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Send them back to Africa Reuters / November 6, 2016 German Interior Ministry says EU should intercept asylum seekers at sea The German Interior Ministry wants to stop migrants ever reaching Europe's Mediterranean coast by picking them up at sea and returning them to Africa, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported on Sunday. The ministry says the European Union should adopt an Australian-style system under which migrants intercepted at sea are sent for processing at camps in third countries. "The elimination of the prospect of reaching the European coast could convince migrants to avoid embarking on the life-threatening and costly journey in the first place," a ministry spokeswoman said. "The goal must be to remove the basis for people-smuggling organizations and to save migrants from the life-threatening journey." The ministry's proposal calls for migrants picked up in the Mediterranean - most of whom set off from conflict-torn Libya - to be sent to Tunisia, Egypt or other north African states to apply for asylum from there. If their asylum applications are accepted, the migrants could then be transported safely to Europe. The ministry is headed by Thomas de Maiziere, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats. Merkel has been under fire for her open-door refugee policy, with her party losing votes to the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in recent regional elections. “The Ministry of the Interior treats refugees as a contagious disease,” Green Party co-chair Katrin Goering-Eckardt told Welt am Sonntag. Bernd Riexinger, head of the leftist opposition Die Linke party, branded it “a humanitarian scandal and a further step toward elimination of the right to asylum.” “The asylum check must take place in Germany, because the right to asylum also means the right to legal resources, that is, to lawyers, counseling centers, etc. The handling of refugees in Australia is absolutely unacceptable, and Germany and the EU must not be guided by it,” Riexinger stressed.

Sex offender who chained up woman killed at least seven The Guardian / November 6, 2016 Todd Kohlhepp admits shooting four people in South Carolina and shows police graves of two others on his property A South Carolina man killed at least seven people in a hidden crime spree that lasted more than a decade and only was uncovered when police rescued a woman chained at the neck in a storage container. Todd Kohlhepp accepted responsibility for an unsolved massacre in which four people were killed, one day before the 13th anniversary of the deaths that stumped authorities, said Sheriff Chuck Wright. On Sunday, relatives of those killed in the massacre gathered in a Spartanburg courtroom. They sat a few feet away from Todd Kohlhepp, 45, as he was denied bond on the murder charges. It was their first chance to face the man accused of the killings. After the hearing, magistrate judge Jimmy Henson thanked the families for their civility and composure. “I know there’s a lot of hurt ... beyond what a lot of people understand,” he said. Authorities have charged Kohlhepp with four counts of murder in the 2003 deaths at the Superbike Motorsports motorcycle shop in Chesnee. Kohlhepp’s role in those killings was uncovered after a woman was found last week chained in a locked metal container on Kohlhepp’s property in rural Woodruff. “We got ‘em today. We got ‘em today,” Sheriff Wright said. “I’m rejoicing that this community can know that four people who were brutally murdered, there’s no wondering about it anymore.” A Spartanburg County sheriff’s investigative report from Saturday said Kohlhepp “confessed to investigators that he shot and killed” the owner, service manager, mechanic and bookkeeper of the motorcycle shop, giving details only the killer would know. Now, investigators fear they will make more disturbing discoveries as they unwind a hidden crime spree that unfolded over more than a decade. Kohlhepp is also charged with the woman’s kidnapping, and prosecutors say more charges are expected. Kohlhepp is a suspect in at least three other deaths. Authorities were searching again on Sunday on the suspect’s 95-acre Woodruff property. Wright said Kohlhepp had shown investigators where he says he buried two other victims there. Those are in addition to the body found on Friday at the site. Authorities identified that victim as 32-year-old Charles Carver, the boyfriend of the woman found on Thursday. Carver, who died of multiple gunshot wounds, went missing with the woman at the end of August. Before Kohlhepp emerged as a suspect, investigators said all four victims were killed with the same pistol. They have theorized that the killer came in the back and killed mechanic Chris Sherbert, 26, as he worked. Bookkeeper Beverly Guy, 52, was found just outside the bathroom, in the middle of the showroom. Thirty-year-old shop owner Scott Ponder was found just outside the door, in the parking lot. He was Guy’s son. Brian Lucas was in the doorway of the shop. Kohlhepp was released from prison in Arizona in 2001 and registered as a sex offender. As a teenager, he was convicted of raping a 14-year-old neighbor at gunpoint and threatening to kill her siblings if she called police. .

American democracy’s gravest trial Edward Luce, The Financial Times / November 6, 2016 The system is teetering whatever the outcome of the US election Fair enough, there was the US civil war. Amid all the carnage the Yankees still went ahead with the 1862 and 1864 elections on schedule. Other than then, there is little in US history to compare with what is at stake on Tuesday. Donald Trump, one of the possible next presidents, forecasts that the vote will be rigged. A Trump victory could still happen, which makes it so odd that he plays the sore loser before actually losing. Hillary Clinton believes the US system is working fine except for the threat posed by Mr Trump. In its way, Mrs Clinton’s outlook is almost as deluded as her opponent’s. America’s system of democracy is teetering, whether or not Mr Trump wins on Tuesday. Imagine two kinds of threat: one where a bear breaks into your cabin, the other where termites eat it from within. Mr Trump is the bear. The upside to a Trump victory is that he would be unable to claim the election was stolen. Far from it. The 2016 vote count would be the cleanest in world history. America would be great again! That aside, it would be a disaster. Many serenely predict US democracy would emerge intact from a Trump presidency. Their reassurance comes in two parts. The first is that Mr Trump would surround himself with experienced advisers who would curb his worst instincts. The second is that even if Mr Trump’s team were crackpots, the US constitution would correct any over-reach. They are too complacent. Most of those advising Mr Trump are as unsettling as he is. First among these is Mr Trump. “My primary foreign policy adviser is myself and I have a good instinct for this stuff,” he says. Bear in mind he has questioned the point of nuclear weapons unless they are used. He has also recommended China’s neighbours acquire their own. [Officially] The decision to play the nuclear card is the president’s alone. The Pentagon can only advise. Virtually every Republican with national security experience signed a letter in August warning that Mr Trump would be “the most reckless president in history”. Then there is his political team. We need go no further than Stephen Bannon, his campaign chief, who is former head of the hard right website, Breitbart News. Anyone who cherishes America’s first amendment rights should be very afraid. Mr Bannon would be in line to become Mr Trump’s White House’s ideological director. Second, America’s system of checks and balances relies on those upholding it. Leaving aside his character, Mr Trump has no respect for constitutional boundaries. The last president to breach their limits was Richard Nixon. He was forced from office in 1974 for covering up his administration’s complicity in the burglary of the offices of the Democratic National Committee. The system worked, but it took two years. Nixon had an expansive view of the president’s powers. “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal,” Nixon said. That is also Mr Trump’s view. But Nixon’s secret lawbreaking pales against what Mr Trump openly vows to do. He has publicly urged Russia to burgle Democratic databases. He has also threatened to jail Mrs Clinton, reinstate torture, cancel treaties and start a global trade war. Some of this is illegal. Some of it is legal. Much of what Mr Trump promises lies in between. Either way, it could take the US courts months or years to rule on his actions. By then, much of the damage would be done. How could a Clinton victory possibly compare? If she won by a landslide — and the Democrats regained control of Congress — all bets would be off. But that is not going to happen. No poll has put her close to 50 per cent since the election began. The dangers of a Clinton presidency are no less troubling for their subtlety. Before Mrs Clinton is elected, Republicans are vowing to block whatever she tries. John McCain, her closest Republican friend, says he will oppose any Supreme Court nominee she submits. Others have threatened impeachment hearings. The Republican party is hopelessly divided. It spans pro-globalisation multiculturalists and nativist protectionists. In most other democracies, it would have split into different parties. The one glue keeping Republicans together is abhorrence of Mrs Clinton. This is without mentioning Mr Trump’s threat to cry foul if he loses. Either way, Republicans aim to make a desert of Mrs Clinton’s presidency and call it democracy. They have the means to do so. Four more years of gridlock would only deepen America’s popular frustration. The good thing about a bear is that you can see it coming. Termites are invisible. It is hard to pinpoint when they began to eat away at the foundations. When and why did Americans lose faith in their system? There is no consensus on this either. Some point to rising inequality. Others blame the growth of government. It does not mean Americans cannot regain the trust they have lost. But for the time being, the US is becoming steadily harder to govern. As Abraham Lincoln said, a house divided cannot stand. Though he faced far deadlier challenges, Lincoln’s observation is as true today as when he said it. The basis of US democracy is co-operation. Whatever happens after Tuesday is unlikely to fit that description.

Volkswagen Scandal Takes New Twist With Audi Cheating-Software Claim The Wall Street Journal / November 6, 2016 California authorities say Audi engines were rigged to produce lower CO2 emissions in tests than on road Volkswagen’s efforts to resolve its emissions-cheating scandal faced a potential setback Sunday with a fresh allegation that California authorities discovered cheating software on popular Audi models, while the company said a German criminal investigation has widened to include its chairman. Officials from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) discovered four months ago [Why are we only just now told....after the June settlement?] that some Audi engines were rigged to produce lower CO2 emissions in labs than in normal road use, potentially opening a new front in U.S. and European investigations. Volkswagen, Audi and CARB officials [secretly] discussed the allegation “some months ago.” The allegation is the latest twist in a broader scandal that has embroiled Volkswagen. U.S. environmental authorities disclosed on Sept. 18, 2015 that the company installed software on about 500,000 diesel-powered vehicles in the U.S. that American authorities consider illegal. Volkswagen later admitted to installing the software on nearly 11 million vehicles world-wide. Volkswagen agreed in June to a $14.7 billion settlement with state authorities and owners of 475,000 two-liter diesel vehicles affected in the U.S. The company is still in talks about a settlement for owners of 85,000 vehicles with three-liter diesel engines that were built by Audi, its luxury-car unit. The Volkswagen diesel scandal involved the hiding of excessive emissions of smog-producing nitrogen oxides. The new allegation focuses on carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. U.S. environmental officials caught Audi’s alleged cheating through lessons from the Volkswagen investigation. CARB technicians conducting lab tests on Audi’s vehicles made them react as if on a road by turning the steering wheel. When they deviated from lab conditions, the CO2 emissions rose dramatically. The account was confirmed by two people. The Audi defeat device was discussed in some detail in the second half of February 2013 by Volkswagen’s top brass during the annual test drive of new cars in South Africa, dubbed “Summer Drive.” According to the minutes, Axel Eiser, the head of Audi’s powertrain division, said, “The shifting program needs to be configured so that it runs at 100% on the treadmill but only 0.01% with the customer.” Audi refused requests for comment from Mr. Eiser. Such test drives were elite events at Volkswagen. That Audi’s CO2 cheat was openly discussed by the company’s most senior management could increase criticism that Volkswagen insiders are still in positions of power at the company and able to influence the investigation. That Audi was allegedly cheating on CO2 emissions is likely to be of most interest to European officials. The issue came up earlier this year when Volkswagen admitted that 800,000 cars sold in Europe had understated CO2 emissions, only to recant later and promise to pay any bill for any customer who is required to pay additional taxes for higher CO2 emissions than stated in the vehicle’s paperwork. The new allegation says hundreds of thousands of gasoline and diesel Audi A6 and A8 sedans and Q5 sport-utility vehicles equipped with the AL551 automatic transmission contain software calibrated to cheat on emissions tests and have higher CO2 emissions than allowed by law. The allegation could also raise fresh questions in Europe, where regulators have been stricter on greenhouse gases than on nitrogen oxides. Volkswagen insists that its software didn’t violate European law. In Germany, Volkswagen hasn’t been charged with any breach of law. Criminal and civil lawsuits are instead focusing on whether Volkswagen’s management violated securities law or committed fraud and should be held liable for damages suffered by investors and consumers. Prosecutors in the city of Braunschweig, near the company’s headquarters, have widened their investigation to include Chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch. Investigators say Volkswagen management willfully kept the company’s shareholders in the dark about the U.S. diesel investigation and the potential financial risks. Before becoming chairman in September 2015, Mr. Pötsch was Volkswagen’s finance chief, responsible for communications with financial markets. He became chairman in a management shake-up following the diesel disclosure. News of the U.S. investigation last year sparked a massive selloff in Volkswagen shares, causing the company to lose 35% of its market value by Sept. 22, when Volkswagen first warned investors of financial risks in light of the U.S. investigation. Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn resigned under pressure the next day. Mr. Winterkorn and Herbert Diess, the head of Volkswagen’s passenger car brand, are also named in the Braunschweig investigation. Mr. Diess has acknowledged the investigation but declined to comment. Mr. Winterkorn has declined to comment through his attorney. Volkswagen faces nearly $9 billion in damages claims from hundreds of investors, including Calpers of the U.S., Norway’s huge oil fund, and several German states that hold Volkswagen shares. The plaintiffs allege that Volkswagen’s top executives intentionally withheld information from shareholders, who later suffered huge losses when Volkswagen’s shares plunged. Volkswagen said no evidence has emerged to suggest that the company’s management failed to disclose the diesel issue to markets as early as possible, saying the company reaffirmed its belief that its management board “duly fulfilled its disclosure obligation under German capital markets law.”

What Happens When the Most Important Pipeline in the U.S. Explodes Bloomberg / November 4, 2016 The 5,500-mile Colonial delivers about half of the refined products used on the East Coast. On Monday, a construction crew in Alabama triggered a massive explosion when a track-hoe struck the biggest fuel pipeline in the U.S. The blast killed one person, injured several, and sparked a wildfire that burned for nearly a day across 31 acres. It also stopped the flow of millions of gallons of gasoline that move up the East Coast each day, from refineries in Houston to tanks in Linden, N.J., outside New York Harbor. The 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline delivers about half of the refined products used on the East Coast. It consists of two lines—one that carries gasoline, the other that carries distillate fuels such as diesel and jet fuel. Think of it as the country’s fuel aorta. The consortium that owns Colonial includes private equity behemoth KKR, industrial conglomerate Koch Industries, and oil-and-gas supermajor Royal Dutch Shell. The fact that it’s so little known, yet such a vital piece of infrastructure, is a testament to how well Colonial has been run over the years. But this is its second outage in two months. In September, a spill leaked 250,000 gallons of gasoline and caused states of emergency to be declared in Georgia and Alabama as gasoline ran out in some areas. The Colonial was down for 12 days. The U.S. has plenty of gasoline in storage. Tanks are brimming with near-record levels of supply. But that was true in September as well, when the outage caused all kinds of disruptions and price spikes. “All that supply does you absolutely no good if you can’t move it around,” said Phil Flynn, a senior market analyst with the Price Futures Group in Chicago. By Tuesday morning, Colonial’s Line 2, the distillate pipe, was up and running. By Tuesday afternoon, news broke that its main line, Line 1, would be back up by Saturday afternoon, an optimistic timetable, according to some traders, given the level of destruction at the site. Still, the news helped cool the initial spike in the price of gasoline futures, which had jumped the most since 2008, fueled by a record level of trading that day. Traders in Houston working for big refineries have had to find a place to put all the excess barrels of gasoline and diesel they normally would send into the Colonial. That has set off a bidding war for the limited number of tankers and barges available to move products between U.S. ports. An obscure maritime law called the Jones Act requires that only U.S.-made, U.S.-flagged ships can deliver goods between ports. According to Bloomberg vessel-tracking data, about 27 Jones Act vessels were in service around the U.S. Gulf and the East Coast as of Thursday morning. Ship owners have been able roughly to double the price they charge to lease their tankers and barges, said Court Smith, a research analyst at MJLF & Associates, a shipping brokerage in Connecticut. Depending on how long the outage lasts, the federal government could waive the Jones Act, as it did after Hurricane Sandy in 2012, to alleviate fuel shortages in the Northeast. Traders who can’t get their hands on Jones Act ships will have to find tanks on land. Floating storage has also become a thing, where people lease ships to store their product. Refiners along the Gulf can also start changing the slate of products they make. The worst option for them is to throttle back and produce less, which would eat into their profits. If it’s anything like the September outage, a fleet of vessels bringing imported gasoline will start heading to the U.S. East Coast, where they can probably fetch higher prices. During the second half of September, gasoline imports to the East Coast jumped from about 500,000 barrels a day to 800,000 barrels a day. One vessel, the Flagship Violet, made its way from India eventually to New York harbor. It never unloaded and has been sitting outside New York harbor ever since, laden with 500,000 barrels of alkalyte, a distillate used to raise the octane in gasoline, according to data from ClipperData, a petroleum market research firm. On Nov. 1, the vessel changed its destination for the first time in a month, to a location within New York harbor. The outage is good news for refineries on the East Coast that can take those imported barrels. “The clear winners here are the Philadelphia-area refiners,” said John Mayes, director of special studies at Turner Mason, an energy consulting firm in Dallas. Shares of PBF Energy, which owns a large refinery outside Wilmington, Del., spiked on Tuesday by 12 percent in early trading, though they have since come down. Given the assurances from Colonial and what has so far been a more muted market response, some participants think the outage will be less severe than the one in September, when gas stations in Alabama and Georgia ran out of fuel. “We’re not going to see pumps getting bagged,” said Ernie Barsamian, a principal at the Tank Tiger, a tank-storage broker in New Jersey. The September outage prompted a cannonball run as tanker trucks raced to deliver gasoline from the Midwest to the Southeast. “You saw trucks driving all night from Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio, down to Alabama and Georgia,” said Tom Kloza, chief analyst at the Oil Price Information Service. Although the outage is supposed to be contained by Saturday, Kloza is expecting the impact to be similar to what happened in September. No matter how long it lasts, the Colonial outage will probably lead to higher gasoline prices in the days leading up to the presidential election in states such as Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Normally, spiking prices at the pump as Americans go to the polls could spell trouble for the incumbent party. But the impact will likely be smaller, given how cheap gasoline has been over the past two years. “I think gasoline prices on Election Day will be 15¢ to 20¢ higher than they were last year,” Kloza said. “But let’s remember, that’s still $1.35 lower than they were in 2012.”

FBI again won’t recommend charges over Clinton email The Washington Post / November 6, 2016 FBI Director James Comey notified key members of Congress Sunday afternoon that after reviewing newly discovered Hillary Clinton emails the agency stands by its original findings against recommending charges. Comey wrote that investigators had worked “around the clock” to review all the emails found on a device used by former congressman Anthony Weiner that had been sent to or from Clinton and that “we have not changed our conclusions expressed in July.” A spokesman for the FBI refused to comment beyond Comey’s letter. A Department of Justice spokesman said only that the department and FBI had “dedicated all necessary resources to conduct this review expeditiously.” The three-paragraph letter was sent to the chairman of the Homeland Security, Judiciary, Appropriations and Oversight and Government Reform and was copied to the ranking members of those committees. Comey said the FBI had performed an “extraordinary amount of high quality work” to conduct the review. .

Why Trump Could Be Like Ike Christian Whiton, The National Interest / November 6, 2016 Donald Trump is unique in American history, but there is a president he resembles: Dwight Eisenhower. Trump’s caution about foreign military adventures and his revival of economic nationalism echo the five-star general who successfully guided America through equally perilous times. Everyone knows that Ike warned Americans about a military-industrial complex that had dangerous influence. Less known is that Eisenhower refused to engage the United States in what he regarded as a military sideshow: the communist insurgency in Vietnam against a vestige of French imperialism. As France lurched toward a final defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, President Eisenhower remarked of Southeast Asia: “I say that I cannot conceive of a greater tragedy for America than to get heavily involved now in an all-out war in any of those regions…” Eisenhower knew that the main contemporary threat to the United States was the Soviet Union and that Europe was the central battlefield, both in terms of where combat might occur and where the battle of ideas between freedom and communism was taking place. He did not neglect developments elsewhere, but he avoided getting U.S. troops bogged down in other people’s wars in order to focus on what was critical. (His successors tragically reversed course in Vietnam.) Trump exhibits Eisenhower’s caution and clarity of thought. The New York businessman wants to defeat ISIS and is the first presidential nominee to take radical Islam and its underlying ideology seriously. However, he has rejected calls for jumping into the Syrian Civil War from those ranging from Hillary Clinton to John McCain—essentially today’s military-industrial complex. When a biased ABC News moderator badgered him about Syria and Iraq in a debate, Trump stood his ground: “Right now, Syria is fighting ISIS. We have people that want to fight both at the same time... I believe we have to get ISIS. We have to worry about ISIS before we can get too much more involved.” This type of common sense is viewed as unsophisticated by the Washington foreign policy establishment, but Americans by more than two-to-one rightly believe that we do not have a responsibility to get involved in someone else’s civil war. Trump also wants good relations with Russia, which is anathema to Clinton, who previously was spurned by Moscow and takes it personally. McCain and the neoconservatives also demand U.S.-led confrontation of Moscow, even though the Europeans in proximity to Russia spend a pittance on defense. Trump’s observation of this imbalance only deepens their rage, but it harkens to Ike’s refusal to write a blank check for the French in Vietnam. Eisenhower’s economics also had a place for nationalism in a manner similar to Trump’s. Eisenhower talked up free trade in his State of the Union addresses, but he was careful to call only for “profitable trade” and expanded foreign manufacturing only for mutual defense with goods “not seriously competitive with our own normal peacetime production.” He emphasized “the flow of private American investment abroad”—the opposite of what has prevailed since mid-70s, when America started running serial trade deficits. Eisenhower also commissioned the building of the interstate highway system and the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Both projects offered combined economic, security, and political goals: facilitating business and bringing America closer together. Just as important was what Eisenhower did not do: interfere with the massive housing boom during his tenure. Americans who finally had the resources to flee squalid cities for the suburbs in the 1950s caused housing stock to increase 27 percent nationally, which itself contributed to economic prosperity from a building boom. Ike allowed consumer-led free choice to prevail in contrast to Hillary Clinton and other would-be central planners who want to dictate our health care and energy sectors. Ike’s approach to trade and expanding domestic growth stands in stark contrast to recent trade and visa policies established by our elite, which facilitate the flow of manufacturing abroad and employment of foreign workers. Trump and Eisenhower would agree that we have today is not free trade, but managed trade—and managed poorly at that. What Trump offers is a set of economic and defense policies aimed at putting America first. That sounds terribly trite to many experts, as well as corporations that want cheap foreign labor. But many American voters think otherwise. Christian Whiton was a deputy special envoy at the State Department during the George W. Bush administration. He is the author of “Smart Power: Between Diplomacy and War.” .

I had expected a significant amount of discussion here about these revelations. Clinton has never denied the accuracy of the Wikileaks leaked emails. Actual emails.......how can she? Never before in history have the American people had such shocking and massive "behind the veil" information. And yet, if you believe the elections show is real, roughly half of the country wants to vote for her anyway. That's a discussion in itself.

‘Clinton made FBI look weak, now there is anger’ John Pilger:What's the significance of the FBI's intervention in this last week of the US election campaign in the case against Hillary Clinton? Julian Assange: If you go to the history of the FBI, it has become effectively America's political police. And the FBI demonstrated with taking down the former head of the CIA over classified information given to his mistress [that] almost no one was untouchable. The FBI is always trying to demonstrate that, "No one can resist us." But Hillary Clinton very conspicuously resisted the FBI's investigation. So, there is anger within the FBI because it made the FBI look weak. Well, we have published quite a number of different sets of emails, so, about 33,000 of Clinton's emails while she was Secretary of State. They come from a batch of just over 60,000 emails. In those 60,000 emails, Clinton has kept about half, 30,000, to herself, and we have published about half. And then there are the Podesta emails we've been publishing. Podesta is Hillary Clinton's primary campaign manager. So, there's a thread that runs through all of these emails. There is quite a lot of "pay for play," as they call it – taking… giving access in exchange for money for many individual states, individuals and corporations – combined with the cover-up of Hillary Clinton's emails while she was Secretary of State has led to an environment where the pressure on the FBI increases. ‘Russian government not the source of Clinton leaks’ JP: But the Clinton campaign has said that Russia is behind all of this. It says that Russia has manipulated the campaign and is the source for WikiLeaks and its emails. JA: The Clinton camp has been able to project that kind of neo-McCarthyist hysteria that Russia is responsible for everything. JP:Yeah. JA: Hillary Clinton stated multiple times – falsely – that 17 US intelligence agencies had assessed that Russia was the source of our publications. OK. That's false. We can say that the Russian government is not the source, yes. WikiLeaks has been publishing for 10 years. In that 10 years, we've published 10 million documents. Several thousand individual publications, several thousand different sources. And we have never got it wrong. ‘Saudi Arabia & Qatar funding ISIS and Clinton’ JP:All the emails that give evidence of access for money and how Hillary Clinton herself benefitted from this and how she is benefitting politically are quite extraordinary. I'm thinking of where the Qatari representative was given five minutes with Bill Clinton for a million-dollar check and many other examples. Can you…? JA: …Or $12 million from Morocco. JP:...$12 million from Morocco... yeah. JA: ... for Hillary Clinton to attend. JP:In terms of the foreign policy of the United States, that's where – for me, anyway – where the emails are most revealing, where they show the direct connection Hillary Clinton and the foundation of jihadism, of ISIL in the Middle East. Can you talk something about that? What the… how the emails demonstrate this connection between... those who are meant to be fighting the jihadist ISIL are actually those who have helped create it. JA: There's an early 2014 email from Hillary Clinton, so not so long after she left [her job as] Secretary of State, to her campaign manager John Podesta. That email, it states that ISIL, ISIS is funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar – the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Now, this is a… I actually think this is the most significant email in the whole collection... JP:Mmm. JA: …And perhaps because Saudi and Qatari money is spread all over the place, including into many media institutions, all serious analysts know, even the US government has mentioned or agreed with that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS, funding ISIS. But the dodge has always been, that's… what… it's just some rogue princes using their cut of the oil money to do what they like but actually the government disapproves. But that email says that no, it is the governments of Saudi and the government of Qatar that have been funding ISIS. JP:The Saudis, the Qataris, the Moroccans, the Bahrainis – particularly the Saudis and the Qataris giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and the State Department is approving massive arms sales, particularly to Saudi Arabia. JA: Under Hillary Clinton, and Clinton emails reveal significant discussion about it, the largest ever arms deal in the world was made with Saudi Arabia – more than $80 billion. In fact, during her tenure as Secretary of State, total arms exports from United States in terms of the dollar value doubled. JP:Doubled. And of course, the consequence of that is that this notorious terrorist jihadist group called ISIL, or ISIS, is created largely with money from the very people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation. JA: Yes. JP:That's extraordinary. ‘Clinton has been eaten alive by her ambition’ JA: Look. Hillary Clinton is just a person. I actually feel quite sorry for Hillary Clinton as a person because I see someone who is eaten alive by their ambitions, tormented literally to the point where they become sick. You know, they faint as a result of going on and going on with their ambitions. But she represents a whole network of people, and a network of relationships also with particular states. The question is, how does Hillary Clinton fit in this broader network? She's this centralizing cog, so that you've got a lot of different gears in operation from the big banks like Goldman Sachs, and major elements of Wall Street, and intelligence, and people in the State Department, and the Saudis, and so on. She's is the, if you like, the centralizer that interconnects all these different cogs. She's smooth central representation of all that, and all that is more or less what is in power now in the United States. It's what you call the establishment, or the DC consensus, and its influences. In fact, one of the most significant Podesta emails that we released was about how the Obama cabinet was formed – and half the Obama cabinet was basically nominated by a representative from Citibank. It is quite amazing. JP:Well, it is… Didn’t Citibank supply a list? JA: Yes. JP:…Which turned out to be... JA: Which turned out to be... JP:…to be mostly the Obama cabinet. JA: Yes. JP:So, Wall Street decides the cabinet of the president of the United States. JA: If you were following the Obama campaign back then closely, you could see it had become very close to banking interests. It wasn't so close to oil interests but it was very close to banking interests. JP:Yeah. Yeah. JA: So, I think you can't properly understand Hillary Clinton's foreign policy without understanding Saudi Arabia. The connections with Saudi Arabia are so intimate. ‘Libya is Hillary Clinton’s war’ JP:Why was she so demonstrably enthusiastic about the destruction of Libya? Can you talk a little about just what the emails have told us – told you – about what happened there? Because Libya is such a source for so much of the mayhem now in Syria: the ISIL, jihadism, and so on. And it was almost Hillary Clinton's invasion. What do the emails tell us about that? JA: Libya more that anyone else's war was Hillary Clinton's war. Barack Obama initially opposed it. Who was the person who was championing it? Hillary Clinton. That's documented throughout her emails. She had… She put her favored agent in effect, Sidney Blumenthal, onto that. There's more than 1,700 emails out of the 33 thousand of Hillary Clinton's emails we published just about Libya. It's not about that Libya has cheap oil. She perceived the removal of Gaddafi and the overthrow of the Libyan state something that she would use to run in the general election for president. So late 2011, there's an internal document called the "Libya Tick Tock" that is produced for Hillary Clinton, and it's all the... it's a chronological description of how Hillary Clinton was the central figure in the destruction of the Libyan state. As a result, there are around 40,000 deaths within Libya. Jihadists moved in, ISIS moved in. That led to the European refugee and migrant crisis, because not only did you have people fleeing Libya, people then fleeing Syria, destabilization of other African countries as a result of arms flows. The Libyan state itself was no longer able to control movement of people through it. So, Libya faces on to the Mediterranean. So, it had been effectively the cork in the bottle of Africa. So, all problems, all economic problems, the civil war in Africa... Previously, the people fleeing those problems didn’t end up in Europe because Libya policed the Mediterranean. And that was said explicitly at the time, back in 2011, by Gaddafi: what do these Europeans think they are doing, trying to bomb and destroy the Libyan state? There’s going to be floods of migrants out of Africa, and jihadists into Europe. And that is exactly what happened. ‘Trump won’t be permitted to win’ JP:You get a lot of complaints from people saying, “What is WikiLeaks doing, are they trying to put Trump into White House?” JA: My analysis is that Trump would not be permitted to win. Why do I say that? Because he’s had every establishment offside. Trump doesn’t have one establishment – maybe with the exception of the Evangelicals, if you can call them an establishment. But banks, intelligence, arms companies, big foreign money, etc. – it’s all united behind Hillary Clinton. And the media as well: so, media owners and even journalists themselves. JP:The accusations that WikiLeaks is in league with the Russians and you hear people saying, “Well, why doesn’t WikiLeaks investigate and publish emails on Russia?” JA: We have published over 800,000 documents of various kinds that relate to Russia. Most of those are critical. And… a great many books have come out of our publications about Russia, most of which are critical. And our documents have gone on to be used in quite a number of court cases, refugee cases of people fleeing some kinds of claimed political persecution in Russia, which they use our documents to back up. JP:Do you take yourself a view of the US election? Do you have a preference for Clinton or Trump? JA: Donald Trump – what does he represent in the American mind and in the European mind? He represents American “white trash,” deplorable and irredeemable. Basically, the same thing. It means, from a… establishment or educated, cosmopolitan, urbane perspective, these people are, you know, like the rednecks, and you can’t… like, they are just… you can never deal with them. And because he so clearly – through his words and actions and the type of people that turns up at his rallies – represents the people who are not the upper-middle-class-educated, there is a fear of seeming to be associated in any way with that, a social fear that lowers the class status of anyone who can be accused of somehow assisting in any way Trump, including criticizing Clinton. And if you look at how the middle class gains its economic and social power, it makes absolute sense. ‘US attempting to squeeze WikiLeaks through my refugee status’ JP:I’d like to talk about Ecuador, a small country that has given you refuge and has given you asylum in this embassy in London. Now, Ecuador cut off the Internet from here, where we’re doing this interview, in the embassy for the clearly obvious reason that they were concerned about appearing to intervene in the US election campaign. Can you talk about why they would take that action and your own views on Ecuador’s support for you? JA: Let’s go back four years ago. I made an asylum application to Ecuador in this embassy because of the US extradition case. And the result was after a month, I was successful in my application, and then the embassy has been surrounded by the police. Quite an expensive police operation, which the British government admits they’re spending more than 12.6 million pounds – they’ve admitted that over a year ago. And now there’s undercover police and there’s robot surveillance cameras of various kinds. So, there has been a quite serious conflict right here in the heart of London between Ecuador – a country of 16 million people – and the United Kingdom. And the Americans, who’ve been helping on the side. So, that was a brave and principled thing for Ecuador to do. Now we have the US election afoot. The Ecuadorian election is in February next year. You have the White House feeling the political heat as a result of the true information that we have been publishing. WikiLeaks does not publish from the jurisdiction of Ecuador, from its embassy or the territory of Ecuador. We publish from France, we publish from Germany, we publish from the Netherlands and a number of other countries. So, the attempted squeeze on WikiLeaks is through my refugee status. And this is really intolerable: When you try and get at a publishing organization, to try and prevent it publishing true information that is of intense interest to the American people and others about an election. JP:Tell us what would happen if you walked out of this embassy. JA: So, I would be immediately arrested by the British police, and I would then be extradited, either immediately to the United States, or to Sweden. In Sweden, I am not charged, I’ve already been previously cleared, etc. So, we’re not certain exactly what would happen there, but then we know that the Swedish government has refused to say that they will not extradite me to the United States. And they have extradited 100 percent of people that the US has requested since at least 2000. So, over the last 15 years, every single person that the US has tried to extradite from Sweden has been extradited. And they refuse to provide the guarantees. So, it’s… yeah. JP:People often ask how you cope with the isolation here. JA: Look, one of the best attributes of human beings is that they are adaptable. One of the worst attributes of human beings is that they are adaptable. They adapt and start to tolerate abuses. They adapt to being involved themselves in abuses. They adapt to adversity and continue on. So, in my situation… frankly, I’m a bit institutionalized. This is the world – visually, this is the world. JP:It’s a world without sunlight, for one thing… JA: It’s a world without sunlight, but I haven’t seen sunlight in so long like I don’t remember it. So, yeah, you adapt. The one real irritant is that my young children – they also adapt. They adapt to being without their father. That’s a hard adaptation, which they didn’t ask for. JP:Do you worry about them? JA: Yeah, I worry about them, I worry about their mother. ‘I am innocent and in arbitrary detention’ JP:Some people would say, “Well, why don’t you end it and simply walk out the door and allow yourself to be extradited to Sweden?” JA: The UN has looked into this whole situation. They spent 18 months in formal adversarial litigation: me, at the UN, versus Sweden and the UK – who is right? The UN made a conclusion – I’m being arbitrarily detained, illegally, deprived of my freedom. What has been… occurred, has not occurred within the laws that the United Kingdom and Sweden must obey. It is an illegal abuse. I mean, the United Nations formally asking what’s going on here, what’s your legal explanation for this. He says you should be… you should recognize his asylum. Sweden formally writing back to United Nations, says “No, we’re not going to,” leaving open their ability to extradite. I just find it absolutely amazing that the narrative about this situation is not put out publicly and in the press. Because it doesn’t suit the Western establishment narrative that, “Yes, the West has political prisoners.” It’s a reality. It’s not just me, there’s a bunch of other people as well. The West has political prisoners. No state accepts to call the people it is imprisoning or detaining for political reasons “political prisoners.” They don’t call them political prisoners in China, they don’t call them political prisoners in Azerbaijan, and they don’t call them political prisoners in the United States, the UK or Sweden. It’s absolutely intolerable to have that kind of self-perception. But here we have a case. Talking about the Swedish case, where I have never been charged with a crime, where I have already been cleared and found to be innocent, where the woman herself said that the police made it up, where the United Nations formally said the whole thing is illegal, where the state of Ecuador also investigated and found that I should be given asylum. Those are the facts. But what is the rhetoric? JP: Different. JA: The rhetoric is pretending, constantly pretending that I have been charged with a crime, never mentioning that I have been already previously cleared, never mentioning that the woman herself says that the police made it up, trying to avoid that the UN formally found that the whole thing is illegal. Never even mentioning that Ecuador made a formal assessment through its formal processes and found that yes, I am subject to persecution by the United States.

This is the full interview, I very much suspect this is a rare glimpse behind the veil. Take the time to watch it, and we'll discuss afterwards. .

What really happened ? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Three U.S. trainers shot dead at Jordan base Reuters / November 4, 2016 Three U.S. military trainers were shot dead in Jordan on Friday when their car [allegedly] failed to stop at the gate of a military base and was fired on by Jordanian security forces, a Jordanian military source said. The incident occurred at the Prince Faisal air base in the south of Jordan, which is a close strategic ally of the United States. Two trainers died immediately and the third later in hospital. [Oddly] A Jordanian army guard was also shot and wounded. "There was an exchange of fire at the entrance to the base after an attempt by the trainers' vehicle to enter the gate without heeding orders of the guards to stop," the military source said. "An investigation is now under way to know exactly what happened." [they already know] Another Jordanian security source said it was not possible to rule out political motives in the incident at an air base, where dozens of U.S. trainers work alongside Jordanians. A third Jordanian source who requested anonymity said authorities were examining reports of friction among the U.S. trainers and Jordanian army officers that might offer clues helping to explain the shooting. He did not elaborate. The base where the incident occurred is in the heart of the traditional Bedouin region of Jordanwhere radical Sunni Muslim influence has grown over the last decade. Several incidents over the past year have jolted the Arab kingdom, which has been relatively unscathed by the uprisings, civil wars and Islamist militancy that have swept the Middle East since 2011. In November 2015, a Jordanian army officer shot dead two U.S. government security contractors and a South African at a U.S.-funded police training facility near Amman before being gunned down. The incident embarrassed Jordanian authorities, who did not publicly disclose the motive of the assassin. The gunman was later said by security sources to have been a sympathizer of ISIS with strong anti-Western feelings. "What is worrying is that if this (Friday's shooting) turns out to be deliberate, it would be much more damaging than if this was a suicide or terror attack on a base because it was perpetrated by someone within the Jordanian military," another security source said on condition of anonymity. U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity [why???], said they were reviewing the incident and could not rule out the possibility of a deliberate attack. Many ordinary Jordanians harbor strong anti-American sentiment over Washington's strong support for Israel and its military interventions in the Middle East. Jordan is among a few Arab states that have taken part in a U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State (IS) militants holding territory in Syria. But many Jordanians oppose their country's involvement, saying it has caused violent deaths of fellow Muslims and raised security threats inside Jordan. U.S. officials worry about radical Islam's growing profile in Jordan and support in impoverished areas for militant groups. Six Jordanian border guards were killed in June by an IS suicide bomber who drove a car at speed across the border from Syria and rammed it into a U.S.-funded military post. Jordan hosts several hundred U.S. contractors in a military cooperation program which includes the stationing of U.S. F-16 fighter jets that use Jordanian airfields to hit Islamic State positions in neighboring Syria. Since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, Washington has spent millions of [taxpayer] dollars to help Jordan set up an elaborate surveillance system known as the Border Security Programme to stem infiltration by militants from Syria and Iraq. U.S. officials say that aid to Jordan, one of the largest recipients of U.S. foreign military assistance, is expected to rise to [an acknowledged] $800 million in 2016 and grow in future years.

$850................my gosh. Doesn't Volvo have a high opinion of legacy Mack parts. That's over four times what it used to sell for. And they want to be your partner in trucking...........hard to figure.

U.S. warns about possible al Qaeda attacks in Virginia, Texas, New York Reuters / November 4, 2016 U.S. intelligence officials are warning local authorities in New York, Texas and Virginia about possible attacks by al Qaeda on Monday, a day before the U.S. presidential election. No specific locations were mentioned, but U.S. intelligence officials alerted joint terrorism task forces about the possible threat.

"If" I remember correctly, there's a Mack service bulletin about that. Have you contacted Watt's Mack? (1-888-304-6225)

In a 2014 email made public by Assange’s WikiLeaks last month, Hillary Clinton, who had served as secretary of state until the year before, urges John Podesta, then an advisor to Barack Obama, to “bring pressure” on Qatar and Saudi Arabia, “which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL [Islamic State, IS, ISIS] and other radical Sunni groups.” “I think this is the most significant email in the whole collection,” Assange, whose whistleblowing site Wikileaks released three tranches of Clinton-related emails over the past year, told Pilger in an exclusive interview, courtesy of Dartmouth Films. “All serious analysts know, and even the US government has agreed, that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS and funding ISIS, but the dodge has always been that it is some “rogue” princes using their oil money to do whatever they like, but actually the government disapproves. But that email says that it is the government of Saudi Arabia, and the government of Qatar that have been funding ISIS.” Assange and Pilger, who sat down for their 25-minute interview at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the whistleblower has been a refugee since 2012, then talk about the conflict of interest between Clinton’s official post, which held throughout Obama’s first term, her husband’s nonprofit, and the Middle East officials, whose stated desire to fight terrorism may not have been sincere John Pilger: The Saudis, the Qataris, the Moroccans, the Bahrainis, particularly the first two, are giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton is secretary of state, and the State Department is approving massive arms sales, particularly Saudi Arabia. Julian Assange: Under Hillary Clinton – and the Clinton emails reveal a significant discussion of it – the biggest-ever arms deal in the world was made with Saudi Arabia: more than $80 billion. During her tenure, the total arms exports from the US doubled in dollar value. John Pilger: Of course, the consequence of that is that this notorious jihadist group, called ISIL or ISIS, is created largely with money from people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation? Julian Assange: Yes. . . .

VW says defeat device conforms with European law Reuters / November 4, 2016 Volkswagen Group says the software allowing its diesel vehicles to evade emissions rules does not violate European law, as the automaker aims to toughen its legal defenses in view of a possible rise in compensation claims in its home region. The European Commission (EC) has been raising the pressure on VW to compensate owners of rigged cars in Europe, where the majority of affected vehicles are registered. VW has rejected such calls but is offering cash payouts to drivers in the U.S. where it admitted to manipulating diesel emissions tests more than a year ago. Last month, a Spanish court for the first time ruled in favor of a VW customer and imposed a fine on VW's local units, leading Spanish consumer lobbies to urge other people with affected cars to join a class-action lawsuit against VW. After fending off suggestions that it may have breached European consumer rules in connection with the scandal, VW says the very technology which led it to incur up to $16.5 billion in U.S. settlement costs is compliant with European rules. "The software contained in vehicles with a EA-189 engine in the view of Volkswagen represents no unlawful defeat device under European law," VW said on Thursday. "The efficiency of the emissions cleanup system will not be reduced in those vehicles which however would be a prerequisite for the existence of an unlawful defeat device in the legal sense." Although VW believes the software complies with European law, it will continue to follow the order of Germany's KBA motor vehicle authority and refit the affected cars for reasons of goodwill. "Volkswagen wants to - in the special interest of customers - cooperate constructively and cooperatively hand in hand with the regulators as well as with the Federal Motor Vehicle Authority," VW said. "This intensive cooperation should not be burdened by a contentious dispute." Separately, VW denied views held by Germany's Federal Environmental Agency and other health lobbies that nitrogen oxides are harmful to human health and the environment. "A reliable determination of morbidity or even fatalities for certain demographic groups based on our level of knowledge is not possible from a scientific point of view," VW said.

Isuzu Australia Press Release / November 3, 2016 .

Australasian Transport News (ATN) / November 4, 2016 Current focus of point-to-point cameras in NSW called into question by trucking body The Australian Trucking Association (ATA) has urged the New South Wales government to extend the use of point-to-point speed cameras to all on the road. Currently only targeting heavy duty operators, the point-to-point camera monitoring program in the state isn’t being used to improve safety as effectively as it could be, the industry body insists. "The principal aim of installing point-to-point speed cameras is to improve road safety for all, yet NSW remains the only state that does not apply this technology on cars as well as trucks," ATA chair Noelene Watson says. "The current system only targets drivers of heavy vehicles when the bulk of the traffic in NSW comes from drivers of cars." Appealing to the NSW premier Mike Baird in writing ahead of a gathering of transport ministers in Perth today, where road safety is high on the agenda, Watson says with accidents often caused by those not driving the heavy vehicle, an overall road toll decrease could be found with an even playing field. "Independent research and statistical evidence shows more than eighty percent of fatal multi-vehicle crashes that involve heavy vehicles, are the fault of the other driver," she adds. "The ATA believes the most effective implementation for this technology would be to expand the point-to-point speed checking program to target every motorist for not complying with the posted speed limits. "Applying the point-to-point speed checks to all motor vehicles could potentially lift road safety for vulnerable road users such as motor cyclists, pedestrians and cyclists too." Should the role of point-to-point speed cameras be to save lives rather than raise revenue, Watson believes "the general public will accept the extension of this technology". .

Prime Mover Magazine / November 3, 2016 Australian truck industry icon, Lindsay Fox, has reportedly urged Australia’s political leaders to take greater risks and adopt a science-based approach to alleviating road congestion. According to The Australian, the Linfox founder recently likened Australia’s road systems to a critically ill patient in need of emergency surgery. “Having just watched the Hollywood adaptation of Moneyball – the story of a cash-strapped Major League Baseball manager who uses business ­analytics to squeeze more wins out of unfashionable players – Mr Fox called on both sides of politics to take a similarly radical approach towards improving traffic flow on our roads,” reported The Australian’s Chip Le Grand. “Over the past 20 years we haven’t had a politician who was prepared to have a go,” Fox told Le Grand. “They are totally risk-averse and because of that it is easier for them to stay doing what they are doing. If I had stayed with my first truck I’d still be driving it instead of employing 36,000 people.’’ According to The Australian, Fox said just as Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane made radical use of available data on baseball to shape a winning line-up, governments needed to make better use of information and technology to get the best return from city roads. “City infrastructure hasn’t changed with the exception of more people and congestion,” the told the newspaper. “As long as you eat and as long as you drink and as long as you drive you have got to have trucks to move it all. Instead of roads being used as roads they are being used as bicycle paths, tram stops and car parks. It can’t go on.”

Transport Engineer / November 3, 2016 London-based construction services firm Walsh has taken delivery of the its first Volvo tipper trucks, part of an order for 40 410bhp FMX 8x4s bodied with Fruehauf Load-Lites, from MC Truck & Bus, Thurrock. Value for money, robustness, total cost of ownership, safety and on-site R&M (repair and maintenance) were key reasons for choosing these 32-tonne gvw trucks, according to Walsh director Tim Wheeler. “We are FORS Gold accredited and CLOCS champions,” states Wheeler, explaining that all these FMX tippers have been specified with Brigade five-camera systems, as well as low-level nearside windows, side scan kits and audible left turn alerts. “We take safety extremely seriously and these new Volvo tippers represent another advance in safe operation, with their superb all-round visibility that’s only enhanced by the innovative mirror system.” As for total cost of ownership, Wheeler says the organisation is planning to growing its fleet to 200 trucks while also adding new operating centres to support HS2, Crossrail 2, the Thames Tideway Tunnel. “With any investment we always conduct a total cost of ownership analysis and in this case, if you consider the whole life of the truck, Volvo stands out as offering best value.” And he adds that the Load-Lite bodies with Hyva tipping gear are also part of that calculation. “With these particular bodies we’ve worked [with Fruehauf] in their development, altering the wheel arches to give clearance when tipping and upgrading the side lights to make them more resilient to the rigours of the job,” explains Wheeler. “We have also had twist locks fitted to the tailgates for those occasions that we carry particularly loose material. Thanks to the Hardox steel, we’ve found some 500kg weight saving, without any loss of integrity or strength.” As for R&M support, Wheeler says that Volvo dealer MC Truck & Bus was the only organisation contacted that showed enthusiasm for providing R&M at Walsh’s purpose-built five-acre facility in Rainham, Essex. “MC Truck & Bus showed itself to be very forward thinking and open to our ideas: this proactive approach will enable us to meet our business goals while giving us confidence in terms of compliance. “It also has benefits in terms of driver hours as our headquarters will, in effect, also be our dealer workshop, so no time or resource will be required to travel to or from Thurrock.” .

RHA calls for patience over Cartel compensation Commercial Motor / November 3, 2016 The Road Haulage Association (RHA) said operators should not expect immediate results from its pursuit of compensation from truck manufacturers that acted as a cartel and co-ordinated factory prices between 1997 and 2011. Giving details for the first time about the nature of the action, the RHA said it has applied to act on behalf of UK hauliers as a representative bringing collective proceedings to the Competition Appeal Tribunal under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Speaking exclusively to Commercialmotor.com, RHA chief executive Richard Burnett said that since the European Commission (EC) had issued a €2.9bn (£2.61bn) fine it had been “exploring and understanding more about the approach we needed to take as an association” in regards to seeking compensation, and it was only now that it was ready to discuss the matter further. Burnett said: “It will be a long, drawn-out process and it’s fair to say that hauliers are not going to get an immediate pay-out; or indeed that there will be a guarantee of any pay-out at all. However, it would appear that based on the high-level evidence received that the prospects for compensation look encouraging. “We understand there is an enormous amount of detail behind this and working through this detail will take 
the largest amount of time.” He said it could be in excess of two years before operators saw any form of compensation, depending on how the case progressed through the Competition Appeal Tribunal, settlement discussions or a trial. The RHA is seeking legal counsel from competition law experts Exchange Chambers. Barrister David Went told 
Commercialmotor.com that it would appoint an economist who was a specialist in competition law to see how co-ordinating on gross list prices has filtered down to hauliers via dealers. “We need to understand that and see what harm has been suffered. That is vital,” he said. On 19 July the EC issued a record €2.9bn fine to five major truck manufacturers after it was found that they co-ordinated truck pricing and colluded on passing on the costs of compliance with emissions rules in the late 1990s and early 2000s. MAN, Volvo Group (comprising Volvo Trucks and Renault Trucks), Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler, Iveco and Daf were all found to have broken EU competition rules. MAN avoided a fine, having alerted the EC to the cartel. Daf, Daimler, Iveco and Volvo Group all received reductions in fines for co-operating with the investigation. Scania remains under investigation.

Scania is a high successful bus manufacturer. And that success........has Mack roots.