Comment: Meanwhile economies in the West are looking increasingly precarious:

• If slowing growth, unsound financial systems and the coronavirus don't trigger a market meltdown, central banks will
• UK economy faces weakest growth since second world war
• Japan is again forced to stimulate its troubled economy
• Alastair Crooke: Germany stalls and Europe craters

Comment: This is how empires ensure their continued military occupation of foreign countries. The British dealt with a 3-year-long Irish insurgency in the 1970s by setting up death squads that attacked both Protestant and Catholic civilians. As a result they 'had to stay to protect them'.

The Americans in Iraq in the 2000s 'had to stay' when they transformed Iraqi resistance to their invasion into a 'civil war' between Sunni and Shia Iraqis by running death squads who would randomly attack both sub-groups. Same thing in Afghanistan with 'ISIS', a name they've just recently appended to the death squads they've actually been running there for about 15 years:

CIA death squads responsible for spike in Afghan civilian casualties
Bill Van Auken, wsws.org, 2 November 2019

UNAMA (United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan) has also pointed to so-called "kill-or-capture" or "night raids" carried out by a network of shadowy militias that have been organized, financed and directed by the US Central Intelligence Agency as a growing and disturbing cause of civilian casualties.

Operating outside of the chain of command of either the Afghan or US military, these militias include the so-called Khost Protection Force, which was formed by former Northern Alliance militias after the US 2001 invasion, working in close collaboration with the CIA. Others are known simply as NDS 01, NDS 02, NDS 03 and NDS 04, ostensibly under the command of the Afghan National Directorate of Security, but in reality answering to no one besides the CIA's operatives in Afghanistan. All of them have carried out a reign of terror in rural areas where the US and its puppet regime are contesting the Taliban for control.

The way it's meant to work in Afghanistan is that they'll send out one of their squads to massacre a bunch of civilians, ideally making it look like a Taliban or Taliban-supported attack. This will then dampen and even break popular support for the Taliban, upon which its fighters have of course relied all these years in order to be able to withstand the most powerful and technologically advanced empire in all history.

But by this point, most people there have figured out the game. That's why there is likely sincerity on the US govt's part to now begin scaling down the 'war'/occupation. They sort of realize that no matter how many iterations of their 'win hearts and minds' psy-ops they undertake, it all just serves to make the target population see them as repulsive psychopaths with whom they want nothing to do with whatsoever.

Comment: 'ISIS', of course, doesn't exist. At least, it doesn't exist in the way it's portrayed in the media (as a self-contained outfit with a single organizing principle or mission). The Russians' pulling back of the curtain in Syria exposed 'ISIS' there to be proxy forces - paid mercenaries - answering to command-and-control directions from their paymasters in Western intel agencies and regional govts.

Comment: See also:

• Masks and airport checks for coronavirus outbreak are there to keep population calm - no government can stop its spread now
• Don't buy China's story: Clues that coronavirus may have leaked from a lab
• Coronavirus Came From Meteor Which Hit China Last Year, Claims Scientist
• New Chinese study indicates novel coronavirus did not originate in Huanan seafood market
• Saudi Arabia suspends Mecca pilgrimage for citizens, residents due to coronavirus concerns

Comment: Israel has banned its servicemen from traveling abroad due to the virus (one good thing to have come out of all of this!), and shut down the city of Bethlehem. The UK saw its first death as its total number of cases doubled to 116 yesterday, and today it's at 163. Two British Airways baggage handlers tested positive and have been sent home to self-isolate. Russia has cancelled SPIEF 2020 over concerns. And the International Indian Film Academy indefinitely postponed this year's "Oscars of Bollywood".

See also:

• "People have just gone nuts": Wealthy NY suburb gripped by hysteria after local family diagnosed with Covid-19
• Protect Putin from Covid-19: Kremlin's new mission as epidemic spreads worldwide
• Congress warned of possible coronavirus exposure at AIPAC conference, Iran suggests bioweapon and closes schools
• The coronavirus is NOT as deadly as they want us to think

Comment: See also:

• Joe Quinn on PressTV: 'Like Iran, Trump Wants US Forces Out of Iraq, But Only With Trade Guarantees - Elephant in The Room is Israel'
• Iran-Iraq-Syria plan to move ahead on historic transnational 'land-bridge' railroad, aims to link up with China's BRI
• Violence 'must be reduced' for Afghan peace process to progress claims Pompeo just after US airstrikes on Taliban