Month: February 2024

Australia’s top liquefied natural gas exporter’s chief executive told Bloomberg in an interview on Tuesday that the LNG sector is an explosive upcycle that could send consumption soaring through the next decade, resulting in the need for more investments in the space. 

“We’re seeing signs of that demand growth in emerging Asia,” CEO Meg O’Neill of Woodside Energy Group Ltd. said in the interview. She noted that consumption of the fuel is expected to rise by 50% over the next decade. 

O’Neill said, “There’ll be points in time where we’ll see a fair amount of new supply arriving, but the demand growth is really likely to absorb that over the course of the coming years.”

In a separate Bloomberg interview, O’Neill stated: “We see a bright future for LNG.” She said her team has advanced the $12 billion Scarborough LNG project in Australia and other development opportunities, including Browse, Sunrise, and Calypso.

She said Woodside’s M&A team is actively searching for a “variety of opportunities — but we are going to be disciplined,” adding, “We are going to make sure it fits our strategy, fits our capabilities, and delivers value.”

Woodside’s outlook on the industry is one of the most bullish ones.

A recent note from Shell Plc, a top LNG supplier, shows a 2040 bullish forecast. 

Given O’Neill’s long-term bullish outlook on the LNG market, what’s truly perplexing for many is the decision by climate radicals in the White House to halt new LNG export licenses in Texas. As a reminder to readers, Texas is the third largest LNG exporter in the world. 

We have cited a number of energy insiders, Wall Street analysts, and even some government officials who have been absolutely dumbfounded by the White House’s decision. 

Earlier this month, Jack Fusco, CEO of Cheniere Energy Inc., was quoted at the Baker Hughes annual conference in Florence, Italy, via Bloomberg, saying that the Biden administration’s decision to pause approvals of LNG export licenses “was very confusing.” He pointed out that US LNG helps lower dirtier fossil fuel generation emissions. 

Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said the decision was “probably the worst energy decision that” Biden has made. He said, “Because of this pause, you’re probably going to see some investment that would have come to the United States, go elsewhere.” 

And Exxon Chief Financial Officer Kathy Mikells was recently quoted in an interview by Bloomberg as saying the pause in new LNG approvals is a “mistake” and will reduce climate-damaging emissions. 

Considering all of this… What in the heck is the Biden admin thinking? 

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

What changed in the economy is now nobody can afford to get by on working-class wages because there’s no longer any bargains.

The economy has changed in many ways, and it’s difficult to track the glacial movements over decades. One change that few seem to recognize or discuss is the disappearance of bargains: cheap rent, cheap meals at hole-in-the-wall restaurants, cheap transport, cheap travel, cheap services–all gone.

Back in the day, even stupidly expensive cities like San Francisco had working-class districts with cheap rent and cheap eats. One reason the hippie movement arose in San Francisco was the availability of cheap places to rent in what many would dismiss as rundown slums or ghettos. There were plenty of working-class hole-in-the-wall restaurants and cafes that served cheap plates of spaghetti, turkey legs and other affordable fare.

The working-class districts in cities have long been gentrified, or more recently, abandoned to homeless encampments. Gentrification eliminates cheap rents, as the soaring valuations of real estate leads the new owners to charge high rents in order to pay their lofty mortgages.

Affordable apartments disappear, and so do affordable small commercial / retail spaces for hole-in-the-wall bookstores (remember when these were commonplace?), cafes, odd little niche retailers, and low-cost services (shoe repair, etc.)

The extermination of low-cost commercial space eliminated many services which are no longer available, a trend that feeds the “waste is growth” Landfill Economy: there’s nobody left to repair anything or move second-hand goods, so everything that once could have been repaired or re-used is tossed in the landfill, replaced by a shoddy, crapified replacement product of the global economy.

One person’s affordable housing is another person’s slum or ghetto. Urban Renewal destroyed affordable housing and vibrant ethnic neighborhoods, in the name of “improvement” which ended up displacing those who could no longer afford soaring rents.

The end result is many people are spending half or 2/3 of after-tax earnings on rent. Personally, I was only able to work my way through college because there were still nooks and crannies of low-rent dives and rooming houses, and low-cost hole-in-the-wall restaurants and cafes, day-old baked goods outlets, etc.

Lowering the cost of credit for corporations, financiers and the wealthy created unprecedented competition for places to invest all this nearly free money, and real estate has long been a favored market for those seeking to increase income and appreciation by gentrifying low-cost properties.

The net result is nobody can afford to start a business because rents, insurance, fees, utilities and regulatory compliance are all unaffordable, And so downtowns and once vibrant retail streets are half-empty or abandoned. All the little cafes, services, second-hand stores are all gone because these are inherently low-margin businesses that can’t afford rent in the thousands per month.

Something else changed, too: the proprietors who operated these small, affordable businesses are gone. The proprietors could charge affordable rates for their services because their own cost of living was low. Once the cost of living skyrocketed, they could no longer afford to get by on the meager earnings of their affordable enterprise. So they sold their building, or retired and moved out of the city to cheaper regions.

Who’s left who wants to work the long hours needed to operate small enterprises, and rely on uncertain / low net income? Very few people are willing to take these risks, and few can afford to take these risks.

Financialization–and the resulting competition of those with unlimited access to low-cost credit for real estate to “develop”–eliminated all the bargains. Once rents soared, nobody could afford to offer bargains. The price of everything soared and those with cheap rents were forced out of business by rising rents and gentrification.

What changed in the economy is now nobody can afford to get by on working-class wages because there’s no longer any bargains. Life used to be good for those with modest incomes because there were still bargains to be had. Not any more. Life is now a struggle because it’s no longer affordable.

Not everyone is suffering, of course. The corporations selling junk products and services are doing just fine:

As are those who own 90% of the income-producing assets:

*  *  *

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By Michael Msika, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist

Investors are piling up bets into the largest stocks by market value but also into the ones with the strongest balance sheets, while leaving more risky companies behind.

The broadening of the rally to other parts of the market doesn’t look like it’s coming just yet. Caution is the name of the game when it comes to corporate fundamentals, with the quality factor leading returns on a long-short basis over the past three months, and the trend extending further in February.

Investors have turned increasingly bullish about European stocks, with their optimism driving the European benchmark to a record high last week. Even so, a Goldman Sachs basket of companies with weaker balance sheets has been underperforming peers with stronger ones at a pace not seen since mid-2022 — a period when US rates went from 1% to more than 3% in about three months.

“These baskets are heavily influenced by interest rates given their sensitivity to rising cost of debt,” say Goldman strategists including Guillaume Jaisson, keeping an underweight on these companies. They add that cost of debt isn’t a problem for the overall market given balance sheets are not stretched overall.

Jaisson notes that some constituents of the basket like BAT, Fresenius, GN Store Nord, Siemens Healthineers and Stora Enso committed to reducing debt during the last earnings season, implying less focus on capex or shareholders’ returns. Meanwhile, Bayer even announced it will cut dividends by 95% to focus on its balance sheet, and others such as Atos have been under pressure following refinancing difficulties.

“We think these companies will remain constrained now that they need to operate in a higher interest rate environment and especially if we see yields move higher,” they say. The caveat is that a pick-up in activity, combined with rate cuts from the major central banks, could create a rotation out of momentum trades and into cyclical assets such as weak balance sheets and small caps.

In the meantime, investors are being selective, widening the gap between what is seen as the healthier sections of the market. In terms of performance themes, the market is back to the things that worked well for most part of the rally, as mega cap, tech and pricing power stocks are performing well.

Sentiment toward riskier parts of the market, which briefly seemed to play catch up and stoked concern about potential “buy everything exuberance,” is once again sobering up and deflating the notion of too much risk is being deployed.

Yet, while sharing a similar view to Goldman’s Jaisson about the continued outperformance of cash-rich companies versus stocks with high refinancing costs, JPMorgan strategists led by Mislav Matejka are more pessimistic about the overall direction of equities. They see some downside ahead, especially as key drivers of resilient corporate profitability are likely to turn weaker.

“In aggregate, and despite a few notable exceptions, corporate profit margins are elevated in a historical context, and appear to be peaking,” they say. Corporates managed to lock in low financing costs ahead of rate hikes but this will normalize over time, as will productivity gains and the currently strong pricing power.

“The historical pattern where profit margins always start to move lower ahead of the next economic downturn is clear,” they say.

Authored by Andrew Korybko’s via Substack, 

French President Macron hosted over 20 fellow European leaders in Paris on Monday to discuss their next moves in Ukraine, including the possibility of a conventional NATO intervention, which he said they hadn’t ruled out for reasons of “strategic ambiguity” despite not reaching a consensus on this. His Polish counterpart Duda also confirmed that this subject was the most heated part of their discussions. The very fact that this scenario is being officially considered shows how desperate NATO has become.

Russia’s victory in Avdeevka, which was the natural result of it winning the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with NATO, prompted policymakers to contemplate what they’ll do in the event that it achieves a breakthrough across the Line of Contact (LOC) and starts steamrolling through the rest of Ukraine. They hadn’t previously considered this to be a serious possibility until last summer’s failed counteroffensive exposed the weakness of their military-industrial complex and tactical-strategic planning.

It’s now a credible scenario that’s reviving speculation about a Polish-led intervention aimed at drawing a red line in the sand for halting any potential Russian breakthrough before it gets too far. This would preserve the G7’s “sphere of (economic) influence” in Ukraine while preventing that former Soviet Republic’s collapse and thus averting another Afghan-like foreign policy disaster for the West. The problem, however, is that Poland also doesn’t want to be put up to this only to be hung out to dry.

Although Poland has comprehensively subordinated itself to Germany after the return of Berlin-backed Prime Minister Tusk to power late last year and envisages carving out its own “sphere of influence” in Western Ukraine, this doesn’t mean that it wants to lead a Western intervention there. The risk of World War III breaking out with Russia by miscalculation is much too high and Poland might fear that NATO won’t activate Article 5 if it clashes with Russia inside Ukraine in order to prevent that from happening.

These concerns could explain why there wasn’t any consensus during Monday’s meeting on this issue since other members wisely won’t want to take the chance of catalyzing an apocalyptic scenario, ergo the reason why the West might be plotting a false flag in Poland to blame on Russia and Belarus. President Lukashenko warned about that in late February, and if it comes to pass, then it could serve as the trigger for pushing Poland into leading a Western intervention in Ukraine without full NATO backing.

Warsaw could be misled to believe without any written guarantees that it has the bloc’s support and Article 5 would be activated if its forces clash with Russia’s there, but only to be hung out to dry if that happens so as to stave off World War III by miscalculation for the greater good. Nevertheless, it would still serve the purpose of drawing a red line in the sand that could halt Russia’s advance since NATO might escalate via brinksmanship afterwards by promising to activate Article 5 if the clashes continue.

Poland would also be left to pick up the tab in that event by having to pay the financial and physical costs of this de facto NATO intervention, thus representing an amoral form of “burden-sharing” that would fall solely on its taxpayers instead of the rest of the bloc’s. The farmers’ protests that are rocking that country right now could lead to a full-blown rebellion if that happens since others could join in, however, which the ruling liberal-globalists would prefer not to unfold since they fear that they’d risk losing power.

That’s why they’re reluctant to lead a Western intervention in Ukraine since there’s a high chance that it’ll backfire on them in particular and Poland’s national interests in general despite being to the benefit of Western hegemony as a whole. Whatever ends up happening, the takeaway from Monday’s meeting in Paris and the details that were revealed about their discussions is that NATO is planning for a possible Russian breakthrough across the LOC later this year but isn’t yet sure how to react if that happens.

Poland could either be pushed to preempt that voluntarily or after being manipulated by the false flag that President Lukashenko warned last week is being plotted, with the second option also potentially being employed right after any breakthrough. If this occurs before NATO’s “Steadfast Defender 2024” drills wrap up in June, then those of the bloc’s forces that are presently training in Poland for its largest continental exercises since the Old Cold War could play a pivotal support role or possibly join in as well.

Should a breakthrough occur after those war games end as part of the Russian offensive that Zelensky claimed is being planned for as early as May, however, then Poland probably couldn’t count on as much NATO support and would likely be pressured to go it alone (at least at first) with only vague promises. Another possibility is that the exercises are extended, whether in whole or in part, including through the semi-permanent stationing of some other NATO forces like Germany’s there until the offensive ends.

Russian forces recently made confirmed gains near Kreminna, Bakhmut, and Avdiivka amid continued positional engagements along the entire frontline on February 26. (1/2) https://t.co/OpLbPOueCH pic.twitter.com/7SiK3WJQbF

— Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) February 27, 2024

That might give Poland enough reassurance to take a leap of faith in plunging head-first into Ukraine with the expectation that the rest of NATO will follow even if they purposely lag behind in order to avoid World War III with Russia by miscalculation as was previously explained. It remains to be seen what’ll happen, but as Macron himself said, “we will do everything needed so Russia cannot win the war” and this therefore means that NATO will certainly intervene to some extent if Russia breaks through the LOC.

The bloc can’t afford another Afghan-like disaster, let alone on European soil in the most geostrategically significant conflict since World War II, which is why it won’t sit idly on the sidelines as Ukraine collapses if there’s a credible chance of that happening and Russia steamrolling through the ruins. The only reason why they’re now planning for this is because Russia’s victory in the “race of logistics”/“war of logistics” makes it conceivable sometime later this year, though it of course can’t be taken for granted either.

Just when you thought the EV lunacy had reached so much of a peak that obvious industry backlash was taking place, think again: because the European Commission is here to prove you otherwise.

And how do they plan on doing that? According to Wheels Alive, a UK automobile publication, the EU is considering banning repairs on vehicles that are more than 15 years old. 

The proposed measure, put forward by the European Commission and pending ratification, seeks to gradually eliminate older, high-emission vehicles to promote the adoption of greener alternatives. This pending legislation, which requires the green light from both the European Parliament and the Council, introduces the concept of a ‘residual vehicle’.

Just for perspective, this means vehicles that were manufactured in 2009 or before wouldn’t be considered for major repairs. 

The EU’s ‘Fit for 55’ initiative aims for a 55% cut in transport emissions by 2030 from 1990 levels and zero direct emissions by 2050, including a 2035 ban on new combustion engine vehicles, with exceptions for future synthetic fuels.

Despite these goals, the adoption of low or zero-emission vehicles across the EU is uneven, with some countries like Spain seeing average vehicle ages over 14 years, and over 47% of vehicles older than 15 years, reflecting a broader trend across Europe.

The European Commission proposes to tackle this by targeting the longevity of cars, introducing draft regulations to redefine waste management for end-of-life vehicles to encourage recycling and a circular economy.

Despite concerns, the regulation aims to identify vehicles beyond repair due to significant damage or when repair costs exceed market value, without barring necessary repairs or replacements for standard cars.

This has sparked debate regarding its effect on the automotive repair industry and the fate of classic cars, underlining the complexities of balancing environmental goals with economic and cultural considerations.

Hilariously enough, the EU didn’t provide information on where the average person is supposed to get the funds to just ‘throw away’ their old vehicle and start over with a brand new one. And with the non-stop printing of cash worldwide and inflation running rampant, it’s more difficult than ever to do so.

Could this be another step in the ‘you’ll own nothing and like it’ playbook?

Jeez. Just when you thought the globalists couldn’t micromanage a single industry or tell you what you can and can’t own any further…

By Micaiah Bilger of The College Fix

White supremacy remains so prevalent in Christianity today because it took root in the early church, theologian Anthony Reddie told a Baylor University conference this month.

Reddie, a professor of black theology at Oxford University in England, said in his Feb. 15 speech that white supremacy has “distorted” Christianity since the time of Jesus Christ, according to Baptist News Global.

The conference, hosted by Baylor’s Truett Seminary, focused on racism in the world church.

“The most egregious thing that we have to wrestle with is the normalization of white supremacy,” Reddie said.

Although Christianity “was created as a movement for those who are marginalized and oppressed,” he said white leaders quickly began using the religion as a weapon to seize land and oppress other cultures.

Reddie traced the distortion back to the early Christians who blamed the Jews for killing Jesus, instead of Roman leader Pontius Pilate, according to the report.

“Pilate represents white supremacy, and white supremacy now becomes normalized and effectively becomes the religion of Jesus, the religion of God,” the professor said.

As time went on, more and more people began to believe Jesus was a white European, like them, Reddie said.

Baptist News Global reports:

That’s why few white Christians flinched at the claim that Jesus called European and American Christians to travel the globe to oppress brown- and Black-skinned people, he said, explaining that a Christianity suffused with white supremacy enabled plantation owners in the American South to see no contradiction between their faith and owning other human beings. “They saw people who are other as inferior and that it was OK to kill or enslave them for their own good.”

Those attitudes clearly continue to exist and in the U.S. are evident in the rise of Trumpism, the British scholar said.

Because white supremacy has been connected with Christianity for so long, he said it has “distorted the very fabric of what we call Christianity and the nature of church.”

The Baylor conference is part of a “three-year sequences of programs on confronting racism in the white church and seeking God’s justice,” according to the event website. More than a dozen pastors, theologians, and Christian leaders participated. Baylor is a private, Protestant Christian university in Texas.

Last year, a Catholic university professor also linked white supremacy with the early Christian church in a new book, “Christian Supremacy.” The author, Fordham University Professor Magda Teter, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that white supremacists’ ideology “is rooted in Christian ideas of social and religious hierarchy.”

By Salon24.PL via Remix News

Polish truckers are to resume their border blockade protest on March 1 after having previously suspended their protest actions at the turn of the year. Truckers are demonstrating once again because they are not satisfied with what has been done to stop Ukrainian trucking companies from creating unfair competition in the Polish transport market. 

The ongoing farmer protests are also about trade relations with Ukraine, with the farmers protesting about the European Commission’s decision to extend the trade agreement with Ukraine, allowing Ukrainian agricultural products to flow into the EU despite these products failing to adhere to EU standards.

WATCH: 🇵🇱🚜 Polish farmers spill Ukrainian grain out onto the railway tracks as they ramp up their nationwide protests against cheap imported produce from the war-torn country and the EU’s green agenda. pic.twitter.com/3HyhS6A3LS

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) February 20, 2024

Farmers are also up in arms about EU climate policies, which affect energy costs and livestock farming. On Tuesday, Feb. 27, the farmers are to stage a mass protest in Poland’s capital city of Warsaw.  

The truckers action on March 1 will mark the resumption of action which began on Nov. 6. They had been promised government action to tighten controls on Ukrainian haulage firms, but these promises have not been kept. The truckers are demanding the reintroduction of licensing for Ukrainian truckers.

Former Polish Conservative (PiS) Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki took to X on Monday to support the protesting farmers. He called on the government to introduce an embargo on Ukrainian agricultural products. 

WATCH: 🇧🇪🇪🇺🚜 Farmers drag away barricades set up by riot police to protect the EU institutions in Brussels.

Really explosive situation in the city today!#Bruxelles #AgriculteursEnColere #FarmersProtest2024 #FarmerProtest2024 pic.twitter.com/pBaCfuPyh0

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) February 26, 2024

For more details please see Remix.news

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Slovakia Prime Minister Robert Fico warned on Monday that some NATO and EU countries are considering sending troops to Ukraine, a step that would risk direct war between NATO and Russia.

“Several NATO and EU member states are considering sending their soldiers to Ukraine on a bilateral basis,” said Fico, who was elected last year on a platform of opposing the proxy war in Ukraine.

Some NATO members have signed bilateral security deals with Ukraine, including Germany and the UK, but there’s no indication they’re considering sending troops at this time.

“We see huge security risks in the bilateral agreements that are likely to be conducted soon with NATO and EU member states that want to send their troops to Ukraine,” Fico said.

He made the comments ahead of a meeting of European leaders in Paris about the proxy war in Ukraine. After the summit, French President Emmanuel Macron said the idea of Western troops in Ukraine hasn’t been ruled out.

“There’s no consensus today to send in an official, endorsed manner troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out,” Macron said.

The French Foreign Ministry subsequently on Tuesday issued this curiously-worded statement:

Western countries could deploy troops to Ukraine without breaching any “belligerence threshold”, French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said on Tuesday.

Western nations could engage in demining, arms production and operations in the cyber field “on Ukrainian soil… without breaching any belligerence threshold,” Sejourne said, after President Emmanuel Macron refused to rule out the dispatch of Western ground troops to Ukraine.

Troops from any single European country being in Ukraine presents issues related to NATO Article 5….

🔴 The Kremlin has warned that a conflict between Russia and Nato would be inevitable if European members of the alliance send troops to fight in Ukraine.

Read more here ⬇️https://t.co/IXWg4ivKeg pic.twitter.com/SOfdYOjhuI

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) February 27, 2024

The Discord leaks revealed last year that there are a small number of NATO special operations forces inside Ukraine. According to a leaked Pentagon document, there were 97 NATO special operations soldiers in Ukraine, including 14 Americans, as of March 2023.

Authored by Callista Gingrich via RealClear Wire,

A report published on February 14 revealed that the Chinese Communist Party is continuing to target and enslave Uyghurs through an expansion of forced labor in China. Published by The Jamestown Foundation and authored by Beijing-banned academic Adrian Zenz, the report concluded, “Xinjiang currently operates the world’s largest system of state-imposed forced labor.”

The atrocities that the Chinese Communist Party perpetrates against members of ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang have come to light in recent years, including mass imprisonment of more than 1 million civilians, forced sterilization, separation of children from their families, torture, abuse, restrictions on religious freedom, and forced labor.

While most of China is composed of the Han ethnic group, more than half of the population of the northwestern region of Xinjiang consists of ethnic minorities (predominately Muslim Uyghurs) – who the Party has long sought to control.

In 2021, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo determined that the Chinese Communist Party was committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang – a determination that Secretary of State Antony Blinken upheld. 

Though the horrific methods the Party wields to subjugate these minority groups vary, the objective remains the same.

“It’s a strategy of control and assimilation,” Zenz told The New Yorker. “And it’s designed to eliminate Uyghur culture.”

Forced labor systems in Xinjiang – punishable by detention for non-compliance – are a key part of removing resistance and opposition to the CCP’s absolute authority and power. In his report, Zenz pointed to two dominant systems used to target Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in Xinjiang.

In one system, detainees in China’s infamous re-education camps received coercive skills training before receiving coercive work placement. Detainees who were viewed as less problematic received a sentence of forced labor, while others, such as prominent business and intellectual figures, were sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

Though it appears this system is no longer active, Zenz noted that the Chinese Communist Party is instead expanding its “Poverty Alleviation Through Labor Transfer” program. Zenz described this policy as “a non-internment state-imposed forced labor mobilization system.”

A Chinese academic research report, the Nankai Report, described the re-education camps as a “drastic short-term measure” and the labor transfers as a long-term “method to reform, meld and assimilate” Uyghurs.

But the bottom line is clear. “Xinjiang’s recent policy changes have rendered forced labor less visible and more challenging to conceptualize,” Zenz wrote. “Uyghur forced labor is becoming both more prevalent and more insidious.”

The United States must take notice of these findings that disguise coerced labor as voluntary.

In 2021, Congress passed into law the bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The law prohibits goods made by the Chinese Communist Party’s forced labor programs from entering the U.S. market. However, numerous products tied to slave labor continue to evade legal protections and arrive in American households.

Chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP Rep. Mike Gallagher and Ranking Member Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi wrote a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas that outlined some of the key challenges to effectively enforcing this consequential law.

First, the members wrote, “Companies transfer forced laborers from [Xinjiang] to other regions in the People’s Republic of China, complicating [U.S. Department of Homeland Security] enforcement of the presumptive ban on forced labor products from [Xinjiang].” Additionally, “A second factor undermining enforcement of the [law] is Beijing’s increased transshipment of forced labor products to the United States through third countries.”

Last week, to further augment and strengthen U.S. efforts in the fight against human rights abuses in Xinjiang, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the bipartisan and bicameral Uyghur Policy Act. This legislation, led by Rep. Young Kim, will authorize the State Department to appoint a Special Coordinator for Uyghur issues, direct the U.S. Agency for Global Media to distribute information on Uyghur genocide, and authorize support for Uyghur human rights activists.

As the Chinese Communist Party continues to target Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in China, the United States must strengthen the enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and resolve to pass the Uyghur Policy Act into law.

For more commentary from Ambassador Callista L. Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com.

By Nathan Worcester of Epoch Times

Former President Donald J. Trump has soundly defeated former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in Michigan’s Feb. 27 Republican presidential primary, notching his sixth-straight primary victory as he marches towards the GOP nomination.

The Associated Press called the race for Trump right after the last polls closed at 9 p.m. ET.

The result is another blow to Ms. Haley, coming days after a double-digit defeat in her home state of South Carolina. Despite this, she has vowed to stay on through Super Tuesday on March 5, when numerous delegate-heavy states will hold their primaries.

Ms. Haley campaigned in Michigan on Sunday and Monday and was in Colorado on Feb. 27, part of a multi-day tour ahead of Super Tuesday.

The former United Nations ambassador faces very challenging delegate math as Super Tuesday approaches, suggesting her time in the race is finite.

pic.twitter.com/kVRULMMBgO

— Edward (@edwardrussl) February 28, 2024

While 16 Michigan delegates to the Republican National Convention were allocated based on the primary results, the majority—39—of the state’s 55 delegates will be awarded as a result of caucusing on March 2.

The main event will be in Grand Rapids, where former Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) will oversee a convention at which party insiders will vote on how to divvy up the remaining delegates.

Yet, while Mr. Hoekstra has the backing of President Trump and the Republican National Committee (RNC), his accession to leader of the Michigan GOP has not been universally recognized by Republicans in the state.

Many in the party maintain that Kristina Karamo was improperly removed from her role as state GOP chairwoman. She’s staging her own convention in Detroit.

An ongoing lawsuit against Ms. Karamo could end the standoff before March 2. On election day itself, the judge in the case ruled that her ouster from the leadership role was legal.

Meanwhile, President Biden handily won the Democratic presidential primary in the state, garnering 78.6 percent of the vote.

But a campaign from Israel-Gaza ceasefire activists to get Democrats to select “uncommitted” from the ballot in that primary got some results. Sixteen percent of votes were for the “uncommitted” option, signaling dissension in Democratic ranks over the Middle Eastern conflict.

While Israel-Gaza is an electoral sore point for everywhere, it’s particularly sensitive in Michigan, which has large Arab Christian and Arab Muslim communities.

Former Rep. Justin Amash (L-Mich.), an Arab Christian and former Republican who has recently emerged as a critic of President Biden after supporting President Trump’s first impeachment while in office, recently mourned the death of his second cousin George as a result of an Israeli airstrike on the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza.

Michiganders Back Trump

President Trump’s supporters in the state include Joe Bancroft, who was leaving a polling place at a library in Delta Charter Township when he spoke with The Epoch Times.

“He’s not a perfect person. Okay. And he is a strong person. And he’s rough around the edges. But here’s the thing. Who do you want to lead this country?” he said.

His wife, by contrast, voted for President Biden.

“Hell no,” she said when asked if she had voted for President Trump.

At an early voting site in Southgate, Michigan, downriver from Detroit, the Sikorskis—Douglas and his wife Sandy—formed a united front for President Trump.

“The RNC should be devoting all the funds to President Trump,” Mr. Sikorski told The Epoch Times on Feb. 25, the last day of early voting.

When asked if that priority could hinder important spending on other Republican races, the couple clarified that they felt the RNC could be trusted to use its resources more intelligently under new leadership—”Now that Ronna Romney [McDaniel]’s out,” Ms. Sikorski said.

Ms. Romney McDaniel announced her resignation as RNC chairwoman on Feb. 26, saying she would leave after Super Tuesday.

President Trump has endorsed Michael Whatley, chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, as Ms. Romney McDaniel’s replacement. He hopes to replace RNC co-chair Drew McKissick, who is also resigning, with his daughter-in-law Lara Trump.

Continue reading at the Epoch Times