Baltic Dry Index. 2417 -67 Brent Crude 111.12
Spot Gold 1925
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 30/03/22 World 485,592,202
Deaths 6,157,201
Who rules East Europe commands the
Heartland;
who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island;
who rules the World-Island commands the world.
Sir Halford J. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, 1919
In the new European war that no one outside of Washington, London and NATO wanted, did Russia just blink or is it just a Russian battlefield ploy?
Washington and Kiev think it’s the latter. After saying for months they had no plans to invade Ukraine, no one trusts any words coming out of Moscow. But I give them the benefit of the doubt.
After watching Russia’s invasion troops inept invasion of Ukraine, it doesn’t look to me like there was any plan at all.
Below, the latest from the “peace talks” in Istanbul.
Ukraine isn't naive, Zelenskiy says after Russian pledge to scale down attack on Kyiv
March 30, 2022 5:47 AM
· U.S. says on lookout for major offensive elsewhere
· Moscow's pledge comes at peace talks with Ukraine
· Kyiv proposes neutral status with guarantees
· Biden to hold talks with UK, European leaders
LVIV, Ukraine/KYIV OUTSKIRTS March 30 (Reuters) - Ukraine reacted with skepticism to Russia's promise in negotiations to scale down military operations around Kyiv and another city as some Western countries expected Moscow to intensify its offensive in other parts of the country.
Talks took place in an Istanbul palace more than a month into the largest attack on a European nation since World War Two that has killed or injured thousands, forced nearly 4 million to flee abroad and pummelled Russia's economy with sanctions.
The invasion has been halted on most fronts by stiff resistance from Ukrainian forces who have recaptured territory even as civilians are trapped in besieged cities.
"In order to increase mutual trust and create the necessary conditions for further negotiations and achieving the ultimate goal of agreeing and signing (an) agreement, a decision was made to radically, by a large margin, reduce military activity in the Kyiv and Chernihiv directions," Russian Deputy Defence Minister Alexander Fomin told reporters.
He made no mention of other areas that have seen heavy fighting, including around Mariupol in the southeast, Sumy and Kharkiv in the east and Kherson and Mykolaiv in the south.
"Ukrainians are not naive people," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late on Tuesday.
"Ukrainians have already learned during these 34 days of invasion, and over the past eight years of the war in Donbass, that the only thing they can trust is a concrete result."
Russia has started moving very small numbers of troops away from positions around Kyiv in a move that is more of a repositioning than a retreat or a withdrawal from the war, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.
"We all should be prepared to watch for a major offensive against other areas of Ukraine," spokesman John Kirby told a news briefing. "It does not mean that the threat to Kyiv is over."
More
In the stock casinos, any news is good news to dress up the indexes for the month-end and critical quarter-end results. I suspect the “dress up” rally will turn out to be the year’s final exit rally.
Asia shares join global rally after Ukraine-Russia talks
March 30, 2022 4:03 AM GMT+1
HONG KONG, March 30 (Reuters) - Asia shares joined a global rally on Wednesday as hopes rose for a negotiated end to the Ukraine conflict, while bond markets signaled concern overnight that aggressive rate hikes could damage the U.S. economy after 10-year yields briefly dipped below two year rates.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) rose 1%, and touched its highest level since March 4, with most Asian stock markets in positive territory.
Japan's Nikkei (.N225) bucked the trend however, falling 1%, as observers pointed to profit taking heading into the end of the fiscal year. The benchmark hit a two-month closing high on Tuesday.
Ukraine, on Tuesday, proposed adopting a neutral status in a sign of progress at face-to-face negotiations, though on the ground, reports of attacks continued, and Ukraine reacted with skepticism to Russia's promise in negotiations to scale down military operations around Kyiv. read more
Nonetheless, the news helped the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) and S&P 500 (.SPX) notch their fourth straight session of gains overnight, after European shares had rallied sharply.
U.S. S&P 500 futures were little changed in Asia trade.
"On the one hand there has been more positive news regarding Ukraine, and the market is hopeful of a peace deal at some point, which is resulting in a bit of a 'risk-on' event, with shares up and bond yields trending higher," said Shane Oliver chief economist and head of investment strategy at AMP Capital.
"But then it's back to worrying about inflation and bond yields, and there's this debate about whether we're going to see a recession in the U.S. because of the inversion of part of the U.S. yield curve."
The widely tracked U.S. 2-year/10-year Treasury yield curve briefly inverted on Tuesday for the first time since September 2019, as bond investors bet that aggressive tightening by the Federal Reserve could hurt the U.S. economy over the longer term.
More
https://www.reuters.com/business/global-markets-wrapup-1-2022-03-30/
In other European war news, ever so slowly the new European war seems to be widening, as most European wars since 1870 tend to do. Regime change in Moscow next?
Ukraine appears to have begun shelling Russian territory
Wed, March 30, 2022, 1:57 AM
The Ukrainian military has begun to take the fight to Russian territory, a new development in what has been a primarily defensive war for the country.
Russian authorities were forced to place two villages under emergency orders and evacuate some citizens due to Ukrainian shelling in the area, according to reports from multiple Russian media outlets.
RIA Novosti, a Russian government-controlled publication, reported Tuesday that an explosion near the village of Zhuravlyovka injured four people. The outlet reported that the source of the explosion was an attack that originated from within Ukraine.
Interfax, another Kremlin-friendly publication, reported that Zhuravlyovka and the nearby town of Niekhoteyevka were placed under emergency orders, and roughly 180 people were evacuated to the city of Belgorod as the result of an explosion at an ammunition depot.
Interfax did not pin blame for the explosion on Ukraine, but it did note that authorities believe it was not an accident.
Fox News cannot independently verify the reported attack, though reports of the attack, an apparent setback for Russia, and Ukraine's involvement originated from Russian state-run outlets.
More
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukraine-appears-begun-shelling-russian-005724169.html
U.S. liaising with Ukrainian forces in Poland, Pentagon says
Tue, March 29, 2022, 9:45 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Tuesday clarified that U.S. troops in Poland were "liaising" with Ukrainian forces as they hand over weapons to them, but were not training "in the classic sense" following remarks from President Joe Biden on the matter.
On Monday, Biden told reporters that while in Poland last week, he had been talking to U.S. troops who were helping "train" Ukrainian forces in Poland.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters that U.S. troops in Poland were "liaising" with Ukrainian forces when weapons are handed over to the forces fighting back against Russia's invasion.
"It's not training in the classic sense that many people think of training. I would just say it's liaising," Kirby said.
He did not provide details on what exactly the interactions entail or how long they usually lasted. It was not immediately clear whether the distinction between liaising and training had greater significance, as the United States tries to limit any direct military involvement in the war.
More
https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-liaising-ukrainian-forces-poland-204501582.html
Marines Deploy to Eastern Europe for the First Time in Response to Ukraine
Tue, March 29, 2022, 11:27 PM
Marines will now be among the thousands of U.S. troops who have been deployed to Europe and the eastern edge of the NATO alliance in response to Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
About 200 Marines from a command-and-control unit for Marine Air Control Group 28 based at Cherry Point, North Carolina, were sent to Lithuania, following a cold weather exercise in Norway, the Pentagon said Tuesday. A couple of Marine Corps C-130 Hercules transport aircraft and 10 Marine F-18 Hornet fighter jets from Beaufort, South Carolina will be repositioned to Eastern Europe.
The latest deployment comes as Russia appeared to be pulling back and repositioning its invasion forces following weeks of stiff resistance by Ukraine, and the Pentagon claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin had "failed" in his effort to seize the capital Kyiv.
The Pentagon has 14,000 troops already deployed to Europe, positioned with allies such as Poland, Germany and the Baltic states, or on high-alert for possible deployment. On Monday, it announced that six Navy EA-18G Growler aircraft based at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Washington state were sent to Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany.
"It's not about a number goal, it's really about capabilities and it's based on constant conversations with our NATO allies on the eastern flank," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said during a briefing on Tuesday.
More
https://www.yahoo.com/news/marines-deploy-eastern-europe-first-222752939.html
Finally, more on that European war almost no one wanted. Blocking Russia and China’s “Mackinder” gambit. Poor Ukraine.
Geo-Politics Is Metamorphosing at Every Moment
Alastair Crooke March 28, 2022
Whilst Europe and the U.S. never have been more closely aligned, the ‘West’ paradoxically has also never been more alone.
Very occasionally, a single anecdote can almost completely summate a moment in history. And this one did: In 2005, Zbig Brzezinski, the architect of Afghanistan as quagmire to the Soviet Union, and the author of The Grand Chessboard (which embedded the Mackinder dictum of ‘he who controls the Asian heartland controls the world’ into U.S. foreign policy), sat down in Washington with Alexander Dugin, Russian political philosopher and advocate for a ‘heartland’ cultural and geo-political renaissance.
Brzezinski had already written in his book that, absent Ukraine, Russia would never become the heartland power; but with it, Russia can and would. The meeting had been set with a photo-prop of a chessboard placed between Brzezinski and Dugin (to promote Brzezinski’s book). This arrangement with a chessboard prompted Dugin to ask whether Brzezinski considered Chess to be a game meant for two: “No, Zbig shot back: It is a game for one. Once a chess piece is moved; you turn the board around, and you move the other side’s chess pieces. There is ‘no other’ in this game”, Brzezinski insisted.
More
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/03/28/geo-politics-is-metamorphosing-at-every-moment/
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] In this article, Mackinder extended the scope of geopolitical analysis to encompass the entire globe.
More
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_History
Even during the years of the Cold War, the intense confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, we always avoided any direct clash between our civilians and, most certainly, between our military.
Vladimir Putin.
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Hopefully, as the Spring planting season gets underway in the USA, we will get a pause in global grain price increases and perhaps even a modest drop in grain prices. Could we really get that lucky?
Still if I wasn’t retired from commodities trading, better known as gambling, I’d use any pullback on wheat to try to put on a few synthetic summer double options. With a war in the breadbasket of Europe and the possibility of continued drought in North America, anything can happen this year in wheat pricing.
Might try the same in beans too,
You have to trade/gamble when risk/reward opportunities are at their best.
The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn't still be a farmer.
Will Rogers.
RABORESEARCH RELEASES ANNUAL PRICE OUTLOOK
REPORT FOR U.S. CROPS
Mar. 29, 2022 Source: Rabo AgriFinance news release
Chesterfield, MO -
High prices for U.S. corn, soybeans and wheat are not expected to be a
short-term shock, according to a new RaboResearch report, "The Grain Drain
After Ukraine." While the sudden shutdown of trade in the Black Sea region
has sent corn and wheat prices to their highest in a decade, the 10-year
outlook for all major crops has shifted up to a new price level. The report
cites transformative geo-political changes, continued increases in demand and
limited acreage availability as the shift's drivers.
The war in Ukraine has caused trade routes shipping
agricultural products grown from the Black Sea region to other parts of the
world to effectively shut down. The continuing conflict will cut supplies of
corn and wheat available to the global market. RaboResearch expects the U.S. to
increase its exports to help fill the gap. The additional global demand for
U.S. products should also increase the prices paid to farmers for these crops.
According to RaboResearch analysis, a 200 million bushel increase in exports
for each commodity would increase the 2022/23 average on-farm price for corn by
approximately 13% and wheat by approximately 50%.
"We projected U.S. farm prices to be strong this coming year," writes lead report author, Andrick Payen, grain and oilseed analyst with Rabo AgriFinance. "But the Ukrainian conflict is likely to push wheat prices to reach record highs."
For the 2022/23
crop marketing year, RaboResearch estimates the average on-farm price, which
takes local basis into account, to be $5.77 for corn and $10.50 for wheat when
their export sales increase by 200 million bushels.
This year's report is also the first annual outlook
to incorporate the expected expansion of U.S. soybean crush capacity into the
10-year acre and price estimates. Fueled by the growing demand for soybean oil
as an ingredient for renewable diesel, the crush capacity expansion is an
important transformation driving long-term commodity prices to a higher level.
Higher prices, however, do not spell bigger profits.
Costs for farm inputs such as seed, fertilizer and land will likely also rise,
squeezing farmers' margins over the next decade. Grain companies will have to
navigate great volatility in their trading activities. And livestock producers
will likely face higher feed prices.
https://www.agrimarketing.com/s/140363
Planting has started, but progress is delayed by weather and parts
By XtremeAg 3/28/2022
Kelly Garrett, Matt Miles, and Kevin Matthews are eager to get planting, but weather delays and parts availability are slowing down the XtremeAg team’s progress.
A fifth-generation farmer, Kelly Garrett farms corn, soybeans, and winter wheat in western Iowa.
On March 21 we planted 60 acres of soybeans. It was earlier in the spring than usual for our farm. Winter weather is likely not over here in western Iowa, so in order to make sure the beans are protected from any cold snaps we have applied stress-mitigation products Accomplish Max in-furrow and a seed treatment from SprayTec. If we see a prediction for very cold weather coming, then we will do a quick application of a product called Shield that is designed to give the young plants another layer of protection during frost conditions by helping to mitigate abiotic stress. As with many things in farming, it is a risk to plant beans on the first day of spring, but we feel pretty good about the stress mitigation program we have in place and think we are setting the stage for a great crop.
We have not planted since then due to the .75 inches of rain we received on the night of March 21. It was good to get some acres of beans in, but it was even better to get some much-needed rain to boost up the moisture levels of our soil.
We will wait until around April 20-25 before we plant any corn. We need to give the ground some more time to warm up.
The rye field that we’ll harvest is starting to green up as well as our winter wheat.
More
Shoppers turn to Aldi and Lidl as grocery price inflation exceeds 5 per cent
29 March 2022 8:03 am
Grocery price inflation has reached 5.2 per cent over the latest four weeks, as households brace for a cost of living crunch this spring.
The rate of price hikes has hit the highest level since April 2021, according to Kantar’s index published on Tuesday morning.
Shoppers are turning to discount retailers and own brand products in a bid to soften the blow of roaring inflation.
Budget retailers Aldi and Lidl both grew sales 3.6 per cent in the past four weeks, with Aldi hitting a record share of 8.6 per cent and Lidl matching its own record at 6.4 per cent.
Own label products now account for 50.6 per cent of all spending, an increase on 49.9 per cent last year.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar, said: “More and more we’re going to see consumers and retailers take action to manage the growing cost of grocery baskets. Consumers are increasingly turning to own label products, which are usually cheaper than branded alternatives.”
Grocers have moved away from selling products at ’round pound’ prices, with the percentage of packs sold at either £1, £2 or £3 dropping significantly from 18.2 per cent last year to 15.9 per cent this March.
https://www.cityam.com/shoppers-turn-to-aldi-and-lidl-as-grocery-price-inflation-exceeds-5-per-cent/
Russia launches Eurobond rouble buyback offer on looming $2 bln bond payment
March 29, 2022 10:27 PM
LONDON, March 29 (Reuters) - Russia has offered to buy back dollar bonds maturing next week in roubles in a move seen by analysts as helping local holders of the $2 billion sovereign issue receive payment, while also easing the country's hard-currency repayment burden.
The finance ministry offer on Eurobonds maturing on April 4, Russia's biggest debt payment this year, follows Western moves to tighten sanctions against the country over its invasion of Ukraine and to freeze Moscow out of international finance
Moscow, which calls its actions in Ukraine a "special military operation", says Western measures amount to "economic war". In response, it has introduced countermeasures and has demanded foreign firms pay for Russian gas in roubles rather than dollars or euros. read more
The bonds - issued in 2012 - would be bought at a price equivalent to 100% of their nominal value, the ministry said its statement. Buying back bonds will reduce the overall size of the outstanding bond when it matures on April 4.
However, it was not immediately clear if the amount the government would buy back was limited or what would happen to holdings of creditors that would not tender their bonds.
The terms of the bond prescribe that repayment has to occur in dollars. Repaying at maturity in roubles might again raise the prospect of Russia's first external sovereign default in a century.
Analysts and investors said the move was likely designed to help Russian holders who now face restrictions in receiving dollar payments.
"This is a tender offer and not a final decision that these bonds will be paid in roubles. Perhaps, Russian authorities want to gauge investors’ willingness to accept payment in roubles?" said Seaport Global credit analyst Himanshu Porwal.
Tim Ash of BlueBay Asset Management, which is not a bondholder, said the move was part of a fight back by Russia's central bank and finance ministry "to fend off default and stabilise markets and the rouble"
More
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/russia-buy-back-2-bln-eurobond-2022-roubles-2022-03-29/
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
So why was this deliberately ignored and not explored? Money from rushed out vaccines? Vaccines of limited efficiency, limited protection, with no long term usage studies, and needing legal protection from potential lawsuits.
Ivermectin: enigmatic multifaceted ‘wonder’ drug continues to surprise and exceed expectations
Recent research has confounded the belief, held for most of the past 40 years, that ivermectin was devoid of any antiviral characteristics. Ivermectin has been found to potently inhibit replication of the yellow fever virus, with EC50 values in the sub-nanomolar range. It also inhibits replication in several other flaviviruses, including dengue, Japanese encephalitis and tick-borne encephalitis, probably by targeting non-structural 3 helicase activity.97 Ivermectin inhibits dengue viruses and interrupts virus replication, bestowing protection against infection with all distinct virus serotypes, and has unexplored potential as a dengue antiviral.98
Ivermectin has also been demonstrated to be a potent broad-spectrum specific inhibitor of importin α/β-mediated nuclear transport and demonstrates antiviral activity against several RNA viruses by blocking the nuclear trafficking of viral proteins. It has been shown to have potent antiviral action against HIV-1 and dengue viruses, both of which are dependent on the importin protein superfamily for several key cellular processes. Ivermectin may be of import in disrupting HIV-1 integrase in HIV-1 as well as NS-5 (non-structural protein 5) polymerase in dengue viruses.99, 100
More
https://www.nature.com/articles/ja201711
Shanghai tightens COVID lockdown on second day of curbs
March 29, 2022 8:16 AM
SHANGHAI, March 29 (Reuters) - China's most populous city tightened the first phase of a two-stage COVID-19 lockdown on Tuesday, asking some residents to stay indoors unless they are getting tested as the number of new daily cases exceeded 4,400.
The financial hub of Shanghai, home to 26 million people, is in its second day of a lockdown authorities are imposing by dividing the city roughly along the Huangpu River, splitting the historic centre from the eastern financial and industrial district of Pudong to allow for staggered testing.
While Shanghai's caseload remains modest by global standards - a record 4,381 asymptomatic cases and 96 symptomatic cases for Monday - the city has become a testing ground for China's "zero-COVID" strategy as it tries to bring the highly infectious Omicron variant under control.
Residents east of the Huangpu were locked down in their housing compounds on Monday but were mostly allowed to roam within them. On Tuesday, however, three residents told Reuters neighbourhood committees had told them they were no longer allowed to step outside their homes.
"Children were still having picnics yesterday and having fun," said one of them, who declined to be identified, citing privacy concerns.
Wu Qianyu, an official with the municipal health commission, told a briefing that a "clear request" had been made to residents not to leave their apartments, even to take pets for a walk or throw out trash, during "a key stage in nucleic acid testing".
She said 8.26 million tests were performed by as many as 17,000 testing personnel in the city's locked-down districts on Monday.
----There were growing signs of frustration on China's social media and dozens of residents flocked to the Weibo platform to seek help for relatives, with some struggling to access medical services.
Though China is sticking to its plan for crushing the outbreak, experts overseas remain sceptical about the efficacy of lockdowns in the face of a highly infectious new variant.
More
Next, some vaccine links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada.
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
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.
HB11's hydrogen-boron laser fusion test yields groundbreaking results
Loz Blain March 28, 2022
HB11 is approaching nuclear fusion from an entirely new angle, using high power, high precision lasers instead of hundred-million-degree temperatures to start the reaction. Its first demo has produced 10 times more fusion reactions than expected, and the company says it's now "the only commercial entity to achieve fusion so far," making it "the global frontrunner in the race to commercialize the holy grail of clean energy."
We've covered Australian company HB11's hydrogen-boron laser fusion innovations before in detail, but it's worth briefly summarizing what makes this company so different from the rest of the field. In order to smash atoms together hard enough to make them fuse together and form a new element, you need to overcome the incredibly strong repulsive forces that push two positively-charged nuclei apart. It's like throwing powerful magnets at each other in space, hoping to smash two north poles together instead of having them just dance out of each other's way.
The Sun accomplishes this by having a huge amount of hydrogen atoms packed into a plasma that's superheated to tens of millions of degrees at its core. Heat is a measure of kinetic energy – how fast a group of atoms or molecules are moving or vibrating. At these temperatures, the hydrogen atoms are moving so fast that they smack into each other and fuse, releasing the energy that warms our planet.
Most fusion reactor designs aim to replicate these conditions, by magnetically confining hydrogen atoms in a plasma, and then using gyrotrons and other specialized equipment to create small pockets of insane temperatures – over 100 million °C (180 million °F) – in which they hope they'll get enough random collisions between nuclei to create a chain reaction. This is the basic idea underpinning the multi-billion dollar stellarator and tokamak projects that have dominated fusion research for decades.
HB11 is using a different approach that's closer to a snooker shot. It doesn't require huge amounts of heat, or tricky, radioactive fuels like tritium. Instead, it takes advantage of recent advances in ultra-high powered "chirped pulse amplification" lasers that can produce monstrous, unprecedented power levels over 10 petawatts.
An HB11 reactor would be a mostly empty metal sphere, with a "modestly sized" boron fuel pellet held in the middle, and apertures in two spots on the sphere for a pair of lasers. One laser would be used to establish a magnetic containment field for the plasma, and the second is used to massively accelerate hydrogen atoms through the boron sample. So you're not heating things up in the hope that they'll smack together at speed, you're literally aiming the hydrogen right at the boron and using these bleeding-edge lasers to make it go so fast that it'll fuse if it hits a nucleus.
Hydrogen-boron fusion doesn't create heat, it merely creates "naked" helium atoms, or alpha particles, which are missing electrons and thus positively charged. HB11 plans to simply collect that charge to create energy, rather than needing to superheat steam and drive lossy turbines. No nuclear waste is created.
Initial experiments on laser-triggered chain reactions returned reaction rates a billion times higher than anticipated, leading HB11 to claim in 2020 that it "stands a high chance of reaching the goal of net energy gain well ahead of other groups."
"As we aren’t trying to heat fuels to impossibly high temperatures, we are sidestepping all of the scientific challenges that have held fusion energy back for more than half a century,” HB11 Managing Director Dr. Warren McKenzie told us at the time. “This means our development roadmap will be much faster and cheaper than any other fusion approach."
More
“Looking at the whole world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery.”
George Orwell.
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