What we really have is a trained
assassin, 42 years old, from a Jewish family, who trained against
Palestinians and served in Southern Syria and in Idlib with al Qaeda,
transiting in and out of Turkey.
Quotes The key to understanding the massacre is thus that it
contained at its heart a "double-cross" mechanism enabling it to eliminate a
substantial part of the personnel who had actually been involved in planning it.
It is certainly hard not to believe that Anthony Nightingale was involved in the
plot: as soon as the shooting started, he leapt up from his seat to cry out,
"No, no, not here!" Clearly, Nightingale knew, or thought he knew,
where the massacre was supposed to take place. Yet the gunman fired on
regardless. The best answer, therefore, to the
question of why no survivors have come forward is that many, if not most, were
intelligence operatives. Those who knew about the massacre were expecting to be
able to observe it from a safe distance. Those at the highest levels of the plot
had in mind a quite different development: the massacre would lead to the
elimination of most of the people who knew anything about it. This was easily
done—only a handful needed to know that the carnage would really take place
inside the café—and would ensure that afterwards there were very few left who
actually knew what had happened and so there could be few leaks. The survivors,
having been tricked in this way, would have been left in an extremely awkward
position. They could hardly have gone public with what they knew, for to do so
would oblige them to admit that they had been involved in a plot to murder the
tourists on the Isle of the Dead. If my theory is correct, there is a
silver lining to the horrendous dark cloud that was the Port Arthur Massacre. At
least some of the dead had themselves been party to a conspiracy to murder
dozens of innocent people. Maybe there is some justice in their becoming victims
of their own planning. The Port Arthur Massacre-- Was
Martin Bryant Framed? by Carl Wernerhoff
"Roland Browne, then co-chair of the National Coalition for Gun Control (NCGC),
who, with astonishing accuracy, predicted the Port Arthur Massacre when he
stated, 'We are going to see a mass shooting in
Tasmania...unless we get national gun control laws.'-
(ACA ,with Ray Martin, March 1996)
The Sun Herald reported May 5 1996
that ex-Premier of NSW, Barry Unsworth made this prediction in 1987 -
'Before Uniform Gun Laws become possible in all
States there will have to be a massacre in Tasmania.'
Can politicians and people for gun control really see into the future?"
[2001] A Presentation of the Port
Arthur Incident by Mr Noel McDonald On April 28, 1996, 28-year-old Martin Bryant with the mental capacity of an 11 year old but yet capable with surgical military precision exenterated killed 35 people and wounded 21
in a shooting spree at the historic Port Arthur site in Tasmania? [2016 vid] Port Arthur Massacre -
GUNMEN named!
The slowdown in global trade began many quarters before the Trump administration launched a trade war with China last May. The primary
cause of the downturn is sharp declines in intra-Asian trade - mostly
due to China's deteriorating economy. While equity markets around the
world have soared in the last several months from "trade optimism," any
deal between Washington and Beijing may not initially trough global
trade and could leave the shipping industry in turmoil.
A rapid slowdown in global trade to rising marine fuel
to capacity out of step with demand has generated new challenges
for container-shipping operators in 2019, hurting the overall prospects
for a global recovery in the near term. The Wall Street Journal says that shipping companies will pass on $10 billion in extra expenses to cargo owners this year.
Container ships are essentially cargo ships that carry all of their
load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called
containerization. These vessels move clothes, food, furniture,
electronics and heavy-industry parts from emerging market countries to
the developed world. Pre-2008 financial crisis, these ships fueled
globalization, as demand for vessels rose as much as 8% annually and
shippers spent billions to increase the size of their fleets.
Now, the industry is plagued with excess tonnage and collapsing
freight rates. It is likely that the trade war will continue to
push rates below the break-even levels for many companies this year.
With China’s economy faltering and trade volumes declining from the
evolving trade war between Washington and Beijing, operators are
slashing their full-year forecasts.
“We see clearly a global economic growth that is declining,” Soren
Skou, chief executive of A.P. Moller-Maersk AS, the world’s top
container operator by capacity, told an investor conference call
recently.
“We see weaknesses, in particular, in China and Europe. We expect
container demand growth to fall to 1% to 3% this year from 3.7% to 3.8%
last year.”
The world's largest shipper, Maserk, said 2019 would be a challenging
year due to risks of further restrictions on global trade. It added
that new regulations by the International Maritime Organization to cut
emissions from ship stacks “will bring significant increases in fuel
prices.”
“The fuel price increase is very significant and there will be a
premium in freight rates,” Jeremy Nixon, CEO of Japan’s Ocean Network
Express, told The Wall Street Journal in a recent interview. “We are trying to pass on the fuel charge to customers, but we are not doing it very effectively.”
Consulting firm AlixPartners LLP. said in a recent report that ships
traveling from Asia-to-Europe trade route would need to boost freight
rates by 40%, and 33% for trans-Pacific trades to absorb the extra
costs.
Shipping executives warn uncertainty over the availability of cleaner
fuels makes freight rates this year little more than a guessing game.
“It has turned the shipping market, the transportation market, into a
casino,” said Andreas Hadjiyiannis, president of the Cyprus Union of
Shipowners.
Freight rates soared in the second half of 2018 as US importers
pulled orders forward to get ahead of tariffs. But by late August into
September, rates collapsed after the importers were finished.
“We don’t believe a China-U.S. deal will be the last we have heard of trade tensions in 2019,” said Skou. “There is also clearly an outstanding discussion between Europe and the U.S.”
Faltering global trade is a clear indication that container-shipping
operators will have a challenging time in 2019. Compound that with
marine fuel rising, new emission standards, and overcapacity in the
industry, well, a perfect storm is brewing.
