Tag: news

As renewed COVID-19 outbreaks plague France’s largest cities, Paris and Marseilles, officials are planning to expand requirements regarding mandatory mask wearing in public. As of Friday morning at 8 am, masks will be mandatory across all of Paris, even often when people are outdoors.

That could create problems, because apparently the US isn’t the only country where violent confrontations have resulted when angry or unstable customers have been asked by retailer security guards or restaurant waiters to please kindly put on a mask, or leave.

One incident nearly resulted in a waiter being stabbed to death after asking a 29-year-old man to put on his mask in the port city of Le Havre.

According to RT, the drunken visitor refused, and a scuffle ensued, prompting the drunkard to storm out. He later returned with a knife, and stabbed the waiter.

Fortunately, an off-duty member of CRS, France’s auxiliary police, intervened and apprehended the knife-wielding attacker, while others tended to the waiter. Ultimately, though his wound was “serious” he has survived the ordeal.

The suspect was arrested, and police are investigating.

This isn’t the first violent incident involving masks in France, which, like its European peers, typically strictly enforces its requirements.

Earlier this month, a Parisian using a launderette said he was beaten by a pair of men with baseball bats after he asked another customer to please put on a mask. In July, a bus driver in the French city of Bayonne was assaulted by a mob after he reportedly demanded that they cover their faces and show their tickets before boarding.

Authored by Roger Harris via Counterpunch.org,

A “color revolution” is a media term for a movement based on legitimate grievances only to be co-opted into a regime change operation backed by the US and confederates.

There have been so many – Georgia in 2003, Ukraine in 2004, Kyrgyzstan in 2005 – that they have run out of colors.

Belarus is amidst the “slipper” color revolution.

The last Soviet republic

Belarus, a former constituent republic of the USSR, declared its sovereignty in 1990 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Under its new and now contested President Alexander Lukashenko, first elected in 1994, Belarus rejected the western-imposed “economic shock therapy” that looted the public wealth of many of the other former Soviet republics.

Earning the sobriquet of the “last Soviet republic,” Belarus retained state-run industry and agriculture, the social safety net, and the relative equality of the socialist period. Along with that came the enduring Cold War enmity of the US and its NATO epigones.

In contrast, the newly “liberated” Russian Federation, with its US-installed leader Boris Yeltsin and its cabal of nouveau riche oligarchs, was plundered by western capital. (Note: The Slavs have “oligarchs,” while the US has “philanthropists” like Turner, Gates, and Soros.) Its standard of living, social services, and life expectancy went into freefall. Initially, Belarus was more prosperous than Russia, but as the Belarusian economy slowed in the early 2000s, the Russian economy surged with the ascendance of Vladimir Putin.

The sprawling US embassy in Belarus occupies an area the size of a city block. Clearly, the Yanks do more than just issue visas. The US is preoccupied with regime change. In 2004, the US passed the Belarus Democracy Act overtly funding anti-government NGOs in Belarus and prohibiting loans.

The tribulations of triangulation

The official languages of Belarus are Belarusian and Russian. Some 80% of the population is ethnic Belarusian followed by Russian. In 2000, Belarus and Russia established the Union State, a supranational confederation for economic integration and common defense. Though the two sovereigns declared the goal of a single entity, efforts at implementation have variously been stalled by Lukashenko.

Russia sells oil and natural gas to Belarus at discounted rates. Belarus permits Russia to have a missile defense system on its territory, which is considered a critical deterrent against a NATO nuclear first strike.

Following the US-backed coup in neighboring Ukraine in 2014, Lukashenko took a more independent, nationalist tack, reflecting the predicament of Belarus as a buffer between Russia and an increasingly aggressive NATO. Lukashenko has tried to triangulate between Russia and the West. Muammar Gaddafi chose a similarly conciliatory path, which ended badly for him and his country.

Internationally, Belarus has sided mainly with Russia in addition to upholding Palestinian rights, warm relations with Venezuela, and trade with Syria. From Washington’s perspective, these have been fatal moves for Lukashenko. But the primary motivator of US foreign policy – with Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia joining NATO in 2004 and post-coup Ukraine likely on the way – is to complete the military occupation of Russia’s western border. Hence “Europe’s last dictator” must go.

Playing both carrot and stick, US Secretary of State Pompeo visited Belarus last February to conclude an oil deal to wean Belarus from dependence on Russian-sourced petrol. Then in April, the US and Belarus reestablished diplomatic relations.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the quasi-governmental US agency which does legally what the CIA does extra-legally, currently lists projects in Belarus euphemistically described as “developing civil society,” “fostering freedom of the media,” and “fostering youth activism.” They sound so good that one might wish for the NED to import some “pro-democracy measures” back to the homeland.

Legitimate protest morphs in a reactionary direction

In the run-up to the August 9 presidential election in Belarus, credible reports circulated of suppression of the opposition. Lukashenko won with a less than credible 80% of the vote. Still most observers not aligned with the regime-change project believe he carried a majority.

The runner-up candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, received 10% of the vote. She absconded to Lithuania after the election, where she proclaimed herself the winner and ready to lead Belarus. The West now has their puppet president in exile.

Mass protests, including a showing of industrial workers, erupted calling not only for “free and fair elections,” but for total system change. A national protest strike, centered in Minsk, is in the making.

Angry young people wave the red and white flag that was flown during the Nazi occupation, as the opposition protest morphs into a force aligned with the West and against anything Russian. While the leadership of these protests is deeply anti-Russian, most of the protestors are not.

But the winds of xenophobia are being fanned. An initially legitimate protest movement is being co-opted by foreign interests.

Program for a complete reorientation of the Belarusian state and society

The call for “democracy” raises the question of democracy for whom and under what kind of system. A coalition of opposition groups published a program of the Belarusian opposition. Among the sponsors of the program is the USAID, the cover agency for the CIA. A nearly identical document had been promulgated in 2014 after the Ukrainian coup.

This published opposition program calls for a complete reorientation of the Belarusian state and society from east to west and the establishment of a neoliberal political economy.

Politically, Belarus would withdraw from the Union State and all other structures where Russia is prominent and join the European Union and NATO. In conjunction with the privatization of state enterprises and the creation of a thorough market economy, purchase of Belarusian enterprises by Russia would be prohibited while being opened to western corporate interests.

Russian media along with scientific and cultural exchanges would be suppressed. The official use of the Russian language would be banned in a nation where 70% speak Russian at home. Even the Belarusian Orthodox Church would replace the Belarusian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church. The embers of reactionary nationalism would be fanned.

The situation is volatile

By just about all accounts, Lukashenko’s 26-year rule of Belarus degenerated with questionable elections, authoritarian practices, mismanagement, and corruption. Even if Lukashenko won the last election, he has lost much of his credibility with his people, certainly with the West, and even with his Russian ally.

The US involvement in Belarus is not nearly as overt as it was in the Ukraine coup and, given the circumstances, may not need to be to achieve desired outcomes. Obama’s former deputy national security advisor, Ben Rhodes, tweeted on August 11: “Americans have to recognize that the fight against Lukashenko in Belarus is our fight.”

Similarly, the UK, France, and Germany are fishing in these troubled waters along with Poland and the Baltic states. While Russia and China have recognized Lukashenko’s election, they have not more vigorously supported him publicly.

Lukashenko may have thought through the consequences of his previous stance: “There will be no other elections, unless you kill me.” He appears to have reassessed his options and is triangulating back towards the Union State with Russia in hopes of weathering the protests and, perhaps, holding elections in the new state.

The West is bent on Lukashenko’s ouster and Putin is at best lukewarm. Domestically the intelligentsia are alienated, workers discontented, and even his security services show signs of disloyalty. Lukashenko may try to save his skin and the quasi-socialist state he founded by a “phased leadership transition.”

A small fish in a superpower sea

Despite the complexity of contending interests, international law and the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign states must be upheld. Belarus needs to have the freedom to resolve the crisis without outside interference.

Based on the examples of Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, and Poland, Armin Fischer, a German observer, warns that a color revolution in Belarus could bring:

“the liquidation of state enterprises, mass layoffs, collapse of collective farms, mass exodus from the countryside and the death of villages…disintegration of the social infrastructure of daycare centers, hospitals, old people’s homes and the consequences for life expectancy, alcoholism and neglect…. In return, you will certainly get new oligarchs.”

“Free elections,” Fischer admonishes, would bring the “freedom” to be migrant workers competing for low-paying, undesirable jobs in Western Europe.

The leaders of the eighteen Communist parties of the former Soviet republics recall the consequences of the dissolution of the USSR in their August 18th statement on Belarus:

“In Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, and Tajikistan, a bloody conflagration of fratricidal interethnic war broke out. In the Baltic States, the neo-fascists who came to power staged a real apartheid – they divided the entire population of their ‘independent,’ ‘democratic’ States into ‘citizens’ and disenfranchised sub-humans, the so-called ‘non-citizens.’”

Belarus under Lukashenko has its faults. Even so, a neoliberal coup would be worse for the people. The economic collapse of post-coup Ukraine, now the poorest country in Europe, serves as a cautionary example. Those who condemn the excesses of the present government need also consider the greater bloodbaths that followed rightist putsches in other former Soviet republics.

George W. Bush’s declaration of “you’re either with us or with the terrorists” epitomizes the dilemma of Belarus in a world dominated by a hegemonic superpower. The playbook is familiar. Years of foreign subversion feeding on genuine domestic discontent erupts into an orchestrated regime change movement.

Belarus shows that any small state with a mildly socialist system and independent foreign policy invites subversion by the Yankee hegemon and its collaborators. Even if Belarus had met the highest standards of democracy and efficiency, a western-backed color revolution might not have been avoided.

It should surprise nobody that this happens first within the EU. While much of the world takes to mask-wearing more out of a social and health consciousness “most people are on board” type attitude, the government of Germany has announced fines as punishment for people not wearing them.

Chancellor Angela Merkel announced during a virtual meeting Thursday with state governors that almost the entire country will be under a 50 euros minimum ($59) fine for breaching the national mask mandate. 

After the meeting it was announced that all federal states except the east’s Saxony-Anhalt agreed on setting a minimum fine.

In her comments Merkel also urged Germans to stay home “wherever it is possible” and avoid traveling to “hot spots” like the United States.

Berlin also agreed to impose a strict limiting on gatherings. Not only have many major public events been canceled outright, but police are enforcing a ban on private parties of more than 25 persons. 

Large public events will not return until 2021. The new stringent measures including the mask fines go into effect by the end of the day Thursday.

BREAKING Germany #Corona response goes (more) national again:
Merkel + State Premiers:

– call on Germans NO travel to risk areas
– from Oct no paid leave upon return in quarantine
– no large events till 2021
– €50 min fine – no mask

Merkel: “take rise in infections seriously” pic.twitter.com/EGohZGct5s

— Michaela Kuefner (@MKuefner) August 27, 2020

This also as most German schools are now back in session, though there’s been a handful of closures due to new coronavirus cases.

It’s part of a broader initiative proposed by German health officials to crackdown on people flouting social distancing measures amid the pandemic, even though in recent weeks authorities say coronavirus clusters are due mainly to incoming vacationers.

Germany’s confirmed COVID-19 numbers have been on the whole relatively low compared to other Western nations, at about 240,000 out of a population of 83 million.

Authored by Danny Sjursen via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

Last month, a Turkish warship came one step away from firing missiles at a French naval vessel off the coast of Libya. In response, Paris suspended its involvement in Operation Sea Guardian — a multinational maritime effort to provide security in the Mediterranean Sea and halt the arms trafficking fueling Libya’s ongoing civil war. Initially, only eight member states — notably excluding both the U.S. and U.K. — supported France’s official complaint. This was only the latest incident in the increasingly frequent — and exceedingly awkward — tensions between several of Washington’s core North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies.

Indeed, from South America to East Asia, NATO members stand divided over many critical foreign policy issues of the moment.

On the subject of NATO — as with much else — President Trump is obtuse and ill-informed.  Only here he isn’t exactly wrong. In fact, recent events raise serious questions about the 70-year old alliance’s lingering relevance and utility — as in what, so to speak, NATO is for?

Sure, The Donald is hardly a bridge-builder, but the media’s temptation to blame him alone for NATO’s growing fissures ultimately misses the mark — and the backstory. While his foreign policy fiascos have widened its divisions, the alliance’s inherent contractions and hypocrisies preceded Mr. Trump.

Indeed, some of the current fracture traces back to NATO’s complicated genesis; the rest, mainly, to the problematic pivot after the collapse of its justification-boogeyman – the Soviet Union – and its leading American member’s hyper-imperial post-9/11 turn.

NATO’s original sins

NATO’s contemporary tensions have rather old roots, beginning with the original sins of its founding. Perennially and self-consciously justified as a defensive alliance, the oft-forgotten reality is that NATO was actually formed (in 1949) six years before the ostensibly expansionist Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. And, while the Red Army undoubtedly occupied and helped stifle real representative democracy in Eastern Europe, Washington’s misdiagnosis of Russian postwar capabilities, intentions, and supposed Soviet-led communist monolith counted as the alliance’s first foundational sin. The other was to expediently, but near-fatally, jettison preconditions for Western European members to meaningfully decolonize their anachronistic empires. The first error counterproductively heightened hostility and engendered an apocalyptic arms race; the latter ceded much moral high ground to the Eastern Bloc.

These sins-at-the-founding manifested in early alliance tensions. In the mid-1960s, wary of unnecessary nuclear war, frustrated by U.S. hegemony, and seeking a “Third Way” in the binary Cold War, an ever-sovereignty-conscious France withdrew from NATO’s integrated command structure and booted out American troops (though officially remaining in the alliance).  Throughout the era, Paris even tenuously and haltingly courted Moscow, and vice versa.  Furthermore, Washington sometimes waged diplomatic battles over its European allies imperial intransigence. The 1956 Suez Crisis — the joint French-British-Israeli invasion of Egypt — and Paris’s obstinate brutality during Algeria’s War of Independence (1954-62), were just two notable examples.

Due to the enduring utility of an exaggerated Soviet threat, NATO weathered these inherent contractions. Yet today, despite — or perhaps because of — the best efforts of Washingtonian hawks’ best efforts to revive the peril of Ronald Reagan’s “evil empire” in the form of Putin’s circumscribed Russia, it’s now America’s off-the-rails imperial delusions that risk spiking the alliance. The pivotal shift came after 1991, the very moment NATO’s Soviet raison d’etre officially transformed into its Russian Federation shell. Two climactic decisions conceived in Washington — one of inertia, the other betrayal — then set the stage for today’s farcical Cold War reprise and its related alliance-splintering.

It is all too easy to forget that a crumbled Berlin Wall (1989) and collapsed Soviet Union (1991) very well could — and possibly should — have spelled the end of an inherently anti-Russian NATO. However, misreading internal Soviet collapse as a personal victory, Washington fell prey to triumphalist delusions and opportunistically maintained NATO to abet its unipolar destiny.  Then, even after Mikhail Gorbachev stunningly agreed to the reunification (within NATO!) of Germany — a two-time 20th century-invader of his Mother Russia — a succession of U.S. presidents reneged on the Soviet premier’s one requested (if informal) quid pro quo.  “Any extension of the zone of NATO is unacceptable,” Gorbachev had then warned, to which Secretary of State James Baker assured him “there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east” — though he and many analysts later quibbled about the promise’s exact meaning and scope.

Instead, it wasn’t three years before President Bill Clinton kicked-off NATO’s eastward expansion that’s now reached into the formal boundaries of the old Soviet Union and to the very borders of the current Russian Federation. The rest, as they say, is history — though it’s a history which undergirds many or most NATO-tensions of the sort that surfaced in the Franco-Turkish naval standoff. For in addition to setting conditions for one past (Georgia, 2008), one present (Ukraine, 2014-), and another potential future war (Baltic States, ?), Washington’s provocations and adventurism have deeply divided the alliance’s member states. Faced with the rise of both China and America’s global unpopularity, and an increasingly multipolar world, NATO countries steadily hedge and diverge on today’s key challenges.

NATO 2020: A survey in global divergence

Which brings us back to the conflict between NATO’s second-largest (Turkey) and third-largest (France) militaries, over the fate of war-torn Libya. France and Turkey accuse each other of violating the arms embargo — which both probably do — as each not-so-secretly back equally-problematic opposing sides in a civil war catalyzed by NATO’s ill-advised 2011 regime change fiasco. Furthermore, in an imbroglio so complex one struggles to keep up, the Libyan debacle reflects — both literally and tangentially — many other cracks in the alliance.

In a direct sense, Paris tacitly supports Moscow’s position since both — along with America’s non-NATO Saudi, Egyptian, and Emirati partners — back the forces of former CIA-asset turned warlord General Khalifa Haftar.  Conversely, Turkey (and to some extent Rome) and also non-NATO Qatar — all home to sizable U.S. military bases — actively assist Libya’s vaguely Islamist, but internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA). Bolstering the GNA’s defenses are some 3500 Turkish-paid Syrian mercenary veterans of their native country’s own proxy civil war, many recruited from the ample refugee camps within Turkey. Meanwhile, the Trump administration seemingly has no coherent Libya strategy.

Nevertheless, this Syria connection illustrates the bewildering fluidity of NATO fracture. In Libya, Washington watches from afar as France sides with Russia against Turkey and its Syrian proxies. In Syria’s own bloody civil war, the Obama administration’s long — if halting — fanciful search and support for anti-regime “moderate rebels” initially cohered with the Turkish line. However, in recent years, as it became clear that Bashar al-Assad — with considerable Russian and Iranian assistance — would win the war, Washington’s and Ankara’s positions increasingly and dangerously diverged.

While the Turks never overtly changed sides, they agreed to Tripartite Summit peace talks with the Russians and Iranians that conspicuously excluded Washington. Then, Ankara risked U.S.-sanctions to close a multibillion dollar arms deal with Moscow which included the purchase of sophisticated Russian S400 missile systems. Matters were even messier on the ground. Turkey hoped to carve a physical sphere of influence in Syria before an impending Assad-favorable war denouement. Fearful of both regime resurgence in the area and U.S.-backed Kurdish autonomy — given Ankara’s own conflict with its Kurdish minority — in October 2019 the Turkish military invaded Northeast Syria. Ankara launched threats (but thankfully not missiles) Washington’s way and its troops nearly traded blows with fleeing U.S. forces.

Then, early this year, Russia apparently did draw Turkish blood as the two countries came to the brink of war in Syria. A tenuous March ceasefire seemed to — at least temporarily — avert a regional catastrophe. However, in yet another twist, both Russian and Turkish troops were injured in a July 14 rebel roadside bomb attack on their joint patrol of the agreement’s stipulated deescalation zone. Meanwhile, the U.S. remains openly hostile to Moscow’s (invited) presence.  Washington recently tightened callous sanctions that punish civilians unlucky enough to live in Assad’s sphere and complains of Russian encroachments near remaining U.S. troop positions. In Syria, Washington and Ankara hardly present a consistent or united NATO front.

Still, the alliance’s fault lines extend beyond the Arab World. In most cases, these divisions trace back to member states’ unease with U.S. imperial overreach and pugnacious provocations. Early rumblings surfaced during the Afghan War, when many NATO allies proved unenthusiastic about — and attached combat-avoidance “national caveats” to — increased roles in the alliance’s first “out-of-area” expeditionary operation. Member states were quick, and correct, to point out that NATO was never designed for such missions.

More recently, in ruptures that can be blamed on Mr. Trump, some NATO allies have proven lukewarm on Washington’s belligerence towards China, Iran, and Venezuela. For example, while the alliance has seemingly closed ranks against Beijing in the wake of COVID-fallout, it’s less clear that the previously wavering Europeans — on the Chinese telecom giant Huawei’s 5G network and China’s overall “Belt and Road Initiative” — will sign on to Trump’s desired Cold War 2.0 in the longer term.

Furthermore, even the most traditionally supportive NATO allies publicly opposed The Donald’s frankly absurd 2018 decision to withdraw from the eminently workable Obama-era Iranian nuclear deal. Then, despite officially standing with the U.S., NATO leaders called for restraint and carefully distanced themselves from Trump’s actual decision to assassinate Iran’s top general Qasem Soleimani. Lastly, while most NATO members have joined Washington in recognizing Juan Guiado’s unelected Venezuelan shadow government, most are less enthusiastic about recent U.S. escalatory adventurism such as placing bounties on President Nicolas Maduro’s head and the confusing American mercenary coup attempt. In fact, NATO’s perennial frenemy, Turkey, has proved willing to violate U.S. sanctions to continue trading with the Maduro regime.

None of this should come as a surprise.  Given the alliance’s problematic origins, inherent contradictions, plus its post-Soviet and post-9/11 American imperial stressors, its remarkable that NATO has endured this long.  It’s a safe bet that Donald Trump knows little of this history, and is even more blind to his own role in fracturing an already embattled alliance. If anything, he sees recent internal tensions as only confirming his frequent assertions that NATO is “obsolete.”  Yet the disturbing truth is that Trump is right, if even for all the wrong — and partly self-fulfilling — reasons.

Authored by Steven Guinness,

Last month I posted an article that looked at the World Economic Forum as the institution behind ‘The Great Reset‘ agenda that was launched in June. One of the main themes of the article was the WEF’s ‘Strategic Intelligence platform’, which the organisation describe as ‘a dynamic system of contextual intelligence that enables users to trace relationships and interdependencies between issues, supporting more informed decision-making‘.

As I made reference to, Strategic Intelligence is the mechanism which brings all the interests that the WEF focus on together. This includes specific countries and industries, as well as global issues like Covid-19 and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

When you look into Strategic Intelligence, one aspect to it that quickly becomes apparent is how each global issue and industry intertwines with one another. For instance, Covid-19 is a strand of ‘The Great Reset‘ and vice versa. What this does is create the impression that only a collectivised approach incorporating all ‘stakeholders‘ has the capacity to deal with crises on a global scale. The WEF is built upon the belief that nations and corporations must be interdependent and seek to remedy the world’s problems through the medium of global institutions.

So it is little surprise then that the WEF have devised through their Strategic Intelligence platform ‘The Great Reset‘. What this entails can be catagorised into two parts. First are the seven leading objectives for achieving the reset. In no particular order these are:

1. Shaping the Economic Recovery

2. Harnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution

3. Strengthening Regional Development

4. Revitalizing Global Cooperation

5. Developing Sustainable Business Models

6. Restoring the Health of the Environment

7. Redesigning Social Contracts, Skills and Jobs

Next comes a mix of global issues and industries woven into ‘The Great Reset‘ agenda. At last count there were over fifty areas that make up the reset. These include:

Blockchain; Digital Identity; Internet Governance; Development Finance; Sustainable Development; Future of Health and Healthcare; Global Governance; Financial and Monetary Systems; Public Finance and Social Protection; Climate Change; Drones; 5G; The Ocean; Banking and Capital Markets; Aviation, Travel and Tourism; International Trade and Investment; Covid-19; Biodiversity; Cities and Urbanization; Leadership in the 4IR; Geo-economics; Global Health; International Security; Geopolitics; Future of Food; Air Pollution; 3D Printing; Batteries; Circular Economy; Future of Mobility; Human Rights; Gender Parity; Taxation; Future of Media, Entertainment and Culture; Digital Economy and New Value Creation; Fourth Industrial Revolution; Future of Economic Progress; Workforce and Employment; Agile Governance; Global Risks; Advanced Manufacturing and Production; Environment and Natural Resource Security; Plastics and the Environment; Corporate Governance; Forests; Justice and Law; Civic Participation; LGBTI Inclusion; Inclusive Design; Future of Computing; Artificial Intelligence and Robotics; Systemic Racism

As mentioned, all these subjects intermix throughout Strategic Intelligence. The distinction comes in the fact that the World Economic Forum have identified ‘The Great Reset‘ as the one issue that can bind all these other areas of concern together to try and bring about an economic and societal ‘new world order‘. So much so that when announcing the initiative in June, the WEF confirmed that the reset will be the theme of its annual Davos meeting in Switzerland come January 2021. In previous years the WEF have only published details of an upcoming theme a few weeks before the meeting takes place. This time, however, they have given over six months notice, which suggests the level of significance that the WEF have placed on ‘The Great Reset‘.

Having ascertained the seven main objectives and the plethora of industries and issues tied to them, let’s now get a sense of the motivations behind the reset from those who are calling for it.

The Founder and Executive Chairman of the institution, Klaus Schwab, and the IMF Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, are two of the most prominent voices.

Beginning with Schwab, in articles posted on the WEF website (Now is the time for a ‘great reset’ and COVID-19’s legacy: This is how to get the Great Reset right) and during several interviews that can be found on the WEF’s Youtube channel, Schwab summarises why he considers an economic, societal, geopolitical, environmental and technological reset to be essential.

From Schwab’s perspective, there are numerous reasons why a Great Reset should be pursued, but Covid-19 is the most urgent of them all. Not only has the virus demonstrated that existing systems are no longer fit for purpose, it has also ‘accelerated our transition into the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution‘. For those unfamiliar with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, this was a concept that the World Economic Forum led with for their 2016 Davos meeting. Back in 2018 I published a brief overview of 4IR which can be found here.

With systems not suited to the 21st century, Schwab spoke of the urgency to ‘restore a functioning system of smart global cooperation structured to address the challenges of the next 50 years.’ To achieve this, all stakeholders of global society will have to be integrated into a ‘community of common interest, purpose and action‘. No one, it seems, is permitted to be left behind. We go as one, as a collective, whether an individual likes it or not. Every country will need to take part. Every industry must be transformed. This, according to Schwab, will signify a Great Reset of capitalism and a new era of prosperity.

But what if all stakeholders don’t band together behind the initiative? In Schwab’s view, to be dis-united ‘will lead to more polarisation, nationalism, racism, increased social unrest and conflicts‘. In short, a greater level of chaos and degradation of systems, leaving the world more fragile and less sustainable.

Schwab has insisted that to avoid this scenario, minor changes will not suffice. Instead, ‘entirely new foundations for our economic and social systems‘ must be built. Covid-19, therefore, is an ‘historical moment to shape the system for a post Corona era.’ It is an opportunity that Schwab says must not be missed.

Schwab went further a few weeks after the Great Reset was launched. As many are aware, using crisis as an opportunity to bring about major economic and societal change is a notorious strategy of global planners. And every so often some of those planners suggest as much.  According to Schwab, ‘acute crises favour introspection and foster the potential for transformation‘. The Prince of Wales, who fully endorses the Great Reset, said something similar in that ‘unprecedented shockwaves of crisis may make people more receptive to bigger visions of change‘.

This begs the question – does the same level of potential for change exist without the onset of crises? To a small extent, perhaps, but more likely is that until a population is faced with a threat or danger that they believe risks being detrimental to them personally, the motivation to act and call for reform is not as urgent. Minds need to be concentrated on the seeming disaster at hand before sufficient support can be gained for the policies that global planners seek.

And if minds can be concentrated, then as Schwab points out, ‘a new world could emerge, the contours of which it is incumbent on us to re-imagine and to re-draw‘.

Many of the policies that global figureheads desire are within the purview of the the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which Schwab and his ilk have been promoting as essential since the back end of 2015. Now a global crisis of sufficient magnitude has presented an opening to further the goals of the global elite. Did this happen by coincidence or by design? Truthfully, no one can say for sure. Whilst the World Economic Forum were part of a pandemic simulation exercise a few months before the world entered into a live pandemic, this is not incontrovertible evidence of what some are now referring to as a ‘plandemic‘.

When the Great Reset agenda was unveiled, one of the other leading proponents was IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. She declared it of ‘paramount importance‘ that a future return to economic growth must encompass a ‘greener, smarter and fairer world‘. There is no need to wait, said Georgieva. The world must act now.

One of the most important takeaways from Georgieva’s intervention was her admission that ‘the digital economy is the big winner of this crisis‘. We have seen this already through the exponential growth in central banks discussing the issuance of their own digital currencies and using Covid-19 as a reason to reinforce calls for a new global economic ‘architecture‘.

In a speech to Italy’s National Consultation in June (Italy, Europe and the Global Recovery in 2021), Georgieva said that Covid-19 ‘may have accelerated the digital transformation by two or three years‘. The unproven fear of cash being a transmitter of the virus, along with people relying on contactless payments and online transactions, have no doubt contributed to her outlook.

Georgieva’s focus is on ‘the economy of tomorrow‘, which is reason enough for her that the ‘economy of yesterday‘ should be consigned to history. Entirely new foundations are required, not a rework of the failed systems of old. If it sounds like Georgieva and Schwab are reading from the same script, I would suggest that they are.

Georgieva believes that 2021 is a make or break year for the Great Reset. Either the world chooses more cooperation or more fragmentation.  According to her, ‘this is the moment to decide that history will look back on this as the Great Reset, not the Great Reversal‘.

As you might have guessed, ‘the most important anchor of recovery‘ is for a Covid-19 vaccination, which Georgieva hopes will be available at scale by 2021.

The implication is that without a vaccine the world will be unable to return to any sense of normality, particularly in terms of open interaction with your fellow man. Only with a vaccine and supplementary treatments can there be a ‘fully fledged recovery‘.

To support the drive for a Great Reset, in July Klaus Schwab co-wrote a book with Thierry Malleret (who founded the Global Risk Network at the World Economic Forum) called ‘Covid-19: The Great Reset‘. In a follow up article I will be looking at some aspects to the book, and also will make an argument for why the idea of a ‘Great Reversal‘ might not be as detrimental to global planners as the likes of Kristalina Georgieva make out.

Health apps and fitness watches provide incredible insight into one’s health but can also give rise to excessive anxiety, according to a new study. 

Tariq Osman Andersen, an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Computer Science, said fitness watches that measure sleep, heart rates, and physical activity could have drawbacks for the wearer. 

Andersen’s research team conducted a six-month study with 27 heart patients who used ‘Fitbit’ fitness watches. The team said some wearers experienced increased anxiety over misinterpret heart data:

“Our study shows that, overall, self-measurements are more problematic than beneficial when it comes to the patient experience. Patients begin to use the information from their Fitbits just as they would use a doctor. However, they don’t get help interpreting their watch data. This makes them unnecessarily anxious, or they may learn something that is far from reality,” he said. 

Published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, the study determined the “pros and cons of using Fitbit watches:”

-More information calms, but also awakens doubt

Patients have a sense that they are becoming more in tune with their overall health, but they link the information to their heart disease, for which there is no safe basis. For example, if they see that they aren’t sleeping as much as they should be, they become uncomfortable and fear that this may exacerbate their illness. Similarly, they often link fast hearts rate with an increased risk of a heart attack.

“Conversely, the Fitbit watch can be calming, if data shows that you are sleeping well and have a low heart rate. The problem is that you cannot use data directly related to heart disease because the watch is designed for sports and wellness, as opposed to managing the disease,” explains Tariq Osman Andersen.

-Patients gain the courage to exercise, while simultaneously experiencing feelings of guilt

Another aspect of the Fitbit watch with both positive and negative aspects is exercise. On the one hand, patients were motivated to be active, but at the same time, the app revealed when patients did not attain the recommended 10,000 daily steps, which made many of them feel guilty. 

As for heart patients using smartwatches, the data is prone to misinterpretation by the wearer as a medical professional is not examining it and could produce unwanted anxiety. 

Sometimes, maybe too much technology is bad… 

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog (originally posted at The Asia Times),

Beijing-Moscow is already on; Berlin-Beijing is a work in progress; the missing but not distant link is Berlin-Moscow..

We have seen how China is meticulously planning all its crucial geopolitical and geoeconomic moves all the way to 2030 and beyond.

What you are about to read next comes from a series of private, multilateral discussions among intel analysts, and may helpfully design the contours of the Big Picture.

In China, it’s clear the path ahead points to boosting internal demand, and shifting monetary policy towards the creation of credit to consolidate the building of world-class domestic industries.

In parallel, there’s a serious debate in Moscow that Russia should proceed along the same path. As an analyst puts it, “Russia should not import anything but technologies it needs until it can create them themselves and export only the oil and gas that is required to pay for imports that should be severely restricted. China still needs natural resources, which makes Russia and China unique allies. A nation should be as self-sufficient as possible.”

That happens to mirror the exact CCP strategy, as delineated by President Xi in his July 31 Central Committee meeting.

And that also goes right against a hefty neoliberal wing in the CCP – collaborationists? – who would dream of a party conversion into Western-style social democracy, on top of it subservient to the interests of Western capital.

Comparing China’s economic velocity now with the US is like comparing a Maserati Gran Turismo Sport (with a V8 Ferrari engine) with a Toyota Camry. China, proportionately, holds a larger reservoir of very well educated young generations; an accelerated rural-urban migration; increased poverty eradication; more savings; a cultural sense of deferred gratification; more – Confucianist – social discipline; and infinitely more respect for the rationally educated mind. The process of China increasingly trading with itself will be more than enough to keep the necessary sustainable development momentum going.

The hypersonic factor

Meanwhile, on the geopolitical front, the consensus in Moscow – from the Kremlin to the Foreign Ministry – is that the Trump administration is not “agreement-capable”, a diplomatic euphemism that refers to a de facto bunch of liars; and it’s also not “legal-capable”, an euphemism applied, for instance, to lobbying for snapback sanctions when Trump has already ditched the JCPOA.

President Putin has already said in the recent past that negotiating with Team Trump is like playing chess with a pigeon: the demented bird walks all over the chessboard, shits indiscriminately, knocks over pieces, declares victory, then runs away.

In contrast, serious lobbying at the highest levels of the Russian government is invested in consolidating the definitive Eurasian alliance, uniting Germany, Russia and China.

But that would only apply to Germany after Merkel. According to a US analyst, “the only thing holding back Germany is that they can expect to lose their car exports to the US and more, but I tell them that can happen right away because of the dollar-euro exchange rate, with the euro becoming more expensive.”

On the nuclear front, and reaching way beyond the current Belarus drama – as in there will be no Maidan in Minsk – Moscow has made it very clear, in no uncertain terms, that any missile attack from NATO will be interpreted as a nuclear attack.

The Russian defensive missile system – including the already tested S-500s, and soon the already designed S-600s – arguably may be 99% effective. That means Russia would still have to absorb some punishment. And this is why Russia has built an extensive network of nuclear bomb shelters in big cities to protect at least 40 million people.

Russian analysts interpret China’s defensive approach along the same lines. Beijing will want to develop – if they have not already done so – a defensive shield, and still retain the ability to strike back against a US attack with nuclear missiles.

The best Russian analysts, such as Andrei Martyanov, know that the three top weapons of a putative next war will be offensive and defensive missiles and submarines combined with cyber warfare capabilities.

The key weapon today – and the Chinese understand it very clearly – is nuclear submarines. Russians are observing how China is building their submarine fleet – carrying hypersonic missiles – faster than the US. Surface fleets are obsolete. A wolf pack of Chinese submarines can easily knock out a carrier task force. Those 11 US carrier task forces are in fact worthless.

So in the – horrifying – event of the seas becoming un-sailable in a war, with the US, Russia and China blocking all commercial traffic, that’s the key strategic reason pushing China to obtain as much of its natural resources overland from Russia.

Even if pipelines are bombed they can be fixed in no time. Thus the supreme importance for China of Power of Siberia – as well as the dizzying array of Gazprom projects.

The Hormuz factor

A closely guarded secret in Moscow is that right after German sanctions imposed in relation to Ukraine, a major global energy operator approached Russia with an offer to divert to China no less than 7 million barrels a day of oil plus natural gas. Whatever happens, the stunning proposal is still sitting on the table of Shmal Gannadiy, a top oil/gas advisor to President Putin.

In the event that would ever happen, it would secure for China all the natural resources they need from Russia. Under this hypothesis, the Russian rationale would be to bypass German sanctions by switching its oil exports to China, which from a Russian point of view is more advanced in consumer technology than Germany.

Of course this all changed with the imminent conclusion of Nord Stream 2 – despite Team Trump taking no prisoners to sanction everyone in sight.

Backdoor intel discussions made it very clear to German industrialists that if Germany would ever lose its Russian source of oil and natural gas, coupled with the Strait of Hormuz shut down by Iran in the event of an American attack, the German economy might simply collapse.

There have been serious cross-country intel discussions about the possibility of a US-sponsored October Surprise involving a false flag to be blamed on Iran. Team Trump’s “maximum pressure” on Iran has absolutely nothing to do with the JCPOA. What matters is that even indirectly, the Russia-China strategic partnership has made it very clear that Tehran will be protected as a strategic asset – and as a key node of Eurasia integration.

Cross-intel considerations center on a scenario assuming a – quite unlikely – collapse of the government in Tehran. The first thing Washington would do in this case is to pull the switch of the SWIFT clearing system. The target would be to crush the Russian economy. That’s why Russia and China are actively increasing the merger of the Russian Mir and the Chinese CHIPS payment systems, as well as bypassing the US dollar in bilateral trade.

It has already been gamed in Beijing that were that scenario ever to take place, China might lose its two key allies in one move, and then have to face Washington alone, still on a stage of not being able to assure for itself all the necessary natural resources. That would be a real existential threat. And that explains the rationale behind the increasing interconnection of the Russia-China strategic partnership plus the $400 billion, 25-year-long China-Iran deal.

Bismarck is back

Another possible secret deal already discussed at the highest intel levels is the possibility of a Bismarckian Reinsurance Treaty to be established between Germany and Russia. The inevitable consequence would be a de facto Berlin-Moscow-Beijing alliance spanning the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), alongside the creation of a new – digital? – Eurasian currency for the whole Eurasian alliance, including important yet peripheral actors such as France and Italy.

Well, Beijing-Moscow is already on. Berlin-Beijing is a work in progress. The missing link is Berlin-Moscow.

That would represent not only the ultimate nightmare for Mackinder-drenched Anglo-American elites, but in fact the definitive passing of the geopolitical torch from maritime empires back to the Eurasian heartland.

It’s not a fiction anymore. It’s on the table.

Adding to it, let’s do some little time traveling and go back to the year 1348.

The Mongols of the Golden Horde are in Crimea, laying siege to Kaffa – a trading port in the Black Sea controlled by the Genoese.

Suddenly, the Mongol army is consumed by bubonic plague.

They start catapulting contaminated corpses over the walls of the Crimean city.

So imagine what happened when ships started sailing again from Kaffa to Genoa.

They transported the plague to Italy.

By 1360, the Black Death was literally all over the place – from Lisbon to Novgorod, from Sicily to Norway. As much as 60% of Europe’s population may have been killed – over 100 million people.

A case can be made that the Renaissance, because of the plague, was delayed by a whole century.

Covid-19 is of course far from a medieval plague. But it’s fair to ask.

What Renaissance could it be possibly delaying?

Well, it might well be actually advancing the Renaissance of Eurasia. It’s happening just as the Hegemon, the former “end of history”, is internally imploding, “distracted from distraction by distraction”, to quote T.S. Eliot. Behind the fog, in prime shadowplay pastures, the vital moves to reorganize the Eurasian land mass are already on.

In a bizarre exchange of what may or may not be fake news, today China’s Global Times claimed that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army “expelled a US warship that trespassed into China’s territorial waters in the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea on Thursday, near an ongoing Chinese military exercise zone that reportedly featured live-fire anti-ship ballistic missile launches.”

The USS Mustin, a US Navy guided missile destroyer, trespassed into the China’s territorial waters in the Xisha Islands on Thursday, and the PLA Southern Theater Command dispatched naval and air forces to track, identify and warn it leave, said Senior Colonel Li Huamin, a spokesperson for the PLA Southern Theater Command on early Friday.

The report went on to say that “the US ignored the rules of the international law, repeatedly stirred up troubles in the South China Sea, exercised navigational hegemony in the name of “freedom of navigation,” seriously undermined China’s sovereignty and security interests, and severely sabotaged the international navigation order in the South China Sea.”

The allegation sparked an immediate response from the US military which said that the Global Times claimed was “without evidence” or basically fake news. According to American Military News, the 7th Fleet confirmed the destroyer performed a freedom of navigation operation despite Chinese territorial claims to the island chain.

The press release comes after China’s Global Times state media outlet reported Chinese People’s Liberation Army claims, without evidence, that they expelled the U.S. warship.

The 7th Fleet stated, “On Aug. 27 (local date), USS Mustin (DDG 89) asserted navigational rights and freedoms in the vicinity of the Paracel Islands, consistent with international law. This freedom of navigation operation (“FONOP”) upheld the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea recognized in international law by challenging the unlawful restrictions on innocent passage imposed by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam and also by challenging China’s claim to straight baselines enclosing the Paracel Islands.

The 7th Fleet statement makes no references to challenges by Chinese forces in the area in which the FONOP occurred. Still, the Global Times quoted PLA Senior Colonel Li Huamin, who said the PLA Southern Theater Command dispatched naval and air forces to track, identify and warn the ship to leave but Li provided no evidence the U.S. warship acted in any way outside of its planned operations.

The US military also accused Li of making similar false comments in past U.S. FONOPs around the Paracel Islands.

In his statements Thursday, Li said, “The U.S. ignored the rules of the international law, repeatedly stirred up troubles in the South China Sea, exercised navigational hegemony in the name of ‘freedom of navigation,’ seriously undermined China’s sovereignty and security interests, and severely sabotaged the international navigation order in the South China Sea.” He added that “we urge the US to stop this kind of provocative action, to strictly manage maritime and aerial military operations and strictly restrain its frontline troops, so as to avoid accidents.”

Separately, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a statement Thursday, criticizing Chinese ballistic missile launches near the Paracel Islands.

“U.S. forces operate in the South China Sea on a daily basis, as they have for more than a century,” the 7th Fleet states. “They routinely operate in close coordination with like-minded allies and partners who share our commitment to uphold a free and open international order that promotes security and prosperity. All of our operations are designed to be conducted in accordance with international law and demonstrate that the United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows – regardless of the location of excessive maritime claims and regardless of current events.”

A new survey from ValuePenguin.com, commissioned by LendingTree, found 61 million Americans have stopped commuting to work due to the virus-induced recession. The reduction of motor vehicles on highways will result in deep economic scarring across the entire economy. 

The coronavirus has upended nearly every aspect of life in the United States, and Americans’ driving behavior and commutes are no exception. ValuePenguin surveyed drivers to see how their habits have changed. We found a large number of drivers are no longer commuting to the office, whether because they are working from home or have lost employment due to COVID-19. -ValuePenguin

The survey found three in 10 respondents with motor vehicles are no longer making the daily commute to work in a post-COVID-19 world: 

About three in 10 consumers with a motor vehicle said they no longer have a commute due to COVID-19, either because they’re working from home (19%) or they temporarily or permanently lost their jobs (10%).

On the other hand, 26% are back to their daily commute as of August, including essential workers (17%) and those whose employers reopened their offices (9%). (The remainder don’t have commutes either because they worked from home prior to the pandemic, or they were not working prior to the pandemic.) -ValuePenguin

Millions of motor vehicles are missing from America’s highways since March. About 38% of respondents said traffic in their respective metro areas remains subdued, and 36% said traffic was reduced but trending back to pre-pandemic levels. 

For more color on empty streets and highways, TomTom high-frequency traffic congestion data of New York City shows traffic levels remain subdued. 

The decline in travel has resulted in respondents making fewer trips to the gas pump. Almost a third said they’re driving every day, compared to 50% of drivers pre-pandemic. The number of respondents who fill up their tanks every week dropped by 26% in August versus before the pandemic.

While declining fuel consumption and oversupplied markets have subdued gasoline and diesel prices, a reduction in travel has resulted in a quarter of respondents to make cost-cutting changes to their auto insurance. 

About 14% switched to another provider that was offering better deals, 12% reduced the amount of coverage since they are driving less and 3% took one of their household’s vehicles off the policy because their family is using fewer cars. –ValuePenguin

The survey’s results of a reduction in commuting were echoed in a recent KPMG International report:

The effects of COVID-19 will be felt for years. The response to the virus has accelerated powerful behavioral changes that will continue to shape how Americans use automobiles. We believe the changes in commuting and e-commerce are here to stay and that the combined effect of reduced commuting and shopping journeys could be as much as 270 billion fewer vehicle miles traveled (VMT) each year in the US. -KPMG

The permanent loss of vehicles on highways will have a tremendous impact across the entire economy and is suggestive that a “V-shaped” recovery is not in the cards for this year or next.