Today’s News 26th November 2023

• Escobar: The Eviction Notice Is Being Written, And Will Come In Four Languages
  Escobar: The Eviction Notice Is Being Written, And Will Come In Four Languages

  Authored by Pepe Escobar,

  The Eviction Notice is being written. And it will come in four languages. Russian. Farsi. Mandarin. And last but not least, English…

  

  A much-cherished pleasure of professional writing is to always be enriched by informed readers. This “eviction” insight – worth a thousand geopolitical treatises – was offered by one of my sharpest readers commenting on a column.

  Concisely, what we have here expresses a deeply felt consensus across the spectrum not only in West Asia but also in most latitudes across the Global South/Global Majority.

  The Unthinkable, in the form of a genocide conducted live, in real time on every smartphone in the third decade of the millennium – which I called the Raging Twenties in a previous book – has acted like a particle accelerator, concentrating hearts and minds.

  Those that chose to set West Asia on fire are already confronting nasty blowback. And that goes way beyond diplomacy exercised by Global South leaders.

  For the first time in ages, via President Xi Jinping, China has been more than explicit geopolitically (a true Sovereign cannot hedge when it comes to genocide). China’s unmistaken position on Palestine goes way beyond the geoeconomics routine of promoting BRI’s trade and transportation corridors.

  All that while President Putin defined sending humanitarian aid to Gaza as a “sacred duty”, which in Russian code includes, crucially, the military spectrum.

  For all the maneuvering and occasional posturing, for all practical purposes everyone knows the current UN arrangement is rotten beyond repair, totally impotent when it comes to imposing meaningful peace negotiations, sanctions or investigations of serial war crimes.

  The new UN in the making is BRICS 11 – actually BRICS 10, considering new Trojan Horse Argentina in practice may be relegated to a marginal role, assuming it joins on January 1st, 2024.

  BRICS 10, led by Russia-China, both regulated by a strong moral compass, keep their ear on the ground and listen to the Arab street and the lands of Islam. Especially their people, much more than their elites. This will be an essential element in 2024 during the Russian presidency of BRICS.

  Even with no check out, you will have to leave

  The current order of business in the New Great Game is to organize the expulsion of the Hegemon from West Asia – as much a technical challenge as a civilizational challenge.

  As it stands, the Washington-Tel Aviv continuum are already prisoners of their own device. This ain’t no Hotel California; you may not check out any time you like, but you will be forced to leave.

  That may happen in a relatively gentle manner – think Kabul as a Saigon remix – or if push comes to shove may involve a naval Apocalypse Now, complete with expensive iron bathtubs turned into sub-ocean coral reefs and the demise of CENTCOM and its AFRICOM projection.

  The crucial vector all along is how Iran – and Russia – have played, year after year, with infinite patience, the master strategy devised by Gen. Soleimani, whose assassination actually started the Raging Twenties.

  A de-weaponized Hegemon cannot defeat the “new axis of evil”, Russia-Iran-China, not only in West Asia but also anywhere in Eurasia, Asia-Pacific, and pan-Africa. Direct participation/normalization of the genocide only worked to accelerate the progressive, inevitable exclusion of the Hegemon from most of the Global South.

  All that while Russia meticulously crafts the integration of the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Baltic Sea (Finnish hysteria notwithstanding), the Arctic and the Northwestern Pacific Sea and China turbo-charges the integration of the South China Sea.

  Xi and Putin are gifted players of chess and go – and profit from stellar advisers of the caliber of Patrushev and Wang Yi. China playing geopolitical go is an exercise in non-confrontation: all you need to do is to block your opponent’s ability to move.

  Chess and go, in a diplomatic tandem, represent a game where you don’t interrupt your opponent when it is repeatedly shooting itself on the knees. As an extra bonus, you get your opponent antagonizing over 90% of the world’s population.

  All that will lead to the Hegemon’s economy eventually collapsing. And then it can be beaten by default.

  Western “values” buried under the rubble

  As Russia, especially via Lavrov’s efforts, offers the Global South/Global Majority a civilizational project, focused on mutually respectful multipolarity, China via Xi Jinping offers the notion of “community with a shared future” and a set of initiatives, discussed in lengthy detail at the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) Forum in Beijing in October, where Russia, not by accident, was the guest of honor.

  A group of Chinese scholars concisely frame the approach as China “creating/facilitating global nodes for relating/communicating and platforms for concrete collaboration/practical exchanges. The participants remains Sovereign, contribute to the common endeavor (or simply specific projects) and receive benefits making them willing to keep on.”

  It’s as if Beijing was acting as a sort of shining star and guiding light.

  In sharp contrast, what remains of Western civilization – certainly with not much to do with Montaigne,

  Pico della Mirandola or Schopenhauer – increasingly plunges into a self-constructed Heart of Darkness (without Conrad’s literary greatness), confronting the true, irredeemably horrifying face of conformist, subservient individualism.

  Welcome to the New Medievalism, precipitated by the “kill apps” of Western racism, as argued in a brilliant book, Chinese Cosmopolitanism, by scholar Shuchen Xiang, professor of Philosophy at Xidan University.

  The “kill apps” of Western racism, writes Prof. Xiang, are fear of change; the ontology of bivalent dualism; the invention of the ‘barbarian’ as the racial Other; the metaphysics of colonialism; and the insatiable nature of this racist psychology. All these “apps” are now exploding, in real time, in West Asia. The key consequence is that the Western “values” construct has already perished, buried under the Gaza rubble.

  Now to a ray of light: a case can be made – and we’ll be back to it – that orthodox Christianity, moderate Islam and several strands of Taoism/Confucianism may embrace the future as the three main civilizations of a cleansed Mankind.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 23:20

• These Are The Top 50 Largest Importers In The World
  These Are The Top 50 Largest Importers In The World

  In 2022, global imports climbed to $25.6 trillion in value, or about the size of the U.S. GDP.

  As an engine of growth, global trade broadens consumer choices and can lower the cost of goods. For businesses, it can improve the quality of inputs and strengthen competitiveness.

  In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld and Christina Kostandi show the 50 largest importers, with data from the World Trade Organization.

  

  Which Countries Import the Most Goods?

  With $3.4 trillion in imports in 2022, the U.S. is the largest importer globally.

  Even though higher inflation and market uncertainty loomed over the economy, U.S. imports increased 15% annually, with China as its top goods importing partner.

  

  As the world’s second-largest economy, China’s imports hit $2.7 trillion in value, although growth slowed in 2022.

  Taiwan, China’s top trading partner for imports, is a major provider of electronics products, including semiconductor chips. However, the China-Taiwan trade relationship remains complicated given geopolitical tensions sparking unexpected import bans.

  A handful of European countries also fell in the top 10 importers, led by Germany and the Netherlands. Overall, the European Union is the largest importer of agricultural products, fuels and mining products, and automotive products globally.

  Global Trade Fragmentation

  In 2023, the World Trade Organization projects that import volumes will contract as much as 1.2% across North and South America, Asia, and Europe.

  In part, this is being driven by slower demand in manufacturing economies.

  Whether or not this weaker volume is also being impacted by trade fragmentation remains unclear. One indicator may be seen in the trade of intermediate goods, which are products like wood and steel that are used in the production of a final good.

  In the first half of 2023, the share of intermediate goods in world trade dropped to 48.5%, down from its three-year average of 51%. On the one hand, this may suggest that supply chains are contracting. Yet it may also be due to the influence of higher commodity prices, which have a bigger impact on the cost of intermediate goods than on final goods.

  Still, other factors have an impact on the flow of trade. These include subsidies, export bans, and legislative policy, such as the $52.7 billion U.S. CHIPS Act, that incentivizes local production of semiconductors.

  Considering these factors, broader trends of global de-globalization remain to be seen.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 22:45

• Pfizer Failed To Disclose Risks Of Preterm Birth And Neonatal Death To Pregnant Women In RSV Vaccine Trial
  Pfizer Failed To Disclose Risks Of Preterm Birth And Neonatal Death To Pregnant Women In RSV Vaccine Trial

  Authored by Megan Redshaw via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Pfizer failed to inform pregnant women participating in its clinical trial for the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine that the clinical trial of a similar vaccine by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was halted after a safety signal revealed a potential risk of preterm births leading to neonatal deaths.

  

  Even though Pfizer knew about the potential safety signal and was studying preterm births as an “adverse event of special interest,” it continued to enroll women in its clinical trial and did not fully inform participants of the risks the vaccine may pose to their babies—and in some cases, provided misleading and contradictory statements, according to an investigation by The BMJ.

  “The BMJ article demonstrates Pfizer’s continued disregard for the law and patient choice,” attorney Thomas Renz told The Epoch Times in an email. “The entire point of informed consent is to ensure a patient can make a decision based on all available information. Rather than embracing the Nuremberg Code and American laws and regulations, Pfizer seems to view informed consent as a barrier to sales—something that causes vaccine hesitancy or drug hesitancy.”

  “There should have never been a clinical trial in pregnant women studying any injections aimed at RSV in pregnant women,” Sasha Latypova told The Epoch Times in an email. “Pregnancy and potential to become pregnant is historically the most protected class of human subjects from clinical research because the risks and potential to cause inadvertent harm are too devastating to justify scientific interest in made-up subjects like RSV.”

  Ms. Latypova is a retired pharmaceutical industry executive with 25 years of experience in pharmaceutical research and development and co-founder of several organizations that work with pharmaceutical companies to design, execute, collect data, and submit clinical trial data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

  According to Ms. Latypova, what was once considered a harmless cold has since been rebranded as RSV.

  “The vast majority of parents have not heard of RSV if they have not been exposed to CDC fear-mongering and renaming of otherwise harmless common colds. The incidence or prevalence of RSV is not known precisely because it poses no danger to anyone,” Ms. Latypova said. “In the U.S., RSV is attributed as a cause of death to about 17 infants per year out of 4,000,000+ babies—based on a review of 12 years’ worth of death certificates.”

  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), RSV is a common respiratory virus that usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms. Although most people recover in a week or two, it can be serious and is more commonly diagnosed in infants.

  Both GSK and Pfizer were developing an RSV vaccine for pregnant women, but GSK halted its phase 3 vaccine trial in February 2022 over a possible increased risk of preterm births and neonatal deaths in vaccinated participants.

  Immediately after becoming informed of the safety signal, GSK informed health authorities and updated its consent forms. There was no explanation for the increase in preterm births, but GSK told The BMJ it was still investigating the safety signal and was no longer developing its vaccine.

  A dispute then emerged over whether Pfizer had the obligation to inform women participating in their RSV clinical trial about the potential risk and whether their consent forms should be updated accordingly.

  Pfizer Failed to Inform Pregnant Women of Preterm Birth Risk

  The BMJ asked Pfizer whether pregnant women in its clinical trial were informed about the potential risk of preterm birth, but the pharmaceutical giant did not respond. As a result, The BMJ contacted governmental health authorities in all 18 countries where Pfizer had trial sites and reached out to more than 80 trial investigators.

  According to the investigation, The BMJ did not receive any responses that indicated Pfizer informed pregnant participants of the risk, and some said Pfizer continued to enroll and vaccinate pregnant women for months after the potential risk of preterm birth from GSK’s clinical trial was publicized.

  Charles Weijer, a bioethicist and professor at Western University in London, Canada who specializes in research ethics, told The BMJ that pregnant women should have been informed of the safety signal revealed during GSK’s clinical trial so they could consider whether they wanted to receive the vaccine or if they had already received the vaccine, whether they should seek medical advice or follow up.

  “Any failure to provide new and potentially important safety information data to trial participants is ethically problematic,” Mr. Weijer said.

  Rose Bernabe, a professor of research ethics and research integrity at the University of Oslo, told The BMJ, “The renewal of informed consent is a must,” especially because Pfizer claimed to follow guidelines from the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences and the international Guideline for Good Clinical Practice, both of which contain similar passages stating that informed consent must be renewed “if new information becomes available that could affect the willingness of participants to continue.”

  An anonymous clinical trial investigator for Pfizer told The BMJ that in early 2022, they asked Pfizer about the potential risk of preterm birth because of the similarity between GSK and Pfizer’s vaccines and asked whether Pfizer trial participants could be reassured.

  “All I got from Pfizer was that their data hadn’t shown any increase in risk, no answer to my question,” the researcher said.

  Ms. Latypova told The Epoch Times she was appalled that “any trials of any products were IRB [Institutional Review Board] approved to proceed in this population.”

  “Pfizer had an ethical obligation to inform the participants in their clinical trial that GSK terminated their experiment,” Ms. Latypova said. At the same time, she’s not sure why ethical behavior would be expected from Pfizer given their response to thousands of reported deaths and injuries, including miscarriages, in their COVID-19 vaccine trials.

  Pfizer’s Phase 3 Data Suggest Possible Risk of Preterm Birth

  According to The BMJ, a year after GSK’s clinical trial was halted, experts called for an investigation of Pfizer’s phase 3 trial after a numerical imbalance in preterm births emerged from its data. Even then, Pfizer did not disclose in patient consent forms for its phase 3 trial that it was studying preterm birth as an “adverse event of special interest,” according to documents from the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Finland, and New Zealand obtained by The BMJ.

  Some consent forms obtained by The BMJ contain inconsistent statements warning of possible “life-threatening” effects of the vaccine on the baby while also stating that only the expectant mother is at risk of experiencing adverse effects.

  The consent forms state, “The risks associated with the study vaccine (RSVpreF or placebo) may be experienced by you, but not your baby, since your baby will not receive the study vaccine or placebo directly.”

  “Knowing what we know now, the statement in question is irresponsible and, given the benefit of hindsight, is actually factually incorrect,” Ms. Bernabe told The BMJ. “The statement gives the false sense of security that the fetus or neonate will not be exposed to any risk or inconvenience. Considering the gravity of the risk that this irresponsible statement veils, this misleading statement should be a ground for questioning the validity of the consent process.”

  The Dutch national research ethics body also agreed the statement could “potentially cause confusion” for clinical trial participants after being informed of the issue by The BMJ. The Dutch authority subsequently contacted Pfizer about the confusing language and recommended it be adapted, but it had since emerged that no new participants would be enrolled in the study rendering the matter moot.

  “The fact that Pfizer was investigating whether the drug was causing preterm birth but then chose not to disclose it appears to indicate intentionality. This intentionality would provide very serious civil causes of action and may even mean that this action could rise to the level of criminal activity,” Mr. Renz told The Epoch Times.

  “At this point, the American public really needs to start asking ourselves how many laws Pfizer can violate before their lobbyists can no longer afford to pay off our politicians to look the other way,” he added.

  Not everyone agreed that Pfizer had an obligation to inform pregnant women in their clinical trial of the potential risks.

  Beate Kampmann, director of the Centre for Global Health at Charité University Hospital Berlin and a lead author of Pfizer’s phase 3 trial publication who oversaw a clinical trial site in the Gambia, told The BMJ that GSK’s results weren’t relevant to her trial participants “as most participants were already in follow-up.”

  Ms. Kampmann said the GSK vaccine was not the same as Pfizer’s, and the trial’s Data and Safety Monitoring Board, which reviews and evaluates study data to protect participants’ safety and monitor the study’s progress, “did not raise any concerns.”

  She said GSK’s results were location-specific and involved a temporary finding that is still poorly understood. Ms. Kampmann told The BMJ that questions on informed consent and potential side effects in the trial amounted to “getting hung up on issues which are not borne out by the analysis and are distorting the benefits this vaccine can bring.”

  FDA Signs Off on Pfizer’s RSV Vaccine, Despite Safety Risk

  The FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) in May discussed Pfizer’s clinical trial data and an analysis published by the FDA. The analysis showed no increase in preterm births in high-income countries and a numerical increase in upper-middle-income countries driven by South Africa.

  The FDA’s VRBPAC committee cleared the shot even though four of the 14 committee members, including Dr. Paul Offit, said Pfizer’s data was inadequate to support its safety. Dr. Offit, a pediatrician and recognized expert in virology and immunology, was concerned by GSK’s results because its vaccine was “almost identical” to Pfizer’s.

  Dr. Offit said GSK presented its data during a two-day meeting on RSV in Lisbon, and what they found was that, like Pfizer, there was a temporal association in low- and middle-income countries, meaning “there was sort of a several-month period where you had that increase in statistical association with premature births, but not at other times.”

  He also questioned why there was “clearly an increased risk” of premature birth in the vaccinated participants and a decrease in the placebo group.

  “If GSK has truly abandoned a program on a similar or almost identical vaccine, that is going to hang over this program,” Dr. Offit said.

  Dr. Offit further pointed out that although it was “death” during the GSK clinical trial that initially “got everyone’s attention,” it was severe premature births that led to those deaths.

  Dr. Hana El Sahly, VRBPAC chairwoman, said the signal showing an increased risk of preterm births associated with Pfizer’s RSV vaccine was “significant” in phases two and three of its clinical trial and “in a very similar product that was given, you know, on another study.”

  “So, having said that, is it reason enough to pause? Probably so,” Dr. Sahly said. “I mean, increasing the risk of or having pregnant women have 20% increased risk of premature delivery is not trivial, even if it is late preterm delivery. The fact that we’re putting them into preterm delivery while we’re sitting here debating the matter intellectually is not trivial.”

  When the FDA authorized the vaccine, it determined available data was “insufficient to establish or exclude a causal relationship between preterm birth and Pfizer’s ABRYSVO RSV vaccine but limited its use to women who are 32 to 36 weeks pregnant to mitigate the potential risk. The FDA is also requiring Pfizer to perform postmarketing studies to “assess the signal of serious risk of preterm birth.”

  The FDA in 2022 also required Pfizer to conduct several post-marketing safety studies assessing potential long-term impacts of myocarditis—a type of heart inflammation associated with Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine—as part of its approval process. The data was required to be given to the FDA in December 2022, but the FDA quietly granted Pfizer an extension when it missed its deadline.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 22:10

• Americans Divided On Native American Policies
  Americans Divided On Native American Policies

  Americans on both sides of the aisle are in agreement over several policies that would work towards safeguarding the rights of Native American people living in the United States, but they remain divided over a few key areas, among them: reparations, monuments and sports mascots.

  The following chart, based on a survey by YouGov which asked 1,000 U.S. respondents who were either Republican- or Democrat-leaning whether they were in agreement with or against a number of policies.

  As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows, while a higher share of Democrats responded affirmatively to all of the policies posed, a majority among both sets of voters voiced their support for 7 out of the 12 questions.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  This included 78 percent of Republicans and 85 percent of Democrats saying they would support increasing the focus on Native American history in school curriculums, and a similar share of respondents saying they would back strengthening laws to prevent the unwarranted removal of Native children from their families.

  Similarly, there was only a 2 percentage point difference between the groups of Republicans and Democrats who supported requiring federal agencies to involve tribes in decision-making that affects their lands, at 79 percent and 81 percent, respectively.

  There are, however, a handful of important policies which appear to remain a sticking point.

  These include the proposed removal of monuments dedicated to historical figures who supported mistreatment of Native Americans (18 percent Republicans to 68 percent Democrats), the question of halting or rerouting infrastructure projects based on concerns raised by Native tribes (44 percent Republicans to 70 percent Democrats), giving Native Americans an advantage in college admissions decisions (32 percent Republicans to 67 percent Democrats) and the government paying cash reparations to Native American tribal members (30 percent Republicans to 67 percent Democrats).

  The only policy that garnered less than 50 percent of support from both Democrat- and Republican-leaning respondents was the suggestion of banning sports teams from using Native American-themed mascots (12 percent Republicans to 48 percent Democrats).

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 21:35

• Managing A Crisis
  Managing A Crisis

  Authored by Alasdair Macleod via SchiffGold.com,

  This article concludes that the current downturn in bond yields is part of a continuing market manipulation by central banks in order to restore confidence in the global economic outlook.

  

  There is a long history of government intervention in markets. In the nineteenth century, it was by legal regulation, the most notable of which was the 1844 Bank Charter Act, which had to be suspended in 1847, 1857, and 1866.

  From the early 1920s, the emphasis on intervention changed under Benjamin Strong, the first Fed Chairman, who started to deliberately expand central bank credit to stimulate the economy. Coupled with the expansion phase of the commercial bank credit cycle, this led to the Roaring Twenties, the stock market boom, and its collapse.

  Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt compounded the errors with economic interventions which only succeeded in prolonging the 1930’s depression. It was the start of modern government economic and monetary manipulation, which took on a new urgency under the fiat dollar in the 1970s.

  While they create problems through their interventions, governments have perfected the art of managing markets to restore failing confidence in credit values. This was dramatically proved in the wake of the Lehman failure.

  But if government intervention is behind the current decline in bond yields and interest rate expectations, it is only a temporary solution to G7 government debt traps, the squeeze on bank credit, and a deteriorating economic outlook. These are problems deferred, not resolved.

  Introduction

  You have to hand it to the authorities. While they are motivated against free markets and can’t stop interfering in our day-to-day affairs when the crisis that they themselves created finally hits markets and the economy, they prove adept at resolving it. That the fiat dollar has survived a repeated cycle of crises since the early 1970s is a testament to the fact.

  Unbeknown to most of us, much of the time they work behind the scenes to neutralize threats to the financial and economic status quo. This was the original purpose of the US’s Exchange Stabilisation Fund, founded as part of the Gold Stabilisation Act of 1934. The US Treasury website says the following:

  The ESF can be used to purchase or sell foreign currencies, to hold U.S. foreign exchange and Special Drawing Rights (SDR) assets, and to provide financing to foreign governments. All operations of the ESF require the explicit authorization of the Secretary of the Treasury (“the Secretary”).

  The Secretary is responsible for the formulation and implementation of U.S. international monetary and financial policy, including exchange market intervention policy. The ESF helps the Secretary to carry out these responsibilities. By law, the Secretary has considerable discretion in the use of ESF resources.

  The Bank of England manages the UK’s Exchange Equalization Account with similar objectives. But the US’s ESF is not the only means at its disposal for steering markets. The Fed is widely recognized to use JPMorgan Chase as its main conduit into the US banking system, and it is suspected (bank confidentiality conveniently hides the truth) that JPM and other major banks front market operations on behalf of the Treasury, the ESF off-balance sheet, and the Fed itself.

  Another area of intervention that steers our expectations is statistics. At some time in the future, economists and commentators might look back with incredulity on how markets are moved by government statistics as if they were the whole truth when clearly, they prove anything but the truth. And the most shameless manipulation in full public view is of consumer inflation numbers.

  In the UK, index-linked gilts use the retail price index as the basis of inflation compensation, which has tracked higher than other indices, such as the CPI. The government has managed to remove the costly RPI from many other forms of inflation compensation, but so far steps to change the compensation basis for index-linked gilts are a work in progress, changing RPI to CPIH from 2030, which, the Debt Management Office estimates could save the government billions of pounds in future.

  In the US, tinkering with inflation estimates has created an alternative business for John Williams at Shadowstats.com, who calculates inflation on the 1980 basis before government statisticians began tinkering in earnest to reduce the cost of inflation compensation to hapless citizens. The chart below is from Williams’ website and says it all.[i]

  

  Taking the 1980 methodology, Williams estimates that consumer prices are rising at a rate of about 12%, compared with government estimates of less than 5%. What gives government statisticians flexibility in calculation is that changes in the general level of prices are an unmeasurable concept, allowing statisticians to make any assumptions they please. Yet despite this fraud, nearly everyone in the financial sector accepts the government’s inflation myth as gospel, drowning out dissenting voices such as Williams’. Another example is unemployment statistics, which Williams currently estimates to be about 25%, including long-term discouraged workers, “who were defined out of official existence in 1994”.

  Surprise, surprise, that every change governments make to statistics either reduces their costs, window dresses them favorably, or both. The accumulating result is an unreality, which at some stage brings their inexactitudes crashing back to earth. But perhaps we shouldn’t worry about that, because of the authorities’ unblemished track record of saving us all from their follies.

  Continual intervention and market management are with us today. Interest rates and bond yields which reflect the true loss of purchasing power for the dollar would be considerably higher if the truth behind them was driving financial asset values. Instead, the yield on the 10-year US Treasury Note has fallen from 5% to 4.37% in a month, and the dollar’s trade-weighted index has fallen by about 3% — not a lot but enough coupled with the fall in US Treasury yields to take pressure off foreign bonds and equity markets, alleviating a growing sense of crisis.

  The chart below shows why this move was necessary.

  

  The chart compares the negative correlation between the S&P 500 Index and the yield on the long bond both rebased to 1985 with the latter inverted. The theory behind it is that equity markets refer their values inversely to bond yields: in other words, a rising bond yield undermines equity markets, while falling yields lead to rising equity values. It is one of the planks supporting official interest rate policies, on the basis that healthy equity markets encourage overall economic confidence. It was clearly stated to be a consideration for the Fed by Alan Greenspan when he was Chairman.

  To illustrate the point, the chart shows the valuation disparity between rising bond yields and the S&P 500 Index, which other than when the yield was suppressed to as low as 1.2% during Covid, it is the greatest valuation disparity in modern times — possibly ever. If Treasury bond yields had not declined, the equity market faced a bloodbath potentially taking it back to post-Lehman crisis levels with the S&P falling towards 1000.

  Dealing with the banking system

  The root cause of the economic errors of modern interventionism was the 1930s depression, and the root cause of the depression in turn was errors in dealing with the bank credit cycle, which still leads to periodic financial crises to this day.

  The boom that fuelled the 1930s bust was the first major foray into monetary manipulation by the Fed under chairman Benjamin Strong. Strong was an advocate of credit stimulation, and his input further leveraged the effects of commercial bank credit expansion which together fuelled the Roaring Twenties. And the Roaring Twenties fuelled stock market speculation, the bubble bursting to collapse Wall Street and in the wake of it, some 9,000 banks failed.

  Unfortunately for America, the hands-off President Coolidge (who, incidentally, seemed blissfully unaware of what was happening at the Fed — but then Silent Cal was not a money man) was followed by Herbert Hoover, of whom Coolidge said, “That man has given me nothing but advice, and all of it bad.” Hoover, followed by Roosevelt stuck his oar into everything trying to make it better, only succeeding in making things worse. But Roosevelt came up with his New Deal, which caught the public’s imagination though it simply prolonged the depression due to his intervention policies, for which free markets wrongly got the blame.

  It fired the imagination of statist economists, such as Irving Fisher and John Keynes to recommend using credit to stimulate the economy when free markets failed — no lessons had been learned from Benjamin Strong’s calamitous credit policies. It wasn’t free markets failing, it was the expansion of the Fed’s credit turbocharging the expansion of commercial bank credit, which magnified the bubble and the following crisis. Without that intervention, the bank credit cycle would not have been so destructive. Keynes et al clearly didn’t understand credit, so for the benefit of his followers and their defective analysis, we must rewrite the history of credit and its various crises in an attempt to fathom whether the current decline in bond yields is being engineered by the authorities.

  Currency versus Banking Schools

  State intervention has a long history. But in the nineteenth century, it wasn’t direct meddling with the economy but mistakes in setting the legal framework for the means of payment.

  There has been a long-running debate about whether money should be controlled by a rules-based approach, or whether banks should be free to make loans in accordance with the demands of trade. The former approach is of the currency school, which refers back to David Ricardo, who in 1823 wrote a paper entitled Plan for the Establishment of a National Bank which was published the following year after his death. In that paper, Ricardo wrote:

  The Bank of England performs two operations of banking, which are quite distinct, and have no necessary connection with each other: it issues a paper currency as a substitute for a metallic one; and it advances money in the way of loan, to merchants and others. That these two operations of banking have no necessary connection, will appear obvious from this – that they might be carried on by two separate bodies, without the slightest loss of advantage, either to the country, or to the merchants who receive accommodation from such loans.

  Ricardo’s approach rhymed with the later Chicago Plan of 1933, which sought to strictly limit the process of loan creation. To this day, currency school precepts find support from economists of the Austrian school as well as monetarists. Ricardo’s quantity theory of money, the basis of his approach lives on.

  The banking school’s approach was more flexible with regard to loan creation, arguing in favor of a more evolutionary, less static approach, whereby banks should be free to respond to market conditions and the opportunities they presented. The problem with this approach was it did nothing to address the cyclicality of bank credit expansion which periodically led to bank failures and economic downturns.

  The most important banking legislation of the nineteenth century was the 1844 Bank Charter Act, which set the terms under which the Bank of England’s charter to act as the government’s bank was renewed. The Act was a triumph for the currency school, splitting the Bank into two separate functions, an issue department and a banking department as advocated by Ricardo in 1823.

  As the banking school predicted, the Bank Charter Act had to be suspended on three occasions: in 1847 only three years after it became law, in 1857, and in 1866 when the Overend Gurney failure occurred. It is the remedy to those failures which concern us here.

  In October 1847, the Bank tried to halt a financial crisis by making large amounts of credit available to commercial banks in London, to the point where its ability to support the entire financial system became exhausted. Earlier that year, there had been a drain on the gold reserves which severely limited the Bank’s room for maneuver, because the Act required the bank to maintain gold cover for any banknotes issued after the Act on a one-for-one basis. For fear of the banking crisis bringing the entire system down, the government temporarily authorised the Bank to issue bank notes at discretion disregarding the requirements of the Act. The financial panic immediately subsided, and the panicky demand for banknotes and gold sovereigns simply disappeared.

  Problem solved. In November 1857 there was a run on the Bank of England itself when its gold reserves stood at only £274,000 against liabilities of £5,460,000, a condition which would have stopped a commercial bank from trading. There was also a full-blown banking crisis in America. Again, the government was forced to authorize the Bank to issue notes at discretion, but it also required the Bank to increase its discount rate to not less than 10%. The day after this permission, the panic eased. And in 1866, the Overend Gurney failure which was the worst of the three by far cited here was resolved by the government again authorizing the Bank to proceed in similar terms to those given to subdue the 1857 panic.

  Our reason for dragging up the failures of the currency school approach is not so much to resuscitate the debate of the early nineteenth century but to point out that a strict rules-based approach does not guarantee banking stability, and to add that in the context of dealing with periodic banking crises they can only be resolved by abandoning the rules. But there is a further lesson, and that is a banking crisis does not require a fall in interest rates to be resolved. The solution is found in ensuring that sufficient liquidity is available and that the level of interest rates should be set by the issue department alone in order to ensure there are adequate gold reserves to back the currency.

  The theories of the currency school have little credence today, ironically replaced by an increasingly regulated banking school approach. But even that has not prevented crises from emerging. In this era of fiat currencies, the most notable case was the stock market collapse in late 1974. The S&P 500 index had roughly halved since January 1973, but the UK’s FT30 had collapsed to 146 on 6 January 1975, 73% down from its 1972 high. The entire commercial property sector had become more or less valueless, a result of the earlier crash in November 1973 which bankrupted a number of secondary banks. Joint stock banks were rumored to be also bankrupt and market sentiment was at the lowest possible ebb.

  It was at that point that behind closed doors The Bank of England instructed major pension funds and insurance companies which had accumulated significant levels of short-term liquidity to buy equities indiscriminately.[ii] Consequently, the market soared on the mother-of-all bear squeezes, and investor confidence rapidly returned. Talk of joint stock banks in trouble was forgotten as collateral values recovered.

  Even though The Bank of England had had all restrictions on its currency and credit creation removed in accordance with the theories of the banking school, not only did a cycle of credit crises continue but they were resolved in a similar way as the earlier suspensions of the Bank Charter Act simply by a judicious turning of sentiment. This was also the case when the Lehman crisis exploded in our faces in 2008 when the Fed and other central banks quickly acted to stop faith in the credit system from imploding.

  The lesson for us today is that central banks have learned how to quickly restore confidence in a credit crisis. As was the case in 2007 before Lehman failed, it was becoming obvious that the conditions for a crisis were snowballing but yet to be reflected in a loss of confidence in the enormous global structure of unbacked credit. The question that now arises is whether the authorities are already intervening to prevent the looming crisis by kicking the can down the road just one more time.

  The background to today’s evolving crisis

  Since the 1970s when dollar credit was detached from gold’s value, the need for behind-the-scenes management of market expectations has increased. It commenced with unsuccessful attempts by the US Treasury to suppress the gold price by selling gold into the market. Anti-gold propaganda continued unsuccessfully until Chairman of the Fed Paul Volcker raised interest rates in the early 1980s sufficiently to turn the tide in favor of the dollar. That the Fed Funds rate had to be raised to over 19% indicated the failure of the 1970s anti-gold propaganda effort, but it paved the way towards its resolution.

  Today, those who understand that gold is money and all else is credit are a vanishingly small proportion of economists and investment professionals. As the principal reserve currency, the dollar is now believed to have completely superseded gold as the sheet anchor for global credit. Nevertheless, the dollar is inherently unstable. Therefore, a more determined effort at continual management of expectations was called for, and this arrived with the financialization of G7 economies in the mid-eighties.

  The advantage of financialization is that it gives a central bank greater control over economic outcomes, compared with an economy dependent on manufacturing. Central banks and their regulators set the agenda for how credit is used in a way that is impossible for manufacturing. Big bang in London led to the Glass Stegall Act in America being eventually rescinded, but more immediately it redirected global capital otherwise earmarked for manufacturing into financial markets. The expansion of derivative markets soaked up speculative demand for commodities, including gold, and coupled with statistical manipulation became an important part of suppressing inflation.

  The expansion of credit aimed at financial markets worked particularly well until the turn of the century. It led to the dot-com bubble, its collapse, and the Fed Fund rate being reduced to a record low of 1%. Eventually, word was put out that recovery was on its way and there was a gathering momentum, reflected in residential property markets. We will probably never know whether this recovery was initiated by the Fed, in the way the Bank of England did in January 1975, but Alan Greenspan did understand markets, their sentiment, and their timing.

  However, the inflationary consequences led to the 2007‑2009 crisis and the Fed having to bail out the entire financial system.

  The constituents of an evolving crisis today are in plain sight, many factors being similar to crises in the past. The commercial banking system is caught flat-footed by the upturn in price inflation and interest rates, which they are exacerbating by restricting credit. With the banking system’s difficulty in contracting its aggregate liabilities, it is shuffling its assets towards lower-risk assets such as short-term Treasury bills. Furthermore, commercial banks are presided over by central banks whose balance sheets have been destroyed by a combination of earlier quantitative easing, higher interest rates, and collapsing balance sheet asset values.

  With sentiment in bond markets being at a low ebb, the conditions for setting off a bear squeeze in bond markets are now in place, with banks and investment funds having increased their near-cash assets.

  Why now?

  For the central banks such as the Fed, there are two major problems looming. The first is how to fund escalating government budget deficits, when interest costs already account for the largest component of spending commitments, and the second is the strains put on the G7 monetary system by a strong dollar. Conveniently, it appears that CPI inflation is easing sufficiently to rule out further interest rate rises and that they may even fall sooner than previously expected. This creates the opportunity for steering market expectations away from the evolving crisis and hopefully to buy a few years’ time.

  There is little doubt that growing confidence in these conditions in government circles justified the UK Chancellor’s tax cuts announced in the Autumn Statement this week. The Ukraine war is in a lull, and apart from demonstrations supporting the Palestinians, a general policy from America and her allies of non-military intervention over Gaza has relieved geopolitical tensions in bond markets. Consequently, the yield on the 10-year US treasury Note has declined from 5% to 4.37% and the dollar’s trade-weighted index has declined from 107 to 103.9, taking pressure off other bond markets, most notably the Japanese where the 10-year JGB yield has declined from 0.96% to 0.7%.

  As the sense of crisis diminishes, perhaps US Treasury yields will decline further. It will be needed to avoid a significant fall in equity markets, and it should also trigger a backwash out of short-term Treasury Bills and the like into longer-term bonds, hopefully allowing the US Government to progress with its funding.

  How long will it work?

  The growing evidence that the authorities are deploying their acute sense of market timing to steer markets away from a funding crisis and to foster confidence in wider financial assets should not be confused with dealing with a cyclical banking crisis per se. At best, it is a temporary patch over a gaping wound. At the heart of it is a debt funding crisis that is not going away on the back of an orchestrated bear squeeze in bond markets.

  Today’s is a very different situation from the 1970s with which these times of resurging price inflation can be best compared. Between 1971 and 1980, the sum of budget deficits for the US Government over the ten years was $421,823 million, 15% of 1980’s GDP. By way of contrast, the total budget deficit for the last ten years totaled $12,918 billion, 47% of 2023 GDP. Furthermore, US debt to GDP in 1970 was 34%, while today it is 122%.

  In other words, there is a US government debt crisis that will only get worse and won’t be resolved by a sixty basis point fall in long bond yields. Furthermore, overleveraged banks still face mounting private sector non-performing loans going into an economic downturn, discouraging them from resuming the expansion of their balance sheets. Credit will still be tight and borrowing rates elevated.

  The fact remains that for the banks there are very few buyers of collateral held against loans. The chart above of the valuation gap between bond yields and equity markets also applies to other assets, most notably commercial real estate. Bank executives are bound to look through this dip in bond yields and will almost certainly conclude that the economic outlook and how it affects credit margins relative to risk is still unfavorable.

  Foreign investors are heavily overweight in dollars already, and far from seeing falling Treasury yields as an opportunity to buy, they are likely to remain on the sidelines, or even take the opportunity to sell with more of an eye on the dollar’s declining exchange rate.

  There is a further problem when it comes to the US Treasury’s dependency on foreign investors buying its debt, and that is the relationship between the trade deficit and the balance of payments. The trade deficit is roughly balanced between the budget deficit and changes in the savings rate. The simplest explanation for this accounting identity is that a budget deficit leads to a direct expansion of credit into the economy, leading in turn to an imbalance between domestic production and consumer demand. If consumers fail to increase their savings, it leads to the importation of goods and services in excess of national exports — in other words, a deficit in the balance of trade.

  The balance of payments differs from the balance of trade by the extent to which foreigners supplying products into the economy dispose of or retain the currency. By ensuring that the dollar is the international reserve currency in which international trade is valued and settled, foreign exporters into the US market have accumulated large quantities of dollars in preference to their own and other currencies. And those balances either accumulate as bank deposits, or they are invested which is why foreigners buy US treasuries. But in the current fiscal year, we can be certain that the US Federal deficit will rise above last fiscal year’s $2 trillion, which was 7.2% of GDP.

  The budget deficit this year will be far higher. It is the run-up to a presidential election next November, so spending almost certainly won’t be restricted on that account. Furthermore, we know that the global and US economies are heading into recession, likely to be very deep if the initial contraction of the money supply is any indication. Ex-interest, it seems unlikely that with declining tax revenues and increasing welfare costs, the deficit will turn out to be less than $2 trillion, to which interest costs must be added. They are already running at over $1 trillion annually, and with the rise in interest rates impacting funding of the budget deficit and some $7.6 trillion of debt being rolled over at significantly higher interest rates, the cost of funding could well approach $1.5 trillion, assuming interest rates go no higher.

  Adding together these funding costs and the deficit ex-interest gives us a likely outturn approaching $3.5 trillion. Unless the domestic private sector increases its savings rate, then the trade deficit will increase to match this $3.5 trillion.

  In the UK, the Chancellor has decided the outlook is sufficiently improved for some minor tax cuts. The relevant figures are a budget deficit of £123.9bn in the current fiscal year to next April, with debt interest of £116.2bn. In other words, if it was not for debt interest, the budget would be approximately balanced. Part of the debt interest is due to the cost of maturing debt being rolled over, and the increase in interest payments on index-linked gilts. While Britain is not in such a deep debt trap as the US, budget arithmetic appears to be too optimistic for a number of reasons:

  • According to the government’s own estimates, GDP growth measured by consumption will be greater in the public sector than in the private sector. The private sector is expected to stagnate at just 0.5% real, with inflation falling to 3.6%. Expectations for 2024/25 will almost certainly prove to be optimistic, with the global economic outlook being for a significant recession. Instead, the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts continuing economic growth in the coming years.

  • The revenue forecasts are bound to be too optimistic given the global recession outlook, with welfare costs increasing more as well. Ex-interest costs, the borrowing requirement is sure to widen. Interest costs are bound to move in line with dollar rates which due to the factors above are almost certainly going to rise, not decline.

  • Inflation assumptions (CPI) assume that there will be a return to 2% in 2025. The prospects for monetary inflation in the G7 countries make that outcome extremely unlikely.

  While the UK’s figures are materially better than those of the US, relative to the dollar sterling has a credibility problem. As the dollar’s purchasing power declines, sterling is likely to do so as well, possibly at an even faster rate.

  Conclusion

  The current decline in US bond yields and the dollar’s trade-weighted index take enormous pressure off both financial markets and global currencies. Unless geopolitical events upset this newfound confidence, it could have further to go. But its origin would appear to be skilled timing by the authorities to inject needed confidence back into the markets, and thus into the US and other economies.

  We can only surmise that this is the case. But by tracing the histories and backgrounds to interventions designed to restore confidence in markets, this article shows that there is strong circumstantial evidence that the current decline in interest rates bears the hallmark of a degree of market manipulation.

  Consequently, the underlying problems remain. Government funding problems, the continuing downturn in the bank credit cycle, and the economic outlook apply not only to the US, but to all overindebted G7 governments. The conditions which have led to the general instability of credit values have not been addressed, so in time all the problems which might appear to be receding will return with renewed vengeance

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 21:00

• ESG Grift Endgame: Deutsche CIO Now Says Oil Companies Have A Place In ESG Funds
  ESG Grift Endgame: Deutsche CIO Now Says Oil Companies Have A Place In ESG Funds

  At the end of the day, it always winds up reverting to common sense and, in the investing world, alpha. 

  That’s what has Markus Müller, chief investment officer ESG at Deutsche Bank’s Private Bank, admitting this week that if you want to make money – no matter what you label your fund – you’re likely going to need some exposure to energy and big oil. He also noted the obvious: that big oil companies have, in fact, been making strides to reduce emissions, despite being labeled as serial polluters with ‘more money than God’ by the Biden administration and their cronies. 

  Reuters dropped a bomb last week when they reported that Müller had stated on Tuesday that sustainability funds should include traditional energy stocks, arguing that not doing so deprives investors of a prime opportunity to invest in the transition to renewable energy.

  “When we think about clean energy, these are business models which are quite new and sensitive to interest rates,” he said.

  Since the surge in fossil fuel prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, fossil fuel stocks have seen significant growth, resulting in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) funds underperforming in comparison.

  

  Müller emphasized that investors focused on sustainability require more detailed disclosures from companies about their shift to lower-carbon operations and clearer regulations for labeling funds concentrating on the transition.

  He said that ESG strategies vary, with many funds currently investing in fossil fuels, but impending stricter regulations may lead to more exclusions. For instance, France plans to prohibit ‘ISR’ labeled funds from investing in new fossil fuel projects from 2025. Currently, about 45% of funds, amounting to 7 billion euros, have traditional energy investments.

  Deutsche Bank’s Chief Investment Office ESG survey indicates sustained investor interest in sustainability, with energy transition being the top investment choice, surpassing artificial intelligence. However, confidence in ESG factors for risk management is declining, with only 37% agreeing it’s effective, down from previous years.

  The survey, with 1,759 mostly European respondents, revealed that just 15% have a solid understanding of ESG, and a mere 3% consider themselves experts.

  It’s not surprising, as we have been calling out ESG as a grift since the virtue signaling “trend” was born from the soil of near-unlimited liquidity during the Covid years. Recall, back in August we noted that companies with good ESG scores polluted just as much as those with low ones. 

  

  Scientific Beta, an index provider and consultancy, found tjhis summer that companies rated highly on ESG metrics – and even just the ‘Environmental’ variable alone – often pollute just as much as other companies. 

  Researchers look at ESG scores from Moody’s, MSCI and Refinitiv when performing the analysis. They found that when the ‘E’ component was singled out, it led to a “substantial deterioration in green performance”.

  Felix Goltz, research director at Scientific Beta told the Financial Times back in August: “ESG ratings have little to no relation to carbon intensity, even when considering only the environmental pillar of these ratings. It doesn’t seem that people have actually looked at [the correlations]. They are surprisingly low.”

  He added: “The carbon intensity reduction of green [ie low carbon intensity] portfolios can be effectively cancelled out by adding ESG objectives.”

  Also, let’s not forget about the ‘greenwashing‘ across the ESG industry.

  In September, we noted that ESG fund closures in 2023 had surpassed all of the last three years. 

  Data from Morningstar showed State Street, Columbia Threadneedle Investments, Janus Henderson Group, and Hartford Funds Management Group have unwound more than two dozen ESG funds this year. The latest unwind comes from BlackRock, who told regulators in September it plans to close two ESG emerging-market bond funds with total assets of $55 million. 

  

  So far this year, the number of ESG funds closing is more than the last three years combined. This trend comes as investors pull money out of these funds as the ESG bubble has likely popped. 

  We asked this question in early summer: Is The ESG Investing Boom Already Over?

  In January, BlackRock’s Larry Fink told Bloomberg TV at the World Economic Forum in Davos that ESG investing has been tarnished:

   “Let’s be clear, the narrative is ugly, the narrative is creating this huge polarization. “

  Fink continued:

  “We are trying to address the misconceptions. It’s hard because it’s not business any more, they’re doing it in a personal way. And for the first time in my professional career, attacks are now personal. They’re trying to demonize the issues.”

  By June, Fink’s BlackRock dropped the term “ESG” following billions of dollars pulled out of its funds by Republican governors, most notably, $2 billion by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

  The crux of the issue that Republican lawmakers have with radical ESG funds is that they were trying to impose ‘green’ initiatives on the corporate level to force change in society, and many of these initiatives would be widely unpopular at the ballot box during elections. 

  Remember these comments from Fink?

  Alyssa Stankiewicz, associate director for sustainability research at Morningstar, told Bloomberg, “We have definitely seen demand drop off in 2022 and 2023.” 

  And hey, don’t say we didn’t warn you; we have been writing about the ESG con for years now…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 20:25

• Zurich Issues Digital Bond Using Wholesale CBDC
  Zurich Issues Digital Bond Using Wholesale CBDC

  On Monday the Canton of Zurich issued a CHF 100 million ($113m) digital bond via the SIX Digital Exchange, Ledger Insights reported. While most of the bond terms were unexciting – it has an 11 year term and a coupon of 1.45%  – the most distinctive aspect is this transaction is that it settles using a wholesale central bank digital currency (wholesale CBDC) issued by the Swiss National Bank (SNB).

  The joint lead managers on the issuance were Zürcher Kantonalbank, UBS and Raiffeisen Switzerland. Zürcher and UBS were announced as part of the CBDC pilot earlier this month, but Raiffeisen was not.

  A Zurich spokesperson confirmed that wholesale CBDC settlement takes place on December 1 and only for the two pilot banks. Raiffeisen and the Canton of Zurich will receive conventional Swiss francs, not wholesale CBDC. At that point, the bond will be listed on both the SIX Digital Exchange and the main SIX Swiss Exchange.

  • While there have been plenty of wholesale CBDC trials, two things are distinctive about this pilot.
  • First, the SNB is allowing the use of a live wholesale CBDC over an extended timeframe.
  • Second, the SDX platform on which the SNB issues the CBDC is not a test platform. It is the same production platform that SDX has used for issuing tokenized Swiss francs used for previous SDX settlements.  

  Meanwhile, in February the City of Lugano issued a CHF 100 million tokenized bond via SDX with investors able to invest via the SDX central securities depository (CSD) or the conventional SIS CSD. Enabling the use of the SIS CSD means that investors don’t need to be up to speed with DLT and hence significantly improves liquidity. It was the first digital bond to qualify for SNB’s repo.

  Zurich confirmed it is similar, subject to the repo approval by the central bank, but it expects to qualify as HQLA Level 1. Additionally, it expects an S&P issuance rating of AAA.

  How does settlement work given there are two CSDs?

  One point of curiosity is how it’s possible to support settlement on both SIS (T+2 settlement) and SDX (T0) given the different settlement timeframes. The two CSDs are integrated, but because the bonds are natively digital, the SDX CSD is the primary registry.

  Exchange trades executed on one exchange cannot settle on the other. Any trade executed on the SIX Digital Exchange settles atomically via the SDX CSD. On-exchange trades executed via the main SIX stock exchange settle in two days via the SIS CSD using x-clear, SIX’s pan-European central counterparty. One can assume that at the two day point, SDX’s blockchain logs the change in real time. Over the counter trades can settle on either CSD.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 20:25

• Scientists Baffled By Origins Of Powerful 'Cosmic Ray' Discovered In Distant Space
  Scientists Baffled By Origins Of Powerful ‘Cosmic Ray’ Discovered In Distant Space

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Scientists have detected something extremely rare—the second most powerful cosmic ray ever recorded—but the discovery has left them baffled as to where exactly it came from.

  

  A team of researchers, led by Associate Professor Toshihiro Fujii from the Graduate School of Science, along with researchers from the Nambu Yoichiro Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics at Osaka Metropolitan University, and the University of Utah, documented their findings, which are set to be published in Science on Nov. 24.

  The recently discovered particle has been nicknamed the “Amaterasu” particle, after the sun goddess that, according to Shinto beliefs, was instrumental in the creation of Japan.

  It was discovered by a cosmic ray observatory in Utah’s West Desert known as the Telescope Array, which is comprised of more than 500 “surface detector stations” spread out across 270 square miles.

  Mr. Fujii and the international team of scientists have been conducting the Telescope Array experiment since 2008 but the newly-discovered high-energy particle was detected on May 21, 2021, when it triggered 23 of those detectors.

  With a calculated energy level of about 244 exa-electron volts (EeV), it is the second-highest extreme-energy cosmic ray ever seen after the “Oh-My-God” particle, which had an estimated energy of 320 EeV and was detected in 1991 via the University of Utah Fly’s Eye experiment.

  According to researchers, “Amaterasu” has a force that is equivalent to dropping a brick on your toe from waist height.

  However, scientists are perplexed as to exactly where the rare phenomenon came from, although they believe its arrival was from the direction of a void, an empty area of space bordering the Milky Way galaxy.

  ‘Energy Level Unprecedented’

  “When I first discovered this ultra-high-energy cosmic ray, I thought there must have been a mistake, as it showed an energy level unprecedented in the last 3 decades,” Mr. Fujii said in a press release.

  “No promising astronomical object matching the direction from which the cosmic ray arrived has been identified, suggesting possibilities of unknown astronomical phenomena and novel physical origins beyond the Standard Model,” he continued.

  Mr. Fujii said his team remains committed to the Telescope Array experiment and plans to conduct “a more detailed investigation into the source of this newly discovered extremely energetic particle.”

  Cosmic rays are energetic charged particles that move through space at nearly the speed of light, according to NASA. The charged particles are made up of a wide range of energies consisting of positive protons, negative electrons, or entire atomic nuclei and rain down onto Earth nearly constantly.

  While many cosmic rays, particularly at low energies, are produced by the sun, the origins of those at higher energies are still relatively unknown, although evidence suggests that some may be made in the Milky Way in supernova remnants, effectively the structure that results in the aftermath of an explosion of a star in a supernova.

  Researchers ultimately believe the recently discovered cosmic ray may follow particle physics unknown to science.

  These events seem like they’re coming from completely different places in the sky. It’s not like there’s one mysterious source,” said John Belz, professor at the University of Utah and co-author of the study. “It could be defects in the structure of spacetime, colliding cosmic strings. I mean, I’m just spit-balling crazy ideas that people are coming up with because there’s not a conventional explanation.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 19:50

• Pfizer Sues Poland For Bailing On COVID-19 Vaccine, Citing Shady EU Mega-Deal
  Pfizer Sues Poland For Bailing On COVID-19 Vaccine, Citing Shady EU Mega-Deal

  In April, 2021, the world learned that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had been negotiating the biggest contract ever sealed for 1.1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines via text messages back and forth with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.

  

  And while those texts were ‘somehow‘ lost, Pfizer is now suing Poland – which, under the EU deal struck between von der Leyen and Bourla, obligated the Polish government to purchase 60 million more doses than it did.

  “Pfizer and BioNTech are seeking to hold Poland to its commitments for COVID-19 vaccine orders placed by the Polish Government, as part of their contract to supply the European Union signed in May 2021,” a Pfizer spokesperson told Politico, adding that BioNTech is joining the lawsuit.

  According to Polish newspaper Gazeta Prawa, Pfizer brought the civil case before a Brussels court because the doses were purchased through EU joint procurement contracts, drawn up under Belgian law. –Politico

  Poland, under the leadership of then Health Minister Adam Niedzielski and the populist PiS party, took a bold step in April 2022 by stopping vaccine deliveries, citing force majeure. This decision, influenced by both financial and epidemiological factors, echoed across Eastern and Central Europe, leading to a wave of dissent against the Commission’s deal with Pfizer.

  

  Efforts to renegotiate the deal, prompted by the collective outcry of several EU countries, only partially assuaged the discontent. The demands for transparency and a more equitable agreement intensified, leading the Commission to revise the deal. However, Poland’s refusal to sign the revised agreement highlighted the growing fissures between EU member states and the Commission’s negotiation tactics.

  

  Fast forward to the aftermath of Poland’s October election, which saw the opposition gain enough seats to potentially install Donald Tusk, a centrist figure, in power. Pfizer’s lawsuit, potentially amounting to €1.2 billion, presents a formidable challenge for Tusk’s administration. This move by Pfizer is not just about recouping losses but sending a stark message to other nations considering contract breaches.

  The Commission was able to extract commitments from Pfizer to reschedule some deliveries, but this didn’t go far enough to appease the capitals.

  As vaccination rates flatlined, countries outside the Central and Eastern European group started joining the call for a renegotiation. At one point capitals even began asking for greater transparency on the original negotiations between Pfizer and the Commission. “What was promised? We would really like to know,” said Belgian ambassador Pierre Cartuyvels in December 2022.

  In May this year, the Commission quietly announced a substantial renegotiation of the offending deal. It was reducing — by an unspecified amount — the number of doses outstanding, while the deliveries would also be more spread out, into 2026. Poland, however, refused to sign up to the revised deal. -Politico

  According to Polish Health Minister Katarzyna Sójka in comments to Rynek Zdrowia, this is a difficult case, but there’s a chance it can end “in a positive way.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 19:15

• Meet The Mega Donors At Play In The 2024 Election
  Meet The Mega Donors At Play In The 2024 Election

  Authored by Patricia Tolson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The 2024 presidential election cycle is predicted to be the most expensive in U.S. history.

  

  Former President Donald Trump holds a comfortable lead in total contribution receipts with $56.7 million, according to data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in the first week of November.

  President Joe Biden, seeking a second term in the White House, placed second, with $44.7 million.

  President Trump’s Republican rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, placed third, with $31.6 million.

  Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who switched from the Democratic ticket to run as an independent, placed fourth with $15.1 million.

  Joe Biden

  With a 56 percent disapproval rating in the most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, a victory in 2024 will be challenging for the current president. Here are some of his major donors.

  Laurene Powell Jobs

  Laurene Powell Jobs is the widow of tech entrepreneur Steve Jobs. On July 7, 2022, Ms. Powell Jobs accepted a Medal of Freedom from President Biden on behalf of her husband.

  

  She is also a trustee of the Ford Foundation and the founder and president of Emerson Collective—a philanthropic organization helping people “from all communities” to “achieve their full potential.” The organization is the majority owner of The Atlantic magazine. She is also board chair of College Track, a nonprofit she founded in 1997 that helps students from underserved communities achieve their education goals.

  Ms. Powell Jobs is the co-founder and board chair of the XQ Institute, “dedicated to rethinking the high school experience so that every student graduates ready to succeed in life.”

  According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, her net worth sits at about $10.3 billion.

  FEC records show that Ms. Powell Jobs contributed $929,000 to the Biden Victory Fund as well as two contributions of $3,300 to the Biden for President PAC on Sept. 20.

  Casey Wasserman

  Casey Wasserman is the founder, CEO, and chairman of Wasserman, a sports marketing and talent management firm. He is also chairman of LA28, the organizing committee for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and president and CEO of the Wasserman Foundation, which supports education, service, health, arts, and culture, as well as global initiatives.

  

  As reported by Inside The Games, Mr. Wasserman wrote a letter to the International Olympic Committee in 2020 calling for the organization to ease the restrictions of Rule 50, which says, “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”

  FEC records show that Mr. Wasserman contributed $929,600 to the Biden Victory Fund as well as two donations of $3,300 to the Biden for President PAC on Sept. 27.

  Jeffrey Katzenberg

  Jeffrey Katzenberg is a Hollywood film and television producer who served as chief executive of the well-known animation studio, DreamWorks, which he co-founded with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. Prior to founding DreamWorks, Mr. Katzenberg was chairman of Walt Disney Studios, where he oversaw the release of several highly profitable animated features, such as The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King.

  

  His net worth is estimated to be about $900 million.

  Mr. Katzenberg also serves as a co-chair of President Biden’s reelection campaign, where he helps with fundraising and provides advice on messaging.

  FEC data show that Mr. Katzenberg has been a prolific contributor to Democratic candidates and PACs for decades.

  On April 28, he contributed $889,600 to the Biden Victory Fund and two donations of $3,300 to Biden for President.

  On April 27, Mr. Katzenberg’s wife, Marilyn, also contributed $889,600 to the Biden Victory Fund.

  In May 2023, Mr. Katzenberg told Financial Times that he would pledge “all the resources” President Biden needs to win reelection in 2024.

  Donald Trump

  Polling data collected by RealClearPolitics shows that President Trump is leading President Biden in all but two of the head-to-head matchup surveys released by various polling outlets Nov. 17.

  Several billionaires have donated to Make America Great Again Inc., a leading Trump-aligned Super PAC, during the first half of 2023.

  Phil Ruffin

  According to his profile on Casino.org, Phil Ruffin—an 88-year-old casino and hotel mogul—is one of the most successful, self-made businessmen in Las Vegas. He is the owner of Circus Circus and the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino. He is also a 50 percent stakeholder in the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, along with the former president.

  

  Forbes estimates Mr. Ruffin’s net worth is about $2.7 billion.

  FEC data show that Mr. Ruffin made two $1 million contributions—one on April 26 and the other on June 15—to the Make America Great Again PAC. He also made an $11,600 contribution to the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee on May 1, and a $3,300 contribution to Donald J. Trump for President 2024.

  Mr. Ruffin is not solely dedicated to Republican candidates. In the past, he donated to support John Kerry’s and former President Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns.

  Charles Kushner

  Charles Kushner is the father of Jared Kushner, who is married to President Trump’s daughter, Ivanka.

  

  After his family immigrated to the United States in the aftermath of the Soviet occupation of Poland, Mr. Kushner completed high school and went on to study law at the Hofstra University School of Law. After practicing law for several years, he used his father’s business assets to found Kushner Companies in 1985, which he built into a successful real estate development empire.

  In March 2005, The New York Times reported that Mr. Kushner pleaded guilty to tax evasion, witness tampering, and making illegal campaign donations. He was sentenced to two years in federal prison.

  On Dec. 23, 2020, President Trump issued a pardon for Mr. Kushner.

  FEC records show that Mr. Kushner contributed $1 million to Make America Great Again Inc. on June 5.

  The FEC’s data also indicate that between 1987 and 2020, Mr. Kushner’s political contributions were given strictly to Democratic candidates and PACs, including a $1,000 contribution on April 24, 1987, to President Biden’s first presidential endeavor.

  In 2016, Forbes estimated the Kushner family’s net worth to be about $1.8 billion.

  Robert “Woody” Johnson

  Robert “Woody” Johnson is the co-owner of the New York Jets. His wealth is a product of his great-grandfather, Robert Wood Johnson, who founded Johnson & Johnson in 1886. From 2017 to 2021, he served as President Trump’s ambassador to the United Kingdom.

  According to Forbes, Mr. Johnson’s net worth is about $3.1 billion.

  FEC records show that Mr. Johnson contributed $1 million to Make America Great Again Inc. on April 26.

  Additional contributions to the PAC in 2022 totaled over $133,000.

  In 2020, Reuters reported that Mr. Johnson—who had no previous experience in diplomacy—was investigated by the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Attorney General regarding “offensive or derogatory comments, based on an individual’s race, color, sex, or religion,” which he was alleged to have made during his tenure as ambassador to the United Kingdom.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 18:40

• Retirees Face Steep Hikes In Prescription Premiums In 2024
  Retirees Face Steep Hikes In Prescription Premiums In 2024

  Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Retired Americans enrolled in Medicare’s Part D prescription coverage could see their premiums increase by 42-57 percent in 2024, a new analysis by HealthView Services has found.

  Early indicators show significant cost hikes for retirees in the five states with the largest senior populations. This is different from an earlier report projecting slight premium declines across Part D plans next year.

  

  Major Discrepancy in Premium Outlooks

  The HealthView report, published in November 2023, contrasts sharply with a July projection by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the federal agency that administers the Medicare program, 

  The CMS said there would be a 1.8 percent decline in Part D premiums for 2024, citing the Inflation Reduction Act’s reforms as the basis for stable or reduced costs.

  However, HealthView tells a different story. It forecasts major hikes for retirees in states with large senior populations.

  Projected 2024 premiums are $1,404 in California, $1,246 in Florida, $1,154 in Texas, $1,469 in New York, and $1,189 in Pennsylvania. This represents average increases ranging from $269 in Texas to $510 in New York.

  What is Driving the Increase?

  The key driver of projected premium hikes is a change in the Inflation Reduction Act lowering the maximum out-of-pocket spending cap for Medicare Part D prescription drugs from $7,050 in 2023 to $2,000 in 2025. This will reduce co-pays for some, especially those with chronic conditions.

  However, financial liability will shift to insurers expected to cover 60-80 percent of costs once patients hit the new $2,000 cap.

  With roughly a quarter of Medicare recipients exceeding this threshold, HealthView analysis suggests carriers will raise premiums to account for their increased coverage requirements. The higher premiums are a way for insurance companies to cover the expected increase in costs.

  So, while the Inflation Reduction Act aims to lower overall healthcare costs for retirees, it may actually increase 2024-2025 Part D premiums for 75 percent of enrollees seeing no co-pay relief.

  Why It Matters?

  Americans pay for prescription drugs over 2.5 times more than other high-income nations. One in five seniors alter medication use due to high prescription costs, a May 2023 national survey found. They either skipped, delayed, took less medication, or took someone else’s medications.

  Even small Part D premium hikes could strain budgets when combined with other costs. The Council of Aging reports the national average at $2,000 annually for Part B plus another $3,600 a year for supplemental coverage like Medigap Plan F.

  With health costs a top concern for retiring Americans, the HealthView analysis shows 2024 increases could outpace the average retiree’s Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) by 70 percent. For those on fixed incomes, outpacing COLA adjustments poses real financial challenges.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 17:30

• Newsom Vs. DeSantis Debate In One Week Despite SuperPAC Head Quitting Over 'Untenable' Goals
  Newsom Vs. DeSantis Debate In One Week Despite SuperPAC Head Quitting Over ‘Untenable’ Goals

  Next Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) will debate each other. While DeSantis has virtually no chance of becoming the 2024 GOP nominee absent Trump pulling out or otherwise unable to run, Newsom – while he’s denied it, is absolutely running a shadow campaign to face Trump in the event Biden is not hte Democratic nominee.

  

  The debate is scheduled for Nov. 30 on Fox News, and will be moderated by Sean Hannity.

  As journalist John Seiler notes via the Epoch Times;

  Basically, each candidate isn’t really debating the other, but auditioning for the nomination in his own party. Any slights or barbs aimed at the other really are aimed to impress voters in the taunter’s own party, not win votes among the general electorate. Mr. DeSantis especially is aiming at those in the first crucial states, Iowa with its caucuses on Jan. 15 and New Hampshire with its Jan. 23 primary.

  Mr. Newsom, by contrast, has to assume Mr. Biden at least will sail through the first primaries and, after Super Tuesday March 5, garner enough delegates to nab the nomination. Newsom therefore effectively is auditioning before the Democratic National Committee, which would pick a potential Biden replacement. In particular, Mr. Newsom has to show he’s far better than his obvious challenger, Vice President Kamala Harris, who generally is not looked on favorably for her verbal gaffes and apparent lack of leadership skills.

  *  *  *

  At this point, however, we’re not sure there’s much for DeSantis to audition for, given Trump’s widening lead.

  

  Speaking of DeSantis’ fall (and Nikki Haley’s rise), the head of a super PAC backing the Florida governor announced on Wednesday that he’s stepping down.

  “Never Back Down’s main goal and sole focus has been to elect Governor Ron DeSantis as President. Given the current environment it has become untenable for me to deliver on the shared goal and that goes well beyond a difference of strategic opinion,” said Chris Janowski, CEO of the Never Back Down super PAC, via a spokeswoman.

  “For the future of our country I support and pray Ron DeSantis is our 47th president,” he added.

  Jankowski’s announcement came against the backdrop of reported disagreements between leadership within Never Back Down, with NBC News reporting Tuesday that several members of the pro-DeSantis group got into a heated argument during a budgeting discussion.

  It also came against the backdrop of the creation of a newer super PAC, called Fight Right, that received a $1 million infusion as DeSantis and his wife reportedly expressed frustration with Never Back Down, according to NBC News and The New York Times. -The Hill

  Back to the debate – while DeSantis clearly has no chance if Trump’s in the race, we’re sure the former president watching Newsom like a boxer training for the big fight.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 16:55

• Preferred Pronouns: US Border Agents Told To Use 'Woke' Language
  Preferred Pronouns: US Border Agents Told To Use ‘Woke’ Language

  Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times,

  The Biden administration has instructed U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents not to use “he, him, she, her” pronouns when dealing with the public, according to an internal memo.

  “We just obtained [CBP] documents directing personnel to only use woke language when encountering individuals invading the United States,” the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

  The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) guidance asks CBP staff to use “gender-neutral language” and the “self-identified pronouns and name” of any members of the public they interact with.

  “DO NOT use ‘he, him, she, her’ pronouns until you have more information about, or provided by, the individual,” the memo states.

  It also cautions against using salutations such as “Mr., Mrs. Ms., Sir, Ma’am.”

  The memo notes that it is generally talking about “individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, non-binary, and gender nonconforming.”

  “This guidance should be used by all CBP employees who encounter members of the public in the course of their job duties, including but not limited to law enforcement, trade, human resources, public liaisons, and others,” the memo states.

  The memo goes on to make the point that some LGBT individuals may “define these terms differently.”

  “Keep in mind that gender identity (sense of self) and sexual orientation (attraction) are separate and distinct; hence, transgender people, for example, may identify as heterosexual, gay, lesbian, or bisexual,” the memo also states under a section telling CBP staff what they should “do.”

  

  Amid a historic illegal immigration crisis at the southern U.S. border, the memo has been called an “unnecessary distraction” by a union leader.

  “We can’t be worrying about whether we’re going to hurt somebody’s feelings,” National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd told Just the News on Tuesday.

  Mr. Judd rejected the idea that CBP agents, swamped by thousands of illegal border crossers, now “have to be cognizant of their civil rights.” He charged that the issue is not one of civil rights, but “simply a matter of preference.”

  “Taking the time to deal with that rather than deal with the actual laws that [we’re] supposed to be enforcing. This is the woke mob,” he added.

  The guidance is “forced speech,” according to Mike Howell, the director of the Oversight Project, which obtained the memo.

  “I guess it wasn’t enough for the Biden administration to betray the Border Patrol by purposefully unleashing chaos on the southern border,” Mr. Howell told Fox News.

  “Now, the radical political leadership is enrolling agents in a forced-speech program to call illegal aliens by their preferred pronouns.”

  Furthermore, the members of the public that CBP staff most often interact with are migrants and illegal border crossers, he said.

  “Border Patrol deals with more illegal aliens than any entity in the federal government,” Mr. Howell said.

  “This forced language guidance is designed to coddle illegal aliens.”

  Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) speaks during a House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 19, 2021. (Susan Walsh/Pool/Getty Images)

  The memo has been blasted by the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) as an insult grappling with the border crisis.

  “Border Patrol agents are crying out for tools and policies that will help them do their jobs, but are being handed manuals on misgendering instead,” Mr. Green told The Daily Wire.

  “This makes a mockery of those who are doing their best to keep our borders secure.”

  Mr. Green contrasted the memo’s requests with the reality of the border crisis, noting that “criminal illegal aliens” have been “released into our country on [DHS] Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s watch.”

  At the same time, he said the committee has watched with apprehension as “a record number of individuals on the terrorist watchlist” were likewise allowed to enter the United States after being processed by border agents.

  He attributed this, “in large part,” to CBP agents being “so overwhelmed by this unprecedented crisis.”

  “I’m sure, however, Americans will be comforted to know that those agents are now being trained on which pronouns these bad actors prefer,” he added.

  The Epoch Times has contacted DHS for comment.

  Last year, when announcing new measures for transgender people traveling, Mr. Mayorkas touted the Biden administration’s commitment to gender identity policies, which he said are treating everyone “regardless of gender identity” with respect.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 16:20

• NYPD Called After Mob Of 'Radicalized' Students Storm High School To Protest Pro-Israel Teacher
  NYPD Called After Mob Of ‘Radicalized’ Students Storm High School To Protest Pro-Israel Teacher

  Hundreds of students protesting the Israeli government formed into a threatening mob last week, rampaging through the halls of a Queens high school for nearly two hours after they discovered one of the teachers had attended a pro-Israel rally.

  

  Around 11 a.m. Monday at Hillcrest High School in Jamaica, Queens, students gathered for a protest which was planned on Facebook, which showed a photo of the teacher at a pro-Israel rally on Oct. 9, where she held a poster saying “I stand with Israel.”

  

  “The teacher was seen holding a sign of Israel, like supporting it,” one senior student told the NY Post. “A bunch of kids decided to make a group chat, expose her, talk about it, and then talk about starting a riot.”

  The scene at Hillcrest High School in Queens as a Jewish teacher hid in her locked office for hours while students demanded she be fired for attending a pro-Israel rally. pic.twitter.com/jzVCEofvJS

  — Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) November 25, 2023

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  Several of the protesters attempted to breach the teacher’s classroom, which the pro-Israel educator had barricaded herself inside of.

  “Everyone was yelling ‘Free Palestine!” said one senior.

  About 25 NYPD cops raced to the school to quell the disturbance, principal Scott Milczewski told parents. Administrators placed the school in a “soft lockdown,” activating a team of staffers and safety agents trained to handle emergencies.

  The NYPD was called to the school again the next day, and said cops arrested an 18-year-old student for making threats over a group chat. The student was charged with aggravated harassment. -NY Post

  “Everyone was screaming ‘(The teacher) needs to go!’” a ninth-grader told the outlet, adding “They want her fired.”

  Democrat councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens) told the Post, “I don’t know why these students are so misinformed, so intolerant and so radicalized. They don’t even know the history of the Middle East. They haven’t been taught that.”

  One senior agreed, saying “I doubt half of them know how to spell Palestine,” while a sophomore suggested “They just wanted to make drama about it.”

  “Just, like, chaos. They thought of it as fun.”

  Students said rumors spread that the teacher “was abusing Muslims” and had taught “it was okay that children were being killed in Palestine.” Another teacher called the accusations “100% false.”

  At least three students who organized the riot face superintendent’s suspensions, the most severe punishment, said a source familiar with the incident.

  Milczewski said the law forbids him to discuss any consequences for students, but that the DOE “has a discipline code and I promise you that has been followed.” -NY Post

  According to Hillcrest Chancellor David Banks, “We have our whole team working very closely with the students and the teachers at the school. But what’s happening in the Middle East has gotten a lot of emotions from a lot of people. We’re still figuring out what’s going on.”

  The incident follows a Nov. 9 citywide walkout by some 700 NYC high school students calling for a ceasefire.

  Some more footage. pic.twitter.com/rF9xO7xEcf

  — Mr. Jewish Bookery (@Jewish_Bookery) November 9, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 15:45

• After Delay, Hamas To Release 13 Israelis & 7 Foreigners
  After Delay, Hamas To Release 13 Israelis & 7 Foreigners

  Update(1544ET): The deal for a second round prisoner swap is back on, apparently. Hamas is expected to release 13 Israelis and 7 foreigners at some point tonight. According to an updated briefing from the IDF:

  IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says there is “significant progress” in the efforts to release the hostages from the Gaza Strip tonight, following delays by Hamas.

  “The effort to return the hostages is our moral and ethical duty. We are determined to fulfill this in any way,” Hagari says in an evening press conference. “The effort tonight is progressing and we will inform the families and the public when things happen. Patience is required.”

  “There is significant progress,” he adds.

  Hagari says “nothing is final until it actually happens,” as Israel is indirectly negotiating with an “evil terror group.”

  Israel earlier said it may resume bombing the Gaza Strip if Hamas doesn’t come through on its end of the deal. Hamas for its part claimed it was Israel failing to meet certain agreed-upon details of the swap. 39 Palestinians are expected to be released.

  As for getting Americans who are among the captives freed, so far President Biden and his White House team have failed to deliver. Will there be US citizens among the foreign captives released?

  * * *

  Update(1244ET): There are already signs that the tenuous Hamas-Israel truce could be wavering on its second day in effect. On Saturday, it’s expected that 13 Israeli hostages are to be released in exchange for 39 Palestinian prisoners.

  There are contradictory reports that the Israeli hostages may have already been handed over to the Red Cross. But Hamas has late in the day Saturday (local) announced it will delay the release of the second group. Multiple factors have served to hold up the release (it was supposed to happen at 4pm local, per prior statements): the delay in aid trucks getting into Gaza, Israeli reconnaissance drones still operating over the Strip, and certain ‘agreed-upon’ details related to the swap allegedly not being observed. Below is the new Hamas statement: 

  “The Al-Qassam Brigades decide to delay the release of the second batch of prisoners until the occupation adheres to the terms of the agreement related to the entry of relief trucks into the northern Gaza Strip, and due to the failure to adhere to the agreed-upon standards for releasing prisoners,” the military wing of Hamas said on Telegram.

  Ceasefire crumbling?

  ⚡️Eilat tonight pic.twitter.com/NgGGVcMJAS

  — War Monitor (@WarMonitors) November 25, 2023

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  * * *

  The first group of Israeli hostages freed by Hamas Friday as part of the temporary truce deal were found to be in good condition, according Israel doctors who evaluated them. On Friday 13 Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attacks were let go, along with 10 Thai nationals and a Filipino. 

  Schneider Children’s Medical Center chief executive Efrat Bron-Harlev in a press conference said that the four Israeli children and four women evaluated by the facility are in good physical condition. “They are currently undergoing medical and emotional assessment,” she said. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Saturday released photos of their homecoming in Israel, including of 9-year old Ohad, who was reunited with his father and family members.

  

  The other five released Israelis were also reported to be “feeling well” according to regional reports.

  As part of the swap, and ceasefire – which into late Saturday appears to still be holding – Israel let 39 Palestinian prisoners go who had been held in Israeli prisons. Palestinians in the West Bank held celebrations in the streets when they were released.

  Below are some of the photographs released by the IDF after the Israeli captives went free…

  

  A second group is imminently expected to be released from Hamas captivity on Saturday.

  

  But as for this second day of a swap, there have been some delays, as CNN describes:

  The list of hostages provided to Israel by Hamas for release Saturday has 13 names on it, multiple sources have told CNN.

  Israel however, has made clear it is expecting 14 people to be released on the second day of the temporary truce in exchange for 42 Palestinian prisoners.

  As the hour of their expected release approaches, there have been discussions over the final list, including whether it will be 13 or 14 people, several of which are expected to be children.

  

  Likely more children and elderly are on the list of those to be freed.

  

  The United Nations on Friday confirmed that in total 137 humanitarian aid and trucks were offloaded in Gaza during the first day of the pause.

  Tragically, the number of dead in the Gaza Strip after seven weeks of fighting is nearing 15,000.

  Here’s what is known about the freed Israelis, via CNN:

  • Yafa Adar, 85: Adar is a founder of the Nir Oz kibbutz and is the oldest person to be taken hostage on October 7. Her eldest grandson was also abducted, and is still held hostage, said a Nir Oz spokesperson.
  • Margalit Moses, 77: The mother of three and grandmother of 10 is a retired biology teacher. She is also a cancer survivor who has diabetes, “fibromyalgia, and takes many additional medications,” said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum in Israel.
  • Hana Katzir, 76: She is also a member of Kibbutz Nir Oz and the wife of the late Rami Katzir, 79, who was killed in their home. Her son Elad was also kidnapped and is still in Gaza.
  • Adina Moshe, 72: The retired educator and Nir Oz resident is a mother of four and grandmother of 12. Her husband David (Sa’id) Moshe was killed in their home on October 7.
  • Ohad Munder, 9: The kibbutz spokesperson for Nir Oz said Munder “came to Nir Oz to visit family” when he was abducted alongside family members.
  • Doron Katz Asher, 34, Raz Asher, 4, Aviv Asher, 2: Doron visited Nir Oz with her family and was kidnapped with her two daughters, Aviv and Raz, as well as other family members.

  

  Above: Top row, from left: Yafa Adar, Margalit Moses, Ruth Munder, Emilia Aloni and Daniel Aloni. Middle row, from left: Hana Katzir, Adina Moshe, Channa Peri, Doron Katz Asher and Aviv Asher. Bottom row, from left: Ohad Munder, Raz Asher and Keren Munder. Source: Hostages Missing Families Forum/AP

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 15:44

• Hillary Clinton Among Top Picks To Run in 2024 If Joe Biden Doesn't: Poll
  Hillary Clinton Among Top Picks To Run in 2024 If Joe Biden Doesn’t: Poll

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A recent poll shows that failed 2016 Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is among the Democrats’ top picks for the party’s primary if 81-year-old President Joe Biden decides not to run in 2024 due to age or other factors, such as fitness for office.

  

  Most of the 2,000-plus respondents to the Harvard-Harris poll said that they have doubts about President Biden’s mental fitness to serve as commander-in-chief, while more voters said he is worsening as president rather than improving.

  Around three in five of all likely voters said President Biden shouldn’t run for a second term, though there were sharp partisan differences, with 33 percent of Democrats compared to 81 percent of Republicans and 66 percent of Independents expressing that view.

  At the same time, strong majorities across the political spectrum agreed that the country needs “another choice” other than a matchup between President Biden and former President Donald Trump.

  

  Clinton Near Top of List

  Amid swirling doubts about President Biden’s fitness to continue to occupy the White House, pollsters asked Democrat voters who their pick would be if President Biden decides to opt out of the 2024 race.

  The top pick was Vice President Kamala Harris (24 percent), with Ms. Clinton in second spot with 13 percent.

  Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was third (10 percent), followed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, both with 7 percent each.

  While the poll didn’t gauge voter expectations for the results of a matchup between President Trump and Ms. Clinton, the former president was expected to beat Vice President Harris handily in a head-to-head contest (52 percent versus 41 percent).

  In terms of net favorability ratings, President Trump trailed only Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (52 percent versus 51 percent), with the former president well ahead of Ms. Clinton (44 percent), who was in 7th place.

  ‘Formal Deprogramming’ of Trump Supporters

  While President Trump is no stranger to poking fun at Ms. Clinton (e.g. calling her a “marshmallow” or mocking her for barking like a dog at a 2016 campaign event), the former secretary of state has drawn controversy over her recent remarks calling for the reeducation of Trump supporters.

  

  The failed 2016 Democratic presidential candidate told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview in October that there have always been “bitter battles over all kinds of things” between Republicans and Democrats—but now things have become more acrimonious.

  Back then, there wasn’t “this little tail of extremism wagging the dog of the Republican party as it is today,” she said, adding that, “sadly, so many of those extremists—those MAGA extremists—take their marching orders from Donald Trump who has no credibility left by any measure.”

  Ms. Clinton then expressed frustration that President Trump’s supporters continue to stand behind him despite the fact that he faces numerous charges, including dozens of felonies.

  “He’s now defending himself in civil actions and criminal actions, and when do they break with him?” Ms. Clinton asked. “Because at some point—you know—maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members. Something needs to happen.”

  Ms. Clinton’s call for deprogramming echoed her 2016 sentiment when she expressed disdain for Trump supporters who are mostly in the working and middle classes.

  “You can put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call a basket of deplorables,” she said at a 2016 campaign event. “They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it. And, unfortunately, there are people like that, and he has lifted them up.”

  While President Trump did not comment on Ms. Clinton’s remarks about deprogramming his supporters, the Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC issued a critical statement.

  “President Trump has said countless times that they are only coming after him because he stands in their way from coming after you—and Hillary Clinton just confirmed that to be true,” the campaign statement said.

  “Tens of millions of Americans will reject the Democrat Party’s re-education camp agenda in November 2024 when we make Donald Trump the 47th president of the United States,” it added.

  Biden’s Age in Focus

  President Biden celebrated his 81st birthday on Nov. 20, which he spent pardoning two turkeys called Liberty and Bell, as part of the White House’s annual Thanksgiving tradition.

  “And by the way, it’s my birthday today,” President Biden announced during the turkey pardoning ceremony on the South Lawn. “I just want you to know it’s difficult turning 60,” he joked.

  President Biden is the oldest president in American history. If reelected, he will begin his second term at the age of 82.

  While he’s expressed optimism about his reelection chances, numerous polls have shown that President Biden’s age is a concern for most Americans.

  According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 74 percent of Americans said the president was too old to run for another term.

  Another poll by NBC News released in September found that nearly 74 percent of respondents were concerned about the president’s mental and physical health and that he was not fit for a second term.

  Emel Akan and Matt McGregor contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 15:10

• Russia Launches Single Largest Drone Attack Of Ukraine War Saturday
  Russia Launches Single Largest Drone Attack Of Ukraine War Saturday

  While much of the globe’s attention remains fixated on Gaza, and the uneasy truce and hostage deal now unfolding, Ukraine on Saturday said that Russia launched its largest drone attack on the country since the war’s start.

  “A total of nearly 75 Shahed drones were launched from two directions – Primorsko-Akhtarsk and the Kursk region, Russia. The primary target was the city of Kyiv,” a Ukrainian Air Force statement on Telegram announced. It underscored this marked a “record number” of drones for a single wave of attack.

  

  The air force statement went on to claim that a whopping 71 of these Iranian-made suicide drones were intercepted, mostly over the Kyiv region, describing that “Anti-aircraft missile troops, tactical aviation, mobile fire groups, and electronic warfare units were involved in repelling the air attack.”

  Ukraine’s military also said its air defenses shot down a Kh-59 guided missile in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Russian forces typically launch a mix of small drones and missiles in these attacks, which have become somewhat regular since the war’s sart.

  Reportedly some of the falling intercepted drone wreckage fell on and damaged residential buildings. At least two Ukrainians were injured in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district, where there were several fires as a result of the attack.

  Newsweek reports based on Ukrainian official statements that “At least five people, including an 11-year-old boy, were injured by falling drone debris in the capital.”

  A Kyiv city administration statement counted that this was the fourth drone attack on the capital this month, at a moment the front lines in the east and south have been stalled. By all accounts Russia has dug in and solidified is hold over much of the four annexed territories.

  Saturday’s massive drone operation appears a direct response to Ukraine sending over a dozen drones against Crimea in the two days prior…

  Russia Claims to Foil Major Ukrainian Attack on Crimea

  The Russian Defense Ministry reported downing over a dozen drones targeting the peninsula

  Ukraine launched one of its largest drone attacks targeting the Crimean Peninsula since Russia invaded the country last year. The… pic.twitter.com/dqHUKG5jPx

  — Kyle Anzalone (@KyleAnzalone_) November 24, 2023

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  For this reason, after what’s been a clearly failed Ukrainian counteroffensive, there have been new reports of quiet efforts of the West to finally push the Zelensky government to the negotiating table with Russia. Ukraine is reportedly suffering a huge manpower shortage, evident in increasingly older men being conscripted and sent to the front.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 14:35

• Natural Immunity Better Than Protection From COVID-19 Vaccination: Study
  Natural Immunity Better Than Protection From COVID-19 Vaccination: Study

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  People with protection against COVID-19 following recovery from the illness were better protected than those who received a COVID-19 vaccine, according to a new study.

  

  People who received a vaccine were nearly five times as likely as the naturally immune to test positive for COVID-19 during the Delta era and 1.1 times as likely to test positive for COVID-19 during the Omicron era, researchers in Estonia found.

  The vaccinated were also seven times as likely to be admitted to a hospital for COVID-19 amid the spread of the Delta variant and two times as likely to be admitted to a hospital during the Omicron period, when compared with the naturally immune, the researchers found.

  “Our study showed that natural immunity offers stronger and longer-lasting protection against infection, symptoms, and hospitalization compared to vaccine-induced immunity,” Dr. Anneli Uusküla, with the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of Tartu, and her co-authors wrote.

  Previous studies have also found that post-infection immunity is superior to or similar to the protection bestowed by vaccines.

  Dr. Uusküla and her colleagues said they felt there were gaps in the literature on the subject, prompting them to work on the study.

  They drew from a pool of 329,496 adults and matched many of the adults in three cohorts. One compared people with natural immunity to those who received a vaccine; one compared the naturally immune to people who did not have documented prior infection or vaccination; and one compared the naturally immune to people with hybrid immunity, or both prior infection and vaccination.

  People were defined as vaccinated if they had received a full primary series of a COVID-19 vaccine and did not have a documented infection.

  The primary outcome was laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 occurring at any time for people without any immunity, after 60 days of recovery from a prior infection for the naturally immune, at least 14 days after completion of a vaccine for the vaccinated group, and at least 14 days after vaccination or 60 days after recovery for people with hybrid immunity.

  The second outcome, hospitalization, was defined as hospitalization with COVID-19 and with certain medical codes.

  Researchers utilized national health care records and examined data from between Feb. 26, 2020 and Feb. 23, 2022. The Delta era ended in December 2021.

  In the cohort comparing the naturally immune to people without prior immunity or vaccination, researchers found that the naturally immune were much better protected against hospitalization, used as a measure of protection against severe disease.

  “During both periods, natural immunity proved to be highly effective in protecting against reinfections progressing to severe disease and was associated with a significantly lower risk of COVID hospitalization than no SARS-CoV-2-specific immunity,” the researchers said.

  But they also discovered that the naturally immune, while much less likely to be infected during the Delta era, were actually more likely to test positive during the Omicron era.

  In the comparison of the naturally immune to people with hybrid immunity, the researchers determined those with hybrid immunity were better protected against infection during the Delta era, but they were at slightly higher risk during the Omicron period. In the hybrid immunity group, just one COVID-19 hospitalization was recorded, compared to nine among the naturally immune.

  “Irrespective of the infection-causing variant, the protective effect of hybrid immunity in preventing infection progression to severe COVID-19 significantly exceeded that of natural immunity (although the absolute numbers of hospitalizations in the hybrid immunity subcohort were small),” the authors said.

  Limitations included some people being admitted to hospitals with COVID-19 but not for it, though researchers tried minimizing the issue by only including hospitalizations with codes indicating patients had respiratory disease.

  The research was funded by the European Regional Development Fund, Estonian Research Council, and European Social Fund.

  Authors declared no competing interest.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 14:00

• Israeli-Owned Ship Comes Under Iranian Suicide Drone Attack In Indian Ocean
  Israeli-Owned Ship Comes Under Iranian Suicide Drone Attack In Indian Ocean

  Another Israeli-linked shipping vessel has been targeted by Iran-backed forces against the backdrop of the Gaza war. A US defense official was cited in the Associated Press as describing that a container ship owned by an Israeli businessman came under attack by an Iranian-made Shahed-136 drone on Friday.

  Separately, the pan-Arab satellite channel Al Mayadeen said an Israeli ship was targeted. The Malta-flagged, French-operated CMA CGM Symi vessel was in international waters when the suicide drone armed with a bomb exploded into the ship, causing damage but not resulting in injury to crew members.

  

  The US official cited in AP said “we continue to monitor the situation closely” but did not cite any specific evidence showing Iran to be behind the attack.

  Maritime security company Ambrey said the vessel had departed a port in the UAE, and soon the ship’s tracking signal went offline. “The vessel was managed by an Israeli-affiliated company, which was assessed to be the reason why it was targeted,” a statement from the security company said.

  As for Israeli ties, The Times of Israel has learned that “The ship, its cargo, its operating company and its points of departure and destination did not appear to have any clear ties to Israel. Rather, the Symi is leased to CMA CGM by Singapore-based Eastern Pacific Shipping, which is a company ultimately controlled by Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer.”

  According to further emerging details:

  CMA CGM, a major shipper based in Marseille, France, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, the vessel’s crew had been behaving as though they believed the ship faced a threat.

  …The ship had its Automatic Identification System tracker switched off since Tuesday when it left Dubai’s Jebel Ali port, according to data from MarineTraffic.com analyzed by the AP.

  Thus it’s likely the crew switched off the tracker as it suspected a drone was overhead seeking to target the ship. In the attack aftermath, a statement from the operator indicated that as of Saturday, “The vessel in question is currently sailing as planned” and that “all crew are safe and well.”

  The following unverified photograph is widely circulating on Saturday…

  تعرضت سفينة شحن مملوكة لإسرائيل لهجوم في المحيط الهندي، وفقًا لتقرير لوكالة أسوشييتد برس للأنباء من مصادر أمنية أمريكية، وتعرضت السفينة CMA CGM Symi لهجوم بطائرة بدون طيار إيرانية، بعد أقل من أسبوع من سيطرة الحوثيين في اليمن. سفينة الشحن جالاكسي ليدر. pic.twitter.com/H84f54G9kS

  — Dr.Sam Youssef Ph.D.,M.Sc.,DPT. (@drhossamsamy65) November 25, 2023

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Tensions have increased in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf areas on fears that Iran-backed groups could escalate attacks on shipping. The Houthis on Nov. 21 seized an Israeli-linked shipping vessel and are holding the 25 international crew members hostage. 

  The still captured Galaxy Leader is ultimately owned by Ray Car Carriers, which was founded by Abraham “Rami” Ungar. With an estimated 2019 net worth of more than $2 billion, he’s among Israel’s 30 wealthiest individuals. The Biden administration is now threatening to formally designate the Houthis a terrorist organization. The White House has also alleged that Iran is complicit in the hijacking of the Galaxy Leader. It’s as yet unclear whether this latest drone attack had Houthi involvement. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 11/25/2023 – 13:25

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