Turkey announced on Monday a new natural gas discovery in the Black Sea.
Erdogan: Turkey’s natural gas reserves in the Black Sea have now increased to 710 billion cubic meters.
Earlier this year, Erdogan and Russia’s Vladimir Putin agreed to set up a natural gas hub in Turkey.
Turkey announced on Monday a new natural gas discovery in the Black Sea and upgraded estimates for an already discovered field in the basin, in what could be a major step for the country in slashing gas imports and diversifying its energy sources. Turkey’s natural gas reserves in the Black Sea have now increased to 710 billion cubic meters (bcm), Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday.
The country upgraded the resource estimate of a previously discovered gas field and announced a new discovery in its Black Sea waters.
The already discovered Sakarya field saw its reserves upgraded, while a new discovery at Caycuma-1 further boosts Turkey’s estimates of gas in place that could replace much of its imports, on which the country is heavily dependent.
“As a result of the analysis of the data, we have revised the previously declared 540 billion cubic-metre reserve to 652 billion cubic metres,” Erdogan was quoted as saying by Reuters.
“With our new discovery at Caycuma-1, our gas reserve in the Black Sea has risen by 170 billion cubic metres to 710 billion cubic metres,” said Erdogan.
“This new discovery will open the door for new ones. We’ll start drilling new wells as soon as possible,” Bloomberg quoted Erdogan as saying at a press conference after a cabinet meeting.
The Sakarya gas field is on track to produce first gas as early as next year, Turkey’s Erdogan said in November.
“Hopefully we’ll start using this gas next year,” the Turkish president was quoted as saying last month.
This week, Erdogan said Turkey had already drilled 13 wells in the Sakarya field.
The new discovery, at Caycuma-1, could be connected to the larger Sakarya gas field and from there to the country’s national grid, the president said on Monday.
The newly developed gas fields are set to go a long way toward Turkey’s energy diversification. So far, the country has mostly relied on imports to procure energy supply. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has hit Turkey’s economy and energy prices hard and has made energy imports much more expensive for Ankara.
Before this week’s reserves update, Turkish officials had expected that the Black Sea gas resources could meet around one-third of the country’s gas demand, Bloomberg notes.
Turkey is also preparing to potentially host a gas hub for Russian and other gas, which, however, may not be politically palatable to the EU.
Earlier this year, Erdogan and Russia’s Vladimir Putin agreed to set up a natural gas hub in Turkey, the Turkish president said.
“And in his own words, Putin announced to the world that ‘Europe can get its natural gas from Türkiye’,” Erdogan was quoted as saying.
A week earlier, Putin first suggested that Russia redirect natural gas supplies intended for the damaged Nord Stream pipelines to the Black Sea and the creation of a European gas hub in Turkey.
Since Putin first suggested the creation of the gas hub in Turkey, the two countries have not wasted time and instructed in October their respective energy regulators to immediately begin technical work to make the Russian proposal a reality.
“There will be no waiting” on this issue, Erdogan has said, as carried by AP.
Last week, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that any decisions on the potential gas hub in Turkey would be taken in 2023.
“Currently Gazprom is actively working with Turkish colleagues, with other potential participants of this project from other countries,” Novak was quoted as saying in an interview with the Rossiya-24 TV news channel on Friday.
“As supplies to Europe in the southern direction are underway from both Algeria, and Qatar, and Azerbaijan as of today, fundamentally, the issue about the creation of a certain hub with not only Russian suppliers, but other exporters participating as well,” TASS quoted Novak as saying.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says his government will introduce legislation that will allow the Office of Communications, Ofcom, to regulate streaming services such as Netflix and to fine them up to £250,000 ($301,375) for violating a code of conduct that law will establish. Ofcom already regulates British broadcasters. Sunak’s announcement follows the airing on Netflix of a documentary on Meghan Markle and Prince Harry that was criticized for inaccuracies and alleged misleading editing.
The Finnish government has announced on Thursday that it has proposed a temporary windfall tax on profits from the country’s electricity companies as part of a European Union response to soaring power costs. The proposed 30% tax would apply to any profits exceeding a 10% return on capital in 2023, with the government estimating it could bring in between 500 million and 1.3 billion euros ($533 million-$1.9 billion).
If the Finnish government goes ahead with its plans, it will join Germany and the UK as the other EU members that have introduced a windfall tax to energy and power companies. Starting December 1, Germany introduced a special levy that will see the country’s oil, gas and coal firms pay 33% of windfall profits, potentially generating a revenue of between one and three billion euros, Reuters reports.
Dubbed the “EU energy crisis contribution”, the tax is likely to affect dozens of energy companies and will target their 2022 and 2023 profits.
The tax would be implemented by the end of 2022.
The new levy will affect oil, gas and coal companies whose profits for the current year and the coming one exceed by 20% or more than their 2018-2021 average. However, the tax has a major drawback: according to Katharina Beck, spokeswoman on financial matters for the Greens, the planned levy can be circumvented on a large scale by companies moving profits abroad.
“The draft of the finance ministry for windfall profit levy for oil and gas companies falls well short of what is necessary,” Beck said in a statement carried by Reuters.
The fat profits being earned by energy companies in many oil-producing countries courtesy of high commodity prices has attracted the attention, and sometimes ire, of governments with some imposing windfall taxes.
Back in May, former UK Finance Minister Rishi Sunak imposed a windfall tax on oil and gas majors as the government tries to alleviate the country’s worsening cost-of-living crisis. Chancellor Sunak said that the levy would be taxed on energy companies that were making “extraordinary profits” due to the spike in commodity prices.
The British government imposed what it calls a “temporary targeted energy profits levy” with a so-called “investment allowance” levied at 25% to incentivize oil and gas firms to reinvest their profits.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden has threatened to introduce a windfall tax for oil and gas companies as they continue to post record profits.
The defense ministers of Syria, Turkey, and Russia held talks in Moscow on Wednesday in a sign of thawing relations between Ankara and Damascus. The conversation between Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar and his Syrian counterpart, Ali Mahmoud Abbas, is believed to be the first meeting of the two nation’s defense ministers since 2011.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the talks, which included Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, focused on “solutions to the Syria crisis, the refugee issue, and joint efforts to battle extremist groups on Syrian territory.”
Turkey severed diplomatic relations with Damascus back in 2012 and backed the failed regime change effort against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by supporting anti-government fighters.
But now that it’s clear that Assad isn’t going anywhere and Turkey has been focusing on Kurdish militants in northeast Syria, Ankara has been signaling it wants a rapprochement with Damascus. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu revealed earlier this year that he briefly met with his Syrian counterpart in October 2021, the first known high-level meeting between the two governments since 2011.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that during Wednesday’s meeting, the ministers “noted the constructive nature of the dialogue held in this format and the need to continue it in the interests of further stabilizing the situation.” The Turkish Defense Ministry described the talks as having a “constructive atmosphere.”
In November, Turkey launched major airstrikes against the US-backed Kurdish-led SDF in northeast Syria over allegations the group was involved in a bombing in Istanbul, which the SDF denies. Turkey has been asking the US and Russia to convince the SDF to withdraw from towns near the Turkish border.
Unhappy with the US efforts to curtail Turkey’s offensive, the SDF has also requested Russia to broker talks with the Syrian government.
Meeting in Moscow: Turkey and Syria defense chiefs hold rare talks
The Turkish ministry said “joint efforts to combat all terrorist organisations in Syria were discussed” as Ankara threatens new assault on Kurdish militants.https://t.co/pDWYTKYxdS
One possible solution would be for Syrian government troops to deploy to the border areas to act as a buffer between the Kurdish forces and Turkey, but that is unlikely to happen as long as the US occupies eastern Syria.
The New York Times has a helpful article on how New York’s broad definition of “blight” has enabled the state to declare the area around Penn Station in New York City to be declared blighted, and therefore open to the use of eminent domain to condemn property for transfer to private interests:
The congested, chaotic section of Manhattan near Pennsylvania Station, which teems with tourists, commuters and shoppers, is undeniably drab. Does that make it blighted?
New York State has decreed that it is, and Gov. Kathy Hochul has recently likened the Penn Station area to “a Skid Row neighborhood.” She was defending the controversial plan to allow developers to build 10 towers around the decrepit train station — the busiest transit hub in the nation — in exchange for some of the $7 billion the state needs to renovate it.
If New York State officials deem an urban area to be “blighted,” blocks can be bulldozed and people and businesses can be forced to relocate. And new towers — unbound by limits on size and height as defined by the city’s normal planning rules — can rise.
The state’s authority to make such a determination and move forward with redevelopment is nearly impossible to contest….
Over the past 15 years, dozens of states have placed limitations on when they can take ownership of private property. But not New York State, which has among the fewest restrictions on its power to rebuild areas in the name of economic development, according to the Institute of Justice, a libertarian policy group that tracks the issue.
To many people, a “blighted” area would be dilapidated, if not beyond repair; the term conjures up images of vacant buildings, overgrown lots and lawlessness. But as defined by the State of New York, the label is both vague and all-encompassing. It can include conditions like traffic congestion and excessive density that would describe much of New York City….
For the Penn Station project, state officials have staked their claims of blight on “substandard and insanitary conditions” and “economic stagnation.” The evidence to support those claims was outlined in a neighborhood study commissioned by Empire State Development, the agency overseeing the project and facing the lawsuit from its opponents, and completed by a civil engineering firm in February 2021.
In the 240-page neighborhood report, the firm explored the exterior and interior conditions of every property in the redevelopment area, assigning ratings for each site. The buildings were found to be older, with many built before 1932, and generating lower rental revenue than their peers in surrounding neighborhoods….
Richard Emery, a Manhattan lawyer who represents opponents of the redevelopment project, noted that the state’s own assessment found only eight of 61 lots met the definition of blighted. In contrast, the state deemed more than 70 percent of the Atlantic Yards area of Brooklyn to be blighted before it was redeveloped with the Barclays Center, which opened in 2012.
Even under the state’s broad definition of “blight,” only a small minority of the lots in the area qualified. But that was enough to condemn the whole thing.
To add insult to injury, much of the supposed “blight” was actually in a part of the area owned by a private firm that may benefit from the use of eminent domain if the redevelopment designation goes through:
Some properties with faulty conditions or unresolved violations are owned by Vornado Realty Trust, the neighborhood’s largest landowner, which the state has said will develop some of the new towers. Vornado, a public company that is among the city’s largest owners of offices, has accumulated more than a dozen properties in the area over the last 20 years, holding onto them in anticipation of a larger redevelopment.
Of the eight sites that would be redeveloped, Vornado owns four of them and a share of another. The sites could give rise to some of the tallest buildings in the city.
This is far from the first time New York has used its blight statute to authorize dubious uses of eminent domain, including in situations where private parties who owned some of the “blighted” property stood to benefit. In a 2011 article, I went over two state Court of Appeals decisions that upheld even more abusive land grabs (the Court of Appeals is New York’s highest court). Sadly, little has changed since that time.
Both the New York state constitution and the Fifth Amendment federal constitutions only permit the use of eminent domain to take property for a “public use.” But the state Court of Appeals has interpreted that to permit the taking of “blighted” property for transfer to private interests under the state’s incredibly broad definition of blight. For its part, the US Supreme Court has ruled—in misguided decisions likeBerman v. Parker (1954) and Kelo v. City of New London (2005)—that virtually any potential public benefit qualifies as a “public use.”
In addition to harming local property owners, such condemnations often actually destroy more economic value than they create. Among other things, rendering property rights insecure undermines incentives to invest, and thereby impedes longterm economic development. I go over these dangers in detail in my book The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain.
In this case, some beneficial development may occur because—as the Times notes—the “blight” designation can enable the state to get around local restrictions on the height and type of new buildings that can be constructed. Building restrictions are indeed a serious problem curtailing valuable development in New York and elsewhere. But the right approach to this problem is simply to abolish or at least loosen the restrictionswithout simultaneously authorizing the use of eminent domain.
In the aftermath of the US Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Kelo v. New London (2005), many states enacted eminent domain reform laws to curb the taking of property for private development. Some of these laws were effective, others much less so. New York was one of only five states that made no changes at all. It continues to have what may be the most permissive eminent domain law in the entire country.
In 2020, the New York Court of Appeals added to its terrible record in this area by upholding the use of eminent domain to seize property for a pipeline that may never get built. That and the same court’s blight precedents bode ill for a recently filed lawsuit (also noted in the Times article) challenging the legality of the Penn Central blight designation.
It’s possible that the New York Court will rethink its ultra-permissive approach to public use, or that the state legislature will address the problem, as urged by two dissenting judges in the pipeline case. It is also possible that the federal Supreme Court will overrule or limit Kelo v. City of New London, thereby potentially curbing abusive “blight” and “economic development” takings that transfer property to private interests. Last year, three Supreme Court justices signaled an interest in doing just that. But until one of these things happens, New York’s expansive blight designations will continue to facilitate eminent domain abuse.
And then those are tongue-in-cheek moments such as the letters that suggested there were extraterrestrials from Cassiopeia.
“We do have a variety of people asking things like that,” Schindler says.
But, UFO researchers say some cases defy explanation and include eyewitness reports from credible sources—from military people to commercial pilots.
These sightings have taken the debate over UFOs to a new and sober level—to such an extent that the government formed an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) in August 2020 to study the topic in detail.
In its unclassified report, “Preliminary Assessment of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” dated June 25, 2021, the task force concluded that the subject of UAPs is worth further study and research funding.
However, the report would not acknowledge an extraterrestrial origin.
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena “pose a safety of flight issue and may pose a challenge to U.S. national security,” the report to congressional intelligence officials warned.
While available reporting on UAPs is “largely inconclusive,” the report said sightings fall into five categories: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, U.S. Government or industry development programs, foreign adversary systems, and “other.”
The report added that a few UAPs demonstrate advanced technology, though most reports “probably lack a single explanation.”
In October 2022, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced the formation of an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Study with 16 members versed in the subject.
“Exploring the unknown in space and the atmosphere is at the heart of who we are [and] the language of scientists is data,” according to a NASA fact sheet.
The independent study group will examine UAP data over the next nine months and report on its findings around mid-2023.
NASA asserted it is “going in with an open mind, and we expect to find that explanations will apply to some events and different explanations will apply to others.”
“We will not underestimate what the natural world contains [and] there is a lot to learn.”
NASA press secretary Katherine Rohloff said the study aims to identify data from the civilian government, commercial, and other sources that can shed light on UAPs.
Using that data, the space agency will recommend a “roadmap” for future UAP analysis.
In July 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announced the establishment of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office to examine and assess potential aerial threats near military installations.
The DoD said UAPs include anomalous, unidentified space, airborne, submerged, and “trans-medium objects.”
“Put simply, UAPs are objects that, when encountered, cannot be immediately identified and may exhibit anomalous behavior,” said DoD press operations spokeswoman Sue Gough.
Gough cautioned that the lack of attribution “does not necessarily indicate the significance of each sighting or a threat to national security.”
“Anomalous behavior means that DoD operators or sensors cannot make immediate sense of collected data, actions, or activities,” Gough told The Epoch Times in an email.
Gough said that by combining data collection with rigorous science, “any object we encounter can likely be isolated, characterized, identified, and, if necessary, mitigated.”
The DoD’s position is to collect as much data and see where it leads.
Gough added, “We will not rush to conclusions in our analysis. In many cases, observed phenomena are classified as ‘unidentified’ simply because sensors [could not] collect enough information to make a positive attribution.”
Since the purported crash of a UFO took place in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1948, the idea of visitors from other planets has captured the public’s imagination like no other.
There have been thousands of reports of UFOs over the years since, ranging from direct sightings of strange lights and actual craft to alien abductions.
Incidents such as these sparked a series of investigations by the U.S. Air Force, beginning with Project Sign in 1947, Project Grudge in 1948, and Project Blue Book from 1952 to 1969.
The studies looked at more than 12,000 reported sightings in total, concluding UFOs were not a national security threat or of extraterrestrial origin.
People who study UFOs are known as “ufologists.” And many ufologists, like documentary filmmaker Ron James of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), believe ample proof exists that UFOs are here and not of this world.
More importantly, the government knows this.
“When we say government, we’re not talking about guys at the Pentagon,” said James, MUFON’s director of public relations.
“We’re talking about programs buried for years away from the institutional memory of the armed forces in pseudo-government, private ventures that are accountable to nobody and impossible to penetrate with the FOIA [Freedom Of Information Act].”
James’s latest project, “Accidental Truths,” seeks to address the government’s “new narrative” of UFOs and the key people involved in concealing their existence.
The 90-minute film’s release is due in early 2023.
James said MUFON amassed a growing database of 120,000 UFO sightings and encounters since the group’s founding in 1969, receiving hundreds more cases each month.
He said at least 97 percent of cases MUFON receives and investigates have a natural explanation, like the weather, satellites, or aircraft.
The other 3 percent can’t easily be explained and requires further study.
“When you talk about the field [of UFO research], you don’t cover it in one umbrella,” James told The Epoch Times. “Many of these avenues are conjecture, testimony, little documented evidence—which is fine.
“Things that are science fiction today are science fact tomorrow.”
More than 70 years after the Roswell incident, James said we know “something is going on.”
“We don’t know exactly [but] we have a pretty good idea.”
While Roswell catalyzed interest in UFOs, references to strange flying objects appear in texts going back to biblical times, James said.
“This topic has been at the forefront of our culture and the general population since the 40s. Since the Roswell thing took off.”
In December 2017, the New York Times published an article exposing what it said was a secret Pentagon program to investigate UFOs beginning in 2007.
Former U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) reportedly obtained funding for the program.
However, James said government investigations into UFOs amount to little more than a “dog and pony show.”
“That’s how it’s been from the beginning. The acronyms [for the studies] are adding up,” James said.
Through “compartmentalization” of various government entities, “it gives them the ability to say we don’t know anything about [UFOs], even though it’s a real thing,” James said.
“By compartmentalization—and by what we call ‘stovepiping’—they’re able to sequester information. And then they have plausible deniability.”
James believes there is a power struggle within certain levels of government between those who wish to cover up the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs and those who want to expose it.
He said the government acknowledging the reality of alien technology and energy sources would be Earth-shaking.
“It would destroy every paradigm, every power structure, every means of control that keeps the planet in check. It’s all about energy. Whoever controls the energy controls the entire planet,” James said.
Despite official denials of non-terrestrial UFOs, sightings of strange objects continue to this day.
The National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), a national clearinghouse of information on unidentified aerial sightings, has logged more than 150,000 reports over 47 years of operation. The center in December posted 1,255 new UFO sightings on its website.
On Nov. 7, NUFORC received a report from multiple airline pilots describing a “dramatic display” of lights over the midwestern United States the night before.
“Moreover, several other flight crews allegedly reported the same event over their backchannel, so-called ‘guard,’ radio frequency, and discussed the event extensively over an estimated 20-25 minutes,” according to NUFORC’s website.
James said the UFO debate is far from over yet he doesn’t believe the new investigations will reveal anything significant.
“It’s not going to reveal anything we don’t already know. If [the government] can drag it out for another 50 years, they’ll do it,” James said.
“At some point, they will have to acknowledge the existence of non-human intelligence. Where it goes after that depends on what that relationship is about.”
One organization focused on the search for advanced extraterrestrial civilizations through radio signals is SETI (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence).
SETI began as a government program in 1960. However, questions over its scientific value led Congress to terminate it in the 1970s, though SETI researchers reorganized privately in the 1990s.
SETI senior astronomer Seth Shostak said there has been no shortage of UFO reports since he joined the organization.
“I get a phone call almost every day from someone having difficulty with aliens in their personal lives,” Shostak said. “It’s not a new phenomenon for me.”
Shostak agreed that public fascination with UFOs remains high while conspiracies of government cover-ups abound.
“The fundamental fact is that ever since the 1960s, poll after poll has shown that one-third of the American populace believes that the aliens are buzzing the skies. Many call me up,” Shostak told The Epoch Times.
Shostak said every time a new UFO study group enters the media cycle, it only stirs hope “that something new will happen,” and Americans “love a conspiracy.” But the evidence regarding alien visitation is doubtful. Otherwise, we’d see them in our everyday lives.
“Maybe the aliens have lost interest or have been repelled by the fast food,” he joked. “If the aliens were visiting—if there were good evidence of that—you’d have thousands of scientists looking into this.”
“They’d be beavering away at this every day,” Shostak told The Epoch Times. “What could be more important than the idea extraterrestrials have decided to come to Earth for—whatever reason? And they’re not doing that. That means [scientists] are not convinced.”
The late American astronomer Percival Lowell, founder of the Lowell Observatory in 1894, stands out among 20th-century scientists who believed in life on other planets.
Schindler said Lowell, from a wealthy Boston family, built the observatory housing its 24-inch refractor telescope to prove the existence of aqueducts, or “canals,” made by intelligent beings on Mars.
Lowell was not “one of these wacky guys with all these crazy ideas,” Schindler said. “He was well-educated and went to Harvard because he was a Lowell.”
“He started [the observatory] because he wanted to prove there was life on Mars.”
Lowell would also study the field of planetary formation and how the solar system might have evolved, theorizing the existence of a ninth planet—Planet X.
Lowell died in 1915, though his research would inspire other astronomers to carry on, leading to the discovery of Pluto on Feb. 8, 1930.
“It’s interesting he wanted to prove there was intelligent life on Mars and didn’t—wanted to discover a planet and didn’t. He probably went to his grave unfulfilled in some ways because he didn’t do that one big thing,” Schindler said.
As a professor and someone who values academic integrity, I am always concerned about the issue of plagiarism. Plagiarism is the act of using someone else’s work or ideas as your own, without proper attribution or citation. It is a serious offense in the academic world, as it undermines the fundamental principle of intellectual honesty and undermines the integrity of the research and scholarship that is being produced.
Recently, there has been some concern about the use of AI language models, such as ChatGPT, in the context of plagiarism. ChatGPT is a powerful tool that can generate human-like text, and it has been used for a variety of purposes, including generating chatbot responses and creating content for websites and social media. While it is certainly an impressive technology, there are also valid concerns about the potential for ChatGPT to be used to produce content that is not entirely original.
There are a few different ways in which ChatGPT could potentially be used to facilitate plagiarism. For example, someone could feed a text or article into the model, and then use the generated output as their own work, without properly citing the source material. Alternatively, someone could use ChatGPT to generate text that is similar to someone else’s work, but not identical, in order to avoid detection. In either case, the result would be a violation of academic integrity.
However, it is important to note that ChatGPT is not inherently a tool for plagiarism. Like any technology, it can be used responsibly or irresponsibly, depending on how it is applied. It is up to individuals to use ChatGPT (and other tools) in a manner that is consistent with academic standards of integrity and honesty.
In conclusion, plagiarism is a serious issue in the academic world, and it is important to be mindful of the potential for ChatGPT (and other AI language models) to be used in a manner that violates these standards. However, it is ultimately up to individuals to use these tools responsibly, and to ensure that they are not contributing to the problem of plagiarism.
If you couldn’t tell, this post was written by ChatGPT. I inserted this prompt:
Write a post about plagiarism and ChatGPT in the voice of Professor Josh Blackman.
Timepiece aficionados are leaving their Rolex, Patek, Audemars Piguet, and other expensive watches at home as they attempt to stay under criminals’ radar while in public. From Los Angeles to Manhattan to London to Paris, violent high-end watch robberies are rising.
“I outright stopped wearing it [stainless steel Rolex Submariner] on the subway.
“I don’t want to draw attention to myself in that way” amid the spate of subway crimes, New York City resident Troy Barmore told NYTimes in August.
While watch theft statistics are limited in major metro areas, authorities across the US and Europe have warned about a wave of criminals targeting affluent people for their timepieces.
Bloomberg reported London’s Metropolitan Police Service recorded a staggering 60% jump in knife-point robberies. In Paris, an entire police task force has been assigned to investigate luxury watch theft.
“This is a top priority for us, and we have already made a number of arrests.
“No one should have to go about their day in fear of thieves,” said London Detective Chief Superintendent Owain Richards.
Police data in London shows 667 Rolex watches were stolen from people between January and September, up from 60 over the same period last year. The average value of watches stolen in the English capital exceeded 10,000 pounds this summer.
Watch owners insure their timepieces, but that’s the least of their worries because they could become victims of a violent robbery. Some who sport these watches have taken them off and placed them in winder boxes.
And back to the US, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said 206 thefts involving at least one watch valued at $5,000 or more occurred between Jan. 1 through mid-November. That’s a 30% increase over the same period last year.
Organized crime gangs have been mainly on the prowl, scoping out wealthy folks, either at their homes or in public, waiting to pounce and steal expensive jewelry. These thefts are also happening at home.
“We are definitely seeing examples of robberies and thefts of luxury watches taking place across North America,” Tannie Ng, a senior underwriter for luxury collections at Chubb Ltd., said in an interview.
With that in mind, it’s safer to wear less expensive and or no jewelry at all. And for those who want to wear fancy jewelry despite the risks, well, wearing body armor and or legally concealing a weapon could be your best shot at survival as the western world plummets into a crime-infested liberal utopia.
Prior to its upcoming conference in Davos next month, the World Economic Forum (WEF) appears to have joined the cancel campaign against Twitter, taking to recommending Chinese state-controlled social media apps to “follow along” with Davos Man into the future.
Twitter is noticeably absent from the entities listed on the organization’s “How to follow Davos 2023” social media pamphlet, and that appears to be no accident.
To stay up to speed with all that is happening within the invite-only doors of the ruling class confab, the WEF recommends following along through a handful of social media sites. They include the U.S.-based narrative-compliant Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, along with the Chinese social media apps TikTok WeChat, and Weibo. Twitter, which has freed itself from the grasp of the WEF-endorsed censorship-compliant social apps, is no longer included.
Through its founder Klaus Schwab and partner organizations, the WEF has a very cozy relationship with the Chinese government. Davos recently revealed that their China office now has 40 full time staffers. Moreover, every year in Beijing, the WEF hosts its “Annual Meeting of the New Champions,” which facilitates partnerships between international businesses and the Chinese Community Party. In 2018, the CCP awarded Klaus Schwab with its China Reform Friendship Medal, a medal for non-Chinese people who do the CCP’s bidding overseas.
Davos 2023 will feature Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok, on stage. First reported by The Dossier, he will appear at an event titled “Tackling Harm in The Digital Era.”
In case you missed it, The Dossier has obtained an early, partial list of both events and confirmed speakers for Davos 2023. On the agenda for the 2023 conference includes event titles such as Why We Need Battery Passports, Leading The Charge Through Earth’s New Normal, A Living Wage For All, Enabling An Equitable Transition, and Beyond The Rainbow: Advancing LGBTQ+ Rights, among others.
The Bird App has faced a ferocious cancel campaign following its change of management. Elon Musk’s pledge to turn Twitter into a free speech platform has met major resistance from the institutional corporate and governmental ruling class. Several WEF partners, such as BlackRock, have joined the attacks against Twitter, boycotting the platform in protest of its “content moderation” policies. It should come as no surprise that the ruling class’s favorite narrative and ideas shop for technocratic tyranny has come after Twitter, given that the latter app is now serving as the one major global social media platform for open debate and dialogue.
China abruptly reversed the zero-Covid regime that isolated the world’s second-largest economy for nearly three years. High-frequency data shows highway congestion is rising, which could indicate a surge in crude demand in 2023.
BloombergNEF published a note that found China’s road congestion index rebounded from the previous week. The index includes highway congestion from 15 major cities, which jumped by 58.2% versus a week earlier. And what this means is that mobility is increasing across China despite the resurgence of Covid-19 infections.
China’s exit from zero-Covid (more on what the reopening means for the economy and markets) could indicate crude consumption for the country might begin to tick up in the first quarter of 2023 and accelerate in the back half of the year if the reopening process is smooth.
Since 2020, strict lockdowns and quarantines have impeded mobility by road inside China. For the first ten months of this year, passengers traveling by road were down 82% versus the same period in 2019. As restrictions ease, travel demand will increase and eventually rebound as urban and long-distance highway travel resumes. This would boost oil consumption.
“China’s total consumption is set to rise by 1.0 million b/d or more by the end of 2023 as travel restrictions unwind and manufacturing recovers,” Reuters noted. As we explained last month, China has already increased oil imports for reopening.
The problem with China reopening is there might not be enough spare crude production capacity to satisfy demand by the second half of 2023. Crude supply remains constrained by OPEC+ output limits, sanctions on Russia, and a lack of US crude production, so if there’s no global recession next year, the likelihood of renewed upward pressure on crude could take hold.
… and maybe former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s bullish outlook for $150 Brent is something to note.
1. Oil price will rise to $150 a barrel, and gas price will top $5.000 per 1.000 cubic meters
2. The UK will rejoin the EU
3. The EU will collapse after the UK’s return; Euro will drop out of use as the former EU currency
