Month: September 2022

“In America people are not in this shit,” exclaims mayor of Antwerp, Bart De Wever during an interview on Belgian TV.

“They are now exporters of oil and gas, but they certainly weren’t twenty years ago. Climate standards are not of much use if all your companies go to America and China to produce, then you are bankrupt and the climate is not yet saved. This is the green dogmatics. People should start realizing this.”

The outspoken mayor held nothing back during the Flemish current affairs program De Zevende Dag.

“Oil, gas and coal were no longer allowed. No investments were allowed in reserves. Germany does not have a single LNG terminal (a terminal for liquefied natural gas, ed.). The dumbest countries, Germany and Belgium, have phased out nuclear energy in parallel. We have pushed away all energy sources, making ourselves dependent on Putin. Now we hang on to it.”

The previous government, of which De Wever’s party was part, decided that the Belgian nuclear centers Tihange 2 and Doel 3 should close.

 “It’s a purple-green law. We now have a purple-green government. That is a recipe for catastrophe.”

Prime Minister Alexander De Croo says the country is ‘in an economic war situation’. 

“Everything has to be on the table.”

According to De Wever, it is time ‘for bitter truths’…

“This country is bankrupt.”

Somebody’s not going to get invited to Van der Leyen’s Christmas party this year…

Watch the full interview (in Dutch but you can select translation to English subtitles with the CC section – not available fort Embed) below:

Authored by Ziare via Remix News,

Jointly buying and producing weapons would be the reasonable and cheaper option, said the EU’s top diplomat…

A Ukrainian soldier takes a selfie as an artillery system fires in the front line in Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Kostiantyn Liberov)

The European Union’s arms stocks are running low as member countries continue to send arms and ammunition to Ukraine, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell has warned.

During a debate attended by MEPs, Borrell urged member states to better coordinate their spending on military equipment.

“The military stockpiles of most member states were, I wouldn’t say depleted, but depleted to a large extent because we provided a lot of capabilities to the Ukrainians. They must be refilled. The best way to replenish is to do it together. It will be cheaper,” he announced, according to The Guardian.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell speaks during a media conference at the end of the EU-Ukraine Association Council at the European Council, Brussels, on Monday, Sept. 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Borrell admitted that the EU should have started training Ukraine’s armed forces a year ago, months before Russia launched the invasion, after several member countries requested such an operation.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t, and today we regret it. We regret that in August of last year we did not comply with this request, we did not fulfill this request,” the head of the EU’s foreign policy also said.

In July, the EU committed €500 million for weapons for Ukraine, but since then, the bloc has promised another €2.5 billion in weapons.

Ukraine is highly dependent on Western arms, with sources in the government saying as early as June that they had run out of their own ammunition stocks and were relying on Western weapons and ammunition to keep fighting.

There are up to 8,755 commercial flights in the air at any given time of day. These flights transport thousands of people (and millions of dollars worth of goods) around the world.

But where are these people and goods headed? This map from Adam Symington uses historical data from OpenFlights to visualize the world’s flight paths.

As Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang details below, the graphic shows a comprehensive data set encompassing 67,663 different routes that connect 10,000 different airports across the globe.

A Note On the Data

The map uses an OpenFlights database provided by the third-party source that hasn’t been updated since June 2014.

Because of this, the data used for the graphic is of historical value only. However, this detailed map sparked our curiosity and got us wondering—what are some of the busiest aviation hubs around the world right now?

We did some digging, and here’s what we found.

Busiest Airports by Passengers

There are several ways to gauge an airport’s popularity. One way is to measure total passenger traffic throughout the year.

According to Airports Council International (ACI), eight of the top 10 busiest airports for passenger traffic in 2021 were in America. Here’s a look at the top 10 list, as of April 11, 2022:

 

In 2021, the airport with the most passenger traffic was Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. It accommodated more than 75 million passengers last year—a 76.4% increase compared to 2020 figures.

 

Hartsfield-Jackson is well-known for being one of the busiest airports in the world. One reason for this is its convenient location—according to the airport’s official website, Atlanta is within a two-hour flight from 80% of the U.S. population.

Dallas/Forth Worth (DFW) came in second place, seeing 62.5 million passengers throughout 2021. DFW was one of the only airports to boost its service offerings throughout the pandemic, and is also the main hub for American Airlines, the world’s largest airline by fleet size.

Busiest Airports by Cargo

While the U.S. dominates the ranking when it comes to passenger traffic, the list is much more diverse when looking at air cargo volumes. Here’s a look at the ranking, based on loaded and unloaded freight and mail (including transit freight):

 

Hong Kong (HKG) takes the top spot since the airport processed more than 5.0 million metric tonnes of freight and mail throughout 2021.

 

Hong Kong has been known as one of the busiest air cargo hubs for over a decade and is able to maintain this reputation because of its strategic location, impressive infrastructure, efficient customs, and business-friendly trade regulations.

The COVID-19 Impact on Aviation

The global pandemic hit the aviation industry hard. At its lowest point, international travel was down 98% from normal levels.

While the aviation industry is starting to recover from its COVID-induced slump, things still haven’t fully bounced back yet, especially in places like Shanghai, where lockdowns are still being mandated.

But experts remain hopeful for the future. According to ACI World’s General Director Luis Felipe de Oliveira, last year’s recovery was just the beginning.

“With many countries taking steps towards the return of a certain normality, lifting almost all the health measures and travel restrictions as supported by science, we welcome the continuation of air travel demand’s recovery in 2022.”

-LUIS FELIPE DE OLIVEIRA, ACI WORLD’S DIRECTOR GENERAL

Authored by Katie Hutton via TheMindUnleashed.com,

The United States and China are preparing for an embarrassing showdown in the event that both countries decide to land their respective lunar rockets on identical locations near the Moon’s south pole, which, according to the present plans, may very well transpire.

According to SpaceNews, both NASA and China’s space agency have discovered various landing locations that are comparable to one another for their respective lunar missions. These landing sites include the Shackleton, Haworth, and Nobile craters, which are situated close to the lunar south pole.

According to SpaceNews, both organizations may have selected these locations because of their elevated heights, favorable lighting conditions, and closeness to shadowy craters that have the potential to store lunar water ice. These factors may have contributed to their decision.

Futurism notes that it is currently unknown how the United States and China intend to deal with the possibility of a landing site overlap during their respective moon missions, which are scheduled to take off in the years 2025 and 2024, respectively.

The fact that more and more nations are considering sending astronauts to the Moon has created a brand-new problem for scientists to solve.

According to SpaceNews, the United States is in a difficult circumstance when it comes to space agreements with China as a result of a budget resolution insert defined as the “Wolf Amendment.”

The “Wolf Amendment” is a stipulation that was introduced in 2011 by then-representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) and severely restricts NASA’s ability to work with China in any capacity. The unwillingness of countries to play nice when it comes to space is undoubtedly going to cause many issues going forward in the Space realm. And some fear that this will usher in further Space militarization.

Despite the efforts of past presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump to participate in space negotiations with China, the conversations ultimately did not get very far. According to the findings of the report, the administration of President Joe Biden does not now have any apparent intentions to re-engage in the discussions.

Although the two nations’ options for landing locations on the moon aren’t exactly shocking, they might be a historic first nevertheless. And we should expect to see more instances like this in the future as tensions rise and humans continually venture into space.

“It is not hard to see why they both want the same spots,” space and law policy professor Christopher Newman told SpaceNews. “It is prime lunar real estate for in-situ resource utilization.”

“This could be the first potential point of conflict over resources beyond Earth,” he added.

Newman stated that in addition, on the basis of the fact that both sides had signed the Outer Space Treaty, they should, in principle, “accept the use of celestial bodies for peaceful purposes.”

“It will be interesting to see what happens,” Newman tells SpaceNews, adding that “a lot will depend on who gets there first.”

Folks, it looks like we could have a good old fashioned show down.

“There will be an operational test launch of an Air Force Global Strike Command unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile early tomorrow morning, Sept. 7, from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California,” Pentagon spokesman Brigadier-General Pat Ryder told reporters on Tuesday. 

Ryder said the ICBM test would be “routine,” adding Russia was notified per treaty obligations about Wednesday’s test. But as AP noted:

“The announcement ahead of the launch was unusual; the Pentagon has not confirmed recent tests until after they take place.” 

He said the objective of the test “is to demonstrate the readiness of US nuclear forces and provide confidence in the security and effectiveness of the nation’s nuclear deterrent.” 

.@PentagonPresSec: There will be an operational test launch of an Air Force Global Strike Command unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile early tomorrow morning, September 7, from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. pic.twitter.com/DkYdPvwUa9

— Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) September 6, 2022

The test comes weeks after a Minutemen III ICBM launch on Aug. 16 was postponed twice before to avoid any misunderstandings between Russia and China.

Nuclear tensions between the US and Russia have only accelerated in the last six months because of the ongoing Russian-Ukraine war. NATO countries’ fierce hybrid fight against Russian forces by supplying Ukraine’s military with weapons puts the world on a dangerous path to expanded conflict. 

Then Sino-US tensions reached levels not seen in decades last month when US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei angered Beijing, who then launched a war drill around the self-ruled island it claims as its own. 

Western globalist elites are hellbent on destabilization to contain the emergence of a multipolar world. 

Perhaps the Pentagon now feels a pre-launch ICBM press conference is needed to project military dominance (or what’s left of it) to countries that challenge its unipolar world as a way to preserve its hegemony. 

Authored by Daniel Davis via 19fortyfive.com,

Does America Have a Goal or Strategy for Ukraine? 

On Friday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced the G7 had agreed to impose a price cap regime on Russian oil. As with most other actions by the U.S. and Europe related to Russia’s unjust war against Ukraine, the announcement of the cap was big on rhetorical flourish, but thread-bare on any evidence of a coherent strategic objective.

(19FortyFive Contributing Editor Daniel L. Davis, author of this article, analyzes the situation in Ukraine on Fox News above.)

The intent of the cap is to set a global price just above Russia’s marginal cost so that Moscow won’t make a profit on the sale of oil but high enough that Russia won’t stop producing altogether. Current global demand can’t be met without the nearly nine million barrels of oil per day provided by Russia, and if Putin were to stop producing suddenly, the resulting supply shock could send the price of oil into the stratosphere.

The purpose of the cap, Yellen claimed, would be to “deliver a major blow for Russian finances and will both hinder Russia’s ability to fight its unprovoked war in Ukraine and hasten the deterioration of the Russian economy.” It remains to be seen if the G7 can make good on its aspiration and actually develop and implement a worldwide price cap scheme. But along with other actions sponsored or endorsed by the United States government, it is far from certain what end state Washington hopes to obtain.

On February 7, about three weeks before Putin ordered the Russian military to invade its smaller neighbor, President Biden threatened to “impose the most severe sanctions that have ever been imposed” should Russia invade. Four days later, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan explained that President Biden “believes that sanctions are intended to deter.  And in order for them to work — to deter, they have to be set up in a way where if Putin moves, then the costs are imposed.”

Yet after the threats of sanctions failed to deter Putin, Biden adjusted the rationale when he claimed that in fact “no one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening.” Instead, he continued, the sanctions were designed to show Western “resolve,” which, over time, “will impose significant costs on him (Putin).” Even with this new claim on his justification for sanctions, there was no explanation for what these “significant costs” were designed to accomplish. The Administration’s lack of focus didn’t stop there, unfortunately.

In late April, Secretaries of Defense and State, Lloyd Austin and Antony Blinken, traveled to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to explore ways the U.S. could help Ukraine’s military. Following their meeting, Austin said the United States wanted to see Ukraine remain a “sovereign country,” and that the U.S. wants “to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” It’s what Austin, Blinken, and Biden have not said, however, that illustrates a continuing problem with American foreign policy.

HIMARS Attack. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

To date, none of America’s top leaders have said how our support for Kyiv is expected to achieve the outcomes sought. No one has articulated what a “weakened” Russia looks like or how we’ll know when that standard has been reached – or even why weakening Russia is a vital interest to the U.S. that is worth taking huge risks. These are not just academic or hair-splitting questions. They are foundational. Here’s why:

Since even before the war began, the United States has had no vision for the end state it wishes to produce. For example, if Biden’s objective prior to 24 February genuinely was to deter Russia from launching a war, it should have been clear beyond a reasonable doubt that a threat of sanctions alone would not have been sufficient to convince Putin not to invade.

Washington would have had to be aggressively engaged diplomatically with both Kyiv and Moscow to use the full heft of U.S. power to find a route to prevent war. There is no evidence the U.S. put any serious diplomatic effort towards averting war. Without a clearly articulated objective, there was nothing to guide the various departments of the Administration on how to achieve the desired outcome. The result was predictable: policy failure.

Virtually the only objective voiced by any member of Biden’s national security team since the war began has been Austin’s aforementioned desire to see Russia “weakened.” Yet if the White House doesn’t know what a weakened Russia looks like, how will it ever know if its actions are contributing towards a successful outcome beneficial to America? That’s where we are right now.

We send multiple rounds of multi-billion-dollar support to Ukraine, including some modern and some antiquated gear, but it is not a coherent set of military kit tied to enabling a specific capacity in the Ukraine Armed Forces. The White House leads multiple tranches of sanctions against Russia, but there is no declared purpose as to what they are intended to produce.

RGW-90 rocket launcher in Ukraine. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Since we don’t know what we’re trying to accomplish, no one can tell the American people how much the effort is going to cost, how long it’s going to last, or even what success would look like. If this sounds familiar, it should: it is basically the same aimless, incompetent foreign policy the United States has been pursuing for decades.

• We fought a generational war in Afghanistan that never bothered to set an objective; no one in power even articulated what success would look like, and thus no victory of any sort was ever achieved;

• We started a war in Iraq beginning in 2003 that quasi-ended in 2011, only to return again in 2014 – without any president bothering to set an attainable military objective or even articulating what the Force was there to accomplish so the American people could know when the operation could successfully end – and it continues without success or end to this day.

• We have had the same malady in our actions in Syria, Libya, Somalia, Niger, and many other locations in Africa: the government has not identified any attainable military objectives whose accomplishment would benefit our country and signal the end of the mission – and thus none have benefitted the U.S. and most still drone unsuccessfully on.

The cost to the United States for all these failures has been profound – and now we’re creating a new mission without a clear objective and no identifiable end state. The Russia-Ukraine war just passed the six-month mark. The danger isn’t as much that we might still be trying to divine the Administration’s objectives six years from now – though that sad outcome is entirely possible – but that this war could one day spill over Ukraine’s borders and get us sucked into a war we should never have fought and from which we could never benefit.

The building blocks for everything on Earth are made from 90 different naturally occurring elements.

As Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang and David Cole-Hailton shows in the graphic below, made by the European Chemical Society (EuChemS), of these 90 different elements, which ones are in abundance and which ones are in serious threat as of 2021.

On the graphic, the area of each element relates to its number of atoms on a logarithmic scale. The color-coding shows whether there’s enough of each element, or whether the element is becoming scarce, based on current consumption levels.

While these elements don’t technically run out and instead transform (except for helium, which rises and escapes from Earth’s atmosphere), some are being used up exceptionally fast, to the point where they may soon become extremely scarce.

One element worth pointing out on the graphic is carbon, which is three different colors: green, red, and dark gray.

• Green, because carbon is in abundance (to a fault) in the form of carbon dioxide

• Red, because it will soon cause a number of cataphoric problems if consumption habits don’t change

• Gray because carbon-based fuels often come from conflict countries

For more elements-related content, check out our channel dedicated to raw materials and the megatrends that drive them, VC Elements.