In the desolate, northwest Xinjiang region of the People’s Republic of China, the Muslim, Turkish Uyghur minority faces cultural extermination. The Communist Party, headed by President Xi Jinping, has been ramping up a policy of persecution of industrial scale, arguably unparalleled in scope and horror since the Holocaust.
As the Uyghurs are culturally, religiously, and geographically separate from the Han Atheists in Beijing, the Communists see the Uyghur identity as an existential threat to their power and thus seek to eradicate it, with their actions reaching far past the darkest pages of Machiavelli or Orwell.
Currently, between one and three million Uyghur Muslims are interred in hundreds of concentration camps across the region, according to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-concentrationcamps/china-putting-minority-muslims-in-concentration-camps-u-s-says-idUSKCN1S925K">Reuters</a>. The camps are massive complexes, enclosed by towering walls topped with barbed wire, watchtowers, and security cameras. Everything about the Uyghurs’ lives in the facilities is heavily regulated, with days vacillating between torture and “re-education.” 
An <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Shla50pRxA">ordinary day</a> entails the unrelenting repetition of and exposure to songs, dances, phrases, and movies that glorify Xi Jinping, China, and the Communist Party, with each prisoner’s ideological “progress” individually tracked. When detainees step out of line — however slightly — the paltry amount of food they are afforded is withheld for extended periods. Any more significant violation is met with unrelenting torture.
Widespread mistreatment in the concentration camps involves the most grievous forms of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. According to victim accountants, mothers have been forcibly separated from their newborns immediately after birth, with the babies returned in <a href="https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/abortions-08172020144036.html">body bags.</a> Pregnant women have had forced electric vacuum <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/china-cuts-uighur-births-iuds-abortion-sterilization-71546146">abortions</a>, well into the third trimester while others face are beaten, electroshock tortured, force-fed birth control pills, and forced to undergo involuntarily IUD insertion. <a href="https://pittnews.com/article/159614/featured/they-kill-us-here-survivor-of-uyghur-concentration-camps-recounts-torture/">One victim</a> was even completely deprived of sunlight. 
In order to destroy the Uyghur people’s connection to Sunni Islam, an integral aspect of their identity, adults are made to imbibe <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-28263496">alcohol and food</a> during Ramadan — two major religious violations for any practicing Muslim.
Women are subjected to weekly shots containing substances of unknown identity that cease menstruation and disorient the recipients. Besides contributing to the genetic elimination of Uyghurs, the injection serves to cover up the consequences of the institutionalized sexual abuse that runs rampant within the walls. 
After years of reports from witnesses, a recent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/extremely-sadistic-communist-china-gang-rapes-religious-minorities-in-concentration-camps-former-detainees-allege">BBC investigation </a>has provided concrete evidence revealing the scope and horror of such sexual violence. One of the ex-detainees interviewed in the BBC investigation, Tursuray Ziyawudun, recounted how masked men in the middle of the night would come into her room and violently rape her. Other times, they would sexually abuse her with electric cattle prongs. Another ex-detainee, Gulzira Audlkhan, was forced to enable the violence, having to strip down and restrain other women, who Han Chinese men would then rape. This type of abuse is far from covert. As the <a href="https://www.voanews.com/south-central-asia/china-uses-rape-torture-tactic-against-uighur-detainees-victims-say">VOA</a> has reported, public gang rape is a common occurrence. 
Outside of the walls of the camp, life in Xinjiang as a Uyghur is not much better. A Uyghur doctor told <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/2020-09-02/uighur-doctor-tells-itv-news-of-disturbing-testimonies-of-forced-abortions-and-removal-of-wombs">ITV</a> that Chinese officials would comb villages for young women who would then be herded into trackers where she would implant IUDs into them, while pregnant women would undergo forced abortion followed by sterilization. This intentional ethnic liquidation of the Uyghur people has been confirmed to be official state policy, with one uncovered 2019 Chinese government document calling for up to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-xinjiang/pompeo-calls-china-muslim-sterilization-reports-shocking-and-disturbing-idUSKBN24030D">34%</a> of all fertile Uyghur women in certain counties in Xinjiang to be sterilized by the end of that year. For those children who still manage to be born in 2021, they will nevertheless find themselves raised in times far more reminiscent of 1984.
Every Uyghur in Xinjiang between the ages of 12 to 65 has had their blood, DNA, and irises scanned and stored in a <a href="https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/dna-12132017172938.html">government database</a>. Every public space is covered with the most advanced facial and voice recognition cameras, with over <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/inside-chinas-massive-surveillance-operation/">160,000 cameras</a> in the regional capital alone. Residents have to routinely surrender their phones for a complete inspection by authorities. For Uyghurs, turning to religion for a reprieve from tyranny has become increasingly difficult, as over <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/25/world/asia/xinjiang-china-religious-site.html">8,500 mosques</a> and countless shrines have been demolished. The mosques that remain intact — two-thirds have been closed — have Chinese police stationed at their entrances to intimidate and harass attendees. This destruction of religious sites is merely one facet of the larger campaign against Uyghur heritage locations. Around <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/25/thousands-of-xinjiang-mosques-destroyed-damaged-china-report-finds">50% of all cultural sites</a>, according to the Guardian, have been desecrated. This includes the ancient city of Kashgar, the historical central node of the Uyghur people, which was wiped from the face of the earth.
In addition to seeking the elimination of the Uyghur race, the Communist party has also devised an abominable program to simultaneously raise funds by forcibly harvesting organs. According to the <a href="https://chinatribunal.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/ChinaTribunal_JUDGMENT_1stMarch_2020.pdf">China Tribunal</a>, a two year comprehensive independent investigation determined that Uyghurs and practitioners of the banned meditation routine known as Falun Gong have had their organs forcibly harvested since 2001, with organs providing over $1 billion in annual revenue for the Party. With wait times for organs in China averaging two weeks compared to three to five years in the United States, this suggests that the donor bodies are being killed on demand. Additionally, voluntary organ transplant only became an option in China in 2010, despite possessing an appreciable organ transplant network since 2001. 
For those Uyghurs who are not imprisoned or harvested for organs, slave labor is a common possibility. Last march, the <a href="https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale">Australian Strategic Policy Institute</a> (ASPI) estimated that at least 80,000 Uyghurs are being held as slave laborers in Chinese factories. The companies that have been reported to utilize Uyghur forced labor in some part of their supply chain most likely provide your everyday household items. Adidas, Amazon, Apple, Dell, Gap, Nike, Microsoft, Samsung, and Zara are only a few of 82 international companies named in the ASPI’s report, with virtually all the profits of the labor going to the state. For the Uyghur workers who make the products, they are bound to their factories’ premises like a slave to a plantation. As reported by the BBC, this program has a secondary objective of assimilating the ethnic minority.
It may seem like the solution for a member of the Uyghur population is to flee, but that is not always a possibility. China has mandated all Uyghurs to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-38093370">turn in their passports</a>, making it impossible to legally leave the state. For those who succeed in escaping, legally or not, they still might not be safe from the tentacles of the state. <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2019/2/1/exposed-chinas-surveillance-of-muslim-uighurs">Al Jazeera</a> interviewed a former Chinese spy who described a worldwide network that manipulates and coerces Uyghurs living abroad to return home. Those who fall victim are invariably imprisoned in the concentration camps. Furthermore, there have been reports of abductions all across the world. Not even American residents are safe from the clutches of the Chinese government. Only a few months ago, the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/85b67dbc-0fc4-457f-8eb8-a701dc24f9a6">U.S state department charged </a>eight Chinese operatives with the alleged attempted kidnapping of an enemy of the Chinese state on U.S soil.
The pain and suffering of the Uyghur people is seemingly endless and unspeakable, with further inequities likely to remain unreported due to the secretive nature of the Chinese totalitarian state. The objective, however is clear. Xi Jinping and his regime are seeking to wipe out their “unwanted” minority.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Uyghurs

What Exactly Happens In Chinese Concentration Camps?

China

Readers Pass

Uyghur

Two months ago, Britain detained an oil tanker in Gibraltar that was suspected of violating European Union sanctions. The U.S. says the Panamanian-flagged ship, a super oil tanker with around $100 million worth of crude on board, was in fact owned by Iran and aiding the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp, which was officially designated a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-designation-islamic-revolutionary-guard-corps-foreign-terrorist-organization/">Foreign Terrorist Organization</a> by the U.S. in April. The ship has now been released and is bound for Greece, or at least that&#8217;s what Iran claims.
The ship was detained after America notified British authorities that the ship was flying under a proxy flag and was in reality owned by Iran and, according to the U.S., involved in &#8220;illicit shipments to Syria from Iran by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),&#8221; as reported by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/17/world/us-warrant-seizure-iran-oil-tanker-gibraltar-intl/index.html">CNN</a>. The US government says that the oil, which was designated for delivery at the Syrian port of Baniyas, would be used to aid dictator Bashar al-Assad in his civil war. Such an action would be a direct violation of E.U. sanction.
At the behest of the American government, the local Royal Gibraltar Police detained the ship on July 4. Iran claimed this action was an act of modern-day piracy. In retaliation, they attempted a reprisal attack on a British ship in the Gulf, but the Royal Navy was able to intervene and force the Iranians to disengage. The Iranians would attempt a similar action against another British tanker, which would prove successful.
For the next two months, Iran pressured Gibraltar’s court system to release their oil tanker. Britain eventually relented, releasing it on August 15 after the Iranian government promised the oil would never make it to Syria.
Prior to the ship setting sail, the U.S. State Department issued a warrant for the detainment of the vessel based on the ship’s connection to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp.
The British court ignored the warrant because neither the United Kingdom nor the European Union classify the group as a terrorist organization.
The tanker left port on Aug. 18. Before setting sail, the ship changed its name and ran up an Iranian flag.
The ship claims to be heading to Greece. However, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-iran-tanker-greece/greece-says-has-had-no-request-from-iranian-oil-tanker-to-dock-idUSKCN1VA104">Reuters</a> recently reported that Greece has yet to receive any notice that the oil tanker plans on arriving there. This suggests that the ship still intends to carry out its original assignment.
If they do intend to dispose of their cargo in Syria, Greece would be the most logical place to claim to be unloading the oil, allowing them to avoid attracting suspicion until they are within a few miles of Syrian waters and before any navy could possibly respond. Once they are within Syria’s territorial waters, any intervention becomes highly unlikely.
Their intent will become apparent as their course develops. If the ship passes by the Ionian Sea, then Greece would likely be their destination, but if the oil tanker’s course circumvents Crete, then it is likely headed toward Syria.
Editor&#8217;s note: This article has been revised to clarify that the U.S. has accused the tanker of assisting the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp, rather than being controlled by it.

TOPSHOT-GULF-SHIPPING-OIL-US-IRAN-JAPAN-NORWAY-DIPLOMACY

UK Releases Oil Tanker Accused Of Assisting Iranian Terrorist Group

Foreign Policy

Great Britain

Iran

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

Homelessness has skyrocketed in the state of California. Los Angeles in particular has witnessed a massive increase. Between 2018-2019 the county&#8217;s homeless population grew by 16%. The city of Los Angeles experienced a similar phenomenon as its population grew at a slightly slower rate. The thousands of new people calling the streets their home has far surpassed the city&#8217;s sanitary capabilities. The sheer amount of people now eating and defecating in the California heat has allowed previously rare diseases to proliferate. It has reached the point where there is a real threat of a bubonic plague outbreak occurring in Los Angeles.
All politicians agree that the best way to combat the threat is by solving the homelessness problem. Some politicians have blamed Los Angeles county&#8217;s notoriously high real estate prices as the source of the crisis. While others claim that the homeless population is a direct consequence of California&#8217;s failed policies on managing the mentally ill and drug-addicted. There have been many reports such as the one commissioned by the National Coalition for the Homeless that supports the latter group&#8217;s claim. The <a href="https://nationalhomeless.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Substance-Abuse-and-Homelessness.pdf">National Coalition for the Homeless </a>study found that 64% of the homeless population is dependent on some inebriating substance. The same report concludes that &#8220;[s]ubstance abuse often leads to homelessness.&#8221;
<a href="https://files.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2015-AHAR-Part-1.pdf">Housing and Urban Development</a> conducted a similar study pertaining to homelessness and found that 45% of the homeless population in America possesses some degree of mental illness.
The increased homeless population has caused an influx of trash and feces on the streets of LA. According to a study by <a href="https://act.reformcalifornia.org/Report_Reform_RAT_03-f3a.pdf">Reform California</a>, this has allowed for the state&#8217;s rat population to flourish, which, in turn, has lead to an increased risk of rodent-borne disease.
Reform California says that there have been 124 confirmed cases of Typhus in Los Angeles County. Typhus has not been the only medieval disease to reappear. The bubonic plague — the same one that wiped out a third of Europe over 600 years ago — could be present in LA today, according to <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/05/22/mountains-of-trash-in-la-could-cause-bubonic-plague-outbreak-expert/">The New York Post.</a> The Bubonic plague has been nearly non-existent in LA with only three cases of it in the past 40 years, but experts believe that there could already be plague victims present in the city.
The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has admitted that the state has a problem. &#8220;Our homeless crisis has increasingly become a public health crisis &#8230; And now, typhus [is] in Los Angeles. Typhus. That’s a medieval disease. In California. In 2019,&#8221; he said. He is expected to sign <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB932">AB-932</a> which is a bill to produce more shelters for homeless people. The legislative piece recently passed the state senate, but how much it will help address the complex problem remains to be seen.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50785/update-after-viral-video-violent-attack-san-fran-james-barrett">After Viral Video Of Violent Attack, San Fran Judge Issues New Order On Homeless Suspect</a>

US-SOCIAL-HOMELESS

Medieval Diseases Are Present In Los Angeles

Alcohol

California

Drugs

Gavin Newsom

Homelessness

Mental Illness

Hong Kong has been engulfed in protests for months now. The demonstrations were triggered by a proposed extradition bill, which would allow for accused Hong Kong residents to face trial on the mainland, where criminal cases are little more than show trials. There has been wide spread opposition to the bill in Hong Kong, as many fear that this will greatly undermine Hong Kong&#8217;s guaranteed freedom. Protests have been constant for months and have reached over a million participants at times. The police have tried and failed to suppress the demonstrations, and now Beijing is threatening military intervention.
China has been increasing the rhetoric against the protesters. In the past few weeks, the Chinese state-run newspaper, The Global Times, has published articles with overt threats of military action. Concurrently, state-operated television has been playing videos of People&#8217;s Liberation Army (the Chinese Army) soldiers practicing invading a place that looks suspiciously similar to Hong Kong. In those videos soldiers have also conducted &#8220;training simulation&#8221; involving &#8220;anti-riot&#8221; tactics, according to <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/video-shows-how-china-would-invade-and-crush-hong-kong-72431">The National Interest</a>.
The Chinese government has now begun to label some demonstrators as terrorists. Many are concerned that this label will be used as a pretext to conduct an &#8220;anti-terrorism operation&#8221; in Hong Kong. These fears are well-founded considering China&#8217;s long history of wiping out dissenters. Most famously, in 1989, at Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Army massacred thousands of protestors (some estimate between 2,000 to 3,000).
According to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-envoy/china-will-not-sit-on-its-hands-if-hong-kong-protests-intensify-says-uk-ambassador-idUSKCN1V5117?il=0">Reuters</a> the Chinese ambassador to Britain — Hong Kong&#8217;s former colonizer — said today that, &#8220;The central government will not sit on its hands and watch [the protests.]&#8221;
The rhetoric coming out of the Chinese government suggests they plan to repeat history if the demonstrations continue. Recent intelligence has now confirmed that China is preparing to back up its threats. The government yesterday conducted a massive military parade in Shenzhen — the closest city in China to Hong Kong. This has been viewed as a blatant threat by the Beijing government against the protestors, who are no more than a hundred feet away.
It was discovered that the People&#8217;s Liberation Army has been secretly stockpiling men and war materiel in Shenzhen. The government has tried to hide this fact from the world, but the sheer amount of supplies that they have concentrated, makes such a feat impossible. In order to keep the massive military vehicles out of plain view, the central government has hidden the vehicles in soccer stadiums. This information was discovered on Monday by surveillance photos from Maxar Technologies.
Photo of Chinese military equipment stashed in a soccor stadium:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">Visual evidence from <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/space?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#space</a>: The Maxar News Bureau released this <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/satellite?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#satellite</a> image taken yesterday by WorldView-1 showing military equipment inside the Shenzhen Bay Sports Center outside of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HongKong?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HongKong</a>. Reports say it’s Chinese troops: <a href="https://t.co/gRHprxzYSJ">https://t.co/gRHprxzYSJ</a> <a href="https://t.co/NdAVSe5IoK">pic.twitter.com/NdAVSe5IoK</a>
— Maxar Technologies (@Maxar) <a href="https://twitter.com/Maxar/status/1161424397875331072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
The next day, President Trump told reporters that the U.S. government had independently verified a military buildup near Hong Kong.
If China sends their forces into Hong Kong, many could die. It would also effectively result in the end of all freedoms that have been previously promised to the special administrative region.

Unrest In Hong Kong During Anti-Government Protests

Chinese Troops Are Massing On Hong Kong’s Border

Donald Trump

Free Speech

Protest

Trump Administration

The population of Hong Kong has been out en masse protesting for months. The protestors have seen their rights and liberties slowly chipped away by the Chinese government. This gradual reduction of freedoms has been a decade-long process, but recent legislation was a bridge too far for the people of Hong Kong. The legislative boiling point was an extradition bill that would have allowed Hong Kong residents to be transferred and tried in mainland China courts.
Even though Honk Kong is officially part of China, their history kept the island distinct from the rest of the country, both culturally and legally. Hong Kong was seceded to the British by the previous Chinese dynasty in 1842, and the territory remained a British Colony almost uninterrupted for the next 150 years. The mainly Cantonese native population of the island colony was entitled to the freedoms and liberties guaranteed to all citizens under the British Crown. The citizens enjoyed a much higher income compared to those on the mainland, as it was a major trading port, with the economy running under a laissez-faire capitalist model, while mainland Chinese lived under a system that lacked civil liberties and free markets. China would consolidate and fracture in constant cycles of volatility for the next 100 years. During this time, the Hong Kongese found refuge in the stability of their island, and Hong Kong grew to be culturally and economically independent from the mainland.
According to <a href="https://www.scmp.com/article/48108/thatcher-reveals-dengs-threat-seize-hong-kong-day">The South China Morning Post</a>, in 1982, Deng Xiaoping, the effective dictator of China, told Margaret Thatcher that they would just take the islands by force if Britain did not willingly hand it over. She knew this to be true and was forced to negotiate the handover of Hong Kong. Britain relinquished the territory in 1997, but in the negotiation the U.K. was able to secure the freedoms and liberties that the population had grown to expect. These protections were stipulated in a document known as the &#8220;Sino-British Joint Declaration.&#8221; Rights such as freedom of speech, democracy, and the ability to have a fair and impartial trial were to be preserved for 50 years after the handover, known as the &#8220;One country, two systems&#8221; policy.
The protesters, many of whom used to live under British Dominion, believe these guarantees are being rolled back prematurely. In response they have risen up in protest to stop the regression of their rights. In 2014 the &#8220;Umbrella&#8221; protests occurred in which half a million people rose up against a bill requiring politicians to be approved by the Chinese Communist Party before they were allowed to run for office. The public pressure was so great that it forced the authorities to relent.
The current controversy started from a homicide case in Taiwan. A Hong Kong man was suspected of committing the crime, and the Hong Kong government wanted the accused to be extradited to face trial in Hong Kong. The two entities currently do not have an extradition treaty in place. In response, a bill was proposed in the Hong Kong legislature to allow for an extradition agreement. The controversy arose when it was discovered that the bill&#8217;s provisions would also allow for a suspected criminal to be extradited to mainland China.
The Hong Kong population saw this as a direct threat to their freedoms, as any citizen would be capable of being tried in the mainland. In the People&#8217;s Republic of China, death penalty cases are usually decided in under 20 minutes, and the criminal justice system has a 99.9% conviction rate, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/03/11/china-scored-99-9-percent-conviction-rate-last-year/">The Washington Post</a>.
The demonstrations began March 31. At first, it was mainly students who protested, and then on June 6 there was a Silent Lawyer&#8217;s March — where a fourth of the city&#8217;s legal professionals marched against the bill. Soon, every level of Hong Kong society joined the protests. On June 9, over 1,000,000 people took to the streets in protest of the extradition bill. The demonstrations have continued for months with hundreds of thousands filling the streets regularly.
On July 9, Carrie Lam, the chief executive of Hong Kong, declared the bill &#8220;dead.&#8221; This did not stop the protests as there is no legal meaning behind saying a bill is &#8220;dead&#8221;; declaring the bill &#8220;withdrawn&#8221; is the actual terminology that would &#8220;kill&#8221; the bill. Once a bill is withdrawn, it must be reintroduced from the beginning of procedure, if the bill is to become law. Carrie Lam has refused multiple times to declare the bill officially withdrawn. This has led many protestors to believe her plan is to quietly pass the proposition when public pressure dies down.
Carrie Lam has sided against the protests in favor of the bill and has branded the protestors &#8220;rioters.&#8221; After significant backlash from the public, Lam apologized for the statement.
Progressively, police actions toward protestors have become increasingly violent, some of which has been documented in videos showing police brutality. Footage shows uniformed police bashing protestors heads in with clubs and shooting rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators. One of the main demands of the protest is for an independent investigation into police brutality that allegedly occurred. There have even been cases of the infamous &#8220;Hong Kong Tirades&#8221; orchestrating attacks against protestors — with police aware of the events prior to happening and refusing to intervene.
In the past few days, there was a major sit-in protest in Hong Kong&#8217;s main international airport, which halted all flights at the facility. The Chinese government has also been reportedly moving troops to the Hong Kong border.

HONG KONG-CHINA-POLITICS

The Full Story Behind The Hong Kong Protests

Freedom of the Press

Today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted an alarming 800 points, which is 3.03% of its total value. This plunge more than eliminates the 400 points gained in yesterday&#8217;s session.
Every single stock in the Dow is down today, with companies only left hoping to finish the day less bruised than most of the field. Coca-Cola (KO) was the best performing stock, remaining virtually unmoved from its price at the open, dropping only -0.94%. Some other companies, such as Walmart (WMT) and Procter and Gamble (PG), held relatively stable but were still ended up with slightly deeper losses (-1.21% and -1.46%, respectively).
While there are some stocks that weathered this volatile day, the companies that were unable to stabilize, truly dragged down the market. Walgreens (WBA) and JP Morgan Chase (JPM) have contracted more than four percent today, while Dow Inc. (DOW,) took the cake with a negative shift of 5.91%.
S&amp;P 500 also took a beating, shrinking by 2.93%. Over eight companies in the exchange were down more than 8%, while three companies were down more than 10%. The worst performer in the entire index was Macy’s Inc (M), which lost 13% of its value. Macy&#8217;s losses were prompted by earnings coming in far lower than projected. Today’s events have further frightened the company’s investors, the stock having collapsed over 60% in the past 52 weeks.
So what&#8217;s behind the market-wide losses? The three main American stock markets&#8217; horrid performances were mainly due to investors being spooked over the idea of a potential recession sparked by a glaring pre-recession warning sign that manifested today.
That sign was the bond yield curve becoming inverted shortly after trading began, the ten-year yield falling below the two-year yield. For the past 50 years, every time the yield curve inverts in this way, a recession follows within two years.
The bond yield curve shows the interest or &#8220;yield&#8221; on U.S. bonds over time. The line represents the amount of interest on bonds that one would receive for holding the issue. Usually the predicted interest increases over time, creating a curve that rises. The two-year/ten-year comparison is a key measure for financiers; an inversion occurs when investors believe interest rates will decline in the near future due to a weaker economy and shrinking government revenues, as we saw in 2008. If the inverted yield curve signals what it has for five decades, a recession is coming soon.

US-stocks-market

Stock Market Plummeted 800 Points Today; Here’s Why

Economy

Recession

Stock Market

Over the weekend, 42 people were wounded and 5 people were killed in the Windy City as a result of shootings, according to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/another-violent-chicago-weekend-leaves-5-dead-nearly-50-injured">Fox News</a>. The deaths come amid a national debate on guns after the recent tragedies in El Paso and Dayton.
<a href="https://chicago.cbslocal.com/tag/weekend-shootings/">CBS Chicago</a> reports that last weekend 7 people were killed and 46 were wounded from shooting-related incidences. The prior weekend 8 people were killed and 39 were wounded. The weekend before that, 9 were killed and 32 more were wounded. During fourth of July weekend, nearly 70 people were shot, five of which would eventually succumb to their injuries. This trend continues week after week, month after month, year after year, and decade after decade.
So far this year, 309 people have been killed in Chicago, as reported by the <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-homicides-data-tracker-htmlstory.html">Chicago Tribune</a>. That figures averages out to 1.6 murders per day since January 1st. The city is also on track to nearly match the body count of Detroit and Baltimore combined. If the average rate of murders keeps up, then 587 people in the city will die from gunfire in 2019.
The demographics of the deceased are not evenly distributed among the races. A preponderance of those killed are black, as 75 percent of the victims are African American. While Hispanics make up the second-largest group, they make up only 18 percent of all victims. The percentages are not consistent with the demographics of the city, as only 30 percent of the city is black. This means that black people are disproportionately hit by a factor of 2.6. Men are also over-represented on the list of the dead, accounting for 90% of the victims. These numbers are according to the most recent data released from the <a href="https://home.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2011-Murder-Report.pdf">Chicago Police Department</a>.
Although these statistics are horrible, the homicide rate is significantly lower than it was in 2016 and 2017. The reason for this is mainly the subsidence of the so-called &#8220;Ferguson effect.&#8221; The &#8220;Ferguson effect&#8221; is the feeling of distrust and resentment towards the police by local racial minorities. This occurred nationwide after a white police officer shot Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri — a shooting the Obama Department of Justice determined was justified after an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50601/washington-post-shreds-democrats-claim-mike-brown-james-barrett">extensive review</a> of the evidence and 40 witness testimonies. The fracturing of the bond between local communities and their constables, along with federal pressure applied to local police, weakened the effectiveness of law enforcement. The diminished capabilities of the police created a vacuum that criminals exploited.
The country at-large witnessed a rise in violent crime, with Chicago especially experiencing a huge surge in gun-related homicides.
Chicago has been a violent city for a long time and is notorious for being a hotbed of illegality, going back to the days of bootlegging by characters such as Al Capone in the 1920s. A crime wave hit the city in 1965 and it never truly subsided. Shootings would reach their peak in 1994. The violence was so great that Congress was forced to act. The federal government passed the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which is known as the “1994 Crime Bill.” Since the bill was passed, crime has decreased significantly. While shooting remains the highest of any city across much of the Western world, the situation has significantly improved. (See the graph below.)
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The Sino-American trade war has been raging for over a year, and Big Tech is directly in the crosshairs. Apple&#8217;s supply chains are deeply integrated into the Chinese state. Now that China&#8217;s economy is being challenged by the trade war, the tech giant is about to have its intricate systems disrupted.
The trade war has already slowed Chinese tech giant Huawei&#8217;s path toward preeminence in the 5G race, now America’s technology monolith is getting burned.
China is important to companies such as Apple, Samsung, Tesla etc. for two reasons, labor and resources. China has a GDP per capita lower than the Dominican Republic with a population 131 times the size. The result is a massive glut of cheap labor that American companies have utilized to lower labor costs. Apple hires third-party manufacturers to produce their products in China. The largest company that Apple employs is Foxconn. They alone account for 1.3 out of the 4.8 million people the tech conglomerate hires in China.
So far, Apple has been mainly spared from the effects of the war. This will all change on September 1st, as Trump has tweeted out that he is, &#8220;Putting [on] a small additional Tariff of 10% on the remaining 300 Billion Dollars of goods and products coming from China into our Country.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">&#8230;during the talks the U.S. will start, on September 1st, putting a small additional Tariff of 10% on the remaining 300 Billion Dollars of goods and products coming from China into our Country. This does not include the 250 Billion Dollars already Tariffed at 25%&#8230;
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1156979446877962243?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 1, 2019</a></blockquote>
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This new round of tariffs will directly hit all Apple products. Resource collection, manufacturing, and assembly will all be taxed when the products enter the United States.
Apple has requested a waiver from the Trump administration, making the case that they would have to pass the cost of tariffs on to the U.S consumer. President Trump responded by tweeting out, &#8220;Apple will not be given Tariff waiver, or relief … Make them in the USA, no Tariffs!&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">Apple will not be given Tariff waiver, or relief, for Mac Pro parts that are made in China. Make them in the USA, no Tariffs!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1154774656861257732?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 26, 2019</a></blockquote>
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According to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2019/08/01/trumps-china-tariff-could-increase-iphone-price-up-100/1892577001/">USA Today</a>, iPhone prices could rise by $100 on the highest-end items. Presumably, similar price increases will occur for other Apple products. The price hike would amount to a 10% increase in cost, which would price out 20% of consumers, according to<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2019/08/05/heres-how-much-apple-and-others-will-suffer-from-new-trump-tariffs/#7319f34b5655"> Forbes</a>. The predicted lower sales scared investors with Apple Stock falling 9.25% in a single week.
A significant increase in cost appeared to be an inevitability until recently, when the People&#8217;s Bank of China (PBOC) announced they were devaluing the Yuan in comparison to the dollar. In real world terms, this means that buying things from China will be cheaper for the rest of the world. There is also the inverse effect that it is now more expensive for China to buy from every other country.
China will be effectively absorbing the cost of the tariffs. This means Apple&#8217;s prices might not rise as high as previously expected.
Apple can also avoid paying for the tariff by moving operations to Vietnam. Vietnam, which is situated next to China, has benefited greatly from the trade war. The country possesses certain similar qualities – and more importantly – one very different quality than China: While Vietnam is a destitute and highly populace nation, just like China, resulting in cheap labor en mass, it does not carry any of the tariffs that plague manufacturing a product in China. This has led companies to flee China in droves for Vietnam.
There is a chance that Apple will decide to follow suit, which could possibly even lower their prices.

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