Jeff Rense: China Takes Over Haifa
Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence
Haaretz: Israel Is Giving China the Keys to Its Largest Port – and the U.S. Navy May Abandon Israel
China is moving into the Israeli ports market on a large scale: With one Chinese company having already won a tender to construct the new Ashdod Port, a second Chinese firm will be taking over operations at the new Haifa Port, which is currently under construction by Shapir Engineering and the Ashtrom group at a cost of NIS 3.96 billion.
The Chinese have also been involved in constructing the Mount Carmel tunnels, the Acre-Carmiel railway, Tel Aviv’s light rail transit system, privatized ports in Haifa and Ashdod, the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem railway and possibly the proposed Tel Aviv-Eilat railway, as well as two water desalination sites. The estimated value of all these projects is $25 billion.
Berto Jongman: Tamsin Shaw on Edward Snowden
Commercial Intelligence
Snowden, by his own account, came to warn us that we were all being watched, guilty and innocent alike, with no legal justification.
It has been a long five years, and not a period marked by increased understanding, transparency, or control of our personal data. In these years, we’ve learned much more about how Big Tech was not only sharing data with the NSA but collecting vast troves of information about us for its own purposes. And we’ve started to see the strategic ends to which Big Data can be put. In that sense, we’re only beginning to comprehend the full significance of Snowden’s disclosures.
Ellen Brown: Central Banks Gone Rogue — Rigging Markets
Commercial Intelligence
Central Banks Have Gone Rogue, Putting Us All at Risk
…central banks are now buying individual stocks as investments, with a preference for big tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. Those are the stocks that dominate the market, and central banks are aggressively driving up their value. Markets, including the U.S. stock market, are thus literally being rigged by foreign central banks.
Yoda: Facebook Destroying Democracy
Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence
Good, New Yorker.
Can Mark Zuckerberg Fix Facebook Before It Breaks Democracy?
The most famous entrepreneur of his generation is facing a public reckoning with the power of Big Tech.
“The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works—no civil discourse, no coöperation, misinformation, mistruth.”
Mongoose: The “True Cost” of Amazon – An Abusive Predatory Culture That Cheats Workers
Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption
Allegations of broken promises, intimidation, and retaliation
Phi Beta Iota: This is a superb article that makes clear the “true cost economics” of Amazon — millions cheated one way or another.
Stephen E. Arnold: IBM Blockchain Banking – Amazon Too But Better?
Advanced Cyber/IO, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government, Ineptitude, IO Impotency
IBM Embraces Blockchain for Banking: Is Amazon in the Game Too?
IBM recently announced the creation of LedgerConnect, a Blockchain powered banking service. This is an interesting move for a company that previously seemed to waver on whether it wanted to associate with this technology most famous for its links to cryptocurrency. However, the pairing actually makes sense, as we discovered in a recent IT Pro Portal story, “IBM Reveals Support Blockchain App Store.”
Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: IBM Blockchain Banking – Amazon Too But Better?”
