Tag Archives: France

December 10, 2018 · 13:06

That Grrrrrrr moment

I have had my issues with the large corporations for the longest of times. I am not against their existence, I have nothing against corporations making wealth and having a great run of revenue, being against that is just lame and idiotic. Yet corporations should be held to account, properly taxed. So whilst politicians hide behind the coattails of economists like Thomas Piketty for all the most idiotic and self centrered reasons, how about we change a few other things first?

The article ‘Group led by Thomas Piketty presents plan for ‘a fairer Europe’‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/09/eu-brexit-piketty-tax-google-facebook-apple-manifesto), needs to get a clue, and fast. In addition buying a few vowels from Susie Dent is not the worst idea either. this is a personal joke towards Chrononhotonthologos (a Scrabble hit) and the mention of “As you both behave to Night, You shall be paid to Morrow“, a different stroke towards consultancy for shaping ones economy. As I see: “A group of progressive Europeans led by the economist and author Thomas Piketty has drawn up a bold new blueprint for a fairer Europe to address the division, disenchantment, inequality and right-wing populism sweeping the continent“, my blood goes slightly on the boil. How about properly taxing the members of the FAANG group? (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google), or How about stopping the EU gravy train by at least 85%?

Two elements optionally bringing in billions and you know this! These people are given leeway in ways most people cannot fathom. ‘The Rotten Apple: Tax Avoidance in Ireland‘ gives us: “The European Commission found that Ireland gave Apple preferential tax treatment which amounted to $14.5 billion in unpaid taxes between 2003 and 2014. Due to Apple’s tax havens in Ireland, they have taken advantage of U.S. and Irish tax regulations” and that is merely the top of the iceberg. When we see the angering part with: “In fact, this selective treatment allowed Apple to pay an effective corporate tax rate of 1 per cent on its European profits in 2003 down to 0.005 per cent in 2014” (source: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-2923_en.htm), we see that the EU has failed itself and now we see the unacceptable quote: ‘€800bn of levies‘, whilst we get it set into some ‘tax the rich’ status, we need to be weary of the delusional setting of these “more than 50 economists, historians and former politicians from half a dozen countries“. So when we see: “by taxing corporate profits more effectively, as well as income and wealth“. In the foundation that step is not wrong, I am all for properly taxing corporations, yet the EU is part of the problem, it has given away the keys to banks and corporations to so as they like. I do believe that ‘0.005 per cent of profit‘ is ample evidence of that. It is the ‘tax the wealth that is an issue’, because that is where the problem starts. The wealth tax is 5000 times higher than Apple apparently pays. the first sign where we see: “an extra 15% levy on corporate profits, tax increases on individuals earning more than €100,000, a wealth tax on personal fortunes above €1m, and a tax on carbon emissions“, is the problem. These high paid wankers (pardon my French) is not about getting to the corporations, it is the ‘personal fortune‘ that they seem to be after. Now, before you think that you are safe, think again. Your house is part of that making many people considered to be multimillionaires; they now all get a levy on what these gravy train wannabes call ‘fairness’. How about holding all the economic advisors of all governments to account, for any wrongful advice that impacted the government and European coffers negatively for over €250,000, we fine these advisors with €25,000 euro, all of them. This is likely to impact all those economists that hid behind ‘it was a complex situation‘, or ‘carefully phrased denial of corporate facilitation‘. This is the easiest to see with the Dutch fiasco called Fyra (a high speed train) that impacted tax payers by €11 billion. When we see “The Fyra-story also demonstrates that powerful corporate interests (in this case Dutch Railways’ desire to remain the sole rail service provider in The Netherlands) can abuse their position and waste an unbelievable amount of taxpayers’ money“, on a short sighted and narrow-minded view of what the ego wants, whilst the coffers cannot ever afford a scheme that will never be cost effective, we see: “Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad reported in January that the HSA never had the intention to operate a “true” high speed rail service; a strong piece of investigative journalism stated that a speed of 220 kilometers per hour had been deemed sufficient for the Dutch portion of the route from the git-go by the HSA executives (by comparison, high speed rail service in Germany and France exceeds 300 kilometers per hour)“, the setting of simple definitions where the different nations in the EU could not agree on that mere setting. So how about giving a fine to all decision makers costing the Dutch government 11 billion? How about making the bulk of tax deductibles no longer applicable? Any corporation can make a profit when corporate tax is one percent or less, it is time to set the proper stage of corporation tax and that part they imply to get right, but they cannot, so these individuals add ‘a wealth tax on personal fortunes above €1m‘. You see, they do not set it on personal fortunes over €15 million, and hit the truly wealthy, no they need a lot more, because properly taxing the FAANG group (and several others) is just too dangerous. I would in my least diplomatic setting offer that the entire economic fiasco could have been avoided. If their fathers had jerked off over the radiator, instead of impregnating their wives, the entire economic danger to all of us would have died with a sizzle, how wrong am I now? (OK, admitted I am totally lacking diplomacy here)

So when we see: “From a tax on personal wealth and assets: an additional 1% on estates valued at above €1m and 2% on those above €5m” accounting for over 25%, we see a dang3er to too many people all over the EU. Try to find ANY apartment or house for less than €700K in most European metropolitan area’s; it will hit too many people, whilst the truly rich will avoid disaster. This entire matter is as I personally see it a joke.

I suggest:

Any government not being able to hold its budget within 2% over budget, its elected politicians will have to return 25% of their income, those who are unable to do so are removed from office and in addition will have to be incarcerated for no less than the full term +2 years of that government. Regardless, of this, in addition, the entire Gravy train comes to a standstill (and right quick). For these people travel and housing expenses are reduced by 60%, they should be ab le to find a cheaper solution. The Guardian gave us in 2016: “According to a European Union financial transparency system, commission staff spent €22,193 (£17,610) staying at the five-star Shangri-La hotel in Singapore and €54,677 at the five-star Stamford hotel in Brisbane in 2014. Other expenses listed that year include €439,341 on Abelag/Luxaviation, a luxury private jet provider, and €23,696 on chauffeur taxi services“, that needs to stop as well. It is my personal view that Thomas Piketty and his 50 economists (an optional new version of Ali Baba and the 40 thieves) should have stayed in their cave, and not come out at all. Now we have the setting to go over these 50 economists and seek all the things that they helped hide from their senior peers and that is essential now. You see as we are introduced to “a bold new blueprint for a fairer Europe“, is also the optional setting to hold these people who cased all of this by facilitating to corporations and banks to account through prosecution. I find it tasteless and unacceptable that just like Greece, those who caused the mess get to walk away with a pretty penny in their pocket as well.

And this mess is not nearly over. When we look at a few parts, we get to start with: ‘The 1999 Santer Commission Scandal‘, you would think that in 1999, when we get “a devastating report on fraud and nepotism attacked the EU’s executive body for serious management failings. All 20 members of the Commission stepped down, in what was described at the time as the biggest crisis in the European Commission’s history” (source: Brussels Times), you would think that this is the end of it. No no, (at https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-santer-idUKTRE80N1UG20120124) Reuters reported in 2012 ‘EU draws fire over Santer return to EU post‘ “Prompted to defend Santer at a late night press conference on Monday, Olli Rehn, the European commissioner in charge of economic and monetary affairs, tried to make light of it, saying journalists only became critical of Santer after Commission officials beat them in a football match in late 1998“, politicians making light of the situation in a farce involving nepotism, and as such we can make certain levels of claim towards corruption. Forms of corruption vary, yet they do include: bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influence peddling, graft, and embezzlement. So as such, the fact that we allow European politicians to re-enter the EU commission after being found guilty here is just too unacceptable. That by itself could also be a cost saving exercise, so does our Thomas Rickety Piketty warlock have a spell on all of us, by merely setting a facade to make thing better for all of us, or merely not worse for some of them? I think that the escalations in France are making people, people in power worried; they are facing the straw that is breaking the camel’s back. This is not something that they are making on the spot. This has been coming for the longest of times and even as I am not against taxing the rich a little more, we need to realise that the entire exercise is merely seen (by me) as a way to paste labels to mere traffic diversions for opening avenues of collecting others.

‘The primary objective of this survey is to understand the level of corruption perceived by businesses employing one or more persons‘ (at http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/flash/fl_374_sum_en.pdf), there we see that 38% does not regard nepotism a problem, 40% think that tax rates are a problem (in all fairness, that is a valid point of view to have for any business), and 45% considers corruption not to be a problem. In that setting, changes are not easy, correct changes are near impossible, as we see the setting where corporations and politicians can work together on a ‘compromise’ that will hit the lowly paid taxpayers a lot more than anyone else.

I actually presented a taxed solution in 2015, there I wrote in regards to the UK budget: “So, helping those on low pay is fine, but only if we change Basic rate to 21% and higher rate to 42%, which means that above the £10,600, the basic income goes up by a maximum of £318 and in addition, high income get an additional maximum of £836. This allows us a balanced budget, and if you wonder why not the highest toll bracket? Well, they also get the 1% of the base and the 2% of high anyway, that group is dwindling down and to seek even more to that smaller group seems a little unfair (the non-bankers that is). The second premise here is that this extra collected fee can ONLY be used to balance out the lost revenue from the basic rate group that had their annual income between £10,000 and £13,000 per annum“. The premise was to give the lowest incomes a little extra cash, so we raise the 0% tax maximum point a little; in that case these people will have a little more and we all profit there. As the non-taxable part goes up by a rough £100 a month, the second bracket gets an additional 1%, so they pay £318 more each year, and the second group (the much larger group) pays an additional £836 above that. It leaves the extra £100 without impact on the treasury, giving them extra and still having a stage to reduce debt (as long as Labour is kept out of the treasury coffers). In this case there was no additional impact of the wealthy, their houses not at risk and we would all be a little more social, no, not according to Thomas, the Rickety Piketty warlock. He wants an additional €800 billion, from what I can tell, because they cannot get their tax rules in order, getting the proper taxation in place and with the FAANG group paying as reported a mere 0.005 per cent of profit taxed, how can we ever get a staged setting of corporations in a fair playing field?

In ‘In fear of the future‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/03/16/in-fear-of-the-future/) I addressed the stage of the annual £43 billion interest bill, interest is cash lost and the economy that has to pay that much every years is running to keep in the same place, so adding the minimal hardship to reduce that amount, hopefully by reducing the debt to the degree that the interest goes down £1-£3 billion a year would be great, yet not entirely realistic. focussing on reducing the interest by £1 billion a year for the first 10 years is possible, yet it comes at a price and properly taxing corporations at a level that allows them continuance and growth (yet optionally not at opening a new super shop every year) is an option to seek. And even as we see ‘taxing the rich’ in the UK, the true rich is a group of no more than 6000 people, how are they coming up with these billions? So as I stated (in 2015): “If we can believe the 2014 article by the Guardian, this will hit 6000 people, which means that it only raise a few millions, so taxing the rich has always seemed like and always remains a hilarious act of pointlessness. It is the 1% from the basic rate that will truly make a difference. It will drive the debt down faster, it will lower the interest bill which will help lower the debt even more.” It is perfectly valid to disagree with me on this one. Yet Rickety Pickety hedges his bets by giving us: “a tax on personal wealth and assets“, this includes your house and car. Now consider the amount of houses and apartments close to €1 million, in addition, we cannot see if retirement funds are seen as ‘wealth’, in that case, of that happens, the entire calculation will change drastically. Whatever we are trying to create for a rainy day will be overly taxed because politicians and economists could not do their job properly in the first place. In that economists have been tools for politicians for the longest of times as I personally see it and they need to be taxed (read: fined) for all their failures between 2003 and 2017. Let’s make those losses part of the requirement to address, shall we?

I wonder how many of these 50 autographs will suddenly vanish (read: get retracted) when we see them held to account for certain projects in real estate, energy and transportation endeavours, I am merely speculating here.

A ‘hidden’ statement at the top!

In the current setting of budget and taxation, please explain to me how ‘Quadrupling the current EU budget to 4% of GDP would raise about €800bn‘, how does upping the budget 4 times over (including the gravy train I reckon) help raising cash? Is he hiding behind ‘spend a little to get a lot‘? Is the $3 trillion QE bond buying fiasco not enough of a train wreck at present?

In the article we are also given a gem. It is Guntram Wolff who questioned the need for a continent-wide project. “If the cross-border transfer element is only 0.1%, why do the whole thing at EU level?” he asked. That is indeed a very good question. I personally see this as some EU fuelled stage where we suddenly see the report being used as a QE prolongation project. We can see part of this point of view in the Economist where we see (at https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/12/08/quantitative-easing-draws-to-a-close-despite-a-faltering-economy): “an extension to its targeted long-term repo operations, which offer banks cheap funding in return for lending to households and firms. That would benefit Italian banks most. They are heavy users of the scheme and the stand-off with Brussels has pushed up their borrowing costs. But to help them would be to ease the market pressure on Italy that might otherwise encourage fiscal rectitude. The agony of setting monetary policy only gets worse when politics comes into play.” In addition there was Seeking Alpha, who gave us last week: “Forward Guidance and Reinvestment Policy will then take QE’s place“, you say potato, and I say tomato. From my point of view it is not merely the application to move coins from the trouser pocket to the vest pocket, it is (as I personally see it), to move coins on their suits, in whatever pocket the can to present some level of status quo, a status that has been non-realistic for the longest of times.

So my simple solution, to merely add 1% and 2% to the middle class (and thus the upper class getting both as well optionally with a mere 1% added, gives us the option on national levels to finally do something about these crushing debts. the entire Thomas Piketty and his 50 abacus users report is not merely over the top, it is (as I personally see it) some under the waterline agenda to make certain changes that will facilitate for corporations to a larger degree in the end, because if they pay 15% on one end, you better believe that they get 20% from somewhere else (it is the trouser and vest pocket strategy). In all this, the people having a decent house merely get an invoice with the ‘Pay within the next 30 days’ routine in the end which I find offensive here. In the same manner where I stated a decade ago (it could have been 15 years) that from the very beginning, making ecommerce businesses tax accountable at the place of delivery (the buying consumer) would have been fair to all shops and merchants, none of that happened and in the end shops can no longer compete and close down. Crushed between cheap online competition and ego tripping landlords (the second most of all), we see that continuance is not an option and this links to the EU, as it is trying to prolong a system that is not merely unfair, it cannot be maintained in its current form. More taxation is not the option, it never was, holding politicians accountable to the expenditure and unbalanced tax laws that they allow for is a much larger weight on one side of the seesaw and that is drowning the economic status of all.

And consider merely one side, a mere example from the recent past. Bloomberg gave us “Apple is leasing about 500,000 square feet (46,451 square meters) of office space at the new headquarters, and plans to move 1,400 employees there. Bloomberg News reported last year that the building’s developers were on course to achieve less than half of their original return target as costs rose and wider economic uncertainty damps demand for the most expensive homes.” I do not mind that Apple moves, that they look good and prestigious, it is their right. Yet now consider the part: “Apple’s new UK headquarters will be part of a £14 billion redevelopment at Battersea Power Station“, as well as “it will take up around 40% of the office space in the old power station“. So 40% of the office space of a £14 billion project? How much tax exemption will they get there? Looking good through non taxability is nice, but that is all it is, nice, it should not allow for tax exemption. And if that makes them decide to move somewhere else, that is fine too. Consider that social housing got cut in that building so in 2017 we went from: “Battersea Power Station is determined to deliver 15% affordable homes, equating to 636 homes“, to “they slashed the number of affordable flats to just 386, a 40% reduction from original plans“, by taxing these options, we will ensure in many places that these so called milking investors take a step back and consider what should be allowed. This example is in the UK, yet there are examples all over Europe, interesting how that part is not highlighted, even as it is optionally part of the ‘taxing corporations’ event, what they lose on one side, they gain in the other. It is seemingly in opposition with Germany where we see ‘Hamburg to seize commercial property to house migrants‘, I use the word seemingly as I have not seen enough data to see whether I merely saw one side of the coin, that part is important too, yet I have seen in Sweden that there are tensions as well as a much better situation than the UK had, so there is space for improvement all over the EU (and the UK mind you), this all adds to the tensions as housing is the number one requirement and keeping that cost down, as well as that value down gives rise to the decrease of hogging and hoarding rental apartments, giving a playing field that is much more level and gives a release of economic tension to the largest European population and as that tension goes down, it will decrease other tensions as well. It does not solve the entire non-budgeting ability to 27 EU nations and as such it is not really part of this, but it is a strong covariant towards economic living of the entire EU population, that is very much a factor here. It does take care of division, disenchantment, and inequality to some degree. That we consider right-wing populism is pushed though the vision of an unfair and unacceptable gravy train and can be addressed by taking that train out of commission (well at least 85% that is). In the end I think that the mention of ‘the EU’s so-called democratic deficit‘, we could consider making nepotism prosecutable with an added lifelong ban on ever returning to any political post, EU or national. Did I oversimplify the problem for Thomas Piketty?

You tell me, and when you think I am wrong, that is perfectly fine, consider Alain Juppé, and Jacques Santer. Consider how people have been made redundant and end up not having any options, yet these people have a shielding umbrella that allows for the return to high yielding governmental incomes.

There is a lot wrong in several ways in all this and it makes me growl (in a rabid way mind you), even as we realise when we try to tackle inequality, we need to take heed from the entire FIFA matter in more than one way and these failings have been ignored (as far as I can tell) by this so called ‘bold new blueprint‘, the stage of mismanagement issues, non-transparency (especially in the ECB) and a whole range of options not cleared before they all start looking for ways to tax more and keep one of the most inefficient logistic systems in the history of the world (as I personally see it) in place. You cannot win more by charging more, not until you fixed your internal accountancy department, should you doubt that, look at Tesco and the Danske Bank and Deutsche Bank, with the acclaimed €200bn dirty money scandal, especially as this is commented on with: “it remains to be seen if any individuals will face justice for the biggest money-laundering scandal in EU history” by the EU Observer (November 29^th).

Taxing the rich? Rickety Pickety, you have much larger issues to address before you should be allowed to make a play for those who worked hard towards their homes and retirement, as in the end, that is wwhere this invoice ends up as I personally see it.

Have a great Monday!

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Tagged as 1999 Santer Commission Scandal, Alain Juppe, Amazon, Apple, Battersea Power Station, Bribery, Brussels, Brussels Times, cronyism, Danske Bank, Deutsche Bank, ECB, embezzlement, Eu, EU Observer, EUROPEAN COMMISSION, extortion, FAANG, Facebook, FIFA, Forward Guidance and Reinvestment Policy, France, Fyra, google, graft, Guntram Wolff, HSA, influence peddling, Jacques Santer, London, nepotism, Netflix, Netherlands, NRC Handelsblad, Olli Rehn, parochialism, patronage, reuters, Susie Dent, the economist, the Guardian, Thomas Piketty, UK

December 6, 2018 · 12:47

Tic Toc Ruination

There is always a next deadline, a next target and a next threshold. When we see that point, some see obstacles, some see challenges and others await opportunities. It has always been this way. In the past we had 3G, Telstra could not keep up and gave us 3.5G and called it something else. The audience was deceived and has been deceived for a while in many ways. In Australia, as I personally see it, too many politicians dance to the needs of Telstra and as such, in the long run nothing was done. As 4G matured on a global level we saw the eCommerce run and we saw growth everywhere. And as the 5G moment grew near too many were sitting on the sidelines, all talk and no hard work. Huawei, Ericsson and a few more worked hard because he fin-tech term ‘be there first‘ applied a hundred times more to mobile technologies and we saw the escalation as China went ahead of the curve. Suddenly Huawei 5G technology got banned, a bankrupt America started and soon most nations followed, now, or at least 5 hours ago, the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/05/bt-removing-huawei-equipment-from-parts-of-4g-network) reported one additional move ‘BT removing Huawei equipment from parts of 4G network‘, we see “In a statement, the UK telecoms group has confirmed it is in the process of removing Huawei equipment from the key parts of its 3G and 4G networks to meet an existing internal policy not to have the Chinese firm at the centre of its infrastructure“, all at the behest of spymaster incredibili Alex Younger. Yet actual evidence of Chinese activities was never given in evidence. Alex does something else and in retrospect to his French, American and Canadian peers something that is actually intelligent. He gives us: “the UK needed to decide if it was “comfortable” with Chinese ownership of the technology being used.” OK, in opposition of American stupidity making claims they cannot support, Alex is giving us the national need and the premise that another government should not have ownership of infrastructure this important. I can accept that, yet in that same light, that equipment should not be American or Russian either. He also gives us: “We have to keep adapting … we are evolving again to meet the threats of the hybrid age … our task now is to master the covert action of the data age“, and he is correct. It does not state that Huawei is a danger, a risk or actively undermining the UK. I get the setting of national security first and in this Huawei might optionally in the future be that risk, it is not the same setting the yanks gave us.

Yet there is the opposition as well. At present not only is Huawei ahead by a fair bit, Engineering and Technology (at https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2018/12/china-continues-to-dominate-worldwide-patent-applications/) give us: ‘China continues to dominate worldwide patent applications‘, it is a lot larger than Huawei, yet the stage we need to comprehend is “China submitted 1.38 million of the total 3.17 million patent applications submitted“, and a chunk of that 43.5% is mobile and 5G technology. China is ahead in the race and as some people start living in denial, the stage we will see in 2020 is not that America will start its 5G part, there will be a moment when China lodges IP cases that oppose patents, and the optional proven stage of patent violations. At that point the nations moving in silly ways will learn the hard way that whatever they tried to overcome will cost them 200%-550% more that they thought it would. The entire patent system will be upside down as technology makers will be found to be technology breakers and that is one side why the US is so opposed to certain levels of protectionism (apart from their pharmaceutical patents). To give you a perspective, China applied for more patents than the US, Japan, South Korea and the European Patent Office combined, the difference is that big, there is a second benefit to a worldwide growth in IP filings and some technology offices will soon encounter the receiving side of a desist to move forward lawsuit. The Apple Samsung war in patents has shown that impact for years and when any firm is stopped in their tracks, for any 5G violation, you can flush that 5G implementation timeline down the toilet.

ZDNet gives us: “Sprint announced that it is now the fastest mobile carrier across New York City, providing customers with access to its gigabit-speed LTE services after upgrading its network in preparation for 5G services going live next year“, which sounds nice, yet when we see: “launching a 5G mobile service there in the first half of 2019“, the way the dates were given last week personally implies to me that any setback gives reason that there will be no 5G before Q3 2019. Now, I might be wrong here, yet in the past we have seen again and again that these timelines were never met and the pressure is really on this time around, making setbacks and delays even more likely. So a we see New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Washington DC, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit, Miami, Indianapolis, and Phoenix moving into the 5G realm, we now see the absence of an earlier mentioned Boston, Sacramento, Dallas, Houston, So as we see San Francisco, I see no Mountain view, no Palo Alto and no San Jose (consider https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnzTgUc5ycc, just a little Helix for the fans). So will San Francisco get 5G, or will Google and Facebook infested Mountain View get the5G? The problem is not whether it comes now or later, the fact remains that implementation and deployment had to be done and be past the 100% deployment preparations 6 months ago and the players left it to the final moment, whilst some of the infrastructure should have been available a long while ago.

The setting is not merely 5G, it is the availability that is connected to all this that follows. Part of this situation is given weight to issues when we consider Telecom Lead giving us (at https://www.telecomlead.com/5g/192-operators-start-5g-network-investment-gsa-87745). The quote: “192 mobile operators in 81 countries are investing in 5G network as compared with 154 operators in 66 countries in July 2018, according to the latest GSA report released in November 2018” shows us that 15 countries are already late to the start and it involves 38 operators. Now, that might be valid as some are not in the size to be the initial adopters, yet it is merely the top of the iceberg. This Titanic is showing a leak when we get to “GSA also said 80 telecom operators in 46 countries have announced their plan to launch 5G to their customers between 2018 and 2022. 37 networks will launch 5G services in 2020 alone“. If this is the stage knowing that you are in one of the 37 countries. The 9 countries that are optionally launching between 2018 and 2020 might have a local advantage, yet which of these 9 are starting fist, or get to start between 2021 and 2022 is equally an issue to explore. We see: “Telstra, TeliaSonera Finland, Ooredoo Kuwait and Qatar, Zain Kuwait, and STC Saudi Arabia have done 5G deployments using commercial 5G base stations but are waiting for devices to enable service introduction“, here we see Australia to be ahead of the curve, yet waiting for devices implies that it goes beyond the mobile phones, I reckon that there is something else missing, yet what it is and when it comes is not given. The article also gives us the entire 5G trap and the Verizon steps that are in question. It is the reason why I mentioned Telstra 3.5G in the first place. We are given “Verizon’s network is not yet 3GPP compliant. It uses Verizon’s own 5G specification, but will be upgraded to be 3GPP compliant in the future“, so does that mean that it is merely a Verizon issue opening the market for Sprint, or are they both involved in that same pool of marketed pool to some form of ‘5G’ branding, and not the standard?

If that is truly the case, if this is truly verified, will the day that the 5G switch is turned on in the US, Japan and Saudi Arabia show that Saudi Arabia and Japan gives the people true 5G and America does not, does that make them the loser in the 5G race on day one? The question now becomes is Sprint 3GPP compliant, and more important what is the failing of 3GPP compliant bringing to the table?

When I look at the data opportunities that 5G brings, the opportunities that blockchain technology can revolutionise (especially in America) in retail with 5G are unheard of. There is a true growth of investment options available, yet are these opportunities seen as such?

So where is the ruination?

You see, this is the first time in history where high-tech is running ahead in China. In the past, America had the radio, they had the TV, they had video, DVD, Japan brought the Blu-Ray, and the US had 4G first; yet it all falters when we realise that this time around China is not merely on par, they are optionally ahead in the next technology wave, we have never seen this advantage from China before, and at the speed at how they caught up in the past, is worrying many nations as they are now ahead and optionally they can create more headway as they start giving the US less and less advantages, optionally resulting in greater economic advantages for China as America ends up having to catch up now, an advantage of being first which is now optionally no longer with the US.

The question becomes, will the consumers have to pay for that lack of headway? Even as we push for the comparison in the past app stage of 4G, we see that the IP war can become a much larger headache when you are not China, it might be good, it will most likely be bad and in the end we might benefit yet the reality is that massive amount of money will start going to the far east (China) and it will impact all manners of ecommerce soon enough. Yet will that happen? We might know tomorrow as the techboys (and one techgirl), AKA Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, Ginni Rometty, Safra Katz and Steve Mollenkopf meet with White House officials later today. So as Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Qualcomm decide on what happens (or needs to happen) in the next 24 hours, I wonder what concessions they will get from the White House as long as they all finish second to none and give America the 5G pole position result. Ego comes at a price and I reckon that we get to know the cost of White House ego tripping before the end of the year.

In all this, I wonder, can I make matters worse when I ‘give’ 2 billion in IP value to Huawei? When we are pushed, should we not push back? When the others face too late the element of delay by not adhering to logic, and by ignoring common sense, should I give them consideration? That is actually a main point here, as technology becomes the main political pawn, how should we react? We can agree with Alex Younger that any nation needs to negate technological risk, we could consider that he seemingly had the only valid opposition against Huawei, as it was not directed at Huawei, but at the fact that the tech is not British, the others did not work that path, and as we see that technology is cornered by the big 7, those in the White House with an absent person from both Apple and Huawei. We have accepted the changed stage of technology and that might not have been a good thing (especially in light of all the cyber-crimes out there), also a larger diverse supplier group might have addressed other weak spot via their own internal policies, another path optionally not averted. So as we focus on national needs (which is always a valid path), should I hand that 2 billion dollar patent to Australia, who is too often in the pocket of Telstra (as I personally see it), or put it on the market for any to buy it, when that happens, do I create opportunity or limitations?

That is a question that most of us did not consider as the tech market had been global for the longest of times, yet as 5G comes into play, that might soon change and with that we will get new answers, new challenges and a lot more diversity (whilst having to entertain a whole range of new limitations as well). In my view there is an unseen balance between ruination and opportunity, yet this is where time is not a factor, it will be about the connectivity that one offers another and that is when we see that time influences it, but it is not the larger factor of influence. It is a market where diversity becomes an enabler against time (partially in opposition of time). I stated this before. As 4G gave us the golden path towards ‘wherever we are‘, 5G will be largely about ‘whenever we want it‘. It affects ‘on demand’, it enables ‘I need it now’ and it gives rise to security, automation and non-repudiation to a much larger extent. We have clearly seen that Huawei and China are in pole position of that race, and we must wonder who of the other players can catch up in time offering the full 5G with all elements validly in place (not using Verizon’s own 5G specification, or a version thereof).

I look forward to 2019 as I have already found 2 optional gaps; I wonder how many more I will find.

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Tagged as 5G, 5G Network, Alex Younger, America, Apple, Atlanta, Australia, Boston, Canada, Chicago, China, Dallas, Detroit, Engineering and Technology, France, Ginni Rometty, google, Houston, Huawei, IBM, Indianapolis, Japan, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, MI6, Miami, Microsoft, Mountain View, New York, Oracle, Palo Alto, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Qualcomm, Russian, Sacramento, Safra Katz, San Francisco, San Jose, Satya Nadella, Seattle, Sprint, Steve Mollenkopf, Sundar Pichai, Telecom Lead, Telstra, UK, US, Verizon, Washington DC, White House

November 27, 2018 · 13:44

Smite the analysts

It is time to change the game. It is time to do a lot more than merely claiming to do something about fake news. I never claimed to bring the news, I have merely been in the process of nitpicking it as much as possible and the Guardian got my feathers plenty ruffled this morning, so it is time for me to be a little speculative of the matter.

We love our idiot products at time; it is something to laugh at or something to make a joke about; for the most harmless fun. Yet today something snapped. It might have been the abuse that Theresa May has been receiving, it might have been watching some poor sod holding a ‘We’re poorer without EU‘ sign, whilst like me that person is unlikely to have any economic degrees.

So when I see: ‘Theresa May’s Brexit deal could cost UK £100bn over a decade‘ by Richard Partington (at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/26/theresa-mays-brexit-deal-could-cost-uk-100bn-over-a-decade).

I hereby make my first demand (do not worry, no one will listen anyway).

In regards to: ‘People’s Vote-commissioned study says loss is equivalent to annual output of Wales‘, I DEMAND a full disclosure of the names of the people involved as well as a clear documentation of all sources used. this includes the names of those in the ‘People’s vote’ those who commissioned the study, the price paid for the study, as well as the names of those who made that report (not just the three who wrote it), the data sources used as well as how the report was set to the data and its results. I expect to find a dozen flaws in the very least. In this case any arbitrary choice (which at times is perfectly valid), should be seen as a flaw, unless clearly stated as such.

It is time to hold these people up to the limelight exposing what the Guardian (and many other newspapers) are giving voice to as being ‘the facts’. I would like to go as far as prosecuting (to some extent) the makers of these loaded and dubious reports by banning those names from any governmental research for life! When that happens, we will get all kinds of excuses and well phrased words or denial. Yet, I feel that we have come to a point where these activities can no longer be tolerated. Not by any government and not by any organisation with political aspirations, or connections.

The reality here is that the UK will lose income, lost funds and lose options for the short term. This has always been known. We always knew that things would get a little worse. Yet NOONE is making any call on the waste of three trillion euro’s by the ECB on their Quantative Easing and the waste of now close to three trillion that the taxpayer has to pay back, whilst people like Mario Draghi walk away with a ton of money, a member of an elite banking group of 20 and no accountability to anyone. The media refused to hammer on the ECB on any of it and the lack of clarity and transparency that the ECB has. This happened in full view whilst they all had 50+ articles on the death of a journalist no one really cared about (aka Jamal Khashoggi).

My larger concern is seen in: “Garry Young, the director of macroeconomic modelling and forecasting at NIESR, said: “Leaving the EU will make it more costly for the UK to trade with a large market on our doorstep and inevitably will have economic costs.” The NIESR report found May’s deal would not be as damaging for the economy as Britain leaving the EU without an agreement, which would cost the economy about £140bn over the next 10 years.” From my personal point of view, these people are in it for themselves, most of them are. Even as I will immediately admit that this report looks actually valid and good, issues come forward to a degree that might not have been seen at the beginning of it all, yet the scrutiny after the report is also lacking making the issue larger. What some call ‘lucrative European contracts’, we see a lack of investigation on both sides of the isle in all this, because as a Brexiteer, I will never deny a Bremainer to voice their opinion, or their opposition to it all. It is the acceptance of democracy that demands it from within me. The UK has not really profited from the EU, merely large corporations have and that is actually the biggest issue with the entire EU at present. When we look at the 68 million consumers, many of them have not been able to afford any of it. The bulk of all of us are dependent on moments like Black Friday to get the hardware we normally cannot get. It is a known issue that the quality of life is still low all over the UK and in many other places. The only true beneficiaries of the entire EU setting are the large corporations. The local grocer sees no real benefit, whilst the large supermarkets have all these deductibles that for the larger extent benefit its board members, not the customers. People like Gary Young are eager to make mention of ”inevitably will have economic costs“, which is a truth; I and many realistic others do not deny it. Yet in equal measure we can move away from a multi trillion bond buying scheme that has done nothing for the people whilst making the banks fat and rich. Never before in the history of mankind did the banks and Wall Street have such a large hold on governments and its citizens and we sat down and let it happen. Brexit is for the UK the first step to undo that damage and it will take time, we all get that. So as we realise that the ECB failure, in part to unmanaged ‘freedoms’, lack of transparency and accountability has greatly impacted the UK, at that point will we realise that there is a weighted and loaded stage against all of us, in every EU nation. The second part in all this is what some call: ‘the EU gravy train’, I have made mention of it on a few occasions and the lack of actions in that regard is close to sickening. Even The Times gave us some time ago: “MEPs are clinging on to lavish, tax-free handouts for travel despite publicly pledging to repay them, according to an internal report by the European Parliament. They have kept an estimated €6million (£4 million) after promising before the 2004 elections not to claim the money. “They get exposed, promise to be modest and then keep riding the gravy train. It is appalling,” said Hans-Peter Martin, an Austrian MEP, who has led a campaign against abuse of expenses. The €60 million-a-year travel allowance system is so generous that many MEPs admit it amounts to legalised embezzlement of taxpayers’ money. MEPs are paid a first-class air fare for travel to the parliament, even if they use budget airlines. They make an average of £20,000 a year tax free“. We can agree that in that meantime something was done, yet how much was done? The taxpayers have to come up with 751 times £20,000, giving us a total of fifteen million pounds and that is only the travel item every year, one of a lot more items, so how much extra are these people getting? The simple fact that many of these issues have not been adjusted for over 12 years is a clear stage that the EU is the goose for exploiting extra income and benefits, something taxpayers never signed up for in the first place. Even now (8 weeks ago) we see: ‘Details of MEPs’ €4,416-a-month expenses to remain secret, court rules‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/25/mep-expenses-eu-court-ruling) with in addition: “MEPs are also refunded first-class travel expenses and get a €313 daily allowance for hotel and living costs when working in Brussels and Strasbourg“, which in the most optional stage grants them an additional £60K each, adding fuel amounting to £46,562,000 to the tax payers fire. I think I have made my point, did I not?

When Brexit is done and we start seeing the impact, I predict it will be less than 2 years before the complaining starts, not from the UK, but from the other nations that now have to pay for the part that the UK will no longer be paying for and that is the ballgame here. When that happens, and it will we will see a rejuvenation by both France and Italy wanting to get out as fast as possible leaving merely Germany as the large economy to carry the weight of the EU and they will not be able to do this and it will all collapse. That is not a speculation; it is a certainty as I see it. It will only need one of those three to join the leave team and it will already fail. In light of all that is happening it seems to me that Italy is now the frontrunner before France, yet that might be what the horse lover calls a nose length photo finish. It was almost two weeks ago when French Marine Le Pen gives us almost the same view in the Daily Herald with: “French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is blaming the policies of the European Union for Britain’s exit from the bloc. “If the EU wasn’t what it is now, the United Kingdom would still have been a member of a structure that respects the nations, the people, that doesn’t impose migration polices and deals that have very heavy consequences on our industries and agriculture,” Le Pen said Friday at a news conference in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia.” It was for the most what pushed me into the Brexit field a few years ago; even as Mark Carney, Governor of the British Bank and his presentation in the House of Lords gave me reason to doubt that, the acts of stupidity by Mario Draghi and the ECB pushed me straight into the Brexit field, supporting Brexit. A situation that had been known for years, yet in light of 751 beneficiaries nothing was done to keep tabs on it and Brexit become a fact.

So as we accept the setting (via many sources) that Marine Le Pen is giving through “the EU wants to punish Britain by imposing “conditions that are unacceptable to a large majority of the people in the U.K. and to members of the British government.”“, we have seen several parts of that in the media. Is it not interesting how infantile the EU gets when you do not want to be a member? They threatened Greece to throw them out, whilst there was no legal option for the EU, and they demand the impossible from those wanting to leave. In that setting, who wants to remain a member? I would go with the speculation that the EU is for: ‘those who needs the power of exploitation‘.

It is getting worse

In this we look back at Greece. Some might remember the big boast that Greece made. I mentioned it in my blog: ‘They are still lying to us‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/06/23/they-are-still-lying-to-us/), so when we were treated on June 23rd to ‘Greece ‘turning a page’ as Eurozone agrees deal to end financial crisis‘. Here Alexis Tsipras was happy to be quoted with: “Greece is once again becoming a normal country, regaining its political and financial independence”, we saw none of the EU reservations in a claim that was off by decades. I also commented in favour of the Greek opposition shown by Kostis Hatzidakis with: “The opposing party reacted to the credit buffer with ‘Kostis Hatzidakis said it reflected the lack of faith international creditors had in Athens’ ability to successfully return to capital markets.‘ And in this Kostis is right, the international markets have zero faith in their return, they rely on a small thing called mathematics and the clarity there is that the scales are not in the favour of the Greeks.” Now we see a mere four days ago ‘How Greece Is Scrambling to Save Its Banks — Again‘, the EU has become this short sighted, this convoluted in misrepresenting the facts to the people. So as we see: “Greece is scrambling to figure out how to save its banks — again. Burdened by bad loans that make up almost half of total lending, crippled banks remain one of the biggest hurdles to Greece’s economic recovery. There are even worries that the country may face yet another financial crisis if it can’t dislodge its lenders from their downward spiral. With bank shares tumbling, the government and the Bank of Greece are working on plans to help banks speed up efforts to shed soured loans” and this comes one day after: ‘EU: Greece has Not Implemented 16 Bailout Program Prerequisites‘, which we get from the Greek Reporter. We see: “The European Commission is urging Greece to proceed with 16 prerequisites that have to be completed by the end of the year, as agreed with creditors. The first report after the end of the bailout program in August that was released on Wednesday says that Greece is delaying to implement 16 important measures and reforms. Among them are the staffing of the independent public revenue authority, the repayment of overdue debts, the legislative framework for resolving the problem of non-performing loans and the development of the new primary health care system“, the article by Philip Chrysopoulos also gives us “Despite the fact that Greece’s 2019 budget meets the target of a primary surplus of 3.5 percent of GDP” will see a speculative setback (speculated by me) by close to 2% at the very least, in what will likely be a wave of managed bad news. The EU is now that useless and pushing down all the other European players. If only the EU legal setting had allowed for removing Greece from the Euro setting and EU economy settings in 2014, a lot of the issues (like Brexit) would never have been an issue. It is in my personal view greed driven EU stupidity that allowed for this. A blind faith in Status Quo that pushed the need of large corporations and that might become the downfall of the EU as a whole.

Do you still think that the EU is better for the EU economy? First Greece and now Italy are becoming the weights drowning the EU. Merely one hour ago, the BBC reported that: “Italy’s government says it will stick to its high-spending budget plans, setting up a potential stand-off with the European Union over its deficit.“, are you actually believing in fairy tales when you think that this will not hit back on the rest of the EU? Even as the Independent reported 13 hours ago: “The pound fell 0.19 per cent to €1.1284 off the back of reports that Italy is headed for a breakthrough with its budget, which would bring to an end weeks of wrangling between the EU and the Italian government.” we now get the reality that there was no breakthrough, we merely see more of the same and the impact of Italy is not immediately reversing and upping the pound against the Euro is it? In light of the revelation, the pound should be up by no less than 0.27 percent against the Euro (the gain and the 0.19 percent loss), we will not see that will we (or we will see it as late as possible so that the 0.27 percent can be largely minimalized. When you realise that the UK is getting unfairly hammered to this extent, would you want to be part of that group? And when (not if) the UK shows the improvements making the UK economy better, what excuses will the EU, ECB, IMF and Wall Street give the people of Britain?

To be part of any exploitative regime as the EU is starting to show it in a few ways. The evidence of this statement was shown by the Clean Clothes Campaign last June when we see (at https://cleanclothes.org/news/2018/06/11/complaint-lodged-against-the-european-commission-for-failing-to-uphold-fundamental-human-rights-in-trade-policy) ‘Complaint lodged against the European Commission for failing to uphold fundamental human rights in trade policy‘. Here we see: “Bangladesh has committed serious and systematic violations of fundamental workers’ rights. Conditions are unsafe for millions of workers in Bangladesh. Additionally, the labour laws of Bangladesh create significant obstacles to the exercise of the right to freedom of association, to organise and to bargain collectively. Further, the government has not effectively enforced even these flawed laws, and workers complaints to authorities are routinely ignored. Without bargaining power or legal recourse, workers have been forced to live in extreme poverty.” and when we realise that the lack of activities, naming and shaming those who are part of it all, whilst the EU remains inactive to a much larger extent, my case of large corporations being in charge of those acting in the EU parliament is close to well made, tailor made one could state. The lack of visibility given in the EU and the oversight on what is imported into the EU from Bangladesh is frightening. The Dutch CBS reported 3 weeks ago: “The average import price per vest exceeds 3 euros in 2018. With an import price of around 2 euros, vests manufactured in Bangladesh are considerably cheaper. Prices of vests from China (approx. 2.50 euros) are also lower than average, while vests from India were average-priced (around 5 euros) and those from Turkey more expensive than average (around 5 euros).” good luck trying to convince me that this is not about money and that there is a proper investigation into the Bangladesh situation. The fact that even China cannot match these prices is partially evidence enough. The fact that manufacture owners in Bangladesh are part of the 250% plus stage that we see with: “This is the largest quantity ever recorded and approximately 2.5 times more than in 1998“, the lack of questions by those gravy train people is just a little too weird and more questions are not coming forward. That is the European Union that its members seem to like and letting the UK out is also not an option. The analysts are merely the first circle we should go after (the first of several mind you). Any report that is not clearly documented with the names of all the people involved in this should immediately be disregarded and kept on record for prosecution and smiting afterwards (when those reports are proven to be incorrect) at that point I wonder how many studies we will get that are so overwhelmingly negative. And it is not merely the analysts. The names of the people commissioning for the report and the clear definition of the question that was asked will also be set to scrutiny. I wonder how many politicians and corporate figures will suddenly run for cover and darkness like a group of cockroaches.

Feel free to disagree or even oppose my view. Yet also remember, I merely want to see the names and all data on those so called ‘commissioned studies’. Is that such a bad question? When we are given the results, should we not wonder HOW they got there? Is that not a duty we all should have?

When we look at The National Institute of Economic and Social Research, we see a clear stage of names, Arno Hantzsche, Amit Kara and Garry Young (which is a proper thing, mindyou). We also see on page 7 and 8: “The Governor of the Bank of England estimated that by May 2018, UK household income was 4 per cent lower than it would otherwise have been as a consequence of the referendum (Carney, 2018): “one third of the 4 per cent shortfall in real wages reflects stronger-than-projected inflation, which is almost entirely accounted for by the referendum-related fall in sterling. The remainder reflects weaker-than-expected nominal wages, the majority of which can be accounted for by weaker-than-anticipated productivity growth“, which should not be disregarded.

Am I opposing my own view?

No, when you see the charts in that page, we see the UK not being in a good place. Yet considering ‘UK economic growth relative to other G7‘ and ‘UK inflation relative to other G7‘, the UK situation would not look great whilst this is staged up to 2018, and now we get the good part. The G7 are Canada, France, U.S, U.K, Germany, Japan and Italy. Now consider the Italian part dragging down due to the stupidity of their budget decision (which might be seen as their right). In addition the Greek issue will drag down the EU as a whole and the USA is in a trade war that will also impact the USA, all parts seemingly not taken into account and suddenly the UK already looks a lot better in all this. Now, we cannot completely fault the report called ‘The economic effects of the government’s proposed Brexit deal‘, yet there is already a non-negative impact for the UK (it is a stretch calling it a positive effect). In addition we see properly placed “We have assumed” in the proper places and only thrice, which is also a good thing and for the most utterly unavoidable. We also see in one place: ‘Sterling effective exchange rate (January 2005=100)‘, which is possibly merely arbitrary, from my personal view the fact that 2008 and 2016 have impacted it all might also be a stage where the UK had more hardship than before and as such the three stages should have been included. My final issue is on page 15; I do not doubt the numbers or the statement perse. Yet when we consider “Ramasamy and Yeung (2010) find that openness to trade benefits in particular FDI inflows to services sectors, much more than to manufacturing. Ebell and Warren (2016) survey the empirical literature and calculate that reverting to trade under trade arrangements similar to those between the EU and Norway would reduce FDI into the UK by 8–11 per cent, and by 11–23 per cent under a Switzerland-type relationship” that openness of trade also implies the open acceptance of the unacceptable ethical stage that Bangladesh is showing to be, we need to ask the tougher questions on EU inactions to the degrees currently seen. You see, when we accept one part, we need to accept that all these sweatshop articles are out of bounds. They are merely emotional banter pressed on those trying to meet budgets, there is no humanity left, we should not allow for that. In this way my statement is harsh, yet that is what the EU has become, a harsh proposer of status quo at the expense of whatever is coming next. If you do not agree, feel free to ban all Bangladesh T-shirts, leaving others with 215 million T-shirts to sell; was that example too direct?

Even when we accept the part of ‘how the deal affects uncertainty and confidence‘, which is a topic that will remain as there will always be uncertainty, the entire report is seemingly staged towards the bad side, whilst any improves economic marker from the second year onwards are basically ignored. We can argue that year one will have no upsides, yet the stage of no upsides in year two is lose to unimaginable. Apart from the ‘EU donation‘, which has been significant, the downturn of Italy and Greece that will no longer impact the UK is clearly escalating and France is basically scared shitless of that part. France is so scared as it is in a much worse position than Germany currently is, who will also feel that impact to some extent.

No matter how this plays, it is a mess that will test the reality of a lot of people. My largest concern is not how good or how bad things get, it is the fake revelations by speculative analysts that are the impact of a lot of things and the moment when we see the managed bad news after the fact, we will also see the weakness that has become the EU, in light of an already weak USA, this merely strengthens the need for a segretative community (read: nationalistic approach to national issues). It is the one part where I see eye to eye with Marine le Pen: “the policies of the European Union as well as the lack of transparency and non-accountability” are the biggest drivers in this entire sordid affair.

I wonder how draconian the changes will become when others realise how correct my view of the matter was. I am less likely to facing the fact that I was wrong, there is too much documentation pleading for my view, especially as the Wall Street Journal reported “Greece’s Eurobank Ergasias SA said it will acquire real-estate company Grivalia Properties REIC, boosting its capital and paving the way for the creation of a “bad bank” to help deplete its pile of nonperforming loans” a mere 5 hours ago. So when exactly did the people ever benefit from a bad bank solution? We saw that in 2013 with the Dutch SNS and Reaal setting. So as Brussels treated us to: “The costs to the Dutch taxpayer were still substantial, resulting in a deterioration of the budget balance (excessive deficit procedure definition) for 2013 with 0.6% and an increase in EMU debt of 1.6%“, we see Greece doing the same 5 years later. As we look at the quote: “In fact, since the nationalization the Dutch press has regularly published pieces that show how the commercial real estate has been mismanaged for a substantial time period. Did this go unnoticed by the regulator? Why did it not intervene?” We now get to unite that part with the overwhelming inaction of the EU and the unacceptable actions of the ECB, so this will be a much larger thing that Greece is printing on the rest of the EU then the people are currently aware of and the impact will be felt much larger, the fact that the bulk of the EU states cannot keep a proper budget merely makes mathers worse (not a typo, it means ‘reaper of hay’), and now I am in a state of moments uncontrollable deriving laughter.

The lack of visibility to several parts (an issue I cannot blame the media for in this case) is just incomprehensible. In part this is due because there are so many elements interacting, yet the fact that the issues are not visible is still a matter of great concern, and also an additional reason to push for Brexit.

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Tagged as Amit Kara, Arno Hantzsche, Bangladesh, Brexit, Bulgaria, Canada, CBS, Clean Clothes Campaign, Ebell and Warren (2016), ECB, Eu, Eurobank Ergasias SA, France, Frexit, Garry Young, Germany, Governor of the British Bank, Greece, Grexit, Grivalia Properties REIC, Hans-Peter Martin, House of lords, IMF, Italy, Japan, Kostis Hatzidakis, Marine Le Pen, Mario Draghi, Mark Carney, MP, Netherlands, NIESR, Philip Chrysopoulos, Ramasamy and Yeung (2010), Reaal bank, SNS, SNS Reaal, Sofia, the Guardian, The Times, U.K, U.S, UK, Wall Street

November 19, 2018 · 12:06

Hezbollah, an ignored danger

It has been around for a while. There has been a clear view on how we perceive things, it is in part fuelled by the media and in part through governments that use the flim flam artist approach of ‘watch here‘ whilst the action has been ‘there‘. We have seen a larger growth of anti-Semitic and even anti-Saudi ‘presentations’ and articles. Even though there has been a clear issue with several sides towards the ‘unnatural ending’ of Jamal Khashoggi, the media was way too eager to merely use Turkish innuendo, whilst to a larger extent no verifiable evidence has been produces, even some of the claims have been contradictive. This does not mean that Saudi Arabia is innocent in this, but the critical questions had remained absent to a much larger degree and that too is being swept under the carpet. Yet there is a lot more in all this and it’s important to look at one of the larger puppets Hezbollah. You see, they are very much connected in all this.

Historical

For me personally there is history, I was never part of UNIFIL, yet I was part of the United Nations Security Council and I knew people who were part of UNIFIL, so when I was exposed to ”One year later, following a comprehensive operation by the institute and due to growing international attention to UNIFIL’s failures – and despite EU pressure to prolong the UNIFIL commander’s term – his term was discontinued“, as well as ““The European continent has turned into the lifeline – the oxygen line – for Hezbollah’s terrorist activities,” said Prosor. “If Germany, and then the European Union, would designate all of Hezbollah as a terrorist entity, it would suffocate part of the organization’s ability to function.” For more than a year, the institute researched and produced an investigative documentary on Hezbollah activity in Germany. The film was produced entirely in the German language and with German and international experts“, I was decently shocked. The Jerusalem Post gave us in addition: “the lack of professional background of the commander who was leading the force and his blind eye toward Hezbollah’s violations on the Israel-Lebanon border, deeming them as activities of “shepherds and hunters.”“, the fact that there was this level of complacency was just unheard of. The fact that the other media is seemingly ignoring parts of this is just way too weird. Now, we can consider that the Jerusalem Post is biased, yet when we consider both The documentary was first shown at the 2018 International Conference on Counter-Terrorism and at the presentation to the German Parliament at the end of this month, we should realise that this is a much bigger issue, in addition UN Nikki Haley publicly criticized UNIFIL at the UN, one would think that this is due more visibility then we have so far seen, and when we also see: “while it seems obvious in Israel and America that Hezbollah’s military and political arms are both sponsors of terrorism, in Europe this is not so obvious. There, they make an artificial differentiation between the military arm – a designated terrorist group – and the political arm“, It is almost like the entire IRA issues we saw in Europe in the 80’s and 90’s and whilst Europe remained cautious in regards to the IRA, it is seemingly willing to embrace the political arm of Hezbollah that is every bit as dangerous as its military counterpart.

A facilitating gravy train

There are two additional parts here. The first is less than a day old when we are ‘treated’ to: ‘Hezbollah money laundering has a ‘safe home in Germany”, again from the Jerusalem Post, that even whilst we are given “Lax German illicit terror finance policies permitted Hezbollah to run a vast enterprise to raise funds through a money laundering operation in Europe and South America. French prosecutors put 15 members of the criminal organization on trial last week in Paris. According to three German media outlets – NDR, WDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung – two of the accused men lived in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and an additional two men who were charged lived near the city-state of Bremen in northern Germany“, I could not find any references in other large media (outside of Germany and France). If they have it, it was hidden pretty efficiently. It seems to me (very speculative) is that there is optionally a growing link between the political branch of Hezbollah and the secular press as the Americans call it and that is pretty dangerous. When we consider that Hezbollah is directly engaged in Yemen, the ignoring of such events is a lot more damaging than you could imagine.

There are additional sides in this, yet most of this is given in opinion pieces, which is a factor that we must take into consideration. The first comes from the Khashoggi family (aka The Washington Post), who (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/to-rescue-yemen-the-us-must-end-all-military-support-of-the-saudi-coalition/2018/11/12/aca29358-e6ad-11e8-b8dc-66cca409c180_story.html) gives us ‘To rescue Yemen, the U.S. must end all military support of the Saudi coalition‘, now, it is a viewpoint that a person should be allowed to have. I do not think it is a realistic one, apart from the fact that ‘Houthi’ is mentioned twice and Hezbollah does not get any mention and they are both firing missiles into civilian areas of Saudi Arabia (and that is all besides the absence of Iranian activity fuelling it all). Yet the passing of a ‘blogger aficionada‘ (aka Journalist) takes front seat to a setting where that person should not really be an issue to the degree he is shown. The stage gives us “in which more than 16,000 civilians have been killed or injured“, yet the mention of 50,000+ deaths from disease, famine and other means where Houthi’s are allegedly using Hezbollah tactics does not get any mention either.

It is that filtered view that is giving light to a behind the curtains support setting to Palestine and Hezbollah. Now, to be fair, a person should be allowed to be pro-Palestinian, if people are Pro-Israel, the other should not be denied, yet Pro-Hezbollah, to be in support of a terrorist organisation is a much bigger issue and that hidden part is becoming a lot more visible, especially when the news is shown to be so unbalanced, even when it is ‘fronted’ as an opinion piece. so when we see the links (as an image), whilst it is almost all openly ‘anti-Saudi’, yet the fact that the atrocities that Houthi and Hezbollah have been largely the cause of, that absence is making the news not democratic, but a shadowy version of niche events presented as factual truth, whilst the given view on the larger scale shows this absence to be close to utterly unethical, especially for a paper like the Washington Post, whether they are now staff-1 or not.

1982 kilometres from Beirut

So how should we react to: “Even U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres submitted evidence to the Security Council that Iran was supplying ballistic missiles to Houthi rebels in defiance of U.N. resolution 2231“, which links to a 2014 article, yet the truth is that this has been ongoing and even as Western Europe is puckering up towards Iran to a much larger degree, leaving the political response against Hezbollah unanswered and more important Mohammed Ali al-Houthi is not seen as the guilty party he should be seen as. It is often stated that any aspiring tyrant will consider peace on the eve of defeat and that is what we see now. Even as we are treated to ‘Arab coalition to allow Al Houthi medical evacuations from Yemen: UK‘, we also see ‘Wounded Al Houthi rebels to be evacuated‘, yet what about the 80,000 children on the brink of death due to famine? Even as some might applaud the Saudi Coalition victory, seen though: “Recent high-ranking defections among erstwhile allies of Al Houthis signal further such splits as the Iran-aligned militia suffers setbacks at the hands of the Saudi-led coalition, experts said. This week, Abdul Salam Jaber, who had served as the information minister for Al Houthis, defected from the militia and fled the Al Houthi-controlled capital Sana’a for Riyadh. He said the rebels were “breathing their last”“, the biggest responsibility should be to the Yemeni civilian population in such distress through famine and disease alone. Even Deutsche Welle reported ‘Yemen Houthis seek truce with Saudi coalition‘, yet nothing on those starving to death and even as the Deutsche Welle gives us “The three-and-a-half-year-war has pitted forces loyal to President President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, backed by the Saudi-led bombing, against Houthi rebels associated with Tehran. Saudi-led coalition has recently intensified the bombing in the key strategic area of Hodeida. A blockade of the port city could trigger unprecedented famine“. Even as the blockade might be tactical, the fact that food has been withheld from the civilian population to a much larger degree through the Houthi whether or not employing Hezbollah tactics is also absent here.

For me the problem is a lot larger, as we clearly see the impact of Hezbollah and the absence in the media, the media is becoming less and less reliable, especially as the stories remain one sided. There is a larger part in all this. Personally I am not convinced that this is the complete picture, and I need to make it clear that this is speculative. It is my personal belief that when we consider The National (at http://www.thenational.ae) and some of its unconfirmed articles, some might have seen: ““This was no rogue operation but, rather, a function of Hezbollah’s “financial apparatus,” which “maintained direct ties” to both Hezbollah commercial and terrorist elements,” he wrote in a report published by the Washington Institute of the US Treasury designation of Nourheddine, which preceded the arrests. “Within days of this designation, Noureddine was arrested in France along with several other accused Hezbollah operatives“, as well as ‘Operation Cedar—of which the Treasury designation was just one part‘. I am amazed that the Netherlands were not more visibly mentioned in all this. It seems weird, almost unfathomable that this was all achieved without the use of Rotterdam as a point of transit. Even as transitional cargo is not really looked as, as the Netherlands was not the end destination, it is the biggest world hub in getting containers and bulk cargo from anywhere in Europe towards Asia and the US (and vice versa). This implies that Hezbollah political players are seemingly active there too. The article does mention the Netherlands, yet in a much more ‘timid’ capacity. We see: “Cash was dropped off at hairdressers in Antwerp in Belgium, a large hotel in Paris, a restaurant in Montreuil or a café in Enschede in the Netherlands. Transcripts showed that Mr Noureddine would hand out orders for the collection of as much as 500,000 euros at a time. Six figure sums were often delivered in small note denominations” and that makes sense for the German part (Enschede – Germany) is a distance you can walk (4.5 km) with a highway to Gronau, so that is a place to easily get into Germany (and the opposite direction), hundreds of containers a day take that route. when we consider the news a month ago, when the Dutch were confronted with: ‘Dutch politician praises pro-Palestinian kite show featuring Nazi symbols‘, my assumptions and speculations might be shown as correct, yet is that the actual part in that? So when the Dutch were treated to: “Rens Reijnierse, a lawmaker from the southern city of Vlissingen” and his Pro-Palestinian view ““Kites at Pool Beach. Beautiful autumn day in Vlissingen. No wind so the kites won’t fly but the project for Palestine still succeeded,” he wrote” as it was tweeted gives light to not merely a Pro-Palestinian view (which should be allowed) to an optional facilitating Pro-Hezbollah view (a speculative view by me), which is another matter entirely, if that would prove to be true, and even as I mention one person, I am convinced that the anti-Semitic vandalism as shown 6 months ago in Amsterdam was recorded to have risen by 40%. From my speculative mind, there is no way that this does not include a wave of Pro Hezbollah people giving light to a much larger danger on a global scale.

The size does not matter here, the fact that the media is allegedly shuffling this part to the bottom of the news pile is an issue and the few parts I have shown here, should also give rise that the media to a much larger extent is seemingly doing this. Merely Google ‘Hezbollah‘ for the last 24 hours and I see an absence of The Guardian, The Independent, the Times, and several other large newspapers in Europe. Do you really think I was making that up? It is not merely what we see; it is what we do not get to see that shows us that there is a much larger problem. Optionally there is a hidden danger, which is nothing to speculate or allege to. Those who are not in the news are often quickly forgotten and that is the true danger that Hezbollah is representing on a global stage. You merely have to view the thousands of images that show the nightmare that Hezbollah has been part of to see the danger that they pose, the fact that Iran is willing and has been shown to fund this is the icing on the cakes of Iran and Hezbollah, the fact that the media skates around it makes the cake more delicious for both these players as they are not given the limelight of their actions.

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Tagged as Abdul Salam Jaber, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, Antonio Guterres, Antwerp, Arab Emirates, Belgium, Deutsche Welle, Enschede, France, German Parliament, Germany, Gronau, Hezbollah, Hodeida, Houthi, IRA, Iran, Jamal Khashoggi, Jerusalem Post, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, Mr Noureddine, NDR, Nikki Haley, North Rhine-Westphalia, Nourheddine, Operation Cedar, Prosor, Riyadh, Sanaa, Saudi Arabia, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Tehran, the Guardian, The Independent, the National, the Netherlands, The Times, the Washington Post, Turkey, U.N. resolution 2231, U.N. Secretary General, UK, UNIFIL, United Nations Security Council, Washington Institute of the US Treasury, WDR, Yemen

November 16, 2018 · 15:30

Terrorism is OK

How is that for a title? Is it nice, cool, rad or merely scary? One would think that people wake up at some point, especially when we see the condoning of terrorism because of the ‘signs’. It is in that light that we need to see the New Yorker and what it brought to the people (at https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-ceasefire-in-gaza-a-turning-point-for-hamas-and-netanyahu). Here we see the writing of Bernard Avishai, a man who teaches political economy at Dartmouth, Dartmouth being a private university in Hanover, New Hampshire. It does not matter where he is teaching, from my personal point of view; the man has been in a stage of historic denial. You see, over the ages Hamas has only ever agreed to a cease fire when the ammunition was lot and they would only keep it until the stocks were back up. In this stage we need to consider what the impact is. You see, the issue is not that missiles were fired on Israel; it is the fact that 400 were fired. The storage for this would have been pretty enormous. This also implies that for the most, the rocket fire is done with the ‘blessing’ from the Palestinians to a much larger extent than we ever considered before. The even more hilarious view is given by the Washington Post with: “Why did Israel carry out this military operation at a time when many were heralding novel progress in diplomatic steps toward alleviating tensions between Israel and Hamas?” My response would be: ‘Didn’t you guys lose a temporary reporter recently? How much of a stink did you kick up over that one? So when 400+ missiles get fired at civilian targets in Israel, we see clear cause and even the consideration that the response was disproportionate (too light), in this that for every 10 missiles one building van get flattened, Israel can still lower the maximum altitude towards zero for at last 35 buildings at present‘.

From my point of view is that we need to hunt the money. These were not some 400 garage band projects, they were ‘commercial’ products (and not cheap) and there should be a trace on where they are from. 400 missiles, even over 10 months is just too much of an amount. There will be a trace and that stuff needed storage, even if it is after the fact, we need to look at the options at what could be backtracked. There is also debate over ‘Israel risks igniting a war that no one can win‘. I agree that there is a partial truth in all this, yet the risk is already ignited as the premise of premeditation that it takes to launch a 400+ missile attack, yet the Washington Post is not really that interested in giving us that light, merely keeping the darkness alive in hindering the light to shine on the truth of attacks against Israel. We can argue that Boaz Atzili has a point or two and he does have them, yet the lack of illumination on the actions of Hamas is also leaving me with a question mark in all this. In addition, the news (very generic) giving us Likud Minister Tzachi Hanegbi downplaying the rockets is also an issue, let’s be clear that it is a valid political play, but the stage with 400+ missiles is a changed stage and the denial over that is a little too weird for me. You see as a national security expert he knows better, the storage, the preparation to get this done was decently impressive. The timeline before this will be equally important. No matter how many rat tunnels are drowned. There is a direct need to look into the trace these missiles back as this will happen again and again and the next time it could optionally hit the wrong place (what Hamas calls the bullseye) and at that point the fence comes of and we do get a full scale war. We could consider that the pressure is removed as Gaza becomes part of Israel, yet another option would be preferred by pretty much every party (including Israel). It is there where we see the agreeing light to the statements by Dr. Mordechai Kedar. He gave us (more than once): “What would the UK have done to anyone who launched 400 rockets at its civilians? How about just one rocket? What would France do to anyone who dared launch one single rocket at its territory? What would any US president do to Mexico if it dared launch one mortar shell at America?” The bulk of the world has had enough of the mind games that Hamas and Hezbollah plays (as well as Iran and to some degree Turkey too) and the people are getting angry, they want it resolved it in any way that takes Hamas and Hezbollah out of the equation permanently. If anything that feeling is mostly fuelled by the images from Yemen, a situation that Hezbollah was a much larger part of than the news is letting on and the people are realising that too, hence the increased anger and frustration from the civilians in nations all over the globe.

Then we get one accusation that is a much larger issue. When we see: “Qatari money is being transferred at Iran’s behest. Iran’s rulers, under severe economic sanctions at present, do not want peace and tranquillity between Israel and Gaza. On the contrary, they want the smoke rising from a war between Israel and Gaza to divert media attention from Iran and the “deal” which granted the Ayatollahs 150 billion dollars in cash with which to destroy the Middle East. Qatar, a long-time supporter of the terror espoused by organizations whose ideology originated in the Muslim Brotherhood, backs Hamas publicly. It has, for the most part, built the infrastructure, including the military one, for a Hamas state in Gaza.” It is an issue as the evidence is required. It will not only end any nuclear deal, there would be enough public outrage that any politicians who was connected into diminishing this part in the equation, that person will be an outcast, the people will demand that person to be removed from office for life and the media is actually aiding some of these connected politicians. Certain people in the EU will see another light if we can ever clearly show evidence of their ‘assistance’ in feigned opposition to Hezbollah and Hamas, as it comes with a large consequence. One that needs to be put in legislation, yet the calls for an adjustment that a political voice is set to zero if any terrorist assistance could be clearly proven. To get there it is more and more important to trace the missile attacks not merely before the attack, but collect the evidence after the attack so that a much better case could be made against those supporting Hamas and Hezbollah through military hardware. I make it sound easy, but it is not, the water is deeply dark and there will be no clarity, not for a long time. Yet identifying the players in all this is becoming increasingly important., and there is a call to expose those who seemingly hide behind a humanitarian political cloak, and let’s face it the people have a right to know, do they not?

Yet the issue remains clouded and it will do so for some time. So as we see innuendo, gossip and covered information take the central road in all this, we need to consider the impact that inactions have. Even as we see US actions with: “The U.S. Department of State announced on Tuesday rewards of up to $5 million each for information or identification leading to the capture of the following terrorist figures: Hamas leader Saleh al-Aruri, and Hezbollah leaders Khalil Yusif Mahmoud Harb and Haytham ‘Ali Tabataba’i” we need to wonder if it has any impact at all. A Dark web ‘source’ made mention that one of them (Hezbollah) is supposed to be at a place called ‘مسجد الإمام الهادي يحيى بن الحسين’ either within the next 72 hours, of was there in the last 36 hours (the text was ambiguous and the translation by Google did not make any sense at all). Parts of the other text translated to a mosque supposedly in Sadat, which is in Egypt and that made even less sense to me. So relying on Google translate does not seem the best idea in any of this (as well as the fact that I cannot decipher the native Arabian alphabet), yet the exercise was important. Knowing the elements you cannot fathom in the first place is a first step in finding the limitations of a thought process. Data is the foundation of creating the timelines we need down the track and the lack of effort that are seemingly in place is impressive.

Even when we accept: “Qatar played a bad role in supporting the Houthis, especially after having already fought them as a former member state of the Arab Coalition, is self-destructive behavior, “ Al Adini said while explaining that Qatari leadership fully understands that Iran’s agenda in Yemen threatens both Arab and Gulf security“, we are seemingly missing a larger element in all this. You see, Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi forces, Qatar and Iran are all elements in all this. They are all elements in a progressing destabilisation and money is the central key here. The issue has been going on for a year when we were first treated to “Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain have imposed a near-total embargo on Qatar since June 2017 over allegations of Doha supporting radical groups and seeking closer ties with Tehran“, I always have doubts, but the given links are becoming overwhelming. It is not merely ‘where there is smoke, there is fire‘, it has evolved into: ‘There is so much smoke in this room, I can no longer see the walls‘, ignoring this and ignoring the games that Iran is playing in all this is becoming a very dangerous stance to maintain.

I did do some (highly speculative and debatable) research in this and there is more and more alleged links towards bitcoin exchange on the dark web. This leaves me with the worry that there are even more Qatari links active as there would be an easy method for Saudi’s to use their banks as they do not reveal anything to anyone ever, so whoever is using this path is requiring an almost total level of isolation. I am not stating that Saudi Arabia is innocent, but the implied facts give more and more rise that other players are using the dark web to launder money and make payments as well as supportive accounts. This is a stage that cannot be proven as any link will never go towards any source that has any value, yet I searched as 400+ missiles represent value and deployment of such resources will cost a fair bit too. So I looked into whatever dark web search I could. Now, there is no way to get anything remotely reliable and my method was as plain as it was useless. I merely looked at the haystack hoping I would see anything metallic (optionally the needle we all seek). That is as good as it gets and even as I got more and more details on optional events, finding the wheat from the chaff is unlikely to happen. I reckon me winning the lottery has better odds. Yet the idea that this path has been taken makes more and more sense so even as we cannot find the relative data, finding the relative data becomes increasingly important because there is every chance that places like Iran would use it to fund events for Hezbollah optionally all over Europe and finding the money is a top priority. Just on the side of all this, the fact that I (as a mere exercise) would have been able to get a Glock 17 & silencer for $1149 (and an additional $49 for two extra clips with a box of 50 rounds delivered to a drop place in the UK, and you still think the entire Novichok issue in Salisbury was as clear cut as everyone thinks? If I was able to find this, then the GRU would have known about it, that entire situation never did make any sense.

There were links that offered something more exotic, but I was unable to get there (reason unknown), so in all this there is a reason to check the links and there was even more reason to pursue or is that peruse the information? I believe that the dark web is the Chinese wall that both Iran and Qatar are allegedly using (extremely speculated by me at this point) to keep insulated from any accusations and therefor that data will become increasingly important. There was more, a Dutch Freelance (detective or Journalist) found an extremist with: “an .onion link in their bio. I thought, Wow, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a jihadist group using an onion link. So I opened it, and I was blown away. I sent the link around to a few different friends with similar interests, and they were also blown away. We wanted to think it was a scam, but there were just too many factors ruling against it being a scam“, I personally believe that the issue is larger and even as some can be stumbled upon, there is a growing trend to use .onion links like burner phones. To be merely there for a short time (a speculated 96 hours) and then abandoned. Yet in those 96 hours, traffic of goods and finances could have been completed. It would be the operations equivalent of an entire lone wolf operation with no chance to find it in time. That too gives rise to the need to start tracking with a long term need after the fact. Even as prevention should remain the initial need, the data could down the track be enough for conviction and that too is important. Yet, for the most I cannot prove any of this. There is a lot of implied and even more speculation linked in all this (as I stated earlier) yet the connections are too realistic and probable to ignore. If people like Ben Strick are correct and there is an actual setting of: ‘jihadi crowdsourcing‘ then the impact of escalations in Europe will only escalate with all the issues that follow, which is an additional reason to stat mapping all this. So unless we want to start living with the slogan: ‘Terrorism is OK‘ we need to start to think about creating solutions that can deal with inverted data funnels with an optional stage that an inverted funnel leads to 3-4 other inverted funnels. This is not an easy path and there is no real direct answer, because it is not merely which inverted funnel it goes into, it could be that the third tier is a funnel where the path is not where it leads to but where it went when the data bounced, that too is a destination and that path that skill will become increasingly important. To illustrate this is a lot harder, but I will try though market research. Consider an interview; it is a mere one on one event. Now we assume that the interviewee was the jihadi crowdsourcer’s data point. So we begin with a few simple narrow, closed-ended questions. From there on we move to broader, open-ended questions. This gives an optional pattern and we move from both specific and general questions. When we have asked enough questions (collected enough data), we enter a stage with Diamond questions, which is a combination of Funnel and Inverted Funnel questions.

Consider the image, we see inverted funnels (yes, go with it), so as we go from A, will B be the exclusion, or did it enter the funnel? If it entered, C is out of the question, so if F, yet E remains a player. This is near impossible and it is not in one transaction, it is over hundreds of connected transactions that certain players will be excluded, even more events are needed to find a group, yet there will be a pattern over time and that is what is needed. Yet if C is not an inverted funnel, but a funnel, or it as an inverted funnel and the traffic went through C, we now see that F remains an option and B, D and E were excluded. It will be a data collection over a much larger time frame that will prove this and time is what is needed. Most Jihadists will not care to live, yet the people behind it will always prefer to outlive events and it is the only way to get to them. You see, when we look at history, we all know Ghandi, many, especially Hindu will know that he was murdered by Nathuram Vinayak Godse. Yet the movie (by Sir Richard Attenborough) implies someone behind the screen and those are the people we need to find. It starts by proving that there was a person behind the screen. In case of Hezbollah that is actually decently simple as the amount of Yemeni missiles required is impossible Hezbollah to afford (or produce) in any way shape or form and it is easy to state that it was Iran, but we need the individuals to connect to it all and that takes time. ‘Follow the money’ is the most realistic path to take in this case. It is more realistic as Mossad has been unable to find actual missile traffic for the longest of times, and even if they did, it would be for one shipment. That too is still important as it links goods and money, so that path must not ever be abandoned, yet conviction without the money path proof is pretty much impossible and the time is now as we see more and more events leading to Europe and to a larger stage, so this path is becoming essential. If we translate the events to marketing (or market research) the same paths can be used. Whether we go via vendor, via drop point or via the path of the funds and buyer, we have the elements of awareness of what to get where, interest to get what is needed, choice of goods and purchase to go through and unless every stage was another person (not enough people) there is still a path. The unaware cannot purchase, the unaware cannot choose, the interested part is aware, a choice was made, it does not matter whether online or offline, it is not virtual, so there was traffic in some form. Even if the first two stages are negated a specific person has made the choice of goods to purchase, so now we have inverted or not a much smaller funnel to work with. In the end at the bottom we have the point of purchase (or point of sale) and there is a connection there. Something was bought/sold and funds are linked to that, so that part is optionally set in cement, the rest is not, yet the deployment path is still ‘riddled’ with actual people as well making the picture more complete. Now we need to find their optional connections to the dark web, if it is web and not dark it becomes increasingly easy, yet this is not a path where we bank on too much good news and there is in the end the question if convictions will be possible. Even if the path is an inverted funnel (showing what some call a Customer Experience Funnel view), we can see that the jihadists unite in certain views and if they were the advocates in this, it stands to reason that they try to engage to increase their footprint (and attempted funding). Finding that point will give optional identification of channels with an optional overlap to people linked to the buyer and/or shipper. It is a slow path, yet as time progresses an essential one. It achieves two parts, the first the optionally linked people, yet it also shows that those not linked to anything can optionally be excluded freeing up resources to refocus in this path, because this path drains resources and whatever resources there are available will be stretched. It is precisely the view we need to have as more data means more efficiency. One could argue that it could make it an optional track to find links to servers that have remained invisible for the longest of times, because if two people are found, there is the optional chance that they have gone to a .onion link that we have never noticed before and that would be a first true victory, yet in a short term span, if temporary is the name of the game, it becomes a near impossible task, should we therefore not do it? Are we ready to admit defeat by stating: ‘Terrorism is OK‘, or will we get the notion to get clever about it and limit the dangers we are exposed to. For this we can actually quote Tom Cruise (the Firm): ‘If you want the criminals, go after their lawyers‘, in the case of Hamas and Hezbollah, we need to go after their accountants and contributors, and optionally their military goods distributor as well.

If you truly want to decrease pressures in the Middle East, this will be the only path that really works. If you are delusional enough to consider peace talks, consider how many there have been since 1982 and how often it worked (as well as the cost involved). It is a discouraging picture that makes depression look like a healthy positive look on life.

Oh, and should you consider Europe to be completely innocent in all this, consider that Bloomberg gave us: ‘U.S. Warns Europe against Iran Payments after Austria Bows Out‘ (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-15/u-s-warns-europe-against-iran-payments-after-austria-bows-out). The quote: “Austrian officials rebuffed entreaties from France, Germany and the U.K. to host the so-called special purpose vehicle, a system that the European Union sought to handle payments to Iran in defiance of U.S. sanctions” has absolutely no bearing on terrorism or fuelling terrorism. Yet it does show a desperate need to keep a level of facilitation to keep some Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in play, a situation that has not been realistic for several months now. The issue optionally becomes a much larger vessel. Even as we see: “EU nations have identified Austria as the best candidate to host a special purpose vehicle that could handle payments to Iran, according to three people familiar with the negotiations. Austria itself is not so keen. Belgium, Luxembourg and France have also been identified as potential venues but Belgium and Luxembourg have declined while France is looking to Austria“, we see a nation not interested and an EU ready to take a desperate step, in all this, when we see the earlier quote ‘France, Germany and the UK‘. Why isn’t France, Germany or the UK doing this? It is that setting that shows a political game of facilitation on too large a field. From my limited knowledge, I feel that the EU is all about non-accountability yet the impact will be felt in Europe. Unless direct evidence can be produced by all EU signatory nations that this Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action could prove to be an actual solution. And in this I mean that politicians have to put their name under it and live with the consequences of being cast out of politics (for life) when it backfires, at that point we will end up seeing that no one would have been willing to put their name under any of this and you still think that Iran is merely sitting on the sidelines?

We need to figure this out before the Middle East destabilises close to completely and we are running out of time, if we have to choose, I personally see no other option but to openly side with Saudi Arabia in all of this, they might not be perfect, but with Iran as an alternative, we are basically ending up not having any options for any stable future at all. That part of the equation was given to us by the SMH merely a few hours ago (at https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle-east/us-eyes-ways-to-remove-erdogan-foe-to-appease-turkey-nbc-20181116-p50gew.html). when we see that the US allegedly accused through: “The Trump administration is exploring possible ways to remove US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, a foe of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, NBC News reported on Thursday“, Turkey an open ally of Iran, as they are openly strengthening trade relations, giving even more pressure to the European union in all this, when the US ends up handing over the ‘enemies’ of President Erdogan to Turkey, so that they can be lost forever, at what point was Iran even a choice?

How much longer must we wait until we make hard and essential choices in setting a path that actually stops terrorist actions, because 400+ missiles can be considered as actual evidence that there is clearly a lack of actions on that front by way too many political players and governments as a whole.

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Tagged as Belgium, Ben Strick, Bernard Avishai, bloomberg, Boaz Atzili, Chinese wall, Dartmouth, Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Fethullah Gulen, France, Gaza, Germany, Hamas, Haytham ‘Ali Tabataba’i, Hezbollah, Houthi, Iran, Israel, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Khalil Yusif Mahmoud Harb, Luxembourg, Mossad, Muslim Brotherhood, NBC, New Yorker, Palestine, Qatar, Saleh al-Aruri, Saudi Arabia, SMH, Sydney Morning Herald, Tayyip Erdogan, Tzachi Hanegbi, UK, USA, Washington Post, Yemen

November 13, 2018 · 10:40

The truth hurts

Even as the headlines hit us 3 hours ago, like the Herald Sun giving us ‘French remarks on Khashoggi prompt anger‘, we see the outrage from Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and IO wonder if he comprehends how transparent the actions by turkey has been. Even as he gives us “Our intelligence shared information with them on Oct 24, including the voice recordings,” the political card is shown by his own admission. You see Jamal Khashoggi went missing and presumably died on 2 October 2018, so the tapes if they are authentic were created 3 weeks earlier, so that is the first piece of evidence right there. And even as some accept it, until the tapes are properly vetted, I will remain in doubt. The fact that this happened in a nation where well over 200 journalists are in prison for a very long time, in a country that is clearly allied with Iran, a nation in a proxy war with Saudi Arabia, I would be hard pressed to take anything at face value, yet the overall media has kept these two parts on the down low and some did make small mentions of that part, but for the most, the people were kept in the dark.

So when we initially see: “French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian had questioned Erdogan’s weekend remarks that Turkey gave tapes relating to Khashoggi’s killing to the United States, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France and Britain. Le Drian said he was not aware that France had any tapes“, we need to accept that there is more and even as we see that Justin Trudeau has confirmed receiving the tapes, I wonder how much scrutiny the tapes will receive as it took 3 weeks to hand them over. In addition, when you look back at all the media, we see that games were played by both Turkish officials and the media as a whole, I wonder if I get my fingers on the tape, whether we will hear the dismemberment as was claimed last month. There is a whole range of issues with politicised evidence, it loses value overnight as it get to be put under scrutiny and in the end, will we be able to tell whether the person who was recorded to be under duress, was that really Jamal Khashoggi? You might take offense on this, but the reality is that evidence is either real or fake and it is the job in any investigation to discredit fake evidence, to merely accept evidence ‘as is’ is folly. In addition, the media claims will also impact the reliability of the evidence. that is the consequence of the media game when it is all about ‘clicks’ and then there is the circulation, all newspapers want as big a slice of the 56 million newspaper readers and we have seen how certain overpaid editors will go to seem more and more exclusive and scoop like. So as we now get to put the unnamed sources against the tape we will see the impact that it had, and perhaps it will hold up, I do not know, I never heard the tapes.

We also see the repeated claim: “Erdogan says the murder was ordered at the “highest levels” of the Saudi government“, whilst we merely get in confirmation: “Saudi authorities have acknowledged that the killing was premeditated“, the first cannot be proven, and the second does not warrant the first part. Even as we accept the entire setting of premeditation, we still have no idea where Mohammad al-Otaibi is, we have not heard anything from him or anything about his whereabouts and the media is not too eager to look there either, are they?

So when we see: “the kingdom of Saudi Arabia would detain or fire more than 20 people in connection with alleged killing of Jamal Khashoggi, Otaibi was not among them. He has not been heard from for weeks at this present day“, I looked at it, the Washington Post (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/senior-saudi-diplomat-in-istanbul-when-khashoggi-was-killed-drops-out-of-sight/2018/11/12/85f8e406-d7b1-11e8-8384-bcc5492fef49_story.html) is also still looking at it, but the bulk of the newspapers have either written him off, or have no idea how to exploit his situation at present, another political game still played and the Turkish government is silent on that too, merely some version of ‘he did not work out‘. The Washington Post also gives us: “Given his role as the senior diplomat in the consulate, Turkish authorities have been sceptical of the notion that Otaibi was an unwitting bystander to the killing“, I agree with that initial assessment. Even as I have seen government stages where it is easy enough to push through 15 people under the radar (the US does it all the time), the staging can be done in a few ways merely depending on the degrees of freedom that middle management in any policy environment has. You only need to retrace the steps of CIA rogue operative Frank Terpil to know that not only has it happened before, it has happened a few times. People like Lao Ta Saenlee who got almost free reign and intelligence worker happily looked the other way for a price and the irritating sturgeons that were nipping at the heel of Lao Ta Saenlee were removed, so that some people had their success stories. This is not new; it isn’t even original it is merely how some people stay in business by keeping other people in business. In that environment it is easy to push through half a battalion on people and whilst the successes go the other way, no questions are asked, because there is success. The CIA, the NSA, MI6, DGSE, Mossad. they all have their versions and they are all still operating under similar operative states, so I was not surprised on the 15 people and yes, there is a chance that there was orchestration on a higher level, but as Turkey decided to drip feed the media and people on accusations and ‘revelations’ these people got to hide into the Monty Python shrubbery of denial. They were not in ‘this’ shrubbery, they were in ‘another shrubbery’, so the people looked under the ‘S’, whilst they were already under the ‘A’ of accomplished, achieved and away.

The Washington Post also gives us: “Mehdi Eker, a lawmaker and senior member of Erdogan’s party, said the nature of Otaibi’s involvement could be determined if Turkish authorities were allowed to interrogate him as a witness. Eker said he is mystified as to why Otaibi was not among the Saudis arrested or fired over the case“, I agree. Mehdi Eker is as I personally see it correct and the fact that the media ignored it for weeks is still part of the problem. As they are to a larger degree not asking the questions, we are feeling not merely left out, we are left with the feeling that we are intentionally kept in the dark, making us question whatever evidence is shown even more. And it is there at the end of the Washington Post where we get one more gem. It is the quote: “Turkey’s public prosecutor said last week that Khashoggi was strangled almost immediately after entering the consulate on Oct. 2“, if that is true, then exactly who was tortured and dismembered whilst still alive? Perhaps you recall the part that several news outlets gave us on October 17, 18 and 19? The headline: ‘Recordings reveal Khashoggi tortured then dismembered while still alive‘. As we see that we get more and more conflicting parts handled to us, is it even a surprise that the evidence presented is called into doubt as valid evidence? So when French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian gave us: “He has a political game to play in these circumstances” he gave us something that is as close as an absolute truth as truth is likely to get in this case. The evidence is all around us; it is shown in well over two weeks of articles. If only turkey had decided not to play the Iranian game and handed it all over, there would have been no issues and there would have been a total victory from the Turkish side, so at that point, as this never happened, is it not the most direct stage where we do not trust the evidence given to us? We all accept that Jamal Khashoggi is dead and possibly dies on October 2nd, yet so far there is no clear evidence on that either is there?

The fact that people classified as ‘enemy of Iran’ can travel all over Turkey unseen whilst they have the entire embassy wired, does that not contradict one another on a few levels either? It does not mean that it did not happen; he might have been dissolved as one source gave us two weeks ago, yet that also contradicts evidence in a few ways. All these questions and many papers aren’t asking them.

The truth hurts and the plain truth is that this was folly on several levels, first of all the Saudi side where something was allegedly optionally done in-house where the denial factor would have been removed. A stage where a model 24 from 400 metres would have finished a job outside of Saudi premises, the entire paperwork would have implied travels and honeymoon situations giving a non-peaceful opponent of Jamal Khashoggi even more options. Then there was the waiting on the Turkish side, whilst the implied evidence from the Turkish side would have broken the case open instantly, giving Iran what they desperately desired. this all points to the evidence being either tainted, or optionally fabricated, and the Turkish players got the media involved to make it emotionally worse making the evidence even less reliable all at the same time. That is merely the truth of the matter and the truth hurts, it really does in this case.

Oh and the partial denial from France merely indicates that French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian might not have been on the recipient side, the question becomes who exactly were given the tapes for each nation, the fact that we do not see this question in the media, or revelation of those names by Turkey, who seems to focus on who did get it does not help much either.

It is scary as to what governments nowadays stage as competency in ‘execution’ of policy. It is even scarier to see all the elements that the media seems to skate around (almost non stop I might add).

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Tagged as Britain, Canada, CIA, DGSE, Erdogan, France, Frank Terpil, French Foreign Minister, Germany, Iran, Jamal Khashoggi, Jean-Yves Le Drian, Justin Trudeau, Lao Ta Saenlee, Mehdi Eker, Mevlut Cavusoglu, MI6, Mohammad al-Otaibi, Mossad, NSA, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United States, Washington Post

November 11, 2018 · 14:10

That crazy thought

Crazy thoughts, we all have them at times, we all think them, we all wonder the ‘What if’ question whether it is valid or not. So when the news hit, among them the line ‘The $6 trillion wipeout in Asian stocks is getting deeper‘ (source: Sydney Morning Herald). I was not contemplating the quote: “Just like that, the region’s equity benchmark erased weekly gains and is now heading for a sixth slide in seven weeks, only worsening the wipeout that already erased $US4.3 trillion ($5.95 trillion) of market value this year“. So there I was looking at that quote, as well as the quote “One thing that might be worth keeping an eye on is data around China’s consumption — car sales fell for a fifth month and and Ctrip.com International joined the likes of Baidu and Alibaba Group Holding in being unable to avoid the economic slowdown. Also throwing cold water on the recovery is the US dollar, which resumed its appreciation as the Federal Reserve signaled it’s still ready to increase rates in December. The strong greenback has been a key concern for investors in the region, as its weakened local currencies and triggered massive outflows from emerging-market assets“. You see, I believe that none of this matters, the excuses like ‘consumer prices steadied amid sluggish demand‘. I went into the ‘What if this was always meant to happen?‘ mode. It is my personal belief that we have been sitting still whilst analysts have been inflating prognoses of economy, whilst they were all humming; it is a bright and sunny day, whilst it was not. We get excited when USA Today gave us ‘Economy adds robust 250,000 jobs in October in last employment report before election‘ on November 2nd. Yet this is news that was merely overdue and way too late. The world has been at a stand still for the longest of times. Millions of US citizens are still overcoming a decade of hardship, many of them lost the bulk of their retirement funds and it will take half a decade of really good news to turn this around. Too many have felt the pain and it is the same all over Asia. We might see news last month with ‘India adds 7,300 new millionaires’ thinking that hard times are over, yet this merely shows the stage where 7,300 clever Indians are getting other Indians doing their bidding, the millions behind those 7,300 people are not in a much better place, they have not been for the longest of times. Those 7,300 will be the foundation of a dozen or perhaps two dozen billionaire over time, yet like in any pyramid scheme, the profits go upwards, the foundation of that pyramid will not see a dime of that and we forget about that unbalanced setting. So as we are all in a stage of happy happy joy joy, the market is relentless in too much upbeat procrastinated prognoses and the market will seek equilibrium. No matter what excuse we see, what term we give to oil, what term we give to car users. The foundation is that every sold car is linked to a person buying it and from the current stage less than 25,000 were able to afford a new car, because the normal monthly expenses remain the same or go up, they never go down. So when we see ‘car sales fell for a fifth month‘, it makes perfect sense, you can up production all you like, yet when the people cannot afford to buy one, making more really makes no sense. That stage is clearly seen in Asia and Europe, in addition, the people in the US don’t have that much extra to spend, even with the new job, their living expenses had been through the roof for 2-3 years and they build either a buffer or go hungry and become homeless.

It all gets to have a hilarious side when you consider the Wall Street Journal (at https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-navarro-blasts-china-and-wall-street-globalists-1541787254). We see “President Trump’s senior trade adviser, Peter Navarro, excoriated China and attacked Goldman Sachs and Wall Street as Beijing’s “unpaid foreign agents” who are weakening the U.S. leader before his meeting this month with China’s president“. It seems to me that Peter Navarro does not comprehend Goldman Sachs or Wall Street, so as an Australian I feel it is my duty (my entertaining duty mind you) to explain that part in a plain manner. ‘Mr Navarro, these two players Wall Street and Goldman Sachs do not give a fuck about you or your president, they never did! They only care about their bottom line, the annual growth, the profits they do make and their bonuses. It is that plain, and simple enough the board of directors in these two places care exponentially more about their bonus, nothing else matters!‘ I do hope that Peter Navarro comprehends that part, because it has never been different. The American people were sold down the drain in an instant in 2004 and 2008 and those people will do that again and again. It is not rocket science; it is transparent and extremely predictable. So when I see “As a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping looms at the Group of 20 meeting in Buenos Aires, the economic council is coordinating what kind of trade deal the U.S. might accept from China. It is focusing on intellectual property, agricultural tariffs, forced technology transfer and requirements that U.S. firms form joint ventures to operate in China“, I see no mystery, I see no questions. It is merely the execution of the operational merit that profit brings to these 20 players that is on the table and the US is weaker than it has been ever before. A lot of the IP is not in American hands, the ones that matter are in the hands of IBM, Google and Intel and the US administrations have been able to piss all three off in more than one way, so good luck there. In addition, if the US exercises some ownership need, we will see both IBM and Google moving their IP all over the place making matters for the US worse.

Oh and this was all before we see the current US president in a stage where we see: “France on Saturday attempted to defuse a row sparked by President Emmanuel Macron’s comments about a European army which angered US President Donald Trump“, we can consider that passing of the few allies left is not really a good thing, is it? Especially in light where Marine Le Pen is currently more popular than Emmanuel Macron is the upcoming EU elections. The advantage is only one percent, yet we also see: “Far-right parties, including those supporting a French exit from the EU, secured a combined 30 percent of support“, that is way more than most EU nations are currently willing to be comfortable with. The fact that President Macron has agreed with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to a union of En Marche, Dutch Liberals and Democrats is optionally one that could backfire in France to some degree and if Le Pen gets to the 40% mark a stage of Wall Street panic would be the consequence making the markets slip even further getting the overall losses to surpass eight trillion before the year ends. This stage becomes an even larger US nightmare as Matteo Salvini enters the stage, and he is siding largely with Marine Le Pen in all this, most likely purely for his own interests as would be expected in Lego Politics, but the impact is still there. This all impacts to a much larger degree as Italy has stated less than a day ago that they will not adjust the Italian budget which now puts the ECB and the EU in a much darker light, this budget could optionally impact the stage in a few European ways and the other nations will be reminded of the Greek tragedy when it overstated what they did not have, whilst we now see Italy not acknowledging the things they do not have, with a similar impact to several EU nations, the consequences could propel out of control and that too will impact greed driven Wall Street. This means that President Trump is going into a G20 meeting with three sets of balls and chains on their ankles, whilst China gets to point out these six balls and chains and remind him that this is partially all his doing (whether that is true or not).

So in the end, he sits in a meeting with little to use, nothing to go by and all merely because the previous 4 administrations all left control of the wealth reigns with Wall Street themselves, how was that ever going to work?

So that crazy thought is now going into the direction: ‘What if we remove the reigns of wall Street?‘ Would that be the craziest idea? In the end it is not going to happen, yet a first step is not the weirdest idea. It is time to take a very close look at those Wall Street analysts and their exectations, even if they ever correctly solve their rounding problem, the people still end up being confronted with a (what I personally would speculatively call) a 1.13% offset from any norm and that made all the differences for well over 12% of the companies ‘underperforming’ in the eyes of Wall Street. When we consider going back in time to 1874 when French economist Léon Walras decided to give ‘Elements of Pure Economics‘, he failed (as these settings did not exist) to give two elements a much larger consideration. The first is ‘behaviour of supply and demand‘, whilst not realising that governments have a required supply and demand and the corporations have a forecasted supply for the expected demand of an international community, which is weighted and rounded upwards sinking the notion of science towards anticipated presentations. So there we see three sets of numbers, all weighted and only after the fact shown as ‘due to unexpected factors‘ graded downwards after the fact giving us a few headaches all at the same time.

So as we see ‘adjusted’, ‘evolved’ and ‘expert driven’ algorithms towards forecasting the fact that there was something wrong with the formula’s in the first p[lace is not set into the stage of punitive prosecution ever. Meaning that these wipe-outs will happen again and again and the next time it hits a group of people that will revolt violently for being presented the invoice that others should have paid for, a stage that is unseen as many are in denial and often merely wiping the consideration away as non-relevant and unimportant. And the idea is not unique, my thoughts, my very own thoughts were proven correctly in 2013 by former Wall Street analyst Yves Smith in her book ‘ECONned‘ and she is not the only one, yet in the 5 years that followed, after all the evidence shown in several ways, the US Administration decided not to act, decided not to take control of the situation, even largely diffusing the danger was beyond them and now we see the stage where we see ‘weakening the U.S. leader before his meeting this month‘, in my personal view Peter Navarro needs to wake up and smell the coffee. He comes from an environment that did nothing for too long.

How crazy was that thought?

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Tagged as Alibaba Group Holding, Baidu, Buenos Aires, Chna, Donald Trump, ECB, ECONned, Elements of Pure Economics, Emmanuel Macron, Eu, France, Goldman Sachs, google, IBM, India, INTEL, Italy, Léon Walras, Marine Le Pen, Mark Rutte, Matteo Salvini, Netherlands, Sydney Morning Herald, USA today, Wall Street, Wall Street Journal, Xi Jinping, Yves Smith

November 9, 2018 · 12:51

Condoning terrorism

When do we do that? When do we find ourselves in a place where some acts of terror will be allowed and when do we say it is not? You might think that we do not condone it at all. When you think that, you would be wrong. That part is shown in the last few weeks when we look at the news and the bringers of news. In this the first part of the chain is weirdly enough coming from Denmark. It is the one place where the worst acts of torture will be the slicing of the subject with a knife, gut him and cut him, then roast until there is nothing left. Yet the subject was a dead pig and the result if “Æbleflæsk” (or Apple Pork). Yes those Danes do get around with a knife. So when I got treated to ‘Three held in Denmark over interview praising terrorist attack in Iran‘ yesterday, I was a little surprised. The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/07/denmark-arrests-interview-praising-terrorist-attack-iran-asmla) gives us “Denmark has arrested three individuals on suspicion of having praised a terrorist attack in Iran two months ago that killed at least 24 people, including children“, which would be fine, yet when we are also treated to “Despite the fact that they are suspected of having committed crimes, they [the detainees] continue to be protected by extensive security measures because of the threat posed to them“. So it is not merely the fact that they spoke out. It is the underlying “stemmed from an alleged Iranian plot to kill an ASMLA activist. The person was not named“, is that not nice? For those not completely in the loop, the ASMLA (Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz) is about the aggressive consideration for a separate Arab state in Khuzestan Province from Iran. Let’s call it a partial independence of sorts. Iran has labelled Al-Ahvaziya a terrorist movement, which with more intelligence sources and data I cannot really comment on. Yet, does that not beat the clock by hours? In all this, Iranian murder Inc. or not, the EU reiterates commitment to the Iranian nuclear deal. Yes, because facilitating to nations that facilitates for terrorism is what Europe in their desperate economic situation really needs. This is all a month after “France had declared that Tehran was behind attempts by a number of Iranians – including a diplomat – to bomb a meeting of the Paris-based opposition group National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) – also known as Mujahedin-e Khalq (MeK)“, I made some mention of this as well in an earlier blog, yet Europe will still want to continue the nuclear deal. Apparently enough is not enough. I get the Danish position. I get it that they cannot condone the situation. The mere ‘suspected of violating the Danish law … on condoning terrorism‘ should be addressed, even as one party is condoning certain acts, the other is acting certain acts and they are still in the clear, which gives the much larger stage where the EU is condoning terrorism. In addition, the Iranian proxy war where they are arming people to fire missiles into Saudi Arabia to hit Saudi civilian targets is for the most not looked at either. So as we see the absence of: “Saudi air defenses on Thursday intercepted a missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebel group into the kingdom’s southwestern Jizan region“, they are all eagerly reporting the other direction traffic with “Saudi-Led Coalition Bombs Air Base in Yemen Capital“. They do mention other elements, yet the part “Iran supplied the Houthi militias with missiles that targeted Saudi Arabia” is left out in many western news providers, giving the people an unbalanced view on what is actually happening in Yemen. In addition we see Miguel Miranda (RealClear Defense) giving us: “Since 2016 not a month has gone by without the Houthis in Yemen sending either large diameter rockets or ballistic missiles into the Kingdom, with successful intercepts by Saudi air defences up for debate. Even with a defence budget considered the third largest in the world, Saudi Arabia’s collection of Patriot’s won’t be able to thwart multiple launches at its major cities and energy infrastructure. Worse, Riyadh’s orders for either the S-400 Triumf or the THAAD have yet to arrive.” It has been proven on several occasions that Yemen never had certain missiles and that production of some missiles would have been impossible, with the current status of its neighbours, the remaining party Iran as a Houthi supplier remains and the media seems to be clearly relying on not mentioning that part. The quality sources that both American and Israeli defence gives us, with added documentation from The Brookings Institution, all having high level data at their disposal, but for the European media it is of no matter, it is merely an inconvenient truth, is it not?

The question becomes twofold. In the first, why is Europe not a lot more outspoken on the Iranian actions in all this?

The second question is why certain parties remain pushing for a nuclear deal, whilst there are clear indications that Iran will break the agreements, optionally before the ink of the autograph has dried. There are indications that operations have been thwarted. Actions by Iranian players (too many question to precisely point a finger), yet the actions allegedly stopped included France and Denmark, as well as in Belgium, Austria, Germany and Sweden. So there is an increasing stage of events in place, but the nuclear deal is still being debated. Is it not time to actually do something about Iran? The Swedish part, which is seen with: “Officers from Sweden’s security police agency Säpo have arrested a suspected Iranian spy for planning an assassination on Danish soil”, would have remained invisible if I was not able to read Swedish. Now we do get that Säpo is not very outspoken on the best of days, yet the media remained largely silent, implying more and more that the media is actively downplaying Iranian events to a much larger degree, is that not a little weird?

So even as the local Sweden reports: “Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen also promised “further actions against Iran”“, we have yet to see a much larger action against Iran in answer to the attacks within the national borders of their European ally, I mean, is the EU actually active in protecting its member states or is that all dependant on some nuclear deal? Denmark might be regarded as limited by merely a good cuisine and Bang and Olufsen, yet I am willing to bet that Denmark as well as the other nations has a lot more to offer. So the absence of actual actions against Iran is making less and less sense. If we compare all the western visibility on the actions of Iran versus all the articles that involve Jamal Khashoggi in the last month alone, it seems that the European media is willing to let Iran get away with murder, how weird is that?

When we are condoning acts of terrorism, we need to start looking at why this is happening and the media is becoming part of something rather distasteful. Not the true journalistic parts that keep newspapers afloat as much as they can, but those having a seemingly other agenda and calling themselves a member of non ‘fake news’ groups, those numbers are increasing and it is strange on how the media is not looking at itself in all this.

Now, let’s be fair, they are not their brother’s keepers, so it is debatable where they should stand in all this. Yet, when we are looking beyond a few curves, we get to see more, in this case a technology part. A side where we are notified of: “In testing, some third-party Windows 10 apps like Adobe Photoshop and Notepad++ no longer work as intended when users go to setting to choose either program as the default for .txt files. Windows 10 will instead absurdly ignore a consumer’s app default settings for both programs and open the file in NotePad on its own“, as well as “Microsoft does not document this bug on any list of known issues and also hasn’t yet issued a public response to related reports. The issue is instead believed to be linked to Cumulative Update KB4462919, initially released on October 9. Oddly enough, the Windows 10 October 2018 Update doesn’t appear to be impacted at the moment. It might be wise to temporarily pause updates or roll back and uninstall the problematic cumulative update if you’re in fear of this issue, or if you are already seeing that your file association settings aren’t holding”

You might ask yourself how this relates.

That is a really good question, you see, from my point of view I believe that the filtering is not merely ‘terrorism’, it is economic. The media seems to have an intensified need to not go against the grain of economic needs (Iranian nuclear deal, Microsoft and Apple, you merely have search a little deeper to see the lack of reports in several parts. There is ‘Protesters are detained outside an Apple store in Beijing as they accuse the firm’s Chinese factory of ‘hiring student workers illegally’‘, which is only shown to people via the Daily Mail and the news is 11 hours old, it seems that no one else thought it was newsworthy, The Microsoft story is one that impacts millions of users and they only link I saw was from Digital Trends (at https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/new-windows-10-bug-messing-up-file-associations/), it did have a reference to Reddit who reported 88 upvotes and 47 comments two days ago, yet I see it nowhere else.

This is where I personally see the problem, when the economic footprint is above a certain level, we see that there is a chance that certain players will condone terrorism and blanket consumer impacted issues with large blankets of silence. When we accept a world that has these slipped values, I would be very critical of anyone willing to voice some half-baked story on how wrong it is to be a salesperson in the weapons industry. I reckon that that person is at least willing to take action; we merely hide behind the inactions of others and flag whatever we consider wrong emotionally, it is perhaps the largest failing in all of us. If you wonder whether you should agree or disagree there; this would be a valid consideration mind you. Merely ask yourself, how many actions by Iran you were unaware of and why were you not aware? You could have a very valid reason to not know. Now consider how many Microsoft driven devices you have and were you aware of the delete bug and the latest issue that popped up two days ago? If the answer is no and you have a PC, ask yourself why you were not aware of it, you see it impacts your daily life pretty directly does it not?

Just as the media kept largely silent on the actions of Sony in October 2012, we have been left in the dark too often, and it has everything to do with shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers. This is where you see the impact, it is the economic footprint liked to all this and it impacts us one way or another.

Yet when we start condoning acts that are not merely illegal, how far have we fallen from grace?

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Tagged as Ahvaz, Al-Ahvaziya, America, Apple, ASMLA, Austria, Belgium, Daily Mail, Denmark, Eu, France, Germany, Houthi, Iran, Israel, Khuzestan, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, MEK, Microsoft, Miguel Miranda, Mujahedin-e Khalq, National Council of Resistance of Iran, NCRI, RealClear Defense, reddit, S-400 Triumf, Saudi Arabia, Säpo, Sony, Sweden, THAAD, the local Sweden, Yemen

November 5, 2018 · 13:22

We are merely Tools

This is not a nice piece; this is not even a kind piece. It is a piece on reality, a reality that most people embrace. Yes, you, my readers and even more those who do not read this blog, they are all part on the setting of tools. In this case a tool named Jamal Khashoggi, a person who ended up being more useful after life then whilst he was still alive.

If we were to ask anyone on October 1st and before: ‘Do you know Jamal Khashoggi?‘ The response in 99.6% would have been a clear No! Even among the Washington Post readers, many will not have known him. Yet now, the numbers are reversed 0.4% will not know him, a number that is actually a lot lower lower than the world percentage of dyslexic people on the internet. So as a tool he has been useful.

Even now, when looking at the last few days of news we see:

Findings point to Jamal Khashoggi’s ‘body parts being melted’ in acid – News.com.au
Jamal Khashoggi killing: Turkish President claims ‘highest level of Saudi government’ behind murder – Nine.com.au
Who ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi? – Al Jazeera
One month after Jamal Khashoggi’s killing, these key questions remain unanswered – Washington Post
Khashoggi’s fiancée vows ‘there’ll be no cover up’ as claims emerge his body was ‘dissolved’ – SBS News
Khashoggi murder: Turkish leader blames Saudi state directly – BBC

And an overwhelming amount of articles are laced with ‘inside sources‘ and people like Yasin Aktay stating: “he believes it was dissolved in acid after being cut up“, yet these articles and the statements are absent of evidence, absent of clear documented and collected evidence giving rise to the quote made, merely people hiding behind ‘inside sources’ and ‘innuendo’, Nine News and others add a picture of the smiling Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whilst there is no evidence of any kind that he was involved. So again we see “A Turkish official said he believes after Khashoggi was killed while in the consulate to pick up marriage documents, his body was dissolved in acid or other chemicals“, whilst three weeks ago, the Turkish government claimed to have audio tapes with evidence that he was cut up into pieces. So which version is true and why is the Turkish government not giving out all the evidence to show that they have it? Because the Turkish government does not really care, does it?

We see: “Turkey’s close ties to Saudi Arabia“, yet no one gives light to the fact that Turkey is for the most merely a puppet for Iran (my personal view in all this), that part is left out of the equation, the fact that Iran is in a proxy war with Saudi Arabia could pop up and that diminishes the use of this tool called Jamal Khashoggi.

Even as Nine News does give us at the very end: “Netanyahu said at a news conference that Iran is a bigger threat than Saudi Arabia and those who want to punish the Middle East kingdom need to bear that in mind. “A way must be found to achieve both goals, because I think that the larger problem is Iran,” said the Israeli leader, who attended a meeting of the prime ministers of Bulgaria, Greece and Romania and the president of Serbia at a Black Sea resort.”“. I believe that the statement at the end is pro forma only. All the networks want to use the emotional barrage of Jamal Khashoggi as much as they can. Most of the articles are absent of critical questions that for now, for the most have never been answered. The failing here is actually larger when you consider that for the most the failing is even increasing. Yes, that is actually possible at present, even a month after the event.

It is now Monday morning and the news that we see next was already out but I decided to let it simmer.

The headline giving us: Gates Foundation ends $5 Million Pledge Partnership with Saudi Crown Prince’s Charity over Khashoggi Killing. So in all this, Bill Gates walks away from business, now that is his right and his purse would not even feel the impact of those 5 million, but in all is this a wise thing? I mean when we look at it, the man (Gates) optionally deserves the death penalty for what he made his users go through. The Daily Mail claim “Microsoft claims Windows 10 deletion bug is FIXED but won’t release it” should have long lasting repercussions should it not? One life versus the long-time torture of millions, how does that relate? Or perhaps the report from last week: ‘Another Windows 10 bug lets UWP apps have access to all your files‘. So as it comes down to standards Bill Gates really does not have the best track record does he?

No one denies that something went bad and there are government officials involved, but who, or whom? We have yet to be presented with any evidence. The known factor that Turkey is appeasing Iran is left out of the media for 99%, the issue that the Saudi Consul general left for Saudi Arabia and no one is asking questions there is also a factor. I am not proclaiming that this man is guilty of anything. Yet there were two versions; one of them the media informing us that he ‘fled’, the other one is the Turkish President, giving us in regards to Mohammed Al-Otaibi: “a phone call he had with King Salman Bin Abdulaziz a few days after Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside his country’s consulate in Istanbul. “The Consul is not efficient and I have told King Salman of this” and he is suddenly relieved from his position. The issue is that he media is not giving us anything, they are making it worse. The less than a dozen true journalistic sources are overwhelmingly repeating things like they are all copy/pasting Reuters and other vanilla sources.

The final straw in all this is actually his fiancée, who I will give a pass in all this. Yet the Independent gives us the headline ‘Khashoggi murder: Trump administration ‘devoid of moral foundation’, killed journalist’s fiance says‘ and the quote: “‘Some in Washington are hoping this matter will be forgotten with simple delaying tactics,’ Hatice Cengiz writes“. Both are optional truths, they are emotional ones and she might be the only person allowed to do that (apart from some co-workers at the Washington Post perhaps). There needs to be no moral foundation in America, the man is a Saudi Citizen. The second part in all this is that the optional crime was never done on American soil, or within American territory. This gives us that America is not even a factor here apart from the fact that Jamal Khashoggi worked for an American company. So do millions of others and I do not see that government speak out for them, or there neglected rights, do we? Why do we care about this journalist?

Several sources give us that 14,000 people died in armed conflict in Yemen, in addition over 50,000 died of disease and famine, where is your outrage against Iran and Hezbollah there? I agree that Saudi Arabia is part of it, yet that coalition was there on request of the duly elected government, the Houthi rebels have received ‘assistance’ from a terrorist organisation and a terrorist supporting nation and the lack of outrage here is disgusting!

And even as we see America taking charge, the news we saw hours ago (Source: GulfNews) when they gave us the quote: “Iran enters a challenging new phase in its economic activity and international relations, with the imposition of a series of tough sanctions on the regime for its failure to fully satisfy Washington and its allies over the intentions of its nuclear programme. But the sanctions too are being imposed on the Tehran regime that continues to flout international norms by arming, aiding and abetting the militias and armed groups from the Bab Al Mandab to the Mediterranean who further its sectarian and seditious agenda“. I cannot vouch for Gulf News merely because I do not know them that well, yet the absence is other news cycles to a much larger case makes it a worry. In addition, we saw the inclusion of Bab Al Mandab. The point becomes is this merely Yemen, or is there more to the story that involves an (extremely unconfirmed) setting of Moulhoule, Djibouti. And if that is so, one of the most prominent targets there is Oilibya, are they at risk? It is also a stage for moving both towards Eritrea and Somalia. Eritrea is less likely between the two, but a terrorist with options is never a good thing. We also see UAE tycoon Al-Habtoor stating that Hezbollah needs to be a prominent target. He voiced it as: ‘Hezbollah needs to be eliminated‘, which might be actually a little too diplomatic, but the story is clear there are two players in all this, who have been waving the Khashoggi flag, yet no one is really asking questions, questions that matter, are they?

There is more to this, there is a side that I have mentioned several times before, and here we see it clearly in ‘print’. The quote: “Frankly, I am worried! ‘America First’ is a slogan that inspires patriotism. Every nation has to put the interests of its people first. That is normal. However, actions taken by this administration under that slogan are alienating America’s friends. No country is an island by itself. We share one planet. We are all responsible for finding solutions to common threats. We need to be partners in the decision-making.” I am not against nationalism; it is a statement of pride (for the most). In France there is Marine Le Pen and there is no doubt, she cares about France and France alone, it is not a bad thing. The Trump administration is doing the same in the US, the problem is that in the EU, those commissionaires are mostly in it for themselves, and their cause. That is how I personally see it. Not some nationalistic pride, but the cohesion of continuing something that profits them and not the European civilians as a larger whole, that is one of the stages and it is an important one. You see the press in Europe has been going soft on Turkey, on Iran and on Hezbollah and that is impacting all other avenues. Yet they have slammed Saudi Arabia at every turn and a lot of it through innuendo and ‘unnamed sources’.

And in part Al-Habtoor is right, the problem is that Iran gets to continue to play their game through proxy and the payoff for Hezbollah is nice as it gets missiles to fire into Israel giving a rise of escalations is several places. Taking Hezbollah out of the equation makes sense on several levels. The world is a better place without Hezbollah and in addition as Iran cannot continue to act in proxy they must either enter a full-fledged war or back down and hope that Turkey will do their bidding. It is my personal believe that Turkey is not willing to get the limelight there either, not in that way.

The press is massively void of those elements that have been proven on several levels by a few sources, so tell me how weird is that?

Even now, in the last hour we see the Australian, the Business Times (41 minutes ago) and Haaretz (32 minutes ago), so in this Jamal Khashoggi is still a media bankable currency. Yet those sources have remained quiet on the Hezbollah activities in the last 24 hours, so you tell me on how Jamal Khashoggi has not been devaluated to a mere media tool, all having their own goal, yet I personally believe that the critical truth is not on their mind at this point, that story was old the day after he passed away.

And there are still people confused on why we stopped trusting the bulk of online news and the media as a larger whole. I believe that to a much larger degree we can no longer see the difference between fake news and the overwhelming amount media (and their) presentations that also print a newspaper.

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Tagged as Al Jazeera, Al-Habtoor, America, Bab Al Mandab, BBC, France, Gates Foundation, GulfNews, Haaretz, Hatice Cengiz, Hezbollah, Houthi, Iran, Israel, Jamal Khashoggi, Khashoggi, King Salman Bin Abdulaziz, Marine Le Pen, Mohammed al-Otaibi, Mohammed bin Salman, Netanyahu, news.com.au, Nine.com.au, Oilibya, Pesident Trump, reuters, Saudi Arabia, SBS News, the Business Times, the Guardian, Turkey, UAE, USA, Washington Post, Yasin Aktay, Yemen

November 3, 2018 · 11:41

Media, call it as it is!

I saw the news yesterday and I initially decided to ignore it. It was not really ‘news’ news if you know what I mean. It is sad, it is not a surprise and it was always going to happen. The dice were rolled and the children in Yemen rolled two ones. Some call it snake eyes, but the impact is severe, you automatically lose with that roll and that was the state of things from the very beginning. We start with CNN (at https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/02/middleeast/yemen-famine-amal-hussain-intl/index.html). We see the direct truth with “The three-year conflict between the US-backed Saudi-led coalition and the Iranian-aligned Houthis has devastated Yemen and reportedly has killed at least 10,000 people“. CNN does not mention that Saudi Arabia got involved when the deposed elected president called for help, no we do not get that. We get “the international furor over the brutal killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul“. We get no information that Iran and Hezbollah have directly intervened in making Humanitarian aid utterly impossible there. One Quote gives us: “Yemen’s information minister called on the Lebanese government to stop Hezbollah supporting Houthi rebels, insisting the group’s activity will prolong Yemen’s war. On Sunday, Moammar Eryani said Hezbollah was providing the Houthis with logistical and military assistance, turning Beirut’s southern suburbs — known collectively as Dahiyah — into a centre for media attacks against the Arab-led coalition“, in this CNN decided not to go there. We also get Yemen’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Marwan Ali Noman giving us: “the Yemeni suffering is caused by the Houthi militias, which are executing the agenda of Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah party in the region. He added that the militias practiced all kinds of murder, torture and forced displacement in all Yemeni cities that they invade“. CNN had no issue using the Khashoggi incident to present an anti-Saudi Arabia view, but fell silent on the actual issues in Yemen, yes: ‘That was CNN!‘

The New York Times gives us (at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/world/middleeast/yemen-starvation-amal-hussain.html), and after that blazingly stages “The devastating war in Yemen has gotten more attention recently as outrage over the killing of a Saudi dissident in Istanbul has turned a spotlight on Saudi actions elsewhere“, yet it merely gives one mention of Iran in: “Saudi officials have defended their actions, citing rockets fired across their border by the Houthis, an armed group professing Zaidi Islam, an offshoot of Shiism, that Saudi Arabia, a Sunni monarchy, views as a proxy for its regional rival, Iran“, and in all this we see ZERO mention of Hezbollah, is that not strange? Neither is the part where the Firing of missiles is a direct result of Hezbollah and Houthi forces firing missiles into Saudi Arabia towards civilian targets. One source giving us that as per yesterday over 200 missiles have been fired into Saudi Arabia. Would you not think that this element is equally important? Let’s be honest it all started with the death of a toddler, but that was not what it was really about for the New York Times, was it? Yet they do give us “THE SAUDI COALITION IS NOT solely to blame for Yemen’s food crisis“, yet goes a little short in pointing on where blame, a much larger blame lies. It lies with Hezbollah, the tool and puppet of Iran provoking Saudi Arabia as much as possible.

The New York Times also gives us: “Tensions reached a climax this summer when the head of the United Nations migration agency was forced to leave Sana after clashing with the Houthi administration. In an interview, the Houthi vice foreign minister, Hussain al-Ezzi, denied reports of corruption, and insisted that tensions with the United Nations had been resolved“, it is a stage where Houthi officials are now enriched. It is a stage where we see that halting towards humanitarian aid and preventing the other 20,000 children from dying too. In this we see one additional quote that is identical in nearly all the newspapers I saw: “In an interview, the Houthi vice foreign minister, Hussain al-Ezzi, denied reports of corruption and insisted that tensions with the United Nations had been resolved“. My question becomes, was it an interview or was it merely a presentation by Hussain al-Ezzi finding a moment to state: ‘I’m not a crook!‘, which he probably learned form an American, namely former president Richard Nixon to be more precise.

The part that most publications are not giving us is that the death toll of children is roughly 130 children per day, in 2017 50,000 children died (Source: Al Jazeera).

The setting is not a nice one, on neither side. The Saudi Coalition includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan and Senegal. Al Jazeera also gives us: “Iran has denied arming the Houthi rebels, but the US military said it intercepted arms shipments from Iran to Yemen this March, claiming it was the third time in two months that this had occurred. Iranian officials have also suggested they may send military advisers to support the Houthis“, yet we have seen an utter lack of larger political activities by many nations other than the USA against Iran and Hezbollah, exactly how does that add up?

I particularly liked the quote “Commentators in the Arab Gulf States often claim that Iran now controls four Arab capitals: Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa“. I like it because it is the first part that gives the light of Iran, of what Iran is trying to achieve. The stage is not merely Hezbollah; it is not merely Turkey who has skin in that game too. It is the stage where we see the foundation of what Iran would call a holy war in defence of their sites. We are informed via “For the last six months the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has begun using waters further up the Gulf between Kuwait and Iran as it looks for new ways to beat an embargo on arms shipments to fellow Shi’ites in the Houthi movement, Western and Iranian sources say” and most of the western media is not even trying to look into these parts, it is actively avoiding any coverage on Iran. From that side we do get “The European Union is trying to preserve a version of the nuclear deal, but the recent incidents in Denmark and France have heightened the tensions.” In this it seems that Denmark is the strongest pusher against the Iranian actions, with the aid of France. We are all treated to the arrest event that was about a failed operation to bomb a June rally organised by Paris-based Iranian opposition group the National Council of Resistance of Iran, also known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), it is a stage of oppositions are to be killed, no negativity on Iran in Europe. This stage is now labelled by Iran as: “Iranian officials view the claims as designed to derail Europe’s efforts to salvage the JCPOA, particularly the planned European economic package for Iran“, the partial impact for now is that the Nordic parties who were initially extremely in favour of sustaining the JCPOA, are now less likely to fully support it.

What happened to the girl?

Well, the question is who cares? The girl is dead now! A photographer got his Pulitzer price, humanitarian aid in Yemen is a joke and the players behind the screen are all playing their own game. On both the Saudi and Iranian side there has been too little on humanitarian aid and that part must be clearly shown. Even as Saudi Arabia is much more on the defensive side of what they do, the clear staging where the work of Iran and Hezbollah is ignored by the media justifies the current position that Saudi Arabia is taking up. In all this the UN has blood on its hands too, even as it is through inactions. That part we get from the Irish Times (at https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-s-war-in-yemen-yields-hunger-and-devastation-1.3681488). They give us: “Only two famines have been officially declared by the United Nations in the past 20 years, in Somalia and South Sudan. An UN-led assessment due in mid-November will determine how close Yemen is to becoming the third“. Yet the Independent and a few other papers gave us almost a year ago: “More than 50,000 children expected to die of starvation and disease by end of year“. So I would think that the threshold for famine had been long passed. Would you not agree?

Save the Children gave us a little more a year ago, they also gave us: “an estimated 400,000 children will need treatment for acute malnutrition this year, the charity said“, at what point did it require an additional fifty weeks to get the label ‘famine’ attached?

Yemen, once the poorest country in the Middle East is about to become an extinct one. It happened as some nations were overactive in that region and the others are guilty through total inaction on almost every level. So even as we might feel for the title ‘Starving girl who became symbol of Yemen crisis dies‘, we should not be allowed to do so, our inactions give us that. And as the news staging goes on with Al Jazeera giving us: ‘US calls for the end to the Saudi-backed war in Yemen‘, we see again that the absence of Iran and Hezbollah in that equation might give the Saudi coalition additional fuel to continue. It might have been different if 100% of all support to Lebanon would have been halted until all Hezbollah troops have left Yemen, but Europe is not willing to go that far, are they? There are plenty of sanctions on Iran and I am not sure what else could be achieved there, yet barring Lebanon from EVERY negotiation table until Hezbollah is no longer in Yemen has not been attempted has it? It would force Iran to either engage of step back. In the second case the Yemen situation would be quickly resolved in the first case we would have a clear theatre of war with Iran, a war we might desperate need. Not for the fun of it, but until the hurt can be brought to Iran, they will continue their proxy war until they get lucky. Statistically speaking that will happen and the consequence of that will be a lot worse and it could have been prevented if the inactive players would have acted when there was a chance to limit the damage, for that it is far too late and the death on one 7 year old girl is merely the start for an optional 300,000 children to die within the next 30 weeks. Now you tell me, when we get to the 1^st of June 2019 and you wake up to the statistics that in Yemen 453,261 children will have died at that point from starvation and disease, how happy will you feel? Will you have that Coffee with an Éclair? Will you have the steak or the fish that evening, optionally with grape juice? I cannot blame you for not caring, but I can point you out on the hypocrisy you let happen, the stage you allowed for and the media giving us half a story again and again is equally guilty in all this.

It is not merely an imperfect world. This world is descending from bad to worse at the same speed that is currently killing the children in Yemen. I think that we can soon state that we stopped being humanitarians in 2019, so feel free to box that thought wrap it in shiny paper with a bow and place it under the Christmas tree. Ignore that package and watch another version of a Christmas carol on TV whilst you deceive yourself that you are such a better person than Ebeneezer Scrooge.

Bah! Humbug!

P.S. Yet should you genuinely care (and you could optionally suffer to lose a few coins) then click on the link below and make a donation to Save the Children by pressing the donate button. You might just be the hero of the day and safe a life that way.

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Tagged as Al Jazeera, Arab Gulf States, Baghdad, Beirut, CNN, Dahiyah, Damascus, Denmark, France, Hezbollah, Houthi rebels, Hussain al-Ezzi, Iran, IRGC, Irish times, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Jamal Khashoggi, JCPOA, Marwan Ali Noman, MEK, Moammar Eryani, Mujahedin-e Khalq, National Council of Resistance of Iran, New York Times, NY Times, Sanaa, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Coalition, Save the Children, Somalia, South Sudan, The Independent, Yemen

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