On The Hunt For Gas - War Drums In The Western Mediterranean

Authored by Piero Messina via South Front,

The waters of the eastern Mediterranean have become the scene of a low-intensity war. The goal is to control the energy resources that extend into the seabed from the coast of Greece to Israel. The maritime area of the eastern Mediterranean is one of the main areas of energy interest. In 2009, the Leviathan gas field (450 billion m3) was discovered, about 130 kilometers offshore from the Israeli city of Haifa. Subsequent explorations in this sea area have shown that large quantities of gas also exist in adjacent areas. In particular, the Tamar fields (about 318 billion m3) and some minor fields, including Dalit (55 billion m3) and Karish and Tanin (respectively about 8 and 55 billion m3), were discovered off the Israeli coast. They will allow Israel to meet domestic consumption and export part of its production. Then came, in 2011, the discoveries in the Cypriot waters of Aphrodite (about 129 billion m3) and Calypso (with a potential of 170-230 billion m3).

Greek Energy and Environment Minister Kostis Hatzidakis, Minister of Energy, Commerce and Industry of the Republic of Cyprus Giorgos Lakkotrypis and Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz signed in Athens the intergovernmental agreement on the construction of the EastMed gas pipeline in December 2020

Whose are those energy resources? How and where will that wealth be distributed?

All the key players of that geopolitical quadrant claim their rights over those waters and the exploitation of the resources contained in the subsoil. The first move to conquer those seas is Turkey. Erdogan’s expansionist policy begins at the end of 2018, first with a series of hostile naval patrols against Cyprus, then with a series of drilling off the island shared with Greece. Turkish research activities arouse protests from the international community. So, the EU imposes sanctions on Turkey. But they are almost a caress.

Then, in compliance with the neo-Ottoman project of “Blue Homeland”, Ankara signs, in November 2019, an agreement with the Libyan transitional government, then chaired by  Fayez Al Serraj, for the exclusive exploitation of the maritime EEZ and for cooperation military. A punch in the face of Greece. In fact, on that same stretch of sea, another cooperation treaty entered into force in the summer of 2020, signed between Greece and Egypt. For Ankara it is a blow to the heart. Within days, the Ankara government sends the Oruc Reic seismic research ship to inspect what it considers to be its exclusive sea area. Too bad,  even the Greeks also think the same. The incident occurred on 12 August 2020. The Oruc Reis is sailing escorted by a fleet of Turkish ships and is approached by a Greek naval patrol. Eventually the Greek frigate Limnos and the Turkish Tgc Kemalreis will clash in this absurd sea duel. Greece and Turkey are both members of NATO. But national interests come first.

To understand the importance of that incident, it is necessary to look carefully at the map of the pipelines under construction.  That naval crash seems to be only the anticipation of a geopolitical conflict. A conflict that risks becoming more complicated: the two frigates collided exactly in the middle of Eastmed’s route.

What exactly is Eastmed and what can its real geopolitical value be?

EastMed is a pipeline that must connect the Levantine basin (in practice, Israel) with the gas distribution networks in Europe. It is a project carried out in joint ventures by Depa (the national gas company for Greece) and by Edison, an Italian-French multinational in the energy sector. The project was blessed by the European Commission which considered it strategic for the European Union. The pipeline route is over 1900 kilometers, 1300 offshore and 600 onshore. According to forecasts, the pipeline will start from the Israeli natural gas reserves of the Levant Sea basin, and then go to Cyprus, Crete and end in Greece. Subsequently, the gas from Greece will reach Italy through a further pipeline. The project, according to estimates, has a value of about 6 billion euros and, within 7 years, will meet 10% of the European Union’s natural gas needs. But in reality nothing has been decided yet. From a geopolitical point of view, that gas pipeline serves to reduce the energy dependence that Europe has on Russia.

That pipeline risks transforming the eastern Mediterranean into a war scenario. For the Eastmed design, the countries interested in the construction of the pipeline came together in a permanent forum. EMGF is its name: it was established in 2018 and was ratified by the acceding countries with a meeting in Cairo in September 2020. Here is the list of adhering countries: Italy, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Cyprus, Greece and the Palestinian National Authority . The simultaneous presence of Israel and the Palestinian National Authority makes us think. In the report explaining the reasons for the Forum, there are sufficient reasons to imagine a possible escalation of violence. Both for the exclusion of Turkey and Lebanon, which will have no intention of giving up those enormous riches, and for the geopolitical position declared hostile to the Kremlin. It is no secret that the project is against Russia.

The anti-Moscow blockade is strengthened by the forthcoming entry of France and the blessing of the US government. Here is what the Statute of the EMGF says: “Countries such as Turkey and Lebanon do not participate in the Forum due, respectively, to persistent tensions with Greece and Cyprus and the presence of Israel. Interest in the initiative was expressed by France which intends to join the Forum in the near future. The United States views the creation of the EMFG with great interest and would like to join the Forum or at least strengthen cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean region in the energy sector, as evidenced by the participation of the US Deputy Secretary for Energy at the launch of the Forum in January. 2020. The US, in particular, believes that the gas resources present off the coast of Israel, Cyprus and Egypt constitute an important element for the diversification of European energy supplies, with a consequent decrease in the old continent’s dependence on supplies from Moscow”.

Eastmed is expected to be fully operational in 2025. But there are still many doubts.

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On The Hunt For Gas - War Drums In The Western Mediterranean

Eisenhower Rejected Military Chiefs' Demand For Nuclear War On China

Authored by Gareth Porter via TheGrayZone.com,

A previously censored account of the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis that was sponsored by the Pentagon has been published in full by the leaker of the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg. The report provides a hair-raising portrait of a reckless US military leadership relentlessly pressing President Dwight Eisenhower for the authority to carry out nuclear attacks on communist China. After holding the still-classified version of the account in his possession for fifty years, Ellsberg said he decided to release it because of the growing threat of US war with China over Taiwan, and the danger that such a conflict could escalate into a nuclear exchange.

A May 22 New York Times report on the account offered only general details of the role the US Joint Chiefs of Staff played in the run-up to the 1958 Taiwan crisis. However, it is now clear from the original highly classified documents as well as other evidence now available that from the beginning, the Joint Chiefs aimed first and foremost to exploit the tensions to carry out nuclear strikes against Chinese nuclear military targets deep in highly-populated areas.

Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist Kuomintang regime and the Joint Chiefs were allies in wanting to embroil the United States in a war with China. Deputy Secretary of State Christian Herter feared that the Nationalist regime was determined to drag the US into conflict, according to the Pentagon-sponsored account. The reason, according to the author of the account, Morton Halperin, was that involving the United States in a war with the Chinese Communists "was clearly their only hope for a return to the mainland."

Quemoy and Matsu, the two main offshore islands occupied by Nationalist troops, were less than five miles from the mainland and had been used by Chiang’s forces as bases to mount unsuccessful commando raids inside the mainland. And Chiang, who was still committed to reconquering the mainland China with the ostensible support of the United States, had stationed a third of his 350,000-man army on those two islands.

In May 1958, the Joint Chiefs adopted a new plan (OPS PLAN 25-58), ostensibly for the defense of the offshore islands. In fact, the plan provided a basis for attacking China with atomic weapons. It was to begin with a brief preliminary "Phase I", which it called "patrol and reconnaissance" and was said to be already underway. "Phase II", which would have been triggered by a Chinese attack on the offshore islands, would involve US air forces wiping out the attacking forces.

But the new plan envisioned a possible third phase, in which the Strategic Air Command and forces under the command of the US Pacific Command would carry out strategic attacks with 10 to 15 kiloton tactical nuclear weapons “to destroy the war-making capability” of China.

According to the account authored by Halperin, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Air Force Gen. Nathan Twining, told State Department officials in an August meeting that the third phase would require nuclear strikes on Chinese bases as far north as Shanghai. The Joint Chiefs played down the threat to civilian casualties from such tactical atomic weapons, emphasizing that an airburst of tactical atomic explosions would generate little radioactive fallout. But the account indicates that they provided no concrete information on expected civilian casualties.

Given the fact that both the Chinese gun emplacements across the Taiwan Strait and a key airbase serving the Chinese military forces in any conflict over the offshore islands would have been located close to significant population centers, such atomic explosions would have certainly caused civilian casualties on a massive scale.

The Joint Chiefs did not acknowledge that the bombs they planned to detonate with airbursts would have had the same potential lethality as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Nor would they concede that the targets of such bombings were located in the immediate vicinity of Chinese cities that were roughly the same population as Hiroshima.

The city of Xiamen, for example, was close to military targets in the Amoy area, while Ningbo was close to the main Chinese airbase in Zhejiang province that would have been attacked by US forces. Like the Hiroshima bomb, the nuclear explosions would have been triggered in the air, where blast damage is greatest, destroying or damaging nearly everything within a radius of three miles from the blast, killing much of the population.

The Joint Chiefs also assumed that China would respond to the US use of atomic weapons by retaliating with atomic weapons, which the Joint Chiefs presumed would be made available to the Chinese government by the Soviet Union. 

Top Secret plans and presidential decisions (not yet declassified) to initiate nuclear war against China in defense of Taiwan in 1958 were just revealed by me to the @nytimes. https://t.co/SXS6TGEfgV

— Daniel Ellsberg (@DanielEllsberg) May 23, 2021

The Halperin report recounts that Twining told State Department officials that the bombing of the intended targets with tactical nuclear weapons "almost certainly would involve nuclear retaliation against Taiwan and possibly against Okinawa…." That assumption was based on a Special National Intelligence Estimate that had been issued on July 22, 1958. The estimate had concluded that, if the U.S. “launched nuclear strikes deep into Communist China,” the Chinese would “almost certainly” respond with nuclear weapons.

Despite the acceptance of the likelihood that it would lead to nuclear retaliation by China, JCS Chairman Twining expressed no hesitation about the plan, asserting that in order to defend the offshore islands, "the consequences had to be accepted".

The Joint Chiefs seek to appropriate war powers

The Joint Chiefs’ plan betrayed the military chiefs’ hope of removing the power of decision over nuclear war from the hands of the president. It said the plan would be put into operation when “dictated by appropriate U.S. authority” – implying that it would not necessarily be decided by the president.

In his own memoirs, Eisenhower recalled with some bitterness how, during the 1958 crisis, he was "continuously pressured — almost hounded — by Chiang [Chinese nationalist Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek] on one side and by our own military on other requesting delegation of authority for immediate action on Formosa [Taiwan] or the offshore islands…." He did not refer, however, to the efforts by the Joint Chiefs efforts to gain advance authorization for the use nuclear weapons on the Chinese mainland.

The wording of the JCS plan was changed to read "when authorized by the President" at Eisenhower’s insistence to provide that only conventional means could be used at least initially for defense of the islands, while leaving open the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons if that failed.

But the Joint Chiefs were not finished. In a paper presented to Eisenhower on September 6, the chiefs proposed that they be authorized to "oppose any major attack on Taiwan and attack mainland bases with all CINPAC force that can be brought to bear" in the event of "an emergency arising from an attack on Taiwan and the offshore islands moving so rapidly that it would not permit consultations with the President…"

Further, they asked for the authority to respond to a "major landing attack on offshore islands," by "[u]se of atomic weapons and U.S. air attack in support of [Chinese Nationalist] Air Force…as necessary, only as approved by the President." Eisenhower approved the paper with those qualifiers.

When Secretary of State John Foster Dulles warned that Japan would object strongly to using nuclear weapons against the Chinese mainland, and forbid the launching of nuclear weapons from their territory, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh Burke suggested that the opposition to nuclear weapons in Japan was "inspired by the Communists," and that foreign leaders would soon recognize that the use of nuclear weapons by the US "was in their interests".

Burke closed his argument by claiming that if the US did not maintain the threat of tactical nuclear weapons in conflicts,  it would "lose the entire world within three years." That obviously absurd argument suggests that the intense desire among the Joint Chiefs to use nuclear weapons against China was less motivated by any threat from Communist Chinese than by their own institutional interests.

In pre-Cold War Washington, the US Navy served as the primary bureaucratic ally of the Kuomintang regime. The relationship was forged when Chiang provided the Navy with the home base for its 7th Fleet at Tsingtao in Northern China. Navy brass in the Pacific had urged unconditional support for Chiang’s regime during the civil war with the Communists and derided as "pinkies" those State Department officials – beginning with Secretary George C. Marshall – who entertained any doubts about the Kuomintang leader.

By 1958, the Air Force was so strongly committed to its role as an exclusively nuclear-weapons delivery organization that it insisted on being able to able to using nuclear weapons in any war it fought in the Pacific region. The account of the crisis reveals that, when the Air Force Commander in the Pacific, Gen. Lawrence S. Kuter, learned of Eisenhower’s decision to defend the offshore islands with conventional weapons, he relayed the message to Gen. John Gerhart, the Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff. Shockingly, Gerhart responded that the Air Force "could not agree in principle" to the use of SAC forces for such non-nuclear operations.

Beyond the desire of the Navy and Air Force chiefs to ensure their long-term presence and reinforce the importance of their respective roles in the Pacific, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have always aspired to maximize their influence over US policy in any conflict where U.S might use military force.

It turned out that the Chinese never intended full-scale war over the offshore islands. Instead they sought to mount a blockade of resupply to the islands through artillery barrages, and when the US military provided armed escorts for the ships carrying out the resupply, they were careful to avoid hitting American ships. As the Halperin report observed, once the Chinese recognized that a blockade could not prevent the resupply, they settled for symbolic artillery attacks on Quemoy, which were limited to every other day.

It was the eagerness of the Joint Chiefs for a nuclear war against China, rather than the policy of communist China, that presented the most serious threat to American security.

Although the circumstances surrounding the U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan have changed dramatically since that stage of the Cold War, the 1958 Taiwan crisis provides a sobering lesson as the US military gears up for a new military confrontation with China.

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Eisenhower Rejected Military Chiefs' Demand For Nuclear War On China

Space Junk Damages Part Of International Space Station

Amid fears of increasing space junk in low Earth orbit, a robotic arm attached to the International Space Station (ISS) has been damaged by space junk. 

In a blog post, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) said a routine inspection on May 12 uncovered a small, untrackable piece of space junk that struck Canadarm2, which is a Canadian robotic arm on ISS used to conduct station maintenance. 

"Canadarm2 is continuing to conduct its planned operations," said the CSA. "The damage is limited to a small section of the arm boom and thermal blanket." 

The statement also explained that NASA and CSA would work together to find out more about the impact. CSA said near-term robotic operations will continue as plan. 

Over decades, debris from satellites, rockets, and other space devices has been locked in orbit. A lot of the junk is building up and could cause significant damage to the ISS and functioning satellites.

According to the CSA, "over 23,000 objects the size of a softball or larger are tracked 24/7 to detect potential collisions with satellites and the ISS." Yet as these items deteriorate and break apart, they produce smaller debris that can't be tracked, posing additional risk to space-based operations. 

The European Space Agency (ESA) said many of these objects are accumulating rocket boosters, defunct satellites, and spaceborne shrapnel. It estimates up to 160 million objects measuring upwards of a millimeter are clogging up low Earth orbit. 

In its annual 2020 report, ESA showed that the number of "fragmentation events" has soared over the last three decades. 

Though these fragments may be small, they travel at thousands of miles per hour and can easily pierce satellites and other spacecraft, resulting in ESA and NASA calling for action against space debris. 

Planned for 2025, the ESA recently awarded the Swiss startup company Clearpace, a $117 million contract, to remove space debris from orbit. 

If readers are curious about just how much space junk is floating above, ESA's animation shows an incredible view of all the debris:  

Meanwhile, Elon Musk is expected to launch thousands of Starlink satellites into space which could cause further traffic jams in orbit. 

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Trump: Biden Is "Destroying" Our Country With "Failed Border Policies"

Authored by Isabel van Brugen via The Epoch Times,

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday accused Joe Biden of “destroying” the United States with his administration’s “failed border policies,” in a wide-ranging interview that also saw him criticize the president for his handling of issues in the Middle East and China.

“If he would have done nothing, we would have had right now the strongest border in history,” Trump said in an interview with Dick Morris on Newsmax’s “Dick Morris Democracy.” 

"All he had to do is nothing.”

Since assuming office on Jan. 20, President Joe Biden’s has rescinded a number of his predecessor’s immigration and border policies.

Republican lawmakers have long argued that the burgeoning crisis is a result of Biden’s move to overturn several Trump-era immigration policies that helped curbed the flow of illegal border crossings. This includes his predecessor’s cornerstone Migrant Protection Protocol, which effectively ended the problematic “catch and release” policy, significantly stemming the number of illegal immigrants at the southern border in 2019.

In a return to Obama-era policies, the Biden administration is again releasing unaccompanied illegal immigrant minors into the country. Lawmakers argue that Biden’s act sent a signal to prospective migrants to once again travel to the United States.

Illegal immigrants just released from detention through “catch and release” immigration policy stand at a bus station before being taken to the Catholic Charities relief center in McAllen, Texas, on April 11, 2018. (Loren Elliott/Reuters)

The Biden administration, meanwhile, has sought to shift the blame onto the previous administration, with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas saying that the previous government had “dismantled the orderly, humane, and efficient way of allowing children to make their claims under United States law in their own country.”

“I had everything worked out with the other countries, whether it’s Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico,” Trump said Saturday. “And even Mexico, stay in Mexico. In other words, these people ought to stay in Mexico, and they couldn’t get into our country. And he ended that. It’s just crazy what they did.”

Trump also claimed in his interview with Newsmax that the Northern Triangle countries are “opening their prisons.”

“Their prisoners are coming in, their murderers, their drug addicts, and drug dealers, by the way. And the human traffickers are coming in. And we’re accepting them, because they’ve opened up the borders,” Trump said.

“The question is do they do it out of incompetence, which I happen to think, or they do it because they really believe open borders are good for this country? Which they are not.”

He added:

“We won’t have a country. They are destroying our country.”

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data published on May 11, arrests and detentions at the U.S.–Mexico border hit record levels last month.

Illegal immigrants, mostly from Central America, are dropped off by Customs and Border Protection at a bus station in the border city of Brownsville, Texas, on March 15, 2021. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)

Immigration arrests and detentions at the southern border last month rose by 3 percent from March, to 178,622—the highest one-month total in 20 years, CBP data show.

[ZH: Additionally, the number of people attempting to cross the US-Mexico border from countries beyond Mexico and Central America's Northern Triangle - including residents of Haiti, Cuba, Romania and India - has spiked during recent months.]

Last month’s figures, however, marked the first month since Biden took office that the CBP didn’t record a major month-on-month jump in the number of border arrests and detentions, despite reaching record levels.

While the Biden administration has called the unprecedented surge in numbers a “challenge,” neither the president nor the vice president has visited the border.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on May 4, “After coming into office, our administration immediately jumped into action to address the influx of migrants at the border—something that began during and was exacerbated by the Trump administration.”

Press Secretary Jen Psaki holds a press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S. May 24, 2021. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

The former president also mentioned the violence between Hamas—a designated terrorist group since 1997—and Israel this month, saying “what’s happened to Israel is one of the great injustices.”

“If you look back 10 or 12 years ago, Israel was so protected by Congress. Congress loved Israel. Now, especially if you looked at the House, the House doesn’t like Israel. The House is protective of anything other than Israel,” Trump said.

Members of the progressive group that has come to be known as the “Squad”—Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), and Rashida Tlaib D-Mich.)—have come under fire in recent days for their controversial anti-Israel comments on Twitter as violence intensified, before a ceasefire agreement was eventually reached on May 20. The 11-day conflict started when Hamas launched rockets into Israel over a court case to evict several Palestinian families in East Jerusalem that triggered riots.

“What’s gone on with the House with AOC and Omar and all of these people and Pelosi, they are not in favor of Israel, and yet the Jewish vote goes to the Democrats,” Trump added.

The White House and “Squad” members didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment by The Epoch Times.

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For Second Time, Canadian MP "Accidently" Caught Naked During Parliament Call 

Screenshots of a virtual meeting, which have gone viral, show a Canadian politician urinating on camera during a work meeting. 

William Amos, a Liberal MP for Pontiac, Quebec, released a statement Thursday about the incident:

Last night, while attending House of Commons proceedings virtually, in a non-public setting, I urinated without realizing I was on camera. I am deeply embarrassed by my actions and the distress they may have caused anybody who witnessed them. 

While accidental and not visible to the public, this was completely unacceptable, and I apologize unreservedly. I will be stepping aside temporarily from my role as Parliamentary Secretary and from my committee duties so that I can seek assistance. 

I will continue to represent my constituents and I'm grateful to be their voice in Parliament. I am deeply appreciative for the support of my staff and the love of my family.

This is not the first time Amos, 46, was captured in the nude during a virtual meeting. In April, he was accidentally caught on video changing into work clothes after a workout. 

"Obviously, it was an honest mistake, and it won't happen again," Amos said at the time. 

"You're either laughing at someone who's having the worst experience of their life or you're laughing at people who were subjected to nudity without their consent at work. I just can't find an angle where that would be funny to me," Ottawa-based sexual violence prevention instructor Julie Lalonde told Vice at the time.

Conservative Deputy House Leader Karen Vecchio was suspicious that the on-camera urination was "accidental." 

"This is the second time Mr. Amos has been caught exposing himself to his colleagues in the House, and the House of Commons, virtual or otherwise, must be free of this type of unacceptable behavior," Vecchio said.

From professional meetings to online classes to online educational classrooms, virtual conference calls have had their fair share of embarrassing episodes for people who didn't understand how to turn off the session. 

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For Second Time, Canadian MP "Accidently" Caught Naked During Parliament Call 

Steven Seagal Is Now A Russian Politician

On May 29th, Hollywood “legend” Steven Seagal has opted into a career change.

He joined a Russian political party.

As South Front reports, Seagal received a party membership card of an alliance named Just Russia - Patriots - For Truth.

It was formed earlier in 2021, when three leftist parties, all of which support Putin, merged into one.

In November 2016, Segal was granted Russian citizenship. In August of 2018, Moscow’s Foreign Ministry appointed him to the unpaid position of “special representative for Russian-US humanitarian ties.”

He lamented the lack of ability, even in Russia, to arrest people for no apparent reason, just fining them for breaking the laws.

“Without being able to arrest people, when we just fine them, they are probably making more money of the production of the things that are defiling the environment,” said in his welcome speech at a party event.

The party controls a faction in the lower house of the Russian parliament and plans to take part in a parliamentary election in September.

The US-born Seagal is known for his action movies of questionable quality, and his alleged martial arts prowess. Russian President Vladimir Putin seems fond of him and martials art, and as such they, apparently, have become “best friends.”

In 2018, Russia tasked Seagal with improving humanitarian ties with the United States at a time when relations between the two countries have deteriorated to their worst level since the Cold War.

As a Russian representative, Seagal visited Venezuela earlier in May and presented a samurai sword to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Previously, he was a member of the For Truth party (on February 22 it merged with Fair Russia and Patriots of Russia).

According to the actor, his priorities will be the fight against environmental crimes and the protection of Lake Baikal. Seagal also called for the demilitarization of outer space, stressing that he is extremely concerned about this problem.

Answering the TASS question whether he considers himself a socialist, Sеаgal noted that A Just Russia – For Truth is not a socialist party “in the Soviet sense of the word.”

“This is a different party, it is different. Because people have quite open views on what is good, what is good for the country, for the people. And this does not correspond at all with the outdated Soviet concepts,” he is sure.

He likely will not run for a seat in Russian parliament due to his American citizenship.

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Iran Warns Against "Miscalculations" As US Military Monitors Pair Of Venezuela-Bound Warships

In a seeming repeat of the Trump admin attempt to impose a full naval blockade on Venezuela to prevent fuel and oil imports and exports, especially involving Iranian tankers, the US military is said to be actively monitoring two Iranian naval vessels which are believed headed toward Venezuela.

Washington has reportedly warned the Maduro government against receiving the warships, which likely have elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force members aboard. The two "rogue states" (as the US sees them) have become increasingly close especially under the prior four Trump years as they cooperated in circumventing US sanctions, and have grown militarily more cooperative. 

Iran-made warship Makran, via AP/Iranian Army

Days ago Politico was the first to report on their movements - but whether they are intent on entering Venezuelan waters is still largely subject of speculation. "An Iranian frigate and the Makran, a former oil tanker that was converted to a floating forward staging base, have been heading south along the east coast of Africa, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject," the report said.

Politico continued: "Senior officials in President Nicolás Maduro’s government in Caracas have been advised that welcoming the Iranian warships would be a mistake, according to a person familiar with the discussions. But it’s not clear whether Maduro has heeded that warning: At one point on Thursday, U.S. military officials understood the ships had turned around, but as of Friday morning they were still steaming south, one of the people said."

On Monday Iran's foreign ministry responded to the reports, asserting the country's right to freely navigate international waters, but stopped short of confirming or denying any operation involving Venezuela. "Iran has constant presence in international waters, is entitled to this right on the basis of international law, and can be present in international waters. No country can violate such a right”, an Iranian spokesman said. The spokesman then warned:

“I warn that nobody should make a miscalculation. Those who live in glass houses must be cautious.”

#Iran has warned the US against "any miscalculations" after reports emerged that the US was monitoring two Iranian warships said to be en route to Venezuela.

"Those in glass houses should be careful," Foreign Ministry spox Khatibzadeh said today.https://t.co/VdlKfKwI4s

— Kian Sharifi (@KianSharifi) May 31, 2021

Last year on multiple occasions Venezuela's military escorted Iranian fuel tankers through its coastal waters after Trump vowed to send a military blockade to the Caribbean.

Despite the threats, multiple tankers made it to the Venezuelan coast; however in some other instances US authorities were able to seize Iranian fuel on the high seas much earlier before ships made it near South America's coast.

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Iran Warns Against "Miscalculations" As US Military Monitors Pair Of Venezuela-Bound Warships

Mexican Cartels Respond To AMLO's "Hugs, Not Bullets" By Hunting Down, Torturing, And Executing Cops At Their Homes

After Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) attempted to combat cartels through peaceful means - namely his "hugs, not bullets" campaign to appease criminal organizations, the notoriously violent Jalisco cartel responded by kidnapping several members of an elite police force in the state of Guanajuato, torturing them to obtain the names and addresses of other cops, and is now hunting them down and killing them at their own homes, "on their days off, in front of their families," according to the Associated Press.

This type of direct attack on the police is rarely seen outside of Central America, and stands to become the  most direct challenge to AMLO's attempt to peacefully 'manage' the country's competing cartels. The cartels, meanwhile, have already declared war on the government - focusing their efforts on eradicating every member of an elite state force known as the Tactical Group, which the cartel accuses of treating its members unfairly.

"If you want war, you’ll get a war. We have already shown that we know where you are. We are coming for all of you," reads a banner signed by the cartel and hung on a Guanajuato building in May.

"For each member of our firm (CJNG) that you arrest, we are going to kill two of your Tacticals, wherever they are, at their homes, in their patrol vehicles," the banner continues.

Officials in Guanajuato — Mexico’s most violent state, where Jalisco is fighting local gangs backed by the rival Sinaloa cartel — refused to comment on how many members of the elite group have been murdered so far.

But state police publicly acknowledged the latest case, an officer who was kidnapped from his home on Thursday, killed and his body dumped on a highway.

Guanajuato-based security analyst David Saucedo said there have been many cases.

“A lot of them (officers) have decided to desert. They took their families, abandoned their homes and they are fleeing and in hiding,” Saucedo said. “The CJNG is hunting the elite police force of Guanajuato.” -AP

According to one Guanajuato news outlet, Poplab, at least seven police officers have been killed on their days off so far this year. In January, a female state police officer was tortured and killed, after gunmen went to her home and murdered her husband first. Her bullet-ridden body was then dumped. Poplab adds that Guanajuato has had the highest number of cops killed of any Mexican state for at least three years - with at least 262 police officers having been killed.

"Unfortunately, organized crime groups have shown up at the homes of police officers, which poses a threat and a greater risk of loss of life, not just for them, but for members of their families," reads a May 17 decree by the Guanajuato state government, which promises to provide an unspecified amount of funding for protecting the police and prison officials.

"They have been forced to quickly leave their homes and move, so that organized crimes groups cannot find them," the decree continues.

According to Saucedo, the security analyst, "This is an open war against the security forces of the state government."

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/31/2021 - 21:00
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Mexican Cartels Respond To AMLO's "Hugs, Not Bullets" By Hunting Down, Torturing, And Executing Cops At Their Homes

Melbourne Lockdown May Be Extended As Latest COVID Cluster Rises To 51

Australia and New Zealand have managed to keep COVID cases and deaths at a minimum thanks largely to their isolated status, which has enabled both countries to "raise the drawbridge", so to speak, keeping out most foreigners since the start of the crisis.

But even with Australia's notoriously stringent COVID-19 restrictions, a few cases have managed to slip by. In the face of the biggest cluster uncovered in months, Melbourne and the surrounding Victoria State entered their 4th lockdown last week. Though it was only supposed to last a week, that could soon change as more cases are confirmed.

Source: Worldometer

Reuters reports that 5 new cases were discovered over the last 24 hours, bringing the total number in the Melbourne cluster to 51.

Australia’s second-most populous state of Victoria, the epicentre of the country’s latest coronavirus hotspot, reported 11 new cases of community transmission on Monday and authorities warned the situation could worsen in coming days.

The state officially reported five new cases in the 24 hours to midnight. At a press conference on Monday, authorities announced a further six cases were recorded after the late night cut-off which will reflect in Tuesday's data, taking the current cluster to 51.

Victoria went into a strict seven-day lockdown on Friday after new COVID-19 infections in the state capital Melbourne ended its three-month run of zero community cases. Authorities identified several Melbourne schools, supermarkets, department stores and gyms among hundreds of exposure sites.

The rising tally has raised questions about whether the current lockdown might be extended, since several cases have been connected to a nursing home, and another deadly nursing home outbreak is exactly what Australia's public health authorities are trying to avoid.

Authorities are concerned about the virus taking hold in aged care homes after two workers and one resident at the Arcare facility in Melbourne tested positive, the home operator said in a statement.

Another resident is being re-tested for COVID-19.

Victoria endured one of the world's strictest and longest lockdowns last year to suppress a second wave of COVID-19 that killed more than 800 people in the state, accounting for 90% of Australia's total deaths since the pandemic began. Hundreds of elderly Victorians in residential aged care facilities were among the fatalities.

The Australian government has faced criticism for the country's relatively slow vaccine rollout, as well as for its citizens' reluctance to take the AstraZeneca jab following cases of extremely rare blood clots. Overall, Australia has been among the most successful globally in curbing the pandemic thanks to swift contact tracing, snap lockdowns and strict social distancing rules, with 22,275 local cases and 910 deaths.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/31/2021 - 20:30
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Melbourne Lockdown May Be Extended As Latest COVID Cluster Rises To 51

Here Is The Most Important Number In The Biden Budget

While there was far more than met the eye in Biden's $6 trillion budget (released late on Friday ahead of the "long weekend" as if Joe desperately hoped nobody would read it as it pissed off both conservatives as well as socialists) as discussed last week his budget proposal to Congress did reveal what Goldman has called the "most important number" in the budget - it calls for an increase in the deficit of $800BN over 10 years (0.3% of GDP over that period) to accommodate his “American Jobs Plan” (AJP) and “American Families Plan”(AFP). While the amount is not surprising, according to Goldman this is the first time the White House has formally shown the net effect of their proposals over the ten-year period Congress will use when it considers them.

Why is this important?

As Goldman explains, this figure will be relevant to the congressional debate, as Democratic leaders will need to choose a dollar figure to include in a forthcoming budget resolution that directs the committees that will craft the fiscal package. Whatever figure they choose figure will set a limit on the reconciliation legislation that follows. In most recent budget resolutions, the directive has come in the form of a directive to increase the budget deficit by a certain amount. However, congressional leaders could also specify separate spending directives and tax directives. In either case, once the amount is set, the legislation that follows may not increase the deficit by more than directed.  While congressional Democrats are free to choose a different amount, the Biden budget is the first  formal indication from any of the key decisionmakers regarding how much they propose to increase the deficit to fund their proposals.

Besides the formalized deficit number, most of the details in the budget were already previewed in White House releases over the last several weeks. The White House already announced the two major proposals, the AJP and AFP (American Jobs and Families Plans), several weeks ago, and there were few other policy proposals in the budget outside of those plans. For the most part, the specific figures in the budget match fairly closely with what the White House had already laid out. These plans are summarized in the table below.

As for the "6 trillion proposal", Goldman expects Congress to scale back the proposal, "with a risk that it is scaled back more than we have been expecting." Goldman's forecast assumes that Congress enacts a package of slightly more than $3 trillion, with tax increases of around half this much. However, for the first time since the start of the pandemic, the risks to Goldman's fiscal assumptions appear skewed to the downside.

Why? Because if congressional leaders adopt the White House position that the total deficit impact of the forthcoming fiscal package should be kept to around $800bn over ten years (i.e., the "most important number"), this would mean that Congress would need to raise taxes much more than expected (which is unlikely as even centrist democrats have balked), or increase spending far less than expected.

And with regard to taxes, Goldman expects less than half of the Biden proposals to become law:

Specifically, we assume Congress will pass a 25% corporate rate, rather than the 28% the White House proposes, and that congress will substantially scale back the corporate tax increases on international income. We expect the top marginal individual rate to increase as proposed, but the capital gains rate is more likely to settle around 28% and that the increase is unlikely to take effect retroactively, as there appears to be tepid support for a capital gains rate increase among some centrist Democrats and making the tax hike retroactive could reduce support further.

Meanwhile, as noted above, the budget highlights the smaller scale of any additional fiscal boost. The budget proposes to increase the deficit by $118bn (0.5% of GDP) in FY2022, and $224bn (0.9%of GDP) in FY2023. Spending would increase by more than this—$265bn (1.1%) and$530bn (2.2%)—but around half of this would be offset with tax increases. These are big numbers in a normal policy and economic environment, but this amounts to only a fraction, on an annual basis, of the fiscal support Congress has provided over the last year. The chart below shows the Biden Administration’s estimate of the proposals effect on the budget deficit over the next ten years.

What happens next? We expect Congress to begin moving forward on these proposals next month.

Although bipartisan discussions on an infrastructure package are continuing, the already low odds of success appear to be dwindling further. With a nearly $1.5 trillion gap between the White House’s proposal and the Senate Republican offer, and even less overlap in how to finance the new spending, it is hard to see how a bipartisan agreement will come together. Instead, congressional Democrats are likely to move forward with one large reconciliation bill, requiring only 51 votes in the Senate, that encompasses both of President Biden’s major proposals (the AJP and AFP).

Here, Goldman assumes that the House and Senate Budget Committees will begin to move forward with the irrespective budget resolutions by mid-June, which will lay the procedural groundwork for the reconciliation bill and, as described above, set a limit on the deficit impact. It is possible that the House will begin to pass legislation in committee in June, but full House passage of the actual reconciliation bill will likely take until July.  The Senate could start on the bill in July, but passage in September or October looks more likely than July at this point.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/31/2021 - 19:54
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Here Is The Most Important Number In The Biden Budget

61-Year-Old Woman Living Near Wuhan Lab May Have Been 'Patient Zero' - Three Weeks Before CCP Claims First Case

Three weeks before China admitted that a mysterious virus was circulating in the city of Wuhan, a 61-year-old woman who lived about a mile from several bat research facility was known as "Patient Su" at a local hospital, according to the Daily Mail.

Her identity was accidentally revealed after a leading Chinese official sent a screen-grab to a medical journal which partially revealed personal information, including the fact that she was admitted to the Rongjun Hospital in Wuhan, and "almost certainly lived in the Kaile Guiyan community on Zhuodaoquan Street, about 600 metres from the medical centre."

What's more, "Patient Su" became ill three weeks before China claimed anyone had been stricken with the novel virus.

The academic then detailed two more suspected cases reported to Wuhan doctors on November 14 and 21, along with several others before December 8 – the date that China gave to the World Health Organisation for the ‘earliest onset case’.

The Health Times article included a screenshot of the two November cases on the professor’s database. Although personal details were blurred out, some were visible, including the hospital name and home district.

They show Patient Su was treated at Rongjun Hospital in Wuhan and, given the building and street numbers, almost certainly lived in the Kaile Guiyan community on Zhuodaoquan Street, about 600 metres from the medical centre. -Daily Mail

Patient Su also lived close to a stop for the high-speed rail line believed to have played a key role in spreading the virus around the city of 11 million people, according to the report. 

Both the hospital and Su's presumed residence are in the Hongshan district, where both China's CDC and a downtown site run by the Wuhan Institute of Virology were located less than a mile away. According to former lead US State Department investigator David Asher, three researchers became ill with a mysterious respiratory condition in November 2019 - with the wife of one scientist dying.

One Washington source told The Mail on Sunday that US intelligence on the Wuhan researchers was collected in late 2019 in data-scraping from routine surveillance. It is thought to include tapped phone conversations, texts and emails.

He said it was not discovered until efforts were intensified last year to investigate the pandemic’s origins and any possible links with Wuhan laboratories – and that it is backed by testimony from a source with access to one of the units. -Daily Mail

The Wall Street Journal last week reported on the three ill lab workers who ended up in the hospital - claims which Beijing furiously disputes. Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has ordered a 90-day intelligence review after it was revealed that US intelligence agencies have been sitting on a 'raft' of un-analyzed intelligence gathered during the course of their investigation - largely because establishment minions wrote it off as a partisan witch hunt.

"The time has come for China to open up all its files so the world can find the truth about the origins of this pandemic," said Tom Tugendhat MP, Chairman of UK's foreign affairs committee. "We cannot protect against future risks if there is not recognition that we all need to share knowledge and learn from any mistakes."

Covering up the report

Professor Yu Chuanhua, professor of biostatistics at Wuhan University, was the one who revealed that Patient Su fell ill three weeks before the official disclosure date. According to the Daily Mail, however, China is hard at work performing yet more damage control.

Professor’s Yu’s interview with Health Times took place on the day China’s health authorities issued a silencing gag on the novel coronavirus as President Xi Jinping tried to regain control of the situation.

Yu rang the journalist within two days to retract this information, claiming the dates had been entered incorrectly and all the other suspected cases before December 8 needed verification.

The details were discovered by Gilles Demaneuf, a member of the ‘Drastic’ group of online digital activists who have uncovered many of the facts seen as contradicting the official Chinese narrative that Covid-19 was a disease that crossed over naturally from animals. -Daily Mail

"We were able to pinpoint the exact name, age and address of a very early suspected case nearly one month before the official first case," said Demaneuf, a French data scientist who works for a New Zealand bank. "That address is right next to the subway line No 2 and also not far from a People’s Liberation Army hospital that treated some of the other earliest cases."

Demaneuf argues that the new findings highlight how many more clues might be accessible if people continue to pursue the lab leak theory, rather than "wishful acceptance at face value of statements from China."

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/31/2021 - 19:30
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61-Year-Old Woman Living Near Wuhan Lab May Have Been 'Patient Zero' - Three Weeks Before CCP Claims First Case

In Less Than Two Weeks, Millions Of Americans Will Lose Unemployment Benefits

With at least 24 GOP-led states set to end federal unemployment assistance before they're set to expire on Sept. 6, million of Americans are going to need to dust off those resumes and start helping reduce the massive job shortage after being paid to stay home for over a year.

The benefits set to lapse include not only the additional $300 weekly federal supplement, but programs for gig workers and others who typically don't qualify for aid "(Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA) and for the long-term unemployed (Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, or PEUC) in most cases," according to CNBC, which has provided this handy guide to states set to end benefits, and when:

• June 12: Alaska, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri

• June 19: Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming

• June 26: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas

• June 27: Montana, Oklahoma, Utah

• July 3: Tennessee

• July 10: Arizona

 Several states are even offering financial incentives for people who find new jobs, including Arizona, Montana, New Hampshire and Oklahoma.

The programs are all set to last through Sept. 6 as part of the American Rescue Plan, however Republican governors say that enhanced benefits say they're discouraging people from returning to work (while the left desperately claims the giant gulf between job openings and continuing claims is a skills or geographic mismatch).

"Employers are telling me one of the big reasons they cannot recruit and retain some workers is because those employees are receiving more on unemployment than they would while working," said Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) in a statement. "My decision is based on a fundamental conservative principle — we do not want people on unemployment. We want people working."

As the Babylon Bee notes satirically, "Shocking Study Finds Paying People Not To Work Makes People Not Want To Work."

According to JPMorgan, cutting benefits is "tied to politics, not economics," adding that while benefits are likely causing some people to stay at home, it's not a major factor in the unemployment rate.

A group of Democratic lawmakers, on the other hand, want pandemic stimulus to become Universal Basic Income.

Via Fall River Reporter:

Congressman Jimmy Gomez (CA-34) and Congresswoman Gwen Moore (WI-04) led five of their Ways and Means Committee colleagues in asking President Biden to include recurring direct payments and automatic unemployment insurance in his American Families Plan, according to a statement.

In response to the President’s support for automatically adjusting the length and amount of UI benefits unemployed workers received depending on economic conditions, the lawmakers are calling on the White House to back a plan that would issue recurring direct payments and unemployment insurance should a similar crisis hit our nation in the future. Recurring direct payments have broad, bipartisan support from both the general public and economic experts, and stimulus checks issued through the CARES Act, the year-end spending bill, and the American Rescue Plan Act, along with enhanced federal UI benefits, proved to be the most effective, but temporary, forms of direct relief during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The success of the American Rescue Plan, combined with direct financial assistance in the CARES Act and prior federal legislation, is evident in communities nationwide," said Gomez. "But we can’t pretend that a $1,400 check will be enough to last a year, and we need to be prepared with a strengthened safety net should a similar economic crisis strike again."

Who's going to pay for that again?

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/31/2021 - 10:35
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In Less Than Two Weeks, Millions Of Americans Will Lose Unemployment Benefits

The Worst-Kept Secret in America: High Inflation Is Back

Authored by Mark Hendrickson via The Mises Institute,

To most people, “inflation” signifies widespread rising prices. Economists have long argued, as a matter of technical accuracy, that “inflation” denotes an increasing money supply. Frankly, though, most people don’t care what happens to the supply of money, but they care a lot about the prices they pay, so I’ll focus primarily on the numerous rapidly rising prices Americans are paying today.

Following are several examples of the current inflation:

Corn, soybeans, and wheat have been trading at multi-year highs, with corn having risen from around $3.80 per bushel in January 2020 to approximately $6.75 now. Chicken wings are at all-time record highs. It is getting more expensive to eat.

Copper prices have risen to an all-time high. Steel, too, recently traded at prices 35% above the previous all-time set in 2008. Perhaps most famously, the price of lumber has nearly quadrupled since the beginning of 2020 and has nearly doubled just since January.

Naturally, with raw materials prices soaring, prices of manufactured goods are jumping, too. That is especially noticeable in the housing market, where the median price of existing homes rose to $329,100 in March—a whopping 17.2% increase from a year earlier.

The cost of driving is soaring, too.

According to J.D. Power, cited in The Wall Street Journal, the average used car price has risen 16.7% and new car prices have risen 9.6% since January.

So, are you depressed yet? Perhaps you can take some comfort in Uncle Sam’s official price indexes where the price increases seem (at least at first glance) less jarring. But remember that the most commonly cited inflation indicator, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), is computed on the basis of a mythical “urban basket of goods” that often bears little relation to what you and I actually buy. The CPI, excluding food and energy, rose “only” 0.9% in March. That doesn’t sound like much, but it was the biggest one-month increase since 1981 when, for those of you too young to remember, annual inflation was 10.32%. As for the Producer Price Index (PPI), which generally precedes increases in consumer prices, it is increasing at the highest rate since 2010, according to the Department of Labor.

The Federal Reserve (Fed) has assured the public that the current inflation is transitory and that they have it under control. I don’t know the future any more than Fed officials do, but I do not share their confidence. I am skeptical because: first, the Fed since its inception has had a terrible track record accomplishing any of the tasks assigned to it by Congress; second, it’s impossible for the Fed or any other entity to control millions of prices and therefore to control the rate of inflation (to believe otherwise is a central planner’s conceit).

Tragically, the Fed has been trying for years to boost inflation to 2% annually. How bizarre that our central bank would deliberately strive to reduce the value of our money. At 2% per year, money loses half its purchasing power in 35 years. That would be half of your nest egg, Millennials!

Today’s inflation is already problematical. A higher cost of living falls hardest on the poorest Americans. Given the present uncertainty about future prices, numerous businesses are struggling to determine how much to produce, and thus are more likely to over-produce or under-produce. Furthermore, if inflation causes foreigners to lose confidence in the dollar, there could be an exodus from the dollar that could end its status as the principal global reserve currency, thereby triggering an even steeper decline in the dollar’s purchasing power.

The quantity of dollars already has risen 32.9% in the last 17 months (mostly due to the federal government’s mind-boggling spending binge). It’s possible that we have passed a tipping point where prolonged inflation higher than the hoped-for and already-objectionable 2% is unavoidable.

Hang on tight, folks. We could be in for a rough ride in the months ahead.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/31/2021 - 10:10
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The Worst-Kept Secret in America: High Inflation Is Back