This Week's Must Reads - 6 - 12 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

• NatWest bank accused of 'intrusion' after starting new function that combs customers' accounts to track their carbon footprint. A 'Carbon Footprint Tracker' on the bank's mobile app uses transaction data of its customers to make suggestions on how to reduce their carbon footprint based on their shopping habits.

• Iceland declares emergency over volcano eruption concerns. Authorities have ordered thousands living in the southwestern town of Grindavík to evacuate as a precaution. The Icelandic Met Office (IMO) says it is concerned large amounts of magma - molten rock- is spreading underground and could surface there.

Covid

• Elon Musk Says People Were Killed By Ventilators Not COVID-19 Virus. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that bacterial lung infections in patients hooked up to ventilators killed more people than the COVID-19 virus itself. Mr. Musk said he spoke with several doctors about what mistakes were made during the first COVID-19 wave.

• Rand Paul Wants Fauci Taken Down or a New Law Passed. The Republican from Kentucky appeared on The Will Cain Podcast this week and spoke about how Fauci, the former chief White House medical adviser, allegedly committed crimes related to the COVID-19 pandemic. "We know he lied, not because I say so but because his private emails contradict his public statements," Paul said.

Covid Mandates & Lockdowns

• Britain will be condemned to another Covid-style lockdown. This pathetic Inquiry proves it. Even as the ineptitude of Whitehall is being revealed in its full horror, the focus remains on childish tittle-tattle. The one question that the country wants answered is whether closing shops and schools was justified.

• CDC Will Now Screen You for COVID, Flu, and RSV at 4 Major Airports. If you're a frequent traveler, you've probably noticed that some airports already offer COVID testing—but effective immediately, health screenings are expanding.

• Covid in the Age of Woke. Ramesh Thakur argues that the spreading dominance of the woke agenda was a key enabling environment in 2020 for the Covid interventions. Wokism is a war on Western civilization. Resisting the Covid tyranny is a war to defend such products of the Western Enlightenment as individual-centric civil liberties, political freedoms, human rights, and empirical science. He offers you eleven pathways on the journey from the Kingdom of Woke to the Dystopia of Covid restrictions.

• Brazil mandates COVID-19 vaccine for children. Child vaccinations required to receive welfare. “During the pandemic, a parallel program was created to operationalize the Covid-19 vaccine, outside of our national program," said the Health Ministry's Health and Environment Surveillance Secretary Ethel Maciel. Parents of unvaccinated children will be denied welfare and may be subject to fines, reports Revista Oeste. Unvaccinated children will be denied entry to schools.

• Drunk on power, ministers lost the plot in the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The Government was arrogant, sinister and undemocratic in its campaign to vaccinate the population. As early as January 2020, several weeks before the pandemic really struck the UK, the-then health secretary was ruminating in his diary about the likelihood of a “hurtling global race for vaccine”, and the “speed and determination” with which he and the Government would have to “keep running,” until that race was won.

Economy/Energy/Finance

• "Things Will Get Very Nasty, Very Fast". In the economy, if deflation now looms, things will still get very nasty, very fast given what it implies for employment and fiscal deficits; but if inflation lingers on that’s also the case, as we already see around us. In geopolitics, if regional war looms now, things will get very nasty, very fast, and so will inflation – Larry Fink and Jamie Dimon are both warning it would cause global recession, and that the present geopolitical moment looks as perilous as 1938; but if regional war is delayed, it could end up being even larger and nastier next time.

• Credit card balances spiked in the third quarter to a $1.08 trillion record. Here’s how we got here. Credit card balances spiked by $154 billion year over year, notching the largest increase since 1999, the New York Fed found. Credit card delinquency rates also rose across the board, according to the New York Fed, but especially among millennials, or borrowers between the ages of 30 and 39, who are burdened by high levels of student loan debt.

• US Debt Interest Bill Rockets Past a Cool $1 Trillion a Year. US Treasuries may face renewed selling pressure into the new year if one measure of the nation’s swelling debt repayment bill is any guide. Estimated annualized interest payments on the US government debt pile climbed past $1 trillion at the end of last month, Bloomberg analysis shows. That projected amount has doubled in the past 19 months from the equivalent figure forecast around the time.

• Lloyd’s announces it will pay £52million in slavery reparations. Lloyd’s of London has announced it will pay a whopping £52million in equality initiatives as the world’s largest insurance market recognises the “significant role” it played in the transatlantic slave trade.

• NYC Struggles With Post-COVID Recovery As Foot Traffic Falls 33%. First reported by the New York Post, the University of Toronto has published new recovery metrics showing foot traffic in crime-ridden NYC is down 33% compared with 2019, before the pandemic, indicating a souring economic recovery.

• Overdue commercial property loans hit 10-year high at US banks. Higher interest rates, an uncertain economy and remote work pile pressure on office space owners. The volume of past-due loans in which so-called non-owner occupiers have missed more than one payment jumped 30 per cent, or $4bn, to $17.7bn in the three months to the end of September, according to industry tracker BankRegData. The figure had risen by $10bn in a year.

• Stocks Tumble, Yield Surge After Catastrophic 30Y Auction Stops With Biggest Tail On Record As Foreign Demand Craters. Complete disaster. That's the only way one can describe today's 30Y auction, which many expected could be challenging after a mediocre 3Y and a subpar 10Y auction earlier this year, but nobody expected... this. The bond priced at a high yield of 4.769%, which was below last month's 4.837%, and just shy of the April 2010 high. But more importantly, it tailed the When Issued by a whopping 5.3bps, which was... well... terrible, because as shown in the chart below, this was the biggest tail on record (going back to 2016).

• Ransomware Attack on China's Biggest Bank Disrupts Treasury Market Trades, Reports Say. A financial services business of China's biggest bank says it was it by a ransomware attack that reportedly disrupted trading in the U.S. Treasury market.

• Moody’s cuts U.S. outlook to negative, citing deficits and political polarization. Moody’s Investors Service lowered its ratings outlook on the United States’ government to negative from stable, pointing to rising risks to the nation’s fiscal strength.

Health

• First ever 'vampire viruses' are discovered in the wild in the US. Scientists have observed 'vampire viruses' for the first time - pathogens that latch onto other viruses in order to replicate themselves.

• Number of assisted deaths jumped more than 30 per cent in 2022, report says. Medically assisted deaths constituted 4.1 per cent of all deaths in Canada last year, said the report, which was published on Tuesday. The report says 13,241 people received medically assisted deaths in 2022 — a 31.2 per cent jump over 2021.

• [1999] Israel's Ethnic Weapon? ISRAEL IS REPORTEDLY developing a biological weapon that would harm Arabs while leaving Jews unaffected, according to a report in London's Sunday Times. The report, citing Israeli military and western intelligence sources, says that scientists are trying to identify distinctive genes carried by Arabs to create a genetically modified bacterium or virus.

• America's frightening new bat lab: $12m taxpayer-funded NIH research facility in Colorado will import bats from Asia and infect them with deadly diseases - in project with China-linked scientists. The NIH granted Colorado State University $6.7million to build a new bat lab. Proposals show how the 14,000sq-ft facility could store and study some of the most transmissible pathogens on the planet - including Ebola, Nipah virus and Covid-19.

Middle East

• [2018] The Secret Elite & the Balfour Declaration. Few people are aware of the secret wheeling and dealing that went on behind the scenes in the lead-up to the fateful decision of the British government to announce its support for the creation of a Jewish homeland. The critical events discussed in the following article took place during World War I, the first global conflict in which millions of young men died on the battlefield.

• Who does Jerusalem belong to? Rhetorical wars over colonisation are meaningless. Moments after the first images of the Hamas terror attack on October 7 hit the web, people on the Left started to cheer on the brutal assault as an act of “decolonising” Israel. The divisions today, around religion and ethnicity, form a chasm that is exploited by extremists. The coloniser-indigenous arguments are little more than rhetorical devices designed to dehumanise and displace the other. A more productive narrative would recognise the common bonds that unite every Arab and Jew as members of the same community with inalienable rights.

• Hamas leaders worth staggering $11B revel in luxury — while Gaza’s people suffer. While their people languish in poverty and are treated as human shields, the leaders of Hamas live billionaire lifestyles. The terror group’s three top leaders alone are worth a staggering $11 billion between them and enjoy a life of luxury in the sanctuary of the emirate of Qatar.

• Photographers Without Borders: AP & Reuters Pictures of Hamas Atrocities Raise Ethical Questions. On October 7, Hamas terrorists were not the only ones who documented the war crimes they had committed during their deadly rampage across southern Israel. Some of their atrocities were captured by Gaza-based photojournalists working for the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies whose early morning presence at the breached border area raises serious ethical questions.

• An open letter to Israelis from Israelis: We deserve the truth about October 7. The following statement was written by a group of Israeli citizens who want to remain anonymous for their safety and out of fear of government reprisal. As Israelis we demand an official commission into the events of October 7. Genocide is being perpetrated in Gaza in the name of Israeli victims and we still do not know who was killed, how they were killed, and who killed them. We demand answers and so should you.

Politics

• Revealed: plan to brand anyone ‘undermining’ UK as extremist. Leaked documents spark furious backlash from groups who fear freedom of expression could be suppressed. The new definition, prepared by civil servants working for cabinet minister Michael Gove, is fiercely opposed by a cohort of officials who fear legitimate groups and individuals will be branded extremists.

• The Weaponization of “Disinformation” Pseudo-Experts and Bureaucrats: How the Federal Government Partnered with Universities to Censor Americans’ Political Speech - Interim Staff Report of the Committee of the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. As this new information reveals, and this report outlines, the federal government and

  universities pressured social media companies to censor true information, jokes, and political opinions.

• The Jewish American Dilemma. The Hamas war has exposed a deep current of animosity against Israel and against Jews generally world-wide, even in the US. This, you understand, is happening at a time of what we might call epic global political mental illness. A mass formation psychosis appears to grip many population groups, each in its own way, but often expressing itself as a longing for death, ranging from the economic suicide of Western Europe to the rise of Jihad to the desolate nihilism of American nose-ring youth.

• Senate passes bill to aid directed-energy attack victims. The Intelligence Committee has heard from several victims of the mysterious attacks who have had to “battle” with the federal government to get sufficient medical treatment, Sen. Susan Collins said. The Senate on Monday unanimously passed a bill that would boost medical care for American diplomats and spies who develop mysterious brain injuries amid an uptick in suspected directed-energy attacks on U.S. personnel at home and abroad. The attacks were first detected in 2016 in Havana, Cuba, where dozens of American diplomats were sidelined in what prompted a wide-ranging investigation by the U.S. government. The resulting illness became known as “Havana Syndrome.”

• A Dangerous Conflation. An open letter from Jewish writers. A group of Jewish writers drafted this letter after seeing an old argument gain new power: the claim that critiquing Israel is antisemitic. Editors at a corporate-owned magazine were prepared to publish the letter, but their lawyers advised against it. The writers share this letter in solidarity with those who continue to speak out in support of Palestinian freedom.

• EU Digital Identity Wallet Gets Final Approval, Commission Praises. The Commission welcomes the final agreement reached today by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU at the final trilogue on the Regulation introducing European Digital Identity Wallets.

• Suella is right – the Met’s double standards are a disgrace. Islamists and anti-Semites have been given far more licence than other groups of protesters. While it is true that practically everything the UK home secretary says these days brings the liberal establishment out in hives, the reaction to today’s comments seems even shriller than usual. All Braverman said in her article is that the Metropolitan Police must be ‘even-handed’ in their approach to protests.

• Bill Gates Business Associates Reach Combined $365 Million Settlement with Jeffrey Epstein’s Victims. On Thursday, a federal judge approved the $290 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought by the sex abuse victims of Epstein against JPMorgan Chase—a close mutual business associate of both Gates and Epstein.

• [2009] Recruited by MI5: the name's Mussolini. Benito Mussolini. Documents reveal Italian dictator got start in politics in 1917 with help of £100 weekly wage from MI5.

• U.S., NATO to Suspend Participation in Landmark Cold War Arms Treaty. Move follows Russia’s withdrawal from the Conventional Forces in Europe pact. Suspending participation in the treaty—which continued to be implemented as the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union dissolved—will give the U.S. more flexibility in deploying forces on NATO’s northern and southern flanks, including in Romania and Bulgaria near Ukraine.

Philosophy

• Does a near-death experience change you? Nearly losing your life can help you make sense of it. A grand theory of near-death experiences is almost certainly beyond us. They may be a mechanism to allow us to make sense of the life we have lived. They may hint at hitherto unrealised levels of consciousness. It’s hard to imagine them having an evolutionary purpose, unless their function is to rescue us from the brink of death. But one thing they tell us for sure: the mind is more than a function of the brain, and we still don’t know the full extent of what it is capable of.

Science

• DNA Shows Native Americans Have Origin in Western Eurasia. A recent DNA research on the bones of a boy who lived along the shores of Lake Baikal in Siberia shows that one-third of his genome was that of Western Eurasians, prompting scientists to conclude that Native Americans share much of their genetic material with Middle Easterners and Europeans.

• Scientists create ‘Frankenstein’ chimera monkey that glows green. The birth of a chimeric monkey with glowing green fingers and eyes may sound like something out of a horror movie, but it represents a major scientific breakthrough. Researchers in China announced the ‘long-sought’ birth today, sharing images of a long-tailed macaque whose cells are made from an embryo injected with other, genetically distinct cells.

• World’s first whole-eye and partial face transplant gives Arkansas man new hope. “Ultimately, if transplanting an eye proves to be successful at restoring any form of nerve function or visual signals, this would be a tremendous breakthrough in medicine for patients who have suffered loss of the eye due to trauma or cancer.”

Technology

• The rise of brain-reading technology: what you need to know. As implanted devices and commercial headsets advance, what will the real-world impacts be? As brain-reading neurotechnologies accelerate, ethicists and regulators are increasingly asking what unique risks these devices pose. “The brain is not just another organ of the body; it is the organ that generates the human mind. This should be the sanctuary of our identity,” says Rafael Yuste, a neuroscientist at Columbia University in New York City.

• Police Use of Face Recognition Is Sweeping the UK. Face recognition technology has been controversial for years. Cops in the UK are drastically increasing the amount they use it. Backed by the Conservative government, police forces across England and Wales are being told to rapidly expand their use of the highly controversial technology, which globally has led to false arrests, misidentifications, and lives derailed.

• Pentagon UFO boss says strange sightings are either 'aliens' or a foreign power - and he hopes it's extraterrestrials. 'If we don't prove it's aliens,' Pentagon UFO chief Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick said, 'then what we're finding is evidence of other people doing stuff in our backyard'. Kirkpatrick - formerly a laser physicist for the CIA - added, 'that's not good'. [When they give you two options to choose from, it’s always the third option. In this case, US military tech.]

Ukraine

• It’s Not the Right Time for Elections in Ukraine, Zelenskiy Says. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy blasted calls for elections as irresponsible amid rumblings about the prospects of war and his political future. The topic of when Ukraine should hold presidential elections has become a persistent feature in the country’s media after some US Republicans called for the vote to prove that Ukraine is a democratic country. Zelenskiy would be poised for elections in March next year if it wouldn’t be for the legal hurdles amid the war and martial law.

Vaccines

• The FDA and Moderna’s cosy relationship: how lax rules enable a revolving door culture. After holding oversight roles for covid vaccines, two regulators from the US Food and Drug Administration went to work for Moderna. Peter Doshi reports. The BMJ asked Goswami, Fink, Moderna, and the FDA whether either of the former regulators sought guidance from the FDA’s Office of Ethics and Integrity before moving to Moderna, as well as whether they recused themselves from any FDA matters related to their employment search. The FDA instructed The BMJ to file a Freedom of Information Act request for this information, which The BMJ has done, and Moderna’s vice president of communications and media, Chris Ridley, replied, “We have no comment on your inquiry.”

• BBC admits showing 'bias' against Reclaim MP and issues humiliating apology. The adjournment debate called by Reclaim and former Tory MP Andrew Bridgen was linked to concerns he has been raising about the impact of COVID-19 vaccines. Throughout his speech, which Mr Bridgen has claimed was carefully researched, the BBC Parliament channel ran a series of captions purporting to correct what he was saying.

• Oxford AstraZeneca Covid jab was ‘defective’, claims landmark legal case. Victims of VITT - a new condition identified by specialists - question the Government's monitoring of the vaccine's rollout and its efficacy. The Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine has been branded “defective” in a multi-million pound landmark legal action that will suggest claims over its efficacy were “vastly overstated”. The pharmaceutical giant is being sued in the High Court in a test case by Jamie Scott, a father-of-two who suffered a significant permanent brain injury that has left him unable to work as a result of a blood clot after receiving the jab in April 2021. A second claim is being brought by the widower and two young children of 35-year-old Alpa Tailor, who died after having the jab made by AstraZeneca, the UK-based pharmaceutical giant.

• Billions of Copies of Residual DNA in a Single Dose of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine: Preprint. A new preprint study up for peer review finds billions of residual DNA fragments in COVID-19 mRNA vaccine vials.

• The real Covid jab scandal is finally emerging. The young and healthy, who were at minimal risk from Covid, should not have been told they had to take the vaccine. Ah, yes, “safe and effective”. How many times did we hear Cabinet ministers intone that reassuring mantra? Yet, use of the word “safe” by any pharmaceutical company advertising a product had been banned for years for exactly that reason – it is misleadingly reassuring.

• CDC reports highest childhood vaccine exemption rate ever in the U.S. Forty states saw rises in parents citing religious or other personal concerns for not vaccinating their young children. The report did not dive into the reasons for the increase, but experts said the findings clearly reflect Americans' growing unease about medicine in general.

• Is the US’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System broken? Feature BMJ Investigation. A BMJ investigation has raised concerns that the VAERS system isn’t operating as intended and that signals are being missed. VAERS is supposed to be user friendly, responsive, and transparent. However, investigations by The BMJ have uncovered that it’s not meeting its own standards. Not only have staffing levels failed to keep pace with the unprecedented number of reports since the rollout of covid vaccines but there are signs that the system is overwhelmed, reports aren’t being followed up, and signals are being missed.