Category: zerohedge

Authored by Simon Watkins via OilPrice.com,

Iraq remains the key cover through which Iran transports its oil to the rest of the world, as has been well-documented by OilPrice.com, so the news last week that Iraqi and Egyptian officials have discussed the possibility of extending the Basra-Aqaba pipeline to Egypt as this would be “an important addition and a new outlet for Iraqi oil exports to North Africa” (according to representatives of the two negotiating teams) should be read in this light.

It should also be read in terms of the overall strategy for the expansion of influence of Iran – backed by China in the wide-ranging 25-year deal – not just across the Shia crescent of power in the Middle East but into eastern and northern Africa as well. A key to this expansion is the roll out of an integrated network, based around oil, gas, and electricity supplies, that allows for not just the installation of permanent infrastructure linking one country to another but also for the on-site presence of permanent ‘technical and security’ personnel, many of which are already – or will be – Iranian and Chinese. This alliance is also the other option for countries in the region to the U.S.-Israel-led ‘relationship normalisation deals’ currently being touted as a core method by which to stop Iran’s increasing regional influence, subscribed to so far by the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco.

Jordan was always a natural contender to be drawn into the alternative Iran-led alliance, given its strong historical anti-Israeli bias. Jordan’s current king, Abdullah II, is the son of King Hussein, a key leader in the 1967 Six-Day War waged by Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq, against Israel, and then a supporter of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, also again involving Egypt and Syria, principally, fighting Israel, although it also involved expeditionary forces from a wide range of Arab states, including Jordan and Iraq. Egypt, for its part, although flirting with the U.S. over the years for monetary gain primarily and since 2014 for the U.S.’s assistance in shoring up the power of former field marshal and now President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has long regarded itself as being a leader of the Arab world, along with Syria.

Slightly shifting this pro-Arab ideology to a point where it coincides in large part with the ideas involved in the Shia crescent is seen as a not insurmountable objective in Tehran. Iran is already either directly (through its foreign intelligence and military organisations) or indirectly (through its proxy paramilitary groups) highly active in the Shia crescent areas of Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon. Softer pressure is being added through financing deals on offer from China (or Russia) for states teetering on the margins of this alliance that are struggling economically from the after-effects of two oil price wars in less than five years and the demand destruction effect of the COVID-19 pandemic or from general economic mismanagement.

These include, from the Russian side, Azerbaijan (75 per cent Shia and a Former Soviet Union State) and Turkey (25 per cent Shia and furious at not being accepted fully into the European Union), although others remained longer-term targets, including Bahrain (75 per cent Shia), and Pakistan (up to 25 Shia and a home to sworn-U.S. enemies Al Qaeda and the Taliban).

From the Chinese side, these include any country on or adjoining its land or maritime routes in its ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR) program, notably in the Middle East, Oman and Jordan.

Securing Jordan in this alliance was the initial aim of the oil deal that was resuscitated recently by Iraq. The deal might appear innocuous enough, with the formal announcement of the extension of a previous contract that had lapsed at the end of December for Jordan to import crude oil from Iraq. Jordan’s Energy Minister, Hala Zawati, stated in July of last year that the Kingdom would resume imports of at least 10,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Iraq crude oil via tankers at a discount of US$16 to the Brent price, reflecting the transport costs and quality differential. These supplies came from Baiji in Iraq direct to the Jordan Petroleum Refinery Company (JPRC), constituting around seven per cent of Jordan’s daily demand. The original deal that had been struck in 2006 mandated a discount to Brent of US$18 pb, on the basis that Jordan bore the transport costs between Kirkuk in northern Iraq and Zarqa in the Kingdom and presaged a broader build-out of energy ties between the two countries.

However, underpinning this agreement were broader discussions about the future relationship between Jordan and Iraq and these resulted in a contract being signed last year to connect the electric power grids of the two countries. By extension, this will provide a direct link between Jordan and Iran, which recently signed a two-year deal with Iraq to supply it with electricity, the longest such deal signed between the two countries. In this context, just a month or so before Iraq Prime Minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s visit to Washington last year, Iran’s Energy Minister, Reza Ardakanian, stated that Iran and Iraq’s power grids have become fully synchronised to provide electricity to both countries by dint of the new Amarah-Karkheh 400-KV transmission line stretching over 73 kilometres. This also ‘paves the way for increasing energy exports to Iraq in the near future, from the current 1,361 megawatts per day now’, he said. He added that Iranian and Iraqi dispatching centres were fully connected in Baghdad, the power grids were seamlessly interlinked, and that Iran had signed a three-year co-operation agreement with Iraq ‘to help the country’s power industry in different aspects’. At the same time, it was announced by the Iranian Electrical Power Equipment Manufacturing and Provision Company that Iran’s electricity exports to other neighbouring countries in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on 19 March 2020) reached over 8 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), a mean average increase of 27.6 per cent year-on-year. In the meantime, Iraq’s Electricity Minister, Majid Mahdi Hantoush, announced that not only is Iraq currently working on connecting its grid with Jordan’s electricity networks through a 300-kilometre-line – a project that will be finished within two years –  but also plans have been finalised for the completion of Iraq’s electricity connection with Egypt within the next three years. This, in turn, he added, would be part of the overall project to establish a joint Arab electricity market.

Running in parallel with these pan-Arab plans are the ongoing pipeline initiatives that build out from the original idea for the Basra-Aqaba route spanning around 1,700 km, and do not include Israel land or sea territory. December 2019 saw an announcement from Iraq’s Oil Ministry that it had completed the prequalifying process for companies interested in participating in the pipeline project, with the first phase of the project including the installation of a 700-km pipeline with a capacity of 2.25 million barrels within the Iraqi territories. The second phase includes the installation of a 900-km pipeline in Jordan between Haditha and Aqaba, with a capacity of one million barrels. For Iran, this allows another alternate Iraq/Iraq oil export line to the historically vulnerable Strait of Hormuz route, to add to the current plans for the Guriyeh-Jask pipeline and plans to roll out a pipeline to Syria as well. It will also provide another ‘cover’ route for Iranian oil disguised as Iraqi oil, which can then be shipped easily both West and East. There are a number of options for this Iraq-Aqaba-Egypt pipeline route, even the favoured ones that avoid any Israeli land or sea threats, including a very short route following the same ground as one of the Arab Gas Pipeline flows: from Aqaba to Taba, and then if required up north to Arish and then west to Port Said.

For a couple of years, Norway has floated the idea of an underground tunnel for ships, spanning over 5,000 feet under the Norwegian mountains, which will be the first of its kind, according to CNN. 

The Norwegian Coastal Administration has given the Stad Ship Tunnel the ‘green light.’ The project is expected to cost $330 million and take around four years to construct, with construction scheduled to begin in 2022. 

The tunnel will be 118 feet wide and 162 feet tall, supporting vessels that weigh up to 16,000 tons. 

“It’s a project that has been planned for decades. So it’s very pleasant to finally be able to start the construction work in one year,” temporary project manager Terje Andreassen from the Norwegian Coastal Administration told CNN Travel.

The Stad Ship Tunnel allows vessels to avoid part of the Stadlandet peninsula known for rough seas. 

“The coastline outside that peninsula is the most stormy area in Norway, with the hurricanes,” Andreassen said. “You get a lot of strange currents here.”

“The tunnel will make the ship’s journeys safer and smoother, which could lead to a high-speed ferry service,” he said, and strengthen the region’s industrial and commercial activities.

“It will be connected better, and it will be easier to travel,” he added.

Traffic through the Stad Ship Tunnel will likely be directed by a traffic control center, sort of like an airport – to avoid congestions and accidents. 

Norway has been on the cutting edge of navigation and seafaring for centuries, even dating back to the Vikings’ time. Now the Scandinavian country will construct the world’s first underground tunnel for vessels.  

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

There has been a massive backlash in the UK to a proposal to mandate COVID vaccinations to enter a pub, with one pub chain owner branding the idea “appalling” and “almost certainly illegal.”

As we highlighted yesterday, despite months of the government assuring the public that there would be no ‘domestic vaccine passport’, Boris Johnson told a committee, “The concept of vaccine certification should not be totally alien to us” and said that it should be up to landlords on whether to enforce it.

During an appearance on told talkRADIO, Hugh Osmond, the founder of UK pub chain Punch Taverns, labeled the proposal “the most appalling idea” and said it was “almost certainly illegal.”

Hugh Osmond, founder of Punch Taverns, says allowing pubs to demand vaccine passports is “the most appalling idea” and “almost certainly illegal”.

“It would be incredibly discriminatory against young people who haven’t even been offered the vaccine yet”@JuliaHB1 | @hughosmond pic.twitter.com/wx02bBhDj2

— talkRADIO (@talkRADIO) March 25, 2021

Osmond also pointed out that innumerable people in their 20s and 30s would be discriminated against because they won’t be offered the vaccine for months.

Adam Brooks, a publican who runs several pubs, echoed that sentiment when he tweeted, “Anything but normal trading past June 21st is an utter DISGRACE. “Once every adult has been OFFERED vaccination, the Government & Health care system has done its job. Life has to return.”

If there was NO vaccine roll out and pubs were allowed to open tomorrow, the queues would be around the corner, so this notion of pubs only being busy with a passport is utter nonsense and very damaging to our industry.

— Adam Brooks (@EssexPR) March 25, 2021

Kate Nicholls, the CEO of hospitality trade association UKHospitality, also blasted the idea as not “necessary or proportionate” and said it would “would put lots of businesses in a very difficult position.”

Steve Baker MP, deputy chairman of the COVID Recovery Group, warned that the domestic vaccine passport could extend to virtually every area of life.

“First they said we’ll need them to watch the football, and today that it may be papers for the pub.”

“Whether the state legislates for it, recommends it or simply allows it the result will be the same: a two-tier Britain that prevents pregnant women from taking part in society, given that the government is telling them not to take the vaccine.”

“Or one where we turn back the clock and tolerate businesses turning away customers from communities which have shown an unfortunate hesitancy to take up the offer of a vaccine.”

“We must not fall into this ghastly trap.”

Pete Tiley of the Salutation Inn told the Telegraph’s Adrian Tierney-Jones, “Adding a vaccine passport check on top will create further hassle and aggravation, and will make going for a relaxing pint tougher than getting through airport security.”

However, Becky Newman at the Bricklayer’s Arms in Putney supported the idea, telling Tierney-Jones, “I imagine it’s going to take a year or so for people to begin to feel relaxed again about being in public spaces. So, with this in mind, I think I am quite pro-vaccine passport. It feels quite community spirited.”

After a subsequent backlash on Twitter from her potential customers, Newman quickly changed her mind, stating, “General consensus from customers on Twitter so far is a big fat no!”

*  *  *

In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Also, I urgently need your financial support here.

Air pollution causes an estimated seven million premature deaths every year according to the World Health Organization.

As Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, the recently released IQAir AirVisual 2020 World Air Quality Report found that 15 of the world’s 20 worst-polluted cities are in India, though the worst affected city on the planet is actually in China.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The Western Chinese city of Hotan had an average PM 2.5 pollution level of 110.2 in 2020.

It was followed by a host of Indian cities including Ghaziabad, Bulandshahr and Bisrakh with PM 2.5 levels of 95 or higher.

Besides Hotan, three other non Indian cities appear on the list of the world’s most polluted and they are Manikganj in Bangladesh as well as Lahore and Bahawalpur in Pakistan.

Interestingly, due to the lockdowns imposed by governments around the world to counter the pandemic, many major cities across the world experienced reductions in annual PM2.5 levels in 2020 compared to 2019.

The map shows de-weathered changes on top with observed changes below.

 

 

Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

The Danish government has announced a package of new proposals aimed at fighting “religious and cultural parallel societies” in Denmark. A cornerstone of the plan includes capping the percentage of “non-Western” immigrants and their descendants dwelling in any given residential neighborhood.

The aim is to preserve social cohesion in the country by encouraging integration and discouraging ethnic and social self-segregation.

The announcement comes just days after Denmark approved a new law banning the foreign funding of mosques in the country. The government has also recently declared its intention significantly to limit the number of people seeking asylum in Denmark.

Denmark, which already has some of the most restrictive immigration policies in Europe, is now at the vanguard of European efforts to preserve local traditions and values in the face of mass migration, runaway multiculturalism and the encroachment of political Islam.

The new proposals, announced by Interior and Housing Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek on March 17, are contained in a 15-page report, “Mixed Residential Areas: The Next Step in the Fight Against Parallel Societies.”

A main element of the plan calls for relocating residents of non-Western origin to ensure that, within the next ten years, they do not comprise more than 30% of the total population of any neighborhood or housing area in Denmark.

The plan also calls for phasing out the term “ghetto areas,” which has been criticized as being derogatory, and replacing it with the more politically correct “prevention areas” (forebyggelsesområder) and “transformation areas” (omdannelsesområder).

The term “ghetto,” which refers to areas with high concentrations of immigrants, unemployment and crime, first came into official use in Denmark in 2010 with the release of a government report, “Reinserting Ghettos into Society: A Showdown with Parallel Societies in Denmark.”

A “ghetto area” currently refers to a residential area with at least 1,000 inhabitants, where the proportion of non-Western immigrants and their descendants is higher than 50%, and where at least two of the following four criteria are met:

• The proportion of residents aged 18-64 who are not in work or in education exceeds 40%.

• The proportion of residents who have been convicted of violating the Penal Code, the Firearms Act or the Narcotic Drugs Act is at least three times the national average.

• The proportion of residents aged 30-59 who have only a primary school education exceeds 60% of all residents in the same age group.

• The average gross income for taxpayers aged 15-64 in the area (excluding education seekers) is less than 55% of the average gross income for all residents in the area.

In 2018, the Danish Parliament, with support from all of the country’s main political parties, adopted the “parallel society package” (Parallelsamfundspakken), also known as the “ghetto plan” (Ghettoplan). The 22-point plan states that there will be no “ghetto areas” in Denmark by 2030. Details are included in a government report, “One Denmark Without Parallel Societies.”

At the time, the government, explained the need for a comprehensive strategy to combat parallel societies:

“The government wants a cohesive Denmark. A Denmark that is based on democratic values ​​such as freedom and the rule of law, equality and freedom. Tolerance and equality. A Denmark where everyone participates actively. Over the past 40 years, Denmark’s ethnic composition has changed markedly.

“In 1980, we were 5.1 million people in Denmark. Today we are close to 5.8 million. The growth of the population comes from outside. Both immigrants and descendants of immigrants. The majority of the new Danes have a non-Western background.

“In 1980, there were about 50,000 people with non-Western backgrounds in Denmark. Today there are almost half a million. This corresponds to an increase from approximately one percent of the population to approximately 8.5 percent….

“What has gone wrong? At least three things.

“First, the individual immigrant has the responsibility to learn Danish, to get a job and become part of the local community and to be integrated into his new homeland. Far too few have seized the opportunities that Denmark offers, despite the fact that Denmark is a society with security, freedom, free education and good job opportunities.

“Second, as a society, for too many years we have not made the necessary demands of newcomers. We have had far too low expectations for the refugees and immigrants who came to Denmark. We have not made sufficiently tangible demands on jobs and self-sufficiency. Therefore, too many immigrants have ended up in prolonged inactivity.

“Third, for decades too many refugees and family-reunified people have not been integrated into Danish society. They have been allowed to clump together in ghetto areas without contact with the surrounding community, even after many years in Denmark, because we have not made clear demands on them to become part of the Danish community….

“It’s about to be the last call. In parts of Western Europe, massive challenges have arisen with ghettos and very ingrained parallel societies. Denmark is not there yet. And that is why we must make a massive effort now, so that we can stop the development before the problems become impossible to solve.

“There is only one way. The ghettos must be completely eradicated. Parallel societies must be broken down. And we must make sure that new ones do not arise. Once and for all, the very big task of integration must be tackled whenever immigrants and their descendants have not embraced Danish values ​​and isolate themselves in parallel societies.”

The 2018 agreement stipulates that if a residential area ends up on the so-called ghetto list, local councils must choose between four measures: 1) demolish public housing; 2) build new housing for private rental; 3) convert public housing to elderly or youth housing; or 4) sell public housing to private buyers or investors for private rental.

The plan seeks to reduce the share of public housing to no more than 40% in the most vulnerable areas by 2030. The overall goal is to transform the ghetto areas into normal residential areas.

Interior and Housing Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek says that the plan is working. The number of residential areas on the government’s most recent “ghetto list,” published in December 2020, has declined by half in three years, from 29 in 2018 to 15 in 2020. The number of “hardened ghettos,” which refers to any area that has been included on the ghetto list for four years in a row, has declined from 15 in 2018 to 13 in 2020.

Bek attributed the decline mainly to more people finding employment or pursuing an education:

“It is fantastically positive that it is progressing in so many areas, and we are already seeing the effect of the parallel society package. There is a historically large decrease in the number of vulnerable areas on all lists, especially because far more residents have come to find work or pursue education.

“The large drop in the number of vulnerable areas is especially a pat on the back to the housing organizations and municipalities that in recent years have worked hard to ensure mixed housing areas, so that all children have the same opportunities, no matter where they grow up.”

Bek’s newly named “prevention areas” are to be designated on the basis of the same criteria as the existing “ghetto areas,” but with lower limits. A “prevention area” refers to a residential area with at least 1,000 inhabitants, where the proportion of non-Western immigrants and their descendants is higher than 30%, and where at least two of the following four criteria are met:

• The proportion of residents aged 18-64 who are not in work or in education exceeds 30%.

• The proportion of residents who have been convicted of violating the Penal Code, the Firearms Act or the Narcotic Drugs Act is at least two times the national average.

• The proportion of residents aged 30-59 who have only a primary school education exceeds 60% of all residents in the same age group.

• The average gross income for taxpayers aged 15-64 in the area (excluding education seekers) is less than 65% of the average gross income for all residents in the area.

A total of 58 residential areas in Denmark will be categorized as “prevention areas” in the government’s new proposal, which will affect approximately 100,000 people of non-Western origin. Bek explained:

“For far too many years, we have closed our eyes to the development that was underway, and only acted when the integration problems became too great. Now we want to make sure that we do not once again stick our heads in the sand while new parallel societies emerge. We will do this by preventing more vulnerable housing areas and by creating more mixed housing areas throughout Denmark.

“Today, municipalities and housing organizations do not always intervene in time if large public housing areas enter into a negative spiral. Therefore, we will now provide access to most of the tools that apply to vulnerable residential areas. For us, it is about helping the residents and creating equal opportunities for all children, regardless of where they grow up in Denmark.

“The ‘ghetto’ term is misleading. I do not use it myself, and I think it overshadows the important work that needs to be done in the residential areas. This whole effort is about fighting parallel societies and creating a positive development in the residential areas, so that they are made attractive to a broad section of the population.”

Denmark’s governing center-left Social Democratic Party has pursued strong anti-immigration policies, partly in an effort to blunt the appeal of populist parties on the right.

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who has been in office since June 2019, recently announced that her government intends significantly to limit the number of people seeking asylum in Denmark. The aim, she said, is to preserve “social cohesion” in the country.

Denmark, which has a population of 5.8 million, received approximately 40,000 asylum applications during the past five years, according to data compiled by Statista. Most of the applications received by Denmark, a predominately Christian country, were from migrants from Muslim countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

In recent years, Denmark has also permitted significant non-asylum immigration, especially from non-Western countries. Denmark is now home to sizeable immigrant communities from Syria (35,536); Turkey (33,111); Iraq (21,840); Iran (17,195); Pakistan (14,471); Afghanistan (13,864); Lebanon (12,990) and Somalia (11,282), according to Statista.

Muslims currently comprise approximately 5.5% of the Danish population, according to the Pew Research Center, which forecasts that this figure will double or possibly triple by 2050, depending on the migration scenario.

On January 22, during a parliamentary hearing on Danish immigration policy, Frederiksen said that she was determined to reduce the number of asylum approvals:

“Our goal is zero asylum seekers. We cannot promise zero asylum seekers, but we can establish the vision for a new asylum system, and then do what we can to implement it. We must be careful that not too many people come to our country, otherwise our social cohesion cannot exist. It is already being challenged.”

In her 2021 New Year’s address, Frederiksen said that in the year ahead, her government would continue to insist that immigrants integrate into Danish society:

“As a society, we must step more into character and stick to our Danish values. We must not accept that democracy is replaced with hatred in parallel societies. Radicalization must not be protected. It must be revealed.

“The government will rethink its integration efforts so that it is based to a greater extent on clear requirements and clear expectations with a focus on law and duty.

“Basically, it must be the case that once you have been granted residence in Denmark, you must of course support yourself. If this is not possible for a period of time, the government will propose that you — in return for your social welfare benefit — be obliged to contribute the equivalent of a normal working week of 37 hours. These are some of the tasks ahead of us in the new year.”

Authored by Gordon Chang via The National Interest,

China this century is on track to experience history’s most dramatic demographic collapse in the absence of war or disease.

Today, the country has a population more than four times larger than America’s. By 2100, the U.S. will probably have more people than China.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics typically releases population data for the preceding year in early March. This year, NBS delayed its announcement because the central government is scheduled next month to announce preliminary results of the 7th national census, conducted in November and December.

The image of Chinese economic and geopolitical dominance will be severely dented when Beijing releases census data. Xi Jinping may believe “the East is rising and the West is declining”—the money line from one of his speeches late last year—but that view will be exceedingly hard to maintain.

The Chinese take great pride in being part of the world’s most populous state. Beijing reported China’s population in 2019 hit 1.4 billion in 2019, up from 1.39 billion the previous year.

Chinese authorities will undoubtedly report an increase for last year as well. They are on record as believing the country’s population will continue to grow for more than a half decade.

Some are skeptical of China’s total population figures, however. Yi Fuxian of the University of Wisconsin-Madison told The National Interest that China in 2020 likely had a population of 1.26 billion. The noted demographer does not believe the number could have exceeded 1.28 billion.

Why did Yi provide a range? China’s demographic information is notoriously imprecise.

For one thing, officials as a practical matter cannot report births suggesting couples exceeded the current two-child limit.

Moreover, officials also have incentives to report that couples have used up their two-birth quota when they have in fact not done so. National Health and Family Planning Commission officials, Yi told Voice of America, report exaggerated births because real birth numbers, if known, would bolster the case for that body to be scrapped. Municipal governments, local education departments, and hospitals have been overstating China’s numbers for a different reason: to obtain subsidies or maintain budget allocations.

Yi’s estimates look reliable. True, Beijing scrapped the notorious one-child policy, perhaps history’s most ambitious social-engineering project, as of the beginning of 2016 and there was a spurt of births that year, but since then births have fallen every year.

Beijing has not announced births for last year, but early numbers indicate they plummeted from 2019. Births in the household registration—hukou—system plunged 14.9% to 10,035,000 last year. Because births so registered constitute about 80% of total births, He Yafu, a demographer, estimates total births for the country last year came in at 12,540,000.

Yi told me that the number of births for the country was in reality about 8 million and could not have exceeded 10 million.

Again, Yi looks correct. Provinces and other governmental units have reported data ahead of the census, and births were down more than 30% in some locations.

The big issue is China’s trajectory. Official media is cagey about a critical figure, the country’s total fertility rate, generally the number of children per female reaching child-bearing age. The official China Daily reports that Lu Jiehua of Peking University believes the country’s TFR, as the rate is known, “has fallen below 1.7.”

Lu is certainly right about that. The University of Wisconsin’s Yi told TNI that China’s TFR last year was 0.90  and could not have exceeded 1.1. Yi’s estimate is on the low end but is consistent with China Daily’s reporting of 1.05 in 2015.

Replacement TFR for most societies is generally 2.1 although some think China’s replacement rate is actually 2.2 because of higher child mortality.

In any event, China’s population will shrink fast. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences projects China’s population will halve by 2100 if the TFR drops from 1.6 to 1.3.

China’s TFR, however, is far lower than 1.3. If its TFR stabilizes at 1.2—1.2 would represent a big increase—China will have a population of only 480 million by the end of the century.

If the TFR does not increase from where it is now, the country by then could end up around the 400 million mark. To put this in context, the United States, according to the U.N.’s latest projections, will have a population of 433.9 million in 2100, up from 331.0 million as of last year.

China now has a crisis. “Once it slips below 1.5, a country falls into the trap of low fertility and is unlikely to recover,” said He Yafu to the Communist Party’s Global Times. China is already well below that figure.

Beijing does not believe China’s population will begin to decline until 2028. Some believe it in fact began contracting in 2018, something evident by falling births.

In any event, as the official China Daily stated in December, “the trends are irreversible.”

That’s not good for the People’s Republic of China. As analyst Andy Xie wrote in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post this month, “Population decline could end China’s civilization as we know it.”

The House of Representatives is becoming a “massive safe room for members” with the addition of bulletproof doors, according to Axios.

The doors, which will be reinforced with kevlar, are part of a massive security upgrade in response to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, where officers inside the House chamber held protesters at bay by pointing their guns at them after they broke windows in the doors, according to the report.

More via Axios:

An Axios reporter leaving the Capitol on Wednesday night saw workers removing doors on one of the double-doored entrances to the gallery one level above the floor of the chamber. Some members huddled there on Jan. 6.

• Workers revealed the new doors being installed would be fortified with kevlar — the same synthetic material used in bulletproof vests and military helmets.

• The House currently is on recess for two more weeks, and the workers said the modifications will continue beyond the members’ return. There are five sets of doors directly onto the floor and 15 into the gallery.

• No other details were immediately available from the Architect of the Capitol, which maintains the historic building.

The bulletproof doors were included as part of a series of recommendations by Retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tasked with conducting a post-riot review of Capitol security. Honoré suggested that the Capitol Architect “expedite repair and hardening of vulnerable windows and doors.”

Authored by Lee Ann O’Neal via RealClearPolitics.com,

Before the next of kin were even notified in the horrific shootings last week at three Atlanta-area massage parlors, the narrative was established: The fact that six of the eight victims were Asian women provides the proof that a “surge in hate crimes” against Asian Americans has bubbled up in the U.S. in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

[ZH: Here is NYPD’s press conference on Asian hate crimes today.]

At the NYPD press conference on anti-Asian hate crimes today, they show booking photos of suspects apprehended & those they’re continuing to search for. The hate crime suspects appear to all be people of color. #StopAsianHate pic.twitter.com/rZSwlkagAA

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) March 25, 2021

That fits neatly with the view of some Americans that our society, at its heart, is racist.

[ZH: or not…Spot the ‘white supremacist’ in the booking photos of the Asian hate-crime perpetrators]

For contrast, consider the mass shooting this week in Boulder, Colo., in which the suspect is Syrian American. Even though all the victims were of the same race, no one assumes without proof that he was acting out of racial animosity because, of course, they were white.

In Atlanta, the shooter killed two white people and injured a Latino. But the killings must still be motivated by anti-Asian hatred, right?

“Racially motivated violence must be called out for exactly what it is — and we must stop making excuses or rebranding it as economic anxiety or sexual addiction,” Rep. Marilyn Strickland (pictured below, left) told members of the House a day after the Atlanta shootings.

In a CNN interview, Strickland, whose heritage is both African American and Korean American, called the incident a racially motivated hate crime. 

None of the evidence to emerge thus far supports that speculation. 

Like Strickland, I am Korean American, and the idea that someone might randomly attack me at the gym or hurl racist invectives at me in the grocery checkout line makes me uneasy. So I looked into the numbers being used to support the so-called “surge” in attacks. They turn out to be thin, with data points cherry-picked to invoke fear and bolster the wobbly claim that the Atlanta shooter was driven by racism. 

A report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism drew national media attention for identifying a 149% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in 2020 compared to 2019 in 16 of our largest cities. A startling number — until you learn the actual number of hate crimes in those cities rose from 49 to 122 – in a country of 330 million people.

In my hometown, Houston, there were three last year. The year before, there were none. 

And what about the 3,795 incidents of harassment and discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders documented by Stop AAPI Hate?

The group’s data point is even more useless than the 149% increase figure. Stop AAPI (shorthand for Asian American and Pacific Islander) Hate was formed as the coronavirus pandemic took hold in the U.S. and its data has no baseline for comparison.

But it may be sufficiently frightening to open a line of federal spending directly to Stop AAPI Hate’s member organizations. The group was on Capitol Hill last week to urge lawmakers to address the kind of incidents it tracks and to fund programs supporting the victims. 

There have been incidents of ugliness directed toward Asians, like the woman in Houston caught on videotape last spring yelling, “Get out of our country” at the owner of a Vietnamese restaurant. But the motivation for most of these incidents proves much harder to tease out. And “white supremacy” certainly doesn’t appear to be the animating motivation. 

To wit: the case of an 84-year-old man of Thai descent who died in January after being shoved to the ground by a teenager in San Francisco. The district attorney was roundly criticized on social media after saying he had found no evidence the attack was racially motivated and that the teen, who was African American, had been seen banging on a car and having a “temper tantrum” at the time of the attack.

Similarly, the evidence so far in Atlanta doesn’t point toward race. 

The shooter told police he targeted the massage parlors because they fueled his “sexual addiction.” A roommate from a halfway house backed up his story of struggling with compulsive sexual behavior and described him as having a “religious mania.” It came out later in the week that he had recently been kicked out of his parents’ home and had been furloughed from his job.

Police who are actually investigating the crime say they are still looking into his motives. But they are treading a fine line. In America in 2021, if you don’t see all events through the lens of race, you risk being called a racist. 

The murders at the spas in Atlanta are despicable. But if any criminal act with a victim and perpetrator of different races is a hate crime, the legal distinction becomes farcical.

Wielding inflated, misleading numbers and overheated, but meaningless, language for the sake of a “hot take” media narrative insults the 18 million Americans of Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Island descent – and misleads all Americans.

Supporters of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny say his health has rapidly deteriorated since being transferred to a Russian prison east of Moscow to serve out his two-and-a-half year sentence handed down by a court in February for violating parole related a prior 2014 suspended sentence.

The New York Times previously described of the facility he was sent to, identified as “Penal Colony No. 2” – which also goes by the initials IK2 – as “notoriously harsh”.

Navalny himself is now accusing prison authorities of “deliberate denial of due medical assistance” in order to ensure his suffering, in a letter released to his website via his lawyers.

“My condition has worsened. I feel acute pain in my right leg, and I feel numbness in its lower part,” Navalny wrote. “I have trouble walking.” His lawyer Olga Mikhailova added to this in televised remarks this week, saying that his condition is “extremely unfavorable”. She said, “Everyone is afraid for his life and health.”

Navalny himself is alleging a deliberate policy to deprive him of medicines prescribed by his doctor, as well as sleep. “Essentially I am being tortured through sleep deprivation,” he additionally complained in the letter.

Some international headlines are running with this, now claiming the 44-year old outspoken Putin critic who previously alleged the Russian president ordered his poisoning with nerve agent last August is being literally tortured as part of his confinement. However, The Associated Press presents the height of the claims as follows:

Navalny blamed his health problems on prison officials failing to provide the right medicines and refusing to allow his doctor to visit him behind bars. He also complained in a second letter that the hourly checks a guard makes on him at night amounted to sleep deprivation torture.

The prison where’s he being kept is being further described…

Earlier this month, Navalny was moved to a prison colony in Pokrov in the Vladimir region, 85 kilometers (53 miles) east of Moscow. The facility stands out among Russian penitentiaries for its particularly strict regime that includes routines like standing at attention for hours.

Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) has denied the accusations meanwhile, responding that he’s currently in “satisfactory” condition. 

“According to the results of the examination, his state of health was assessed as stable and satisfactory,” the FSIN said.

On Thursday the Kremlin also addressed what it previously said is a propaganda war surrounding the jailed dissident being waged by the West: “The condition of convicts and people who are serving time in correctional institutions is being monitored by their administrations. That’s their job,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a press briefing. 

More protests are expected across Russian cities in the wake of the new reports. Navalny and his supporters have tried to keep his case in the international spotlight after the story fell out of headlines amid revelations he had in past years issued fiercely anti-immigrant statements which were widely seen as xenophobic.

Authored by Rick Rozoff via AntiWar.com,

Last week the US Army released a new strategic policy document entitled Regaining Arctic Dominance, an exhaustive 48-page work with valuable background information and striking graphics. Because of its length an attempt to summarize it with the accuracy and comprehensiveness would be a work of several pages itself. Instead, some of the more significant background data and other key components of the document will be listed. Regarding what the Pentagon refers to as the Far North, NATO as the High North and journalists as the top of the world, the following facts are relevant and excerpted from the Army study…

“The Arctic has the potential to become a contested space where United States’ great power rivals, Russia and China, seek to use military and economic power to gain and maintain access to the region at the expense of US interests. US National Security Strategy highlights the Arctic as a corridor for expanded strategic great power competition between two regions – the Indo-Pacific and Europe.”

The Arctic is where three of the US’s regional, geographic military commands – Northern Command, European Command (which is to say NATO as well) and Indo-Pacific Command – converge.

There are five Arctic littoral states: NATO members the US, Canada, Denmark and Norway, and Russia. The new strategy states rather bluntly that “The Army needs to generate forces able to compete effectively by, with, and through allies and partners, to pose dilemmas to adversaries as they seek to gain access to and compete in the region.” That means Russia and China, who are described not as partners, not even as rivals, but as adversaries.

The new Army policy identifies four arenas of rivalry and potential conflict between the US and its NATO allies and Russia and China: military developments, energy and minerals, transportation and food security.

The above division of allies and adversaries, the second repeatedly described by NATO as authoritarian enemies of the rules-based international order, is further delineated in the Army paper as follows:

While most Arctic nations are US allies, America’s great power competitors – Russia and China – have developed Arctic strategies with geopolitical goals contrary to US interests. Russia seeks to consolidate sovereign claims and control access to the region. China aims to gain access to Arctic resources and sea routes to secure and bolster its military, economic, and scientific rise.

In the military category, “The Arctic is essential to Russia’s military power.” Indeed it is, as even the US Army is compelled to concede that “As the country with the largest amount of land above the Arctic Circle, Russia’s first priority is defending its historic right to rule over the Far North, securing its territorial interests against those of NATO-aligned states.”

In 1949 no one in Washington or Brussels foresaw, at any rate foretold, that the newly-founded North Atlantic Treaty Organization would evolve into a North Arctic Treaty Organization. But sixty years later NATO acknowledged just that.

Regarding the American military’s concern with energy competition in the Arctic, the document states:

75% of Russia’s oil and 95% of its natural gas reserves are located in the North. The Arctic accounts for nearly 20% of Russia’s DP, 22% of its exports, and more than 10% of all investment in Russia.

And in general:

According to most estimates, the Arctic is home to 13% of the world’s oil, or 90 billion barrels, as well as 30% of the world’s natural gas, an estimated 47 trillion cubic meters. Additionally, the Arctic has vast deposits of base metals (aluminum, copper, iron, nickel and tin), precious metals (gold, platinum, and silver), precious stones (diamonds), other minerals (apatite, graphite, and gypsum) as well as uranium. Perhaps most importantly to digital societies around the world, the Arctic is also a source of rare earth metals (dysprosium, neodymium, and praseodymium). These metals allow the miniaturization of components for aircraft engines and advanced weapons as well as televisions, smart phones, laptops, cars, and cancer treatment drugs.

That should clearly establish the rationale for the Scramble for the Arctic.

Map via Army Times

In a remarkable concession to the truth which will certainly never get into press reviews and academic discussions of it, the document concedes that “Russia’s efforts to reconstitute its military posture in the Arctic are primarily for territorial defense purposes and protection of Russia’s second-strike capabilities.”

That is, in both cases for purposes of defense. Second-strike options are primarily – one hopes entirely – for deterrent purposes.

For decades the US and Britain have conducted submarine exercises under the polar ice cap, arguably the last redoubt for Russian nuclear submarines, themselves the last line of second-strike deterrent protection. The Pentagon’s and NATO’s expansion into the Arctic is in part an effort to deprive Russia of any potential of deterring or responding to a joint U.S.-NATO first strike, conventional or nuclear.

To the overall purpose of regaining and maintaining military dominance in the Arctic, “The Army will generate Arctic-capable forces ready to compete and win in extended operations in extreme cold weather and high-altitude environments.”

In a section titled Project Power Across the Arctic, the document states, “The Army will improve the materiel readiness of Arctic-capable units to conduct extended operations in the region,” in part with ongoing war games like Arctic Warrior and Arctic Edge conducted with NATO allies.

The Arctic may become the decisive battleground of the 21st century. The stakes couldn’t be higher.