Iranian Protesters & Government Supporters Clash At World Cup
Rival sets of Iranian protesters have been confronting each other at the World Cup in Qatar, and a moment anti-government demonstrations and unrest has been raging inside Iran for over the past two months.
Tensions spilled over in and outside the stadium for Iran’s 2-0 win over Wales on Friday. As the AP and ESPN reported, “fans supporting the Iranian government harassed those protesting against it and stadium security seized flags, T-shirts and other items expressing support for the protest movement that has gripped the Islamic Republic.”
Stadium security reportedly cracked down on any flags or symbols seen as undermining the officially recognized Iranian state, including preventing fans from carrying Persian pre-revolutionary flags into the venue, Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium.
In some cases pro-government supporters were seen trying to rip signs or imagery with protest slogans from the fans holding them. Some groups were heard chanting “Woman, Life, Freedom” during the match.
Controversy was unleashed when during a previous game the Iranian team appeared not to participate in the singing of Iran’s national anthem, while during Friday’s game that changed as the players sang.
The Associated Press observed further of Friday’s scenes in the stadium:
Small mobs of men surrounded three different women giving interviews about the protests to foreign media outside the stadium, disrupting broadcasts as they angrily chanted, “The Islamic Republic of Iran!”
Many women fans appeared shaken as Iranian government supporters shouted at them in Farsi and filmed them close-up on their phones.
Inside the stadium, a woman with dark red tears painted from her eyes held aloft a football jersey with “Mahsa Amini – 22” printed on the back — a reference to the 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman whose death in police custody two months ago ignited the nationwide protests in Iran, a Reuters photo showed.
A CNN report from earlier this month cited a human rights monitor to say that at least 326 people have been killed since the start of what’s been dubbed the “anti-hijab” protests.
Tehran says dozens of police and security services personnel have also been killed, and has accused “rioters” of being part of a foreign-backed plot to topple the government.
Meanwhile, there have also been tensions more broadly between local Arabs and the presence of Israelis at the World Cup:
A Saudi football fan confronting an Israeli journalist. The look on the journalist’s face should tell you everything about the situation. No amount of “Peace Deals” will normalize Israel in the region. It was, is and will forever be Palestine. pic.twitter.com/CgwDamLubL
Oil futures and swaps globally are increasingly showing signs of easing supply concerns and resurfaced concerns about further weakness in crude oil demand.
The prompt spreads in the U.S. benchmark, WTI Crude, are already in contango, signaling enough near-term supply. Brent Crude front-month to second-month futures prices also dipped into contango earlier this week.
Contango is the state of the market in which prices for delivery at later dates are higher than prompt prices—a market situation signaling oversupply and one which traders use to store oil for delivery at a later date. The opposite market situation—backwardation—typically occurs at times of market deficit and in it, prices for front-month contracts are higher than the ones further out in time.
Another oil market metric closely followed for signs of demand in the key oil-importing region, Asia, is the premium of Oman futures over Dubai swaps. That premium dropped on Thursday to below $1 per barrel – compared to a premium of over $15 a barrel in March this year – signaling much softer demand. The premium has fallen by around 80% in November alone, according to Bloomberg’s estimates.
So far this month, oil prices have dropped amid growing fears of economic slowdown and spiking Covid infections in China, where some forms of restriction on mobility have returned in nearly 50 large cities.
China is registering near-record numbers of new Covid infections daily—close to the April 2022 peak when the financial center Shanghai was under lockdown for weeks—likely depressing fuel demand as 48 Chinese cities currently have some form of restrictions on movements.
According to analysts at Nomura, as of Monday, areas accounting for almost 20% of China’s GDP were suffering from the latest Covid restrictions. China’s rising Covid cases and the return of restrictions have weighed on oil prices this month as the market fears another slowdown in Chinese economic growth and fuel demand, on top of global recession fears.
People who have been reading my blog and listening to my podcast for years know that I hold a special disdain for the idea that markets can, and should, only go up.
On more than one podcast, and in more than one article, I’ve noted that this fallacy is just one of many nefarious concepts that I believe do a major disservice to the average investor.
When these otherwise illogical concepts are dumbed down to be made digestible to the average investor, it casts a signal that the financial industry, and the media that peddles it, are simply too embarrassed or incapable of leveling with the American public about the innerworkings of monetary policy and markets.
Rather than take concepts like the market only going up – which, when observed casually, sound ridiculous to even the most uninitiated market participants – and deliver them with a straight face, they are instead broadcast with a zany, sensational, insulting ethos that the industry thinks resonates better with the American public.
This is how we wound up with Jim Cramer – and why Cramer’s deadpan admission of market manipulation, caught on video, has gone mostly unnoticed and without consequences – but his show where he routinely rings bells and whistles while screaming, panting loudly and sweating profusely, WWF-style, is celebrated.
In addition to giving us the poor man’s stock market infotainment, financial media has also given us an unlimited number of “easily digestible”, yet equally as inane and useless acronyms, which conveniently help do away with critical thinking about investing when employed.
For example, Jim Cramer coined the term “FANG” year ago, which was an acronym for “Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google”.
While Cramer was trying to just be cute for beginner investors, the acronym – eventually adopted by mainstream media – sent another message: stock market investing is so easy, we don’t even need to decouple these names from one another anymore.
After all, Cramer talked about these companies so much that it was just easier to refer to them by one name, saving him time whenever he wanted to recommend or talk about these securities, but not necessarily the entire NASDAQ (despite the fact that these are completely different companies with completely different valuations).
But when referred to by their acronym, which is easy to remember by retail investors, where they went one, they went all.
The market for retail investors has been so similarly dumbed down and gamified with acronyms like ESG, FOMO and BTFD and stock ticker symbols like YOLO, HERO, BOOM and FUN, it has never been easier for retail investors to dump their money into an overpriced flaming bag of dog shit with a clever name than it is now.
But one of the most odious examples of dumbing down already idiotic Wall Street Keynesian thinking to retail investors has been the annual tradition of rooting for a “Santa Claus Rally”. Once used to describe the rally at the end of December heading into the new year, this term is now used by the financial media to describe any stock market rally that happens, for any reason, at the end of the year, on any given year.
Rather than being used to describe a rally that is taking place for legitimate means, the term has now taken on a life of its own over the last decade and has gone from a label to a reason that markets rally. The tail, in other words, is wagging the dog, despite the fact that everybody knows there’s no really good reason to buy stocks just because it’s the end of the year.
Everybody knows that companies are cyclical and everybody knows that holidays result in more sales for many companies. It’s safe to say that this century-old tradition has already been priced into stock markets.
So what, exactly, is a “Santa Claus Rally”?
In reality, it’s nothing – it’s a gimmick, like “FANG” – or to quote Chasing Amy – “a figment of your f*cking imagination!”
The “Santa Claus Rally” is nothing more than an easily understood analogic vessel that Keynesians in the financial media use to continue to implant the idea that the market should always go up into the minds of novice investors. It’s the anti-fundamental analysis, and it’s all wrapped up with images of everybody’s favorite holiday – a time of joy, cheer, prosperity, family and friends: Christmas.
That’s right: it’s a gimmick so nefarious, it invokes the time of year when people feel most complete. I mean, what do people look for from an investment? They look for financial security so as to live comfortably. And when do most people feel the most comfortable and secure? Around the holidays.
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But this year I’m calling it the “Santa Pause Rally” – not just because of how toxic the saying is to begin with, but because, as we have been figuring out the hard way for the last 9 months, there really is no reason for random celebration in markets right now.
Markets, and our economy, are in absolutely unprecedented waters right now, with our central bank stuck in a minefield of catch-22s that they can’t get out of without collapsing the economy or letting inflation run rampant. Thus, new paradigms in how investing and markets work are being written daily – and none of them include random stock rallies just because the financial media says so. That shit may have flown when volatility was at all time lows and the world financial and geopolitical order wasn’t in disarray – but that’s hardly the case today.
If 2018 wasn’t a stark enough reminder that the “Santa Claus Rally” is complete and total bullshit (recall, markets collapsed after slow and steady 25 bps rate hikes totaling barely 3%), this year should be.
Above: 2018’s “Santa Claus Rally”
I’m not saying that the market won’t rally at the end of the year, but what I am saying is that any rally we undergo will more than likely be a bear market rally and be short lived. I am sticking by my analysis that, as we speak, there is a 400 basis point pipe bomb making its way through the economic plumbing of the nation, just waiting to blow up and tank markets on any given day.
At the very least, hopefully this reminder of the idiocy not only of monetary policy, but of Wall Street naming conventions used to feed the hogs, serves to arrest any remaining mindless optimism mainstream media-watchers have heading into the end of the year.
There’s no way to say it without playing into the criticisms that I’m nothing but a fear mongering permabear, but I honestly believe there isn’t really anything to look forward to heading into the end of 2022 with markets or the economy.
All this market wants for Christmas is a soft landing, but instead, it’s almost certainly going to be getting a lump of coal over the next six months.
When that happens – or the next time some lobotomized television anchor uses the “Santa Claus Rally” notion – I beg of you to return to this piece and read the following paragraph, provided in bold font for your visual convenience.
Using cute names and anecdotal slogans does nothing to help educate mom and pop investors about monetary policy, which is the main driving force behind the nation’s current inflationary crisis. This dumbing down of markets and the economy will also be the reason behind any forthcoming panic in markets or economic depression for our country, as shock will be amplified due to investors believing things are better than they actually are. These terms are used as vessels in order to further an extremely misguided policy agenda that has gotten us into this mess to begin with – they put exceptional looking gift wrap on financial lumps of coal.
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Foxconn Riot Could Cut China iPhone Production By More Than 30%
Apple’s top manufacturing partner, Foxconn Technology Group, is set to see November iPhone shipments from a massive factory in Zhengzhou, China, known as iPhone City, plunge after a week of unrest, Reuters said, citing a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
They said iPhone production would be slashed by more than 30% at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant in November versus an earlier estimate of up to 30% when problems at the factory began in late October.
Most of the 200,000-person workforce has been living in isolation since last month. New hires were brought in recently as management wanted to keep churning premium iPhone models, including the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro.
But Foxconn failed to live up to its promises of higher pay for new hires, which sparked a riot across the world’s largest iPhone factory earlier this week. To squash the violence, Foxconn began distributing 10,000 yuan ($1,400) to newly recruited workers to leave by Thursday.
“The source said more than 20,000 workers, mostly new hires not yet working on production lines, took the money and left,” Reuters said.
The Zhengzhou plant accounts for 70% of global iPhone shipments, and a reduction in production will ripple through the supply chain. Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, is Apple’s top supplier, which means any manufacturing disruption in China could leave AT&T, Best Buy, and Verizon stores without iPhones.
Another source said it’s “impossible” for Apple to resume full iPhone production by the end of the month.
ODDO BHF, a Franco-German financial services group, said even if Apple shifts production to other plants, “the impact will probably be significant, as long as these protests are continuing in Zhengzhou, with significant delays to be expected for the iPhone 14.”
Foxconn acknowledged it made errors in managing new hires while blaming local officials for unpredictable health policies that impacted meal delivery and made maintenance nearly impossible, according to Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the company.
“You see cases like Foxconn, and every company is now asking themselves, ‘Will that happen to me?’
“Any company that depends on manufacturing has to consider alternatives. It will be costly, but it will be less costly than only relying on China and then China doesn’t open up,” Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia Pacific economist at Natixis, said.
In early November, Foxconn revised its earning expectations down for Q4 on zero Covid disruptions at the assembly facility, while Apple warned iPhone capacity would be reduced. After chaos this week, more downward revisions could be ahead.
Biden Admin Reverses Trump Ban On Chevron Pumping Venezuelan Crude
Update(1355ET): On Saturday the White House unveiled a monumental shift in its Venezuela policy, given only a short time ago Washington didn’t even officially recognize Nicolás Maduro as the socialist Latin American country’s legitimate ruler, announcing the easing of oil sanctions which allows Chevron to pump Venezuelan crude and export it to the United States.
Chevron was forced to halt all drilling there just under three years ago due to Trump administration sanctions, also amid a US policy that recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as “interim president”.
Bloomberg confirms following the fresh White House statement, “Chevron received a six-month license that authorizes the company to produce petroleum or petroleum products in Venezuela, according to a general license from the US Treasury Department. The San Ramon, California-based driller is also allowed to resume exports of crude oil that had been been halted since 2019, when the US ratcheted up sanctions against the OPEC producer.”
OIL MARKET: Washington eases its oil sanctions on Venezuela, allowing Chevron (for the next 6 months) to pump crude in the Latin American nation and export it into the United States. A major shift in the White House policy | #OOTT#Venezuela$CVX 🇻🇪 ⛽️ 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/fM1F6lOtJ2
It was in April 2020 that Chevron was ordered by then President Trump to “wind down” its oil fields in Venezuela, which also meant withdrawing or decommissioning its extensive machinery and infrastructure there.
For this reason Chevron’s CEO Mike Wirth recently estimated it would take “months and years in order to begin to maintain and refurbish fields and equipment and change any investment activity.” For this reason many are seeing the White House’s conditional six month license as a completely unrealistic timetable and constraint.
Deal is a joke
1. Need billions and a lot more time than 6 mos to squeeze more oil out of that country due to neglected infrustructure
2. VZ govt will get no proceeds under deal. Maduro will not be pleased. US is hoping for “free and fair elections” for this acc. to NY Times.
Chevron as the last major US oil company to operate there had before the oil embargo invested in Venezuela’s oil fields and machinery over the last century to the tune of an estimated$2.6 billion.
* * *
As Dave DeCamp of AntiWar.com previewed earlier, the US might soon grant Chevron a license to pump oil in Venezuela in a move that would ease crippling sanctions that were imposed on the South American country by the Trump administration.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the easing of sanctions is contingent on the implementation of a $3 billion humanitarian project that is expected to be announced by President Nicolas Maduro and his opposition this weekend. The project would be paid for with Venezuelan funds that have been seized by the US.
The license Chevron would be granted would still be limited as it would allow the oil company to regain partial control of its oil production in Venezuela, but it won’t be able to build new facilities until debts are repaid.
The Trump administration began imposing harsh sanctions on Venezuela in 2017 and really ramped them up in 2019 when the US recognized opposition figure Juan Guaido as “interim president” and backed a failed coup attempt against Maduro.
The US continued to increase sanctions on Venezuela following the failed coup and the country is essentially under an economic embargo.
The Journal report said that the license for Chevron would put the company under a framework of sanctions similar to the ones that went into effect in 2019.
This paragraph is remarkable. This Chevron license will yield no income for Venezuela, yet it’s supposed to be a “plum” for the Maduro govt? Plus notice the headline “Chevron to boost Vzla’s output” like the corporate overlords will be doing Venezuela a favor! pic.twitter.com/qrBWcarv9x
US sanctions on Venezuela have had a devastating impact on the civilian population, but the Biden administration’s steps to ease sanctions are likely an effort to keep global oil prices down.
The move comes as the US and its allies are planning to implement a price cap on Russian oil that could backfire and cause Russia to significantly cut production.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said he could not recall key details about his actions during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to one of the officials who questioned him on Nov. 23.
Fauci, the director National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984 and President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, was deposed by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, both Republicans.
“It was amazing, literally, that we spent seven hours with Dr. Fauci—this is a man who single-handedly wrecked the U.S. economy based upon ‘the science, follow the science.’ And over the course of seven hours, we discovered that he can’t recall practically anything dealing with his COVID response,” Landry told The Epoch Times after leaving the deposition. “He just said, ‘I can’t recall, I haven’t seen that. And I think we need to put these documents into context,’” Landry added.
“It was extremely troubling to realize that this is a man who advises presidents of the United States and yet couldn’t recall information he put out, information he discussed, press conferences he held dealing with the COVID-19 response,” Landry added later.
Fauci and NIAID did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Landry declined to provide more details about the deposition until it is made public, which will happen at a future date. But he said officials would be able to take some of what they learned to advance their case.
Landry and Schmitt sued the U.S. government in May, alleging it violated people’s First Amendment rights by pressuring big tech companies to censor speech. Documents produced by the government in response bolstered the claims. U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, the Trump appointee overseeing the case, recently ordered Fauci and seven other officials to testify under oath about their knowledge of the censorship.
Doughty concluded that plaintiffs showed Fauci “has personal knowledge about the issue concerning censorship across social media as it related to COVID-19 and ancillary issues of COVID-19.”
While Fauci qualified as a high-ranking official, the burden of him being deposed was outweighed by the court’s need for information before ruling on a motion for a preliminary injunction, Doughty said.
Wednesday was the first time Fauci testified under oath about his interactions with big tech firms, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Before the deposition, Landry said in a statement, “We all deserve to know how involved Dr. Fauci was in the censorship of the American people during the COVID pandemic; tomorrow, I hope to find out.”
“We’re going to follow the evidence everywhere it goes to get down to exactly what has happened, to get down to the fact that our government used private entities to suppress the speech of Americans,” Landry told The Epoch Times.
Jenin Younes with the New Civil Liberties Alliance, another lawyer representing plaintiffs in the case, said that Fauci claimed he did not worry about a document called the Great Barrington Declaration.
Penned in October 2020, the document called for focused protection on people most at-risk from COVID-19 while rescinding the harsh restrictions that had been imposed on children and others at little risk from the disease. Two of its authors, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff, are plaintiffs in the case.
“I have a very busy day job running a six billion dollar institute. I don’t have time to worry about things like the Great Barrington Declaration,” Fauci said, according to Younes.
Fauci, though, has spoken multiple times about the declaration.
In internal emails that were later published, Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins, Fauci’s former boss, both criticized the declaration. “There needs to be a quick and devastating published takedown of its premises,” Collins wrote, prompting Fauci to send him a Wired magazine article he claimed “debunks this theory.”
In another missive, obtained by The Epoch Times through a Freedom of Information Act request, Fauci said the declaration reminded him of AIDS denialism.
Fauci also talked about the declaration in public, including defending his criticism during a congressional hearing in May.
“I have come out very strongly publicly against the Great Barrington Declaration,” Fauci wrote to Dr. Deborah Birx in another email.
Other Depositions
The government moved to block some of the depositions, but not Fauci’s. It just won an order blocking the depositions of Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly, and Rob Flaherty, a deputy assistant to Biden.
Similar efforts to block the depositions of former White House press secretary Jen Psaki and FBI official Elvis Chan have been unsuccessful.
Chan is scheduled to answer questions next week. Psaki is scheduled to be deposed on Dec. 8.
Chan was involved in communicating with Facebook, LinkedIn, and other big tech firms about content moderation, according to evidence developed in the case and public statements he’s made. Psaki publicly said while still in the White House that platforms should step up against alleged mis- and disinformation.
Plaintiffs have already deposed several officials including Daniel Kimmage, an official at the State Department’s Global Engagement Center.
That center worked with Easterly’s agency to create a coalition of nonprofits called the Election Integrity Partnership, which pushed social media companies to censor speech.
Kimmage was also responsible for meetings during which censorship was discussed, with State Department official Samaruddin Stewart acting on his orders, according to documents produced by LinkedIn.
Balenciaga Sues Producers Of ‘BDSM Teddy Bear’ Pedophilic Ad Campaign
Fashion company Balenciaga has filed a $25 million lawsuit against the producers of a pedophilic ad campaign that included BDSM teddy bears, a child pornography court ruling, and books from an author whose works depict nude children and occult rituals.
The Balenciaga ad is disgusting. Toddlers posing with BDSM sex toys and alcohol. Hiding in plain sight a Supreme Court case involving a federal child porn law… Stop sexualizing kids to sell your ugly overpriced crap. #Balenciagapic.twitter.com/hTNJ4TD6od
The fashion house – (which we assume had to have at least signed off on the ‘BDSM bear’ imagery) – is suing production company North Six, Inc. and set designer Nicholas Des Jardins over the inclusion of documents from a US Supreme Court decision on child porn laws, the NY Post reports.
Balenciaga is bringing the case “to seek redress for extensive damages defendants caused in connection with an advertising campaign Balenciaga hired them to produce,” the Manhattan Supreme Court summons alleges.
Balenciaga claims North Six and Des Jardins included the images of the court docs without its knowledge – which was “malevolent or, at the very least, extraordinarily reckless,” the filing states. -NY Post
“As a result of Defendants’ misconduct, members of the public, including the news media, have falsely and horrifically associated Balenciaga with the repulsive and deeply disturbing subject of the court decision,” reads the lawsuit. “Defendants are liable to Balenciaga for all harm resulting from this false association.“
So – the BDSM teddy bear photos (plural) that Balenciaga obviously signed off on, meh. But the inclusion of a Supreme Court ruling Easter egg which essentially says that distributing child porn is legal as long as it’s not obscene, damaged the company’s brand? Sure.
Tucker Carlson Asking WTF Is Going On With Disturbing Balenciaga Ad Involving Children pic.twitter.com/ue1GGhkTM7
#Balenciaga had this Michael Borremans book laying out in the office desk to the side of red-head model… look at these themes yall… can’t make this up even if I tried!!! pic.twitter.com/GaFACxtviJ
The company issued an apology, and announced that the bear ads had been pulled.
“We sincerely apologize for any offense our holiday campaign may have caused. Our plush bear bags should not have been featured with children in this campaign. We have immediately removed the campaign from all platforms,” the company said in a statement on Instagram, along with an apology for “displaying unsettling documents in our campaign.”
Photographer Gabriele Galimberti said in an Instagrampost that had no control over the “direction of the campaign and the choice of the objects displayed.”
“Following the hundreds of hate mails and messages I received as a result of the photos I took for the Balenciaga campaign, I feel compelled to make this statement.
I am not in a position to comment Balenciaga’s choices, but I must stress that I was not entitled in whatsoever manner to neither chose the products, nor the models, nor the combination of the same.
As a photographer, I was only and solely requested to lit the given scene, and take the shots according to my signature style.
As usual for a commercial shooting, the direction of the campaign and the choice of the objects displayed are not in the hands of the photographer.
I suspect that any person prone to pedophilia searches on the web and has unfortunately a too easy access to images completely different than mine, absolutely explicit in their awful content. Accusations like these are addressed against wrong targets, and distract from the real problem, and criminals.
Also, I have no connection with the photo where a Supreme Court document appears. That one was taken in another set by other people and and was falsely associated with my photos.
Gabriele Galimberti”
Balenciaga severed their ties with @kanyewest due to a tweet.
Yet they expect us to just “accept their apology” after they get caught up sexualizing children?
They’re not apologizing because they’re sorry. They’re apologizing because they got caught.
COVID Lockdown Protests Erupt In Beijing, Xinjiang After Deadly Fire
Protests have erupted in Beijing and the far western Xinjiang region over COVID-19 lockdowns and a deadly fire on Thursday in a high-rise building in Urumqi that killed 10 people (with some reports putting the number as high as 40).
Crowds took to the street in Urumqi, the capitol of Xinjiang, with protesters chanting “End the lockdown!” while pumping their fists in the air, following the circulation of videos of the fire on Chinese social media on Friday night.
2/ one significant trigger for the protest was a deadly fire in a resident building.
dozens people died due to lockdown setting stopped fire fighters and fire engines coming inside the block. pic.twitter.com/26soQld816
Protest videos show people in a plaza singing China’s national anthem – particularly the line: “Rise up, those who refuse to be slaves!” Others shouted that they did not want lockdowns. In the northern Beijing district of Tiantongyuan, residents tore down signs and took to the streets.
3/ protestors from Urumqi were singing China‘s national anthem while waving a flag.
Quite common in China’s protest，we call it ‘举着红旗反红旗‘ wave the flag while against it.
Its a self-protraction meaning ’ i am against a policy not the nation/CCP‘. pic.twitter.com/XqworKWUnb
Reuters verified that the footage was published from Urumqi, where many of its 4 million residents have been under some of the country’s longest lockdowns, barred from leaving their homes for as long as 100 days.
In the capital of Beijing 2,700 km (1,678 miles) away, some residents under lockdown staged small-scale protests or confronted their local officials over movement restrictions placed on them, with some successfully pressuring them into lifting them ahead of a schedule. –Reuters
According to an early Saturday news conference by Urumqi officials, COVID measures did not hamper escape and rescue during the fire, but Chinese social media wasn’t buying it.
“The Urumqi fire got everyone in the country upset,” said Beijing resident Sean Li.
A planned lockdown for his compound “Berlin Aiyue” was called off on Friday after residents protested to their local leader and convinced him to cancel it, negotiations that were captured by a video posted on social media.
The residents had caught wind of the plan after seeing workers putting barriers on their gates. “That tragedy could have happened to any of us,” he said.
By Saturday evening, at least ten other compounds lifted lockdown before the announced end-date after residents complained, according to a Reuters tally of social media posts by residents.
On Nov 23, when a fire broke out in #Urumqi , people’s doors were locked from outside. Fire truck couldn’t get closer either( see my previous tweet). The latest figure says 44 were burnt to death, including a 3 y/o kid. That’s one of the reasons for today’s protests. pic.twitter.com/s4E0JHk4wQ
Bill Ackman, billionaire founder of hedge fund Pershing Square Holdings Ltd., wrote on Twitter Nov. 24, “By holding put options, we have a large nominal short position on the Hong Kong dollar.” He said that the linked exchange rate system no longer makes sense for Hong Kong. It is just a matter of time before the Hong Kong dollar decouples from the U.S. dollar for good.
Ackman also said in the post, “Given the continuous decoupling of China and the United States in recent years, we find it particularly surprising and embarrassing that China continues to peg the Hong Kong dollar to the U.S. dollar.” His tweet also mentioned Richard Cookson’s special report on Bloomberg, which discussed the pressure on Hong Kong because of it was pegged to the U.S. currency.
This is a very thoughtful piece and I agree. We have a large notional short position against the Hong Kong dollar through the ownership of put options. The peg no longer makes sense for Hong Kong and it is only a matter of time before it breaks. https://t.co/efp62TuB03
His tweet attracted widespread attention from both inside and outside financial circles.
Accordingly, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) responded by saying that Hong Kong neither needs nor intends to change the linked exchange rate system. After nearly 40 years in operation, the linked exchange rate system has worked well in the face of massive capital flows. Regarding doubts from time to time raised by individual market players about the linked exchange rate system, most of them are based on misunderstandings of the system, or based primarily on their own fund positions, the HKMA does not make comment on such personal views.
Ackman later posted two more tweets to continue his question: “If China is indeed a strong, independent, sovereign state, why does it need to peg the Hong Kong dollar to the U.S. dollar?” He pointed out that until the very last moment before it actually happens, all sovereign states will say they will never do that (decouple).
If China is indeed a strong, independent sovereign, why does it need to peg its currency and that of Hong Kong’s to the US dollar?
The linked exchange rate system has been implemented in Hong Kong since October 1983. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority is responsible for keeping the local currency within a range of 7.75 to 7.85 HK dollar to that of the United States.
The U.S. Federal Reserve started its current rate hike cycle at the beginning of 2022, and due to the continued weakness of the Hong Kong dollar it hit the weak-side convertibility guarantee repeatedly.
According to the Linked Exchange Mechanism, the HKMA has undertaken 41 Hong Kong dollar sell orders since May 12, totalling HK$242.082 billion (about $31 billion). Liquidity has thus shrunk by more than 70 percent in six months, based on the aggregate balance of the banking system of around HK$337 billion (about $43 billion) in mid-May.
US-Backed Kurds Say White House Has “Moral Duty” To Shut Down Erdogan Offensive
For a week Turkey has been conducting major airstrikes against Kurdish militia positions in Syria and Iraq, as it blames the outlawed PKK and associate Kurdish groups on the November 13 terror bombing in Istanbul.
President Erdogan has warned a ground operation is imminent, which will begin “at the most convenient time for us” – while Turkish warplanes have pounded some 500 targets, leading to reported deaths of over 250 people.
A statement from a White House National Security Council spokesperson has said, “The escalation in Syria and along the Turkish-Syrian border in recent days is dangerous and a threat to the safety of civilians and U.S. personnel in Syria.”
And yet the White House has also asserted that NATO ally Turkey has a “right to defend themselves”. But the Kurdish PKK and Syrian YPG have rejected the accusation that they had anything to do with the deadly Istanbul bombing, instead saying ISIS was behind it.
The commander of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Gen. Mazloum Kobane Abdi, has said Ankara is using it as a pretext to launch an offensive against the Kurds along the Syrian border, further warning that Turkey is pursing a policy of ethnic cleansing. He explained to Axios on Wednesday that “Turkish warplanes struck a military base that the U.S. military shares with these Kurdish fighters outside Qamishli about 30 miles from Turkey’s border.”
That’s why Gen. Abdi is saying the US has a “moral duty” to intervene with Erdogan and in defense of Kurdish allies. He’s urging Washington and his Pentagon backers to do more to halt the potential ground invasion and aerial offensive.
Mazloum says Turkey’s strategy has been to announce an operation, conduct some preparations, then test the reactions of the U.S. and Russia.
“I believe once they [Turkey]see there is no strong opposition from the main players they will go ahead,” Mazloum says. “We believe the reactions are not enough yet to stop the Turks from launching this operation.”
It’s expected that a new Turkish operation would be the largest since 2019, when Turkish troops seized and occupied a significant amount of Syrian territory.
“I want the American people to show the same position they showed back in 2019 when we were again under stress from the Turks,” he said. “We are again now under threat of being ethnically cleansed here by the Turks.” Gen @MazloumAbdihttps://t.co/F1QAiVKY0S
“We have been bearing down on terrorists for a few days with our planes, cannons and guns,” Erdogan said in a Tuesday speech. “God willing, we will root out all of them as soon as possible, together with our tanks, our soldiers.”
Russia has meanwhile warned against a new Turkish incursion into Syria. “We understand and respect Turkey’s concerns about ensuring its own security. We believe this is Turkey’s legitimate right,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “At the same time, we call on all parties to refrain from steps that could lead to the destabilization of the overall situation,” he added.
