QUESTION: The sales pitch seems to be that there is this $2 quadrillion in global debt that overhangs everything. Paper assets, therefore, will all implode! They seem to be saying that everything has risen due to this debt bubble and it was all created with Zero interest rates. Now that they are going up, the debt bubble will burst and everything will decline. The story seems to be that this decades-long Boom Bust cycle was created over and over by the Federal Reserve.
This seems to be like you have said, they try to reduce everything to a single cause and effect.
What really happens?
PCJ
ANSWER: These people seem to keep preaching the same story but have no historical understanding whatsoever of how the monetary system has ever worked. Their focus on the Federal Reserve shows that they are not looking at the world economy and they do not even comprehend how bad things really are outside the United States. They do not comprehend what is an interest rate. It is the compensation to a lender for his anticipation of inflation plus a profit. If I think the dollar will decline by 50%, why would I lend you dollars for a year if when you pay me back it buys half of what it did when I lent it to you?
Debt can be a performing asset. I advised many of the Takeover Boys during the 1980s. We would borrow in one currency to buy the asset in another using the computer to distinguish the long-term trends. I would not recommend that to someone just operating on a gut feeling.
We were also advising on real values, which Hollywood distorted and based the movie Wall Street with Michael Douglas and his famous speech on greed. What they did not really understand was that after a Public Wave that peaked in 1981, stocks were suppressed and the full-faith in government created the broadly supported bond market. Hence – bonds were conservative and stocks were risky. There were two aspects that were behind the entire Takeover Boom.
First, I was showing these charts and how in terms of book value, the Dow Jones bottomed in 1977. It was obvious that if you could buy a company, sell its assets, and double or triple your money, then the market was obviously not overpriced. We had forecast that the Dow was undervalued and that it would rise from the 1982 low of 769.98 and test the 2500 level in two years in 1985. Indeed, it reached 2695.47 by September 1987. We also projected that by the next decade, the Dow would test 6,000 on its next rally.
Even the press in Japan was shocked. We were also projected that Crude would fall below $10 in 1998. Indeed, that forecast was covered by Mark Pitman at Bloomberg News. It bottomed at $10.65 in 1998. In gold would forecast that it would drop to test $250 by 1999 completing a 19-year cycle low. Then gold would rally to test 1,000. Gold reached the $1,000 level by 2008. The Japanese press thought those forecasts were wild, to say the least.
The SECOND aspect of our advice to the takeover boys of the ’80s was something the press NEVER understood. We would advise borrowing in one currency for an asset in another. We were able to turn debt into a performing asset. We would make 20-40% profit on the currency alone. Often, the press would just look at the debt and not understand what we were even doing.
Most of this reasoning stems from Sir Tomas Gresham’s observations when he represented England at the Amsterdam exchange during the reign of Henry VI’s reign and debasement. As Henry debased the silver coinage as was taking place in Spain, the more they debased the coinage, the higher the inflation took place. His observation that bad money drives out the good has been grossly misunderstood. When I was growing up, they took the silver out of the coinage in 1965. People were culling out the silver showing that the debased new coinage of 1965 drove out of circulation the old silver coinage. The same thing has taken place with the copper pennings.
Because people hoard old coinage, the money supply shrinks. That then forces the government to issue far more debased coinage to compensate for the coinage that has been withdrawn from hoarding. Consequently, inflation unfolds for all tangible assets to rise in value as expressed in the newly debased coinage.
What these people always try to sell is the same old scenario that they cannot point to a single instance in history where everything collapses to dust but only gold survives. Such periods will typically result in revolution. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon, that was also all bout a debt crisis.
You must also understand that interest rates will be at their LOWEST internationally in the core economy of the Financial Capital of the World – which is the USA right now. The further you move from the center, the higher the interest rate will be. Hence, I have warned that the United States will be the LAST to fall – never the first. This is not based upon my opinion, this is simply historical fact.
The Bottom Line is very simple. There is just no such period as people describe where everything turns to dust and only gold survives. Even if that were true, they what good would the gold do if everything else is worth ZERO? Gold would have also ZERO value since nothing would have value.
The real issue is that as government defaults unfold, tangible assets will rise in value for the amount of money in debt always dwarfs that in even the stock market. We are in a Sovereign Debt Crisis and that is very different from a private debt crisis.
COMMENT: Lazar Kagan-ovich, Starved 6 million people in Ukraine and was the great-grandfather of Robert Kagan, the name came up at ancestry.com. It’s my suspicion, and I thought I would pass that on, I searched this when you wrote the article about the movie of the NYT journalist in Russia. in the 1930s I read the article today about Victoria Nuland-men Thanks for your work been following me for almost 10yrs.
RM
REPLY: I can’t confirm that Lazar Kagan-ovich’s offspring include Robert Kagan. I do find it ironic that he was the architect of starving Ukraine and Stalin’s right-hand man. What I find curious is that Lazar Kagan-ovich was born by Kiev and was Ukrainian by heritage. Stalin was Georgian. The Ukrainians hate Russians yet it is ironic that the architect of the starvation of Ukraine came from there. Even Wikipedia states:
“Kaganovich (together with Vyacheslav Molotov) participated with the All-Ukrainian Party Conference of 1930 and were given the task of implementation of the collectivization policy that influenced the 1932–33 famine (known as the Holodomor in Ukraine).”
His father died by the time he was two and his mother left Lithuania and migrated to the USA. Beyond that, only the name links him to the notorious Lazar Kaganovich. The blank slate is curious. The 1569 Union of Lublin created the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that lasted until 1795. The final Partition of Poland ended both independent Lithuania and Poland. Thereafter, Lithuanians lived under the rule of the Russian Empire until the 20th century. Therefore, as Lazar came from Ukraine, his father was perhaps in Lithuania and was also Russian at that time. The Washington Post wrote of his father:
“Like fellow neoconservatives such as Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, he was a Democrat in his youth who turned right in response to the cultural and political upheavals in the 1960s. “
If Robert is connected to Lazar Kaganovich, it certainly would explain his hatred of Russia as well. I cannot confirm such a link. Yet, he too is linked to Russia.
Our sources in Ukraine, not Russia, are warning of serious dissent building against Zelensky. He is a high-heel actor who has been playing a confidence game. He is by no means a military leader and the Ukrainian Military is at its ends with him. The Ukrainian General Valery Zaluzhny, is having a serious conflict with Zelensky. Even others have come out and commented to the German newspaper, the Bild, that the General called for a withdrawal from the Donbas city weeks ago, but Zelensky orders his men to die all for his endless PR campaign to pretend that Ukraine is winning.
The General told Zelensky to withdraw from Bakhmut. But Zelensky pretends for PR that it is a fortress despite the fact that it has been cut off and completely;y surrounded with only one road available for possible evacuation and Zelensky refuses to withdraw. Even the Biden Administration has been urging Zelensky to pull out and focus on preparing a major counteroffensive for the spring. Yet, Zelensky fears admitting publicly a defeat that would hurt the billions flowing into Ukraine. This was part of the Ukrainian defense line that they created when Kiev began its invasion of the Donbas in 2014 on their claimed Anti-Terrorist offensive to kill all Russians and deny them any right to separate seeking their independence in the 2014 Revolution.
Even those speaking to the Bild expressed deep concern that they “do not understand why the city is being held”and believe they should have withdrawn a long time ago. Zelensky proclaims that his Ukrainian forces would defend Bakhmut as long as it “remains reasonable” to do so.
Our sources are clearly saying that Zelensky is losing support and if anyone will becomes the next President it will be General Zaluzhny.
COMMENT #1: I have been watching Colonel Douglas MacGregor (ret), on alt news sites. He is a former tank commander in the Gulf war and has worked extensively with NATO, before retiring. I love his direct commentary – so in a nutshell he says the following: 1. Ukraine has lost up to 250k troops and they are in dire straits. They will lose the war badly. 2. The US military is in dire straits too and if push, comes to shove, could only provide 50k troops within weeks. They are down on ammunition (all gone to Ukraine) and the recruitment targets for all 4 branches are lower than what the DoD is telling us. 3. The European military is not ready at all and would be ineffective. 4. Which leads to him saying that the USA/NATO will not enter the war, because sane heads in the military will not allow it. I hope he is right, but he does not rule out false flags or Biden’s ineptitude. You should watch him, he’s great, a man with genuine battle experience and knows the political machinations of DC, yet strongly anti war.
NC
COMMENT #2: Colonel Douglas MacGregor has often come out and confirmed what you have said weeks or months before. It looks like he has similar sources. He went to West Point. Did they also teach your War Model as did the Citadel? A lot of generals graduated from the Citadel.
Keep up the great work
HB
REPLY: Perhaps we both have similar contacts. As far as West Point, I do not know if they ever taught our models. What I do know, is that there is a serious risk that Uktaine loses and all the fake news that keeps putting out the propaganda has not considered what happens if Ukraine loses.
COMMENT: Marty; A lot of people are concerned that you may just say the hell with it all and move to your island in the Caribbean. A lot of us always stood by you and many more are joining the ranks. There are so many who claim to be brilliant analysts but it is just their opinion. Following their work does not help clarify anything and many have been touting the rise of gold and the demise of the dollar for years like a broken record. It is incomprehensible how they are still in business. This is the time you were born for. Your analysis is not opinion and we can all look at the arrays and see what is coming.
As you always say, we are all in this together. That also means we need you now more than ever to sort out the truth from fiction. Don’t lose your faith. After 2032, the world will open its eyes to all your forecasts and listen for the real great reset. So many people plagiarize your work pretending it is theirs. Schwab is just another such lowlife. A blind man can see his Great Reset is your 2032.
Jim
ANSWER: I appreciate what you say. It is hard at times to have been looking at the model all these years staring at these forecasts for a war that would begin in 2014 and then living through them. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect personally that the West would be the aggressor. Now I can see Neocons, who I even personally have known, are really in control of the Biden Administration.
It has been a serious problem with forecasting from a personal opinion perspective – it is impossible! Thankfully, we have Socrates and its impartiality has guided us through these times. Personally, I would never have expected any American administration to surrender our foreign policy to these Neocons who want nothing but war. Kennedy, Nic, and even Reagan all stood tall against them. Biden is just a corrupt politician who is senile on top of it.
Throughout the mid-Nineties, I confess I helped Bill Kristol launch his Weekly Standard. It became the most influential magazine in Washington. It was funded initially by Murdock. I took the back cover all the time during at least 1996 and ran a series of advertisements pushing serious economic questions to the forefront. I had even testified before the House Ways & Means Committee on taxation. I shuttled back and forth between the Chairman of that committee, Bill Archer, and the Majority Leader Dick Army who was supporting the Flat Tax. I even debated Steve Forbes at Princeton University on the subject of taxation. I also would write OpEds for the Wall Street Journal. I was asked to redesign Social Security. I worked on transforming Social Security into a wealth fund for the nation. I tried very hard to defeat my own model. I always lost. I could not prevent what it has been forecasting these decades.
I know people have plagiarized our reports and forecasts pretending it has been their opinions. The problem that will expose them will emerge when the unexpected unfolds as Socrates has been forecasting. Only Socrates forecast in 2013, one year in advance, that Ukraine would be the hot spot. We have warned this was where World War III would begin. I warned in 2014 that Ukraine should have been divided according to language. The Minsk Agreement of 2015 was a step in the right direction to avoid war. Only Socrates has forecast this war and the duplicity of Merkel and others has placed the fate of the world in crisis mode. I have put forth a way to avoid this, but I could not make that happen – so much for the influence the bankers have attributed to me.
During the 14th century, there were warnings in the form of rumors that told of a great plague in China and India that killed most of the populations there. The plague made its way to Europe when the Kipchak forces were besieging the Genoese trading post in Crimea. The Kipchaks began to catapult plague-infested corpses over the walls and into the trading post. The disease spread quickly and the Genoese abandoned the outpost. They sailed back to Europe stopping in Sicily in 1347 taking the Black Death with them.
Crimea has been the center of historical events for centuries, yet nobody seems to pay much attention to it. It has been settled, resettled, occupied, defended, and invaded perhaps more times than most countries and over a far greater period of time than most countries have ever existed. Coinage in Crimea predates even Russia and Ukraine never existed as a country before it broke away from the USSR in 1991.
So from a pure data perspective, what is taking place is nothing new to history. This is all in a database that monitors one action and works out the path of reaction, kind of like plotting the path of a hurricane. When you have a long historical database, that is the ONLY way to forecast that Ukraine would be the place where World War III begins. Such things can not be accomplished from a personal “opinion” perspective years in advance even before the 2014 Revolution in Ukraine.
I know Schwab’s Great Reset is our 2032. He is just trying to push the collapse in his direction of totalitarianism. He too will fail just as I have failed to prevent this forecast from unfolding. At the very least, everyone understands, this is NOT my personal opinion or forecast. This is Socrates’ – not me!
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong I have been reading your blogs for the last couple of years. I’m a simple human, not a scholar but so scared about nuclear war, Is nuclear war 100 percent coming here in the USA? If so any suggestions as to what we can do to survive? where should we go ? what country is safe? I am Canadian but they are part of Nato, Im also Greek but I live in upstate NY … I have been searching the web for advice as to where is a safe place. I sold my property in Montreal because I felt Trudeau was insane and now I’m thinking did I screw up … I have like 4 properties here in the USA and a couple in Greece what should I do? should I be looking for a Bunker? o a place south of the equator? I’m truly scared to death … please send me a non-vague response I’m going out of my mind. will the USA ever be a good place again?
BM
This illustration shows the radius of a 100-megatonne nuclear bomb dropped on New York City. Nuclear War will not destroy the planet. Look at Japan. Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki have proven that the “science” claimed that those cities would be uninhabitable for a thousand years after a nuclear war was wrong. Their populations doubled in 20 years after being nuked? Hiroshima now has 9 times its 1945 population.
The GOOD NEWS is you can then just nuke your opponent and actually save the planet is their twisted view of nuclear war. Without electricity, your opponent could not even make a phone call to launch a response. But if we look at Chornobyl, the nuclear disaster restored the region, which became a sanctuary for animals void of humans, in Ukraine.
Bikini Atoll 70 years after nuclear tests is thriving. On July 24, 1946, Baker Test shrouded its formidable height over the U.S. Navy’s test fleet. The United States dropped 23 nuclear bombs on the island, including a device in 1954 that was 1,100 times larger than the Hiroshima atom bomb. Now a team of scientists from Stanford University has been stunned. They discovered an abundance of marine life apparently thriving in the crater of Bikini Atoll, which was declared a nuclear wasteland after the bombings.
Strangely enough, the same has been found at Chernobyl in Ukraine. It is starting to emerge that even setting off every nuclear bomb will not destroy the planet or turn Earth into space rocks. We can alter our environment by doing so and ridding the planet of humanity as the dominant species, but Earth will heal itself and life will adapt exactly as scientists have discovered in Ukraine at the site of Chernobyl. Wildlife has thrived because it sent humans running.
This new evidence emerging from Chernobyl and Bikini Atoll is demonstrating that we just may not be as smart as we think we are no less all-powerful. Obviously, those pushing for World War III, see themselves as far smarter than we are. They are really trying to save the planet from us – or that’s what they are whispering in the dark bowel of government. Exterminate humanity and we can save the bugs and crickets from becoming our next food source.
Interestingly, the US has been buying medicine for radiation poisoning. They know what they are doing and could care less how many civilians are wiped out. Their view – the population needs to be reduced anyhow. Nevertheless, those handed Amgen’s Radiation Medicinewill be supporters of the Administration no doubt. However, you can ask your doctor for a prescription, if he’s not WOK perhaps. Amgen’s sales of Nplate have scored 66%.
The US Department of Health and Human Services downplayed the severity of the risk of Nuclear War and said that this is part of its “long-standing, ongoing efforts by the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response to better prepare the U.S. for the potential health impacts of a wide range of threats to national security.” The Biden Administration has been purchasing a drug called Nplate that was approved by the FDA in 2021 to treat radiation syndrome. “Nplate is indicated to increase survival in adults and in pediatric patients (including term neonates) acutely exposed to myelosuppressive doses of radiation,” the company notes. Although not a worthy source, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS) occurs in four stages.
Prodromal stage (N-V-D stage): The classic symptoms for this stage are nausea, vomiting, as well as anorexia, and possibly diarrhea (depending on dose), which occur from minutes to days following exposure. The symptoms may last (episodically) for minutes up to several days.
Latent stage: In this stage, the patient looks and feels generally healthy for a few hours or even up to a few weeks.
Manifest illness stage: In this stage the symptoms depend on the specific syndrome and last from hours up to several months.
Recovery or death: Most patients who do not recover will die within several months of exposure. The recovery process lasts from several weeks up to two years.
It is peculiar that the drug was approved for radiation a year prior to the war breaking out in Ukraine. The Neocons have seized control of the Biden Administration and they have been behind the Ukrainian Civil War since 2014 when Kyiv launched the attack on the Donbas calling it their Anti-Terrorist Operation. John McCain met with the openly declared Ukrainian Nazis. The Ukrainian people are fools. They are blinded by the propaganda against Russia where they have never distinguished what Stalin did to Ukraine when he most likely poisoned Lenin and seized control of Russia when he was not even Russian but a Georgian.
The drug has never been tested on humans, and the results are not guaranteed. They certainly were not testing monkeys with a radiation dosage even close to that of a nuclear weapon. Of course, this was another NIAID-funded research project like the claimed testing of mRNA drugs and COVID vaccines before the pandemic began as well. Yet now they want to claim it was leaked by the Chinese lab to blame them? Did they leak it in China in the first place?
“In the study, 80 monkeys exposed to a life-threatening dose of radiation were randomly assigned to receive a single injection of either romiplostim or placebo one day after radiation exposure. All animals were given standard supportive care, including fluids, anti-ulcer medication, anti-nausea medication, pain medication, and antibiotics. After 60 days, 29 of 40 monkeys in the romiplostim group had survived compared to 13 of 40 in the placebo group.”
War is coming and this “WOK” Biden Administration is so incompetent they think they have the power to intimidate the entire world and they will bend the knee before them. Nobody seems to even bother to raise the question – what if this turns nuclear? Yet they have been buying the radiation drug so maybe they are lying about that as well. The sheer stupidity of how the Biden Administration is trying to intimidate the entire world can only be the result of total incompetence.
Biden says that Putin will not use nukes. Ukraine MUST remove Zelinkey from office and the United States MUST remove Biden from office. It is not Putin that is the risk. Biden has pissed off the Chinese and North Koreans as well not to mention Iran and you just may see Turkey and India side with Putin. This is a war to destroy Russia. All my sources say that, so I can’t imagine that Russian intelligence has come up with the same realization. To me, Russia may have no choice but to nuke the USA in a joint move with China to end the intimidation and arrogance.
Many people have been asking about where will be the safest place to be in the US given the prospect of a nuclear war. It is true that the UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that nuclear war is “back within the realm of possibility” thanks to the insanity of what has been taking place in the Biden Administration driven by the Neocons. We are indeed in serious trouble for not only does Biden lack any private experience but 62% of his entire officials have never worked in the real world and Biden is proud of having the most WOK Administration in history. Gender and Race are more important than qualification and experience. This has allowed the Neocons to seize control of US Foreign Policy.
A nuclear blast is NOT absolutely lethal if you are not at ground zero. You can survive a nuclear attack if you are NOT at ground zero – remember that. You must be at least a half mile away but I would lean more toward one mile away from the core of the explosion. Naturally, do not look and stare at the light from the flash because it will blind a person instantly! Also, remember to keep your mouth open to handle the pressure released from the initial blast. That is kind of like flying in an airplane and how your ears pop. This will be much worse.
You will have to move but you have ten to twenty minutes walking distance away from the blast site to seek shelter either below ground or above the 9th floor of a building that is still standing. This is to avoid the major effects of fallout from the mushroom cloud. Once more, keep your mouth, skin, and nose covered as much as possible while walking. When you get to any shelter, remove your clothes, and rinse them off with water, but that is when you should be holding your breath. You can seek medical care if possible. if you are under 1 mile from the blast. You should stay in the shelter for 12-24 hours after an attack to avoid the initial massive amount of exposure to radiation that follows after a nuclear attack. Only leave shelter once you know the direction to move. Do not wander around as if you are in a shopping mall.
If you are not near any of the strategic military targets or financial targets, you can create a shelter in your basement. I would recommend that the walls should be lined with lead.
They believe most states will not represent any threats to Kremlin or any other nation. Most nuclear forces from the USA are going to be prime targets. A Russian nuclear attack would likely focus on high-value targets in North Dakota or Montana. It is ironic that people have moved to Montana thinking this will be safe and out of the way. Sorry! That is not true. The main military targets will be:
1) Naval Base Kitsap: Washington State 2) Jim Creek Naval Radio Station: Washington State 3) Malmstrom AFB: Montana 4) Minot AFB: North Dakota 5) FE Warren AFB: Wyoming 6) Hill AFB: Utah 7) Kirkland AFB Albuquerque: New Mexico
Because of the constant attack on Russia blowing up the Nordstream Pipeline, it is clear that the Biden Administration has declared an economic proxy war against Russia. As a result, Russian President Vladimir Putin has now suggested that Russia may abandon its “no first use” military doctrine. Additional targets will be:
Fort Ritchie in Maryland
Camp David.
The pentagon.
US Central Command, MacDill Air Base in Tampa
Look, there is no bunker, however brilliantly assembled, that will survive a direct hit. Another military target could be US Central Command, which is headquartered at MacDill Air Base in Tampa. This is known as Centcom, and it is responsible for the operational theatre spanning parts of the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa. If they take out Tampa simply because it is a command center, that is fine with me. I will not move and just watch the mushroom cloud from the beach with my dog – Napoleon.
There will be six cities that have the greatest likelihood of being attacked based on their economic backbone for the economy:
The states/region to leave:
Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Washington State, New York City region, Illinois Chicago Region, Texas in the Houston region, and California.
Ukraine intends to start world war III and take the entire world with them because of the absolute hatred of all Russians and they cannot see a future of peace. They used drones to attack Russian planes at the airport in Belarus. They are desperately trying to engulf the entire region in war to quench their thirst for hatred against Russians. What disturbs me greatly has been our models on war. Never in my wildest imagination did I ever expect the West to be the aggressor.
We can survive this. Humanity will not perish. We indeed have the worst possible people in Washington DC in my entire lifetime. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis walking the streets with my friends talking about the destruction of the world. I was only 13 years old then. Just realize Nuclear War will not destroy the planet any more than man-made Climate Change. They always exaggerate everything.
Posted originally on the CTH on February 28, 2023 | Sundance
After the western alliance previously swore that NATO would not put any member NATO state on the doorstep of Russia, a promise that was weak and viewed by many as false – ultimately influencing the decision by Russia, NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg said today that Ukraine will be joining NATO as soon as the conflict is concluded.
Now, given that statement, why would Russia even fathom entering any type of peaceful resolution to the conflict. In essence, Stoltenberg has just turned the conflict in Ukraine into a zero-sum issue for Russia. The only way Russia can keep NATO away from its border is to win violently against Ukraine. WATCH (00:42 prompted):
Do you really believe the United States would be okay with Russia establishing forward military bases in Mexico or Canada? Why should Russia permit U.S. and NATO military bases on its borders?
We almost went to war when Russia was assisting Cuba with weapons and missiles, and the U.S. will not permit any Russian interests in North America. Why should Russia accept U.S. interests on their doorstep?
Posted originally on the CTH on February 28, 2023 | Sundance
Everything about the progressive worldview of control is connected; the trick is to identify the priority that forms the motive of the connection. In the example of U.S. involvement in assisting the control efforts of Nigerian progressives, the priority is energy and the climate change agenda.
Georgia’s twice-failed leftist gubernatorial candidate, Stacy Abrams, joins the globalist cause in seeking to “assist election efforts” in Africa’s oil rich nation of Nigeria.
If you have followed the geopolitical bouncing ball, you will likely have context for the priorities of western political leadership as it pertains to controlling African democracies.
The larger picture is the World Economic Forum and the Western Leadership alignment to control energy development in the African continent. In addition to vast mineral deposits, there are oil and natural gas interests.
You might remember last year when the G7 were debating geopolitical policy. Some in the EU and western alliance said let the brown people die, climate is more important. Others were saying, if they allow mass starvation just to retain the WEF climate ideology, they may lose influence in the world.
The debate was raging, as noted by Reuters: “the European Union is divided on how to help poorer nations fight a growing food crisis and address shortages of fertilizers caused by the war in Ukraine, with some fearing a plan to invest in plants in Africa would clash with EU green goals.” As the argument unfolded, “the EU Commission explicitly opposed” any effort to enhance African fertilizer development, “warning that supporting fertilizer production in developing nations would be inconsistent with the EU energy and environment policies.” {link}
ABUJA (Reuters) -Nigeria’s ruling party candidate Bola Tinubu has an unassailable lead in a disputed presidential election held over the weekend, a Reuters tally of provisional results from all 36 states and the federal capital Abuja showed on Tuesday.
Tinubu of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) of outgoing president Muhammadu Buhari got about 35% of the vote, or 8.2 million votes, followed by Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), who took a 30% share, or 6.9 million votes.
Peter Obi of the Labour Party [the Nigerian Trump], an outsider popular with the youth and educated voters, got 26% of the vote, or about 6.1 million votes.
Nigerian electoral law says a candidate can win just by getting more votes than their rivals, provided they get 25% of the vote in at least two-thirds of the 36 states and Abuja, which Tinubu also managed to do.
Tinubu’s potential victory extends the APC’s grip on power in Africa’s top oil producer and most populous nation, though he inherits a litany of problems from Buhari.
Nigeria is struggling with Islamist insurgencies in the northeast, armed attacks, killings and kidnappings, conflict between livestock herders and farmers, cash, fuel and power shortages and perennial corruption that opponents say Buhari’s party has failed to stamp out, despite promises to do so.
Opposition parties rejected the results as the product of a flawed process, which suffered multiple technical difficulties owing to the introduction of new technology by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and on Tuesday called on its chairman Mahmood Yakubu to resign.
Tinubu asked voters to elect him on his track record during his two terms as Lagos state governor at the turn of the century, during which he managed to reduce violent crime, improve the city’s traffic jams and clean up rubbish.
The 70-year-old has, however, sometimes appeared frail in public, slurring his speech and answering questions with platitudes, and skipping several campaign events, leaving some to doubt how effective he would be.
Obi’s campaign attracted young people and urban, more educated voters fed up with corrupt politics of the past, the two parties that have represented it since the end of military rule in 1999 and old men who have tended to dominate them.
OPPOSITION CRIES FOUL
Both the PDP and the Labour Party as well as the smaller opposition ADC rejected the results.
“The results being declared at the National Collation centre have been heavily doctored and manipulated and do not reflect the wishes of Nigerians expressed at the polls,” they said in a joint statement. (read more)
Ultimately, from the position of the western alliance, it’s all about control. Domestically, or extended into U. S foreign policy, the outlook is exactly the same, “CONTROL.” Controlling elections, ultimately controlling who is installed such that globalist policy is maintained, the western alliance and WEF priority.
Stacy Abrams in Nigeria or Jeff Flake in Zimbabwe, the intentions are exactly the same. Globalists must be installed, and economic nationalists must not hold power.
A commentator for the Global Times, reported a threat to the United States last Thursday night, stating that China would not hesitate to engage U.S. forces stationed in Taiwan if the Chinese launched an invasion of the island nation. Indeed, Hu Xijin, formerly the editor-in-chief of the GlobalTimes, reacted to a Wall Street Journal report about U.S. troops traveling to Taiwan. He called it “illegal” and suggested that China would treat them as enemy combatants.
“It’s illegal for these US soldiers to go to Taiwan and the Chinese mainland won’t take any responsibility for their safety,” tweeted Hu. “If we take military action when necessary, they’ll be wiped out together with the resisting Taiwan troops. They can also be eliminated first as the invading army.”
Posted originally on the CTH on February 27, 2023 | Sundance
CBS Margaret Brennan interviews CIA Director William Burns about the current status of the conflict in Ukraine. Director Burns outlines his discussions with Ukraine government officials as well as his talks with intelligence counterparts in Russia.
Within the conversation Director Burns outlines the importance of the CIA to continue providing enhanced intelligence operations to support both the conflict and the propaganda that surrounds the World War Reddit effort. Additionally, Burns confirms for the first time that his intelligence analysts now believe China has moved their status from improbable to possible in sending additional weapons to support Russia. WATCH:
.
[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: On the cusp of Russia’s invasion, you flew to Kyiv, and you told President Zelenskyy — tell me if this is right — the Russians are coming to kill you.
Was that the very first thing you said?
WILLIAM BURNS (CIA Director): It wasn’t the very first thing I said to President Zelenskyy.
But President Biden had asked me to go to Kyiv to lay out for President Zelenskyy the most recent intelligence we had, which suggested that what Vladimir Putin was planning was what he thought would be a lightning strike from the Belarus border to seize Kyiv in a matter of a few days, and also to seize an airport just northwest of Kyiv called Hostomel, which he wanted to use as a platform to bring in air — airborne troops, as a way, again, of accelerating that lightning conquest of Kyiv.
And I think President Zelenskyy understood what was at stake and what he was up against.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You also have said — and tell me if this is correct — that it was only a group of about three or four people around Vladimir Putin who knew that he was actually planning this invasion.
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Mm-hmm. No, I think that’s true. Putin had narrowed his circle of advisers, and it was a circle in which he prized loyalty over competence.
It was a group of people who tended to tell him what he wanted to hear. That was one of the deepest flaws I think, in Russian decision-making just before the war is, it was such a close circle of people reinforcing one another’s profoundly mistaken assumptions.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Does he take counsel from anyone these days?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: I think he’s become increasingly convinced that he knows better than anyone else what’s at stake for Russia.
I think his sense of destiny, and his appetite for risk has increased in recent years as well.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You recently went back to Kyiv, and you met with President Zelenskyy. And three months ago, I understand you met with Russia’s top spy chief.
Is there any kind of opening that you are finding here, any kind of opportunity?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: No, I mean, the conversation that I had with Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s external intelligence service, was pretty dispiriting.
My goal was not to talk about negotiations. That’s something that Ukrainians are going to need to take up with the Russians when they see fit. It was to make clear to Naryshkin and, through him, to President Putin the serious consequences should Russia ever choose to use a nuclear weapon of any kind as well.
And I think Naryshkin understood the seriousness of that issue, and I think President Putin has understood it as well.
MARGARET BRENNAN: There’s not a lot of contact with Russia right now.
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: There’s not a great deal; you’re right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you still have that line of communication with your counterpart?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Yes.
And I — and I think, even in the most deeply adversarial relationships — and that’s certainly what our relationship with Russia is today — it’s important to have those lines open. And the president believes that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What do you walk away from those conversations with? You said it was dispiriting.
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Mm-hmm.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Why?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: There was a very defiant attitude on the part of Mr. Naryshkin as well, a sense of cockiness and hubris, reflecting Putin’s own view, his own belief today that he can make time work for him, that he believes he can grind down the Ukrainians, that he can wear down our European allies, that political fatigue will eventually set in.
And, in my experience, Putin’s view of Americans, of us, has been that we have attention deficit disorder, and we’ll move on to some other issue eventually. And so Putin, in many ways, I think, believes today that he cannot win for awhile, but he can’t afford to lose.
MARGARET BRENNAN: He doesn’t seem to have that assessment, though,
I mean, 97 percent of his ground force is in Ukraine.
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: It’s a meat grinder. Does he just look at his population and say, I have enough young men I can continue to send off to die?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: He’s…
MARGARET BRENNAN: I mean, what is the price that makes him change his mind?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: He’s — Putin is certainly not a sentimentalist about the loss of Russian life or the huge losses that he’s taken in terms of Russian armaments as well during the course of the war.
But there’s a lot of hubris that continues to be attached to Putin and his view of the war right now. And I think what’s going to be critical is to puncture that hubris on Putin’s part and regain momentum on the battlefield.
I don’t think the Russians are serious today. And I think it’s only progress on the battlefield that’s going to shape any improved prospects for negotiations down the road.
MARGARET BRENNAN: At what point does Putin say, I can’t win?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: I think Putin is right now entirely too confident of his ability to wear down Ukraine, to grind away.
And that’s what he’s giving every evidence that he’s determined to do right now. At some point, he’s going to have to face up to increasing costs as well, in coffins coming home to some of the poorest parts of Russia. There’s a cumulative economic damage to Russia as well, huge reputational damage. It has not exactly been a great advertisement for Russian arms sales.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: So this is going to build over time, but, right now, the honest answer, I think Putin is quite determined.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about what appears to be potentially a new line of ammunition and weapons for Russia.
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Secretary Blinken has said publicly we have begun to see — we have begun to collect intelligence suggesting that China is considering the provision of lethal equipment.
That’s not to suggest that they’ve made a definitive conclusion about this.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Secretary Blinken said that the U.S. had picked up information over the last couple of months. But picking up information over the last couple of months to thinking they’re actively considering it, I mean, how confident are you in the intelligence that this is something Xi Jinping himself may change his mind about?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Well, we’re confident that the Chinese leadership is considering the provision of lethal equipment.
We also don’t see that a final decision has been made yet, and we don’t see evidence of actual shipments of lethal equipment. And that’s why, I think, Secretary Blinken and the president have thought it important to make very clear what the consequences of that would be as well.
MARGARET BRENNAN: To deter it?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Yes, to deter it, because it would be a very risky and unwise bet.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, why would Beijing risk a tailspin in its relationship with the United States and with Europe by crossing this line?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: It’s a good question, and that’s why I hope very much that they don’t.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you think that Beijing benefits from having the West distracted and involved in a prolonged conflict in Europe…
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: I mean…
MARGARET BRENNAN: … that that’s the aim?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: It’s conceivable.
But I think there’s no foreign leader who’s watched more carefully Vladimir Putin’s experience in Ukraine, the evolution of the war, than Xi Jinping has.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What are the consequences for the conflict in Ukraine if this does happen? What does more ammunition and more weapons mean? Does this — is it a game-changer?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: We also have evidence that the Iranians are providing lethal equipment and munitions, that the North Koreans are doing the same thing as well.
So, wherever that lethal assistance comes from, it prolongs a vicious war of aggression.
MARGARET BRENNAN: How good is our visibility into Xi Jinping’s thinking and his decision-making process?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Oh, it’s always the hardest question for any intelligence service as well, you know, in — in an authoritarian system where power is consolidated so much in the hands of one man.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you had such exquisite intelligence when it came to Russia and Vladimir Putin and his inner circle. Do we have that for Xi Jinping?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Oh, we work very hard to develop that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Working on it?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: I think we work very hard to develop the very best intelligence we can.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But I wonder if, when you’re talking about his thinking and his decision-making if he suffers from the same kind of yes-man culture that you said Vladimir Putin does, because Xi Jinping got rid of a lot of people in his government.
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: It’s a — Margaret, it’s a concern in any authoritarian system.
And I think what we’ve seen in Beijing is President Xi consolidating power at a very rapid pace over the course of the more than a decade that he’s been in power as well.
And as we’ve seen, where Putin’s hubris has now gotten Russia, and the horrors that he’s brought to the people of Ukraine in that kind of a system, a very closed decision-making system, where nobody challenges the authority of their insights of an authoritarian leader, you can make some huge blunders as well.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You’ve said Xi Jinping told his military to be prepared to invade Taiwan by 2027. The intel community seems a little bit more ambiguous in its conclusions here.
Do you think it’s an outright invasion, or do you think China’s more likely to slowly strangle democracy in Taiwan?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: We need to take very seriously Xi’s ambitions with regard to ultimately controlling Taiwan.
That doesn’t, however, in our view, mean that a military conflict is inevitable. We do know, as has been made public, that President Xi has instructed the PLA, the Chinese military leadership, to be ready by 2027 to invade Taiwan. But that doesn’t mean that he’s decided to invade in 2027 or any other year as well.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: I think our judgment, at least, is that President Xi and his military leadership have doubts today about whether they could accomplish that invasion.
I think, as they’ve looked at Putin’s experience in Ukraine, that’s probably reinforced some of those doubts as well.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you when the intelligence community will have some insight into what Beijing was collecting with that spy balloon over the U.S.?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: It was clearly an intelligence platform.
And I think we’ll be able to develop a pretty clear picture of exactly what its capabilities were.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But it will be a while, won’t it?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: It takes some time, but I think my understanding is that we’re managing to pull up quite a bit of evidence and material from that platform.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you think Xi Jinping knew that balloon was sent here?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: I don’t know.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You have an idea.
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Well, I think the Chinese leadership obviously understood that they had launched this capability, that it was an intelligence platform.
Whether — when and what the Chinese leadership knew about the trajectory of this balloon, I honestly can’t say.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You’ve said in the past, there’s the beginnings of a full-fledged defense partnership between Russia and Iran. Exactly how far does the alliance go?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Well, it’s moving at a pretty fast clip in a very dangerous direction right now, in the sense that we know that the Iranians have already provided hundreds of armed drones to the Russians, which they’re using to inflict pain on Ukrainian civilians and Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.
We know that they’ve provided ammunition for artillery and for tanks as well. And what we also see are signs that Russia is proposing to help the Iranians on their missile program and also at least considering the possibility of providing fighter aircraft to Iran as well.
So it’s a quite disturbing set of developments.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Have Iran’s leaders made the decision to pursue a nuclear weapon?
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: To the best of our knowledge, we don’t believe that the supreme leader in Iran has yet made a decision to resume the weaponization program that we judge that they suspended or stopped at the end of 2003.
But the other two legs of the stool, meaning enrichment programs, they’ve obviously advanced very far, you know, over the course of the last couple years.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Eighty-four percent purity, reportedly.
DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: They’ve advanced very far, to the point where it would only be a matter of weeks before they could enrich to 90 percent, if they chose to cross that line.
And also, in terms of their missile systems, their ability to deliver a nuclear weapon once they developed it, has also been advancing as well. So, the answer to your question is, no, we don’t see evidence that they have made a decision to resume that weaponization program, but the other dimensions of this challenge, I think, are growing at a worrisome pace too.
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