The White House has responded to a new letter sent to President Joe Biden by a group of 30 Progressive Democrats urging what they dubbed a dramatic shift in policy on Ukraine toward prioritizing diplomacy with an aim to urgently get the warring parties at the negotiating table.

“We’ve been very clear: Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Monday in response to the letter, adding that “this is a decision that President Zelensky is going to have to make when it comes to any type of conversation with Russia, any type of negotiation.”

Rep. Pramila Jayapal had warned in leading the group’s letter, which was also singed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, “The longer the war in Ukraine goes on, the greater the risk of escalation — to widespread, devastating effect.” She said “my colleagues and I are urging the Administration to engage in a proactive diplomatic push in an effort to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire.” 

The letter had also warned of the possibility of nuclear war, especially if the US doesn’t make efforts toward a diplomatic track with Russia, but many have also noted the glaring contradictions – such as talk of still supporting ongoing massive military aid to the Ukrainians. 

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby also responded Monday, stressing that “We’re not going to have conversations with the Russian leadership without the Ukrainians being represented.” He added, according to The Washington Post, “Mr. Zelensky gets to determine – because it’s his country – what success looks like and when to negotiate.” Kirby explained that while the White House “appreciates [the lawmakers’] very thoughtful concerns,” it remains that Russia’s Putin could choose to end the conflict “at any time.”

The Democrats’ letter was further mocked by a handful of pundits highlighting its contradictions, and that it was more about optics in order to satisfy far left constituents: 

The two-page statement points to the death and destruction Russia’s war in Ukraine is causing in Ukraine and the harmful effects it is having outside the war zone, acknowledges that engaging with Russia is difficult, and reiterates that any resolution needs to be “acceptable to the people of Ukraine.” A lot of people were confused.

The letter “is remarkable in that it mostly calls for what the U.S. is already doing — arming Ukraine, wanting a diplomatic solution, recognizing Russia isn’t currently open to one — but presents this as if it would be a big change,” writes University of Illinois political scientist Nicholas Grossman. The CPC’s concerns “seem to be more about vibes than the actual policy, which makes the pre-election timing particularly curious,” agrees political journalist Ben Jacobs. Talking Point Memo’s Josh Marshall calls the letter’s arguments “completely incoherent” and “contradictory on the key points.”

There is no “dramatic shift” urged in this letter. Rather: the opposite. It’s just PR by the Progressives™ to show they’re politely suggesting diplomacy, which Biden will say he already agrees with. They threaten no tangible legislative action, and endorse the policy status quo https://t.co/RmrGM0woY3

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) October 24, 2022

All of this prompted Jayapal to issue a statement in follow-up, perhaps walking back or seeking to clarify elements of the letter…

“In a letter to President Biden today, my colleagues and I advocated for the administration to continue ongoing military and economic support for Ukrainians while pursuing diplomatic support to Ukraine to ensure we are helpful partners on efforts to reach ‘a solution that is acceptable to the people of Ukraine.’ Let me be clear: we are united as Democrats in our unequivocal commitment to supporting Ukraine in their fight for their democracy and freedom in the face of the illegal and outrageous Russian invasion, and nothing in the letter advocates for a change in that support.”

She continued, “Diplomacy is an important tool that can save lives — but it is just one tool. As we also made explicitly clear in our letter and will continue to make clear, we support President Biden and his administration’s commitment to nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”

Indeed the follow-up statement does appear to be a walk-back, blunting the initial call urging negotiations or else escalation toward nuclear confrontation looms – as the message of the initial letter emphasized. As journalist Glenn Greenwald observes, while there are some good and rare points on diplomacy that were raised, it remains that “the Progressives’ letter postures as opposition but isn’t really.”

Via The Cradle,

More than one million people have become victims of forced displacement and have not received adequate compensation as old neighborhoods are being demolished in the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to make way for luxury hotels and entertainment venues, according to human rights groups.

On December 2021, the Saudi Public Investment Fund — chaired by Crown Prince and newly appointed Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) — announced the launch of a development project called ‘Jeddah Central,’ which would include a museum, an opera house, a stadium, an aquarium, hotels, and new residential neighborhoods.

Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a US-based rights group, stated that “while the Riyadh regime is expected to spend more than $20 billion on the ambitious plan, very little of that amount has been allocated to compensate the 1.5 million people who have lost or will lose their homes and livelihoods,” according to PressTV.

A research conducted by DAWN concluded that “the Saudi forced displacements are in violation of international law since the measures are incompatible with internationally recognized legal principles to guarantee and protect the population’s rights.”

France 24 reported that Saudi authorities have carried out demolitions in some 60 different neighborhoods, mostly located in the southern part of the city. Demolitions are expected to continue and more neighborhoods are expected to be affected in the coming months.

The revelations come just days after it was revealed that Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court sentenced three members of the Howeitat tribe to death a few weeks ago, for resisting their forced eviction and displacement from the country’s northwestern Tabuk region.

Projected plan for MbS’ controversial NEOM project…

The three tribesmen, Shadli, Atallah, and Ibrahim al-Howeiti, were detained in 2020 for speaking out against the eviction of their tribe from the area, which was cleared by Saudi authorities in order to make way for the Neom project.

The Neom project, announced in 2017 by MbS, is a $500 billion megacity (some other estimates put it well over $1 trillion) being built in the Tabuk region, which plans to serve as a “technological hub and tourist destination.”

* * *

Saudi Arabia’s NEOM city design…

Last week we pointed out a bizarre development off the coast of the energy starved European continent: some 35 LNG carriers were idling off the coast of Spain (the country which has six LNG import and regasification terminals and is the biggest LNG importer in the EU).

As Reuters put it, the tanker pileup highlighted Europe’s problem with LNG import capacity that prompted Germany to urgently strike a deal for the construction of two floating facilities so it can receive LNG directly: the region has had to find alternative supplies, including LNG, but the arrival of multiple cargoes of the superchilled fuel has exposed Europe’s lack of “regasification” capacity, as plants that convert the seaborne fuel back to gas are operating at maximum limit.

If the backlog is not cleared soon those ships may start looking for alternative ports outside Europe to offload their cargo.

Meanwhile, there is more LNG floating off the European coast, Reuters reported, citing more sources, suggesting the 35-strong tanker crowd off Spain is only part of the actual pile-up.

“Floating storage levels in LNG shipping is at all time high levels with slightly more than 2.5 million tonnes tied up in floating storage,” Flex LNG Management chief executive Oystein Kalleklev told Reuters.

Add to the epic pileup of LNG tankers the fact that most of Europe’s storage facilities are almost full ahead of the winter (As of Sunday, EU storage facilities were 93.4% full, with the continent’s two biggest markets, Germany and Italy, recording even higher levels), and couple that with weather forecasts suggesting that temperatures in continental Europe will be between 4 and 8 degrees Celsius warmer than the seasonal average this week, implying lower demand, and the result was a sharp drop in European nat gas futures.

At one point in the morning, front-month Dutch TTF futures, which serve as a benchmark for northwest Europe, were down over 10% at 101.39 euros a megawatt-hour, having opened at a new four-month low of 100 EUR/MWh.

But what is more remarkable is that the lack of storage availability – similar to what happened in April 2020 when WTI briefly traded as far negative as -$40 – has forced ultra-short term spot prices to collapse as those assigned delivery (without a place to store the gas) were literally paying others to take the gas off their hands!

The risk of an unlikely April 2020 WTI moment in EU #gas spot month gas continues to linger amid strong imports, warm weather and demand destruction. So far, however, only the “next hour” price has gone negative. https://t.co/aSgXY1ks7d

— Ole S Hansen (@Ole_S_Hansen) October 24, 2022

And sure enough, early on Monday, the “next hour”  TTF contract briefly dipped as far negative as -€15.78, the lowest on record as there was simply nowhere to park the nat gas.

Still, just like the negative WTI print in April 2020 was an historic outlier, so don’t expect today’s negative “next hour” gas print to become a frequent occurrence, especially since the more conventional (one month, etc) European winter prices remain very high amid continued uncertainty over the fate of European gas, because while the winter of 2022 may avoid the worst case scenario (which again will depend on just how cold the coming winter will be), it is the winter of 2023 where all bets are off.

Authored by Hans Mahncke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A new study on the origins of the pandemic, “Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV2,” published on the preprint server bioRxiv, concludes that it is highly likely that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 originated in a laboratory. The odds of a natural origin, according to the study, are placed at less than 1 in 100 million.

Unlike previous studies that analyzed qualitative aspects such as virus features, the new study for the first time assesses the likelihood of a laboratory origin on a quantitative basis. This breakthrough methodology allowed the authors to present objective findings that appear to exceed any previous studies. 

Significantly, the new study does not rely on any of the known evidence pointing toward a lab origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. For instance, it does not take into consideration the highly unusual Furin Cleavage Site that makes the virus particularly virulent and which it is widely thought to have been inserted into the virus at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Nor does it factor in the huge coincidence that the pandemic started on the door steps of the world’s premier coronavirus laboratory

Instead, the authors—Valentin Bruttel, a molecular immunologist at the University of Würzburg in Germany; Alex Washburne, a mathematical biologist at Selva Science; and Antonius VanDongen, a pharmacologist at Duke University—took a novel approach that assesses the genesis of the SARS-CoV-2 virus from an entirely new angle. The authors examined tiny fingerprints left behind in the process in which viruses are assembled in laboratories. While use of seamless genetic engineering techniques in creating viruses in laboratories typically conceals evidence of manipulation, the new study developed a statistical process for uncovering such hidden evidence by comparing the distribution of certain strands of genetic code in wild viruses and lab-made viruses. 

When viruses are constructed in a lab, they are typically assembled by piecing together various virus parts. According to a blog post from Washburne that accompanied the release of the study, it is like taking Mr. Potato Head from the movie Toy Story and replacing his arms with the arms of GI Joe to help “us study things like whether GI Joe arms provide any clear benefit for an important task in the virus life cycle like lifting weights.”

In other words, one of the main purposes of manipulating viruses is to better understand which parts of viruses make them particularly infectious, lethal, or transmissible. A related purpose is to develop bioweapons but the authors of the new study reject the idea that that is why SARS-CoV-2 was made. They believe that the virus “was assembled in a lab via common methods used to assemble infectious clones pre-COVID.”

A recent experiment at Boston University is an example of piecing together virus parts. Researchers created a COVID-19 variant that killed 80 percent of exposed mice using the backbone of the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 virus and replacing its spike gene with that from the Omicron variant. Put another way, the Boston lab created a COVID-19 version of Frankenstein’s monster by piecing together different parts from different variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.  

Piecing together viruses in labs is subject to limitations. The genetic information for SARS-CoV-2 is contained in 30,000 base pairs of RNA nucleotides. However, the 30,000 base pairs are not pieced together all at once. Instead, laboratory viruses are assembled from a collection of smaller strands of base pairs that are later “glued” back together as chimeras, or compounds. Enzymes are used to cut viruses apart at certain points along the DNA strand (laboratories use DNA instead of RNA as it is more stable; the assembled DNA is then added to bacteria that create RNA viruses). 

Enzymes are proteins that cut through DNA strands at specific recognition sites. These recognition sites, or cutting sites, are the genetic sequences within DNA strands that are sought out by the enzymes. Enzymes are like biological scissors that cut only at particular cutting sites marked by sequences that are recognized by particular enzymes. 

Since cutting sites look like normal sequences of nucleotides, they can be found on RNA strands of naturally occurring viruses as well as on lab-made viruses. This is why this form of genetic engineering leaves no seams or obvious fingerprints. However, there is an important difference between cutting sites on wild-type and lab-made viruses that the authors exploited. Naturally occurring cutting sites are not necessarily located where scientists want them to be. Laboratories therefore routinely insert cutting sites in favorable locations and remove them from unfavorable locations.

While naturally occurring cutting sites and cutting sites added in a lab are biologically indistinguishable, Bruttel, Washburne and VanDongen hypothesized that they could detect a “very subtle but identifiable fingerprint” by plotting the distribution of the cutting sites on the SARS-CoV-2 virus. They would then compare this to the distribution of such sites on wild-type SARS viruses, as well as on other, pre-pandemic lab-made SARS viruses. They carried out their analyses for the most commonly used enzymes (biological “scissors”) which, according to a series of pre-pandemic publications from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, were also used for experiments in the Wuhan lab.

The results of the new study are stark. While cutting sites on wild-type SARS viruses are randomly distributed, they tend to be regularly spaced on pre-pandemic lab-made viruses, as well as on SARS-CoV-2. So the authors found that regular spacing suggests that the location of the cutting sites was manipulated in a lab.

The new study also compared the length of the longest segments seen in wild-type viruses and lab-made viruses. The longest segments in wild-type viruses are far longer than any found in lab-made viruses, including in SARS-CoV-2. The findings again pointed to a lab origin for COVID-19.

The longest segments in lab-made viruses were found to be unusually short. As previously noted, the process of genetically engineering viruses requires scientists to use several shorter segments, which are then pieced together. Natural viruses are not pieced together and thus the length of segments is randomly determined and includes very short and very long segments. 

Bruttel, Washburne, and VanDongen estimate that the odds that the SARS-CoV-2 virus arose naturally lie between 1 in 100 and 1 in 1,400. However, this estimate only factors in the distribution of cutting sites. The authors also observed a concentration of mutations within the cutting sites that was “extremely unlikely in wild coronaviruses and nearly universal in synthetic viruses.” The estimate drops to a 1 in 100 million chance that SARS-CoV-2 was a naturally-occurring virus if these mutations are factored in. When considering additional criteria, such as the fact that the “sticky ends” where the viruses are “glued” back together all happen to fit perfectly, the authors estimate the odds of a natural origin to be even lower. 

The authors conclude that SARS-CoV-2 was assembled in a lab using common methods for assembling viruses. The authors do not speculate on which lab the virus escaped from.

In response to the new study, Kristian Andersen, the leading author of the Proximal Origin paper—the Dr. Anthony Fauci-led effort to dispel the lab leak theory—went on Twitter to slam the new study as “kindergarten molecular biology.” Andersen’s criticism is that cutting sites are common in naturally occurring SARS viruses. However, this criticism does not explain the very unusual placement of cutting sites in SARS-CoV-2.

Read more here…

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

• LNG tanker rates are surging as European demand for liquified gas soars.

• Tanker rates are also soaring because traders use tankers as floating storage facilities.

• Freeport LNG could return to normal operations by the end of next month.

European countries have boasted that their gas storage facilities have been filled at higher than usual levels before the start of winter. Yet more LNG cargos are arriving in Europe at such rates that they are jamming ports. And freight rates are through the roof, adding to already record LNG prices. Earlier this week, media reported that there were more than 30 LNG tankers idling off the coast of Spain, waiting to unload at one of its regasification terminals. Clearly, these terminals were not sufficient for the surge of LNG imports into the country, which sports the most LNG import terminals in Europe, at a total of six.

Yet Spain is not the only one in an “exceptional operational situation,” as the government in Madrid called it.

There are dozens of LNG tankers waiting to unload or serving as floating storage near other European ports as well. And as the LNG rush to Europe continues, an LNG tanker shortage is looming large.

“Every natural-gas buyer who is serious has taken LNG carriers into their portfolio,” Jefferies shipping research head Omar Nokta told the Wall Street Journal.

“There is very limited capacity out there and it’s super expensive to get.”

It’s the oldest of laws about supply and demand at work, but this same law is also pushing freight rates for LNG carriers sky-high, which is adding to already substantial LNG import bills in Europe and Asia.

According to Baltic Exchange data cited in the Wall Street Journal report, spot market LNG tanker rates have gone up sixfold since the start of the year, reaching $450,000 per day this week.

Brokers expect this to rise further to half a million dollars daily as demand remains strong ahead of winter. And that might not be the ceiling because one UK brokerage has forecast freight rates could soar to as much as $1 million per day before the year’s end.

An additional factor making the shipment of LNG more expensive is that a substantial portion of the available LNG fleet is currently being used as floating storage as traders await the price of the commodity to go higher still as winter begins. The Reuters report about the LNG tanker jams noted that LNG prices for delivery in November and December are $2 mmBtu higher than current prices.

The jams are also turning some of the tankers waiting to unload into floating storage, at least temporarily, helped by a dip in demand because of warmer-than-usual weather in Spain and lower industrial demand for gas across Europe because of the slowdown in economic activity, which in turn was caused by the gas shortage that began last year.

There’s more expensive news on the horizon, too. The restart of Freeport LNG, which shut down after a fire in June, hurting the affordability and availability aspects of Europe’s new-found LNG addiction, could be delayed.

Rystad Energy, the Norwegian energy consultancy, forecast recently that Freeport LNG could return to normal operations by the end of next month, but added that there is still the possibility of a delay. This delay, Rystad noted, could push gas prices higher in the United States. Higher U.S. gas prices would automatically increase LNG prices for the international market as well.

This is happening as the European Union tries to put its foot down and say it will install a ceiling on LNG prices. A proposal to that effect was made this week by the Commission and was discussed by European leaders at a meeting that took place on Thursday.

Even before the meeting, an agreement was unlikely as member states are split on the issue, but the push to tame gas prices and consequently, inflation is strong and some form of price control might end up being agreed to reduce the price pain.

There is some silver lining despite all the bad price news. China’s LNG imports are expected to decline sharply due to weak demand and high spot market prices, which will free up more cargos for Europe. It’s only too bad it cannot build more LNG import terminals in weeks.

The Israeli Air Force reportedly destroyed an Iranian drone factory during a bombing raid on Syrian territory on Friday, coming at a moment that Iran-manufactured drones are focus on international attention for their alleged use by Russian forces in Ukraine.

The attack is being described as the first such Israeli operation in Syria in a month. Prior to this latest attack, Israeli attacks on Syria had come almost weekly. But Israel’s Haaretz in describing this new operation presented “a more complicated picture of a drone manufacturing and weapons storage site not far from Lebanon and Israel’s borders,” citing an external war monitor.

As is typical with Israeli actions, the aim was reportedly to disrupt an Iranian arms manufacturing operation believed to be supplying Hezbollah.

According to Newsmax, “The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the facility assembled unmanned vehicles whose parts were manufactured in Iran and then secretly shipped to Dimas in southern Syria, according to news outlets Ynet and Haaretz.”

The alleged drone and weapons manufacturing site also appeared an ideal target for Israeli forces as the depot wasn’t far from Lebanon and Israel’s borders. No casualties were officially reported as a result.

As for alleged Iranian drone use inside Ukraine, Russia has continued its official denials, particularly in the face of calls for a UN Security Council investigation. According to a weekend Associated Press update: 

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the drones are Russian and warned that an investigation would violate the U.N. Charter and seriously affect relations between Russia and the United Nations.

U.S. deputy ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis said that “the U.N. must investigate any violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions — and we must not allow Russia or others to impede or threaten the U.N. from carrying out its mandated responsibilities.”

The US push at the UN comes following two weeks of dozens of Ukrainian cities and towns coming under stepped-up aerial attacks by cruise missiles as well as drones. 

Israel bombed equipment used to assemble Iranian-made drones in #Syria near Damascus airport.

A radar and airstrip were also targeted at the airport. However, no casualties have been reported so far.https://t.co/B5aRwDspsp

— Joshua Landis (@joshua_landis) October 23, 2022

Ukraine and the US say they can prove Russia is using them, citing that Ukrainian forces have lately shot down at least 16 Shahed-136 ‘Kamikaze drones supplied from Iran. US and allied investigators are reportedly analyzing the wreckage of the drones.

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MIshTalk.com,

Gear up for a cold Winter in France. The protests have started already…

Nuclear reactor image from WSJ Tweet below

Pipe corrosion, maintenance, and labor unrest have nearly half of French nuclear reactors offline. 

France is falling behind in its plans to return the country’s nuclear reactors to full power this winter after a rash of outages https://t.co/3Xi7CZPmeJ

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) October 23, 2022

The result is France’s Worst Energy Crisis Since the 1970s.

Twenty-six of France’s 56 nuclear reactors are offline for maintenance or because of corrosion on piping that cools the reactor cores. Fixing the corrosion is taking longer than expected at several reactors, delaying their restart by as much as six weeks, according to regulatory filings and a French nuclear executive familiar with the matter.

Labor unrest is another obstacle. Strikes at 18 reactors owned by EDF SA, France’s state-controlled power giant, have delayed their restart by several weeks, threatening the government’s plans to have all of them back online by the end of the winter. EDF and union leaders said they reached an agreement Friday on salary increases, ending the strikes.

EDF, the world’s largest owner of nuclear plants, is one of Western Europe’s most important power companies. Its fleet of reactors normally exports large quantities of low-cost nuclear power to neighboring countries, helping stabilize prices across the region.

The situation changed drastically this year, when France swung from being one of Europe’s largest exporters of electricity to a net importer because of the outages at its reactors. The rash of outages has officials worried that France and the broader region might run short of electricity in the winter, when power demand in Europe peaks.

The outages have forced EDF to absorb huge losses because the company was forced to buy replacement power on Europe’s wholesale market, where prices have soared, for sale to retail clients at much lower prices.

Labor Unions Call for General Strike

Labor unions in France are calling for a general strike to protest soaring inflationpic.twitter.com/ELhy6sfEQ8

— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) October 18, 2022

Protests in France, Italy Holland

Protests are still going in Europe in France, Italy, Holland and
The home of the EU, Brussels, packed to the rafters with people protesting against EU green policies killing the farming industry, the WEF, amongst other things. pic.twitter.com/Q1yOThRFAr

— Awake in Belfast (@AwakeinBelfast) October 16, 2022

Irritated Farmers Dump Merde

In France, irritated farmers dump you know what on the street to protest worsening economic conditions and surging inflation. Pres. Macron is in trouble.pic.twitter.com/WFVv0pydCu

— Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) October 22, 2022

Protests in France, Serbia, Germany, Italy, and Spain

🇫🇷🇷🇸🇩🇪🇮🇹🇪🇸 Protests against government policies in almost all of Europe! France, Serbia, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc. People are beginning to understand, despite media manipulation: EU policies have brought poverty, hunger and cold. 😨 pic.twitter.com/XSfZ2r3SWR

— 🅰pocalypsis 🅰pocalypseos 🇷🇺 🇨🇳 🅉 (@apocalypseos) October 17, 2022

Check Out This Line of People in France

140,000 people took part in the France protest.
There were calls for France to withdraw from NATO.
Leftists and trade unions organized protests against soaring living costs, inflation EU NATO #France #Parispic.twitter.com/vWVbqziEFh

— UkraineNews (@Ukraine66251776) October 19, 2022

140,000 people took part in the France protest. There were calls for France to withdraw from NATO. Leftists and trade unions organized protests against soaring living costs, inflation EU NATO 

Just a Prelude

If those reactors don’t come back on line in time, and that’s a good bet, things are going to get really messy in Europe.

*  *  *

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Authored by Roger Garside via The Epoch Times,

When Xi Jinping’s predecessor as leader of China and its Communist Party, Hu Jintao, was removed from the closing session of the Party Congress on Oct. 22 in full view of the 2,300 delegates, it was a demonstration to the world that Xi had swept aside all rivals and is now the undisputed ruler of the nation.

Yet, in his political report to the Congress, Xi listed an array of deep-seated problems, which his victory does nothing to resolve because they are the product of the political system he is determined to defend. Indeed, his victory will exacerbate these problems because in choosing subordinates, he has given priority to loyalty to him over experience and competence in government.

More importantly, the problems have essentially been caused by the very political system that Xi and his supporters are ever more determined to defend. They include economic problems like the debt mountain, an ecological catastrophe, a “zero-COVID” strategy that has led to isolation and perpetual lockdown, and the increasing hostility of the United States and its allies.

China’s body politic is terminally sick. It is like a person suffering from an advanced stage of uremia who can only be saved by a kidney transplant. China requires a political transplant: a democratic revolution.

Instead of systemic change, Xi has chosen a trajectory that has intensified China’s problems. He has replaced the “reform and opening” of Deng Xiaoping with regression and closure. He prioritizes state-owned enterprises over the private sector that produces the wealth. To rule, he relies upon techno-totalitarianism, not trust. His premature strategic challenge to the United States and its allies has turned their benign partnership into hostility and distrust. In all this, he is alienating 500 million Chinese who produce wealth, and enjoyed the newfound freedoms to create businesses, and travel and study abroad that Deng’s strategy brought them.

As unsolved problems give birth to crises – the debt mountain led first to the collapse of the property sector, and now to a slow-motion financial crisis – Xi will intensify confrontation with the United States and its allies, to mobilize nationalist sentiment behind him, exploiting the chauvinism long nurtured by the regime. This will be very dangerous for the world. Xi will be surrounded by yes-men who will not dare to restrain him.

We cannot sit back and wait for China’s autocracy to implode. We must be proactive.

We have great assets to mobilize, such as the world’s major reserve currencies, capital markets, pools of investment finance, and centers of scientific and technological creativity. After a slow start, the United States is taking decisive action; its allies must follow suit.

We cannot dictate how China is governed, but we can enable those Chinese who want systemic change to achieve it. Occasions such as the 20th Congress give a false picture. This is a regime that is outwardly strong and inwardly weak. If Xi were truly strong, he would not need to have his predecessor dragged out of the Congress. If the Party were truly confident, it would submit itself to the judgment of the people in free elections in place of this charade of strength and unity.

Australia is experiencing the third consecutive year of La Nina — an oceanic and atmospheric phenomenon that usually brings above-average rainfall to the country. Cooling of the western Indian Ocean is one of the drivers of La Nina and has transformed deserts into wetlands this year. 

“With a third consecutive La Nina period on the way for only the fourth time since records began, large parts of Australia have seen unrelenting rainfall with little chance for the ground to dry up,” according to the Australian website news.com.au.

Sydney has already exceeded rainfall records dating back more than a century. The recent deluge of wet weather has been a relief for a country battling extreme drought, which sparked intense wildfires in 2019-20. 

Rain has transformed deserts into areas overflowing with water in the country’s remote central region, especially in Channel Country, Queensland. 

 One cattle farmer about 300 miles West of Charleville told The Australian he was ‘blessed’ with rain. 

“We couldn’t ask for anything better. We’re getting good rains at the right time,” farmer Nathan Keogh said.

“The stars couldn’t have aligned more perfectly. The cattle are fat and the pastures couldn’t be better.

“It lifts everybody’s spirits. It can be hard out here in drought times, but this is a game-changer. It’s a lot easier when it’s green.”

Another area in Channel Country shows rivers coming to life after all the rainfall. 

“The region experiences flooding rains roughly once a decade, which spread across floodplains through Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory into Lake Eyre, bringing out some of the most unique wildflower scenery in the country,” news.com.au explained. 

And mainstream media outlets like WaPo cite researchers who blame “climate change” for Australia’s flooding. We will note the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, stating: “El Nino and La Nina are naturally occurring climate patterns and humans have no direct ability to influence their onset, intensity or duration.” 

And for those wondering what type of weather La Nina will bring to the Western Hemisphere … read “When Can You Expect El Niño And La Niña?”