Tag: news

For the 55% of the world’s population who reside in cities, land is viewed as a precious commodity – every square foot has a value attached to it. As the global population continues to rise toward the eight billion mark, it can seem like humans have laid claim to every available corner of the earth.

But, as Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley details below, while this is mostly true, there is one place on the planet that is vast, empty, and even partially unclaimed: Antarctica.

Today’s map, originally created by the CIA World Factbook, visualizes the active claims on Antarctic territory, as well as the location of many permanent research facilities.

The History of Antarctic Territorial Claims

In the first half of the 20th Century, a number of countries began to claim wedge-shaped portions of territory on the southernmost continent. Even Nazi Germany was in on the action, claiming a large swath of land which they dubbed New Swabia.

After WWII, the Antarctic Treaty system—which established the legal framework for the management of the continent—began to take shape. In the 1950s, seven countries including Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom claimed territorial sovereignty over portions of Antarctica. A number of other nations, including the U.S. and Japan, were engaged in exploration but hadn’t put forward claims in an official capacity.

Despite the remoteness and inhospitable climate of Antarctica, the idea of claiming such large areas of landmass has proven appealing to countries. Even the smallest claim on the continent is equivalent to the size of Iraq.

A few of the above claims overlap, as is the case on the Antarctic Peninsula, which juts out geographically from the rest of the continent. This area is less remote with a milder climate, and is subject to claims by Argentina, Chile, and the United Kingdom (which governs the nearby Falkland Islands).

Interestingly, there is still a large portion of Antarctica that remains unclaimed today. Just east of the Ross Ice Shelf lies Marie Byrd Land, a vast, remote territory that is by far the largest unclaimed land area on Earth.

While Antarctica has no official government, it is administered through yearly meetings known as the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings. These meetings involve a number of stakeholders, from member nations to observer organizations.

Frontage Theory: Another Way to Slice it

Of course, critics could argue that current claims are arbitrary, and that there is a more equitable way to partition land in Antarctica. That’s where Frontage Theory comes in.

Originally proposed by Brazilian geopolitical scholar Therezinha de Castro, the theory argues that sectors of the Antarctic continent should be distributed according to meridians (the imaginary lines running north–south around the earth). Wherever straight lines running north hit landfall, that country would have sovereignty over the corresponding “wedge” of Antarctic territory.

The map below shows roughly how territorial claims would look under that scenario.

While Brazil has obvious reasons for favoring this solution, it’s also a thought experiment that produces an interesting mix of territorial claims. Not only do nearby countries in Africa and South America get a piece of the pie, but places like Canada and Greenland would end up with territory adjacent to both of the planet’s poles.

Leaving the Pie Unsliced

Thanks to the Antarctic Treaty, there is no mining taking place in Antarctica, and thus far no country has set up a permanent settlement on the continent. Aside from scattered research stations and a few thousand researchers, claims in the region have a limited impact.

For the near future at least, the slicing of the Antarctic pie is only hypothetical.

Via SouthFront.org,

The usage of propaganda and disinformation by global and regional actors as a tool to promote their interests has been an open secret for a long time. However, the dominating mainstream narrative is that the main sources of propaganda and disinformation is Russia, China, Iran or at least North Korea, while the so-called West is innocent and all what Western special services and MSM do is fiercely trying to repel the Russia or China or Iran etc –led wave of disinformation. In fact, this narrative itself is a large-scale and rough propaganda construct as the dominance of the Western governments together with Big Tech is obvious for any neutral observer. Therefore, it is logical that the main source of propaganda, disinformation, likes, half-lies and other variants of media forgeries is Western states and mainstream media. The ongoing and unprecedented censorship campaign against sources of information that provide coverage and analysis that do not fit the Western mainstream is another proof of this situation.

The text below was released by Russian state-run news agency RT and authored by Kit Klarenberg. Being funded by the Russian government, RT logically tries to make public to the general audience obvious facts of foreign meddling in Russian internal affairs. However, the British propaganda campaign covered in this text is just one of the numerous examples of similar clandestine and not very clandestine efforts.

Leaked papers allege massive UK govt effort to co-opt Russian-language anti-Kremlin media & influencers to ‘weaken Russian state’ (source):

For all its alarmism about Russian ‘propaganda’ and ‘misinformation’, the UK government appears to be behind a multi-million-pound push to boost negative coverage of the Russian state, both in Russia and neighbouring countries.

At a European Union summit in November 2017, then-UK prime minister Theresa May announced plans to designate Russia a “hostile” state, and pledged to spend in excess of £100 million over the next five years on tackling the alleged threat of Kremlin “disinformation” internationally.

Now, hacktivist collective Anonymous has released what appear to be internal UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) files that shed significant light on how vast and ominous these efforts can be.

According to the papers, Whitehall has sought contractors to covertly infiltrate media and civil society at multiple levels – all under the aegis of schemes to, among other things, improve literacy, promote cultural activities, ensure “balance and plurality” in media reporting, and counteract propaganda.

Supporting anti-Kremlin media

One of these contractors, Zinc Network (more on them later) explained in its pitch documents that it was in the process of “delivering audience segmentation and targeting support for two of Russia’s leading independent media outlets – Meduza and MediaZona”.

The former is a Russian-language online newspaper and news aggregator based in Riga, Latvia. The latter is an investigative platform focused on Russia’s judicial, law enforcement and penal system, founded by two members of controversial punk rock band Pussy Riot.

As the pair “[lacked] the expertise and tools” to “promote content effectively to new audiences”, Zinc was working diligently to ensure their output reached as many eyes and ears as possible. In the process, the contractor conducted “weekly mentoring sessions with specialists from the outlets”, “adjusting their editorial and commercial strategy accordingly” and creating “common framings of issues.”

Prior to the release of these documents, any suggestions that Meduza and MediaZona – which both consistently publish content highly critical of the Russian state – were not only privately coordinating to ensure a consistent editorial line, but receiving assistance from a UK government contractor to do so, would surely have been dismissed as Russian propaganda, conspiracy theory, fake news, or worse.

It seems likely Meduza’s relationship with Whitehall, direct or indirect, conscious or unconscious, extends far further than this collaboration. Several contractors reference the outlet in the leaked files, in relation to numerous other FCDO-funded and directed projects.

For instance, in pitch documents submitted by another contractor, Albany, Meduza is mentioned alongside ETV+, which is the Russian-language service of the Estonian broadcaster; Latvia’s LTV, Lithuania’s LRT Re:Baltica – the website of the Baltic Centre for Investigative Journalism – and other Russian-language platforms as a potential “long-term partner”, for which “new programming” could be funded and developed.

That this programming was to be explicitly anti-Moscow in character is starkly underlined by a section on “creating narrative games which encourage participation through social media and mobile platforms.”

“Meduza is a leading proponent of these games which, for the most part, embrace political themes (e.g. Putin Bingo, ‘help Putin get to his meeting with the Pope on time’ and ‘help the Orthodox priest get to his church without succumbing to earthly pleasures’),” Albany notes.

These “satirical games” would make the “valid point” that “the offer of a fairer, respectful and caring society is better than that of an arrogant, nationalistic regime.” Proposed themes include helping “the whimsical Russian exile preserve his cultural identity in the face of British political correctness”, and “the oligarch’s son conceal his unseemly wealth on his first day at university”.

Such surreal proposal excerpts would be laughable, were it not for the fact they amply underline the extraordinary lengths London is determined to go to in service of demonizing, destabilizing and isolating Russia nationally and internationally.

The contractors

The contractors involved – including the aforementioned Zinc and Albany – all boast staff possessed of such clearances, individuals who previously served at the highest levels of government, the military and security services. They furthermore have extensive experience in conducting information warfare operations on London’s behalf the world over. For instance, several shadowy companies named in the leaked papers feature prominently in leaked documents related to Whitehall’s far-reaching propaganda blitz in Syria.

As such, the companies clearly wouldn’t be at all obvious candidates to lead programs genuinely concerned with strengthening civil society, improving journalistic standards, or combating disinformation – but of course, these programs aren’t.

Zinc Network (previously known as Breakthrough Media) is a seasoned veteran of clandestine Whitehall-funded information warfare campaigns at home and abroad. It has a long, deplorable history of cynically co-opting genuine civil society voices to covertly further Whitehall’s interests, without their knowledge or consent, and often with serious real-world consequences.

One programme Zinc bid for is Support for Independent Media in the Baltic States. The leaked papers include the FCDO’s statement of requirement for the project, as well as the details that were spelled out to contractors at a meeting convened June 2018 by FCDO Counter Disinformation & Media Development (CDMD) chief Andy Pryce, along with a parallel operation in Eastern Partnership countries.

Stating openly the endeavor – set to cost up to £6 million in 2018-2021 – is ultimately concerned with “weakening the Russian state”, Pryce warned attendees against “unauthorised disclosures of activity”, and noted that “for security reasons”, some suppliers “will not wish to be linked to the FCDO.” 

He went on to list numerous ways in which journalists and media organizations in target countries could not only be co-opted via funding, but outright “acquisition” of content. Sponsoring public broadcasters was said to provide “easy wins” given “light touch governance” locally, a euphemism for corruption and lack of regulation.

He professed to be “audience agnostic” when asked about targeting people under-18, and said there was “scope for gender sensitivity in programming” – “Girls on HBO is the type of thing but in Ukraine.” 

It’s a bizarre suggestion which amuses at first glance, until one considers at least five television serials in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were produced by Zinc Network under the auspices of the program, including the region’s first Russian-language kids’ show.

It’s troubling in the extreme that millions of people – among them many children – may have watched this programming, without any idea it was created to surreptitiously extol anti-Russian, pro-Western propaganda, let alone that the UK government bankrolled its production as part of a dedicated psyops effort.

Such disquiet is amplified by Albany specifically seeking to exploit “young Russian speakers” in the Baltics “as agents of change”, to “influence their parents’ and grandparents’ generations and amplify a distinct ‘Euro-Baltic’ identity” in a separate project.

Co-opting social media influencers

Other leaked documents reveal Zinc’s activities in the region were already sizable by the time it submitted proposals for the project, to the extent of maintaining“an in-house team of Russian speaking producers, digital researchers and digital growth strategists.”

Zinc maintained a secret network of Russian-speaking social media influencers, to promote “media integrity and democratic values” – curiously, its relationship with these individuals is said to have involved “daily management”. 

Recruited via YouTube, Facebook, VK and Instagram, the company “[helped] them build their brands and improve their content in order to grow their audience share,” and “[established] a co-owned channel on YouTube to host their content, help them access one another’s audiences, co-creating content that tackled complex social issues.”

Moreover though, one file indicates Zinc taught these influencers how to “make and receive international payments without being registered as external sources of funding” and “develop editorial strategies to deliver key messages”, while minimizing their “risk of prosecution” and managing “project communications” to ensure the network’s existence, and indeed the UK government’s central role in creating it, were kept “confidential”.

In other words, they appear to have operated, and may continue to, as effective paid agents of the British state, Zinc “assisting” them in crafting slick propaganda furtively propounding Whitehall-approved “key messages”, which was then broadcast globally under the guise of citizen journalism.

The identities of the influencers, and their cognisance of the insidious role they were playing by collaborating with the company, is presently unknown. Although, unlike viewers, the influencers would’ve at least been aware their “independent” content was in fact co-produced in a London office.

ENGAGE, ENHANCE, ENABLE, EXPOSE

There are hundreds of papers in Anonymous’ leak, and the above is just scratching the surface. The FCDO’s wide-ranging, secret campaign apparently consists of four pillars, or ‘strands’ – ENGAGE, ENHANCE, ENABLE, EXPOSE. One document circulated to contractors pitching for the assorted, lucrative programmes therein – dubbed “Theory of Change” – sets out the activities, output, outcome, and impact of the respective strands, both in isolation and in tandem with one another.

EXPOSE’s activities are defined as “real-time debunking, support to investigative journalism, capacity building, networking between NGOs” – yet its output, outcomes, and impact are redacted, hidden in an already classified document, indicating its operations and objectives are extremely sensitive indeed, and one requires a senior security clearance to know them.

For all the mainstream media’s alarmist chatter of the threat of Kremlin “disinformation”, not a single example of anything even remotely comparable to the full-spectrum, multi-channel, on- and offline, global assault on perceptions outlined in this article has ever been attributed to Moscow, or any other “hostile” state.

It is truly staggering that for all the documents’ references to transparency, truth and democracy, these mammoth, multi-million-pound initiatives have been conducted in total secrecy for years without any public oversight, or even awareness among British citizens – let alone target audiences overseas – of their operation.

Authored by Martin Sieff via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The first impeachment of Donald Trump in 2019 was no tragedy. It was always a farce. The second impeachment, in which Trump was acquitted on the night of Saturday, February 13 did not even rise to that. It was a hiccup, a non-event. The most solemn procedure in the sacred constitutional process of the United States did not even rise to the entertainment value of a bout of naked mud wrestling.

Washington during the week of the Second Great Impeachment Trial was a fascinating non-place to be. The skies were grey. It was quite cold: About minus Five Degrees Celsius most days.  There was a thin sprinkling of tired, dirty snow on the ground. The city was deserted. More virulent mutations of the COVID-19 virus from the United Kingdom and South Africa were said to be on the loose.

The streets were empty. There were no protests, wall graffiti, slogans or demonstrations either for or against Trump. Nobody cared. It echoed the empty deserted ghostly state of the city during Joe Biden’s non-existent presidential inaugural on January 20. Once again, all that happened was that someone taped a badly handwritten note on the Capitol saying “impeachment” and everything that followed was just a badly acted chaotic play performed by autistic children.

No real human being gave a second’s care for either convicting Trump or acquitting him. Not a single firework was fired off in celebrate his acquittal. Not a single liberal committed ritual suicide, tried to burn themselves to death in front of the Senate or even bothered to throw a rotten tomato or an egg at a single Republican Senator who voted for acquittal. It was never real. It didn’t matter. Nobody cared.

Yet impeachment is supposed to Mean Something. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 rather than melt into blubber beneath its merciless glare. Bill Clinton, who was widely suspected of being guilty of so much, beat an impeachment rap only for lying in public that he had slept with a naive young girl intern.

George W. Bush surely rated impeachment for his unprecedented incompetence in so many areas: He bankrupted the country: He destroyed civil liberties. He failed to prevent the killing of nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11. He ignored Mississippi flood defenses thereby drowning of the city of New Orleans, killing thousands more. He unleashed unnecessary, endless wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. He got thosuands of youn g American soldeirs killed and ten thousands more hideously maimed for life – for nothing.

Yet the Democratic majorities that ran both chambers of Congress during the last two years of Bush’s presidency never had the guts or decency to dare to impeach him for any of these terrible, shameful things.

Bush’s successor Barack Obama blithely presided over the destruction of democracy in Ukraine, risking nuclear war with Russia. He locked the United States into a $1.5 trillion 30-years-long new nuclear arms race. He unleashed war, rebellion, anarchy and chaos in Yemen, Syria and Libya, killing untold millions more. The Republicans who controlled Congress never dared – or bothered – to impeach him either.

This non-existent second failed impeachment of Trump confirms what the world already learned in his farcical first impeachment in 2019. Impeachment as a solemn tool to preserve democracy, depose an unworthy national leader or mean anything at all is stone cold dead in the United States of America.

Like the rest of the Beloved, still so widely revered, more than 230-years-old US Constitution, impeachment has become a meaningless exercise in exhausted, archaic cliches. No one would ever dare to use it for anything that really mattered at all. Both Republicans and Democrats have repeatedly shown over the past 30 years that they are all too scared to.

The aging, absurd, senile and drooling old Democratic political elite in Washington were led over the edge of a political cliff yet again by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and House congressional “expert” Congressman Adam Schiff. 

They will still revere and mindlessly follow them. Gadarene Swine are incapable of doing anything else.

The Democrats failed to discredit or even politically damage Trump. They revealed themselves as stupid, malignant fools, trying to impeach a powerless president who had already been cast out of office. They failed to plausibly document any of their charges against him. They made a mockery of President Biden’s half-hearted, dazedly delivered pledge of bipartisanship and burying of political enmities in his already forgotten Inaugural Address.

They also handed to the Republicans a perfect precedent for impeaching Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris if they regain control of Congress in 2022, assuming the ramshackle US political system can even survive until then.

The outcome of Trump’s second impeachment was therefore a catastrophe for the Democrats. It repeated Obama and Biden’s disastrous bungled start to their 2009 administration and it already heralds the rapid isolation and collapse of the Biden regime

Nearly 2,000 years ago, the mad Roman boy-emperor Caligula declared war on the God Neptune by collecting sea shells on the beaches of France and Belgium. Caligula had more credibility and success than Pelosi, Schumer and Schiff: At least he got the sea shells.

What we have just seen is another example of the compulsion of America’s liberal ruling elite to make a sick, discredited joke of what is left of their own collapsing and totally bankrupt political system.

What was the Second Impeachment of Donald Trump? Shakespeare gave us the answer in his Scottish Play more than 400 years ago.

It was a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

US Army researchers began experimenting with autonomous vehicles at a new testing facility within Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) in Middle River, Maryland. 

APG allotted Army Research Laboratory (ARL) with 200 acres to prove and refine autonomous vehicles’ performance. The facility has been home to the service for nearly a century, where munitions and weapons have been tested. 

“The one-of-its-kind research campus was established to advance Army knowledge of autonomy and intelligent systems through basic and applied research of unmanned technologies that integrate artificial intelligence, autonomy, robotics and human teaming elements in complex environments,” Jeffrey Westrich, an ARL program manager said. 

Last month, Army researchers performed the first fully-autonomous vehicle test at ARL’s new testing grounds. 

Westrich said, “the tests served to preliminarily prove the performance of the ARL Autonomy Stack for future, extended field testing.” 

ARL’s Autonomy Stack is a software framework and collection of algorithms that are the brains of an autonomous vehicle. 

Before recent field testing, Army researchers relied on computer-based modeling and simulation. 

A video published on YouTube captured the field test as the autonomous vehicle navigated through a wooded area. 

ARL plans more tests this year of autonomous vehicles to evaluate their artificial intelligence-enabled systems. 

The timing of the test and upcoming ones comes as the Army has been receiving prototype light, medium, and heavy robotic combat vehicles to prepare for eventual fielding on the modern battlefield. 

Last month, the service received two Robotic Combat Vehicle-Light unmanned ground vehicle prototypes.

In October, the Army said it was about to receive four 10-ton Ripsaw M5 Robotic Combat Vehicle prototypes. 

Modernization of the service was supercharged under the Trump administration will likely continue under the new administration following a power struggle between the US and China for global dominance.

Bank of America’s equity strategist Haim Israel recently updated clients in a note describing the latest geopolitical flare-ups between both countries. 

While the Army prepares for a future conflict with the need for weaponized robots, will the next battlefield domain be space?

Authored by Jazz Shaw via HotAir.com,

After blocking links to all news content in Australia, Facebook has reportedly “friended” the country again by coming back to the negotiating table, at least according to Prime Minister Scott Morrison. That doesn’t mean that Mark Zuckerberg has dropped his objections to Austrailia’s pending legislation that would force the social media giant to pay for links to Australian news content, however. Neither side seems to be backing down at this point.

Australia may not be in this battle alone, though.

We’re learning this weekend that Canada is drafting a similar measure and basically daring Facebook to impose a blackout on them as well. (NY Post)

Canada is poised to take on Facebook, following the example set by Australia, which began a war with the tech giant when the country’s publishers backed proposed legislation demanding payment for their content.

Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault condemned Facebook’s actions as “highly irresponsible” last week when the social media giant removed all Australian news content from its sites in retaliation.

Guilbeault warned that Canada would be next in making sure Facebook paid for news content from Canadian publishers. Guilbeault is charged with drafting legislation in the next few months that would require Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google to pay up.

This whole “everyone hates Facebook” theme is turning into a trend. According to Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault, he was recently in talks with representatives from Finland, France and Germany to discuss what to do about Facebook. He further indicated that the total number of nations considering joining such an alliance could quickly reach 15.

This is pretty much what I was talking about when I suggested that Facebook might come to regret starting this staredown with Australia. The Aussies probably only represent a fairly small percentage of Facebook’s total audience and the same can be said for Canada. But if they start losing a significant number of European countries as well, Mark Zuckerberg may have to go back to the drawing board and rethink his strategy. At some point, the cart is going to become too heavy for the donkey to pull it.

It’s not just fees for news content, either. More countries, including the United States, are discussing new regulatory action against the big social media companies and even the possibility of modifying antitrust laws. Facebook has managed to maintain some level of profitability, but its entire business model could evaporate if too many nations start cracking the whip in that fashion.

Before anyone comes to the table with Zuckerberg (aside from Australia, anyway), we should know exactly what we expect from Facebook in terms of “better behavior.” I really don’t understand the desire to charge them for links to news sites showing up on users’ pages. If people are republishing entire articles instead of excerpts and stealing protected images, then they need to have those posts taken down. But if it’s really just links and summaries, that sort of activity drives more traffic to the news sites so Facebook is basically doing marketing work for those sites for free.

It would be more beneficial if we could get Facebook, Twitter and all the rest to stop censoring conservative speech, but that would be pretty hard to build into legislation. And I somehow doubt that Congress would be interested in such a plan anyway, at least as long as the Democrats are in charge.

Once we see how many more countries are seriously willing to enter into an anti-Facebook alliance with Canada and Australia we’ll have a better idea of whether or not Mark Zuckerberg truly feels compelled to come to the table. But I still don’t have an inkling of what he might offer to stave off the impasse.

Strong brands create an emotional link with consumers, and tech brands are no exception.

In fact, Google, Amazon, Netflix, and even eBay rank as some of the most searched consumer brands worldwide. It’s hard to imagine life without these household names, but, as Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld asks (and answers below) how do brand preferences shift and change across internet searches worldwide?

This graphic from Business Financing compiles 12 months of data from the Google Keyword Planner and other sources, to uncover the world’s most searched consumer brands.

Note: Due to data constraints, a number of countries on the map do not have sufficient information available.

In Tech We Trust

By far, the world’s most searched consumer brand is Google, which seems very convenient.

It ranks at the top in 100 countries—that’s nearly half of all countries on the planet. With over 90 billion visits monthly, Google has unparalleled dominance in brand loyalty and website traffic.

Top 3 Most Searched Consumer Brands

1. Google: 100 countries

2. Netflix: 45 countries

3. Amazon: 30 countries

Netflix, falling in second, ranks highest in 45 countries including Turkey, Brazil, and South Korea. In third, Amazon is the most popular in 30 countries. The only non-tech company in the top five is IKEA, in fifth place, after eBay.

Gaming the System

When it comes to sub-sectors of consumer brands, the gaming space tells an interesting story.

Namely, it is Epic Games—creator of Fortnite and Grand Theft Auto—that dominates global charts by a considerable margin. Founded in Potomac, Maryland, the company ranks at the top for 141 countries globally.

View the high resolution of this infographic by clicking here.

Additionally, Nintendo tops the list of 24 countries including Japan, Haiti, and Canada, while Paris-based Gameloft comes next in line.

Fast Fashion: Shoe Dog At the Top

Since its founding in 1964, Nike has become a remarkable brand builder. In fact, Nike is the most searched fashion brand among 49 countries.

Interestingly, founder Phil Knight only began to fully understand branding power after the company reached $1 billion in revenues. After a series of failures and missteps in the mid-1980s, Nike switched its focus from marketing and manufacturing, to instead, zeroing in on the consumer.

View the high resolution of this infographic by clicking here.

Like Nike, Swedish retailer H&M has a long history dating back to 1947. Prior to the pandemic, the fast-fashion retailer operated 5,000 stores globally. Since pandemic tailwinds, however, H&M plans to close 250 physical stores in 2021 and focus more on online sales.

Big Macs are Here to Stay

When you look closer at the most searched fast food chains, McDonald’s ranks highest on a global level, but not by far.

KFC comes in second, topping the list of 65 countries including Russia, Peru, and Thailand. Meanwhile, Pizza Hut, which is owned by the same parent company as KFC, attracted the highest number of searches in America.

View the high resolution of this infographic by clicking here

On the other hand, Antarctica curiously ranks Baskin Robbins at the top, but this could be influenced from a low volume of searches in the region.

Consumer Brand Outliers

If there’s one recurring trend across the top consumer brands, it’s that they are unsurprisingly dominated by big players concentrated in America.

However, notable outliers are present. In China, search engine Baidu ranks as the top consumer brand on the internet. On the other hand, the Vatican’s most-searched gaming company is Canada-based BioWare, which developed the Mass Effect series (no pun intended).

Meanwhile, in Saint Helena—the island where Napoleon was exiled and later died—has Burger King as its most searched fast food brand. As it happens, the remote island appears to have no Burger King, or any other fast food chains. Kenya’s top fashion brand is Louis Vuitton, while Turkmenistan’s is Gucci.

Despite these differences, many consumer preferences, at least according to search volume, appear strikingly similar on global levels. As many of these multinational brands continue to gain even greater market share, the implications for the global consumer will be interesting to watch in the next year, or even decade.

Via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

A month after his inauguration, President Joe Biden’s administration formally engaged on the international stage this week to set out key foreign policies.

His Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin addressed a two-day NATO summit via video link in which he relayed the message from Biden that the US would re-engage with transatlantic European allies. Four years of Donald Trump’s abrasive America First policy was being jettisoned in place of a more smooth, consensual approach under Biden.

President Biden would himself  address videoconferences of the Group of Seven nations held Friday, as well as the annual Munich Security Conference over the weekend. A major development is the Biden administration’s announcement that it is ready to rejoin the international nuclear accord with Iran, thereby repudiating Trump’s rejection of that deal. It remains to be seen, however, just what the Biden administration will want in exchange for honoring its signature to the treaty which was negotiated in 2015.

Other policy reversals include US troops remaining in Germany in contrast to Trump’s plan to draw down numbers. That sounds like another exercise in repairing relations with the Europeans.

Previously, Biden also announced he would negotiate with Russia on extending the New START treaty limiting nuclear weapons. The latter move is cautiously welcomed. But, again, it remains to be seen.

There’s no doubt about the change in style. The Biden administration is promising to be collegiate about strategic decision-making with European allies. The bullying rhetoric used by Trump for hectoring European members to spend more on NATO military commitments has been ditched by Biden. The Washington establishment was acutely concerned that Trump’s transactional tirades were alienating European allies and undermining the 30-nation NATO alliance, which in turn was diminishing America’s authority and frustrating its interests.

Historically, the United States relies on NATO as a conduit to project its power and influence over Europe. This was its fundamental objective when NATO was first set up in 1949 at the start of the Cold War against the Soviet Union. In recent decades, NATO has assumed an ever-expanding purpose for American imperial power projection, encompassing not just Western Europe but all of Europe right up to Russia’s borders. NATO has become a vehicle for American hegemonic ambitions holding sway over the Balkans, Caucasia, North Africa and the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific.

For an organization that nominally originated for maintaining security in the North Atlantic, it sounds rather odd indeed to hear its spokesmen talk now about the need for NATO to confront China. That oddly expanded global mission reflects the real but unspoken fact that NATO is all about serving American global ambitions.

Former President Trump was too ignorant or obsessed with money-grubbing financial costs – “we’re being ripped off” he would repeatedly complain with regard to NATO – to realize the strategic bigger picture of what the alliance is really purposed to serve.

Under a new man in the White House – an old-time establishment operative – there is seemingly a more consensual approach with allies. Nevertheless, underlying the liberal lexicon there is the same old mantra of hostility towards Russia and China.

Lloyd Austin, the Pentagon chief, told European allies this week that there would have to be “more burden sharing” in order to confront the “threats” allegedly posed by Russia and China. Biden continued the same theme of confronting Russia and China during his G7 and Munich conferences over the weekend.

American hegemonic ambitions required to satisfy its corporate capitalism are dependent on a zero-sum geopolitics. The globe must divided into spheres of influence as in the earlier Cold War decades. There must be antagonism to thwart genuine cooperation which is anathema to American capitalism. Indeed, it can be said that the Cold War never actually ended when the Soviet Union dissolved more three decades ago. America’s imperialist ideology continued under new guises of “fighting terrorism”, “democracy promotion and nation building”, or more recently “great power competition” with Russia and China.

The bottom line is that NATO is more important than ever for enabling Washington’s global power ambitions given the demise of American capitalism and the rise of China and Eurasia.

NATO provides a crucial political cover for what would otherwise be seen as naked American imperialism.

The contradiction, however, is that the world is increasingly moving towards a multipolar realm where nations are more interdependent and integrated in economic relations. Russia and China are major trading and investment partners with Europe, not adversaries, and even less so enemies. The latter depiction is absurd.

The only people claiming that Russia and China are a “threat” are the Americans, regardless of who is sitting in the White House, whether Republican or Democrat. (Well, not the only people. There are minor figures in Europe, such as the reactionary, rightwing Baltic politicians, who also spout Russophobia and Sinophobia in dutiful deference to their American mentors.)

Thus it can be adjudged that there will be no fundamental post-Trump reset of NATO under Biden. The organization remains what it has always been, a war machine to advance American imperialist objectives of hegemony. The only difference is the Biden administration is more savvy about projecting a more palatable image and rhetoric about “consensus”, “diversity” and “burden sharing”.

This revamped, yet in essence ideologically rigid, NATO suffers serious dissonance in practical relations with the real world of multipolar evolution. Biden will try to cohere NATO members to America’s global ambitions but those same members are inevitably aligning with the rest of the world out of their own political and economic self-interest. The more militaristic NATO tries to become at the goading of the Americans and their European flunkies like Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, the more the alliance is likely to unravel. Its imperialist function is no longer fit for purpose nor viable in today’s world.

The more the US pushes NATO as its vehicle, the more it is apparent that the battery of American power is running flat.

The superpower rivalry, sparked by the Cold War between the US and Russia, continues to this day. If that’s in stealth fighter jets or hypersonic weapons, there’s a race between both countries to field these weapons. Russia appears to be ahead in hypersonic weapon development as the US has yet to field these weapons. Still, the US is ahead of Russia when it comes to fielding stealth jets. 

The ultimate fighter jet is a fifth-generation fighter with a weapon bay that can carry hypersonic missiles. Both the US’ Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II and Russia’s Sukhoi Su-57 weapon bays are too small to carry hypersonic missiles. 

SU-57

However, Russian defense industry sources told Sputnik News that the Su-57 is undergoing tests on its ability to carry hypersonic weapons internally. 

“Russian media reported earlier this week that a realistic mockup of a new “intra-fuselage hypersonic missile” was being carried by an Su-57 for test flights. The details of the weapon are vague; however, it is likely the same weapon reported to have been developed in February 2020,” Sputnik said. 

At the moment, Russia’s Mikoyan MiG-31 carries the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal, an air-launched hypersonic missile that can travel at Mach 10, on its belly. The Tupolev Tu-160 supersonic bombers can also carry the Kinzhal.

With the Kinzhal measuring 26 feet long, and the Su-57’s 14-foot-long internal weapons bay, Russia has embarked on a task to make the world’s smallest hypersonic missile. 

SU-57’s Weapons Bay

“No extant hypersonic weapon has been so small, as all have been the size of large cruise missiles or air-launched ballistic missiles,” Sputnik said, adding that “such a weapon might be powered by an air-breathing scramjet, a type of advanced rocket engine used to attain ultra-fast speeds, such as that currently being developed by India.”

Ever since the Soviet Sputnik satellite entered orbit in 1957, both countries have been on a militarization path to gain an edge over one another. 

Authored by Katie Jones via InsightCrime.org,

Drug traffickers engage in a creative game of hide and seek with coast guards and other security forces that board their ships at sea.

Rubén Navarrete, a Mexican Navy captain based in the western state of Michoacán, told Televisa News last November that those dedicated to maritime smuggling could only be restricted by one thing: their own imagination. A spate of recent seizures prove his point as traffickers have been getting more inventive with hiding places both above and below deck.

InSight Crime looks at some of the most popular and creative ways narcotics have been concealed aboard ships over the years and how this continues to evolve.

1. Anchor

In some cases, drugs have been stored in the same compartment as the anchor, to which few people would have access. In 2019, media reports shared how nearly 15 kilograms of cocaine had been found concealed in a vessel’s anchor compartment, as it was docked in the Dominican Republic’s Puerto Caldera.

Otherwise, anchors have been used to facilitate the delivery of drugs once a ship has reached its point of arrival. In 2017, Spanish authorities announced the seizure of more than a ton of cocaine from a Venezuelan flagged vessel at high sea. The nation’s Interior Ministry detailed how law enforcement agents had observed around 40 suspicious packages onboard, that were linked by ropes and fixed to two anchors.

This was reportedly so crew members could throw illicit loads into the sea in the shortest time possible, to avoid being detected. Authorities observed how two of the crew tried to achieve this before being caught out with four other people who were onboard.

The anchor’s use in drug trafficking has been based on pragmatism, often attracting smugglers planning to make an express, maritime delivery.

2. Containers

One of the most common ways traffickers have attempted to smuggle drugs overseas has been through concealing illicit substances among supplies onboard, often located in the ship’s principal hold or hull. The “gancho ciego” or “rip-on rip-off” technique has commonly been used to send cocaine across the Atlantic, meaning smugglers regularly attempt to conceal drugs in containers which have already undergone checks carried out by customs officials.

As InSight Crime reported last year, scrap metal shipments have posed a sizeable problem for authorities in this respect, due to scanners being unable to pick up on smaller quantities of drugs when they are hidden among vast volumes of scrap. Equally, authorities have found it more difficult to deploy sniffer dogs to detect drugs in such cases, as the animals may get injured when performing their duties.

Otherwise, illicit substances have commonly been smuggled in among foodstuffs. In October of last year, Spain’s Civil Guard announced it had seized over a ton of cocaine at high sea. Authorities reportedly found the drug between bags of maize on a ship traveling from Brazil to the Spanish province of Cádiz.

And at the end of 2019, authorities in Italy discovered close to 1.3 tons of cocaine within a refrigerated container carrying bananas, which had arrived from South America. This followed a record seizure made at the nation’s Port of Livorno earlier that year, where over half a ton of the drug was found concealed in a container seemingly carrying coffee from Honduras.

Given the widespread use of this technique, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has worked with the World Customs Organization (WCO) to carry out a worldwide container control program, in an attempt to combat such efforts.

3. Captain’s Cabin

Drugs have previously been seized from inside the captain’s personal belongings. Such attempts are rarely revealed, requiring a significant level of corruption on a captain or crew’s behalf to work effectively.

Last year, Uruguay’s naval forces seized five kilograms of cocaine in the front cabin of a Chinese flagged ship, which had reached Montevideo from Brazil, according to media reports. Subrayado revealed how the captain himself had denounced the illicit load on discovering it.

On the other hand, in 2018, authorities in Paraguay detained a ship’s captain, after he was accused of smuggling drugs among his personal possessions in the cabin, Ultima Hora reported, citing the Attorney General’s Office. Officials reportedly seized over 150 kilograms of cocaine at the nation’s Port of Asunción, just as the drugs were about to be transported to Europe on behalf of a ‘known trafficker’ who allegedly worked for a Paraguayan criminal organization.

4. Funnel

Another potential hiding place for traffickers seeking to export illicit wares has been close to a given ship’s funnel. This is incredibly rare, however it has been known to occur.

El Tiempo’s archives suggest that over two decades ago, in 1996, authorities found cocaine hidden in ships belonging to Peruvian armed forces. Following a spate of related seizures, just under 30 kilograms of cocaine were discovered in a compartment near to the funnel of a ship belonging to the navy, anchored three miles from the Lima port of Callao. Days later, another 25 kilograms of the drug were reportedly found in the hold of the same ship.

This hiding place has rarely been used when reported seizures are considered, perhaps due to difficulties in smugglers being able to get close to a vessel’s funnel without being detected, and the limited quantity of illicit substances a given group would be able to conceal there.

5. Vents

Traffickers have been concealing drugs inside the vents along ship hulls, as smuggling below deck has taken off.

In 2019, InSight Crime reported that a trafficking network headed by Colombians had been sending cocaine to Europe from the Peruvian ports of Pisco and Chimbote, principally through employing divers to weld sealed packets of the drug into vents located in the hulls of ships. Up to 600 kilograms were reportedly smuggled per ship, without the crew’s knowledge.

In September of that year, Spanish authorities seized just over 50 kilograms of cocaine concealed in the submerged part of a merchant ship, after it reached the island of Gran Canaria from Brazil, EFE reported. According to the media outlet, officials detailed how part of the illicit load had been found inside a manipulated vent below deck.

And months later, in December 2019, police in Ecuador revealed how divers had discovered over 300 kilograms of cocaine hidden in the lower vents of a maritime vessel. According to authorities, the cocaine was seized before it could be smuggled onward to Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

When drugs are concealed below deck, ship vents are perhaps one of the most popular hiding places traffickers use, even if divers are typically required to facilitate this.

6. Water Inlets

Staying below deck, criminal actors have used water inlets to conceal drugs and facilitate trafficking operations. While this hiding place is less common than traditional favorites, sophisticated networks have been working with divers to store packets of illicit substances inside such valves.

Last August, media outlets shared how authorities in Chile had detained a group of 15 suspects (including Chilean, Peruvian and Venezuelan nationals) after they had allegedly worked to transport drugs from Peru to the country’s northern region of Antofagasta and the western zone of its capital, Santiago. The organization had reportedly been concealing drugs within the water inlets of a Peru-flagged merchant ship.

The vessel’s water inlets were reportedly used so a diver who formed part of the illicit network could extract concealed packets of drugs as the ship passed Chile’s northern port city of Mejillones. Reports from local media suggested the diver had been reaching the vessel on a boat with an electric motor which made little noise, to avoid being detected. On dismantling the group, authorities reportedly seized 1.7 billion pesos (over $2.3 million) worth of drugs, including over 20 kilograms of cocaine, more than 180 kilograms of marijuana, as well as smaller quantities of ketamine, LSD and MDMA.

This method is more complex than simply hiding drugs in a container located in the ship’s hull in that it typically requires somebody reliable on the other end to dive down and collect clandestine packages, all while avoiding maritime authorities.

7. The Hull

An increasingly popular approach adopted by traffickers has been to hide drugs below deck, within or attached to a ship’s watertight hull. Divers are often employed by criminal groups to facilitate such operations.

In 2019, InSight Crime shared how ship hulls have been increasingly used to facilitate drug trafficking, particularly by smugglers taking advantage of vessels disembarking from Ecuador and Peru. Criminal groups have picked up on how attaching drug shipments to the hulls of ships makes illicit substances near imposible to detect using standard inspection procedures.

However, officials have been combatting such cunning attempts. In 2018, Chile’s navy detailed how authorities had detained members of a gang working to smuggle drugs in the hulls of ships headed from Colombia to the nation. Authorities seized over 350 kilograms of “creepy” style marijuana, after a ship which had originally disembarked from Taiwan arrived at Chile’s Port of San Antonio, following a stop in Colombia. At the port, maritime police intercepted three Colombian divers as they attempted to pass seven packages of the drug from the ship’s hull to a fishing boat manned by two Chilean nationals.

In November of last year, Televisa News interviewed a naval diver based in Lázaro Cárdenas in Mexico’s state of Michoacán, who claimed such methods have been putting authorities at risk, with trained divers searching for illicit substances in crocodile-filled waters, in some cases.

8. Fuel Tank

While we may be more used to seeing drugs concealed in car fuel tanks, smugglers on ships have replicated this tactic.

Last April, the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian reported on how the island nation’s coast guard had intercepted a ship carrying an estimated $160 million worth of cocaine. Sources consulted by the media outlet revealed officials had discovered 400 kilograms of the drug in the vessel’s fuel tanks, adding that they had to perform a “destructive search” to reach the cocaine, as the hidden stash was kept in a secret enclosure, tightly wrapped in waterproof material.

On a smaller scale, back in 2015, authorities in the Dominican Republic seized just short of 80 packets of presumed cocaine, onboard a vessel destined for Puerto Rico, according to Diario Libre. The drugs had been found spread across six buckets located in the boat’s fuel tank compartment.

This method is far from the most common used by maritime smugglers and its intricacy has varied from case to case. However, through its ability to accommodate everything from drug-filled buckets to illicit packages wrapped in impermeable material, a ship’s fuel compartment should not be discounted as a hiding place.

9. Torpedoes

The so-called “torpedo method” has been highly popular among smugglers. Criminal groups have been filling makeshift tubes (also known as “torpedoes”) with drugs, tying such containers to the bottom of ship hulls with rope, so illicit loads may be cut off at high sea if authorities get too close.

In 2018, police in Colombia discovered 40 kilograms of cocaine inside a sealed torpedo attached to a ship destined for the Netherlands. A police news release detailing the seizure explained how divers may take advantage of a vessel’s drainage level system to attach such containers with hooks, ahead of transatlantic journeys lasting up to 20 days.

SEE ALSO: Peru Finds ‘Narco-Torpedo’ on Boat

Two years earlier, InSight Crime reported on how this method had been applied extensively by traffickers based in Colombia.

In 2015, authorities in the nation caught 14 people suspected of being in a gang dedicated to smuggling drugs in cylinders attached to ship hulls. To facilitate the group’s operations, illicit divers — one of whom was reportedly linked to the navy — bolted the containers to stabilizer fins of vessels, according to El Heraldo. The media outlet added that the cylinders were manufactured by a metal working expert, who also covered them with fiber glass.

But torpedoes have not just been bolted to ships setting sail from Colombia. As far back as 2011, InSight Crime reported on how Peruvian police had found just over 100 kilograms of cocaine hidden inside a makeshift torpedo attached to the bottom of a boat in a Lima port.

The torpedo method is intricate and often requires specialist involvement, from trained divers to metal workers producing the containers. However, this technique has become increasingly popular with traffickers who want to minimize the risk of being caught with illicit loads at high sea.

10. Engine Room

Drugs have been frequently hidden in rooms restricted to select crew members, often implicating those with inside knowledge in such cases.

In 2014, police in Ecuador seized over 20 kilograms of cocaine, found in a ship which had arrived at the nation’s Port of Manta from Singapore. According to authorities, the drugs were discovered in the vessel’s engine room, in two packages: a suitcase and a jute sheath.  

Three years later, authorities reportedly found just under 90 kilograms of cocaine in the engine room of a steamship docked at the Port of Palermo in Colombia, according to El Heraldo. Media reports suggested the load was ultimately headed for Brazil. But before the vessel could disembark, tip-offs led authorities to find the drugs in one of the ship’s most restricted places.

Nearly two decades ago, a Colombian naval training ship was found with over 26 kilograms of cocaine and heroin in its engine room. At the time, media outlets said the drugs could have been linked to self-defense groups in Cúcuta.

While this restricted room has been used to conceal smaller quantities of drugs, it is far from a popular place for smuggling to occur, particularly without some form of insider knowledge.

11. Propellor

In a particularly creative move, traffickers have been known to hide drugs under the propellors of maritime vessels.

Last December 8, the US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) shared how police divers in Puerto Rico’s port of San Juan had found just under 40 kilograms of cocaine worth approximately $1 million under a cargo vessel’s bow thruster, inside two marine net bags.

Roberto Vaquero, assistant director of field operations for border security in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands stated that smugglers had been using “very creative means to conceal their illicit drug loads into the international supply chain”.

Using a vessel’s propellors to do so is perhaps one of the most innovative albeit among the least reported ways in which smugglers have been moving illicit loads.

12. Store Room

A ship’s sail store room is out of bounds for most, but traffickers have found a way to use it to their advantage.

Naval training ships have been mobile transit hubs for drugs in the past through the use of restricted spaces. Off limits storage rooms have been used to conceal illicit loads during transatlantic voyages.

In August 2014, after a Spanish navy training ship arrived home following a six month cruise, authorities seized 127 kilograms of cocaine from a storage room where the folded sails were kept, El País reported. The media outlet suggested that very few people had access to this space.

During its voyage, the ship had stopped off in Cartagena, Colombia and then in New York. Three of its crew members were accused of selling drugs to traffickers in the US state, according to El País.

Such incidences are rare and usually rely on the direct involvement of corrupt officials or armed forces themselves.

13. Nets

Traffickers have been using nets attached to ships to their advantage, predominantly to bring drugs aboard.

In June 2019, media outlets revealed how traffickers had snuck over 16.5 tons of cocaine onto a cargo ship, following a billion-dollar drug bust in the US state of Philadelphia. It was reported that the ship’s second mate told investigators he had seen nets near the ship’s crane that contained bags with handles for transporting the cocaine, confessing that he and about four others had hoisted the bags onto the ship and loaded them into containers, after being promised a paycheck of $50,000 by the vessel’s chief officer.

This tactic has been used to facilitate the popular “gancho ciego,” or “rip-on, rip-off” technique.

By Ye Xie, macro commentator at Bloomberg Markets Live

Three things we learned last week:

1. Beijing is considering relaxing restrictions on capital outflows.

China will ease restrictions on investing abroad, including raising the QDII quota for institutions and studying the feasibility of allowing individuals to buy foreign securities within their annual limit, a State Administration of Foreign Exchange official said Friday. Currently, Chinese residents are allowed to purchase up to $50,000 a year of foreign currencies, but the funds can only be used for purposes such as traveling and studying, not for buying overseas property, securities or life insurance.

The authorities have already taken a slew of steps since late last year to encourage outflows and temper inflows in a bid to slow the yuan rally. To underscore the appreciation pressure, Friday’s data showed China’s current account surplus surged to $130 billion in the fourth quarter, the most since 2008.

The move also shows that PBOC is reluctant to directly intervene in the currency market, opting to let market flows determine exchange rates, according to Morgan Stanley.

2. Rising real yields have yet to do much damage to markets.

Ten-year real yields rose 20 bps last week, the most since the U.S. lockdowns in March. While global equities fell from a record, cyclical sectors such as industrial stocks outperformed along with metals. Both signal that markets are upgrading the growth outlook with fiscal stimulus and vaccine rollouts, and higher yields can be digested.

3. Central banks are in no rush to withdraw stimulus.

Fed officials signaled massive bond purchases will continue for “some time.” Australia’s central bank expects “very significant” monetary support will be needed as it’ll take years to meet its inflation and unemployment goals, according to minutes of the February meeting. In China, the PBOC showed a steady hand last week, signaling the small liquidity drain it conducted shouldn’t be taken as a sign of tightening.