Peace Agreement Signed In Sudan

The government of Sudan announced on Wednesday that it has met with rebel leaders to begin implementing a deal that aims to end a war in which hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. Rebel commanders from the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) and the transitional government met face-to-face for the first time on Tuesday, one day after striking the deal.

The meeting held on Tuesday was the first joint meeting to be held after the finalization of the accord. Alhadi Idris, the head of the SRF rebel coalition, stated to SUNA news agency that the meeting considered preliminary matters relating to the agenda to be followed.

“We discussed in this meeting what will happen going forward,” Idris said, adding that there were “still issues related to the timeline to implement the deal”.

The agreement aims to put an end to 17 years of civil war and conflicts which in turn followed decades of intermittent conflict that have ravaged the country since the 1950s.

The SRF, founded in 2011, is an alliance of five armed rebel groups and four political movements from the vast western region of Darfur, and the southern states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

“Our priorities now are economic progress and humanitarian issues related to people displaced by the conflicts,” said Minni Minawi, who leads a faction of the Darfur-based Sudan Liberation Movement.

The peace deal signed on Monday covers issues related to security, land ownership, transitional justice, power sharing and the return of people who fled their homes because of fighting.

It also provides for the dismantling of rebel forces and the integration of the fighters into the national army.

Sudan’s transitional government, which took power after the April 2019 ouster of then President Omar al-Bashir, has made forging peace with rebel groups a priority. Fighting in the Darfur conflict has killed approximately 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million others, according to the UN.

The rebels groups are largely drawn from non-Arab minority populations that long protested against Arab domination of the national government based in Khartoum. Sudan’s Revolutionary Front comprises four armed movements that have been fighting in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states in the south, and in Darfur, in the west.

The movements in Darfur include Sudan’s Liberation Army, spearheaded by Arko Minnawi, and the Justice and Equality Movement, led by Jibril Ibrahim, brother of founder Khalil Ibrahim, a former minister in Al-Bashir’s government.

The agreement proposes a federal system for Sudan and grants autonomy to the South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions. According to the terms of the agreement, the Darfur region, which was split into five states, will be reunified into one area after seven months and have its own governor.

Revenues and resources of the two states shall be divided between the federal authority, which will receive 60 per cent, and local authorities, that will be given 40 per cent.

According to the agreement, Sudan’s Revolutionary Front shall be allocated 25 per cent of cabinet and parliamentary seats (including 75 seats in the transitional legislative assembly of 300 members which is still yet to be established), and three seats in the 11-member Sovereign Council.

https://southfront.org/peace-agreement-signed-in-sudan/

The Next Normal: Is Central-Bankism Transitioning To Fascism

The Next Normal: What it "-ism" and what it "-ism't"

“Normality is the Great Neurosis of civilization.” - Tom Robbins, author

Summary:

We are now moving from the “New Normal” into the realm of “The Next Normal”: can we define what our new architecture will look like?

To do so, we look beyond economics to the historical “-isms” of political-economy

We believe we live under capitalism: do we, as fiscal and monetary Rubicons are crossed?

Or are we already heading for central-bankism, a post-capitalism with echoes of feudalism?

Marxism claims it is still alive: but it looks much more central-bank capitalism

There are unhappy parallels between aspects of our emergent political-economy and fascism

US-China tensions are about mercantilism, but still matter for that

We need a new political-economy in the “Next Normal”, but none provide a solution for our global trilemma, which suggests some forms of schism are inevitable

Indeed, expect more populism, underlining why we need a political-economy ‘guide rail’

Volatility looms as populist political-economy will naturally demand internal and external “reallocation”

The “Next Normal”

In late 2019 we published a report titled “A Decade of… What Exactly?” which underlined how disappointing the economic erformance in the post-global financial crisis “New Normal’ era had been on almost all fronts.

It showed how the experience had been one of: lower GDP growth, lower inflation, lower wage growth, and lower productivity alongside higher inequality, higher debt, higher asset prices, high and rising political populism, and high and rising geopolitical tensions, particularly between the US and China. All of these were issues we had been flagging for years.

We concluded that the outlook for the decade of the 2020s was deeply worrying.

We had likewise already recognised earlier in the year that the socio-economic impact of Covid-19 is likely to be severe and broad-ranging enough. Indeed, so much so that the concept of “The New Normal” is already behind us; we are now moving into the realm of “The Next Normal”.

This report will look at what this is likely to mean structurally – can we define what our new architecture will look like?

In order to look at overarching structures one needs overarching definitions: and in order to deal with such definitions one needs to deal with political-economy.

This is understandably not something the market wants to pay attention to – for reasons we will explain. Markets and economists would much rather be talking about monthly ISM surveys than the world of “-isms”.

Of course, such key US data are important – but they are cyclical at a time when it is crucial to understand the structural trend.

Not doing so means we don’t understand the foundations we are building on, or how solid or not they are. It is, at best, to ignore the long-run for the short-run and, at worst, to mistake signal for noise.

Indeed, we will try to show that “-isms” have major implications for markets; especially given most current markets have been driven to record highs by very ‘wet’ central-bank liquidity. We may like to think that development itself isn’t an “-ism”, but it very much is!

“Markets weed out inefficient practices, but only when no one has sufficient power to manipulate them.” - Ha-Joon Chang, economist

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/next-normal-central-bankism-transitioning-fascism

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>>10541056

China is mercantilist in that for it trade is political and always aimed at a surplus as high up the value chain as possible. As we covered extensively in “The Great Game of Global Trade”, a mercantilist approach will always generate a backlash from a free-trade partner eventually, and that’s true even if both countries are nominally capitalist.

Obviously, mercantilism is in opposition to free trade, which, oddly, has sat largely untouched as part of our new central-bankism so far. However, as the discussion turns to political-economy the attractions of mercantilism as national security, or to “bring jobs home” will grow. Here lies the potential for real problems.

“Fascism is capitalism plus murder.” - Upton Sinclair, writer

XXXX-ism

Time for another “-ism” then. Consider this political-economy definition:

XXXX-ism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie….

Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, XXXX-ism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, XXXX-ism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it.

Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, XXXX-ism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, XXXX-ism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, XXXX-ism denatured the marketplace.

Can you define the missing term? The answer is fascism. (NB The above description from Seth Richman: there is no precise definition of ‘fascist economy’.) It was developed by Mussolini in the 1920s as a corporatist system to resolve class conflict through collaboration between the classes: a political-economy “reallocation” resolving top vs. bottom by turning it into us vs. them (and Mussolini on top).

Let us be abundantly clear: we are NOT saying China or countries who will embrace a more active central-bankism are fascist. However, it is a matter of historical record that fascist economies used the power of their private sector to achieve state-defined “national goals”.

Very broadly, capitalism is private ownership of the means of production for private goals; communism is state ownership of the means of production for state goals; and fascism is the private ownership of the means of production for “state goals”.

Market mechanisms play a key role in China, but operate with over-arching “state goals”. Under central-bankism, won’t we see the same happen elsewhere?

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WHERE’S THE MEDIA? Hundreds of Armed Black NFAC Activists March in Louisville Outside of Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby Day

Hundreds of black Not F*cking Around Coalition activists marched in Louisville, Kentucky today on Kentucky Derby Day.

The radical black group marched to Churchill Downs, the home of the Kentucky Derby.

The armed activists gathered at GG Moore Park a few blocks from Churchill Downs

This march was a warning and meant to intimidate the Derby fans.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/09/media-hundreds-armed-black-nfac-activists-march-louisville-outside-churchill-downs-kentucky-derby-day-video/

Grocery store chain says employees can't wear American flag masks because they're 'offensive' — it quickly changes course after backlash

Quick turnaround

North Carolina-based grocery chain Food Lion will now permit its employees to wear American flag-themed face masks while working at its stores.

The company went viral earlier this week after one of its employees revealed he quit after being told to avoid wearing his American flag-themed mask.

What are the details?

According to a recent report from WCTI-TV, the move appears to be in response to the employee — as well as his supporters — demanding such masks after the company initially prohibited them.

Saturday saw the company's Twitter page share a status on the development, writing, "We listened to our associates and customers about our uniform policy. We require that associates wear masks without writing, insignia, or symbols. We will allow associates to wear masks with the American flag that meet this standard."

The company also promised that it "deeply respects the American flag."

Food Lion deeply respects the American flag. We listened to our associates and customers about our uniform policy.… https://t.co/pu8n3i1StU

— Food Lion (@Food Lion)1599309242.0

Controversy initially brewed after employee Gary Dean, a 69-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran showed up to work wearing an American flag-printed mask.

Dean said that a store manager told him that someone found the mask offensive, and informed Dean that he could no longer wear the mask while working.

"As a veteran, my dad being a World War II hero, my best friend killed in Vietnam, out of respect for them, I can't just say, 'No, I'll take my flag and put it in my pocket," Dean said.

So instead, he quit — and his story began to gain traction across the internet.

Days later, the company changed its stance on the masks.

"While we continue to maintain our uniform standards requiring associates to wear masks without writing, insignia or symbols, we will allow associates to wear masks with the American flag that meet this standard," a portion of a follow-up statement added. "We appreciate and thank our more than 77,0000 associates who are working hard every day to safely nourish our neighbors in the towns and cities we serve."

It is unclear at the time of this writing whether Dean will return to work following the newly instituted policy.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/grocery-store-chain-says-employees-cant-wear-american-flag-masks-because-theyre-offensive-they-quickly-change-course-after-backlash