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The death toll from the 7.5 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that rocked the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on Friday has climbed to 832, making it already more lethal than a series of quakes that hammered another Indonesian island in July and August. Rescuers struggled to reach trapped victims as debris from the storm left many remote areas out of reach.

To prevent the spread of disease, health officials organized mass burials as desperate survivors resorted to looting, according to the South China Morning Post.

“The casualties will keep increasing,” said national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, whose agency announced 832 deaths.

[…]

“Communication is limited, heavy machinery is limited…it’s not enough for the numbers of buildings that collapsed,” Nugroho said.

“Today we will start the mass burial of victims, to avoid the spread of disease.”

Indonesian officials said the number of casualties is expected to rise significantly as some remote areas remain inaccessible.

Indonesian Vice-President Jusuf Kalla said the final death toll in the north of Sulawesi island could be in the “thousands” since many regions have still not been reached.

Bodies  lay in an open courtyard at the back of a hospital in Palu, the regional capital, rotting under the intense tropical sun, while a triage site operated nearby. Hospitals were overwhelmed by the number of dead.

The Indonesian military had been deployed to Palu, and rescue workers were combing the rubble in search of trapped victims, looking for dozens believed trapped a collapsed hotel. As survivors climbed over the leveled trees, overturned cars, crumpled homes and debris spread up to 50 meters inland, survivors and rescuers struggled to come to grips with the scale of the disaster.

Video dari WAG (1)
Tsunami Palu, tanda-tanda alam itu ada. pic.twitter.com/i1zz07ssDG

— Captain Green 🇮🇩 (@karman_mustamin) September 29, 2018

Survivors assembled makeshift shacks and slept outside. Several C-130 military transport aircraft with relief supplies managed to land at the main airport in Palu, which reopened to humanitarian flights and limited commercial flights, but only to pilots able to land by sight alone.

In Donggala, close to the epicenter of the quake, some waterfront homes had been destroyed by the tsunami, though many residents fled to higher ground after the quake hit.

“When it shook really hard, we all ran up into the hills,” a man identified as Iswan told the TV.

“I have one child – he’s missing,” Baharuddin, a 52-year-old Palu resident, said as he stood on floor tiles smeared with blood.

“I last spoke to him before he went to school in the morning.”

Indonesia’s disaster agency said about 71 foreigners were in Palu when the quake struck, with several, including three french nationals and a South Korea, remaining unaccounted for. 

About 17,000 people had already been evacuated, and tens of thousands more are expected to follow.

“This was a terrifying double disaster,” said Jan Gelfand, a Jakarta-based official at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

In fact, the reason it was so devastating, as the SCMP explained in a separate article, was because of the unique shape of the bay.

Palu is at the head of a narrow bay, about 10km long and 2km wide, which had “amplified” the force of the wave as it was funneled towards the city.

“Because of the bay, all the water comes there and collects together. And then it makes it higher,” said Nazli Ismail, a geophysicist at the University of Syiah Kuala in Banda Aceh on Indonesia’s Sumatra island.

Another expert said they were surprised that the tsunami was generated off the coast of central Sulawesi, which is situated on a strike-slip fault, producing earthquakes that typically move horizontally and rarely produce tsunamis.

In contrast, quakes happening below so-called subduction zones can move large amounts of water vertically when the strain forces one plate to pop up or dive down.

One geologist said it was possible that the quake created an “underwater landslide.”

Due to its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire, Indonesia has been struck by dozens of deadly earthquakes and tsunamis over the years, including a massive tsunami in 2004 that killed more than 100,000.

Meanwhile, amid the chaos, looters have emerged with AP reporting that they are stealing items from a shopping mall badly damaged by the quake and tsunami in the city of Palu in central Sulawesi.

An Associated Press photographer saw items being carried off from inside the collapsed mall Sunday. Residents were also seen making their way back to badly damaged homes to try to pick through whatever belongings they could salvage to take away.

* * *

During a visit to the hard-hit city of Palu on Sulawesi island, Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said there are also shortages of fuel, electricity and food, since most shops shut down in the wake of the tragedy. He said the government is flying in supplies by air, and urged residents of Palu to remain there to help the region recover as soon as possible.

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Exactly one week after a Danish law firm published a 70+ page report claiming that roughly 200 billion euros ($235 billion) – nearly all of the money flowing through Danske Bank’s Estonia branch – qualified as suspect, a Danish newspaper has finally revealed the name of the whistleblower who set in motion one of the largest money laundering scandals in European history.

And no, it isn’t Bill Browder. Instead, the whistleblower is a former Danske Markets trader named Howard Wilkinson, a British executive who was formerly the bank’s Baltics trading head. Wilkinson eventually told a Danish newspaper about the fraud, and it went on to blow the lid off the scandal.

Berlingske, the newspaper that first reported allegations that Danske Bank A/S was being used to launder billions of dollars in dirty money, revealed the identity of the whistle-blower who provided much of the information in the case.

His name is Howard Wilkinson, the newspaper said on Wednesday. From 2007 to 2014, he was in charge of trading at Danske Markets in the Baltics. Wilkinson agreed to come forward and confirm his identity, the newspaper said. He was employed at Danske until April 2014, which he says is four months after he provided his first whistle-blower report to the bank’s top management, according to Berlingske.

Wilkinson started cooperating with Danish authorities in early 2014, four months before he left Danske, per Bloomberg.

Howard Wilkinson

According to comments from Wilkinson published in the FT, Wilkinson first raised the issue of suspicious UK LLPs transacting through Danske’s Estonian branch back in 2014. While the bank’s audit division initially corroborated Wilkinson’s findings, the bank didn’t do anything to follow up until years later, after reporters tipped off by Wilkinson had come calling.

Howard Wilkinson, who was head of markets at Danske in Estonia between 2007 and 2014, warned managers in late 2013 that the bank had breached “numerous regulatory requirements . . . [and] behaved unethically . . . [and had] a near total process failure,” according to his emails seen by the Financial Times.

Mr Wilkinson told Berlingske, the Danish newspaper that broke news of his involvement and the broader scandal, that “I have absolutely no problem sleeping at night” in response to press reports in Estonia questioning his role in the affair.

An internal auditors report that relied heavily on the whistleblower’s testimony explained in detail how senior executives ignoring red flags and complaints filed both internally and by regulators simply because they were making too much. At one point, virtually all of the Estonian branches considerable profits came from non-resident customers (a popular cover for money launderers).

Highlighting the international nature of a scandal that has battered Denmark’s largest lender and has provoked speculation about lapses in pan-European AML controls, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday that UK-based corporate entities played a key role in the scandal. One British LLC that helped siphon money out of Russia via Danske’s Estonian branch has even been linked to the family of Russian President Vladimir Putin and members of the FSB.

The unassuming north-west London suburb of Harrow is known more for its nearby exclusive school than an international dirty money conspiracy.

But just off Station Road, next to the railway tracks and behind a small police station, is the registered address of a UK company that is alleged to be a small part of the world’s biggest money-laundering scandal, which is roiling Danske Bank, Denmark’s largest lender.

Lantana Trade LLP was named in a report by a whistleblower into suspicious activity at Danske’s Estonian operation. It is just one of thousands of entities allegedly used to siphon money out of Russia.

The real owners of Lantana Trade are alleged to be the family of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, according to the whistleblower’s report which was leaked earlier this year to Danish newspaper Berlingske.

Lantana is now dissolved, according to information from Companies House, the UK’s official registrar for more than 4m companies.

“President Putin has nothing to do with the mentioned bank,” a Kremlin spokesman told the Financial Times.

Indeed, shell companies like this one based in the UK have been the preferred vehicle for international money launderers, not just those who laundered money via Danse.

Indeed, the whistleblower told Danske’s board that UK limited liability partnerships such as Lantana were “the preferred vehicle for non-resident clients”, according to the bank’s report. The report found that, after Russians, UK entities such as LLPs and Scottish limited partnerships (SLPs) were the second-biggest proportion by geography of those non-resident customers.

“UK LLPs and LPs have represented a vehicle of choice for money launderers around the world. It is no surprise that UK companies were the most commonly used to channel suspicious wealth through the bank,” said Rachel Davies Teka, Transparency International UK’s head of advocacy.

But the UK isn’t the only jurisdiction facing scrutiny in one of the largest money laundering scandals in history. As the Financial Times reported, EU regulators have followed the US DOJ and launched an investigation into why Danish and Estonian regulators didn’t do more to put a stop to the fraud.

The European Commission has asked the European Banking Authority, an EU watchdog, to “make full use” of its powers to probe what went wrong in the oversight of the Danish lender’s Estonian branch, following revelations of internal lapses that prompted the bank’s chief executive officer to resign last week.

But despite the uproar over the scandal, criminals in ex-Soviet states who are worried about the possible closing of this crucial door to the west shouldn’t worry just yet. While Danske CEO Thomas Borgen said he would resign, he is staying on temporarily – and continuing to collect his considerable salaray – until a replacement is found. Meanwhile, the bank’s chairman has only hinted at a possible resignation.

As one critic pointed out, the only thing that will solve this problem is a joint European banking controls.

“The departure of Thomas Borgen from Danske Bank doesn’t solve the actual problem with the scandal. If we really want to prevent money laundering we need a joint European bank control,” said Rasmus Nordqvist, spokesperson on EU and financial trades for Denmark’s leftwing party, told the FT. “This scandal calls for a large-scale discussion of the financial sector’s power. As politicians we need to be courageous in regards to regulation.”

Eurasian criminals, be advised. So far, the response to this scandal has been all bark and no bite. Should the US step up and force the issue, it’s possible some reforms might be enacted. But as of now, European regulators just can’t seem to get it together.

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Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,

Last thing I remember, I was

Running for the door

I had to find the passage back to the place where I was before

“Relax” said the night man,

“We are programmed to receive.

You can check out any time you like,

But you can never leave!”

The Eagles lyric from the 1970s is nearly as old as the United Kingdom’s membership of the EU, but it is an apt description for her predicament. There are so many twists and turns in the EU’s corridors, that it is proving difficult for Britain to “find the passage back to where it was before”. Britain has checked out but cannot seem to leave.

The EU has firmly rejected Mrs May’s Chequers customs proposals, which is not surprising to those paying attention. Their chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, had already made his position clear. Last week, Mrs May sought to take her case to his superiors, effectively asking them to overrule him. It was a tactical error that backfired badly.

Fortunately for her PR machine, the blunt rejection by the EU, particularly the comments of President Macron, deflected the immediate blame of Mrs May’s failure to the EU leaders’ intransigence. Consequently, early signs of electoral opinion have firmed in favour of a no-deal Brexit. Merci, President Macron, for clarifying that point for the British electorate.

It is now just six months before Britain formally leaves the EU. This article details the economic and political issues, followed by a commentary on the tactics being deployed by all sides.

The economic case for Brexit

The economic case for Brexit centres on the law of comparative advantage. This law explains that rather than waste your time making or doing something someone else does better, you should buy it from him instead than wasting time trying to compete. It also explains that even though you might be very skilled at something but can add greater value to society by doing something else, you and the community as a whole are better off if you do that something else.

For example, Winston Churchill built a garden wall at his country home. He turned out to be an excellent brick layer, as visitors to Chartwell can confirm. But there were other competent bricklayers on the Chartwell Estate. Besides building walls as a hobby, it will be clear to everyone that Churchill added considerably greater value to society as a politician and an author and was paid more than he ever would be as a bricklayer.

What was true for the great man is also true for all of us. It allows us to maximise the potential for a community of producers by buying each other’s output in accordance with the law of comparative advantage. And what holds for a community scales up to nation states. If China can supply us with goods cheaper and better than we can ourselves, we should buy them from China, and not waste our time and resources doing it less effectively. Scarce capital resources, including labour, must be released for more profitable activities.

If China offers steel at a lower price than it can be made in Britain, British manufacturers who incorporate steel in their products would be stupid not to benefit. Meanwhile, British steel manufacturers should get out of the mild steel business, and perhaps produce high quality speciality steels to regain their commercial edge. This is what British Steel has done. The common European response is to protect their industries with import tariffs, and by the end of 2016 there were 12,651 known EU tariffs in force.

Only free markets, more specifically the consumer and also buyers of intermediate production, can decide where the comparative advantage lies. In free markets, the consumer is king, and the businessman who fails to respond to his customers’ demands should amend his offering.

Businesses try to avoid this truth by lobbying politicians to yield a monopolistic advantage. Business leaders present themselves to the political class as expert representatives for their industries, and they warn politicians of the supposed horrors of free competition. An established business would rather be regulated than face competition, because the regulator will help guarantee profit margins, and licence monopolistic behaviour.

This is crony capitalism, which is not free markets. It is everywhere, but more in some places than others. It is particularly virulent in Brussels, where big business effectively sets product standards to disadvantage smaller competitors. The law of comparative advantage is trampled underfoot.

Lobbying by special interests is not confined to Brussels, being a feature of Westminster life as well. The Cronies target Brussels where the Europe-wide power resides, as well as national governments in coordinated campaigns. The result is an institutionalised crony-based system bound together by a political class that has been bought by special interests.

To a businessman, a good politician is one who once bought, stays bought. On the one side of the Brexit tussle you have protectionism, which has become thoroughly institutionalised, and on the other you have free marketeers. Interestingly, the UK’s Conservatives are meant to be the party of free markets and individualism, yet even their ranks include ardent statists, their true colours exposed by the Brexit debate.

The political case for Brexit

The political case is simply one of democratic accountability. In the UK, parliament has always been sovereign, that is to say the elected members of the lower house form governments and make the laws. There has to be a general election at least every five years, to give the electorate a vote on the government’s competence. Furthermore, if during a government’s term it loses the confidence of a simple majority of MPs, it must call a general election. By these means, the British public exercises its democratic rights.

There is no such accountability in Brussels. Only the unelected executive can propose directives and regulations, and the parliament has an equal say in passing them. In practice, the EU parliament is packed with establishment MEPs and nothing initiated by the executive is rejected. Democratic accountability is a fig-leaf and never gets in the way of the unelected executive.

Very rarely, the electorate is asked for its view on a simple matter of principle by referendum. Referendums are technically advisory, but in practice a parliament that goes against the public’s wishes expressed in a referendum is denying the electorate its democratic mandate. Having called a referendum, if a government then fails to respect the result, what was the point in calling it in the first place?

The first referendum in Britain was held on 5th June 1975, where the question asked was, “Do you think that the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (the Common Market)?” It was held two years after Britain had actually joined, but it was clearly on a simple matter of principle. There was another nationwide referendum on proportional voting, which was rejected. The 2016 Brexit national referendum was only the third ever held. They are not frequent events, though the device has been used regionally as well (i.e. the Scottish referendum).

At the time of the 1975 referendum, the EC was little more than a trading bloc, whose members traded freely with each other without tariffs, while significant tariffs were imposed on imported goods from non-member states. Communications were such that proximate markets were easier to service than distant ones. These were the important economic arguments for Britain joining at that time.

But since then, the EU has taken democratic accountability away from national parliaments principally through the Maastricht and Lisbon treaties and is on its way to becoming a fully-fledged super-state. Meanwhile, WTO tariffs have gradually declined to single figures, and the internet has made distances between suppliers and consumers far less of a hurdle to trade. With the importance of being in a trading bloc now a growing obstacle to global free trade, there is no valid reason to justify the loss of democracy.

This is the crux of the Brexit debate: the economic benefits have gone along with democracy. The Remainers deliberately avoid the democratic issue and instead deflect the debate into economic unknowns. The statist establishment both outside and inside the UK persists in threatening that Brexit will lead to a large fall in GDP, rise in unemployment, disrupt trade with the EU, threaten medicinal supplies, prevent planes landing, and so on. The list of these supposed negatives is extensive, but it is increasingly clear Remainers are only making up scare stories to avoid debating the democracy issue.

The EU’s position

The establishment in Brussels is rock-solid in its determination to continue on its course of devolving power from national governments to itself. Furthermore, the EU parliament has imposed its red lines as inviolable, the principal ones being:

• Any transitional deal will be enforced and overseen by the EU’s Court of Justice (ECJ).

• UK Citizens in the EU and EU citizens in Britain should be guaranteed reciprocal treatment.

• The UK must adhere to EU environment and anti-tax evasion rules.

• The UK should pay the EU costs that “arise directly from its withdrawal”.

As well as these red lines, there are the “four freedoms”, that are also sacrosanct: the free movement of goods, services, capital and persons. In order to satisfy these freedoms, the UK would have to remain in the customs union, or be out of the EU completely. It is that simple.

To ensure that Britain complies with the four freedoms in any half-way house, it would have to accept the jurisdiction of the ECJ, instead of the British courts. The European parliament’s position is less important than the four freedoms, because the parliament is little more than a rubber-stamp applied to pre-agreed policy.

Since the EU parliament’s resolution was passed, there appears to be behind the scenes attempts to persuade the British electorate to reconsider. The first strategy was to simply block all British attempts at achieving a negotiated settlement. This led to the British government offering an alternative compromise, the Chequers plan, which resulted in the resignations of the Brexit ministers, David Davis and Steve Baker, as well as the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson. The second strategy has been running concurrently with the first, and that is to undermine the Brexit case, in the hope a second referendum would reverse, or at least neutralise the Brexit referendum.

To this end, Brussels has covertly supported Remainers’ campaigns, a tactic that has worked before in referendums in other EU states when a first referendum rejected treaty proposals. This brings us up to last week, when at an EU leaders’ dinner at Salzburg, Mrs May saw her Chequers plan firmly rejected in bluntly undiplomatic terms.

It seems after all that the EU is now prepared to negotiate a Canada Plus deal, as advocated by dissenting Conservative MPs. As a matter of fact, that has been more or less the EU’s position all along, believing it is far less attractive to the UK than staying in the EU. It was the free market alternative that was rejected by Mrs May in favour of her Chequers plan.

[The Canada trade agreement removes nearly all tariffs on goods but accepts some regulatory barriers to trade. There are limitations imposed on services. It gives the UK total control over immigration, it would be outside the customs union, have its own regulations, being not bound by a common rulebook. A joint committee between the UK and EU would resolve trade issues. This is roughly the agreed position with Canada and South Korea. A Canada plus deal would be an improved one based on this.]

There is probably more to the EU’s offer to discuss a Canada plus deal than meets the eye. It is always helpful to look at a problem from the EU’s point of view, so we can deduce what the thinking in Brussels might be. It is probably as follows. Mrs May wants to have the advantages of a being a member state without being in the customs union. She thinks the Chequers halfway house will appease the Remainers, many of which are her principal advisors. This is the only credible logic behind the Chequers proposal, which is a fudge to give the appearance of not being in the customs union. The Irish border question is a red herring, floated by the Irish Prime Minister and Mr Barnier. Mrs May has either fallen for it or is using it to justify her position to her cabinet.

Therefore, and of this Brussels appears to have convinced itself, the alternative of a WTO deal, or any deal close to it, such as Canada plus, is a bad outcome for Mrs May and her government. It is also undesirable for the EU, particularly Ireland, if Britain did leave the EU entirely. The reason it is important for Ireland is twofold: her main trading partner is the UK, and most of her non-UK European trade transits across the UK to the mainland by ferries and road. Those are the Irish issues that really matter.

The initial plan had been to stop Brexit. By proposing free trade negotiations, the EU might have originally reasoned it will never happen. Remember, the EU has had the international establishment (the IMF, central banks – visibly the Bank of England, big business and various back channels) working to overturn the referendum. The hope is a free trade agreement would not get through the UK parliament, and by assisting the Remainers in the UK who are pushing for a second referendum, it is thought the British public will change its mind. However, the EU’s thinking might have changed in recent weeks on the referendum issue, because it is almost certainly aware its plans are failing.

In conclusion, the EU is losing the battle for British hearts and minds in a second referendum. There can be no halfway house between being in or out of the customs union. If Brussels is to get its promised £39bn settlement, it will now have to embrace a free trade deal.

The British position

The Chequers plan was put together by Mrs May’s permanent staff, led by Olly Robbins. A charitable view is that Robbins’s plan was intended to achieve parliamentary support from a broad parish of Remainers and middle-of-the-roaders and neutralise ardent Brexiteers. She went over the heads of her own and the Brussels negotiating teams. Mrs May met a number of EU leaders on a one-to-one basis, including Angela Merkel, in the weeks before the Chequers plan was sprung on her cabinet, so it was widely assumed she had cleared it with them. Thinking she had a plan acceptable to her fellow EU leaders, she sprung it on her cabinet as a fait accompli. It was May’s way or the highway.

Instead, it has been a disaster because of the outright rejection by the EU leaders in Salzburg, who appear to have backtracked on their private meetings with her. This was hardly surprising, given Mrs May was arrogantly dealing over the EU chief negotiator’s head (Mr Barnier), who also attended the Salzburg dinner, and would have made his authority in the matter clear.

Despite this setback, at the time of writing, she is still clinging on to the Chequers plan. Her latest idea is to threaten the EU with the prospect of Britain lowering corporation tax to make Britain a corporate tax haven. This could be another tactical mistake, because Brussels is likely to read it as desperation to save a plan that is unacceptable.

Mrs May is now under increasing pressure to back down. And quickly, because she faces Conservative Party members at the annual conference next week. Salzburg was clearly a stitch-up that backfired, and she can only be clinging on to the assumption that her earlier more positive meetings with EU leaders are what really matters.

The evidence suggests this is a mistake, from which she must backtrack. It will never get the requisite support from Brexiteers, because it leaves the EU still controlling trade laws and regulations. This contravenes the democracy issue explained above. It is also likely to compromise Britain’s negotiating position with respect to free trade agreements with other countries.

Furthermore, a trade agreement which is far closer to free trade has already been proposed by both Brussels and the Brexiteers, based on the Canadian FTA. While the EU might have offered something that they thought would never be taken up, it is now in play.

That leaves the problem of how to get any trade agreement with the EU through Parliament. It is never certain that a no-deal or even a free trade agreement with the EU would find the necessary parliamentary support, given the strength of the Remainer lobby, and Labour’s insistence on staying in the customs union.

However, the Labour Party is badly divided on Brexit, and it is quite likely that if a vote was held on a Canada plus deal, the government would succeed in getting it passed.

Where to from here?

It is conference season, that time in the UK when the political parties invite their faithful members to come and listen to speeches from leading politicians. The Labour Party had theirs this week, and the Conservatives hold their’s in Birmingham next week. The problem for Mrs May is that apart from some vanishing sympathy over how she was treated by the EU leaders in Salzburg, her Chequers plan is deeply unpopular. If she thinks she can sell it at Conference, she is likely to be disappointed.

It is bound to be a topic in her closing speech next Wednesday. But Boris Johnson is due to speak in a fringe meeting, and he is immensely popular with the constituency members and a good orator to boot. He is also controversial with all shades of media opinion, which means he is box-office. The day of Mrs May’s speech is likely to be swamped with news headlines about Boris. If she is to avoid a PR disaster, she would be well advised to urgently ditch her Chequers plan and embrace the concept of Canada plus.

Whether she does we will find out next week. If she refuses to move, then I expect a leadership challenge by Christmas. Why? Because for the Brexiteers, the first option was to persuade Mrs May to drop Chequers and oversee negotiations on Canada plus. If that fails, then MPs face the next general election with the prospect of losing their seats. It won’t be the Labour Party’s socialist agenda that gets them unelected, but the Conservative’s failure to deliver Brexit.

The key to exiting Hotel California lies increasingly in the freest trade agreement possible, not in the Chequers plan. Mrs May must give up on the Chequers plan or she will be soon gone.

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Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

There are reports that the Washington-initiated and militarily-supported Saudi Arabian war against Yemen have a starving Yemeni population eating leaves.

The Saudis, with Washington’s GPS support, continue to target school buses, massacring children as an element of the terror assault against the population, trying to break Yemeni resistance by murdering children on school buses. Washington continues to supply the Saudis with the weapons to target school buses and the diplomatic support to protect the criminal Saudi regime from war crimes charges.

The European cowards turn their heads. Even Russia is silent. Putin’s “partnership” with the criminal state of Saudi Arabia is more important.

Isn’t this a far greater offense, an offense that most definitely does not lack evidence, than the accusation that Kavanaugh, a nominee to the US Supreme Court attempted to rape a women 30 or 40 years ago, for which there is no evidence, only accusation, an accusation that the female defense attorney who questioned for the Senate committee the woman claiming abuse found insufficient for an indictment. 

Of course, this report could be fake news. As in America fake news has taken over from truthful news, we have no way of knowing. All we can conclude is that America has again made a world-wide fool of herself. Thanks to the Identity Politics of the Clinton-corrupt Democratic Party, in the eyes of the world America has assembled a Supreme Court of serial sexual abusers. Makes one wonder why it is so important to the Russian government that Russia joins the West.

If Kavanaugh attempted to rape someone, why didn’t it come up in his previous judgeship appointment or in his other appointments? Is the reason that these appointments were not relevant to Roe vs. Wade? Is all the MeToo and Democratic Party hysteria over fear that Kavanaugh will help a conservative court overturn Roe vs. Wade and force women into more responsible sex?

I have never understood why women have considered the termination of life to be a Woman’s Issue as if it is some kind of moral cause. However, I am certain that Roe vs. Wade will not be overturned. After all these years, there are squatters’ rights in women’s ability to choose abortion. The right has existed too long for statutory law to override common law.

Perhaps, instead, the opposition to Kavanaugh is that he is a white heterosexual male, thereby making the time too delayed before the Identity Politics Democrats can load up the Supreme Court with MeToo feminists, transgendered whatever they are, lesbians, homosexuals, and white-hating blacks in order to “bring justice to the white male exploiter.”

It was left to a Russian publication to ask why CNN published a fifth accuser’s accusation after the accuser had withdrawn the accusation.

The real question before the American people is why are they, the media, the government, MeToo feminists, the Identity Politics Democrats and liberal-progressive-left, and conservatives stone silent while Washington enables Saudia Arabia to murder the Yemeni people to the point that Yemenis have to eat leaves in a desperate attempt to survive.

Clearly, the American idiots have no idea whatsoever what a moral issue is.

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Thanks to an influx of demand from Chinese nationals and other foreigners, Vancouver’s housing market soared in the post-crisis years, with prices more than doubling to levels that were clearly unsustainable, cementing the Pacific Northwest metropolis’ status as the most unaffordable housing market in North America. But the torrid growth ground to a halt earlier this year as home sales plummeted, along with construction of new homes and apartments.

The typical single-family home in Vancouver costs more than C$1.5 million ($1.15 million) – roughly 20x the median household income.

In an effort to let some air out of one of the continent’s most egregious property bubbles, British Columbia’s government has announced an unprecedented crackdown on money laundering in Vancouver’s property market in an attempt to stop a housing-market collapse from taking the city’s GDP with it.

The initiative, launched by Attorney General Daid Eby, seeks to create more transparency to expose all the “numbered corporations” (often used as fronts for foreign investors) buying property in Vancouver. The probe will also examine horse-racing and luxury car sales. 

Attorney General David Eby said that his office is launching an independent review into potential money laundering in real estate, horse-racing and luxury car sales. The review comes in response to recommendations from a previous review into money laundering in the province’s casinos. In addition, Finance Minister Carole James has appointed an expert panel to look directly at money laundering in the housing sector. Both probes will be done by March.

“There is good reason to believe the bulk of the cash we saw in casinos is a fraction of the cash generated through illicit activities that may be circulating in British Columbia’s economy,” Eby told reporters Thursday in the capital of Victoria. “We cannot ignore red flags that came out of the casino reviews of connections between individuals bringing bulk cash to casinos, and our real estate market.”

[…]

“Our goal is simple, as you’ve heard: Get dirty money out of our housing market,” James said. “When the real estate market is vulnerable to illicit activity and unethical behavior, people, our communities and our economies suffer. This is something we have to tackle.”

Still, the success of these initiative will be constrained by the fact that they’re only meant to learn the mechanics of how money is laundered via the Vancouver property market, and then make recommendations about how to stop it. Indeed, it’s entirely possible that, by the time anything is actually done, criminals will have changed their strategies or shifted to different markets. Meanwhile, a study by Transparency International found that it’s impossible to identify the owners of nearly half of the most expensive properties in Vancouver.

However, it’s only a matter of ti me before prices begin their dramatic descent as sellers finally capitulate and drop their ask down to the highest bid.

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Authored by James Dorsey via MidEastSoccer blog,

Three recent developments lay bare the fragility of Middle Eastern alliances and a rebalancing of their priorities: the Russian-Turkish compromise on an assault on the rebel-held Syrian region of Idlib, thefate of troubled Abu Dhabi airline Ettihad, and battles over reconstruction of Syria.

These developments highlight the fact that competition among Middle Eastern rivals and ultimate power within the region’s various alliances is increasingly as much economic and commercial as it is military and geopolitical. Battles are fought as much on geopolitical fronts as they are on economic and cultural battlefields such as soccer.

As a result, the fault lines of various alliances across the greater Middle East, a region that stretches from North Africa to north-western China, are coming to the fore.

The cracks may be most apparent in the Russian-Turkish-Iranian alliance but lurk in the background of Gulf cooperation with Israel in confronting Iran as well as the unified front put forward by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Russia, prevented, at least for now, a rupture with Turkey, by delaying an all-out attack on Idlib despite Iranian advocacy of an offensive. Turkey, already home to three million Syrians, feared that a Syrian-Russian assault, would push hundreds of thousands, if not millions more across its border.

If Iran was the weakest link in the debate about Idlib, it stands stronger in its coming competition with Russia for the spoils of reconstruction of war-ravaged Syria.

Similarly, Russia appears to be ambivalent towards a continued Iranian military presence in post-war Syria, a potential flashpoint given Israel’s opposition and Israeli attacks that led earlier this month to the downing of a Russian aircraft.

By the same token, Turkey, despite its backing of Qatar in its 15-month-old dispute with a Saudi-UAE-led alliance that is boycotting the Gulf state diplomatically and economically, poses perhaps the greatest challenge to Qatari efforts to project itself globally by operating one of the world’s best airlines and positioning itself as a sports hub.

Turkey, despite its failure this week to win the right to host Euro 2024 and its lack of the Gulf’s financial muscle, competes favourably on every other front with Qatar as well as the UAE that too is seeking to project itself through soft as well as hard power and opposes Mr. Erdogan because of his Islamist leanings, ties to Iran, and support of Qatar. Turkey wins hands down against the small Gulf states when it comes to size, population, location, industrial base, military might, and sports performance.

That, coupled with a determination to undermine Qatar, was likely one reason, why the UAE’s major carriers, Emirates and Etihad that is troubled by a failed business model, have, despite official denials, been quietly discussing a potential merger that would create the world’s largest airline.

Countering competition from Turkish Airlines that outflanks both UAE carriers with 309 passenger planes that service 302 destinations in 120 countries may well have been another reason. Emirates, the larger of the two Emirati carriers, has, a fleet of 256 aircraft flying to 150 destinations in 80 countries.

These recent developments suggest that alliances, particularly the one that groups Russia, Turkey and Iran, are brittle and transactional, geared towards capitalizing on immediate common interests rather than shared long-term goals, let alone values.

That is true even if Russia and Turkey increasingly find common ground in concepts of Eurasianism. It also applies to Turkey and Qatar who both support Islamist groups as well as to Saudi Arabia and the UAE who closely coordinate policies but see their different goals put on display in Yemen.

The fragility of the alliances is further underwritten by Turkish, Russian and Iranian aspirations of resurrecting empire in a 21st century mould and a Saudi quest for regional dominance.

Notions of empire have informed policies long before realignment across Eurasia as a result of the focus of the United States shifting from the Middle East to Asia, the rise of China. increasingly strained relations between the West and Russia, and the greater assertiveness of Middle Eastern states like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran.

Then president Suleyman Demirel told this author already in the 1990s in the wake of the demise of the Soviet Union and the emergence of independent, mostly ethnically Turkic Central Asian republics that “Turkey’s world stretches from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China.”

In a world in which globalization is shaped by geopolitical zones rather than individual countries, Russia’s imperative is to be a region by defining itself as an Asian rather than a European power that would be on par with China, the European Union, and a US zone of influence.

“Putin does not think along national lines. He thinks in terms of larger blocks, and, ultimately in terms of the world order,” said former Portuguese minister for Europe, Bruno Macaes in a recently published book, The Dawn of Eurasia.

In doing so, Russia is effectively turning its back on Europe as it reinvents itself as an Asian power on the basis of a Eurasianism, a century-old ideology that defines Russia as a Eurasian rather than a European power.

The Eurasian Economic Union, that groups Russia, Kazakhstan. Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Armenia, is a vehicle that allows Russia to establish itself as a block in the borderland between Europe and Asia.

Similarly, Eurasianism has gained currency in Turkey with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who enabled by the demise of the Soviet Union and the re-emergence of a Turkic world, projects his country as a crossroads between Europe, Africa and Asia rather than a European bridge to Asia.

In that vein, Turkish columnist Sinan Baykent projected this week’s fence-mending visit to Germany by Mr. Erdogan and his proposal for a summit on Syria of Turkish, Russian, German and French leaders as a Eurasian approach to problem solving.

The meeting between Mr. Erdogan and German chancellor Angela Merkel was meant “to pave the way for a Eurasian solution for the region… There is a new axis forming today between Berlin, Moscow, Ankara, Tehran and maybe Paris… All of these countries are fed up with American unilateralism and excessive policies displayed by the Trump administration.,” Mr. Baykent said.

If Turkey and Russia’s vision of their place in the world is defined to a large extent by geography, Iran’s topology dictates a more inward-looking view despite accusations that it is seeking to establish itself as the Middle East’s hegemon.

“Iran is a fortress. Surrounded on three sides by mountains and on the fourth by the ocean, with a wasteland at its centre,” noted Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence platform. Gulf fears are rooted not only in deep-seated distrust of Iran’s Islamic regime, but also in the fact that the foundation of past Persian empire relied on control of plains in present-day Iraq.

As a result, the manoeuvring of Gulf states, in contrast to Turkey and Russia, is driven less by a conceptual framing of their place in the world and more by regional rivalry and regime survival. Countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE walk a fine line focusing geopolitically on an increasingly unpredictable United States and economically on China and the rest of Asia, including Russia, Korea and Japan.

What the plight of Idlib, potential change in aviation and competition for reconstruction contracts highlight is the brittleness of Middle Eastern alliances that threatens to be reinforced by economics becoming an increasingly important factor alongside geopolitics.

“Stakes for all parties are starting to divert from each other in Syria and the prospects of cooperation with Russia and Iran are becoming more challenging,” said Turkish columnist Nuray Mert commenting on the situation in Idlib. Her analysis is as valid for Idlib as it for the prospects of many of the Middle East alliances.

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China Central Television, as per the Twitter account of the official People’s Daily newspaper, reported Saturday that the Chinese military deployed fighter jets and bombers to conduct live-fire war drills in the disputed South China Sea, just days after the Japan Air Self-Defense Force and nuclear-capable US B-52 strategic bombers held exercises over the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan on September 27.

The report said dozens of jet fighters from the People’s Liberation Army Naval Air Force from the Southern Theater Command on early Saturday conducted “live-fire drills to tests pilots’ assault, penetration and precision-strike capabilities at sea,” said The Japan Times.

Beijing on Thursday blasted the US and Japan exercise over the East China Sea, calling them a “provocation.”

“China’s principle and standpoint on the South China Sea are always clear,” Defense Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang said, according to Chinese state-run media. “China firmly opposes U.S. military aircraft’s provocation in the South China Sea, and will take all necessary measures.”

Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun News said the joint drills between the US and Japan were highly “unusual,” as what we pointed out last week, a China-Japan maritime crisis is inevitable over the disputed Senkaku Islands.

It seems that Thursday’s move was aimed at keeping China in check amid increasing tensions between Beijing and Washington, including an intensifying trade war. 

But in a tit-for-tat effort, China hit back with war drills of their own on Saturday.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang criticized unnamed countries (US, United Kingdom, and France) for using freedom of navigation and overflight as excuses to disrupt other countries’ sovereignty and security, disturbing regional peace and stability.

In August, US bombers conducted similar exercises over the South China Sea. In addition to those exercises, the warplanes integrated with the Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture-based Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group in the region.

In June, China’s Foreign Ministry said no military in the world could scare China from the South China Sea when the US flew planes in the heavily disputed waters miles from its militarized islands.

Washington and Beijing have unleashed a series of war drills over the militarization of the South China Sea, where China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines all have active claims.

Washington and Beijing have yet to clash over the region — the area includes critical shipping lanes through which over $3 trillion in global trade passes each year — and where China has constructed a series of militarized islands. China claims the area with its so-called nine-dash line, which encompasses most of the economic zones. 

At a moments notice, the region could become unstable and war break out. All eyes on the East Asian maritime region.

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