Wikipedia is generally thought of as an open, transparent, and mostly reliable online encyclopedia. Yet upon closer inspection, this turns out not to be the case.
In fact, the English Wikipedia with its 9 billion worldwide page views per month is governed by just 500 active administrators, whose real identity in many cases remains unknown.
Moreover, studies have shown that 80% of all Wikipedia content is written by just 1% of all Wikipedia editors, which again amounts to just a few hundred mostly unknown people.
Obviously, such a non-transparent and hierarchical structure is susceptible to corruption and manipulation, the notorious “paid editors” hired by corporations being just one example.
Indeed, already in 2007, researchers found that CIA and FBI employees were editing Wikipedia articles on controversial topics including the Iraq war and the Guantanamo military prison.
Also in 2007, researchers found that one of the most active and influential English Wikipedia administrators, called “Slim Virgin”, was in fact a former British intelligence informer.
More recently, another highly prolific Wikipedia editor going by the false name of “Philip Cross” turned out to be linked to UK intelligence as well as several mainstream media journalists.
In Germany, one of the most aggressive Wikipedia editors was exposed, after a two-year legal battle, as a political operative formerly serving in the Israeli army as a foreign volunteer.
Even in Switzerland, unidentified government employees were caught whitewashing Wikipedia entries about the Swiss secret service just prior to a public referendum about the agency.
Many of these Wikipedia personae are editing articles almost all day and every day, indicating that they are either highly dedicated individuals, or in fact, operated by a group of people.
In addition, articles edited by these personae cannot easily be revised, since the above-mentioned administrators can always revert changes or simply block disagreeing users altogether.
The primary goal of these covert campaigns appears to be pushing Western and Israeli government positions while destroying the reputation of independent journalists and politicians.
Articles most affected by this kind of manipulation include political, geopolitical and certain historical topics as well as biographies of non-conformist academics, journalists, and politicians.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, a friend of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and a “Young Leader” of the Davos forum, has repeatedly defended these operations.
Moreover, US social media and video platforms are increasingly referring to Wikipedia to frame or combat “controversial” topics. The revelations discussed above may perhaps help explain why.
Already NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed how spooks manipulate online debates, and more recently, a senior Twitter executive turned out to be a British Army “psyops” officer.
To add at least some degree of transparency, German researchers have developed a free web browser tool called WikiWho that lets readers color code just who edited what in Wikipedia.
In many cases, the result looks as discomforting as one might expect.
Bill Gates Could Supply Your Next Coronavirus Test Kit
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will soon begin distributing at-home testing kits for Seattle-area residents who suspect they have contracted Covid-19, according to a new report in the Seattle Times.
Test kits could become available as soon as this week, via a lab funded by the foundation, could start testing hundreds per day with scaling availabilities in the weeks ahead.
“Although there’s a lot to be worked out, this has enormous potential to turn the tide of the epidemic,” Scott Dowell, who is in charge of the Covid-19 response effort by the foundation, told the Times.
“One of the most important things from our perspective, having watched and worked on this in other parts of the world, is the identification of people who are positive for the virus, so they can be safely isolated and cared for, and the identification of their contacts, who can then be quarantined,” Dowell said.
News of the test kits comes as confirmed cases in the US surge above 500 across 34 states. Washington state, specifically the Seattle Metropolitan Area, has been the hardest hit region in the country, with 16 deaths and 128 confirmed cases.
The Gates Foundation has spent more than $20 million in the virus response effort and has committed at least $5 million for the Seattle area.
Trevor Bedford, a computational biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, warned last week that actual cases in Seattle could be around 600. Bedford said cases could soar to 12,000 to 30,000 by the end of the month if virus containment measures weren’t in place to slow down the transmission rate.
While the foundation’s urgency for developing a new test kit is timely, Gates was apart of The Event 201 scenario in October (months before Covid-19) that modeled a breakout of coronavirus across the world, killing 65 million people by month 18.
With the Covid-19 breakout only just getting started on the continental US, expect this map to be much redder in the coming weeks. One can only hope the foundation can ramp up test kits, considering there’s a massive shortage at hospitals.
“On current course, China is liable to do significant damage to the rest the world, by accident or intent,” wrote columnist Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal on January 29.
“The Chinese Communist government increasingly poses an existential threat not just to its own 1.4 billion citizens but to the world at large”,wrote the noted historian Victor Davis Hanson on February 20.
“Chinese laboratories identified a mystery virus as a highly infectious new pathogen by late December last year, but they were ordered to stop tests, destroy samples and suppress the news, a Chinese media outlet has revealed.
“A regional health official in Wuhan, centre of the outbreak, demanded the destruction of the lab samples that established the cause of unexplained viral pneumonia on January 1. China did not acknowledge there was human-to-human transmission until more than three weeks later.
“The detailed revelations by Caixin Global, a respected independent publication, provide the clearest evidence yet of the scale of the cover-up in the crucial early weeks when the opportunity was lost to control the outbreak.”
In a speech on December 31, 2019, Xi Jinping was already triumphantly heralding a new year of “milestone significance in realising the first centenary goal”.
“Censorship. It can have deadly consequences,” said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on February 25.
“Had China permitted its own and foreign journalists and medical personnel to speak and investigate freely, Chinese officials and other nations would have been far better prepared to address the challenge.”
Unfortunately, the World Health Organization did the opposite, “praising” China for fighting the virus. Europe has also been busy appeasing China.
In China, 780 million people – roughly half its population – are living under travel restrictions, and its president, Xi Jinping, is using the crisis to strengthen his control. Since 2013, he has continued to expand his immense authority to remain “president for life“, and is now seeking to take advantage of the coronavirus to tighten his control over the public even further, while silencing dissent.
The consequences for Italy, which currently has far more infected persons than the rest of Europe combined, are described by Massimo Galli, the primary infectious disease specialist at Milan’s Sacco Hospital:
“We are in full emergency. Yes, I am worried. The epidemic has to all intents and purposes conquered a part of Italy…. The situation is, frankly, an emergency from the point of view of the healthcare system. It is the equivalent of the tsunami in terms of the number of patients with major illnesses hospitalized all at once. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Even the best health organization in the world, and we are among them, risks not being able to withstand such an impact”.
Meanwhile, China’s war on the truth marches on. The laboratory of the Shanghai Health Center was closed on January 12, one day after Professor Zhang Yongzhen’s team revealed the sequence of the coronavirus genome on open platforms. The Chinese regime prevented its scientists from finding ways to contain the epidemic. Their “crime”? Releasing the sequence to the world before the Chinese authorities did.
“The epidemic has exposed this country completely in its corruption, bureaucracy, information control and censorship,” said Phillip Wu, a freelance writer in Beijing.
And if you think the Chinese regime is meddling only in its own country, read a recent British report revealing how China is also curbing academic freedom in the UK.
Zeng Yingchun and Zhen Yan, two nurses from Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus, wrote a dramatic letter for the medical journal The Lancet, in which they asked the international scientific community for help:
“The conditions and environment here in Wuhan are more difficult and extreme than we could ever have imagined. There is a severe shortage of protective equipment, such as N95 respirators, face shields, goggles, gowns, and gloves. The goggles are made of plastic that must be repeatedly cleaned and sterilised in the ward, thereby making them difficult to see through.”
One day later, the nurses requested that their letter be withdrawn.
The Chinese regime arrested Li Wenliang, the doctor who had issued the first admonition about the epidemic that soon killed him. On December 30 he had sent out a warning to his fellow medical workers, but police told him to stop “making false comments“. Many journalists told the truth, but were arrested or “vanished.” Social media in China talked about the virus weeks before the government did. Now the Chinese communist regime is announcing plans to publish a book in six languages about the outbreak; the book portrays President Xi as a “major power leader” with “care for the people”.
At the Wuhan Institute of Virology, scientists carry out research at a laboratory that has the highest level of biological containment on the mainland, to study the world’s “most dangerous pathogens”. That the coronavirus might be related to Wuhan’s virus research laboratory is considered by some a “conspiracy theory,” but China’s refusal immediately to accept help from the US Centers for Disease Control understandably arouses suspicion. According to Paul Wolfowitz, former President of the World Bank and former US Deputy Secretary of Defense:
“The fact that Wuhan is home to China’s advanced virus research laboratory known as the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which does some classified work for the Chinese military, has predictably generated speculation that the novel Corona virus might have somehow leaked out of that institute.”
“Don’t buy China’s story: The coronavirus may have leaked from a lab”,wrote Steven Mosher, an expert on China, in The New York Post. We do not know the truth and we might never know it. The theory that the virus originated in a bio-research laboratory might indeed might turn out to be “fringe.” However, considering China’s level of secrecy and its dangerous campaign of censoring talk about the virus, is not doubt at least legitimate?
So far as anyone can see, the Chinese communist regime has no regard for human life, freedom or dignity. The regime kills prisoners to harvest their organs for transplant, and performs “forced abortions” for “population control”. There is not only an epidemic of viruses but also of “infanticide.” According to research by Harry Wu, a 75-year-old Chinese human rights activist, “there are six to eight million inmates working” in China’s “re-education camps” today. Meanwhile, the Chinese regime, by suppressing the truth about its deadly coronavirus, has endangered not only its own people but also the international community.
Italy’s fatal mistake was in trusting China’s regime. Instead of checking everyone — Chinese or Italian — returning from China since January, Italy kept its borders open. It is now dealing with tens of thousands of Italians under quarantine, 3,858 people infected and 148 deaths (as of March 6), the paralyzation of northern Italy’s economy, fear and hysteria in the population, with empty supermarkets in Milan, to mention just some effects of the coronavirus. Italy is now the world’s third-most-infected country after China and South Korea, with Iran not far behind.
Professor Dali Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, in an interview with the South China Morning Post newspaper, compared the coronavirus’ fallout to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in Ukraine. “It will be a crisis of Chernobyl proportions, especially because we will have to contend with the virus for years to come,” Yang said. Pharmaceutical and biotech companies around the world are working on a vaccine, which should at some point limit the damage. In 1979, there was an anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk, when deadly spores, leaked from a Soviet biological weapons facility, killed at least 64 people. Soviet and Russian authorities were able to cover up the incident until 1992. Nuclear, viral and biological disasters — followed by state campaign to keep these secrets — seem to be routine in dictatorships.
Unfortunately, we in the West appear to be making the same unforgivable mistake with communist China as we did with the Soviet Union: trusting a paranoid and merciless dictatorship.
“It is clear,” noted the Chinese dissident Ma Jian, “that the virus of Xi’s totalitarian rule threatens the health and freedoms not only of the Chinese people, but of all of us everywhere.”
A WeChat post dedicated to the late Dr. Li Wenliang included quotes from the Soviet chemist Valery Legasov, who investigated the Chernobyl disaster, and wanted to speak the truth but was silenced, persecuted and forced to lie by the Soviet regime:
“What is the cost of lies? It’s not that we’ll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth …”
Legasov took his own life. One day, we Westerners might also feel remorse for not having made the Chinese communist regime accountable for its cold-blooded crimes. Appeasing China, as we did the Soviet Union, is not just a failure; it is a lethal threat.
Trial Of Alleged “Vault 7” CIA Leaker Ends In Hung Jury
The trial of a former CIA computer engineer accused of the largest leak of classified information in the spy agency’s history has ended with a hung jury.
On Monday, a federal jury in Manhattan could not agree on whether to convict 31-year-old Joshua Schulte on eight counts, including illegal gathering and transmission of national defense information, according to the New York Times. Schulte was convicted on two other counts; contempt of court and making false statements to the FBI.
The motivation for the alleged theft, prosecutors said, was Mr. Schulte’s belief that C.I.A. management did not take his workplace complaints seriously. His feuding with co-workers led to his resignation in November 2016 to join Bloomberg L.P. as a software engineer.
The partial verdict came after six days of chaotic deliberations. One juror was dismissed in the middle of the discussions because she violated the judge’s orders by researching the case, and the lawyers involved, on her own, and then shared that information with the jury. The judge declined to replace her with an alternate, leaving a panel of 11 people. –New York Times
The jury reportedly complained about one juror who was not cooperating with the rest, causing concern over “her attitude.” One juror described the deliberations as a “horrible experience” – her eyes welling with tears as she finished talking to reporters.
Schulte, who created malware for the U.S. Government to break into adversaries computers, was named as the prime suspect in the cyber-breach one week after WikiLeaks published the “Vault 7” series of classified files.
As we noted in 2018, Vault 7 – a series of 24 documents which were released beginning on March 7, 2017 – revealed that the CIA had a wide variety of tools to use against adversaries, including the ability to “spoof” its malware to appear as though it was created by a foreign intelligence agency, as well as the ability to take control of Samsung Smart TV’s and surveil a target using a “Fake Off” mode in which they appear to be powered down while eavesdropping.
The CIA’s hand crafted hacking techniques pose a problem for the agency. Each technique it has created forms a “fingerprint” that can be used by forensic investigators to attribute multiple different attacks to the same entity.
…
The CIA’s Remote Devices Branch’s UMBRAGE group collects and maintains a substantial library of attack techniques ‘stolen’ from malware produced in other states including the Russian Federation.
With UMBRAGE and related projects the CIA cannot only increase its total number of attack types but also misdirect attribution by leaving behind the “fingerprints” of the groups that the attack techniques were stolen from.
In addition to its operations in Langley, Virginia the CIA also uses the U.S. consulate in Frankfurt as a covert base for its hackers covering Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
CIA hackers operating out of the Frankfurt consulate ( “Center for Cyber Intelligence Europe” or CCIE) are given diplomatic (“black”) passports and State Department cover.
Instant messaging encryption is a joke.
These techniques permit the CIA to bypass the encryption of WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Wiebo, Confide and Cloackman by hacking the “smart” phones that they run on and collecting audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.
The CIA laughs at Anti-Virus / Anti-Malware programs.
iPads / iPhones / Android devices and Smart TV’s are all susceptible to hacks and malware. The agency’s “Dark Matter” project reveals that the CIA has been bugging “factory fresh” iPhones since at least 2008 through suppliers. Another, “Sonic Screwdriver” allows the CIA to execute code on a Mac laptop or desktop while it’s booting up.
Schulte previously worked for the NSA before joining the CIA, then “left the intelligence community in 2016 and took a job in the private sector,” according to a statement reviewed in May of 2018 by The Washington Post.
The verdict showed that the jury had doubts about the government’s most important evidence, which came from a C.I.A. server. Trial witnesses guided jurors through a complicated maze of forensic analysis that, according to prosecutors, showed Mr. Schulte’s work machine accessing an old backup file one evening in April 2016.
He did so, prosecutors said, by reinstating his administrator-level access that the C.I.A. had removed after his workplace disputes. The file matched the documents posted by WikiLeaks nearly a year later, according to the government.
The defense argued that the C.I.A. computer network had weak passwords and widely known security vulnerabilities, and that it was possible other C.I.A. employees or foreign adversaries had breached the system. –New York Times
As the Times notes, Schulte’s legal troubles are far from over, as the government could retry the case. He also faces a separate trial after federal agents found over 10,000 images and videos of child pornography on electronic devices in his home.
When the first World War came to its end, intimations of an end to the European Era were already evident in symptoms: aching diplomatic joints, straitened perceptual political vision and the general financial health of the patient about to turn acute, as the constipated monetary policies of the Central Banks ushered in the Great Depression. But ‘life’ went on: European men and women wildly danced the Cancan throughout the 1920s; It was Cabaret, party time. No one wanted to acknowledge the omens of what lay afore them.
Last month, an Israeli academic opined that the future shape of the Middle East lies in the hands of three ‘insider’ states: Iran, Turkey and Israel.
It was an interesting observation. None are Arab; and it implied an incremental US disengagement, and a modest ‘king-maker’ role for Russia.
What makes this statement intriguing is the focus on just three states and the downplay of external intervention as the key ‘shaper’ of the future strategic ‘map’. Implicit here is that all three are flexing their military muscles. But diplomats and political analysts usually prefer to stay at the plane of politics and national interests. They dislike the fact that the outcome of military contestation, per se, can determine political outcomes, and thus validate or negate national interests. It is offensive to diplomacy. But often, it is just so. The region at this time is not really susceptible to a direct conceptual approach: So, the focus on the outcome of military contestation, trials of strength, and then on the other – quite different dynamic – of Covid-19 and its economic effects, makes more sense than traditional purely political calculus of interests.
And, of course, none of us find it easy to mix into this ‘pudding’ of the three powers’ military trials of strength, the possible effects of some extraneous occurrence – such as a Coronavirus outbreak, about which all is guesswork. Nonetheless, let’s try …
Let us consider Turkey: It’s leadership has tossed aside its mask. Ah yes, Turkey has been supporting (moderate?) Islamist opponents to President Assad? But, suddenly, the mask is gone — “Idlib is ours” (i.e. is Turkish). “Aleppo like Hatay, is Turkish too”. Neo-Ottomanism; pan-Turkicism. Yes, the Arab world has noticed, and Gulf States are quickly making good with Damascus against this neo-Ottomanism.
And, just as the moment this explicitly revanchist project seemed at risk of failing – under direct military pressure from Syria and its allies – Ankara simply threw its own troops in support of the al-Qaida forces, and even called down Uyighur and Chechen Jihadist reinforcements from Jisr al-Shagoor (the worst of the worst, extremists). Let us then hear no more from certain western circles of those ‘moderate’ forces with which Turkey is linked.
Some Turkish soldiers (34+), mixed in with these extremist forces, were killed, as they tried to exfiltrate from Saraqib, when it fell again to Syrian and allied forces. Turkish leaders went nuts with emotion and anger. The rhetoric of ‘betrayal’ went off the scale; and then, in defiance of their agreement with President Putin, they unleashed a barrage of ‘suicide’ attack drones on Syrian forces (and military installations) – and separately killed a fair number of Iranians and Hizbullah, by-the-by.
What has this to do with the strategic future of the Middle East? Well this: Turkey’s vastly larger army got a bloody nose (well beyond the Turk’s 34+ dead after Saraqib), from the asymmetric warfare strategy turned on them. Let that sink in: NATO’s second largest standing army effectively was trounced by smaller, irregular (but experienced) forces.
And worse, after 24 hours of Turkey beating its chest about the extraordinary success of its armed drones (launched during an unfortunate ceasefire called by Russia) that were to tip the balance of power in the Middle East, no less, Syrian air defences and (probably Russian) electronic warfare, fully neutralised the Turkish drone threat.
Let’s add up: Turkey has been exposed as having been using Islamism (and Al-Qaida Jihadists) as mere cover for its true neo-Ottoman and Pan-Turkic revanchist ambitions. The mask has fallen. It cannot be replaced. Neither its army, nor its armed drones, have turned out to be the game-changers that the Turkish leadership imagined them to be. Turkey too, has alienated Europe by its refugee blackmail (didn’t Erdogan take into account the impact of ‘the virus’ on European migration sentiment?).
Erdogan has infuriated the Russian military; and in an unprecedented joint warning, Iranian and Hizbullah militaries said that Turkish troops would become vulnerable, were Turkey to continue in this mode. This time, Turkey has ‘ticked off’ just about everyone.
But that is not the end of it. The virus affects another calculus, too: Debt – especially sovereign debt – suddenly is being viewed in highly sceptical way, following the sudden global ‘supply-shock’. Turkey’s economy is in deep trouble – but unlike earlier episodes, when the Chinese helped the Turkish Lira stay afloat, they too have been unimpressed by Erdogan’s trying to protect and use (some 3,000) Uyighur jihadists as a handy Turkish tool. The troubles mount up … and there are signs that Erdogan’s domestic political support is fragmenting (even within his own ruling party).
Putin saw the situation:Conflict between Russia and Turkey is only to the benefit of America. He smoothed Erdogan’s ruffled feathers, caressed his ego – and took ‘off the board’ the M4, the M5, and (ultimately) Idlib too. The 5 March “cease-fire” is a temporary agreement. It won’t last, but it puts the writing on the wall. Idlib is the pin that has popped the Turkish balloon. This represents a major regional strategic shift.
So, let’s visit the other pole to the strategic military equation: Iran has amply demonstrated an effective military prowess – both in terms of missile, drone and electronic warfare technology, as well as by its adoption of a radically de-centralised, amorphous and ambiguous, offensive capability. It is not perfect: it is not intended for going head-to-head with the US or Israel; but it can impose asymmetric costs on any adversary, and spread them across the region.
The Gulf States have come to this understanding; and so has Israel, which cannot face a multi-front war, any more than Iran can prevail in a head-to-head war with the US. (Though the US capability to mount the latter, probably no longer exists. The US can no longer credibly invade Iran in order to supress a concealed and prolonged missile assault on American and Israeli targets.) In short, Iran has acquired something of a military edge — enough to establish deterrence, at least.
And after the military dynamics, we are brought to the geo-politics and economics of the Corona virus.
The virus has brought an extraneous, sudden ‘shock’ to the real economy. The virus is not like seasonal ‘flu. It is much more infectious (the virus being in the throat, rather than lungs), and it propagates via cough and sneeze droplets that linger for many days on objects that others then touch. But unlike seasonal ‘flu, Covid-19 carriers may have the virus, but not have the disease (i.e. show no symptoms), which makes it hard to identify any chain of infection – or to take appropriate containment action. Medical experts, however, do not know the circumstances of Covid-19’s inception (presumed to be zoonotic, but lacking evidence for this); do not know its reproduction number; its fatality ratio; and do not know whether it is affected by seasons. It seems to have already mutated once, producing both a milder and a more lethal variant.
In short, anyone saying how long this virus will last simply is guessing. (Spanish ‘flu – by way of illustration of the nature of viral ‘unknowns’ – began in late 1917, processed through three distinct phases in 1918; mutated, and became more lethal in August 1918; (with the peak lethality taking place in September – November); and began to wane in 1919. It infected one-third of the global population, and killed between 50–100 million persons in Europe, North America and Asia.
So, in the face of such uncertainty, what can we say about the Middle East?
Well, the first point is that this economic shock comes toward the end to a long-term, debt and credit cycle, with the Central Banks having ‘goosed’ asset values with liquidity injections, and near zero interest rates. And here is the point: really for some decades now, all western (and Chinese) policy has been geared to demand stimulation. All the so-called ‘tools’ were monetary, and intended to make people spend and consume more.
But a sudden ‘supply-stop’ caused by a pandemic cannot be corrected by monetary or interest rate means. And factories dislocated, and supply lines cut, also implies ‘demand stop’, as merely being the obvious other side of the production ‘coin’ (as workers are laid off, or their pay is cut).
Already, trade is stalling, tourism is extinct and markets are fluctuating giddily. The virus is even putting into question globalist supply chains and western monetary policy. When the US ‘Fed’ announced an emergency 0.5% rate cut – the first since 2008 – markets fell. Of course the talk will be now of fiscal measures. But even fiscal measures cannot open factories, closed through disease and quarantine. What fiscal measures can do is subsidise otherwise failing businesses, ad interim. But that would go directly against our laissez faire culture (and in the EU, its direct rules).
How badly will the Middle East be affected? No one knows the timeline, or the final virulence of this virus. (Seasonal ‘flu has a 0.2% mortality rate of those infected; but the WHO is estimating 3.4% for Corona virus. The UK’s worst case scenario is half a million dead.) It is unlikely that regional healthcare can sustain the forecast 15-20% hospitalisation of those infected by Covid-19, who will require hospital treatment. Nor can Europe’s health system, either. Estimates (guesses really) for its peak is early summer.
Then there are the economic consequences: Tourism is dead; global markets have been crashing; and everyone is concerned about the massive overhang of corporate and sovereign debt – were the ‘supply-stop’ to be prolonged. Of course, oil producers will be the most vulnerable – for which, read the Gulf States. WTI is already trading in the mid $40s. But also, those most integrated in the New York financial system may be vulnerable to financial turbulence and bankruptcies – for which read Israel and the Gulf States.
It is unlikely that anyone will escape Corona’s effects, one way or another. Even if Covid-19 eases today, there is unlikely to be an economic snap-back. The effects will linger into the following two quarters. At the moment it is Iran that is feeling it most; but the twists and turns in the life of a virus can be capricious: Why is it that Italy has been so badly struck in Europe? No one knows (it seems it may have the more virulent ‘L’ mutation).
So to the bottom line: Strategically, Turkey has lost its game of ‘chicken’ in Syria, and may be about to experience an economic implosion – to be mitigated only by its preparedness, or not – to kowtow to Moscow and Beijing’s demands. Iran will survive – the Shi’a have a long experience of hardship – and Iran is too important-to-fail, for either China or Russia. The Lebanese, Iraqi and Jordanian oligarchs and Zaim (sectarian leaderships) were on the ‘critical list’, even before the Corona economic effects hit them, anew. They cannot reform, and refuse to adapt. Discontent will get worse, and protests generated by the virus-effects will proliferate – just as discontent in South Korea and Japan over Covid-19 already has been directed towards their leaders.
But the Gulf States, already politically undercut by the ‘new Sykes-Picot’ type humiliation on which Trump insists under his ‘deal of the century’ ultimatum – and caught between the rock of Washington’s Iran policy and the ‘hard place’ of the Iranian push-back – will suffer economically in ways for which neither its leaders, nor its stipendiary populations, are prepared.
Oil in the mid $40s (WTI), and a paralysed tourist industry for as long as Covid-19 takes, represents a new ‘shock’ worse than the September Aramco vulnerability ‘shock’.
Wuhan Students Get Homework Software Banned From App Store By Spamming It With One Star Ratings
In what is likely the most epic story to come out of China as a result of the coronavirus so far, locked down students in Wuhan have found a creative way to avoid doing their homework while schools are closed.
While schools have been suspended, teachers have been using an app called DingTalk to assign their students online lessons and homework, despite the lockdown.
After the app was introduced, however, students who were happy to be on lockdown beforehand grew annoyed with having to do work, according to the London Review of Books.
So they engineered their own solution and decided to take action. Students figured out eventually that if they had enough users spam the app with one star ratings, they could get it kicked off of the app store, which would then in turn prevent them from having to do homework.
As a result, “thousands of reviews” flooded into and DingTalk saw its app rating fall from 4.9 to 1.4 overnight.
According to the report, “the app has had to beg for mercy” on social media, stating: ‘I’m only five years old myself, please don’t kill me.’
Not much out of the country has given us hope since the coronavirus outbreak began, but this story should possibly give future generations optimism about young Chinese citizens’ eagerness to band together and overthrow authority.
And to the teachers, it’s already bad enough the kids are suffering through what is likely going to be one of the most impactful pandemics of modern times. Maybe you can cut them a break on the book reports for the time being.
WHEREAS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has determined that a novel coronavirus (“COVID-19”) presents a serious public health threat.
WHEREAS, the President of the United States has issued Proclamations prohibiting travel to the United States by foreign nationals who recently visited areas acutely impacted by COVID-19; the Department of State has issued Level 3 and Level 4 Travel Advisories for certain affected countries; and domestic and foreign health authorities have issued guidance to citizens within their respective jurisdictions, both recommending and mandating precautionary measures to defend against the spread of COVID-19.
WHEREAS, the Delaware Supreme Court has issued a statement advising that members of the public who are experiencing symptoms such as cough, fever or other respiratory problems should stay home and, if they have a court date scheduled, that they should notify the appropriate parties.
WHEREAS, the Court of Chancery regularly conducts trials and hearings involving the attendance of litigants, practitioners, witnesses, and other interested persons from around the United States and other countries.
WHEREAS, in the interest of protecting the foregoing individuals, court staff, and the public.
NOW, THEREFORE, it is HEREBY ORDERED, this 6th day of March, 2020, that the Court of Chancery will implement the following precautionary measures, which will remain in place until further order of the Court:
1. The Court will conduct conferences and hearings telephonically when it believes it would be practicable and efficient to do so and will promptly consider any request by the parties to change a hearing from being held in-person to a telephonic hearing.
2. With respect to trials and hearings for which it is not practicable to handle the matter telephonically, the following procedures shall be followed:
(a) Any attorney or party appearing pro se in a case shall promptly provide written notice to the other counsel and/or prose party appearing in such case, if such attorney or party reasonably believes that a scheduled trial or in-person hearing may require or cause the presence of an individual who (i) may be infected with COVID-19 or (ii) has been in contact within the past fourteen (14 days) with an individual who may be infected by COVID-19.
(b) If notice is given pursuant to subsection (a), the parties shall promptly confer regarding the appropriate means to conduct the trial or in-person hearing that is the subject of the notice. In doing so, the parties shall consider, among other things, (i) whether video conferencing would be appropriate and effective; (ii) whether an alternative attorney, party representative, witness, or source of proof is available without conflicting with subsection (a); and (iii) whether a delay in such trial or in-person hearing
would be appropriate, and if so, what is the least amount of delay necessary.
(c) Within three (3) days of any notice given pursuant to subsection (a), and as soon as practicable before any trial or in-person hearing that is the subject of such notice, the parties shall file a joint letter or joint motion that
(i) identifies the concern that was the subject of the notice;
(ii) explains the steps the parties have agreed upon and implemented to alleviate such concern;
(iii) sets forth any relief requested from the Court to address such concern; and
(iv) sets forth any disagreements among the parties, including alternative proposals not mutually agreed upon….
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WHEREAS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has determined that a novel coronavirus (“COVID-19”) presents a serious public health threat.
WHEREAS, the President of the United States has issued Proclamations prohibiting travel to the United States by foreign nationals who recently visited areas acutely impacted by COVID-19; the Department of State has issued Level 3 and Level 4 Travel Advisories for certain affected countries; and domestic and foreign health authorities have issued guidance to citizens within their respective jurisdictions, both recommending and mandating precautionary measures to defend against the spread of COVID-19.
WHEREAS, the Delaware Supreme Court has issued a statement advising that members of the public who are experiencing symptoms such as cough, fever or other respiratory problems should stay home and, if they have a court date scheduled, that they should notify the appropriate parties.
WHEREAS, the Court of Chancery regularly conducts trials and hearings involving the attendance of litigants, practitioners, witnesses, and other interested persons from around the United States and other countries.
WHEREAS, in the interest of protecting the foregoing individuals, court staff, and the public.
NOW, THEREFORE, it is HEREBY ORDERED, this 6th day of March, 2020, that the Court of Chancery will implement the following precautionary measures, which will remain in place until further order of the Court:
1. The Court will conduct conferences and hearings telephonically when it believes it would be practicable and efficient to do so and will promptly consider any request by the parties to change a hearing from being held in-person to a telephonic hearing.
2. With respect to trials and hearings for which it is not practicable to handle the matter telephonically, the following procedures shall be followed:
(a) Any attorney or party appearing pro se in a case shall promptly provide written notice to the other counsel and/or prose party appearing in such case, if such attorney or party reasonably believes that a scheduled trial or in-person hearing may require or cause the presence of an individual who (i) may be infected with COVID-19 or (ii) has been in contact within the past fourteen (14 days) with an individual who may be infected by COVID-19.
(b) If notice is given pursuant to subsection (a), the parties shall promptly confer regarding the appropriate means to conduct the trial or in-person hearing that is the subject of the notice. In doing so, the parties shall consider, among other things, (i) whether video conferencing would be appropriate and effective; (ii) whether an alternative attorney, party representative, witness, or source of proof is available without conflicting with subsection (a); and (iii) whether a delay in such trial or in-person hearing
would be appropriate, and if so, what is the least amount of delay necessary.
(c) Within three (3) days of any notice given pursuant to subsection (a), and as soon as practicable before any trial or in-person hearing that is the subject of such notice, the parties shall file a joint letter or joint motion that
(i) identifies the concern that was the subject of the notice;
(ii) explains the steps the parties have agreed upon and implemented to alleviate such concern;
(iii) sets forth any relief requested from the Court to address such concern; and
(iv) sets forth any disagreements among the parties, including alternative proposals not mutually agreed upon….
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Hand Sanitizer Is Flying Off The Shelves For $79 And $109 A Bottle At One NYC Hardware Store
At the Scheman & Grant Hardware at Eighth Avenue and 38th Street, the coronavirus represents shameless economic opportunity to take full advantage of the law of supply and demand.
Taking advantage of the ongoing panic, S&G is now selling 1200 ml bottles of Purell – a bottle that regularly costs about $5.49 – for $79.00.
And the price doesn’t seem to be deterring people from buying them, either. An employee at the store told the NY Post: “Everyone who comes in the store buys them. We sold about fifty of those today.”
The hardware store was also offering larger size 2 liter bottles of Purell for $109 each. It sold out of its supply.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, always eager to stick his nose into the affairs of someone else’s private business, commented that it “sounded like” price gouging. “I’d like my Department of Consumer Affairs to pay them a visit immediately,” de Blasio said.
Reached for comment, an Ace Hardware representative (the parent corporation of the hardware store) said: “Retailers are independent businessmen and women with sole control over the operation of their business, including pricing decisions and policies.”
Meanwhile, the rise in price reflects the extraordinary spike in demand for the product, which along with Lysol wipes, has risen 1400% from December to January, according to CBS. Laxman Narasimhan, CEO of Lysol parent Reckitt Benckiser said last week the company’s “people are working around the clock with consumers in mind.”
One 29 year old restaurant worker in Times Square who noticed the prices while in the hardware store said: “It makes me mad, man. It’s not right what they’re doing. They’re taking advantage of everything that’s going on. My boss at work was talking about. He has to make his own hand sanitizer out of alcohol and aloe Vera because look at these prices.”
Economist Peter Schiff had a different take on price gouging during the coronavirus panic.
“People are raising prices for certain supplies. Well of course,” Schiff said Friday on the QTRpodcast. “Demand’s going up. Of course you’re going to raise prices! What are you supposed to do? If you don’t raise prices, all of your stuff is going to get bought by a few people who are then going to hoard it or resell it on the black market. Prices are a rationing mechanism.”
All 3 US Cities Hit By COVID-19 Show Markedly Lower Weekend Traffic
Almost one month ago, we first looked at TomTom traffic congestion data across various Chinese cities (and a handful of US “control” cities) to assess the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the broader economy. Overnight, DataTrek’s Nicholas Colas took the TomTom data in his analysis of not only China, but also Italy and that other cluster of covid-19 cases, the U.S.
Here is what he found, from his latest Morning Briefing note to clients.
We continue to track traffic congestion around the world as a real-time measure of COVID-19’s impact on the global economy. This weekend’s data shows how the virus is affecting consumer demand, in comparison to weekday volumes that highlight commutation patterns. Today we will review the data from 9 major cities around the world, all touched by the virus but at various stages of reaction to the health threat.
First, here is the 7-day data for Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen (recent week in red, 1-year averages in light blue):
Beijing:
Shanghai:
Shenzhen:
Takeaway: while weekday traffic is getting back to normal, weekend congestion is essentially zero in Beijing and Shanghai although somewhat better in Shenzhen. China is clearly getting back to work but leisure travel/shopping is still not yet reaccelerating.
Now, here are Milan, Rome and Paris:
Milan:
Rome:
Paris:
Takeaway: the northern Italian quarantine is not affecting Milan’s traffic as much as China’s weekend data shows, but Roman congestion shows a marked slowing of economic activity starting Thursday and Paris was well below trend this weekend.
Finally, here are Seattle, San Francisco and New York:
Seattle:
San Francisco:
New York:
Takeaway: all 3 US cities affected by COVID-19 show markedly lower weekend traffic than average, and the generally subpar congestion during the middle/later part of the workweek tells us this is not due to the sorts of seasonal patterns we mentioned in our “Markets” section.
The upshot from all this: as capital markets have already started to discount, the global consumer is quickly retrenching, led by individuals who live in a city where COVID-19 has taken hold.
