Month: June 2022

By Andrew Thornebrooke of the Epoch Times

A swarm of drones flies through the night sky over the Pacific.

Shrouded in darkness and less than 100 miles from the California coastline, they go in groups of fours and sixes, stalking U.S. Navy vessels. They whir about over the ships’ bows, gathering intelligence to deliver to faceless masters.

They match the speed of the naval vessels, flying unimpeded in low visibility for as long as four hours at a time. The alarmed crews of the ships have no idea where they came from or what their purpose is.

This is not the plot of an up-and-coming spy thriller, but a series of actual events that took place in July 2019.

The chilling encounters raised alarms throughout the Navy and brought forth an investigative apparatus composed of elements of the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and FBI. Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the commander of the Pacific Fleet were kept primed with updates on the situation.

“If the drones were not operated by the American military, these incidents represent a highly significant security breach,” said one investigative report based on the ships’ logs.

Yet, the nature of the drones, where they came from, and who deployed them remained a mystery for more than two years.

However, a new investigative report published by The Drive in June shed light on the incidents, which totaled at least eight encounters involving several unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that were previously referred to simply as UFOs in the press.

The report, based on Navy materials newly obtained through multiple Freedom of Information Act requests, pinpoints the launching point of the drones as a civilian bulk carrier operating in the area at the time. That ship, the MV Bass Strait, is owned and operated by Pacific Basin, flagged out of Hong Kong.

“The Navy assessed that the commercial cargo ship was likely conducting surveillance on Navy vessels using drones,” the report said. During its first-ever operational voyage, the ship may have been linked to previously unknown incidents in March and April 2019, including “intelligence collection operations” targeting the USS Zumwalt, America’s most advanced surface combatant.

“Active surveillance of key naval assets is being conducted in areas where they train and employ their most sensitive systems, often within close proximity to American shores,” the report said.

China’s Growing Drone Force

It is too early to say what connection, precisely, the crew of the Bass Strait, Pacific Basin, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) share. Nevertheless, the incident underscores the central role that drones are to play in the next stage of modern warfare and how they are already shaping the battlefield and intelligence gathering processes.

As it so happens, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is betting big on drone warfare. The regime has invested heavily for over a decade into everything from cheap and expendable commercial quadcopters to resource-heavy high-altitude long-endurance drones.

Indeed, the CCP and its military wing, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), have undertaken numerous UAV projects since the early 2000s. However, the first appearance of a large-scale Chinese-built stealth drone came shortly into CCP leader Xi Jinping’s tenure.

Likely built from data obtained from the Iranian capture of an advanced American drone in 2011, China’s “Sharp Sword” was just the first of many advanced UAVs, built through the assistance of foreign technologies gathered as part of the regime’s comprehensive program of technology theft.

Since then, the CCP has funded dozens of varieties of UAVs using a plethora of state-owned corporations that also build the regime’s space and missile technologies. From larger combat drones like the Sharp Sword to small quadcopter drones like those spotted near California to rocket-powered supersonic vehicles intended to zip through the sky gathering targeting information, the CCP buys everything drone-related.

Moreover, the CCP is already building out its drone capabilities across the spectrum of its military assets, deploying those capabilities in some of the world’s most contested regions.

China’s third and newest aircraft carrier, the Fujian, is expected to host a variety of drones. Its electromagnetic catapult system will prove invaluable for quickly launching differently weighted drones with adjustable torque.

That effort will likely build on operational lessons learned from the last several years, as China’s second aircraft carrier, the Shandong, was spotted in early June this year with a small fleet of “commercial or commercial-derivative drones” on its flight deck, according to one report’s analysis of images that appeared on Chinese social media platform Weibo.

“[The images] do underscore the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s ever-increasing efforts to develop and field various types of unmanned aircraft, including those that can operate together in networked swarms, and often with an eye toward performing various roles in the maritime domain,” one report said.

If that were not enough to underscore the regime’s ambition to dominate the strategic space with a new, drone-first approach to military engagement, there is now the case of the Zhu Hai Yun.

The Zhu Hai Yun is a 290-foot ocean research vessel designed to deploy various underwater and airborne drones for various purposes. The ship is also a drone and can either be remotely controlled by a pilot or left to navigate the open seas autonomously.

In the words of its manufacturer, it is the “world’s first intelligent unmanned system mother ship.”

And though Beijing has officially described that mothership as a maritime research tool, a South China Morning Post report acknowledged that the vessel indeed hosts military capabilities that can “intercept, besiege, and expel invasive targets.”

That news is likely to displease U.S. military leadership, which is not likely to deploy its own such vessel for six more years.

Watching, Learning, Preparing

As the pace of China’s military drone development has accelerated, the rate of international incidents related to drones has also increased.

In August 2021, Japan Self Defense Forces led multiple sorties of fighter jets over several days to intercept PLA drones caught flying south of Okinawa. The drones, comparable in size to the United States’ Predator and Reaper drones, were believed to be collecting strategic intelligence on the Miyako Strait, which provides the PLA with a critical point of entry to the Pacific, and has been the site of increasing Chinese military excursions for the past decade.

The incident serves as a poignant reminder of what so much of China’s drone fleet serves to do: secure vital strategic intelligence for the coordination of military actions.

And it is this point that brings one back to the issue of just what several groups of drones launched from a Hong Kong freight ship were doing spying on U.S. Navy vessels near the coast of California.

If such actions were directly or indirectly tied to the sprawling military-security apparatus of China’s communist government, what would be the end goal for the intelligence gathered? What is the action in “actionable intelligence”?

To that question, one analysis found that 2019’s “adversary drones” were “meant to stimulate America’s most capable air defense systems and collect extremely high-quality electronic intelligence data on them.”

“By gathering comprehensive electronic intelligence information on these systems, countermeasures and electronic warfare tactics can be developed to disrupt or defeat them,” the report said. “Capabilities can also be accurately estimated and even cloned, and tactics can be recorded and exploited.”

“That swarm could have been, and likely was, sucking up, or helping another nearby platform suck up, all that sensitive … data on the most capable warships on earth and at very close range.”

In essence, the drones were achieving two things. The first was the blanket intelligence gathered from spying on U.S. naval vessels up close. The second was learning what would draw an American response and what that response would be.

In this way, the drones were baiting U.S. naval vessels, soaking up intelligence about their response (or lack thereof) for future actions that could not only inform the Chinese military about the technical specifications of U.S. ships, but also how to manipulate their crews and protocols to learn how American forces would behave in conflict.

Winning the Next War

Such tools have very real consequences for the United States, its allies and partners, and the greater liberal international order. Perhaps nowhere more so than in the acute threat of a CCP invasion of the democratic Taiwan, which has maintained its de facto independence since 1949.

Despite that independence, and despite the fact that the CCP has never ruled the island, the regime has made a central point of its current focus the forced unification of Taiwan with the mainland. Drones, it appears, are to play a central role in that endeavor.

In late 2021, the PLA launched a miniature aircraft carrier designed to deploy and recover swarms of drones. Such staging vehicles are designed to work alongside surface combatants to disrupt military operations in the maritime domain by swarming enemy targets or rendering them less effective through distraction.

continue reading over at The Epoch Times

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

The January 6 Committee’s credibility has plummeted after claims by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson that President Trump “lunged” for the steering wheel of his vehicle and demanded to be taken to the site of the riots were contradicted by the lead Secret Service agent.

Hutchinson testified that Tony Ornato, the then-White House deputy chief of staff, told her that Trump said something like, “I’m the f-ing president, take me up to the Capitol now,” and had “reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel” before then using “his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel,” the the presidential driver.

“I’m the f’n president. Take me up to the Capitol now” — Hutchinson testifies that Trump GRABBED AT THE STEERING WHEEL of a car to try to force the secret service to take him to the Capitol pic.twitter.com/k84BMa4cnN

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 28, 2022

HUTCHINSON SAYS TRUMP INSTIGATED A PHYSICAL ALTERCATION IN THE PRESIDENTIAL VEHICLE TO TRY TO FORCE SECRET SERVICE AGENTS TO TAKE HIM TO THE CAPITOL pic.twitter.com/EFRLGYlfYk

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 28, 2022

Despite the legacy media breathlessly reporting Hutchinson’s claims without much skepticism, the term ‘Amber Heard 2.0’ subsequently trended on Twitter as Hutchinson’s assertions were demolished.

Within hours, Peter Alexander of NBC News revealed that Engel was prepared to testify “under oath that neither man was assaulted and that Mr. Trump never lunged for the steering wheel.”

🚨 A source close to the Secret Service tells me both Bobby Engel, the lead agent, and the presidential limousine/SUV driver are prepared to testify under oath that neither man was assaulted and that Mr. Trump never lunged for the steering wheel.

— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) June 28, 2022

Trump himself also asserted that the incident never happened.

Secret Service sources also reporter Julio Rosas that the story is “bullshit.”

A Secret Service source told me earlier: “FYI, I’m calling bullshit on the Secret Service story. You think none of us would have never heard of this as an internal rumor? No fucking way.” https://t.co/NqEoljvBeD

— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) June 28, 2022

Hutchinson appears to be pursuing a personal vendetta against Trump because he “personally turned her request her down” when she tried to get a job at Mar-a-Lago.

The corrupt J6 committee’s new SURPRISE WITNESS was so appalled by Trump and J6 that she…was planning to go work for Trump at his FL residence eight days *after* January 6 (article was published on January 14, 2021).

This Soviet show trial is a joke. https://t.co/tkj7IqflwG pic.twitter.com/YdcYTGJyJH

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) June 28, 2022

Hutchinson also apparently told another outright lie during her testimony when she claimed she had written a note of a statement for Trump to release on January 6.

The note was actually penned by Former Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann.

BREAKING: Former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann says that it is not true that Cassidy Hutchinson wrote the handwritten note that she testified on Tuesday that she wrote. He says it’s not true because he was the one who wrote the note. https://t.co/jBBtnOwzTn

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) June 29, 2022

“The handwritten note that Cassidy Hutchinson testified was written by her was in fact written by Eric Herschmann on January 6, 2021,” a spokesperson for Herschmann told ABC News Tuesday evening.

It remains to be seen whether Hutchinson will face any consequences for apparently lying under oath, although the already dubious credibility of the January 6 Committee has taken a further massive blow.

“The January 6 committee clowned itself,” summarized Tim Young.

The Secret Service ultimately has to follow all of the President’s orders… So aside from the fact that it was physically/logistically impossible for Trump to try to wrestle the limo steering wheel away… he would’ve never needed to.

The January 6 committee clowned itself.

— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) June 28, 2022

* * *

Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

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. Get early access, exclusive content and behinds the scenes stuff by following me on Locals.

The human body is a miraculous, well-oiled, and exceptionally complex machine. It requires a multitude of functioning parts to come together for a person to live a healthy life—and every biological detail in our bodies, from the mundane to the most magical, is driven by just 21 chemical elements.

Of the 118 elements on Earth, just 21 of them are found in the human body. As Visual Capitalist’s Mark Belan and Anshool Deshmukh detail below, together, they make up the medley of divergent molecules that combine to form our DNA, cells, tissues, and organs.

Based on data presented by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), in the above infographic, we have broken down a human body to its elemental composition and the percentages in which they exist.

These 21 elements can be categorized into three major blocks depending on the amount found in a human body, the main building block (4 elements), essential minerals (8 elements), and trace elements (9 elements).

The Elemental Four: Ingredients for Life

Four elements, namely, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen, are considered the most essential elements found in our body.

Oxygen is the most abundant element in the human body, accounting for approximately 61% of a person’s mass. Given that around 60-70% of the body is water, it is no surprise that oxygen and hydrogen are two of the body’s most abundantly found chemical elements. Along with carbon and nitrogen, these elements combine for 96% of the body’s mass.

Here is a look at the composition of the four elements of life:

Values are for an average human body weighing 70 kg.

Let’s take a look at how each of these four chemical elements contributes to the thriving functionality of our body:

Oxygen

Oxygen plays a critical role in the body’s metabolism, respiration, and cellular oxygenation. Oxygen is also found in every significant organic molecule in the body, including proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and nucleic acids. It is a substantial component of everything from our cells and blood to our cerebral and spinal fluid.

Carbon

Carbon is the most crucial structural element and the reason we are known as carbon-based life forms. It is the basic building block required to form proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Breaking carbon bonds in carbohydrates and proteins is our primary energy source.

Hydrogen

Hydrogen, the most abundantly found chemical element in the universe, is present in all bodily fluids, allowing the toxins and waste to be transported and eliminated. With the help of hydrogen, joints in our body remain lubricated and able to perform their functions. Hydrogen is also said to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, helping improve muscle function.

Nitrogen

An essential component of amino acids used to build peptides and proteins is nitrogen. It is also an integral component of the nucleic acids DNA and RNA, the chemical backbone of our genetic information and genealogy.

Essential and Supplemental Minerals

Essential minerals are important for your body to stay healthy. Your body uses minerals for several processes, including keeping your bones, muscles, heart, and brain working properly. Minerals also control beneficial enzyme and hormone production.

Minerals like calcium are a significant component of our bones and are required for bone growth and development, along with muscle contractions. Phosphorus contributes to bone and tooth strength and is vital to metabolizing energy.

Here is a look at the elemental composition of essential minerals:

Values are for an average human body weighing 70 kg.

Other macro-minerals like magnesium, potassium, iron, and sodium are essential for cell-to-cell communications, like electric transmissions that generate nerve impulses or heart rhythms, and are necessary for maintaining thyroid and bone health.

Excessive deficiency of any of these minerals can cause various disorders in your body. Most humans receive these minerals as a part of their daily diet, including vegetables, meat, legumes, and fruits. In case of deficiencies, though, these minerals are also prescribed as supplements.

Biological Composition of Trace Elements

Trace elements or trace metals are small amounts of minerals found in living tissues. Some of them are known to be nutritionally essential, while others may be considered to be nonessential. They are usually in minimal quantities in our body and make up only 1% of our mass.

Paramount among these are trace elements such as zinc, copper, manganese, and fluorine. Zinc works as a first responder against infections and thereby improves infection resistance, while balancing the immune response.

Here is the distribution of trace elements in our body:

 

Values are for an average human body weighing 70 kg.

 

Even though only it’s found in trace quantities, copper is instrumental in forming red blood cells and keeping nerve cells healthy. It also helps form collagen, a crucial part of bones and connective tissue.

Even with constant research and studies performed to thoroughly understand these trace elements’ uses and benefits, scientists and researchers are constantly making new discoveries.

For example, recent research shows that some of these trace elements could be used to cure and fight chronic and debilitating diseases ranging from ischemia to cancer, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension.

Authored by Enrico Trigoso via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Three retired U.S. military officers—LTG Thomas McInerney, USAF; MG Paul Vallely, U.S. Army; and Colonel Andrew O’Meara Jr., U.S. Army—signed a letter authored by “Concerned Graduates of West Point and The Long Gray Line,” protesting against mandatory vaccinations, CRT classes, sanitary conditions, progressive political activism, and other “woke actions,” in the military academy.

“The Long Gray Line” refers to the continuum of graduates United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.

“We wanted to challenge the leadership of the Academy and the Defense Dept on their WOKE actions, CRT, Diversity training and the other discrepancies in the Academy. We found it pervasive at the Naval and Air Force Academies so we knew it was directed from the highest levels of our Military Leadership,” Vallely told The Epoch Times.

“We all want the Military to get back on track to training and leading our Armed Forces to secure America and its Citizens,” Vallely, who has been sounding the alarm against a socialist takeover of the United States, added.

The letter, titled “Declaration of Betrayal of West Point And the Long Gray Line,” asks for the following information:

1. An explanation for the irregularities in the enforcement of the Honor Code.

2. A justification for the mandatory vaccinations of cadets with the COVID Virus despite widespread adverse reactions to the inoculation, as well as provisions for exceptions for cadets with religious objections.

3. An explanation for teaching Critical Race Theory at the Academy that constitutes an attack upon the Constitution and our constitutional Republic. This is behavior that constitutes unconstitutional conduct, if not sedition.

4. An explanation of reported mismanagement of the cadet dining facility resulting in unsanitary conditions, inadequate food prepared for the meal, and food served that was reportedly unfit for consumption.

5. Political activism on the part of civilian faculty members constituting political activity violating the long-standing policy of the Academy and Army Regulations.

6. The practice of exclusive reliance upon radical progressive guest speakers to address the Corps of Cadets. This practice results in prejudiced political activism on the part of the Staff and Faculty in violation of Army Regulations.

7. An explanation for the failure of the Superintendent to respond to correspondence inquiring about problems identified at the Academy.

Read more here…

Churches across the US are working with homeless charities to construct tiny home communities amid one of the worst housing affordability crises ever. 

AP News says churches are using spare land to build tiny home communities to accommodate the homeless. 

On vacant plots near their parking lots and steepled sanctuaries, congregations are building everything from fixed and fully contained micro homes to petite, moveable cabins, and several other styles of small-footprint dwellings in between.

Church leaders are not just trying to be more neighborly. The drive to provide shelter is rooted in their beliefs — they must care for the vulnerable, especially those without homes. -AP

More than half a million Americans were homeless in 2020, and the number has likely climbed as shelter costs if renting or owning have exploded, triggering the worst ever housing affordability crisis on record. As we’ve previously noted, soaring shelter costs force people into homelessness. 

Days ago, we outlined how a tidal wave of evictions could be ahead with 8.4 million Americans, or about 15% of all renters were behind rent payments. Of that, 3.5 million said they could be evicted within the next two months. Unlike the pandemic, the federal eviction moratorium prevented people from ending up on the streets, though the moratorium has since expired during the worst inflation storm in four decades. 

Jeff O’Rourke, lead pastor of Mosaic Christian Community in St. Paul, Minnesota, embraced tiny homes as a housing solution. He said his church uses “every square inch of property that we have to be hospitable.” 

Meridian Baptist Church in El Cajon, California, partnered with local nonprofit Amikas to construct a tiny home community to address the homelessness crisis. 

In the San Francisco Bay Area, Firm Foundation Community Housing, launched by Rev. Jake Medcalf, has erected a tiny home housing community in the parking lot of First Presbyterian Church of Hayward. 

The First Christian Church of Tacoma in Washington erected an entire village of tiny homes in their parking lot.

“We don’t have a lot of money. We don’t have a whole lot of people … but we care a lot about it, and we’ve got this piece of property,” said the Rev. Doug Collins, the church’s senior minister.

Donald Whitehead, director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, told AP the move by churches across the country to build tiny home communities is a “great emergency option” amid today’s economy that hasn’t worked for everyone. 

Maybe all of these tiny home communities springing up at US churches should be dubbed “Bidenvilles,” similar to the shacktowns built during the Great Depression in the 1930s called “Hoovervilles.” 

More of these communities will be constructed as the eviction tidal wave nears. 

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Known and suspected terrorists are entering the United States in unprecedented numbers amid a surge in illegal immigration, according to Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.).

In an interview with NTD, the Louisiana representative stated that the Biden administration is providing “absurd” figures on the actual number of known and suspected terrorists entering America through its borders.

Higgins, a decorated law enforcement officer, said he believes this number to be much higher in part owing to the number of suspected terrorists who have aggressively avoided interaction with law enforcement at the border, which are referred to as “got-aways.”

Higgins’s comments come after Border Patrol agents captured 50 people who were on the FBI’s terror watchlist from October 2021 to May 2022.

That figure was just 15 in the fiscal year 2021, which included several months under former President Donald Trump’s administration.

“Towards the end of last year, I had estimated that we had lost about 250 KSTs, known and suspected terrorists, so the total numbers now that we’re told could serve about 700,000 ‘got-aways’ are suspected to have crossed into America. I think that’s a low number,” Higgins said.

“From my perspective, with data delivered to me by boots on the ground, from the border and from Central America and Mexico, and from the official numbers that are delivered to Congress from official data collection processes with Customs and Border Patrol, I think it’s reasonable for Americans to sort of step back and say, ‘My God, we have somewhere between 500 and 1,000 known and suspected terrorists [that] have entered into our country across our southern border since President [Joe] Biden has been inaugurated into office.’ This should startle every American citizen regardless of political affiliation,” Higgins said.

‘Conservative Numbers’

Explaining why he believes the actual number of suspected terrorists in the United States could be higher, Higgins, pointed to Biden’s administration, which he said is using “conservative numbers” when it comes to estimating how many there are.

The lawmaker added that this is in part because “got-aways” are very difficult to catch because they aggressively run and hide from law enforcement.

Things have been made even harder, according to Higgins, because much of law enforcement at the border has been pulled away from their primary mission of securing the border to instead processing illegal aliens, giving the “got-aways” more opportunity to escape.

“So the men that are aggressively evading law enforcement, we’re looking at true numbers of probably a million but we’ve been told 700,000,” Higgins said. “So just using a number of 700,000, and estimating that a very small percentage of that number would be a known or suspected terrorist, which fits the historical data, you could look at 700 known and suspected terrorists who have crossed into our country.”

“It’s a startling number, it should frighten us all, it should drive us to greater action to confront the Biden administration’s failed border policies to insist upon the resignation of [Department of Homeland Security] Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas and to promise the American people that if Mayorkas does not resign, he’s going to be impeached,” the lawmaker continued.

Higgins added that huge numbers of those individuals who are evading law enforcement at the border are working for Mexican drugs cartels, and pointed to the rising number of fentanyl deaths in America.

Read more here…

Canada’s most expensive cities to live are starting to officially overtake the U.S.’s most expensive cities to live.

In fact, Mississauga, Vancouver, and Hamilton are more expensive than well known expensive U.S. cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, according to a new study from Canadian insurance provider PolicyAdvisor.

The study looked at the “10 biggest cities by population in each of Canada and the US based on the average cost of eight items in each – a cinema ticket, a meal out, a bottle of water, a cappuccino, one month of gym membership, a one way ticket and a monthly ticket on public transport as well as a month’s rent”.

Topping the list remains New York, which is the most expensive city when “considering cost of living in relation with salary”. The combined cost of the basket of 8 items that the study looked at accounted for 57% of the average salary in New York, the study found. 

New York was followed by Mississauga, Canada, at 56.4% of salary, and Vancouver, Canada, at 50% of salary. Both Hamilton and Toronto, Canada beat out well known expensive U.S. cities like Los Angeles and San Diego. 

New York had the “highest price of rent, at an average of $3,381.88 per month, as well as the highest gym membership cost ($103.35), monthly transportation pass ($129.5) and cost of a meal at an inexpensive restaurant ($25),” the study found. 

Toronto had the “second highest cost of monthly transport pass after New York” and Hamilton also a high monthly travel pass, at $85. Vancouver was toward the top of the list because of its far lower salary than other cities – people earned just $3,804.53 per month there. 

“The impact of the pandemic has made a lot of people reconsider their priorities for both their careers and where they want to live. This data contains some surprising results, as even though some major cities in North America might be perceived as having lower living costs – when factoring in the average salary in the area, it’s not as clear cut,” a PolicyAdvisor spokesperson said. 

PolicyAdvisor is a digital-first life insurance broker, using technology to make insurance simple, quick, and online.

By Noi Mahoney of American Shipper

Gulf Coast ports got a boost in May from strong container volumes, as well as imports of steel and plywood and exports of crude oil and petroleum products.

Port of Houston reaches all-time TEU record in May

Port of Houston hit an all-time record for monthly container volumes in May, handling 335,000 twenty-foot equivalent units, a 16% increase over the same period last year.

“Container activity continues to be at record levels. It seems like we’re talking about new records at the port every day,” Roger Guenther, Port Houston’s executive director, said during the port’s monthly meeting Tuesday. “There’s really no signs of [volume] backing off of the imports or exports and actually the exports are beginning to rebound a little bit.”

Total import tonnage was 2.8 million tons in May, a 32% year-over-year increase. Total export tonnage was 2.1 million tons, a 2% year-over-year decrease. 

Imports of steel increased 72% year over year in May to 401,587 tons. Imports of general cargo increased 83% to 840,351 tons.

Port Houston has been handling about 13,000 daily interchanges combined at its Barbours Cut and Bayport container terminals but a single-day record of 14,000 on June 23, said Jeff Davis, Port Houston’s chief operations officer.

Davis said the port was working 26 ships Tuesday. “We have seen pretty much the same on a daily basis, but it has not been without challenges,” Davis said. 

Port Houston expanded its hours at the Bayport and Barbours Cut container terminals at the beginning of June to include Saturdays. The new gate hours were put in place to help optimize the flow of cargo through the terminals.

Davis said Saturday volumes have been a little “disappointing” so far but hopes more trucking operators will begin to utilize the extra workday.

“We’ve seen a couple of 1,000 transactions on Saturdays. We’re seeking about half of a normal day of the week. We’d love to see 6,000 transactions at a minimum on Saturday,” Davis said.

Imports of steel increased 171% year over year in May to 646,548 tons. Imports of general cargo increased 4% to 601,543 tons.

Port Houston recorded 713 total ship calls in May, a 5% increase from the same period last year.

Nashville, Tennessee-based Ceres Terminals Inc. also recently announced the opening of a 75-acre container yard directly adjacent to the Barbours Cut Terminal.

The new yard will provide container services, servicing steamship line partners, beneficial cargo owners and the trucking community. The yard will also provide services for final-leg deliveries to meet cutoffs, according to a press release.

“This yard will provide our customers with much-needed near-dock capacity as well as supply chain efficiencies which we hope will relieve some of the stress on the container terminal,” Adam Brooks, COO of Ceres Terminals, said in a statement.

Port NOLA sees 88% increase in breakbulk but container volume declines

For the third consecutive month, the Port of New Orleans (Port NOLA) saw a large increase in breakbulk cargo but a decline in container volumes.

The port recorded an 88% year-over-year increase in breakbulk tons in May to 262,728 tons.

In recent months, Port NOLA’s monthly volumes have been boosted by shipments of coffee and plywood. 

Port NOLA’s container volume declined 30% year over year in May to 35,535 TEUs. Like many ports across the country, Port NOLA said it has been hampered in recent months by a shortage of cargo containers. 

The port handled 12,621 Class I railcar switches in May, a 9% year-over-year increase. The port handles switching operations for the six Class I railroads that operate in New Orleans: BNSF Railway, CN, CSX, Kansas City Southern, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific.

Port of Corpus Christi sees growth in petroleum, crude oil

The Port of Corpus Christi in South Texas moved 15.2 million tons of cargo in May, a 9% year-over-year increase from the same month in 2021.

Total shipments of crude oil totaled 8.7 million tons, of which 8 million tons were exports, during May. Exports of crude oil saw an 8% increase from the same month last year.

The port also handled 5.3 million tons of petroleum during May, a 18% increase compared to the same year-ago period. Exports of petroleum for the month topped 4.2 million tons, a 20% increase from the same period last year.

The Port of Corpus Christi had 635 ship calls in May, including 374 liquid cargo barges and 180 liquid cargo ships. It was a 10% year-over-year increase in total ship calls compared to May 2021.

China’s first Mars mission appears to have been a success. On Wednesday, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced the Tianwen-1 probe completed all planned scientific exploration tasks, including snapping imagery data of the entire planet. 

The mission’s scientific objectives were completed by a robotic spacecraft consisting of six devices: an orbiter, two deployable cameras, a lander, a remote camera, and the Zhurong rover. The aims of the mission included:

• Searching for evidence of current and past life,

• Producing surface maps,

• Characterizing soil composition and water ice distribution, and 

• Examining the Martian atmosphere, particularly its ionosphere.

CNSA said the Tianwen-1 had spent two years orbiting Mars while the rover portion of the mission surveyed the surface for about a year. One thousand forty gigabytes of “medium-resolution” and “high-resolution” image data covering the entire world of Mars were acquired. 

“As of June 29, the Tianwen-1 mission orbiter has been flying normally for 706 days, orbiting Mars 1,344 times, and has acquired medium-sized data covering the entire planet of Mars. With high-resolution image data, all scientific payloads have achieved global exploration of Mars. The “Zhurong” rover has traveled 1921.5 meters on the surface of Mars. Both the Tianwen-1 mission orbiter and the Mars rover have completed the established scientific exploration​​​,” CNSA said. 

Some of the photographs released show where the planet’s water resources reside. In a 2018 European Space Agency mission to the planet, an orbiting probe found liquid water under the ice of the planet’s surface. 

Here are the most important developments since the Chinese probe started orbiting Mars in early 2021 and began operations in May 2021: 

• China’s First Mars Mission Begins Next Month As Tianwen-1 Approaches Red Planet
• China Spacecraft Enters Orbit Around Mars
• China’s Mars Rover Travels 450 Meters, Spots Own Parachute From Lander
• China Releases Astonishing Images Of Mars Taken By Tianwen-1 Spacecraft

CNSA said the scientific data collected would be researched and used to promote humankind’s exploration of the universe. 

The final frontier is space — the world’s superpowers are on a hunt for trillion-dollar deposits of rare metals that will power Earth’s green energy revolution in decades to come. 

Authored by Jack Rasmus via Counterpunch.org,

Biden and the other G7 leaders are meeting in the Bavarian Alps this week. Apart from proclaiming they’ll never give up supporting Zelensky and Ukraine, G7 leaders announced they were planning two new sanctions on Russia.

Like most of the previous six phases of sanctions the purpose of the latest is to deprive Russia of revenues from exports. So far sanctions haven’t been all that successful in that regard, at least in the shorter term. While the USA has banned Russian oil and gas imports to the USA, those amounts and their respective revenue impact on total Russian export revenue is insignificant. Moreover, the ban on Russian oil exports to Europe do not begin until December 2022, while there’s no ban on Russian natural gas imports whatsoever. So little net impact on Russian energy export revenues from Europe either.

The sanctions on oil & gas Russian exports to Europe have been quite minimal to date. Meanwhile, Russia’s exports to China, India and rest of the world have been rising. As have global energy prices in general.  With accelerating global prices for oil and gas, and an increase in Russian energy exports to India, China and elsewhere, Russia’s revenues have been actually rising.

This rising revenue despite sanctions has presented something of a conundrum for Biden and the G7. The whole idea of sanctions is to dramatically reduce Russian revenues, not simply volume of exports! Sanctions thus far have had the opposite effect of what was intended—Russian energy revenues have risen not fallen.

So the G7 in Bavaria have come up with two more schemes to try to reduce Russian export revenues. But the thin mountain air must be affecting their thinking. The two new schemes are among the most desperate and economically absurd sanction ideas spawned thus far.

1. Ban Russian Gold Exports to Europe

The first absurd proposal being bandied about in Bavaria is to get Europe to agree to ban Russian gold exports to Europe.

The thinking is Russian revenues from gold constitute Russia’s second largest export revenue source, but at $20 billion a year gold sales revenue is still well below Russia’s oil export revenue of around $90 billion (before sanctions). Most of the Russian gold exports goes to the gold exchange in London where it’s ‘sold’ by Russia in exchange for other currencies. The G7 thinks denying Russia access to the London gold exchange will result in a big dent in its total export revenues and ability to obtain other currencies with which to purchase other needed imports for its economy. But there are problems with the G7’s proposed ban on Russia gold exports.

First, Russia could just as well sell its gold elsewhere in the world. It doesn’t have to sell it to the Europeans at the London exchange. Other major global buyers of Russian gold are Turkey, Qatar, India and other middle eastern markets. Gold prices have been rising globally, as inflation has driven up oil, gas, and other industrial and agricultural commodities. Gold is an asset that tends to rise in price with rising general price levels, which are now accelerating worldwide. With inflation, other countries will more than gladly buy up the Europeans’ share of Russian gold. Some may even then sell the gold back to the Europeans—at a marked up higher price of course.

The Demand for Russian gold will simply shift, from Europe to elsewhere. Russian gold export revenues will thus not fall on net; in fact, may possibly even rise as gold prices continue to rise with inflation–ironically in large part due to other sanctions in general.

Second, gold is an asset that provides a hedge against inflation. It may be that Biden can get the G7 leaders and their governments (and central banks) to boycott buying Russian gold. But what’s to stop individual investors in Europe from buying Russian gold in offshore markets, when it’s presently such an attractive asset? Will Biden extend sanctions on all the individual Europeans who simply shift their purchases of Russian gold from the London Gold Exchange to the gold exchanges in Turkey, Qatar and elsewhere?

2. Price Cap Russian Oil Exports to Europe

This is an even sillier proposal. Here’s the logic of how the price cap is supposed to work. Theoretically, Europe would all agree to buy Russian oil exports over the next six months but only at a deeply discounted price that all of Europe would agree on. In other words, set a ‘price cap’ at a level well below world market prices that are currently determined by supply in global oil spot markets. The lower price is supposed to cut Russian revenues from the oil exports to Europe—i.e. reduce revenues, the prime goal of all sanctions. The idea was first suggested by Janet Yellen, the US Secretary of the Treasury. That’s the Janet Yellen who told the world in February 2022 that inflation was temporary, remember!

Getting all of the G7 to agree to a price cap still requires getting the rest of Europe as well as Japan, So. Korea and others to agree to that price capt as well.   But isn’t Europe supposed to stop buying all Russian oil imports by end of 2022 per previous sanctions they’ve agreed to? Who believes the Europeans can agree to a price cap on Russian oil and implement that cap in three months (July-September)–and then for just three months more (October-December)? Europe can’t do anything in three months, or even six. Maybe the US and EU aren’t all that confident they can implement a full ban on Russian oil exports by December?

But even this isn’t the most absurd aspect of the ‘price cap’ proposal.

Assuming Biden could get all the G7 to convince all of Europe’s 27 nations on a super discounted price, there’s still the ‘small problem’ of what Russia’s response might be to all that. The G7’s faulty logic is the deep discounted price Europe is only willing to pay for the oil would be at a price much lower than even the 30% discount that Russia is now selling oil to India, China and elsewhere. The G7 presumably would offer to buy Russian oil only at a 50% discount off current world prices maybe? That would put pressure, as the G7 argument goes, on Russian oil sales to India etc. The Indians would then demand Russia oil prices at the G7 lower 50% discount price. Russia would realize further reduced revenues from oil lower prices to India, China, the rest of the world as well as to G7 and Europe.

This is a proposal so ridiculous it’s almost embarrassing. The problem with the G7 ‘price cap’ idea is there’s no reason why Russia would want to sell any oil whatsoever to Europe at the G7’s deeply discounted price cap level.

First, why should it when Europe says it plans to phase out all Russian oil by December anyway? Second, Russia has shown it is not concerned with reducing natural gas export revenues to Europe. It’s already cut cubic gas exports to Europe by one-third as part of its own economic response to Europe’s agreement with US sanctions on Russia and it’s warned Europe of another third soon.  Economic warfare cuts both ways. So what’s to stop Russia from just cutting off all oil exports to Europe—and well before December? Third, Russia would have to be pretty dumb to agree to sell oil to Europe at the latter’s ‘price cap’ level which would be well below Russia’s already 30% discount oil price sales to India? It knows the likely knock on effect that would follow. India as a long term oil customer is far more important to Russia than Europe which says it’s ending as a customer in just six months.  Finally, Russia knows if it cuts off all oil exports to Europe, it would just change the market flow of global oil, not reduce it. Russia would sell more to other countries, which might then just re-export it back to Europe in turn.

In short, the error with the G7 price cap idea is it assumes that buyers (Europe) can set the price for oil in what is a global sellers market! G7 may think they can stand market fundamentals on their head and make it work, but they are wrong.  No amount of G7 wishful thinking can make Demand determine Supply in today’s global energy markets, where broken and restructuring supply chains, sanctions, and war are the main determinants of price.

Both the proposal to ban Russian gold exports to Europe and the proposal to manipulate oil demand to reduce its global market price—and thereby deprive Russia of revenues—are ideas that reflect more the desperation of the US and G7 to find some way to make sanctions on Russia work in the short run when thus far they aren’t working very well, if at all.

The short run objective of sanctions–i.e. to reduce Russian export revenues–has not been working but the two latest desperate ideas won’t work any better.

Historians will wonder years from now why the US and its most dependent allies in tow—the G7 countries—embarked upon a scope of sanctions on Russia so soon after Covid’s deep negative impacts on global supply chains and domestic product and labor markets. Global markets, trade and financial flows were seriously disrupted by the Covid experience of 2020-21. And they had not recovered by January 2022 when US sanctions on Russia were escalated. Before global supply chains could heal, the US and its G7 allies embarked on sanctions that further disrupted and restructured those same supply chains while simultaneously setting off chronic global inflation that ravaged their domestic economies as well. History will show, it was all not well thought out.

Even less thought out, however, are the more recent G7 proposals to ban Russian gold and engineer a price cap on global oil—the latter in effect a fantasy that by somehow manipulating a region’s (Europe) oil Demand it could set global oil prices in general and thus over-ride Supply as the driver of oil price and revenues.

It makes one wonder about the qualifications of the current generation of world leaders (led by Biden and the US) playing with the geopolitical world order. And wonder even more about their even less understanding of the consequences of their economic actions on the world economy.

*  *  *

Jack Rasmus is author of  ’The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy from Reagan to Trump, Clarity Press, January 2020. He blogs at jackrasmus.com and hosts the weekly radio show, Alternative Visions on the Progressive Radio Network on Fridays at 2pm est. His twitter handle is @drjackrasmus.