Israel continues to bomb and starve the Palestine Gaza strip.
Since the hideous attacks by Hamas Israel is doing it's utmost best the show the World that it too can be inhumane and commit war crimes.
Russia and Ukraine continue to be stuck in a stalemate, with no side moving much despite a steady stream of casualties.
But Ukraine is running low on weapons while Russia has been calling up more reservists, setting the stage for a bloody spring offensive.
Scientist are claiming the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is at it weakest point in the last 1000 years, and is close to collapse according to simulations.
A collapsing of the AMOC will not lead to significant cooling in Europe. Also: the wind and rotation driven Atlantic Gulf Stream will not stop. Other global warming related news indicates that 2022 and the first months of 2023 are warmer than 1.5C, indicating that global warming is progressing faster then expected.
The WSJ reports that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is in talks with Arabic - oil rich - dictators to fund it with as much as 5 trillion USD.
This amount is larger than the GDP of Germany. The money is reportedly to be used to build chip factories to build chips for AI.
The 38north.org think-tank has written an opinion piece stating that they believe North Korea has made the decision the go to war with South Korea and the US.
The hermit state has also declared last week that it changed it's asement of South Korea from "partner of reconciliation and reunification" to an enemy that must be subjugated. This while the West is fighting a war with Russia in all but name only, The Middle East is full of armed conflicts that are escalating, full scale ethnic cleaning is going on in Sudan and South Sudan, which is being ignored by a World that has effectively decided to let them kill each other, and numerous other countries around the World are making military threats to invade their neighbors. It seems that we are rapidly movings towards the end of Pax Americana.
Violence is spreading in the Middle East, with Iran and Pakistan doing small scale bombing of each other's territory.
As Twitter user alihashemtv_ put it: "Mid January 2024. Israel bombing Gaza, Lebanon launching missiles on Israel, Israel attacking Lebanon, Iraqis attacking U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria, the U.S. targeting Iraqi groups. Turkey and Iran attacking targets in Iraq & Syria, and Iran in Pakistan, Yemenis targeting ships in the Red Sea, the U.S. and the U.K. striking Yemen."
Short-sellers are warning that PE (Private Equity) and VC funds are getting over-leveraged.
There is a whole class of zombie companies that have never made a profit ever, and are being kept alive by cheap loans and hope. These companies should fail now that interest rates have gone up. The proliferation of ManCo and NAV loans against rates as high as 19 percents suggest that some PE funds can start falling over in the short term, with added effects for pension funds in the US and abroad. The fact that PE funds are acting desperate suggest that another bubble is about to pop.
China continues to try to intimidate Taiwan in an effort to influence the upcoming elections.
In the rest of the World Russia continues to send human wave attacks against Ukranian defense lines, Israel continues to kill Palestinian civilians, and Donald Trump continues to try to become dictator of the US in order to enact petty revenge fantasy's..
Isis (Daesh) has claimed responsibility for bombing a commemoration of Soleimani, a leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard under Soleimani was active in Iraq were it was fighting Sunnite fanatics such as Daesh.
The Houthi attacked another freighter in the Red Sea in support of Hamas and Iran.
One missile hit a Maersk freighter without causing any casualties or major damage. Two other missiles were intercepted by a US warship coming to its aid. Three Houthi boats were destroyed. Maersk or the ship Maersk Hangzhou is in no way related to Israel, and was on its way to SGSIN-EGSUZ (Egypt).
Scientists claim that the core of neutron stars are made up of "cold quark matter".
The gravitation pressure is so high the protons and neutrons can't exist, but all quarks and gluons are no longer bound to the "quark color". The core of a neutron star is one insanely huge atom.
Putin's war against Ukraine is still stuck in a stalemate in which neither side is moving much.
While Israel is slowly continuing to bomb and occupy the rest of the Gaza strip.
Venezuela is holding a referendum on Esequiba, a part of Guayana.
The unpopular dictatorship in Venezuela claims that oil-rich Esequiba, which makes up two thirds of Guayana should be part of Venezuela. It bases its claim on ancient history.
According the Chinese news sources, China is a "priority country" for The Netherlands in its international cultural policy.
These comments or the idea that China is a "priority country" for The Netherlands will come as a complete surprise to all the people in the Netherlands who don't know who the person claiming it is, and don't see or think that China is a priority. It is unlikely that any Dutch person will protest though, since these reports have not reached the news in the Netherlands - and are unlikely to do so - leaving the fast majority of people in the Netherlands who don't follow Chinese news unaware about what is claimed in their name.
Israel and Hamas with its allies Hezbollah and the Houthi and have continued fighting after the truce expired.
Israel is continuing to bomb everything that moves, while the Houthis have attacked ships in the Red Sea - including a US warship - without results.
Israel and Hamas have agreed to a temporary truce in exchange for the mutual release of Hamas hostages and Israeli prisoners.
Both sides are releasing woman and children, while urgent needed humanitarian aid for the Gaza strip is also allowed through.
The dictator of Syria, Assad is using the distraction of the World to try to reconquer the Northern province of Idlib.
This while Iranian proxy forces continue small scale attacks on US troops in the region.
The war in Ukraine has again reached a stalemate.
Russia's attacks on Bakhmut and Avdiivka are not going anywhere, while Ukraine has made no progress in Robotyne and is only slowly moving on the East bank of the Dnipro river near Kherson. More worrying is that Western support for Ukraine is continuing to dissolve.
Israel is continuing with its strategy of wiping out the whole of Gaza city in order to get to Hamas.
It has encircled Gaza City and is continuing to bomb it indiscriminately. So far more more than 10.000 civilians have been killed, a clear violation of human rights and a clear war crime.
Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia's prime minister, is making jingoistic noises about invading one of it's neighbors in order to gain access to a Red Sea harbor.
He is calling access to the Red Sea "not a matter of luxury", but "an existential" need.
The World is still waiting for Israel's full response to the second Yom Kippur War in the Gaza strip.
The biggest question is if this proxy war between Iran backed Palestinian groups and US backed Israel will spiral out of control, and become a full war. If so this will mean that 2 of the 4 revanchist powers will be in a war with the West. The other two - North Korea and China - have not made any moves yet. If they do, we will be in WW3. Countries such as Azerbaijan have already taken advantage of the New Global Insecurity. Expect more to follow.
Russia has started a new offensive in Avdiivka, near Donetsk in its war with Ukraine.
After Ukraine's offensive went nowhere, Russia feels confident to try to take the initiative again. So far Ukranian lines are holding.
It has been 8 days since the 7th of October when Hamas decided to commemorate the Yom Kippur War of 1973 with a new invasion of Israel.
Sympathies would normally lay with the suppressed people, who have a right to fight for independence, but Hamas decided to unleash a orgy of blood, killing every Jew in sight, including 260 people who just visited a music festival. In doing so it validated the view of every Jew alive that fighting Hamas is necessary to prevent another holocaust. Rhetoric of Hamas called upon every Muslim to join the fight against Israel and Jews worldwide, which was massively ignored by normal Muslims.
Israel has managed to drive out or kill all of the second Yom Kippur War attackers, and has immediately plotted revenge.
It has since called up more than 200.000 reservists, and started to bomb Gaza city, the densely populated area in the North of the Gaza strip. It is now preparing to wipe the whole of Gaza city from the face of the Earth, including any person who could not or refused to evacuate.
Western support for Ukraine is starting to degrade.
The populist right wing Smer party led by the deeply corrupt Robert Fico who sees Hungary's Orban as a soulmate has won the elections in Slovakia, while Poland is fighting with Ukraine over grain imports. Meanwhile the GOP in the US is more and more opposed to give military aid to Ukraine.
Armani claims that 100.000 of the 120.000 thousand Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh have left the enclave.
Thus ending 1500 years of Armenian presence.
Ukraine is still mostly stuck in its counter-offensive through Russian defensive lines.
According to the ISW and the Economist the fighting is very active and ongoing, based on infrared satellite images. Ukranian troops are now operating in Verbove, beyond the Surovikin Line.
The US claims it is seeing a very large Serbian military deployment along it's border with Kosovo.
Earlier this week Serbian separatists were fighting with the Kosovo police force, using heavy arms. The US has called upon Serbia to de-escalate, while NATO has sent more troops to guard the border.
In China the fallout of the popping of the real estate bubble continues with more problems for Country Garden and Evergrande, China's biggest developers.
Evergrande's CEO Hui Ka Yan is now facing criminal charges, while local governments have been pumping billions of dollars in local banks to keep them from falling over. According to He Keng, a former deputy head of the National Bureau of Statistics in China there are enough empty houses to accommodate at least 1.4 billion people - with other estimates claiming the number is even double that - making it quite clear that even if all the debt of the real-estate builders was magically wiped out, the demand for new constructions in the future is effectively null. Considering that construction is estimated to be at least 25% of the economy, a shrinking of China's economy by 25% seems unavoidable no matter how China will try to spin the numbers.
More than 28.000 of the 120.000 Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh have left the enclave for Armenia.
This is a clear case of "voluntary ethnic cleansing", although the Armenians might be right not to wait and see what rule under Azerbaijan will mean for them.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have reached an agreement to disarm the Armani fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenian also said it is ready to recognize the Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan. These events have been made possible since Russia has no forces left to help it's traditional ally Armenia due to the all consuming war in Ukraine.
Canada is having a small fight with India over a assassination of a militant Sikh leader who was living in Canada.
The militant (Hardeep Singh Nijjar) wanted a independent Sikh homeland, Khalistan. The assassination is a bellwether of how extremist the Modi's BJP party that is ruling India has become, and should give any company that wants to move production lines from China to India (like Apple) serious headaches over the direction Hindustan is going under Modi.
Azerbaijan has started a new war with Armenian to retake Nagorno-Karabakh.
Nagorno-Karabakh has been a very hot frozen conflict since the devolution of the Soviet Empire. Now that Russia is in no position to sent troops to help Armenia Azerbaijan sees it change to finally conquer the area.
Russia's dictator Putin is meeting with North Korea's dictator Kim Jong-un in the Eastern Russian city of Vladivostok.
Russia is seeking a deal with North Korea to supply it with badly needed weapons, since it has mostly run out, and not even China wants to openly deliver weapons to Russia.
An embargoed draft of the UN which was quickly pulled warns that "phasing out all unabated fossil fuels" is required to "to stave off climate disaster".
So far fossil fuel use has continued to rise, despite record renewable energy investments. Agreement on wording has been blocked by fossil fuel producing counties. In order to move forward it is necessary for developed countries to increase electrification of energy demand ( using electric heat pumps, electric cars, hydrogen for steel and cement makings), but also for for clearing a path for energy producers, by paying substantial higher prices for blue hydrogen, were hydrogen is stripped from natural gas, and the CO2 is put back in the gas well, thus transforming fossil fuel providers into hydrogen providers. If we don't allow blue and even grey hydrogen to become the main interchange of energy exports, no political consensus will ever be reached, since the social and political stability of all major energy producing countries depends on energy exports.
China under Xi is continuing its downward trajectory due to nationalistic political policies.
It has abolished efforts to instate a minor real estate tax, which would provide local governments with a (future) form of income for fear of further destabilizing the real estate market, though that ship has clearly already sailed, and instead is doubling down on nationalistic nonsense, including a crackdown on any clothing that might "hurt the feelings" of any Chinese, while offering "unswerving" support to North Korea. The Chinese people at large who are not part of the inner circle of red princes, and who know that demonstrations are cracked down brutally have responded by 'laying flat', or 'let it rot'.
After Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Chad, the dictator ruled Gabon is now facing a military coup.
It seems likely that the contagion will spread to other dictator ruled countries such as The Congo Republic and Cameroon.
Ukraine has started shelling Russian troops in Tomak with normal artillery.
It's forward position has allowed it to move artillery in striking distance. It also suggests that Ukraine is close to breaking the lighter second line of defense at Robotyne.
The BRICS has announced it will allow new members.
This is against the will of India, but in line with China's efforts to turn the BRICS into a anti-Western block. Since the BRICS shares nothing but its name, it will be very difficult for China to get its members to follow its agenda.
India has landed its Chandrayaan-3 unmanned spacecraft on the Moon, the 4th nation to do so.
This while Russia's Luna-25 crashed last week trying to do the same.
Russia announced that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group is likely dead.
If truth, it is extremely likely that Putin ordered his plane to be sabotaged or shot down. Prigozhin won't be missed by anybody. Its also a grim reminder that Putin has never kept any of his promises, and won't keep any future ones, including results of peace negotiations with Ukraine.
The World is still suffering from climate change induced weather anomalies. The war in Ukraine is still ongoing without much progress, China's economy is still cratering.
Fortunately the transition to renewable energy is going full speed, and increasing, but it will remain to be seen if it will get the World out of the danger zone. Ukraine seems to be finally making progress in slowly taking out Russian attack helicopters, and chewing up Russian defensive lines and its soldiers, although it is uncertain if it can maintain it's efforts. The Krim seems to be far out of reach. By all accounts China has reached the equivalent of Japan's start of its lost decennium, but without its wealth and advanced economy.
LK-99 is not a superconductor.
The Copper doping gives it very low conductivity, but not the magnetic field repulsion that a superconductor has.
The war in Ukraine is progressing without much progress on either side.
Ukraine claims it has taken out 254920 Russian soldiers, and wounded another 764760. It also claims to have taken out 4313 tanks, and 5128 pieces of artilleries, which would mean that Russia is essentially out of tanks and artillery. Rapports on the battleground on the other hand suggest that Russia still has enough artillery to prevent any Ukraine attack from progressing. Neither side is gaining any significant amount of territory.
China has halted the release of youth unemployment data, while the previous official government numbers claimed it hit more then 20%.
A professor at Peking University, recently wrote in a now-censored article that the rate may be as high as 46.5%, when those who have given up are included.
Russia's currency has dropped to a new low, to 98 Rubles per USD, the lowest since at least 2007 if the short hard drop at the onset of the invasion of Ukraine is omitted.
Both Russia and China are seeing global dis-investment due to their aggressive nationalistic policies, although China also has the problem of demographics, a popped real estate bubble, and huge local debt levels.
Russia is continuing to reach out to other countries with extreme patronage networks, such as North Korea.
These countries try to stick together despite different objectives because rule based countries are a mortal threat to their own existence if only by providing a vision of how life can be to their own population.
Asia Markets dot com is warning that many Chinese trust companies are about to fall over.
These trust companies have continued to lend money to real estate developers such as Evergrande to prevent them from falling over. Meanwhile, Chinese economic numbers - which are notorious unreliable - continue to indicate that it has entered the equivalent of Japan's lost decade.
Imran Khan, Pakistan's former prime minister, has been found guilty of 'corrupt practises', sentenced to three years in jail, and arrested by the police to serve his jail time.
The "corrupts practises" is keeping gifts from foreign diplomats and leaders of state, instead of handing them over as officially required. Although he should certainly be punished for this minor corruption, the reason he got a jail sentence is to keep him out of politics. This is understandable given his attempts to overthrow the Pakistani democracy, but not just justified.
Other research teams have been trying to recreate LK-99 (Pb9Cu(PO4)6O) a claimed superconductor at root temperature, and at normal pressure.
The jury is still out so far, but there are good signs and theoretical reasons why it could be a superconductor, which would revolutionize the world of electronics.
Climate change induced weather continues to wreak havoc around the World, with July 2023 also setting record temperatures and record rain.
Besides besides record temperatures in dry areas, it is also causing flooding in others. Slovenia and Beijing, China saw massive rainfall, causing massive flooding and lost harvests in Heilongjiang. In the Beijing area almost 1 million people were evacuated. A big part of the water was diverted away from the capital Beijing to other areas in Hebei, causing outrage from the people that were flooded for the good of the capital - especially because officials were bragging about it. They also would have liked to have been warned about it. Only weeks before Beijing and other parts of Northern China were experiencing heat waves of more than 40 degrees C.
ECOWAS, a West-African sub Sahara alliance mostly controlled by its strongest member Nigeria has condemned the coup in Niger and is threatening to intervene.
The Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has told his government to prepare for military action if democracy is not restored in Niger.
China is doubling down on its new anti-spying law.
The earlier adopted anti-spying law made it a criminal offense to give any information to foreigners, including normal accounting information to foreign auditors. This has further undermined trust in China as a outsourcer. But now the Ministry of State Security has called upon the "support of the people, mobilizing and organizing the people to prevent and stop espionage", which will likely lead to lead to a flurry of people reporting their neighbors or people they don't like, recreating the same atmosphere that worked very well to bring the country to its knees during the cultural revolution.
Hate groups in Sweden continue to burn the Koran leading to tensions in hysterical countries, and a employee of a Swedish consulate in Turkey being shot.
Sweden's embassy in Iraq was stormed, and its ambassador expelled over the burnings, while Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Yemen, Syria, Palestine, Qatar, Jordan, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Morocco issued protests, and Morocco recalled its ambassador . In several countries including Pakistan people protested against Sweden, and Turkey threatened not to allow Sweden into NATO. Sweden is against burning of religious texts, but has not outlawed it. Ironically the Koran was only written down after Muhammad died, since he was opposed to it ("Do not write anything from me, and whoever writes anything but the Qur'an, let him erase it"). So in a weird, twisted way these hate groups who oppose Islam are actually doing its bidding.
Ukraine is now using all it's battalions in its war against Russia.
But despite this it has nowhere broken through the second line of Russia's defenses, let alone it's third. Russia meanwhile has raised the conscription age, is creating regional militia, and giving heavy weapons to the internal security forces after the mutiny of the Wagner group. Most of those mercenaries have now moved to Belarus.
A military coup has taken place in Niger, disposing the democratically elected president.
This means that the whole of the Sahel in Africa has now backslid-ed into corrupt dictatorial dictatorships.
Turkey has finally abandoned its policy of lowering interest rates in the face of high inflation.
Erdogan has finally giving up his insistence of low interest rates. A policy that was responsible for record inflation in Turkey.
The war in Ukraine is continuing without much progress on either side.
Ukraine's offensive is not going anywhere right now against effective Russian defensive lines.
Russia is continuing to do the best it can to stop Ukraine from exporting grain.
After blocking the grain deal with Ukraine, it has resorted to bombing its grain silos and harbours. Putin is trying to create a monopoly on grain exports, to force Western Countries to stop their sanctions on Russian banks under pressure of poor African countries.
China's economy continues to get worse, questioning whether it has reached a policy induced "middle income trap".
Youth unemployment is getting up, now from 20.8 to 21.3, while local social media is censuring any messages that say something negative about the economy. China is suffering from insanely high debt levels, combined with Xi's nationalistic policies that have led to economic uncertainty, re-shoring and near-shoring by foreign investors, while also wiping out complete industries in China itself. The demographic dividend is also over, which means that China got old before it got rich. If China would have followed the example of Japan, Singapore, Taiwan or South Korea, it would be in a far better state. China is now trying to whoo the elder ex-leaders of foreign countries, such as Duterte of The Filipinos and Henry Kissinger of the USA, without realizing that these people have no real power or influence. Xi's response to the worsening economic conditions was not useful, as he was telling the youth to "eat bitterness", which translates to: "you are pussies, we had it hard during the cultural revolution, so you should just take it, and stop complaining".
The World is experiencing climate change induced record heat, after June was already the hottest June on record.
The Western part of the US is seeing new temperature records being broken, while Italy issued red alerts for 16 cities, with temperatures getting as high as 49 degrees C. Before long people in the Mediterranean will go to Northern Europe for their summer vacations, instead of the other way around.
India has launched a rocket to the moon.
After a failed launch in 2019, this one seems to have succeeded. The only other countries that have reached the moon are the USA, Russia and China.
The NATO summit has concluded without surprises.
Ukraine will be allowed to join NATO after its war with Russia has ended, and Turkey will stop blocking Sweden from joining.
Civil war continues in Myanmar, Libya, Yemen, Syria, CAR, South Sudan, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and Mali.
fighting in Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Mali, Syria and Myanmar has cooled down, in effected creating failed states, while in South Sudan, Sudan ethic cleansing is still in full swing. Many African countries also suffer terrorist / independence fighter / armed group attacks, making most of Africa a failed continent.
The US has announced it will provide Ukraine with controversial cluster-bombs after announcements that Ukraine will receive F-16 fighter jets from NATO countries.
Many NATO members, including Turkey also made clear that they want to offer Ukraine membership of NATO after its borders with Russia have been stabilized. Ukraine meanwhile is still unable to break through Russian defensive lines, but is also not suffering heavy losses.
The US had confirmed that it has finally destroyed the last of its chemical weapons stockpile.
The only countries that have held out are Egypt and North Korea. The US had committed to destroying the stockpiles, but was lagging in implementing it.
The Wagner group events have died down, and the facts are now more clear.
It turned out that the original plan was to capture Shoigu and Gerasimov when they would visit Rostov-on-Don. Since the plans leaked to the FSB 2 days in advance, and Shoigu escaped, Yevgeny Prigozhin improvised, and decided to march on Moscow, believing that Putin and military generals would back him. In the end he marched with less then 8000 fighters, while officials who supported him were arrested, and forced to denounce him, while most of the military and society at large was not willing to put their own necks on the line. This lead Prigozhin to go for a negotiated outcome. Since then multiple key supporters have been arrested, such as general Sergey Surovikin, Andrei Yudin, Yunus-bek Yevkurov and Sergei Mikhailov, while at least 30 other high-ranking Russian military and intelligence officials are known to have supported Wagner. Prigozhin has moved to Belarus, but afterwards was allowed to go to St Petersburg to get his affairs in order. Fighters from Wagner are still suppose to go to Belarus, but have not moved there already. They also have not handed over their heavy military gear, but the Kremlin has decided not to push the issue for now.
The US claims that it has prevented two attempt by Iran to capture oil tankers.
Iran has captured several oil tankers earlier this month, claiming they were in its territorial waters. despite contradictory information from the ship's transponder signals.
Ukraine is warning that Russian troops have deployed explosives on the roofs of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
A range of intelligence is suggesting that Russia might blow up the nuclear power plant to create a radio-active shield to shorten the battle lines. Russia earlier blew up the Nova Kakhovska dam for exactly this reason.
Ukraine has so far made only minimal gains in its counter-offensive to re-conquerer lost territory from Russia.
This despite the fact that the Wagner group is out of the picture after its failed uprising against the Kremlin. It's leader and most loyal troops have moved to Belarus under a deal negotiated by its dictator Lukashenko, who needs Putin, but hates his guts and would like to use the Wagner group as a insurance policy.
China has announced moves in a counter to the US imposed export restrictions.
It will now restrict sales or the so called rare earth metals needed for chip-making, and has announced bans of US based cloud services. The export restrictions of rare earth metals is mostly symbolic, since only tiny amounts are needed for chips, but the restriction of US based cloud services could in the long term hurt the US.
France is seeing heavy riots and demonstrations against its police force.
France has many ghettos, called banlieues, where mostly people from Arabic and African descent live, who have very few options of escaping poverty. On top of that France's police is notorious racist. France in essence is like a little USA, but with much better food.
The Netherlands and Japan have restricted exports of advanced chip-making machines to China.
The move was expected, and continued - despite Chinese threads - under US pressure to prevent China from dominating to much of the global supply chains. China's support for Russia's invasion and its aggressive military posturing towards its neighbors have made security more important than trade.
The infamous Russian mercenary army The Wagner group has staged an insurrection against Putin and occupied the military command center in Rostov-on-Don and the city of Voronezh before moving on towards Moscow itself. It is now moving towards Serpukhov 100km South of Moscow.
A job ad, posted on June 22 by the Wagner group searching for former law enforcement officers suggest that this was planned. Yevgeny Prigozhin the leader of the mercenary group claimed that "This is no military coup. This is a justice march", while further claiming they would go back to the front after "fixing things" in Moscow. So far the group has only encountered light resistance from the air force, and it took down 3 helicopters and one airplane. The group was ordered several times by Putin himself to stand down, and submit to the regular army which would have stripped Yevgeny Prigozhin of all the power he has.
Putin and the Ministry of Defense in Russia has gone into full panic mode, comparing the situation with the fall to the Tsar in 1917.
Putin has reportedly fled to Tver, close to St. Petersburg, while roads and bridges are being barricaded and trenches are being dug in Moscow, the media is not allowed to quote words from Prigozhin, parts of the internet have been shut down in areas where Wagner has forces, and what remaining special forces that are not fighting in Ukraine are being mobilized to set up military roadblocks along the Moscow-Voronezh-Rostov highway. Around 200 lightly armed Chechen fighters in mostly normal vehicles under the command of warlord Ramzan Kadyrov have sent towards Rostov-on-Don in an attempt the take it back. According to a source close to the Russian military General Staff they do have not enough troops inside Russia itself to stop Wagner since all troops are at the front, and their best hope is to kill Yevgeny Prigozhin, and offer amnesty to the rest.
As soon as the Wagner uprise started, it ended.
Prigozhin has been giving amnesty provided stays in Belarus and charges against him and the Wagner troops will be dropped, in a deal negotiated by Belarus dictator Lukashenko. Time will tell why Prigozhin took the easy way out, leaving his men out to dry.
Ukraine's counter-offensive has stalled.
Ukraine is going back to the drawing board.
Ukraine's counter-offensive is going slower then expected.
Instead of breaking through the Russian multiple defensive lines, the Ukraine army is encountering heavy resistance, and only made modest gains.
Iran and Russia have agreed to build a factory in Russia to build Iranian Shahed drones.
Iran has been selling them to Russia, who is using them in its war of conquest against Ukraine. Russia will in return supply Iran with its most advanced fighter jets, and will also create a rail-link with Iran (part of the INSTC).
China has made a agreement with Cuba to build a signal intelligence base inside Cuba.
China will pay several billion for the eavesdropping facility which will target US signals. It is unclear if China will reuse the old Russian site at Lourdes, Havana which was abandoned by Russia in 2001.
A former intelligence official from a US Department of Defense agency, has claimed that the US has craft and materials of non-human origin.
The official (David Grusch) led analysis of "unexplained anomalous phenomena" and claims the US has "intact and partially intact alien vehicles", according to The Guardian. If truth, this would be World shocking news.
Ukraine has started a full offensive in Zaporizhia towards Tokmak and eventually Melitopol.
This while China has started delivery of weapons to Russia, in this case armored troop carriers.
China continues its military policy of trying to intimidate opponents.
It has send 37 military aircraft into Taiwan's airspace and is making dangerous maneuvers in front of US warships in the area.
Canada is suffering from approx 400 Forest fires.
The climate change induced fires are causing pollution in the US, Mexico, and is even reaching Iceland and Norway.
Russia likely blew up a dam in the Dnipro river in Ukraine leading to inundation of large tracks of land around Kherson.
This to prevent a Ukranian counter-offensive from this direction. In related news: The Washington Post reports that information about a plan to blow up the Nord-stream pipeline by Ukraine was shared between western intelligence agencies, including the CIA.
The US is going after Binance, a dodgy cryptocurrency exchange, that also happens to be it's biggest.
The SEC is suing Binance and its CEO Zhao who is known for running the World's most opaque exchange, calling it a "web of deception". Other ongoing investigations against the exchange are also underway.
Russia and it's mili-bloggers are claiming that Ukraine has started its long awaited offensive.
Ukraine has sent out false flag propaganda in certain areas, and has made some tiny gains in some areas, but no big breakthroughs.
The war in Ukraine continues, with Russia sending drones and cruise missiles to Ukraine's capitol Kiev, and Ukraine sending drones to Russia's capitol Moscow.
Almost all drones and missiles were taken out by air-defenses, doing minimal damage. Ukraine is also sending fringe Russian fighter groups across it's border to draw away troops from the front-lines, in preparation of it's long awaited counter-offensive.
The US managed not to blow up the world economy, by extending the US debt ceiling.
But the threat helped the Republicans wring some concessions, clearing the way for more of the same drama after 2024.
Ethnic strife between different tribes in northeast India's province of Manipur has lead to riots, violence and armed insurrections in which at least 70 people were killed.
The poorer (often Christian) agricultural Naga and Kuki tribes clashed with the majority Hindu Meitei tribe, which is mainly based in the Manipur valley and the capital over economic benefits in the form of allocated government jobs, and forced expulsion from their lands. Although the state has a history of ethic tensions, the BJP's Hindu nationalism has exabated the problems.
The International Energy Agency has stated that according to projections investments in renewable energy will easily out-match investments in fossil fuels in 2023.
It stated that "For every dollar invested in fossil fuels, about 1.7 dollars are now going into clean energy. Five years ago, this ratio was one-to-one" . CO2 emissions are also now more on par with the ICPP RCP4.5 path, away from the disaster RCP8.5 scenario. The question is if this is enough, since (almost) 1.5C heating has been reached much faster then anticipated, and side effects such as the slowing of the Antarctic circulation has slowed by almost a third, much faster than expected.
Killer whales (orca's) continue to attack small ships in the Strait of Gibraltar.
At least 20 interactions have been recorded just the month.
NATO has decided to deliver F-16 fighter-jets to Ukraine to help it in its ongoing war with Russia.
Meanwhile Russia's Wagner group claims to finally have taken Bakhmut, a claim Ukraine denies.
Scientists found that irrigation and climate change is reducing the amount of fresh water in more then half of the worlds biggest lakes.
The team used historical satellite images from 1992 to 2020 in the 2000 largest lakes in the world. Water levels increased in a quarter of the other lakes.
China held a summit with the stan's in it's backyard: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, promising to deepen economic links, while accusing G7 countries of "economic coercion".
Meanwhile the G7 countries are holding a summit in Japan, to address the behavior of Russia-stan, and discuss China's threats to Taiwan and it's use of "economic coercion".
Russia has stepped up bombing Ukraine with hyper-sonic Kinzhal missiles, and cruise missiles in its ongoing war.
Ukraine managed to down most of them with the US made Patriot anti-air system. Russia now accuses 3 scientists who developed them of treason.
Most of the World's economies continue to hug the zero growth line.
China has at least 20% youth unemployment, slowing imports, slowing exports and domestic spending, while struggling with the huge debts local governments have created. The US is facing insecurity due to the artificial crisis of the US debt limit.
Great Britain, the US, Germany as well as other allies of Ukraine have promised or have already shipped more weapons to Ukraine.
The US is shipping mostly more ammunitions and air control systems, while the UK has sent Storm Shadow long range cruise missiles, and Germany has sent more tanks, anti-aircraft systems and other military combat vehicles. South Africa sold weapons and ammunition to Russia according to the US, although it denies this. Russia has bombed a railroad in Khmelnitsky to try to prevent military aid to be transferred to the front lines in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian army has done "probing" and sabotage attacks on several locations against its front lines with Russia, indicating that its long awaited counter-offensive could start at any moment.
An obvious first target is Melitopol, but it is likely that the Ukranian army will do several puncture operations, and simply take the first weakest point in the front lines. At one of the probing attacks northwest of Bakhmut the Russian army brigade fled, allowing Ukraine to capture a couple of square kilometers, and posing a threat to the Wagner forces in Bakhmut. The Wagner group, which now mostly consists of badly trained prison recruiters was used as a pawn by the regular Russian military commanders, in the hope that they could wear out the Ukrainian army, and after mostly being destroyed could be pushed aside by the regular army to claim victory in Bakhmut, thus also ending Yevgeny Prigozhin's influence.
Astronomers have detected an unusually bright event in the cosmos, 10x brighter than the brightest recorded supernova, and about 100x times bigger than our solar-system.
The event is named AT2021lwx, and is thought to be a black hole sucking in a gas cloud. As the gas is accelerated it releases photons, sending out 100x times more energy in just 3 years then our sun will generate in it's entire lifetime. In the cosmic scale of our universe black holes are the main event, while the life of stars is the equivalent of small sparks at the start of the show.
There are again riots, unrest and demonstrations in Pakistan after Khan was arrested for minor corruption charges.
The party of former prime minister Khan again called for a march on the capital by his supporters to put pressure on the current government. The government deployed the army to control protesters, and arrested additional party leaders.
The New York Times has published a lengthy article detailing how Serbia's president and effective dictator is using crime syndicates and hooligans to maintain control and do its dirty work.
Most of the findings were already known, but it is the first time that everything is layed out in one article, and it is corroborated by testimonies and hacked messages from the criminal Sky-ECC message service.
The US regional bank crisis is continuing to claims victims.
After Silicon Valley Bank, First Republic Bank and New York's Signature Bank, time seems to be running out for PacWest and Western Alliance. Zions Bancorp and Comerica are also in the cross-hairs of scared investors, panicking account holders and short-sellers.
The war in Ukraine is continuing with Ukraine still holding a small part of Bakhmut, while the infamous Wagner group has been almost completely wiped out.
According to Ukraine it has taken out 191940 Russian soldiers and 3702 tanks since the start of Russia's invasion.
China is continuing efforts to make the Yuan (Renminbi) a dominant currency.
China does not want the Yuan to be a fully and freely convertible currency, in part because it wants to prevent money outflow (of illicit gains). It has therefore set upon a policy where it engages in currency swaps with countries, such as Russia, Argentine, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, etc, etc. The condition of a swap is that the gained Renminbi can only be spent on Chinese imports.
China has introduced a new anti-spy law.
In Chinese tradition, it is unclear what is prohibited or not, so it can act as a deterrent and generic tool against anybody.
The civil war in Sudan is continuing.
Countries around the world are doing their best to evacuate their citizens and embassy staff. So far more than 400 people have been killed and thousands injured.
Sudan is experiencing a civil war between two military power-fractions who have turned to open warfare in the capital Khartoum.
So far shootings and explosions have been reported, and at least 3 people have been killed, and 'dozens' injured. The RSF was the "republican guard" of ousted dictator al-Bashir, and still commanded by people loyal to him.
A scientific study by the Francis Crick Institute has shown exactly how cancer can miraculously disappear.
Cancers can accidently turn on endogenous retroviruses inside the DNA of the cancer cells, which in turn leads the immune system to believe that the cancer cells are infected with a functional virus, and thus wiped out by the immune system.
In the US small banks are off-loading low yielding Mortgage Backed Securities.
The banking scare in the US after SVB went bankrupt has lead people to move money from banks to money market funds, which are not only secure, but offer a higher interest rate. Banks are therefore forced to sell assets, and they have chosen to off-load mortgage backed securities, since the downturn in housing - caused by higher interest rates - will also de-valuate MBS'es. While US long term debt obligations will keep their value if you keep it until it's redeemed, MBS's on commercial properties have a real underlying risk. As of now it is unclear if these changes will cause instability in the US financial system.
China's dictator Xi Jinping again called on the country's military to "strengthen military training oriented towards actual combat", according to Chinese state media
Xi is making no secret of his desire to conquer Taiwan.
The leaked Pentagon documents show that a small number of special forces of Ukraine's NATO allies are fighting in Ukraine.
It also showed that Serbia is secretly shipping some weapons to Ukraine, which must come as a surprise to most people in Serbia, a country that has traditionally strong relations with Russia.
Although it is to early to be completely certain it seems that some viruses have been eradicated by the COVID19 lockdowns.
influenza B/Yamagata has not been spotted since April 2020, and the A(H3N2), A(H1N1), and B/Victoria viruses seems to be limited in diversity and locked in regional corners from which they might not escape again.
The leaked US Pentagon documents suggest that between 189,500 and 223,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded while Ukraine equivalent number is between 124,500 and 131,000.
I also states that Egypt secretly planned to supply rockets to Russia.
The war in Ukraine is still ongoing, without much progress on either side, while the US has been embarrassed by a leak of top secret pentagon documents.
Russia has not even managed to conquerer Bakhmut, while the leaked Pentagon documents show that Ukraine has received all tanks at the end of March. The unaltered document also shows confirmed kills of 35000 Russian soldiers according to the US, while no unaltered numbers are available for Ukraine's loses.
Finland finally became part of NATO.
But Hungary and Turkey are still playing games to delay Sweden's accession. Turkey is trying to extract concessions, while Hungary's Orban is in favor of Russia's Putin, who he sees as a follow autocratic strong-man, and has therefore been trying to delay and hinder NATO and the EU as much as possible.
China has softened it foreign politics rhetoric, but not it's actual policies and goals.
The visit of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen set off a repeat of earlier bombastic military drills around Taiwan, but at a much smaller scale.
In Tunisia, xenophobic tensions are rising.
Strong-men Saied who has earlier dismissed Tunisia's parliament and supreme court and gave himself extra powers is now using xenophobic language to rally it's population against Sub Sahara Africans seeking to migrate to Europe leading to a wave of racist violence.
Binance, a dodgy crypto exchange most famous for its continues efforts to dodgy regulators and scrutiny is seeing billions dollars flee from its accounts.
This after it is finally being sued by the CFTC for continuing to violate its rules. Most of the outflows went to Tether (USDT), the dodgy stable-coin that is using these deposits to artificiality pump up crypto currency prices.
Israel's prime minister Netanyahu has finally dropped its proposal to remove the independence of it's supreme court.
This after massive demonstrations and strikes including from the military threatened to effectively start a civil war.
Inflation at approx 6% is still higher than desirable in the Developed World, while the room to raise interest rates has become more limited due to bank scares.
In the longer run a elevated inflation in the single digits is actually a good thing, since it will deflate asset bubbles and state debts, while increasing tax revenues. Although it will be deeply negative if those with lower incomes are not compensated.
Tanzania has reported a outbreak of the Marburg Virus Disease (MVD), a Ebola like deadly virus, after a similar outbreak was reported in Equatorial Guinea a month ago.
5 deaths and 3 further cases were reported in a hospital in the North-West Kagera region. It is caused by eating bush meat, in this case infected bats.
Lebanon is facing protests from former soldiers who are struggling to survive amid hyper-inflation and worsening living conditions.
The party's in power still refuse cooperate, or to investigate the 2020 Beirut explosion, leading France to threaten to put sanctions on specific leaders. This while Sri Lanka got a IMF loan after China finally agreed to loan restructuring.
China's leader Xi Jinping visited Russia, and invited it's leader Putin to China and in general continuing its diplomatic and logistical support for Russia in its war of conquest of Ukraine.
This while Russian losses in Bakhmut mount due to a 3 in 1 kill ratio in favor of the Ukrainians according to NATO. The big question is if this ratio is big enough to allow Ukraine to weaken the Russian forces while still having to capacity to launch a counter-attack in April.
In both the US and Pakistan a populist former head of state is trying to use riots and a shield of supporters in order not to be held accountable by the justice system.
Both Trump and Khan claim to be a victims of a politicized justice system, and are calling upon their respective supporters to protect them from the arm of the law.
In France demonstrations and strikes are still ongoing against deeply unpopular pension reforms.
Basically, the reforms are about raising the minimum retirement age by two years from 62 to 64.
After Poland's 4 airplanes Slovakia has now promised to donate 13 MiG-29 airplanes to Ukraine,
Meanwhile Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has been indicted by the ICC (International Criminal Court) for "unlawful deportation" of Ukranian children.
The mini banking crisis in the US has become bigger, with European bank giant Credit Suisse now in major trouble.
The bank is about to be taken over by rival UBS, while the Swiss Central Bank made 54 Billion USD in loans available to the troubled bank. The crux of the US banking problem was that the resell value of long term US debt obligations is now worth far less then short term US debt obligations, leading financial institutions to take heavy losses if they are forced to sell those, but fine if they can afford to simply wait for the loans to mature (which they can't if there is a bank run). The US Fed has set up a loan facility to ensure that financial organizations can take a loan from the Fed against the nominal value of the long term US debt obligations, which will prevent them from being forced to sell the US state obligations at a loss. Credit Suisse though is in trouble because of the combined pain of dozens of small scandals in the past years while current investor sentiment is looking for the next domino to fall.
Zombie companies are likely the next part of the US, European and China's economy that will start to fall over.
Zombie companies have taken on huge debts when credit was cheap, and used this credit to buy back stock, pay out dividends or frittered it away. Now that interest rates have risen, these companies are no longer able to pay interests on their loans, let alone make down-payments on its principal. They are already dead, but are still walking. Although most research indicates that zombie companies in the US and EU are less then 10% of all companies, it is "only possible to see who has been swimming naked when the tide goes out". On 24 Sep 2022, the SCMP reported that almost 1/5 of all listed Hong Kong companies are zombies.
The mini banking panic which started in the US with the failure of Silicon Valley Bank continues.
After other minor banks such as Signature Bank collapsed, investors started looking for more banks which could be vulnerable, which has put the focus on Credit Suisse, which looks vulnerable, but for other reasons.
Russia took down a US drone which was flying above the Black Sea, but also damaged it's own airplane.
According to the Pentagon the Russian jet tried to distract the drone by dumping fuel onto it, and flying in front of it, but it accidentally got to close to it. Drones in general have a fixed flight-path, which makes it unlikely that the drone was causing the accident. Both sides have downplayed the incident, and are de-escalating.
Ukraine is still holding on to the western parts of Bakhmut after retreating to a small river dividing the city.
Ukraine claims that its goal is to inflict heavy losses on the Russian army, which will allow it to start a counter-offensive in the spring.
Preliminary reports from the investigation into the blowing up of the North Stream pipeline claim it was done by a Ukranian group.
It is so far unclear if this was done on the orders of the Ukranian government, but it seems highly likely that it was at least aided by the Ukranian government.
In Israel and Georgia large protests against legal reforms continue.
The goal of the reforms is to take away the power of the supreme court to overrule new legislation that is in conflict with the constitution, while in Georgia the proposed law would declare human rights organizations receiving foreign funding "foreign agents. Both laws from both countries are a first step towards a autocratic state taken from the Russian play-book.
Panic has spread in Silicon Valley, the US, as the fallout from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is starting to become clear.
The bank is a crucial link in the Silicon Valley financial ecosystem, and it's collapse has already lead to unpaid salaries, stable-coins loosing their peg, and startups in panic. The FDIC has stepped in to take over the now insolvent bank, but since its insurance only covers $250,000 many companies will feel the impact. The cause of the collapse is that excess money was invested in long term government bonds that dropped in value due to the Fed's rising interest rates.
Sworn enemies Saudi Arabia and Iran have made an agreement to restore diplomatic relations.
Saudi Arabia and Iran have been fighting proxy wars in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, and Saudi Arabia was only 4 years ago urging the US to invade Iran, but the disasters war in Yemen has finally convinced Saudi Arabia that some de-escalation is smarter. China scored a diplomatic victory by being the peacemaker, a role it is now trying to play after the backlash from it's earlier "wolf warrior" diplomacy.
A US bank, - Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) - lost half of it's value after it announced that it had to sell shares to raise cash.
It started a panic that saw shares of banks in developed countries take a hit as worries set in that bad loans can undermine bank profits.
The UN reached an agreement on the protection of some international waters, called the High Seas Treaty.
It aims to designate 30 percent of the open oceans as sea-reserve by 2030. As always declaring the intention does not make it so, but it is a hopeful first step.
Russia is about to book a small success on the battlefield in it's war of conquest against Ukraine.
It is set to finally be close to completely encircling Bakhmut, and Ukranian units have been told to withdraw. Meanwhile _Russia's Foreign minister Lavrov was laughed at, when he stated in a geopolitical conference in India that "You know the war which we are trying to stop and which was launched against us using the Ukrainian people", which is a statement of make-belief which no sane person can underwrite.
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According to The Economist more than 1/3 of local governments in China are struggling to make payments the on interest of their debts, let alone pay down on the debt.
The local governments were caught in a triple whammy, with a 50% dropping of revenue of land sales due to the popping of the housing bubble, but with increased costs due to all the demands of the COVID-ZERO policies, and the current expectation that they will sharply increase spending to help restart China's economy, even though other taxes were also down. Even the LGFV's set up to make covert loan while keeping the debt off their books can't loan anymore on the bond market or roll over existing bonds. Xi has so far responded by trying to gain more control of the economy, even though his nationalistic short-sighted policies have wiped out complete sectors of the economy, and caused a huge drop in foreign investment due to policy insecurity.
News outlets Worldwide are reporting the gas poisoning of schoolgirls in Iran.
This is most likely not a case of poisoning, but a classic case of mass hysteria (MPI). Dizziness and nausea are common placebo symptoms that can be self-imposed. If nothing is found in blood samples, no poison gas is found, and no victims have symptoms beyond dizziness and nausea then this should be recognized as a case of mass hysteria. Similar cases were reported in Afghan girls' schools a couple of years ago.
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The US department of Energy, mostly tasked with regulating the US nuclear stockpile and energy has - with low confidence - concluded that COVID19 started with a leak from a Chinese lab.
It claims it came to this conclusion using classified sources.
The Bird flue H5N1 is still spreading around the World, and especially the US, were it has lead to egg shortages.
More disturbing is the high number of jumps from birds to mammals and mammals among themself s that have occurred recently, and a case of human to human transmission that happened in Cambodia where an 11 year old girl infected here father. Although mortality is close to 50%, 7 different vaccines exist, and treatment with Tami-flu is effective.
The anniversary for the war in Ukraine has passed without big incidents.
Russian soldiers are still dieing by the hundreds since they are mostly used as cannon fodder around Bakhmut while observers are wondering if the world is now in WW3. China's "peace plan" turned out to be a "nothing burger", lacking in style, substance, incentives and even realism.
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Research indicates that at least some of the most aggressive cancers are caused by eccDNA's, a type of plasmides in eukaryote (animal) cells.
ecDNA/eccDNA are strings and circles of DNA left over from DNA repair activities. Since they have no control structures, they always express their genes, which can lead to out-of-control behavior, including cancer. EccDNA might also be able to "contaminate" other otherwise normal cells, the same way the as the bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens causes cancer in plants.
The US is signaling that China might start arming Russia in its imperialistic war against Ukraine.
This while China has announced it will present a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, without giving details if this would entail Russia respecting the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Ukraine released numbers that claim that Russia has had 143000 casualties and 3310 tanks taken out so far.
Reports on the battlefield indicate that remote anti-tank mine laying by Ukranian artillery is particularly effective in halting waves of attack by Russia, since they can make a whole range of terrain unpassable in minutes. The mines are suppose to turn themself off after a programed interval.
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In Surinam protests against corruption got out of hand.
Demonstrators caused damage to the parliamentary building, and looted gas-stations.
According to Meduza, Russia has shot most of it's rockets and is therefore intending to resort to utilizing it's air-force in it's war of conquest with Ukraine.
Since Russia already lost almost all of it's tanks, and already shot most of it's rockets, it is one of the few options it has left. But considering how vulnerable its airplanes are to anti-aircraft fire (from stingers and anti-aircraft missiles, it seems that this will simply lead to the annihilation of what remains of it's air-force.
A team of 17 physics scientists in nine countries found the solution to the "dark energy" problem.
It turns out that the energy created by black holes precisely fit the amount of "dark energy" that was missing from the equations. The idea is not new, but the observations confirming it are.
India continues to harass the BBC after it aired a documentary about it prime minister Modi
The BBC released a documentary that looks into the role of Modi in the religious riots in Gujarat in 2002. The documentary was immediately declared illegal in India, and every since tax inspectors are sent for inspections into BBC India- offices. A _BJP spokesman also called the BBC "the most corrupt organization in the world", and the government called it a "a propaganda piece", further accusing the BBC of having a "continuing colonial mind-set". The documentary was never aired in India, but only in the UK.
Between 1 and 1.5 million people in China died of COVID19 after the end of the COVID-Zero policy.
This according to the New York Times, which used data from 4 different research groups. This number is a far cry from the official Chinese number of 83150 deaths. Earlier news also indicated that testing data and symptoms searches strongly suggest that a huge surge in the number of cases was well underway before the official abandoning of the COVID-Zero policy, forcing the CCP to choose between even more stringent lockdowns or pretending that abolishing COVID-Zero was their choice, and thus not lose face.
China continues its harassment of Philippine ships in the South China Sea that try to resupply it's military base on one of the islands that is also illegally claimed by China.
Just like in the Australia coast waters, in Djibouti against US pilots, and now in the Philippines, China thinks its acceptable to use low power lasers against people.
Russia continues to be on the offensive around Bakhmut, gaining small strips of land from Ukranian defenders.
These very small results seem to come at a high cost through, as Ukraine reports more then 800 Russian soldiers on average killed per day for the last week. Since these numbers come from Ukraine it is impossible to verify if they are truthful, but earlier numbers turned out to be mostly correct, and other reports confirm high attrition rates. There is no reporting on the number of Ukranian casualties.
The US is still in a nationalistic frenzy and is shooting down any balloon over its airspace that might be Chinese.
So far 3 balloons have been shot down, but there is no indication yet that the last objects are Chinese spy balloons, although it can't be ruled out.
The earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria has claimed at least 25000 lives, but it is likely to rise since there is no hope of finding more survivors.
Also clashes between groups of people which included gunfire hampered international aid efforts.
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The earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria has claimed at least 11500 lives, destroyed 6500 buildings, and de-placed at least 380000 people.
The unusually strong earthquake not only flattened whole settlements, but also had 100 aftershocks, which downed already damaged buildings. The lack of earthquake proof apartment blocks exabated the death toll, but historical buildings that survived earlier earthquakes were also destroyed.
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Ukraine is expecting a renewed Russian military offensive this month.
Russia is likely to want to celebrate the one year anniversary of the start of it's invasion of Ukraine, which has lead to more than 130000 Russian military casualties. Meanwhile, the position of Bakhmut is getting more difficult, as Russia is coming closer to surround the small city.
Saudi Arabia has started serious work on "The Line", a megalomaniac white elephant project.
"The Line" is suppose to be a dual flat lying sky scraper city 170km long with more than 9 million inhabitants in a remote part of the country, which will be full of every bullshit bingo buzz-word technology and costs several hundreds of billions dollars. Everything about the plan is so clearly wishful thinking by persons who never managed to open up more than one eye that there is no way this project will not be a massive failure that will bankrupt the country, and be nothing more then yet another warning for future planners.
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The US announced a deal with the Philippines to create 4 new military bases in the Philippines.
This as the Philippines is rattled by continues salami slicing attempts of China to claim the whole South China Sea. For the US it means that it has bases in the whole First Island China containing China's military adventures. This as China is floating spy balloons over the US and South America, leading to more rhetoric by hardliners in the US.
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Another US general has warned that he thinks a conflict with China over Taiwan is likely in the near future.
General Mike Minihan of the US Air Mobility Command, wrote a memo in which he stated that his gut instinct tell him that 2025 could see a war. The danger with these kind of projections is that they could create a "self fulfilling prophecy", since if one side thinks what is inevitable, they will be tempted to create conditions to fight in a time and place of their choosing. The general's words are now echoed by republican law makers.
Ukraine is warning that they need more weapons to counter renewed pressure by Russia on the Eastern Ukraine front.
Ukraine has already sent more troops to this fronts, but is signaling that overwhelming Russian numbers could exhaust its military. The US has been objecting to the Ukranian strategy of "defend at all costs", which runs counter to their dynamic defense and offensive strategies in the battlefields, which are geared towards destroying army's instead of holding territory, but even if Ukraine wanted to do this, they could now pull it off due to the lack of a air-force and fast heavy weapons.
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Nepal's deputy prime minister was removed from office by it'd supreme court for having dual citizenship.
The supreme court claims he has not follow the correct procedure in applying for Nepali citizenship, and is now stateless. The minister was elected with his new party to end deep rooted corruption.
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China has likely turned the corner on COVID19 as official numbers and anecdotal evidence suggest that the huge surge it was experiencing has mostly passed.
This while North Korea is going into deep lockdowns to as it is dealing with a new surge of COVID19, which it refers to as "recurrent flu and other respiratory diseases".
The West and especially Germany has reached an agreement of delivering tanks to Ukraine.
Ukraine will need them to keep Russia at bay in the expected spring surge when Russia will continue to try reach its goals of conquering more ground in Ukraine and maybe go for the capital again. Russia is also expected to call up more reserves in March, and is laying the groundwork for this by announcing that the orders of its latest draft still stand and restricting access to the borders only for people who have gotten prior permission to leave.
Argentine and Brazil have announced they will try to introduce a common currency.
It would solve problems in the chronic inflation that Argentine is always experiencing, although this is mostly caused by printing money, which is not a problem that can be solved by a common currency. If they succeed, this could be the basis of a common currency for Mercosur, which would be a good development. It should be noted though that the Euro became a common currency after rules and regulations were agreed upon, not before them. A common currency is a endpoint in a collaboration effort, not a useful starting-point.
Pakistan has suffered another big power outage, affecting most parts of the country, including its capital and economic powerhouse Karachi.
Pakistan has been trying all kind of scheme's to reduce power, since it generates almost all power through imported fossil fuel. But when engineers turned of the electricity overnight to conserve fuel, they failed to start it up again in the morning. Other power saving scheme's in place are closing malls and markets at 20:30, to very little avail.
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Cracks are appearing in the Western coalition that is supporting Ukraine defending itself against a Russian invasion.
Germany is blocking efforts to send tanks to Ukraine, afraid that providing offensive weapons to Ukraine could escalate the war into a full blown conflict with NATO.
The re-consolidation of the internet industry in the US and other countries continues.
According to Layoffs.fyi 154 companies fired 55324 employees last month. Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Facebook alone announced 10.000, 12.000, 18.000 and 11.000 layoffs. The crypto coin industry also continues to collapse with Genesis filling for bankruptcy.
The Republican Party in the US has started its showdown with the Democrats over the US debt limit.
The US has reached the limits of its debt limit, and its government has taken measures to keep the government running, while the Republicans will wait until the very last moment to increase the debt limit in order to extract concessions, such as cutting in social spending.
The war in Ukraine continues to be in a stalemate, while both parties prepare for new moves.
Ukraine is asking its allies for tanks and more armored vehicles, while Russia is training troops, and resupplying for a new offensive at the end of the winter.
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Turkey's Mad uncle Erdogan continues to haggle to try to extort the most out of the planned accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO.
He now wants 130 people extradited from Sweden who are in one way or the other related to Kurdish groups or his former ally Gulen, who he claim's is behind a coup attempt.
Israel is taking steps to restrict the independence of its supreme court.
The current right wing government in Israel is trying to undermine the Trias politica, the first step on the road toward a il-liberal democracy such a Hungary, or Russia, which is nominally still a democracy.
A team of scientists claim a major breakthrough in research to understand and reverse aging.
They claim that epigenome damage - the system that is responsible for expressing how a cell should behave - is the underlying driver for aging, and claim to have reversed age related damage in mouse. As always the researchers have reversed damage in specially genetically engineered mice, who suffer from accelerated aging, but humans are neither genetically engineered, nor mice. If the same therapies also hold on naturally aged mice, and on naturally aged primates, then this could be a major breakthrough.
The US is set to again bump against its debt limit, which requires both parties to agree to honors its debt.
But this time might be different, since leaked notes indicate the Republican Party intends to refuse increasing the debt level, unless existing social insurance programs are cut, which is a non-starter even for most republican voters who tend to use those programs the most.
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Israel's new right wing government is trying to outlaw the Palestine flag from public spaces in Palestine, claiming the flag is a "terrorist symbol".
The government is also preparing other punitive measures to punish Palestine for the "dastardly act" of asking the International Court of Justice to give a legal opinion about Israel's continuing occupation of Palestine.
Protests in Peru continue.
The protesters demand the release and restoration of former president Castillo, who was impeached by Peru's parliament after trying stage a coup. The current prime minister blames the unrest on "foreign interests and drug lords", trying to "destroy the country".
The Brazilian storming of the seats of power in its capitol Brasilia is over.
The army had already declared at the end of the elections that it would follow the constitution, so the outcome was never really in doubt. Bolsonaro seems determined to act like a mini-me of Donald Trump, even though he could have known that the outcome would be the same.
China continues to act like a "trouble-maker", and "disturber of the peace" as the Chinese would phrase it.
It is continuing its salami slicing technique of slowly trying to build up pressure, and creating a new normal by flying more military planes into Taiwanese airspace, and now also sailing warships into Taiwanese waters. According to China is it Taiwan that is creating tensions, by continuing behave as a independent state like it has for the last 74 years.
Supporters of Bolsonaro have stormed the Supreme Court, the Congress building and surrounded the presidential palace in Brasilia.
Bolsonaro himself left for Florida before the inauguration of his successor.
The Afghanistan Taliban made a agreement with China to extract oil in Afghanistan.
This while the Baluchistan independence fighters and Daesh are blowing up Chinese targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan, such as a Chinese hotel, a bus with Chinese engineers and a Confucian institute.
The military junta in Chad arrested several army soldiers who were claimed to be planning a coup to counter their last coup.
For good measure they claimed that the whole thing was lead by Baradine Berdei Targuio, the director of the Chadian Human Rights Organization.
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A study showed for the first time that viruses have natural predators.
Ciliates, a type of micro-organism part of the Halteria group was shown to actively consume viruses. This is probably only one of many micro-organisms that eat viruses.
Climate change continues to create abnormal weather conditions.
The winter in most of Europe has broken another heat record, while California in the US is facing an atmospheric river dumping huge amounts of water in a short time (also known as a heavy storm).
The war in Ukraine continues without progress on both sides.
Ukraine is asking for - and receiving - armored vehicles and tanks (although not the most advanced ones), and Russia is blindly continuing to attack Bakhmut without success, while also preparing for a new offensive in the beginning of the spring, for which it is expected to announce a new mobilization.Russia's power-centers are also converging into different fiefdoms based on military alliances, which could create instability or even a breakup of Russia were Putin to exit the stage.
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The war in Ukraine has shifted towards a (long range) artillery and rocket / drone war.
Ukraine blew up a school in Makijivka, killing hundreds of Russian soldiers with HIMARS, and Russia continues to attack Ukraine with drone attacks, that are now often being downed.
Croatia has joined the EU's common currency, the Euro.
It also joined the Schengen agreement to enable passport free travel with other European countries.