Latin America And Southern Europe Are Global Beer Hotspots
While many countries have their own special days to celebrate beer, one of the oldest alcoholic beverages known to humankind,International Beer Day is aimed at beer drinkers everywhere.
Every first Friday in August, special events are held in bars and pubs around the world. According to Statista data, some countries’ inhabitants might be more prone to celebrate than others.
As Statista’s Florian Zandt reports, a recent Statista Consumer Insight survey shows that most Latin American countries exhibit a share of between 41 and 53 percent of regular beer drinkers. Mexico tops the list with 53 percent of survey participants of legal drinking age regularly consuming alcoholic drinks usually made with malted barley, hops, water and yeast. Coming in second and third are Greece and Spain with 52 and 51 percent, respectively. With Italy at 47 and Portugal at 37 percent, the survey suggests that Southern Europe also has a propensity for regular beer consumption.
In Asia, where many of the world’s leading breweries are located, the share of regular beer drinkers is lower. China and South Korea are tied for first place in the region with 41 percent, followed by Thailand with 38, Hong Kong with 36 and Taiwan with 31 percent.
Malaysia and Indonesia exhibit a share of only 16 and 10 percent of respondents who regularly drink beer, which is tied to religious practices. Both countries have a majority of residents adhering to the Islamic faith, where alcohol is considered haram or forbidden.
Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom, countries with which many popular beer brands and varieties like wheat beer or Guinness are associated, are closer to the 48-country average of 35 percent.
In all three countries, a third of respondents of legal drinking age said they regularly consumer beer.
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers has introduced a new bill that aims to counter communist China’s malign activities in Africa.
Reps. Young Kim (R-Calif.) and Colin Allred (D-Texas), both sitting on the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, said China’s activities in Africa, particularly those under Beijing’s foreign investment program, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also known as One Belt, One Road, have caused harmful effects to the continent’s environment, ecology, and public health, according to a press release issued on Aug. 5.
“The PRC’s Belt and Road Initiative coerces developing nations to fall into [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping’s debt-trap diplomacy but also exposes vulnerable populations to harmful ecological, environmental, and public health risks,” Kim said in a statement, referring to the acronym of communist China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.
“We cannot allow Xi Jinping to get away with growing his global power and violating international environmental and labor laws in the process,” she said.
Announced by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2013, BRI seeks to build Beijing-centered land and maritime trade networks by financing infrastructure projects throughout Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America. According to China’s official data, many African countries are BRI participants, including South Africa, Gambia, Uganda, Senegal, Ghana, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Ethiopia.
The legislation, Stopping PRC Environmental Exploitation and Degradation (SPEED) Act, (H.R. 9265), would establish that it is the policy of the United States to oppose the actions of China-linked entities that do not abide by the host country, international environmental protection, and labor laws in their exploitation of natural resources in Africa.
“I am proud to lead the SPEED Act to counter the Belt and Road Initiative and hold the PRC accountable for its exploitative practices, deliberate environmental degradation, and threat to African communities’ livelihoods,” Kim said.
If enacted, the legislation would also require the secretary of state and the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to submit to Congress a strategy on how the United States will work with African countries to “develop mitigation strategies for the negative environmental impact” caused by Chinese companies, according to the language of the bill.
Additionally, the legislation would authorize the president to impose sanctions on China-linked entities responsible for adverse environmental, ecological, or public health incidents in Africa.
“We cannot allow the People’s Republic of China and Chinese-linked companies to continue their exploitation of African nations as they subject their people to harmful ecological and public health risks,” Allred said in a statement.
The legislation referenced a State Department report titled “China’s Environment Abuses” published during the Trump administration. In the report, it called the BRI projects “not-so-green.”
“In recent years, Chinese-backed projects on several continents have displaced local populations, negatively affected water quality, polluted adjacent land, and spoiled fragile ecosystems,” the report reads.
“A study published in Nature Sustainability suggested BRI projects may lead to ‘permanent environmental degradation’ due to environmental harm through pollution, habitat loss, and wildlife mortality, among others.”
The bill also documents incidents of adverse environmental, ecological, and public health incidents in Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In 2021, local communities in the Congo accused a Chinese mining company of polluting the Aruwimi River, a tributary of the Congo River. “Locals reported water discolored by waste disposal. The incident sparked an increase in sickness, and dead fish began floating in the river, which locals consumed,” the bill reads.
In Gambia, fishmeal processing factories owned partially or wholly by Chinese investors have been accused of committing illegal and unreported fishing practices and discharging untreated waste into waterways since 2016, the bill said.
A Chinese natural gas plant in Ethiopia’s Somali region has been accused of poisoning drinking water with its hazardous chemical waste, allegedly causing over 2,000 deaths, according to the text of the legislation.
In February, it was revealed that Russia has been developing a nuclear-armed anti-satellite weapon. The Biden administration’s response has focused mainly on arms control efforts aimed at preventing Russia from acquiring a space-based nuclear weapon in the first place. These efforts are important, but they are also insufficient. Steps must be taken now to prepare for the possibility that diplomacy fails. Nuclear anti-satellite weapons have the potential to fundamentally alter existing nuclear paradigms, creating a much more destabilizing environment than exists today. The U.S. must take action now to ensure it is ready to deal with the challenges posed by nuclear weapons in space. By preparing now, before nukes are put in orbit, the U.S. can better work to prevent such a day from ever happening at all.
U.S. deterrence strategy has long centered on its ability to tailor both conventional and nuclear response options to a wide range of different contingencies, as well as deliberate ambiguity surrounding when it would use nuclear weapons. Both these concepts would be thrown out the window if a nuclear anti-satellite weapon were detonated today. While the exact capabilities of Russia’s space weapon are unknown, it is likely to pose as much a threat to its own satellites as it is those of the United States.
In May, then-Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb testified that Russia’s weapon would be “indiscriminate,” and “pose a threat to all satellites operated by countries and companies around the globe.” The U.S. would therefore likely be left without the ability to retaliate against Russia in space if it detonated its weapon. The only option would be to strike targets on the ground. At present, conventional U.S. forces rely heavily on access to satellite-provided GPS, intelligence, and communications. A conventional strike in this environment would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to carry out. A nuclear strike would be more feasible (though also challenging). A serious conversation should address whether a surface nuclear strike would be an appropriate response to a nuclear attack that does not directly kill people on Earth.
However, it is still critical that the president retain a variety of options to respond to the use of such a weapon. Thus, central to deterrence in a world of nuclear anti-satellite weapons will be the ability of conventional military forces to operate without access to satellites.
If satellites went down in the aftermath of the detonation of a nuclear space weapon, the ability of long-range strike fighter aircraft and bombers to carry out non-nuclear surface attacks against enemy targets would be crucial to maintaining the option of a conventional response to such an action. There have been some efforts to improve the ability of U.S. forces to fight in an environment without access to space, but these have been limited compared to activities aimed at maintaining such access. The latter efforts are important, but they will likely not be options once a nuclear anti-satellite weapon goes off.
The Navy and Air Force, with support from the Space Force, should wargame different “denied space” contingencies aimed at learning how to operate in an environment without access to satellites. The lessons from these wargames should then be applied and continued in actual live military exercises. These exercises would be aimed both at training pilots, aircrews, and commanders to conduct operations in a denied space environment but would also demonstrate to Russia and other potential U.S. adversaries that it will always have the option of retaliating with varying degrees of force to any type of nuclear aggression.
The U.S. should continue pursuing arms control efforts aimed at preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons in space. However, it must also be prepared for the possibility that these efforts fail. By preparing conventional strike fighter assets to conduct operations in a denied space environment, the U.S. will be adequately ready for a world where nuclear weapons are orbiting the Earth.
Luke Widenhouse is a research assistant at the Yorktown Institute and rising senior at St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD.
Some jobs inherently carry significant risks due to factors such as hazardous working conditions, exposure to harmful substances, and the physical demands of the tasks.
Unfortunately, work injuries can sometimes be fatal, with the the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recording 5,486 fatal work injuries in 2022.
2022 saw a 5.7% increase from the 5,190 fatal work injuries in 2021, and meant that a worker died every 96 minutes from a work-related injury that year.
This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, visualizes the six occupations in the U.S. with the highest rates of fatal work injuries per 100,000 full-time workers, and their number of fatal work injuries in 2022.
What are the Most Dangerous Jobs in the United States?
Some of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S. involve significant physical labor and working in hazardous environments, like loggers, roofers, and fishing and hunting workers.
Many of these jobs also are usually done in isolated areas, like logging and fishing, where access to emergency medical attention is limited.
While logging workers saw the highest fatal work injury rate, over 1,000 truck drivers died due to work injuries in 2022—the most fatalities out of any occupation.
Operating extremely large vehicles for many hours, often in remote and unfamiliar areas, are some factors that contribute to the dangerous nature of truck driving as an occupation.
Transportation incidents remained the most frequent type of fatal event accounting for 38% of all occupational fatalities. In 2022, there were 2,066 fatal injuries from transportation incidents, a 4.2% increase from 1,982 in 2021.
… and not just any crash but the biggest point crash in Nikkei and Topix history, surpassing even Black Monday and guaranteeing that whatever political considerations were prevalent when the BOJ decided to throw away its own rulebook and follow political pressure to spike the yen in order to contain inflation – while also crashing the stock market by 20% in 3 days – would be promptly overruled and the BOJ would capitulate in due course, as we explained just last night in “After A “Perfect Storm In The Vol Market”, Goldman Says “We Are About To Enter The Central Bank Response Phase“, in which we wrote that “we are not going down because of recession but because of an unwind of circa 20trilion carry trades” adding that “only BOJ can stop this.”
And while we were correct in predicting that “the BOJ has no choice and is merely prolonging the inevitable”…
Why the BOJ has no choice and is merely prolonging the inevitable: “at a gross balance sheet value of around 500% GDP or $20 trillion, the Japanese government’s balance sheet is, simply put, one giant carry trade.” – DB pic.twitter.com/gAtt4eu0HO
… little did we know just how soon the BOJ would stop prolonging the inevitable – and admit it has no choice – because less than a day later, the Japanese central bank confirmed everything we said in the past 72 hours when BOJ Deputy Governor Shinichi Uchida capitulated shortly after 10am local time, when, pressed for answers to the ongoing market collapse, he sent a strong dovish signal in the wake of historic financial market volatility in Japan by pledging to refrain from hiking interest rates when the markets are unstable.
Uchida tried to save face, but in the end the only thing the market heard is that rate hikes are basically over after last week’s teeny, tiny 10-25bps rate increase unleashed a global deflationary tsunami and crashed Japan’s market.
“I believe that the bank needs to maintain monetary easing with the current policy interest rate for the time being, with developments in financial and capital markets at home and abroad being extremely volatile,” Uchida said in a speech Wednesday to local business leaders in Hakodate, northern Japan, where apparently he did not make a Freudian slip confusing “tightening” with “easing” because he actually did mean easing!
Uchida spoke after Japanese stocks crashed in predictable reaction to the BOJ crushing the yen carry trade… or rather predictable to anyone but the erudite policymakers at the BOJ.
More importantly, the deputy chief suggested that the bank will carefully consider the state of financial markets in future decisions on rate policy, and as noted above, will refrain from any more rate hikes when markets are unstable.
“In contrast to the process of policy interest rate hikes in Europe and the United States, Japan’s economy is not in a situation where the bank may fall behind the curve if it does not raise the policy interest rate at a certain pace,” Uchida said. “Therefore, the bank will not raise its policy interest rate when financial and capital markets are unstable.”
Well, dear central banker, a quick primer: this is called passive aggressive forward guidance. The Japanese market will now NEVER become “stable”, in doing so preventing any more rate hikes, and in fact will become so unstable the BOJ will have to cut again.
According to Bloomberg, Uchida, a dovish veteran policy architect, who was heavily involved with designing the BOJ’s massive monetary easing program that ran for more than a decade, is widely known for playing a prominent role in mapping out Governor Ueda’s journey toward normalizing policy. The BOJ ended the ultraeasy policy in March with its first hike in 17 years. And it now appears that the BOJ’s attempts to renormalize policy ended with a thud on the morning of August 7.
For confirmation one has to look no further than the yen which immediately tumbled by more than 2% against the dollar…
…. and Japanese stocks soared immediately after his comments…
… which were not only the first public remarks by a BOJ board member since the bank hiked interest rates on July 31, but also the first remarks to admit that last week’s rate hike had been a catastrophic policy error.
And now, we sit back and watch as the carry trade is put back on, and the BOJ desperately tries to refloat the $20 trillion carry trade titanic which as we reported on Sunday night, is now in the process of sinking. The good news, at least for the Kamala administration, is that the BOJ’s panicked concession will enable US stocks to surge once again as the carry trade is promptly re-established.
The sellside brigades, especially those who were predicting a 130 USDJPY in the very near future, were quick to jump on the realization that the BOJ just capitulated:
According to Credit Agricole CIB, Uchida comment confirms the BOJ will likely be gun-shy about hiking rates again soon (or ever) which will weigh on the the yen.
“The 3-way meeting between the FSA, MOF and BOJ left the BoJ substantially chastized with new Vice Minister for International Affairs, Mimura, saying the BoJ will pay attention to the volatility in financial markets,” said the bank’s FX strategist David Forrester.
The Bank of Singapore also chimed in, writing that “the outsized yen rally is making policymakers uncomfortable”, which is evident from BOJ Deputy Governor Shinichi Uchida’s comments on interest rates.
And the punchline comes from UBS trader Alex Limwho writes that “the last thing the BoJ wants is to be blamed for triggering one of the sharpest market selloffs that coincidentally followed its hawkish July 31 policy decision.”
“Press reports [Bloomberg paywall] have earlier suggested that political pressure may have been a factor behind the BoJ’s decision to hike the key rate and taper JGBs at the same meeting.”
“Now the BoJ is clearly under pressure to respond to the market selloff and possibly to justify its previous hawkish policy decision.”
Unfortunately for the BOJ, by admitting defeat it has just dug its own grave for the last time, and having capitulated on further tightening just because of a modest bear market in stocks, the full court press to short the yen is now back on and we expect it won’t stop until the currency hits new record lows in the very near future, with the BOJ now completely powerless to do anything as Japan’s hyperinflation finally kicks in.
It’s amazing. The attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump happened a little more than three weeks ago. But if you follow the current coverage in the mainstream media, it’s like it never happened. The mainstream media has moved on. Of course, we’ve had a sitting president end his reelection bid and Kamala Harris ascend to the top spot without getting a single vote. This is the same as with her doomed 2020 bid when she exited the nominating race after getting eviscerated by Tulsi Gabbard in a pre-Iowa Democrat debate.
All that Harris and her campaign surrogates can talk about is how “weird” JD Vance is. This coming from a candidate who made a pre-taped campaign announcement on RuPaul’s Drag Race. It’s these Democrat parrots like Donny Deutsch and other droids on MSNBC that have ZERO self-awareness. Their narratives have effectively been debunked.
With that being said, you won’t see this on MSNBC, CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, or just about any MSM broadcast, online outlet, or in print. Those outlets will continue with their Trump-as-Hitler narrative every day up to November 5.
The circumstances surrounding the attempted assassination of Trump and the successful assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 23, 1963, are shockingly similar.
We are still waiting for information on all of the serial failures to protect Trump as well as the actions taken by the shooter in the days leading to the attack, but the motivations of our government seem to be very similar.
It is historically known that Kennedy tried to reduce U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War after the Cuban Missile Crisis and his worry that a nuclear exchange with the Soviets would result in catastrophic loss of life. This compelled him to strongly resist a military-industrial complex comprised of government institutions and wealthy corporate interests that were invested in escalating the Vietnam War effort and keeping the weapons and hardware flowing.
Kennedy made a lot of enemies in government, trying to reform systems that were in place for decades and angering a lot of powerful groups that were heavily invested in America’s war machine. Starting right after the end of World War II, through the establishment of the CIA 76 years ago in 1947, the CIA has been the central linchpin of the U.S. Intelligence community (IC), the so-called Deep State that is accountable to no one (not the president, either House of Congress, or any other serious oversight organization.)
Kennedy pledged to reform the intelligence community (IC) after the Bay of Pigs fiasco that took place under the lead of the IC as a way to depose Fidel Castro. Kennedy was appalled at the usurpation of his authority and made it clear that change was going to come.
We know how this ended. Kennedy’s hurriedly planned visit to Dallas, driven through an unsecured area, in an unprotected, open-air limousine, with very little Secret Service protection, and in line of sight of buildings with multiple opportunities for snipers to hide. If our government did not intend for this assassination to happen, it certainly laid out a very workable plan to fatally ambush Kennedy that could not have been more perfect.
Which brings us to Trump’s brush with death on July 13. In his first term, Trump made efforts to reform the Deep State to at least slow down the expansion of government size and the intrusion into the lives of American citizens. He put the Pentagon on notice to stop warmongering in foreign lands.
He ordered NATO countries to start paying their fair share of America’s commitment to protect them. He slowed the influx of illegal aliens, infuriating a welfare bureaucracy counting on an ever-growing underclass of immigrants to justify their existence.
Trump made a lot of enemies in government just as Kennedy had by trying to reform many of the same systems and angering many of the same moneyed interests. With four years of experience in dealing with these Deep State operators and now knowing how to really reform the administrative state, Trump has a lot of career bureaucrats worried about their jobs, perks, and power. And now Trump looks to be unbeatable in the coming election, even with the soft coup with Democrat power brokers—Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, Jeffries, and others—despite the current media infatuation and love fest with Cackling Kamala.
Let’s remember that these are the same reprehensible people who have spent the last eight years telling us that Trump is a unique threat to all Americans and will imprison his rivals and act as a dictator.
Are they capable of murder? Of course they are. That is why they are demanding that all discussion of the assassination attempt be stopped and that the serial failures of the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) not be explored by anyone. Three sessions before Congress have shown us the game of CYA (cover your ass) going on by the members of the Deep State who have already testified, including disgraced former Unites States Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle, current FBI director Chris Wray, and Cheatle’s replacement, acting USSS Director Ronald Rowe.
Serial failures such as:
Why repeated requests for additional USSS resources were denied by the Biden White House,
Why Trump’s regular USSS team was replaced by a veritable B-team of ill-trained and equipped agents, including three short females who could not holster their weapons, with one cowering behind Trump as shots were being fired at him,
How an obvious high-elevation perch only 450 feet away from the rally podium with unobstructed line-of-sight was left unguarded,
How a 20-year-old with a long rifle and a ladder could enter a secured perimeter,
How the shooter was seen by rally attendees over an hour before the attack, all the while shouting to law enforcement that milled around but did nothing to confront the shooter,
How the shooter was identified by police snipers at 5:51 PM, before Donald Trump, the most famous person in the world and the most targeted by his enemies, took the stage at 6:02 PM, without telling him or preventing him from taking the podium,
How the police snipers had the shooter in their scopes for minutes but waited until after the attack at 6:11 PM, after eight shots were made, before finally neutralizing him,
Why the USSS chose not to record their radio communications on this particular day at this particular rally, and,
Why Congressional investigators cannot get any straight answers from either USSS or DHS leadership on how this could have happened.
Only after the assassination attempt failed were Democrats power brokers like Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, and Jeffries successful in forcing Biden out of the presidential race at the behest of the Democrat donor class. Now the question is: will Biden actually serve out his term until January 20, 2025? Biden looked confused when meeting the released Russian hostages at Joint Base Andrews last week, ceding lead at the event to Vice President Harris.
We can surmise that the Secret Service is either completely inept or that it cooperated in a conspiracy to allow for the assassination of a man that the Biden administration wanted stopped after everything else had failed and after he became inevitable as the next elected president.
The entire scenario stinks of conspiracy and cover-up. This is not something we say lightly.
There is no excuse for such a blatant failure to protect the most famous and targeted person in the world. The USSS operates under a $3 billion yearly budget. There is no shortage of resources, human or otherwise, that can justify such incompetence and dereliction of duty. What the testimony found was that the USSS is plagued by management ineptitude. As a place to work in the Federal government, it ranks 319 out of 320 government agencies.
How do we move forward from here? Well, we don’t need a Warren Commission to whitewash this stunning attempt to neutralize the Republican front-runner. We don’t need a compliant legacy media to call this a “Republicans pounce” moment or to minimize their role in ratcheting up the Trump hate on their platforms. We don’t need a sorely compromised FBI to investigate this horrific attempt on Trump’s life—the same FBI that is also known for calling Hunter Biden’s laptop “Russian disinformation” and raiding Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home for FBI-doctored evidence of classified documents.
What we need here is for someone to come clean. And that someone, interestingly enough, could be Kimberly Cheatle. Yes, the former director of the USSS herself.
Why did she resign as director if there was no malfeasance or conspiracy to kill Trump? As director of the USSS, she reported to the head of DHS, Alejandro Mayorkas. All USSS plans for events, such as the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, would have been signed off by Mayorkas or someone within his direct management. By resigning her post and, assumingly, receiving some form of immunity from prosecution, she could expose the entire plot. A lot of heads could roll.
Or not. As we’ve seen, it’s hard for anyone in government—and Democrat administrations in particular—to face accountability for failure. Even a failed attempt to murder the most famous person in the world live on television. If not for a turn of his head, history would have been far different. As a nation, we literally dodged a bullet.
A bullet that would have resulted in a civil war that would have generated untold acrimony and violence among otherwise peace-seeking patriots. A bullet that would have changed the entire world order. A bullet that would have pulled the mask away from the ridiculous notion that we are being led by a responsible and accountable government that everyone would have finally realized was a fraud.
Is this what our so-called leaders have wanted all along?
One has to wonder. What interesting times we live in.
The resignation of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday and her government’s replacement with a military-led interim administration was followed by a spree of political violence. The parliament was taken over, Hasina’s palace was stormed, some of the former ruling party’s offices and the homes of its members were looted, and minority Hindus were attacked. Despite being regrettable, retributive political violence and the targeting of minorities are predictable in “revolutionary” situations.
What few could have foreseen though was that symbols of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who’s known as “Bangabandhu” and is revered as the Father of the Nation, were also attacked. This included vandalism against his statues and murals as well as the burning of his memorial museum in the capital, which used to be his home and from where he declared Bangladesh’s independence. Even though he was Hasina’s father, he’s not guilty of the crimes that the so-called “peaceful pro-democracy protesters” accuse her of.
Some hated him at the time for his secularism as well as his non-Western alignment, thus explaining his assassination in 1975 and the military coup that followed, but much of that anger has passed since most of the population wasn’t even born by then and therefore has no personal memory of him. Regardless of whatever any Bangladeshi’s views might be about his policies, Bangabandhu is still the Father of the Nation, and targeting his symbols during the latest unrest bodes ill for Bangladesh’s future direction.
Only religious and political extremists would attack his symbols, which discredits the participants’ claims that they’re “peaceful pro-democracy protesters” and lends credence to Hasina’s that they’re actually radical anti-state forces. What happened bears all the hallmarks of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and their allies. They’ve been accused of cavorting with religious extremists and being political radicals, the claims of which aren’t unfounded.
The party’s founder Ziaur Rahman implemented Islamist policies upon coming to power two years after Bangabandhu’s assassination and then pivoted towards the West (including its then-Arab and -Chinese partners at the time). The rivalry between the BNP and Bangabandhu’s Awami League (AL) has remained a constant since then, as has the threat posed by the legally contentious Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) movement, which is comprised of Pakistani loyalists who later allied with the BNP due to its Islamist policies.
Nevertheless, attacking Bangabandhu’s symbols in such a high-profile way at this crucial moment in national history sends the message that political violence will continue, with none of the AL’s supporters being safe. Unless the military can restore order, and it’s too early to tell even though everything appears to be moving in that direction, then the BNP-JEI might go on a killing spree against the AL. A huge exodus to India could then follow, which risks destabilizing already demographically tense border regions.
Even if that dark scenario doesn’t materialize, it’s clear that the BNP’s JEI foot soldiers won’t be pleased until their country erases the AL’s legacy of secularism and alignment with India. After all, that’s precisely what Bangabandhu represents, so targeting his symbols conveys their hatred of those policies and implies that some level of unrest might continue so long as they remain in force. Bangladesh has the sovereign right to promulgate whatever policies it wants, but this mustn’t be done under pressure.
It’s too early to predict whether the BNP-JEI will get all of what it wants, but the parliament in which the BNP didn’t participate due to boycotting January’s elections was just dissolved and its jailed leader was released right after, so it’s likely poised to play a role in the interim administration before new elections. In that event, the BNP and its JEI foot soldiers would stand a much greater chance of pressuring the authorities into distancing Bangladesh from India in some way, which could worsen regional tensions.
A Pakistani national with alleged ties to Iran has been charged in connection with a foiled plot to assassinate a politician or U.S. government officials on U.S. soil, according to a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release and indictment unsealed on Tuesday.
Asif Merchant, also known as “Asif Raza Merchant,” 46, was charged with murder-for-hire as part of a scheme targeting public figures within the United States. He was apprehended and is currently in federal custody in New York.
The arrest underscores what the DOJ said is its commitment to thwarting Iran’s ongoing efforts to retaliate against American officials, particularly in response to the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.
Soleimani was killed in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Jan. 3, 2020, under the Trump administration.
“For years, the Justice Department has been working aggressively to counter Iran’s brazen and unrelenting efforts to retaliate against American public officials for the killing of Iranian General Soleimani,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“The Justice Department will spare no resource to disrupt and hold accountable those who would seek to carry out Iran’s lethal plotting against American citizens and will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to target American public officials and endanger America’s national security.”
The plot was uncovered through a coordinated effort involving multiple FBI field offices and the New York City Police Department, among other agencies, DOJ said.
According to court documents, Merchant arrived in the United States from Pakistan in April, following a period in Iran.
He is described as a citizen of Pakistan, born in Karachi, with a wife and children in both Pakistan and Iran, and he traveled frequently to Iran, Syria, and Iraq.
Merchant allegedly sought to hire hitmen to carry out assassinations on American soil, believing he was working with a trusted contact who reported his activities to law enforcement and became a confidential source.
He used operational security measures, such as multiple cellular phones and removing them during sensitive discussions, to avoid surveillance, the court documents claim.
During meetings in New York, Merchant outlined a plan involving multiple criminal schemes, including the theft of documents, organizing protests as distractions, and the assassination plot. These activities were discussed using coded language; for instance, “tee-shirt” referred to protests, “flannel shirt” to stealing, and “fleece jacket” to murder.
In June, Merchant met with individuals he believed to be hitmen, who were actually undercover FBI agents, to arrange the logistics of the plot.
He provided an advance payment of $5,000 and indicated that instructions for the assassination would be issued after his planned departure from the United States in mid-July, the DOJ said.
However, law enforcement intervened and arrested Merchant on July 12, before he could leave the country, DOJ said.
“Fortunately, the assassins Merchant tried to hire were undercover FBI Agents,” said Acting Assistant Director Christie Curtis of the FBI New York Field Office.
“This case underscores the dedication and formidable efforts of our agents, analysts and prosecutors in New York, Houston and Dallas. Their success in neutralizing this threat not only prevented a tragic outcome but also reaffirms the FBI’s commitment to protecting our nation and its citizens from both domestic and international threats.”
The complaint also highlighted Merchant’s intent to recruit trusted individuals for various roles in his scheme, including reconnaissance and organizing a protest, with further instructions to be conveyed in coded language.
The DOJ emphasized at the time of filing in mid-July that premature disclosure of the complaint’s contents could have jeopardized the investigation, with risks including fleeing suspects and tampering with evidence before it was ultimately unsealed this week.
[ZH: We have one question:]
Amazing how the FBI was able to catch this fake Pakistani assassin they ran as an entrapment op right when they are having trouble answering questions about Thomas Matthew Crooks and J13
Homeowners Increasingly Tap Home Equity Lines As Savings Rate Plummets
With home values at or near record highs nationwide, and savings rates plunging, Americans are increasingly tapping into home equity.
While some are using it for home renovations, others likely need extra cash amid the Bidenomics blowback, which has created an environment of elevated inflation and high interest rates.
A new report released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit on Tuesday shows originations of both home equity loans and home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) balances increased by $4 billion, representing the ninth consecutive quarterly increase since the first quarter in 2022. The total stood at $380 billion, a $63 billion increase from the low of $317 billion reached in the third quarter of 2021.
“Homeowners continued to increase HELOC balances as an alternative way to extract home equity,” Andrew Haughwout, Director of Household and Public Policy Research at the New York Fed, wrote in the report.
Besides home renovations, other considerations that drive homeowners into taking out a HELOC include debt consolidation and emergency cash management as credit card debt hits record highs and the cost of living increasingly becomes unaffordable for the working poor and middle class under Biden’s first term.
Home equity products are the most viable option for homeowners in these challenging economic times.
While tapping home equity has many benefits, it also has many risks, including putting the property at risk by accruing significant debt and diluting the valuable asset when home prices reverse.
Cutting-edge weapons powered by artificial intelligence are emerging as a global security hazard, especially in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to several experts.
Eager to militarily surpass the United States, the CCP is unlikely to heed safeguards around lethal AI technologies, which are increasingly dangerous in their own right, the experts have argued. The nature of the technology is prone to feeding some of the worst tendencies of the regime and the human psyche in general, they warned.
“The implications are quite dramatic. And they may be the equal of the nuclear revolution,” said Bradley Thayer, a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy, an expert on a strategic assessment of China, and a contributor to The Epoch Times.
Killer Robots
The development of AI-powered autonomous weapons unfortunately is rapidly progressing, according to Alexander De Ridder, an AI developer and co-founder of Ink, an AI marketing firm.
“They’re becoming quickly more efficient and quickly more effective,” he told The Epoch Times, adding that “they’re not at the point where they can replace humans.”
Autonomous drones, tanks, ships, and submarines have become a reality along with more exotic modalities, such as the quadruped robot dogs, already armed with machine guns in China.
Even AI-powered humanoid robots, the stuff of sci-fi horrors, are in production. Granted, they’re still rather clumsy in the real world, but they won’t be for long, De Ridder suggested.
“The capabilities for such robots are quickly advancing,” he said.
Once they reach marketable usefulness and reliability, China is likely to turn its manufacturing might to their mass production, according to De Ridder.
“The market will be flooded with humanoid robots, and then it’s up to the programming how they’re used.”
That would mean military use, too.
“It’s kind of inevitable,” he said.
Such AI-powered machines are very effective at processing images to discern objects—to detect a human with their optical sensors, for example, explained James Qiu, an AI expert, founder of GIT Research Institute, and former CTO at FileMaker.
That makes AI robots very good at targeting.
“It’s a very effective killing machine,” he said.
AI Generals
On a broader level, multiple nations are working on an AI capable of informing and coordinating battlefield decisions—an electronic general, according to Jason Ma, an AI expert and data research lead at a multinational Fortune 500 company. He didn’t want the company’s name mentioned to prevent any impression he was speaking on its behalf.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the CCP military, recently conducted battle exercises in which an AI was directly put in command.
The U.S. military also has projects in this area, Ma noted.
“It’s a very active research and development topic.”
The need is obvious, he explained. Battlefield decisions are informed by a staggering amount of data from historical context and past intelligence to near-real time satellite data, all the way to millisecond-by-millisecond input from every camera, microphone, and whatever sensor on the battlefield.
It’s “very hard” for humans to process such disparate and voluminous data streams, he said.
“The more complex the warfare, the more important part it becomes how can you quickly integrate, summarize all this information to make the right decision, within seconds, or within even sub-second,” he said.
AI weapons are already redefining warfare, the experts agreed. But the consequences are much broader. The technology is making the world increasingly volatile, Thayer said.
On the most rudimentary level, AI-powered weapon targeting will likely make it much easier to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles, detect and destroy submarines, and shoot down long-range bombers. That could neutralize the U.S. nuclear triad capabilities, allowing adversaries to “escalate beyond the nuclear level” with impunity, he suggested.
“AI would affect each of those components, which we developed and understood during the Cold War as being absolutely essential for a stable nuclear deterrent relationship,” he said.
“During the Cold War, there was a broad understanding that conventional war between nuclear powers wasn’t feasible. … AI is undermining that, because it introduces the possibility of conventional conflict between two nuclear states.”
If people continue developing AI-powered weapon systems without restrictions, the volatility will only worsen, he predicted.
“AI is greatly affecting the battlefield, but it’s not yet determinative,” he said.
If AI capabilities reach “the effect of nuclear war without using nuclear weapons,” that would sit the world on a powder keg, he said.
“If that’s possible, and it’s quite likely that it is possible, then that’s an extremely dangerous situation and incredibly destabilizing situation because it compels somebody who’s on the receiving end of an attack to go first, not to endure the attack, but to aggress.”
In warfare lexicon, the concept is called “damage limitation,” he said.
“You don’t want the guy to go first, because you’re going to get badly hurt. So you go first. And that’s going to be enormously destabilizing in international politics.”
The concern is not just about killer robots or drones but also various unconventional AI weapons. An AI, for example, could be developed to find vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure such as the electric grid or water supply systems.
Controlling the proliferation of such technologies appears particularly daunting. AI is just a piece of software. Even the largest models fit on a regular hard drive and can run on a small server farm. Simple but increasingly lethal AI weapons, such as killer drones, can be shipped in parts without raising alarm.
“Both vertical and horizontal proliferation incentives are enormous, and it’s easily done,” Thayer said.
De Ridder pointed out that the Chinese state wants to be seen as responsible on the world stage.
But that hasn’t stopped the CCP from supplying weapons or aiding weapon programs of other regimes and groups that aren’t so reputationally constrained, other experts have noted.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if the CCP were to supply autonomous weapons to terrorist groups that would then tie up the U.S. military in endless asymmetrical conflicts. The CCP could even keep its distance and merely supply the parts, letting proxies assemble the drones, much like Chinese suppliers provide fentanyl precursors to Mexican cartels and let them manufacture, ship, and sell the drugs.
The CCP, for example, has a long history of aiding Iranian weapon programs. Iran, in turn, supplies weapons to a panopticon of terrorist groups in the region.
“There would be little disincentive for Iran to do this,” Mr. Thayer said.
It’s generally accepted, at least in the United States and among its allies, that the most crucial safeguard against AI weapons wreaking unforeseen havoc is keeping a human in control of important decisions, particularly the use of deadly force.
“Under no circumstances should any machines autonomously independently be allowed to take a human life ever,” De Ridder said.
The principle is commonly summarized in the phrase “human in the loop.”
“A human has a conscience and needs to wake up in the morning with remorse and the consequences of what they’ve done, so that they can learn from it and not repeat atrocities,” said De Ridder.
Some of the experts pointed out, however, that the principle is already being eroded by the nature of combat transformed by AI capabilities.
In the Ukraine war, for example, the Ukrainian military had to equip its drones with some measure of autonomy to guide themselves to their targets because their communication with human operators was being jammed by the Russian military.
Such drones only run simpler AI, Ma said, given the limited power of the drone’s onboard computer. But that may soon change as both AI models and computers are getting faster and more efficient.
Apple is already working on an AI that could run on a phone, says Ma.
“It’s highly likely it will be in the future put into a small chip.”
Moreover, in a major conflict where hundreds or perhaps thousands of drones are deployed at once, they can share computational power to perform much more complex autonomous tasks.
“It’s all possible,” he said. “It’s gotten to the point where it’s not science fiction; it’s just [a matter of] if there is a group of people who want to devote the time to work on that. It’s tangible technology.”
Removing human control out of necessity isn’t a new concept, according to James Fanell, former naval intelligence officer and an expert on China.
He gave the example of the Aegis Combat System deployed on U.S.-guided missile cruisers and destroyers. It automatically detects and tracks aerial targets and launches missiles to shoot them down. Normally, a human operator controls the missile launches, but there’s also a way to switch it to automatic mode, such as when there’s too many targets for the human operator to track. The system then identifies and destroys targets on its own, Fanell said.
In mass drone warfare, where an AI coordinates thousands of drones in a systematic attack, the side that gives its AI autonomy to shoot will gain a major speed advantage over the side where humans must approve each shot.
“On the individual shooting level, people have to give up control because they can’t really make all the decisions so quickly,” Ma said.
De Ridder pointed out that a drone shooting another drone on its own would be morally acceptable. But that could unleash a lot of autonomous shooting on a battlefield where there may be humans too, opening the door to untold collateral casualties.
No Rules
Whatever AI safeguards may be practicable, the CCP is unlikely to abide by them anyway, most of the experts agreed.
“I don’t really see there will be any boundaries for China to be cautious about,” Ma said. “Whatever is possible, they will do it.”
“The idea that China would constrain themselves in the use of it, I don’t see that,” Fanell said.
“They’re going to try to take advantage of it and be able to exploit it faster than we can.”
The human-in-the-loop principle could simply be reinterpreted to apply to “a bigger, whole battle level” rather than “the individual shooting level,” Ma said.
But once one accepts that AI can start shooting on its own in some circumstances, the principle of human control becomes malleable, Fanell said.
“If you’re willing to accept that in a tactical sense, who’s to say you won’t take it all the way up to the highest level of warfare?” he said.
“It’s the natural evolution of a technology like this, and I’m not sure what we can do to stop it. It’s not like you’re going to have a code of ethics that says in warfare [let’s abide by] the Marquess of Queensberry Rules of boxing. It’s not going to happen.”
Even if humans are kept in control of macro decisions, such as whether to launch a particular mission, AI can easily dominate the decision-making process, multiple experts agreed.
The danger wouldn’t be a poorly performing AI but rather one that works so well that it instills trust in the human operators.
De Ridder was skeptical of prognostications about superintelligent AI that vastly exceeds humans. He acknowledged, though, that AI obviously exceeds humans in some regards, particularly speed. It can crunch mountains of data and spit out a conclusion almost immediately.
It’s virtually impossible to figure out how exactly an AI comes to its conclusions, according to Ma and Qiu.
De Ridder said that he and others are working on ways to restrict AI to a human-like workflow, so the individual steps of its reasoning are more transparent.
But given the incredible amount of data involved, it would be impossible for the AI to explain how each piece of information factored into its reasoning without overwhelming the operator, Ma acknowledged.
“If the human operator clearly knows this is a decision [produced] after the AI processed terabytes of data, he won’t really have the courage to overrule that in most cases. So I guess yes, it will be formality,” he said.
“Human in the loop is a comfortable kind of phrase, but in reality, humans will give up control quickly.”
Public Pressure
Even if humans are kept in the loop only nominally, it’s still important, De Ridder said.
“As long as we keep humans in the loop, we can keep humans accountable,” he said.
Indeed, all the experts agreed that public pressure is likely to constrain AI weapon development and use, at least in the United States.
Ma gave the example of Google terminating a defense contract over the objections of its staff.
He couldn’t envision an analogous situation in China, though.
Qiu agrees.
“Anything inside China is a resource the CCP can leverage,” he said. “You cannot say, ‘Oh, this is a private company.’ There is no private company per se [in China].”
Even the CCP cannot dispose of public sentiment altogether, De Ridder said.
“The government can only survive if the population wants to collaborate.”
But there’s no indication that the Chinese populace sees AI military use as an urgent concern.
On the contrary, companies and universities in China appear to be eager to pick up military contracts, Ma said.
De Ridder called for “an international regulatory framework that can be enforced.”
It’s not clear how such regulations could be enforced against China, which has a long history of refusing any limits on its military development. The United States has long vainly attempted to bring China to the table on nuclear disarmament. Recently, China refused a U.S. request to guarantee that it wouldn’t use AI for nuclear strike decisions.
If the United States regulates its own AI development, it could create a strategic vulnerability, multiple experts suggested.
“Those regulations will be very well studied by the CCP and used as an attack tool,” Qiu said.
Even if some kind of agreement is reached, the CCP has a poor track record of keeping promises, according to Thayer.
“Any agreement is a pie crust made to be broken.”
Solutions
De Ridder says he hopes that perhaps nations would settle for using AI in less destructive ways.
“There’s a lot of ways that you can use AI to achieve your objectives that does not involve sending a swarm of killer drones to each other,” he said.
“When push comes to shove, nobody wants these conflicts to happen.”
The other experts believed, however, that the CCP wouldn’t mind starting such a conflict—as long as it would see a clear path to victory.
“The Chinese are not going to be constrained by our ruleset,” Fanell said. “They’re going to do whatever it takes to win.”
Reliance on the whispers of an AI military advisor, one that instills confidence by processing mountains of data and producing convincing battle plans, could be particularly dangerous as it may create a vision of victory where there previously wasn’t one, according to Thayer.
“You can see how that might be very attractive to a decision maker, especially one that is hyper aggressive, as is the CCP,” Thayer said. “It may make aggression more likely.”
“There’s only one way to stop it, which is to be able to defeat it,” Fanell said.
Chuck de Caro, former consultant for the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, recently called for the United States to develop electromagnetic weapons that could disable computer chips. It may even be possible to develop energy weapons that could disable a particular kind of chips, he wrote in a Blaze op-ed.
“Obviously, without functioning chips, AI doesn’t work.”
Another option might be to develop an AI superweapon that could serve as a deterrent.
“Is there an AI Manhattan Project that the U.S. is doing that can create the effect that Nagasaki and Hiroshima would have on the PRC and the Chinese Communist Party, which is to bring them to the realization that, ‘Okay, maybe we don’t want to go there. This is mutually assured destruction?’ I don’t know. But that’s what I would be [doing],” Fanell said.
That could leave the world in a Cold War-like stand-off—hardly an ideal state, but one likely seen as preferable to abnegating military advantage to the CCP.
“Every country knows it’s dangerous, but nobody can stop because they are afraid they will be left behind,” Ma said.
De Ridder’s says it might take a profound shock to halt the AI arms race.
“We might need like a world war, with immense human tragedy, to ban the use of autonomous AI killing machines,” he said.
