Today’s News 7th August 2022

• The Growing Threat From North Korea
  The Growing Threat From North Korea

  Authored by Judith Bergman via The Gatestone Institute,

  • China’s urging “flexibility” on North Korea appears to coincide with the Chinese Communist Party’s ambitions in the region.

  • “According to unclassified intelligence reports to Congress, there are five key Chinese banks and a specially created holding company that funds the North Korean missile and nuclear technology programs.” — Peter Huessy, Real Clear Defense, August 10, 2017.

  • China’s main strategic concern when it comes to the Korean peninsula is apparently to end the US presence there and keep it out of US hands so that China can finally establish itself as the hegemon in the region.

  • North Korean escalation in the form of increased missile tests and resumption of ICBM and nuclear tests to pressure the US to make concessions — in the shape of troop withdrawals from South Korea — would play directly into the hands of China, enabling it to replace the US and establish itself as the primary power in the region.

  • “They are looking to take actions, which we believe are fundamentally destabilizing, as a way to increase pressure.” — US official in Washington to journalists, France24.com, January 31, 2022.

  • China, however, seems to have no interest in cooperating with the US on North Korea. Attempts to secure “Beijing’s cooperation” to build necessary economic leverage over North Korea are therefore exercises in futility.

  • China clearly cannot be relied on voluntarily to use its leverage over North Korea to persuade Kim Jong-un to give up his missile and nuclear program. To resolve the impasse, it is necessary to employ means that will leave China no choice other than to cooperate on North Korea.

  • A highly efficient way of doing that, Gordon Chang has suggested, would be to cut off the large Chinese banks and businesses that support the North Korean missile and nuclear technology from the global financial system by designating them a “primary money laundering concern” under Section 311 of the Patriot Act.

  • “In short, American policymakers know how to get China to begin acting responsibly.” — Gordon G. Chang, Newsweek, May 10, 2021.

  • The question now is — will the Biden administration muster the political will to designate those large Chinese banks under Section 311 of the Patriot Act?

  North Korea, despite a UN Security Council ban on its ballistic missile tests, continued to develop its nuclear and missile programs in 2021, according to a new UN report. In January 2022 alone, North Korea launched a record 11 missiles, including two hypersonic missiles and the first firing since 2017 of a Hwasong-12 mobile intermediate-range ballistic missile which is within reach of US territory with its estimated range of 4,500 kilometers. In 2017, North Korea tested the Hwasong-15, which has an estimated range of 8,500-13,000 kilometers.

  

  Both US and South Korean officials expressed concern that the Hwasong-12 test indicated that North Korea would resume testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and nuclear weapons.

  In addition, North Korea reportedly has an underground military base, used for keeping ICBMs, just 25 kilometers from its border with China. According to analysts from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the location was chosen to deter preemptive strikes by the US against the base, to avoid provoking Beijing. “The position near the Chinese border acts as a potential deterrent to a pre-emptive strike that might impinge on Chinese security equities,” noted Victor Cha, a North Korea expert at the CSIS.

  “In today’s world where many countries waste time dealing with the United States with submission and blind obedience, there’s only our country on this planet that can shake the world by firing a missile with the U.S. mainland in its range,” North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “There are more than 200 countries in the world, but only a few have hydrogen bombs, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and hypersonic missiles.” North Korea has said in the past that the Hwasong-12 can carry a “large-size heavy nuclear warhead.”

  Eight Security Council members — the United States, Albania, Brazil, France, Ireland, Norway, the United Arab Emirates and Britain — and Japan described North Korea’s Hwasong-12 launch as a “significant escalation” that “seeks to further destabilize the region.”

  China, on the other hand, urged “flexibility” on North Korea. “They should come up with more attractive and more practical, more flexible approaches, policies and actions in accommodating concerns” of North Korea, Chinese UN Ambassador Zhang Jun said. “The key in solving this issue is already in the hands of the United States.”

  China’s urging “flexibility” on North Korea appears to coincide with the Chinese Communist Party’s ambitions in the region. North Korea’s recent actions were possibly even encouraged by China.

  “China, after all, exercises great influence over the North’s ruling Kim family and can, as a practical matter, require the North Koreans to do what it wants,” wrote China expert Gordon G. Chang.

  According to some analysts, China has been instrumental in bringing about North Korea’s nuclear weapons’ program. According to Peter Huessy, director of strategic deterrent studies at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies:

  “The North Korean nuclear program started in 1965 with the Soviet construction of a 5-megawatt nuclear reactor. But it was Chinese and Pakistani assistance that enabled the North to begin construction on a 50-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, and a secret reprocessing facility, in the mid-1980s. North Korean construction of a covert uranium enrichment facility around 2000 and North Korea’s first test explosion of a nuclear device in 2006 were likely enabled by assistance from the Pakistani A.Q. Khan, and based on uranium enrichment and nuclear design plans originally obtained from China.”

  Crucially, according to Huessy:

  “According to unclassified intelligence reports to Congress, there are five key Chinese banks and a specially created holding company that funds the North Korean missile and nuclear technology programs.”

  China’s main strategic concern when it comes to the Korean peninsula is seemingly to end the US presence there and keep it out of US hands so that China can finally establish itself as the hegemon in the region. There are currently approximately 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea. That is the third-largest military presence abroad for the US after Japan and Germany. North Korean escalation in the form of increased missile tests and resumption of ICBM and nuclear tests to pressure the US to make concessions — in the shape of troop withdrawals from South Korea — would play directly into the hands of China, enabling it to replace the US and establish itself as the primary power in the region.

  “North Korea will likely escalate pressure on the United States by taking a series of steps toward an ICBM test,” said Cheon Seong-whun, a former head of the Korea Institute for National Unification, a government-funded research institute in Seoul.

  “They are looking to take actions, which we believe are fundamentally destabilizing, as a way to increase pressure,” a US official in Washington told journalists.

  In response to North Korea’s test of the Hwasong-12, the US has called for direct talks with the country “without preconditions.”

  “We believe it is completely appropriate and completely correct to start having some serious discussions… It requires a response. You will see us taking some steps that are designed to show our commitment to our allies … and at the same time we reiterate our call for diplomacy. We stand ready and we are very serious about trying to have discussions that address concerns on both sides.”

  If the Biden administration wants to resolve the growing North Korean threat, it will have to start doing things differently. It will have to abandon “the same basic North Korea strategy that Washington has used for over two decades,” as pointed out by Markus Garlauskas, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, who served nearly 20 years in the U.S. government dealing with North Korea.

  “This strategy has focused on achieving a ‘strategic decision’ from Pyongyang to negotiate an end to its nuclear weapons program and on securing Beijing’s cooperation to build the necessary economic leverage.”

  China, however, seems to have no interest in cooperating with the US on North Korea. Attempts to secure “Beijing’s cooperation” to build necessary economic leverage over North Korea are therefore exercises in futility. A new strategy must finally acknowledge China’s role as backer of North Korea for the Chinese Communist Party’s strategic purposes in the region. China clearly cannot be relied on voluntarily to use its leverage over North Korea to persuade Jong-un to give up his missile and nuclear program. To resolve the impasse, it is necessary to employ means that will leave China no choice other than to cooperate on North Korea. A highly efficient way of doing that, Gordon Chang has suggested, would be to cut off the large Chinese banks and businesses that support the North Korean missile and nuclear technology from the global financial system by designating them a “primary money laundering concern” under Section 311 of the Patriot Act.

  “And as big as Bank of China is—it is the world’s fourth-largest bank, as measured by assets—it is surely not the largest Chinese bank cleaning up cash for Kim,” Gordon Chang wrote.

  “That honor may belong to China’s—and the world’s—largest bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. Moreover, the remaining two of the Big Four, the world’s second- and third-largest banks, have also been implicated in handling dirty money for the Kims. In short, American policymakers know how to get China to begin acting responsibly.”

  The question now is – will the Biden administration muster the political will to designate those large Chinese banks under Section 311 of the Patriot Act?

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 23:30

• The Cost Of Mining Bitcoin In 198 Different Countries
  The Cost Of Mining Bitcoin In 198 Different Countries

  It takes an estimated 1,449 kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy to mine a single bitcoin. That’s the same amount of energy an average U.S. household consumes in approximately 13 years.

  Given the high amount of energy needed to mine bitcoin, it can be a costly venture to get into. But, as Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang details below, exact prices fluctuate, depending on the location and the cost of electricity in the area.

  Where are the cheapest and most expensive places to mine this popular cryptocurrency? This graphic by 911 Metallurgist provides a snapshot of the estimated cost of mining bitcoin around the world, using pricing and relative costs from March 23, 2022.

  

  How Does Bitcoin Mining Work?

  Before diving in, it’s worth briefly explaining the basics of bitcoin mining, and why it requires so much energy.

  When someone mines for bitcoin, what they’re really doing is adding and verifying a new transaction record to the blockchain—the decentralized bank ledger where bitcoin is traded and distributed.

  To create this new record, crypto miners need to crack a complex equation that’s been generated by the blockchain system.

  Potentially tens of thousands of miners are racing to crack the same code at any given time. Only the first person to solve the equation gets rewarded (unless you’re part of a mining pool, which is essentially a group of miners who agree to combine efforts to increase their chances of solving the equation).

  The faster your computing power is, the better your chances are of winning, so solving the equation first requires powerful equipment that takes up a lot of energy.

  The Costs and Profits of Mining Bitcoin in 198 Countries

  Across the 198 countries included in the dataset, the average cost to mine bitcoin sat at $35,404.03, more than bitcoin’s value of $20,863.69 on July 15, 2022. Though it’s important to note that fluctuating energy prices, and more or less miners on the bitcoin network, constantly change the necessary energy and final cost.

  Here’s a breakdown of what the cost to mine one bitcoin in each country was in March 23, 2022, along with the potential profit after accounting for mining costs:

  Venezuela ranks as the number one most expensive country to mine bitcoin. It costs a whooping $246,530.74 to mine a single bitcoin in the South American country, meaning the process is far from profitable. Energy costs are so expensive in the country that miners would be out $225,667.05 for just one bitcoin.

  

  On the opposite end of the spectrum, the cheapest place to mine bitcoin is in Kuwait. It costs $1,393.95 to mine a single bitcoin in Kuwait, meaning miners could gain $19,469.74 in profits.

  

  The Middle Eastern country has some of the cheapest electricity in the world, with one kWh costing an average of just 3 cents. For context, the average cost of one kWh in North America is 21 cents.

  The Race is On

  Despite the steep costs of bitcoin mining, many people believe it’s worth the upfront investment.

  One thing that makes bitcoin particularly appealing is its finite supply—there are only 21 million coins available for mining, and as of this article’s publication, more than 19 million bitcoin have already been mined.

  While the price of bitcoin (BTC) is notorious for its volatility, its value has still grown significantly over the last decade. And if cryptocurrencies become mainstream as many people believe they will, this could boost the price of bitcoin even further.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 23:00

• Despite Strict Gun Control, California Had The Most Active Shooter Incidents In 2021: FBI
  Despite Strict Gun Control, California Had The Most Active Shooter Incidents In 2021: FBI

  Authored by Jason Blair via The Epoch Times,

  In a report issued by the FBI, California ranked first for the most active shooter incidents in 2021. The state has been in the top spot in three of the past five years.

  

  According to the study, a total of 61 active shooter incidents occurred across 30 states last year with 103 people killed and 140 wounded. This is up from 40 incidents and 38 killed in 2020.

  California had 6 incidents that claimed the lives of 19 people with 9 wounded. Texas and Georgia each had 5.

  California, which has some of the strictest gun laws, saw 0.015 shootings per 100,000 people. Texas, which has very unrestrictive state gun laws, had nearly the same at 0.0167 per 100,000 people. Georgia had 0.045 per 100,000 people.

  Criminal attorney Arash Hashemi told NTD, a sister outlet of The Epoch Times, that in his opinion there’s no easy answer to how gun laws should be handled.

  “We need both sides to sit down and listen to what’s going on. I know one side says we need to ban guns, one side said there would be no regulation. But there needs to be a meeting of the minds in the middle,” Hashemi said.

  California is moving ahead to implement more gun restrictions. The new state Senate Bill 918, which is currently on its way through the legislature, would ban the carrying of guns in most public areas, regardless of whether someone has a carry license or not.

  However Hashemi suggested a slightly different approach. He said the Second Amendment can’t be violated, but he thinks certain people should be restricted from owning a firearm.

  “I think California needs to implement these background checks but at the same time make sure they don’t infringe on people’s rights to bear arms,” Hashemi said.

  He said vetting gun buyers for red flags like mental illness or psychiatric medication is important.

  He added that the importance of the Second Amendment is to give the civilians of the United States a check on the government.

  The greatest number of casualties and injuries at an active shooter incident in 2021 was 15, at both a FedEx center in Indiana and a Kroger grocery store in Tennessee.

  June had the most with 12, and December had the least with 1.

  The FBI defines an active shooter as one or more people engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area. The 2021 report is limited to these incidents and does not include other gun-related situations like self-defense, drug violence, or gang violence.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 22:30

• Christian High School In Manhattan Hosted Mandatory Drag Show In Place Of Church Service
  Christian High School In Manhattan Hosted Mandatory Drag Show In Place Of Church Service

  Would leftists actually target a Christian school church service with a sexualized drag show?  Of course they would.  

  Students at Manhattan’s Grace Church High School say they were supposed to attend Wednesday church services on April 27th, 2021 when they were greeted with a surprise substitution show featuring a dancing drag queen in orange go-go boots called “Brita Filter” (the symbolism of the stage name is unknown).  The event was sponsored by “Spectrum,” the school’s LGBT support club and members of the school faculty.

  The students allege they felt pressured to participate and had to pretend they enjoyed the event.  Some Spectrum club members tapped teens on the shoulders and ordered them to stand for the show, while others handed out pride stickers and stated “Take one or you’re homophobic.”  Other kids got involved in the show and began twerking in the chapel.

  After the dancing was over, Brita discussed being “pansexual.”

  

  Said one student, “It’s notable that this person consistently called themselves fabulous and talented and beautiful. Not just once or twice, but over and over this person reassured themselves that way…”

  The inherent narcissism of the pride movement is easily observed.  

  The school website details their pride related programs and Brita Filter’s performance. 

  Beyond the obvious affront to Christian doctrine, the trend of sexualized drag performances for kids sponsored by schools has become an epidemic.  Numerous schools over the past year have been caught secretly hosting drag queen shows without asking parents for permission.  The wider media exposure of these events has been met with attacks from leftists, claiming that there is no sexualization agenda in schools.       

  The gaslighting has been rampant and the goal behind trans indoctrination and school drag shows is openly admitted:  It’s about political activism and normalization.

  On TikTok, Brita bragged about the event:

  “I literally went to church to teach the children today…A Catholic High School here in NYC invited me to their Pride Chapel. Visibility matters and I’m so honored to have had the chance to talk to you about my work as a LGBTQ+ Drag Queen Activist.”

  Grace Church Schools plan to introduce pride events to younger middle schoolers as well, with lessons on the “history of the pride flag” and what it symbolizes. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 22:00

• Sowell: The Point Of No Return
  Sowell: The Point Of No Return

  Authored by Dr. Thomas Sowell,

  This is an election year. But the issues this year are not about Democrats and Republicans. The big issue is whether this nation has degenerated to a point of no return – a point where we risk destroying ourselves, before our enemies can destroy us.

  

  If there is one moment that symbolized our degeneration, it was when an enraged mob gathered in front of the Supreme Court and a leader of the United States Senate shouted threats against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, saying “You won’t know what hit you!”

  There have always been irresponsible demagogues. But there was once a time when anyone who shouted threats to a Supreme Court Justice would see the end of his own political career, and could not show his face in decent society again.

  You either believe in laws or you believe in mob rule. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with the law or agree with the mob on some particular issue. If threats of violence against judges — and publishing where a judge’s children go to school — is the way to settle issues, then there is not much point in having elections or laws.

  There is also not much point in expecting to have freedom. Threats and violence were the way the Nazis came to power in Germany. Freedom is not free. If you can’t be bothered to vote against storm-trooper tactics — regardless of who engages in them, or over what issue — then you can forfeit your freedom.

  Worse yet, you can forfeit the freedom of generations not yet born.

  Some people seem to think that the Supreme Court has banned abortions. It has done nothing of the sort.

  The Supreme Court has in fact done something very different, something long overdue and potentially historic. It has said that their own court had no business making policy decisions which nothing in the Constitution gave them the authority to make.

  Get out a copy of the Constitution — and see if you can find anything in there that says the federal government is authorized to make laws about abortion.

  Check out the 10th Amendment, which says that the federal government is limited to the specific powers it was granted, with all other powers going to the states or to the people.

  Why do we elect legislators to do what the voters want done, if unelected judges are going to make up laws on their own, instead of applying the laws that elected officials passed?

  This is part of a very long struggle that has been going on for more than 100 years.

  Back in the early 20th century, Progressives like President Woodrow Wilson decided that the Constitution put too many limits on the powers they wanted to use.

  Claiming that it was nearly impossible to amend the Constitution, Progressives advocated that judges “interpret” the Constitutional limits out of the way.

  This was just the first in a long series of sophistries.

  In reality, the Constitution was amended 4 times in 8 years — from 1913 through 1920 — during the heyday of the Progressive era.

  When the people wanted the Constitution amended, it was amended. When the elites wanted the Constitution amended, but the people did not, that is called democracy.

  Another great sophistry was using the federal government’s authority to regulate interstate commerce to call all sorts of other things interstate commerce. In 1995, elites were shocked when the Supreme Court ruled — 5 to 4— that carrying a gun near a school was not interstate commerce.

  States had a right to ban carrying a gun near a school, and most of them did. But the federal government had no such authority. Nor did the Constitution give the federal government the right to make laws about abortion, one way or the other.

  What both state and federal laws do have the right to stop is threats against judges and their families.

  This is not a partisan issue. The Republican governor of Virginia is providing protection to Supreme Court Justices who live in that state. But the Republican governor of Maryland seems to think that harassing judges and their families is no big deal.

  Voters need to find out who is for or against mob rule, whether they are Democrats or Republicans. We are not going to be a free or decent society otherwise.

  *  *  *

  Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 21:30

• What Is ESG? It's A Leveraging Tool For The Woke Communist Takeover
  What Is ESG? It’s A Leveraging Tool For The Woke Communist Takeover

  The corporate dynamic when it comes to politics has been rather bizarre the past five years.  The general rule for decades in the US was that companies would avoid public sparring over political agendas whenever possible and if they did contribute to election campaigns they would spend money discreetly on candidates in both parties to hedge their bets.  Something changed around 2015-2016, however.  

  Was it the surprise election of Donald Trump?  Trump was probably incidental.  It was more likely the dramatic shift among conservatives away from the controlled Neo-con paradigm and into a more liberty oriented standing.  Ron Paul’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns had a lot to do with this change among Republican voters.  Conservatives and liberty minded independents were returning to their foundations of small government, constitutionalism, independent thought, meritocracy and decentralization.  This is when the corporate world decided (or was perhaps guided) to go full bore leftist.

  That is to say, the leftist cult couldn’t stifle the rise of conservative liberty advocates without consolidating their control in the open, and corporations are a big part of that strategy.   

  Wall Street, Entertainment Media and Big Tech companies donated FAR more to Democrat candidates in recent years compared to Republican candidates.  In the 2020 presidential election, they spent 250% more on Joe Biden’s campaign than Donald Trump’s.  But beyond that, many companies have gone aggressively and openly woke.   Social Justice narratives of “equity, diversity and inclusion” are dominating corporate culture, and though leftist bias has always been a problem among Hollywood elitists and the entertainment media, things got a lot worse after 2016.

  Part of this aggressive leftism could be attributed to the ESG movement (Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance), a clear appendage or tool for globalist foundations like the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the World Economic Forum.  It is also referred to as “stakeholder capitalism” and “mission related investing.”  Stakeholder capitalism is just another term for socialism/communism, and ESG is a related control methodology for dictating how businesses behave politically.  

  The term “ESG” was originally coined by the United Nations Environment Program Initiative in 2005, but the methodology was not fully applied to the corporate world until the past six years when ESG investment skyrocketed. 

  There are some people that will argue that ESG is not a true “communist” mechanism because communism technically involves the state taking control of the means of production.  These people are either ignorant or they are acting deliberately obtuse.  Communism is about controlling culture just as much as it is about controlling the economy.    

  Corporations are at bottom creations of government; they are chartered by governments, receive special legal advantages including corporate personhood, and they often receive special protections from governments including central bank stimulus and a shield from civil litigation.  They call it “too big to fail” because the government and the corporate world work hand in hand to keep certain institutions alive.  

  One could call this an odd mix of communism and fascism; the point is, the lines have blurred beyond all recognition and the ideology of the people in power is specifically leftist/communist/globalist. Corporations already have government incentives to protect the corrupt status quo, but ESG is designed to lure them into supporting vocal political alignment even at the cost of normal profits.

  

  ESG is about money; loans given out by top banks and foundations to companies that meet the guidelines of “stakeholder capitalism.”  Companies must show that they are actively pursuing a business environment that prioritizes woke virtues and climate change restrictions.  These loans are not an all prevailing income source, but ESG loans are highly targeted, they are growing in size (for now) and they are very easy to get as long as a company is willing to preach the social justice gospel as loudly as possible.

  Deloitte’s Insights studies show that ESG assets compounded at 16% p.a. between 2014 and 2018, now account for 25% of total market assets, and they believe that ESG could account for 50% of market share globally by 2024. 

  These loans become a form of leverage over the business world – Once they get a taste of that easy money they keep coming back.  Many of the loan targets attached to ESG are rarely enforced and penalties are few and far between.  Primarily, an ESG funded company must propagandize, that is all.  They must propagandize their employees and they must propagandize their customers.  As long as they do this, that sweet loan capital keeps flowing.  

  It’s enough to keep corporations addicted, but not enough to keep them satiated.  Diversity hiring quotas based on skin color and sexual orientation rather than merit help make the overlords happy.  Pushing critical race theory smooths the way for more cash.  Carbon controls and climate change narratives really makes them happy.  And, promoting trans-trenders and gender fluidity makes them ecstatic.  Each participating company gets it’s own ESG rating and the more woke they go, the higher their rating climbs and the more money they can get.

  The list of companies heavily involved in ESG includes some of the largest in the world, with influence over thousands of smaller businesses.  The ESG rating system is much like the social credit scoring system used in communist China to oppress the citizenry.  The tactic is pretty straightforward – Banking elites are centralizing control of social narratives by incentivising businesses to embrace social justice and globalist ideals.  They control who gets the money and anyone who doesn’t play ball will be at a distinct disadvantage compared to companies that do.  

  They figure, if the corporate world can be pushed to go full woke, then this will trickle down to the general public and influence our behaviors and thinking.  Except, it hasn’t exactly worked out that way.  Resistance to woke propaganda is growing exponentially and many of these companies are losing a huge portion of their customer base.  They cannot survive on ESG alone.               

  The thing is, even ESG money has limits.

  With central banks around the world now raising interest rates these kind of loans will become more expensive and will likely start to phase out.  This is why the most woke corporations out there are also some of the most desperate for revenues this year, and why many of these companies are edging closer and closer to mass layoffs.  The venture capital is gone and the ESG money is going to dry up also unless rates go back to zero and the bailout firehose is turned back on.  Getting woke was once a backdoor tactic of gaining easy wealth.  Now, getting woke really does mean going broke.   

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 21:00

• US University Admits It May Have Broken Law In Contract With Wuhan Lab
  US University Admits It May Have Broken Law In Contract With Wuhan Lab

  Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A top U.S. biosecurity lab is assuming responsibility for signing “poorly drafted” agreements with three high-level biosecurity labs in China that they concede may have broken the law.

  

  The three contracts, including one with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), gave the Chinese labs powers to destroy “secret files” from any stage of their collaboration.

  “The party is entitled to ask the other to destroy and/or return the secret files, materials, and equipment without any backups,” stated the 2017 memorandum of understanding (MOU) that the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) signed with the Wuhan lab, which first came to light in April.

  The broad confidentiality obligation, renewable every five years, applied to “[a]ll cooperation and exchange documents, data, details and materials,” the document said.

  Located in the first city where COVID-19 began to spread, the WIV, which for years conducted coronavirus research with U.S. funding, has attracted global attention as a possible source of the virus. The confidentiality agreements, coupled with Beijing’s pattern of suppression of discussion on pandemic origin, raised questions over whether any crucial data may have been erased from the public eye.

  The Texas medical university conceded recently that these confidentiality terms may have violated state laws.

  ‘Oversight’

  The university recently disclosed that it had signed contracts with identical confidentiality provisions with two other top-level biosecurity labs in China: the Harbin Veterinary Research Institute (pdf) in China’s northernmost province Heilongjiang, and the Institute of Medical Biology in Kunming (pdf), capital of China’s southern Yunnan Province, documents first obtained by the investigative research group U.S. Right to Know show. The two facilities, together with the WIV, house China’s only three labs certified with the highest biosafety levels.

  Reached by The Epoch Times, the university attributed the inclusion of the “poorly draftly” provision to an “oversight” on its part.

  “The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) takes responsibility for the oversight in allowing memorandums of understanding (MOUs) to include a poorly drafted confidentiality provision in potential conflict with applicable state laws,” a university spokesperson told The Epoch Times.

  The university added that they “immediately terminated any MOU that contained language that conflicts with law and policy” upon learning of the error. “A review of processes and practices at UTMB is underway and new levels of oversight for procedures are being implemented.”

  

  The UTMB wouldn’t specify when it discovered the “error” nor when it put an end to the MOUs. The documents, however, had said that the confidentiality terms would stay in force even “after it has been terminated.”

  The UTMB’s Galveston National Laboratory, one of two national biocontainment laboratories built with U.S. federal grants, had years of partnership with the three Chinese facilities, providing the Chinese scientists with biosecurity training and conducting joint research projects. It began collaborating with the WIV in 2013.

  The university maintained that the agreements have resulted in minimal material consequences.

  “UTMB confirms no documents or confidential information has been destroyed, nor was there ever any request that any documents be destroyed,” the spokesperson said. “There was no financial engagement with any of the Chinese institutions in question, or collaboration with Chinese scientists concerning coronavirus research.”

  Edward Hammond, a biosafety activist who has called for greater transparency at the Galveston lab, was unconvinced by the university’s stance.

  “It is mystifying to me that this could have happened at all,” he told The Epoch Times. “Is it sloppiness, as UTMB suggests, or is something else going on?”

  LeDuc

  James LeDuc, director at the time for the Galveston lab, signed his name on all three contracts.

  In the months after the COVID-19 broke out, LeDuc had reached out to prominent WIV scientists overseeing bat coronavirus projects, in a bid to help them tamp down scrutiny over the facility’s role in the pandemic, according to recently released emails analyzed by The Epoch Times.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 20:30

• Which Nations Face The Biggest Disruption From China's Taiwan-Trade-Blockade?
  Which Nations Face The Biggest Disruption From China’s Taiwan-Trade-Blockade?

  Following an official visit of U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, relations between the island state known as the Republic of China and its direct neighbor, the People’s Republic of China, have cooled considerably.

  Apart from an increasing number of military exercises off the coast of Taiwan stoking fears of an escalation of the long-running conflict, the People’s Republic also has, to a certain extent, halted trade with Taiwan.

  

  While an import ban on certain Taiwanese fruits and fish is unlikely to become a source of global tensions, China’s export stop on sand, a resource essential for the manufacturing of semiconductors, could prove devastating for countries like the United States.

  <a href=" You will find more infographics at Statista“>As Statista’s Florian Zandt shows in the chart below, based on UN Comtrade data, 62 percent of the United States’ total trade volume with Taiwan came from imports from the island state in 2021. A majority of these goods fall into the IT and electronics sector, with companies like Apple, Qualcomm and NVIDIA relying on chips manufactured in the large-scale semiconductor foundries of Taiwan. Next to the war in Ukraine and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, China’s sand ban could become another exacerbating factor to the ongoing chip shortage.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  The United States are not the only one profiting from Taiwanese exports.

  Germany, South Africa, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Japan are Taiwan’s principal trade partners in Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and Oceania, respectively. Germany and Japan are especially reliant on the island’s industry, with exports taking up 40 percent of the $21 billion in trade with the European country and 34 percent of the Japanese-Taiwanese trade volume of $86 billion.

  The basis of the tensions between China and Taiwan is the hitherto unresolved question of independence. After the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, the remaining supporters of the defeated Kuomintang retreated to the island. Once established there, they proclaimed the Republic of China, while the People’s Republic sees the island, which is now governed democratically, as its own province.

  Largely ignored in this equation is the role of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples, 16 of whom are officially recognized as ethnic minorities. After a long history of colonization by the Netherlands, Spain, China and Japan, they still made up about 2.4 percent of the population in 2019.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 20:00

• Despite Climate-Doomsaying, Great Barrier Reef's Coral Growth Soars To Record
  Despite Climate-Doomsaying, Great Barrier Reef’s Coral Growth Soars To Record

  Authored by Chris Morrison via DailySceptic.org,

  The near vertiginous rise in the annual growth of coral at the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is continuing, with further major increases recorded across large areas.

  

  According to the 2021-22 annual summary from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), levels of coral cover in the northern and central areas of the reef were at their highest levels over the past 36 years of monitoring.

  The growth is of course excellent news for environmentalists, but curiously, at the time of writing, the news is being downplayed in the mainstream media. The demise of the world’s coral reefs has long been a go-to poster scare story for Net Zero promoters. As late as October 2020, the BBC  was telling stories about the Reef losing half of its coral. The Guardian was one of the first to set the coral doomsday ball rolling when George Monbiot told its readers in 1999 that the “imminent total destruction of the world’s coral reefs is not a scare story”. Noting the recent record growth, the newspaper added that “global heating could jeopardise recovery”.

  This notion that global warming will cause corals to die is frankly a big whopping fib. Tropical coral, which is closely related to its cnidarian cousin the jellyfish, thrives in waters between 24°C and 32°C. It is highly adaptable but seems to dislike sudden changes in temperature, often caused by natural weather oscillations such as El Niño events. As the latest results from the AIMS show, coral quickly recovers when normal localised conditions return. In fact, coral often grows faster in warmer waters nearer the equator than the GBR. The big agitprop lie suggests minor long-term sea temperatures changes will wipe out the coral, but the scientific evidence suggests otherwise.

  

  The sensational growth is clearly seen in the above graph for the northern reef. Recovery is said to have continued following a “period of cumulative disturbances” from 2014 to 2020. Only three of the 24 reefs surveyed in the last two years had decreased hard coral cover. The biggest disturbance, of course, arose around 2016 and was caused by a powerful, and natural, El Niño Pacific oscillation that quickly raised surrounding ocean temperatures by up to 3°C. Sudden warming spooks the coral and they expel symbiotic algae in a process commonly known as bleaching. As we can see, this is quickly reversed when sea temperatures stabilise. Corals have been around, in one form or another, for 500 million years. It is likely this natural process extends back that far to the birth of life as we know it on Earth.

  

  In the central reef, the declines seen in 2012 and 2016 were due to natural events, namely Cyclone Yasi in 2012 and El Niño in 2016. The latter led to bleaching to around 2019, and matters were not helped by outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish attacks. Since then, the growth has been spectacular. Last year saw hard coral cover increase to 33%, said to be the highest for this region. Over the last two years, hard coral cover declined on only four individual reefs, and increased on most of the rest surveyed.

  The southern part of the GBR has generally displayed the highest coral cover, but according to the AIMS it has been the most “dynamic” over the 36-year survey history. In recent years there has been good growth after the 2016 El Niño depredations, but there have been major attacks by starfish. AIMS notes that many southern reefs have high coral cover, but starfish continue to decimate some areas.

  Overall, the GBR seems to be in excellent shape.

  The AIMS notes that in the northern and central regions, hard coral cover reached 36% and 33% respectively. Reefs consist of much more than hard coral and contain a diversity of other species along with sponges and algae. The AIMS defines 30-50% as a “high value”, based on historical surveys.

  Nevertheless coral is still too valuable a weapon in the green agenda to be discarded lightly. Despite highlighting some stunning reverses of the recent natural coral declines, the AIMS seems to be sticking to the trendy apocalyptic story.

  “The predicted consequences of climate change, which include more frequent and intense mass coral bleaching events, are now a contemporary reality. Simultaneously, chronic stressors such as high turbidity, increasing ocean temperatures and changing ocean chemistry can all negatively affect recovery rates, while more frequent acute disturbances mean that the intervals for recovery are becoming shorter,” it concludes.

  For what it’s worth, my own hunch is that the little critters will still be around in another 500 million years, maybe longer.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 19:30

• North Carolina County 'Hardens' Schools With AR-15s For Resource Officers
  North Carolina County ‘Hardens’ Schools With AR-15s For Resource Officers

  In response to the disastrous failures and egregious poor decision-making of law enforcement to confront the Uvalde elementary school shooter that killed 21 people, including 19 children, a school system in North Carolina unveiled a new program to beef up security measures for the upcoming school year, including the placement of standard semi-automatic AR-15 rifles in every school, according to the Asheville Citizen-Times.

  Madison County Schools and Madison County Sheriff’s Office agreed to put AR-15s in all schools in the district so that school resource officers can neutralize a threat immediately, unlike the disastrous response time in Uvalde, where video footage shows it took officers 77 minutes to breach the classroom where the shooter was hiding. 

  “Those officers were in that building for so long, and that suspect was able to infiltrate that building and injure and kill so many kids,” Sheriff Buddy Harwood said, referring to the Uvalde shooting. “I just want to make sure my deputies are prepared in the event that happens.”

  “We were able to put an AR-15 rifle and safe in all of our schools in the county. We’ve also got breaching tools to go into those safes. We’ve got extra magazines with ammo in those safes,” Harwood said. 

  All Madison County Schools, including Brush Creek Elementary, Hot Springs Elementary, Mars Hill Elementary, Madison Middle, Madison High, and Madison Early College High, will receive enhanced security before school starts next month. 

  “The reason we put the breaching tools in the safes is that in the event we have someone barricaded in a door, we won’t have to wait on the fire department to get there,” the sheriff said. “We’ll have those tools to be able to breach that door if needed. I do not want to have to run back out to the car to grab an AR, because that’s time lost. Hopefully we’ll never need it, but I want my guys to be as prepared as prepared can be.” 

  “I hate that we’ve come to a place in our nation where I’ve got to put a safe in our schools, and lock that safe up for my deputies to be able to acquire an AR-15. But, we can shut it off and say it won’t happen in Madison County, but we never know. I want the parents of Madison County to know we’re going to take every measure necessary to ensure our kids are safe in this school system. If my parents, as a whole, want me to stand at that door with that AR strapped around that officer’s neck, then I’m going to do whatever my parents want as a whole to keep our kids safe,” Harwood continued.

  Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre recently said President Biden is not interested in beefing up school security protocols. 

  “I know there have been conversations about hardening schools. That is not something that he believes in,” said Jean-Pierre.

  Once the Madison County School story gains momentum in the national press, Democrats will have a meltdown on hardening schools and might even warrant a comment from Biden. But the fact is, a high percentage of all mass shootings occur in “gun-free zones” (areas where guns are prohibited), according to Crime Prevention Research Center. 

  

  A possible security solution to gun violence at schools (gun-free zones) is a resources officer who is properly trained and armed to tackle threats. Not hardening schools could be disastrous and the continuation of crazies slaughtering the innocent. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 19:00

• Biden Wants China Hawks To 'Put The Brakes' On Bill Gutting 40 Years Of Taiwan Policy
  Biden Wants China Hawks To ‘Put The Brakes’ On Bill Gutting 40 Years Of Taiwan Policy

  Authored by Connor Freeman via The Libertarian Institute,

  On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported, as tensions have risen to dangerous levels with China, President Joe Biden’s administration is lobbying Senate Democrats to “put the brakes” on the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022. The bill was recently introduced by the hawkish Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

  Analysts have said the bill which, inter alia, would designate Taipei a “major non-NATO ally,” could see the One-China policy “in effect gutted.” In a New York Times op-ed this week, Menendez said “we are laying out a new vision that ensures our country is positioned to defend Taiwan for decades to come.”

  The bill was supposed to be called up by the Foreign Relations Committee this week, but Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said work on the bill is being delayed until next month and could see revisions. “The White House has significant concerns,” said Murphy, adding “I have significant concerns.”

  

  According to a report in The Dispatch, “[Murphy] planned to introduce changes to make some of its language more ambiguous regarding whether the United States would defend Taiwan in the event of an attack by China. A section of the proposal calls for the Defense Department to conduct a classified review of the U.S. strategy to defend Taiwan. One of Murphy’s amendments would have changed that language to instead mandate a review of the strategy to deter the use of force by the Chinese military.”

  The upshot is that the White House sees provoking China further right now as unwise in the wake of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit, which triggered an unprecedented crisis in the Taiwan Strait. A Chinese military official warned the situation could lead to “a real war at any point.” On the Republican side, Graham is accusing the administration of being soft on China. He has declared “it’s a miscalculation of how to keep the world in order.” Graham added “at every turn they take the weakest path.”

  The bill would vastly expand Taiwan’s role in international institutions and, over four years, provide $4.5 billion in military aid to Taipei including potentially long-range missiles capable of striking mainland China. This would make the island the fourth highest recipient of US security assistance behind only Kiev, Tel Aviv, and Cairo.

  In the event of “a significant escalation in hostile action” since December 2021, the legislation would require massive sanctions on a wide swath of China’s financial institutions, key industries, and much of the country’s political elite including President Xi Jinping.

  The Dispatch article says a part of the bill would “block any restrictions on bilateral relations between officials from the United States and their Taiwanese counterparts,” as well as change the name of the island’s de facto embassy in the US from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) to the “Taiwan Representative Office.”

  🇨🇳⚡🇹🇼 Visuals from the going PLA drills#Taiwan #china pic.twitter.com/57knD1JsFz

  — OsintTv📺 (@OsintTv) August 6, 2022

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  When Taiwan opened a diplomatic outpost with the latter name in Lithuania last year, signifying official rather than the “unofficial” status in line with the One-China policy, it caused a major row. The US supported Vilnius, as the Biden administration was “seriously considering” such a move itself. However, Beijing considered it a serious violation of the One-China principle and recalled its ambassador, which the Lithuanians subsequently reciprocated.

  The Dispatch report also suggests that it was not necessarily the Executive Branch’s ambivalence that halted the bill until September. “One Democratic Senate source familiar with the situation told The Dispatch the schedule change was not related to the White House’s concerns, but it came because… [Menendez] had to manage Senate floor debate on an unrelated measure Wednesday night to allow Finland and Sweden to join NATO.”

  The Bloomberg report, citing “people familiar with the matter,” said the White House fears the bill would interfere with the “strategic ambiguity” policy regarding whether Washington, in the event of an attack by mainland China, would intervene militarily to defend the island. Murphy said “I’m not sure this is the moment to throw out 40 years of policy,” while maintaining “it makes sense for us to draw closer to Taiwan.” In Menendez’s op-ed, he wrote “the United States needs less ambiguity to guide our approach to Taiwan.”

  Sen. Jim Risch, the committee’s top Republican, said “Many of us are ready to mark up the Taiwan Policy Act today,” adding the administration has “done enough damage on Taiwan policy, and continues to add to it this week. It should not interfere in the legislative process.”

  “If you put this on the floor of the Senate, it would pass overwhelmingly,” Graham told Bloomberg.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 18:30

• "Deteriorating Situation" Shows Rent Growth "Collapsing" In Sunbelt Markets
  “Deteriorating Situation” Shows Rent Growth “Collapsing” In Sunbelt Markets

  The housing and renting market continues to teeter on the brink, and the newest incoming data doesn’t offer up any clear signs of stabilization. In fact, new data continues to suggest the opposite: that volatility in housing could only be beginning…and that we’re going to have plenty of fodder on deflation, which we have talked about frequently, invoking the effects of a “reverse bullwhip” on the economy. 

  A new report from Apartments.com examining multifamily rent growth trends for July 2022 shows that the Sunbelt markets are set up for what is being called a “a significant collapse of demand” heading into the back half of 2022. 

  Sunbelt cities, which had previously “dominated the top 10 rent growth markets in July with eight out of 10 located within the region” are now setting up for the fastest pullback.

  Palm Beach is singled out as an example. The city has seen year over year asking rents falling from growth of 30.6% to now just 12.7% at the end of July 2022. Tampa and Las Vegas have also seen double digit pullbacks in rent. 

  

  Jay Lybik, National Director of Multifamily Analytics, CoStar Group, who owns Apartments.com, stated: “Throughout the month of July, while multifamily yearly rents continued to perform well above historical averages, the deceleration of rent growth quickened at a time when markets typically post their best results.”

  He continued: “The deteriorating rent situation highlights a significant collapse of demand in the sector when new unit deliveries are projected to hit 230,000 in the second half of 2022.”

  Over in the utopia brewing on the West Coast, places like San Francisco are bucking that trend. Rents in San Fran are just $18 below their all time peak of $3,116 that they set in Q2 2019, the report says. Rents were actually up by 40 bps over the last 30 days to grow 5%. 

  We’ll see how long that lasts…

  Overall, however, the rental picture is “deteriorating”, according to the release:

  Analysts have found that, looking sequentially, 12 markets saw absolute asking rents decline over the past month, the first occurrence since 2020. Miami led the charge with average asking rents down $11 during July, in addition to five markets that reported no change in rents over the last 30 days.

  The stark reversal for Sunbelt markets can be seen vividly in the month over month chart. Markets that saw negative or flat rent growth in July are dominated by Sunbelt locations, including Fort Lauderdale, Austin, Orlando, Charlotte and Tampa, amongst others.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 18:00

• Ethereum Neoclassic: Recap Of The Biggest Crypto News In The First Week Of August
  Ethereum Neoclassic: Recap Of The Biggest Crypto News In The First Week Of August

  By Donovan Choy of Bankless

  Ethereum Neoclassic (aka ETH PoW) chain

  As the Merge nears, one related point of discussion is emerging around a potential hard fork for an “ETH PoW” (Ethereum Proof-of-work) chain which some miners are voicing their support.

  I’m calling this the Ethereum Neoclassic (ETN) chain, because “ETH PoW” puts readers to sleep and there already exists a PoW-based Ethereum Classic from 2016.

  So why is the Ethereum Neoclassic hard fork potentially a thing? For the simple reason that the Merge is about to render an estimated $5B worth of mining rigs obsolete. That presents Ethereum miners with two choices:

  1. Redeploy their rigs toward mining Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum Classic, or some other PoW chain
  2. Protest the Merge by forking into the new ETH Neoclassic chain that retains PoW validation

  Should enough miners support the second option, it would likely be Ethereum’s second high-profile hard fork. The first one of course was in 2016 after the infamous DAO hack that saw a minority group of miners protest the Ethereum foundation’s decision to negate the theft of 3.6M ETH, thereby giving birth to Ethereum Classic (ETC). 

  There were die-hards then, and there are die-hards now. People like the status quo, especially if they have a stake in seeing it preserved.

  But today’s die-hards that threaten to hard fork face an even larger challenge for a few reasons.

  First, for the new Ethereum Neoclassic chain to thrive requires that the existing state of DeFi is successfully “ported” over to the new chain. That would require hundreds of asset providers and bridging protocols to honor claims on users’ assets — stablecoins, Lido’s staked ETH, all forms of wrapped tokens — that currently exist on the Neoclassic chain.

  Tether is likely going to enable redemptions for USDT on the new PoS Ethereum chain rather than a Neoclassic chain, given the strong social support for the Merge. If so, then decentralized exchanges and lending platforms on Neoclassic will collapse in the absence of liquidity.

  Of course, there is a chance that something maybe goes catastrophically wrong with the Merge, then a new Schelling point might gravitate around the Neoclassic chain. Then a minority of users maybe wants to redeem their USDT on the Neoclassic chain, and Tether maybe honors them. But that is a lot of maybes. It’s a classic collective action problem and no protocol wants to be stranded alone in a highly fractured DeFi landscape where trading infrastructure is broken and all other assets are dead.

  A short thread about EthPoW and what is quite likely to happen:

  Spoiler TL;DR: Galois et Guo delenda est

  🧵👇

  — Marc “Aavechan.lens” Zeller 👻 💜 (@lemiscate) August 1, 2022

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  Second, a Neoclassic chain would come with the difficulty bomb, a built-in mechanism by Ethereum developers to disincentivize the original chain from functioning post-Merge by making mining increasingly difficult. Ethereum Neoclassic miners would have an insurmountable task of gathering consensus twice: Once to hard fork the Merge, then hard fork the previous hard fork again to remove the bomb. 

  Third, an Ethereum Neoclassic chain doesn’t only face competition for developer talent and users from the new PoS chain, but also the old Ethereum Classic (ETC) chain. Incidentally, ETC’s price has been rallying 32% in the past two weeks as speculators anticipate that the hash rate may be redirected to. 

  For all of these reasons and more, most analysts and researchers don’t foresee an Ethereum Neoclassic chain taking off.

  Will it happen? Likely.

  Will it succeed? That’s another question.

  Nomad bridge hack

  There are two major hacks rippling across DeFi this week. The first is the Nomad bridge racking up 5th place on the Rekt leaderboards with a ~$190M loss. 

  Nomad is a decentralized cross-chain bridge protocol supporting asset transfers across five chains: Avalanche, Ethereum, Cosmos’ Evmos, Cardano’s Milkomeda, and the Polkadot Moonbeam network. On the eve of its hack, Nomad was the 6th largest Ethereum bridge holding ~$169M of value.

  

  What happened? A flaw in a Nomad smart contract allowed users to spoof transactions and withdraw money from an open vault (it was open for 43 days 🤯) on the bridge.

  That opened the door to hundreds of hackers for a cash grab by copy-pasting the transaction call data used by the original hacker, and replacing the wallet address with one of their own to siphon funds.

  1/ Nomad just got drained for over $150M in one of the most chaotic hacks that Web3 has ever seen. How exactly did this happen, and what was the root cause? Allow me to take you behind the scenes 👇 pic.twitter.com/Y7Q3fZ7ezm

  — samczsun (@samczsun) August 1, 2022

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  Unlike the centralized Axie Infinity Ronin bridge $650M hack in March where private validator keys were stolen, the Nomad hack stems not from a flaw in design architecture i.e., the degree of trust required, but from a smart contract flaw. In short, Nomad’s design focused on trust-minimization and was more in line with the decentralized nature of Web3, but still came up short.

  The silver lining here is that because the exploit was a free-for-all, some ethical hackers accumulated at least $9M of the spoils, which have been returned to Nomad.

  Nomad exploit onchain activity, visualized. pic.twitter.com/WqjcbQfWKW

  — Hsaka (@HsakaTrades) August 1, 2022

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  It’s probably worth reiterating for the hundredth time on Bankless that cross-chain bridges come with their own risks (different from multi-chain bridges like Cosmos).

  If the crypto that you own sits only on its native network, then its security relies exclusively on that network’s validator security. But there’s a new exciting dapp on another chain running liquidity-mining-fuelled 100% APYs, so the smart investor thing to do is wrap and transfer your crypto around different chains to stake for greater returns, while at the same time watch number go up on your original collateral— win-win right? 

  Cross-chain bridges enable that kind of capital efficiency but it also introduces new attack vectors and smart contract risks as your crypto traverses different chains.

  Lesson: If you use a bridge, use it with your eyes wide open.

  With the recent hack of @nomadxyz_ I think it is time to reflect more broadly on bridges security as by now they became by far the most critical piece of blockchain infrastructure. Here are some things to consider: 👇🧵https://t.co/se3eU95olY

  — bartek.eth (@bkiepuszewski) August 2, 2022

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  Solana wallet hack

  The second hack this week is taking place within the Solana ecosystem, affecting at least 8,000 Solana wallets with total losses of up to $6M, particularly popularly used wallets like Phantom, as well as Slope and Trust.

  In the early stages of the hack, it wasn’t clear what the security issue was. Both the Solana Foundation and Phantom alleged that the problem may be related to Slope Finance, a Solana Web3 aggregator platform that offers iOS and Android mobile wallets. The uncertainty led Solana users rushing to push funds to a hardware wallet or even centralized exchanges.

  Well, it turned out that the root cause of the problem simply stemmed from… Slope Wallet is a terrible service provider. Slope stored wallet seed phrases on a centralized event logging service and then that service was exposed. 

  Correction – the Slope wallet did not send seed phrases to external partners, but may have logged them on their own centralized servers. Apologies for getting a bit ahead of myself, postmortem still in progress. Wait for an announcement from the team for true confirmation.

  — foobar (@0xfoobar) August 3, 2022

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  Slope’s official statement doesn’t tell us much, safe for “we dun goofed”, “we know it hurts, and “wait for pending investigation”.

  Three Arrows Capital fallout

  You thought the fallout was over but it isn’t. Celsius sees a data breach that leaks its customers emails.

  The Block reports that Babel Finance, a crypto bank that halted withdrawals last month lost at least $280M in trading during the June market downtown.

  Other news:

  Aave moves to freeze Fantom markets due to recent bridge exploits; Rainbow Wallet supports NFTs on Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum and Optimism; Starknet launches NFTs; Robinhood gets fined $30M by the New York State Department of Financial Services.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 17:30

• Indiana Enacts Near Total Abortion Ban
  Indiana Enacts Near Total Abortion Ban

  Following on the heels of a ban in Georgia, Indiana is the latest state to end abortion after the Supreme Court ruled that the practice is not a constitutional right and that laws regarding abortion must be decided by the states.

  Media pundits were quick to attack the decision while applauding Kansas for its blocking of similar restrictions. 

  There are numerous claims that abortion laws are a losing proposition for conservatives going into the November election and that Republican candidates face sure defeat.  However, pro-abortion protests have been far smaller than many expected after the Supreme Court confirmed what illegal leaks had hinted at – That Roe v. Wade was about to be undone.  Activist groups have left little impression that conservatives face some kind of “reckoning” in the fall.  

  

  Abortion as a convenient form of birth control is perhaps not as appealing a notion as the far-left imagines.  Indiana’s near total abortion ban will take effect on September 15th.

  At least 26 states are certain or likely to ban abortion in the coming months.  Though Kansas was seen as a “surprise” given its reputation as a conservative state,  the fact that they have a Democrat governor and they supported pandemic lockdowns well after most red states ended them should have been clear signs that Kansas is more blue than many people believe.  It was never even on the list of states that are seen as a threat to abortion activists. 

  Far from being a crushing policy for conservatives, abortion bans are more likely to act as a litmus test for state governments and their dedication to conservative causes (such as the right to life for all innocent individuals including the unborn).  Red state governments that don’t act to reverse abortion practices would be seen as suspect.  By the end of this year most Americans will know exactly what kind of state they are living in. 

  If the covid lockdowns and restrictions didn’t make this clear, the battles over Roe v. Wade will certainly clarify things.     

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 17:00

• The Greatest Value Investor You've Never Heard Of
  The Greatest Value Investor You’ve Never Heard Of

  By the MacroOps Substack

  “We can have no finer role model. First and foremost, he was a value investor — a member of that eccentric tribe that believes it’s better to underpay than to overpay.”

  Those words by James Grant were in reference to one of the greatest value investors the world has ever seen. It’s not who you think it is. And no, you couldn’t guess him given fifty chances. This investor remains off the beaten path, absent from many investors’ Mt. Rushmore of allocators.

  The investor is Floyd Odlum.

  

  Buried somewhere in the junk drawer of investing lore, Odlum’s story remains unknown. A quick Google search reveals his Wikipedia and IMDB pages. Yet in typical deep-value fashion, the last link on the page revealed Odlum’s investing story.

  The Holy Financier’s blog post was that last link. The blog proved an excellent springboard for a deeper investigation into Odlum’s early life, initial career and his path to market fortunes. Although Odlum (pictured on the right) and Ben Graham never met, their investment philosophies are one in the same.

  We’ll journey through his upbringing, his days as a struggling lawyer and his initial attempt at market speculation. Then we’ll see how Odlum turned $39,000 into $700,000 in two years.

  Life Before The Markets

  Floyd Bostwick Odlum was born on March 30, 1892 in Union City, Michigan. When Floyd was 16, his father — a Methodist minister — moved the family to Colorado. Floyd stayed close to home, studying law at the University of Colorado. He received his degree in 1914. Floyd bounced around in his first few years after college. After marrying his first wife, Hortense in 1915, Odlum accepted a job as an attorney for the Utah Power and Light company in Salt Lake City, UT.

  Three years later, he found himself off the ski slopes and in the throes of New York City. Between 1917 and 1918, Odlum worked for the Simpson, Thatcher and Bartlett law firm, as well as the Electric Bond and Share Company. He settled down with Electric Bond and Share Company long enough to gain the role of vice president.

  Dipping His Toes in Speculation

  With a decent income from his job as a law clerk, Odlum started trading in the stock market. He initially saw the market as a rich, fertile ground for speculative profits. Far from his cemented legacy as a deep value investor. Yet like most beginning speculators, Odlum too paid his fair share of market tuition.

  After losing all his $40,000 starting capital, Odlum retreated from the markets. One newspaper revealed it, “took [Odlum] a while to pay back that sum”. Yet It was this early $40K loss that turned Odlum from speculator to investor. From tape reader to business analysis. Lawyer to Wall Street Legend.

  Soon enough, Odlum would be back. The starting capital would be the same. The approach, anything but similar.

  The United States Company

  Odlum wasn’t just a great investor. He also had a knack for choosing the most generic partnership names, such as his first “The United States Company”. The partnership, formed in 1923, was a couple’s affair. Odlum, George Howard and their wives seeded the partnership with $39,000 ($573K adj. for inflation).

  What followed over the next two years was nothing short of incredible. According to Odlum’s biography, The United States Company grew 17x from 1923 – 1925. What started as a small partnership amongst friends turned into a $660,000 behemoth ($9.47M adjusted for inflation).

  Odlum’s two-year CAGR is mind-numbing. If that wasn’t impressive enough, he generated these returns while working full-time as a law clerk!

  How did he generate such outsized returns?

  Well, he was a deep value investor. He searched for fifty-cent dollars and  scoured every corner of the market. According to documents from the Eisenhower Library, Odlum preferred two kinds of investments:

  • Utility stocks
  • Special situations

  He defined a special situation as “an investment […] involving not only primary financial sponsorship, but usually also responsibility for [the] management of the enterprise.” The former lawyer wasn’t interested in flipping a business for a quick buck, either.

  Embedded in Odlum’s strategy was the determination to see a special situation through until success, “[We will] stay with the investment until the essentials of the job have been done, and then move on [to] another special situation”.

  Between 1925 – 1928, Odlum steadily grew the partnership. By investing in utilities and special situations, The United States Company AUM grew to $6M (over $88M adjusted for inflation). It was around this time that Odlum began sensing euphoria in the market. He smelled a top and he decided it was time for him to act.

  The Formation of Atlas Corporation

  In 1929, he rolled his original partnership into a new vehicle, The Atlas Corporation. Wary of a market top, Odlum sold half his assets. He stayed in cash and issued $9M worth of Atlas Corporation securities. With $14M in cash, Floyd sat on his hands. Waiting for the next market crash, which shortly followed.

  

  Odlum was prepared and took full advantage once fear had fully gripped the market and there was blood in the streets… His subsequent operations were chronicled in an old newspaper article (courtesy of NeckarCap on Twitter):

  “After the crash, Odlum, looking around quietly with more ready money than almost anybody in Wall Street except [a] few of the big banks, noticed that the trend in trusts had reversed.”

  Odlum’s 1929 Strategy: Sit. Wait. Attack.

  Along with his traditional investments, Odlum dabbled in a number of other industries, including:

  • Mining
  • Oil and gas
  • Motion picture production and distribution
  • Aircraft and airlines
  • Department stores
  • Manufacturing
  • Broadway stage productions
  • Hotels and buildings

  But his bread and butter during the Depression was buying investment trusts. His strategy was simple. He found investment trusts that had fallen so much their stock prices were trading less than the value of their marketable securities. A good example of this in today’s markets is Manning & Napier (note: I do not hold shares).

  He discovered he could buy these trusts, liquidate their assets, and reap large profits for his stakeholders. He was buying dollar bills for $0.60 and he milked this strategy for all it’s worth. He ended up buying and merging investment trust twenty-two times. The newspaper article profiled these dealings:

  “He figured out that by buying all the outstanding shares of a particular trust, he was really buying cash or its equivalent at sixty cents on the dollar.”

  When he didn’t have the cash to buy the trusts, he sold shares in his own company, Atlas, to fund the purchases. After exchanging his stock for the trust’s stock, Odlum would merge or dissolved the existing trust, keeping the cash and assets within Atlas Corp.

  This strategy helped grow his assets to $150M ($2.2B adjusted for inflation).

  Between 1929 and 1935, Odlum invested (and controlled) many diverse businesses. He owned Greyhound Bus, a little motion picture studio named Paramount, Hilton Hotels, three women’s apparel companies, uranium mines, a bank, an office building, and an oil company.

  Taking It All In

  Odlum started with $40,000 and lost it all speculating in the market. He then pooled together another $39,000 to form his first partnership. That original $39,000 grew to $150M in controlled assets. All that during a span of just twelve years.

  The math is incredible. Odlum grew assets 384,515% in a bit over a decade. That’s a 32,042% CAGR for asset growth.

  And his early partnership returns are just as impressive. Odlum grew assets from $39,000 to $6M between 1923 – 1929. That’s a cumulative 15,284% return. In other words, Odlum compounded capital at an annual rate of 2,547%.

  Life After Markets: A Love of Aviation

  Odlum’s life was unique. His extracurriculars sprinkled with high-profile relationships, a pioneer wife and bountiful philanthropy. After his divorce in 1935, Odlum married Jacqueline Cochran. Cochran (pictured below) was a pioneer in the field of women’s aviation. And while Amelia Earnhart garners most aviation lore, Cochran’s track record is nothing to scoff at. Some of her achievements include:

  • Flying solo on the ninth day of flying lessons
  • First woman to complete the Bendix race, a cross-country race from LA to Ohio
  • Set flight duration record in 1937 flying from NY to Miami, FL
  • First woman to make a blind landing (1939)
  • Broke 2,000km international speed record (1940)

  The list goes on. At the time of her death, Cochran held more speed, distance and altitude records than any living pilot.

  Odlum played a key role in women’s aviation and space flight. He financed a majority of his wife and Earnhart’s flights. He also pumped millions into the US missile development program because, “I think the money could have been spent better otherwise. But it’s too early to tote up the value of its products. My wife thinks the moon shots were terrific.”

  Health and Retirement

  Odlum battled rheumatoid arthritis most of his adult life. The pain got so bad he had to stop working. Yet even in retirement, Odlum conducted business. One section in Odlum’s obituary shines light on his relationship with business:

  “He often [took[ telephone calls on a rubberized receiver while floating in his Olympic-sized swimming pool.”

  Odlum entertained (and housed) some of America’s most prolific leaders and talents. He dined with General James Doolittle, Bob Hope, Gloria Swanson, Walt Disney, Nelson Rockefeller and Howard Hughs.

  But of all these guests, none were more famous than President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He and Eisenhower shared a close relationship. So close, in fact, that Odlum carved out a piece of land for Eisenhower to live during the winters. Eisenhower’s small piece of property on the Odlum Estate was known as Eisenhower Cottage.

  Bringing It Back To Investments: Three Takeaways

  I want to finish this essay with three takeaways from Floyd Odlum’s investing career:

  1. You don’t need to be 100% invested 24/7

  2. Boring is beautiful

  3. Be a dumpster diver (with standards)

  1. You Don’t Have To Be 100% Invested 24/7

  Odlum wasn’t a market timer. He was a deep value investor. When value ideas dried up, Odlum went to cash. He didn’t force investments or lower his underwriting standards. He simply sat in cash.

  Jesse Livermore, a man whose made (and lost) millions in the markets, praises sitting on cash. Seth Klarman is known for his 40% cash balances during periods of market froth.

  If you want to beat the markets you must do things differently. Passive investors are 100% invested, but they’re not worried about beating the market.

  2. Boring is Beautiful

  The United States Company invested in utility stocks and special situations. These are boring corners of the market. Yet it’s these areas that catapulted Odlum’s returns into the stratosphere. How can we apply this ‘boring is beautiful’ philosophy?

  In today’s tech-driven market, many investors forget about the boring, slow-growing cash producers. These companies are toll road operators, electrical component producers, road builders. Boring businesses with not-so-boring returns.

  3. Be a Dumpster Diver (with Standards)

  The stocks Odlum bought were the ones others hated. These companies traded around 52-week and all-time lows. You wouldn’t find anyone talking about these stocks at cocktail parties.

  Yet they offered outsized returns simply because nobody bothered to look at the (potential) hidden value. Be a dumpster diver with standards. You’ll find many companies trading around all-time lows that aren’t as bad as Mr. Market thinks.

  Sources Used:

  https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/finding-aids/pdf/odlum-floyd-papers.pdf

  https://www.advisorperspectives.com/newsletters09/pdfs/James_Grant-A_Positive_Lesson_from_the_Great_Depression.pdf

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Odlum

  https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e85e/5bb20ac461ed6ef05a5fa0590bab214fd3ef.pdf

  http://theholyfinancier.com/floyd-odlum-deep-value-investor-never-heard/

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 16:30

• "Situation Is Really Precarious": World's Largest Rice Exporter Faces Output Decline Amid Heatwave
  “Situation Is Really Precarious”: World’s Largest Rice Exporter Faces Output Decline Amid Heatwave

  The effects of elevated food prices have rippled worldwide and forced governments to impose price controls and trade restrictions. Price increases are due to supply constraints driven by several variables, including high energy prices, geopolitics, and weather. Ukraine restarted maritime transport of crops to the rest of the world, forcing grain prices to slip, though the food crisis is far from over. 

  We pointed out in April that the next challenge for the global food supply could be a plunge in rice production (read: here). Fast forward months later, and our suspicions appear to be right as India, the world’s largest rice exporter, has seen planting areas of the crop decline by 13% due to heatwaves and drought. 

  

  India accounts for 40% of the global rice trade, and a decline in production will complicate India’s domestic inflation fight. It could result in export restrictions, leading to few supplies for the rest of the world. 

  

  In the last two weeks, prices in India have soared more than 10% in top growing states such as West Bengal, Odisha, and Chhattisgarh due to lack of rainfall and crop output concerns, Mukesh Jain, a director at Sponge Enterprises Pvt., a rice trader, told Bloomberg. He expects export prices to reach $400 a ton by next month from $365 this week. 

  Rice feeds half of humanity and is vital for political and economic stability across Asia. Supply disruptions due to potential trade restrictions by India could create shortages and rising prices elsewhere. 

  There’s still hope crop output could recover as the monsoon season is expected to produce normal rainfall through September. However, some farmers sounded the alarm output is expected to drop significantly. 

  Farmer Rajesh Kumar Singh operates a small farm with seven acres in Uttar Pradesh planted on only half the land because of the lack of rain in June and July. “The situation is really precarious,” he said.

  Himanshu, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, who goes by only one name, said rice prices would continue to rise because of adverse weather conditions that would help boost overall inflation. 

  The question remains if a further rise in food prices would derail India’s inflation fight. 

  “Lower area of rice sowing amidst increased demand of imports from Bangladesh and other Middle Eastern countries have pushed up rice prices of different varieties to as much as 30% since June,” said Deutsche Bank Economist Kaushik Das. “This poses challenges for the food inflation outlook.”

  The Reserve Bank of India is set to hike interest rates Friday to subdue the hottest inflation in a decade.

  The next food price shock could be from India, though it’s difficult to estimate the exact level of production loss. 

  Global food prices are still well above 2011 levels when Arab Spring resulted in revolutions across the Middle East. Signs of inflation riots have already materialized in several emerging market countries, including bankrupt Sir Lanka. 

  

  All eyes are on India’s rice production, which is set for harvest in mid-September through October. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 16:00

• Doctors Criticize Fauci For Saying COVID Vaccines Induce 'Only Temporary' Menstrual Irregularities
  Doctors Criticize Fauci For Saying COVID Vaccines Induce ‘Only Temporary’ Menstrual Irregularities

  Authored by Enrico Trigoso via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Dr. Anthony Fauci’s recent comments on menstrual irregularities met with serious rebuttal from gynecologists, who say COVID-19 vaccines should not have been injected into pregnant women without adequate safety testing.

  “Well, the menstrual thing is something that seems to be quite transient and temporary, that’s one of the points,” Fauci said in an appearance on Fox News on July 25, upon being asked about the effect of vaccines on menstrual cycles.

  “We need to study it more,” Fauci added.

  

  Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and has been a frontman for COVID vaccine information in the United States.

  Dr. Christiane Northrup MD, a former fellow in the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, remarked to The Epoch Times on Fauci’s comments: “Unfortunately the menstrual problems we are seeing are far from transient and temporary. Many women have been bleeding daily or having heavy, irregular, painful periods for an entire year. And some of these are well past menopause. Something is way off here. ”

  Dr. James Thorp is an extensively published 69-year-old physician MD board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology, as well as maternal-fetal medicine, who has been practicing obstetrics for over 42 years.

  “The significant and dramatic changes in menstrual patterns occurring after COVID-19 vaccines should not be marginalized. It is indicative of major adverse effects on women of reproductive age. The stakeholders claimed that the vaccine would remain at the injection site in the deltoid muscle. This was misinformation. The lipid nanoparticles (LNP’s) are now known to be distributed throughout the entire body and to be concentrated in the ovaries, according to at least two studies. Schadlich and colleagues demonstrated concentration of the LNP’s in ovaries of different mouse species and Wistar rats, in vivo, in vitro and by sophisticated microscopic imaging in 2012,” he told The Epoch Times.

  A lipid nanoparticle is an extremely small particle, a fat-soluble membrane that is the cargo of the messenger RNA.

  Pfizer’s Internal Documents

  Pfizer’s internal documents, obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, show a 118-fold increase in the concentration of LNPs from the time of injection to 48 hours.

  “The LNP’s are known to include toxic substances including polyethylene glycol and pseudo-uridinated mRNA. The limited number of ovum in the ovaries (about 1 million) are exposed to potentially toxic substances and could potentially have catastrophic effects on human reproduction,” Thorp said.  

  “The stakeholders claimed that the pseudo-uridinated mRNA could not be reverse transcribed into the human DNA. This was misinformation,” he added, referring to a Swedish study published in February 2022 that concluded that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is able to enter human liver cells and is converted into DNA.

  Thorp and former Pfizer VP Michael Yeadon believe that the medical industrial complex had unequivocal evidence on the vaccine’s danger in pregnant women.

  “This is proven not only by VAERS but also by Pfizer’s own internal document ‘Pfizer 5.3.6 post-marketing experience’” Thorp said.

  Within the first 90 days of trials, there were 1,223 deaths, multiple severe adverse effects, and a 45 percent complication rate in pregnancy cases (274) that occurred in vaccinated mothers (124).

  The 2012 study, mentioned by Thorp earlier, says that after testing with different mouse species and Wistar rats, “a high local accumulation of nanoparticles, nanocapsules and nanoemulsions in specific locations of the ovaries was found in all animals.”

  Yeadon believes that the pharmaceutical industry “definitely knew,” since 2012, that the lipid nanoparticles would accumulate in the ovaries of women that took the vaccines.

  “No one in the industry or in leading media could claim ‘they didn’t know about these risks to successful pregnancy,’” Yeadon told The Epoch Times in April.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 15:30

• NHTSA Investigating Potential Tesla Autopilot Crashes That Left Two Motorcyclists Dead
  NHTSA Investigating Potential Tesla Autopilot Crashes That Left Two Motorcyclists Dead

  In the midst of an already ongoing investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot and Full-Self Driving claims, the NHTSA is now investigating two new accidents involving Teslas that took place over the last month.

  The Tesla’s were “apparently running on Autopilot”, according to APs coverage of the story. The accidents wound up killing 2 motorcyclists, the report says. The NHTSA is now looking at whether or not Tesla vehicle automation stops the vehicles for motorcycles. 

  Both accidents were similar in nature: the NHTSA said it “sent investigation teams to two crashes last month in which Teslas collided with motorcycles on freeways in the darkness”. In both instances, the motorcyclists were killed. 

  The agency now has suspicions “that Tesla’s partially automated driver-assist system was in use” during both accidents. 

  

  The first accident was at 4:47am, July 7 on State Route 91, on a freeway in Riverside, California, the report says. A Model Y collided with a green Yamaha V-Star motorcycle that was ahead of it and the driver of the bike was ejected from his motorcycle. 

  Another crash happened at 1:09am on July 24,  on Interstate 15 near Draper, Utah. A Model 3 was behind a Harley Davidson, the Utah Department of Public Safety said. 

  “The driver of the Tesla did not see the motorcyclist and collided with the back of the motorcycle, which threw the rider from the bike,” the statement says. The rider of the Harley was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver told authorities he had Autopilot on, the report says. 

  Michael Brooks, acting executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, has been pushing for a recall of Tesla’s Autopilot. He concluded: “It’s pretty clear to me, and it should be to a lot of Tesla owners by now, this stuff isn’t working properly and it’s not going to live up to the expectations, and it is putting innocent people in danger on the roads.”

  The investigations add another layer of scrutiny on Tesla’s flagship vehicle selling point by regulators. While Elon Musk continues to deal with Chancery Court in Delaware over his Twitter deal, he is also being scrutinized by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any blow to the company’s Autopilot feature, including a potential recall, could wind up having profound financial consequences for the automaker. 

  So far, however, regulators have sat idly by on their hands – and so the game of “chicken” with Elon Musk continues…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 15:00

• CDC Suggests Gay, Bi Men Take "Temporary Break" From Sex To Curb Monkeypox Spread
  CDC Suggests Gay, Bi Men Take “Temporary Break” From Sex To Curb Monkeypox Spread

  Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times,

  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday updated its monkeypox advice to suggest people most at risk, namely men who have sex with men, “take a temporary break” from those behaviors to help “contain … the outbreak.”

  

  Among the updates are suggestions that people “take a temporary break” from sexual activity until considered vaccinated; limit their number of sexual partners; avoid “spaces” for anonymous sex with multiple partners; use condoms; and wear gloves during particular sexual activities.

  These five suggestions to reduce the chance of spread were added to the seven that appeared on the webpage when it was updated on July 12. In that previous update, the CDC offered suggestions for sexual activities for people who have (or think they have) “monkeypox and … decide to have sex.”

  Friday’s update contains stronger messaging, with the CDC now saying “the best way to protect yourself and others is to avoid sex of any kind … while you are sick.” People should especially “avoid touching any rash.”

  Public Health Emergency

  The updates come a day after the Biden administration declared a public health emergency for monkeypox in a bid to unlock funding and more powers to deal with the virus. Some states, including New York, California, and Indiana, have declared their own public health emergencies for similar reasons.

  

  The stages of Monkeypox. (UK Health Security Agency)

  The updated advice appears on the CDC’s “Safer Sex, Social Gatherings, and Monkeypox” webpage which contains detailed and specific information tailored to lowering the risk of transmission during particular sexual activities.

  “While CDC works to contain the current monkeypox outbreak and learn more about the virus, this information can help you make informed choices when you are in situations or places where monkeypox could be spread,” reads a statement on the webpage which wasn’t there in July.

  “Monkeypox is not considered a sexually transmitted disease, but it is often transmitted through close, sustained physical contact, which can include sexual contact.”

  The CDC has also advised people to consider the chances of skin-to-skin contact when attending festivals or raves.

  “Festivals, events, and concerts where attendees are fully clothed and unlikely to share skin-to-skin contact are safer. However, attendees should be mindful of activities (like kissing) that might spread monkeypox,” the CDC webpage reads.

  “A rave, party, or club where there is minimal clothing and where there is direct, personal, often skin-to-skin contact has some risk. Avoid any rash you see on others and consider minimizing skin-to-skin contact.”

  The CDC especially noted the increased risk of spread at these events in “enclosed spaces” where people go for “intimate, often anonymous sexual contact with multiple partners.”

  LGBT Community Outreach

  The White House has identified a vital need for education about monkeypox and outreach to the LGBT community, which is most affected by the outbreak, in order to combat the virus.

  White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday that there is a need to make sure the LGBT community and public health officials “know exactly what to look for and what the treatment is.”

  The CDC’s updated suggestions come three days after President Joe Biden picked Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who runs the CDC’s HIV prevention division, as one of two officials to lead the nation’s response to the monkeypox outbreak.

  Daskalakis, who will be deputy to FEMA’s Robert Fenton, has expertise with issues that impact the LGBT community, making him an appropriate pick, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief medical adviser.

  

  Dr. Demetre Daskalakis speaks at the press conference for New York City Pride on June 27, 2021. (John Lamparski/Getty Images)

  The 2022 monkeypox outbreak has so far primarily spread via the sexual activity of gay and bisexual men, a major study has found. The virus can also spread through contaminated bedding, clothing, towels, according to the CDC and World Health Organization.

  After the United States’ fifth pediatric monkeypox case was reported in Long Beach on Thursday, a Californian health department has also said transmission can occur via household items such as cups and utensils.

  The CDC’s updated webpage for safer sex amid the monkeypox outbreak noted that vaccines will be “an important tool in preventing the spread of monkeypox.”

  “But given the current limited supply of vaccine, consider temporarily changing some behaviors that may increase your risk of being exposed,” the webpage reads. “These temporary changes will help slow the spread of monkeypox until vaccine supply is adequate.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 08/06/2022 – 14:30

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