Month: July 2024

Air taxi firm Lilium has won a major order from state-owned Saudi Arabian airline Saudia, according to Reuters, citing sources. 

Saudia has signed a deal to purchase 100 electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles from the German air taxi firm ahead of an event with reporters on July 18 at the company’s headquarters near Munich.

Here’s more from the report:

The customer had signed a framework deal to buy 100 Lilium jets some 18 months ago and has invited reporters to an event which it said will give insight into Saudia’s forthcoming deals at Lilium headquarters near Munich on July 18.

The source said the aim was to convert the deal into a concrete order for vertical take-off electric air taxis.

Flying cars have long been seen as fiction, as some of us remember the animated sitcom “The Jetsons” from the 70s. But since venture capitalists have plowed billions of dollars into the eVTOL space, technological advancements have been rapidly made, increasing the odds these vehicles will transform intercity travel later this decade.

Powering the Lilium eVTOL are multiple small propellers driven by electric motors that provide lift during takeoff and landing and thrust during cruise.

Reuters said the company has about 780 orders and letters of intent to date, including the plans with Saudia. 

“This is a very important moment for the company.”
Day 1 at ILA Berlin 2024 was filled with exceptional highlights. Delighted to host Chancellor Olaf Scholz and showcase the full-scale model of our Lilium Jet to leading industry representatives in Germany for the first time. pic.twitter.com/UUCP1Xfaks

— Lilium (@Lilium) June 6, 2024

In addition to Lilium, we have been following Alef Aeronautics, which is based in San Mateo, California, and recently reached nearly 3,000 preorders for its $300k flying car. 

Via BFI Capital,

In the beginning of July, the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Switzerland’s largest research institute for natural and engineering sciences, and Copenhagen Atomics, a Danish molten salt reactor developer, announced their large-scale experimental collaboration. The four-year agreement stands to put Europe in the pole position of the advanced nuclear technology field.

The Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and Copenhagen Atomics have now publicly announced their collaboration agreement on a thorium molten salt critical experiment.

Aslak Stubsgaard, a co-founder of Copenhagen Atomics, writes in their press release: ‘We’ve spent nearly a decade perfecting our thorium molten salt reactors, and now, we are ready to test them in a real-world setting.’ Beyond the goal of validating the technology, the experiment will provide valuable experience for the design, construction, licensing, operation, and decommissioning of the new technology and help collect data for commercial deployment.

And, with the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) as Copenhagen Atomics’ research partner, this milestone experiment will happen right here, in Switzerland! The PSI conducts their research in the fields of energy and climate, future technologies, health innovation, and fundamentals of nature. They operate a hot laboratory which, as equipped for research and work on radioactive materials, provides the

perfect testing venue for the thorium molten salt critical experiment which is scheduled for 2026. Marco Streit, head of PSI Hot Laboratory, states: ‘This experiment is a critical step towards new advancements in nuclear energy.’

Affordable, Clean, Dependable Energy

With the help of this collaboration, the Copenhagen Atomics technology ultimately has the potential of becoming one of the world’s most affordable, dependable, and clean energy solutions; it could truly revolutionize the energy sector and have a huge positive impact in general. After all, as Copenhagen Atomics’ slogan rightfully states: Energy does equal prosperity.

According to Thomas Jam Pedersen, co-founder of the Danish company, they will be able to produce electricity for only 20 dollars per megawatt hour, assuming regulatory burdens are kept within reason. And, the first commercial reactor could be ready as soon as 2028.

Our regular readers will likely remember Mr. Pedersen from our Fireside Conversation in April. At the time he was in Switzerland to present Copenhagen Atomics and their thorium molten salt reactor technology to a group of Swiss entrepreneurs, politicians, and other decision-makers, co-organized by BFI. He also met with the PSI, and now that very collaboration he was working on has come to fruition!

Modern nuclear technologies have nothing to do with Fukushima

Unfortunately, the stigma of past disasters with nuclear reactors has caused many to overlook the fact that nuclear technologies have advanced far, especially when it comes to safety, waste production and efficiency. In his Fireside Conversation with our Frank R. Suess, Thomas Pedersen explains how new technologies, specifically the one from Copenhagen Atomics, no longer resemble the ones we associate with Fukushima.

Collaborations like that between Copenhagen Atomics and PSI will help solidify the importance for the research into nuclear technology and the role it can play for us all in the future. We’ll make sure to keep you posted about these exciting developments happening only one hour from our Zurich offices!

Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times,

The nations on NATO’s easternmost flank are investing record amounts on defense in order to deter further Russian aggression against the region.

Defense ministers from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania gathered on July 9 in Washington to express their dedication to the NATO alliance and encourage other allies to pull their weight when it came to defense contributions.

Anything less, they warned, could encourage more violence in Eastern Europe and, possibly, the end of some nations outright.

Latvia’s Minister of Defense Andris Spruds delivers a doorstep statement during a meeting of NATO Ministers of Defense at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels on June 13, 2024. (Simon Wohlfahrt/AFP via Getty Images)

Latvian Defense Minister Andris Spruds said that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s continued targeting of civilians in Ukraine demonstrated a tolerance for “human loss.” Mr. Putin’s “absolute disregard of human life and human dignity,” he said, had to be taken into account when dealing with Russia.

“We are dealing with an aggressive country,” he said during a fireside chat hosted by Politico on the sidelines of NATO’s 75th annual summit.

“Russia is an existential threat, and we should be ready for this existential threat for years.”

To that end, he added, the international community should prepare to fend off Russian aggression for years to come.

It was vital, he said, that NATO “not engage from positions of weakness and appeasement.”

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were all governed by the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991.

Now, Mr. Putin has implemented a foreign policy based on uniting the so-called Russian World, including substantial Russian-speaking communities in former Soviet states, which East European leaders fear will lead to conquests beyond Ukraine.

As such, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have all exceeded NATO’s guideline of spending 2 percent of their GDP on defense to ensure collective deterrence against foreign aggression.

Lithuanian National Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas said the investments were about “transforming the fear to preparedness.”

Mr. Kasciunas cited the Reagan-era doctrine of “peace through strength” and said that NATO should be “prepared to work with America” to ensure such a policy regardless of the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in November.

“Russians are not attacking when you’re strong. It’s a very simple thing. If you’re weak, they can do this,” he said.

Six NATO nations share a land border with Russian territory, a fact that Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said would need to be taken into account when determining NATO’s pathway toward ensuring continued deterrence against Russian aggression.

“When we take the threat of Russia, the first thing we have to understand is that we cannot change the geography,” Mr. Pevkur said.

To that end, he added that NATO must be wholly prepared to engage in a war with Russia should Moscow attack any member state.

“We will start defending our countries from the first inch,” Mr. Pevkur said. “We will not keep away anything, and if that means that we also have to make attacks into Russian territory, then we are ready for that because we cannot fight only on our territory to keep every inch of our integrity.”

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi just completed his first trip to Russia in half a decade and put an end to the several-year-long hiatus in annual meetings between their leaders. The outcome was nine agreements on a wide range of subjects along with a detailed joint statement for guiding their special and privileged strategic partnership to 2030. There were no landmark deals, but nor should any have been expected, since the meeting was only planned recently for the reasons that’ll now be explained.

“Modi’s Trip To Moscow Was Meant To Assess The Reliability Of Russia’s Geopolitical Balancing Act” after his hosts sent eight signals since the start of the year hinting at an impending pro-Chinese pivot, which the reader can learn more about by reviewing the preceding hyperlinked analysis. The indisputable personal rapport between him and Putin during their two days together put an end to concerns about Russia preparing to privilege China over India and thus breathed new life into tri–multipolar processes.

This concept refers to the paradigm of dividing the world into three internally diverse groups: the US-led West’s Golden Billion; the Sino–Russo Entente; and the informally Indian-led Global South. These three groups became more prominent after the global systemic transition was unprecedentedly accelerated by Russia’s special operation, though they predate that development. Prior to then, however, International Relations could best be described as being in a state of Sino-US bi-multipolarity.

What’s meant by this is that everything was trending towards an unofficial division of the world between China and the US where everyone was pressured to some extent to take one or the other’s side. A return to the pure bipolarity that marked most of the Old Cold War till the Sino-US rapprochement was always unlikely because there were already some strategically autonomous emerging players. Likewise, despite the US, China, and India being the informal leaders of their groups, none have full control over them.

Therefore, this present tripolar system can best be described as tri-multipolar, with the key axis being the Russo-Indo Strategic Partnership since it prevents the American and Chinese superpowers from coming together to revive bi-multipolarity in the event of a New Détente between them. Russia’s perceptible shift towards China since the start of the year, which was detailed in an earlier analysis, caused serious concern in India because it suggested that Moscow was abandoning their shared grand strategic goal.

Before those eight signals were sent, India assumed that Russia would continue cooperating with it to accelerate tri-multipolar processes with a view towards midwifing complex multipolarity, which required neither Russia nor India pivoting towards China or the US respectively. What changed over the past year was the emergence of a pro-BRI policymaking faction in Moscow whose members concluded that Sino-US bi-multipolarity is inevitable so it’s best for Russia to turbocharge China’s superpower trajectory.

The ruling establishment’s balancing/pragmatic faction had a tough time fending off their “friendly rivals”, the latter of whom compellingly argued that their envisaged policies would represent the sweetest revenge against the US after all that their adversary did to Russia since 2022. This explains the signals that Russia sent since the start of the year hinting at an impending pro-Chinese pivot, which finally prompted India to dispatch Modi to Russia to investigate what’s really going on and why.

He considered this to be such a priority for his country’s objective national interests that he broke with tradition by traveling to Russia as the first trip of his third term instead of to a nearby country like usual. The timing also coincided with the annual NATO Summit, thus showing that India is strategically autonomous of the West and impervious to its pressure to curtail ties with Russia. The official US criticism that followed only served to reinforce the aforementioned points.  

Russia is always happy to host Modi, even more so than usual due to the timing that was described above as well as the fact that it was his first visit to the country in half a decade, which is why such pomp and circumstance were prepared for him. His three-hour-long informal meeting with Putin at the latter’s dacha was presumably when those two friends candidly discussed the most sensitive aspects of their countries’ strategic partnership and clarified the confusion caused by Russia’s recent pro-Chinese signals.

They clearly worked everything out as proven by their exuberant mood during those informal talks and the official ones the day after. Putin even awarded Modi Russia’s highest civilian honor, the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle, thus showing his country’s pro-BRI faction that he doesn’t approve of their plans to pivot to China. Instead, Russia will continue to pragmatically balance between China and India, thus reaffirming its tri-multipolar grand strategy and putting an end to bi-multipolar speculation.

To be sure, the pro-BRI faction isn’t going away and will continue to make their case that Russia’s best interests are served by acknowledging the supposedly inevitable reversion to Sino-US bi-multipolarity and accordingly turbocharging China’s superpower trajectory, but few in Moscow will listen to them. The most spectacular achievement from Modi’s trip to Russia wasn’t whatever they formally agreed to, but him and Putin informally agreeing to redouble their joint efforts to accelerate tri-multipolarity processes.  

With cocoa prices hovering over $8,000 a ton in New York, the long-anticipated demand destruction for cocoa is finally approaching. New estimates indicate that global bean processing likely declined in the second quarter. 

According to six analysts and traders tracked by Bloomberg, second-quarter global grindings—where cocoa transforms into butter and powder used in food products—likely fell from a year earlier. Estimates from European grindings likely fell 2% in the quarter, hitting lows not seen since early 2020. All of the analysts forecasted much larger declines in the second half of the year. 

“The cheap stuff is beginning to drop off, and the expensive stuff is coming in,” said Jonathan Parkman, head of agricultural sales at broker Marex Group.

Parkman said, “The worst of input inflation will affect the second half of this year.”

The grinding numbers are nowhere near the deterioration to end elevated cocoa prices, but the estimates suggest emerging demand destruction. 

“We are more likely to see a significant change in the grind number in the second half of the year,” said Darren Stetzel, vice president of soft commodities for Asia at broker StoneX.

Stetzel noted that the market has been forced to adapt to the scarcity of beans, which should alleviate some demand pressure. He pointed out that chocolate makers are increasingly using substitutes like palm oil.

Grinding data from Europe is due on Thursday, and Asia and North America will report next week. 

Last month, the KitKat-maker warned ‘cocoaflation‘ will soon send candy bar prices higher. 

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

Myths die hard. Among these is the great myth that China’s poised to take over the world. Today I’ll debunk that myth.

No one seriously disputes the importance of China to the global economy. It’s the world’s second-largest economy after the U.S. and accounts for 17% of global GDP (or an even larger percentage if one uses an alternative accounting method called purchasing power parity).

It has the world’s second-largest population at 1.41 billion people, just slightly behind India. It has the third-largest landmass in the world behind Russia and Canada. China also has the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal after Russia and the U.S.

But size can be deceptive. Most observers translate China’s large economy into the status of global superpower soon to surpass the U.S. in economic and military strength.

That extrapolation has been a chimera for some time. In reality, China’s economy is fragile and weakening by the day.

China may soon find itself in economic turmoil including a credit crisis, currency crisis and economic recession all at the same time. Following is a close look at China’s inherent weakness. Unfortunately for U.S. investors, China’s problems threaten to drag the global economy down with it.

The China Myth

China’s economic problems exist at two levels — the long-term macro level and the short-term technical level. Let’s consider these in order: At the long-term level, China is confronting three material obstacles — the middle-income trap, declining demographics and wasted investment.

The middle-income trap afflicts developing economies that have reached the middle-income level of about $10,000 per capita annually. Moving from low-income (about $5,000 per capita annually) is straightforward.

Countries move populations from rural to urban environments, build suitable housing and infrastructure, attract direct foreign investment with cheap labor and low operating costs, engage in assembly-type manufacturing and run significant trade surpluses by exporting the manufactured goods.

The difficulty is in moving from middle-income to high-income ($20,000 per capita annually or higher). For that, low value-added manufacturing isn’t enough. It’s necessary to move to high-tech, high value-added manufacturing, which requires original research and development and access to high-tech tools such as semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

China has acquired some of these tools through theft of intellectual property, but not enough. China also faces fierce competition from those already engaged in high-tech manufacturing including Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Japan.

Only a handful of countries have ever made the move from middle-income to high-income, including those just mentioned. Many more including Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and South Africa are stuck in the same middle-income trap as China.

The prospects of China breaking out of the middle-income bracket are slim, especially now that foreign direct investment is moving toward India and Vietnam and away from China. This conundrum alone is enough to put the brakes on Chinese growth.

China’s Demographic Disaster

China is also confronted with what will become the greatest demographic disaster since the Black Death in the 14th century. This is the bitter fruit of China’s one-child policy from 1980–2015 combined with mass infanticide of girls. The demographic challenge is increased by greater educational and career opportunities for women, which impacts family formation, and an historic shift in the role of the family.

China’s population may decline from 1.41 billion to 750 million over the next 50 years. That’s a loss of over 650 million people.

Considering that one definition of GDP is working-age population x productivity, it follows that China’s GDP will suffer a spectacular decline over the remainder of this century. (Note: The total GDP will decline but per capita GDP may be maintained because the population itself is shrinking.)

Finally, China has wasted much of the wealth it did earn during the past 30 years with bad investments in unneeded infrastructure. A mature economy devotes about 25% of GDP to new investment (plant, equipment, homes, transportation, etc.) and about 65% to consumption. (The remaining 10% is split between trade surpluses or deficits and government spending.)

In China, that split is reversed. About 45% of GDP goes to investment and only about 25% goes to consumption.

That amount of investment can lead to high productivity gains in the future if it is spent intelligently on essential infrastructure, transportation, high-tech plants and equipment as well as research and development.

Instead, China wasted the money on “ghost cities” (ample infrastructure with no residents or business tenants) and extravagant white elephants such as the Nanjing South train station, which has marble walls and 128 escalators but very few train passengers.

Such show projects do produce short-term jobs and demand for copper, glass, steel and aluminum. But when the project is finished, the jobs disappear (unless diverted to another wasteful project) and the infrastructure is nonproductive with high maintenance costs.

If Chinese GDP were adjusted for losses due to wasted investment in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, the reported growth figures of the past 30 years would have been reduced 20% or more. Those losses are real whether the figures are adjusted or not.

A Dead End for China

Based on these three factors — the middle-income trap, declining demographics and wasted investment — the so-called Chinese miracle has turned into a dead end.

China’s failing growth engine is not due solely to these long-term factors. Among the short-term headwinds to growth are an excessive debt-to-GDP ratio, a drying up of direct foreign investment, a dollar shortage and a rapidly declining currency.

Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff have demonstrated that debt-to-GDP ratios in excess of 90% will reduce the Keynesian multiplier of additional debt-financed government spending below 1.0.

This means that for economies in that condition, if they borrow a dollar and spend a dollar, they receive less than a dollar of added GDP. Of course, this process drives the ratio even higher (since the GDP denominator grows more slowly than the debt numerator), which slows growth even further.

In plain language, you can’t borrow your way out of a debt crisis.

China has one of the highest debt-to-GDP ratios in the world, well over 300%. (Much of this debt is buried at the provincial level or in state-controlled banks rather than sovereign bonds, but the debt/growth dynamic is the same.) This debt overhang will retard Chinese growth independent of the other factors mentioned in this article.

Because of trade wars, tariff wars and deteriorating Chinese-U.S. relations, direct foreign investment is being diverted from China to other high-growth centers, including India. China’s ample (but declining) labor force cannot be productive without foreign direct investment to fund state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities and new technology.

China is doomed to stagnate along the lines of the former Soviet Union without a continual supply of new capital and technology.

China’s dollar-denominated trade surpluses cannot fill the gap because those reserves are needed to service dollar-denominated debt of Chinese state-owned enterprises and to prop up Chinese bank balance sheets.

That’s the real reason why Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasury securities are declining. It’s not because China is “dumping” Treasuries. It’s because China must sell the Treasuries to obtain dollars to prop up its debts and to deal with a global dollar shortage.

Get out of Chinese Stocks

All of these negative trends are expressed in the rapid decline of the USD/CNY exchange rate. After hitting an interim peak of 7.10 to $1.00 on Jan. 31, 2024, the Chinese yuan broke through a central bank target of 7.25 in mid-June and is now trading at 7.27. CNY will continue this decline, perhaps hitting 7.30 to $1.00 in the weeks ahead.

A crashing currency is not as advantageous for exports as many imagine since China’s value added on exports is only about 5%. It has to import most of the inputs it uses to manufacture exports from Japan, South Korea, Germany and Taiwan.

A declining currency increases the cost of those imports and reduces China’s competitiveness. It also makes foreign direct investment less attractive and hurts China’s efforts to move to a consumer economy by causing inflation on imported goods.

It would be a serious matter if China were slowing rapidly and the problems were confined to China. They’re not. Slower growth in China hurts Japanese banks, which are heavily invested there. It hurts South Korean, Taiwanese and Australian exporters that rely on Chinese markets.

It also contributes to a global slowdown that’s already affected Germany, France, Japan and the U.K. And it hurts U.S. investors who are facing a wave of company failures and bond defaults.

The U.S. won’t be insulated from this global slowdown that threatens to become a global recession and financial crisis. U.S. investors should dump Chinese stocks and ETFs and reduce equity holdings generally.

We’re entering another “cash is king” stage with China leading the way.

Authored by Mike Valles via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

When you create your estate plan, consider setting up a trust to pass your assets on to your beneficiaries. The holdings in some trusts do not go through probate, enabling your beneficiaries to receive them faster. They also can help you save a lot of money on taxes.

Types of Trusts

Taxes on a trust and who pays for them depend on the type of trust it is. Trusts generally fall into one of two categories: revocable and irrevocable. There are many varieties of trusts, and you can design them to fit many needs, but they fall into these two categories.

• The Revocable Trust

A revocable trust, often called a living trust, means that the grantor—the person who created the trust—still has the assets under his control. He can add or remove assets when he wants, and he will pay the taxes on any gains. Gains get taxed at the grantor’s income tax bracket level.

• The Irrevocable Trust

The assets in an irrevocable trust are under the control of a trustee, and the grantor has little or no control over them. They also are no longer in the grantor’s taxable estate. The trust pays all taxes on any gains except when distributed.

An irrevocable trust enables your assets to escape the hands of creditors, but only after the assets are in it. The more assets you put into the trust, the less taxes your estate must pay. TrustandWill says that the estate tax exemption for 2024 is $13.61 million. This figure will likely revert to $5 million in 2025. You can also reduce your estate by giving individuals up to $18,000 per person each year.

• The Grantor Retained Annuity Trust 

For those who have more money, you might want to create a grantor retained annuity trust (GRAT), which is a type of irrevocable trust. It can pay you a set amount of money per year (or monthly) for a specific number of years. Taxes are paid on the assets when you put them into the trust. At the end of the set time, any remaining assets pass to the beneficiaries tax-free.

When you create a GRAT, SuperMoney says that the interest market rate (the 7520 rate) is set and sent to the government annually. A successful GRAT will give considerable assets to your beneficiaries, but it requires that the market rate stays above the interest rate.

If you die before the end of the period, all assets in a GRAT will become part of the estate. Some people create a series of GRATs, which can have periods as short as two years. It helps ensure your beneficiaries receive some money—even if you do not outlive all of them.

Trust Beneficiaries Will Pay Some Taxes

A trust distribution may include part of the principal and some interest. Investopedia says that no taxes will be due on the principal, but you must pay taxes on the interest. The principal can be any amount deposited originally or in the year the distribution is made. Any distributions from a trust throughout the year are taxable as interest, SuperMoney says, because principal distributions are only made once a year after depositing all contributions.

If all the interest in the trust gained during the year is not distributed to the beneficiaries, the trust pays the taxes on the remaining amount. Beneficiaries receive a tax report (Form 1041) each year from the trust stating how much money is principal and how much is interest. It also shows them how much they need to pay in taxes.

Taxes From Trusts Are Much Higher Than Regular Taxes

Money received as a distribution from a trust is taxed at a higher rate than ordinary income. People in the first income tax bracket, the Internal Revenue Service says, including those with income ranging from $0 to $11,000, pay 10 percent in taxes. The next higher tax bracket ranges from $11,001 to $44,725, and they pay 12 percent in taxes.

In comparison, the first tax bracket on income from a trust, Forbes says, ranges from $0 to $3,100. They will pay 10 percent in taxes. The second tax bracket is from $3,101 to $11,150, and they must pay $310 plus an additional 24 percent of anything over $3,100. Taxes on regular income reach a maximum of 37 percent, which is the same (maximum) for trust income, but it starts on trust income as low as $15,201.

The Interest Earned Determines the Taxes

When a trust earns interest, there will be taxes, but Fidelity says that part of it may be considered principal. If the assets in the trust do not earn interest, any distributions made are principal.

A trust that distributes $10,000—but only has $5,000 in dividends and another $5,000 in capital gains will have a split between principal and income. Other amounts and situations may also see a split between income and principal, enabling the beneficiary to have lower taxes.

When selling assets out of a trust, Fool says, state laws determine when capital gains are principal or income. A trust can be created so that only income is distributed, but not capital gains. The recipient of the capital gains pays the taxes on it.

A trust can be created to prevent assets in it from going through probate. The laws concerning trusts change frequently and they must be set up correctly—and changed when necessary. When doing your estate planning, it is important to consult a trust lawyer or estate planning attorney to ensure it meets current laws.

The Epoch Times copyright © 2024. The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors. They are meant for general informational purposes only and should not be construed or interpreted as a recommendation or solicitation. The Epoch Times does not provide investment, tax, legal, financial planning, estate planning, or any other personal finance advice. The Epoch Times holds no liability for the accuracy or timeliness of the information provided.

Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants in Ontario are all now “Muslim-friendly”, with halal chicken and no pork on their menus, according to a new report from True North. 

Halal refers to what is permissible or lawful in traditional Islamic law, particularly regarding food and drink. It dictates that foods must be prepared and processed according to specific guidelines, such as the humane slaughter of animals and the prohibition of certain substances like alcohol and pork.

Nearly all chains in Ontario have implemented the changes, taking bacon off their menus. 

In a May letter to Muslim community leaders, KFC wrote it has “ensured all chicken products are Halal Certified including but not limited to chicken.”

“This initiative is a testament to our commitment to providing diverse and inclusive menu options for all our customers,” the letter continued, promising the changes would take place by the end of the year. 

“Everything in the store is halal,” True North confirmed after calling multiple stores in Ontario.

KFC partners with halal suppliers like Maple Lodge Farms, owner of Zabiha Halal, Canada’s top halal food brand. Zabiha Halal ensures each bird is alive before slaughter, using automated blades to cut specific channels while a Muslim recites the blessing: “In the name of Allah, Allah is the greatest!” 

Zabiha Halal’s website says: “We employ more than 25 Muslim blessers to ensure that the chickens are properly blessed on the slaughtering line.”

“Our halal slaughter is a continuous process. The Muslim blessers recite Tasmiah at the time each bird comes under the rotary blade. We understand that it is not possible for a person to continuously recite Tasmiah, over long periods, at the same rate.”

“To keep the speed consistent, the blessers at the slaughter station are rotated with other blessers to prevent fatigue. This rotation continues for the duration of the slaughter process.”

KFC in Canada is requiring all of their Ontario stores to serve Halal chicken exclusively.

They are also discontinuing pork products.

Truly insane times.

I have been warning the West about this for a long time. pic.twitter.com/Ae66Gai6TZ

— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) July 7, 2024

Authored by Simon Watkins via OilPrice.com,

• Saudi Arabia aims to become a major gas exporter by 2030, as part of its ‘Vision 2030’ plan.

• Saudi Aramco announced over $25 billion in contracts for gas sector expansion.

• Despite these efforts, Saudi Arabia’s projected gas output by 2030 may still fall short of covering its own power needs.

Saudi Arabia may be the third largest producer of crude oil in the world, after the U.S. and Russia, but its gas output has struggled over the years to make much of a mark in the global market. Currently, it produces around 4.2 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) a year – making it the ninth biggest producer in the world – but this goes to meeting domestic consumption needs. Associated (with oil drilling) gas accounts for around half of the Kingdom’s present production, although the non-associated percentage has more than doubled since 2012. However, last week saw twin announcements that might begin to change that, in line with Saudi Arabia’s target of becoming a major gas exporter by 2030 as part of its ‘Vision 2030’ plan.

The two announcements came as part of the statement from the country’s flagship hydrocarbons firm, Saudi Aramco, that it has signed over US$25 billion in contracts to undertake major new gas sector expansion projects.

• The first of these, according to the firm’s chief executive officer, Amin Nasser, is that US$8.8 billion is to be spent to increase the scale and scope of the Kingdom’s gas network, in particular through the third phase development of its MGS. In addition to new rigs and ongoing capacity maintenance expenditure, the money is to fund the addition of around 4,000 kilometres of pipelines to the current infrastructure and 17 new gas compression trains. These are aimed at boosting capacity by about 3.15 billion standard cubic feet per day and connecting several more cities to the network. As part of its plans to substitute gas for oil in local power generation, domestic demand for natural gas in the country is expected to grow by 3.7% each year from now to 2030, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

• The second announcement was that a further $12.4 billion will be invested in the second phase of Saudi Aramco’s expansion of the much-vaunted Jafurah unconventional gas field. The money is split across 16 new contracts, including the construction of gas compression facilities and associated pipelines, and the expansion of the Jafurah Gas Plant to incorporate the building of new gas processing trains, and utilities, and export facilities. It will also include construction of Saudi Aramco’s new Riyas Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) fractionation facilities in Jubail, which is designed to process NGLs received from Jafurah. This increased gas output would provide very welcome export dollars for a country that has struggled to recover fully from the Oil Price Wars of 2014-2016 and 2020, as analysed in full in my new book on the new global oil market order. It could also replace some of the oil used in domestic power generation, so freeing up more high-value crude for export over time. Last year, Saudi Arabia generated slightly less than 70 percent of its electricity from gas, with the vast bulk of the remainder from oil. The key question for this gas field, then, is will it achieve what it is meant to?

March this year saw an unexpected sudden increase of 15 Tcf in the level of gas deposits apparently now contained in the field. If true, this would take the total reserves in the eastern Saudi field – which is the largest unconventional non-oil associated gas field in the country, and potentially the biggest shale gas development outside the U.S. – up to about 229 Tcf, or about 6.5 trillion cubic metres (Tcm). By comparison, total proven gas reserves for Russia stand at around 48 Tcm, for Iran at about 34 Tcm, and for Qatar over 24 Tcm. At the same time, the amount of crude oil being burned for domestic energy consumption has risen in the past few years to well over 500,000 barrels per day. In the extreme temperatures of the summer months, this rises to around 900,000 bpd as air conditioners remain on full for much of the period.

The longstanding plan was that production from Jafurah should reach 2.2 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) of gas production by 2036. The new plan is for sales gas (gas at the outlet of a plant that is primarily methane) production to reach 2 bcf/d by 2030 instead, allowing room for considerable exports to be undertaken. That said, all other factors remaining equal, one billion cubic feet of gas equals 0.167 million barrels of oil equivalent, so 2 bcf/d (Jafurah’s estimated 2030 output) equals 0.3340 million barrels of oil equivalent, or 334,000 barrels. Therefore, the total projected new amount of gas to come from the unconventional gas field by 2030 is around 334,000 barrels per day, which is not even enough to cover the current amount of oil – 500,000 bpd to 600,000 bpd – being burned for power generation in Saudi Arabia, never mind any increase in demand between now and 2030. Moreover, based on independent industry estimates of the changing demographics of Saudi Arabia and the corollary changing power demand patterns, the Kingdom will probably need gas production of around 23-25 bcf/d within the next 15 years just to cover its own power and industrial demand. In sum, then, even if the quality of the Jafurah find is unparalleled in the history of Saudi gas finds, the Kingdom would still be in deficit in its power generation sector if there was a straight switch from crude oil burning to gas-only burning.

Over and above the practical shortcomings of these announcements, certainly in Jafurah’s case, they do highlight an increasing awareness by the Saudis that gas, especially LNG, has been the key emergency energy source since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and is likely to remain so in an increasingly dangerous world. It is readily available in the spot markets and can be moved quickly to anywhere required, unlike gas or oil sent through pipelines. Unlike pipelined energy as well, the movement of LNG does not require the build-out of vast acreage of pipelines across varying terrains and the associated heavy infrastructure that supports it. They also highlight that the Kingdom understands that the U.S. led the way in engineering a massive increase in LNG availability for it and its key allies with the express intention of making its NATO partners less vulnerable to Russian threats to remove gas and oil supplies from them. The U.S.’s success in doing this remains the key reason why Russia did not go unpunished for yet another invasion of a European sovereign state – as it did with Ukraine in 2014, and Georgia in 2008, as detailed in my latest book on the new global oil market order. Indeed, the U.S. went from zero LNG exports before 2016, to become the world’s biggest exporter of the gas, with around 86 million metric tonnes of LNG shipped in 2022. And around two-thirds of all the U.S.’s LNG exports since Russia invaded Ukraine have gone to Europe.  

Given the U.S.’s dominance in this field, and Saudi Arabia’s awareness that it has fallen behind in this sector, these two announcements from Riyadh may signal new opportunities for Washington to restore a beneficial relationship for it with the Kingdom. The very recent signing of a landmark 20-year deal for the U.S.’s NextDecade Corporation to sell LNG to Saudi Aramco may well end up having a significance way beyond the confines of the energy market.

 

This summer, Interpol ranked Canada among the top 10 worst countries for car thefts out of 137, a “remarkable” achievement given Canada’s data integration with Interpol only began in February, according to the BBC. 

After the cars are stolen, they are “either used to carry out other violent crimes, sold domestically to other unsuspecting Canadians, or shipped overseas to be resold,” the BBC wrote. 

Since integrating the Canadian Police Information Centre’s stolen vehicle data with INTERPOL’s database in February 2024, over 1,500 stolen Canadian vehicles have been detected globally, Interpol wrote in May. 

The RCMP’s database, which tracks around 150,000 stolen vehicles, now helps identify over 200 stolen cars weekly, primarily at international entry ports.

The BBC noted that the Insurance Bureau of Canada declared car theft a “national crisis” after insurers paid out over C$1.5bn in vehicle theft claims last year. Police have issued public bulletins on preventing theft, while some Canadians are installing trackers and private security measures, such as retractable bollards.

Mississauga resident Nauman Khan, who started a bollard-installation business after experiencing theft, reports high demand for his services due to widespread car thefts. 

He told the BBC: “It’s been very busy. We had one client whose street had so many home invasions that he’d hired a security guard every night outside his house because he just didn’t feel safe.”

Despite its smaller population, Canada’s car theft rate (262.5 per 100,000) surpasses that of England and Wales (220 per 100,000) and is close to the US rate (300 per 100,000). The rise in thefts is partly due to a pandemic-driven car shortage and a strong international market for certain models, making auto theft lucrative for organized crime. Canada’s port system, which focuses more on imports than exports, also contributes to the problem.

In a press release, INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock said: “Stolen vehicles are international criminal currency. Not only are they used to traffic drugs, but also as payment to other criminal networks as well as fueling activities from human trafficking to terrorism.

“Sometimes overlooked, a stolen car is not just car theft. It is part of a major revenue stream for transnational organized crime. Through increased data sharing at the global level, we can better screen vehicles at border points, identify trafficking routes and arrest the perpetrators.”