Month: September 2020

Armenia could trigger its collective defense pact with Russia, the latter which also has a sprawling military base at Gyumri in the northwest part of the country, but on Monday the Armenian Ambassador to Moscow, Vardan Toganyan, has said the escalation of fighting with Azerbaijan has not reached that point yet. 

The Ministry of Defense of #Azerbaijan publishes footage of battles in #Karabakh, including artillery and mortar strikes, as well as the use of MLRS. pic.twitter.com/8OTqAfydWp

— Ali Özkök (@Ozkok_A) September 28, 2020

Russia’s TASS, however, has underscored that this remains a distinct possibility at a moment Armenia has reported at least 31 of its troops killed in the contested Nagorno-Karabakh border region, which it says its forces are protecting from Azerbaijan’s shelling and aggression:

According to him, Yerevan and Moscow continue to boost defense cooperation. “We believe that should the need arise, we will request Russia [for additional military assistance],” the envoy pointed out. “As of today, we don’t think that we need additional troops or other forces,” he added.

“However, we do believe that Russia has a major role in the Caucasus and is capable of using political methods to put an end to bloodshed,” Toganyan emphasized.

Putin held a phone call with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan over the situation which began this weekend in the historically restive autonomous region which though claimed by Azerbaijan (and internationally recognized as such), declared independence in 1991 as an Armenian ethnic enclave. 

President Trump also weighed in, calling for an immediate halt to fighting and deescalation of tensions. Congressional leaders have also condemned the violence. 

I condemn Azerbaijan’s reckless military attacks in the region.

Azerbaijan should be held accountable for its aggressive actions which undermine peace. (1/2)https://t.co/w1CVDLfjSh

— Rep Josh Gottheimer (@RepJoshG) September 27, 2020

Both sides have reported civilian deaths, which each blaming the other for the beginning of weekend hostilities, which has tragically seen dozens killed. 

By all accounts it’s the fiercest fighting the region has seen since the 1990s, with tanks, aircraft, and artillery units deployed and currently in direct clashes.

#KARABAKH – An Azerbaijani armed drones destroyed an Armenian military truck and other military positions. pic.twitter.com/IkDiHv9opX

— Ali Özkök (@Ozkok_A) September 28, 2020

Azerbaijan early Monday reported blocked civilian flights from using its airports for the next two days, until at least Sept.30, amid the mobilization of military aerial assets, which include Israeli supplied drones. 

Meanwhile, Reuters reports on the growing finger pointing regarding Turkey’s alleged deepening involvement on the side of Azerbaijan:

Armenia’s ambassador to Moscow said on Monday that Turkey had sent around 4,000 fighters from northern Syria to Azerbaijan and that they were fighting there, an assertion denied by an aide to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev.

Armenia also said Turkish military experts were fighting alongside Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous breakaway region of Azerbaijan run by ethnic Armenians, and that Turkey had provided drones and warplanes.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have reported increasing civilian and military casualties amid violent clashes over the breakaway enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The two countries have been locked in a territorial dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region for decades. pic.twitter.com/kiTD0tfi2m

— DW News (@dwnews) September 28, 2020

Alarmingly, the situation could begin to mimic Syrian and Libya. In each Russia and Turkey are supporting opposite sides via proxy forces. 

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

It appears that Judge Amy Coney Barrett has gone from a “cult member” for being a devout Catholic to a possible “white colonizer” for adopting two Haitian children.  Where most of us saw a loving interracial family at the White House ceremony on Saturday,  Ibram X. Kendi, the new director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, saw a possible case of effective baby snatching by “White colonizers.”

On Saturday, Kendi wrote “Some White colonizers ‘adopted’ Black children. They ‘civilized’ these ‘savage’ children in the ‘superior’ ways of White people, while using them as props in their lifelong pictures of denial, while cutting the biological parents of these children out of the picture of humanity.”  The obvious implication is that the Barrett’s may have used their adopted children as mere props as part of a possible effort to hide their racism. It was clearly designed to curtail the praise of the Barrett family by suggesting that the parents might be racists. Indeed, he puts “adopted” in quotation marks to suggest that some of these children are not really adopted but presumably acquired or snatched by “White people.”

After leveling that truly disgusting suggestion against this family, Kendi added “And whether this is Barrett or not is not the point. It is a belief too many White people have: if they have or adopt a child of color, then they can’t be racist.”

And whether this is Barrett or not is not the point. It is a belief too many White people have: if they have or adopt a child of color, then they can’t be racist.

— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) September 26, 2020

It is akin to saying that you are not sure “whether not” Barrett is a kidnapper while leaving that question dangling as you explain how the criminal scheme.  It is an example how any notion of decency can be dispensed with in the criticism of conservative figures or causes. Once again, the only thing more disturbing than this outrageous attack is the relative silence of the media or Kendi’s colleagues.

It appears that it only takes a Supreme Court nomination to take a clearly loving interracial family to raise the possibility that the parents are craved racist baby snatchers.  It is not clear if Kendi would have preferred that Barrett hide two of her children or not mention them to avoid any suggestion that they are mere props.  What is clear is that he wanted to interject the possible racism of the Barretts at a time when others were complementing the Barretts and their family. He then expressed a sense of his own injury when his words were taken as an accusation of any kind:

“And whether this is Barrett or not is not the point. It is a belief too many White people have: if they have or adopt a child of color, then they can’t be racist/ I’m challenging the idea that White parents of kids of color are inherently ‘not racist’ and the bots completely change what I’m saying to ‘White parents of kids of color are inherently racist.’ These live and fake bots are good at their propaganda. Let’s not argue with them.”

In fact, many of us are not saying that Kendi said that all white parents of kids of color are racist. We found his need to raise whether the Barretts might be racists using her black children as props to be sufficiently offensive.

Judge Barrett has never had a charge of racism leveled against her as a lawyer, a law professor or a judge. While many disagree with her judicial philosophy, there is absolutely no basis to suggest that she is a racist or akin to a “white colonizer.” It is a classic set up to “prove the negative.” Prove that your adoption of two children from Haiti was not an effort to acquire “props in [your] lifelong pictures of denial.” As is often the case in the last few years, many of us are left simply dumbfounded by these vicious and gratuitous attacks. This (and so many moments) is best captured by the words of Army counsel Joseph Welch at the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954: “Have you no shame, sir, at long last? Have you no shame?”

TikTok-owner ByteDance greeted news of last night’s court ruling blocking a White House executive order with relief. But as we noted, while the ruling will at least delay a Trump Administration order to strip the app from app stores owned by Google and Apple, the court battle will likely continue, particualrly as the Nov. 12 deadline draws closer.

State-controlled Chinese media also celebrated the judge’s ruling, but they also pointed out that President Trump’s efforts to ‘steal’ TikTok weren’t over, and that a deal to transform TikTok into a US-controlled company would likely never pass muster with Beijing. In an editorial published by the English-language China Daily, Beijing castigated American hypocrisy over its claims to be a paragon of “fair competition”. Instead, “the move on TikTok has once again shown that [the US] is a ruthless predator on the success of others.”

“Like its waving of the banner of human rights, its standard bearing for fair competition is a sham. It seeks to portray itself as a good citizen in the community of nations, when it is anything but plans,” the editors raged. The US administration’s bid to make TikTok a prize of its piracy is no to be condoned, and it will undoubtedly incur proportional countermeasures from Beijing.”

As far as future talks are concerned, Beijing warned that the current deal is “dirt and totally unacceptable”.

Yet the ruling, which serves to appease the anger of the TikTok users in the US, is only temporary and the judge declined to block other US Commerce Department restrictions set to take effect on Nov 12 that ban technical and business arrangements that are necessary for the proper functioning of the app.

Nonetheless, the injunction would seem to have given more time for negotiations between ByteDance and Oracle and Wal-Mart on TikTok to come to an agreement on TikTok’s operations. The talks had come to a virtual standstill because the deal given the nod by the US administration would have been tantamount to transforming the proposed new entity TikTok Global into a US company.

Even many third parties have deemed this to be dirty and totally unacceptable.

That means the two sides have another one and a half months to find a deal that passes muster not only with the US administration but also the Chinese government, since it involves technologies that are on the list of those restricted for transfer.

The paper also likened the battle over TikTok to the Trump Administration’s tactics during the negotiations for the Phase 1 trade deal.

There is a sense of the déjà vu about the US administration’s moves, not only because it recalls the labor pains preceding the delivery of the phase one trade deal between the two countries, but also because of previous US administration’s attacks on foreign tech companies that threatened the US tech preeminence. Although the US administration labels TikTok as a threat to national security, it is the business success and technological advantage the app has achieved in the US that actually prompted it to smash the company and let the companies of its cronies grab whatever they can that might be of value.

That wasn’t all. Wang Wenbin, the powerful and widely quoted spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, accused the US of “abusing national power” and “bullying behavior” in its quest to wrest control of TikTok from ByteDance. A judge ruled on the injunction request last night, but details of the ruling remain sealed for now.

The deal struck earlier this month would leave Oracle as TikTok’s “trusted technology partner” handling all its back-end web hosting, leaving Oracle in control of all user data gathered by the app. Both sides have offered conflicting information on the ownership breakdown of the deal.

Instead of trying to bully China into giving up a lucrative asset, the US should “provide a fair, just, open, and non-discriminatory business environment for companies around the world investing and operating in the country,” Wang said. TikTok said Sunday that it would “maintain our ongoing dialogue with the government” on the plan, which has received preliminary approval from Trump.

The Nikola One semi truck has been at the center of much of the controversy surrounding Nikola. Namely, it is now becoming famous for being the semi that the company has admitted it rolled down a hill in a video where it described the semi as “in motion”, leading many to believe the truck was moving under its own power.

It’s also becoming famous for being at the center of a $2 billion lawsuit between Nikola and Tesla, where Nikola has alleged that Tesla infringed on its patents. In its lawsuits, Nikola claimed that former CEO and founder Trevor Milton began designing the Nikola One as far back as 2013, according to the FT.

In Tesla’s response to the lawsuit last week they alleged that Nikola’s designs actually originated elsewhere, from Croatia-based designed Adriano Mudri. And the FT reported days ago that Milton did in fact buy the designs for the Nikola One after meeting with Mudri in 2015.

Nikola had claimed that Milton worked on the truck designs for 2 years before hiring designer Steve Jennes in 2015. The two of them then supposedly “crafted the final design” for the truck and Nikola had spent “several million dollars” developing the truck.

Tesla does not allege any details around the transaction, but claims the designs came from Mudri, a designer at Rimac, who had called the truck the “Road Runner”.

“Several people with knowledge of the deal” are cited as saying that Milton wanted to collaborate with Rimac on a number of projects. On a trip to Rimac, Milton bought the designs for “several thousand dollars”, the report says. He even kept the “Road Runner” name as the name for Nikola’s internal project, it says. 

FT reports it saw a document where people were invited to collaborate on the “Nikola Roadrunner Prototype Project”. 

Tesla’s filing says: “Trevor Milton chose not to disclose the Road Runner concept truck to the [US Patent and Trademark Office] with deceptive intent.”

“The Nikola One truck was designed and patented by Nikola. It is commonplace to license third party designs during vehicle development, and although early in the process Nikola purchased a license to Adriano Mudri’s designs, he was not part of the design team and his designs are materially different from the design invented by Nikola for the Nikola One,” Nikola responded.

Moments ago, ECB president Christine Lagarde confirmed again that the European Central Bank remains generally helpless to boost growth in a world in which it unleashed negative rates, sending European banks to all time lows last week, and where the second wave of Covid cases means the ECB has no visibility into the future:

• “Businesses are facing difficulties, people are losing their jobs, and prospects about the future remain uncertain,” European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde says in European Parliament, adding that the ECB “will carefully assess all incoming information, including developments in the exchange rate, with regard to its implications for the medium-term inflation outlook”

• “[The ECB] continues to stand ready to adjust all of its instruments, as appropriate, to ensure that inflation moves towards its aim in a sustained manner, in line with its commitment to symmetry”

• Strength of the recovery remains “highly dependent on the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic and the success of containment policies. The public health crisis will continue to weigh on economic activity and poses downside risks to the economic outlook”

• Declines in energy prices, stronger euro, temporary reduction in the value- added tax rate in Germany will weigh on inflation in the coming months

What is more notable is that earlier today, the ECB lobbed another trial balloon via its favorite media outlet, Reuters, in which we read that a new mutiny may be forming within the ECB, where the doves find Lagarde not dovish enough, while the hawks demand a prompt retraction of the massive liquidity stimulus that has been unleashed in recent months:

• ECB HAWKS WANTED IN SEPT TO QUIETLY REDUCE THE PACE OF PEPP BOND PURCHASES, OBJECTED TO PROJECTIONS EXCLUDING KEY FISCAL MEASURES – SOURCES

• ECB DOVES OBJECT TO LAGARDE’S TIMID LANGUAGE ON EURO STRENGTH, GROWTH RISKS, SOURCES SAY

The full Reuters article details the growing divisions among the ECB’s ranks according to eight ECB insiders, who write that “policymakers are increasingly divided over how to steer the economy through a second wave of COVID-19, threatening President Christine Lagarde’s hard-won peace.”

“Some of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, especially objected to ECB board member Fabio Panetta’s comments last week that the ECB should err on the side of doing too much rather than too little.“

As Reuters adds, the former IMF head had managed to end the public infighting that left the ECB in disarray in the final months of Mario Draghi’s tenure last year and she has “seamlessly pushed through several record stimulus packages to keep the economy afloat amid the pandemic.” Furthermore, her pledge to seek consensus and bring sceptics onboard was in stark contrast to her predecessor Draghi, who rarely engaged key opponents of his policies and signaled moves even before any discussion within the Governing Council.

Alas, the good times now are ending.

To those familiar with the infighting within the ECB, these divisions are hardly a surprise – as Citi’s dove-hawk scale below shows, the median of the ECB is in the distinctly dovish camp but there are many outliers, with Knot, Weidmann and Holzmann the biggest hawks, although their complaints have been more muted recently.

And while this trial balloon hints that we will see more open dissent in the coming weeks, for now this internal division mean little for EUR, which trades at 1.1670, higher on the day thanks to the overnight USD drop.

Meanwhile, as some desks note, with the more recent decline in the EUR, the market focus will be on what the ECB could do to support markets rather than the euro appreciation. Furthermore, ahead of the December meeting, the ECB should follow up with some further guidance on asset purchases, including a potential extension of the PEPP, leading to even more anger among the few remaining hawks.

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Chinese state media outlet Xinhua has thrown its support behind Black Lives Matter with a cartoon that depicts police officers armed with pitchforks and torches hunting down a black man.

“Statistics show, time and again, that some are disproportionately prejudiced against in the U.S. #FightRacism,” tweeted the official Xinhua News account.

The image shows three white police officers and a dog hunting down an African-American male to the refrain of “hunt that blackie!”

Statistics show, time and again, that some are disproportionately prejudiced against in the U.S. #FightRacism pic.twitter.com/e5HS4R7raL

— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) September 27, 2020

Following the death of George Floyd and the explosion of BLM riots and demonstrations that followed, Chinese media and Communist political figures threw their weight behind the movement as a means of criticizing America’s human rights record.

This is pretty rich given that China literally incarcerates dissidents in re-education gulags and harvests the organs of political prisoners.

Respondents to the tweet pointed out the revolting irony.

“So how are the Uighurs doing up in Xinjiang?” asked one.

Another respondent pointed out how China literally removes black people from promos for Hollywood movies.

American poster on the left, ChyNa on the right.

Oh no! Where’d the black actor go?? pic.twitter.com/NioxsGCVIp

— Rob Smithson (@RobSmithson6) September 27, 2020

China is one of the most racist countries in the world towards black people.

As this Spectator article documents, even Chinese people with darker skin are treated badly, with children being called “monkeys” if they don’t have a pale complexion.

Racism in China is “so commonplace it can seem almost cheerful,” writes Carola Binney, who spent a year in China teaching English, adding that racism is a “standard undercurrent of public debate.”

*  *  *

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Rumors seemed to fly all day Sunday on Mideast social media channels based on unnamed US sources that a major attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone was imminent.

This at the same time it’s being widely reported that the State Department is actually considering shuttering the embassy’s operations altogether, angry at the Iraqi government’s inability to reign in the Shia paramilitary groups likely responsible for repeat mortar and missile attacks on the area.

BREAKING: Local sources in Iraq are reporting of a plot to storm the US Embassy in Baghdad and take hostages. The Green Zone may be evacuated. https://t.co/VDOuPdAJIz

— Scott Stedman (@ScottMStedman) September 27, 2020

And now Monday more Katyusha rockets have been launched targeting the embassy, though they are being reported to have landed somewhere in the Green Zone off target.

This after the prior day The Wall Street Journal reported the following:

The Trump administration has warned Iraq it is preparing to shut down its embassy in Baghdad unless the Iraqi government stops a spate of rocket attacks by Shiite militias against U.S. interests, Iraqi and U.S. officials said Sunday, in a fresh crisis in relations between the two allies.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered the warning in recent calls to Iraqi President Barham Salih and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, the officials said.

We doubt the majority of Iraqis will miss the American presence, given in recent years anti-American demonstrations have grown, demanding the end of US troop presence. 

Given the US “warning” to Baghdad, it’s now much more likely the rocket attacks and rumors of a Benghazi style ground assault upon the embassy complex will grow.

The pro-Iranian militias, seeing the Americans are “on their way out” will only attempt to hasten the swift exit.

This is a weird way to use the word deterrence. https://t.co/DyYrCHWy9L

— Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) September 27, 2020

One unnamed Iraqi official said of this latest controversy: “The Americans aren’t just angry. They’re really, really, really angry,” according to AFP, while another noted, “The honeymoon is over.”