As part of a package of bills, Vladimir Putin has submitted a draft law to parliament which would allow former Russian presidents to become senators for life after leaving office, and also appoint seven other lifers to the body.

They would have to be people who have given "outstanding service to the country, in the state or public fields," according to the proposals. Ex-presidents would also be able to appoint 23 other senators for shorter, six-year terms.

The reforms follow public approval of constitutional amendments over the summer, and may be interpreted as a sign that the groundwork is being laid for an eventual transition of power in Russia.

As the nations of Germany and France brace to hunker-down under fresh new lockdown measures to combat the spread of COVID-19, a Special Envoy of the World Health Organization has reiterated previous caution of using lockdowns as a primary method of combating the virus.

WHO's special envoy on COVID-19, Dr. David Nabarro, cautioned in a Thursday interview with BBC Radio 4's Today that full national lockdowns should be used only as a "reserve" measure to control the coronavirus, describing such actions as very extreme.


Nabarro, who was appointed in February as one of six special envoys tasked to deal with the coronavirus response, warned that national lockdowns are "a very extreme restriction on economic and social life" that temporarily "freezes the virus in place."


"You don't want to use those as your primary, and I stress that, primary, means of containment. Because in the end living with the virus as a constant threat means maintaining the capacity to find people with the disease and isolating them," Nabarro said.

The British doctor went on to recommend a robust test, trace and isolation system as the priority for government response with lockdown being "the reserve that you use to take the heat out of the system when things are really bad."

(Note: this is an excerpt, written in April, from When China Sneezes: from the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis, a collection of long-form essays on the pandemic and the world's reactions to it. Read the full chapter - and the work of a dozen other excellent writers, including the great Cynthia McKinney, the volume's editor - at the link above. DO NOT purchase the book through Amazon, unless you never want to receive the book...)

Psychol(patho)logical Warfare

Just as putting a country on a war footing predisposes its people to expect sacrifices — of luxuries, of liberties, even of basic needs — so too does it elicit a predictable and easily manageable form of reactionary patriotism. With two generations of Americans now having spent their entire adult lives in a country that was technically "at war," the effect won't be as pronounced stateside as when the US kicked off the War on Terror. Nevertheless, a spike in fear will manifest in xenophobia (already unprovoked attacks on Chinese and other Asians are on the rise) and suspicion of outsiders, even if the "outsiders" are just from across state lines. When one's world has shrunk to the boundaries of one's home over months of quarantine and "social distancing," everyone is an outsider. In the UK, where cultural memory of having to "do without" during wartime is stronger, alerts from the National Grid that blackouts may occur (because of a virus?) lend verisimilitude to their leaders' wartime rhetoric.

LET'S have a moment of blunt honesty: There is little doubt we are about to enter the most brutal winter this country has faced since World War Two.

We're staring down a second wave of coronavirus, mass unemployment causing unprecedented poverty, a growing cancer emergency, a mental health epidemic and social disharmony thanks to a largely unnecessary lockdown.

There is very little for many of us to look forward to, given the prospect of getting an immediately successful vaccine by year end grows ever more unlikely.

Talk about a cock-up! Downing Street originally briefed that the Prime Minister would be holding a press conference on Monday to set out plans for a second national lockdown. Then someone leaked the details to the press, meaning Conservative MPs had to read about the plans in yesterday's papers rather than being told about them by Boris. In an effort to minimise the damage, Downing Street brought forward the announcement to 4.30pm yesterday. Then moved that to 6.30pm. And in the event, the Wizard of Oz didn't appear from behind his curtain until about 6.45pm, even though Downing Street had been warned by the BBC that it had to start at 6.30pm because they weren't going to move Strictly.

As one Conservative minister told the Times's Matt Chorley: "The incompetence is another level. Is this a deliberate destruction of the Tory Party? People only vote for us because they think we don't care, but are competent. Lose the competence and we're f***ed. We've lost the competence. And we are f***ed."

And let's not forget the PM scoffed at Keir Starmer's call for a two-week 'circuit breaker' three weeks ago and described a second national lockdown as the "nuclear option". Pitch rolling, Boris-style.

The key points of yesterday's announcement were as follows (courtesy of the Mail):

• Restrictions will start at midnight on Thursday morning and last until December 2nd.
• People can only leave their homes for specific reasons, such as to do essential shopping, for outdoor exercise, and for work if they are unable to work from home. International travel will only be allowed for business purposes and returning travellers will have to quarantine. (This is a devastating blow to the already beleaguered aviation industry.)
• Non-essential shops will be told to shut, although supermarkets do not need to stop selling non-essential goods, as happened in Wales.
• Restaurants and pubs will have to close to the public, though they can still operate a takeaway service.
• Leisure centres, gyms, sporting venues, hairdressers and beauty parlours will have to close, although professional sport, including the Premier League, will continue.
• Key businesses that cannot operate remotely - such as construction - will carry on as before with safety precautions.
• Schools, colleges and universities will remain open.
• Places of worship can stay open for private prayer.
• Funerals are limited to close family only.
• The furlough scheme will be extended during the period of the lockdown, rather than ending tomorrow as originally planned.
• Exercise is permitted with no limits on frequency, but organised sports - including outdoor activities such as golf - will not be permitted.
• When the lockdown lapses the Tiers system will be reinstated, although Boris didn't say what metric will be used to decide whether areas can have restrictions eased.

Rather implausibly, after Witless and Unbalanced had unveiled graph after graph of doom, Boris claimed to be optimistic about the medium- and long-term and tried to get the dour-faced Patrick Vallance to second that, which he reluctantly did. The reason for this optimism? Vaccines, obviously, but also a rapid testing programme that's due to be rolled out in the next few days. Boris promised whole towns - nay, whole cities - could be tested at a stroke, with the help of the British Army. The Times has more on this plan, which is stage one of the Prime Ministered fabled "Moonshot".

We most recently described the Fed's stealthy plan to deposit digital dollars to "each American" during the next crisis as an unprecedented monetary overhaul, but more importantly, a truly stealthy one: there has barely been any media coverage of what may soon be a money transfer by the Fed - a direct stimulus to any and all Americans - bypassing the entire Legislative branch in an attempt to spark inflation after years of losing the war with deflation.

That's why two weeks ago we were delighted to read that none other than Jeff Gundlach's DoubleLine, one of the highest profile asset managers today, published a paper authored by fixed income portfolio manager Bill Campbell exposing what it called "The Pandora's Box of Central Bank Digital Currencies", in which it echoed our claims, writing that "such a mechanism could open veritable floodgates of liquidity into the consumer economy and accelerate the rate of inflation. While central banks have been trying without success to increase inflation for the past decade, the temptation to put CBDCs into effect might be very strong among policymakers. However, CBDCs would not only inject liquidity into the economy but also could accelerate the velocity of money. That one-two punch could bring about far more inflation than central bankers bargain for."

Alas, that was not enough to bring the topic of central bank digital currencies into the mainstream financial media, which is perhaps understandable for two reasons: i) everyone's attention is glued to the outcome and the implications of the election and ii) most media members think of CBDCs as some useless version of bitcoin, when nothing could be further from the truth.

The ongoing protests against Covid-19 restrictions threaten "internal security," Thuringia PM Bodo Ramelow told German media, suggesting terrorism and pogroms were taking shape at the hands of a right-wing/'anti-vaxxer' alliance.

The massive demonstrations against Berlin's tightening pandemic control measures are starting to resemble "terrorism," Ramelow told Tagesspiegel on Thursday, insisting the protests - and the fringe interests they brought together - were "a threat to internal security in our country."

Ramelow, who is a member of The Left (Die Linke), pointed to a protest in which some marchers carried large photos showing Chancellor Angela Merkel and virologist Dr. Christian Drosten in concentration camp uniforms and chanted for them to be hung from lampposts as evidence the opposition to Merkel's coronavirus regime was getting out of control.

The election of 2020 is perhaps the most bizarre affair in modern American history; not since the post Civil War turmoil of reconstruction and the election of 1876 have we seen the nation divided so completely along ideological lines. Questions of states rights vs. federal power were at the forefront at that time, and the presence of federal troops in the American south was a primary voting concern. The Democrats were the party of the Confederacy, the Republicans were the party of the Union. Though they had lost the war, southerners were finding ways to strike back during the elections.

With the Republican party suffering from corruption allegations and public sentiment shifting against the federal occupation, the Democrats were gaining massive ground and a Democratic sweep was thought to be imminent. However, there were reports of ballot box fraud on BOTH sides of the aisle; in many voting districts the counted number of votes exceeded the number of people (often on the side of Republicans). Republicans sought to challenge poll results in closely contested states to stop the Democrats and former confederates from taking political power, a situation they considered to be a "potential national disaster".

EU member states will be allowed to use only official EU-approved Covid-19 vaccines, Brussels said in response to remarks by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban that Budapest was negotiating for shots with Russia and China.

"There is no question that any vaccine that is, or could be, made available on the territory of the European Union would have to comply both with the quality standards that are expected for these types of products in the EU and follow the approval procedures" currently in effect, European Commission spokesman Eric Mamer said at a press conference on Friday, asked about Orban's comments.

While not calling out Orban by name, Mamer's comments came after Hungarian PM said Budapest was talking to Beijing and Moscow and hoping to have two or three different vaccines by early next year.

It was reported late last night that The Prime Minister has met with ministers and aides and will announce a new national lockdown on Monday. The Telegraph has more.

Boris Johnson is expected to announce a new national lockdown next week after scientists warned COVID-19 was spreading faster than their worst predictions.

The Prime Minister spent Friday in crisis meetings with ministers and aides after being told deaths were tracking above the "worst case scenario" that suggested 85,000 in the second wave.

Mr Johnson is understood to have been persuaded that a national lockdown is the only way to save Christmas, and will spend the weekend contemplating exactly how severe it should be.

Senior government sources stressed that no final decision had been made and the measure would need to be put to the Cabinet before any announcement to the nation.

Mr Johnson is likely to summon ministers from his Cabinet coronavirus subcommittee over the next 48 hours and could hold a full meeting on Sunday if he decides he needs to act as soon as Monday. The alternative to a national lockdown would be a fourth tier of restrictions on top of the existing three tier system, but Government scientists now believe even Tier 3 is not enough to stop the spread of infections.

During the parliamentary rebellion last month the Government promised Parliament would vote on any new national lockdown measures "where possible". Will the PM honour that? If he doesn't, his party management problems, already considerable, will only get worse.