Goldman Sachs analysts attempted to address a touchy subject for biotech companies, especially those involved in the pioneering "gene therapy" treatment: cures could be bad for business in the long run.

"Is curing patients a sustainable business model?" analysts ask in an April 10 report entitled "The Genome Revolution."

"The potential to deliver 'one shot cures' is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy, genetically-engineered cell therapy and gene editing. However, such treatments offer a very different outlook with regard to recurring revenue versus chronic therapies," analyst Salveen Richter wrote in the note to clients Tuesday. "While this proposition carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow."

According to documents on the CIA’s very own website, Osama bin Laden was a U.S. intelligence asset named Tim Osman.

Tim Osman (Ossman) was recruited by the U.S. intelligence agency shortly after George W. Bush’s father became CIA director in 1976.

From the September 18, 2001 issue of From The Wilderness (FTW):
“There are direct historical links between Osama bin Laden’s business interests and those of the Bush family. On September 15 I received the following message from Professor John Metzger of Michigan State University:
«We should revisit the history of BCCI, a bank used by the legendary Palestinian terrorist known as Abu Nidal. BCCI was closely tied to American and Pakistan intelligence. Its clients included the Afghan rebels, and the brother of Osama bin Laden, Salem.»?

Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig has been arrested and detained in China without explanation, the Canadian government confirmed Tuesday.

"Obviously we are aware of the situation of a Canadian detained in China," said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on his way into question period Tuesday. "We have been in direct contact with the Chinese diplomats and representatives. We are engaged on the file, which we take very seriously, and we are providing consular assistance to the family."

A written statement from Global Affairs Canada said that because of Canada's Privacy Act, no further information would be disclosed about the case of Kovrig, who until recently served as a Canadian diplomat in China.

Chinese officials have not given an official explanation for Kovrig's arrest.

This is an expanding collection of declassified government documents on UK foreign policy. It includes: original government documents and transcripts, mainly from the National Archives in London; articles by Mark that analyse these declassified files; and online articles that cover such files.

What do these files and articles reveal?

These files highlight a range of British foreign policies since 1945, notably the UK involvement in coups, wars, covert operations, human rights abuses, arms exports, propaganda operations, and support for repressive regimes. They highlight much of the true nature of the UK’s role in the world, and especially reveal the actual interests and priorities of UK policy-makers – Prime Ministers, Ministers, ambassadors and civil servants. Click on the countries and themes below to view the files and articles.

Victims of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who have waged a decade-long fight for justice, on Monday pressed a federal judge to finally take action on their motion to throw out a controversial plea agreement that gave the politically connected multimillionaire immunity from federal prosecution.

Lawyers for Epstein’s victims filed the request in the Southern District of Florida, asking judge Kenneth Marra to either make a decision or set a date for a hearing on the motion to vacate the deal. That request, which many legal experts consider a long shot, has been awaiting his ruling for more than a year.

Epstein, 65, was given what victims’ advocates consider one of the most lenient plea deals for a serial sex offender in history. The New York hedge fund manager faced a possible life sentence for molesting dozens — and perhaps hundreds — of underage girls at his Palm Beach mansion from 2001 to 2006, according to federal court documents.

During his recent closed-door testimony with House Republicans, disgraced former FBI Director James Comey said that Rudy Guiliani leaked sensitive information about the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

Ukraine’s Border Guard Service on Monday accused Russia of effectively blockading the Kerch Strait by subjecting vessels bound for Ukrainian ports to an extremely slow approval process that allows only a few ships to pass per day.

The Kerch Strait connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov and was the scene of a confrontation between Ukrainian and Russian military vessels on November 25.

“The Russian Federation does let the vessels pass, but still, the delay is quite significant. According to our information, there are 104 vessels waiting in line in both directions, set to pass the Kerch Strait,” Oleh Slobodian of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine said on Monday.

“As for the dynamics, the Russian Federation allows access to only a few vessels that are sailing to the Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov. At the same time, those sailing to Russian ports navigate through the Kerch Strait freely,” he added.

If Twitter hasn’t suspended or banned you yet, don’t feel relieved. You may be next.

When Twitter and other big tech companies started banning fringy rightwing characters over the past year or so, few people objected, because even most conservatives weren’t sympathetic to those purged. It’s hard to feel sympathy for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. But once the radicals were banned, it became far easier to ban others.

Now, people tend to talk about public issues mostly on the big tech platforms. Minority viewpoints can use them to get around the mainstream or legacy media. A biased article in The New York Times or The Washington Post is more likely to be challenged by a small website communicating with its readers through Facebook and Twitter, than by a conservative magazine.

Forget soybeans, auto imports, iPhones, crude oil, and cheap Chinese gadgets. Also forget tariffs, duties, and subsidies. Even forget weapons.

The real reason behind the US-China "trade" war has little to do with actual trade, and everything to do with what China's president, Xi Jinping, said when he visited a memory chip plant in the city of Wuhan earlier this year. In a white lab coat, he made an unexpectedly sentimental remark, comparing a computer chip to a human heart: “No matter how big a person is, he or she can never be strong without a sound and strong heart”.

France opened a probe into possible Russian interference behind the country’s Yellow Vest protests, after reports that social-media accounts linked to Moscow have increasingly targeted the movement.

According to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, about 600 Twitter accounts known to promote Kremlin views have begun focusing on France, boosting their use of the hashtag giletsjaunes, the French name for the Yellow Vest movement. French security services are looking at the situation, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Sunday in a radio interview with RTL.

There are many serious issues to address, relevant to current events. Just to skim some of what has happened most recently, the Dow Jones (although a “lagging” indicator) has been extremely volatile within the past month, appearing to be headed toward a loss for the year overall. Spending is down, and the “bubble” of pseudo-consumer confidence prior to Thanksgiving seems to have dissipated.

The main focus: the unrest that is swiftly crossing national borders has a common denominator in France, and now in Belgium and the Netherlands. That common denominator is that of the populace being fed up with the amount of taxation, coupled with the politicos pushing illegal Muslim aliens into nations that have been predominantly Christian for almost a thousand years.

The second deadliest Ebola virus outbreak has now spread to a major city. This spread is complicating already strained attempts at containment in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC.)

There has been a “significant increase” in Ebola infections there over the past three weeks, with a total of 25 confirmed cases thus far, according to Thursday’s bulletin from the country’s health ministry. ABC News reported that the virus has now spread to a major city, Butembo, which is home to almost 1 million people. Butembo is also a key trading and transport hub with links to other major cities in the country as well as to the neighboring country, Uganda. It’s about two times the size of the city of Beni, the outbreak’s epicenter, and is located just 35 miles away. The health ministry said the “high density and mobility” of Butembo’s population presents new challenges to containment efforts, already complicated by sporadic rebel attacks on remote villages in and around Beni.

At a conference in Beijing on Saturday, Chinese officials defended the idea that the People’s Liberation Army must be ready to respond to Freedom of Navigation Operations by the US in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. Their statements follow the recent election defeat of a hostile Taiwanese government in midterm elections.

The Global Times Annual Conference in Beijing on Saturday saw Chinese government and military officials address the precarious military relationship with Washington, especially as it pertains to the South China Sea, where Beijing has taken efforts to expand and secure its territory, and Taiwan, which it views as a wayward, breakaway province.

Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer, Wanzhou Meng, was arrested in Vancouver on 1 December at the request of the US government, which accuses the Chinese tech giant of violating the American sanctions regime against Iran. Sputnik has recalled other notorious arrests made at the behest of Washington.

Having fought to get a deal between the IRA and Britain for over a decade before that was achieved, I can’t see any difference with the current situation in between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East.

Israel is just under a year away from its next election. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, came close to being forced out of office last month when his coalition partner, the defense minister Avigdor Lieberman, resigned his position. Lieberman’s resignation was triggered by Netanyahu’s refusal to launch a more brutal attack against the Palestinians following their alleged rocket attacks against Israel.

The chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei asked a Canadian court to grant her bail in exchange for collateral totaling more than $11million in real estate while promising to fund her own private security detail that would monitor her movements.

Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Huawei and daughter of its founder, was detained at the request of the U.S. during a layover at the Vancouver airport on Dec. 1 - the same day that Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping of China agreed to a 90-day cease-fire in a trade dispute that threatens to disrupt global commerce.

The U.S. has accused Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company to sell equipment in Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.

Two Russian nuclear-capable strategic bombers arrived in Venezuela on Monday, a deployment that comes amid soaring Russia-U.S. tensions.

Russia's Defense Ministry said a pair of Tu-160 bombers landed at Maiquetia airport outside Caracas on Monday following a 6,200-mile flight. It didn't say whether the bombers were carrying any weapons and didn't say how long they would stay in Venezuela.

Radical Jewish groups today called for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to be killed.

Posters placed by the groups at the entrance of the illegal Jewish settlement of Yitzhar near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus were inscribed with a phrase reading “supporter of terrorists” – in reference to Abbas and called for his death.

US-sponsored peace talks between the PA and Israel collapsed in 2014 over Israel’s refusal to halt settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

On Monday, Israeli forces raided Ramallah and the main office of the official Wafa news agency allegedly to find footage of a shooting which injured seven illegal settlers in a nearby settlement on Sunday.

Israel is afraid that India is planning to scrap a $500 million deal of anti-tank missiles claiming that more tests are needed on the arms, Ma’an reported yesterday.

The Marker, an Israeli economic outlet, noted that the Indian deal to purchase Spike anti-tank missiles is facing major difficulties, noting that India wanted the missiles to be better tested.

However, it said: “The real reason for the additional experiments is the claim of the Indian defence that the missiles should be tested in a high-temperature atmosphere.”

Citing foreign reports, the Marker said that India feels worried because the missiles are planned to operate in a hot desert weather.” However, it reported unnamed Israeli officials saying that this request is a sign that India “is looking for an excuse to scrap the deal.”

The 6 December was the first anniversary of US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and that he would move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city. The announcement was cheered by Israel and its supporters for whom international laws and conventions are at best meaningless and at worst an irritant. Trump suggested that this move would help bring peace to the Holy Land. How wrong he was. Anyone but a diehard Zionist would have told him that he was deluded to think this, but nobody in his administration would have done so, because those tasked with developing a peace deal fall into this category.

Last month, Republican members of the House blocked a vote on legislation introduced by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) to end the U.S. role in supporting the Saudi-led war in Yemen. In doing so, House Republicans protected Saudi Arabia from suffering the consequences of growing public concern about the seemingly unconditional U.S. support for Saudi actions. Chief among those actions are the war in Yemen that threatens half the population with famine and the murder and the botched coverup of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

The House GOP’s decision to go to the mat for the House of Saud might be partially explained by the fact that a longtime lobbyist for Saudi Arabia sits in a position to control a significant portion of the party’s campaign-related spending.

A Qatari envoy overseeing the Gulf state's humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip said on Monday that he had proposed building an airport in the blockaded Palestinian enclave but had received no response from Israel.

In coordination with Israel and the United Nations, Qatar has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to various Gaza projects that the partners say are designed to stave off Palestinian poverty and prevent escalations in violence.

"They [Israel] said it would be discussed and they procrastinated... We will renew our request," Qatari Ambassador Mohammed al-Emadi told the Gaza-based news agency SAWA.

"The Israeli side had security concerns and we told them we can resolve them by having the planes fly to Doha and return to Gaza from there and under Qatari security supervision."

A baby born when Robert Mueller started his investigation would be talking by now. But would she have anything to say?

We last looked at what Mueller had publicly—and what he didn’t have—some 10 months ago, and I remained skeptical that the Trump campaign had in any way colluded with Russia. It’s worth another look now, but first let’s give away the ending (spoiler alert!): there is still no real evidence of, well, much of anything significant about Russiagate. One thing that is clear is that the investigation seems to be ending. Mueller’s office has reportedly even told various defense lawyers that it is “tying up loose ends.” The moment to wrap things up is politically right as well: the Democrats will soon take control of the House; time to hand this all off to them.

The UK has long been divided by class, region and race, but these divisions have been masked by political and economic success. This has meant the English, as the dominant nation in the UK, are not good at coping with a sense of failure and a loss of self-confidence.

The current focus is on parliamentary turmoil and the acceptance or rejection of Theresa May’s muted version of Brexit but, whatever happens in the coming weeks, there will be no resolution of the overall crisis. On the contrary, the divisions exacerbated by Brexit will only get deeper and more toxic, dominating the national agenda to the exclusion of everything else.

For 30 years, the United Nations has held an annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on 29 November. The event rarely merited even a passing nod in the mainstream media. Until last week.

Marc Lamont Hill, a prominent US academic and political commentator for CNN, found himself deluged by a tsunami of outrage over a speech he had made at the UN headquarters in New York. He called for an end to Oslo's discredited model of interminable and futile negotiations over Palestinian statehood – a strategy that is already officially two decades past its sell-by date.

In its place, he proposed developing a new model of regional peace based on a single state offering equal rights to Israelis and Palestinians. Under a barrage of criticism that his speech had been anti-semitic, CNN summarily fired him.

An Israel lobby organization is taking “Pacific Northwest Progressive Leaders” to Israel this week on an all-expense-paid propaganda trip to Israel. Another group just returned on December 2nd from a similar trip, officially billed as an “Educational Seminar in Israel for Southern Pacific Progressive Leaders.” No one will divulge the rosters.

The sponsoring organization is the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), a tax-exempt organization that serves as an arm of the powerful Israel lobbying organization AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee).

Roll Call reports that AIPAC and AIEF “share leaders, employees and money.” They also share the same address and phone number.

Europe’s commentators have not been kind to Theresa May after she delayed the meaningful vote on her Brexit deal and dashed to the continent in search of further concessions.

“It’s like a long, slow agony,” wrote Sonia Delesalle-Stolper, the London correspondent for the French daily Libération. “You know the end is near, you expect the worst, then there’s a small flicker of light – before another collapse. And it always ends badly.”

May “blew her last bet”, failing miserably to convince parliament to vote for the withdrawal agreement sealed barely two weeks ago. “Rather than suffer the humiliation, she suspended the vote,” the paper said: “The latest plot twist in the infernal Brexit saga. Chaos is complete.”

Not just France but Europe should hope the tax concessions and minimum wage rise Emmanuel Macron announced on Monday will prove sufficient to quell more than a month of violent and destabilising anti-government protests.

With more than 1,250 people arrested, 400 injured and an economic cost running into billions, the gilets jaunes revolt represents a formidable challenge to the authority of the centrist president, widely seen by his critics as arrogant and out of touch. If he flunks the test, he will not be alone in paying a price.

Macron’s concessions to the Yellow Vests has failed to appease protesters and opposition politicians, such as Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who called for “citizen’s revolution” to continue until a fair distribution of wealth is achieved.
Immediately after French President Macron declared a “social and economic state of emergency” in response to large-scale protests by members of the Yellow Vest movement, promising a range of concessions to address their grievances, left-wing opposition politician Mélenchon called on the grassroots campaign to continue their revolution next Saturday.

One of the world’s largest silver producing countries, China, has announced the discovery of a huge deposit with estimated reserves of at least 1,500 tons.
The deposit was discovered by geologists in Henan Province. It is part of the Zhonghe deposit area, which boasts 280,000 tons of lead and 320,000 tons of zinc, according to the Henan Bureau of Geo-exploration and Mineral Development.

The Prime Minister is surrounded by pro-EU campaigners, staunch Leavers, MPs who want to renegotiate her current deal, others who want to negotiate a totally different deal but the upshot of all this is that we're in for massive constitutional mayhem

Free speech and the ability to speak truth are being shut down. It is happening with the complicity of the print and TV media, the liberal/progressive/left, the US Department of Justice (sic), the law schools and bar associations, Congress, and the federal judiciary.

The attack on Julian Assange is the arrow aimed at the heart of the ability to publish the truth. If a journalist can be indicted for espionage for publishing leaked documents that a corrupt government has classified in order to conceal its crimes, the First Amendment is dead.

ON she staggered, bruised and beggarly, dragging the rest of us along her personal Via Dolorosa.

Theresa May stepped to the despatch box at the precise moment the Commons digital clock clicked 3.33.33 – thirty-three seconds past three thirty-three in the afternoon, yet still an age before voters can be sure their decision to leave the EU will be honoured by a wriggling Parliament.

If there was something Harry Potterish about the hour, there was something weirdly timeless about watching such epic inertia unfold.

Has indecision ever been so dramatic? 'I have listened very carefully,' Mrs May told a packed, quivering Chamber. This won her ripe mockery. She said she had finally decided to 'defer the vote'.

French president Emmanuel Macron tonight announced a range of dramatic Socialist-style financial concessions to struggling workers so as to end an 'economic and social state of emergency'.

In a TV address lasting 12 minutes, he said a month of rioting and blockades justified a €100 (£90) per month increase in the minimum wage, taking it to €1498 (£1360).

This will not 'cost anything to the employer', said Mr Macron, and will be accompanied by all taxes and other charges on overtimes being scrapped.

There were also be an end-of-year bonus that employers can pay without being charged by the government, while taxes on those earning less than €2000 (£1800) will also end on January 1.

Mr Macron also ruled out any return of the Solidarity Wealth Tax, saying that he wanted to stop rich entrepreneurs 'moving abroad', so preventing 'job creation'.

For decades now, working people, tax payers and retirees have been battered by the Green elites who shelter in well-paid tax havens like the UN and Greenpeace.

These Green elites have been supported by fellow travellers like the Clintons, Obama and Hollywood in America; Merkel in Germany; David Cameron, Prince Charles, David Attenborough and the BBC in UK; Macron in France; Gillard, Turnbull, Flannery and the ABC in Australia; the Trudeau dynasty in Canada; plus ranks of pious clerics, scheming oil sheiks, green energy speculators and guilt-stricken big business executives.

.

Workers belonging to the Railway and Transport Union (EVG) went on strike in Nuremberg on Monday morning, causing major delays to train services in the city amid a nationwide action by rail workers.

Wearing yellow vests and carrying banners, strikers descended on Nuremberg’s central station as part of a protest held during the strike.

German workers have expressed sympathy with the mass protests of the “yellow vests” in France. Many workers in Germany share the same grievances and recognise they also confront policies that favour the rich.

These views were revealed when candidates of the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) interviewed workers in several locations on Friday.

In western Frankfurt at the Industriepark Höchst, some 90 companies employ more than 20,000 workers. Here, many workers are following the events in France with considerable attention.

Donald Tusk tonight warned the EU will not renegotiate the Brexit deal just hours after a humiliated Theresa May said she was pulling the crunch vote on her plan so she could hold a fresh round of talks.

The EU council president said 'time is running out' and made it clear the bloc is not willing to change the legal text of the agreement, including the controversial Irish border backstop.

And he delivered a thinly veiled threat by declaring that the EU will be stepping up its preparations for the UK crashing out of the bloc in March.

The intervention came after the PM humiliatingly delayed the Commons vote on her Brexit deal to avoid a catastrophic defeat.

She has pledged to return to Brussels to push for concessions after swathes of Tories signalled they will not support the current package.

Analyst Igor Korotchenko suggested what the purpose of American plans is.

“For the United States, a more or less permanent military presence in the Black Sea [even if it is on a rotating basis, since the Montreux Convention forbids them from having a permanent presence], showing its flag there, is a political issue,” said Korotchenko.

The Ukrainian forces have transferred to Donbass a significant number of aerial drones capable of carrying up to 70 kilos, the military operative command spokesman of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Republic Daniil Bezsonov said on Sunday.

“Our intelligence has received reliable data on the arrival in Horlivka of a train with Warmate-1 and Bayraktar TB2 drones. The latter is a product of Ukraine and Turkey that can carry up to 70 kilos of cargo,” said Bezsonov.

Bezsonov also explained that these attack drones can be used for provocations with the use of chemical weapons and attacks on important sites in the region.

The People’s Militia of the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk (DPR) reported on the concentration of more than 12,000 Ukrainian security forces and 90 units of military equipment in the south of the Donetsk region.

According to the information, in the opinion of the leadership of the RPD, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will start the attack on December 14.

Evidence was obtained on the preparation of an offensive in the region of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol by the Ukrainian military, according to the deputy commander of the RPD People’s Militia, Eduard Basurin, aiming at conquering the regions of Novoazovsk and Telmanovo on the border with Russia.

The European Commission's decade-long tough austerity measures coupled with excessive taxation have resulted in the "yellow vests" movement, Andy Vermaut, a Belgian human rights activist, told Sputnik.

"In reality, the struggle of the Gilet Jaunes [Yellow Vests] is a cry for help from people who struggle every month for existence", said Andy Vermaut, a Belgian human rights activist, emphasising that "working is no longer a guarantee for being able to exist properly" in Europe.

The "yellow vest" protests have engulfed France since November 17 with around 136,000 people having participated in the protests nationwide on December 8, according to France 24 television broadcaster. Meanwhile, the number of those arrested have mounted to over 1,700.

Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews blocked traffic by staging a massive sit in the middle of Zhabotinsky Street in Bnei Brak, Israel.

The rally organised by the movement Yerushalmi Faction, held on a road in the city of Bnei Brak on December 10 was an act of solidarity with similar actions in Jerusalem, protesting over the arrest of Yitzhak Aryeh, who was detained two weeks ago after failing to appear before the IDF draft board.

Demonstrators chanted slogans that have become traditional for such protests: "We will die and not be drafted," according to reports.

An Afghan migrant is the main suspect in the murder case of an Austrian teen. The girl was found murdered by her mother in her room yesterday evening.

The 16-year-old was in her mother’s apartment in the district of Münichholz. She had a visit from her boyfriend, a 17-year-old Afghan citizen.

Seven suspects of a human-trafficking ring have been arrested near Warsaw in a targeted human-trafficking probe.

The Vietnamese-Polish gang is suspected to have illegally transported at least 100 Vietnamese citizens to Western Europe, PAP news agency reveals.

The illegally smuggled people were taken through Russia, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine to Poland and from there to Germany, France and Belgium, the PAP report states.

Further arrests are potential according to prosecutors.

The yellow vests movement has spread to its fifth country, Sweden. Starting in France on 17 November, protests of the anti-globalist movement have been seen in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

Now yellow vest demonstrations against the UN Migration Agreement have been announced in Sweden on Saturday and Sunday.

Last Sunday around 1,000 Swedes gathered outside Parliament in Stockholm to demonstrate against Sweden’s signing of the UN Migration Agreement. This weekend, even larger events with more speakers will be held in the same place.

To celebrate six months in power Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini holds an ‘Italians first’ rally in Rome. Around the same time Paris was on fire as thousands of protesters want Macron to leave office.

In his speech to 80,000 supporters, the Deputy Prime Minister and populist said in regards to the neighbouring “Yellow Vests” protests: “Those who sow poverty reap protests, those who sow false promises reap the response of those on the margins and the countryside”.

Former Brexit minister Steve Baker has renewed his call for MPs to submit letters of no confidence in the PM, telling Today that Conservative MPs need to realise that we “cannot go staggering forward any longer like this” and that it is Theresa May’s “duty now to go”. More letters have reportedly gone in since yesterday’s debacle but somehow they’re always around “5 letters short” of 48…

When pressed on who should replace her, Baker gave a shortlist of four Brexiteers – Esther McVey, Dominic Raab, David Davis and Boris Johnson – and called on them to decide between themselves who would be the chosen candidate.