This Week's Must Reads - 30 October - 5 November 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.

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Climate Change

• Wind companies losing billions, prompting fears a federal bailout could be coming. David Blackmon, an energy analyst with over 40 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, said that the lobbying for more renewable energy dollars is likely near. “Everyone should prepare themselves to see an effort in Washington, DC to allocate billions more dollars to bail out Big Offshore Wind developers soon,” Blackmon wrote.

• Graphic cigarette packet-style warnings could help people reduce meat consumption. Researchers from Durham University tested a variety of warnings, including ones about climate change, health risks and even future pandemics. When accompanied by a picture, the warnings reduced meat meal selections by between 7% and 10%, according to the results of the study.

• A ‘Major Surprise’ Nature Study Finds Phasing Out Fossil Fuels Will Lead To Decades Of Warming. “Mitigation strategies focusing on the phase-out of fossil fuels will lead to quick removal of the short-lived aerosols while the longer-lived major greenhouse gases decrease much more slowly, likely resulting in undesired net warming of the climate during a decades-long transition period.”

• King Charles to give opening address at Cop28 climate summit. King Charles is to attend the opening ceremony of the Cop28 climate summit in the United Arab Emirates, one year after he was advised by Liz Truss’s government not to attend the Cop27 summit in Egypt.

• WHO: We must fight one of the world’s biggest health threats: climate change. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says in the face of one of the greatest health threats for humanity, the urgent need to implement measures addressing climate change remains a compelling, yet unrealized goal.

Covid

• Worldwide Covid Mortality Patterns. An investigation of the trends in Covid mortality using the data from Canada and various regions around the world. Does the data point to a deadly pandemic? The extra Covid mortality in places such as North and South America, and in Europe, relative to the rest of the world suggests that ‘Covid mortality’ statistics were not tracking deaths from a novel virus, but something more common, such as bacterial pneumonia.

• Anthony Fauci-run lab in MONTANA experimented with coronavirus strain shipped in from Wuhan a year BEFORE Covid pandemic began. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), under Dr Anthony Fauci's leadership, infected 12 Egyptian fruit bats with a 'SARS-like' virus called WIV1 at a lab in Montana in 2018.

• Does New York City 2020 Make Any Sense? What happened in NYC in spring 2020 is a vital part of the propagation of the global pandemic narrative. But how reliable is that story? Did that many people die in the timeframe claimed? Here we present eight reasons why we think the NYC mortality data for spring 2020 might be false.

• Hydroxychloroquine Associated With Lower COVID-19 Mortality: Study. The French study included 30,202 patients. Just 0.8 percent of patients at a facility in France who received hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and an antibiotic died, compared to 4.8 percent of patients who did not receive the drug combination, French researchers reported on Nov. 1.

Covid Mandates & Lockdowns

• The Great Reset Part 1: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. A lot of things have changed in the UK and across the Western World since, in March 2022, the coronavirus-justified restrictions on our human rights and civil liberties began to be lifted; but that doesn’t mean, as too many opposed to lockdown initially thought, that the Great Reset of Western capitalism for which those restrictions laid the ground is over. Far from it.

• COVID Lockdowns Were a Giant Experiment. It Was a Failure. A key lesson of the pandemic. One of the great mysteries of the pandemic is why so many countries followed China’s example. In the U.S. and the U.K. especially, lockdowns went from being regarded as something that only an authoritarian government would attempt to an example of “following the science.”

• Boris Johnson favoured Swedish-style approach to Covid over lockdowns, scientist says. Sweden avoided lockdowns, only introducing social distancing, limited travel restrictions and bans on mass gatherings.

• Dominic Cummings attacks Boris Johnson over pandemic response. Former aide says prime minister compared emerging virus to ‘media hoax’. Cummings told the Covid inquiry that Johnson, who was in Chevening, “would have said to everybody what he thought at the time, which was, ‘This is another swine flu, it’s all another rubbish media hoax ... the real danger is the economy getting talked into a slump’.”

• We needed a Covid inquiry – but this isn’t it. What is the point of the Covid Inquiry? It should be to establish which parts of the government’s pandemic response worked, which parts didn’t, and what to do next time. Instead, it is a farce – a spectacle of hysteria, name-calling and trivialities. The whole inquiry seems to be working on the premise that we should have locked down harder, sooner and longer – and that, if we had, Sars-CoV-2 would have melted away like snow. ‘Follow the models’ will probably be the inquiry’s closing motto.

• Chronicles of an Unvaccinated Leftist. More than two years later, in October 2023, people are still irrational when it comes to vaccines. But there is still a question. I don’t know if these reactions represent only a confirmation of the prejudice found in the Nature study or if there is another component: the fear of being infected with COVID-19. This may happen because they believe that vaccines reduce transmission; after all, discrimination is based on this knowledge, which was soon found to be false.

Economy/Energy/Finance

• Hartnett: "The Greatest Credit Event Of All Is Disorderly Rise In Bond Yields Leading To Dollar Debasement". Three weeks ago, BofA's bearish CIO Michael Hartnett pointed out something curious: the markets were heavily oversold according to most conventional metrics, and yet when looking at actual fund flows, nobody was actually panic selling, or selling at all for that matter: "we have seen $158bn in inflows to Treasuries YTD and $110bn inflows to stocks YTD (despite the pervasive gloom)." Hence, a paradox : how can both stocks and bonds be tumbling when there has been a quarter trillion in inflows into both asset classes?

• Treasury to Borrow $776 Billion in the Final Three Months of the Year. The Treasury said it expects to borrow $816 billion between January and March. The announcement comes 10 days after the government said the fiscal 2023 budget deficit would be about $1.7 trillion.

• Energy companies turn to Ukraine to store gas as EU nears capacity. Alternative storage to be used to park reserves ahead of peak winter months. According to figures from Gas Infrastructure Europe, the EU’s chambers are now almost 99 per cent full, surpassing Brussels’ target of 90 per cent of storage capacity by November.

• What a third world war would mean for investors. Global conflicts have a habit of sneaking up on money-managers. In short, it does not look anything like the panic you might expect if the odds of the world plunging into war were edging higher. The brightest conclusion is that such odds really are close to zero. A darker one is that, like the investors of 1914, today’s may soon be blindsided. History points to a third possibility: that even if investors expect a major war, there is little they can do to reliably profit from it.

• Brace for 8% mortgage rates to drag the US housing market into a 1980s-style recession, Wells Fargo warns. The central bank has signaled in recent months that it'll keep borrowing costs at a higher level for longer well into 2024 in a bid to quell inflation – and that'll fuel declines in both construction and activity, according to the bank.

• FTX Allegedly Wanted To Buy Pacific Island Country To Build Doomsday Bunker For Effective Altruists. Citing recovered internal communications between the younger Bankman-Fried and the executive, FTX lawyers allege that the memo outlined a plan to buy Nauru, an independent country in the Pacific Ocean with a population of about 13,000. The document allegedly floated the idea of building a “bunker/shelter” on Nauru in the event of “some event where 50%-99.99% of people die” to “ensure” the survival of “most” subscribers to the effective altruism ideology, recently made famous by Bankman-Fried’s older brother. The memo purportedly also discussed plans “build a lab . . . for human genetic enhancement” in Nauru, noting there are “probably” other “useful” aspects to owning an entire country, too.

• US banks hit by deposit delays. Banks stressed that customer deposits remain safe, and the bug was introduced by human error and not a malicious attack. Although the rare deposit delay affected deposits at a large number of banks, it appeared that other banking systems were functioning normally. Bank of America alerted customers that their deposits may be delayed due to a problem impacting multiple banks.

• Treasury to pay Bank of England £170bn to cover QE losses. The government is to hand over about £170 billion to the Bank of England to cover losses on its bond-buying scheme over the next decade, new analysis by the central bank suggests. Losses on the Bank’s quantitative easing (QE) programme, which are backstopped by the Treasury, are forecast to rise significantly as it sells the gilts back into depressed financial markets.

Health

• Heart failure to be treated at home as NHS expands virtual wards programme. Thousands of people with heart failure can now be treated at home as the NHS continues to expand its use of virtual wards to free up hospital beds. Virtual wards allow patients to remain at home while receiving care from clinical staff, who use apps or wearable technology to monitor them remotely.

• ‘Excess mortality’ continuing surge causes concerns. Despite some signs that excess mortality rates are declining, life insurance executives and actuaries believe the numbers are alarming and could continue to drag earnings and surge death claims for years to come. Younger adult mortality rates are up more than 20% in 2023, the CDC said.

• Infant mortality rate increases 3% in 2022, rising for 1st time in 2 decades: CDC. This is the first year-over-year increase seen since 2001 to 2002. The neonatal mortality rate -- infant deaths at less than 28 days of life -- also rose 3% from 3.49 per 1,000 live births in 2021 to 3.58 in 2022 and the postneonatal mortality rate -- infant deaths between 28 and 364 days of life -- grew 4% from 1.95 per 1,000 to 2.02 over the same period.

• “Game Changer for Vitamin D” – Supplementation Found To Improve Cancer Survival. For over a century, the relationship between vitamin D deficiency and the risk of several cancers has been a topic of discussion. A recent commentary has highlighted the potential benefits of improving vitamin D levels to reduce cancer risk and enhance survival rates.

Middle East

• Soros has funneled over $15M to pro-Hamas organizations through Open Society Foundations. $13.7 million of the money was transferred to a left-wing activist organization called The Tides Center, according to the New York Post. The Tides Center sponsors many of the groups that have justified the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel.

• German Defense Minister Pistorius sees danger of war in Europe. Defense Minister Pistorius is calling for a new mentality in society in the face of crises like those in the Middle East. There is a danger of war in Europe, he says on ZDF. “We have to get used to the idea that there could be a threat of war in Europe.”

• U.S. Quietly Expands Secret Military Base in Israel. Government documents pointing to construction at a classified U.S. base offer rare hints about a little noted U.S. military presence near Gaza. Two months before Hamas attacked Israel, the Pentagon awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to build U.S. troop facilities for a secret base it maintains deep within Israel’s Negev desert, just 20 miles from Gaza.

• Egyptian Prime Minister Says Country Ready to Sacrifice Millions of Lives to Defend Territory. Amid rising pressure on Egypt to admit Palestinian refugees, the country's prime minister, Mostafa Madbouly, said it remained committed to protecting its land and sovereignty regardless of the cost. "We are prepared to sacrifice millions of lives to ensure that no one encroaches upon our territory.”

• Houthis effectively declare war on Israel after drone, missile barrage. Yemen’s Ansarullah movement, better known as the Houthis, has effectively declared war on Israel.

• UK issues D-Notices to suppress reports of SAS special forces operations in Gaza. Britain’s Conservative government has issued notices to the media to suppress reports of the operations of the Special Air Service (SAS) in Gaza.

• U.S. officials hold their breath for Iranian cyberattacks. Critical infrastructure owners and operators are stepping up security, as the U.S. government keeps a close eye on evolving threats from Tehran in cyberspace. It’s far from just Israel at risk of cyberattacks from the Hamas-aligned regime’s cyber operatives, U.S. officials say.

• Parliament of Algeria Votes War Powers to President Against Israel. While one may chuckle at the notion, it is necessary to point out that Algeria can basically SHUT DOWN entry/Exit between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

• Israeli Minister rolls out bill to strip citizenship from terror supporters in wartime. Interior Minister Moshe Arbel unveiled a proposal Thursday that would allow Israel to strip individuals of citizenship if they express solidarity with terror groups or incite terror during times of war.

Politics

• Racism in the mask of anti-imperialism. Across the West, ‘Marches for Palestine’ have given cover to some of the vilest anti-Semitism we’ve seen in decades. Yesterday in London the left marched alongside a mob that was celebrating the mass murder of Jews. They came in from their gentrified suburbs, macchiato in hand, and mingled with keffiyeh-wearing bigots who were using a megaphone to taunt Jews with stories of their annihilation.

• Johnson vows to move $14.5 billion Israel aid package, setting up showdown with Senate. Johnson’s decision to move a standalone funding bill for Israel, which he told members would be fully paid for, and detach it from Ukraine aid will tee up a showdown with the Democratic-controlled Senate and White House, which prefer to link the two issues, given Ukraine aid on its own faces an uncertain path in the GOP-led House. Johnson told CNN last week he supports Ukraine aid but needs “conditions” on it.

• US announces new nuclear bomb 24 times more powerful than one dropped on Japan. The US Department of Defense plans to develop the B61-13 nuclear gravity bomb, awaiting Congressional approval. This bomb, 24 times more powerful than the one used on Hiroshima in WW II, aims to address evolving security challenges.

• [1995] Modern art was CIA 'weapon'. Revealed: how the spy agency used unwitting artists such as Pollock and de Kooning in a cultural Cold War. Why did the CIA support them? Because in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity, the intellectual freedom, and the cultural power of the US. Russian art, strapped into the communist ideological straitjacket, could not compete.

• Wikipedia’s Empire—and How to Build a Rebel Alliance of Knowledge. Wikipedia has become a key tool in shaping public opinion. It fits right in with Big Tech tools that push Establishment narratives. As a result, it has become harder to find a balanced assortment of information that empowers readers to decide issues for themselves. That is why the encyclosphere project has started collecting all the other free encyclopedias into a single, distributed database. Aggregating many encyclopedias and making them searchable from many places does for encyclopedias what the blogosphere did for blogs.

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr Says He Flew on Jeffrey Epstein's 'Lolita Express'. The independent 2024 presidential candidate was among a number of high-profile people who in 2021 were named as passengers on Epstein's jet, which was often used to transport guests to the financier's private Caribbean island, Little Saint James. Amid mounting curiosity over Kennedy being listed as one of the passengers, a spokesperson for the former Democrat exclusively told Newsweek that he had "flown one time on Jeffrey Epstein's private plane. It was in 1993 from [New York City] to Palm Beach [Florida] to visit RFK Jr.'s mom for Easter." The spokesperson added that the private jet trip was made possible by Kennedy's then-wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, who was friendly with Epstein's partner at the time, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Science

• Quantum Breakthrough: Scientists Rethink the Nature of Reality. Quantum physicists from Hiroshima University have revealed that the results of quantum measurements are fundamentally tied to the interaction dynamics between the measuring device and the system, challenging traditional views of fixed physical properties and suggesting that reality is shaped by the context of these interactions. Their findings point to a need to rethink the interpretation of quantum experimental data.

• Scientists Acknowledge They Got it Wrong, That the Peak of Solar Cycle 25 is Fast Approaching. NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center has released a “revised prediction” for the current solar cycle, which states that the upcoming solar maximum will arrive sooner and be more explosive than they initially forecast, reports Live Science.

• Groundbreaking study reverses ageing in rats. Yuvan Research's study achieved a 50% reversal of rat aging through young porcine plasma nanoparticles, offering hope for human age reversal and broader applications. The therapy, dubbed E5, utilises extracellular nanoparticles from young porcine plasma, injecting them into elderly rats and yielding significant youthfulness within days. The implications of these findings suggest that similar results in humans could mean reverting an 80-year-old to the biological age of 26.

• Giant Pyramid Buried in Indonesia Could Be The Oldest in The World. A giant underground pyramid hidden beneath a hillside in Indonesia far outdates Stonehenge or the Giza Pyramids and may come to rival the oldest megalithic structures ever built by human hands. An extensive analysis of Gunung Padang, which means 'mountain of enlightenment' in the local language, now strongly suggests that an ancient civilization "meticulously sculpted" the natural hill of lava into the core of a pyramid-like structure long ago. The first radiocarbon dating of the site indicates that initial construction began sometime in the last glacial period, more than 16,000 years before the present and possibly as far back as 27,000 years ago.

Technology

• AI is not just a future problem - it's already eroding our freedoms. This AI summit is about safety, but we cannot be complacent about liberty – and there is no safety in a world without liberty. The risks of frontier AI being misused or escaping human control should be considered, but the most urgent risks posed by the technological revolution are being overlooked.

• Synthetic Reality Reimagined: From Hyperreal to SuperReality. Are AI-generated constructs less authentic, or windows into a broader reality? Human perception is inherently constrained, functioning within a bandwidth that is surprisingly limited given the complexity of the world around us.

Ukraine

• ‘Nobody Believes in Our Victory Like I Do.’ Inside Volodymyr Zelensky’s Struggle to Keep Ukraine in the Fight. Zelensky feels betrayed by his Western allies. They have left him without the means to win the war, only the means to survive it. His belief in Ukraine’s ultimate victory over Russia has hardened into a form that worries some of his advisers. It is immovable, verging on the messianic. “He deludes himself,” one of his closest aides tells me in frustration. “We’re out of options. We’re not winning. But try telling him that.”

• U.S., European officials broach topic of peace negotiations with Ukraine, sources say. The conversations have included very broad outlines of what Ukraine might need to give up to reach a deal with Russia. Some of the talks, which officials described as delicate, took place last month during a meeting of representatives from more than 50 nations supporting Ukraine, including NATO members, known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, the officials said.

Vaccines

• Pfizer’s Bait and Switch a ‘Gut Punch’ for Informed Consent. If you took the Pfizer COVID vaccine, would you be surprised to learn that the product you were injected with was never tested at scale in a randomised controlled trial before being approved for use? Believe it or not, this is not a hypothetical question.

• Do Covid vaccines meet the definition of gene therapy? Serious questions are being asked of Australia’s Office of the Gene Technology Regulator. A legal case filed in Australia’s Federal Court claims the Pfizer and Moderna products always met Australian legal definitions for being deemed genetically modified organisms and should therefore have obtained GMO licenses from the OGTR. They did not.

• Nearly 1 in 3 COVID-19 Vaccine Recipients Suffered Neurological Side Effects. The people included in the study suffered from headaches, tremors, muscle spasms, insomnia, sleepiness, vertigo, and difficulty in concentration.

• UKHSA campaign: ‘get winter strong’ with flu and COVID-19 vaccines. National marketing campaign launches today, targeting those eligible but still unvaccinated.

• Killer Jab? 24% Say Someone They Know Died From COVID-19 Vaccine. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 24% of American Adults say they know someone personally who died from side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine.