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North Korea Laments Failed Deal With Trump – Will Again Test Nukes And Missiles
Two years after a failed attempt to make peace with the United States, North Korea announced that will restart nuclear testing and its long range missile program.
On June 12 2018 U.S. President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea met for the first time and signed an aspirational document. The core part said:
Convinced that the establishment of new U.S.-DPRK relations will contribute to the peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula and of the world, and recognizing that mutual confidence building can promote the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un state the following:
- The United States and the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] commit to establish new U.S.-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.
- The United States and the DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
- Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work towards the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
- The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.
This was a freeze for freeze agreement which North Korea had long offered and which China had urged the U.S. and North Korea to accept:
The U.S. stops the large "strategic" maneuvers involving nuclear capable bombers flying from Guam, aircraft carriers and the like, while North Korea stops testing nukes and missiles. North Korea achieved its first aim. It can now lower its miliary posture and develop its economy.
The situation is still somewhat unstable as both freeze steps are reversible.
The 'freeze for freeze' is, as the Chinese Foreign Minister envisioned, a starting point for a long series of talks which may finally lead to a peace agreement and some nuclear disarmament. Now comes the "dual-track approach" of a peace agreement in exchange for some disarmament "in a synchronized and reciprocal manner". This will be a "step-by-step" process which will take years or even decades.
The U.S. foreign policy borg went immediately to work to sabotage the deal. The Pentagon did not stop its common maneuvers with South Korea and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo constantly claimed that North Korea had promised to disarm without the U.S. doing anything on its side of the deal. It had never done so.
A second meeting between Trump and Kim in February 2019 failed:
Cont. reading: North Korea Laments Failed Deal With Trump – Will Again Test Nukes And Missiles
Coronavirus – How A German City Proved That Wearing Masks Works
A new study shows that mandatory mask wearing is the most effective measure during the Covid-19 epidemic.
On March 23 we started to urge everyone to wear masks during the Covid-19 pandemic:
Wearing a mask helps with protecting oneself but even more importantly helps to protect others. One might be carrying and spreading the disease without knowing it. We all release fine droplets when we speak, sneeze or cough. Masks prevent one's droplets from spreading out.
There was and still is a lot of cultural resistance in 'western' societies to wearing masks even as it seem obvious that masks help to prevent infections. But while there was evidence that masks work in certain situation there was no scientific research that showed the effects general mask wearing would have on the growth of the epidemic. We did not know how much general mask wearing would 'flatten the curve'.
We now have a sound answer. There is now a study that compares a city which ordered everyone to wear masks with a similar city that had no 'mask-up' order during the same period of the epidemic.
On April 6 the German city of Jena with a population of 110,000 people ordered everyone to wear a mask in all public settings. The announcement of the order was made a week earlier and was followed by a local awareness campaign – "Jena wears mask!"
No other city in Germany did this at the time. The states of Germany only ordered mandatory mask wearing between April 22 and 26.
For 20 days Jena was different than the rest of the country but experienced the same epidemic. That made it possible to test the effect the mask order had on the number of new cases in Jena.
To be able to make a one to one comparison with Jena researchers from the University of Mainz constructed a 'synthetic city' of the same size and demographic characteristics as Jena from the weighted data of six other German cities (selected from a bigger pool). They then compared the Covid-19 case data from Jena with the case data from the synthetic city.
At the beginning of the pandemic in Germany the synthetic city and Jena had similar developments. But ten days after the announcement of the order and four days after its mandatory implementation the case numbers in Jena dropped away from those of the comparison city.
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The people in Jena started to wear masks before other German cities did so. It nearly immediately paid off.
At the time of the announcement of the mask campaign Jena and the synthetic control city each had 93 cases. On April 6 Jena had 142 registered cases compared to 143 cases in the synthetic control city. On April 26 Jena counted 158 cases and the synthetic control city had 205 cases. It shows a significant reduction in the growth of the epidemic.
The authors conclude:
Cont. reading: Coronavirus – How A German City Proved That Wearing Masks Works
Open Thread 2020-46
How To Change The Meaning Of Monuments Without Removing Them
On Sunday protesters toppled a bronze statue of the 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol, England. It was thrown into a river. Some had tried for years to get rid of the monument but others had rejected that as Colston had also donated a lot for various local social purposes. Some of the institutions he had supported still exist.
In the U.S. there are many discussions about removing memorials and statues of people who had fought in support of slavery during the civil war.
But when and where is it right to remove the memorials our ancestors erected?
When the Taliban destroyed a large Buddha statue figure in Bamyan, Afghanistan, there was a global outrage. The U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein statues in Baghdad to some applause but also as an act of propaganda. After the Nazi-led Maidan putsch the Ukraine removed many statues of Lenin and erected some new ones which glorify fascists. Czechia is currently in a struggle with Russia over the potential removal of a memorial that hails Soviet troops for liberating the country from the fascist German occupation.
Which of these removals were right or wrong? To whom?
What about statues of George Washington, the slave owner, or of Winston Churchill, the mass murderer and utter racist. Should they all be taken down? What about John Stuart Mill?
How will future children learn about the bad sides of those men if they go down the memory holes of history?
Where does such iconoclasm end?
Here is a concept that may help to avoid conflicts over such memorials.
The German language has two different words for memorials:
- A 'Denkmal' is a memorial of a historic incident, period or figure. It is generally seen as honorific. Its linguistic root is the verb 'denken' which means 'to think' combined with the noun 'Mal' which means 'mark'.
- A 'Mahnmal' is also a memorial of a historic incident, period or figure. But its purpose is to serve as a lesson or warning. Its linguistic root is 'mahnen' which means 'to urge' 'to exhort' 'to admonish' again combined with 'Mal' which means "mark".
A memorial that was once erected as a 'think-mark' can be turned into an 'exhort-mark' by changing its context.
A famous example is the memorial for the 76th Infantry Regiment in Hamburg, Germany. During the first world war the 76th had been recruited in Hamburg and fought with great losses at the western front. A memorial for its soldiers was only built in 1936 when the Nazis ruled in Germany.
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The memorial shows marching soldiers. The inscription above the soldiers means "Germany must live even if we must die".
Cont. reading: How To Change The Meaning Of Monuments Without Removing Them
Russia Attempts To Freeze The Conflict In Libya
The war in Libya has become a proxy conflict between many international players.
The Government of National Accord (GNA) under Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj is supported by the Muslim Brotherhood. Its main political and financial sponsor is Qatar and its main military ally is Turkey. Italy is also supporting Sarraj. The GNA controls the capital Tripoli and Misrata in the west of the country.
On the other side is the (former?) CIA asset Khalifa Haftar with his Libyan National Army. He controls Libya's east and most of its oil resources. He is supported by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece and France.
Russia sees its involvement in the conflict as an adjudicator. It wants to reestablish its long term business interests in Libya which had fallen to the wayside after the war the U.S., UK and France waged against country in 2011. It has sold weapons to Hafter through the UAE and has allowed Russian mercenaries to take part in the war on the side of Haftar's LNA.
Since April 2019 Haftar attempted to take Tripoli and to evict the GNA. The fight was more difficult and went on much longer than he had hoped for. The economic situation of both sides is interwoven and makes the war complicated. In January Russia called on Hafter to stop it. It held a peace conference in Moscow and urged him to sign a ceasefire agreement:
After hours of negotiations brokered by Russia and Turkey, Haftar on Monday evening asked until Tuesday morning to look over the agreement already signed by Fayez al-Sarraj, the head of the United Nations-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA).
But Haftar, whose eastern-based forces launched an offensive to seize the GNA's base of Tripoli in April, left Moscow without signing the deal drafted at the indirect talks, Russia's foreign ministry was quoted as saying by TASS news agency on Tuesday.
The snub towards Russia was not forgotten.
Cont. reading: Russia Attempts To Freeze The Conflict In Libya
The MoA Week In Review – Open Thread 2020-45
CNBC Makes Up V-Shaped Charts To Support False Claims Of Economic Recovery
After the announcement of less-bad-than-expected (un-)employment numbers yesterday CNBC headlined:
The recovery from the coronavirus sure looks V-shaped, going by these charts
A better headline would have been:
Can you believe that we could make up charts that show a V-shape?
The piece starts:
The U.S. economy added a record number of jobs in May as it appeared to bounce off the bottom of the coronavirus recession, and now the chart of jobs gains and losses is starting to look like a “V.”
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That graph is straight out of How to Lie With Charts or similar books and pieces. A huge drop in the number of employed followed by a much smaller increase is mangled into a graph that somehow shows a V.
A real plot of the (un-)employment numbers, here from the Calculated Risk blog, looks much different:
Cont. reading: CNBC Makes Up V-Shaped Charts To Support False Claims Of Economic Recovery
Little Was Changed By The First Round of The Civil Wars Of 2020
The first round of the civil wars of 2020 seems to be over. It did not change much.
Unjustifiable police violence against one man was documented on video. This enabled the issue to spread. Protest, first local then nationwide and even internationally, followed. The police reacted to it with more unjustifiable police violence. This was again documented on video - one collection of these now has 282 entries – and spread further.
The police did not exclude the media from its attacks as it usually does. It even seemed to especially target these. That again amplified the echo of its violence.
Thus the police and its supporters have lost the argument.
In parallel to the protests some looting happened. President Trump and many other 'law and order' people saw the violence against property as a more important issue that the police violence against people – especially against people of color.
Trump reacted by calling up the military and a myriad of federal police forces to 'dominate the battlespace' of Washington DC and other cities.
They cleared a peace- and lawful demonstration from Lafayette Square near the White House for a photo-op. The move was illegal but will likely have no legal consequences.
Five well known retired 4-star generals, Dempsey, Kelly, Mullen, Mattis, Allen, protested against the proposed abuse of the military. The active commander of pacific air forces, a 4-star African-American, published a moving video with his thoughts on the issue. On this the military is not on Trump's side.
Thus Trump and his supporters have lost the argument.
That the police and Trump lost their arguments unfortunately does not mean that anything within the U.S. will change.
The military will not correct the issues the situation exposed. Political corruption at the federal as well as the local level is bipartisan and too engrained:
Cuomo, his party and New York’s legislative leaders have raked in more than $1 million from police unions as they have refused to enact a bill proponents say would deter police violence.
Opposition candidate Joe Biden responded to the issue of institutionalized racism with a dog whistle comment: Joe Biden says '10-15%' of Americans 'are just not very good people'. Well of course not. Some 13% of U.S. citizens are black. Given Biden's racist history – supporting segregation, writing the crime bill, lying about marching with the civil rights movement etc. – it is highly unlikely that he chose that range by chance. There is zero evidence that he would change a thing.
The protests will soon die down. But the divide within the U.S. public will only deepen. Trump voters will call themselves the 'Trump Army' and wear the camouflage 'Keep America Great' hat to fight the 'Liberal MOB'. Liberals will respond with pro-black gestures but without follow up actions. Writing 'black lives matter' on a DC street or changing the name of a place does nothing for blacks when the police can continue as before. Racist attacks in the U.S. will only increase.
What has changed is the public image of the U.S. throughout the world. Years of careful branding and propaganda have been put to waste. No U.S. ambassador can now express concerns about police violence in a foreign country without being laughed at. The U.S. has been put on crisis watch and in my estimate will stay there for quite a while.
The current economic situation makes it certain that the civil war continues. The next round is likely to be more violent. The empire is sinking in front of our eyes.
Open Thread 2020-44
The U.S. Economy Is Down By 50% – Where Are the Job Programs It Needs?
The U.S. has a service economy. Some 70% of its gross domestic product is generated by personal consumption. The emergency measures taken to slow down the covid-19 pandemic decreased consumption by a huge margin. The GDPNow model by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta shows the slump:
The growth rate of real gross domestic product (GDP) is a key indicator of economic activity, but the official estimate is released with a delay. Our GDPNow forecasting model provides a "nowcast" of the official estimate prior to its release by estimating GDP growth using a methodology similar to the one used by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
…
Latest estimate: -52.8 percent — June 1, 2020
The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2020 is -52.8 percent on June 1, down from -51.2 percent on May 29.
Source: GDPnow via The Big Picture – bigger
The GDPnow model gives a snapshot of GDP on any given day. It is not the GDP for the year, which will be down much less, but just a moment in time.
With the lockdowns loosening the GDP will certainly increase again. But a haircut missed due to the lockdown will not result in a desire to get two haircuts. The meals not eaten in a restaurant during the last two month will not be made up by additional meals eaten after the reopening. The losses are for real.
With the end of the lockdown half of the 40 million currently unemployed will likely soon be back to work. The jobs of the other 20 million will not come back for a long time. The travel and hospitality sectors will be most effected. People who do not make money can not spend any.
The unemployed and the economy will not be impressed by Trump's current fake 'law and order' show or by his pandering to Evangelicals.
If Trump is as smart as he claims to be he will ask Congress for a huge amount of money to be spent on infrastructure programs over the next three years. That money should be shared for projects on the national, state and local level. There are plenty of bridges, roads and rails that need repairs or replacements.
But Trump isn't as smart as he claims and the people around him, as well as Trump himself, are from the FIRE economy – the Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate sectors. Such people do not value the real economy where real stuff is made and used.
The stock market, on which Trump is fixated, has long ceased to be a reflection of the real economy. Propping it up again and again, as the Fed and the Treasury do, may well enrich Trump's friends, but it does nothing for the voters he needs to get reelected.
Does he not understand that?
And why, by the way, ain't the Democrats out in front demanding that more be done to create new jobs? They seem to have totally vanished from the scene.
Trump Calls Up Military For ‘Law And Order’ Campaign Stunt
Yesterday's protests over the murder of George Floyd seemed smaller to me. A few hundred people in this or that city. There seem to have been more people on the march in New Zealand than in New York City. From what I can tell the store break ins and looting were likewise reduced. Some people, mostly not protesters, are just using the opportunity. For the real looting is happening elsewhere. Just look at Blackrock.
U.S. President Donald Trump is using the relatively few incidents to divert the attention from his abysmal handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
It is now all about Trump as "commander in chief" who brings "law and order" for "god and country". If that requires to violently clear a park of peaceful protesters or to teargas a priest in front of his church – all so Trump can stage a photo op where he upholds a bible – so be it. While Trump is in full campaign mode the Democrats seem numbed.
The militarized response the nutters around Trump call for is way out of proportion.
Washington DC has seen a bizarre "show of force" with helicopters hovering much lower than allowed over crowds of peaceful people. The Secretary of Defense has called on governors to "dominate the battlespace". The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General Matt Milley was seen patrolling around the White House in camouflage uniform. The cheerboys of the military are not happy with this.
Last night a large number of military transport planes carrying troops of the 82nd Airborne Division, 10th Mountain Division and 1st Infantry Division arrived at Andrews Airbase near Washington DC. These units lost the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. They probably think it is easier to win a war in the midwest than in the Middle East. We'll see …
But who will they actually be fighting against? The violence enticing Antifa account on Twitter that turned out to be run by fascists in Europe? The "Interim Government of the United Socialist States of America" (@USSInterimGOV)? The "Free American Army" (@FAARMYOfficial)? The Jaish al-Chicago and the KFC Brigades? All of them? Well, that's gonna be a hell of a war on parody accounts.
And a war on the press. In the past four days there were more than 125 incidents in which police attacked journalists. But the media still repeat police reports as if they were the one and only truth:
Despite what our colleagues of color have been saying for years, the clear history of police abusing protesters and the press, too many outlets continue to cover the police credulously.
Policing in the U.S. has been going wrong for a long time:
Cont. reading: Trump Calls Up Military For ‘Law And Order’ Campaign Stunt
It’s true …
by lizard
hauled from a comment
I think this relevant to how fractured the discourse is. it's a repost from my litter watering hole.
I know it’s going to be difficult to accept what I’m about to say because people get very invested in their chosen narratives, but it’s important that you at least be exposed to the notion that it’s all true.
It’s true that people engaged in peaceful protests.
It’s true that people engaged in lawless looting.
It’s true that provocateurs have committed acts of vandalism and sometimes carry umbrellas.
It’s true that Antifa exists and that they don’t advocate gently placing flowers in the gaping hole of a long gun.
It’s true that some very messed up militia minded people call themselves Boogaloo Bois, wear Hawaiian shirts, and are showing up to add their brand of crazy to the mix.
It’s true looters come in all shades and sizes.
It’s true some desperate people are taking things they need.
It’s true some opportunistic people are taking things they want.
It’s true opportunistic government thugs suddenly shifted the Covid-19 rationale for using contract tracing to a catch-them-rioters rationale for using contract tracing.
It’s true the policy infrastructure for enacting martial law has been a long-term, bi-partisan project.
It’s true that now is the time to realize what’s at stake, but instead of acting collectively for our mutual benefit, the cognitive challenge of accepting that all these things can be true at the same time will keep us tied to one of these things to the exclusion of all the others.
It’s hard work, I know. But I have faith in you.
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