Thursday 24 February 2022

War. World War Three?

 Baltic Dry Index. 2244 +103 Brent Crude 102.02

Spot Gold 1943

Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000

Deaths 53,100

Coronavirus Cases 24/02/22 World 430,205,987

Deaths 5,936,879

On escalations in Ukraine, Goldman Sachs said in a Wednesday report that the impact on energy prices should be limited. “While Europe imports a large share of its natural gas consumption from Russia, the US is a net exporter of natural gas and any spillover effects on US gas prices should be modest,” analysts at the Wall Street bank said.

“Our commodities strategists also expect only a modest impact on oil prices, though they see the risks as skewed to the upside because the oil market is already tight.”

Diplomacy having failed, not that the west ever really tried to allay Russia’s fears of NATO encirclement in Ukraine, Russia attacked Ukraine in the early hours of Thursday February 24, 2022.

In the stock casinos, panic. In commodities, an oil, natural gas and safe haven gold surge.

In the mass media, spin and official propaganda.

On Wall Street and in the City of London, everyone’s down talking the likely fallout.

In reality, no one knows what happens next.

Will it be a short war with Russia satisfied with modest objectives? I think that unlikely.

Will it be the opening phase of World War Three? Possibly, but unlikely at least for now.

Will it be inflationary? Certainly, especially in the food chain and probably in metals and energy. In Chicago the price of corn [maize] and wheat has already soared.

So for today and tomorrow, at least, time to stand back and await accurate reports of what is really happening in the Ukraine.

Hopefully by Sunday we will have a better picture of our new European war.

Of course, it didn’t have to be this way. Washington and London used the Ukraine for their own purposes against Russia, just don’t expect to see that in mainstream media.

When it’s all over, remember it’s the victors who write the history.

Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

MOSCOW/KYIV, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Russian forces fired missiles at several Ukrainian cities and landed troops on its south coast on Thursday, officials and media said, after President Vladimir Putin authorised what he called a special military operation in the east.

Shortly after Putin spoke in a televised address on Russian state TV, explosions could be heard in the pre-dawn quiet of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. Gunfire rattled near the capital's main airport, the Interfax news agency said.

"Putin has just launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Peaceful Ukrainian cities are under strikes," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter.

"This is a war of aggression. Ukraine will defend itself and will win. The world can and must stop Putin. The time to act is now."

U.S. President Joe Biden said his prayers were with the people of Ukraine "as they suffer an unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces".

Russia has been demanding an end to NATO's eastward expansion.

Putin said he had authorised the special military operation in breakaway areas of eastern Ukraine after Russia had been left with no choice but to defend itself against what he said were threats emanating from modern Ukraine.

"Russia cannot feel safe, develop, and exist with a constant threat emanating from the territory of modern Ukraine," Putin said. "All responsibility for bloodshed will be on the conscience of the ruling regime in Ukraine." read more

More.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-orders-military-operations-ukraine-demands-kyiv-forces-surrender-2022-02-24/

Asia markets fall as Russia attacks Ukraine; oil and gold prices pop

SINGAPORE — Oil futures jumped and Asia-Pacific shares fell on Thursday as investors watched the escalating situation between Russia and Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a public address that he had authorized a military operation in Ukraine, and NBC News reported explosions were heard in Kyiv.

U.S. crude futures rose 4.36% to trade at $96.12 per barrel in Asia on Thursday. The international benchmark Brent crude futures climbed by 4.34% to $101.04 per barrel, crossing the $100 level for the first time since 2014.

Spot gold, traditionally a safe haven in times of uncertainty, rose 1.64% and last traded at $1,938.81.

Markets across Asia were in negative territory.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 declined by 2.20%, while the Topix slid by 1.75%.

South Korea’s Kospi was down 2.78%, and the Kosdaq dropped 3.29%. The Bank of Korea kept interest rates unchanged at 1.25% at its meeting on Thursday. However, it predicted that consumer price inflation will run “substantially above 3% for a considerable time.”

The Shanghai composite in mainland China fell 0.89% and the Shenzhen component dropped 1.37%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down more than 3%. Shares of Chinese artificial intelligence firm SenseTime Group plunged 10.7% after Hang Seng Indexes announced that its weighting in the Hang Seng Tech index when it is included in March would be 0.24%, revised down from 3.94%.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 2.94%, with banks, miners and oil stocks largely down.

More

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/24/asia-markets-russia-ukraine-crisis-bank-of-korea-currencies.html

Dow futures drop 600 points after Russia announces military action against Ukraine

U.S. stock futures fell sharply early Thursday as Russia launched an attack on Ukraine.

Dow futures fell 674 points, or 2.04%, while futures tied to the S&P 500 were down 1.84%. Nasdaq 100 futures declined 2.25%.

Meanwhile, oil prices popped, with West Texas Intermediate futures trading 4.77% higher at $96.49 per barrel. Global benchmark Brent jumped 4.72% to $101.41 per barrel, passing the $100 level for the first time since 2014.

Those moves came as Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would launch a military action in Ukraine. Shortly after that announcement, NBC News reported that explosions were heard in Kyiv.

President Joe Biden condemned the attack, saying in a statement that “the world hold Russia accountable.”

“Russia alone is responsible for the death and destruction this attack will bring, and the United States and its Allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive way,” Biden said.

The news came after another downbeat market session on Wall Street, as traders grappled with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.

In the regular trading session, the Dow dropped about 464 points, or 1.3%. The S&P 500 fell 1.8%, moving deeper into correction and ending the day about 12% from its Jan. 3 record close. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 2.6%.

Stocks have struggled recently, as the prospects of tighter Federal Reserve monetary policy have also dented investor sentiment.

“Market volatility is normal, but the truth is that the decline we have seen so far is much less than might have been expected,” said Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial Network. “That is due to the strength of the fundamentals, which should continue.”

More

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/23/stock-futures-are-little-changed-after-dow-sinks-to-its-lowest-level-of-the-year-amid-ukraine-crisis.html

Oil prices pop 4% as Russia launches attack on Ukraine; Brent hits $100 for first time since 2014

Oil prices popped more than 4% on news of the military operation on news that Russia was launching a military attack in Ukraine.

U.S. crude futures jumped by 4.73% to trade at $96.46 per barrel.

Brent crude futures were up 4.69% at $101.93 per barrel, crossing the $100 level for the first time since 2014.

Natural gas prices jumped 4.7%. Spot gold, traditionally seen as a safe-haven asset, rose 1.82% and last traded at $1,942.26.

Explosions were heard in Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv, NBC News reported.

The United Nations Security Council met in New York late Wednesday as representatives from member states pleaded with Putin not to attack Ukraine.

Putin warned other countries that there would be “consequences they have never seen,” if there’s an attempt to interfere with Russia’s action, Reuters reported.

On escalations in Ukraine, Goldman Sachs said in a Wednesday report that the impact on energy prices should be limited. “While Europe imports a large share of its natural gas consumption from Russia, the US is a net exporter of natural gas and any spillover effects on US gas prices should be modest,” analysts at the Wall Street bank said.

“Our commodities strategists also expect only a modest impact on oil prices, though they see the risks as skewed to the upside because the oil market is already tight.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/24/oil-prices-jump-as-russia-launches-attack-on-ukraine.html

Qatar says "almost impossible" to quickly replace Russian supplies to Europe

Tue, February 22, 2022, 11:28 AM

By Maha El Dahan, Andrew Mills and Marwa Rashad

DOHA/LONDON (Reuters) - Neither Qatar nor any other single country has the capacity to replace Russian gas supplies to Europe with liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the event of disruption due to a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Qatar's energy minister said on Tuesday.

With most of Qatari volumes are locked into long-term contracts mostly to Asian buyers, the amount of divertable volumes that can be shipped to Europe is only 10-15%, Saad al-Kaabi added.

Kaabi's comments renewed concerns over Europe's security of gas supplies as tensions escalated between Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday after Moscow ordered troops into two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine.

"Russia (provides) I think 30-40% of the supply to Europe. There is no single country that can replace that kind of volume, there isn’t the capacity to do that from LNG," Kaabi told reporters at a gas conference in Doha.

"Most of the LNG are tied to long-term contracts and destinations that are very clear. So, to replace that sum of volume that quickly is almost impossible," he said.

The United States and its European allies are set to announce fresh sanctions against Russia after President Vladimir Putin formally recognised the independence of the two regions in eastern Ukraine. The sanctions could affect the Russian flow of gas into Europe.

Germany on Tuesday halted the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea gas pipeline project, designed to double the flow of Russian gas direct to Germany. The move sent gas prices higher on Tuesday

Qatar and other countries such as Japan have recently been approached by the United States to reroute gas supplies to Europe in case conflict escalates.

Sources told Reuters that Qatari LNG exports have been lower over the past few days as two of its mega trains have been down, another factor that could limit the spare amount to be sent to Europe.

Japan said earlier this month it will divert some LNG cargoes to Europe after requests from the United States and the European Union.

However, the few cargoes that arrived to Europe were cargoes already scheduled under a joint venture between Japan's JERA and France's EDF and there was no incremental added supply.

Currently facing a cold spell that has depleted LNG inventories, Japan is experiencing re-stocking demand and so it needs more LNG supply.

"We’ve not seen anything concrete happen to supply yet. That could obviously change, but clearly, Qatar and Japan will be limited in their ability to help with extra cargoes if Europe loses access to Russian gas," said Robert Songer, LNG analyst at commodities intelligence firm ICIS.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/qatar-says-almost-impossible-quickly-112825875.html

Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.

Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians,  inflation now needs an entire section of its own.

Home prices skyrocketed last year. Two regions saw the biggest increases

By Anna Bahney, CNN Business Updated 1707 GMT (0107 HKT) February 22, 2022

Home prices rose 18.8% in 2021, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index, the biggest increase in 34 years of data and substantially ahead of 2020's 10.4% gain.

All regions saw price gains last year, but increases were strongest in the South and the Southeast, each of which were up over 25%.

Phoenix, Tampa and Miami reported the highest annual gains among the 20 cities in the index in December. Phoenix led the way for the 31st consecutive month with prices 32.5% higher than the year before. It was followed by Tampa with a 29.4% increase, and Miami, with a 27.3% increase. 

"We continue to see very strong growth at the city level," said Craig J. Lazzara, managing director at S&P Dow Jones Indices. "All 20 cities saw price increases in 2021, and prices in all 20 are at their all-time highs."

Affordability challenges

Over the past several months home prices have been rising at very high, but decelerating rates, said Lazzara. But that deceleration paused in December. After peaking at 19.8% in August, the annual price increase declined through the fall to 18.8% in November, where it stayed in December.

Month-to-month, home prices in the US National Index, which covers all nine U.S. Census divisions, increased 1.3% in December from November, after seasonal adjustment.

Lazzara said the strength of the US housing market is being driven, in part, by Americans who decided to move during the pandemic.

A persistent low inventory of homes dropped to record low levels in December, according to a recent report from the National Association of Realtors. In the face of continued strong demand, prices were pushed higher. Newly constructed homes are in the pipeline, but a long-running shortage, combined with the lingering effects of the pandemic mean it will take years to meet demand.

More

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/22/homes/us-home-prices-case-shiller-december-2021/index.html

Russia-Ukraine tensions could ‘add to the food inflation,’ agricultural economist says

Tue, February 22, 2022, 8:06 PM

Wells Fargo Chief Agricultural Economist Michael Swanson joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss how inflation fueled by the Russia-Ukraine conflict could affect food prices and Russia's agricultural outputs.

---- So Michael, we know we're already grappling with high food prices, in fact, inflation, we know, at a 40-year high. So what could these kinds of disruptions do to food prices for us here in the US?

MICHAEL SWANSON: You know, it's-- we're going to be competing with other markets. Typically, we're not focused on growing wheat in this country, but with these types of prices and the moves that we've seen, we'll see acreage go into wheat to support those markets that can't access Ukraine or Russia. And obviously, when you reduce the supply here or increase the exports out, it's definitely only going to add to the food inflation in that category, which is a pretty important one to us.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: What in particular do you think we could see the biggest price spikes occur? I mean, is it-- you were just talking about wheat. Is that sort of the sweet spot? Because I know Ukraine has been referred to as sort of the breadbasket of the world.

MICHAEL SWANSON: Well, it's interesting because when you look at the numbers these days, Russia's kind crept up out of nowhere. In 2010, they were only about 6% of global production. Today, they're closer to 12%-- 11%, 12% in that range. And there's a lot of Middle Eastern, North African countries that are well aligned with them for logistics and trade patterns. And if they don't have access to that, either that or the Ukraine, they're going to have to shift. It's going to be Australia. It's going to be Canada. It's going to be the United States.

And that demand, like I said, it works its way through the farmers' planting decisions. And they're right in the heart of it right now. And so basically, if we devote more acres for those markets, there's less acreage for our markets. Right now, we see an incredible demand for edible oils from the biodiesel initiatives we're putting in place. We're seeing strong meat demand around the country and around the world as well. So something has to give to support that additional demand that's going to come from those markets.

More

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-ukraine-tensions-could-add-200645723.html

 

Covid-19 Corner

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

Public: I want the truth.

CDC: You can't handle the truth!

With apologies.

CDC withholding COVID data over fears of misinterpretation

By Emily Crane  February 22, 2022 10:07am

The CDC has admitted it is withholding large portions of COVID-19 data — including on vaccine boosters — from the public because it fears the information could be misinterpreted.

The leading public health agency has only published a small sample of the data it has been collecting — despite being two years into the pandemic, sources told the New York Times.

Kristen Nordlund, a CDC spokeswoman, said the reason for the slow release of data is “because basically, at the end of the day, it’s not yet ready for prime time.”

She added that the CDC’s “priority when gathering any data is to ensure that it’s accurate and actionable.”

But another reason is that the data could be misinterpreted by the public, Nordlund admitted.

Among the data that has been collected but not made public is hospitalizations broken down by age, race and vaccination status over the last year and information on the effectiveness of booster shots.

When the CDC released data on the effectiveness of boosters for adults younger than 65 two weeks ago, it did not include full numbers on those between 18 and 49.

That data showed the booster shots were least likely to benefit younger adults because two shots of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines, or one dose of Johnson & Johnson, already left them well protected.

The CDC has also only just started releasing data on whether COVID is present in wastewater — even though some states have been providing figures since the beginning of the pandemic. Wastewater data can help public health officials predict whether there will be an influx of COVID-19 cases.

According to one CDC official, Dr. Daniel Jernigan, the COVID pandemic has revealed how outdated the agency and other state-level health systems had become.

https://nypost.com/2022/02/22/cdc-withholding-covid-data-over-fears-of-misinterpretation/

Subscriber Exclusive

CDC shouldn’t be shielding COVID-19 data from the public (Editorial)

https://www.masslive.com/opinion/2022/02/cdc-shouldnt-be-shielding-covid-19-data-from-the-public-editorial.html

Covid infections plummet 90% from U.S. pandemic high, states lift mask mandates

Published Tue, Feb 22 2022 2:46 PM EST Updated Tue, Feb 22 2022 6:05 PM EST

U.S. health officials are optimistic, albeit cautiously, the country has turned the corner on the unprecedented wave of infection caused by the omicron Covid variant as new cases plummet 90% from a pandemic record set just five weeks ago.

As the nation emerges from the omicron wave, U.S. and state leaders are trying to mentally move past the crisis that has gripped everyone since the pandemic began two years ago. Public health leaders have begun rolling out plans to deal with the virus as a persistent but manageable risk in the future.

The U.S. is reporting about 84,000 new cases per day on average, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, down from a pandemic high of more than 800,000 daily cases on Jan. 15. And the decline is widespread across the nation, with average daily cases down by at least 40% in all U.S. regions over the past two weeks, according to a CNBC analysis of Hopkins data.

Hospitalizations have also fallen sharply. There are about 66,000 patients in U.S. hospitals with Covid as of Monday, according to a seven-day average of data from the Department of Health and Human Services, down from the Jan. 20 peak of 159,000 patients.

The Covid death toll, which typically lags a rise in cases by a number of weeks, is elevated but showing signs of easing. Average daily deaths reached the highest level in about a year on Feb. 1 at nearly 2,600 per day and have since fallen below 2,000.

---- The omicron variant caused a surge in cases like no other wave, pushing infections from less than 100,000 a day just after Thanksgiving to a peak of 802,000 by mid-January before falling just as rapidly. “It was really fast, furious, like a flash flood,” said Johns Hopkins epidemiologist Jennifer Nuzzo.

While the U.S. is moving in the right direction, Nuzzo cautioned that the omicron subvariant BA.2 could slow the recovery. BA.2 is more transmissible than the original omicron strain, though it’s currently circulating at a low level in the U.S.

More

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/22/covid-infections-plummet-90percent-from-us-pandemic-high-states-lift-mask-mandates.html

Experts: New COVID-19 subvariant more contagious, perhaps harder to treat

Feb. 23, 2022 / 4:00 AM

Feb. 23 (UPI) -- A new, potentially more contagious and threatening strain of Omicron, BA.2, is spreading in the United States and may threaten efforts to relax COVID-19 pandemic-related restrictions across the country.

The strain already has led to a rapid increase in cases in Denmark, which moved to relax pandemic restrictions in recent days, according to the World Health Organization. Brunei, Georgia and Nepal also are experiencing significant outbreaks.

And while the numbers in the United States are small, medical detectives are keeping a close watch on trends.

Fewer than 1,400 cases involving the new subvariant have been reported in this country, according to outbreak.info, which is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other major research groups. That's less than 0.5% of cases reported since BA.2 appeared.

The subvariant has been reported in every state except Iowa, Main and Oklahoma. California has had the largest number of documented cases, 262.

Dubbed the "stealth variant" because it appears to be more difficult to detect than earlier strains of the virus that causes COVID-19, BA.2 has been found to be more transmissible and perhaps less responsive to vaccines and treatments than its predecessors, WHO says.

"There's not a lot of information that we have on this particular subvariant yet," Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical lead on COVID-19, said during a press conference earlier this month.

---- Similarly, a study conducted by researchers in Japan found that the BA.2 subvariant was about 40% more contagious than BA.1, and more efficiently replicated in the lungs of those infected -- a possible indication that it can cause more severe illness.

The Japan study has not yet been published in a medical journal and the findings have not been peer-reviewed.

Based on these and other findings, "we expect BA.2 to become the majority" of variants in the United States, Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, told UPI in an email.

More

https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2022/02/23/COVID-19-Omicron-BA2-contagious-experts/4511645546515/

Next, some vaccine links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada.

NY Times Coronavirus Vaccine Trackerhttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html

Regulatory Focus COVID-19 vaccine trackerhttps://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 Covid-19 data tracker (UK)

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.

Physicists observe an exotic 'multiferroic' state in an atomically thin material

Date: February 23, 2022

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Summary: Physicists observed an exotic 'multiferroic' state in a perfectly two-dimensional material for the first time. The findings could lead to faster, more efficient magnetic data storage devices.

MIT physicists have discovered an exotic "multiferroic" state in a material that is as thin as a single layer of atoms. Their observation is the first to confirm that multiferroic properties can exist in a perfectly two-dimensional material. The findings, published in Nature, pave the way for developing smaller, faster, and more efficient data-storage devices built with ultrathin multiferroic bits, as well as other new nanoscale structures.

"Two-dimensional materials are like LEGOs -- you put one on top of another to make something different from either piece alone," says study author Nuh Gedik, professor of physics at MIT. "Now we have a new LEGO piece: a monolayer multiferroic, which can be stacked with other materials to induce interesting properties."

In addition to Gedik, the study's authors at MIT include lead author Qian Song, Connor Occhialini, Emre Egeçen, Batyr Ilyas, and Riccardo Comin, the Class of 1947 Career Development Associate Professor of Physics, along with collaborators in Italy and Japan and at Arizona State University.

Curiously coupled

In materials science, "ferroic" refers to the collective switching of any property in a material's electrons, such as the orientation of their charge or magnetic spin, by an external field. Materials can embody one of several ferroic states. For instance, ferromagnets are materials in which electron spins collectively align in the direction of a magnetic field, like flowers pivoting with the sun. Likewise, ferroelectrics are composed of electron charges that automatically align with an electric field.

In most cases, materials are either ferroelectric or ferromagnetic. Rarely do they embody both states at once.

"That combination is very rare," Comin says. "Even if one took the entire periodic table and put no boundary on the combination of elements, there are not many of these multiferroic materials that can be produced."

---- The team's experiments confirm that nickel iodide is multiferroic in its two-dimensional form. What's more, the study is the first to demonstrate that multiferroic order can exist in two dimensions -- the ideal dimensions for building nanoscale, multiferroic memory bits.

"We now have a material that's multiferroic in 2D. Before, we didn't know what to work with if we wanted to make a nanoscale multiferroic device. Now we do. And we are starting to make these devices in our lab now," Comin says. "We want to use electric fields to control magnetism, to see how fast we can switch multiferroic bits, and how we can miniaturize these devices. That's the roadmap, and now we're much closer."

This research was supported by the Department of Energy and, in part, by the National Science Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220223111228.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell. 

William Tecumseh Sherman.

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