Baltic Dry Index. 1192 -09 Brent Crude 64.96
I think the international
community should unite to fight such inhuman phenomena as terror attacks and
the murder of totally innocent people.
Vladimir Putin
Less than a week out from the Russian presidential
election and both Russia and the west have a new confrontation that could all
to easily escalate to war. Was Putin’s Russia just caught dead to rights using
nerve agent Novichok on the streets of middle England, to try to kill a traitorous
Russian agent? The UK government and the
US government both say yes. Russia denies it.
There’s a whole lot of unanswered questions
in the official story line, suggesting that perhaps we are still not getting
the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but circumstantially there seems
little other explanation, except that Russia did it. A false flag operation
designed to sabotage the election or the later World Cup Football competition
in Russia in June, is far fetched.
An authorised or rogue operation hardly
matters, though a rogue operation brings in a whole slew of other questions
regarding what’s going on in Russia.
Below, the big clash that’s only going to bet
bigger in the days ahead.
March 12, 2018 / 7:22 AM / Updated 3 hours ago
May says 'highly likely' Russia behind nerve attack on spy
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister
Theresa May said on Monday it was“highly likely” that Moscow was responsible
for the poisoning in England of Russian former double agent Sergei Skripal and
his daughter using a military-grade nerve agent.
May told parliament that either the Russian state was directly
responsible for the poisoning or it had allowed the nerve agent to get into the
hands of others. London has given Russia until the end of Tuesday to explain
its use.
British officials had identified the substance as being part of the
Novichok group of nerve agents that were developed by the Soviet military
during the 1970s and 1980s, May said.
Skripal, 66, and his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia, have been in hospital
in critical condition since being found unconscious on a bench outside a
shopping centre in the city of Salisbury on March 4.
“Should there be no credible response, we will conclude that this action
amounts to an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United
Kingdom,” she said, calling the attack a“reckless and despicable act”.
Russia’s foreign ministry hit back immediately, saying May’s comments
were a“circus show” and part of a political information campaign against
Russia.
----Earlier, White House spokeswoman
Sarah Sanders said the United States stood by America’s“closest ally,” but she
stopped short of blaming Russia for the attack.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the use of any nerve agent
was“horrendous and completely unacceptable” and“this incident is of great
concern to NATO”.
Relations between Britain and Russia have been strained since the murder
in London of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006 after
drinking green tea laced with radioactive polonium-210.
On Monday, May said the latest poisoning took place“against a backdrop
of a well-established pattern of Russian state aggression” and that Britain was
ready to take“much more extensive measures” against Russia than in the past.
More
What Is Novichok, the Poison that Nearly Killed a Russian Ex-Spy?
By |
A Soviet-era poison called Novichok was used to poison an ex-Russian spy and
his daughter last week in England, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May told
Parliament today (March 12).This announcement shows that U.K. authorities were right to suspect that a type of nerve agent had poisoned the former spy, Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter, Yulia, 33, who were found stiff and unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury, England on March 4. Both Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal are critically ill and in intensive care.
But what is Novichok and how does it affect humans? [5 Lethal Chemical Warfare Agents]
Novichok, which means "newcomer" in Russian, is a Soviet-era class of nerve agents that was created in the 1970s and 1980s as an attempt to get around the Chemical Weapons Treaty, according to "Responding to Terrorism: A Medical Handbook," published in 2010. That's because the treaty banned chemical weapons that have a certain chemical structure, and Novichok has a different structure.
Despite this structural difference, Novichok agents act like other nerve agents by binding to and inactivating cholinesterase, an enzyme that the nervous system uses to communicate with muscles.
"The reason you die from these [nerve agents] is very simple," said Dr. Lewis Nelson, chairman of emergency medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, who is not involved with the Skripals' treatment. "If your muscles don't work you can't breathe, and if you can't breathe you eventually die."
Like other nerve agents, Novichok causes a range of symptoms. Victims can develop pinpoint-size pupils, digestive problems and excess salivation and tears, Nelson said. Typically, muscle spasms and seizures occur and the heart stops beating.
Novichok agents can take the form of an ultra-fine powder, according to the handbook. The poison is made when two separate, nontoxic components are mixed into an active nerve agent.
If Novichok agents are inhaled, symptoms can occur in 30 seconds to 2 minutes, the handbook reported.
In addition, a little bit of Novichok can do a lot of damage; it's five to eight times more potent than VX nerve agent, the handbook reported. This means that it takes less Novichok to cause the same amount of harm that VX does, Nelson said.
Because so little of it is needed, Novichok agents are challenging to detect in victims. But toxicologists could probably find them if they know what they're looking for, Nelson said. "There are ways around it by concentrating the sample," he told Live Science.
More
https://www.livescience.com/62001-novichok-poisoned-former-russian-spy.html
Tillerson Says Substance Used in Ex-Spy Poisoning Is From Russia
By Nick Wadhams and Tim Ross
12 March 2018, 23:47 GMT
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson joined the British government in saying the
poison used in an attack on a former Russian spy in the U.K.
clearly came from Russia, calling the episode an “egregious act” that will
trigger a U.S. response.Speaking to reporters as he flew back to the U.S. from Africa, Tillerson said it was still unclear whether the Russian government knew about the attack, but suggested there were few other explanations. Earlier in the day, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May publicly blamed Russia for poisoning a former spy and his daughter on British soil. Russia’s Foreign Ministry quickly denied her accusation.
“This is a substance that is known to us and does not exist widely,”
Tillerson said. “It is only in the hands of a very, very limited number of
parties. And I don’t want to say anything further than that.”
“This is a really egregious act,” Tillerson said, adding that he had
just gotten off the phone with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and that
the U.S. would soon release a statement about the incident. “It certainly will
trigger a response -- I’ll leave it that.”
Tillerson declined to say what the American response might be to the
attack, in which Russia has denied any involvement. But he made clear his own
anger over the state of the relationship with Russian President Vladimir
Putin’s government, saying the U.S. had invested in efforts to work together
and solve their problems without much success.
Morehttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-12/tillerson-says-substance-used-in-ex-spy-poisoning-is-from-russia
Russian Military Tests Nuclear-Capable Hypersonic Missile
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Updated on 12 March 2018, 15:35 GMT
Moscow (AP) -- The Russian military said it has conducted a successful
test of a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile capable of sneaking through enemy
defenses.
A video posted by the Defense Ministry Sunday showed a MiG-31 fighter
jet launching a Kinzhal (Dagger) missile during a training flight. The ministry
said the missile, which carried a conventional warhead, hit a practice target
at a firing range in southern Russia.
President Vladimir Putin named Kinzhal this month among the new nuclear
weapons he said would bolster Russia's military capability and render the U.S.
missile defense useless.
Putin said Kinzhal flies 10 times faster than the speed of sound, has a
range of more than 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) and can carry a nuclear or a
conventional warhead. The military said it's capable of hitting both land
targets and navy ships.
Putin said the missile already had been put on combat duty with a unit
of Russia's Southern Military District.
The Defense Ministry said in Sunday's statement that the test launch
proved the missile's capability. It added that the new weapon has no equal
thanks to its superior maneuverability and ability to dodge enemy radars.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-12/porn-actress-offers-to-pay-back-trump-settlement-to-end-silenceThe U.S. Has Bigger Problems in Asia Than North Korea
Kim is a tactical
difficulty. Holding our alliances against China is the strategic issue.
by James Stavridis
12 March 2018, 17:27 GMT
Now that the shock of President Donald Trump’s decision to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in May has worn
off, it's time to consider the broader strategic implications of how the U.S.
can best approach Kim's lethal regime in particular, and Asia in general.---- The likelihood of Kim ever giving up his nuclear weapons approaches negative infinity. After all, the reason he is willing to slow his program and come to a meeting with Trump is not the president's “fire and fury” rhetoric –- it is the simple fact that he and his scientists have worked hard, spent an enormous amount of his country’s limited resources, and built a boutique nuclear capability with demonstrable reach. That makes him, like Pinocchio, a “real boy” in the world of nuclear powers. He will never give that up, especially having watched other dictators like Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi topple after walking away from their weapons of mass destruction.
---- While the U.S. certainly ought to be mindful of North Korea’s growing nuclear capability and intercontinental ballistic missiles, they are in the end a highly tactical and isolated concern. Instead of putting North Korea at the center of our Asian agenda, we should step back and consider what America's real interests are in the region. North Korea is not the centerpiece of our Asia-Pacific strategy. What really matters?
First and most important are the U.S. relationships with key allies, partners and friends. These range from treaty allies whom Washington is sworn to defend -- Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Thailand -- to nations with whom it shares very close political, economic and defense relationships. The latter include Singapore and Malaysia, and now increasingly India, Vietnam and Indonesia. Our most vital interest is ensuring we maintain our principle advantage over China and Russia: that network of close partners.
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-12/north-korea-talks-trump-has-bigger-problems-in-asia
In other news:
Asian Stocks Mixed Ahead of U.S. Data; Yen Falls: Markets Wrap
By Adam Haigh Asian equity traders adopted a cautious tone Tuesday following a dip in U.S. stocks, with focus turning to a U.S. inflation report for clues on the pace of Federal Reserve policy tightening. The dollar gained against major peers and Treasury yields held declines.Japanese stocks fluctuated before closing higher, while Hong Kong and Chinese shares drifted. Australian equities slid, weighed by banks and miners. The S&P 500 Index slipped overnight following its biggest rally in five weeks that was spurred by a better-than-expected jobs report. The yen weakened as investors discounted the political fallout from a scandal embroiling Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso. The U.S. 10-year yield held at 2.87 percent after Monday’s Treasury auction was broadly in line with expectations.
The yen erased Monday’s rally spurred by political concerns surrounding
Japan’s Finance Ministry, run by Aso, a stalwart ally of Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe, whose administration has endorsed a weak currency.
“Considering what is going on in the world -- we have trade frictions,
we have North Korea -- in the context of the whole thing, what is happening in
Japan is insignificant,” Nader Naeimi, head of dynamic markets at AMP Capital
Investors in Sydney told Bloomberg TV. Naeimi said he expected the yen to
weaken before starting to firm again.
Investors are looking to American inflation and retail sales data
followed by reports on Chinese industrial production, retail sales and
fixed-asset investment to provide direction for markets this week. The U.S.
inflation reading is the last major piece of data ahead of the Federal
Reserve’s policy meeting next week.
Politics also remain in focus after President Donald Trump issued an
executive order blocking Broadcom Ltd. from acquiring Qualcomm Inc., scuttling
a $117 billion hostile takeover that had been subject of scrutiny over the
deal’s threat to U.S. national security.
Elsewhere,
oil fell back below $62 a barrel and prices of industrial metals tumbled.
----Here are some of the key things happening this week:
- China data on industrial production, retail sales and fixed-asset investment all out on Wednesday are likely to point to slower growth, according to Bloomberg Economics forecasts.
- Key indicators for the Fed dominate the economic agenda in the coming week. Headline inflation may have edged up to 2.2 percent in February from 2.1 percent, though consensus before Tuesday’s report is for core inflation to remain at 1.8 percent.
- Prices and factory output are focal points in the euro area. Friday’s second inflation report for February may touch 1.2% from 1.1% the previous month.
- Also this week, Germany’s Angela Merkel is inaugurated to a fourth term, EU27 government officials discuss the European Union’s Brexit position, and U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond issues his spring statement.
More
China Unveils 'Revolutionary' Plan to Give Communist Party Even More Power
Bloomberg NewsThe plan put before China’s rubber-stamp parliament Tuesday -- some of which had been reported by Bloomberg -- calls for merging several ministries and agencies including the regulators that oversee the country’s $43 trillion banking and insurance sectors. The proposed “CPC leadership system” would also clarify the party’s policy-making authority over state agencies.
The moves would further centralize power in the nation of 1.4 billion people. The emphasis on party control represents China’s most decisive shift yet from 1980s reforms led by Deng Xiaoping aimed at professionalizing the government after Mao Zedong’s disruptive party-led political movements led to famine and bloodshed.
Liu He, a key economic adviser to Xi and a member of the party’s 25-member Politburo, called the reform “revolutionary” Tuesday in an article published by the party’s People’s Daily newspaper. “Strengthening the party’s leadership in all areas of work is the primary task of deepening the reform of the party and state institutions,” He said.
The changes include:
More
Nobody should pin their hopes
on a miracle.
Vladimir Putin
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today, it’s an ill wind and all that. Bloomberg highlights one of
Trump’s trade war few winners.
When the operations of
capitalism come to resemble those of the casino, ill fortune will be the lot of
many.
John Maynard Keynes.
In a Perfect Trump World, U.S. Steel Could Double Under Tariffs
By Joe Deaux
12
March 2018, 04:00 GMT
U.S.
Steel Corp.
has surged 24 percent this year, but it’s still trading well below where it
could given the price of the metal.
That argument comes from Bloomberg Intelligence’s Andrew Cosgrove, who said
in a note that the
iconic American steelmaker could rise to as high as $84 a share, from $43.69 on
Friday. While that’s a best-case scenario that assumes higher-than-average
earnings multiples and a surge in steel prices, the tariffs ordered by
President Donald Trump on Thursday add to the case that the shares don’t fully
reflect recent steel-price gains.“The market is definitely not pricing in the current price of hot-rolled coil in these stocks,” Cosgrove, a senior industry analyst, said in a telephone interview. “They’re pricing hot-rolled coil at about $700, and it’s currently at $840.”
Cosgrove said in a separate note Friday that the tariffs could displace at least 5.6 million tons of steel imports across six different products, leaving open the door for domestic companies like U.S. Steel to fill the demand gap.
U.S. hot-rolled steel coil is a benchmark product used in everything from bridges to microwaves. Prices for hot-rolled coil, along with cold-rolled coil, galvanized, plate, oil-country tubular goods and rebar, “all have upside from here,” Cosgrove said in the report.
Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel’s stock has been helped by anticipation of U.S. tariffs and progress on a program to inject some $1.2 billion to upgrade aging facilities. Last week, the company announced it would restart a furnace in Granite City, Illinois, which Cosgrove said could add 1.5 million tons of raw steel capacity. U.S. Steel credited the president’s tariff promise for the action.
Technology Update.
With events happening fast in the
development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section. Updates as
they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC energy
mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards?
Graphene promise for more efficient fertilizers
Date:
March 7, 2018
Source:
The University of Adelaide
Summary:
Fertilizers with lower environmental impacts and reduced costs for farmers are
being developed by researchers in the world-first use of the new advanced
material graphene as a fertilizer carrier.
In partnership with industry, the researchers have demonstrated
effective slow release fertilisers can be produced from loading essential trace
elements onto graphene oxide sheets.
Using graphene as a carrier means the fertilisers can be applied in a
more targeted fashion, with overall increased fertiliser efficiency and great
nutrient uptake by the plants. The graphene-based carriers have so far been
demonstrated with the micronutrients zinc and copper. Work is continuing with
macronutrients such as nitrogen and phosphate.
"Fertilisers that show slower, more controlled release and greater
efficiency will have reduced impact on the environment and lower costs for
farmers over conventional fertilisers, bringing significant potential benefit
for both agriculture and the environment," says Professor Mike McLaughlin,
Head of the University of Adelaide's Fertiliser Technology Research Centre at
the Waite campus.
"Our research found that loading copper and zinc micronutrients
onto graphene oxide sheets was an effective way to supply micronutrients to
plants. It also increased the strength of the fertiliser granules for better
transport and spreading ability."
Professor Dusan Losic, nanotechnology leader in the University's School
of Chemical Engineering and Director of the University's Australian Research
Council (ARC) Research Hub for Graphene Enabled Industry Transformation, says:
"Graphene is a novel new material only discovered in 2004 and has
incredible properties, including a very high surface area, strength and
adaptability to bind to different nutrients. We started exciting research on a
broad range of applications of graphene four years ago -- this is the first
time graphene has been developed as a carrier for fertiliser nutrients."
The research, carried out by PhD student Shervin Kabiri, has been
published in the journal Applied Materials and Interfaces. It is a
collaboration between the University of Adelaide's Fertiliser Technology
Research Centre and the University's Australian Research Council Research Hub
for Graphene Enabled Industry Transformation.
More
Nobody should have any
illusion about the possibility of gaining military superiority over Russia. We
will never allow this to happen.
Vladimir Putin
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished February
DJIA: 25,029 +283 Up 01. NASDAQ: 7,273 +313 Up 03. SP500: 2,714 +212 Flat.
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