Month: August 2024

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that COVID-19 levels across the United States are currently “very high” in more than half of states, with Omicron variants KP.3 and KP.3.1.1 accounting for about half of all cases.

Citing wastewater data as of Aug. 15, the CDC said that “very high” COVID-19 levels are being observed in 32 states as well as Washington, D.C., and “high” in 11 states. All the states along the West Coast and the Mountain states are in the “very high” range, according to the CDC.

A separate CDC dashboard shows that, for the week ending Aug. 10, COVID-19 emergency department visits were slightly down from 2.5 to 2.4 percent while hospitalizations were slightly up at 3.3 percent from 3.2 percent. During a previous increase in cases in December 2023, emergency department visits peaked at 3.4 percent, according to CDC data.

COVID-related deaths, according to the same CDC data, have been at record low levels for the past three months or so. For the week ending Aug. 3, there were 618 deaths recorded across the country, far lower than the 2,000 or so deaths that were reported every week for the winter 2023-2024 when there was the last nationwide increase in COVID-19.

In the winter of 2020–21, upward of 25,000 COVID-related deaths were tallied each week, according to CDC data.

In the current wave of COVID-19, the agency’s Nowcast tracker, which displays virus estimates for two-week periods, shows the Omicron-derived KP.3.1.1 strain accounting for 36.8 percent of positive infections, while the KP.3 variant is at 16.8 percent.

A spokesperson for the CDC told The Epoch Times earlier in August that the KP.3.1.1 variant “is very similar to other circulating variants in the United States, and all current lineages are descendants of JN.1, which emerged in late 2023.”

“At this time, we anticipate that COVID-19 treatments and vaccines will continue to work against all circulating variants,” the CDC spokesperson said, adding that the health agency is monitoring the severity of variants and whether vaccines are effective.

There is no information “currently indicating that this variant causes more severe COVID-19,” and it is expected to cause similar symptoms as other variants, the CDC added.

Also in August, the CDC reported that COVID-19 is no longer a top cause of death in the United States, with the disease being listed on 49,928 death certificates last year. That’s down from 86,552 in 2022 and a peak of 416,893 in 2021, according to agency data.

COVID-19 is now the 10th leading cause of death. Early in the pandemic, the virus was the nation’s third leading cause of death. It dropped to fourth in 2022.

The leading causes of death were heart disease, cancer, and a category of injuries that include gun-related deaths and drug overdoses.

There were nearly 3.1 million deaths last year in the United States, down from 3.3 million in 2022. For many years before the pandemic, deaths usually rose year-to-year, in part because the nation’s population grew. COVID-19 accelerated that trend, making 2021 the deadliest in U.S. history at 3.4 million deaths. But the number dropped in 2022 as the pandemic ebbed.

Meanwhile, an advisory panel for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in June that major U.S. vaccine makers should now target any COVID-19 variants that are derived from JN.1. Those vaccines should be rolled out in the fall of 2024, officials said.

Last week, drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech said that a late-state trial of their experimental mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 and influenza found that the shot did not meet one of the trial’s two primary goals, according to a news release.

“We remain optimistic about our combination COVID-19 and influenza program, for which we are evaluating the next steps,” Annaliesa Anderson, Pfizer’s head of vaccine research and development, said in the release.

As we move into the second half of August, this week’s center of attention for investors will be the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium that runs from Thursday evening through Saturday. The good news, as DB’s Peter Sidorov writes, is that markets are approaching this in a much better mood than looked likely two weeks ago as the extreme volatility seen at the start of August seems almost a distant memory. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is on its best 7-day run since October 2022 (+6.82%) and has moved to within 2% of its all-time high, while the VIX ended last week at 14.80, down to below 15 for the first time in over three weeks. This comes as a 50bp Fed rate cut in September is now just over 30% priced, down from being fully priced on August 5 and 55% a week ago.

The overall title at Jackson Hole this year is “Reassessing the Effectiveness and Transmission of Monetary Policy” and central bankers will surely feel more satisfied with their policy levers than the last two times they met at the Wyoming retreat. The 2022 symposium came as inflation neared double digits across many developed economies with rates markets undergoing a sharp hawkish repricing, while a higher-for-longer focus saw Treasury yields reach post-GFC highs in the run-up to the 2023 gathering, with the 10yr yield then touching 5% last October. By contrast, this year’s event comes with US PCE inflation down to 2.5%, the unemployment rate up by 0.6pp since the start of 2024 and the Fed keeping rates on hold for the past 12 months. 10yr Treasuries are back below 4% as markets are pricing 95bps of Fed rate cuts across the remaining three meetings this year and 200bps of easing by next October.

In this context, investors will be keenly watching for signals on the timing and pace of rate cuts, especially from Fed Chair Powell’s speech at 10am EST on Friday. DB’s economists don’t expect him to pre-commit to any particular rate cut trajectory but to signal that the Fed has gained sufficient confidence that it will soon be appropriate to begin easing policy, with rate cuts justified by both sides of the Fed’s dual mandate. They see rate cuts as likely to be framed as dialing back restraint, leaving the exact path data dependent. With r-star uncertain and policy risks evident following the election, rate cuts beyond the first 75-125bps are more uncertain. For more, including the arguments for starting the easing cycle with 25bps vs 50bps cuts, see our economists’ full preview here.

Other scheduled Jackson Hole speakers include BoE Governor Bailey late on Friday and ECB Chief Economist Lane on Saturday. Ahead of this, we will also get the latest Fed and ECB meeting minutes on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, which may offer some colour on the strength of the conditional September rate cut signals that both central banks sent at their July meetings. Elsewhere, tomorrow Sweden’s Riksbank is expected to deliver a second 25bps cut of its easing cycle, with markets pricing a c. 20% likelihood of a larger 50bps cut.

On the data front, this week’s main event will come with the flash August PMIs out in the US, euro area, UK and Japan on Thursday. Last month’s slippage of the US manufacturing PMI to below 50 (at 49.6) contributed to a rise in US recession fears that has since ebbed, while in the euro area activity surveys have consistently disappointed over the past two months. Another notable release will be Wednesday’s Q1 Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) in the US, which will provide preliminary benchmark revisions to the payrolls data.

Turning to politics, today will see the start of the US Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where masses of antifa NPCs are expected to crash the event, literally. Politics will also be in the headlines in Japan as on August 20 the LDP is due to finalize the schedule for its September leadership election.

Day-by-day calendar of events

Monday August 19

• Data: US July leading index, Japan June core machine orders
• Central banks: Fed’s Waller speaks, ECB’s Rehn speaks, BoC’s senior loan officer survey
• Earnings: Palo Alto Networks, Estee Lauder

Tuesday August 20

Data: US August Philadelphia Fed non-manufacturing activity, China 1-yr and 5-yr loan prime rates, Germany July PPI, Italy June current account balance, ECB June current account, Eurozone June construction output, Canada July CPI, Denmark Q2 GDP

• Central banks: Fed’s Barr and Bostic speak, Riksbank decision
• Earnings: Lowe’s

Wednesday August 21

• Data: US Q1 Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, UK July public finances, Japan July trade balance, Canada July industrial product price index, raw materials price index
• Central banks: FOMC meeting minutes, ECB’s Panetta speaks
• Earnings: Target, TJX, Analog Devices, Snowflake, Zoom, Synopsys
• Auctions: US 20-yr Bonds ($16bn)

Thursday August 22

• Data: US, UK, Japan, Germany, France and Eurozone August PMIs, US July Chicago Fed national activity index, existing home sales, August Kansas City Fed manufacturing activity, initial jobless claims, France July retail sales, Eurozone August consumer confidence, Norway Q2 GDP
• Central banks: Fed’s Jackson Hole symposium (through August 24), ECB’s account of the July meeting, Q2 Euro Area negotiated wages indicator
• Earnings: Baidu, Intuit, Peloton
• Auctions: US 30-yr TIPS (reopening, $8bn)

Friday August 23

• Data: US July new home sales, August Kansas City Fed services activity, UK August GfK consumer confidence, Japan July national CPI, France August manufacturing confidence, Canada June retail sales
• Central banks: Fed’s Powell speaks (10:00 EST), ECB consumer expectations survey, BoE’s Bailey speaks

* * *

Finally, focusing on just the US, Goldman writes that the key economic data releases this week are the jobless claims and existing home sales reports on Thursday. The minutes from the July FOMC meeting will be released on Wednesday. There are several speaking engagements from Fed officials this week, including Governor Waller, President Bostic, and Chair Powell, who will deliver the keynote address on Friday at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium.

Monday, August 19

• 09:15 AM Fed Governor Waller speaks: Fed Governor Christopher Waller will deliver welcoming remarks at the 2024 Summer Workshop on Money, Banking, Payments, and Finance at the Fed. Speech text is expected. On July 17, Waller said, “I believe current data are consistent with achieving a soft landing, and I will be looking for data over the next couple months to buttress this view. So, while I don’t believe we have reached our final destination, I do believe we are getting closer to the time when a cut in the policy rate is warranted.”

Tuesday, August 20

• 01:35 PM Atlanta Fed Bostic (FOMC voter) speaks: Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic will speak in a fireside chat about innovating for inclusion at the Atlanta Fed’s Payment Inclusion Forum. A Q&A is expected. On August 15, Bostic said, “Now that inflation is coming into range, we have to look at the other side of the mandate, and there, we’ve seen the unemployment rate rise considerably off of its lows. But it does have me thinking about what the appropriate timing is, and so I’m open to something happening in terms of us moving before the fourth quarter…Waiting does bring risk, and that’s why we have to be extra vigilant on this. Because our policies act with a lag in both directions, we can’t really afford to be late. We have to act as soon as possible.”
• 02:45 PM Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr speaks: Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr will speak on cybersecurity. A Q&A is expected.

Wednesday, August 21

• 10:00 AM BLS releases preliminary annual payrolls benchmark revision: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will publish a preliminary estimate of the benchmark revision to the level of nonfarm payrolls for March 2024. The final benchmark revision will be issued and incorporated into nonfarm payrolls alongside the January 2025 employment report in February 2025. Based on the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW)—the key source data for the annual benchmark revision—a large downward revision seems likely; we estimate on the order of 600k-1mn (or a 50-85k downward revision to monthly payroll growth over April 2023-March 2024). However, we believe next week’s estimate will likely revise payroll growth down by 400-600k too much, as discussed in greater detail here.
• 02:00 PM FOMC meeting minutes, July 30-31 meeting: The FOMC kept the target range for the federal funds rate unchanged at its July meeting, and the FOMC’s message was largely in line with expectations. Powell confirmed that the FOMC has moved closer to a cut and that a cut will be on the table in September if the inflation data cooperate, and his comments suggest the bar is not very high.

Thursday, August 22

• 08:30 AM Initial jobless claims, week ended August 17 (GS 220k, consensus 231k, last 227k): Continuing jobless claims, week ended August 10 (consensus 1,860k, last 1,864k)
• 09:45 AM S&P Global US manufacturing PMI, August preliminary (consensus 49.8, last 49.6): S&P Global US services PMI, August preliminary (consensus 54.0, last 55.0)
• 10:00 AM Existing home sales, July (GS +2.6%, consensus +1.0%, last -5.4%)
• 11:00 AM Kansas City Fed manufacturing index, August (last -13)
• 08:00 PM Jackson Hole agenda and paper titles likely released: The Jackson Hole program is expected to be posted here, with the paper titles or panel topics and speaker names. Full text of the papers and speeches will be posted to the website at the time each event is scheduled to begin.

Friday, August 23

• 10:00 AM New home sales, July (GS 610k, consensus 624k, last 617k)
• 10:00 AM Fed Chair Powell speaks: Fed Chair Jerome Powell will speak on the economic outlook at the 2024 Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium. Speech text is expected. In past years, the event has been livestreamed by the Kansas City Fed here.

Source: DB, Goldman

Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times,

Starting Monday, Democrats will hold their long-anticipated national convention during which they’ll formally nominate their presidential candidate and outline to voters their vision for the future.

The Democratic National Convention (DNC) will formally lock in the presidential and vice presidential nominees for both major parties.

Former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), were nominated at the Republican National Convention last month.

Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, clinched enough delegates to win her party’s nomination at the beginning of August during a virtual roll vote that left little room for last minute dissenters.

She’s expected to accept the nomination, along with her chosen running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in speeches delivered on the final two nights of the event.

This is set to be a very different convention than voters expected at the beginning of the election cycle, when President Joe Biden led the ticket for Democrats.

However, a pressure campaign forced Biden out of the candidacy after an underwhelming debate performance shock up the political landscape.

Since Harris took over the ticket, Democrats have enjoyed a boost in polling. Still, the stakes are high for Harris and the Democrats, who will need to put on a united front after months of division within the party.

Here’s what to expect during the second major party convention of the year.

When and Where

The DNC will be held from Monday, Aug. 19, to Thursday, Aug. 22, in Chicago.

Democrats have a long history of holding their conventions in the windy city—this will be the 12th time since 1864 that the convention has been hosted there.

The last DNC to be held in Chicago was in 1996, when President Bill Clinton was easily re-nominated by his party.

The main event this year is being held at the United Center, a convention center that doubles as the home stadium for the Chicago Bulls basketball team and the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team.

Around 50,000 attendees are expected, including the party’s approximately 5,000 delegates. Like most major political events, it won’t be open to the public.

However, it will stream on a variety of platforms, according to the party.

In addition to the normal media coverage of the event each night, voters will also be able to watch the convention online, courtesy of C-Span.

The event will also be streamed in its entirety via Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube using the vertical style popularized by those apps.

Additional delegate-only events that are not streamed to the public will be hosted at the nearby McCormick Center.

Speakers

The convention will feature speeches from an array of Democrat notables.

Biden will be among the first speakers. He’s expected to call into the convention via video.

As is tradition at these events, neither Walz nor Harris are expected to speak until the final two days: Walz is likely to speak on the second to last day of the convention, and Harris on the final night.

Speaker are expected to appear according to this schedule:

Aug. 19: 

• President Joe Biden
• Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
• Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker

Aug. 20: 

• Former President Barack Obama

Aug. 21: 

• Former President Bill Clinton
• Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz

Aug. 22: 

• Vice President Kamala Harris

Time and Day TBD:

• Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson
• Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)
• Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.)
• Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.)

Platform

During the convention, Democrats will also formally adopt their party’s draft platform.

Released in July, the draft platform mentions Trump dozens of times.

It also details Democrats’ position on an array of issues.

It reiterates Democrats’ demands for a federal codification of Roe v. Wade—unsurprising as abortion is one of Democrats’ strongest polling issues.

Economically, there’s not much in the platform that’s especially new: it calls for the federal minimum wage to be raised to $15 an hour by 2026, policies to increase the affordability of childcare and healthcare, and making the Child Tax Credit permanent.

Additionally, the platform repeats Democrats’ long-held demands for higher taxation of very wealthy individuals and corporations.

The draft platform also calls for securing the southern border while providing a “pathway to citizenship” for the millions of illegal immigrants in the country.

However, this platform, released in early July, hasn’t been updated since Biden dropped out.

Now, hours before the convention kicks off, it still lists Biden as the party’s candidate.

As is usually the case at major party conventions, the platform will be discussed, debated, amended, and formally ratified during the convention.

Protests

While Democrats seek to project an image of unity, there’s one factor that’s outside of the party’s control: expected protests from interest groups on the left.

Namely, protestors are expected to move full steam ahead with protests originally planned against Biden.

Time to board up your businesses, Democrats are coming to Chicago pic.twitter.com/azU47I30k1 #DNCChicago

— Matt Batzel (@MattBatzel) August 17, 2024

One protest, organized as the “March on the DNC 2024,” will feature a group of around 200 left wing-groups, and could potentially number into the tens of thousands—raising concerns about event security.

Specifically, the protestors are demanding that the DNC and Harris change their stance on Israel, calling for the United States to “stand with Palestine” and “end U.S. aid to Israel,” along with a laundry list of other left-wing demands.

The event already has the highest possible federal security classification.

Security for the event will be handled by a coalition of local, state, and federal law enforcement, including the Secret Service.

Despite the challenges, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and local police have maintained that the event will be secure.

It’s been almost two full years since OpenAI released ChatGPT, helping kickstart the generative AI revolution. Consumers lined up around the virtual block to use ChatGPT, kicking off an AI arms race between at least three Big Tech companies.

But now that the initial newness has faded, what does the general public make of this new technology?

Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualizes the percentage of consumers using ChatGPT in various countries around the world.

This data comes from Boston Consulting Group’s CCI Global Consumer Sentiment Survey 2023.

Younger Countries Using AI More

Among the countries surveyed, India has the highest share (45%) of people using ChatGPT.

This could be partly due to the country’s large number of IT jobs, in which ChatGPT could be a valuable asset.

One correlation that emerges in this dataset is that younger countries by median age tend to have a higher ChatGPT usage, possibly because of a younger, more tech-savvy population.

And this correlation also plays out when looking at how AI tools are used. For example, survey respondents in India and the Philippines (higher ChatGPT usage) use AI for specific objectives: assist in research or as a virtual personal assistant

In contrast, according to BCG, respondents in the U.S. and Germany (lower ChatGPT usage) mostly “play around with it.”

For the consumers using AI for more than the novelty effect, “addressing unmet needs” is a key theme. This could mean creating financial goals, finding personalized recommendations, or searching for similar items to the ones they already had.

Overall, about 40% of all the survey respondents said they were excited about AI, with 28% conflicted about it, and 29% concerned.

If you liked this article, check out The Most Popular AI Tools of 2023 for a look back at the would-be ChatGPT competitors.

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal appeals court has reversed a lower court ruling that would have shut down the Southeast Alaska Chinook salmon fishery, a significant source of income for local fishermen, while keeping intact a program aimed at increasing prey for an endangered species of orcas.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Aug. 16 that U.S. District Judge Richard Jones in Seattle had erred in 2023 when he invalidated a key permit, known as a “take statement,” issued by the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

This take statement, which specifically applied to the Southeast Alaska Chinook salmon fishery, authorized the summer and winter harvests of Chinook salmon, which are a critical food source for the endangered Southern Resident killer whales.

The appeals court’s decision allows the fishery to remain open while the NMFS revises its management plan, which both the lower court and the appeals court found contained some flaws.

The ruling is sure to be seen as a relief for Alaska’s fishing communities, which had argued that closing the fishery would have devastating economic consequences.

The Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC), which filed a lawsuit in 2020 challenging the NMFS’s authorization of the Southeast Alaska Chinook salmon fishery and praised the district court’s 2023 decision as a “major landmark victory,” did not respond to a request for comment on the appeals court’s decision.

However, WFC has previously indicated that it remains committed to advocating for the protection of endangered species.

Its its lawsuit, the conservation group argued that the fishery was depleting Chinook salmon populations, which in turn was threatening the survival of the Southern Resident killer whales, a critically endangered population with just 73 individuals remaining.

The Ruling

The 9th Circuit’s three-judge panel found that although the NMFS had made errors in its 2019 biological opinion, which assessed the impact of the fishery on endangered species, these errors were not significant enough to warrant shutting down the fishery entirely. The judges emphasized that the economic impact on Alaskan fishermen and their communities, including Alaska Natives, would be severe if the fishery were closed.

“The district court disregarded the likelihood that the take statement would be supported by better reasoning, and readopted, on remand,” the court wrote in its opinion. The judges also noted that even experts from the WFC conceded that vacating the take statement would lead to millions of dollars of losses for Alaska fishermen, while also acknowledging uncertainty about the fishery’s impact on whale populations.

The appeals court criticized the district court for insufficiently taking into consideration the “severe disruptive consequences” of vacating the take statement.

However, the appeals court found that the district court was correct in upholding the prey increase program after determining that vacating it would lead to environmental harms because the program provided an important source of prey for the killer whales, and that nixing the program would have disrupted unrelated fisheries and other federal actions.

In its lawsuit, the WFC had questioned the effectiveness of the prey increase program and the NMFS’ reliance on it in its management plan as a “mitigating” measure to offset negative impacts of reduced prey availability due to the fishery’s operations, though they did not specifically advocate for its termination.

WFC called the prey increase program “ill-defined” while arguing that various hatchery programs proposed as mitigation would “themselves have harmful impacts on wild salmon populations,” including threatened Chinook salmon, and that they “may result in greater harm than benefit.”

It’s unclear what action, if any, WFC intends to take in light of the appeals court’s ruling in the case.

When stocks are ejected from market-cap-weighted indexes, swooping in to load up on them — and hold on to them — can pay off nicely, according to a new paper from Newport Beach, California-based Research Affiliates LLC.

“Once dropped by the index, there is a silver lining for these stocks…they, on average, outperform the market over the next several years, creating a compelling opportunity for investors,” said Research Affiliates chairman Rob Arnott, who co-authored the study with the firm’s research VP Forrest Henslee. They also found that, over the year after being booted from the indexes, deleted stocks have historically outperformed the stocks that replaced them. 

This strategy isn’t about making a quick profit by catching a bounce when the price-pressuring effect of index funds’ mandatory selling subsides. Rather, it assumes the investor holds on to the shares for five years. Had an investor started employing the strategy in 1991, he’d have grown his initial investment by about 74x.  

To track the strategy, Research Affiliates has launched the Research Affiliates Deletion Index (NIXT). While based on the research methodology, the NIXT index does have a tweak in the form of a quality screen that includes a company’s debt, total payout ratio and net payout ratio — with stocks falling in the bottom quintile rejected. The index uses an equal weighting and annual rebalancing. No ETF yet tracks it, so, for now, it’s a do-it-yourself opportunity.  

Tracking rejects from the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100 and Russell 1000, the strategy is ultimately a small-cap value play: 

Stocks that get dumped are by their nature small and cheap. Between 1991 and 2022, deletions traded at a 26% discount to the S&P 500 in terms of their price-to-earnings ratio while additions fetched an 83% premium. — Wall Street Journal

“When an index producer adds or drops stocks from the index, they will inevitably add stocks that are popular, beloved, and expensive and drop stocks that are unloved and cheap,” said Arnott. The strategy’s small-cap tilt springs from the fact that many index deletions are sparked by companies no longer making the large-cap cut.  

Some key observations from the study: 

• The deleted-stock strategy beat the Russell 2000 Value Index over the past 33 years.  “When deletions outpace the Russell 2000 Value, they win by more than 18%, on average…When deletions underperform, they lag by 5.3% on average, with a shortfall of over 10% only twice,” said the authors. 
• S&P 500 rejects went on to beat their former index by more than 5% a year. 
• Looking solely at the last 10 years, the strategy lagged the three indexes that drive it, which Arnott and Henslee attribute to “the current growth-dominated bull market [that’s] left value and small-cap stocks in the dust.” 

“It makes sense that the booted companies would become undervalued and bounce back,” notes Charles Robtlut at the American Association of Individual Investors. “It also makes sense to overlay a quality filter because some companies are booted from the indexes because they are no longer good companies.” 

The Journal credits Arnott as a “luminary in the world of finance nerds constantly trying to build a better mousetrap,” noting that a 2005 paper he co-authored sparked the smart beta trend. 

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Shares of mpox vaccine maker Bavarian Nordic saw an increase this week after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public health emergency and as the company’s CEO announced it could provide 10 million doses of the vaccine.

“We have inventory and we have the capabilities. What we’re missing are the orders,” CEO Paul Chaplin told Bloomberg this week.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) previously said it needed 10 million doses to deal with an mpox, also known as monkeypox, outbreak that has spread from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to other African nations. WHO and other health officials say that the strain of mpox appears to be more deadly than another variant that caused a worldwide outbreak in 2022 and 2023.

In the interview, Chaplin said his firm has has 300,000 doses of the vaccine ready to be distributed right away, while adding that 2 million doses could be provided to Africa by the end of 2024. “We are in late August already, so it really does need some speed in the decision making to be able to do that,” he said.

Over the past five days, his company’s stock has increased by about 49 percent, raising to about $14.11 per share as of Friday afternoon.

Bavarian Nordic on Friday also submitted vaccine-related data to the European Union health regulator to extend use of its vaccine to cover children aged 12 to 17.

“Children and adolescents are disproportionally affected by mpox in the ongoing outbreak in Africa, highlighting the importance and urgency to broaden the access to vaccines and therapies for this vulnerable population,” Chaplin said in a statement.

Emergent BioSolutions, a U.S.-based company that acquired a smallpox vaccine manufacturer from Sanofi in 2017, also saw its stock increase 54 percent over the past five days, raising to about $10.64 per share.

In the current mpox outbreak, have been 27,000 cases and more than 1,100 deaths, mainly among children, in Congo since it started in January 2023.

Emergency Declaration

The WHO declared the recent outbreak of the disease a “public health emergency of international concern,” or the agency’s highest form of alert. It is announced when diseases are spreading in new or unusual ways, and is aimed at galvanizing international co-operation and funding to tackle an outbreak.

A similar declaration was made for the mpox outbreak in 2022 and 2023, for COVID-19 in 2020, and for about a half-dozen other pathogens since 2005.

The WHO’s declaration follows a similar label from the Africa CDC earlier this week. Meanwhile, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sent a health alert earlier in August for doctors and physicians to be alert for mpox symptoms.

No cases of mpox have been detected in the United States so far, according to the CDC notice. However, Sweden confirmed its first case of the more severe mpox strain—the first time it’s been found outside of Africa—earlier this week.

“We have now also during the afternoon had confirmation that we have one case in Sweden of the more grave type of mpox, the one called clade I,” Health and Social Affairs Minister Jakob Forssmed said during a news conference.

Europe’s CDC, meanwhile, has said that more imported cases of mpox will be likely across the continent. It came as the agency raised its risk assessment, but it added that the risk of transmission remains low.

Mpox is a viral infection that causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions, and while usually mild, it can kill. Children, pregnant women, and people with weakened immune systems, such as those with HIV, are all at higher risk of complications.

It spreads through close contact and is classified into two distinct viral groups known as clades. They are Clade I, which includes a variant that has the more severe form of the virus, and Clade II, a variant of which caused the 2022 outbreak.

Reuters contributed to this report.

We previously highlighted that the recent “bombshell” WSJ Nord Stream report is yet another major attempt by mainstream gatekeepers to radically shift the narrative over the Nord Stream sabotage, and to put official distance between President Zelensky and his supposedly ‘rogue’ top general at the time who ‘oversaw’ the covert op. Still, the following is now crystal clear and fully established at this point, as even mainstream media now fully admits: Yes, Ukraine did it. No, Russia did not do it. And yes it had the involvement or at least foreknowledge of the CIA.

We further pointed out that this sudden U-turn in the narrative was meant to soften the blow from Germany’s decision to finally cut off Ukraine’s – and Zelensky’s – unprecedented grift. Already and to be expected, some German lawmakers are pissed at being so obviously used and abused by Kiev. After all the NS2 pipeline had been a years-long, multi-billion dollar Russia to Germany natural gas vital infrastructure project which cost $11 billion to build.

In the wake of the latest revelations, member of the German Bundestag, co-chair of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party Alice Weidel has been among the loudest Berlin officials in denouncing Kiev. She is calling for Ukraine to compensate Germany for the damage caused to its economy as a result of the September 26, 2022 underwater bombings.

Here’s what she posted to X on Friday in the wake of WSJ’s reporting and the latest disclosures surrounding the ‘mystery’ sabotage (according to machine translation from the German):

The economic damage to our country caused by the demolition of Nordstream presumably ordered by Zelensky – and not Putin as we were led to believe – should be “billed” to Ukraine.

Any “aid payments” that burden the German taxpayer should be stopped.

The firebrand and populist conservative politician is essentially telling Ukraine at this point: ‘you bombed it, you pay for it and stop taking advantage of our taxpaying citizenry.’ Or in other words, the gravy train has ended as the truth comes out.

Der wirtschaftliche Schaden für unser Land, der durch die mutmaßlich von #Selenskyj – und nicht etwa #Putin, wie man uns weismachen wollte – angeordnete Sprengung von #Nordstream entstanden ist, sollte der #Ukraine “in Rechnung” gestellt werden. Jegliche den deutschen…

— Alice Weidel (@Alice_Weidel) August 16, 2024

Berlin-Kiev relations have further strained as the German Prosecutor General’s Office also lately issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian citizen suspected of involvement in the pipeline sabotage plot. The suspect is also described as having at least two accomplices, identified as experienced divers who directly assisted in installing explosive devices to the pipelines.

All of this is indeed having swift effect, given soon after news of the arrest warrant was made public, a Saturday report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) said that the German government will stop new military aid to Ukraine as part of the ruling coalition’s plan to reduce spending. The report, which cited non-public documents and emails as well as discussions with unnamed sources, goes on to note that the moratorium on new assistance – which is already in effect – will affect new requests for funding, not previously approved aid.

Berlin, which is Europe’s main supplier of military aid to Kyiv, had previously signaled a change in course on Ukraine last month, when the governing coalition of the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals adopted a preliminary deal on a draft budget for 2025. The compromise detailed plans to slash future assistance to Ukraine by half to €4 billion to fulfill other spending priorities. And, it now appears, that even this token amount could be cut to zero.

It will also be interesting to see how much traction Alice Weidel’s enough is enough messaging and calls for getting German public funds back from Ukraine will have among the German populace. Likely it will resonate strongly after well over a year of ‘war fatigue’ and as tensions could escalate into nuclear-armed showdown between Russia and NATO.

Longtime investigative journalist Seymour Hersh says alternative NS2 sabotage theories in NYT and German press were ‘concocted’ by CIA….

And likely the last shoe has still yet to drop on the still unraveling Nord Stream sabotage narrative. Legendary US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh predicted all of this ‘official narrative manipulation’ months ago.

Via The Cradle

The Israeli government sought legal advice on how to bypass US federal law governing the spreading of propaganda among the US population by foreign states, an investigation published Saturday by The Guardian in collaboration with journalists Lee Fang and Jack Poulson shows.

US federal law requires the disclosure of foreign-backed lobbying campaigns, but leaked documents reviewed by The Guardian show the Israeli government sought legal advice concerning the law out of concern that Jewish and Christian Zionist lobbying groups working in coordination with the Israeli government would be required to register as foreign agents and disclose their ties to Israel.

The documents, which include emails and legal memos originating from a hack of the Israeli justice ministry, show that Israeli officials proposed creating a new US nonprofit in order to continue Israel’s activities in the US while avoiding scrutiny under the law.

Lee Fang and Jack Poulson write, “A legal strategy memo dated July 2018 noted that compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) would damage the reputation of several American groups that receive funding and direction from Israel and force them to meet onerous transparency requirements. A separate memo noted that donors would not want to fund groups registered under FARA.”

The memo says the Israeli government was worried about FARA because it compels registrants to “flag any piece of ‘propaganda’ that is distributed to two or more parties in the US, with a disclaimer stating that it was delivered by a foreign agent and then submit a copy of the ‘propaganda’ to the US Department of Justice within 48 hours.”

To prevent FARA registration and the stigma and scrutiny associated with it, the legal advisors suggested channeling funds through a third-party US nonprofit.

Liat Glazer, a legal advisor to Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, wrote that even though the new US nonprofit would not be formally managed from Israel, “we will have means of supervision and management” through grant-making and “informal coordination mechanisms” such as “oral meetings and updates.”

The Israeli government sought legal advice from Sandler Reiff, a prominent election and campaign law firm in Washington, DC. Joseph E. Sandler, the former in-house general counsel to the Democratic National Committee, and Joshua I. Rosenstein, a widely-cited expert on FARA, provided the legal advice on behalf of the firm.

Fang and Poulson add that the Israeli government was specifically concerned that a US-based nonprofit, “Kela Shlomo” (which translates to “Solomon’s Sling”) would be forced to register under FARA.

The group was formed in 2017 by Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs to distribute Israeli propaganda.

Rebranded as “Concert” in 2018 and “Voices of Israel” in 2021, the group focused on undermining and warring against the BDS movement, which leads boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaigns against Israel in protest of its illegal occupation of Palestine and ‘apartheid laws’.

The emails and documents were released by Distributed Denial of Secrets, or DDoSecrets, a US-based nonprofit. The documents were obtained by “Anonymous for Justice,” a self-described “hacktivist collective” that announced in April that it had infiltrated Israel’s Ministry of Justice and retrieved hundreds of gigabytes of data.

Yet another pride organization founder gets arrested on suspicion of being a child predator, proving once again that when LGBT activists focus on children and gender ideology it’s okay to be suspicious.

Stephen Ireland, the 40-year-old founder and former director of LGBT activist charity ‘Pride in Surrey’, has been arrested on a total of 37 charges involving child sexual abuse.  Ireland is an avid proponent of child indoctrination into gender ideology and was a patron of a charity called ‘Educate And Celebrate.’  The charity ran Pride workshops for primary and secondary school pupils, which included “How to break the binary and be gender inclusive”.

In 2022 trans activist Jordan Gray, another patron of Educate And Celebrate, prompted nearly 1,500 complaints when the performer stripped-off during a live Channel 4 show before appearing to play a piano with his penis.  The comedian had previously described going into schools to “talk about gender” on behalf of the charity, adding that “toddlers kind of get it straight away”.

Alongside Stephen Ireland, David Sutton, 26, a former volunteer with the Pride in Surrey, was also charged.  Surrey is a ceremonial county just south of London in the UK that was once conservative but has been recently targeted by far-left political groups. 

The accusations against Ireland (pictured below) and Sutton are serious, including six counts of conspiracy to sexually assault a child, conspiracy to kidnap a child, voyeurism, and arranging the commission of a child sex offense.   Additionally, Ireland faces a further 22 charges, including the rape of a child under 13, sexual assault, making indecent photographs of children, and possession of extreme pornographic images. Sutton is also charged with seven additional offenses, including making and distributing indecent photographs of children.

The arrest of Ireland is part of a trend in the past year of LGBT activist groups and charities exposed as havens for pedophiles. 

Last November LGBT activist/journalist Slade Sohmer, the former managing editor of CNN’s now defunct BEME video sharing app and editor-in-chief of the left-leaning video-driven news site The Recount, was arrested on charges of possessing and distributing child pornography.  His phone messages obtained by police also indicated a possible conspiracy to rape a minor. 

Sohmer had longtime involvement in a non-profit called Camp Power, a summer camp event for underprivileged children which Sohmer co-directed. In a podcast from 2019, Sohmer discussed his 10 years co-running Camp Power as well as his involvement as a camp councilor through his college years, working with children from grades 5 to 11.  He states that the event was the “best week of his year every year.”

In British Columbia, Sean Edward Leonard Gravells, the board president of the North Peace Pride Society, was arrested on charges of sexual interference, sexual exploitation, possession of child pornography and importing or distributing child pornography.

Beyond the revelations of recent months, the list of prominent LGBT activists being arrested for child abuse crimes is becoming extensive and the worst perpetrators tend to be those that operate from behind the curtain of charity and community organizations.  With the political protection afforded by leftist governments any investigation or criticism of these groups is labeled “bigotry” and “hate speech.”  With immunity to scrutiny, these predators are able to commit untold violations before they are finally caught.