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 Seven Days in January.

How Trump Pushed U.S. and Iran

to the Brink of War -

The New York Times

WASHINGTON � The plane was late and the kill team was worried. International listings showed that Cham Wings Airlines Flight 6Q501, scheduled to take off from Damascus at 7:30 p.m. for Baghdad, had departed, but in fact, an informant at the airport reported, it was still on the ground and the targeted passenger had not yet shown up.

The hours ticked by and some involved in the operation wondered if it should be called off. Then, just before the plane door closed, a convoy of cars pulled up on the tarmac carrying Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s security mastermind, who climbed on board along with two escorts. Flight 6Q501 lifted off, three hours late, bound for the Iraqi capital.

The plane landed at Baghdad International Airport just after midnight, at 12:36 a.m., and the first to disembark were General Suleimani and his entourage. Waiting at the bottom of the gangway was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi official in charge of militias and close to Iran. Two cars carrying the group headed into the night � shadowed by American MQ-9 Reaper drones. At 12:47, the first of several missiles smashed into the vehicles, engulfing them in flames and leaving 10 charred bodies inside.

The operation that took out General Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, propelled the United States to the precipice of war with Iran and plunged the world into seven days of roiling uncertainty. The story of those seven days, and the secret planning in the months preceding them, ranks as the most perilous chapter so far in President Trump’s three years in office after his decision to launch an audacious strike on Iran, and his attempt through allies and a back channel to keep the ensuing crisis from mushrooming out of control.

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The president’s decision to ratchet up decades of simmering conflict with Iran set off an extraordinary worldwide drama, much of which played out behind the scenes. In capitals from Europe to the Middle East, leaders and diplomats sought to head off a full-fledged new war while at the White House and Pentagon, the president and his advisers ordered more troops to the region.

Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler was so alarmed he dispatched his brother to Washington for a clandestine meeting with Mr. Trump. European leaders, incensed at being kept in the dark, scrambled to keep Iran from escalating. If it did, Americans developed plans to strike a command-and-control ship and conduct a cyberattack to partly disable Iran’s oil and gas sector.

 

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But the United States also sent secret messages through Swiss intermediaries urging Iran not to respond so forcefully that Mr. Trump would feel compelled to go even further. After it did respond, firing 16 missiles at bases housing American troops without hurting anyone as a relatively harmless show of force, a message came back through the Swiss saying that would be the end of its reprisal for now. The message, forwarded to Washington within five minutes after it was received, persuaded the president to stand down.

When the week ended without the war many feared, Mr. Trump boasted that he had taken out an American enemy. But the struggle between two nations is not really over. Iran may find other ways to take revenge. Iraqi leaders may expel American forces, accomplishing in death what General Suleimani tried and failed to do in life. And in the confusion, a Ukrainian civilian passenger jet was destroyed by an Iranian missile, killing 176 people.

The episode briefly gave Mr. Trump’s allies something to cheer, distracting from the coming Senate impeachment trial, but now he faces questions even among Republicans about the shifting justifications for the strike that he and his national security team have offered. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo initially cited the need to forestall an “imminent” attack and the president has amplified that to say four American embassies were targeted.

But administration officials said they did not actually know when or where such an attack might occur and one State Department official said it was “a mistake” to use the word “imminent.” And some senior military commanders were stunned that Mr. Trump picked what they considered a radical option with unforeseen consequences.

This account, based on interviews with dozens of Trump administration officials, military officers, diplomats, intelligence analysts and others in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, offers new details about what may be the most consequential seven days of the Trump presidency.

If They Enter the Compound, Kill Them

The confrontation may have actually begun by accident. For years, Iran has sponsored proxy forces in Iraq, competing for influence with American troops who first arrived in the invasion of 2003. Starting last fall, Iranian-backed militias launched rockets at Iraqi bases that house American troops, shattering nerves more than doing much damage.

So when rockets smashed into the K1 military base near Kirkuk on Dec. 27, killing an American civilian contractor, Nawres Waleed Hamid, and injuring several others, the only surprise was the casualties. Kataib Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia group held responsible, had fired at least five other rocket attacks on bases with Americans in the previous month without deadly results.

American intelligence officials monitoring communications between Kataib Hezbollah and General Suleimani's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps learned that the Iranians wanted to keep the pressure on the Americans but had not intended to escalate the low-level conflict. The rockets landed in a place and at a time when American and Iraqi personnel normally were not there and it was only by unlucky chance that Mr. Hamid was killed, American officials said.

But that did not matter to Mr. Trump and his team. An American was dead and the president who had called off a retaliatory strike with 10 minutes to go in June and otherwise refrained from military action in response to Iranian provocations now faced a choice.

Advisers told him Iran had probably misinterpreted his previous reluctance to use force as a sign of weakness. To reestablish deterrence, he should authorize a tough response. On holiday at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort, the president agreed to strikes on five sites in Iraq and Syria two days later, killing at least 25 members of Kataib Hezbollah and injuring at least 50 more.

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Two days later, on Dec. 31, pro-Iranian protesters backed by many members of the same militia responded by breaking into the American Embassy compound in Baghdad and setting fires. Worried about repeats of the 1979 embassy takeover in Iran or the 2012 attack on a diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, Mr. Trump and his team ordered more than 100 Marines to rush to Baghdad from Kuwait.

The Marines received little information about their mission or what was happening on the ground as they loaded their magazines with ammunition. All they knew was they were being sent to secure the embassy with one clear order: If protesters entered the compound, kill them.

Some of the Marines made dry jokes about the movie, “Rules of Engagement,” starring Samuel L. Jackson as a commander whose unit fires on a crowd of embassy protesters, stirring an international episode and a court-martial. But when the Marines reached Baghdad, none had to open fire. They used nonlethal weapons like tear gas to disperse protesters and the siege ended without bloodshed.

Maps: How the Confrontation Between the U.S. and Iran Escalated

Here’s how the situation developed over the last two weeks.

Still, watching television in Florida, Mr. Trump grew agitated by the chaos and ready to authorize a more robust response. And on Dec. 31, even as the protests were beginning, a top secret memo started circulating, signed by Robert C. O’Brien, his national security adviser, and listing potential targets, including an Iranian energy facility and a command-and-control ship used by the Revolutionary Guards to direct small boats that harass oil tankers in the waters around Iran. The ship had been an irritant to Americans for months, especially after a series of covert attacks on oil tankers.

The memo also listed a more provocative option � targeting specific Iranian officials for death by military strike. Among the targets mentioned, according to officials who saw it, was Abdul Reza Shahlai, an Iranian commander in Yemen who helped finance armed groups across the region.

Another name on the list: General Suleimani.

Exerting Power, Praying for a Martyr’s Death

General Suleimani was hardly a household name in the United States, but as far as American officials were concerned, he was responsible for more instability and death in the Middle East than almost anyone.

As the head of the elite Quds Force, General Suleimani was effectively the second-most powerful man in Iran and had a hand in managing proxy wars in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, including a campaign of roadside bombs and other attacks that killed an estimated 600 American troops during the height of the Iraq war.

Americans who lost limbs or loved ones in the Iraq war see justice in General Suleimani’s death.

At 62, with a narrow face, gray hair and a close-cropped beard, General Suleimani was known for traveling without body armor or personal protection, collaborating with some of the most ruthless figures in the region while sharing meals with the fighters and telling them to take care of their mothers, according to a Hezbollah field commander who met him in Syria.

After decades of working in the shadows, General Suleimani had emerged in recent years following the Arab Spring and war with the Islamic State as the public figure most associated with Iran’s goal of achieving regional dominance. Photographs surfaced showing him visiting the front lines in Iraq or Syria, meeting with Iran’s supreme leader in Tehran or sitting down with the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon. When President Bashar al-Assad of Syria visited Tehran last year, it was General Suleimani who welcomed him.

By the end of 2019, General Suleimani could boast of a number of Iranian accomplishments: Mr. Assad, a longtime Iranian ally, was safely in power in Damascus, Syria’s capital, prevailing in a bloody, multifront, yearslong civil war and the Quds Force had a permanent presence on Israel’s frontier. A number of militias General Suleimani had helped foster were receiving salaries from the Iraqi government and exerting power in Iraq’s political system. And the Islamic State had been defeated in Syria and Iraq thanks, in part, to ground forces he had overseen, one area where he and the United States shared interests.

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For the past 18 months, officials said, there had been discussions about whether to target General Suleimani. Figuring that it would be too difficult to hit him in Iran, officials contemplated going after him during one of his frequent visits to Syria or Iraq and focused on developing agents in seven different entities to report on his movements � the Syrian Army, the Quds Force in Damascus, Hezbollah in Damascus, the Damascus and Baghdad airports and the Kataib Hezbollah and Popular Mobilization forces in Iraq.

By the time tensions with Iran spiked in May with attacks on four oil tankers, John R. Bolton, then the president’s national security adviser, asked the military and intelligence agencies to produce new options to deter Iranian aggression. Among those presented to Mr. Bolton was killing General Suleimani and other leaders of the Revolutionary Guards. At that point, work to track General Suleimani’s travels grew more intense.

By September, the United States Central Command and Joint Special Operations Command were brought into the process to plan a possible operation. Various alternatives were discussed, some in Syria, some in Iraq. Syria seemed more complicated, both because the American military had less freedom of movement there and because General Suleimani spent most of his time with Hezbollah officers and officials did not want to bring them into the mix and risk a new war with Israel.

Agents recruited in Syria and Iraq reported from time to time on General Suleimani’s movements, according to an official involved. Surveillance revealed that he flew on a number of airlines and sometimes tickets for a trip were bought on more than one to throw off pursuers. He would be delivered to his plane at the last possible moment, then sit in the front row of business class so he could get off first and depart quickly.

General Suleimani set off on his last trip on New Year’s Day, flying to Damascus and then heading by car to Lebanon to meet with Mr. Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, before returning to Damascus that evening. During their meeting, Mr. Nasrallah said in a later speech, he warned General Suleimani that the American news media was focusing on him and publishing his photograph.

“This was media and political preparation for his assassination,” Mr. Nasrallah said.

But as he recalled, General Suleimani laughed, and said that, in fact, he hoped to die a martyr and asked Mr. Nasrallah to pray that he would.

At Spy Headquarters, Seeing a ‘Mosaic Effect’

That same day, at C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va., Gina Haspel was working to fulfill that prayer.

Ms. Haspel, the director, was shown intelligence indicating that General Suleimani was preparing to move from Syria to Iraq. Officials told her there was additional intelligence that he was working on a large-scale attack intended to drive American forces out of the Middle East.

There was no single definitive piece of intelligence. Instead, officials said, C.I.A. officers spoke of the “mosaic effect,” multiple scraps of information that came together indicating that General Suleimani was organizing proxy forces around the region, including in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, to attack American embassies and bases. Several officials said they did not have enough concrete information to describe such a threat as “imminent,” despite Mr. Pompeo’s assertion, but they did see a worrying pattern.

While Mr. Pompeo also claimed later that such an attack could kill “hundreds,” other officials said they had no specific intelligence suggesting that. Most American facilities in the region have been heavily fortified for years and such an immense death toll would be unlikely; at no point in the last two decades, even during the worst of the Iraq war, have any hostile forces been able to pull off such a deadly assault on Americans at once.

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Nonetheless, Ms. Haspel was convinced there was evidence of a coming attack and argued the consequences of not striking General Suleimani were more dangerous than waiting, officials said. While others worried about reprisals, she reassured colleagues that Iran’s response would be measured. Indeed, she predicted the most likely response would be an ineffectual missile strike from Iran on Iraqi bases where American troops were stationed.

“If past is prologue, we have learned that when we enforce a red line with Iran, when Iran gets rapped on the knuckles, they tactically retreat,” said Dan Hoffman, a former C.I.A. officer who served in Iraq. “The retreat might be ephemeral before Iran probes its enemies with more gradually escalating attacks, but we’ve seen it repeatedly.”

There was little dissent about killing General Suleimani among Mr. Trump’s senior advisers, but some Pentagon officials were shocked that the president picked what they considered the most extreme option and some intelligence officials worried that the possible long-term ramifications were not adequately considered, particularly if action on Iraqi soil prompted Iraq to expel American forces.

“The whole thing seems haphazard to me,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior C.I.A. official who retired last year.

In the Middle East, ‘a State of Mobilization’

The Trump administration has said that General Suleimani was going to Baghdad as part of the attack plot, but there are different theories about the purpose of his visit.

General Suleimani had long played a role as power broker in Iraqi politics, and two Iraqi politicians with links to Iran said he was coming to Baghdad to help break an impasse over replacing the prime minister after the collapse of the government in November in the face of anti-Iran protests.

But Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, still serving as a caretaker until a new government is formed, told Parliament after the drone strike that General Suleimani had another goal � to bring an Iranian response to a Saudi offer to reduce tensions. The shadow conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia had been heating up. After Iranian forces were blamed for an attack on two Saudi oil facilities in September and Mr. Trump opted against a military response, Saudi officials worried that they were vulnerable and opened a back channel.

In his speech to Parliament, Mr. Abdul Mahdi said he had planned to meet with General Suleimani a few hours after his arrival in Baghdad. “It was expected that he was carrying a message for me from the Iranian side responding to the Saudi message that we had sent to the Iranian side to reach agreements and breakthroughs,” Mr. Abdul Mahdi said.

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A Saudi official said he was unaware of any message carried by General Suleimani and some analysts doubted Mr. Abdul Mahdi’s account. “That is laughable,” said Mohammed Alyahya, the editor in chief of Al Arabiya English, a Saudi news site. “Suddenly, this man is a diplomat extraordinaire one day before he died?”

Another theory, advanced by an intelligence official involved in the operation, held that General Suleimani was visiting Iraq to quash anti-Iranian protests by having his Shia militia break them up by force. He hoped to install a new anti-American government that might even throw out United States forces.

Whatever his goals, they died with him in the mangled wreckage at Baghdad’s airport. Altogether, 10 people were killed � General Suleimani, Mr. al-Muhandis and their aides. Mr. al-Muhandis had helped found Kataib Hezbollah, the militia held responsible for the Dec. 27 rocket attack that killed the American contractor.

 top Iranian generalat Baghdad Airport.

© Mapbox © OpenStreetMap

Iraq

But another Iranian commander escaped. The same night General Suleimani died, American forces tried to kill Mr. Shahlai, the Quds Force commander in Yemen mentioned in Mr. O’Brien’s memo. Still, the attack failed because of an undisclosed problem with the intelligence.

Iran braced for more. “There was a state of mobilization to get ready in case that was the first stage in a wider plan,” said Mohammed Obeid, a Lebanese political activist with ties to Iran’s “resistance axis” in the region. “There could have been other steps that the Americans or the Israelis would take, broadening the circle of confrontation.”

‘We Know That Our Region Is Stormy’

Mr. Trump planned to play golf the next morning, Jan. 4, but advisers concluded it would send the wrong message as General Suleimani’s death stirred unrest around the Middle East and raised the prospect of a wider conflict with Iran.

The president was initially upbeat, expecting the operation to be greeted with applause much like the raid in October that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State. Indeed, Mr. Trump opened his first statement to reporters on the mission that Friday by describing General Suleimani as the “No. 1 terrorist anywhere in the world,” much as he had opened his statement a couple of months ago calling Mr. al-Baghdadi the “world’s No. 1 terrorist leader.”

But as the president watched television over the weekend, he grew angry that critics were accusing him of reckless escalation. He sought validation from guests at his Florida clubs, recounting details of the Baghdad Embassy protests and drinking in their praise for his decisiveness. He told some associates that he wanted to preserve the support of Republican hawks in the Senate in the coming impeachment trial, naming Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas as an example, even though they had not spoken about Iran since before Christmas.

While Mr. Trump tipped off another hawk, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who was visiting in Florida, his administration gave no advance warning to its European allies or Persian Gulf partners in advance of the strike. The only foreign leader who appeared in the know was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who had spoken with Mr. Pompeo before the attack and later offered a cryptic public hint hours before it took place.

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“We know that our region is stormy; very, very dramatic things are happening in it,” Mr. Netanyahu told reporters, unprompted, on the tarmac in Tel Aviv before departing for a visit to Athens. He went on to offer support for the United States “and to its full right to defend itself and its citizens.”

Israeli leaders were later pleased by the death of General Suleimani, one of their deadliest enemies, but remained silent lest they provoke retaliation, even as shelter supplies were checked and a ski resort near the Syrian frontier was briefly closed.

Yet some figured that if Hezbollah were to attack Israel on Iran’s behalf, it might be better to have that battle now. “This camp believes that there will be such a clash anyway and the best timing is before the U.S. elections � and that Israel may lose this president in the White House,” said Ofer Zalzberg, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.

In Riyadh, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was unsettled. Despite his hawkish approach to Iran, he has been recently accepting offers from Pakistanis, Omanis, Iraqis and others to mediate. Now, he immediately dispatched his younger brother, Prince Khalid bin Salman, the deputy defense minister, on an emergency mission to the White House.

The Saudi view was “hitting Suleimani is great, but what is the plan?” said Sir John Jenkins, a former British ambassador to Riyadh. “If there is a plan, we are down with it. If not, we all have to de-escalate.”

Prince Khalid was pleased by whatever Mr. Trump told him, telling diplomats afterward that the royal family was glad the president had dealt Iran a serious blow � and relieved that he did not seem inclined to escalate further.

‘A New Stage in the Trans-Atlantic Divorce’

But many were not sure. Mr. Trump issued bellicose threats to destroy Iran if it retaliated, including cultural treasures in violation of international law, touching off international outrage and forcing his own defense secretary to publicly disavow the threat, saying it would be a war crime.

Mr. Trump was largely alone on the world stage. No major European power, not even Britain, voiced support for the drone strike, even as leaders agreed that General Suleimani had blood on his hands. As Le Monde, the French newspaper, put it, the rift signaled “a new stage in the trans-Atlantic divorce over the Middle East.”

Mr. Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran has been a major point of contention. European leaders deeply resented the unilateral pullout, seeing that as a grave error that started a cycle of sanctions and recriminations that led to the seven-day showdown and now the restart of the Iranian nuclear program.

When Mr. Pompeo phoned his European counterparts after the strike, they expressed concern. In a 15-minute call, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas of Germany said the killing had not made it any easier to stabilize the region. Mr. Pompeo responded that the situation was now more stable.

The French and Japanese both offered to serve as mediators, but that only annoyed Mr. Trump, who dislikes middlemen. So the Europeans focused on keeping Tehran from overreacting.

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Video Shows Aftermath of U.S. Strike That Killed Top Iran Commander

President Trump authorized the attack early Friday at Baghdad International Airport that killed Iran’s top security and intelligence commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.

Suleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel. But we caught him in the act. We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war.

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1:36Video Shows Aftermath of U.S. Strike That Killed Top Iran Commander

A senior German diplomat sent a text message to his Iranian counterpart urging calm. He got back a terse, though polite, message. In a series of phone calls, European officials tried to give the Iranians a sense that it was not them against the rest of the world but that in fact there was a global public beyond the United States, according to one European diplomat.

President Emmanuel Macron of France played an active role, reaching out to both sides. “Macron’s specificity is that he does not approve, but he also does not condemn,” said Michel Duclos, a former French ambassador to Syria.

Mr. Macron reached Mr. Trump on Sunday and emphasized the need for de-escalation. Mr. Trump suggested he was still open to diplomacy. All the Iranians had to do was come to him and they could make a deal, Mr. Trump said, according to a senior French official.

Two days later, Mr. Macron spoke with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran and reminded him that he had “missed a chance in September” to talk directly with Mr. Trump in a phone call Mr. Macron tried to arrange on the sidelines of the annual United Nations session.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany spoke with Mr. Trump, too, and expressed concern for Iraq’s stability if allied troops withdrew. If the United States stayed, she said, Germany would also. Mr. Trump joked that Germany was welcome to lead the international force and replace the Americans. Ms. Merkel laughed.

‘The Ball Is in Our Court’

The most important European country in these seven days, it turned out, was Switzerland, which has served as the intermediary between the United States and Iran since they broke off diplomatic relations in 1980.

Hours after the strike, Markus Leitner, the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, headed to the Iranian Foreign Ministry for the first of two visits that day, according to a Swiss analyst. The Americans had sent a letter to the Iranians through the Swiss warning against any retaliation for the drone strike that would incite further military action by Mr. Trump.

The Americans “said that if you want to get revenge, get revenge in proportion to what we did,” Rear Adm. Ali Fadavi, the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards, told Iranian state television.

American officials disputed that characterization and analysts doubted it was that explicit, although that could be how Tehran interpreted it. In any case, Mr. Leitner went back to the Foreign Ministry at day’s end for the Iranian response.

Unbeknown to the Iranians, Mr. Trump had agreed to targeting the other sites originally considered � the oil and gas facility and the command-in-control ship � as part of any further retaliation that might be necessary if Iran responded to the drone strike. Despite Mr. Trump’s threat, none of the targets on the list were actually cultural, an official said; that was just presidential bluster, aggravated by an instinct to double down in the face of criticism.

On Tuesday, the Defense Special Missile and Astronautics Center, part of the National Security Agency, pulled together multiple strands of information, including overhead imagery and communication intercepts, to conclude that an Iranian missile strike on Iraqi bases was coming, officials said. The center sent the warning to the White House.

Vice President Mike Pence and Mr. O’Brien immediately headed to the Situation Room in the basement, joined later by the president and Mr. Pompeo. At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, led by its chairman, Gen. Mark A. Milley, convened in a third-floor conference room and discussed how to move troops and families in the region to safer locations.

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Just after 5:30 p.m., an almost robotic voice came over a speakerphone in the Situation Room. “Sir, we have indications of a launch at 22:30 Zulu Time from western Iran in the direction of Iraq, Syria and Jordan.” Reports began coming in faster. The missiles were staggered but most were streaking toward Al Asad Air Base in Iraq, home to 2,000 American troops.

The barrage ended after an hour but base commanders ordered troops to remain in shelter in case more missiles came. Around 7:30, about an hour after the strikes concluded, Mr. Esper and General Milley headed to the White House to meet with Mr. Trump.

The missiles damaged a helicopter, some tents and other structures but, thanks to the advance warning, inflicted no casualties. And through the Swiss came another message: That was it. That was their retribution.

The Americans were struck by the speed of the communication � it was shown to Mr. Trump and Mr. Pompeo within five minutes after the Swiss received it from Tehran. They passed the message by encrypted fax to their embassy in Washington and then to Brian H. Hook, the special representative on Iran, two minutes after the Iranians gave it to them.

Mr. Esper, a veteran of the Persian Gulf war of 1991, counseled caution. “Let’s stay calm,” he said. “The ball is in our court. There’s no rush to do anything. Let’s all sleep on it.”

By the time Mr. Trump retired to the residence for the night, advisers said, he was relieved there had been no casualties and eager for a reset, a path away from a deeper conflict. He posted a reassuring tweet: “All is well!”

Donald J. Trump

� @realDonaldTrump

All is well! Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq. Assessment of casualties & damages taking place now. So far, so good! We have the most powerful and well equipped military anywhere in the world, by far! I will be making a statement tomorrow morning.

768K

3:45 AM - Jan 8, 2020

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‘What Were the Threats?’ They Shouted

The next morning Mr. Trump addressed the nation from the White House, and while he excoriated Iran’s “campaign of terror,” he made clear he would not retaliate further.

“Iran appears to be standing down,” he said, without revealing the secret message sent through the Swiss, adding that he was “ready to embrace peace with all who seek it.”

The immediate crisis over, Mr. Trump sent top officials to brief Congress, but the closed-door sessions in a secure facility where lawmakers had to surrender their telephones did little to quell concerns about the justification for the drone strike.

In the House briefing, Mr. Pompeo offered a brief introduction followed by presentations by Ms. Haspel, Mr. Esper, General Milley and Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence. All three offered vague but emphatic assertions of intelligence indicating an imminent threat by General Suleimani. General Milley said the evidence could not be clearer and was the “best intelligence” he had seen during his career.

But they refused to describe it in detail. One lawmaker said the information was no more secret than what could be found on Wikipedia. At one point, General Milley said the intelligence showed discussion by General Suleimani of potential terrorist attacks on three specific dates in late December or early January.

“What were the threats?” several lawmakers in the audience shouted, but General Milley declined to say.

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Another lawmaker noted that the three dates General Milley cited were all before the strike on General Suleimani and no attacks actually occurred then.

“What really came across was a sense of disdain and contempt for the legislative branch,” said Representative Gerald E. Connolly, Democrat of Virginia. “They didn’t even pretend to be engaged in information sharing and consultation.”

Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, called the session for senators “probably the worst briefing” in his nine years in office. “We never got to the details,” he said. “Every time we got close, they said, ‘Well, we can’t discuss that here because it’s sensitive.’”

If it was too sensitive for Congress, it was not too sensitive for Laura Ingraham, the Fox News host. In an interview broadcast on Friday, Mr. Trump told her that the threat had been to four American embassies, even as other officials said privately that they did not have concrete evidence of General Suleimani’s targets.

After seven days of saber rattling and fresh deployments, the immediate march to war had ended. But inside the security establishment, few consider the crisis to be over. In the months to come, they expect Iran to regroup and find ways to strike back.

“Suleimani as a person inspired the masses, he was a national icon, he symbolized the struggle,” said Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington who studies Iran. “But he was also a very small part of a very large organization.”

“Yes, it is decapitated,” he added, “but the organization is not destroyed."

Peter Baker and Julian E. Barnes reported from Washington, Ronen Bergman from Tel Aviv, David D. Kirkpatrick from London, and Alissa J. Rubin from Baghdad. Reporting was contributed by Helene Cooper, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Lara Jakes, Mark Mazzetti, David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt, Michael D. Shear, Noah Weiland and Edward Wong from Washington; Farnaz Fassihi and Maggie Haberman from New York; Rukmini Callimachi from Balchik, Bulgaria, and Bucharest, Romania; Adam Nossiter and Constant Méheut from Paris; Steven Erlanger from Brussels; Katrin Bennhold from Berlin; Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva; David M. Halbfinger and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem; Ben Hubbard and Hwaida Saad from Beirut; and Falih Hassan from Baghdad.

Seven Days in January

How the United States edged close to war with Iran.

Iran Says It Unintentionally Shot Down Ukrainian Airliner

Jan. 10, 2020

U.S. Unsuccessfully Tried Killing a Second Iranian Military Official

Jan. 10, 2020

As U.S.-Iran Tensions Flare, Iraq Is Caught in the Middle

Jan. 10, 2020

U.S. Says It Won’t Discuss Withdrawing Troops From Iraq, Defying Baghdad’s Request

Jan. 10, 2020

Zijn roeping: NOS bashen

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer wordt niet de volgende Duitse bondskanselier. De CDU-voorzitter maakte maandagochtend 10 februari bekend deze zomer het partijvoorzitterschap op te geven. Kramp-Karrenbauer werd veelal gezien als de gedoodverfde opvolger van bondskanselier Angela Merkel, die haar zelf uitkoos. Waarover struikelde AKK? De politieke crisis in Thüringen is het breekpunt voor Kramp-Karrenbauer. In die Duitse deelstaat … Continued

The post Dreigt Duitse regeringscrisis met afhaken van Merkels opvolger? appeared first on Elsevierweekblad.nl.

Libi�, voorheen bekend als land.

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Inmiddels is het een strijdtoneel om olievelden en voor en t�gen de Moslimbroederschap. Strak formeel filmpje bovenstaand, mooi veldfilmpje over tribale mensen met emoties na de breek. Op moment van schrijven ligt Libi� er als volgt bij.

Team Veldmaarschalk Khalifa Haftar, jeugdvriend van Khadaffi, Amerikaanse staatsburger, kleurrijke lul
- Zijn Libyan National Army (LNA) heerst over zon beetje heel Libi�, behalve dat Turks-Italiaans-Qataarse VN-protectoraat rond """hoofdstad""" Tripoli.
- Wordt gesteund door anti-Moslimbroederschap-mogendheden als Egypte, Saoedi Arabi�, de Verenigde Emiraten, Rusland en het Sultanaat van Frankrijk.
- Volgens de GNA (zie onderstaand) vechten er tussen de 600 en 800 Russische huurlingen voor de LNA.
- Egyptes leider generaal Al-Sisi ligt in hetzelfde ideologische spectrum als de seculier-achtige Haftar, die de Sisi van Libi� wil worden.
- Haftar kan op elk gewenst moment de oliekranen dichtdraaien en gebruikt dit dan ook meer dan eens als pressiemiddel.

Team VN/Khadaffis oude zwaardmacht
- Noemen zichzelf de Government of National Accord (GNA)
- Erdogan stuurde vorige week per vliegtuig 2000 Syrische huurlingen voor 2000 euro per maand naar Tripoli "where they have been posted to frontline positions in the east of the city. (...) Another 1,350 men crossed into Turkey on 5 January. Some have since been deployed to Libya with others still undergoing training at camps in southern Turkey." Meer beeld hier, hier en hier.
- Itali� heeft er nog een paar koloniale oliemaatschappijen. Eni SpA, een van de 7 grootste oliemaatschappijen ter wereld, is de grootste speler in de Libische oliemarkt. En dat is Itali� ook nog eens de eerste deur waar migranten vanuit Libi� op kloppen.

Vredesgesprekken in Berlijn
Nou, die waren van korte duur. Wat ambtelijk geratel van Merkel van "I can say that all participants worked really constructively together," maar twee dagen later lijkt Haftar bezig met een nieuwe invasie van Tripoli. Of, nou ja, nieuw. Hij is eigenlijk al vijf maanden bezig en geeft nu weer een extra duwtje die vooral Turkse kranten optikken als "launches attack".

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Egypte hield grootschalige oefening als waarschuwing aan Turkije

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Klopt het?

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CONCLUSIE: Zijn tweet klopt!

Hoe die 14 kilo stikstof per hectare dan wel op Rottumerplaat terecht komt - we hebben geen idee. (Hint: er mag niemand op het eiland komen.) Maar het komt dus niet door 130 km/h vroemende SUVs op snelwegen en veehouders met veestapels in de Natura2000-buurt. Derhalve kan het Rapport Remkes in de biomassacentrale want anders zit straks iedere Nederlandse boer in Duitsland. Oh wacht, dat was gewoon de bedoeling van de hele stikstofcrisis.

Dat zijn 8 lange jaren, maar ze geeft niet op tot staatssecretaris Paul Blokhuis haar de zorg toezegt die ze nodig heeft.

Charlotte Bouwman, (onderzoeks)journalist, schrijver, bekende. Het zit dr soms niet mee en met soms niet mee bedoelen we dat ze al 8 jaar su�cidaal is en al 804 dagen op een wachtlijst staat voor de juiste zorg. Ze heeft 21 zelfmoordpogingen gedaan en werd afgelopen jaar zeven keer opgenomen. Dat doet 13 cent per woord afgesloten met zon corrupt depressiegala dus met je! Het AD schrijft dat ze lijdt aan een "dissociatieve stoornis" al klinken de symptomen die ze beschrijft specifiek als een dissociatieve identiteitsstoornis - in de volksmond bekend als meervoudige persoonlijkheidsstoornis. Twee jaar lang stond ze op de wachtlijst voor een specialistische "structurele dissociatietherapie" bij het traumacentrum Altrecht te Utrecht. Echter, die behandeling is nu uit het Altrecht-aanbod geschrapt: "Volgens woordvoerder Loek Hekkens is dat omdat er gewoonweg te weinig behandelaars met deze expertise te krijgen zijn. Er vertrokken er onlangs nog drie. Nu kan de instelling niet meer de kwaliteit bieden die ze willen bieden."

Dit betekent dat "tien tot twintig" pati�nten als Charlotte opnieuw een jaar lang op een wachtlijst moeten bij de enige klinieken die de behandeling nog wel aanbieden, en die liggen in Zwolle en Ermelo. Omdat ze niet uit de regio komt heeft kliniek Altrecht formeel ook geen zorgplicht voor haar. Ze staat "gelukkig nog ingeschreven bij een ander behandelcentrum. Daar gaat ze nu een jaar overbruggen tot ze bij Ermelo of Zwolle terechtkan", maar goed, dat blijft overbrugging en geen behandeling.

Allemaal erg verdrietig natuurlijk, maar er zijn in ieder geval al kamervragen. De petitie Lijm de Zorg "om de acute crisis in de jeugdzorg en GGZ aan te pakken" heeft op moment van schrijven 3323 handtekeningen. MEELEVENDE politici die Charlotte bezoeken, na de breek.

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Lerarencrisis: KL ondersteunt Amsterdamse scholen die heft in eigen hand nemen

Zestien basisscholen in Amsterdam sluiten een week hun deuren als reactie op de lerarencrisis. Géén staking, maar een claim op tijd om met elkaar te werken aan oplossingen om de onderwijskwaliteit op peil te houden, ondanks het lerarentekort. Er zijn radicale interventies nodig om het lerarentekort aan te pakken, daarom ondersteunen we deze leraren en schoolleiders.

Een groeiende gezondheidscrisis gevoed door synthetische chemicaliën, bekend als per- en polyfluoralkylstoffen, of PFAS, in grondwater heeft de afgelopen jaren veel aandacht gekregen. De gerapporteerde niveaus kunnen ‘slechts het topje

Het bericht Onderzoekers: Synthetische chemicaliën in de bodem tikkende ‘tijdbom’ verscheen eerst op Naturotheek.

Boeren protesteren morgen opnieuw tegen het stikstofbeleid van het kabinet. De organisatie van het protest, Farmers Defence Force (FDF), verwacht zo'n 7500 mensen in Den Haag.

Vanavond kwamen er al wat boeren samen in Den Haag, meer boeren zijn onderweg:

Bij Rolde in Drenthe zijn dinsdagavond dertig tractoren aan de kant van de weg gezet. Zij reden op de N33, een autoweg waar ze niet op mochten. De politie zegt dat er zowel op autowegen als op snelwegen wordt gehandhaafd, en dat de boeren op weg waren naar de A28. Ze zijn aan de kant gezet en alle bestuurders hebben een bekeuring gekregen. Daarna mochten ze verder rijden over regionale en lokale wegen.

De boeren zijn boos over de maatregelen die het kabinet neemt om de stikstofuitstoot te reduceren. Volgens de boeren zijn er andere manieren dan het uitkopen van boerenbedrijven om de stikstofuitstoot terug te dringen.

Donderdag komt het Mesdagfonds-Zuivelfonds namens de boeren met een alternatieve berekening van de stikstofdata van het RIVM. FDF organiseert het protest bewust de dag ervoor, zodat de actie niet afleidt van de cijfers die donderdag gepresenteerd worden.

Niet op het Malieveld

Tijdens eerdere boerenprotesten in oktober en december ontstonden veel files. Het Openbaar Ministerie gaf later toe dat het beter had moeten handhaven. Om discussie over de trekkers te voorkomen heeft Farmers Defence Force een gedragscode opgesteld. Daarin roepen ze deelnemers op om niet met trekkers over de snelweg naar Den Haag te rijden. Een deel van de demonstranten komt met bus of trein naar het protest.

De boeren mogen van Staatsbosbeheer en de gemeente Den Haag niet protesteren op het Malieveld. Een woordvoerder van Staatsbosbeheer laat weten dat ze geen trekkers willen op het Malieveld omdat de herstelwerkzaamheden nog niet zijn afgerond en er binnenkort allerlei evenementen gepland staan. De demonstratie is daarom op het naastgelegen Koekamp. In de gedragscode vraagt FDF deelnemers zich aan die afspraak te houden.

Vorige week vrijdag kwam het kabinet met de eerste maatregelen om boeren uit te kopen. Daarmee wil het de stikstofneerslag in kwetsbare natuur terugdringen. Het kabinet trekt 350 miljoen euro uit voor de uitkoop van boeren en 172 miljoen om stallen te verduurzamen.

Minister Carola Schouten van Landbouw noemde deze maatregelen uitdrukkelijk niet de oplossing voor het stikstofprobleem, maar een 'eerste stap'. Voor andere sectoren komen volgens de minister ook stikstofmaatregelen.

Vorig jaar kwam het kabinet al met een snelheidsverlaging op snelwegen van 130 naar 100 kilometer per uur om de stikstofuitstoot te reduceren. Die maatregel gaat volgende maand in.

Boeren zijn via het Landbouwcollectief in gesprek met het kabinet over de stikstofmaatregelen. Bij dat collectief zijn 13 boerenbelangenorganisaties aangesloten, waaronder FDF. De gesprekken werden deze maand korte tijd opgeschort na een verklaring van FDF waarin ze stelden dat "vleesbazen, zuivelbobo's als Judas de sector verraden". Na excuses gingen de gesprekken verder.

Eigen plan

Het Landbouwcollectief kwam eerder met een eigen plan om het stikstofprobleem op te lossen. Daarin stonden maatregelen als minder eiwit in het voer van melkvee, de koeien vaker in de wei en mest aanlengen met water. Op die manier zouden er volgens het Landbouwcollectief geen boeren hoeven te worden uitgekocht maar zou de stikstofuitstoot in de sector wel verminderen.

Ondanks gesprekken met het kabinet is er volgens FDF te weinig met dat plan gedaan. Daarom voeren ze nu opnieuw actie. Daarnaast zijn de maatregelen van Schouten volgens de protesterende boeren gebaseerd op verkeerde berekeningen.

Donderdag debatteert de Tweede Kamer over de stikstofcrisis.

Wie wordt 'de nieuwe Merkel' en de opvolger van de teruggetreden CDU-voorzitter Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer? Een spannende opvolgingskrimi in de partij van de bondskanselier, waarvan de uitslag ook voor de EU richtingbepalend kan zijn.

Drie namen doen al een tijdje de ronde: 'hoop van de conservatieven' Friedrich Merz, de 'Merkelgetrouwe' minister-president van Noordrijn-Westfalen Armin Laschet en 'jonge hond' en minister van Gezondheidszorg, Jens Spahn. Vandaag meldde zich nog een verrassende kandidaat: CDU-buitenlandspecialist Norbert Röttgen.

Kritiek is niet van de lucht, want allemaal man, allemaal uit West-Duitsland. Toch is er wel het een en ander dat ze onderscheidt. Een overzicht:

De eerste naam op ieders lippen is Friedrich Merz (64). Hij wordt gezien als de man die de partij meer naar rechts zou koersen en daarmee kiezers, die zijn overgelopen naar de AfD, terug kan halen. Hij heeft conservatieve waarden, maar is economisch liberaal. Ooit was hij een grote belofte in de partij, maar nadat hij door Merkel op een zijspoor werd gezet verliet hij de politiek. Als succesvol zakenman is hij de CDU vanaf de zijlijn blijven observeren, wachtend op zijn kans om terug te keren.

Wil Merz dit keer winnen, dan moet hij nog wel wat aan zijn imago doen. Een begaafde, maar arrogante einzelgänger, zo wordt hij gezien. Daarnaast is de vraag of hij de partijleden op de linkerflank kan overtuigen. Zij zien de toekomst van de CDU in een coalitie met de Groenen.

Van 'kleurloos' tot 'te jong'

Voor hen is Armin Laschet (58) een logischer keuze. De huidige minister-president van Noordrijn-Westfalen zit veel meer op de lijn van Merkel, heeft haar tot nu toe ook op heikele momenten gesteund, zoals tijdens de vluchtelingencrisis. Net als Merkel is Laschet pragmatisch en flexibel. Hij wordt gezien als bruggenbouwer die met bijna iedereen wel door een deur kan. Zijn flexibiliteit is ook een van zijn minpunten. Critici noemen hem kleurloos en weinig charismatisch.

Laschet maakt goede kans als opvolger van AKK, maar heeft zichzelf nog niet openlijk in de strijd gemengd. Ook de huidige minister van Gezondheidszorg Jens Spahn (39) schreeuwt nog niet van de daken dat hij de nieuwe Merkel wil worden. Dat hoeft ook niet, want die ambitie spat er al tijden vanaf. Spahn oogst in de partij veel bewondering. Vooral omdat hij als dertiger met succes een ministerie leidt en zich snel meester heeft gemaakt van complexe zorgthema's.

Spahns leeftijd is zowel een vloek als zegen. Hij kan zich profileren als de kandidaat van vernieuwing en als boegbeeld van een jonge conservatieve stroming in Duitsland. Maar krijgt ook vaak de opmerking dat hij te jong is, te ambitieus en dat zijn tijd nog wel komt. Ook zijn seksuele voorkeur wordt als mogelijk struikelblok aangehaald. De krant Bild vroeg zich openlijk af of Duitsland modern genoeg is voor een homoseksuele bondskanselier.

En er is ook nog Norbert Röttgen (64). Een zij-instromer, maar afgaand op de eerste reacties een welkome. Een journalist van de krant Die Zeit beschrijft hem als 'welbespraakter dan Laschet en een meer verantwoorde keuze dan Merz'.

Röttgen is zeker geen onbekende in de partij, maar wel een beetje een backbencher. Als voorzitter van de commissie Buitenland heeft hij meer ervaring op het internationale toneel dan de andere kandidaten. Hij presenteert zich ook als de man die zich zorgen maakt over de rol van Duitsland als anker binnen de Europese Unie.

Een minpunt is dat Röttgen in 2012 een deelstaatverkiezing in Noordrijn-Westfalen flink verloor. De CDU haalde daar toen een - voor die tijd - erbarmelijk resultaat van 26 procent. Daarover zegt hij nu zelf: "Die nederlaag heeft me alleen maar sterker gemaakt. Het leert je verantwoordelijkheid te nemen. In een Wiederaufstehen schuilt ook een kracht."

Het kabinet trekt 350 miljoen euro uit voor de uitkoop van boerenbedrijven. Daarnaast komt er 172 miljoen beschikbaar voor het verduurzamen van stallen, waardoor ze minder stikstof uitstoten. Die bedragen lekten deze week al uit. Vandaag stuurde minister Schouten er een brief over aan de Tweede Kamer.

De minister lichtte desgevraagd toe dat dit niet dé oplossing is voor de stikstofproblematiek, maar dat het weer "een stap" is van het kabinet. Ook voor andere sectoren worden stikstofmaatregelen bedacht, maar voor de landbouw is dit het voorlopig even, zei ze.

Schouten benadrukte dat het niet de bedoeling is om 20.000 boeren uit te kopen. "Integendeel." Ze wil zich vooral richten op zogenoemde piekbelasters. Dat zijn boerenbedrijven die veel stikstof uitstoten in de buurt van Natura 2000-gebieden. Ze zei nog een keer dat de boeren vrijwillig moeten stoppen. Ze kunnen er ook voor kiezen om hun stallen te innoveren, waarbij het doel is om mest en urine zo snel mogelijk te scheiden.

Stoppers en blijvers

"We hebben een heel vitale boerenstand. En dat willen we zo houden", zei Schouten. "We focussen niet alleen op de stoppers, maar ook op de blijvers. We willen boeren zelf de keuze geven. Stoppen is een optie, maar ook minder vee of een andere manier van boeren."

De minister van Landbouw en premier Rutte hadden vanmorgen nog "een goed gesprek" met boerenorganisaties over de stikstofmaatregelen. Daarin ging het ook over uitkopen van bedrijven. De boeren zijn daar kritisch over. Ze vinden het een dure maatregel, die naar hun idee weinig bijdraagt aan het oplossen van de stikstofcrisis.

Het bedrag van ruim een half miljard voor stikstofmaatregelen staat los van de 180 miljoen die er is voor het uitkopen van varkensboeren. Die regeling is bedacht om een einde te maken aan de stankoverlast in de buurt van varkenshouderijen, maar kwam door de stikstofproblematiek meer in de belangstelling te staan.

Er meldden zich 503 varkenshouders. Dat zijn er zo'n tweehonderd meer dan gedacht. Schouten schrijft dat alle varkensboeren die zich hebben ingeschreven en aan de eisen voldoen, geld kunnen krijgen. Als dat nodig is, maakt het kabinet hier extra geld voor vrij. Ze zei eerder al dat ze zo veel mogelijk aanvragen wilde honoreren.

De beoogd opvolger van Merkel treedt terug als voorzitter van de CDU. Een gevolg van de crisis in de partij die ontstond nadat de CDU in Thüringen met de AfD pacteerde bij de verkiezining van een nieuwe minister-president.

Lees meer berichten op Sargasso.

• Worldwide, women and girls contribute an estimated $10.8 trillion to the global economy for care work that they are not paid for.
• Women around the globe do more than 75 percent of all unpaid care work.
• Women make up only 18 percent of cabinet ministers around the world and 24 percent of parliamentarians.

You may have heard the news that the richest 22 men in the world have more combined wealth than all 325 million women in Africa. This is according to a widely reported recent Oxfam study that highlighted how global economic inequality is intimately tied to gender and race.

Gender, division of labor, and pay

Women and girls worldwide contribute an estimated $10.8 trillion to the global economy that they are not paid for. They collectively spend 12.5 billion hours per day on unpaid care work. Care work includes occupations like child care, healthcare work, teaching, and domestic labor. Though this kind of work is often left out of national economic equations, the monetary value of it is triple the worth of the global tech industry, according to an Oxfam report. Women around the globe, particularly those who live in poverty, do more than 75% of all unpaid care work. Despite its social importance and economic value, this labor is persistently undervalued and taken for granted by governments and companies around the world.

It manifests in different ways. In the United States, teachers, nurses, child social workers, day care workers, and other "care" jobs, which have been historically dominated by women, are underpaid. Furthermore, on an average day, women in the U.S. spend nearly 40 percent more time on unpaid care, like household duties, than men. Zoom out to a global scale and these issues are magnified in less wealthy nations like Africa where women aren't paid at all for this work. They end up trapped in poverty, unable to get an education and achieve financial security. They are also barred from government positions in which they can influence social and economic policy.

Economic and political inequality

Though men around the world are certainly suffering under the widening income gap and facing poverty, there is clearly a systemic gender disparity when most billionaires are men and most of the people occupying the lowest paid or unpaid jobs are women. Globally, men own more than 50% more wealth than women, and they also control government and economic decisions that could fix this system. Women make up only 18% of cabinet ministers around the world and 24% of parliamentarians.

The result has been a global economy designed by men, for men, that undervalues work done primarily by women, and especially marginalized women in already economically disadvantaged nations.

"When 22 men have more wealth than all the women in Africa combined, it's clear that our economy is just plain sexist," Oxfam GB's chief executive Danny Sriskandarajah said.

He noted that if world leaders care about reducing poverty and inequality, they need to invest in public services like care that make life less grueling for people with care responsibilities and hold back women and girls. Yet, closing the growing wealth gap is not on the top of the agenda of most world leaders. In fact, many of them continue to facilitate policies that widen it, such as tax cuts for billionaires, cuts in public spending, and privatization.

We need solutions now

What it boils down to is a gendered discrimination of values in which neoliberal economic values are prioritized above social values like education and healthcare. The Oxfam report warns that aging populations, cuts in public spending, and the climate crisis will exacerbate gender-based economic inequality. Part of the solution is taxing the wealthy and learning to value care.

"Getting the richest 1% to pay just 0.5% tax on their wealth – just on their wealth, not their income – would create enough money over the next 10 years to pay for 117m jobs, in education, health and elderly care," said Katy Chakrabortty from Oxfam GB.

When we invest in social values, women are helped economically, but everyone reaps the benefits. Caregiving is going to be more valuable than ever in the next ten years. It's estimated that by 2030, 2.3 billion people will be in need of care. That's 200 million up from 2015 according to the Oxfam report. Part of this has to do with the climate crisis, which is deeply entangled with issues of human care. Over the next five years, it's estimated that 2.4 billion people will be living with water shortages. Already, women and girls are disproportionately affected by this because they need to walk further to find water to nourish their communities, adding to their unpaid workload.

By thinking beyond profit and choosing to invest in water, infrastructure, and child and health care, governments can improve quality of life and liberate laborers from hours of work per day. As of now, many of them are only bolstering a system under which billions of people, disproportionately women, are suffocating under the mass of concentrated wealth held by a small group of men who grow richer and richer.

Read the report here.

• A coronavirus outbreak that originated in Wuhan, China, has killed at least 1,100 people and infected more than 44,500 since December.
• The virus might have jumped from animals to people at a Chinese wet market where live and dead animals were being sold.
• SARS was also a coronavirus, and that outbreak started in a wet market, too. It killed 774 people and infected 8,098 between November 2002 and July 2003.
• The new coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, has killed more people in six weeks than SARS did in eight months.
• COVID-19 shares 80% of its genome with SARS, according to recent research.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China has killed more people in six weeks than severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) did in eight months.

More than 1,100 people have died from the Wuhan coronavirus, and at least 44,500 have been infected across 26 countries. (For the latest case total, death toll, and travel information, see Business Insider's live updates here.)

The new virus, which is marked by fevers and pneumonia-like symptoms, conjured a sense of déja vu for some who remember the SARS outbreak that started in November 2002. SARS was also a coronavirus, and it jumped to people from animals in wet markets, which the new coronavirus probably did, too. The two viruses share 80% of their genetic codes.

Experts called SARS "the first pandemic of the 21st century," since it spread across 29 countries. The virus emerged in Guangdong and infected 8,098 people over the course of eight months, killing 774. Just a month after the first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus, the total global case count surpassed that of SARS. 

The new coronavirus — now officially known as COVID-19 — appears to be less deadly than SARS, however. The mortality rate for SARS was 9.6%, whereas the Wuhan coronavirus seems to kill between 1% and 2% of those infected.

"In essence, it's a version of SARS that spreads more easily but causes less damage," Ian Jones, a virologist at the University of Reading in the UK, said on February 3.

Here are some of the crucial differences between this outbreak and the SARS pandemic 17 years ago.

The first report of the novel coronavirus came on December 31, though some people might have gotten sick earlier that month. Wuhan is a city of 11 million people in the central province of Hubei, China.

SARS originated in the Guangdong province in southeastern China, near Hong Kong.

Patients with the SARS coronavirus experienced fevers, headaches, and a type of deadly pneumonia that could cause respiratory failure. But that virus hasn't been seen in humans since July 2003.

The new coronavirus has spread far faster than SARS did.

It took eight months for SARS to infect more than 8,000 people. COVID-19 infected over 20,000 people in about five weeks.

Ma Xiaowei, minister of China's National Health Commission, said the coronavirus' incubation period ranges from one to 14 days, the South China Morning Post reported.

A new study from China's National Health Commission, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, suggests the new virus' incubation period could be as long as 24 days. The illness may jump between people before patients show symptoms.

SARS' average incubation period, by comparison, was seven days.

The new coronavirus' fatality rate has not yet been determined with accuracy, but it seems to be between 1% and 2% so far. The SARS fatality rate was 9.6%.

According to the study from Chinese National Health Commission, which looked at 1,099 coronavirus cases, the case fatality rate is 1.4%. A February 10 report from the World Health Organization (WHO) suggests that this rate could be even lower: about 1%.

Recent research published in The Lancet, however, found that the fatality rate among a group of 99 coronavirus patients studied was about 11%.

One month into SARS outbreak, only five people had died. The new coronavirus had killed at least 213 people by the one-month mark. On February 8, the death toll from COVID-19 surpassed that of SARS.

Researchers have found similarities between lung scans of SARS patients and those with the new coronavirus.

In a study released last week, a group of researchers at Lanzhou University analyzed two CT scans of a 33-year-old coronavirus patient's lungs.

Paras Lakhani, a radiologist at Thomas Jefferson University who was not involved in the study but examined the images, previously told Business Insider that the scans had "a lot of similar features," to those of SARS patients' lungs.

"If you zoom in on the image, it kind of looks like faint glass that has been ground up," he said. "What it represents is fluid in the lung spaces."

The study authors noticed that those ground-glass patches extend to the edges of the patient's lungs. 

"That's something we don't often see," Lakhani said. "We saw that with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and we saw that with Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)." MERS is another type of coronavirus found in people.

A study found that the genetic sequence of the new coronavirus is 79.5% similar to that of SARS.

Six of the seven samples analyzed in that study, which was published in the journal Nature, came from patients who worked at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan. That's where some experts think the coronavirus outbreak started in December.

The research, led by scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, showed that both SARS and the new coronavirus belong to a particular virus lineage called betacoronaviruses.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 50% of people impacted by SARS were age 65 or older, while the other half of infected patients varied widely in age.

One study of 17 patients who died from Wuhan coronavirus complications reported that the median age of those who had died was around 75. Many of those individuals had other health issues like high blood pressure, diabetes, and Parkinson's disease.

The average age of the 99 infected patients involved in The Lancet study was 55.5. The Chinese National Health Commission study of 1,099 infected people found their average age to be 47.

One notable and young victim, however, was a, 36-year-old doctor who worked in the Wuhan Central Hospital. 

According to a study by Chinese researchers in Hong Kong, one person with the new coronavirus can pass it to three to five others � a statistic called the virus' R0 value.

That study has not yet been peer-reviewed, however. World Health Organization researchers estimate that the coronavirus' R0 value is lower: between 1.4 and 2.5 people. 

On January 30, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a public-health emergency of international concern.

SARS did not get this designation because the WHO has only used it since 2005. Since then, it has been used five other times.

One reason SARS spread to so many places around the world is that Chinese authorities initially attempted to hide the outbreak from the WHO.

The Chinese government didn't inform the WHO about SARS until February 14, 2003 — 88 days after the first reported case. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, doctors in Beijing were ordered by authorities to hide SARS patients from WHO officials during inspections.

During the initial stages of that outbreak, the Chinese government also concealed information from the public, which exacerbated the spread of disease. 

Liu Heng, an adviser to China's cabinet, told Reuters that this time around, China announced the outbreak to the public much more immediately.

"We are doing much better now ... We are paying greater attention to preventing the epidemic," he said on January 22.

Still, the doctor who died in China had previously been censored after trying to sound an early alarm to some of his fellow medical-school alumni.

Chinese public-health experts quickly shared the new coronavirus' genetic information with researchers around the globe. By contrast, it took four months for the SARS genome to be published.

"The speed with which this virus has been identified is a testament to changes in public health in China since SARS and strong global coordination through the WHO," Jeremy Farrar, an infectious-diseases specialist who studied SARS, told Reuters.

Based on that genetic information, researchers have determined that SARS and the new coronavirus dock to the same human cell receptor, called ACE2, deep in people's lungs.

That may explain patients' pneumonia-like symptoms.

Not all coronaviruses have the same shape — only betacoronaviruses make the jump to humans and nest in our respiratory tracts.

In general, a coronavirus' circular shell is peppered with spike-shaped proteins that help it attach to a host's cell. If the spikes don't fit receptors on a potential host's cells, the virus can't spill over. But when a coronavirus mutates, the shape of these proteins gets altered, and that sometimes allows the virus to dock in a new host.

Genetic studies also help experts pinpoint which animal passed the coronavirus to people. This new virus is nearly identical to other coronaviruses circulating in Chinese bat populations � 96% of the genetic codes match.

Coronaviruses are zoonotic diseases (meaning they can jump from animals to people).

Bats were the original hosts of SARS, too; the animals can pass diseases to other species via their poop or saliva, and the unwitting intermediaries can transmit those viruses to humans.

"Bats and birds are considered reservoir species for viruses with pandemic potential," Bart Haagmans, a virologist at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, told Business Insider.

SARS jumped from bats to weasel-like mammals called masked palm civets, then to humans. The spillover happened in wet markets in Guangdong, China.

Researchers traced SARS to a population of horseshoe bats in China's Yunnan province. These bats lived in a cave just 1.1 kilometer from the nearest village. 

The most likely intermediary species for the new coronavirus are bats, pigs, civets, or pangolins (not snakes, as some researchers initially suggested). That's because these animals also have the same ACE2 receptors.

Another difference between the SARS outbreak and the COVID-19 outbreak is that Chinese authorities quickly instituted travel lock-downs this time. During the SARS outbreak, it took officials at least four months to institute quarantine measures.

Authorities quarantined Wuhan on January 23, halting all public transportation, including city buses, trains, and ferries. The order prevents any buses or trains from coming into or leaving the city and grounds all planes at the Wuhan airport.

The city of Huanggang also went into lockdown on the same day, as authorities closed subway and train stations. By January 27, 14 additional cities had followed suit with their own travel restrictions.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO, said efforts to quarantine cities could help Chinese authorities control the virus' spread.

"What they're doing is a very, very strong measure, and with full commitment," Ghebreyesus said on January 22.

The restrictions affect at least 50 million people in China.

Neither SARS nor the Wuhan coronavirus has a vaccine.

"A vaccine best-case scenario is three-quarters of a year, if not longer," Vincent Munster, a virologist at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories, told Business Insider.

Five leading drug companies — Johnson & Johnson, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline, Moderna, and Gilead Sciences — have announced plans to research and develop treatments for the new virus.

Some are developing vaccines from scratch using information about the coronavirus' genetic code. Others are testing existing drugs as treatment options. 

Getting a vaccine to market has historically been an arduous, multi-year process (the Ebola vaccine took 20 years to make). But Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, announced on Friday that the agency is collaborating with Moderna to develop a coronavirus vaccine more quickly.

As long as there aren't any glitches, Fauci said, "we will be in people in a phase-one trial within the next 2.5 months."

There is a benefit to the genetic similarity between SARS and the new coronavirus: Work to develop treatments for the former might be applicable for the latter.

No specific treatment or vaccine has been developed for SARS or this coronavirus, but researchers have been working on some drugs and pre-clinical vaccines for SARS. Because SARS and the new coronavirus bind to human cells in the same way, research that's already been done could provide a head-start.

"Treatments and vaccines developed for SARS should work for the Wuhan virus," Jones said.

Rosie Perper and Aria Bendix contributed reporting to this story.

• Read more about the Wuhan virus:
• Everything we know about the deadly Wuhan virus sweeping across China
• Health experts issued an ominous warning about a coronavirus pandemic 3 months ago. The virus in that simulation could kill 65 million people.
• Wuhan, China, and at least 15 other cities have been quarantined as China attempts to halt the spread of the coronavirus. That's about 50 million people on lockdown.
• The Wuhan coronavirus has spread to at least 26 countries. Here's how to protect yourself while traveling.
• Experts think the Wuhan coronavirus jumped from bats to snakes to people. Bats have been the source of at least 4 pandemics.

• Curaleaf, America's biggest cannabis company, just completed its acquisition of Cura Partners for an estimated $390 million.
• Cura had just agreed to pay a record fine for mislabeling the ingredients in its Select brand of cannabis oil pens.
• Curaleaf's new CMO Jason White said his top priority is to re-establish people's trust in the Select brand.
• White said he thought widespread layoffs and cratering stock prices that have dented the industry would ultimately be good for consumers by exposing bad actors.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Curaleaf Holdings, America's largest cannabis retailer, continued its growth streak by completing the acquisition of Cura Partners Inc. this week in all all-stock transaction valued at about $390 million.

Curaleaf plans to use its distribution network to boost sales of Cura's Select cannabis oil products, Curaleaf's new CMO Jason White told Business Insider. The acquisition closed days after Select paid a record $110,000 fine to the Oregon state government for mislabeling the ingredients in its vape pens, and White said his top goal is to help earn consumers' trust in those products and make Curaleaf stand out in a crowded, confusing market.

White, who formerly led marketing at Apple's Beats Electronics and oversaw the Nike account at ad agency Wieden and Kennedy, told Business Insider that the cannabis industry is poised to move into a new, more mature phase.

Curaleaf's new CMO predicted the cannabis industry would recover from its downturn

The past year has seen top cannabis companies devalued amid hundreds of layoffs and the departures of executives like Med Men CEO Adam Bierman.

Similar economic uncertainties reduced the short-term value of Curaleaf's all-stock acquisition by more than 50%.

But White said he thought the downturn would ultimately be good for consumers.

"The folks that weren't able to deliver based on promises they made to investors, I think you're starting to see all those folks be exposed," White told Business Insider.

He said he thought Curaleaf could overcome its legal issues. Cura recently paid a fine to settle allegations that it mislabeled nearly 200,000 of its Select oil pens as 100% cannabis when they contained other additives. A couple also filed a class-action lawsuit against Cura over the labeling issue.

White said the settlement resulted from a communication failure that happened because Cura was focused on things like the pending acquisition and a crisis over lung diseases tied to vaping THC.

"That's not going to happen again," he said.

The company's main goal is to scale quickly

White's biggest challenges may be scaling Curaleaf and re-establishing trust in the business after the settlement. He said he planned to use his creative services team and digital marketing and PR agencies to promote the company's "Cannabis with confidence" positioning.

Cura's recent marketing has emphasized social justice. In August, the company launched "The Possible Plan," an effort to expunge the records of people arrested for low-level marijuana offenses, through a collaboration with The New York Times Magazine's slavery feature The 1619 Project.

White argued that cannabis companies that don't take strong stances on such issues will fall behind.

"If you haven't thought through your position in this space, it's too late now," he said.

SEE ALSO: Insiders reveal how to get a job at Wieden and Kennedy, the famous ad agency behind Nike, Bud Light, and McDonald's

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NOW WATCH: Why hydrogen cars will be Tesla's biggest threat

By Pam and Russ Martens

Wall Street on Parade

Monday, January 27, 2020

According to the data made available on the public website of the New York Fed, since September 17, 2019, it has funneled a cumulative total of $6.6 trillion to some of the 24 trading houses on Wall Street that are known as its "primary dealers."

The giant sum has been sluiced to Wall Street in the form of repurchase agreement (repo) loans without any details being provided to the elected representatives in Congress as to which firms are getting the money or what it's being ultimately used for. But since the stock market has set repeated new highs since the program launched, some veteran market watchers believe the Fed is fueling a Ponzi-like rally in stocks.

... Dispatch continues below ...

Why is it essential to report on the cumulative tally that the New York Fed pumped during the crisis and is doing once again to Wall Street's trading houses? As L. Randall Wray wrote in 2011 to explain Levy's calculations: "The cumulative lending by the Fed contributes to our understanding of the depths of their [the Wall Street banks'] problems." ...

... For the remainder of the commentary:

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/01/fed-repos-have-plowed-6-6-trillio...


* * *

Toast to a free gold market

with great GATA-label wine

Wine carrying the label of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, cases of which were awarded to three lucky donors in GATA's recent fundraising campaign, are now available for purchase by the case from Fay J Winery LLC in Texarkana, Texas. Each case has 12 bottles and the cost is $240, which includes shipping via Federal Express.

Here's what the bottles look like:

http://www.gata.org/files/GATA-4-wine-bottles.jpg

Buyers can compose their case by choosing as many as four varietals from the list here:

http://www.gata.org/files/FayJWineryVarietals.jpg

GATA will receive a commission on each case of GATA-label wine sold. So if you like wine and buy it anyway, why not buy it in a way that supports our work to achieve free and transparent markets in the monetary metals?

To order a case of GATA-label wine, please e-mail Fay J Winery at bagman1236@aol.com.

* * *

Support GATA by purchasing

Stuart Englert's "Rigged"

"Rigged" is a concise explanation of government's currency market rigging policy and extensively credits GATA's work exposing it. Ten percent of sales proceeds are contributed to GATA. Buy a copy for $14.99 through Amazon --

https://www.amazon.com/Rigged-Exposing-Largest-Financial-History/dp/1651...

-- or for an additional $3 and a penny buy an autographed copy from Englert himself by contacting him at srenglert@comcast.net.

* * *

Join GATA here:

Mining Investment Asia

InterContinental Hotel, Singapore

Tuesday-Thursday, March 17-19, 2020
https://www.mininginvestmentasia.com/

Mines and Money Asia

Conrad Hotel, Hong Kong

Tuesday-Wednesday, March 31-April 1, 2020
https://asia.minesandmoney.com/

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Help keep GATA going:

GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at:

http://www.gata.org

To contribute to GATA, please visit:

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Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon -- Photo: Katie Yu/The CW

“Crisis on Infinite Earths” is over. I mean, it has been for a few weeks, but now that The Flash has had its midseason premiere, it’s all the way over. Every CW superhero show has […]

The post ‘The Flash’ Season 6 Episode 10 Recap: Now What? appeared first on Geek.com.