Wednesday 17 October 2018

Trump’s Blunder! The Tape Released.


Baltic Dry Index. 1578 -06   Brent Crude 81.45

If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.

John Kenneth Galbraith.

In a blunder of epic proportions, with likely epic repercussions to follow, President Trump attempted yesterday to give Saudi Arabia and its de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, a walk, just as details were emerging in the middle east media of what’s on the Turkish tape recording. The Turkish secret service seem to be playing America and Saudi Arabia like a fiddle.

I suspect that President Trump has just completely misplayed the Saudi oil card, putting at risk the outcome of the midterm elections.  With about three weeks left, it’s hard to see a credible way back for either President Trump or Crown Prince Mohammad.  President Trump and his Washington team, seem to be hopelessly uninformed or callously indifferent.

With US sanctions on Iran set to start on November 4th, an oil price spike would now seem to lie directly ahead.

Trump gives Saudi Arabia benefit of doubt in journalist's disappearance

October 16, 2018 / 3:21 AM / Updated an hour ago
WASHINGTON/RIYADH (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump gave Saudi Arabia the benefit of the doubt in the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi even as U.S. lawmakers pointed the finger at the Saudi leadership and Western pressure mounted on Riyadh to provide answers.

“I think we have to find out what happened first,” Trump told the Associated Press in an interview on Tuesday. “Here we go again with, you know, you’re guilty until proven innocent. I don’t like that.”

Trump then referred directly to his nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ran into trouble in the Senate after several women came forward to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, before Kavanaugh was ultimately confirmed.

Earlier, in a Twitter post, Trump said that Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman denied knowing what happened in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul where Khashoggi vanished two weeks ago after going there to collect documents he needed for his planned marriage.

Turkish officials have said they believe the Saudi journalist was murdered and his body removed, which the Saudis have strongly denied. Khashoggi was a U.S. resident who wrote columns for the Washington Post and he was critical of the Saudi government, calling for reforms.
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Jamal Khashoggi's killing took seven minutes, Turkish source tells MEE

Middle East Eye publishes first details of audio tape acquired by Turkish investigators probing what happened to Saudi journalist

Tuesday 16 October 2018 19:07 UTC Last update: Tuesday 16 October 2018 23:33 UTC

It took seven minutes for Jamal Khashoggi to die, a Turkish source who has listened in full to an audio recording of the Saudi journalist's last moments told Middle East Eye.

Khashoggi was dragged from the Consul General’s office at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and onto the table of his study next door, the Turkish source said.

Horrendous screams were then heard by a witness downstairs, the source said.

"The consul himself was taken out of the room. There was no attempt to interrogate him. They had come to kill him,” the source told MEE.

The screaming stopped when Khashoggi - who was last seen entering the Saudi consulate on 2 October - was injected with an as yet unknown substance.

Salah Muhammad al-Tubaigy, who has been identified as the head of forensic evidence in the Saudi general security department, was one of the 15-member squad who arrived in Ankara earlier that day on a private jet.

Tubaigy began to cut Khashoggi’s body up on a table in the study while he was still alive, the Turkish source said.

The killing took seven minutes, the source said.

As he started to dismember the body, Tubaigy put on earphones and listened to music. He advised other members of the squad to do the same.

“When I do this job, I listen to music. You should do [that] too,” Tubaigy was recorded as saying, the source told MEE.

A three-minute version of the audio tape has been given to Turkish newspaper Sabah, but they have yet to release it.

A Turkish source told the New York Times that Tubaigy was equipped with a bone saw. He is listed as the president of the Saudi Fellowship of Forensic Pathology and a member of the Saudi Association for Forensic Pathology.

In 2014, London-based Saudi newspaper Asharaq al-Awsat interviewed Tubaigy about a mobile clinic that allows coroners to perform autopsies in seven minutes to determine the cause of death of Hajj pilgrims.
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Turkish Media Floats Claim Saudis ‘Evaporated’ Khashoggi’s Body with Acid

15 Oct 2018

The much-discussed and often-delayed joint inspection of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by Turkish and Saudi officials formally began on Monday.

Turkish media claimed one of the leads Turkish police investigated claimed Saudi forces inside the consulate killed missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi and “evaporated” his remains with acid.

Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News details the claim:
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Suspects in Khashoggi Case Had Ties to Saudi Crown Prince


By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, MALACHY BROWNE, BEN HUBBARD and DAVID BOTTI
ISTANBUL — One of the suspects identified by Turkey in the disappearance of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was a frequent companion of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — seen disembarking from airplanes with him in Paris and Madrid and photographed standing guard during his visits this year to Houston, Boston and the United Nations.

Three others are linked by witnesses and other records to the Saudi crown prince’s security detail.
More
 

Trump calls Federal Reserve his 'biggest threat'

AFP
Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump reignited his controversial criticism of the central bank Tuesday, calling the Federal Reserve his "biggest threat."

Trump followed up previous strong attacks on the Fed by complaining again that interest rates are rising too quickly.

"My biggest threat is the Fed, because the Fed is raising rates too fast," he told Fox Business television.

Trump acknowledged that the central bank is independent, "so I don't speak to them," but then leveled direct criticism at Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, who he said should be slower on interest rate rises.

"It's going too fast, because you look at the last inflation numbers -- they're very low," he said.
Trump appointed Powell but told Fox, "maybe it's right, maybe it's wrong."

"There are a lot of other people there I'm not so happy with," he said.

The Fed has raised interest rates three times this year as it seeks to prevent a vibrant economy from overheating.

US presidents usually remain silent on such issues in respect toward the Fed's independence. Trump has previously called Fed policies "crazy."

Trump tells AP he won’t accept blame if GOP loses House

an hour ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing the prospect of bruising electoral defeat in congressional elections, President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he won’t accept the blame if his party loses control of the House in November, arguing his campaigning and endorsements have helped Republican candidates.

In a wide-ranging interview three weeks before Election Day, Trump told The Associated Press he senses voter enthusiasm rivaling 2016 and he expressed cautious optimism that his most loyal supporters will vote even when he is not on the ballot. He dismissed suggestions that he might take responsibility, as his predecessor did, for midterm losses or view the outcome as a referendum on his presidency.

“No, I think I’m helping people,” Trump said. “I don’t believe anybody’s ever had this kind of an impact.”

Trump spoke on a range of subjects, defending Saudi Arabia from growing condemnation over the case of a missing journalist, accusing his longtime attorney Michael Cohen of lying under oath and flashing defiance when asked about the insult — “Horseface” — he hurled at Stormy Daniels, the porn actress who accuses him of lying about an affair.

Asked if it was appropriate to insult a woman’s appearance, Trump responded, “You can take it any way you want.”
More

Finally, it’s been an up, down, up, down year in aluminium, largely thanks to President Trump and his trade war on aluminium. Will it all be back up again come December 12th?

Commentary: Alumina wake-up call for the aluminium supply chain

October 15, 2018 / 1:54 PM
LONDON (Reuters) - The alumina market is experiencing a year of unprecedented turbulence.
Alumina, which sits in the aluminium production process between bauxite and refined metal, has historically been a highly efficient link in the supply chain.

It hasn’t generated many headlines over the years because it has largely avoided any newsworthy disruption. 

It is, to quote Greg Wittbecker, analyst at the CRU research house, one of those markets “people have taken for granted”.

Not any more.

A series of supply hits have sent the alumina price on a rollercoaster ride this year, at one stage threatening the closure of several European aluminium smelters.

This volatility poses some hard questions for aluminium producers, not least as to how alumina is priced.

A YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY - PART 1

Alumina’s year of turmoil began in February, when a Brazilian court ordered the part suspension of Hydro’s Alunorte refinery after heavy rains raised concerns about leakage from the plant’s tailings ponds.

Alunorte, with capacity of 6.3 million tonnes a year, is the world’s largest single alumina production site and has been operating at half capacity ever since.

Hydro threatened full closure of the plant on Oct. 3 as the existing tailings area reached capacity, but it reversed the decision on Oct. 8 after the authorities granted permission to use a new residues facility.

Alunorte has reverted to half-capacity operation, as have the bauxite mines that feed it and the Albras aluminium smelter that takes some of its product.

The CME alumina price has whipsawed on the latest Alunorte developments, surging from $425 a tonne to $620 on the full-closure news before retreating back to $515 on confirmation it would resume 50 percent production.

----- A YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY - PART 2

The market’s Alunorte woes were compounded in April, when the United States slapped sanctions on Oleg Deripaska and his Rusal aluminium empire.

That blew a hole in alumina’s complex supply chain, threatening the closure of Rusal’s Aughinish refinery, which in turn placed at risk the European smelters that rely on the Irish plant’s output.

The sanctions deadline has been extended again to Dec. 12 and the market’s assumption is that it is only a matter of time before they are lifted fully.

However, the fragility of the alumina supply chain has been brutally exposed, serving as wake-up call for the aluminium sector and the U.S. and European governments, who received a short, sharp lesson in the multiple interdependencies of this previously uncontroversial commodity.

A six-week walkout by workers at Alcoa’s Western Australia bauxite mines and alumina refineries simply added to the pricing turbulence before a peace deal was struck at the end of last month.
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John Kenneth Galbraith.

Crooks and Scoundrels Corner

The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.

No crooks and scoundrels today, they’re a dime a dozen and around all day and every day, they’ll be back tomorrow.  Today the Royal Navy finally gets some jets for HMS Big Lizzie. Worryingly, America’s just grounded all its F-35s following a crash.

Royal Navy makes first ever F-35B rolling landing

David Szondy 16/10/2018
The Royal Navy made history again over the weekend as an F-35B Lightning II VSTOL fighter conducted the first ever Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing (SRVL) aboard the supercarrier HMS Queen Elizabeth. Under the control of BAE test pilot Peter "Wizzer" Wilson, the aircraft executed the highly skilled maneuver designed to allow the F-35B to land on the deck of a carrier while carrying a heavy load of fuel and weapons, without the need for arrestor cables.

Under normal circumstances, when the F-35B returns from a mission, it lands by activating its lift fan and vectoring its tail thruster downward. It then hovers alongside the carrier deck before sliding sideways and then dropping to the flight deck. 

It's a maneuver that works, but the fighter can only manage vertical flight when it is carrying a minimal payload of fuel and munitions. This means that if the aircraft has to return to base early and with a full weapons load, it requires the pilot to make a very expensive jettisoning before he can land.

To avoid this, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force have developed SRVL, where the F-35B lands by approaching the carrier like a conventional aircraft but, as it comes in, uses its thruster and fan to blow air over the wings to create additional lift. This enables it to touch down gently and stop in a very short distance, even with a full load.

According to the Navy, Britain is the only country that uses SRVL and it has already been tested thousands of times in a simulator.

"I'm excited and thrilled to have achieved this," says Wilson. "I've worked on this for the past 17 years and it's fantastic to know that it's matched the modeling and simulation we have done over the years. I've flown more than 2,000 SRVLs in the simulator, and am honored to have been able to do the first one on board HMS Queen Elizabeth."

The landing was carried out under the supervision of Lieutenant Christopher Mould, the Queen Elizabeth's Landing Safety Officer and was observed by test pilot Major Michael Lippert of the US Marine Corps. Just as The Navy and the RAF have sent pilots to America to hone their carrier skills and learn how to fly the F-35, the US military has personnel like Major Lippert aboard Queen Elizabeth to learn about British innovations.

HMS Queen Elizabeth is currently off the Atlantic coast of the United States, where it is carrying out flight training as well as sea trials with other warships. Last month, it conducted the first F-35B landing on the giant carrier and the first night landings shortly thereafter.

The video below shows the historic F-35B SRVL landing.

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?

Perovskites: Materials of the future in optical communication

Date: October 15, 2018

Source: Linköping University

Summary: Researchers have shown how an inorganic perovskite can be made into a cheap and efficient photodetector that transfers both text and music. 

Researchers at the universities in Linköping and Shenzhen have shown how an inorganic perovskite can be made into a cheap and efficient photodetector that transfers both text and music. "It's a promising material for future rapid optical communication," says Feng Gao, researcher at Linköping University.

"Perovskites of inorganic materials have a huge potential to influence the development of optical communication. These materials have rapid response times, are simple to manufacture, and are extremely stable." So says Feng Gao, senior lecturer at LiU who, together with colleagues who include Chunxiong Bao, postdoc at LiU, and scientists at Shenzhen University, has published the results in the journal Advanced Materials.

All optical communication requires rapid and reliable photodetectors -- materials that capture a light signal and convert it into an electrical signal. Current optical communication systems use photodetectors made from materials such as silicon and indium gallium arsenide. But these are expensive, partly because they are complicated to manufacture. Moreover, these materials cannot to be used in some new devices, such as mechanically flexible, light-weight or large-area devices.

Researcher have been seeking cheap replacement, or at least supplementary, materials for many years, and have looked at, for example, organic semi-conductors. However, the charge transport of these has proved to be too slow. A photodetector must be rapid.

The new perovskite materials have been extremely interesting in research since 2009, but the focus has been on their use in solar cells and efficient light-emitting diodes. Feng Gao, researcher in Biomolecular and Organic Electronics at LiU, was awarded a Starting Grant of EUR 1.5 million from the European Research Council (ERC) in the autumn of 2016, intended for research into using perovskites in light-emitting diodes.

Perovskites form a completely new family of semi-conducting materials that are defined by their crystal structures. They can consist of both organic and inorganic substances. They have good light-emitting properties and are easy to manufacture. For applications such as light-emitting diodes and efficient solar cells, most interest has been placed on perovskites that consist of an organic substance (containing carbon and hydrogen), metal, and halogen (fluorine, chlorine, bromine or iodine) ions. 
However, when this composition was used in photodetectors, it proved to be too unstable.

The results changed, however, when Chunxiong Bao used the right materials, and managed to optimise the manufacturing process and the structure of the film. The film in the new perovskite, which contains only inorganic elements (caesium, lead, iodine and bromine), has been tested in a system for optical communication, which confirmed its ability to transfer both text and images, rapidly and reliably. The quality didn't deteriorate, even after 2,000 hours at room temperature.

"It's very gratifying that we have already achieved results that are very close to application," says Feng Gao, who leads the research, together with Professor Wenjing Zhang at Shenzhen University.
  

The monthly Coppock Indicators finished September.

DJIA: 26,458 +199 Down. NASDAQ: 8,046 +261 Down. SP500: 2,914 +166 Down.
All three slow indicators moved down in March, but the S&P and NASDAQ  turned up in August.  September will be critical for confirmation of this change. All 3 slow indicators failed to confirm August’s positive change making October very vulnerable to a sell-off.

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