billion on federal water projects that provide more freshwater access to the population.

She said the increased deficit spending could pressure public finances and lead to a deficit that would widen to 3.8% of GDP, up from 3.3% from earlier estimates for the current year. 

As we noted Friday, January 31, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi rode the wave of fake GDP data from 2014 through 2017, but growth has since collapsed; he has since been heavily criticized for a slumping economy by national media 

“India’s 2020/21 budget highlights the challenges to fiscal consolidation from slower real and nominal growth, which may continue for longer than the government forecasts,” said Gene Fang, Associate Managing Director, Sovereign Risk, Moody’s Investors Service.

And what does this mean for Indian NIFTY 50 futures, well, possibly a correction from the 16.5% run-up from August. 

Authored by John Vibes via TruthTheory.com,

The city of Santa Cruz in Central California has become the most recent municipality to decriminalize the use of psychedelic mushrooms.

This week, the measure passed The City Council of Santa Cruz with a unanimous vote to make the investigation and arrest a low priority for “the adult possession, use or cultivation of psychoactive plants and fungi.”

Councilmember Chris Krohn told ABC News that the new initiative is part of a broader plan to treat mental health in the community.

“This resolution ensures that only people 21 and over have access to these plants and the Council has given direction to our Police Department to make it a low priority infraction. Entheogenic plants offer many in our community a way out of the addictive pharmaceuticals known as opioids. People came forward at last night’s meeting telling of the beneficial effects of how these plants changed their lives,” Krohn said.

#DecriminalizeNature #SantaCruz! https://t.co/VQPETt11UK

— Decriminalize Nature (@DecrimNature) January 29, 2020

Drew Glover, another council member who voted in favor of decriminalization, pointed to the long history of ancient cultures around the world who have “respected entheogenic plants and fungi for providing healing, knowledge, creativity and spiritual connection with nature.”

“With the passing of this resolution Santa Cruz has taken an important step in acknowledging the impact that the war on drugs has had on communities while at the same time giving people the liberty to choose how to address their medical needs, providing a potent tool to address issues like PTSD, addiction, and depression,” Glover told ABC News.

Denver was the first municipality in the United States to decriminalize possession of psychedelic mushrooms, and the organizers of that successful initiative are working to implement the same strategy in other cities and states. Similar measures have already been passed in Oakland, California, as well.

Significant progress has also been made in opening up psychedelic compounds to scientific study.

As Truth Theory reported last year, a $17 million psychedelic research center will soon be opening at John’s Hopkins University. This research center is the first of its kind in the United States, and the largest of its kind in the entire world.

Researchers at the new Johns Hopkins facility will be studying psychedelic substances and their effect on the human brain. More specifically, they will be seeking possible treatments for mental health issues like addiction, depression, PTSD, Alzheimer’s disease, eating disorders and a variety of other conditions.

The science in this field has been so convincing, that large investors are now working to develop pharmaceutical drugs derived from these compounds.