THE USA NEEDS A BIG WAR: WILL SHE GET IT WITH RUSSIA?

[jakaswanga]

THE USA NEEDS A BIG WAR SOON, IS RUSSIA GAME?

If smart moves were the staple of world-class politicians, the world wouldn't be such a mess, neither would history be that bloody.



We will come to Soviet Admiral Vasili Arkhipov later. And we shall muse at his exploit during the Cuban Missile crisis, when JFKennedy and Nikita Khrushchev went for it, Mundu-khu-Mundu, or Mano-a-Mano.


But First, we trace a few co-ordinates plotting a trajectory which, to all ends, will be bad. The administration of Donald Trump is really pushing it. There is something manic in it. Consider: Trump has now to all practical purposes, outlawed Iran. ###


Secretary Kerry posed with his fellow E.U., P5+1, and Iranian counterparts at the Austria Centre in Vienna, Austria, on July 14, 2015, before the formal announcement of the agreement concluding the Iranian nuclear negotiations

1. FLASH POINT CRIMEA

But before that, there was a regime change engineered in the Ukraine to the detriment of Russia, and an attempt to incorporate the Baltic states into NATO. That is sticking it to Putin.

Recently, the failed tate Ukraine attempted to sail warships into the sea of Azov in total disregard of existing protocol. They were promptly thwarted by the Russian navy. The United States declared their ships will escort the Ukrainians next tim around. That is playing with fire. A very big one.



In Syria, there was the death of Lieutenant General Valery Asapov. ISIS, they said, showed on that day an unusually and remarkable accuracy in rocketry. They killed a Russian General and two colonels. Other word was it was payback by the Americans, since Lieutenant General Asipov had been deployed to the East of Ukraine, Donetsk, and had put paid to Poroshenko's military drive to re-incorporate Novorussia.

2. RUSSIANS IN VENEZUELA

Russia recently sent a plane load of military personnel and computer specialists to deworm the Venezuela dam systems. The national grid there has been repeatedly hit by a STUXNET-like computer attack. (Some will remember when the Iranian --nuclear--- centrifuges were hit and spun out of control.

Stuxnet, which is widely believed to have been developed by the United States and Israel, was discovered in 2010 after it was used to attack a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, Iran. It was the first publicly known example of a virus being used to attack industrial machinery.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Researchers at Symantec Corp have uncovered a version of the Stuxnet computer virus that was used to attack Iran's nuclear program in November 2007, two years earlier than previously thought.

)

Anyway, as if ordering an orderly out of sight, the USA ordered Russian out of Venezuela! This is my yard, dog, keep off!




Trump actually gave Putin the order as he sat with Fabiana Rosales Guaido at the white house



Trump answered a reporter's question about Russia's actions in Venezuela as he stood next to Fabiana Rosales, the wife of opposition leader Juan Guaidó. Rosales came to Washington to drum up support for her husband, who declared himself Venezuela's interim president in late January.


Putin only offered a smirk back at Trump. It was left to foreign affairs minister Sergei Lavrov to spill words on it.



3. TRADE WAR WITH CHINA, NO DEAL WITH NORTH KOREA

Just as he was set to meet Xi Jinpin, the USA ordered Canada to detain a top Huawei executive. Just as he was about to meet North Korea's Kim in Vietnam, the CIA raided the North Korean offices in Spain, tied up the North Korean residents and stole stuff! KABOOM the sunshine smiles between North and South.

4. WITHDRAWAL FROM THE INF TREATY

In February we had this

Donald Trump has confirmed that the US is leaving the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, saying "we will move forward with developing our own military response options" to Russia's suspect missile.
In a written statement, Trump said that the US would be suspending its compliance with the 1987 treaty on Saturday, and would serve formal notice that it would withdraw altogether in six months.

5. And then there has been, to date, the botched attempt in Venezuela to topple Maduro. The man the Vice President of the USA has appointed to replace Maduro, is the puppet Guaido, and he has been given control of up to $31 billion confiscated from Venezuela's oil operations in the USA.

Some of that money belongs to Russia and China.

6. TEARING UP THE JCPOA

In May 2018, Donald Trump withdrew from the Iranian Nuclear deal painfully negotiated by the Obama administration.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is a detailed, 159-page agreement with five annexes reached by Iran and the P5+1 (China France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) on July 14, 2015. The nuclear deal was endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2231, adopted on July 20, 2015.

Trump trashed it all.

###FANNING THE FLAMES FURTHERE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

In the middle East, after gifting the occupied Golan Heights to the occupier, Israel, on of top earlier provocations like moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, Donald Trump now lights a fuse.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran's government is required to use its legal, political and diplomatic capacities to decrease to the least use of the regional countries' facilities, equipment, financial resources and other possible assistance to the US forces and other terrorist forces, mentioned in the bill," it added.

The bill stressed that the Iranian government is also required to use all its power to nullify the US measure to designate Iran's official military force as a terrorist group through bilateral and multilateral interactions with countries and consultations with international organizations and institutions.

The United States on Monday designated the IRGC as a "foreign terrorist organization", marking the first time Washington has formally labelled another country's military a "terrorist group".

Responding to Washington's move, Iran immediately declared the US as "state sponsor of terrorism" and American forces in the region "terrorist groups".

A thought occurred to me and I grinned a bit: fancy Ababu Namwamba and Monicah Juma explaining Kenya's position on this spat! You know Kenya is the chief exporter of tea to the IRGC!

Here is what I had in mind

U.S. sanctions imposed to punish Iran are harming Kenya tea growers and exporters.
Iran is an important trading partner, paying good prices for large orders of Kenya's tea. When a previous round of sanctions was lifted in 2016 exports surged and profits rose for traders supplying CTC (cut, tear, curl) to Iran's 80 million tea drinkers.

Last week the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) said earnings are down 17 percent due in part to financial restrictions reinstated in November 2018.
The inability for the two countries to trade in dollars led to a surplus greater than the local export market can absorb, KTDA officials told Business Daily.

Iran is the world's fifth largest tea importer, purchasing $280 million from Kenya last year. About 20 percent of Iran's 88,000 metric tons of tea imports are from Kenya with Sri Lanka, India, and China supplying the rest.

Hey, Nairobi, anybody home!?

Not everything is Ruto-Raila!

[jakaswanga]

1. CAN EUROPE (KSA & ISRAEL) SURVIVE A US DESTRUCTION OF IRAN?

KSA is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.




US deploys aircraft carrier, bombers to 'send message' to Iran May 0 2019.


With the stupid white men (Michael Moore)



or *ucking morons (Rex Tillerson)




in the white house bent on war with Iran, this question must now be asked.

1. Can the European Union survive this Armageddon?
2. Can the state of Israel, and the King of Saudi Arabia?
3. Can a pragmatic Russia and a cynical China afford to let it happen?

The Islamic republic of Iran is the only small state who is no vassal of some other power. States of comparable population and size, even if economically far better faring ---Japan, the UK, The EU twins Germany and France---- are easily American vassals. Their economies are so intertwined with that of the US, they have no options when push comes to shove. And that is where the conflict in the middle east is slowly maturing to. The Eurovassals will forego their longterm interests of their peoples and, deep sigh, act in accordance with imperial American diktat. This servility is the reason the political elites of the big EU powers are so out of step with their peoples. The popularity of populist nationalists has risen. The shine on the ----jobwise figures--- competent Iron lady Merkel nosedived.

QUICK HOT WAR, ENDLESS CHAOS

Militarily, the war will be over in a couple of days I think. But what a bang!? to prevent a missile scorch-earth of Israel, Washington and Tel Aviv will be forced to strike Iran with tactical nuclear weapons This --- Hiroshima and Nagasaki rerun---- is the only way to totally disable a country of 80 million people mobilised for war, and no sitting duck. IR-Iran, since she can not hit mainland USA, will empty all her military might on Israel and American assets in the gulf. So in the first few minutes, all Saudi oil infrastructure will be up in flames; Qatar, where the airbase is, will be up in smoke, so too any American asset within 1000km.



It is understood when the neocon loonie twins around Trump, Pompeo and Bolton, have their favourite war in the middle east, then will hitherto canonised absolute depths horror like the Shoa of Europe be reduced to historical kalongolongos in the scales of human depravity.

After those few days of an incinerated middle east, the world will exploded into rival camps and, immediately, low intensity conflict beyond diplomacy. In many Muslim countries, white people will be persona non grata. Vengeance will be taken anyhow. White nationalism in Europe will be forced to react. The popular best would be declaring non whites and Muslims fair game in the continent. Time to revisit concentration camps. Nearly every country will go state of emergency to try to put a lid on the mass hysteria.

What will Russia and China do? What can Russia and China do?

The best is to be neutral of course. That is strategically stand by and watch the West and Iran collapse themselves. (That is like Winston Churchill who wanted the USA and the USSR to go war over continental Europe, leaving Britain unscathed and once again emerging as a world power!)

Churchill urged US to 'wipe out' Moscow with A-bomb


Surprisingly voted out of office after World War II, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill privately became an advocate for an Anglo-American first strike atom bomb attack against the Soviet Union, as once secret FBI records indicate. Churchill's 1946 speech at Fulton, Missouri, warning against his former Communist ally during World War II, set the stage for a new conflict known as the Cold War, which lasted for decades and still haunts international relations today. This excerpt is from When Lions Roar: The Churchills and the Kennedys by ICIJ member Thomas Maier.

NB: Here is some interesting detail on the follies of mentally

What role did FDR play in creating the atomic bomb?

Nuclear fission was discovered in February 1939 by scientists in Germany.

FDR was informed personally of the discovery and its potential in October 1939 when scientist Alexander Sachs read aloud Albert Einstein's letter warning the president of fissions military implications. Based on Einstein's letter and concepts of scientists working in Britain, FDR set up a joint Anglo-American effort to produce atomic bombs for potential use during the war. The result was the Manhattan Project that would ultimately create the weapon. In August 1943 at the Quebec Conference, FDR and Churchill signed a secret agreement governing collaboration between the two countries on the development of the atomic bomb. FDR also foresaw that atomic weapons would become the basis for post-war military and diplomatic policy, and on September 18, 1944 he and Churchill signed the Hyde Park Aide-Memoire committing the two powers to a monopoly on atomic information in the hopes of keeping the peace in a post-war world. FDR did not live to see the use of the weapon in August 1945 against Japan.

MOU between two powers for a monopoly of atomic information, a breakthrough which had happened in a LABORATORY far from both!

Nuclear fission, the mother of all atomic information, was a NAZI-GERMANY scientific breakthrough! The two Berlin-based scientist were Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann

What a pity to Roosevelt and Churchill that American and British scientist do not monopolise cutting inventions, and all the wherewithal necessary to PROJECT SUPER POWERDOM!

The attempt at monopoly to intimidate others, triggered PROLIFERATION to deter or achieve parity. It went into history as THE ARMS RACE! No, when you plot domination, you are plotting war, and sowing the seeds of parity if not your own defeat.

Soviet leaders learned that both the United States and Germany had embarked on efforts to build an atomic bomb. In February 1943, the Soviets began their own program led by nuclear physicist Igor Kurchatov and political director Lavrentiy Beria

We never learn, do we, O human beings.




POSTDAM

Work on the program sped up quickly in 1945, however, especially after the Soviets learned of the Trinity test. At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, Truman told Joseph Stalin about the United States atomic bomb program for the first time. According to Truman, "I casually mentioned to Stalin that we had a new weapon of unusual destructive force. The Russian Premier showed no special interest. All he said was he was glad to hear it and hoped we would make good use of it against the Japanese."
While Stalin may have appeared uninterested, he privately told his top advisers to speed up work on the Soviet atomic program: "They simply want to raise the price. We've got to work on Kurchatov and hurry things up."
The Soviet regime immediately stepped up their program. General Boris L. Vannikov (who has been compared to General Leslie Groves) headed an engineering council that oversaw the project. Its members included Kurchatov, M.G. Pervukhin, A.I. Alikhanov, I.K. Kikoin, A.P. Vinovgradov, Abram Joffe, A.A. Bochvar, and Avraamy Zavenyagin.

Some will also remember how an Indian state project called SMILING BUDHA spooked Pakistan. So much so that the Pakis went 'Manhattan' too! Just like, well, just about anywhere else ....

Mao quickly faced intense hostility from the West, particularly the United States, which threatened nuclear strikes against China.

After North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950, Washington intervened in support of the South, while Beijing fought in support of the North. President Harry S. Truman subsequently ordered ten nuclear-armed B-29s to the Pacific fleet as his government seriously considered a nuclear strike.

Mao affirmed, "We need the atom bomb. If our nation does not want to be intimidated, we have to have this thing''

..... the North Koreans.

Which fool doesn't know!?

As the Cold War intensified, both the Soviet Union and the United States embarked upon efforts to rapidly develop and grow their respective nuclear arsenals. Shortly after the US launched its hydrogen bomb program in the early 1950s, the USSR followed suit and initiated their own hydrogen bomb program.

Now 2019: Israel 150 atomic weapons, Iran zero!

Only the destruction of Iran and the evaporation of the dignity of the Persians can maintain the above imbalance.

Why pretend about these disingenuous blurbs called JCPOA? The USA already killed it.

So back to this: What will Russia and China do? What can Russia and China do?

What can they do to prevent a SHOAx6 on Persian?

The answer is not nothing, but of course THEY CAN CHOOSE TO DO NOTHING. --who said it is Putin and Xi Jinpin's brief to save the world from a Samsonite Washington DC?

Tic Toc, Tic Toc.

Any adults in the room!? Sorry, PLANET!

[jakaswanga]

XI' THREE DAY VISIT TO RUSSIA, JUNE 2019



The Eurasian pivot










FOR those in the West's newsfeed, the choice helpings were all about Donald Trump's twitter wars over the paralysed Britain he was visiting cuncurrently as Xi did Russia. There in the isles of our former colonial masters did the man from DC pour more oil into the fire of Brexit as he made a grand entrance. He also traded insults with the mayor of London, Sadikh Khan. --The Paki Khan isn't exactly the right colour nor religion Trump rather have as London's first citizen, just as Ilhan Omar isn't really the kind of all American girl his good old white nationalist fantasies run amok for, bent over Congress seats in Washington DC.

But he as POTUS gotta live with them somehow, even if in hate.



London booed him all the way even as the house of Windsor rolled out the ritual red carpet.

And then it was off to the D-Day pictoresque, Normandy commemorations.



But the engines of the New World were revving elsewhere: XI JINPIN WAS IN RUSSIA.

The emperor of China has to make a run. He has been criticised for having misjudged Trump. He threw caution to the winds and is now reaping the price of his folly. He has to break an Icarus fall at home. While Sergei Lavrov has openly stated American is agreement incapable, Xi appeared to have believed Trump was rational enough to do what is best in a grave situation: avoid a trade war between the two leading economies of the world.

Trump's nuclear bomb at Huawei, the goose of the golden egg, the Chinese High Tech business card to the world, has sobered him up and returned him to Deng Hsiao Ping's, Daedalus caution of yonder: crossing the river by feeling the stones under.

He has now reached the conclusion it wont work. The hegemon, or top dog, will not peacefully allow the challenger to send it under without being confronted with no option left but capitulation.

And it is perhaps an Armageddon situation.

In any case diplomacy is out. So Chairman Xi thought must take a detour. The LONG MARCH OPTION.

And so this Early June 2019, Xi JinPin's visit to Russia was different. It was commitment. It also reflect the comments made recently by China's first soldier. The General said Taiwan is an indispensable part of China.

China’s top defence official issued a stern warning to “external forces” that foster the idea of independence for Taiwan, saying at Asia’s primary security summit in Singapore on Sunday that Beijing will not cede a “single inch” of its territory.


Wei Fenghe

Defence Minister Wei Fenghe’s comments at the Shangri-La Dialogue came amid rising tensions between China and the United States, fuelled by a near year-long trade war and disputes over technology, Taiwan and the South China Sea.




Russian Defence Minister General of the Army Sergei Shoigu held a meeting with his Chinese counterpart General Wei Fenghe during his visit.

China has reached the state Russia reached when all agreements and reassurance given to Boris Yeltsin were negated and NATO moved into the Baltic states, 15 seconds away by missile strike to St Petersburg, and less than half a minute to Moscow. And down in the Caucus, Georgia too, and Ukraine invited ---Sevastopol, a NATO base. A direct existential threat.



Putin, a spy and not yet president, sat up bolt right. Russian nationalism surged with him. And the world has not been the same since. (remember terms like a 'resurgent' Russia, and Obama's notorious qualification: 'revisionist power'. )

HINT From THE RAND CORPORATION:

HOW TO CONTAIN RUSSIA

Today's Russia suffers from many vulnerabilities-oil and gas prices well below peak that have caused a drop in living standards, economic sanctions that have furthered that decline, an aging and soon-to-be-declining population, and increasing authoritarianism under Vladimir Putin's now-continued rule. Such vulnerabilities are coupled with deep-seated (if exaggerated) anxieties about the possibility of Western-inspired regime change, loss of great power status, and even military attack.

Despite these vulnerabilities and anxieties, Russia remains a powerful country that still manages to be a U.S. peer competitor in a few key domains. Recognizing that some level of competition with Russia is inevitable, RAND researchers conducted a qualitative assessment of "cost-imposing options" that could unbalance and overextend Russia. Such cost-imposing options could place new burdens on Russia, ideally heavier burdens than would be imposed on the United States for pursuing those options. The work builds on the concept of long-term strategic competition developed during the Cold War, some of which originated at RAND
----------------
Through the years, RAND's sphere of influence became more visible. In the 1960s, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara hired scores of its young researchers-dubbed the "Whiz Kids"-to reorganize the Pentagon. But perhaps the thing that most solidified RAND's reputation in the public's imagination was the release of the Stanley Kubrick film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in 1964.

The movie's title character, a deranged Nazi scientist, was modeled on the eccentric Herman Kahn. A military strategist, Kahn famously argued that America could easily survive an all-out conflict with the Soviet Union if people took refuge in shelters and rationed food. Although the radiation would cause hundreds of thousands of genetic defects, Kahn insisted the American people would endure.

Kahn's apocalyptic scenarios didn't end there. He also dreamed up the Doomsday Machine, a device that could destroy all life on Earth, which Kubrick used in Dr. Strangelove. In fact, Kubrick borrowed so many of Kahn's sayings and ideas that the scientist began demanding royalties. Kahn was so persistent that Kubrick finally had to tell him, "That's not how things are done, Herman."

Well, comrade Xi, that is how things are done. I mean Trump has signed it, any company which does business with Huawei, wont do business with America!

It is a total quarantine like the one Trump issued on Iran: any company doing business with Iran will face specified heavy penalties from the United States. Result: even as the meek Europeans dissent, all european cEuropean have ceased business with the Islamic republic!

Now, even if Big China is no small Iran, and the peoples republic non Islamic, the writing on the wall is clear and loud: China must be kept down and under, contained in subservience.

Comrade Xi has been advised by the politburo he chairs to break out, or he will be broken in, and booted out.

This is the background to the purposeful calm pose that marked the event in St. Petersburg.

Russia and China sign deals worth US$20 billion

as Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin's growing friendship bears fruit

Agreements to boost cooperation in spheres such as energy and technology highlight closer partnership in face of tensions with US
Wednesday's meeting between the two presidents, who have spoken of their desire to boost practical cooperation in the face of increasing rivalry with the United States, marked the start of Xi's three-day visit to Russia to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Moscow and Beijing.

On Thursday the Chinese commerce ministry said that the two sides aimed to increase the volume of trade between the two countries to US$200 billion a year following last year's 24.5 per cent rise to a record level of US$108 billion.
Gao Feng, a spokesman for the ministry, said the deals covered areas such as nuclear power, natural gas, automobiles, hi-tech development, e-commerce and 5G communications.

www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3013483/russia-and-china-sign-deals-worth-us20bn-xi-jinping-and

Meanwhile, Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, which has been targeted by US sanctions after it was accused of spying and undermining national security, signed a deal with Russian telecoms company MTS to develop a 5G network.
China Investment Corporation and RDIF, a Russian sovereign wealth fund, were also reported to have agreed to set up a US$1 billion joint technology research fund, according the US-based analysts Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute.

POST SCRIPTS

Syria, Iran, N. Korea on agenda as Xi meets with Putin in Moscow 70 yrs since diplomatic ties began
Published time: 5 Jun, 2019

There are a lot of common causes on the table for the leaders of Russia and China as they meet in the Russian capital. The visit coincides with the 70th anniversary of Beijing opening diplomatic relations with Moscow.

China and Russia "have strong political mutual trust and support each other firmly on issues concerning each other's core interests and major concerns," Xi said ahead of his trip. On the international stage, the two nations have worked hand-in-hand to end the conflict in Syria, draft and preserve the nuclear deal with Iran, and end the standoff on the Korean Peninsula. All of these issues will likely be on the agenda during the meeting at the Kremlin on Wednesday.

While in Moscow, the Chinese leader will also attend a performance at the Bolshoi theatre. He will then travel to St. Petersburg for the International Economic Forum.

Seeing eye-to-eye on Venezuela

China and Russia are also in agreement on who is the legitimate president of Venezuela. While self-declared interim president Juan Guaido has received the blessing of Washington and its European allies, Moscow and Beijing continue to recognize Nicolas Maduro as the country's leader.

Xi, Putin meet in St. Petersburg

Source: Xinhua| 2019-JUNE-07

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping met with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on Thursday here in the latter's hometown.
Putin invited Xi to a cruise tour on the Neva River. Welcoming Xi to his hometown again, Putin introduced to the guest local customs as well as the buildings on both sides of the river.

Hailing the beautiful scenery and attractive art and culture, Xi said St. Petersburg has nurtured many outstanding figures and is the pride of Russia and the Russian people.
The two presidents talked about the history and current situation of the ancient city along the sightseeing tour, pledging to promote cultural and people-to-people exchanges between the Chinese and Russian people so as to enhance mutual understanding and friendship.
Putin said he looks forward to more Chinese tourists to St. Petersburg and Russia at large.


Xi arrived in St. Petersburg earlier on Thursday to attend the 23rd St. Petersburg International Economic Forum after holding talks with Putin in Moscow on Wednesday.

THE STING IN THE TAIL

Dollar dump? Russia & China agree to bilateral trade in national currencies during Putin-Xi meeting

Published time: 5 Jun, 2019

Russia and China took another step away from the US dollar after the two countries agreed to develop bilateral trade using the ruble and the yuan.
It was just one of the major deals reached after the presidents of the two countries, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, held talks in Moscow on Wednesday.

"Russia and China intend to develop the practice of settlements in national currencies," Putin told journalists at the news conference following the talks. He added that the states have signed intergovernmental agreements on expanding the use of the yuan and the ruble in bilateral financial operations.

A draft government decree on the national currencies trade was released earlier during the day. The document stipulates that Moscow and Beijing will cooperate on development of national payment systems, as well as facilitate cross-border payments in national and other currencies

NB: Patrick Njoroge and his CBK whiz-kids spend two years studying the Indian demonitisation before taking a leap of faith with the Kenya shilling note of 1k. The same team had earlier taken all their time looking over their shoulders before they kind of applied for Kenya to join the list of associate members to the CHINA-LED Asia Industrial and Infrastructure Bank, AIIB.

Now there is a new homework arrived on the table: QUESTION: how long before we ditch the dollar in our bilateral trade with Kenya's leading creditor, and PUTIN'S BEST FRIEND, uncle Xi?

No, that is not really the lead question, that is 1b. Here is A, because charity should start at home. How long will it take US before ALL Inter East and Intra Central African trade, where the Kenya shilling is the dollar according CBK data, is conducted in local currency only.

With the 'trade in gold' ---see Wetangula's non issue quip--- between Kenya and Congo topping $400M/month I would say a Kenyan shilling backed by gold is a walk in the park!

Now, Opus Dei Boy, lets go for your legacy. This is your last term you know!

I will be back.

[jakaswanga]

WAITING FOR A WAR, where will the big-bang be!?

This posting will be a middle east special, chapter Iran and Trump.

JCPOA TANKING, SUNK TO THE BOTTOM

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, in short, the Iran NUCLEAR DEAL of Obama.

IN any case, the administration of Donald Trump, The Obama-successor POTUS, blew it up long ago, ie in 2018. Great Britain, yes, I said 'GREAT', seems to have lost her head. And I am not hinting at Teresa May's departure. The rest of the disheveled, motley signatories have been keeping up quixotic appearances, riding a wooden horse, pretending otherwise.

Except Iran.

Pushed to the wall, the Islamic republic has no more room to retreat. Iran has to break out. And she is hard at it, the best she can, short of capitulation. Some will remember the words of Ayatollah Khomeini on July 20th 1988.

This was on accepting the UN resolution 598 to end the Iran-Iraq War. Then, like the Trojan war, close to its tenth year.

'Making this decision was deadlier than swallowing poison. I submitted myself to God and drank this drink for his satisfaction.

Happy are those who have departed through martyrdom. Unhappy am I that I still survive''

An estimated 200,000-240,000 Iranians and 105,000-200,000 Iraqis were killed during the Iran-Iraq war.

'The United states, seething at the overthrow of its puppet regime under the Shah, Supreme King Reza Pahlavi, was firmly on Saddam Hussein's side that time. A host of coming imperial cynics in Washington DC were enthralled. There was young Dick Cheney, there was young Donald Rumsfeld, and there was of course the B-actor Ronald Reagan with his VP, the ex CIA Chief, George Bush senior. They were all jubilant at using Arabs (blood) to drain Persians (blood) while white Christians stoked the war emmers and enjoyed the watch: stage perfect. Theft oil flows cheap. The futures of these brown nations and their dark peoples distracted, thrown back, far back.

Conquerors are never really aware how deep the conquered study history to learn. (I think, off the cuff, that could easily have been Ho Chi Minh telling an inverse 'mother bed-bug story to his then young commander Vo Nguyen Giap. They were in a cave, late 1940's, bombed out of Hanoi by superior French airpower. The future never looked dimmer. Ho was impressing on the remnants of his politburo, that the French were no problem.

France was dead in IndoChina.

'Saviour Vo, believe me, it is the Americans whose big, big and super-size as.s you gonna have to kick and tear apart. Or we are toast! Americans are the coming colonial power over Vietnam, forget the French. France is passe. These bombs over Hanoi are her rigor mortis!'

And yet it was French planes and paratroopers who had driven them reds out of Hanoi. Young Vo didn't really think the Americans were his greatest problem. Ho grinned, a famous grin still found in many memorabilia,even T-shirts found in Ho Chi Minh City, aka Saigon. The grin of an older man who has seen a bit further, and knows the river of blood is yet to be crossed.

Reliving the moment over 60 years later, an aging Vo Giap would collapse in laughter! I thought uncle Ho was mad! Old and Mad! And then a thoughtful quip which revealed the uncertainty of that moment in the cave in his youth: there are moments a nation needs a mind to lead, a mind forged beyond all that is known as hard. We the people of Vietnam found that in Uncle Ho. He believed in our ability to defeat any invader, however powerful.

I think the Iranian supreme leader is not so far from such an Uncle Ho-Vo moment.

A TENACIOUS MULLAH

Ayatollah Khameini is putting up a remarkably controlled and careful response regime. But I think the sh!tstorm is out there, and coming. The United States is cornered. She can't handle the consequences she has wrought, by forcing China and Russia to gang up together in active opposition to her designs. That is the Eurasian axis which, howbeit now, a furtive Mordi's India is tentatively knocking to join, forced by her own peculiarities of interests, not least, economics. Somebody out there must pay for the disconcert of a receding power, the USA. And one with the greatest show-case of military prowess ever assembled in human history. That Trump Card must come to pass, even if to end an era, much like the British fiasco at Suez did her in, many decades ago.

NEXT: 300KG LIMIT SURPASS,

[jakaswanga]

IRAN SPECIAL 1B.

NEXT: 300KG LIMIT SURPASS, enriched uranium stockpile

But first:

AND THAT WAS THE 2019 G-20 IN OSAKA, JAPAN



Far away from the cameras which closes us up on the faces of the puppets acting out full-spectrum dominance, say the nominal leaders of the G-20 economic block as we count them heads of states, other raw events dictated by steely decisions take shape. This process or phenomenon is no less valid for the Kenyan political scene too, where, say the G-3, for Ouru Ruto and Raila, are, on the face of it, truly deities engaged in full-spectrum dominance. But behind the daily tedium of our political stars as obsessed over by the corporate mass media, is a world pregnant with other more significant events. Only one needs to wade through the deliberate obscurantism and obfuscation.

Did oil prices feature a the recent G20 in Osaka, Japan? They did. In fact there was a huge bilateral breakthrough between Russia and Saudi Arabia. It left India weeping. And Iran hanging like OPEC.

Russia and Saudi Arabia's oil production cut deal may impact Indian energy security efforts

30 June 2019, Utpal Bhaskar

India has been calling for a global consensus on "responsible pricing," with China and India moving ahead to set up a joint working group (JWG) on energy to form a buyers' bloc to bargain collectively for oil supplies.
Retail prices of petrol and diesel in India track global prices of these fuels, not crude, but they are broadly linked to crude oil price trends. Crude oil prices impact India's oil import bill and trade deficit.



US Secretary of State Pompeo promises to ensure oil supplies to India after Iranian crude ban

27 Jun 2019, Utpal Bhaskar

India, the world's third-biggest oil importer, bought about 184,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil from the United States
'We're doing everything we can to ensure you have adequate crude imports,' says US State department

It is Pompeo of the USA to assure us of ADEQUATE OIL FLOW? The economic interests of Indian organised in a lobby-body looked at newly-elected Prime Minister Mordi, their eyelids gaping, their bellies churning.

Did the size and precariousness of the world debt feature? I bet it did, which means the hottest topic in the G20 summit was war in the gulf, Trump versus Rouhani, and its effects on World's leading Banks.

But neither the president of Iran nor the spiritual leader of the Islamic republic were at the table in Osaka, Tokyo. Yet two token tinnies, or Tom Thumbs, were there: Cyril Ramaphosa for South Africa and Justin Tradeau for Canada.
It made me think of many things from the past, of world history. (Like Euro-colonial powers gathered in Berlin to carve up the destiny of Africa, not a single African at the table, 1870's!)

It is always a dangerous folly in international politics where the powers of the status quo incorporate their eternity in the agreements, secret or public

The League of Nations, 1920

The League of Nations was an international organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, created after the First World War to provide a forum for resolving international disputes. Though first proposed by President Woodrow Wilson as part of his Fourteen Points plan for an equitable peace in Europe, the United States never became a member.
------------------
After adopting many of these ideas, Wilson took up the cause with evangelical fervor, whipping up mass enthusiasm for the organization as he traveled to the Paris Peace Conference in January 1919, the first President to travel abroad in an official capacity.
Wilson used his tremendous influence to attach the Covenant of the League, its charter, to the Treaty of Versailles. An effective League, he believed, would mitigate any inequities in the peace terms. He and the other members of the "Big Three," Georges Clemenceau of France and David Lloyd George of the United Kingdom, drafted the Covenant as Part I of the Treaty of Versailles
---------------------------
Most important for Wilson, the League would guarantee the territorial integrity and political independence of member states, authorize the League to take "any action...to safeguard the peace," establish procedures for arbitration, and create the mechanisms for economic and military sanctions.

1920 Huh, safeguard territorial integrity and political independence of member states, again huh!?

Pray Tell! how does the world look like in 1920, in terms of member states and their political integrity!?


I checked the map! But wont bother to paste!


For One, the whole Indian subcontinent is the private estate of the English ruling class. The proposed clauses of the league of nations on territorial integrity would maintain that feature: the colonial status of India under the UK.


Then China, then:

On May 4, 1919, patriotic students in Beijing protested the decision at the Paris Peace Conference that Japan should retain defeated Germany's rights and possessions in Shandong.

Many students were arrested in the rioting that followed. Waves of protest spread throughout the major cities of China. Merchants closed their shops, banks suspended business, and workers went on strike to pressure the government.

Finally, the government was forced to release the arrested students, to dismiss some officials charged with being tools of Japan, and to refuse to sign the Treaty of Versailles. This outburst helped spread the iconoclastic and reformist ideas of the intellectual movement, which became known as the May Fourth Movement. By the early 1920s, China was launched on a new revolutionary path.

It would appear neither did the nationalist sensitivities of China matter to the drafters of the clauses in Paris, 1920.

One can bother to learn lessons from the past. But there is really no need, since life if only ever too ready to teach them again!

Next:

THE BIG THREE IN 1920, TAKING CARE OF WORLD BUSINESS.

[jakaswanga]

IRAN SPECIAL: 1C. ONCE UPON A TIME AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD

A lot of peopless were locked out of an international deal ---of peace, security and prosperity!

THE BIG THREE IN 1920, TAKING CARE OF WORLD BUSINESS.

They had their cake and ate it at the same time!

Nearly.

Interestingly in Paris, on that 1920 day, there were strident voices tried to hinder the "Big Three," from eating their cake and pretending to keep it whole. The Big Three were Woodrow Wilson of the USA, Georges Clemenceau of France and David Lloyd George of the United Kingdom. One of those 'irritating distractors' was a young man from Vietnam. He was a nobody, but his heart harboured a dream the history, and future of his long-suffering people. This then unknown character would later be the notorious Ai Quoc. Uncle Ho to his ace Generals and hardened Commanders. In the next half a century Uncle Ho would pull off a military feat which would not be done justice by a David and Goliath narrative.




Nguyen-Ai-Quoc (the later known as Ho Chi Minh) speaking at the foundational congress of the French Communist Party in December 1920. Michael Goebel

Nguyen spoke as a delegate, telling those assembled how his homeland, Vietnam, was "shamefully oppressed and exploited," as well as being "poisoned" by alcohol and opium.

Prisons were more numerous than schools, and freedom of the press did not exist. He urged that "the Party must make socialist propaganda in all the colonies" and concluded with the appeal: "Comrades, save us!"

The broad reactions were, this was a loony, a coolie scumbag full of sh!t, red sh!t!

But fast forward to SEPTEMBER 02 1945

Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam


For the people of Vietnam, who were just beginning to recover from five years of ruthless economic exploitation by the Japanese, the end of World War II promised to bring eighty years of French control to a close.

As the League for the Independence of Vietnam (Vietnam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi), better known as the Viet Minh, Vietnamese nationalists had fought against the Japanese invaders as well as the defeated French colonial authorities.

With the support of rich and poor peasants, workers, businessmen, landlords, students, and intellectuals, the Viet Minh (led by Ho Chi Minh) had expanded throughout northern Vietnam where it established new local governments, redistributed some lands, and opened granaries to alleviate the famine. On September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi's Ba Dinh square.

The first lines of his speech repeated verbatim the famous second paragraph of America's 1776 Declaration of Independence.

All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

But there were other non-Asian nationalist sensitivities too, unminded in Paris by the powers that were To their folly. Berlin was not as far from Paris as Beijin, Hanoi or Nairobi, .... but

Membership of Germany in the League of Nations.

Letter from Gustav Stresseman

Description

In 1924, the newly appointed foreign minister of Germany, Gustav Stresemann, adopted a new policy toward the League of Nations, which governments in Berlin previously had spurned as an instrument created by the victors of World War I to suppress the defeated Germans. In December 1924, Stresemann dispatched an application for Germany's admission to the League, but on the condition that it also be made a member of the League Council. This request was denied

.... But Gustav Stressman and the government he represented were by this time irrelevant. German Politics had moved on past the league of nations, far past the big three and their fix.

THE RISE OF ADOLF HITLER

In 1919, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party (DAP), the precursor of the NSDAP, and was appointed leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted to seize power in a failed coup in Munich and was imprisoned. In jail, he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto Mein Kampf ("My Struggle").

After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, anti-semitism and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. He frequently denounced international capitalism and communism as part of a Jewish conspiracy.

Therefore, reading this clause of the league of nations as warranted by the Big Three

the League would guarantee the territorial integrity and political independence of member states, authorize the League to take "any action... to safeguard the peace," establish procedures for arbitration, and create the mechanisms for economic and military sanctions.

one would laugh in retrospect, were it not that in 1939, the sh!t would hit the fan as they say. The league of nations fix at the behest of the Big Three had ignored one of the primordial, terrifying passions which lurk beneath the human breast: the sense of dignity, freedom and integrity. The seethe against daily, and national humiliation.

Because I like to thumb through history books to awe myself at the blindness of world leaders intoxicated by the trappings of power, every new high event where contemporary world leaders meet to run the world always moves me to introspect who is absent at the table, and why. And it is always amazing how much of a fit contemporary fixes are a match to the same old colonial template of ignoring the true wishes of all mankind, freedom peace and prosperity, and punishing the independents. (the so-hyped inalienable rights of all being born equal continue to be fairy tales, bullsh!t to the powers that be! that is why there is the spectre of a war out there, haunting!)

Truly I ask: what must happen for Iran to be present and treated with equality, respect and dignity? That British act of international piracy around Gibraltar, hijacking an Iranian tanker and its crude, is the kind of arrogance and insolence which, history be read, is not Brittania ruling the waves, but proof of an empty-headed London. As if the Brexit chaos were not enough proof of elite incompetence. No, the internal contradictions of the UK can no longer be exported.

So Osaka 2019 G20. I couldn't help noticing the absence### of the beards from Teheran. And checking Iran's economic potential against other attendee's.

Which countries are G20 members?

Members of the G20 make up 85% of the world's GDP, and two-thirds of its population.
Here's a full list of countries and members that attend the summit each year:
- Argentina
- Australia
- Brazil
- Canada
- China
- France
- Germany
- India
- Indonesia
- Italy
- Japan
- Mexico
- Republic of Korea
- Republic of South Africa
- Russia
- Saudi Arabia
- Turkey
- United Kingdom
- United States of America
- European Union

Another name for G20 is Go To Hell Iran I think.



And did the G20 2019 discuss the Palestinian plight, did they?

No, but they discussed Terrorism!

###ABSENCE: Chinua Achebe always told this anecdote: he was looking for his Igbo people in 'colonial' literature and only came across an absence. Yet the Igbos were so present in the world to him. So he decided to write about them himself, give them a presence in whatever literature! ---I always paraphrase him thus in class: it is like having a kok and using it several times a day for whatever purpose, some of them too dirty to mention but too sweet to abandon, yet being told by your master you are cockless and a cu.nt! Then you might feel to drive your kok up the master's arsehole just to make the argument a bit more heartfelt!

NEXT: WHO IS AFRAID OF ANOTHER GULF WAR?

[jakaswanga]

IRAN SPECIAL: 1D. WHO IS AFRAID OF ANOTHER GULF WAR?

No, nobody!

Well, the Lord works in strange ways, but stupidity is always clear. We will have our world war some time. Though by new definitions and technological developments, there are arguments the war is already on. For instance there is a hot cyber war already. The war fought with smart algorithms.

But the rest of the world is still very old fashioned. The world is full of Old World weapons, you know, nuclear bombs, missiles and rockets, air-craft carriers, spears and matchetes, bows, arrows, rifles and tanks. The usual paraphernalia of mass murder. And since rights are too scarce to be afforded all humanity, wherefore social liberty, dignity and peaceful prosperity is the privilege of a minor, mostly hereditary aristocracy, things will only get hotter and more Old Worldish.

The world powers of today behave as if they think people like .... the Iranians and Palestinians are untermenschen. A subhuman species.

NB: The British (under the lifeless mummy Teresa May) who were the first to confiscate Venezuela's gold on the pretext it belonged to the American puppet Guaido, are the same who have buccaneered an Iranian Oil tanker headed to Syria, off Gibraltar. It is the medieval gunboat diplomacy that buttressed colonial plunder and imperial piracy. But well, there has been a development. At least the Brits are honest enough to admit they were just obeying orders, From Trump. (Initially they said they were enforcing EU sanctions on Syria. When they heard, Juncker and Tusk who were at yet another EU banquet where portfolios are wheeled and dealed, froze their whiskey glasses in mid air: which sanctions!?)

So is the deadly farce of contemporary international politics. A dead-end game for many.

WHAT IS PEACE, WHAT IS WAR IN THE DIGITAL ERA?

2019 Osaka Japan; So the G20 sat there in their imperial robes. Of course some more regal than others. Howbeit there was an air of impotence they oozed. Ever since the financial crisis from 2008, followed by the forced public bailout of Big PRIVATE Banks, under the slogan TOO BIG TO FAIL, it is like a mask has been torn-off these gatherings of political heavyweights. Everytime a politician speaks, one has to mind the puppet master working the strings or, as we say in Dholuo, wagging the tongue of the dog. Politicians are in power officially, and formally, but do they make the decisions they pledge to carry out on behalf of the people?

There are two instruments of the international status quo worth considering in this G20-game. One is the monthly BIS, the other is the DAVOS Annual. Both are Alpine, Swiss events.

And it matters to find out whether the two are Afraid of a war in the Gulf today.


NEXT: WHAT IS THE BIS, WHAT IS DAVOS? Both Swiss.

[jakaswanga]

IRAN E. WHAT IS THE BIS, WHAT IS DAVOS? Both Swiss.

by Edward Jay Epstein -1983 Harpers Magazine

THE BiZ

The membership of this club is restricted to a handful of powerful men who determine daily the interest rate, the availability of credit, and the money supply of the banks in their own countries. They include the governors of
the U.S. Federal Reserve,
the Bank of England,
the Bank of Japan,
the Swiss National Bank,
and the German Bundesbank.

The club controls a bank with a $40 billion kitty in cash, government securities, and gold that constitutes about one tenth of the world's available foreign exchange.

The profits earned just from renting out its hoard of gold (second only to that of Fort Knox in value) are more than sufficient to pay for the expenses of the entire organization. And the unabashed purpose of its elite monthly meetings is to coordinate and, if possible, to control all monetary activities in the industrialized world.

The place where this club meets in Basel is a unique financial institution called the Bank for International Settlements - or more simply, and appropriately, the BIS (pronounced "biz" in German).

Sorry, Central Bank of China. Knock Knock who is there!? I can just picture the look on the face of Deng Hsiao Ping as his best economists explain the BiZ to him. Moving toward the OPEN-DOOR policy!

NB: Since the above was compiled for Harper's magazine, one or two goalposts have moved. Today, who holds the world's largest horde of PURE GOLD is arguable. The whispers are it is Beijin. The neutrality of Switzerland is also circumspect. The European Union is invading the alpine paradise, enacting tribute.

THE BIS was originally established in May 1930 by bankers and diplomats of Europe and the United States to collect and disburse Germany's World War I reparation payments (hence its name). It was truly an extraordinary arrangement. Although the BIS was organized as a commercial bank with publicly held shares, its immunity from government interference - and taxes in both peace and war was guaranteed by an international treaty signed in The Hague in 1930.

Although all its depositors are central banks, the BIS has made a profit on every transaction. And because it has been highly profitable, it has required no subsidy or aid from any government.
Since it also provided, in Basel, a safe and convenient repository for the gold holdings of the European central banks, it quickly evolved into the bank for central banks

And

After World War II, the BIS reemerged as the main clearing house for European currencies and, behind the scenes, the favored meeting place of central bankers.

When the dollar came under attack in the 1960s, massive swaps of money and gold were arranged at the BIS for the defence of the American currency. It was undeniably ironic that, as the president of the BIS observed, "the United States, which had wanted to kill the BIS, suddenly finds it indispensable."

In any case, the Fed has become a leading member of the club, with either Chairman Paul Volcker or Governor Henry Wallich attending every "Basel weekend."

Okay, Dr. Patrick CBK Njoroge, symbolism is important nowadays, say pictures of inclusivity for the purposes of propaganda: so, when is the last time thee, our own CBK man, attended this exclusive club for whatever reason!? May be as a token observer then, as in

President Uhuru Kenyatta Expected in Canada for G7 Summit

President Uhuru Kenyatta will on Tuesday leave for Canada where he will attend the G7 Summit after receiving an invitation from Canadian Prime Minister Justine Trudeau.

Kenya will participate in the summit that traditionally incorporates Canada, USA, United Kingdom, German, France, Italy and Japan since they are the seven most developed nations in the world. ------- Mumbi Mutuko on 21 August 2018

tokens, Njoroge, tokens, when were you last at the Biz in Basel!? thee twice African Central Banker of the year.

2. DAVOS, WHAT IS DAVOS

The World Economic Forum's mission is to improve the state of the world, which has driven the design and development of the Annual Meeting objectives. The 2019 event will focus on the theme, 'Globalization 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution'.

The World Economic Forum (WEF), based in Cologny-Geneva, Switzerland, was founded in 1971 as a not-for-profit organization. It was granted "other international body" status in January 2015 by the Swiss Federal Government under the Swiss Host-State Act (International Organization status requires multiple governments)

And importantly

While many global institutions are notable for the breadth of nations or the powerful political leaders attending their gatherings, the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting and indeed all the activities and initiatives of the Forum around the world are distinguished by the active participation of government, business and civil society figures. The Forum engages the most experienced and the most promising, all working together in the collaborative and collegial 'Spirit of Davos'.

Professor Klaus Schwab founded what was originally called the European Management Forum, as a non-profit foundation based in Geneva, Switzerland. It drew business leaders from Europe, and beyond, to Davos for an Annual Meeting each January.

Initially, Professor Schwab focused the meetings on how European firms could catch up with US management practices. He also developed and promoted the 'stakeholder' management approach, which based corporate success on managers taking account of all interests: not merely shareholders, clients and customers, but employees and the communities within which they operate, including government.
Professor Schwab's vision for what would become the World Economic Forum grew steadily as a result of achieving 'milestones'.

Events in 1973, namely the collapse of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate mechanism and the Arab-Israeli War, saw the Annual Meeting expand its focus from management to economic and social issues. Political leaders were invited for the first time to Davos in January 1974.

so, what is the DAVOS consensus on JCPOA? JCPOA is The Obama Iran thing I mean. The one now smithereened by Trump, setting the world yet again for another war in the middle east.

But here is an interesting FOOTNOTE FIRST: Anand G.

NEXT: A journeyman turned foe!? ----The author Anand Giridharadas

[jakaswanga]

FOOTNOTE: A journeyman turned foe!?

A peek by the journalist-author Anand Giridharadas

Anand Giridharadas, MSNBC analyst and Aspen Institute fellow, discusses his new book, "Winners Take All," which explores the philanthropic practices of the global elite and argues that they reinforce social inequities rather than ameliorate them.

The unstated thesis behind their being chosen by Aspen was clear: that the people best-equipped to protect the interests of the poor are the rich and rich adjacent.

Giridharadas was bothered by it, and particularly by how the program seemed to encourage elite participants from tech giants and hedge funds to start philanthropic side-hustles doubling as vanity projects, rather than find ways to do less harm in their day jobs. (At a Goldman Sachs-sponsored lunch put on at a fellowship reunion, for instance, the corporate giant's role in the 2008 financial crisis went unmentioned as its do-gooding was praised.)

HISTORICAL CAUTION: ON whether parliaments amount to much, Frederich Engels scoffed thus! CRETINISM

'Parliamentary cretinism' is an incurable disease, an ailment whose unfortunate victims are permeated by the lofty conviction that the whole world, its history and its future are directed and determined by a majority of votes of just that very representative institution that has the honour of having them in the capacity of its members

Well, it is that era in history; we seem still stuck with obscurantist cretinism. It is too early for GLASNOST in history.

Like cannon fodder to their mass grave,
like herds of beef to the abbatoir,
the whip of history hurries us on, Ha!

Jul 14, 2019 14:39:16 GMT 3 jakaswanga said:

IRAN E. WHAT IS THE BIS, WHAT IS DAVOS? Both Swiss.

by Edward Jay Epstein -1983 Harpers Magazine

THE BiZ

The membership of this club is restricted to a handful of powerful men who determine daily the interest rate, the availability of credit, and the money supply of the banks in their own countries. They include the governors of
the U.S. Federal Reserve,
the Bank of England,
the Bank of Japan,
the Swiss National Bank,
and the German Bundesbank.

The club controls a bank with a $40 billion kitty in cash, government securities, and gold that constitutes about one tenth of the world's available foreign exchange.

The profits earned just from renting out its hoard of gold (second only to that of Fort Knox in value) are more than sufficient to pay for the expenses of the entire organization. And the unabashed purpose of its elite monthly meetings is to coordinate and, if possible, to control all monetary activities in the industrialized world.

The place where this club meets in Basel is a unique financial institution called the Bank for International Settlements - or more simply, and appropriately, the BIS (pronounced "biz" in German).

Sorry, Central Bank of China. Knock Knock who is there!? I can just picture the look on the face of Deng Hsiao Ping as his best economists explain the BiZ to him. Moving toward the OPEN-DOOR policy!

NB: Since the above was compiled for Harper's magazine, one or two goalposts have moved. Today, who holds the world's largest horde of PURE GOLD is arguable. The whispers are it is Beijin. The neutrality of Switzerland is also circumspect. The European Union is invading the alpine paradise, enacting tribute.

THE BIS was originally established in May 1930 by bankers and diplomats of Europe and the United States to collect and disburse Germany's World War I reparation payments (hence its name). It was truly an extraordinary arrangement. Although the BIS was organized as a commercial bank with publicly held shares, its immunity from government interference - and taxes in both peace and war was guaranteed by an international treaty signed in The Hague in 1930.

Although all its depositors are central banks, the BIS has made a profit on every transaction. And because it has been highly profitable, it has required no subsidy or aid from any government.
Since it also provided, in Basel, a safe and convenient repository for the gold holdings of the European central banks, it quickly evolved into the bank for central banks

And

After World War II, the BIS reemerged as the main clearing house for European currencies and, behind the scenes, the favored meeting place of central bankers.

When the dollar came under attack in the 1960s, massive swaps of money and gold were arranged at the BIS for the defence of the American currency. It was undeniably ironic that, as the president of the BIS observed, "the United States, which had wanted to kill the BIS, suddenly finds it indispensable."

In any case, the Fed has become a leading member of the club, with either Chairman Paul Volcker or Governor Henry Wallich attending every "Basel weekend."

Okay, Dr. Patrick CBK Njoroge, symbolism is important nowadays, say pictures of inclusivity for the purposes of propaganda: so, when is the last time thee, our own CBK man, attended this exclusive club for whatever reason!? May be as a token observer then, as in

President Uhuru Kenyatta Expected in Canada for G7 Summit

President Uhuru Kenyatta will on Tuesday leave for Canada where he will attend the G7 Summit after receiving an invitation from Canadian Prime Minister Justine Trudeau.

Kenya will participate in the summit that traditionally incorporates Canada, USA, United Kingdom, German, France, Italy and Japan since they are the seven most developed nations in the world. ------- Mumbi Mutuko on 21 August 2018

tokens, Njoroge, tokens, when were you last at the Biz in Basel!? thee twice African Central Banker of the year.

2. DAVOS, WHAT IS DAVOS

The World Economic Forum's mission is to improve the state of the world, which has driven the design and development of the Annual Meeting objectives. The 2019 event will focus on the theme, 'Globalization 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution'.

The World Economic Forum (WEF), based in Cologny-Geneva, Switzerland, was founded in 1971 as a not-for-profit organization. It was granted "other international body" status in January 2015 by the Swiss Federal Government under the Swiss Host-State Act (International Organization status requires multiple governments)

And importantly

While many global institutions are notable for the breadth of nations or the powerful political leaders attending their gatherings, the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting and indeed all the activities and initiatives of the Forum around the world are distinguished by the active participation of government, business and civil society figures. The Forum engages the most experienced and the most promising, all working together in the collaborative and collegial 'Spirit of Davos'.

Professor Klaus Schwab founded what was originally called the European Management Forum, as a non-profit foundation based in Geneva, Switzerland. It drew business leaders from Europe, and beyond, to Davos for an Annual Meeting each January.

Initially, Professor Schwab focused the meetings on how European firms could catch up with US management practices. He also developed and promoted the 'stakeholder' management approach, which based corporate success on managers taking account of all interests: not merely shareholders, clients and customers, but employees and the communities within which they operate, including government.
Professor Schwab's vision for what would become the World Economic Forum grew steadily as a result of achieving 'milestones'.

Events in 1973, namely the collapse of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate mechanism and the Arab-Israeli War, saw the Annual Meeting expand its focus from management to economic and social issues. Political leaders were invited for the first time to Davos in January 1974.

so, what is the DAVOS consensus on JCPOA? JCPOA is The Obama Iran thing I mean. The one now smithereened by Trump, setting the world yet again for another war in the middle east.

But here is an interesting FOOTNOTE FIRST: Anand G.

NEXT: A journeyman turned foe!? ----The author Anand Giridharadas

[jakaswanga]

IRAN F: THE CYBER WAR IS ON, HAS BEEN ON

According to Donald Trump, American bomber-planes were ten minutes to payload-offload when he leashed them back. They were on their way to cut some hair off the bushy faces of the Mullah's of Tehran. Then, listening to projections, Trump realised giving the Ayatollah's that beard-shave was a blood debt, 150 Iranians dead. That was when the kindly heart of the POTUS rebelled. He found a lot of warmth for the Persians therein, wherefore he stood down the mother of all bomb runs. For such was the fire-and-fury he intended to let burst over the Iranian caves at the mouth of the straight. It was from those caves the Iranians shot down ---after repeated warnings----- an unmanned American drone, over $120M worths of it. The men who had piloted the drone to deliberately trespass on Iranian airspace had calculated they locked Trump down with the Iranian shot. ---Alas, they had failed to consider the Persia-philic heart of the former real estate magnate. Just like Joe Biden too, had not held reckons with Trump's love for the little rocket man of Korea. When Trump met Kim at the demilitarised zone between the two Korea's, Obama's former VP was left fuming, wrong-footed.

But, romantics aside, why didn't those American planes rise to the task? and even if they half rose, why did they abandon the sting?

WHAT FORCED TRUMP TO STAND DOWN THE PLANES

The answer is simple enough: self-preservation. The high risk was the world economy would blow up. It is sluggish, precarious, delicate and far from shock proof. The sudden rise in the price of oil, past a certain threshold per barrel, predicted a total global meltdown. Trump would win the military war, but the victory would be a Greek term: pyrrhic. Iran seems to have informed both Russia and China to do what was in their best interests, but Iran would respond to the USA attack with full might at the USA assets in the gulf. Putin may have offered Trump an offer he couldn't refuse, the way he had Obama when Obama had foolishly drawn a line in the sand over Syria's chemical weapons. (####see footnote###)

So Trump ordered a cyber attack instead. Again like his predecessor, Obama. Remember the infamous Olympic games of Netanyahu and Obama? And the Nitro-Zeus project? Behind the scenes Trump does not mind copying Obama.





Anyway, Iran quietly reported her cyber defence teams had rebuffed the latest joint Israeli-American hack effort. Trump and Netanyahu's attempts to disable Iran's powergrid and, consequently, render her defence capabilities blind, had failed. Howbeit a few months earlier, in the operation replace Chavista Maduro with the puppet Guaido, the CIA cyber operations department had used Venezuela as a guinea pig in this area. It is likely due to unforeseen interconnectivity, this dry-run spilled over into a momentary, total blackout in the whole of South America.

Unprecedented' blackout probed for flaws in South America's power grid that connects the region's largest nations.

17 June 2019

As lights turned back on across Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay after a massive blackout that hit tens of millions of people, authorities were still largely in the dark about what caused the collapse of the interconnected grid.

It is the future of things to come for the undefended.

Venezuela Scenario: US Launches Attack On Russia's Power Grid

Earlier this year, the Venezuelan government accused the United States of carrying out cyber attacks on its electrical power grid system leading to nationwide blackouts. A similar scenario now plays out in Russia.

According to an exclusive report published by the New York Times, the United States government has planted malware in Russia's electrical grid system in an act of revenge for "Russian interference," according to former and current government officials.

RELATED:

Russia To Help Venezuela Probe Cyber Attacks on Electric Grid
It seems that Venezuela was a testing ground for the Trump administration in deploying more aggressive tools to interfere with the infrastructure of non-aligned countries. The current reports make the allegations of the Venezuelan authorities a lot more plausible.

So that is where we are today in this world, putting poison in one another's wells. No protocols on Bio-Chemical warfare, sorry, the War of the Algorithms. Given the scale of these attacks, I think we already have heard the starting shots to our war of the worlds.

NEXT: how about an international treaty to regulate the race to the algorithmic Armageddon?
And
TOWARD A WORLD SHUT DOWN, A DIGITAL WIPEOUT