This Week's Must Reads - 16-22 October 2023

A summary of this week's most interesting news, studies, reports and articles

I spend a lot of time each day gathering new information and interesting articles. I then pick the most interesting topic and write about it but that leaves a lot of information that I’m not sharing.

Below is a summary of all the best articles and information from this week. This weekly summary is a slimmed down version for all subscribers but more comprehensive daily summaries will be for paid subscribers only.

Make sure you sign up!

---

Climate Change

• Africa’s revolt against Net Zero. The continent is choosing growth over Western imperialism. For the past two centuries, human prosperity has correlated with one factor: energy, released through the burning of fossil fuels. This is a self-evident global truth.

• Burning electric cars must be dunked in baths of water to stop fires spreading. Battery-powered vehicles pose a medley of risks in indoor car parks, ministers told. Car park spaces should become wider and burning electric cars dunked in baths of water, under proposed government guidelines to prevent battery fires spreading out of control.

• Excess deaths monitored as an indicator of the impact of “climate change”. Ireland’s Department of Health says it is engaging with the OECD to monitor excess mortality “as an indicator of the impact of climate change,” and says that heart-related issues and tumours were some of the leading causes of death last year.

Covid

• Scientists are using AI to forecast the future of COVID—and, potentially, to predict the next pandemic. A new AI system named EVEscape can predict alterations likely to occur to viruses as they evolve—potentially forecasting the next concerning COVID variants and mutations, as well as changes to other viruses like the flu and HIV.

Covid Mandates & Lockdowns

• 'Professor Lockdown' Neil Ferguson denies ever calling for lockdown but admits 'stepping outside' his SAGE advisory role. Professor Neil Ferguson's terrifying March 2020 models warned that 500,000 Brits would die unless tougher action was taken to curb the virus's spread. It spooked Boris Johnson into adopting draconian restrictions that saw the country told they 'must stay at home'.

• Lockdowns weren’t as effective as Government claimed, scientist tells Covid Inquiry. Senior epidemiologist who advised ministers during the pandemic said national shutdowns were a ‘failure of public health policy’. Professor Mark Woolhouse added: “In my view, there was a worrying lack of urgency and appreciation of the scale of the imminent crisis between mid-January and early March 2020. In contrast, I felt that the subsequent response - particularly lockdown - was disproportionate, unsustainable and not as effective as was being claimed.

• Sunak’s Covid startup fund invested nearly £2m in firms linked to his wife. Four businesses linked to Akshata Murty revealed to have received investment from much-criticised Future Fund.

• An example of how much of a whitewash the UK Covid Inquiry will be. The ‘independent’ chair of the inquiry, Lady Hallett, had this exchange with Peter Horby on masks.

  

Economy/Energy/Finance

• Janet Yellen: America can "certainly" afford to support Israel and Ukraine, US Treasury secretary says. In an exclusive interview, Janet Yellen urges Republicans to appoint a new House of Representatives speaker to enable greater financial support to be agreed for both Israel and Ukraine. She said it remained too early to understand the economic ramifications of the latest conflict, with oil and natural gas prices remaining volatile amid growing concerns of a wider war in the Middle East.

• Lockheed beats estimates on sustained weapons demand amid geopolitical tensions. War in Ukraine has prompted restocking arms and ammunition such as shoulder-fired missiles, artillery, other weaponry.

• Biden sold off nearly half the U.S. oil reserve. Is it ready for a crisis? Biden tapped the SPR last year when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent oil prices soaring. Now Republicans blame him for putting the nation’s energy security at risk. Oil analysts said even a fully stocked reserve wouldn’t protect the United States from the price shock that would erupt if a conflict blocked the 20 million barrels of oil that flow every day from the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz.

• ECB starts preparation for digital euro in multi-year project. The ECB said it would start a two-year "preparation phase" for the digital euro on November 1, in which it would finalise rules, choose its private-sector partners and do some "testing and experimentation".

• Bank of America's unrealized losses on securities rose to $131.6 bln. Unrealized losses have come under closer scrutiny by investors since March. At the time, Silicon Valley Bank sold a portfolio of its holdings at a sharp loss, precipitating its collapse and fueling the worst industry turmoil since the 2008 financial crisis.

• U.S. budget deficit swells to $1.7 trillion in fiscal 2023 as revenue tumbles. 10-year Treasury yield surges, sparking worries about higher borrowing costs. The federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2023 was $1.7 trillion, up $320 billion, or 23%, from a year ago, as the government’s revenues and spending both fell. The fiscal year ended on Sept. 30. Revenues fell 9%, or $457 billion, in 2023, the Treasury Department reported, while government outlays or spending dropped a more modest 2%, or $137 billion.

• Woes Grow at Credit Suisse’s Ailing Property Funds. Credit Suisse’s flagship real estate fund saw the value of its portfolio plunge by 9% in the third quarter as the global property correction accelerated. The Credit Suisse Real Estate Fund International is trying to sell “several properties in a challenging market environment,” it said in a statement Friday.

Health

• Running therapy may be as beneficial for depression as antidepressants. Researchers from Amsterdam conducted a study to see whether running therapy could be as helpful as antidepressants for treating depression and anxiety symptoms. The researchers found that both groups experienced similar improvements in their depression symptoms. However, the running group also saw improvements in physical health, while the antidepressant participants experienced slightly worse physical health.

• Crushing toll of America's colon cancer epidemic in young people. While cancers have steadily fallen over recent decades, scientists have been mystified by an explosion of colorectal cancer cases, also known as colon cancer, in younger adults who have traditionally been at low risk of the disease.

• Window to true health is your tongue: AI revives 2,000-year-old practice to diagnose diseases. A practice rooted in Chinese herbal medicine for over two millennia — examining the human tongue for signs of illness — has found itself at the forefront of modern health care, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI).

• FDA Approves Treatment that Destroys Tumours with Sound. The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of sound waves to break down tumors—a technique called histotripsy—in humans for liver treatment.

Middle East

• The anti-Semites are on the march. These anti-Israel protesters are fuelled by Jew hatred. That anti-Semites walk among us, in Britain in 2023, is stomach-turning enough. But it’s much worse than that. They are on the march. They are cocksure, almost gleeful. For they have been given cover for far too long by credulous commentators who should know better and braindead identitarians who harbour their own prejudices about Jews.

• Russia push for UN Security Council action on Israel, Gaza fails. A Russian-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution that would have called for a humanitarian ceasefire in the war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas in Gaza failed to get the minimum nine votes needed in the 15-member body on Monday.

• Israel has asked the US for $10 billion in emergency military aid. The aid package is currently being put together by Congress in coordination with the White House and will also include funds for Ukraine, Taiwan and the US-Mexico border, according to NYT.

• Survivor of Hamas assault says Israeli army 'undoubtedly' killed their own civilians. The survivor of the initial attack by the Gaza resistance also says Palestinian fighters treated their captives 'humanely' before the arrival of the army. “They eliminated everyone, including the hostages, because there was very, very heavy crossfire,” 44-year-old mother of three Yasmin Porat told the Haboker Hazeh radio program on Israeli Kan radio last week.

• [2010] Wikileaks cable: Israeli intelligence chief encouraged Hamas takeover of Gaza Strip. A diplomatic exchange between then Israeli Director of Military Intelligence, Major General Amos Yadlin, and US Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones showed Israeli support for a Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip which Israel could then declare Gaza to be a ‘hostile entity’.

• Likud Minister Formulates Emergency Regulations to Imprison Citizens Who 'Harm National Morale'. Communications Minister Karhi is promoting regulations that would allow him to direct police to arrest civilians, remove them from their homes, or seize their property if he believes they have spread information that could harm national morale or served as the basis for enemy propaganda.

• In defence of Steve Bell. Our great tradition of British satire is at stake. One of Britain’s best-known cartoonists, Steve Bell, says he has been ‘effectively sacked’ by the Guardian after drawing Benjamin Netanyahu. It wasn’t published, but he released it on Twitter. It depicts Netanyahu operating on his own stomach, showing a cut in the outline of the Gaza Strip.

• US vetoes Security Council resolution. The United States on Wednesday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have called for “humanitarian pauses” to deliver lifesaving aid to millions in Gaza.

• Met Police order Jewish charity to switch off billboards of missing children in central London. Gideon Falter, chairman of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, was 'astonished' by the force's actions.

• U.S. to send Israel artillery shells initially destined for Ukraine. The Pentagon plans to send Israel tens of thousands of 155mm artillery shells that had been destined for Ukraine from U.S. emergency stocks several months ago.

• New Rocket Attacks In Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen Suggest Prospect For Regional Conflagration Growing. The Pentagon has confirmed that American troops suffered injuries during the last 24 hours of drone and rocket attacks against bases in Iraq and Syria. On Thursday, several drones and rockets also targeted US troops locations in Deir Ezzor Syria and Al-Tanf.

• Hamas is the enemy of the Palestinians. This vicious Islamist regime has treated Gazans as mere fodder in its apocalyptic war on Jews. It’s not that Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people. It’s that Hamas is against the Palestinian people. It’s the enemy of the Palestinian people.

Philosophy

• The Complicity of Compliance. We live in an age of agendas. In the pursuit of them, behaviors that are otherwise deemed unacceptable supposedly become acceptable or even necessary. Justified by them, what is otherwise deemed immoral supposedly becomes moral. To a first approximation, when enough people go along with a prevailing agenda in violation of conscience, things get worse; when enough people choose to go along with their conscience in violation of a prevailing agenda, things get better. It is only an approximation, though, because consciences become corrupted over time by compliance and the untruths told in its defense.

• [2017] Why the Culture Wins: An Appreciation of Iain M. Banks. Trying to defeat the Culture would be like trying to eradicate a meme. Summing up: Banks’s conception of the Culture is driven by three central ideas. First, there is the thought that, in the future, basic problems of social organization will be given essentially technocratic solutions, and so the competition between cultures will be based upon their viral qualities, not their functional attributes. Second, there is postulation of Contact as essentially the reproduction mechanism of the Culture. And finally, there is the suggestion that the operations of Contact serve not just as an idle distraction, but in fact provides a solution to an existential crisis that is at the core of the Culture. This is what gives the Culture its ultraviral quality: its only reason for existence is to reproduce itself.

Politics

• Mysterious Death of Epstein Victim and Key Witness Raises Questions. The world lost a brave woman recently, Carolyn Andriano, who had been a crucial witness in the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, the accomplice of notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

• Aussie ‘deplorables’ have struck a blow against identity politics. Australia’s rejection of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament is a great day for democracy and equality. On Saturday, Australians rejected their government’s proposal for an ‘Indigenous Voice to Parliament’, with No winning decisively with 60 per cent of the vote nationally.

• Deliberately calling someone by the wrong gender pronouns may land you in jail for two years under Labour. Vowing to toughen up the sentencing guidelines for abuse and violence targeted at trans people, Labour would make attacks motivated by hatred of the victim's gender identity into 'aggravated offences'.

• [They’ve run out of alive people to cancel so are now cancelling Orwell posthumously] George Orwell was ‘sadistic, misogynistic, homophobic and sometimes violent’. Biographer of the legendary writer’s wife says darkness that runs through 1984 is a reflection of his soul. Anna Funder said that Orwell was a brilliant writer but a complicated man whose personal life was at odds with the “decency” of his writing.

• EU capitals fume at ‘Queen’ von der Leyen. Diplomats accuse European Commission president of overreach amid a furor over her trip to Israel. Ursula von der Leyen’s glowing reputation abroad is increasingly belied by a malaise within the central institutions and capitals of the 27-country European Union. In private conversations in Brussels, diplomats, lawmakers and her own European Commission, staffers complain “VDL” is overstepping her job description, cutting EU governments out of her decision-making and ruling with a small group of advisers by decree.

• A Universal Basic Income Is Being Considered by Canada's Government. The Senate is studying a bill that would introduce a framework for a policy that would guarantee access to a livable income to everyone over 17.

• U.S. B-52 Strategic Bomber Makes First Landing in South Korea In 35 Years. “We are honored and excited to demonstrate our ironclad commitment to the ROK-U.S. Alliance with the participation of the B-52 Stratofortress, and all of our US equipment and personnel in Seoul ADEX 23,” said Maj. Rachel Buitrago, 7th Air Force Public Affairs director.

• Biden Plans to Ask Congress for $100 Billion in Ukraine, Israel Aid. The comprehensive package seeks to leverage broad bipartisan support for Israel in the wake of the attack earlier this month by Hamas, which the US and EU have designated a terrorist organization, to help ease passage of aid for Ukraine, which has struggled to earn the favor of House Republicans. The inclusion of border security funding may also help garner support from Republicans who have long linked additional foreign assistance to addressing an influx of migrants in the US.

• Twitter user Douglass Mackey sentenced to 7 months in prison after being found guilty of election interference for making memes disparaging Hillary Clinton. There was no evidence to suggest that any voter attempted to cast their ballot via text in response to Mackey's meme.

• Former ambassador and Assange advocate Craig Murray detained under UK terror laws. The former diplomat’s detention is just the latest example of British terror laws being used to harass and intimidate dissidents, while brazenly prying into their private affairs.

• US conducts nuclear test in Nevada hours after Russian move to revoke global test ban. The test came hours after Russian lawmakers said they plan to revoke the ratification of a global nuclear test ban treaty. Wednesday's test used chemicals and radioisotopes to "validate new predictive explosion models" that can help detect atomic blasts in other countries, Bloomberg reported, citing the Department of Energy.

Science

• [April] A Quantum Leap Through Time: Famous Double-Slit Experiment Reimagined. A team of international physicists led by Imperial College London has successfully recreated the double-slit experiment, demonstrating light’s dual nature as both a particle and a wave, but this time in the domain of time rather than space. The experiment relied on materials that change their optical properties in femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second), which could potentially be used in new technologies or to explore fundamental questions in physics.

• Electricity can heal even the worst kind of wounds three times faster, new study finds. Scientists used an old theory to develop a new technique that involves exposing skin cells to an electric field to make the wounds on the skin heal faster.

• Stanford scientist, after decades of study, concludes: We don’t have free will. After more than 40 years studying humans and other primates, Sapolsky has reached the conclusion that virtually all human behavior is as far beyond our conscious control as the convulsions of a seizure, the division of cells or the beating of our hearts.

• Scientists record powerful signal in the brain's white matter. The human brain is made up of two kinds of matter: the nerve cell bodies (gray matter), which process sensation, control voluntary movement, and enable speech, learning and cognition, and the axons (white matter), which connect cells to each other and project to the rest of the body.

Technology

• Figure's humanoid is already walking and performing autonomous tasks. After just 12 months of development, Figure has released video footage of its humanoid robot walking – and it's looking pretty sprightly compared to its commercial competition.

Ukraine

• Israel rejects Zelenskyy's visit: Time is not right. On 11 October, the Axios portal, citing sources in the Ukrainian and Israeli authorities, reported that the Ukrainian President's Office had sent a request to Israel to approve an official visit by Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

• NATO steps up Baltic Sea patrols after subsea infrastructure damage. NATO and Allies are stepping up patrols in the Baltic Sea following recent damage to undersea infrastructure in the region. The increased measures include additional surveillance and reconnaissance flights, including with maritime patrol aircraft, NATO AWACS planes, and drones. A fleet of four NATO minehunters is also being dispatched to the area.

Vaccines

• New superbug vaccine turns the immune system into “the Hulk”. It temporarily puts the immune system on high alert to prevent MRSA, pneumonia, and other infections in the hospital. The idea is that a patient would receive this superbug vaccine when they’re first admitted to the hospital, giving them extra protection against infections during their stay.

• FDA Finds 'Signal' For Seizures Among COVID-19 Vaccinated Toddlers. A safety signal of seizures for young children following COVID-19 vaccination has been detected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

• Health Canada Confirms Undisclosed Presence of DNA Sequence in Pfizer Shot. The health regulator says Pfizer did not disclose the presence of the Simian Virus 40 (SV40) DNA sequence in its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine at the time of filing.

• Forensic analysis of the 38 subject deaths in the 6-Month Interim Report of the Pfizer/BioNTech BNT162b2 mRNA Vaccine Clinical Trial. The analysis revealed inconsistencies between the subject data listed in the 6-Month Interim Report and publications authored by Pfizer/BioNTech trial site administrators.