Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times,

New Olympic guidelines emphasize the “inclusion” of transgender athletes, disqualifying them only after finding proof of “an unfair and disproportionate advantage,” which officials in each sport will define.

“Athletes should be allowed to compete in the category that best aligns with their self-determined gender identity,” the International Olympic Committee (IOC) declares in its Dec. 16 position paper.

Published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the statement represents the most recent step in a decades-long evolution of policies affecting female athletes.

The effects could be far-reaching because the IOC sets the tone for sports in community groups, high schools, and universities across the globe.

With the latest update, the IOC was trying to further explain the controversial transgender-related principles that the organization issued in November 2021. That document declared “no presumption of advantage” for male-to-female competitors, triggering a backlash.

Instead of clarifying the situation, the IOC appears to have sparked more confusion and resentment among some prominent female athletes.

‘Total Disregard’ For Women

Ex-Olympians fear that, by clearing the path for biological males to infiltrate women’s categories further, the IOC could cause women’s sports to deteriorate and eventually die. Faced with seemingly unbeatable biological male competitors, fewer girls and women are likely to participate, drying up the talent pool.

Mara Yamauchi, a two-time Olympic marathoner for the United Kingdom, reacted on Twitter to the IOC’s latest statement. She wrote:  “Its total disregard for women and girls made me so angry I was shaking.”

Former Olympians Sharron Davies (R) and Mara Yamauchi (L), outspoken advocates for women’s sports, spoke at a women’s conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, on June 16, 2022. (Andrew Milligan/PA)

Yamauchi interpreted the IOC’s update this way: “We will destroy your sports, Ladies, but you are so totally worthless we won’t bother asking your views.”

However, the IOC said the guidelines included input from “all athletes, including trans athletes and athletes with sex variations, as well as human rights, legal, scientific and medical experts.”

Transgender activists applauded the IOC for its transgender-friendly stance; several Twitter users repeated the phrase:  “All kids deserve to have access to sport.”

No Presumption of Advantage

Last year’s IOC guidelines stirred controversy, mainly because of the “no-presumption-of-advantage” declaration for male-to-female transgender athletes.

The guidelines stated: No athlete should be excluded from competition based on “an unverified, alleged or perceived unfair competitive advantage” arising from transgender status or physical appearance. “Sex variations,” apparently referring to genetic or physiological differences, also should not be factors.

Ex-Olympians protested, pointing to several well-recognized studies showing that, when compared to biological females, biological males tend to possess superior speed, strength, and stamina–just a few of the advantages that can enhance sports performance.

In 2017, researchers in Israel reported finding more than 3,500 genetic-encoded differences between males and females.

Some people say they don’t need a study to tell them what they see in daily life: observable performance contrasts between males and females.

That’s why much public debate has swirled around biological males who identify as transgender and compete in women’s sports.

Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas (2L) of Penn University and transgender swimmer Iszac Henig (L) of Yale pose with their medals after placing first and second in the 100-yard freestyle swimming race at the 2022 Ivy League Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on Feb. 19, 2022. (Joseph Prezioso/Getty Images)

In recent months, such athletes drew international attention, including U.S. swimmer Lia Thomas, British bicyclist Emily Bridges and New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard. Some people celebrated these athletes as pioneers. Others cried foul.

The IOC’s new statement concedes that restrictions or exclusion may be appropriate for some transgender athletes. Noting that the impact of biological differences may differ from one sport to another, the IOC is allowing each sport’s governing body to put together its own rules.

The IOC says those officials should work with experts “in identifying the metrics and data that may be relevant to defining fair and proportionate advantage in competition.”

Decades-Long Evolution

Since the modern Olympic era began in 1896, Olympic authorities have acknowledged sex-based differences among competitors.

In 1900, the first female athletes competed in the Olympic Games in Paris, France. Ironically, that’s the same location where the 2024 Summer Olympics will be held with the new transgender guidelines in effect, possibly to the detriment of many female sports, critics say.

Since at least the 1930s, people periodically complained about males possibly posing as females in Olympic competitions. As a result, mandatory sex-related tests for female Olympic competitors began in 1968.

The chromosome-based tests were denounced as degrading and sometimes inaccurate. Further, some critics viewed them as harmful to women’s sports.

“Testing evolved into a tool to identify—and eliminate—athletes the IOC deemed too strong, too fast, or too successful,” according to a summary of a 2016 book by author Lindsay Parks Pieper.

In this Aug. 9, 2008, file photo, China’s Chen Xiexia holds up 90kg in the snatch of the women’s 48kg weightlifting competition at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China. In 2017, she and other athletes from that Olympiad tested positive for banned substances and were stripped of their medals. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

The IOC voted in 1999 to discontinue mandatory sex tests for females. Some people reasoned that anti-doping regulations, which led to blood or urine screens for banned “performance-enhancing drugs,” would reduce the chances that an athlete could get away with posing as the opposite gender.

Starting with the 2004 Olympics, however, the IOC declared that transsexuals should be allowed to compete in female sports two years after completing sex-reassignment surgeries.

These athletes also needed female hormone therapy long enough to minimize “gender-related advantages,” the IOC wrote at the time. Each transgender athlete would face “a confidential, case-by-case evaluation.”

Testosterone Hotly Debated

For the 2012 Olympics, female athletes of questionable biological sex were required to undergo testosterone tests. The athletes were disqualified if their levels of that masculinizing hormone exceeded a certain level—a requirement some people saw as unfair to athletes with high naturally occurring testosterone levels.

Four years later, the IOC made another change affecting female sports: no reassignment surgery needed for male-to-female competitors. Testosterone limits still applied.

Transgender rights group members protest against an “Our Bodies, Our Sports” rally at the Freedom Plaza in Washington on June 23, 2022. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)

Now the situation is less clear-cut.

The new IOC document acknowledges that testosterone level “may be an important factor” in some sports. But testosterone tests alone shouldn’t drive decisions on whether to disqualify or limit an athlete, the IOC says.

In a “frequently asked questions” section of its website, the IOC points out that some biological males have become elite athletes despite testosterone levels that were so low, they were considered to be in the “normal” range for biological females.

Therefore, “athletic performance varies independently of an individual athlete’s testosterone levels,” the IOC said. “There is thus no scientific consensus on how testosterone levels can be used across sports to define unfair and disproportionate advantage.”

Female Rights Ignored?

Cathy Devine, a British researcher specializing in sports policy, wrote on Twitter about the latest update: “The IOC has been forced into making some concessions: damage limitation.”

But Devine wrote, “IOC is still ignoring the human rights of female athletes.”

She added: “Female categories should be for females only. This upholds the international human rights framework which protects equality and non-discrimination against females on the basis of sex (means as compared with males).”

The Olympic Charter says that engaging in sports is a human right.

But transgender athletes must overcome barriers and often face “harassment, violence, and even sexual assault,” the IOC says, suggesting that may be why few transgender people participate in sports at all levels.

Against that backdrop, the IOC recommends that youth and community-level sports prioritize “inclusion.” Restrictions or exclusions of transgender athletes should be reserved for elite-level competitions, the IOC said.

‘Beyond Unfair’

Inga Thompson, a cyclist who represented the United States in three Olympiads, said the IOC’s statement is written in hard-to-decipher jargon, but this is her best interpretation of it: “They are acknowledging that women need a sex-separated category, and at the same time, they’re very much advocating for the inclusion of a transgender athlete into the women’s category.”

Thompson made that statement during a Dec. 19 Fox News interview.

“I’m discouraged,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking.”

Riley Gaines Barker, a former University of Kentucky swimmer who tied for fifth place against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas at the NCAA Championships in March 2022, speaks at the “Our Bodies, Our Sports” rally at Freedom Plaza in Washington on June 23, 2022. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)

It is particularly troubling that the IOC’s position paper calls for integrating transgender athletes in community-level sports and shying away from restrictions at the non-elite level, Thompson said.

She said multiple studies show that “young women, if not given a sex-separated sport, get discouraged” when they face off against competitors who possess advantages because they are biologically male.

The girls and women “end up walking away from the sport,” she said.

There’s also a safety concern. In some instances, female athletes have been overpowered and badly injured by males who identify as transgender females, so it’s no wonder that biological females will be intimidated and drop out, Thompson said.

That’s why she considers the IOC’s policy to be “suppressing all of the development of our next generation.” As a result, the future of women’s sports is imperiled, Thompson said.

Women protest as Pennsylvania transgender athlete Lia Thomas competes in the women’s 200 freestyle final at the NCAA swimming and diving championships at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Ga., on March 18, 2022. (John Bazemore/AP Photo)

Possible Solutions

Many sports organizations follow the IOC’s lead, Thompson said. But she urges parents: “You can advocate at your school level, at the state level, to try to keep fairness for these young girls.”

In a separate interview with NewsNation network, Thompson called the new guidelines “beyond unfair.”

“They have sold out women in favor of having more opportunities for more males,” she said.

Selina Soule (L) and Alanna Smith, student-athletes in Connecticut, were plaintiffs in a 2020 lawsuit alleging they faced unfair competition from biological males who identified as transgender females. (Alliance Defending Freedom) 

Thompson pointed out that the Olympics have separate categories for athletes with physical disabilities or mental impairments, along with those based on age, sex, and weight. Yet the IOC advocates putting transgender athletes into the women’s category “at the exclusion of women,” Thompson said.

“If you really want to have true inclusion, you need to start another category” for transgender athletes, she said.

Because each sport must interpret and implement the guidelines, the effects of the IOC’s position on the next Summer Olympics, set for 2024 in Paris, France, remain unclear.

Global coal use jumped to a record high this year because of the sharp increase in natural gas prices. This prompted a wave of fuel switching away from NatGas by utilities for power generation, pushing up demand for price-competitive options, including coal, in many countries.

There are emerging signs across the Western world that ‘gas-to-coal switching’ could be reversed, perhaps only temporarily, as warmer weather is expected across Europe and the US. 

The latest 2-week outlook for the Lower 48 is above-average temperatures for the first half of January. 

Europe is also expected to record warmer temperatures than average for the next two weeks. 

As a result, Henry Hub NatGas prices crashed 12% on Wednesday as cold weather cleared out of the US. This means utilities will become more incentivized to burn NatGas (also more ‘green’) for power generation than coal. 

Even in Europe, NatGas prices are well below the costs for coal. That wasn’t the case several months ago. 

“Cheaper natural gas prices are negative for coal producers, whose product competes against gas for electricity generation,” Bloomberg said. 

Houston-based energy firm Criterion Research said coal-to-gas switching would increase if NatGas prices remained under $7 million British thermal units (MMBtu). 

As natural gas prices weaken at the onset of 2023, we revisited the last few years of data for the United States thermal stack, which includes coal and gas generation. Throughout 2022, natural gas managed to hold 60-70% of the thermal stack while Henry Hub futures remained above $7.00. However, when prices were in the $5-7 range, natural gas was able to post a few days in the 70-75% range. 

With that in mind, if we see prices remain below $5 throughout much of 2023 and natural gas supply within the US continues to hold onto its 100+ Bcf strength, we could continue to see coal burns pushed out of the stack in favor of higher natural gas usage.

Throughout 2022, gas burns managed to account for over 70% of the stack when prices were below $7, but when they moved above $7, it forced gas back below 70%. Overall, the trend is far different than traditional coal-to-gas switching was in 2019 and 2020. #ongt #natgas pic.twitter.com/l3O2r4SnWU

— Criterion Research (@PipelineFlows) December 28, 2022

Energy traders are dumping coal stocks in anticipation of the switching. The Russell 3000 Coal Subsector Index plunged 10% on Wednesday. 

Major coal companies were also dumped. Peabody Energy fell 11%, Alpha Metallurgical Resources -8.8%, Ramaco Resources -8.3%, Arch Resources -8%, and Warrior Met Coal -8%. 

For now, declining NatGas prices means a reduction in coal burns and a transition back to higher burn rates for NatGas. Falling NatGas prices indicate lower electricity prices across the board, a relief desperately needed for many folks across the West.

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

Little did we know that by 2023 the raging would go beyond paroxysm…

It’s idle to dwell on the cringe-worthy visit of the Kiev clown to Crash Test Dummy at the White House, coupled with a “Churchillian” speech at the War Party dominions in Capitol Hill. History will ridicule this Hollywood soap for centuries ahead.

Way more juice is provided by the latest War Party P.R. show, sponsored by Raytheon Productions. After all Lloyd Austin, the current Pentagon head, is a former Raytheon weapons peddler.

After much fanfare, it was established that the Pentagon will provide not a collection, but a single Patriot battery to Kiev – either with four or eight missile launchers, and either the PAC 2 or PAC 3 version.

A Patriot battery comes with radar, lots of computers, power generating equipment, and an “engagement control station”.

Instead of training Ukrainians at a U.S. Army base in Grafenwoehr, in Germany, the Pentagon is mulling the possibility of training them at a U.S. base, most certainly Fort Sill in Oklahoma, where most instructors actually live, side by side with their integrated training simulators. Up to 90 military are required to operate and maintain a single Patriot battery.

Considering the extensive training required to operate such a costly ($1 billion) and complex system, if they are on the ground during the first semester of 2023 this will mean, ominously, that the operators may be American, or at least NATO mercenaries.

The implied consequences are self-evident. Especially when the Russian Ministry of Defense has already pointed out that the Patriot will be considered a legitimate target.

So assuming all of the above will happen in practice sometime in 2023, it will be a blast to compare the Patriot performance in Ukraine with the Patriots at work in the lands of Arabia – which were routinely dribbled like Messi on an average match by Iranian and Houthi missiles. The Houthis always had a ball targeting Saudi oil installations.

What may change it that unlike in the Arab peninsula, all the collective West’s intel, recon and satellite firepower is in a state of alert in Ukraine 24/7.

The inestimable Andrei Martyanov has already came up with the essential breakdown of all Patriot essentials. Let’s focus on a few intriguing details.

A single Patriot battery will exercise less than zero impact on the Ukrainian battlefield. This battery would in thesis cover the most strategic Ukrainian installations: a very limited area, as in a small military base. That has nothing to do with protecting Kiev.

What’s way more significant, conceptually, is that this Patriot deployment, in connection with other air defense systems such as NASAMS, IRIS-T and the possible transfer of the SAMP-T, proves once again that Ukraine is under a de facto NATO multi-level air defense system. The Patriot is completely integrated with NATINADS, NATO’s air defense system.

Translation, if needed: this keeps evolving, fast, into NATO vs. Russia Total War.

Nice little system you got here

All eyes will be on escalation. The Americans may start with a single Patriot just to test the system under a serious missile attack (assuming the Russians don’t destroy it right away. Remember: “legitimate target”).

It’s fair to consider the Russian General Staff may be already plotting how to instantly go for the kill. The P.R. value, for Moscow, of turning the American P.R. op on its head would be invaluable.

President Putin was barely containing his glee when talking to the Kremlin pool earlier this week: “The Patriot system is not as effective as our S-300 (…) There will always be a countermeasure.”

Then there’s the nagging question of “why now?” The real motive of this “emergency” – sort of – Patriot delivery may have to do with serious problems with the American/NATO systems already on the ground.

The HAWK is woefully incapable of intercepting modern cruise missiles. The IRIS-T is quite raw – and needs non-stop supervision by repair teams from Germany. The NASAMS is also anti-missile impaired. In sum: “inadequate” does not even begin to describe them all.

And all that is happening simultaneously with the depletion of Soviet-era complexes – as well as the anti-aircraft guided missiles that supplied them.

Another key issue is who’s gonna pay for this P.R. op.

The current modified version of Patriot launchers costs roughly $10 million. A single missile costs a whopping $4 million. Russia already spends de facto pocket money on drones – and will spend even more. Firing a $4 million missile at a drone worth at best $50,000 does not even qualify as a joke.

So what is this for? Once again: Empire Escalating, mindlessly, with no end in sight. Putin and his circle, in over two decades, have tried absolutely everything to integrate Russia to the West. Russia was rebuffed every step of the way. Now this strategy has been declared null and void – ever since the American non-response response a year ago to the official Russian letters requesting a serious discussion on “indivisibility of security”. No wonder the Empire is freaking out.

Now both Putin and Russia’s excelling diplomatic corps keep stressing, on the record, that the collective West’s target in using Ukraine is to provoke the disintegration of Russia. So this remains an existential do or die affair. No wonder Russian envoy to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov qualified the state of Russia-U.S. relations as resembling an Ice Age.

Nearly three years ago I christened this decade, right at the start, as the Raging Twenties.

That’s how the Empire made its play, right in the open, when they killed Iran’s Gen Soleimani in a multiple drone attack during an official diplomatic visit to Baghdad.

Little did we know that by 2023 the raging would go beyond paroxysm.

Authored by Naveen Anthrapully via The Epoch Times,

A startup is launching weather balloons capable of releasing reflective sulfur particles into the earth’s atmosphere, with the stated aim of combating climate change through solar geoengineering, while disregarding the negative consequences of such actions.

In solar geoengineering, attempts are made to manipulate the climate by reflecting more sunlight away from earth. Theoretically, releasing sulfur and other such compounds is believed to potentially cool down the planet. Back in 1991, for example, when Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted, it released large amounts of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere that spread around the world and triggered a 1-degree Fahrenheit cooling for the next 15 months. The California-based startup, Make Sunsets, is believed to have launched the weather balloons from Mexico.

In an interview with MIT Technology Review, Make Sunsets CEO Luke Iseman said that he expects to be characterized as a “Bond villain” for what the company is doing. But he insists that climate change is a threat, and that since the world is moving slowly to address the problem, a more radical solution is needed.

“It’s morally wrong, in my opinion, for us not to be doing this,” Iseman said.

What’s important is “to do this as quickly and safely as we can.”

Make Sunsets is attempting to make revenue out of its efforts, seeking to sell $10 “cooling credits” for releasing a gram of particles into the atmosphere. The startup has raised $750,000 in funding. It plans on raising the sulfur payload in the future as well as using telemetry devices and other sensors.

Climatic Downsides

A 2018 blog by David Keith, a leading expert on solar geoengineering, explains that he is opposed to commercial work on such technologies due to the fact that commercial development cannot achieve the transparency and trust that is necessary for the world to make decisions on the matter.

Solar geoengineering must only be done by “transparent democratic institutions,” he insisted.

“Solar geoengineering is large-scale climate modification which inherently has global consequences that are difficult to quantify even after deployment. DAC [direct air capture] results in emissions reductions (carbon-neutral synthetic fuels) or net CO2 removal (sequestration), with local impacts that can be measured with reasonable accuracy,” he wrote.

In an interview with MIT, Shuchi Talati, a scholar-in-residence at American University, says that Make Sunset’s actions could end up negatively affecting scientific study on the matter, even leading to reduced funding, boosting calls for restricting such studies, and decreasing government support for it.

“The current state of science is not good enough … to either reject, or to accept, let alone implement [solar geoengineering] … To go ahead with implementation at this stage is a very bad idea,” Janos Pasztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative, said in an email to the media outlet.

Widespread Dangers

Solar geoengineering can have devastating consequences for human beings. Such attempts can end up altering the global hydrological cycle, affecting monsoon activity. This can affect agriculture and food security.

Reflecting sunlight to cool down the earth might also make people carelessly pump out more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Excessive CO2 can cause acidification of the oceans.

Moreover, if solar geoengineering were to be stopped suddenly after using it for some time, it could lead to global warming at 10 times more speed.

Solar geoengineering can reduce rainfall on some parts of the earth, thereby affecting the local ecosystem. This would be particularly harmful to evergreen forests and tropical ecosystems.

A change in rainfall, for example, can negatively affect vegetation, which would be bad news for the wildlife that survives on them.

Stanford University has backpedaled on its woke “harmful language” guide after admitting it was wrong to have included the word “American.”

The updated guide from Stanford’s “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative” (EHLI), placed mean words and phrases in various categories, including; “ableist,” “culturally appropriative,” “gender-based,” “imprecise language,” and “institutionalized racism.”

“The purpose of this [EHLI] website is to educate people about the possible impact of the words we use,” reads the language guide – which also suggested that people should avoid using the word “American,” and instead replace it with “U.S. Citizen,” under the “imprecise language section.”

“[American] often refers to people from the United States only, thereby insinuating that the US is the most important country in the Americas,” reads the guide.

Some other recommendations in the guide included replacing the word “Hispanic” with “Latinx, “grandfather” with “legacy,” and “immigrant” with “person who has immigrated.”

“White paper,” which falls under the “institutionalized racism” section, should be replaced by “position paper,” according to the guide. It argued that assigning value connotations based on color, in this case where white means good, is an act that is “subconsciously racialized.” –Epoch Times

Shortly after the story went viral, Elon Musk tweeted “Stanford disapproves of saying you’re proud to be an American? Whoa.”

Stanford disapproves of saying you’re proud to be an American? Whoa.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2022

Musk also said Stanford had “gone too far” and asked for an explanation “for this madness.”

This has gone too far, to say the least! @Stanford, what is your explanation for this madness?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2022

In response to the outrage, Stanford’s chief information officer, Steve Gallagher, said in a Dec. 20 statement that the EHLI website “does not represent university policy.”

“It also does not represent mandates or requirements. The website was created by, and intended for discussion within, the IT community at Stanford,” he continued. “It provides ‘suggested alternatives’ for various terms, and reasons why those terms could be problematic in certain uses.”

Gallagher added that targeting the term “American” was a mistake.

“To be very clear, not only is the use of the term ‘American’ not banned at Stanford, it is absolutely welcomed,” he said. “The intent of this particular entry on the EHLI website was to provide perspective on how the term may be imprecise in some specific uses, and to show that in some cases the alternate term ‘US citizen’ may be more precise and appropriate.”

More via The Epoch Times,

‘Proud to Be an American’

Some Republican lawmakers have taken to Twitter the university’s effort to change the English language.

“The radical left is attempting to destroy our country and erase our history,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) wrote on Dec. 20. “Now, Stanford University is seeking to ban the word ‘American.’”

“Stanford University published an index of forbidden words. One of the words they are trying to eliminate is ‘American.’ ARE YOU SERIOUS?” Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas) wrote on Dec. 20.

“I am proud to be an American,” Weber added. “I’ve had enough of the woke liberals trying to destroy America as we know it.”

“If Stanford thinks the word American is harmful, what are they doing with American taxpayer dollars?” Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) wrote on Dec. 21.

Opposition

There is also opposition against the language guide inside the university.

Dr. Jay Bjattacharya, a professor of health policy at Stanford’s School of Medicine, said he opposed the elimination of the word “American” and added that universities shouldn’t carry out “word policing.”

“I remember how proud I was when I became a naturalized American citizen. I’m still proud to be an American, and I don’t care that @Stanford disapproves of my using the term,” Bhattacharya wrote in a tweet on Dec. 19.

“The problem is the @stanford provenance of the list,” he added in a separate tweet.

“Universities are the wrong place for word policing. There are better ways, more effective & more consistent with liberal norms, to teach students respect and compassion for others than a clumsy list of proscribed words.”

The January 6th special committee has formally withdrawn its subpoena of former President Donald Trump.

“In light of the imminent end of our investigation, the Select Committee can no longer pursue the specific information covered by the subpoena,” wrote Rep. Bernie Thompson (D-MI) in a Wednesday night letter sent to Trump’s attorneys, which was obtained by CNN.

“Therefore, through this letter, I hereby formally withdraw the subpoena issued to former President Trump, and notify you that he is no longer obligated to comply or produce records in response to said subpoena,” the letter continues.

Trump took a victory lap on Truth Social, writing: “Was just advised that the Unselect Committee of political Thugs has withdrawn the Subpoena of me concerning the January 6th Protest of the CROOKED 2020 Presidential Election. They probably did so because they knew I did nothing wrong, or they were about to lose in Court. Perhaps the FBI’s involvement in RIGGING the Election played into their decision. In any event, the Subpoena is DEAD!”

As CNN notes, the committee has already dropped several subpoenas against other witnesses, and has wrapped up its investigation by referring Trump to the DOJ for potential criminal prosecution on four separate charges. The referrals, however, hold no legal weight.

As the economic slump grew deeper this year, Chinese people’s trust in the labor market, their wages, and their interest in purchasing homes all plummeted to record low levels, a recent survey shows. 

As Hannah Ng reports at The Epoch Times, The People’s Bank of China’s Employment Sentiment Index, representing residents’ prospects for jobs, fell to 33.1 in the fourth quarter of 2022, down from 35.4 in the prior quarter, according to Bloomberg.

It is the lowest figure since the data began to be collected back in 2010. Figures under 50 signify a contraction in the industry.

Meanwhile, the Income Confidence Index—signifying the outlook for income in the next three months, saw a decline to 44.4 compared to 47 in the third quarter. 

The number indicates the lowest number since 2001, according to the quarterly survey of 20,000 depositors nationwide, released on Dec 27.

The survey results were among the first indicators of business sentiment in the world’s second-largest economy after China’s sudden relaxation of strict pandemic containment measures on Dec. 7 triggered a still-growing wave of COVID-19 cases.

Record-Low Business Confidence

The bleak sentiments of China’s residents came as the country’s private sector—its biggest source of employment—has been plagued by business interruptions due to COVID-19 policies and financing difficulties.

China’s stringent zero-COVID measures disrupted business and confined millions of people to their homes for weeks and sometimes months at a time.

China’s Business Confidence index fell to 48.1 in December from 51.8 in November, according to the World Economics’ survey of sales managers at over 2,300 companies, conducted Dec. 1–16. 

The figure was the lowest since the data began to be documented in 2013.

The study found that the manufacturing and service sectors’ sales managers’ indices both fell below 50 in December, indicating a substantial decline in company activity.

“The percentage of companies that claim to be currently negatively impacted by COVID has risen to a survey high, with more than half of all respondents now suggesting their operations are being harmed in one way or another,” the study reads.

“Many small businesses have run out of liquidity, especially restaurants, gyms, hotels, and other city services,” said Dan Wang, chief economist at Hang Seng Bank China.

Housing Market Confidence Declines

Housing market confidence also continued its downward trend in the last quarter of 2022, survey data showed, despite Beijing’s economic stimulus measures.

Only 14 percent of respondents to the central bank survey anticipated an increase in property prices in the following quarter. That represents a new low in the data, which goes back to 2010. 

Only 16 percent of respondents stated they intended to buy a property in the following three months, compared to 17.1 percent in the previous quarter. According to the study, nearly 62 percent, up from 58 percent, claimed they were saving more money.

Ongoing Real Estate Crisis

The low expectations for the property market persisted despite recent stimulus measures launched by Beijing to boost the sector.

On the real estate front, the CCP introduced a slew of policy-loosening measures to support developers.

In November, China’s six largest state-owned banks came out to offer more than 925 billion yuan ($130 billion) in credit support to property developers. The move was an attempt to stop the spread of financial troubles, amidst a continued liquidity crunch in the country’s property sector. China Vanke Co., Midea Real Estate Holding, Country Garden Holding, and China Overseas Land and Investment were some of the developer beneficiaries.

China’s central bank and its banking regulator released a joint policy document on Nov. 24, outlining ways the country’s financial institutions should set expectations on real estate transactions, including down payment ratios and interest rate boundaries to support the real estate sector.

However, these support measures are unlikely to alter the negative trajectory of China’s real estate market.

In 2021, China witnessed the defaults of some giant property names including China Evergrande Group, Sunac China Holdings, and China Resources Land.

Chinese developers left millions of presold housing units unfinished due to liquidity problems. As a result, many Chinese banks are facing a mortgage payment halt or “mortgage strike”—where homebuyers refuse to pay mortgages unless the developers resume construction.

S&P Global estimated that 2.4 trillion yuan (about $355 billion) of mortgages could be at risk of being unpaid. That amounts to around 6.5 percent of all outstanding mortgages.

The rating agency also projects that home sales in China could drop as much as 33 percent this year amid the mortgage strike, further squeezing the liquidity of distressed developers and leading to more defaults, Bloomberg reported.

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week appointed a major Iran hawk to lead Israel’s National Security Council under the new government.

Tzachi Hanegbi is a veteran Likud lawmaker and a longtime ally of Netanyahu who has repeatedly threatened in recent years that Israel would attack Iran if the US returns to the Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.

In his most recent threat, Hanegbi said that Netanyahu would order an attack on Iran if the US doesn’t secure a new nuclear deal or doesn’t take military action itself. He told Israel’s Channel 12 in November that in that situation, Netanyahu “will act, in my assessment, to destroy the nuclear facilities in Iran.”

Back in 2020, Hanegbi, who was settlement minister at the time, warned that if President Biden won the election and returned to the JCPOA, it could lead to a war between Israel and Iran. He made a similar threat following Biden’s election.

Netanyahu’s new government will be taking over soon as tensions between the US and Iran are soaring. Since JCPOA negotiations fell apart in September, the US has escalated its sanctions campaign against Iran.

The Pentagon’s recently admitted in its new Nuclear Posture Review that Iran is not trying to build a nuclear weapon, but US and Israeli officials continue to hype up the threat anyway.

Netanyahu loyalist Tzachi Hanegbi will be appointed head of Israel’s National Security Council

The longtime politician has openly been in favor of a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities@arik3000 | @hamdahsalhut pic.twitter.com/1mKfqotpKa

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) December 28, 2022

The US and Iran recently held joint military exercises over the Mediterranean Sea in November that simulated attacks on Iran.

South Korea’s ban on full-body sex dolls has reached a climax after years of hot-n-heavy debate over whether government can interfere in a private citizen’s ability to copulate with a synthetic partner.

While no official laws or regulations exist which ban the import of sex dolls, hundreds – possibly thousands of them have been seized by customs under a clause which prevents the import of goods that “harm the country’s beautiful traditions and public moral,” the Daily Mail reports.

The issue was brought to a head after angry importers took their cases to court – most of which agreed, and ordered customs to allow the sex-dolls into the country to be used in private spaces, on the basis that they do not undermine human dignity.

On Monday the Korean Customs Service issued a statement that it will now allow life-size adult sex dolls into the country under a revised guideline based on the recent court rulings and opinions from relevant government agencies, including the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.

Child-like sex dolls or those which embody certain people will remain banned.

“‘It’s a reasonable decision though it came a bit late,” said Lee Sang-jin, a former head of a local company that imports sex dolls. “We thought our people’s rights to seek happiness and use (sex dolls) in their private lives have been restricted by the state.”

“There are various types of people who use (sex dolls), including those who are sexually alienated or those who need them for artistic purposes.”

According to Lee, his former company has already taken back over 20 sec dolls from customs officials via lawsuits, and that the company has filed separate lawsuits seeking government compensation.

The decision risks backlash from angry feminists (a redundant expression) who claim sex dolls objectify women.

While the decision reflects South Korea’s slow yet gradual moves to restrict state interference into personal lives, some women’s rights and conservative organisations are likely to again voice their opposition to the use of sex dolls.

They say they deepen sexual objectification of women and undermine public moral. -Daily Mail

Maybe just let dudes do what they want, 캐이른?

Authored by Monica Showalter via AmericanThinker.com,

Well, here we have it.

This morning, service members deployed to El Paso, Texas constructed a triple-strand concertina barrier near the border to secure the area from illegal crossings. pic.twitter.com/X6JUkr9iQV

— Texas Military Dept. (@TXMilitary) December 25, 2022

At a time when Joe Biden and his trusty sidekick, Homeland Security secretary  Alejandro Mayorkas, claim there’s nothing they can do about the border surge as they wave illegal aliens through, illegal border crossings in the El Paso area have … gone to almost zero.

According to Border Report:

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Migrant crossings have plummeted in a mile-long stretch of Downtown El Paso where the Texas Army National Guard has set up concertina wire and portable fencing along the Rio Grande.

The guard began setting up the barrier last week at a gap in the border wall west of the Paso del Norte port of entry. In the space of eight days, the barbed wire has nearly reached a second port of entry and chain-link fence anchored by sandbags extends even farther. The result is that asylum seekers can no longer walk across ankle-deep water in the Rio Grande and turn themselves in to waiting Border Patrol agents in that area.

“The difference is vast,” said 1st Sgt. Suzanne Ringle. “The 19th, the 20th and the 21st we had large groups of families and individuals who were wanting to come across. Now, it’s almost a ghost town out there.”

She attributed that to the “visual deterrent” of the barbwire, parked Humvees and soldiers patrolling the area with their semi-automatic rifles. As of Tuesday, 600 guard members were in El Paso on border security duty associated with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star.

So that’s all it takes?

It makes sense that it does.

Put a fence up, even an ugly, flimsy one, redolent of a communist regime, complete with a few guys with guns and patrol cars out there and they won’t come. 

So much for all the arguments that “walls don’t work” because migrants will find ways to scale,catapult, or tunnel under the walls. Yes, there are a few cases of this, but the big mass surges suddenly end.

There have been arguments that big, high-tech, and impressive walls are what it takes, but these ideas have been thwarted by open-borders leftists, screaming about wildlife and illegal alien “rights.” President Trump’s border wall was largely thwarted that way, and Arizona’s effort to set up stacked boxcars as an impenetrable wall met their fates this way, too.

But barbed wire and chain link fences work, too, a hell of a lot better than a naked, open, inviting border space, sometimes with only a puddly river to cross. It’s makeshift and it’s ugly, sure, but the obstructions of open-border leftists and their leftwing lawyers and roundheel judges are why we can’t have nice things. So now we get crappy, unsightly things, like razor-wire rolls and chain link fences, along with a few guards with guns and it works just as well.

The left has had a grand old time running circles around the larger, and more permanent fencing projects, but it’s a lot harder for them to challenge tiny, temporary, barriers and make an issue of them.

The success of this old and tried border solution raises questions as to why this wasn’t done earlier, back when President Trump was trying to get his wall built. Hindsight, of course, is easy for us now, but it’s sad that this idea didn’t come up earlier, even as a temporary solution while the bigger battles over the wall construction were going on. While Trump was valiantly battling leftists in the courts over his wall’s construction and funding, the barbed wire fence solution sat right there, seemingly unused. The barbed wire fence apparently could have been dragged through national parks, national wildlife refuges, and perhaps even private lands, with minimal disruption and no big symbolic images such as the border wall for the left to rally round in outrage. Those were some of the obstacles he endured in his battle to get the border wall built.

A lousy barbed wire fence worked just as well, and could be thrown up quickly, cheaply, and with immediate effects, all of which was in the thinking of that master-problem-solver, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who deserves kudos for this simple and effective idea. Abbott has a lot of those.

It works because I know it works.

I’ll share a personal story: My mother has an ambitious kitten whose great goal is to romp around in the canyon behind her house, which is filled with packs of hungry, pet-eating, coyotes. City officials do nothing about the problem and the den is proliferating. Once in awhile, I hear a gun go off at night and with no cops called, it’s almost certainly someone taking out a coyote and everyone else in the neighborhood just keeping quiet. Since kittens don’t belong in canyons, I found that the solution for her issue is to block the hell out of the flimsy fence she has, with flower pots, old boards, dirt, nearby jumping points, anything that will keep the kitten inside his yard and out of the canyon. Rather than wait for a coyote to come, the blocked fence is the one thing that keeps the kitten inside. Focus on the fence openings, I’ve told her, not on taking the kitten back to the shelter, as she frets every time the kitten gets out. We are still working on the fence openings, but when a known one is blocked off, the kitten stays in. When he discovers another, it’s back to the drawing board, but one day, we will have the entire fence turned into a kitten-coyote barrier. We will get there.

So will the people of Texas, with guys like Gov. Abbott around.

The lesson here is that even a bad fence works wonders to deter the tens of thousands of unvetted illegal aliens from crossing in, so let’s see more of them.