ERRATA to @2: it was China’s foreign trade, not FDI, that rose. And it was by 1.5%, not 1.4%:
Fast recovery pushed China’s foreign trade up 1.5% in 2020, trade surplus to 5-year high

Posted by: vk | Jan 14 2021 12:30 utc | 3

Did I here some one here mention free speech ?
Trump could have pardonend Julian Asarnge, he chose not to , he pardoned war criminals.
Now he’s bleeting about not getting free speech !!
Don’t you just love karma, or perhaps call it natural justice.
Some on this blog denied natural justice even exsisted.

Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 14 2021 12:54 utc | 5

Thank you Maracatu @1 for the info on Latin America. Biden is likely to focus more on all countries “south of the border” as he loves to preen about how macho he is and put his arm around a tinpot dictator and get in his/her face with his fake smile and spew lines like “Here’s the deal…”. Biden brags on about how he authored and midwived Plan Colombia which is pretty much old school imperial boilerplate: show U.S. muscle, let whatever native psychopathic scum surface, pour money into them, establish military pipelines with their death machines, open their country to imperial corporate rape of resources, cover up killings. Watch Ecuador next month as they are poised to take back power from traitor Lenin Moreno. The left is deep and strong and appears organized. If they win Colombia will feel it big time. Columbia is the center of U.S. terror operations in Latin America along with Honduras. Honduras is ready to blow but the people will probably not be able to take power. Hillary Clinton and Obama/Biden have lots of connections with the Honduran bad guys dripping with drug money; current top guy Juan Orlando Hernandez is a cartoon like tin pot who will probably self destruct like Noriega– no one likes him. Biden will focus on these “projects”. The Grayzone is one of the best sites for info on what’s going on there. I highly recommend reading them often.

Posted by: migueljose | Jan 14 2021 15:04 utc | 7

19% or 95%? US expert challenges Pfizer vaccine’s efficacy, triggers debates in China

Posted by: vk | Jan 14 2021 15:39 utc | 9

A sober look at China’s economic performance by F William Engdahl

At the beginning of December China’s Xi Jinping officially declared that China had eliminated poverty entirely, part of his priority program. Western financial pundits have praised the remarkable economic recovery of China following the severe lockdowns a year go to combat the coronavirus. Predictions that China would once again, as it did in 2008, lead the rest of the world, especially the EU and North America, out of deep recession are common. Yet behind the official Beijing statements there are indications that China’s decades of economic boom are coming into deep problems, far deeper than officially acknowledged. If true, the consequences for the rest of the world as well as for China could be severe.

Can China Lead a World Economic Recovery?

Posted by: Down South | Jan 14 2021 16:09 utc | 11

Down South @ 10
It will be nasty if he is correct about China, however for at least 15 years now I have seen hundreds of articles predicting China’s collapse. So far all have been wrong.

Posted by: arby | Jan 14 2021 16:20 utc | 13

Interesting comparison between today,s UK and East Germany in 1989.
“In less than 12 months, Britain has been transformed from a relatively free country into an authoritarian police state where physical social interaction is strongly discouraged, if not illegal. Last week, we saw a shocking video of police breaking into a home in Scotland after a ‘tip-off’ that there were ‘too many people’ there.
In Wales, a couple were given a fixed penalty notice for travelling seven miles to see the wife’s 94-year-old mother in a care home, a journey the police deemed ‘unnecessary’. “I feel like I’m living in some sort of dystopian novel after what happened,” a ‘mortified’ Mrs Carol Richards said afterwards (After much publicity, the fine was subsequently rescinded, but that still doesn’t excuse the police action).
Under the ‘rules’, people have even been prevented from visiting seriously ill loved ones in hospital. Just how inhuman is that?
The biggest bugbear people I spoke to had with life in the old DDR was the restrictions on foreign travel. But although we have no Berlin Wall, we have restrictions on travel in Britain today (at least for the plebs). When Home Secretary Priti Patel boasted about ending free movement, the left presumed she was talking about immigration. It transpired it was the British people’s free movement that was ending, under the guise of fighting a virus.
And with the World Economic Forum-sponsored roll-out of health passports – which the power behind the throne, Tony Blair, assures us “will” happen – will those who refuse to get vaccinated ever be able to leave the country again? It’s certainly a major concern.”

Posted by: Bluedotterel | Jan 14 2021 16:32 utc | 15

@Posted by: vk | Jan 14 2021 16:01 utc | 9
Your link hits a brick wall. You have to have a subscription.
I *believe* I found an alternate link to the same article.
Is this the same article?
https://investorsnews.net/2021/01/09/bidens-china-problem-resisting-a-new-cold-war-in-asia/

There is a story that Washington policy-makers like to tell about America’s relationship with China, a narrative of the betrayal of naive hopes that is closer to a fairy tale than a sober analysis of history. The fable goes something like this: Once upon a time, there was a hermit kingdom called China, poor, angry, and isolated. Two visionary statesmen, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, visited this unhappy land and opened it up to the world. With diplomacy and trade, successive American leaders helped build up China, with the dream that, as it grew richer, it would join the United States in upholding a harmonious global order. But engagement proved a false dream: As China grew richer, it remained despotic, undercutting America with sharp trade practices, repressing its own people, and threatening its neighbors. Suddenly America found itself confronting a monster. Shortly before he died in 1994, Nixon told The New York Times, “We may have created a Frankenstein.”
Nixon’s invocation of the Frankenstein monster reveals the emotions underlying this historical myth: the creation that betrays its creator. To get a glimpse of Dr. Frankenstein at the height of his hubris, it’s worth revisiting former deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick’s 2005 speech calling on China to become a “responsible stakeholder” in the American-led international order. The paternalistic assumption was that the United States and China had no deep-seated disagreements, and provided China put aside any ambitions to challenge US hegemony, it could evolve into a junior partner in empire.
All myths have a social function. The myth of China-as-Frankenstein is designed to assuage the American conscience: We meant only to improve the world—and created a monster by accident.
A more realistic view would note that…

I have a story about Washington’s China policy.
This really happened.
I do not recall exactly when it happened, pretty sure it was was in the late 1970’s,
somewhere between Nixon visiting China in 1972 and Jimmy Carter granting full
diplomatic recognition in 1979.
I was in an airport waiting room and a Congresswomen sat down nearby.
Very shortly thereafter a Congressman introduced himself to her and they
struck up a conversation. They were standing just a few feet from me.
Both were “back benchers”, minor Congress people, I expect, as I had never heard
his name before when he introduced himself.
China came up in their conversation.
Most memorable was his statement that there was on sense in improving relations
with them as “it is inevitable that we will go to war
with them some day”. The Congresswoman was in agreement.
They agreed to get together later in Washington.
Also memorable was that she still had a curler in her hair.
It was in the back of her head. If she hadn’t been divorced her
husband would have spotted it for her.

Posted by: librul | Jan 14 2021 16:37 utc | 17

Very interesting article. Highly recommended:
The Austerity Politics of White Supremacy: Since the end of the Confederacy, the cult of the “taxpayer” has provided a socially acceptable veneer for racist attacks on democracy
An excerpt to convince you to read it all:

Across the South, the planter class engaged in massive resistance to the new state governments. The campaign came to be known as the “Redemption” of the South, and its participants as “Redeemers.” In South Carolina, democratic rule posed a particularly big obstacle to the opponents of Reconstruction; the majority of the state was black, and under universal male suffrage, a majority of the state legislature was black, too.
South Carolina’s white elite developed a two-part strategy of opposition. First, they focused their critique of Reconstruction on rising government debt and excessive spending, painting government by black people and poor whites as intrinsically corrupt. Adopting a new identity as concerned taxpayers helped the rich bridge the divide with small white farmers, for whom new land taxes were heavy, while avoiding explicit opposition to black male suffrage, which might smack of treason to Northerners.

–//–
@ Posted by: librul | Jan 14 2021 16:37 utc | 16
With an adblock and/or uMatrix you can break through The Nation’s paywall.

Posted by: vk | Jan 14 2021 16:48 utc | 19

“Construction of China’s space station construction nears implementation stage”:
“China will carry out 11 launches, including four manned spaceships and four cargo spaceship flights in the next two years, as it aims to complete the building of the country’s first space station by around 2022, Global Times previously learned from China’s space authority.
“China is set to launch the core cabinet of the country’s first space station by spring 2021, Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China’s manned space program, disclosed to the Global Times on December 25.
“The space station, named Tiangong, which means ‘heavenly palace’, will be T-shaped with a core module at its center and a lab capsule on each side. It will be able to accommodate three astronauts under normal circumstances and up to six during crew replacement.”
And a previous item that I missed:
“China aims for 40-plus space launch missions in 2021, space station construction to be top priority.”
China’s Mars lander will land sometime in February to begin its mission. Once Russia gets its space station operating, the ISS will be retired and the Outlaw US Empire will have no platforms in outer space or a heavy launch vehicle to erect one.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 14 2021 17:03 utc | 21

Hat tip to Pepe Escobar for this news. Glen Diesen has published a critical new book, Great Power Politics in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: The Geoeconomics of Technological Sovereignty. The initial reviews are quite tempting. A snippet from one of several:
“Diesen takes on and brings together two large phenomena, namely the revolution in technology and the change in global power relations.”
My continual question: Will the Western world’s morality evolve quickly enough to keep pace with technological progress? I have no worries about Eurasian morality. Rather, it’s the West’s loss of its 500 years of domination and what it will do to recoup that immoral position that’s most troublesome.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 14 2021 17:15 utc | 23

@ Posted by: BemusedDragon | Jan 14 2021 17:07 utc | 21
That’s not what the numbers tell us. China’s growth was cut by half after the fallout of 2008, forcing it to change its economic doctrine to a “quality growth” one (remember the “soft-landing”/”hard-landing” debate in the West). It never again grew by two digits.
It also forced China, in its quest for “quality growth”, it stopped importing huge quantities of commodities from the “emerging economies”, which plunged their prices, ending the miracles of Brazil and Russia, circa 2011-2014.
Yes, the proportion of China in the world’s growth after 2008 grew, but only because the rest of the world collapsed more than China. China is a positive force in the world, but it didn’t “lift up” the world from 2008.
The definitive evidence China didn’t lift the world from 2008 is the pattern of world growth, which clearly became a pattern of depression and not miracle (square root sign graph). If China really had capitalized from the 2008 crisis, then we would have observed a V-shaped world growth pattern from 2009 on, with China quickly taking the USA’s spot as the sole superpower – which, obviously, didn’t happen.
So, yes, China contributed by not collapsing as much, but its less worst economic results, by logic, didn’t generate any recovery from 2008.

Posted by: vk | Jan 14 2021 17:24 utc | 25

The theatre of what’s happening in Congress is amusing, even if it seems to be a play by grade-schoolers instead by Broadway. The Dems seem sure their strategy will cripple the Repubs, and there’s a good chance that could happen. But McConnell controls the Senate until Jan. 20, and can start the impeachment trial at any time he chooses (he has hinted that it would be on Jan. 19th). Do the Dems really want to spend their important “first hundred days” impeaching someone who is no longer there? If it didn’t totally shut down decisions on other issues (cabinet hearings, stimulus checks, healthcare, etc.) it would delay them greatly. Even though Schumer would then be in control, Senate rules would require rules of order that could make the trial go on for weeks. I would think the public backlash could be harsh.
Of course there are many Repubs who I assume would like to see the whole thing disappear quickly, as a prolonged trial will allow the Dems to milk the “domestic terrorists” angle even more, pointing the finger at those lawmakers who were complicit (real or perceived) in stoking the uprising. This could play into McConnell’s decisions as well.
From my POV, above the “two party illusion”, the impeachment could be the best thing to throw a monkey wrench into whatever upcoming fuckery is in store (as Caitlin J. wrote, “Biden will have the most diverse, intersectional cabinet of mass murderers ever assembled”). Unlike Trump’s dysfunctional presidency, this team will have the deep ties with neo-liberal (and neocon) heavy hitters in the MIC, big tech, Wall Street, etc., and may be ready to hit the ground running. Victoria Nuland’s appointment was the icing on the cookies to highlight our awful state of affairs.

Posted by: Kabobyak | Jan 14 2021 18:10 utc | 27

@ Posted by: Down South | Jan 14 2021 18:16 utc | 28
“It will surely help…”
Emphasis on “help”.

Posted by: vk | Jan 14 2021 18:19 utc | 29

Happened across a great 20-minute YouTube video about the blatant and ongoing US/Western hypocrisy regarding what happened at the Capitol and what the US inflicts on others.
“A Reflection on American Foreign Policy Arrogance & Hypocrisy”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv3H9PNw4eQ
Those events that the US mediacracy has made so much of were relatively brief and mild when put into context, but as in Shock Doctrine, the shock is played up and the crisis is readily and extensively made use of by the establishment.
It’s from YouTuber Daniel Dumbrill, a Canadian expat in China who has lived in Hong Kong, so it relates to what happened in Hong Kong, but the same exercise could probably be done with other US-sponsored insurrections like Maidan in Kiev, Ukraine, the attempt in Belarus, and the countless other protests/insurrections inflicted by the US.

Posted by: Canadian Cents | Jan 14 2021 18:58 utc | 31

Well China’s growth will not be the same as before. It won’t be 8 % per anum over 10 years. More likely it will be 5 % per anum over 10 years. Later it will drop further. On the other hand China’s internal market will matter more due to the dual circulation strategy and and the opening up of the country.
It will surely boost the rest of Asia. Whether it will help the US – no, as long as the US tries to decouple.
A big difference with 2008 is that back then mostly the West was hit, while now the whole planet ex-China is hard hit. There are strong headwings to global growth now.
It looks like there will be Asia growth cluster and stagnation in the rest of the world.

Posted by: Passer by | Jan 14 2021 19:22 utc | 33

Canadian Cents @31
Thanks for your post and sharing that video, it was indeed very well done. I will share it and hope others who agree will also.
It’s sad many of my “liberal” friends will be closed to the facts just as they were with Russiagate (still think NYTimes, CNN, NPR et al can be trusted to shape the narrative). Cheers!

Posted by: Kabobyak | Jan 14 2021 19:41 utc | 35

Posted by: spudski | Jan 14 2021 19:31 utc | 34
Yeah, this is what Xi says. China aims to double GDP by 2035, they will need some 4.7 % anually up to 2035. Which they will manage to do. But there is no doubt that China’s gdp growth will be dropping over the years. It is estimated that it will become the same as US growth rate by 2055 – 2060.
China will be the world’s biggest economy by far. 2 times bigger than the US in PPP GDP and 1,4 in nominal GDP by 2050.
But it will not rule the world, as it will too stagnate. The second part of the 21st century will be the time of India, the Muslims World and Africa, with US, Europe, Russia and East Asia stagnating.
So it will be a real multipolar world, with China mattering more, but also India (better demographics), Africa (4 billion people) and the Islamic World (1 in 3 people) mattering more too by 2100.
The world by 2100 by most current estimates, baseline scenarios
China 17 % of world economy
Africa 15 % of world economy
India 14 % of world economy
Islamic World 13 % of global economy
US 11,5 % of world economy
Europe 10 % of world economy
A real multipolar world.

Posted by: Passer by | Jan 14 2021 21:03 utc | 37

karlof1 #23

Rather, it’s the West’s loss of its 500 years of domination and what it will do to recoup that immoral position that’s most troublesome.

For a clue as to what might be planned keep an eye on the Cini Foundation.
“The premier foundation of the world is the Cini Foundation, which provides ideological directives for the far wealthier but junior foundations with names like Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, MacArthur, Volkswagen, etc.”
I can’t vouch for this material but here is some reading Venices war against western civilisation.
I would be interested in any further references and barflies feedback PS don’t mistake the messenger for a dart board ;))

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 14 2021 21:15 utc | 39

uncle tungsten @39–
Something’s wrong with your link. I get an http error 500, “page isn’t working right now.”
The big future problem is in my @40. And CO2 needs to be removed from the ocean as well as the atmosphere for those geoengineering types. Neoliberal economics as Keen constantly notes doesn’t even see the problem as its treated as an externality, not a future cost of production. IMO, thanks to urging by Xi, Putin now sees the seriousness of the problem for Russia and the world. But more than China and Russia need to attain net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Once again the leading destroyer is the Outlaw US Empire. Oh, have you taken a look at the Amazon recently? Real bad news in Brazil.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 14 2021 21:35 utc | 41

looks like you are right @42 dowtown haiku…. he has 2 sites – .net and .org… neither one of them is operative at the moment..
i look foward to reading what he has to say!

Posted by: james | Jan 14 2021 22:26 utc | 43

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 14 2021 21:21 utc | 40
Yes, China’s zero net carbon emission target is 2060.
Estimates for Climate Change costs point to higher costs for southern states than for northern states, so Canada and Russia may benefit from Global Warming. There are plenty of studies on that already, so it is possible that Africa and India may have lower share of world’s GDP by 2100 than originally estimated.
Overall, the world may suffer a loss of 20 % of per capita GDP, according to median estimates.

Posted by: Passer by | Jan 14 2021 22:46 utc | 45

@40 karlof1 – “a steady-state economy with zero net carbon emissions”
Ah, the grown-ups in the room. Thank you for that.
There are indeed goals worth aiming for beyond constant growth. Continual growth, as I know you realize completely, is a failure of an economy to mature, not a sign of strength.
~~
I’m not deep in the mechanics of this, but I’ve always assumed that the need for continual growth, after an economy could and should have turned steady-state, is a disease that can be laid squarely at the door of compound interest.

Posted by: Grieved | Jan 14 2021 23:05 utc | 47

@ Canadian Cents | Jan 14 2021 22:52 utc | 46.. thanks cc… i had read some of that before… venice was a real power prior to the black plague… eventually they had to share their wealth with constantinople and after that there power seemed to recede… but it was a banking centre of great importance previous to all this and a power on the seas… i don’t know anything about the cini foundation, but some of it makes sense… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cini_Foundation
one sees this foundations headquarters while visiting venice… it is straight across from st marks square and very visible.. i didn’t know what it was when i saw it a few years ago… venice was a financial empire way back when… i am sure some of that money stuck around and never left…

Posted by: james | Jan 14 2021 23:17 utc | 49

@ uncle t… some of the links inside your link @ 48 work, but not the top one – The Venetian Conspiracy… the 2nd one – The Role of the Venetian Oligarchy in Reformation, Counter-reformation, Enlightenment, and the Thirty Years’ War works for me..

Posted by: james | Jan 14 2021 23:20 utc | 51

james #51
Thank you, I recall having the odd link failure as I cruised about that site. The chapter I referenced is about a 60 minute read and worth it but I found it somewhat stuck in the 17th Century. The genealogy from 17th to 21st century is the thread to consider. Maybe cryptome has something.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 14 2021 23:30 utc | 53

uncle tungsten @48–
I should have recognized the name Webster Tarpley as he’s part of Lyndon LaRouche’s network, which includes Matthew Ehret and Cynthia Chung. I tried getting info on some of his other essays, but it’s very difficult. Clearly his website’s being suppressed. It’s possible that our computers have stops in their software for some particular websites while others are made hard to reach, like RT. Tarpley does have a Wikipedia page that details his academic background, and he seems very intelligent and was once rather motivated; but his attempt to smear/libel Melania Trump cost him some money and his reputation. I treat all LaRouche network writers very carefully and want to see their sources for statements they make that go against the historical narrative, which is what I do with all historians/writers anyway–my BS Detector is amplified when I read them as they often cite writers from their own circle, which is an old propaganda technique also employed by CIA.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 15 2021 0:30 utc | 55

Grieved @47–
Thanks for your reply! Yes, compound interest is part of that problem, but so is an expanding population or a shrinking resource base. Yes, we face all three of those problems and are certainly in an Overshoot situation few genuinely appreciate.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 15 2021 0:39 utc | 57

welcome to the shit show
of 2021
I can’t wait to see what happens
with the new old hired gun
Will he give the people health care
and unite the angry mob
will he bring home all the troops
and give everyone a job?
Will he tax the billionaires
break up banks too big to fail
Will he reassess why many
must work for free from jail?
no
he will ramp up war with China
and poke the Russian Bear
the war machine is good for death
and making billionaires.
The shinng city on a hill
could not pick a better face
to represent the putrid turds
who have cuked the human race

Posted by: Linda Jean Doucett | Jan 15 2021 1:38 utc | 59

Gawd bless Democracy
https://mobile.twitter.com/mtracey/status/1349406340981133313
Michael Tracey
@mtracey
·
13 Jan
Airbnb and its subsidiary HotelTonight have canceled all reservations in the DC area next week on the ground that “hate groups” may be coming, based on “reports.” Now your ability to obtain lodging is contingent on a political “investigation” carried out by tech officials

Quote Tweet
Brian Chesky
@bchesky
· 13 Jan
We have canceled all Airbnb reservations in DC for Inauguration week.
Guests will be issued a full refund and hosts will still be paid in full for these canceled bookings.
“>https://news.airbnb.com/airbnb-to-bloc

Posted by: Triden | Jan 15 2021 1:42 utc | 61

Triden #56
Thank you, that is appreciated.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 15 2021 2:05 utc | 63

#FraudSquad and scabby journalist at Intercept get a full flogging. Jimmy Dore maintains the rage.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 15 2021 3:32 utc | 65

A major scandal is unfolding in the US naval community. It turned out that a whole class of ships, on which America had pinned great hopes a couple of decades ago, turned out to be utterly incapable of combat. What exactly are the problems with these ships? Why did they only show up now? What does the massive corruption in the United States have to do with what is happening?
Political events in the United States have overshadowed everything that happens in this country. Including one event related to the Navy, which would indeed have exploded.
We are talking about a whole type of warships, both already delivered to the US Navy, and those still under construction – the so-called Littoral combat ship (LCS) of the Freedom type. And it’s not that they’re useless. And not at the prohibitive cost. And not even that the gearboxes of the ship’s main power plant (GEM) do not withstand the maximum stroke, and with the speed of 47 knots, which was the ridge of this project, he will never be able to walk – they also resigned themselves to this.
But at the end of 2020, it turned out that they generally cannot move faster than a dry cargo ship for more or less a long time. That is, it is not just scrapping metal; it is also almost stationary scrap metal.
https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2021/01/13/american-warships-of-one-class-turn-into-a-metal-scrub/

Posted by: Mao | Jan 15 2021 4:38 utc | 67

@ Grieved | Jan 14 2021 23:05 utc | 47 who wrote
”
I’m not deep in the mechanics of this, but I’ve always assumed that the need for continual growth, after an economy could and should have turned steady-state, is a disease that can be laid squarely at the door of compound interest.
”
@ karlof1 | Jan 15 2021 0:39 utc | 57 who wrote
”
Yes, compound interest is part of that problem, but so is an expanding population or a shrinking resource base. Yes, we face all three of those problems and are certainly in an Overshoot situation few genuinely appreciate.
”
I think humanity needs a frontier more than growth. We need to keep chasing our ignorance.
We lack the common will to regulate our social interactions at a structural level that guarantees some level of equality and justice. Having the will I believe we have the ability.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 15 2021 5:07 utc | 69

Kim Jong-un attends N. Korea military parade on Thursday evening: S. Korean source
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj3AMhi75HE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIz-8bwdfrE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKSB5tLm9zg

Posted by: Mao | Jan 15 2021 7:35 utc | 71

After a small draft of wine I staggered over to Indianpunchline to see what that unreconstructed western admirer had to say and was hit fair in the face by the best joke in years:
This ‘report’ published January 12 begins well and then the first joke appears in para 10 and it is a doozy. Only two days after the hapless author yet again attacks Russia for attacking Navalny our good brother John Helmer has utterly debunked the Indian. Maybe the Indian ganja is too strong or he has been sipping tea with the Institute for Statecraft viceroy.
Then there is this: a sentence with the words USA and diplomacy within three words of each other. Well I just had to let all the barflies know. Check out this scribble:

This does not preclude, however, a substantive global “to-do” list that awaits the EU leaders and Biden to work fruitfully — elevation of diplomacy as the US’ principal tool of foreign policy, renewed commitment to multilateralism and specific assurances on NATO and the UN, re-entry to the Paris Climate Agreement and Iran nuclear accord, reengaging World Trade Organization and World Health Organization, a global democracy summit, push back against authoritarianism and corruption, advancing human rights and so on. These are all matters of great importance to Europe.

Yes, the Indiapunchline was a good one this time 😉

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 15 2021 9:40 utc | 73

@Petri Krohn #4
You are completely wrong.
There are thousands to tens of thousands of people all over the world with the capability to do what was documented.
One example: a Brazilian I have worked with is an expert “fuzzer”. Fuzzing is throwing random data crap at a software program to see if you can get it to do something unexpected.
When Windows 10 came first came out, he spent 6 months fuzzing his copy. He found a number of top level bugs – we’re talking nation state type attack stuff. Half were sold to an unnamed Western agency for 7 digits, the other half were published so that he could get some props.
The types of tools professionals can use are quite impressive – from reverse compiling to direct compiled code analysis.
More importantly, code that can be run – will be hacked.
Open source means the code can easily be compiled and then tested extensively – much easier than the fuzzer above.

Posted by: c1ue | Jan 15 2021 11:36 utc | 75

Norway Links 13 Deaths to Pfizer Vaccine’s Side Effects
All the 13 victims were very old, but the fact is Norway is thinking about not recommending Pfizer’s vaccine to people in a very frail state.
So, now we have a vaccine that can’t be used on elderly people. Against a disease that majorly kills elderly people.

Posted by: vk | Jan 15 2021 11:40 utc | 77

@Mao #67
The Bulgarians are way, waaayyyy behind the times.
The LCS has been a dog and a boondoggle from day 1. Not so different than the F35…
That’s what happens when you combine multi-region pork barrel supply chain/political approval strategy with all-branch military requirements.

Posted by: c1ue | Jan 15 2021 11:43 utc | 79

@ Posted by: c1ue | Jan 15 2021 11:40 utc | 78
There were only two major countries which returned to nominal pre-crisis growth rates: the UK and the USA.
But those were not true recoveries because, in orderto offset the crisis slump and return to pre-crisis growth trajectories, you have to grow at a faster rate than before. That didn’t happen anywhere, but China lost half of its nominal growth rate on top of that.
Bourgeois economists only observed the Wall Street numbers, hence they state the world “recovered” in 2009. In their view, 2008 was immediately offset by 2009. The fact that they state China did it may have come from the fact they want to convince their clients to invest in China or that they fear China and are lobbying the USG to invade and destroy China.
Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that only the limited echo chamber of the financial report world say the world recovered from 2008. Fear of China is widespread, but that’s more because the rest of the world failed than China succeeding.

Posted by: vk | Jan 15 2021 12:44 utc | 81

Dance with Bears, Helmer’s site is back online, and includes another big article about Navalny, plus reflections on the attack which shut down the site for awhile.
AND, you get to see his art!
http://johnhelmer.net/

Posted by: downtownhaiku | Jan 15 2021 16:05 utc | 83

The Guardian’s coverage of the Jan 6 events, includes the following,seemingly WTF!? article:
Headline: “Captain America creator’s son hits out at Capitol mob’s use of superhero imagery”
“Neal Kirby says he was appalled to see symbols of the patriotic action man among the crowds as ‘Captain America is the antithesis of Donald Trump’
In a statement issued to CNN reporter Jake Tapper, Neal Kirby, 72, said he was “appalled and mortified” to see Trump supporters dressed in Captain America costumes or displaying his iconic star shield on 6 January. His father Jack, along with Joe Simon, created Captain America in 1941, with the comic’s first issue famously showing the superhero punching Adolf Hitler in the face.
“Captain America has stood as a symbol and protector of our democracy and the rule of law for the past 79 years,” Kirby wrote. “He was created by two Jewish guys from New York who hated Nazis and hated bullies. Captain America stood up for the underdog and, as the story was written, even before he gained his strength and process from Army scientists, always stood for what was righteous, and never backed down.”

Posted by: spudski | Jan 15 2021 16:55 utc | 85

Lavrov met with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and had a joint presser afterwards. Here’s one of the important Q&A:
“Question (translated from Arabic and addressed to Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud): There are tensions in relations between the United States and Iran. Russia is supporting Iran. What does Saudi Arabia think about the role of this cooperation in stabilising the situation in the region?”
“Sergey Lavrov (adds after Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud): We are interested in a normal dialogue between Iran and the Arab countries in the Gulf. We want them to reach agreements on building trust and transparency in military affairs and on promoting cooperation in general. This is exactly the goal of our proposal to draft a security concept for the Gulf. The main task is to prevent attempts to undermine efforts to create an environment for this dialogue.
“Unfortunately, our American colleagues (at least, the current administration) have been doing all they can to prevent this dialogue. Interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states and imposition of ideological concepts on these countries are unacceptable. Nobody should be doing that. We are seeing that in this region the United States and its closest allies behave like a bull in a china shop. Unfortunately, Iraq, Libya and the attempt to destroy Syria have had extremely negative repercussions for the countries and peoples of this region.
“We discussed this in detail. I emphasised again that we understand the concerns of Saudi Arabia, including those linked with the developments around Iran. We realise that Saudi Arabia is worried about Tehran’s missile programme and its activities in various countries in the region. The conference that we suggest holding to discuss collective security in the Gulf may well embrace all these issues, as well as the concerns of the other participants, including Iran. The main thing is to build this dialogue on the foundation of genuine equality. All outside parties must help the sides reach a consensus rather than set them against each other.
“In January, Foreign Minister of Iran Javad Zarif is expected to visit Moscow. We discussed this issue with him and will continue reviewing it in the context of our current exchange of views with Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.” [My Emphasis]
Perhaps 2021 will finally see movement toward the Russian and Iranian proposals for collective security within the Persian Gulf region. But as Lavrov said getting a dialog started must be the first step. Since 2019 and again at the last UNGA in 2020, Iran has said its prepared for such a dialog, so the ball is in the Saudi’s and other Gulf nations’s court. If they truly desire peace and enhanced security, then they must not listen to the Outlaw US Empire and other NATO voices and step out on their own.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 15 2021 19:08 utc | 87

– Trump refuses to pay Rudy Giuliani for his “Legal Services” ??

Posted by: Willy2 | Jan 15 2021 21:30 utc | 89

Read the quote from a Reuters posting below and tell me that the US government is not picking winners and losers in this “pandemic” situation.
”
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday began distributing $15 billion in new payroll assistance to airlines, money allocated by Congress to help more than 32,000 aviation workers return to jobs through at least March 31.
Large airlines receiving assistance must repay 30% of it to the government in 10-year, low-interest loans. They must also issue warrants to the government as part of the assistance and must agree to extend restrictions on executive compensation and a ban on paying dividends and share repurchases through March 2022.
”
So that is a $10.5 billion dollar gift to the private airline industry when other sectors of the economy are just as hurting. And who doesn’t think that there is going to be a major reduction in air travel in the coming years both for business and leisure?

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 16 2021 6:49 utc | 91

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 16 2021 7:21 utc | 92
So all these just in time supply chains are brittle? Hmmm.
For a guy who supposedly builds hotels, Trump seem to pretty dense about how things really work. Or maybe he just doesn’t care.
I wonder at what point he & Pompeo are going to bail out, you know, the scene where they walk away while the whole town burns behind them?

Posted by: Bemildred | Jan 16 2021 7:34 utc | 93

So here comes Joe Biden with his new Attorney General judge Merrick Garland.

During his election campaign, Biden pledged to take steps to end racial disparities in sentencing by eliminating mandatory minimum sentences, ending the use of the federal death penalty and restoring the Justice Department’s role of investigating and holding police departments accountable for “systemic misconduct.”

But what will the little man do about a network of corrupt Republican Attorney Generals?
Wall Street On Parade reports:

If there was ever a DEFCON 1 warning to Americans that campaign finance reform must be a top priority of the incoming President Biden administration, it is the cautionary tale of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) and their recruitment efforts of the mob that descended on the Capitol of the United States on January 6.

This scabrous pack of money launderers and mob rabble rousers used all manner of directly associated subsidiaries to drive the mob to the capitol invasion or ‘stroll’ depending on ‘viewpoint’. Only they left some uncomfortable calling cards behind other than the two bodies.

Five people are now dead from that siege, including a Capitol Police officer, and dozens injured. The U.S. Attorneys office for Washington, D.C. has also confirmed that two live pipe bombs with timers were found in front of the Republican National Committee and Democrat National Committee, both located near the Capitol.
When one thinks of a group with the word “Association” in their name, it invokes the idea that this is a fraternal organization or a trade association. What doesn’t come to mind is that it is a campaign financing group to elect Republican Attorneys General – the highest law enforcement officer in a state – by taking vast sums of money from the very companies committing crimes in those states. But that is what RAGA has been doing for many years now.

The Executive Committee of RAGA includes Attorneys General from nine states. Its Chairman is Chris Carr, Attorney General of Georgia. For RAGA to participate in fomenting a riot at the Capitol on incendiary information it knew to be false demands a thorough and formal FBI and Congressional investigation. RAGA has thrown a bone to the media by firing its Executive Director, Adam Piper. But the entire structure of RAGA needs deep scrutiny.
The Rule of Law Defense Fund is the dark money fundraising arm of RAGA and located at the same address and suite number as RAGA according to its IRS filings. Both the Rule of Law Defense Fund and RAGA were at varying times listed as “Coalition Partners” on websites set up to promote the January 6 event. While many of these websites have been taken down, we were able to access them at the Internet Archives’ Wayback Machine, which captures website content on past dates. Website names used to promote the January 6 event include: TrumpMarch.com, MarchtoSaveAmerica.com, and WildProtest.com, among others. The obvious question, of course, is why would State Attorneys General want to associate themselves as a Coalition Partner with a group calling itself WildProtest.com, not to mention a false claim of a stolen election.

Reuters informs us that before becoming a judge, Garland worked as a federal prosecutor and helped secure a conviction against Timothy McVeigh for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. He was also on the team that secured a conviction of former District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry for cocaine possession.
So I might be excused for getting my hopes up that Garland will take a cold hard look at a cabal of states Attorneys General that raise dark money and use it to finance a direct political campaign to undermine the constitutional duty of the Congress and Senate.
I wont be getting my hopes charged up because as with the Debbie Wasserman Shultz installed spy and blackmail ring in the Congress and the Hillary Clinton breach of USAi national security and the thousand other examples of the failed state of the USAi, I suspect that judge Garland was rightly blocked as Obummer’s appointment to the US Supreme Court as he is a compliant dolt, a coward on a paycheck, a classic example of the corruption of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party and not one to ‘rock the boat’. Time will tell, I would give him two months to let everyone down.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 16 2021 8:17 utc | 95

Your latest in Uyghur genocide from Guardian:
Testimony from a NED employed activist – Check
Stock Photos – Check
Images proven to be from prison transfers outside of Xinjiang – Check
Nonsensical logic in claims – Check
I rate this cool story 10 Iraqi WMDs out of 10 Iraqi baby incubators in terms of credibility.

Posted by: J W | Jan 16 2021 9:32 utc | 97

The Weekend of the Fake News.
—
India Starts Vaccinating Its 1.3 Billion People
The headline gives the reader the impression India is going to outright vaccinate all of its 1.3 billion inhabitants, taking only into account the logical time necessary to inoculate them. In other words, it gives the average NYT reader the illusion India already has the doses in stock and already has the logistics ready to distribute them.
But then the truth arises when the NYT reporter has to come out with the numbers:

Mr. Modi has pledged to inoculate 300 million health care and frontline workers, including police officers and, in some cases, teachers, by July. But so far the Indian government has purchased only 11 million doses of Covishield and 5.5 million doses of Covaxin.

So, not only the goal was never to inoculate “1.3 billion people” – it is 300 million – but India doesn’t have the doses, in fact, not even near that (only 16.5 million purchased).
The situation is made worse by the fact that India has adopted a free market approach to the vaccines it is producing: whoever comes with the money can buy it, whatever the quantity. As a result, India is exporting most of its vaccines to the First World countries, leaving almost none to their own people. It is a Third World maquilladora for Big Pharma.
And there are more macabre information as you go down the article. For example, one of the two vaccines India will inoculate on its own people – “Covaxin” – hasn’t even finished its trials; we don’t know if it really works:

Neither Covaxin’s manufacturer, Bharat Biotech, nor the Indian Council of Medical Research, which contributed to the vaccine’s development, has published data proving that it works. In a Covaxin consent form at District Hospital Aundh, one of a handful of sites in Pune where the vaccine was being administered, the manufacturer noted that clinical efficacy was “yet to be established.”

India’s situation is so dire that we don’t even know if the fact they have only 16.5 million doses is good news or not.
The Indo-Pacific papers already were declassified. The NYT should give the news to their reporters that the farce is uncovered and stop doing PR for India.
—
This headline is criminal:
How China is controlling the Covid origin narrative: WHO inquiry panel unlikely to uncover the truth as Communist Party dictates the country’s version of events
This is the real news:
‘We may never find patient zero’: WHO urges to be ‘careful’ about attributing start of Covid-19 pandemic

“We need to be careful about the use of the phrase patient zero, which many people indicate as the first initial case. We may never find who patient zero was. What we need to do is follow the science and follow the studies,” Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19 told a press conference on Friday, referring to the organization’s fact-finding mission that arrived in Wuhan, widely regarded as an original hotspot of the pandemic, on Thursday.

I have a theory on why the Asia Times – which has the particularity of being the only newspaper in town that puts the opinion pieces at the main spot of their homepages, without the “opinion” tag on them – published that aberration: they know the virus didn’t originate in Wuhan, and they know the WHO won’t find patient zero there.
There is growing, if only circumstantial, evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 was born either in the USA or in Italy (Italy being the most likely). The Western MSM is already preparing the masses to not believe in that when the definitive evidence comes (if it comes).
–//–
This is the post-Soviet freedom. The REAL post-Soviet freedom:
In Latvia there is a campaign to DEHUMANIZE those working for Russian media, prosecuted journalist tells RT
In his infamous book, Hobsbawm – in an act of extreme cowardice, intellectual dwarfism and defeatism – popularized the term “actually existing socialism” to designate the system of the USSR. The term was then quickly used and abused by the liberals as evidence socialism was not feasible (i.e. it was “utopia”).
By that logic, we should also be talking about “actually existing capitalism”, “actually existing Western/liberal democracy”, “actually existing rule of law” etc. etc.
–//–
It seems the CDU became “Angela Merkel’s party” on the NYT and The Guardian headlines. I’m sure no reader of these two newspapers will notice the irony, because they are a bunch of hypocrites who only see “authoritarianism” in countries they don’t like. Either those two newspapers don’t have faith in their readers’ intellectual capacity and politicization or they’re just assuming it’s an information they don’t need to know – after all, who cares who killed Gaddafi, right? All that matters is that they did “God’s Work”!
Compare that to CGTN’s headline, which is precise and informative at the same time: “Laschet succeeds Merkel as German CDU party leader”
–//–
Why were US media silent on Pfizer vaccine deaths?: Global Times editorial
Yeah. Why?
By the way, the Norwegian Public Health Institute note on the 13 proven linked deaths was bestial:

The Norwegian Public Health Institute updated its Covid-19 vaccination guidelines earlier this week to reflect the new data. The document now instructs medics to thoroughly evaluate nursing home residents before giving them the vaccine. For very ill people who are not expected to live long, the benefit of the jab “may be marginal or negligible,” the guidelines say.

So, the elderly should just be left to die, vaccine-less, because the benefit “may be marginal or negligible” because they are not expected to live long. Sounds like euthanasia with extra steps to me – with the aggravating that it would be involuntary euthanasia, i.e. murder.
I have a better solution for the Norwegian Public Health Institute: import the safe (and much cheaper) Chinese and Russian vaccines. Do your fucking job, save lives.

Posted by: vk | Jan 16 2021 13:49 utc | 99