Tag: news

Authored by Bryce Coward via Knowledge Leaders Capital blog,

We’ve been writing for the last month about the risks, and then the corrective activity in the stock market. Even as the market didn’t peak until the first few days of September, it “feels” like this pause has lasted longer than that. And yet, we don’t seem much closer to the end of this period than a few weeks back when it all began. What we mean is that while a few of the outrageous sentiment indicators such as options positioning have moderated a little, we have yet to see the kind of emotional flush/liquidation that is typically associated with good intermediate lows.

With that in mind, we highlight here a small number of things we’ll be looking for to help us assess if we are “there yet”.

1. Good intermediate-term lows come with spikes in volatility and hedging activity.

So far, volatility as measured by the VIX has actually gone down a bit during this selloff as a result of some unwinding of speculative call option activity that sent implied volatility through the roof in August.

Odd as that scenario was, we still would expect a meaningful move back up in volatility as the selloff progresses and larger daily moves in stocks get priced in. Furthermore, good lows are almost universally accompanied by a pick up in downside hedging activity. We can measure said activity using the put/call ratio.

It’s still below 1 indicating more calls being bought than puts even as the S&P 500 was down as much as 1.6% on Friday.

2. Good intermediate-term lows come with high levels of individual stocks making new cycle lows.

One feature of selloffs is that they are a clearing mechanism that usually permeates the market very broadly. Said differently, lots of stocks get sold off to new cycle lows before the thing is over. Currently, the percent of stocks making new 4-week lows is pretty slim, reflective in the fact that the NASDAQ 100 is the epicenter of the recent downdraft.

We’d expect the breadth of the selloff to expand as we get closer to an actionable low.

3. Good intermediate-term lows come when lots of stocks not only make new lows, but become oversold too.

The term “oversold” can be defined in a lot of ways, but one way to is to measure the breadth of stocks trading below various moving averages. In the case below, we measure the percent of stocks trading below their own 50-day moving average. Intermediate-term selloffs have typically seen this indicator in the 10-20% range as opposed the current reading of 61%.

4. Good intermediate-term lows come when flight to safety trades catch a bid.

There are many such trades, but two are long-term “risk free” bonds and the US dollar Japanese yen cross. Rates typically selloff aggressively and the yen usually firms nicely as risk-off positioning is increased. It’s possible the long-bond is depleted of signal these days as the pricing mechanism has been so aggressively distorted.

Even so, we’d still expect something out of bonds even if risk-free duration doesn’t quite have the spunk it used to. The signaling from the yen may not be as distorted, but even here the strength in the yen has been muted.

A more aggressive move in the yen toward 100 would be a good indicator of stress in the system, which is usually necessary for good intermediate lows to develop.

5. Good intermediate-term lows come with more accommodative policy.

This week we had the Fed basically tell the world that it won’t raise rates until 2023. That’s pretty accommodative, but it was also widely expected. What markets need/want is more from the fiscal side to fend off a second wave of layoffs and/or second-order effects of the high unemployment rate. Right now the probability of such action before the election seems to be diminishing by the day. Maybe the equity vigilantes will force the issue?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) didn’t bat an eye when ABC “This Week” host and former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos floats the idea of impeaching President Trump over filling the vacancy on the Supreme Court following the Friday announcement of the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Stephanopoulos: “Some have mentioned the possibility if they try to push through a nominee in a lame-duck session that the House could move to impeach President Trump or Attorney General Barr as a way of stalling or preventing the Senate from acting on this nomination.”

Pelosi: “Well, we have our options. We have arrows in our quiver that I’m not about to discuss right now.”

Watch:

Pelosi doesn’t count out Impeaching President Trump for using a power that is granted to him by the U.S. Constitution. pic.twitter.com/njvXzlPF08

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) September 20, 2020

Meanwhile, packing the court is another ‘arrow in the quiver’ – simply adding more Justices if and when Biden is elected. Notably, Biden came out against court packing during a July 2019 primary debate, saying “I’m not prepared to go on and try to pack the court, because we’ll live to rue that day.”

“If you play by the rules and win, we will change the rules.” https://t.co/4F4W25UGFl

— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) September 19, 2020

The Democrats’ fervent opposition to Trump filling the vacancy is more than a bit awkward considering the number of Democrats who in 2016 advocated for Obama to pick a nominee – including Joe Biden.

.@JoeBiden in 2020:https://t.co/2H9u7s2Crr

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) September 19, 2020

President Trump on Saturday said he expects to announce his nominee to replace Ginsburg this week, and he intends to pick a woman for the role.

“It will be a woman — a very talented, very brilliant woman,” Trump told attendees at a North Carolina rally. “We haven’t chosen yet, but we have numerous women on the list.”

Crowd in North Carolina chants: “FILL THAT SEAT!” pic.twitter.com/RuOI6vpK9u

— Team Trump (Text VOTE to 88022) (@TeamTrump) September 19, 2020

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been joined by a growing number of Republicans – aside from Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) – who say they will support Trump’s nominee rather than waiting until after the election.

At present, Justice Amy Coney Barrett has emerged as a likely frontrunner to fill Ginsburg’s seat.

Last night, TikTok parent ByteDance denied President Trump’s boasts about a $5 billion fund to finance the teaching of ‘the real American history’. Despite this, the deal appears to still be moving forward, at least, according to leaked press reports. Bloomberg revealed Sunday morning that the investors in the deal had agreed on a $60 billion valuation for the new TikTok. That’s 2x the $30 billion number being bandied about back in August.

That’s not all: For the first time, Bloomberg revealed the size of each investors’ stakes. Oracle and Walmart have reportedly agreed to buy 12.5% and 7.5% respectively of a newly established TikTok Global under the deal approved by President Trump. That’s a combined $12 billion tab for Oracle and Wal-Mart.

Beijing’s opposition to the deal has been widely reported in recent weeks. But if accurate, this latest news would suggest these may have been negotiating tactics. It’s not surprising, but this would be just another example of the cooperation and coordination between the CCP and Chinese companies that initially aroused the suspicions of American China hawks.

A $60 billion valuation would leave TikTok with a valuation just shy of now-public Uber, immediately ranking it among the world’s largest ‘unicorns’ – private companies with more than a $1 billion valuation, typically associated with the tech sector and Silicon Valley. At that price, we imagine Beijing would have no problem approving the sale of TikTok’s ‘secret sauce’, a content-recommendation algorithm that Facebook has already emulated with Instagram’s ‘reels’ feature.

Amazingly, it appears ByteDance will retain control of the algorithm, though the Bloomberg report says everything is in flux, even though that was said to be a dealbreaker for Oracle and the other American investors. Even with the algorithm, $60 billion seems high. Without it, such a high valuation seems extremely difficult to justify.

$60 billion valuation for TikTok’s US operations, means Oracle & Walmart pay $12 billion for 20% of new company. Also, plans to IPO new #TikTok Global in US.

China’s ByteDance may heavily cash-out from this ban situation & they even get to keep their algorithm.

Interesting win

— Tola (@adetolaov) September 20, 2020

Note: the $60 billion valuation above is for TikTok Global, not solely the US business, but the point stands

Although Bloomberg implied that details surrounding data security and the company’s back-end operations had been settled, it noted that many details of the deal, including the final valuation, aren’t set in stone. And Beijing hasn’t signed off yet.

Perhaps the most perplexing detail is that the deal, as described, would apparently allow ByteDance to retain majority control, something that was supposed to be a dealbreaker for Republican China hawks including Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley.

The final valuation had not been set as the parties worked out the equity structure and measures for data security, the person said. Terms are still in flux and the proposed valuation could still change. Beijing also has yet to approve the deal, though regulators are said to favor any transaction in which ByteDance maintains control of its valuable recommendation algorithms and other proprietary technology.

ByteDance was pressured into a deal for TikTok when Trump threatened to ban the app in the U.S. over national security concerns.

After Microsoft Corp. made a proposal for a full buyout of the service, ByteDance instead turned to Oracle’s offering in which the Chinese parent will maintain a solid majority stake.

“I approved the deal in concept,” Trump told reporters Saturday as he left the White House for a campaign rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. “If they get it done, that’s great. If they don’t, that’s OK too.”

ByteDance and Oracle representatives didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump has said the deal will create 25,000 jobs in the US, and that the new company “will have nothing to do with China.” Whatever happens next, it seems the Sunday night deadline has been abandoned. But we wouldn’t be surprised if fighting over the algorithm ultimately sinks the deal.

Every several years it’s same old: not long after the start of the post-crisis era, the investing craze du jour was solar, followed by 3D printers and cloud stocks; when that fizzled it was replaced with craft burgers/sandwiches which then morphed into the biotech bubble; when that burst blockchain companies were the bubble darlings of the day, which in turn were replaced by cannabis stocks. Not longer after, the pot bubble burst, leaving a void to be filled.

That’s when the virtue-signaling tour de force that is ESG, or Environmental, Social, and Governance, made its first appearance, which just happened to coincide with the oh so obviously staged anti-global warming crusade spearheaded by a 16-year-old child (whose words are ghost-written by her publicity-starved parents) as well as central banks, politicians, the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, countless “green” corporations and NGOs, and pretty much everyone in the crumbling establishment.

After all, who can possibly be against fixing the climate, even if it costs quadrillions… or rather especially if it costs quadrillions – because in one fell swoop, central banks assured themselves a carte blanche to print as much money as they would ever need, because who evil egotistical bastard would refuse the monetization of, well, everything if it was to make sure future generations – the same generations these same central banks have doomed to a life of record wealth and income inequality – had a better life (compared to some imaginary baseline that doesn’t really exist).

And since the green movement was here to stay, so was the wave of pro-ESG investing which every single bank has been pitching to its clients because, well you know, it’s the socially, environmentally and financially responsible thing.

There is just one problem. Instead of finding companies that, well, care for the environment, for society or are for a progressive governance movement, women’s rights or social equality (a bit of a paradox in a market that has led to the biggest wealth divide in history), it turns out that the most popular holdings of all those virtue signaling ESG funds are companies such as…. Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple and Amazon – you know, the world’s four biggest companies (and in some cases anti-ESG monopolies) that just get bigger by the day  – one which one would be hard pressed to explain how their actions do anything that is of benefit for the environment, society, or whatever the S and G stand for. It gets better: among the other most popular ESG companies are consulting company Accenture (?), Procter & Gamble (??), and Bank of New York Mellon (!!?!!!?!). At least Exxon is missing.

Yes, for all those who are speechless by the fact that the latest virtue-signaling investing farce is nothing more than the pure cristalized hypocrisy of Wall Street and America’s most valuable corporations, which have all risen above the $1 trillion market cap bogey (and Apple is now $2 trillion) because they found a brilliant hook with which to attract the world’s most gullible, bleeding-heart liberals and frankly everybody else into believing they are fixing the world by investing in “ESG” when instead they are just making Jeff Bezos richer beyond his wildest dreams, here is Bank of America’s summary of the 50 most popular ESG funds. Please try hard not to laugh when reading what “socially responsible, environmentally safe, aggressively progressive” companies that one buys when one investing into the “Green”, aka ESG scam.

Impossible, you say. Nobody can be that hypocritical… surely Bank of America has made an error? Well, no. As confirmation here are the Top 10 Holdings of the purest ESG ETF available: the FlexShares ESGG fund. Below we present, without further commentary, its Top 10 holdings.

And the punchline: this gimmick actually works – as the following slide from JPMorgan shows, ESG is now all the absolute rage on both earnings calls, where it has become one of the most popular terms among virtue-signalling companies, and has also seen a tremendous increase in capital inflows by various alternative investment funds.

As the next chart shows, while some had hoped that the covid pandemic would at least eradicate the poseurs, the weekly inflows into ESG funds are now off the charts.

Or perhaps it isn’t humans that are that gullible but only the robots:  as BofA notes, passive ESG funds have been gaining assets at a much faster rate than the active ESG funds.

Almost two centuries ago, PT Barnum said “there’s a sucker born every minute.” Little did he know how appropriate that phrase would be more than a hundred years later to describe investors in the virtue-signaling

It’s no secret that Republicans take filling judgeships much more seriously than Democrats. President Trump released his first list of prospective Supreme Court nominees before he was even elected, back in September 2016, and – in what was taken at the time as a grim harbinger of RBG’s condition – released his most recent revisions/additions earlier this month, just days before RBG died.

But in the latest indication of just how low a priority selecting Supreme Court judges has been for Democrats – after all, they’re not even in power, right? – Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is reportedly refusing to release a list of potential nominees, should he ever get the opportunity to fill the vacancy left by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Politico reported last night that Biden is taking a “cautious” approach to filling the position. After making his initial statement on Saturday, the Biden campaign has shut down public activity, while Biden and his team retreat to the basement.

Meanwhile, the Trump Campaign has been upping the pressure, calling on Biden to release a list of names. Democrats, including President Obama, have demanded that Republicans delay filling the seat until after the election. Mitch McConnell infamously killed the nomination of Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, by refusing to bring a vote to the floor.

While Biden himself was silent publicly, his campaign was laying plans to shift the focus of the looming Supreme Court nomination fight toward a referendum on the Affordable Care Act, according to his advisers. The high court is scheduled to hear the fate of Obamacare after the election.

Against that backdrop Saturday, President Trump’s campaign and even some Democrats demanded that Biden release his own list of potential court nominees — which Biden has steadfastly refused to do. Nor has Biden addressed the mounting pressure in his party to take a position on abolishing the Senate filibuster or packing the U.S. Supreme Court if Senate Republicans confirm Trump’s nominee before Inauguration Day. Biden has opposed ending the filibuster outright and court-packing in the past, though in July he expressed an openness to consider eliminating the filibuster.

Of course, Democrats and Biden’s allies indignantly accused the GOP of disrespecting the morning period for RBG’s passing.

“That’s sort of a wasted conversation because that concedes defeat right now. And the last thing we should be doing is analyzing how we’re going to recover from this loss,” said Hilary Rosen, an outside Biden campaign adviser and vice president at the SKDKnickerbocker firm, where top Biden adviser Anita Dunn is managing partner.

“Today is an RBG-fired engine. There’s nothing Joe Biden can say today to fire us up more,” Rosen said, adding that Biden also paused from publicly campaigning out of respect for Ginsburg’s passing.

As Politico explained, Biden is being ‘cautious’ because he doesn’t want to get sucked into a Twitter feud with Trump over the nominees. But to Republicans, it looks like just another example of Biden dropping the ball. After all, they should have seen this coming, right?

* * *

Here is the latest full list of potential SCOTUS candidates (Trump has released names on three occasions – Sept 2016, Nov 2017, and most recently Sept 9th 2020)…

1. Bridget Bade, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

2. Amy Coney Barrett of Indiana, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Barrett was a finalist for Trump’s second high court nomination, which ultimately went to Brett Kavanaugh

3. Keith Blackwell of Georgia, Supreme Court of Georgia

4. Charles Canady of Florida, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Florida

5. Daniel Cameron, the 51st attorney general of the Commonwealth of Kentucky

6. Paul Clement, a partner with Kirkland & Ellis, LLP, who previously served as solicitor general

7. Steven Colloton of Iowa, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

8. Tom Cotton, U.S. senator for Arkansas

9. Ted Cruz, U.S. senator for Texas

10. Stuart Kyle Duncan, judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

11. Allison Eid of Colorado, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

12. Steven Engel, assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice

13. Noel Francisco, former solicitor general

14. Britt Grant of Georgia, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit

15. Raymond Gruender of Missouri, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

16. Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Hardiman was also a finalist for the nomination that went to Kavanaugh

17. Josh Hawley, U.S. senator for Missouri. Hawley has already said he would decline the president’s endorsement to the court

18. James Ho, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

19. Gregory Katsas, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

20. Raymond Kethledge of Michigan, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit

21. Barbara Lagoa, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit

22. Christopher Landau, U.S. ambassador to Mexico

23. Joan Larsen of Michigan, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit

24. Mike Lee of Utah, United States Senator

25. Thomas Lee of Utah, Supreme Court of Utah

26. Edward Mansfield of Iowa, Supreme Court of Iowa

27. Federico Moreno of Florida, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida

28. Carlos Muñiz, a justice on the Supreme Court of Florida

29. Kevin Newsom of Alabama, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit

30. Martha Pacold, judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois

31. Peter Phipps, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

32. Sarah Pitlyk, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri

33. William Pryor of Alabama, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit

34. Allison Jones Rushing, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

35. Margaret Ryan of Virginia, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces

36. David Stras of Minnesota, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

37. Diane Sykes of Wisconsin, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

38. Amul Thapar of Kentucky, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit

39. Kate Todd, deputy assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president

40. Timothy Tymkovich of Colorado, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

41. Lawrence VanDyke, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

42. Robert Young of Michigan, Supreme Court of Michigan (Ret.)

43. Don Willett, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

44. Patrick Wyrick, District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

Damning details of purposeful malfeasance by Boeing executives emerged in a Congressional investigation.

FAA, Boeing Blasted Over 737 MAX Failures

On Wednesday, the Transportation Committee Blasted FAA, Boeing Over 737 MAX Failures

The 238-page document, written by the majority staff of the House Transportation Committee, calls into question whether the plane maker or the Federal Aviation Administration has fully incorporated essential safety lessons, despite a global grounding of the MAX fleet since March 2019.

After an 18-month investigation, the report, released Wednesday, concludes that Boeing’s travails stemmed partly from a reluctance to admit mistakes and “point to a company culture that is in serious need of a safety reset.”

The report provides more specifics, in sometimes-blistering language, backing up preliminary findings the panel’s Democrats released six months ago, which laid out a pattern of mistakes and missed opportunities to correct them. 

In one section, the Democrats’ report faults Boeing for what it calls “inconceivable and inexcusable” actions to withhold crucial information from airlines about one cockpit-warning system, related to but not part of MCAS, that didn’t operate as required on 80% of MAX jets. Other portions highlight instances when Boeing officials, acting in their capacity as designated FAA representatives, part of a widely used system of delegating oversight authority to company employees, failed to alert agency managers about various safety matters.

Boeing Purposely Hid Design Flaws

The Financial Times has an even more damning take in its report Boeing Hid Design Flaws in Max Jets from Pilots and Regulators.

Boeing concealed from regulators internal test data showing that if a pilot took longer than 10 seconds to recognise that the system had kicked in erroneously, the consequences would be “catastrophic”.

The report also detailed how an alert, which would have warned pilots of a potential problem with one of their anti-stall sensors, was not working on the vast majority of the Max fleet. It found that the company deliberately concealed this fact from both pilots and regulators as it continued to roll out the new aircraft around the world.

In Bed With the Regulators

Boeing’s defense is the FAA signed off on the reviews.

Lovely. Boeing coerced or bribed the FAA to sign off on the reviews now tries to hide behind the FAA.

 Only One Way to Stop This

There is only one way to stop executive criminals like those at Boeing.

Charge them with manslaughter, convict them, send them to prison for life, then take all of their stock and options and hand the money out for restitution.

Despite this week’s “shock” Trump administration announcement that Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera must now register in the United States as a ‘foreign agent’, Washington ties with the tiny oil and gas rich monarchy continues to warm, especially given the vital role Qatar plays in hosting US forces.

Reuters now reports that “The United States hopes to move forward with naming Qatar as a major non-NATO ally, a status that provides foreign nations with benefits in defense trade and security cooperation, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday.”

US deputy assistant secretary of state for Arabian Gulf affairs Timothy Lenderking told reporters at the end of this week, “We’re going to move ahead, we hope, with designating Qatar a major non-NATO ally.”

Such a designation would allow for the wealthy Arab gulf country, which has over the past years been involved in inter-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) turmoil with the Saudis and Emirates on the other side, to have preferential access to US military hardware, training, and technology.

This also comes on the heels of the landmark Israeli peace deal and ‘normalization of ties’ with the UAE and Bahrain, however, Israel has objected to US plans to sell the F-35 stealth fighter to the UAE. 

Recall also the Qatar played a major part in US-Saudi regime change efforts in Syria, and even hosted ‘rebel’ training camps allegedly run by American special forces soldiers in the Qatari desert. A 2014 Reuters article quoted the following:

“The U.S. wanted to help the rebels oust Assad but didn’t want to be open about their support, so to have rebels trained in Qatar is a good idea, the problem is the scale is too small,” said a Western source in Doha.

In Shocking, Viral Interview, Qatar Confesses Secrets Behind Syrian War https://t.co/hXD57gHJzP

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 28, 2017

The United States has been in closer military cooperation with the Arab gulf kingdoms especially over past years of operations geared toward ‘countering the Iran threat’.

Tehran will no doubt see Qatar’s designation as a major non-NATO ally as a direct threat toward the Islamic Republic.

Iran already threatened the UAE upon normalizing relations with Israel, saying that in any attack the UAE has now made itself a target of any Iranian military response.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

We have previously discussed the brutality of Islamic nations enforcing medieval Sharia law. Iran has given the world another shocking addition to the long list of beheadings, floggings, and other forms of Islamic punishment. A “court” has ordered the amputation of the fingers of three teenagers found guilty of theft.

Photographs released by the country’s state news agency in 2013 show the punishment being carried out. In the images, a blindfolded man is led to the a crude saw, where two hooded men put his hand in a vice.

(source: The Sun)

Another turns a handle which operates a circular saw that guillotines four of the man’s fingers.

(source: The Sun)

The three prisoners will have four fingers from their right hands sawn off.

According to Iran International, the Iranian Supreme Court has upheld the Sharia sentencing Hadi Rostami, Mehdi Sharafian and Mehdi Shahivand who were convicted of four counts of robbery in the northern city of Urmia.

The boys have complained of torture leading to their confessions and one is reportedly in dire health condition after slitting one of his wrists.

Here is the provision found in Article 278 of the Islamic Punishment Law:

Article 278– The hadd punishment for theft is as follows:

(a)   On the first occasion, amputation of the full length of four fingers of the right hand of the thief in such a manner that the thumb and palm of the hand remain.

(b)   On the second occasion, amputation of the left foot from the end of the knob [on the foot] in such a manner that half of the sole and part of the place of anointing [during ablution] remain.

(c)    On the third occasion, life imprisonment.

(d)   On the fourth occasion, the death penalty even though the theft is committed in prison.

Note 1- When the thief is lacking the limb which shall be amputated, s/he shall be sentenced to the punishment prescribed for ta’zir thefts.

Note 2- Regarding paragraph (c) of this article and other thefts that do not fall under the category of ta’zir, if the offender repents during the execution of the punishment, and the Supreme Leader agrees with his/her release, s/he shall be pardoned and released. In addition the Supreme Leader can replace his/her punishment with another ta’zir punishment.

Amputation was thought to have been phased out of Tehran’s arsenal of punishment in the mid-2000s. But in 2008, five criminals convicted of various crimes, including “acting against God” and “corruption upon this Earth,” were reportedly subjected to “cross amputation” where the right hands and left feet of the men were removed.

In a report on Iran’s justice system, Amnesty International said:

“Amputation is torture plain and simple, and administering torture is a crime under international law.

As a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Iran is legally obliged to forbid torture in all circumstances and without exception.

Those responsible for ordering and executing such practices should know that they are liable to criminal prosecution under international law.”

The amputation of the fingers of these minors is an offense to the most base concepts of human rights and indeed humanity itself.

Vladimir Putin has blamed the United States for Russia’s development of hypersonic weapons, saying specifically it was ultimately Washington’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) in 2002 which triggered the experimental defense technology program. 

As the name suggests, it was an arms limitation and reduction treaty brokered with the Soviet Union which regulated the anti-ballistic missile systems used in defending areas against ballistic missile-delivered nuclear weapons.

Putin said during a televised address on Saturday: “The withdrawal of the United States from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 forced Russia to start developing hypersonic weapons. We had to create these weapons in response to the deployment of the US strategic missile defense system, which was capable to actually neutralize, reset our entire nuclear potential in the future,” according to Russia’s Sputnik.

Interestingly the timing and blame-game nature of Putin’s statements come a little over a year after the United States withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF. It also comes as the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty is on the chopping block as well, amid ongoing negotiations. 

“I have repeatedly said that for decades we had to constantly catch up, as you know very well. At first, this applied to nuclear weapons, then long-range strategic aviation, and then intercontinental missile technology, which specialists call the means of delivery,” Putin stated.

“And now, for the first time in our modern history, Russia has the most modern types of weapons that are many times superior in strength, power, speed, and, most importantly, accuracy to anything that existed and exists today. No one in the world has such a weapon. Not yet, anyway,” the Russian president said.

The remarks were on the occasion of honoring the scientist and engineer responsible for the success of Russia’s Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle program, Gerbert Efremov.

Addressing Efremov, Putin said, “Today, the implementation of your idea can undoubtedly be compared to the implementation of the Soviet Union’s nuclear and missile projects, which were carried out by outstanding Soviet scientists [Igor] Kurchatov and [Sergey] Korolev,” Putin said.

Over the past couple years Russia has unveiled multiple cutting edge strategic weapons systems which are at various stages of development and testing.