The former CEO of trucking company Scania has warned that Sweden is heading towards civil war due to uncontrolled mass immigration.
In an interview with Swebbtv, businessman Leif Östling said that the arrival of so many new migrants who have failed to integrate into Swedish society is creating a fertile ground for violent unrest.
“We’ve taken in far too many people from outside. And we have. Those who come from the Middle East and Africa live in a society that we left almost a hundred years ago,” he said.
Explosions and grenade attacks have skyrocketed in many Swedish cities, with much of the unrest being blamed on migrant gangs. Sexual assaults and violent crime is also on the rise.
Östling underscored problems with integration by highlighting his own experience running Scania, where around 90 out of a hundred Somali migrants hired to work for the company were fired or left because they were unable to arrive on time or work in teams.
Östling believes that the “knowledge transfer” necessary for migrants to cope in Swedish society could take a generation to accomplish.
The businessman said he hoped that the country’s problems could be fixed within 10 years but if not, civil war could ensue, necessitating that the military be called out to deal with violent unrest in migrant areas.
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Halt All New Home Construction In Dubai Or Face Economic Disaster, Top Builder Warns
Damac Properties, one of the largest property developers in Dubai, warned over the weekend about an imminent economic crisis, festering in Dubai’s real estate market.
Damac Chairman Hussain Sajwani told Bloomberg that a collapse in the housing market is nearing unless new home construction is halted for several years. “Either we fix this problem, and we can grow from here, or we are going to see a disaster,” Sajwani said.
Sajwani is the latest real estate executive to voice his concern that Dubai’s housing market is on the brink of disaster.
The slump in the city’s housing market has been underway for the last five years. Prices have tumbled by more than 30% in the same timeframe.
Property broker JLL estimates 30,000 new homes will be constructed this year, which is more than twice the demand.
Despite the requests to halt all new home sales, Sajwani said Damac would complete 4,000 homes in 2019 and another 6,000 in 2020. The developer is expected to reduce new builds and concentrate on selling inventory next year.
“All we need is just to freeze the supply,” Sajwani said. “Reduce it for a year, maybe 18 months, maybe two years,” he said.
Sajwani predicted oversupplied markets would crash home prices.
He said if prices drop further, then it would trigger a tsunami in non-performing loans that would cause contagion in the banking industry.
“The domino effect is ridiculous because Dubai’s economy relies on property heavily,” he said.
Standard and Poor’s warned last month that economic growth in Dubai will trend lower through 2022 due to depressed oil prices, a global synchronized slowdown, turmoil from the US and China trade war, and geopolitical uncertainties in the Middle East.
The international rating agency said deterioration in real estate and tourism sectors had weighed heavily on the domestic economy.
Housing data from Cavendish Maxwell’s Dubai House Price Index via Property Monitor showed home prices plunged to their lowest levels in June, not seen since the 2008 financial meltdown.
Damac’s shares have crashed more than 77% in the last 26 months, mirroring the downturn in the overall housing market.
If oversupplied conditions aren’t corrected in the coming quarters, Sajwani’s prediction of a market crash could unfold in Dubai in 2H20.
A long night of suffering has kept one of the richest continents on the globe in a state of virtual dark age for over a century. Although the age of science has given humanity the means to access the highest standards of living in world history, 2019 has seen 15 000 children die of preventable deaths every day (illness, starvation and murder) with half occurring in Sub Saharan Africa. In a world of advanced energy technology, only five of 54 African countries have access to 100% electrification and all are North African.
Africa’s dark situation was never due to simplistic terms like “corruption” or “incompetence”, nor was Africa ever “culturally incompatible” with western technology as some racists have taught in social science classes. The truth is that Africa was never given true independence as is popularly believed. Sure there was nominal independence, but the economic independence needed to become a sovereign country was never granted by the empire.
This is why the growing presence of nations such as China and Russia on the continent are increasingly seen as beacons of hope for a new generation of Africans who recognise in this Eurasian alliance an opportunity to capture the future they were robbed of over half a century ago.
The Russian African Summit in Sochi
A watershed moment in this systemic change has occurred with the first Russia-Africa Economic and Security Summit in Sochi (Oct. 23-24) co-chaired by President Putin and Egypt’s President el-Sisi, featuring 50 African heads of State alongside 3000 representatives of business, government, and finance. This summit was the first of its kind, and followed hot off the heels of China’s first China-Africa Economic and Security Summit which was held in July 2019. In the past two years,40 African states have signed onto China’s Belt and Road Initiative which has scared many imperially minded technocrats in the west.
“We are not going to participate in a new ‘repartition’ of the continent’s wealth; rather, we are ready to engage in competition for cooperation with Africa, provided that this competition is civilized and develops in compliance with the law. We have a lot to offer to our African friends.”
While it does not have the same level of investments as China (which leads the world with $200 billion/year), Russia’s investments have quadrupled since 2009 now clocking it at $20 billion/year and growing with a focus on rail, energy diplomacy, education, culture sharing and military assistance. Russia is currently building Egypt’s first nuclear reactor in El Dabaa, and is negotiating with several other nations such as Ethiopia, Nigeria and Kenya to go nuclear which will end the policy of technological apartheid imposed onto Africa for decades. Russia has announced the construction of an Africa Center of Excellence and Nuclear Power in Ethiopia and the Russian Academy of Sciences announced branches opening up across Africa. A vital driver for development, Russian Railways is working to construct trans-border and intra-border rail in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Libya, Egypt and East Africa (just to name a few). During the summit, Russia announced a cancellation of a $20 billion African debt as an act of goodwill.
President Putin pointed out the elephant in the room when he said:
“We see a number of Western states resorting to pressure, intimidation, and blackmail against governments of sovereign African countries. They hope it will help them win back their lost influence and dominant positions in former colonies and seek—this time in a ‘new wrapper’—to reap excess profits and exploit the continent’s resources without any regard for its population, environmental or other risks. They are also hampering the establishment of closer relations between Russia and Africa—apparently, so that nobody would interfere with their plans”
Unlike the west, Russia has the advantage of having encouraged African development during the dark days of the Cold War and is thus infinitely more trusted than the west, whose positive attempts to genuinely help Africa develop (as seen under the leadership of John F. Kennedy, Italian Industrialist Enrico Mattei or President de Gaulle) ended with either assassinations or coups.
Some may call Putin’s words anti-west hyperbole, but a comparison of the quality of investments Russian vs American into Africa demonstrates the two opposing intentions referenced by Putin.
The Trap of Conditionalities
Where US Aid, the World Bank and IMF have poured billions of dollars into Africa over decades, standards of living, and stability of those recipient nations have only plummeted. This is the opposite result one would expect from such “generous” behaviour. Why?
The answer can be partly be found in the shift towards IMF/World Bank conditionalities which grew out of a monstrous paradigm shift that occurred in the 1950s-1970s. Where leaders such as Franklin Roosevelt and his ally Henry Wallace envisioned an industrialized Africa liberated from colonialism, the Bretton Woods instruments they created to provide long term low interest loans internationally were cleansed of anti-colonial leaders and replaced with deep state tools early in the Cold War ensuring that any credit issued would be tied to deadly conditionalities as exposed by John Perkins in his book Confessions of an Economic Hitman.
Under this neo-colonial formula, Africa was allowed to get money. But those dollars would no longer be “permitted” to be invested into genuine nation building or advanced technological progress as Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah or Thomas Sankara intended. Only “appropriate technologies” such as windmills or solar panels were permitted. Small wells were ok, but major water/energy projects like hydroelectric dams or Great Manmade Rivers were not allowed. Certainly no nuclear power was permitted (unless you happened to be an apartheid state run by white racists of course). Oil drilling and mining investments were ok, but only if foreign companies like Barak Gold or Standard Oil did the work and none of the revenue or electricity benefited the people. Without the means of producing real wealth (defined as combination of material, intellectual and spiritual growth), Africa’s productive powers of labor collapsed with their sovereignty and the debts only grew.
Hysterical Neocons Lash out
It is no secret that just as China began outpacing the Americans in African investment in 2007. Rather than acting intelligently to increase genuine infrastructure funding as the Chinese had done, the US Deep State not only continued its outdated debt-slavery practices, but created AFRICOM as a military arm across the continent. Ironically AFRICOM’s presence coincided with a doubling of militant Islamist activities since 2010 with 24 groups now identified (up from only 5 in 2010) and a 960% increase in violent attacks from 2009-2018. Just as western lending has caused a pandemic of slavery, so too has western security forces only spread mass insecurity.
The fact is that the neo cons infesting the Military Industrial Complex have openly identified both countries as co-equal enemies to the USA and understand that this alliance represents an existential threat to their hegemony. Speaking at the Heritage Foundation last year, former National Security Advisor John Bolton said (without blushing):
“The predatory practices pursued by China and Russia stunt economic growth in Africa; threaten the financial independence of African Nations; inhibit opportunities for US investment… and pose a threat to US national security interests.”
His words were bolstered by acting head of AFRICOM Thomas Waldauser in Feb. 2019 “To thwart Russian exploitative efforts, USA AFRICOM continues to work with a host of partners to be the military partner of choice in Africa.”
Luckily for the world, Bolton and Waldauser were both flushed from their posts by an American President who has chosen to ally with Russia and China rather than risk World War III. However, the dangerous ideology and deep state power structure they represent is not yet defeated, and with Trump’s intention to pull troops out of Syria, these psychotic forces are as dangerous as ever.
Dio Mio! ‘Corruption-Fighting’ Italian PM Linked To Rogue Vatican Fund
Italy is hardly a stranger to financial horrorshows. Whether it’s fiscal mismanagement, blundering centuries-old banks loaded down with bad loans, a federal government too deep in the red, fears of a populist-backed parallel currency or the shadowy tendrils of the mafia tainting the country’s agri-export business.
And now, what appears to be serious financial corruption scandal has found a direct line to the Quirinal Palace.
So, what exactly is going on? Well, yesterday, the FT reported that a Vatican-backed investment fund that is under investigation by the Vatican authorities had hired Italian PM Giuseppe Conte to negotiate a deal.
Just weeks before Conte took office (for the first time), Conte, then a little-known Florence-based academic, was hired in May 2018 to provide a legal opinion in favour of Fiber 4.0, a shareholder group involved in a fight for control of Retelit, an Italian telecoms company.
The biggest investor in Fiber 4.0 was the Athena Global Opportunities Fund, which was constituted entirely by $200 million from the Vatican Secretariat. The Fund was owned and operated by Raffaele Mincione, an Italian financier.
The news of Conte’s involvement will likely attract more scrutiny of the Fiber 4 deal from the Vatican police. In fact, Conte’s involvement wasn’t widely known until the police raided the all-powerful Vatican’s Secretariat of State, the Church’s most powerful centralized bureaucracy and the source of all the financing for the Fiber 4.0 deal.
Conte
The Secretariat is currently under investigation over its involvement in several suspicious transactions, allegedly including this property deal, which inspired the initial raid mentioned above, according to the FT on Mondy.
In the property deal the Secretariat invested in a $143 million building deal in London’s Chelsea with money it held away from central Papal State funds in several Swiss bank accounts. The deal has raised concerns from Vatican investigators that the Secretariat may have been misusing hundreds of millions of dollars under its control, which have been donated to the poor by Catholics around the world.
Now, investigators that Conte, either unwillingly or willingly, helped paper over something similar.
In Conte’s deal, the fund was part of a consortium (Fiber 4.0) hoping to win control of a small Italian telecoms company called Retelit. Fiber 4.0 hired Conte in May 2018 as a “freelance legal expert” after the consortium lost a vote in April over a proposal to take over Retelit. It lost the vote to a rival company controlled by German and Libyan interests, which Conte apparently believed gave the, an opening.
Conte argued in the memo that the Italian government could step in and annul the vote using rules intended to protest “strategically important assets” (not dissimilar to the CFIUS deal review board in the board).
Once he finally took office, in June 2018, he did just that. However, a few months later, his maneuverings were reversed and he was fined for his conduct.
Conte is now trying his hardest to distance himself from that deal.
“Regarding the new facts reported by the Financial Times, it should be noted that Mr Conte only gave a legal opinion and was not aware of, and was not required to know, the fact that some investors were connected to an investment fund supported by the Vatican and now at the centre of an investigation,” Conte’s office told the FT.
This would be a most delicious irony: For Conte, whose reputation as an honest politician helped save his career when the Five Star-League coalition collapsed, to instead be felled by suspicions surrounding a possibly corrupt act mostly committed while he was still a civilian.
Describing Italy, Gerard Baker, former editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal, recently wrote:
“In much of the country… depopulation is advancing. Moving into the empty spaces have been waves of immigrants, many from North Africa and the Middle East. The migrants have filled vital gaps in the labor force, but the transformation of Italian towns has left increasing numbers of citizens resentful, fearful for their identity.”
He went on to call this transformation, “a kind of pioneer of Western decline”. Already, the effects of mass migration are becoming dramatically visible in many of Italy’s elementary schools. In just the last few days, examples from two large cities have surfaced.
The first was in Turin, Italy’s fourth largest city, where there are now elementary school classes with not even one Italian child:
“In all classes, school principal Aurelia Provenza explained, the percentage of foreigners is very high, equal to 60% of the total number of pupils”.
The second example comes from Bologna. “In my son’s kindergarten there is a serious integration problem, I have to take him away,” says Mohamed, a 34-year-old of Moroccan origin who arrived in Italy when he was 4 years old.
“I don’t want to be seen as a racist myself as I am Moroccan, but the municipality must know that there is no integration by putting more than 20 foreign children into classes”.
At the time of enrollment, Mohamed explained, they had seen drawings with flags of all nationalities in the school, but, “when we arrived at school the first day, we found ourselves in a class with all foreign children. The teachers are even struggling to pronounce the children’s names.”
We have now reached a paradox: immigrants are taking their children out from classes where, under multiculturalism, segregation is surging. “School performance falls when classes exceed 30% foreigners; it is a crucial threshold that should be avoided or otherwise monitored”, said Costanzo Ranci, professor of Economic Sociology, and author of a recent report.
Both of the above cases have been the subject of much public debate. In Italy, last month, the number of migrants arriving from Africa surged, after having declined for most of the last two years. The migrant reception center on the island of Lampedusa, the front line of Italy’s migration crisis, is now in a state of “collapse” due to the rapidly rising number of arrivals. The entire south of Italy is now trying to deal with migrants.
According to projections from the UN Population Division, the population of sub-Saharan Africa will double in 30 years, adding an additional 1 billion people and accounting for more than half the global population growth between now and 2050. Italy, which already has the third-largest population of migrants in Europe, is undergoing an “unbearable” crisis, and now faces the real risk of an “Africanisation“, as Stephen Smith called it in his book, The Scramble for Europe.
There are many voices of concern. Cardinal Robert Sarah, author of a new book, The Day Is Now Far Spent, about the crisis of the West, compares the current influx of migrants to the invasions of barbarians that brought down the Roman Empire. If Europe’s policies toward migrants do not change, Sarah warns, Europe will be “invaded by foreigners, just as Rome was invaded by barbarians.”
“If Europe disappears, and with it the priceless values of the Old Continent, Islam will invade the world and we will completely change our culture, anthropology and moral vision”.
An Italian think-tank, Fondazione Fare Futuro, also just predicted that due to mass migration and the different birthrates of Christians and Muslims, by the end of the century half of the population of Italy could be Muslim. In just ten years, the number of migrants in Italy has surged by 419%.
The native Italian population is already shrinking rapidly. Without the foreigners, every year native Italians would die (615,000) at twice the rate of births (380,000). Eurostat, the European official statistics office, calculates that by 2080, one-fifth of Italians will come from migration background (11 million of Italy’s 53 million).
A recent report by the Italian national statistics office noted that the country is in a “demographic recession” not seen since the World War I, and 250,000 young Italians have fled the country. “Italy exports young graduates and imports migrants”, wrote Il Giornale. Italy is expected to lose 17% of its population by 2050, and — even without immigration — half by the end of the century.
A Caritas-Migrantes report recently documented that since 2014, the decrease in the number of Italians is equivalent to the population of a large Italian city, say, Palermo (677,000). The dramatic decrease, however, has so far been offset by migrants.
Immigration is once again becoming a political question. Just weeks after forming a government with the Five Star Movement, the Democratic Party is advancing the so-called “birthright citizenship” — a pledge to reverse the stringent migration policy of former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. In Latin this right to citizenship is called ius culturae. The new law would allow foreign minors under the age of 12 to become citizens after just five years at school in Italy. The bill is being advanced by Laura Boldrini, a former president of Italy’s Parliament, who famously said:
“The lifestyle of the migrants will be ours”.
Will Italians, as in those elementary schools, integrate into the new culture of the migrants?
The current government knows perfectly well what is at stake. “From now to 2050 and 2060, we will have to face an epochal question from 50 to 60 million people who will arrive in the Mediterranean world”, MP Nicola Morra, MP in the governmental majority, recently said.
The government is literally gambling with Italy’s future.
Italy is the European country most exposed to migration pressure from Africa. With a native population already shrinking, if Italy is open to the mass legalization of migrants, we should be at least be aware that it will be culturally suicidal.
Air Force’s Secretive X-37B Spaceplane Lands After 780-Day “Classified Mission”
The U.S. Air Force’s secretive X-37B, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle, is a robotic spacecraft, landed Sunday morning after 780 days in orbit, beating its previous record of 718 days, reported Space.com.
The X-37B touched down at the Shuttle Landing Facility of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, early Sunday morning. The classified mission, which initially began in September 2017, started on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
“This program continues to push the envelope as the world’s only reusable space vehicle. With a successful landing today, the X-37B completed its longest flight to date and successfully completed all mission objectives,” Randy Walden, director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, said in a statement. “This mission successfully hosted Air Force Research Laboratory experiments, among others, as well as providing a ride for small satellites.”
X-37B’s real mission in low Earth Orbit (LEO) is classified. But a 2017 Air Force press release detailed the plane is a “host platform for experimental payloads.”
“This mission carries small satellite ride shares and will demonstrate greater opportunities for rapid space access and on-orbit testing of emerging space technologies. Building upon the fourth mission and previous collaboration with experiment partners, this mission will host the Air Force Research Laboratory Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader payload to test experimental electronics and oscillating heat pipe technologies in the long-duration space environment,” the Air Force said back in 2017.
In July, we reported how an amateur space enthusiast captured the X-37B orbiting Earth on camera.
The X-37B resembles a smaller version of NASA’s retired Space Shuttle orbiter. It measures 29 feet long, 9.5 feet high, and has a wingspan of only 15 feet. The payload bay is about 7 feet long by 4 feet wide.
Ground-based infrared sensors captured the moment the X-37B landed on Sunday morning.
Early this morning, the mysterious X-37B returned from nearly 800 days in orbit. IR footage from an earlier landing will give you a healthy dose of intrigue. https://t.co/8TeGh1Ni0E
MOSCOW, October 26, 2019 – RIA Novosti – The Russian Ministry of Defense has published satellite intelligence images, showing American oil smuggling from Syria.
Image 1: Situation in the Syrian Arab Republic as of October 26, 2019.
According to the ministry, the photos confirm that “Syrian oil, both before and after the routing defeat of the Islamic State terrorists in land beyond the Euphrates river,under the reliable protection by US military servicemen, oil was actively being extracted and then the fuel trucks were massively being sent for processing outside of Syria.”
Image 2: Daman oil gathering station, Syria, Deir ez-Zor province, 42 km east of Deir ez-Zor, August 23, 2019.
Here, in a picture of the Daman oil gathering station (42 kilometers east of the Deir-ez-Zor province), taken on August 23, a large amount of trucks were spotted. “There were 90 automotive vehicles, including 23 fuel trucks,” the caption to the image said.
In addition, on September 5, there were 25 vehicles in the Al-Hasakah province, including 22 fuel trucks. Three days later, on September 8, in the vicinity of Der Ez-Zor, 36 more vehicles were recorded (32 of them were fuel trucks). On the same day, 41 vehicles, including 34 fuel trucks, were in the Mayadin onshore area.
Image 3: Gathering of vehicles in Syria, Al-Hasakah province, 8 km west of Al-Shaddadi, September 5, 2019.
As the official representative of the Defense Ministry Igor Konashenkov noted, the Americans are extracting oil in Syria with the help of equipment, bypassing their own sanctions.
Igor Konashenkov:
“Under the protection of American military servicemen and employees of American PMCs, fuel trucks from the oil fields of Eastern Syria are smuggling to other states. In the event of any attack on such a caravan, special operations forces and US military aircraft are immediately called in to protect it,” he said.
According to Konashenkov, the US-controlled company Sadcab, established under the so-called Autonomous Administration of Eastern Syria, is engaged in the export of oil, and the income of smuggling goes to the personal accounts of US PMCs and special forces.
The Major General added that as of right now, a barrel of smuggled Syrian oil is valued at $38, therefore the monthly revenue of US governmental agencies exceeds $30 million.
Image 4: Gathering of vehicles in Syria, Deir ez-Zor province, 10 km east of Mayadin, September 8, 2019.
“For such a continuous financial flow, free from control and taxes of the American government, the leadership of the Pentagon and Langley will be ready to guard and defend oil fields in Syria from the mythical ‘hidden IS cells’ endlessly,” he said.
According to Konashenkov, Washington, by holding oil fields in eastern Syria, is engaged in international state banditry.
Image 5: Gathering of vehicles in Syria, Deir ez-Zor province, 14 km east of Mayadin, September 8, 2019.
The reason for this activity, he believes, “lies far from the ideals of freedom proclaimed by Washington and their slogans on the fight against terrorism.”
Igor Konashenkov:
“Neither in international law, nor in American legislation itself – there is not and cannot be a single legal task for the American troops to protect and defend the hydrocarbon deposits of Syria from Syria itself and its own people,” the representative of the Defense Ministry concluded.
A day earlier, the Pentagon’s head, Mark Esper declared that the United States is studying the situation in the Deir ez-Zor region and intends to strengthen its positions there in the near future “to ensure the safety of oil fields.”
Texas Could Be The Epicenter Of The Next Subprime Auto Crisis
In a recent report, we outlined how the largest subprime auto lender, Santander, is currently experiencing one of the most significant accelerations in subprime auto loan delinquencies, not seen since the dark days of 2008. Now, in a separate report via the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, there is new evidence that the epicenter of the next auto loan meltdown could start in Texas.
The Texas auto subprime market began experiencing a troughing event in serious auto delinquencies in 2015, with a rapid turn up in 2016. By the end of 2018, the serious auto delinquency rate was at 16.7%, approaching 2010 levels of 18.2%. Despite the “greatest economy ever,” the Dallas Fed admits rising wealth inequality could be responsible for the growing delinquencies in Texas.
“It’s clear something is going on,” said Emily Ryder Perlmeter, an adviser for the Dallas Fed and one of the report’s authors. “The economy may not be working as well for everyone.”
Michael Carroll, an economist at the University of North Texas, suggests the report is a clear indication that consumers in easy money times took on too much auto debt. Carroll also said consumer distress in Texas could be a bellwether for the broader economy and a warning sign that the consumer is weakening.
Perlmeter said rising auto loan delinquencies across the country is a severe problem, but the meltdown unfolding in Texas is much worse than any other major metropolitan area.
The Dallas Morning News noted the average auto loan in the state is $23,500 as of late 2018.
“The reality is we have too many low-paying jobs,” said Woody Widrow, executive director of Raise Texas, a nonprofit group that lobbies for anti-poverty policies. “Just because we have a low unemployment rate doesn’t mean that people have enough money to pay for the things they need.”
For all of 2017, nearly one-third of the jobs in the state paid less than $24,300 per year, which is about the poverty line for a family of four.
Average auto loans have been extended past 69 months to make it more affordable for the lower-income part of the population.
But what happens when the economy falters, and the oil and gas industry in Texas plunges? Consumers lose their jobs, develop a credit crunch, and are unable to service their insurmountable debts.
About 21% of Texans in 2018 had one credit account that was 90 days past due, said Prosperity Now. That was a one percentage point increase from 2017 and is the highest level among large states.
Rising auto loan delinquencies in Texas stem from the 2015/16 oil bust, Perlmeter said.
Many Texans have insurmountable debts (auto loans, credit cards, student debts, and mortgages), depressing incomes, no savings, and are working in the gig economy, can barely make ends meet in an economy that is rapidly slowing. So when the next recession strikes, could be as early as next year, consumers in Texas could be very screwed.
Residents in El Paso will likely be the most screwed in the next economic downturn. Already, the county’s delinquency rate on auto loans doubled from 2014 to 2018 and broke to new highs not seen since the last financial crisis. Other counties have also seen a meteoric rise in auto delinquencies since the oil bust.
“Of the Texas counties in this report, El Paso County experienced a particularly steep rise in serious auto debt delinquencies, with its rate nearly doubling from 2014 to 2018. Unlike other counties and the state at large, El Paso’s serious delinquency rate is currently past its peak during the Great Recession. A few possible factors are at play. First, the average car loan carried in El Paso County is higher than the other four counties, despite El Paso’s relatively low median household income. Secondly, since mid-2017, the performance of auto debt for prime borrowers in El Paso has worsened, while prime performance in other counties has remained relatively stable,” Dallas Fed wrote.
Consumer credit trends in Texas are an eye-opener of what’s to come for the broad consumer in the US. The next recession will especially leave the millennial, which is currently strapped with insurmountable debts, financially paralyzed for a generation to come.
Trump’s victory-lap movie version buries the embarrassing story of deploying tanks to ‘protect’ Syrian oilfields…
What remained of the attack site. Photo: AFP
“He died like a dog.” President Trump could not have scripted a better one-liner as he got ready for his Obama bin Laden close-up in front of the whole world.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, fake caliph, ISIS/Daesh leader, the most wanted man on the planet, was “brought to justice” under Trump’s watch. The dead dog caliph is now positioned as the ultimate foreign policy winning trophy ahead of 2020 reelection.
The climatic scenes of the inevitable-as-death-and-taxes movie or Netflix series to come are already written. (Trump: I “watched it like a movie.”) Cowardly uber-terrorist cornered in a dead-end tunnel, eight helicopter gunships hovering above, dogs barking in the darkness, three terrified children taken as hostages, coward detonates a suicide vest, tunnel collapses over himself and the children.
A crack forensic team carrying samples of the fake caliph’s DNA apparently does its job in record time. The remains of the self-exploded target – then sealed in plastic bags – confirm it: it’s Baghdadi. In the dead of night, it’s time for the commando unit to go back to Irbil, a 70-minute flight over northeast Syria and northwest Iraq. Cut to Trump’s presser. Mission accomplished. Roll credits.
This all happened at a compound only 300 meters away from the village of Barisha, in Idlib, rural northwest Syria, only 5km from the Syria-Turkish border. The compound is no more: it was turned to rubble so it would not become a (Syrian) shrine for a renegade Iraqi.
The caliph was already on the run, and arrived at this rural back of beyond only 48 hours before the raid, according to Turkish intelligence. A serious question is what he was doing in northwest Syria, in Idlib – a de facto cauldron-like Donbass in 2014 – which the Syrian army and Russian airpower are just waiting for the right moment to extinguish.
There are virtually no ISIS/Daesh jihadis in Irbil, but lots of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, as in al-Qaeda in Syria, known inside the Beltway as “moderate rebels,” including hardcore Turkmen brigades previously weaponized by Turkish intel. The only rational explanation is that the Caliph might have identified this Idlib backwater near Barisha, away from the war zone, as the ideal under-the-radar passport to cross to Turkey.
Russians knew?
The plot thickens when we examine Trump’s long list of “thank yous” for the successful raid. Russia came first, followed by Syria – presumably Syrian Kurds, not Damascus – Turkey and Iraq. In fact, Syrian Kurds were only credited with “certain support,” in Trump’s words. Their commander Mazloum Abdi, though, preferred to extol the raid as a “historic operation” with essential Syrian Kurd intel input.
In Trump’s press conference, expanding somewhat on the thank yous, Russia again came first (“great” collaboration) and Iraq was “excellent”: the Iraqi National Intelligence Service later commented on the break it had gotten, via a Syrian who had smuggled the wives of two of Baghdadi’s brothers, Ahmad and Jumah, to Idlib via Turkey.
There’s no way US Special Forces could have pulled this off without complex, combined Turkish, Iraqi and Syrian Kurd intel. Additionally, President Erdogan accomplishes one more tactical masterpiece, juggling between performing the role of dutiful, major NATO ally while still allowing al-Qaeda remnants their safe haven in Idlib under the watchful eye of the Turkish military.
Significantly, Trump said, about Moscow:
“We told them, ‘We’re coming in’ … and they said, ‘Thank you for telling us.’” But, “they did not know the mission.”
They definitely didn’t. In fact, the Russian Defense Ministry, via spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov, said it had “no reliable information about US servicemen conducting an operation to ‘yet another’ elimination of the former Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the Turkish-controlled part of the Idlib de-escalation zone.”
And on Trump’s “we told them,” the Russian Defense Ministry was emphatic: “We know nothing about any assistance to the flight of US aircraft to the Idlib de-escalation zone’s airspace in the course of this operation.”
According to ground sources in Syria, a prevalent rumor in Idlib is that the “dead dog” in Barisha could be Abu Mohammad Salama, the leader of Haras al-Din, a minor sub-group of al-Qaeda in Syria. Haras al-Din has not issued any statement about it.
ISIS/Daesh anyway has already named a successor: Abdullah Qardash, aka Hajji Abdullah al-Afari, also Iraqi and also a former Saddam Hussein military officer. There’s a strong possibility that ISIS/Daesh and myriad subgroups and variations of al-Qaeda in Syria will now re-merge, after their split in 2014.
Who gets the oil?
There’s no plausible explanation whatsoever for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, for years, enjoying the freedom of shuttling back and forth between Syria and Iraq, always evading the formidable surveillance capabilities of the US government.
Well, there’s also no plausible explanation for that famous convoy of 53 brand new, white Toyota Hi-Luxes crossing the desert from Syria to Iraq in 2014 crammed with flag-waving ISIS/Daesh jihadis on their way to capture Mosul, also evading the cornucopia of US satellites covering the Middle East 24/7.
And there’s no way to bury the 2012 US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) leaked memo that explicitly named “the West, Gulf monarchies, and Turkey” as seeking a “Salafist principality” in Syria (opposed, significantly, by Russia, China and Iran – the key poles of Eurasia integration).
That was way before ISIS/Daesh’s irresistible ascension. The DIA memo was unmistakable: “If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).
True, the fake caliph has been proclaimed definitely dead at least five times, starting in December 2016. Yet the timing, now, could not be more convenient.
The facts on the ground, after the latest ground-breaking Russia-brokered deal between the Turks and the Syrian Kurds, graphically spell out the slow but sure restoration of Syria’s territorial integrity. There will be no balkanization of Syria. The last remaining pocket to be cleared of jihadis is Irbil.
And then, there’s the oil question. The “died as a dog” movie literally buries – at least for now – an extremely embarrassing story: the Pentagon deploying tanks to “protect” Syrian oilfields. This is as illegal, by any possible interpretation of international law, as is, for that matter, the very presence in Syria of US troops, which were never invited by the government in Damascus.
Persian Gulf traders told me that before 2011, Syria was producing 387,000 barrels of oil a day and selling 140,000 – the equivalent of 25.1% of Damascus’s income. Nowadays, the Omar, al-Shadaddi and Suwayda fields, in eastern Syria, would not be producing more than 60,000 barrels a day. Still, that’s essential for Damascus and for “the Syrian people” so admired within the Beltway – the legitimate owners of the oil.
The mostly Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) did in fact take military control of Deir er-Zor when they were fighting ISIS/Daesh. Yet the majority of the local population is Sunni Arab. They will never tolerate any hint of a longtime Syrian Kurd domination – much less in tandem with a US occupation.
Sooner or later the Syrian army will get there, with Russian air power support. The Deep State might, but Trump, in an electoral year, would never risk a hot war over a few, illegally occupied oilfields.
In the end, the “died as a dog” movie can be interpreted as a victory lap, and the closure of a historical arc languishing since 2011. When he “abandoned” the Syrian Demoratic Forces Kurds, Trump effectively buried the Rojava question – as in an independent Syrian Kurdistan.
Russia is in charge in Syria – on all fronts. Turkey got rid of its “terrorism” paranoia – always having to demonize the Syrian Kurd PYD and its armed wing YPG as a spin-off of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) separatists inside Turkey – and this may help to settle the Syrian refugee question. Syria is on the way to recover all its territory.
The “died as a dog” movie can also be interpreted as the liquidation of a formerly useful asset that was a valued component of the gift that keeps on giving, the never-ending Global War on Terror. Other scarecrows, and other movies, await.
A mere day after President Trump announced that ISIS terror leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died “like a dog” in a US raid in northwest Syria, and after spokesman for the group Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir was also taken out in a joint US-Kurdish SDF operation, the Islamic State is already reported to have named a successor. The now deceased al-Mhuhajir had also been widely reported as a potential Baghdadi successor.
Meet new ISIS chief Abdullah Qardash, according to Newsweek:
Abdullah Qardash, sometimes spelled Kardesh and also known as Hajji Abdullah al-Afari, was said to have been nominated by Baghdadi in August to run the group’s “Muslim affairs” in a widely-circulated statement attributed to ISIS’ official Amaq news outlet, but never publicly endorsed by the group.
Abdullah Qardash (left) is the reported successor of Baghdadi.
Citing unnamed officials, the report describes “Baghdadi’s successor” as previously having been a high ranking military officer in Saddam Hussein’s Baathist Iraq:
Though little is known about the former Iraqi military officer who once served under late leader Saddam Hussein, one regional intelligence official asking not to be identified by name or nation told Newsweek that Qardash would have taken over Baghdadi’s role — though it had lost much of its significance by the time of his demise.
According to a number of reports, citing Middle East analysts, Baghdadi had been little more than a “figurehead” by the time of his death.
As Crisis Group think tank senior analyst Sam Heller observed “Baghdadi’s personal centrality to the organization’s success is unclear,” given that “the group seems to have invested in systematizing and institutionalizing itself in a way that could mitigate the loss of any single leader, even at the very top.”
Thus Qardash’s own role and level of command at the top of the terror group, even if confirmed, remains unclear. Given ISIS has by now largely been driven ‘underground’ – splintered into local cells confined to northeast Syria and western Iraq, any ISIS ‘leader’ position could remain symbolic at best.
Meanwhile, some analysts and prominent ISIS-watchers are hotly disputing the accuracy of Newsweek’s claim that Qardash has taken Islamic State’s helm, though admitting he does hold “prominence” in the organization.
18)Caution: Media reports & Wikipedia pages stating #Baghdadi’s successor is Abdullah Qardash, are based on a fake ’Amaq report, as I previously analyzed over a month ago:https://t.co/5VfIRb6dZv
While he may have prominence, these particular reports are based on FALSE INTEL. pic.twitter.com/s6WF8Oaf1p
This after his name began circulating via jihadist terror media accounts in early August, and possibly even months prior as France 24 – which also contradicted the Newsweek report – relates:
Speculation has abounded around a senior IS figure known as Abdullah Qardash – a former Iraqi military officer jailed with Baghdadi in the giant US-run Iraqi prison of Camp Bucca.
A months-old statement attributed to IS propaganda arm Amaq but never officially adopted by the group said he was selected to replace Baghdadi even before Trump’s declared the self-proclaimed “caliph” dead.
Abdullah Qardash’s prior role in the Iraqi military prior to 2003 is consistent with one dominant theory which has for years circulated among mainstream media pundits and academics — namely that ISIS’ prior rapid rise was due to its ranks being bolstered and led by Sunni former Iraqi intelligence and military officers, who after the US invasion fought coalition forces alongside al-Qaeda.
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