Angela Merkel will make her first visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial on Friday after 14 years as German chancellor, bringing a 60 million euro donation to help conserve the site where the Nazis ran their largest death camp, the museum said.

“Maybe at the end of the story, in three to five years, we will notice it was a historical mistake.”

The crisis in Europe will come from Germany. Germany has entered a period of political crisis that, as yet, has not exploded.

But the pyre is built, the torches lit and all that remains is dragging Chancellor Angela Merkel up and setting the whole thing on fire.

It has been over 7 years since the European Central Bank's key deposit facility rate was positive, and just a few weeks ago it was lowered to a record low of -50bps.

Source: Bloomberg

And during that time, European bank stocks have suffered greatly...

Source: Bloomberg

As Cornelius Riese, co-CEO of Frankfurt-based DZ Bank A.G. (Germany’s second-largest by assets), observed, negative rates indeed “have a huge impact on banks.” Riese ventured to offer some gentle criticism of Draghi & Co.’s grand policy experiment:

“Maybe at the end of the story, in three to five years, we will notice it was a historical mistake.”

Well, it appears we are about to reach the vinegar strokes of that 'historical mistake', as Bloomberg reports, German banks are breaking the last taboo: Charging retail clients for their savings starting with very first euro in the their accounts.

How does Chancellor Merkel intend to explain it during her first visit to Auschwitz on December 6, 2019, that she and her government – given the historical responsibility for the Holocaust and 74 years after the liberation of Auschwitz from the National Socialist concentration and extermination camp by the soldiers of the Red Army – miss any respect when it comes to the permanent break of international law in the “Jewish state”. Does not it respect the respect for international law, as a compelling doctrine from German history, to finally take back the raison d’etat for the security of the “Jewish state”? How can a German government ignore the constant violations of international law simply because they are committed by a Jewish regime, descendants of the victims of the Holocaust? The clear rules, which international law has, Merkel can not simply sweep her “Christian Zionism” under the table.

Chancellor Angela Merkel delivered an emotional speech to the German Budestag this week on the need for limiting freedom of speech.

Merkel is the current globalist leader on the international stage.

Merkel argued that the government must take away freedom of speech to save freedom of speech, or something.

Angela Merkel: For those who claim they can no longer express their opinion, I say this to them: If you express and pronounced opinion, you must live with the fact that you will be contradicted. Expressing an opinion does not come at zero cost. But freedom of expression has its limits. Those limits begin where hatred is spread. They begin where the dignity of other people is violated. This house will and must oppose extreme speech. Otherwise our society will no longer be the free society that it was.

SOURCE: MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
The Israeli government is aiming to increase the volume of Israel’s defence exports, reported Globes, which has revealed the main points of the plan for the first time.

The project, being overseen by the Defence Ministry’s International Defence Cooperation Directorate (SIBAT) led by Brigadier General (Res.) Yair Kulas, will begin to be rolled out in early 2020.

According to Globes, the plan is based on “focused seminars for senior commanders in foreign armies”, Israeli military “assistance for promoting sales of Israeli weapons”, and “subsidising small and medium-sized defence companies seeking to sell arms around the world”.

Speaking this week, Kulas said that SIBAT favours a major expansion of agreements between countries, resulting in significant deals for the large defence companies, especially Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Rafael Advanced Defence Systems.

Up to 5,000 tractors descended upon the German capital on Tuesday to protest the government's latest agricultural policies and environmental protection regulations which farmers claim are too restrictive.

German authorities estimate somewhere in the region of 5,000 tractors and 10,000 farmers entered Berlin in a slow-moving convoy, bringing the capital to a relative standstill at certain points. The protesters eventually gathered at Berlin's iconic landmark Brandenburg Gate.

The Bundestag – Germany's parliament – yesterday passed a law that means parents who do not vaccinate school-age children face fines of up to €2,500 (£2,140).

The new rules – which come into force in March – will also force parents to prove younger children have been vaccinated before they can attend nurseries or pre-schools. Visits to medical facilities, community centres and holiday camps will also require proof of immunisation.

The Bussiness Confidence Survey 2019/20 published by the German Chamber of Commerce in China, in cooperation with KPMG in Germany, finds that almost a quarter of German companies operating in China are preparing to relocate production facilities.

The survey was conducted from late July through mid-September and had 526 member companies out of 2300 respond. Out of the 526 member companies, 23% of the respondents said their factories will be transferred out of China or are contemplating the move.

Among the German companies leaving or actively planning to leave China, about 71% blame increasing labor costs; 33% cited unfavorable policy environment; 25% said the US-China trade war, and 22% said market access barriers.

Shortly after German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz released his plan to complete the European Banking Union via the Financial Times, several reports surfaced claiming that Scholz had inexplicably neglected to inform Chancellor Merkel about the plan, testing Merkel's political authority as she struggles to finish out the rest of what's set to be her final term.

As it turns out, snubs like this one are becoming increasingly common as Merkel appears to have lost control over her government. Two weeks ago, Defense Minister Annegret Kamp-Karrenbauer proposed a peace plan for Northern Syria without clearing it with the chancellor. Though at least during that incident, Merkel was given a heads up about the plan. AKK's ideas were pilloried by the Social Democrats and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, and the whole incident ended up embarrassing the government as it seeks to combat speculation that it's asleep at the wheel.

Less than a year after his finance ministry failed to broker a merger between Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank in a bid to rescue the flailing German lending giant (Deutsche) and create a new national champion (or so he hoped), German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz is embarking on a campaign to convince the European Union to finish work on a comprehensive banking union.

Many have argued that Europe's lack of a comprehensive banking regulatory framework make the system particularly vulnerable to chaos and infiltration by criminal groups (evidenced by the money laundering scandal that has embroiled several northern European banking giants).

And with Brexit finally nearing the end game, or so it appears, Scholz argues that Europe's global position would be at risk if it doesn't finish the integration of the eurozone's financial sector, seeing as the EU is losing one of its main financial centers in London.

German far-left Antifa extremists broke into the apartment of a real estate company employee and viciously beat her in an ongoing war against a luxury apartment development in Leipzig.

The attack saw two far-left extremists invade the apartment of the 34-year-old real estate worker at around 7 p.m. on Sunday and hit her in the face with their fists several times, according to police spokesman Andreas Loepki, German tabloid Bild reports.

After the attack, Loepki said that the Antifa extremists told the woman: “Goodbye, ‘Greetings from Connewitz.'”

Using the pretext of the recent attack in Halle in which no Jews were even hurt let alone killed, Germany’s Interior Minister announced a new six-point plan to combat antisemitism on Thursday:

Speaking to the federal parliament, the Bundestag, Interior Minister Horst Seehoffer acknowledged that “antisemitism is anchored in parts of our society.” His plan includes an obligation to report hate speech on the internet, bans on extremist political groups, a stricter weapons law and more prevention work by the authorities.

In his remarks, Seehofer spoke of “individual perpetrators” who “build up their frustration outside the public sphere without initially recognizable connections to anyone.” This was a new challenge for the authorities because it was no longer enough to observe an extremist party, he said.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to set prisoners from Europe who joined Daesh* in Syria and Iraq free at the EU’s borders if they refuse to take back the captives. According to the American commander-in-chief, after the US defeated the so-called caliphate, Washington has “thousands of prisoners of war, ISIS fighters" who are European nationals, but these countries are refusing to cooperate. He singled out France and Germany when speaking on the matter.

"We're asking the countries from which they came, from Europe, we're asking them to take back these prisoners of war. And they can try them, do what they want. So far, they've refused. And at some point, I'm going to have to say, 'I'm sorry, but you either take them back or we're going to let them go at your border'", he said.

Pesticides or random coincidence? Mystery lingers over NEW CASES of babies born with hand and arm defects in Europe.

Authorities are at a loss to explain why several babies born in a west German province have similar hand deformities. One hospital, where three such cases were seen, described the baffling phenomenon as “striking.”
With “no nationwide registry” to keep track of deformities, the St. Mary’s Hospital in Gelsenkirchen, near Dortmund, has admitted it is difficult to accurately monitor the situation or establish any kind of pattern.

Three babies were born at the hospital with undeveloped palms and fingers on one hand, between June and September this year. RT has twice contacted both the city administration of Gelsenkirchen and St Mary’s Hospital seeking more information on the situation, but has received no response.

A German city has reversed its decision to hand a literary prize to the novelist Kamila Shamsie because of her support for the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The British-Pakistani author was announced as the winner of the Nelly Sachs Prize, named after a Jewish poet and Nobel laureate and organised and funded by the city of Dortmund, on 10 September.

But in a statement on Wednesday, organisers said the jury had reversed its decision to honour Shamsie, and that the 2019 award would not be handed to any author, with the next winner to be announced in 2021.

"With its vote for the British writer Kamila Shamsie as the winner of the Nelly Sachs Prize 2019, the jury honoured the author's outstanding literary work.

SOURCE: REUTERS
PARIS (Reuters) - France and Germany have agreed to block Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency, the French finance ministry said on Friday.

In a joint statement, the two governments affirmed that “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations”.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Thursday that Facebook’s new cryptocurrency should not be allowed to operate in Europe while concerns persist about sovereignty and persistent financial risks.

SOURCE: NAKEDCAPITALISM.COM
By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She is currently writing a book about textile artisans.

Germany has announced it will reduce its use of glyphosate and ban it outright from the end of 2023, just after an EU-wide license to use the weedkiller expires in December 2022.

As DW reports in Germany set to ban glyphosate from end of 2023:

The ban, agreed by the Cabinet on Wednesday, is part of an insect conservation program from Environment Minister Svenja Schulze.

It includes a “systematic reduction strategy” which would initially prohibit use of the chemical in domestic gardens and allotments, and on the edge of farmers’ fields.

Germany’s move comes after lawmakers in Austria passed a bill banning all use of the weedkiller, making the country the first to do so. Some 20 French mayors banned it from their municipalities last month — in defiance of their national government.

A leading member of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party is set to triumph in state elections despite alarm over his extremist past.

Andreas Kalbitz, 46, who leads the party in the eastern state of Brandenburg, said on Tuesday that 'one could accuse me of right-wing extremist connections, but certainly not of having far-right extremist biography.'

With some polls showing Alternative for Germany coming first in next month's state elections in Brandenburg, Kalbitz has faced scrutiny over his past views.

Gideon Botsch, a political scientist at the University of Potsdam, said Kalbitz was 'very clearly rooted in the right-wing extremist scene' from a young age.

Former three-star general Joachim Wundrak is running for mayor of Hanover for Alternative for Germany (AfD) after expressing contempt for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open border policies.

The state of the German government’s fleet of aircraft has come under considerable scrutiny in recent months amid repeated incidents involving the breakdown of VIP planes. Late last year, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Airbus was grounded after a “serious malfunction” left it flying blind during a trip to Argentina for a G20 summit.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas’s trip to New York for a meeting of the UN Security Council got off to a rocky start after his government plane faced two consecutive breakdowns in a matter of hours, the Luftwaffe’s press service has reported.

The US must take its nukes off German soil if it is serious about relocating troops to Poland, a top opposition MP said in a tongue-in-cheek response to a veiled ultimatum from the American envoy.

German lawmakers have reacted to threats made by the US envoy to Berlin, Richard Grenell, saying that Berlin may use the ultimatum as an opportunity to push for the withdrawal of all American assets from Germany.

THE British Army is moving more than 11,000 men, women and children back from Germany.

The suspect is understood to have lived in Germany for four years ,posing as a Syrian refugee. Police earlier ruled out a political or racial context in the case, saying he was likely driven by personal motives, and new details corroborate this theory.

The Stuttgart sword killer, initially believed to be a Syrian refugee, hacked his former roommate to death after the victim discovered that he was a Jordanian living in Germany with a fake identity, Berliner Zeitung daily reports.

Issa Mohammed, 28, butchered a German Kazakh man in the middle of a street in broad daylight last week with what looked like a samurai sword. He fled the scene on a bicycle but was eventually caught in a helicopter manhunt.

Support for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s junior coalition partner slipped to its worst-ever in an opinion poll published on Tuesday, strengthening the possibility an already frayed government could fall apart.

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has received a groundswell of support in Eastern Germany, leading in polls just weeks before regional elections in three states. Support for major parties is at a historic low.

After receiving many questions on why Deutschlandfunk has not reported on the barbaric sword murder of a Kazakh father (36) in Stuttgart by a man originally believed to be a Syrian but might actually be Jordanian Palestinian (28) according to the tabloid Bild.

The state sponsored broadcaster released the following statement claiming the attack was not of national importance or societal significance unlike the case of a mother and her 8-year-old son being pushed in front of a train by an Eritrean in the same week in Frankfurt.

It is two months since the German Bundestag (parliament) passed a symbolic, non-binding resolution designating the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as “anti-Semitic”. The controversial motion has triggered a noisy debate in Germany and beyond which reads that the campaign to boycott Israeli goods, artists and athletes is “reminiscent of the most terrible chapter in German history” and triggers memories of the Nazi slogan “Don’t buy from Jews”. The resolution also imposed a ban on government support for organisations which back BDS.

The Bundestag completely ignored the loud critiques of the resolution, including those by many German and European intellectuals as well as Jewish and Israeli academics, among which are some prominent researchers into anti-Semitism. So, is the BDS movement anti-Semitic, and why has the German federal parliament adopted this resolution?

Germany’s customs service has intercepted 4.5 tons of cocaine found in a shipping container in Hamburg – the country’s largest drug bust to date.
The container was traveling to the Netherlands from Uruguay and was supposed to be full of soybeans. But German customs agents in the port city of Hamburg instead discovered copious amounts of coke inside.

According to the German daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, a new survey has revealed that the majority of Germans want relations with Russia to normalize.

A recent survey has suggested that about 72 percent of German’s living in the East of the country and 54 percent of West Germans wish for a new rapprochement with Moscow, according to data gathered by the Tagesspiegel.

A Night In Cologne: A series of sexual assaults perpetrated by immigrants on New Year's Eve in Cologne changed Germany's welcoming attitude to refugees and economic migrants.

Germany will refuse to take part in a US-led maritime mission in the Strait of Hormuz, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas announced. Maas said that there “cannot be a military solution” to the current crisis in the Persian Gulf.

Speaking in Warsaw, Poland, on Wednesday, Maas said that Germany will turn down Washington’s request, which was revealed by the US Embassy in Berlin on Tuesday. The joint US, British, and French operation is aimed at protecting sea traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, and combatting so-called “Iranian aggression.”

The mission was conceived following Iran’s seizure of the British-flagged Stena Impero oil tanker earlier this month, itself widely considered a tit-for-tat response to Britain’s seizure of an Iranian tanker off the coast of Gibraltar several weeks earlier.

Earlier, both German and British officials said they did not support the US's "maximum pressure" strategy against Tehran, instead welcoming an operation proposed by London for a European-led security effort to "protect" commercial vessels operating in the Persian Gulf and near the Strait of Hormuz.

The United States has officially requested Germany, France and the UK to join its military mission in the Gulf to 'combat Iranian aggression,' the US Embassy in Berlin has indicated.

"We have formally asked Germany to help with securing the Strait of Hormuz and fighting Iranian aggression, along with France and the UK," a spokeswoman from the Embassy told the German Press Agency on Tuesday.

Relations between Moscow and EU’s right-wing political parties are a cause for concern, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said during a press conference in Berlin last week.

“Some questions arise here”, she stated. “We have constantly monitored the very strong support that right-leaning parties have received from Russia in one way or the other.”

Mayor of Hockenheim, a city in southwest Germany, was left bloodied and hospitalized after an unknown assailant punched him. Amid a sharp rise in threats to the political elite, one politician has already died. Reports suggest that such attacks are becoming more common.

Dieter Gummer, a member of the notoriously pro-migrant left-wing Social Democratic Party, answered his door on Monday evening to find an unfamiliar face outside. The visitor heavily punched the 67-year-old politician in the face, according to police in nearby Ludwigshafen.

SOURCE: ZEROHEDGE

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Could it be possible that we are on the verge of the next “Lehman Brothers moment”?

It takes a lot to rattle Wall Street.

But Deutsche Bank managed to. The beleaguered German giant announced on July 7 that it is laying off 18,000 employees—roughly one-fifth of its global workforce—and pursuing a vast restructuring plan that most notably includes shutting down its global equities trading business.

Though Deutsche’s Bloody Sunday seemed to come out of the blue, it’s actually the culmination of a years-long—some would say decades-long—descent into unprofitability and scandal for the bank, which in the early 1990s set out to make itself into a universal banking powerhouse to rival the behemoths of Wall Street.

These moves may delay Deutsche Bank’s inexorable march into oblivion, but not by much.

The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany has demanded that Amazon (AMZN) take responsibility to remove anti-Semitic products and merchandise from its e-commerce website.

Josef Schuster told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) on Saturday that it is “totally unacceptable that Amazon distributes T-shirts and stickers that glorify Nazi values or right-wing ideas or incite hatred for minorities.”

Schuster said Amazon had a “moral and social responsibility” as one of the world’s largest retailers and should not see itself as merely a “supplier.”

The Chinese military has deployed military personnel and armored medical vehicles to Germany for joint drills, a first for the Chinese People's Liberation Army as it attempts to forge closer ties with Europe.

The joint exercise — Combined Aid 2019 — is focused on preparing troops with the medical service units of the Chinese and German armed forces to respond to humanitarian crises, such as mass casualty incidents and serious disease outbreaks, China's Xinhua News Agency reported.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany was seen again shaking uncontrollably, the third time in less than a month, renewing concerns about her health.

Merkel, 64, was attending an event Wednesday with Antti Rinne, the prime minister of Finland. As the pair watched a military honor guard, her arms and legs trembled and she seemed to be mouthing something repeatedly. At one point, she clasped her hands in front of her, trying to control the shaking.

An hour later, at a press briefing with reporters, she declared: “I am well.”

The Bank for Social Economy is considered a relatively progressive bank in Germany because its customers are mostly civil society organisations.

Yet, when it comes to denying Palestinians the right to boycott the Israeli occupation and colonialism, I believe the bank violated the German constitution, by silencing a Jewish organisation that does solidarity work with Palestinian groups in Germany.

Last month, the bank closed the account of Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East, a Jewish solidarity organisation in Germany that won the 2019 Gottingen Peace Prize.

Berlin said on Monday it had no plans to send ground troops to Syria, refusing a US request for Germany to ramp up its military involvement in the fight against Islamic State (IS).

US special representative on Syria James Jeffrey had told German media, including the Die Welt newspaper, on Sunday that Washington wanted Berlin to put boots on the ground in northern Syria.

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said: "When I say that the government intends to continue with its ongoing measures in the framework of the anti-IS coalition, then that means no ground troops."

Discord broke out in German Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling coalition Sunday, after the United States urged the country to send ground troops to Syria as Washington looks to withdraw from the region.

"We want ground troops from Germany to partly replace our soldiers" in the area as part of the anti-Islamic State coalition, US special representative on Syria James Jeffrey had told German media including Die Welt newspaper.

Jeffrey, who was visiting Berlin for Syria talks, added that he expects an answer this month.

According to a new report from a watchdog on anti-Christian incidents, between April and June Germany saw thirty anti-Christian attacks ranging from thefts to arsons.

The data was compiled by the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, who noted around 30 separate incidents between April 1st and June 10th published on the group’s website.

A large number of the cases involved various forms of vandalism, including an incident at the Lutheran Nikolaikirche in Caldern in which the attackers set fire to the hymn book and Bible at the altar of the church, and also left faeces on a bench outside of the church and at the entrance.

The move comes ahead of regional elections amid the growing popularity of the anti-establishment Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party, which calls for stricter migration control, in eastern parts of the country.

The Open Society Foundation NGO of US billionaire George Soros, which has been repeatedly accused of meddling in the domestic affairs of several countries, is planning to support efforts opposing right-wing political forces in eastern Germany. The organisation’s director Selmin Caliskan stated that the NGO will assist groups that “share their values” and promised that details would be announced in the following months.

"The first step will be to launch a local initiative to combat hate crimes in eastern Berlin and the surrounding area with local partners," the organisation's director announced.

The director of the Jewish Museum Berlin was forced to resign last week following pressure from Israel and its lobby.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany criticized the museum for tweeting an article on the 240 Jewish and Israeli scholars who signed a petition opposing the German parliament’s recent motion condemning the BDS – boycott, divest and sanctions – movement for Palestinian rights.

Several German politicians who have publicly stood up for refugees have received death threats since what police are treating as the alleged politically motivated murder of one of Angela Merkel’s party allies.

An email sent to politicians and media organisations across the country on Tuesday night warned that the alleged murder of the Christian Democratic Union politician Walter Lübcke, allegedly by a man linked to the far right, was the first in a line of “upcoming purges” and called for terror attacks on left-leaning politicians, refugees and Jews in Germany.

The mayors of the city of Cologne and the western town of Altena, who have both been victims of knife attacks because of their pro-refugee stances, were singled out in the letter.

Cologne’s mayor, Henriette Reker, narrowly escaped death in 2015 when she was attacked with a hunting knife by a rightwing extremist who said he had wanted to send a signal against the government’s course on the refugee question.

Palestinians are calling for a boycott of the German festival that disinvited American rapper Talib Kweli because of his support for BDS – the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.

Earlier this month, the Open Source Festival in the western city of Düsseldorf dropped Kweli for refusing to denounce BDS.

PACBI, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, is now calling on other artists to cancel their performances to show solidarity with Kweli.

Dozens of Jewish scholars have signed a letter in support of Peter Schäfer, the former director of Berlin’s Jewish Museum forced out over criticism of a tweet linking to a pro-Israel boycott article.

According to the report by JTA, the letter – signed by 45 academic Talmud scholars – is “unprecedented among the Talmudist community”, which normally “tends to shy away from commenting on current affairs”.

The letter, co-organised by Tel Aviv University-based Ishay Rosen Zvi, and Princeton University Professor Moulie Vidas, follows on from a separate letter signed by “a broader group of Jewish studies scholars”, protesting that Schäfer’s reputation had been “smeared in public”.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was spotted visibly unsteady and shaking when she met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The 64-year-old politician later said she recovered from the sickly condition after drinking water.

Merkel felt unwell while she greeted Zelensky outside the chancellery amid hot weather in Berlin. The two leaders were listening to a band, playing national anthems of the two countries, when Merkel started shaking and swaying around a little, footage from the scene shows.

Ahead of a visit by German lawmakers to Russia, one of them, Gregor Gysi from the left-wing party Die Linke, has accused Angela Merkel of failing to steer relations between the two countries out of the impasse in which they’ve been mired for years.

The number 2 in the Bundestag’s German-Russian group, Gregor Gysi, from Die Linke has told Sputnik that lifting tit-for-tat sanctions would help to solve international conflicts.

“The sanctions, imposed by the West, further aggravated the situation [in relations with Russia]. Russia responded with sanctions, too. That is why lifting them bilaterally would be a condition for renewing active dynamics in the dialogue between Germany and Russia”, Gysi stated, noting this demands that the German government take a corresponding stance.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has courted growing anti-immigrant opinion in Germany by claiming the country's attempts to create a multicultural society have "utterly failed".

Speaking to a meeting of young members of her Christian Democratic Union party, Merkel said the idea of people from different cultural backgrounds living happily "side by side" did not work.

She said the onus was on immigrants to do more to integrate into German society.

"This [multicultural] approach has failed, utterly failed," Merkel told the meeting in Potsdam, west of Berlin, yesterday.