While there have been more than 60 confirmed cases of a new mystery virus emerging from Wuhan, China, UK experts estimate that closer to 1,700 have been sickened with the SARS-like pneumonia, according to the BBC. Meanwhile, SCMP reports three suspected cases in Shenzhen, Shanghai.

"I am substantially more concerned than I was a week ago," disease specialist Prof Neil Ferguson told the outlet.

The work was conducted by the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London, which advises bodies including the UK government and the World Health Organization (WHO). -BBC

The estimate was calculated by the Imperial College of London based on the following assumptions:

Wuhan International Airport has a catchment population of 19 million individuals [1].

Here is the reconstruction of the story:

[Speaker of the Council of Representatives of Iraq] Halbousi attended the parliamentary session while almost none of the Sunni members did. This was because the Americans had learned that Abdul-Mehdi was planning to reveal sensitive secrets in the session and sent Halbousi to prevent this. Halbousi cut Abdul-Mehdi off at the commencement of his speech and then asked for the live airing of the session to be stopped. After this, Halbousi together with other members, sat next to Abdul-Mehdi, speaking openly with him but without it being recorded. This is what was discussed in that session that was not broadcast:

Abdul-Mehdi spoke angrily about how the Americans had ruined the country and now refused to complete infrastructure and electricity grid projects unless they were promised 50% of oil revenues, which Abdul-Mehdi refused.

The complete (translated) words of Abdul-Mahdi’s speech to parliament:

Hong Kong medical experts believe that the viral pneumonia outbreak in the central Chinese city of Wuhan may be a result of a new kind of coronavirus, similar to that which causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a viral respiratory illness that killed hundreds in 2003.

Wuhan’s health commission has confirmed that seven of the 59 patients are very ill, but none of them have died. All 59 patients have been quarantined. The commission has also said that it has traced around 163 people who had close contact with the patients and will continue tracing other contacts.

Global Times English edition reportedly quotes China shouldn't be in a hurry to sign the Phase One Agreement.

A Chinese delegation will likely travel to Washington next week to sign the agreement, experts said. However, specific dates for the delegation's departure and the signing ceremony are unclear.

As of press time, Chinese officials have not publicly announced details regarding the trip and the signature of the phase one agreement. US officials have been releasing differing information concerning the deal.

US President Donald Trump said in a tweet on December 31 that he will sign the phase one deal at the White House on January 15, and that high-level representatives from China will be present. Chinese officials have not publicly confirmed the US president's announcement.

This past year witnessed the United States nearly go to war with Iran in the Persian Gulf, after a summer of 'tanker wars' and the September Saudi Aramco attack, but now it appears the new year will witness a superpowers balancing act of sorts play out in the region.

FT reports of an unprecedented development in the gulf region:

Russia, China and Iran launched their first joint naval exercises in the Gulf of Oman on Friday in a direct challenge to US influence in the Middle East. The move reflects growing co-operation between the US’s two main rivals and the Islamic republic, which is under sanctions imposed by Washington.

In op-eds carried by several media outlets, China’s ambassador Bai Tian denounced ‘Western’ reports of abuses in Xinjiang.

But the commentaries in English, Chinese and Malay have backfired, causing outrage online and among the country’s leading Muslim intellectuals.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad last October released 11 Uygurs who had been jailed under the previous administration, disregarding China’s request to extradite them to Beijing. Photo: APMalaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad last October released 11 Uygurs who had been jailed under the previous administration, disregarding China’s request to extradite them to Beijing. Photo: AP
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad last October released 11 Uygurs who had been jailed under the previous administration, disregarding China’s request to extradite them to Beijing. Photo: AP

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper is interested in seeing a substantial reduction in troops and operations ongoing in Western Africa, with the troops being redeployed to areas closer to Russia and China.

This comes, ironically, amid speculation about the Islamist factions in the Sahel, and suggestions this might be a growing priority for the US. Esper, however, has made much of wanting to have more troops directly lined up against Russia and China for “Great Power” competitions.

Among the pullouts in West Africa would be ending US operations in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. The end of US involvement in Niger would include abandoning the $110 million drone base that the US just got finished building and bringing into operation.

After West Africa, the plan is that the US will also draw down forces in Latin America, and subsequently then cut troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, all as part of a new pivot to Eastern Europe and the Pacific.

As a result of this ‘trade war’ China has let the yuan slide versus the USD which is a warning to Trump, specifically Mnuchin, popularly known as one of the most slippery dealers (IndyMAC and One West) to ever walk the earth (and China knows that). China is hoping that a lower yuan will offset tariffs just as the US has ‘weaponized’ the dollar and has imposed sanctions and tariffs on China. Because the sums are so vast with China holding so much US debt, and because China depends on exports to the west, China is somewhat boxed in.

China has condemned the inauguration of the newest branch of the US military, the Space Force, describing its creation as a threat to peace that endangers global stabilit
y.
Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters on Monday that Beijing was "deeply concerned" and "resolutely opposed" to the Space Force, which received its first funding after US President Donald Trump signed the annual military budget last week.

The Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said Washington's new military branch sets a dangerous precedent for the militarization of outer space.

The specific US actions are a serious violation of the international consensus on the peaceful use of outer space, undermine global strategic balance and stability, and pose a direct threat to peace and security in outer space.

He called on the international community to "adopt a cautious and responsible" approach to space, in order to prevent it from becoming a conflict zone

Tesla, which supposedly has lots of cash in the bank and tons of working capital (just ask David Einhorn), is tapping a group of Chinese banks for a relatively small $1.4 billion USD, five year loan, for the company's Shanghai plant. Part of the loan will be used to roll over an existing loan, according to Reuters.

Among the banks participating in the loan are China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.

Earlier this year the banks had offered Tesla an even smaller 12 month facility of 3.5 billion yuan (about $475 million USD) that comes due in March of 2020. The new loan will help Tesla roll over the previous debt and the rest will be used on Tesla's "China operations".

Bloomberg has compiled a list of long-time China watchers that are warning about an extended slowdown.

George Magnus, a research associate at Oxford University's China Centre and author of "Red Flags: Why Xi's China is in Jeopardy:"

In the spirit of self-criticism, I'd say my best call on the economy was an early spot of the huge demographic shift that kicked off in earnest in 2012, an abiding assertion that China's elevated growth rates could not be sustained, and anticipation of a financial crisis that turned up in 2015-16. Worst call was thinking that crisis might turn into a 'Minsky Moment' for China, as per 2007-08, and failing to integrate properly the tools the state has to prevent catastrophic failure.

In early 2014 Washington staged a blatant coup d’etat in Ukraine breaking the historic relationship with Russia and setting the stage for the subsequent NATO demonization of Russia. The one in charge for the Obama Administration of the Ukraine coup was then-Vice President Joe Biden. Today a bizarre Democrat impeachment attempt aimed at President Donald Trump has curiously enough put the spotlight on the dubious role that Joe Biden played in Ukraine affairs in 2014 and after. That Biden-steered coup had the unintended effect of causing a 180 degree geopolitical pivot of Moscow from West to East. The opening of a massive new gas pipeline now is only one of those unintended consequences.

SOURCE: RIGGED GAME
PAM MARTENS AND RUSS MARTENS OF WALL STREET ON PARADE.
One has to wonder how much money it would take for the New York Fed to throw at Wall Street before the New York Times reports to its readers on the biggest Wall Street bailout by the Fed since the financial crisis.

Last Thursday, December 12, the New York Fed announced that over the next month it would shower the trading houses (primary dealers) on Wall Street with a total of $2.93 trillion in short-term loans. The money is for a Wall Street liquidity crisis that has yet to be explained in credible terms to the American people and yet the New York Times does not appear to have an investigative reporter assigned to investigate what’s really going on just 11 years after those same trading houses blew themselves up in the biggest financial crash since the Great Depression and took the U.S. economy along for the ride.

With North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s New Years’ deadline for resuming negotiations quickly approaching, some Pentagon leaders are fretting that Kim may send the US a “Christmas gift” or possibly ring in the new year with a new long-range missile test. Kim announced a unilateral moratorium on such tests in April 2018.

“A long-range ballistic missile” test is expected before year's end, according to Gen. Charles Brown, commander of Pacific Air Forces and air component commander for US Indo-Pacific Command.

“What I would expect is some type of long-range ballistic missile would be the gift. It’s just a matter of does it come on Christmas Eve, does it come on Christmas Day, does it come after the New Year,” Brown told reporters at a breakfast roundtable on Tuesday, according to The Hill.

According to the PLA Daily, Beijing’s military mouthpiece, the naval aviation unit under the command of the Southern Theatre Command completed an early warning reconnaissance drill in mid-November.

Naval commander Yan Liang told the publication: “Different from the exercises conducted last year on early warning reconnaissance, this drill was much longer in time span, put in a confrontational mode from the start and had an emphasis on night-time training.”

He added: “This kind of drill continuously challenged the limits of our personnel and equipment, and helped strengthen the emergency combat capabilities of the army."

The drill involved one squadron of planes sharing intelligence with a second.

China's second aircraft carrier, the first domestically built one, called the Shandong, was delivered and commissioned by President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, at a commissioning ceremony in Shandong, an eastern Chinese province on the Yellow Sea, on Tuesday, reported China News Service.

Trump who was too much of a coward to put any concessions on the table in Hanoi is blowing up the Korean nuclear freeze. Russia and China are trying to save the freeze, by doing Trump should have done, and remove the very top layer of UNSC sanctions declared in 2017. As the Russians correctly point out Pyongyand should be rewarded for its willingness to talk and to limit and downscale its nuclear capabilities.

Of course, the effort was doomed from the start. US has veto power in the UNSC, so this is an illusion. In fact, as things stand the US and its Western European poodles won’t even let the Russian Chinese-backed proposal be voted on.

Beijing has opened a new front on the internet for its more than a decade-old campaign to shut down a performing arts company whose shows challenge the Chinese regime’s human rights record and cultural identity.

Google search results for the Shen Yun Performing Arts company are steering users toward Chinese regime propaganda. Among the top results are several articles that align with the regime’s talking points or are directly produced by the regime. Other search engines don’t produce these results.

Whether Google is actively seeking to target Shen Yun with the Chinese Communist Party’s viewpoint is not clear. The search engine may itself be manipulated.

Chinese criminals have been flying drones onto farms and infecting perfectly healthy pigs with African swine fever, lowballing the farmer for their sick pigs, and then selling the tainted meat as healthy, according to SCMP, citing China Comment - a magazine affiliated with state news agency Xinhua.

Nobody's leaving; trade war or not, foreign investments are up, especially in the hi-tech sector