September
13, 2021
7:58 PM
By Erwin
Seba
HOUSTON (Reuters) -Tropical storm
Nicholas strengthened into a hurricane late on Monday, and is set to batter the
Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana with rising seawater and rains that could
cause widespread and life-threatening flooding.
The hurricane, carrying winds of 75 mph (120
kph), was about 45 miles (75 kms) southwest of Freeport Texas, the National
Hurricane Center (NHC) said in a bulletin on Monday night.
Nicholas was bringing heavy rains, strong
winds, and storm surges to portions of the central and upper Texas coasts, the
center said.
“It will be a very slow-moving storm across
the state of Texas that will linger for several days and drop a tremendous amount
of rain,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Monday afternoon. “People in the
region need to be prepared for extreme high-water events.”
Abbott said he will declare states of
emergency in 17 counties and three cities across coastal Texas, adding that
boat and helicopter rescue teams have been deployed or placed on standby.
Rainfall totals of up to 16 inches (40.6 cm)
and possibly 20 inches in some isolated areas were forecast for parts of Texas
through Wednesday. As Nicholas moves northeast, it was expected to dump as much
as 10 inches on parts of south central Louisiana and southern Mississippi
through Thursday, the NHC said.
The National Weather Service issued storm
surge, flood and tropical storm warnings and watches throughout the region,
calling it a “life-threatening situation.”
ON THE HEELS OF
IDA Nicholas is the second hurricane in as many
weeks to threaten the U.S. Gulf Coast. Hurricane Ida wreaked havoc here
in late August, killing more than two dozen people as it devastated communities
in Louisiana near New Orleans.
“We want to make sure that no one is caught
off guard by this storm,” Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said at a news
briefing on Monday afternoon. “Heavy rainfall will be the primary concern.”
Edwards warned that drainage systems still
clogged with debris from Ida and other recent storms may not be able to handle
the expected deluge of rainwater, causing flash flooding.
More
https://www.reuters.com/article/storm-nicholas/update-3-nicholas-strengthens-to-hurricane-as-u-s-gulf-coast-braces-for-flooding-idUSL1N2QF1ZT
Finally, “The New Great
Game” resumes and travels East with a new/old player. In North Korea news, is NK finally firmly in
the nuclear club of Russia, China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, the UK and
USA?
The new missiles may
not be quite as good as media hyped, but with even a small nuke at the tip, do you feel lucky, well do you?
N.Korea tests first 'strategic'
cruise missile with possible nuclear capability September 13, 20215:47 AM BST
SEOUL, Sept 13 (Reuters) - North Korea carried out
successful tests of a new long-range cruise missile over the weekend, state
media said on Monday, seen by analysts as possibly the country's first such
weapon with a nuclear capability.
The missiles are "a strategic weapon of great
significance" and flew 1,500 km (930 miles) before hitting their targets
and falling into the country's territorial waters during the tests on Saturday
and Sunday, KCNA said.
The latest test highlighted steady progress in Pyongyang's weapons programme amid a
gridlock over talks aimed at dismantling the North's nuclear and ballistic
missile programmes in return for U.S. sanctions relief. The talks have stalled
since 2019.
North Korea's cruise missiles usually generate less
interest than ballistic missiles because they are not explicitly banned under
U.N. Nations Security Council Resolutions.
"This would be the first cruise missile in North
Korea to be explicitly designated a 'strategic' role," said Ankit Panda, a
senior fellow at the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
"This is a common euphemism for nuclear-capable system."
It is unclear whether North Korea has mastered the
technology needed to build warheads small enough to be carried on a cruise
missile, but leader Kim Jong Un said earlier this year that developing smaller
bombs is a top goal.
More
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/nkorea-test-fires-long-range-cruise-missile-kcna-2021-09-12/
EXPLAINER: Missile tests renew
North Korea’s regional threat By KIM
TONG-HYUNG September 13, 2021
---- Experts say the missiles launched over the
weekend resemble in appearance U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles, and are likely
designed to overwhelm the missile defenses of North Korea’s neighbors.
The North said the missiles it described as
“new type long-range cruise missiles” were a “strategic weapon of great
significance” that met leader Kim Jong Un’s call to strengthen the country’s
military might — implying that they were being developed with an intent to
carry nuclear weapons.
Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency
said Monday that the missiles traveled for 126 minutes along “oval and
pattern-8 flight orbits” above land and water, demonstrating an ability to hit
targets 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) away.
While North Korea had tested anti-ship cruise
missiles before, the missiles from its latest tests are likely built with
different designs and engines that provide improved range and maneuverability,
experts say.
A NEW THREAT
While data from the tests are so far limited,
it’s clear the new missiles represent “another significant milestone for North
Korea’s nuclear program,” said Melissa Hanham, an affiliate at Stanford
University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.
North Korea’s rulers are likely moving toward
putting their cruise missiles on submarines and other naval vessels, Hanham
added, as they try producing new delivery mechanisms for nuclear weapons.
---- While Kim has maintained the suspension on
nuclear and long-range tests after his talks with Trump collapsed in 2019, the
North has since tested a growing arsenal of short-range solid-fuel weapons
fired from land-based launchers.
Experts say those weapons threaten South Korea
and Japan because they can be launched quickly from vehicles and travel at
flattened trajectories that make them harder for defense systems to detect and
intercept.
TECH PROBLEMS
While the new cruise missiles potentially
expand North Korea’s capacities to attack its Asian rivals, the information
released by its official news agency signaled a need for technological
improvements, said Lee Choon Geun, a missile expert and honorary research
fellow at South Korea’s Science and Technology Policy Institute.
The weapons were slow, even from the standard
of cruise missiles, traveling at roughly 200 meters (218 yards) per second.
It’s also unclear whether North Korea has precise computerized data of South
Korea’s geographical features or an ability to communicate that information to
its missiles, so that they could navigate the terrain and find their targets.
Accuracy issues will matter less if the North
acquires the ability to arm the missiles with miniaturized nuclear warheads,
Lee added.
More
https://apnews.com/article/technology-japan-business-south-korea-nuclear-weapons-4e2a3a671bd94a6e168dfa3018ade4b9
The Geographical Pivot of History "The Geographical Pivot of History "
is an article submitted by Halford John Mackinder in 1904 to the Royal Geographical Society that advances
his heartland theory.[1] [2] [3] geopolitical
analysis to encompass the entire globe.
---- Any power which controlled the World-Island would
control well over 50% of the world's resources. The Heartland's size and
central position made it the key to controlling the World-Island.
The vital question was how to secure control for the
Heartland. This question may seem pointless, since in 1904 the Russian
Empire had ruled most of the area from the Volga to Eastern Siberia for
centuries. But throughout the nineteenth century:
The West
European powers had combined, usually successfully, in the Great
Game to prevent Russian expansion . The
Russian Empire was huge but socially, politically and technologically
backward – i.e. inferior in "virility, equipment and
organization". Mackinder held that effective political domination of the
Heartland by a single power had been unattainable in the past because:
The
Heartland was protected from sea power by ice to the north and mountains
and deserts to the south. Previous
land invasions from east to west and vice versa were unsuccessful because
lack of efficient transportation made it impossible to assure a continual
stream of men and supplies. He outlined the following ways in which the Heartland might
become a springboard for global domination in the twentieth century (Sempa,
2000):
Successful
invasion of Russia by a West European nation (most probably Germany ).
Mackinder believed that the introduction of the railroad
had removed the Heartland's invulnerability to land invasion. As Eurasia
began to be covered by an extensive network of railroads, there was an
excellent chance that a powerful continental nation could extend its
political control over the Eastern
European gateway to the Eurasian landmass. In Mackinder's words,
"Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland." More
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_History
“Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.”
Edmund Burke.
As we just saw in
Afghanistan.
Global Inflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our
spendthrift politicians, inflation now
needs an entire section of its own.
Inflation may be transitory or temporary, but short of a
new depression, not on planet Earth.
METALS-Soaring aluminium hits
$3,000 for first time since 2008 September 13, 2021 12:12 PM
LONDON, Sept 13 (Reuters) -
Aluminium prices rose to $3,000 a tonne for the first time since 2008 on Monday
as restrictions on output in China, the biggest producer, fuel fears that
supply will run short.
Prices of the lightweight metal used
in packaging and construction have leaped 50% this year and 15% in only three
weeks as speculators pile into the market.
The benchmark contract on the London
Metal Exchange (LME) was up 0.7% at $2,943.50 a tonne at 1045 GMT after
touching $3,000.
Factors fuelling the rally include
the Chinese output cuts, a rapid increase in the price of alumina, from which
aluminium is made, dwindling exchange stockpiles and strong demand, said
Gianclaudio Torlizzi at consultants T-Commodity.
“It’s very, very hard to be
bearish,” he said.
The pace of the rally means a correction
is likely in the short term, he added, “but the trend is definitely higher”.
CHINA: Yunnan province, home to
about 10% of China’s aluminium capacity, has told smelters using hydropower to
keep average monthly output for September-December at August volumes or lower,
a government document shows.
Yunnan aluminium smelters had
already shut down nearly 1 million tonnes of annual capacity by August,
researcher Antaike said this month.
ALUMINA: Futures of the aluminium
ingredient on the Comex exchange have surged 20% this month to $365 a tonne.
INVENTORIES: Aluminium inventories
in LME-registered warehouses have fallen 33% since March to 1.3 million tonnes
and stocks in Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE) stores have slumped 42% to
228,529 tonnes since April. AL-STX-SGHMALSTX-TOTAL
More
https://www.reuters.com/article/global-metals/metals-soaring-aluminium-hits-3000-for-first-time-since-2008-idUSL1N2QF0PY
Shipping
Options Dry Up as Businesses Try to Rebuild From Pandemic
The top six container
operators control nearly three-fourths of all ship space, giving cargo owners
fewer options; ‘Our hands are tied’
Sept. 12, 2021 5:30 am ET
A wave of shipping consolidation over the past five years
is adding to the supply-chain woes
A handful of big shipping players control the majority of
containers via giant vessels, leaving the world with fewer routes, fewer
smaller ships and fewer ports that could keep the flow of goods moving when the
pandemic disrupted operations, according to cargo owners and freight
forwarders, who secure ship space to move cargo.
The top six container operators control more than 70% of
all container capacity, according to maritime data provider Alphaliner. As
businesses try to restock after the lifting of the Covid-19 restrictions, they are paying at least four times more to move their
products
“A few years ago we would get a half-dozen competitive
freight offers from shipping companies within a couple of hours,” said Mark
Murray, owner of DeSales Trading Co., a North Carolina-based importer of rubber
threads and elastic bands. “Now it’s a couple of days to get an offer from one
of the big boys, you have to pay crazy freight rates and your shipment is
months late. Our hands are tied.”
The shipping industry consolidated between 2016 and 2018
Among other factors driving the consolidation were a surge
in Asian manufacturing and demands by cargo owners to keep transport costs
under control.
The big liners have also formed three global alliances that
share ships, cargo and port calls. Some smaller operators have joined in giving
those groups control over the vast majority of available capacity.
---- Covid-19 highlighted the fragility of the new
supply-chain model in times of stress. Outbreaks over the summer at big export hubs
Unlike in the pre-consolidation era, when shippers could
call on a range of small- and medium-size operators to help them manage through
disruptions, cargo owners say they have largely had to choose between long
waits and crippling costs.
More
https://www.wsj.com/articles/shipping-options-dry-up-as-businesses-try-to-rebuild-from-pandemic-11631439002?mod=mhp
From zippers to glass, shortages
of basic goods hobble U.S. economy September
13, 202111:24 AM BST
FLETCHER, N.C., Sept 13 (Reuters) -
For Lauren Rash, it’s the little things that have snarled production at her
tent factory here, like the many shades of black Velcro.
Her company, Diamond Brand, just
launched a new line of high-end wall tents called the Liminal, thick with vents
and fasteners demanded by discerning campers. But that means using lots of
Velcro. And that’s a problem, because black Velcro comes in many shades,
depending on the type of raw plastic resin used to make it.
“If I have older stock and put it
with new,” the colors won’t match, said Rash. “Black is not black is not
black.”
Before supply chain breakdowns and
shortages swept the world in the wake the COVID pandemic, buying the bits and
pieces for an assembly line was often as easy as clicking a button and waiting
a few days or, at most, a few weeks for delivery.
Not anymore.
Shortages of metals, plastics, wood
and even liquor bottles are now the norm.
The upshot is a world where buyers
must wait for delivery of items that were once plentiful, if they can get them
at all. Rash has piles of tents she can’t ship because she can’t get the right
aluminum tubing for their frames, for instance, while others lack the right
zippers.
Along with the shortages come hefty
price increases, which has fueled fears of a wave of sustained inflation.
More
https://www.reuters.com/world/the-great-reboot/zippers-glass-shortages-basic-goods-hobble-us-economy-2021-09-13/
Energy Prices in Europe Hit
Records After Wind Stops Blowing Heavy reliance on wind power, coupled
with a shortage of natural gas, has led to a spike in energy prices
Sept. 13, 2021 6:17 am ET
Natural gas and electricity markets were already surging in
Europe when a fresh catalyst emerged: The wind in the stormy North Sea stopped
blowing.
The sudden slowdown in wind-driven electricity production
off the coast of the U.K. in recent weeks whipsawed through regional energy
markets. Gas and coal-fired electricity plants were called in to make up the
shortfall from wind.
Natural-gas prices, already boosted by the pandemic
recovery and a lack of fuel in storage caverns and tanks, hit all-time
highs. Thermal coal, long shunned for its carbon emissions, has emerged from a
long price slump as utilities are forced to turn on backup power sources.
The episode underscored the precarious state the region’s
energy markets face heading into the long European winter. The electricity
price shock was most acute in the U.K., which has leaned on wind farms to eradicate net carbon emissions by 2050. Prices for carbon
credits, which electricity producers need to burn fossil fuels, are at records,
too.
More
https://www.wsj.com/articles/energy-prices-in-europe-hit-records-after-wind-stops-blowing-11631528258
Covid-19 Corner
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Seriously ill COVID-19 patients
double in vaccine pace-setter Singapore by Reuters Monday, 13 September 2021 11:28 GMT
SINGAPORE, Sept 13 (Reuters) - The
rapid pace of new COVID-19 infections and a doubling of seriously ill patients
in Singapore have raised unexpected hurdles to reopening plans for the
vaccination frontrunner, where 81% of the population is fully vaccinated.
Singapore, one of the fastest in the
world to reach that level, has seen its inoculation rates plateau, and this
month paused its gradual reopening plans, spooked by daily infections that
returned to one-year peaks this month.
Infections over the weekend were
more than a combined 1,000 cases, a tenfold increase from a month ago. Many
experts, though, are not overly concerned about the rise in infections because
of the low number of serious cases and Singapore's high vaccination percentage.
The number of patients requiring
oxygen, however, doubled to a record 54 on Sunday from two days before, an
important gauge to judge whether the medical system could get overwhelmed.
The number of patients in intensive
care units (ICU) have held at a low seven. Around 300 ICU beds are available
and that could be increased to 1,000.
Many nations that have kept
infections low and are considering taking steps to return to some normalcy once
they achieve high vaccination rates are closely watching how the situation
develops in Singapore.
With most of those aged 12 and older
already vaccinated, Singapore is now considering a third shot for younger
adults and may start inoculating children early next year. This week it will
start boosters to the elderly and immunocompromised groups.
More
https://news.trust.org/item/20210913112754-w5k94
Chinese city imposes travel
curbs, closes public venues in new COVID-19 outbreak September
13, 202111:26 AM BST
BEIJING, Sept 13 (Reuters) - A city
in China's southeastern province of Fujian has closed cinemas and gyms, sealed
off some entries and exits to highways and told residents not to leave town as
it battles a local COVID-19 outbreak.
The virus situation in the city of
Putian is "serious and complex" and it is very likely more new cases
will emerge in communities, schools and factories, state broadcaster CCTV said
on Monday.
Certain offline lessons in schools
have also been suspended in Putian and China's national health authority has
sent a team of experts to the city, which has a population of 3.2 million.
A total of 43 local cases had been
reported in Fujian between Sept. 10 and Sept. 12, including 35 in Putian, data
from the National Health Commission (NHC) shows.
Another 32 asymptomatic cases, which
China does not count as confirmed cases before they show clinical signs such as
fever, have been detected in the province since Sept. 10, all in Putian city.
As of Sept. 12, mainland China,
where COVID-19 first emerged in late 2019, had recorded 95,248 confirmed cases,
with a cumulative death toll of 4,636.
China's last outbreak, which
affected mainly Jiangsu, ended about two weeks ago, with no new local cases
reported in the eastern province. That outbreak lasted a month.
Preliminary testing on samples from
some Putian cases showed patients had contracted the highly transmissible Delta
variant, a local health official said on Saturday.
The
first few infections, found during routine testing, were elementary students in
Xianyou county in Putian. Experts suspected the source of the outbreak might be
a student's parent who had travelled to the county from nearby Xiamen city
after arriving from Singapore, state media reported on Saturday.
More
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-reports-49-new-coronavirus-cases-sept-12-vs-46-day-ago-2021-09-13/
Virus eventually might behave like a routine illness but
getting there will be difficult, as the
spread of the Delta variant shows Sept. 12, 2021 5:30 am ET
Covid-19 may become a routine illness like a common cold or
the flu one day, virologists and epidemiologists say. But it will take a lot to
get there, and the ferocious spread of the Delta variant that is filling
hospitals again shows how treacherous that path could be.
More than 20 months after the pandemic began, people around
the world are having to change the way they think about a disease
The supercontagious Delta variant even in countries like Australia
Among the most contagious of known disease-causing pathogens,
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is now zeroing in on people who
haven’t been vaccinated, pushing hospitalizations and deaths
While surges are easing in some states, cases are rising
“This virus will never leave us,” Catherine O’Neal, chief
medical officer of Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge,
La., said during a long recent day caring for Covid-19 patients. The hospital
is in its biggest surge since the beginning of the pandemic
More
https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-could-become-like-the-flu-if-more-people-get-vaccinated-11631439002?mod=mhp
Next, some vaccine links
kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada. The links come from a most
informative update from Stanford Hospital in California.
World
Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines . https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines
NY
Times Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker . https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html
Regulatory
Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker . https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker
Some other useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus
resource centre
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Rt Covid-19
https://rt.live/
Centers for Disease Control
Coronavirus
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
The Spectator
https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/national
Technology Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Updates as they get reported.
World-first
resurfacing project mixes graphene into freshly laid UK road By Nick Lavars September 12, 2021
One
of the many areas graphene promises to have transformative effects is in
fortifying construction materials like concrete and asphalt. A first-of-a-kind
trial now underway seeks to apply the wonder material's impressive attributes
to one of the UK's major thoroughfares, by deploying it in a road resurfacing
project along a stretch of the A1 motorway.
Made
up of a single sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern, graphene
offers incredible strength and flexibility, and by incorporating it into
materials like asphalt scientists hope to develop road surfaces that last far
longer, and therefore cost less to maintain.
Back in 2017 we looked at an interesting take on this from
a pair of Italian companies that developed an asphalt
material doped with a graphene additive to make it less likely to soften in
the heat and crack in the cold under high loads. This product, known as Gipave,
also incorporates plastic pellets and was recently rolled out along stretches
of UK roads as part of trials to see how it can extend the lifespan of the
surface.
As reported by the BBC ,
this new trial differs in that National Highways will be adding the graphene to
the mix on site. The road authority will scrape up the existing asphalt along a
three-mile (4.8-km) section of the A1 in the north, add in the raw graphene on
site and then apply the fresh mixture to the surface, a technique it bills as a
world-first.
"Laboratory trials have been a success and the on-site
trials in Northumberland will be a world first use of graphene in road
production, which enforces our commitment to innovation and helps to push the
industry towards more carbon-friendly maintenance with longer-lasting solutions
which we all benefit from," says National Highways Asset Needs Manager
Graeme Watt.
The trials are being carried out with researchers at the
University of Manchester, where graphene was first isolated back in 2004. Since
then, scientists at the university have continued to uncover exciting
new properties of the material and broaden its applications, which recently
included putting it to use as the world's
first graphene-enhanced concrete slab .
The "revolutionary" resurfacing project is due
for completion on November 3, with its performance to then be monitored to see
how it prolongs the lifespan of the road.
Source: National Highways
https://newatlas.com/materials/world-first-resurfacing-graphene-uk-road/?utm_source=New+Atlas+Subscribers&utm_campaign=64c11fafda-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_09_13_08_04&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-64c11fafda-90625829
Banks are an almost irresistible
attraction for that element of our society which seeks unearned money.
J. Edgar
Hoover.
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