‘Bomb Cyclone’ Blasts Pacific Northwest, Cutting Power To Over 600,000 In Washington
A massive bomb cyclone slammed into the Pacific Northwest on Tuesday night, unleashing torrential rains and tropical storm-like wind gusts up to 77 mph for certain areas. More than 600,000 customers across western Washington state are without power on Wednesday morning.
FOX Forecast Center said the powerful atmospheric river, coupled with a bomb cyclone, will unleash heavy rains and high winds across the area through Saturday.
“The two storms are powering the event, the first of which is a powerful bomb cyclone. The strength of the low has kicked up strong winds up and down the coast, which have caused power outages and some damage,” Fox Forecast Center explained.
Early Wednesday, data from Poweroutage.US showed that over 600,000 power customers across Washington State had no power. The bulk of the outages were in King County and Snohomish County.
FOX Forecast Center noted, “Measurements showed the storm dropped 66 millibars in pressure in 24 hours, eventually becoming a storm with a central pressure of 943 millibars – on par with a major Category 4 hurricane,” adding, “It easily qualified for the title of “bomb cyclone,” given when a storm strengthens about 24 millibars in 24 hours.”
Satellite imagery shows the cyclone formation of the storm as it slammed into the Pacific Northwest overnight.
An incredible view of the ‘bomb cyclone’ strengthening and approaching the Pacific Northwest. pic.twitter.com/UeKyd0VA0z
We have confirmed reports of trees down in Issaquah, Washington from the bomb cyclone, with power lines also taken out in the process.
The storm has provided wind speeds of up to 70 MPH, with pressure being around 940-945 mb, which is the standard for a Category 4 hurricane. pic.twitter.com/IXYh9NuB1h
The issues arising from thousands of illegal immigrants pouring into Chicago from around the world have united many in the city’s black and Hispanic communities, who blame the government for the resultant social problems, including crime.
Local citizens say that their neighborhoods are less safe, their schools are overcrowded, already scarce jobs are now even harder to come by, and the distribution of municipal resources favors illegal immigrants.
“My beef is with the government, not with the migrants,” said Hector, a Hispanic pastor from Brighton Park on the city’s south side.
“There are a lot of injustices. We do not see equality. The migrants are given everything. The money is coming from our pockets.”
The city has provided housing for the new arrivals, ranging from large tents and warehouses to hotels scattered throughout the city and in some suburbs.
Chaplain Antonio, who ministers to immigrants, has observed criminal gang colors, signs, and emblems among them as he greets the newcomers on their arrival in Chicago.
“We are not against legitimate immigration, but this problem should have been stopped at the border,” he said.
Antonio also said the government is favoring the new noncitizen immigrants over people who are already here.
On a recent night, The Epoch Times met up with Tee and X (not their real names), two black men well-acquainted with life on Chicago’s mean streets, for a drive through some of the South Side’s deadliest neighborhoods.
X called the area “Cowboy Land,” where anything can happen at any time.
Driving through blocks of dilapidated houses and boarded-up storefronts, the pair pointed to street corner after street corner where someone had been shot to death recently.
X, who survived gang involvement well into his early 30s, said he can name 100 people killed in street violence.
Despite all that, he said, “I love my city. I wouldn’t leave. South Chicago is my land.”
Cautious in word and action, X avoided prison. Today, he lives in a small house in a neat, working-class area and works in construction. He is a single parent raising two sons.
X said he has nothing against the Venezuelans who make up the largest segment of the new arrivals. “They’re just trying to make a living,” he said.
Tee, a middle-aged elder statesman of Chicago’s gang and street life who is no stranger to the prison system, said: “Our life is hell. People are dying over here.”
Tee pointed to a woman he knew on the sidewalk. “You see that homeless woman? She’s been a resident of Hyde Park her entire life. She is a United States citizen. She fell bad on her luck. She’ll be sleeping outside tonight,” he said.
“If she were an illegal Venezuelan, she would show up at the entrance to a luxury hotel downtown or on Lake Michigan and be taken right in. They are given everything.
“When I need rent assistance, I can’t get it. But if I am Venezuelan, no problem.
“We have no problem with them being here. The problem is, they’re living here free.
“This is a sanctuary city. Yet my people live in poverty.”
According to Tee, the rising demand for housing will only get worse.
“The illegals need somewhere to live. They are not going to stay in those shelters forever,” he said.
“Some Venezuelans are squatting in run-down and abandoned residential buildings. They take them over, and nothing happens to them. They are immune from the law.
“If a black man has an old felony conviction, when he goes to apply for a benefit, he’s told, ‘Sorry, you have a prior felony that disqualifies you.’
“Yet thousands of illegals come here with no background check. Who knows what they did back home? Yet, they are signed up right away.”
Like Hector, Tee sees the government, not the Venezuelans, as the problem.
“I believe the illegal migrants are brought in by the government to displace the blacks,” he said.
“They are bringing into already impoverished cities like Chicago poor, military-age men with no women. What could go wrong?
“We’ve got no problem with people coming here the right way. What we don’t like is the government immediately handing them resources that we have to stand in line for.
“I don’t see color. I see right or wrong.”
A registered voter, Tee said he would be voting for former President Donald Trump and was strongly urging his friends to do the same.
“Trump will remove the illegal aliens from our communities,” he said.
“I like Trump. He is a felon. Everybody is against him. I like that.”
Economic Frustration
African American Pastor Dave Lowery’s ministry works out of a string of connected storefronts on the corner of 113th Street and Michigan, a rough and economically depressed section of Chicago where jobs are hard to come by.
Lowery, 67, remembers the days when there were many black-owned local businesses, whose owners taught their children to become entrepreneurs.
“We didn’t worry about jobs because we created them ourselves,” he said.
Lowery said that when the younger generation of black politicians and community leaders abandoned that tradition and those values in favor of a culture of dependency, the change fostered an unhealthy and dangerous “hatred of self” among many black residents.
“The politicians tell black women, ‘We can’t give you welfare if your man remains in the house.’ That destroyed the black family and destroyed the black economic engine,” he said.
“As capital and resources dwindled, black people turned on each other for pennies. Today, I’d have to shoot somebody to defend a business in Chicago.
“Nowadays, they don’t teach the basics in our schools. Our children have not been taught to become men and women, husbands and wives.
“It’s little wonder that we don’t do the right thing as individuals.”
Lowery is worried that the influx of illegal immigrants into the schools and neighborhoods could affect the black community “in ways they might not come back from.”
He spoke of the resentment black residents feel when, for example, “the city gives migrants free cars from the impound yard.”
Black community activist David Barnes added: “For some time, there has been a migration out by our people as soon as they can afford to do so. This has decimated communities such as Roseland. It is a dying community.
“The city of Chicago has to replace those people so it is relying on immigration.”
Lowery added, “The city is giving housing vouchers to illegal migrants and placing them in apartments at the rate of 55 [people] per day, while black citizens are struggling for their very existence.”
Unfair Competition and Favoritism
Morris Anderson is a licensed, bonded, and insured general contractor.
Anderson, an African American, said his once thriving business declined by 60 percent after the arrival of the migrants.
“The Venezuelans hang out at the Home Depot waiting to be hired by my competitors to work under the table for a quarter of what I pay my workers,” he said.
“Only a small number of the migrants have work permits, but that doesn’t keep them from working.”
Lowery said that the city held a special event called a “hiring hall” at an area church, but when black laborers showed up, “they were met by security and were told the event was just for the immigrants.”
“That kind of thing provokes the citizens against the illegals,” Anderson said. “It could start a civil war between us and the government over how we are being treated.”
Lowery said that the influx of thousands of foreign, military-age men into Chicago neighborhoods is like “putting a bunch of lions into a small pit and throwing in one piece of meat.
“There’s a big ongoing fight over scarce resources,” he said.
He favors Trump’s plan for mass deportation and called for the elimination of Chicago’s sanctuary city status.
He also advocates for the creation of a black financial consortium and new city projects set aside for black contractors, as ways to defuse what he said could be a “terrible summer of 2025.”
Political Realignment
Devin Jones, 38, opened a Republican campaign office at the corner of South Pulaski and 85th Street on the city’s South Side because he believes the “America first” agenda would better serve the interests and meet the needs of Chicago’s African American community.
Jones, a black Navy veteran who can trace his ancestry in the United States back to 1781, said: “I didn’t know there was anything but America first. I always thought it was our priority.
“It is a strange use of our tax dollars to support illegal immigrants within and foreign countries without, while the generational wealth of my people is being taxed away to pay for it.”
A GOP committeeman and local political activist, Jones said he noticed the infiltration of illegal immigrants into his majority-black neighborhood when he circulated various petitions door-to-door.
“Many people couldn’t sign because they were foreign nationals,” he said.
“Here they are, with no stake in the game, building a life on the shoulders of those of us who struggled for years to acquire and maintain a nice home and business.
“They get to live off of the fruits of our labor without having contributed anything.
“We are American citizens who just want to keep what we have earned.”
Jones, a college graduate born and raised on the South Side, where he still resides, understands the connection between a good education and upward mobility.
He said he became angry when he noticed a shift in the priorities of the already poor Chicago Public Schools away from meeting the needs of black students who are U.S. citizens in favor of “dual-language students.”
The Treasury Department is expanding the review process for land purchases around more than 60 military bases following a land-buying spree by Chinese entities.
The department announced the new rule on Nov. 1, saying it “significantly expands its ability to review certain real estate transactions by foreign persons near more than 60 military bases and installations across 30 states.”
As chair of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the treasurer has the authority to recommend that the president block or undo certain real estate deals deemed to negatively impact national security.
“The Biden-Harris Administration will continue to use our strong investment screening tools to advance America’s national security and protect our military installations from external threats,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in an associated statement.
A 2018 law grants CFIUS jurisdiction over real estate transactions dealing with the foreign purchase of U.S. land in close proximity to military installations.
The new rule expands that jurisdiction, allowing CFIUS to review purchases anywhere within a one-mile radius of 40 military sites and anywhere within a 100-mile radius of 27 others.
The purchase of large amounts of farmland near U.S. military bases by Chinese entities has spooked members of the U.S. national security establishment in recent years.
Chinese holdings of U.S. agricultural lands reached more than 352,000 acres in 2020, more than 25 times the 14,000 acres owned in 2010, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates.
States with the largest Chinese holdings include Texas at 159,640 acres, North Carolina at 44,776 acres, Missouri at 43,071 acres, Utah at 32,447 acres, and Virginia at 14,382 acres.
The Chinese landholdings represent just 1 percent of all the foreign-owned land in the United States. Still, there is now a fear that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could use access to these parcels to collect intelligence or otherwise compromise U.S. military readiness and national security.
“Certain real estate transactions near military ranges owned by each of the Armed Forces could reasonably provide a foreign person the ability to collect intelligence, perform surveillance, or otherwise expose national security activities at such installations,” the final rule reads.
The rule also comes amid another concerning trend of recent years, in which Chinese nationals have attempted to enter U.S. military bases without authorization, sometimes going so far as to attempt to drive at blistering speed through the front gate.
U.S. Navy Adm. Daryl Caudle said in May that the Navy alone now faced such incidents multiple times a week. House Oversight Committee leaders have subsequently urged the Government Accountability Office to review how the Department of Justice investigates instances of foreign nationals probing sensitive U.S. facilities.
Some Chinese nationals have likewise been prosecuted and convicted for their efforts to illegally gain access to U.S. military bases.
Numerous states are now seeking to bar the CCP and other potentially hostile entities from purchasing U.S. land. In 2023, there were some 53 related measures considered in 23 states across the nation.
Enforcement remains a key problem with any state-level legislation, however. Many local governments don’t have the resources to independently vet every land purchase near military sites in their state, particularly if the site is near a population center.
To that end, the new rule is aimed at helping to shore up a critical national security risk and decrease the ease with which foreign powers might collect information on key U.S. sites.
“This final rule will significantly increase the ability of CFIUS to thoroughly review real estate transactions near bases and will allow us to deter and stop foreign adversaries from threatening our Armed Forces, including through intelligence gathering,” Yellen said.
The new rule will go into effect in approximately 30 days.
Vanguard Adds 3 New Proxy Vote Options, Expands Shareholder Choice Pilot
In the latest evidence of the ongoing erosion of the environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement, investment titan Vanguard has doubled the amount of assets covered by a program that gives investors the power to choose a proxy-voting philosophy — while also adding two more voting options within that program.
“Vanguard Investor Choice is grounded in the foundational belief that empowering investors to influence how their proxies are voted helps create a healthier corporate governance ecosystem,” said John Galloway, Global Head of Investment Stewardship at Vanguard. The program will now cover nearly 4 million investors and almost $250 billion in assets — still a small slice of the more than $10 trillion in Vanguard assets under management.
Vanguard also announced that it is working with retirement plan sponsors to extend the pilot program’s availability to 401(k) and other retirement plan participants. Here’s the updated list of funds eligible for the program, with the three new additions in italics:
Vanguard S&P 500 Growth Index Fund
Vanguard Russell 1000 Index Fund
Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF
Vanguard Mega Cap Index Fund
Vanguard Dividend Appreciation Index Fund
Vanguard High Dividend Yield Index Fund
Vanguard Tax-Managed Capital Appreciation Fund
Vanguard Tax-Managed Small-Cap Fund
The decades-long rise of passive investing has put the Big Three indexers — BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street –in a position of major power to steer corporate agendas. It’s also put them in the crosshairs of angry investors and federal and state Republican officials who think shareholder returns should be the only consideration when voting proxies.
Giving investors the power to choose their own proxy-voting philosophy for shares held on their behalf extricates Vanguard and other firms from competing pressures applied by ESG enthusiasts and opponents. Vanguard now provides a choice of five such proxy philosophies for funds that are covered by the expanding Investor Choice pilot program:
Vanguard-Advised Funds Policy: Shares are voted “in a manner that seeks to maximize long-term shareholder returns.”
Company Board-Aligned: The fund investor’s proportionate share of votes on each measure is cast in alignment with the recommendations of the company’s board of directors
Glass Lewis ESG: Glass Lewis is a proxy advisor; in this option, the investor’s shares go all-in on the woke agenda that emphasizes “climate action,” diversity, “equity” and social issues
Third Party Wealth-Focused Policy: An investor’s shares are voted per the recommendation of Egan-Jones, which will focus on maximizing shareholder value without consideration of political or social factors
Mirror Voting Policy: Votes an investor’s proportionate shares in approximately the same proportions as the votes cast by other shareholders. (This follow-the-crowd approach replaces a “not voting” policy that directed Vanguard to not cast any vote on any proposal.)
The last two are new for the 2025 proxy-vote season. In September, Vanguard shared data on the breakdown of choices made by investors in the Investor Choice pilot using the previous set of options. Putting aside the outlier ESG US Stock ETF fund, Vanguard investors overwhelmingly favored non-ESG voting, with around 75% choosing to go with either the company board recommendation or Vanguard’s judgement on the best option for shareholder returns:
BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard collectively own a *giant* chunk of nearly all public companies. They foist environmental & social agendas (“ESG”) onto their portfolio companies via proxy voting & shareholder engagement. The corporate virtue-signaling game is a symptom of a… https://t.co/mNXvaUsExR
Suicides increased among U.S. military service members in 2023, continuing a gradual rise seen over the past decade, according to the Department of Defense’s annual report on suicide in the military.
A total of 523 service members—including active, reserve, and National Guard—died by suicide in 2023, up from 493 in 2022, according to the Pentagon’s report, while the total force rate of suicide deaths per 100,000 service members was 9 percent higher than in 2022, at 25.6 per 100,000.
The Pentagon’s report highlighted an upward trend since 2011 among active-duty military members: A total of 363 active-duty service members died by suicide in 2023, up from 331 in 2022 and 328 in 2021.
The report noted that military suicide rates have been comparable to those seen across the wider U.S. population between 2011 and 2022.
The findings “urgently demonstrate the need for the Department to redouble its work in the complex fields of suicide prevention and postvention. One loss to suicide is one too many,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a Nov. 14 statement.
The defense secretary said the Pentagon is focused on long-term, sustained initiatives to prevent suicide and is taking a “comprehensive” and “integrated” approach to increasing protective factors and decreasing the risk of suicide among service members.
“Our efforts aim to meet the military community where they are in their personal and professional lives—whether through bolstering financial readiness and support, building healthy relationships, improving mental health, or supporting them through life transitions,” Austin said.
The defense secretary noted that there has been a decrease from previous years in the number of military family members (spouses and dependent children combined) who died by suicide.
A total of 146 military family members died by suicide in 2022 compared to 165 in 2021, and 200 in 2020, according to the report. Numbers for 2023 were unavailable due to the time it takes to process data for this category.
The report noted that the complexity of suicidal behavior means it is difficult to identify a single root cause that might explain the trend.
Pentagon Working to Combat Suicide Rates
Overall, in 2023, 158 deaths were attributed to suicide among active-duty Army personnel, according to the report. Another 72 were reported among active-duty members of the Air Force, 70 among Navy members, and 61 among Marine Corps members, while two suicides were reported among members of the Space Force.
Among reserve members, 44 suicides were reported in the Army, 10 in the Marine Corps, eight in the Navy, and seven in the Air Force.
Similar to previous years, the majority of the deaths (around 60 percent) were among males under the age of 30, the Pentagon report found.
Firearms were the primary method of suicide deaths for service members and their families, according to the Pentagon, which noted the importance of promoting awareness regarding safely securing and storing firearms.
Speaking on Thursday, Austin touted the work the Pentagon is doing to tackle rising suicide rates among military personnel, including establishing the Suicide Prevention Response and Independent Review Committee in 2022 to conduct a review of clinical and nonclinical suicide prevention and response programs.
That review has resulted in more than 100 recommendations so far, Austin said.
In 2025, the Department of Defense also plans to invest $250 million in suicide prevention, Austin and other officials noted.
“We are dedicated to fighting for our Service members by fostering supportive team cultures and tackling the stigma of asking for help and other barriers to care,” Austin said.
“We continue working hard to improve the delivery of mental health care, bolster suicide prevention training, and educate people about lethal means safety. There’s still much more work to do, and we won’t let up.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, considering suicide, or engaging in substance abuse, dial or text the U.S. Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 to speak with a counselor. If you’re in the UK, call the Samaritans at 116123.
Natural Gas Prices In US Northwest And Western Canada At Record Lows
The prices of natural gas at the key regional hubs in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and Western Canada have hit this year the lowest level on record, amid rising production in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) and high inventory levels in these regions.
Monthly average natural gas spot prices at the northwestern U.S. and western Canada border pricing hubs reached historic lows in the first ten months of 2024, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Tuesday, citing data from Natural Gas Intelligence.
The Western Canada benchmark, Westcoast Station 2, saw the daily spot natural gas price average $1.04 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) through October, with the lowest monthly average of $0.31 per MMBtu in September.
The Westcoast Station 2 pricing hub is near Fort St. John, British Columbia, close to natural gas production activities in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin.
At the key pricing hub for the U.S. Pacific Northwest, Northwest Sumas, the daily spot price averaged $1.87 per MMBtu in 2024 through October and reached its lowest monthly average this year of $0.97 per MMBtu in May. The monthly average price at Northwest Sumas for the first 10 months of this year was the lowest for this period of any year since the EIA began collecting data for this hub in 1998.
As Charles Kennedy writes at OilPrice.com, the key reasons for the low regional gas prices were the high natural gas production in the WCSB since the end of 2022 and relatively high natural gas exports into the western United States.
To compare, the monthly average of the U.S. benchmark, Henry Hub, daily spot price was at $2.20 per MMBtu in October 2024, the EIA’s latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) showed earlier this month.
The U.S. administration expects the Henry Hub price to average around $2.90 per MMBtu in 2025, as global demand for U.S. LNG exports, a component of U.S. natural gas demand, continues to increase.
As the mainstream press in the United States continues to obsess with imaginary threats from Trump’s army of “fascist” supporters, the Europeans are focused on the very real possibility that the Biden–Harris administration is going to start World War III on its way out the door. All over the continent, military and civilian authorities are working hard on civil defense preparations and planning for armed conflict with Russia.
Sweden is sending out five million pamphlets to its citizens telling them how to prepare. The pamphlets include instructions on stockpiling food and finding shelter during a nuclear attack. Excerpts from the document include:
“An insecure world requires preparedness. The military threat to Sweden has increased and we must prepare for the worst – an armed attack.”
“The global security situation increases the risks that nuclear weapons could be used. In the event of an attack with nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, take cover in the same way as in an air attack.”
“Shelter provides the best protection. After a couple of days, the radiation has decreased significantly.”
“If Sweden is attacked by another country, we will never give up. All information to the effect that resistance is to cease is false.”
The Swedes are not alone. Norway and Finland are doing the same thing, preparing their populations for nuclear war.
Finland has launched a new website advising people on how to prepare, and the Norwegians recently mailed out their own booklet giving people tips on how to prepare for the end of the world. The Norwegian booklet includes advice on how citizens should prepare themselves to live self-sufficiently for a week, with a list of long-life items to keep such as cans of beans, energy bars and pasta, and medicines in case of a nuclear event.
The Finnish website includes detailed instructions on how Finns should react in the event of war:
“The warning signal is a regularly rising and falling sound that lasts for one minute used to warn people of an immediate outdoor hazard.
In the event of a war, the signal is used to alert people about incidents as well as air strikes, for example.
In case of a military attack, you must immediately seek shelter in the nearest civil defence shelter or the best available shelter.”
The website also provides detailed guidance on how to try to continue to live in an area that has been irradiated.
“Prepare for a radiation hazard as follows:
Learn the steps to seek shelter indoors and how to carry them out at home. Also learn them together with family members.
Learn how to switch off ventilation at home.
Make sure you have durable tape at home that you can use to seal off windows, doors and other areas with air flow.
Know which communication channels are used: the 112 application, television, radio and the websites of the authorities
Buy medicine iodine tablets at home according to the recommendation.”
The Germans are making their own preparations for the coming apocalypse. The German military is now advising companies on something called Operations Plan Germany. The paper is a thousand pages long and classified, but details have begun to leak publicly. For example, it lists all buildings and infrastructure facilities to be protected for national security reasons. It also provides significant detail on how Germany will transport hundreds of thousands of soldiers east to engage with Russian forces.
In Prague, a network of Cold War-era bunkers has now seen renewed interest. A spokeswoman from the Czech Republic’s Fire Rescue Service told RFE/RL recently that, beginning in 2023, the service began updating “requirements for the shelter system and the shelters themselves.” She did not elaborate on what those updates were.
Putin, for his part, made good on his pledge to respond. He signed a decree updating and expanding Moscow’s nuclear doctrine to allow for the use of atomic weapons in case of an attack on Russia by a nonnuclear actor that is backed by a nuclear power. The updated doctrine says Russia would consider using nuclear weapons after receiving “reliable information about the launching of a massive attack against it and missiles crossing the Russian border.”
Lest anyone think that the prospect of a Russian nuclear attack on Europe is purely the stuff of science fiction, we should recall that secret documents obtained earlier this year by the Financial Times revealed an extensive Russian plan to target strategic sites deep inside Europe with nuclear missiles. This plan was part of a broader strategy to overwhelm NATO forces and win a conflict with the alliance. The documents included maps of targets in countries such as the United Kingdom and France.
The Europeans understand exactly what is happening and are bracing for what may now be inevitable. Joe and Kamala, and whoever advises them, are shoveling more fuel on the fire and doing their level best to start a world war as they head for the door.
A day after the C-Lion1 and BCS subsea data cables in the Baltic Sea, connecting Finland and Germany as well as Sweden and Lithuania, were damaged, specifics of the incident remain unconfirmed.
The incident is reminiscent of a similar event in 2023 when the Balticonnector between Finland and Estonia was damaged. Hong Kong-registered container vessel NewNew Polar Bear was later found to have dragged its anchor across the pipeline.
Danish authorities appear to have narrowed down a possible culprit to Chinese bulker Yi Peng 3, which traveled over the reported incident site at the time of the failure. Its AIS track shows the vessel drifting back and forth for around an hour the morning of November 18.
By the time Yi Peng 3 reached Danish waters the country’s Navy had dispatched several vessels shadowing the vessel. Online reports suggest that a Danish pilot was placed onboard the vessel during the afternoon of November 19 as it continued passing through Danish Straits.
AIS data show several Danish patrol vessels in the vicinity of Yi Peng 3 and shorebased webcams confirm Navy vessels loosely following in its wake.
The foreign ministers of Germany and Finland issued a joint statement expressing concern about the incident. “The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage speaks volumes about the volatility of our times,” the statement reads.
“A thorough investigation is underway. Our European security is not only under threat from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors. Safeguarding our shared critical infrastructure is vital to our security and the resilience of our societies,” the statement continued.
Incidents with damage to subsea cables and pipelines across Europe have increased in recent years, including in the Arctic. In 2022 Norway reported that an undersea fiber optic cable connecting a satellite ground station on Svalbard to the Norwegian mainland was severed. Norwegian media reported a Russian vessel traveling back and forth several times over the damaged section.
The Finnish investigation of the NewNew Polar Bear incident concluded that the vessel dropped its anchor during a storm dragging it over the Balticonnector pipeline. The vessel had been spotted with a missing anchor during its first port call following the incident.
After initial stonewalling by Chinese authorities Finnish counterparts launched their own investigation and eventually admitted that the pipeline’s damage was caused by NewNew Polar Bear. Like Yi Peng 3, NewNew Polar Bear had departed from a Russian port prior to the incident.
Africa’s deepwater oil and gas production is expected to increase significantly in the coming decade, driven by new discoveries and projects.
Recent successes in Namibia and Cote d’Ivoire have spurred interest in deepwater exploration across the continent.
Challenges such as security concerns and fiscal incentives need to be addressed to fully unlock Africa’s deepwater potential.
Africa’s deepwater segment has always played a key role in terms of adding significant discovered volumes, which has helped Africa sustain its hydrocarbon production.
The contribution of this segment in Africa’s hydrocarbon production mix was between 20- 25% last decade and is expected to increase between 35-40% by 2035.
From the under-construction and pre-FID projects, Rystad Energy estimates that there will be about 3.5 million boepd of new deepwater supply (pre-FID and under-construction projects) in Africa by 2035.
Success in countries such as Namibia and Cote d’Ivoire have triggered substantial interest in exploring the deep waters, and many more countries such as Sao Tome & Principe, Liberia and Sierra Leone are also becoming important countries for companies to secure acreages for exploration efforts in the medium and long term.
In terms of deepwater resource sanctioning, Africa saw a surge in sanctioning between 2015 and 2019 on a rolling 5-year period, as various discoveries, such as Eni’s Zohr in Egypt and TotalEnergies’ Mozambique LNG project, expected to produce from Golfinho and Atum discoveries in Area 1, in Mozambique were sanctioned.
Post-COVID-19, the continent has had a muted period of deepwater sanctioning activity, with the average annual deepwater resources sanctioned between 2015-19 dropping to about 330 million boe, compared to an annual average of close to 1890 million boe in 2015-19.
However, thanks to the recent success in Namibia and progress in other discovered projects such as Area 4 in Mozambique, further phases of Baleine development in Cote d’Ivoire, and several projects in Nigeria, Africa is at the cusp of a new wave of deepwater sanctioning activity.
If project timelines follow through, Africa could see annual average deepwater resource sanctioning activity surpassing 2 billion boe in the 2025-29 period.
The continent hosts the potential to take the number above 3 billion boe. However, such projects would probably need more fiscal incentives and, in some cases, an improvement in the security situation for associated facilities onshore.
Further, prioritization by Majors of the most lucrative projects in their portfolios, as they plan for an uncertain future, would also define the trajectory of such projects.
However, some of the gas projects can be secured further by advancing various gas-to-power projects within the continent, such that electricity access rates also improve significantly.
I spent the past two weeks on my ancestral island of Rhodes, Greece, helping my cousin settle his late father’s estate. It’s no surprise that everybody — and I mean literally everybody — wanted to talk about this month’s US presidential election.
Greece has long had an anti-American streak stemming from U.S. support for the 1967-1974 military dictatorship that killed, tortured, and imprisoned thousands of people just because of their political views. Indeed, the governing conservative New Democracy Party (ND) wins elections only because there are so many socialist and communist parties that they split the left-wing vote and allow the conservatives to govern.
But much to my surprise, every leftist I’ve spoken to, including just about everybody in my own family from the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) to the Socialist Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) has offered full-throated support to Donald Trump.
After hearing this over and over again, I decided to probe a little to get to the bottom of how lifelong socialists and communists can support a billionaire businessman who leads a capitalist and conservative political party. But the reasons for their admiration of Trump were quite simple. They saw Donald Trump as the anti-war candidate.
The Greeks don’t know anything about American domestic policy; nor do they care. They generally give you a blank stare when you mention abortion or health care or the environment. But they care about war.
They hate what is happening to the Palestinians and Lebanese, despite the fact that their government is unabashedly pro-Israel (as is Donald Trump.) They hate that the United States has armed one Orthodox Christian country, Ukraine, against another, Russia. And they hate that the United States has done nothing about the 50-year-long Turkish military occupation of Cyprus.
The Greeks genuinely believe that if anybody is going to end the Ukraine war or tell the Israelis to stop killing civilians in Palestine and Lebanon, it’s going to be Donald Trump. (I disagree strongly that Trump has any love whatsoever for the Palestinians. Indeed, he’s been Benjamin Netanyahu’s lapdog for years.)
But the Greeks argue that Democrats have only made the international situation worse, so why not give Trump another chance to make things better, like he did with North Korea, at least temporarily.
There’s another issue that the Greeks agree with Trump on, too. That’s the issue of immigration. The Greeks are well known for their hospitality. There’s even a word for it: Filoxenia, which means “love of the stranger.”
When Afghanistan and Iraq began falling apart, private Greek citizens actually stood on the beaches to welcome them as they washed ashore in rafts and to give them food and clothes. That changed when the European Union gave Turkey billions of dollars to hold refugees in Turkey and the Turks instead began forcing them across the border into Greece and just pocketing the money.
The Greeks, in turn, built a wall along the land border with Turkey. That enraged the Turks, of course, but the wall actually worked. And when Trump started talking about building a wall along the southern border with Mexico, the Greeks were all in.
As a progressive American voter, and a truly independent one at that, I’m not optimistic about the next four years. Abortion is of primary importance to me. So are the environment, workers rights, health care and education. I support easier immigration and an easier and quicker path to citizenship. Donald Trump will likely destroy all of that.
With that said, I believe that there are two areas where Trump is right. One is his support for a less interventionist foreign policy. The other is criminal justice reform. Trump issued a lot of pardons when he was president. He issued a lot of commutations. And he worked to do something about the sentencing disparities between white people convicted of crimes compared to people of color. At least there was that.
Donald Trump already has served one term as president. Consequently, he’ll be a lame duck beginning the moment he takes the oath of office on Jan. 20 with nobody on Capitol Hill owing him anything. He’ll be permanently out of office in four years.
Is it possible that we could be pleasantly surprised, then, on some of these issues? I expect to be far more disappointed than anything else. But I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer. I’m going to try to convince myself that some good will come of this. I don’t know exactly what it’ll be.
John Kiriakou is a former C.I.A. counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act—a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration’s torture program.
