China and the Swine Flu Outbreak

Tom Clifford

This is anniversary year in China. Thirty years have passed since Tiananmen Square and 70 have gone since the People’s Republic was founded. A century has elapsed since the Treaty of Versailles and the anger that it sparked resulting in the May Fourth protest movement for cleaner government and 125 since the outbreak of a calamitous war with Japan. A sensitive time. But one anniversary looms that will be barely commented on even as its ramifications impact every household. August will mark one year since the outbreak of African swine fever, or swine flu, that has decimated the country’s pig herd.

The pork industry is worth about $128 billion in China and the country’s 375 million pigs make up just under half the planet’s total.

The number of pigs China will fatten to prepare for slaughter and sale this year is predicted to fall by 20 percent, from 2018. This is the worst annual slump since the U.S. Department of Agriculture began counting China’s pigs in the mid-1970s.

China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs disclosed in a report that China had 375 million sows and piglets at the end of March, down from 428 million in December.

The pig virus has not skipped species and doesn’t harm humans, at least not yet, even if they eat tainted pork. The virus for pigs, though  is fatal and spreads easily. No vaccine can prevent infection, or treat it. If a single pig is found to test positive for the virus, the entire herd has to be slaughtered. Farmers usually suffer substantial financial losses in the process.

It can be carried in clothing, infected blood, or fluids from urine, saliva or faeces, and on tires and shoes. There are concerns that Chinese provincial governments are suppressing data and asking pork companies not to report new outbreaks.

It was first detected outside Africa in 1957, in Portugal but never before has it spread so rapidly and damagingly. All of the 33 provinces and regions in China have been affected. Other countries are battling the outbreak. The disease has been found in Mongolia, Cambodia and North Korea.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization believes cases reported by local governments are underestimates. Farmers in China are suspected of selling infected meat rather than report outbreaks due to a lag in often inadequate compensation and being burdened by inspections. Local government officials may also be reluctant to report outbreaks fearing it would reflect badly on them.

This outbreak was first detected in China in August in Liaoning province in the northeast. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs immediately responded with emergency measures.All pigs in a three-kilometer zone around an infected herd had to be killed, according to guidelines more observed in the breach. Roadblocks were meant to be set up and inspection and disinfection stations established within a 10-kilometer buffer zone. Again, not strictly implemented.

Pork is the meat of choice in China and no meal is complete without it. Braised in sauce as Mao Zedong demanded, in dumplings or just planly fried or boiled, pork accounts for nearly three-quarters of Chinese meat consumption.

Pig rearing in China, despite large industrialized farms, remains a predominately a small-scale affair. Pigs also provide cheap garbage disposal services. They are fed left over scraps and provide manure and meat for the farm. Their centrality to life is reflected in the Mandarin character for home which depicts a pig under a roof.The economic impact is being felt. China’s National Bureau of Statistics last week said that  that the Consumer Price Index hit 2.7 percent in May, the highest level in more than a year.

Overall food prices jumped by 7.7 percent last month compared to the same period in 2018.As the party celebrates seven decades in power in October, in banquet halls where pork will be served on tables illuminated by cut-glass chandeliers, their appetite may be diminished by the realization that surging food prices carry the risk of instability.

Cuban Workers Celebrate Salary Rise From New Economic Measures

Helen Yaffe

‘Today is Cuban workers’ day!’ a Cuban friend told me in late June, beaming at the news that all employees of the island’s ‘budgeted’ state sector would receive significant salary rises, commencing from 1 July 2019. Cuba’s budgeted sector incorporates organisations and entities which operate with a state budget and mostly provide services free to the population without returning revenue to the state. This includes public health, education, culture and sport, public administration, community services, housing and defence. Every one of the 1,470,736 workers in this sector will receive the pay rise, at a cost to the Cuban state of over seven billion Cuban pesos annually. Simultaneously, 1,281,523 pensions will rise, costing an additional 838 million pesos a year and taking the number of direct beneficiaries to over 2.75 million Cubans.

Announcing the salary rise and outlining a set of economic reforms to follow, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and other government Ministers have framed the measures in relation to several factors. First, aggressive steps by the US Trump administration to strangle the Cuban economy by strengthening the US blockade, particularly through the spring 2019 implementation of ‘Title III’ of the Helms-Burton Act, under which US citizens can sue Cuban and foreign interests who ‘traffic’ (engage in any way) in properties they, or their predecessors, owned prior to the nationalisations carried out by Cuba’s revolutionary government from 1960.

Second, determination not to return to the hardships suffered by the Cuban population during Special Period of economic crisis in the 1990s. Díaz-Canel referred to creative measures taken in that period which are currently under study. Third, the demand from Cubans and their organisations for a pay rise, communicated directly to the President and ministers during their regular tours of Cuban provinces, in recent Congresses of the Cuban Workers’ Confederation (CTC) and the National Association of Cuban Economists (ANEC), as well as during public debates over the new Constitution approved in February 2019. Fourth, the measure acknowledges the loyalty and commitment of workers who have stayed in state employment, often in the lowest paid jobs, defending the ‘conquests’ of Cuba’s socialist revolution in health, education, culture, sport and community and social welfare, providing essential services for all Cubans.

Finally, the salary rise is a step towards a broader economic restructuring, comprising changes to the way salaries and prices are set, more flexibility introduced into the planning process with greater initial input from workers, the elimination of the dual currency, more cooperation between state enterprises and non-state entities and foreign investors and greater financial autonomy for state enterprises. These measures aim to boost national production and improve Cuba’s balance of payments, so to withstand the onslaught of US imperialism by advancing the national development plan through to 2030.

Having announced the pay rise on 27 June in Pinar del Rio, Díaz-Canel participated in a two-hour, live broadcast of the daily current affairs programme, the ‘Mesa-Redonda’ (Round Table) on 2 July, explaining the measures with the Minister of the Economy and Planning, the Minister of Work and Social Security and the Minister of Finance and Prices. The following day, a second Mesa Redonda with the same participants largely answered the public’s queries and concerns.

Cuba’s state sector employs over 3 million workers, compared to some 1.4 million in the non-state sector, which consists of cooperatives, private farmers, usufruct farmers (who use state land under rent-free loan), the self-employed and small businesses. Of the state sector workforce, 52%, or 1.6 million workers, are in the ‘enterprise sector’, consisting of productive and commercial entities which sell, trade and receive revenues. Since 2014, many workers in the enterprise sector benefited from incentives to increase production, linking pay to performance, removing salary caps, and providing payment in hard currency (Cuban Convertible Peso [CUC] are received by 60% of workers in the sector). The new salary rise does not apply to them, but to the 48% of state sector workers in the budgeted sector. Some groups of workers in the latter, including healthcare workers, received a pay rise in recent years, but others, including the education sector, were left behind. Workers in the political organisations of People’s Power and a group in public administration had not received a pay rise since 2005.

The new salary scale both raises the incomes of the lowest earners (the minimum monthly salary rises from 225 pesos to 400, up from 125 in 2005) and expands the wage differential between these and the highest earners from between 2.9 to 7.5 times. This aims to ‘reverse the pyramid’ so jobs of greater complexity and responsibility, requiring higher qualifications, receive substantially higher remuneration, serving as an incentive to work towards leadership positions. The average monthly salary in the budgeted sector has risen from 634 pesos in June, to 1065 pesos in July; above the 2018 average salary in state enterprises, which was 871 pesos (up from 600 in 2014). Salaries in the budgeted sector are capped at 3,000 pesos; only those earning over 2,500 pay individual income tax. All employees will now pay towards social security; 2.5% for those earning less than 500 pesos and 5% for those above. Social security payments, including some pensions, were last raised in November 2018; pensions were raised again to a minimum of 280 pesos and all those with pensions under 500 pesos see incomes rise.

Challenges: avoiding inflation and increase national production

While celebrated, the salary rise provokes two issues of immediate concern; the danger of inflation (rising prices) and the need to meet the additional costs to the state without exceeding the previously planned deficit (spending above revenue). Inflation will undermine the positive effect of the pay rise, increased purchasing power, to the detriment of all Cubans, not just the beneficiaries. In a market economy, inflation is caused by increasing the supply of money without a concomitant increase in the value of the goods and services produced.

Economy Minister, Alejandro Gil explained that in Cuba’s planned economy, the salary rise should not cause inflation because: (a) the budgeted sector provides free goods and services, so increased salaries cannot push up non-existent sale prices; (b) most retail trade is under state control and subject to administrative controls, that is, fixed or capped prices; (c) the state is not raising wholesale or retail prices, taxes or other payments. Consequently, said Gil, the non-state sector had no excuse for raising prices. Prices in all sectors will be closely monitored and the public was urged to report ‘irresponsible’ and ‘opportunistic’ price raises to authorities to prevent abuses and speculation.

With inflation ‘repressed’, the danger is that as beneficiaries buy more they will quickly exhaust the retails goods currently available, generating scarcity. Already in May 2019 some new limits were introduced for basic foodstuffs purchases following scarcities blamed on the tightening US blockade. To prevent either inflation or scarcity, the Cuban economy must expand the supply of goods and services to the population. Minister Gil revealed plans to develop new and diverse services, like national tourism, which had grown 13% since the start of the year, eating out and communications, including internet access and phone credit.

Although currently excluded from the salary rise, workers in the state enterprise sector can increase their incomes, said Gil, by producing more, but not by charging more. Local development will be fostered on the basis of local resources to meet demand without increasing imports (which bleeds much needed hard currency). Other measures are being designed to retain the hard currency which Cubans receive as pay or remittances, and which is often leaves the country, for example when individuals travel abroad to purchase goods to bring back to Cuba. Instead of prohibiting this, the economy will be directed to meet the demand for such goods and services domestically. New financial services products are being created to encourage savings.

The cost of the salary and pension rise for one year is greater than the 6.4 billion pesos social security budget for 2019 and the planned budget deficit at 6.1 billion pesos. How can the state cover the additional cost without increasing the deficit? The ministers talked in general terms about re-directing investment funds from unimplemented projects and said planned budgets to all entities will be reduced by some 10%, obliging them to prioritise their spending. Meanwhile, all social programmes will be preserved. Some Cubans immediately responded to the news by seeking (re)employment in the state sector, but ministers warned against a return to inflated state sector payrolls stating that only essential workers should be recruited.

Broader economic reforms

The broader economic strategy seeks to strengthen national production and state enterprises, the diversity and quantity of exports, import substitution, productive linkages, self-sufficiency in the municipalities, local development projects, investments, retail trade circulation, agricultural production, food sovereignty and implementation of the housing policy. Diaz-Canel talked about overcoming the obstacles and bureaucracy which Cubans refer to as the ‘internal blockade’ and breaking the pattern of relying on imports. Cuba’s principal imports are food and fuels, which drain billions in hard currency. A critical solution is to increase agricultural production and use of renewable energies. Moving Cuba towards food and fuel sovereignty is a political necessity given the aggressive, extraterritorial imposition of the US blockade. Gil said that the new measures aimed to ‘break the pattern of turning to imports to foster our national industry’; nothing should be imported that could be produced domestically. Cuban workers had long complained about this, he said.

To achieve this, state enterprises will be given more independence in planning, financing, investment, collaboration, and incentives for workers. In turn they must eliminate budget deficits and stop using budgets without proper cost assessments. The ministers talked about replacing ‘administrative controls’ with ‘financial and economic mechanisms’, that is, increasing individual material incentives for workers to expand domestic production, exports and import substitution, essential both to save hard currency and balance the books. Where surpluses rise, bonuses can take workers’ pay up to five times the average salary (currently capped at three times). These measures mean a shift from rigid planning which discourages innovations outside the plan. ‘Anything that increases efficiency must be evaluated for incorporation into the plan’, said Gil. Decentralising the plan implies decentralising access to resources, and so increased autonomy for state enterprises.

State enterprises whose exports exceed the plan will retain all or part of the extra hard currency earnings (after meeting obligations to the state) and can use those funds for essential imports or to pay other national producers. Similarly, non-exporting state enterprises can retain surplus revenues, after payments due to the central fund, and decide how to invest those, including in projects with domestic non-state enterprises and foreign companies. Restrictions on relations between these entities will be removed. Cuban enterprises which supply domestic products and services to foreign businesses operating in the Mariel Special Development Zone will be permitted to retain 50% of their profits. State enterprises will be allowed to sell excess production over their plan in the domestic market. Non-state enterprises may be facilitated to export through arrangements with state entities. The aim is to keep hard currency in the country and foster productive chains in the domestic economy. Other incentives will foster municipal self-sufficiency and increased agricultural productivity.

FINATUR, an existing financial institution in the tourism sector, will provide investment credit directly to enterprises, outside allocations from the Central Fund, to reduce delays and bureaucracy in funding investments. Accordingly, enterprises will be responsible for paying off their own debt to FINATUR. Given US persecution of Cuba’s use of the US dollar, the utility of adopting a crypto currency for commercial transactions is also being evaluated. To prevent the ongoing theft of fuel, GPS will be placed on fuel transporters and the use of digital cards for the purchase of fuels extended.

The National Assembly will discuss the proposed reforms in late July. Díaz-Canel recognised the risks and the importance of the population’s support. ‘In the most difficult times, Fidel and Raul always went to the people.’ This was the essence of the revolution, he said, as the people were the source of wisdom and creation.

The World is Dedollarizing

Peter Koenig

What if tomorrow nobody but the Unites States would use the US-dollar? Every country, or society would use their own currency for internal and international trade, their own economy-based, non-fiat currency. It could be traditional currencies or new government controlled crypto-currencies, but a country’s own sovereign money. No longer the US-dollar. No longer the dollar’s foster child, the Euro. No longer international monetary transactions controlled by US banks and – by the US-dollar controlled international transfer system, SWIFT, the system that allows and facilitates US financial and economic sanctions of all kinds – confiscation of foreign funds, stopping trades between countries, blackmailing ‘unwilling’ nations into submission. What would happen? – Well, the short answer is that we would certainly be a step close to world peace, away from US (financial) hegemony, towards nation states’ sovereignty, towards a world geopolitical structure of more equality.

We are not there yet. But graffities are all over the walls signaling that we are moving quite rapidly in that direction. And Trump knows it and his handlers know it – which is why the onslaught of financial crime – sanctions – trade wars – foreign assets and reserves confiscations, or outright theft – all in the name of “Make America Great Again”, is accelerating exponentially and with impunity. What is surprising is that the Anglo-Saxon hegemons do not seem to understand that all the threats, sanctions, trade barriers, are provoking the contrary to what should contribute to American Greatness. Economic sanctions, in whatever form, are effective only as long as the world uses the US dollar for trading and as reserve currency.

Once the world gets sick and tired of the grotesque dictate of Washington and the sanction schemes for those who do no longer want to go along with the oppressive rules of the US, they will be eager to jump on another boat, or boats – abandoning the dollar and valuing their own currencies. Meaning trading with each other in their own currencies – and that outside of the US banking system which so far even controls trading in local currencies, as long as funds have to be transferred from one nation to another via SWIFT.

Many countries have also realized that the dollar is increasingly serving to manipulate the value of their economy. The US-dollar, a fiat currency, by its sheer money mass, may bend national economies up or down, depending in which direction the country is favored by the hegemon. Let’s put the absurdity of this phenomenon in perspective.

Today, the dollar is based not even on hot air and is worth less than the paper it is printed on. The US GDP is US$ 21.1 trillion in 2019 (World Bank estimate), with current debt of 22.0 trillion, or about 105% of GDP. The world GDP is projected for 2019 at US$ 88.1 trillion (World Bank). According to Forbes, about US$ 210 trillion are “unfunded liabilities” (net present value of future projected but unfunded obligations (75 years), mainly social security, Medicaid and accumulated interest on debt), a figure about 10 times the US GDP, or two and a half times the world’s economic output.

This figure keeps growing, as interest on debt is compounded, forming part of what would be called in business terms ‘debt service’ (interest and debt amortization), but is never ‘paid back’. In addition, there are about one to two quadrillion dollars (nobody knows the exact amount) of so-called derivatives floating around the globe. A derivative is a financial instrument which creates its value from the speculative difference of underlying assets, most commonly derived from such inter-banking and stock exchange oddities, like ‘futures’, ‘options’, ‘forwards’ and ‘swaps’.

This monstrous debt is partly owned in the form of treasury bonds as foreign exchange reserves by countries around the world. The bulk of it is owed by the US to itself – with no plans to ever “pay it back” – but rather create more money, more debt, with which to pay for the non-stop wars, weapon manufacturing and lie-propaganda to keep the populace quiet and in lockstep.

This amounts to a humongous worldwide dollar-based pyramid system. Imagine, this debt comes crashing down, for example because one or several big (Wall Street) banks are on the brink of bankruptcy, so, they claim their outstanding derivatives, paper gold (another banking absurdity) and other debt from smaller banks. It would generate a chain reaction that might bring down the whole dollar-dependent world economy. It would create an exponential “Lehman Brothers 2008” on global scale.

The world is increasingly aware of this real threat, an economy built on a house of cards – and countries want to get out of the trap, out of the fangs of the US-dollar. It’s not easy with all the dollar-denominated reserves and assets invested abroad, all over the globe. A solution may be gradually divesting them (US-dollar liquidity and investments) and moving into non-dollar dependent currencies, like the Chinese Yuan and the Russian Ruble, or a basket of eastern currencies that are delinked from the dollar and its international payment scheme, the SWIFT system. Beware of the Euro, it’s the foster child of the US-dollar!

There are increasingly blockchain technology alternatives available. China, Russia, Iran and Venezuela are already experimenting with government-controlled cryptocurrencies to build new payment and transfer systems outside the US-dollar domain to circumvent sanctions. India may or may not join this club – whenever the Modi Government decides which way to bend – east or west. The logic would suggest that India orients herself to the east, as India is a significant part of the huge Eurasian economic market and landmass.

India is already an active member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – an association of countries that are developing peaceful strategies for trade, monetary security and defense, comprising China, Russia, India, Pakistan, most Central Asian countries and with Iran waiting in the wings to become a full-fledged member. As such, SCO accounts for about half of the world population and a third of the world’s economic output. The east has no need for the west to survive. No wonder that western media hardly mention the SCO which means that the western average public at large has no clue what the SCO stands for, and who are its members.

Government-controlled and regulated blockchain technology may become key to counter US coercive financial power and to resist sanctions. Any country is welcome to join this new alliance of countries and new but fast-growing approach to alternative trading – and to finding back to national political and financial sovereignty.

In the same vein of dedollarization are Indian “barter banks”. They are, for example, trading Indian tea for Iranian oil. Such arrangements for goods to be exchanged against Iranian petrol are carried out through Indian “barter banks”, where currencies, i.e. Iranian rials and Indian rupees, are handled by the same bank. Exchange of goods is based on a list of highest monetary volume Indian trade items, against Iranian hydrocarbon products, for example, Iran’s large import of Indian tea. No monetary transaction takes place outside of India, therefore, US sanctions may be circumvented, since no US bank or US Treasury interference can stop the bilateral trade activities.

At this point, it might be appropriate to mention Facebook’s attempt to introduce a globe-spanning cryptocurrency, the Lira. Little is known on how exactly it will (or may) function, except that it would cater to billions of facebook members around the world. According to Facebook, there are 2.38 billion active members. Imagine, if only two thirds – about 1.6 billion – opened a Libra account with Facebook, the floodgate of libras around the world would be open. Libra is or would be a privately-owned cryptocurrency – and – coming from Facebook – could be destined to replace the dollar by the same people who are now abusing the world with the US-dollar. It may be projected as the antidote to government-controlled cryptocurrencies, thus, circumventing the impact of dedollarization. Beware of the Libra!

Despite US and EU sanctions, German investments in Russia are breaking a 10-year record in 2019, by German business pouring more than €1.7 billion into the Russian economy in the first three months of 2019. According to the Russian-German Chamber of Commerce, the volume of German companies’ investments in Russia is up by 33% – by € 400 million – since last year, when total investments reached € 3.2 billion, the largest since 2008. Despite sanctions which amounted to about € 1 billion combined for 140 German companies surveyed and registered with the Chamber of Commerce, and despite western anti-Russia pressure, Russia-German trade has increased by 8.4 percent and reached nearly € 62 billion in 2018.

In addition, notwithstanding US protests and threats with sanctions, Moscow and Berlin continue their Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline project which is expected to be finished before the end of 2019. Not only is the proximity of Russian gas a natural and logical supply source for Germany and Europe, it will also bring Europe independence form the bullying sales methods of the United States. And payments will not be made in US dollars. In the long-run, the benefits of German-Russian business and economic relations will far outweigh the illegal US sanctions. Once this awareness has sunk in, there is nothing to stop Russian-German business associations to flourish, and to attract other EU-Russian business relations – all outside of the dollar-dominated banking and transfer system.

President Trump’s trade war with China will eventually also have a dedollarization effect, as China will seek – and already has acquired – other trading partners, mostly Asian, Asian-Pacific and European – with whom China will deal in other than dollar-denominated contracts and outside the SWIFT transfer system, for example using the Chinese International Payment System (CIPS) which, by the way, is open for international trade by any country across the globe.

This will not only circumvent punishing tariffs on China’s exports (and make US customers of Chinese goods furious, as their Chinese merchandise is no longer available at affordable prices, or no longer available at all), but this strategy will also enhance the Chinese Yuan on international markets and boost the Yuan even further as a reliable reserve currency – ever outranking the US-dollar. In fact, in the last 20 years, dollar-denominated assets in international reserve coffers have declined from more than 90% to below 60% and will rapidly decline further as Washington’s coercive financial policies prevail. Dollar reserves are rapidly replaced by reserves in Yuan and gold, and that even in such staunch supporters of the west as is Australia.

Washington also has launched a counter-productive financial war against Turkey, because Turkey is associating and creating friendly relations with Russia, Iran and China – and, foremost, because Turkey, a NATO stronghold, is purchasing the Russian S-400 cutting-edge air defense system – a new military alliance which the US cannot accept. As a result, the US is sabotaging the Turkish currency, the Lira which has lost 40% since January 2018.

Turkey will certainly do whatever it can to get out from under the boot of the US-dollar stranglehold and currency sanctions – and further ally itself with the East. This amounts to a double loss for the US. Turkey will most likely abandon all trading in US dollars and align her currency with, for example, the Chinese Yuan and the Russian ruble, and, to the detriment of the Atlantic alliance, Turkey may very likely exit NATO. Abandoning NATO will be a major disaster for the US, as Turkey is both strategically, as well as in terms of NATO military power one of the strongest – if not the strongest – nation of the 29 NATO members, outside of the US.

If Turkey exits NATO, the entire European NATO alliance will be shaken and questioned. Other countries, long wary of NATO and of storing NATO’s nuclear weapons on their soils, especially Italy and Germany, may also consider exiting NATO. In both Germany and Italy, a majority of the people is against NATO and especially against the Pentagon waging wars form their NATO bases in their territories in Germany in Italy.

To stem against this trend, the former German Defense Minister, Ursula von der Leyen, from the conservative German CDU party, is being groomed to become Jean-Claude Juncker’s successor as President of the European Commission. Mr. Juncker served since 2014. Ms. Von der Leyen was voted in tonight, 17 July, with a narrow margin of 9 votes. She is a staunch supporter of NATO. Her role is to keep NATO as an integral part of the EU. In fact, as it stands today, NATO is running the EU. This may change, once people stand up against NATO, against the US vassal, the EU Administration in Brussels, and claim their democratic rights as citizens of their nation states.

Europeans sense that these Pentagon initiated and ongoing wars and conflicts, supported by Washington’s European puppet allies, may escalate into a nuclear war, their countries’ NATO bases will be the first ones to be targeted, sinking Europe for the 3rd time in 100 year into a world war. However, this one may be all-destructive nuclear – and nobody knows or is able to predict the damage and destruction of such a catastrophe, nor the time of recovery of Mother Earth from an atomic calamity.

So, let’s hope Turkey exits NATO. It would be giant step towards peace and a healthy answer to Washington’s blackmail and sabotage against Turkey’s currency. The US currency sanctions are, in the long run, a blessing. It gives Turkey a good argument to abandon the US dollar and gradually shift towards association with eastern moneys, mainly the Chinese Yuan, thereby putting another nail in the US-dollar’s coffin.

However, the hardest blow for Washington will be when Turkey exits NATO. Such a move will come sooner or later, notwithstanding Ms. Von der Leyen’s battle cries for NATO. The breaking up of NATO will annihilate the western power structure in Europe and throughout the world, where the US still maintains more than 800 military bases. On the other hand, the disbanding of NATO will increase the world’s security, especially in Europe – for all the consequences such an exit will bear. Exiting NATO and economically exiting the US-dollar orbit is a further step towards dedollarization, and a blow to US financial and military hegemony.

Finally, investments of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also called the New Silk Road, will be mostly made in Yuan and local currencies of the countries involved and incorporated in one or more of the several BRI land and maritime routes that eventually will span the globe. Some US-dollar investments may serve the People’s Bank of China, China’s Central Bank, as a dollar-divesting tool of China’s huge dollar reserves which currently stands at close to two trillion dollars.

The BRI promises to become the next economic revolution, a non-dollar economic development scheme, over the coming decades, maybe century, connecting peoples and countries – cultures, research and teaching without, however, forcing uniformity, but promoting cultural diversity and human equality – and all of it outside the dollar dynasty, breaking the nefarious dollar hegemony.

Reason Why West Is Determined To Ignore China’s Success

Andre Vltchek

It used to be comical, but suddenly it is not, anymore. In the past, blind hatred towards China could had been attributed to ignorance, or at least to indoctrination by the Western propaganda and mass media outlets.

But now? China’s tremendous leap forward, its excellent, humane social policies and determined people-oriented scientific research, as well as its march towards a so-called “ecological civilization” are well-documented, to the point that if anyone really wants to know, he or she has plenty of opportunities to learn the truth.

But it appears that very few want to learn. At least very few in the West.

China is seen negatively in almost all Western countries and their satellites.While surveys in places like Africa, where China intensively interacts with the people, helping them to break the chains of dependency on their neo-colonialist masters from Europe and North America, clearly indicate that it is admired and liked.

Last year (2018), a survey by the influential Pew Research Center (“Five Charts on Global Views of China”) established that China is viewed mostly positively in non-Western countries: 67% in Kenya where China is involved in substantial infrastructural and social projects, 61% in the most populous African nation – Nigeria, 70% in the Arab country of Tunisia, 53% in the Philippines, despite the fact that there, the West has been fueling a dispute over the islands in the South China Sea, and 65% in Russia, which is now the closest Chinese ally.

In the U.K., 49% of citizens see China positively, 48% in Australia, but only 39% in Germany and 38% in the United States.

But what is truly shocking, is the attitude of the West towards the leadership of China’s President – Xi Jinping – a determined thinker who is leading China towards true socialism with Chinese characteristics; almost eliminating extreme poverty (by the year 2020, there should be no pockets of misery left, anywhere on the territory of the PRC), and who is putting culture, a high quality of life, ecology and the general well being of the Chinese people above economic indicators.

Conservative, anti-Communist Poland leads the pack: only 9% Poles “have confidence” in the leadership of President Xi. 11% of Greeks, 14% of Italians and 15% of Spaniards. That says something about Europe, as even in Canada, the number is 42%, and in the United States – 39%.

Is it truly just ignorance?

When interviewed by various Chinese media outlets, I am often asked the same question: “Why are we constantly criticized in the West, while we try to play by the rules, and doing our best to improve the planet?”

The answer is obvious: “Precisely for that reason.”

*

Some 20 years ago, China and its socialist project, were still in the ‘unfinished stage’. There were big differences in standards of living, between the urban areas in the east, and the countryside. Transportation was inadequate. Pollution in the industrial cities was very, very bad. Tens of millions of people were trying to migrate from the countryside to the cities, in search of jobs and a better living, putting great strains on the social system of the nation.

Those who did not like China, had plenty of ‘ammunition’, when criticizing it then. The country was moving forward, but the task to make it prosperous, clean, and healthy, appeared to by Sisyphean.

What followed was an absolute miracle, unprecedented in human history. Only the Soviet Union before the WWII registered greater growth and improvement of the standards of living of its people, than China did in the two last decades.

Everything in China changed. Its cities became clean, green, ecological, full of public parks, exercise machines for adults and children. Urban centers are now overflowing with a first class public transportation (all ecological), with impressive museums, concert halls, excellent universities and medical centers. Subsidized super-high trains are connecting all major cities of the country. In Communist China, everything is planned by the government and by the Communist Party, and the private sector is there to serve the nation, not vice versa. It works. It works remarkably well. Citizens have much more say about how their country is governed, than those in the West.

Cities are clean, efficient, built for the people. No beggars and no slums. No misery. Things are getting better and better.

Foreigners who come to China for the first time are shocked: China looks much wealthier than the US or UK. Its streets, its airports, its metro systems, high-speed trains, theatres, sidewalks, parks,easily put those in New York of Paris to shame.

But, it is not rich. Far from it!China’s GDP per capita is still relatively low, but that is precisely what makes “socialism with Chinese characteristics” so impressive and superior to the Western capitalism fueled by imperialism. China does not need to have average incomes of some $50,000+ per capita to prosper, to give its people an increasingly great life, to protect the environment, and to promote great culture.

Could it be, that this is precisely why the West is shaking in fear?

The West, where economic growth is everything, where people live in constant fear, instead of optimistic hope for the future. The West, where trillions of dollars and euros are wasted annually, so the elites can live in bizarre luxury and preside over irrational, unnecessary over-production and arms accumulation, which bring no well-being to the majority.

China and its central planning are offering a much better and logical system, for its citizens and for the world.

Most of its science is geared to the improvement of life on this planet, not for cold profits.

President Xi’s brainchild –BRI – is designed to lift up billions of people world-wide out of poverty, and to connect the world, instead of fragmenting it.

So why is President Xi so much disliked in Europe?

Could it be, that it is precisely because of the gigantic success of China?

*

Back to the previous point: 20 years ago, China had enormous social and environmental problems. The Westerners who did not like Communist Party of any type, would come and point fingers at things: “You see, Shanghai and Shenzhen are now prosperous, but look at other cities on the coast: see the contrast?”

Then the cities on the coast, all, began improving, planting parks, universities, metros, beautiful streets.

Criticism from the West continued: “Now leave the coast, go west, and you will see how unequal China is!”

Eventually, the west of China improved so much, that there was virtually no difference between the quality of life in the cities there, and on the coast.

“It is all so cynical,” the rant went on: “the difference between the cities and the countryside is so huge that peasants are forced to abandon their villages and seek jobs in the big cities.”

Under the leadership of President Xi, the entire countryside received an enormous overhaul. Transportation, medical services, educational facilities and job availability improved so much, that in 2018, for the first time in modern history, people began migrating back from the cities to the countryside.

Now what? What next? “Human rights?” Not much to trash, anymore, if one sees with eyes open.

But the better China becomes, the more it cares about its people, as well as people all over the world, the harder it gets attacked.

Not one “Wow!” from Western regime and its mainstream media. Not one “China is now leader of the world in ecology, social policies, science, and virtually everything public.”

Why?

The answer is obvious and unfortunately depressing: It is because the West does not want China and its president to succeed. Or if the succeed, it has to be hushed. The two systems are so different, that if China’s one is correct, the Western one is wrong.

And the West is not searching for a concept that is good for the world. It only wants its own concept to survive and dominate the planet. Full stop.

That is why China is so popular in the countries which want to save their people from misery, and to build new, better societies. That is why China is smeared and disliked, even hated, in the West and in a handful of countries outside the West, where Westerners and their descendants are both ruling and controlling the mass media (Argentina).

On a positive note, despite the determined and vicious propaganda being spread by Western and West-controlled mass media outlets, many more people have confidence in President Xi, than in the U.S. President Donald Trump, who inspires only 27% of the people all over the world.

Food Scandals and Agrochemicals: Time to Put Public Need Ahead of Private Greed

Colin Todhunter

Mad cow disease is a fatal epidemic neurological syndrome created by the agricultural industry, farmers and food processors explains Rosemary Mason in her new fully referenced report on pesticides and mad cow disease (it can be read here). 

In 1987, an epidemic of a fatal neurological disease in cows suddenly appeared in Britain. Cows became uncoordinated, staggered around, collapsed and finally died. The disease was called Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) because there were holes in the brain where prion protein cells became folded, had linked up and then split to cover the surface of the brain. There were more than 1,300 cases of BSE spread over 6,000 farms.

For at least 40 years, infected slaughterhouse carcasses had been rendered down and recycled into animal feed. Not wanting to waste anything, pressure cooking of the spinal cord and brain produced a sludge known as ‘mechanically-recovered meat’. The regulators allowed it to go into meat products. This processed meat and bone meal was turned into a coarse powder and was fed back to cows. Cows are herbivores and this way they were turned into cannibals.

By 1990, BSE had spread into 14 other species, including cats. Politicians, the food industry, media, the government, farmers and vets said BSE couldn’t jump species to affect humans and it was safe to eat beef. Advertisements were taken out in newspapers and politicians were shown eating steak tartare in the Houses of Parliament to boost the sales of beef. At an agricultural show, the Agriculture Minister John Gummer was seen offering a beef burger to his daughter.

In 1995, the first human under 40 contracted what became known as new variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (new vCJD, related to BSE and belonging to the same family of diseases). By March 1996, there were five cases and the government was forced to alter its advice. Kevin Maguire, a journalist, was lunching with someone in Westminster who said that scientists had discovered that ‘mad cow disease’ could jump species and had been found in humans.

Maguire said that it was a scandal in an effort to get every penny out of a carcass. His newspaper, ‘The  Mirror’, was the first to break the news to the public, saying that humans could catch mad cow disease from eating infected beef and that the government was about to do a U-turn by finally accepting that the brain wasting disease may have been passed to people. This U-turn by ministers – who for 10 years had insisted it was impossible – was a devastating indictment of the British government and probably one of the worst examples of government since the war.

During 1996, 10 more cases of new vCJD in people under 40 were diagnosed. All died within 13 months and there was no cure. In 2005, the authorities thought the disease was over, but in 2009, a case was discovered in a 30-year-old man. Another case appeared four years later. Today, people are living with uncertainty, not knowing if they are incubating new vCJD.

The parents of children who had died from new vCJD said “We trusted government advice.” Each Christmas one mother had sent an e-mail to those she thought responsible with a photograph of her daughter and said your actions have deprived me of my daughter. Another parent from Scotland who had lost his 30-year-old son to the disease had tattooed on his arm the name of his son followed by: ‘murdered by greed and corruption’.

In the documentary ‘Mad Cow Disease: The Great British Beef Scandal’, first broadcast on BBC 2 on 11 July 2019, Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University London, said:

“New Variant CJD is not a natural disease. It is an epidemic we have created. If the agricultural industry hadn’t decided to feed cattle with meat and bone meal, if the food processors hadn’t decided to scrape every last bit of flesh off the carcass, and if MAFF [govt ministry] hadn’t prioritised farming over food safety, all of the people who died would still be alive. This is the tragedy.”

The following is taken from a publication compiled by the European Environment Agency, ‘Late lessons from early warnings’ (Patrick van Zwanenberg and Erik Millstone):

“Many of the UK policy makers who were directly responsible for taking policy decisions on bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) prior to March 1996 claim that, at the time, their approach exemplified the application of an ultra-precautionary approach and of rigorous science-based policy-making. We argue that these claims are not convincing because government policies were not genuinely precautionary and did not properly take into account the implications of the available scientific evidence.

“… It is, however, essential to appreciate that UK public policy making was handicapped by a fundamental tension. The department responsible for dealing with BSE has been the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), and it was expected simultaneously to promote the economic interests of farmers and the food industry whilst also protecting public health from food-borne hazards. The evidence cited here suggests that because MAFF was expected simultaneously to meet two contradictory objectives it failed to meet either.”

The UK introduced legislation banning the use of contaminated ruminant protein for use in ruminant feed in 1988. By then, a million cows had entered the food chain. At the height of the scandal, British beef had lost around 60% of sales. Prior to the ban, microbiologist Stephen Dealler challenged the government’s claim over safety and was moved from his research lab.

However, Britain continued to export meat and bone meal to Europe. The European Commission asked the UK to introduce an export ban on feedstuffs, but the UK refused to do so. It was not until 1996 that the EC banned these exports.

From mad cows to GMOs and pesticides

Where glyphosate (and other agrochemicals) and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are concerned, we again see commercial interests being prioritised and the public interest sidelined. Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup was originally sprayed on crops in 1980 and on grazing land in 1985 (recommended by Monsanto scientists). GMOs entered the commercial market in the US in the 1990s. As shown in the report mentioned in the introduction to this article, the authorities did not heed the advice of key scientists and went ahead regardless.

Readers are urged to consult the report as it documents the duplicity that underpins the agrochemical/GMO agritech sector and describes how science and regulatory processes have been corrupted. In Britain, the government is saying that GM crops and Roundup are safe and intends to introduce these crops after Brexit. And in India too, the push to introduce GM food crops and their associated chemical inputs into the nation’s field is intensifying.

Of course, heavily compromised industry-funded scientists and other lobbyists say the science is decided on GM and that glyphosate is safe. They say anyone who rejects this is anti-science and doesn’t care about world hunger because we can only feed the world by rolling out more GM crops and more agrochemicals. But this is little more than propaganda and emotional blackmail, part of an industry strategy designed to tug at the heartstrings of public opinion and sway the policy agenda.

We need to turn to author Andre Leu who has outlined major deficiencies in pesticide safety protocols. He offers a more realistic appraisal:

“… it is a gross misrepresentation to say that any of the current published toxicology studies can be used to say that any of the thousands of pesticide products used in the world do not cause cancer or other diseases… there is no evidence that pesticides are safe.”

Washington State University researchers recently found a variety of diseases and other health problems in the second- and third-generation offspring of rats exposed to glyphosate. In the first study of its kind, the researchers saw descendants of exposed rats developing prostate, kidney and ovarian diseases, obesity and birth abnormalities. The study’s authors say:

“The ability of glyphosate and other environmental toxicants to impact our future generations needs to be considered and is potentially as important as the direct exposure toxicology done today for risk assessment.”

And where GMOs are concerned, they are little more than a flawed technological panacea that ignores the structural causes of malnutrition and hunger. GM food crops are regarded as the second coming of the Green Revolution. But just how successful was that?

We must look no further than the poisoning of Punjab (the cradle of the Green Revolution in India) and its sustained use of chemical pesticides, insecticides and fertilisers, which has continued unchecked; and despite claims about the Green Revolution having increasing productivity and saved countless lives, emerging evidence shows that in India it saved zero lives and that food productivity per capita showed no increase or actually went down.

An increasing number of prominent reports and voices are now arguing that we do not need toxic chemicals to feed the world and that if we maintain our economic and agricultural course we are headed for disaster. FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva recently called for healthier and more sustainable food systems and said agroecology can contribute to such a transformation.

Moreover, the new report from the UN  High Level Panel of Food Experts on Food Security and Nutrition – Agroecological and other innovative approaches for sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhance food security and nutrition – argues that food systems are at a crossroads and profound transformation is needed. Many high-profile reports and figures have been saying similar things for years.

Mad cow disease did not just suddenly appear from nowhere. It was created by humans, particularly the farming industry and food processors. The British government kept on maintaining that eating beef was perfectly safe. A scientist who spoke out was silenced. The interests of the beef industry were paramount.

Evidence suggests there could soon be a second wave of cases affecting humans. It will be among people with a genetic predisposition towards longer incubation periods than the first patients had. This genetic predisposition is shared by half the British population. Over 200 have contracted and died of vCJD.

But that number is dwarfed when it comes to the spiralling rates of certain diseases and conditions that we now see across the world. This too hasn’t happened for no reason. It is in large part a consequence of a globalised neoliberal food regime that relies on unhealthy food processing practices and inputs and a chemical-intensive model of farming that has seen a narrowing down of the range of crops consumed by humans.

It is disconcerting that various governments seem oblivious to the need of the hour and remain intent on pursuing an obsolete neoliberal, water-polluting, soil degrading, health destroying, unsustainable model of food and agriculture.

And all for what? Not to feed the public but to feed the profit motives of corporate interests.

Plastic waste from foreign nations dumped in East Java village

Owen Howell

Since last year a small rice farming village in East Java called Bangun has become a dumping ground for global waste. Piles of recyclable waste cover the streets and hide houses from view. Whole paddy fields are blanketed in huge heaps of rubbish which grow higher and wider each day as delivery trucks from Surabaya offload tonne after tonne of foreign shipments.

When China announced in January 2018 that it would no longer import the bulk of the world’s recyclable waste, developed nations began to look for other offshore dumping grounds. The government ban on imports of 24 types of waste material was prompted by noticeable pollution in water and air, due to the nature of the recycling process and poor residual waste management.

Several Western countries export recyclables as a cheap alternative to onshore processing, thus shoving the problem elsewhere at the economic and environmental expense of poorer nations. For years, they had relied on China’s recycling industry and were suddenly faced with a serious dilemma. The “solution” was to redirect the exports to South East Asia.

Channel News Asia reported that between 2016 and 2018 plastic waste imports in South East Asia grew by a staggering 171 percent. The Ocean Conservancy lobby revealed in a study that Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam were now among the top five countries in the world that were throwing plastic into the sea, with China at number one.

Because of laws in ASEAN nations prohibiting the importation of recyclable plastic, Western countries sent their unwanted plastic, along with other non-recyclable items, concealed within shipping containers of scrap paper. However, in recent months, local custom officials have cracked down and are examining these containers more closely on arrival. If discovered to be hiding illegal plastic materials, they are returned to their countries of origin.

Malaysia has promised to return 450 tonnes of contaminated paper waste and outlined a total ban on plastic imports to be put into effect within the next three years. At least 100 unregulated plastic recycling plants appeared across Malaysia in response to the enormous influx of nearly half a million tonnes of plastic in the first half of last year.

Last month the Philippines sent 69 shipping containers back to Canada after a long diplomatic row over violations of import rules. The containers were stored on the docks for five years before the Trudeau administration finally agreed to compromise with the Philippine government.

In answer to this growing catastrophe, the UN attempted in May to implement greater control over waste exports, by making an amendment to the Basel Convention. It was a treaty that controlled the movement of hazardous waste from one country to another and required exporters to gain the explicit consent of the importers. Without delay, 187 countries agreed to the new UN amendment.

The amendment, however, was soon proven to have little effect on the Western powers seeking to offload their plastic waste.

Indonesia received five containers from the US in June, contaminated with plastic and various other materials. Last Tuesday customs officials in Surabaya found that eight containers from Australia were concealing a range of plastics and household wastes including aluminium cans, plastic drink bottles, electronic devices and used nappies. In addition, the same Surabaya port is now investigating 58 containers from the US and Germany suspected to be holding plastic. Last week, customs officials on Batam Island announced their rejection of 49 containers from the US, Australia, France, Germany and Hong Kong.

Indonesia witnessed a massive rise in imported waste following the ban in China: from 10,000 tonnes per month in 2017 to 35,000 tonnes per month in 2018, according to the Jakarta Post. In Java, starting from last year, every day 40 to 50 trucks bring about 75 tonnes of waste to villages in Mojokerto Regency, of which Bangun is just one.

Bangun is an obvious destination for the dumping of this waste because it is home to four paper mills. The biggest, PT Pakerin, pays villagers to sort through the waste and separate paper from plastic. The factory workers come to collect the paper, while the villagers sell the plastic to tofu factories to be processed into industrial fuels. Any unwanted plastic is burnt on the banks of the Brantas River.

Previously impoverished peasants, most Bangun residents have sold their farms and currently work as waste collectors for the paper mills. The Indonesian government has allowed the flow of rubbish into the village to continue as locals are now dependent on waste sorting. On average they earn around 700,000 rupiah ($US50) a day, a large increase on their previous income.

One resident named Giman, 56, explained to Tribun Jatim reporters that the money made from plastic waste has fulfilled everyday necessities previously denied to him and his neighbours: “You can eat every day… you can enrol your children in school until S2 [Master’s degree].”

The villagers were dismayed to hear of the government’s decision to reject containers holding plastic waste. East Java governor Khofifah Indar Parawansa visited Bangun and declared that the provincial government “must provide a solution for the choice of new income options for residents.” This is nothing more than a token gesture.

The health impact of huge piles of plastic waste in Bangun is already becoming evident. The waste has already polluted the Brantas River, the source of drinking water for millions of Javanese people. Environmental research organisation Ecoton found that 80 percent of its fish are contaminated with microplastics. Further, it is widely known that plastic, when exposed to sunlight over time, can release gases that contribute to global warming.

Around 300 million tonnes of plastic are produced every year, much of it being dumped in landfills or the sea. The World Socialist Web Site wrote last year: “Plastics are wonderful, highly useful materials. Their reckless disposal, however, is a major factor in the environmental degradation and climate change that threaten devastating consequences for humanity and all life on Earth.”

Publico reports Spanish intelligence facilitated 2017 Barcelona terror attack

Alex Lantier 

In an explosive report, the news site Publico alleges that Spain’s National Intelligence Center (CNI) intensively followed the Islamic State (IS) terror cell that carried out the August 17, 2017 Barcelona attacks, up to the day of the attack itself. Far from arresting the cell before it carried out the attacks, which left 21 dead and 130 wounded, the CNI let them proceed. Officials at CNI headquarters then tried to delete the file on cell leader Abdelbaki Es-Satty as investigations of the attack began.

The Publico report constitutes prima facie evidence of criminal behavior at top levels of the Spanish state—abetted by intelligence agencies of other NATO powers that launched the Islamist proxy war in Syria from which IS emerged. NATO governments and major US and European press outlets have reacted with deafening silence.

The Publico report, based on documents provided by the CNI to police officials investigating the attack and interviews with the police and CNI, begins by detailing how Es-Satty’s links to the CNI became known. The Barcelona attack was triggered unexpectedly, when Es-Satty accidentally blew himself up at a safe house in Alcanar where the cell was building bombs. Their cover blown, the cell’s survivors quickly decided to drive a truck over pedestrians on Barcelona’s La Rambla avenue. Several died later, in a shoot-out with security forces in Cambrils.

In the ruins of the Alcanar house, investigators found a sheet of paper with an email login, adamperez27177@gmail.com, and password, PEREJUAN18. According to Publico, “For investigators who discovered this message, there was no doubt that Es-Satty’s CNI handler had created an email address to communicate with him.”

The Gmail account, of which Publico provides screen captures, contained two draft emails “in perfect Spanish.” The first, dated May 24, 2017, says: “I see you were able to log in, you just have to leave me a message like this one as a draft and I will read it. You can already start writing things. Thank you my friend.” The second says: “Do you have nothing to write or is it that you cannot? Today is Monday, June 19.”

Es-Satty was known to the CNI, which confirmed three months after the Barcelona attacks that he was an informant. Born in Morocco in 1973, he had first travelled in 2002 to Spain, where he was detained on human-trafficking charges. He cooperated with Operation Chacal, an investigation of the 2004 Al Qaeda bombings in Madrid, and was later jailed from 2010 to 2014 for trafficking hashish. In prison, he shared a cell and reportedly established a “special friendship” with 2004 Madrid bomber Rachid Aglif.

NATO intelligence knew Es-Satty was linked with Al Qaeda activity at the highest levels. French intelligence and the CNI had jointly concluded after Operation Chacal that the 2004 Madrid attacks were carried out with explosives paid for with hashish. According to CNI documents provided to police investigators and cited by Publico, “Satty was seen by the Penitentiary Institutions (IP) as an Islamist, proving himself to be radical from the beginning of his term in the Castellon prison.”

Nonetheless, according to the Publico report, the CNI aggressively covered for Es-Satty. When he was brought before a judge for deportation after his prison term, his lawyers had documents that the judge considered proof that he was “firmly based” in Spain—even though much of his time in Spain had been spent in prison on drug trafficking charges. Publico states that its intelligence “sources maintain that the CNI fixed up the recommendations and authorizations that opened the doors for Es Satty to be admitted as an imam in Ripoll.”

While protecting Es-Satty, the CNI and other agencies on both sides of the Atlantic devoted massive resources to monitoring his cell. Perhaps the most remarkable documents revealed by Publico concern the CNI’s intensive surveillance of young, inexperienced members of the cell who went to France just before the attacks. French officials confirmed they were involved in this surveillance.

Publico says these documents “emerged due to an editing error of the secret services, revealing that on the eve of the Las Ramblas massacre, Spanish spies were monitoring and transcribing all the conversations (on their mobile phones) of the people who carried out the killings.”

Omar Hichamy and Younes Abouyaaquoub, the man who drove a vehicle through the crowds on Las Ramblas, travelled to Paris on August 11-12, 2017. The CNI noted the highways on which they travelled, and the times when they arrived in various Paris neighbourhoods and approached different monuments, including the Eiffel Tower. It notes that the two bought a camera for €129 at the Fnac-St. Lazare store. The two phone calls they made during the trip were analysed in detail.

A CNI document published by Publico reports, “The calls proceeded through the phone numbers linked to Omar and Younes (34600314111 and 34612526378), but they ended up being both times between Mohamed Hichamy and Younes Abouyaaquoub, who shortened his sentences in order not to reveal his concrete activities.”

Claims the CNI was unaware that these youth were involved in a terror plot do not hold water. The CNI devoted an extraordinary level of surveillance to these two youth, who had no criminal record. The CNI, Publico writes, was “listening to and transcribing all conversations between those young Muslims, who were not supposedly yet related to any jihadist plot—executing the most exhaustive possible intelligence controls, which require considerable material and human resources.”

A few days before, moreover, US agencies had given Madrid detailed reports that the cell was preparing attacks. On July 31, 2017, agents of Exeintel, a private US agency whose Twitter account says it provides “actionable intelligence” that will “only be accessible to law enforcement,” chatted online with Abouyaaquoub. They then sent a “red alert” notice to Madrid, reporting that he had clumsily bragged that his cell was preparing terrorist attacks.

The daily El Nacional posted screen captures of their internet chat with Abouyaaquoub, who wrote: “We must attack several small towns, when all the police come to us to move to another place and to move to another place and to attack it. They won’t be able to defend themselves from us.” Exeintel subsequently pulled the screen capture images from its website.

Nonetheless, the CNI simply kept monitoring the cell, even as it assembled chemicals and metal scrap to make bombs and then, after the Alcanar explosion, decided on a new attack. “The Spanish secret service continued watching and monitoring the terrorists until the very same day of the attacks on Las Ramblas,” Publico writes, adding, “It was not until the morning after the massacre that the Es-Satty file was deleted from the CNI’s central register.” Such a deletion, Publico reports, can only be done from central CNI headquarters in Madrid,

This account underscores the links between NATO agencies and Islamist terrorists, developed over the now eight-year war in Syria, underlying all the IS attacks in Europe. The Charlie Hebdo and November 13 attacks in 2015 in Paris, the March 22, 2016 bombings in Brussels, the Christmas 2016 attack in Berlin and the 2017 bombing in Manchester all were carried out by networks closely monitored by intelligence agencies.

These attacks were then used to justify far-reaching police-state measures. These ranged from the crackdown on the G20 protests in Hamburg and the lockdown of Brussels, to the intensification of police powers around the French state of emergency, which culminated in the deployment of the army against “yellow vests” protesting social inequality. The Spanish events underscore how these unpopular attacks on basic democratic and social rights proceeded based on state criminality.

The CNI failed to stop the Es-Satty cell’s attacks as Madrid sought a justification to impose martial law before the Catalan independence referendum of October 1, 2017. State officials were dismayed when mass protests erupted in Barcelona, denouncing state complicity in the attack. The brutal police crackdown on the independence referendum was followed by a vast shift to the right in official politics: show trials of Catalan nationalist political prisoners, the rehabilitation of Spain’s 20th century fascist dictator, Francisco Franco, and the promotion of the pro-Francoite Vox party.

No credible explanation has been given until now for the CNI’s failure to act to halt the attacks. Last year, the PSOE and the right-wing Citizens and Popular Party vetoed calls for investigations of the CNI’s role in the attacks in the Spanish Congress. The question that is posed is whether the CNI and allied intelligence agencies allowed these attacks to proceed in order to provide, via criminal means, a pretext for attempts to impose a fascistic regime in Spain and across Europe.