Today's Must-Reads - 23 March 2024

A selection of the latest news, studies, reports and articles

I spend a lot of time each day gathering together new information and fascinating articles. I then pick one or two of the most interesting topics and write about them. However, that leaves a lot of missed out information that I’m not sharing.

Below is a summary of all the latest articles and information that I’ve found. This is a slimmed down version for all readers but is usually for paid subscribers only.

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Climate Change

• Largest recorded solar storm was even bigger than we thought. The largest recorded solar storm in history, the Carrington event of 1859, may have been even rarer and more extreme than we thought, according to rediscovered magnetic data gathered at the time. In early September 1859, a massive solar flare was seen and a coronal mass ejection – a bubble of plasma and magnetic field expelled from the sun’s corona – struck Earth’s atmosphere, triggering a powerful geomagnetic storm that produced dazzling auroras and fried telegraph wires for several days. If one of similar magnitude happened today, it could cause havoc, knocking out satellites, communication systems and power grids.

Covid

• FDA Settles Ivermectin Case, Agrees to Remove Controversial ‘Stop It’ Post. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has agreed to remove social media posts and webpages that urged people to stop taking ivermectin to treat COVID-19, according to a settlement dated March 21. The FDA has already removed a page that said: “Should I take ivermectin to prevent or treat COVID-19? No.” Within 21 days, the FDA will remove another page titled, “why you should not use ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19,” according to the settlement announcement, which was filed with federal court in southern Texas.

• A retrospective cohort study on early antibiotic use in vaccinated and unvaccinated COVID-19 patients. In this study, a statistically significant reduction in recovery time was observed among patients who received early antibiotic treatment. Early initiation of antibiotics played a crucial role in maintaining higher levels of blood oxygen saturation. In addition, it is worth noting that a significant number of patients who received antibiotics in the first 3 days and for a duration of 7 days, during the acute phase did not develop Long Covid.

Covid Mandates & Lockdowns

• Furlough didn’t save millions of jobs. Its true costs are only now becoming clear. The latest Rishi Sunak advert paints him as quite the hero. “14 million jobs saved” it declares, in Hollywood poster style. And underneath: “Furlough announced, four years ago today.” In the end, Britain has turned out to be one of the few countries in the world whose workforce is still smaller than it was before the pandemic. Furlough was a powerful drug initially designed for three months. It ended up being used on and off for a year and a half, with £70 billion given to 11.7 million people. Companies, not all of which actually existed, were helped with loans. That was the short-term cost. We’re only now starting to see the longer-term effect.

Economy/Energy/Finance

• US personal interest payments now exceed wages for production and nonsupervisory employees.

  

• Superhot Rock Geothermal May 'Unlock Vast Amounts of Clean Energy'. Scientists have calculated where superhot rock geothermal energy might be extracted, and how much power it might be able to provide. A map developed by the Clean Air Task Force (CATF) with the University of Twente in the Netherlands pinpoints where we could use this material, and how it could be commercialized. Superhot rock geothermal is a potential renewable energy source generated from dry rock that's at a temperature of 752 degrees Fahrenheit or more. It can be found all over the planet. According to researchers, there is "vast energy potential" in this material.

Health

• Dangerous infection soars to record levels in Japan and experts can’t explain why. Streptococcal A, commonly known as Strep A, is known for causing strep throat in children. But a more severe form of the bacteria can lead to complications such as Streptococcal Toxic Shock Syndrome (STSS). The number of cases of the most severe form of streptococcus reached level highs last year with 941 confirmed cases of STSS, according to Japan Times. However, the number of cases this year is already expected to surpass this record, with 378 cases recorded in the first two months of 2024.

• King Charles Given 2 Years to Live as He Battles Pancreatic Cancer: His Diagnosis Is an ‘Open Secret’. Less than two months after Buckingham Palace confirmed King Charles III was diagnosed with cancer, sources exclusively reveal that the king is battling pancreatic cancer and has been given two years to live. While the royal family has kept tight-lipped about the specifics of Charles’ illness, including the type of cancer he has, a source exclusively confirms that the king’s diagnosis is known to be an open secret among royal staffers. “Many courtiers believe Charles’ cancer is worse than they’re making it out to be,” a second insider adds. “Even before the diagnosis, there were concerns about his health."

• Germany’s birth rate has dropped to 1.36 per woman, a sharp drop from 1.57 in 2021.

  

Politics

• The WHO Wants to Rule the World. The new regime will change the WHO from a technical advisory organisation into a supra-national public health authority exercising quasi-legislative and executive powers over states; change the nature of the relationship between citizens, business enterprises, and governments domestically, and also between governments and other governments and the WHO internationally; and shift the locus of medical practice from the doctor-patient consultation in the clinic to public health bureaucrats in capital cities and WHO headquarters in Geneva and its six regional offices. From net zero to mass immigration and identity politics, the ‘expertocracy’ elite is in alliance with the global technocratic elite against majority national sentiment.

• US embassy in Russia warned Americans about imminent attack by ‘extremists’ weeks ago. In the deadliest attack in Russia since the 2004 Beslan school siege, gunmen sprayed civilians with bullets just before Soviet-era rock group “Picnic” was to perform to a full house at the 6,200-seat the Crocus City Hall just west of the capital. The US embassy on 7 March repeatedly urged all American citizens to leave Russia immediately, giving no further details about the nature of the threat, but said people should avoid concerts and crowds and be aware of their surroundings. “The Embassy is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and US citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours,” the embassy said on its website at that time.

• Who Wants to Bomb Iran? Over recent months, the British media has also been talking up the prospect of military action against Iran. The US government has also not ruled out strikes on Iranian soil, with US national security adviser Jake Sullivan declaring that the attacks on the Houthis “were the beginning, not the end of our response”. The growing calls for confrontation with Iran likely please Israel, which has long viewed Tehran as its most important adversary. This is partly because Iran supports local resistance movements against Israel in the Middle East, but also because it is seen as the most likely regional power to acquire nuclear weapons.

• The gravediggers of British conservatism - The Tories have been overtaken by history. Last week’s redefinition of political extremism by Michael Gove declares that extremism is “the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance”. Leaving aside the question of political violence, which the law already adequately proscribes, it is not difficult to foresee how the technocratic liberal managerialism of the coming Starmer administration will interpret its vague definition of “intolerance”, defined as “creating a permissive environment” to “negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others”.

Technology

• Nuclear fusion will power superhuman AI, says ChatGPT boss. In an in-depth conversation with technologist Lex Fridman, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that future AI will require vast amounts of energy as its capabilities improve and it reaches a level that surpasses human intelligence. The only power source capable of meeting this, according to Mr Altman, is nuclear fusion, which mimics the natural reactions that occur within the Sun to produce energy. Despite several major breakthroughs in recent years, scientists warn that we are still years away from achieving fusion power on any significant scale.

Ukraine

• Kremlin says Russia ‘in a state of war’ in Ukraine for first time. Russia has presented its offensive on Ukraine as a “special military operation,” banned media outlets from using the word “war” and prosecuted anti-offensive campaigners for using the word to describe Russia’s military actions. “We are in a state of war. Yes, it started as a special military operation, but as soon as this bunch was formed there, when the collective West became a participant on Ukraine’s side, for us it already became a war,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview to a pro-Kremlin newspaper published on Friday. Asked to elaborate, Peskov told reporters later: “De jure it is a special military operation. But de facto it has turned into a war.”

• Polish FM says US knew about Nord Stream attacks. The United States knew in advance about the impending attacks on the Nord Stream pipeline but did not step in to prevent them, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski revealed. In September 2022, Sikorski was not yet foreign minister but was a member of the European Parliament. Back then, he insinuated that Washington was complicit in the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipeline. Speaking with Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita, he said "If we believe media, it [the attack] was carried out by someone who was interested in it. And the US had preliminary information about this and did not interfere with this move."