China’s Chang’e-6 Blasts Off From Moon’s Far Side With Rock Samples
China’s Chang’e-6 spacecraft has collected 2 kilograms (or about 4.4 pounds) of lunar rocks and soil from the moon’s far side. The spacecraft lifted off on Tuesday and has begun its journey back to Earth. This marks the first time any spacecraft has accomplished this lunar soil extraction from the moon’s far side as China aims for a crewed mission to the lunar surface by 2030.
State-run media outlet Xinhua News Agency reports Chang’e-6 blasted off from the lunar surface on Tuesday morning and is expected to connect with an orbiter before returning rock samples to Earth.
If the spacecraft does not burn up on the descent into Earth’s atmosphere, this would be the first time any space agency has collected samples from the moon’s far side. The spacecraft is expected to return to Earth on June 25.
Xinhua described the mission as “an unprecedented feat in human lunar exploration history.”
The spacecraft touched down on the lunar surface on Sunday. By Monday, a drill and robotic arm had been deployed to extract rock and soil samples.
Stunning footage of the Chang’e 6 Lunar Lander Operating on the Moon.
Just released footage of the spacecraft collecting soil and rock samples from the Moon’s far side.
Ascent stage has already left the Moon with the collected samples, scheduled to return to Earth on June 25. pic.twitter.com/YyltuB2Yfy
— China ‘N Asia Spaceflight 🚀𝕏 🛰️ (@CNSpaceflight) June 4, 2024
The lunar samples collected by Chang’e-6 from the moon’s far side hold huge scientific value. They could potentially provide scientists worldwide with insights into the origins of our solar system.
Big Pharma Paid $690 Million To Fauci’s Agency During Pandemic
By Adam Andrzejewski, CEO and founder of OpenTheBooks.com, the largest private database of public spending.
During the pandemic, the American people started to feel that Big Government was very cozy with Big Pharma. Now we know just how close they were.
New data from the National Institutes of Health reveals the agency and its scientists collected $710 million in royalties during the pandemic, from late 2021 through 2023. These are payments made by private companies, like pharmaceuticals, to license medical innovations from government scientists.
Almost all that cash — $690 million — went to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), the subagency led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, and 260 of its scientists.
Information about this vast private royalty complex is tightly held by NIH. My organization, OpenTheBooks.com, was forced to sue to uncover the royalties paid from September 2009 to October 2021, which amounted to $325 million over 56,000 transactions.
We had to sue a second time, with Judicial Watch as our counsel, to pry open this new release.
Payments skyrocketed during the pandemic era: those years saw more than double the amount of cash flow to NIH from the private sector, compared to the prior twelve combined. All told, it’s $1.036 billion.
It’s unclear if any of the Covid vaccine royalties from Pfizer and Moderna, the latter of which settled with NIH by agreeing to pay $400 million, is even included in these new numbers. NIH isn’t saying.
The American people have one last crack at getting some candor from Fauci, the face of our COVID response, when he testifies Monday before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
There’s plenty to answer for.
He’s spent years scoffing at questions about potential conflicts of interest between COVID policymakers, who relentlessly pushed vaccines, and recipients of private royalties.
Now he’ll also need to account for bombshell emails sent by one of his deputies, which described in-house strategies to circumvent the federal Freedom of Information Act.
Fauci won’t be able to misspell words to evade scrutiny or have folks physically courier messages — just two of the FOIA-avoiding actions described by Dr. David Morens, a key Fauci deputy.
Instead, cameras from around the world will be trained on Fauci and he’ll be answering for information he gave in a sworn deposition earlier this year.
It’s a chance to either come clean or further cement the public’s perception of him and the NIH as secretive and self-interested.
Beyond this small cabal of scientists covering up discussions of the virus’ origin, NIH has consistently treated FOIA requests like viral attacks of their own. No wonder, then, that we’re plaintiffs in six ongoing FOIA cases.
Characteristically, NIH is still redacting pieces of the data that would help us more easily connect therapeutics with their government-paid inventors. For example, they refuse to show us the amount of royalties paid to each individual scientist. So we still can’t entirely follow the money.
In the meantime, Sen. Rand Paul has sponsored the Royalty Transparency Act, which sailed unanimously through the committee process and deserves a floor vote immediately.
There’s plenty Fauci could do in the meantime, too. He could indicate he supports bills like Paul’s. He could call on NIH and CDC to voluntarily “unmask” the royalty payments. Then we could see whether their decisions have advanced the general welfare or their own.
Fauci could also support fixes to the FOIA law that create real consequences for those who purposely violate it.
At minimum, he must apologize for the utter contempt for FOIA, and the transparency war waged by his colleagues that’s now been revealed in private communications.
Among the government’s most basic duties to the public are providing for the general welfare and reporting its income and spending.
As Dr. Fauci wraps five decades in government having become its highest-paid bureaucrat, he should consider ticking those boxes again. For old times’ sake.
Netherlands Joins Denmark In Saying Ukraine Can Use F-16s To Strike Inside Russia
The Netherlands is the latest NATO country to announce that it backs allowing Ukraine to attack inside Russian territory using its weapons. More importantly, it has joined Denmark in saying it does not object to Kiev using F-16s to attack Russia.
“If you have the right to self-defense, there are no borders for the use of weapons. This is a general principle,” Dutch Foreign Minister Hanke Bruins Slot said days ago. Kiev could receive its first F-16s in a matter of weeks.
This came immediately after Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen was the first to proclaim such a policy, saying it would be “within the rules of war”.
“We made it clear from the very beginning… that this is part of self-defense so that it would also be possible to attack military targets on the aggressor’s territory,” Rasmussen had said from Brussels late last week.
The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Belgium are part of a US-approved ‘fighter jet coalition’ which will oversee dozens of American-made F-16 fighter jets transferred to Ukraine’s armed forces. The Netherlands alone has pledged 24 jets, and initial deliveries are expected this summer.
Moscow views this ‘greenlight’ as a huge new provocation and escalation given F-16s are capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons. Russia previously said it will have no choice but to assume each F-16 could be armed with nukes.
President Putin has warned of “serious consequences” after the Kremlin previously warned that NATO bases from which these jets are deployed could come under attack.
But on Friday NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg shrugged off Moscow’s warnings by saying:
“This is nothing new. It has … been the case for a long time that every time NATO allies are providing support to Ukraine, President Putin is trying to threaten us to not do that.”
“And an escalation – well, Russia has escalated by invading another country.”
Likely Russia’s military will seek to target Western-supplied fighter jets sent to Ukraine as soon as they enter its territory, as it maintains air superiority over most of the country.
Not all members of the NATO fighter jet coalition have been quick to greenlight attacks on Russian territory. While the policy could change, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo at the start of this week stipulated that the jets it gives Ukraine can only be used against Russia within Ukrainian territory.
Russia has made it clear it will assume any F-16’s in Ukraine are nuclear capable regardless of alleged modifications.
“Everything which is covered by this agreement is very clear: it is for utilization by the Ukrainian defense forces on Ukraine territory,” De Croo said in response to a journalist’s question last week. He said this as President Zelensky was recently in Brussels to sign a defense pact with the Belgian government worth nearly €1 billion.
Research suggests exercise may be more effective for treating depression than antidepressant drugs, with dancing far surpassing all other activities and pharmacological treatments—and intense exercise close behind.
A paper published in the BMJ found that exercise was moderately effective at treating depression compared to existing treatments when used alone or in combination with other established therapies. Moreover, the benefits from exercise “tended to be proportional to the intensity prescribed,” meaning more vigorous activity yielded more significant benefits.
To identify the ideal amount and type of exercise for treating major depressive disorder, experts from Australia conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 14,170 people with major depressive disorders from 218 unique studies and ranked the effectiveness of different forms of exercise compared with existing treatments, such as psychotherapy, antidepressants, and control conditions.
Key Findings
They found that walking or jogging, yoga, strength training, and dancing were the most effective exercise modalities when used alone without medical treatment, and that certain exercises affected men and women differently. Notably, walking and jogging were effective for both men and women, while strength training and cycling were more effective for women and younger people. Yoga and qigong were more effective for men and older adults, while aerobic exercise positively impacted men more than women when used with psychotherapy.
Across all modalities, more intense exercise such as running, interval training, strength training, and mixed aerobic exercise yielded greater benefits, although even light physical activity such as walking or hatha yoga still provided “clinically meaningful effects.” The benefits of exercise were equally effective at different weekly doses for those with other medical conditions and baseline levels of depression.
Overall, dance outperformed all other exercises and established treatments for depression, including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and cognitive behavioral therapy.
“Based on our findings, dance appears to be a promising treatment for depression, with large effects found compared with other interventions in our review,” the authors wrote. However, the small number of studies, low number of participants, and biases of study designs prohibited them from recommending dance more strongly.
What Is Major Depressive Disorder?
Major depressive disorder is a leading cause of disability worldwide, characterized by a persistently low or depressed mood, lack of interest or enjoyment in life or pleasurable activities, feelings of guilt or worthlessness, low energy, poor concentration, appetite changes, psychomotor disturbances, sleep issues, or suicidal thoughts.
The condition has been found to adversely affect interpersonal relationships, cause functional impairment, and exacerbate other medical comorbidities such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Without treatment, major depressive disorder can be debilitating.
According to the 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 21 million, or 8 percent, of U.S. adults 18 or older in 2021 experienced at least one major depressive episode, with episodes most prevalent among 18- to 25-year-olds and women.
Of those, 14.5 million U.S. adults experienced at least one major depressive episode that left them severely impaired. Additionally, 5 million U.S. adolescents aged 12 to 17 experienced at least one major depressive episode, which equates to approximately 20 percent of the adolescent population in that age group. Of those, 3.7 million experienced a depressive episode that left them severely impaired.
Demand for Alternative Treatment Options
According to the BMJ, some people with major depressive disorder respond well to drug treatments and psychotherapy, but many are resistant to treatment, driving scientists to look into alternatives like exercise that might complement or be more effective than medical therapy or counseling alone.
Although the researchers said their review has limitations, their findings support the inclusion of exercise, especially vigorous exercise, in the clinical practice guidelines for depression.
“Although confidence in many of the results was low, treatment guidelines may be overly conservative by conditionally recommending exercise as complementary or alternative treatment for patients in whom psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy is either ineffective or unacceptable,” they wrote. “Instead, guidelines for depression ought to include prescriptions for exercise and consider adapting the modality to participants’ characteristics and recommending more vigorous intensity exercises.”
What Is The Real Purpose Of The Swiss “Peace” Conference For Ukraine?
Switzerland is hosting a “Summit on Peace in Ukraine ” on June 15-16 at the five-star Bürgenstock hotel above Lake Lucerne in central Switzerland. The Swiss government says they hope this will lay the groundwork for a peace process in Ukraine which has been embroiled in a bloody war with Russia for the past two years. However, that notion is fantasy given the fact that at least 80 countries from around the world are invited, yet Russia is not.
You might then ask, how can the west engage in serious peace discussions with Russia if they refuse to sit at the negotiating table with Russian representatives? Obviously they can’t, but it’s becoming clear that this is not the intent.
China, realizing that the conference is not a sincere effort to engage in a dialogue on the war, has indicated its diplomats will also not be attending. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a routine briefing:
“The arrangements for the meeting still fall far short of China’s requests and the general expectations of the international community, making it difficult for China to participate…China has always insisted that an international peace conference should be endorsed by both Russia and Ukraine, with the equal participation of all parties, and that all peace proposals should be discussed in a fair and equal manner. Otherwise it will be difficult for it to play a substantive role in restoring peace.”
The CCP has been under pressure from western nations to stop the transfer of critical components used in the manufacture of Russian armaments, including dual-use components. They have also been admonished by NATO for continuing trade agreements that have helped Russia weather the effects of sanctions.
The Chinese may be concerned that their representatives will fall prey to a highly public NATO struggle session (which would be rather ironic), and that China will be chided on the world stage for “helping the enemy.” Without Russia or China in attendance the conference becomes nothing more than a strategy meeting for NATO members, and here is where the true purpose of the Swiss event is revealed.
Ukraine is losing the war, this much is clear. They are facing a desperate manpower shortfall and no amount of arms, ammo, technology or funding can improve the situation. Furthermore, Russian troops are making surprising gains across several areas of the front; this includes a new front opening up around Karkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. Harsh new conscription laws have a low chance of successfully re-energizing the ranks. This is why NATO members are suddenly lifting restrictions on US and European long range missiles and allowing Ukraine to attack targets deep in Russian territory.
It’s also the reason why EU members including France are considering the deployment of troops (as advisers) to Ukraine. The problem is that these actions escalate tensions and open the door to a wider war with the west. The Swiss summit may very well be in preparation for this inevitable outcome – A conference to sell global partners on more open NATO involvement in Ukraine. In other words, the “peace summit” might actually be a war summit, a sales pitch to 80 countries on the necessity of taking far greater risks to stop Russia from declaring a strategic win in the region.
Surging solar and wind electricity output displaced one-fifth of the European Union’s fossil-fuel power generation between 2019 and 2023, energy think tank Ember has said in a report cited by Reuters.
Between 2019, when the current European Commission took office, and last year, wind and solar power generation soared by 46%, according to the report.
Capacity installations surged by 65% during that period, with wind power up by 31% to 219 gigawatts (GW) and solar capacity more than doubling to 257 GW, the report found.
The rising share of solar and wind capacity and generation are displacing fossil fuels.
In April 2024, for example, the EU saw a record-low power generation from fossil fuels and a record-high share of renewables in the electricity mix, Ember says. In April, fossil fuels produced less than a quarter of EU electricity for the first time, while the share of renewables, at a record-high for a single month at 54%, was boosted by wind and solar and a recovery in hydropower compared to April 2023, when droughts had diminished the hydropower share of generation.
Generation from fossil fuels in April 2024 fell by 24% from a year earlier. As a result, EU fossil generation reached its lowest monthly level, at 46 TWh.
Both coal and natural gas power generation fell sharply. Coal generation provided 8.6% of the EU’s electricity mix in April 2024, its lowest share ever, while gas-fired generation made up 12.1% of the electricity mix, its lowest share in at least eight years, per Ember’s data.
The national targets of the EU member states are nearing the levels needed to meet the bloc’s REPowerEU targets, “but a further push is needed to close the remaining gap and accelerate deployment,” Ember analysts wrote in a report last month.
According to the think tank, renewables are on track to generate 66% of EU electricity by 2030, up from 44% in 2023. But this would fall short of the REPowerEU target of 72%.
Floating Russian Oil Base Shifts To New Location In Mediterranean Sea
In May, the Greek Navy began conducting war drills in the Laconian Gulf, about 110 miles southwest of Athens, to disrupt a ‘floating oil base’ used by Russian tankers for ship-to-ship transfers of crude oil and related products. Now, these tankers have migrated STS transfers to another part of the Mediterranean Sea.
Bloomberg reports tankers hauling Russia’s Urals are conducting STS transfers near the city of Nador at the eastern end of Morocco’s coast on the Mediterranean. This comes after the Greek Navy forced tankers out of the Laconian Gulf last month:
Shipping data via Bloomberg shows several tankers are conducting STS transfers off Morocco.
The Rolin, a Very Large Crude Carrier, or VLCC, is receiving Urals crude from a smaller tanker Serendi off the Moroccan city, the data show. It’s is the first time that the so-called ship-to-ship transfer of the grade has taken place there.
The Serendi is an Aframax-class ship. Two others – the Ocean AMZ and Sea Fidelity – have also arrived. All three loaded about 730,000 barrels of Urals from Russia’s Baltic sea port of Primorsk last month. -BBG
BBG: Tankers with Russian Urals crude conduct ship-to-ship transfer off Morocco
STS Russian transfers mostly end up thousands of miles away in Asia. However, according to the Black Sea Group, some of it ended up at European ports because of Brussels’ poor sanction management:
“68% of the oil was brought to the Laconian Gulf in Greece for transshipment, while the rest was directly exported to the EU ports amid poor sanctions management,” researcher Bohdan Ben wrote in a note.
The West’s overall goal is to crush Russia’s energy complex. Whether that’s the Greek Navy forcing Russian STS transfers away from the Laconian Gulf, US and EU sanctions on Russian crude exports, or the Ukrainian military attacking Russian refineries with kamikaze drones, the most crucial takeaway here is Moscow’s continued resiliency.
An opaque legal ruling could, in a roundabout way, soon halt all pipeline deliveries of Russian gas to Austria – and therefore Italy. Coupled with the ongoing disruptions in the Red Sea, the economic consequences for Europe’s second-largest industrial location could be dire.
In late May, an undisclosed European court handed down a ruling that in a roundabout way could force Austria’s main gas company OMV (Österreichische Mineralölverwaltung or Austrian Mineral Oil Administration) to stop paying for Russian gas.
Some background:
This all goes back to the West’s “freezing” of hundreds of billions of Russian foreign assets in 2022. In light of that move, Putin introduced the “gas for roubles” program so that payments and clearing on its gas exports would be under the control of the Russian Central Bank and therefore unable to be frozen or stolen by the West.
Many European countries/companies refused to comply and loudly complained that Putin was cutting off the gas.
Meanwhile, some countries and companies in central Europe were “allowed” by the EU to continue importing Russian gas due to difficulties in updating their legacy energy infrastructure or some other reason. So companies like Austria’s OMV agreed to pay in roubles and continue to import the Russian gas and often send it on to the countries that threw a fit over the gas for roubles program.
Now, here we are two years later, and it looks like OMV is going to be forced to stiff Gazprom on payments and redirect that money to European energy companies who refused to pay in roubles. What little details of the case that are known are this from Upstream:
…European companies led by Germany’s Uniper and RWE filed arbitration claims in Sweden, Switzerland and Luxembourg against the Russian company’s European trading subsidiary, Gazprom Export, seeking multibillion-dollar compensation payouts.
OMV said on Wednesday that its remaining supplies from Gazprom may be under threat due to “a foreign court ruling” obtained by “a major European company” relating to the 2022 halt in supplies.
Neither the court nor the company was identified.
However, OMV said the court ruling contains an injunction ordering Gazprom’s remaining European customers to divert their payments for received Russian gas to the accounts of the “major European company”, as enforcement of the compensation is deemed impossible in Russia.
OMV said that, if enforced, the ruling will require its OMV Gas Marketing & Trading subsidiary “to make payments under its gas supply contract with… Gazprom Export” to “the European energy company instead of sending them to Gazprom Export”.
“However, it is currently not known to OMV whether and when such an enforcement might occur,” it added.
Naturally, since Gazprom would not be receiving money for its natural gas, it would no longer deliver it to Austria. Despite the obviousness of that response, all the headlines read like this:
OMV of course says that it would still be able to supply customers with volumes from non-Russian sources through its “extensive diversification efforts in recent years,” but at what cost? At least one prediction has European natural gas prices jumping 18 percent, and that’s on top of the significant rises over the past two years. There’s a reason that Austria kept importing from Russia and is now the EU country that relies the most on Russian gas. As always, it’s cheap and reliable.
For comparison, OMV just signed long-term deals with BP and US-based company Cheniere Energy to import a combined nearly 2 million tons of LNG per year through a terminal in The Netherlands. The deals don’t begin until 2026 and 2029, respectively, and the contractual price will be pegged to market prices, which is the obvious disadvantage compared to set prices in long term contracts with Russia.
through Ukraine at the end of 2024, when the transit agreement between Moscow and Kyiv will expire.
The possibility of reduced flows, together with the maintenance of Norwegian primary infrastructures and steady geopolitical tensions made TTF increase by almost 9% in just 2 days.
Sure, the increased energy prices will hit the poorest Europeans hardest and reduce their quality of life, but hey, it’s good for US LNG companies.
The fact is, this is bad news for Austria, and maybe more importantly from an EU-wide perspective, for the bloc’s second largest industrial center: Italy. Both countries have been trying to prepare for a halt to Russian gas supplies at the start of the next year when the current gas transit agreement between Russia and Ukraine expires. Officials in Kiev have repeatedly made it clear that will be the end of Russian gas flowing through Ukraine.
That the cutoff date might now come sooner than expected just adds insult to injury. As OMV talks up its diversification efforts, it only has to look to Italy to see how difficult that process can be. With the ongoing tensions in the Red Sea and the Middle East causing disruptions in LNG deliveries Rome is in a major bind despite long pretending otherwise.
Italy has Algeria to the south, which was going to increase gas and oil exports. Italy had the LNG facilities and was going to be part of “the continent’s new economic growth engine.”
But that plan to transform the country into a gas hub for Europe, already on shaky ground, started to go up in flames in the Red Sea months ago. Italian PM Giorgia Meloni’s predecessor, the unelected former Goldman Sachs man Mario Draghi, was one of the biggest proponents of the EU’s doomed Russia policy and pushed the energy hub idea, which was seamlessly picked up by Meloni.
It was never all that well thought out in the first place.
In 2021, Russian imports accounted for 23 percent of Italian fuel consumption with gas depended on more heavily (about 40 percent of imports), but it was said Italy was well-positioned to manage the loss of Russian fuels due its proximity to North Africa. Italy quickly began looking south across the Mediterranean as part of the EU-wide turn to Africa in search of energy replacements for Russian oil and gas. Algeria was going to increase the flow of gas through an existing pipeline, and the countries plan to build another pipeline.
Italy consumed 29 billion cubic metres (bcm) of Russian gas last year, representing about 40% of its imports. It is gradually replacing around 10.5 bcm of that by increased imports from other countries starting from this winter, according to Eni.
Most of the extra gas will come from Algeria, which said on Sept. 21 it would increase total deliveries to Italy by nearly 20% to 25.2 bcm this year. This means it will become Italy’s top supplier, provide roughly 35% of imports; Russia’s share has meanwhile dropped to very low levels, Descalzi said this week.
The rest of the shortfall was to be made up of LNG shipments from Angola, Egypt, Mozambique, Qatar, and of course the United States.
Rome was using billions of euros coming from the EU’s green fund, the REPowerEU plan, and the Covid recovery fund to completely wean itself off Russian gas and turn the country into a hub, mainly with LNG storage facilities. The government rushed through a 5 billion cubic meter capacity (bcm) LNG terminal project in Tuscany with the Draghi government appointing a special commissioner with near-absolute powers that allowed the project to proceed despite court challenges.
In December, Italy’s gas grid operator Snam completed a $400 million deal for another floating 5 bcm LNG storage and regasification facility that will be based on Italy’s northeastern coast, which will bring the country’s total to 28 bcm. In September of 2022, Reuters declared that the “energy crisis sires new European order: a strong Italy and ailing Germany.”
The Italian government patted itself on the back and said it was the “best in Europe” on energy security.
While gas made up about 51 percent of Italy’s total electricity generation in 2022 (the highest level in Europe), more than 95 percent of it was imported from overseas, and the problem was the math was overly optimistic going forward.
The Transmed system connecting Algeria and Italy wasn’t even operating at full capacity in 2022 when Italy began to believe it was going to be able to ramp up deliveries. There were major Algerian production issues, including infrastructure problems and the need to divert gas to meet increasing domestic demand for electricity.
Marco Giuli, a researcher at the Brussels School of Governance in Belgium, told Natural Gas Intelligence at the time that “the additional 9 Bcm from Algeria by 2023 is unrealistic, especially considering that Algerian supplies to Italy increased by 80% between 2020 and 2021, Giuli said.
Here we are in 2024 and Algeria’s gas exports to the EU have actually declined:
🇩🇿’s LNG export reached a 13 year high in 2023. As 🇩🇿’s largest LNG buyer, 🇹🇷 increased its import by 20% reaching a record 4.45 BCM followed by 🇫🇷 & 🇮🇹.
🇩🇿’s total gas export remains strong, reporting a 6% growth in 2023 despite increase in domestic consumtion.
By @MeesEnergypic.twitter.com/NZXpnsytZi
So with LNG problems due to the Red Sea disruptions and less than hoped for from Algeria, what did Italy do in response? It started getting more gas from Russia via Austria:
At first, I could not believe my eyes. But digging, data is revealing an unpleasant truth. Italy still relies on Russian gas more than what could appear.
In March, Italy imports from Austria ballooned year-on-year and month-on-month.
Now, it looks like Russian supplies could be cut off even sooner than expected, and with Israel announcing its destruction of Gaza will continue until the end of the year, that means the Red Sea will remain a no-go zone. So Italy, Austria and others will be stuck with limited LNG options, which means prices will likely be ridiculously high due to scarce supply. Meanwhile, Italian factory activity continues to contract as it has been doing for the majority of the time for the past two years.
The vise tightening in Italy could be playing a role in Italian politicians piping up about the insanity of US/NATO escalation against Russia. Consider the following signs that Italy wants to get off the escalator in recent weeks:
In early May Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto slapped down French President’s Emmanuel Macron’s flirtation with the idea of sending Western troops to Ukraine.
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani declared that Italy is not at war with Russia and will not send troops.
Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Matteo Salvini said that NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg should recant his statements about using Western weapons to attack inside Russia’s pre-2014 borders, or he should resign. The full comment: “Never attack Russia,” says Salvini, who adds: “If they want to go and fight in Ukraine, let Stoltenberg, Emmanuel Macron and all the bombers who want war go there. Ukraine or using our weapons to kill in Russia is madness. Either this gentleman who speaks on my behalf, since he speaks on behalf of NATO, either apologizes or resigns. Because the Italian people did not give you any mandate to go and shoot in Russia”.
Unfortunately for the Italian people and especially the working class who have to bear the brunt of the pain from the economic war against Russia, the pushback against further escalation is too little, too late.
The Italian public has consistently shown some of the lowest support levels in Europe for Project Ukraine, and those numbers have been consistently falling as research shows that half of Italians are struggling to make ends meet.
Productive sectors of the economy have never been on board, and some political figures on the right like Salvini’s League and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia have periodically spoken out against escalation, but any attempts at a rational cost-benefit analysis or even maintaining some sort of cultural dialogue with Russians is met with hysteria from the liberal centrists in Italy (the real left has been mostly stamped out).
It’s a major shift for Italy, which long enjoyed close ties with Russia. The two countries remained strong business partners until recent years. For example, Italy shared manufacturing know-how, such as on civil aircraft and helicopter projects, as well as the modernization of rail transportation, and Russia had the energy. Many mid-sized Italian businesses, especially in areas like agricultural manufacturing, were also eager to get into the emerging Russia market. They’re now doing what they can to stay there. Italian exports to Türkiye, for example, have jumped 87 percent over the last two years with much of that increase likely attributable to the effort to bypass sanctions.
But now the gas is soon to be completely cut off and the US is cracking down on countries like Türkiye and their role in sanctions evasion.
The whole Project Ukraine has always been a lose-lose proposition for Italy. Go against it and fall victim to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s “tools,” which would have likely included yanking the nearly $200 billion in Covid recovery funds going to Rome along with other financial difficulties orchestrated from Brussels. Despite a big part of her appeal being her earlier pro-sovereignty positions, Meloni pledged fealty to the EU, NATO, and the US after her 2022 election. That decision, too, now has Italy in a massive bind. And despite Meloni rolling over, von der Leyen’s “centrist” pro-Project Ukraine coalition partners in Brussels are now threatening to block the latter from a second term running the EU Commission if she tries to bring Meloni’s party into the center-right European People’s Party in the EU Parliament.
And that pretty much sums up Italy’s past thirty years of involvement in the European project.
For three decades Italy has been one of the most eager adopters of EU-prescribed neoliberal reforms. Leaders in Rome complain but say there’s no choice.
For decades public assets have been sold off. American private equity is currently feasting on the country with CIA-connected KKR nearing completion of its acquisition of Telecom Italia’s fixed line network. More are to come as the sell-off must go on, the leaders in Rome complain but obey.
Most Italians’ standard of living keeps falling, but that only proves more market-friendly reforms are needed, Brussels says. Italian leaders complain but oblige. One can only wonder why.
And now what was left of Italian manufacturing is being killed so that US energy companies can make a killing delivering LNG, but Russia bad, they say.
And no doubt, despite these recent protestations over further escalation with Russia, when the US demands its European vassals wade ever deeper into the Ukrainian morass, the government in Rome will moan and wail as they order working class Italians to the front lines.
These are the lines none of us would have ever wanted to write, but we have to. The current situation in and around the war in Ukraine has opened a path, which could lead to a nuclear confrontation.
Ukraine has struck another early-warning (over-the-horizon) radar, this time in Orenburg region, near Orsk, some 1500 km from Ukraine. This radar did not even look at the direction of Ukraine, which makes the strike an act of madness, or something sinister.
These strikes to the Russian early-warning system can serve only two aims:
Ukrainian leadership is desperately trying to fully commit NATO to the war in Ukraine, or
Strikes are a preparation for nuclear strikes to Russia by the U.S.
Needless to say that the latter is extremely speculative. However, it is one of the two motives that can be established for the strikes. Alas, we have to acknowledge its existence. We have gone through the former in our previous warning.
What is more is that, according to Kremlin, the U.S., the U.K. and France would have deployed ground-based intermediate and short-range missile system to Ukraine. These systems were previously banned by the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) Treaty from which President Trump withdraw the U.S. in February 2019, citing Russian non-compliance and missiles developed by China.
These missile systems can be used to strike deep into Russia. The risk is that, if Ukraine would continue to target the early-warning system of Russia, at some point Kremlin would simply be forced to act, because it would seriously undermine their nuclear deterrence.
Nuclear deterrence operates on three dimensions: time, distance and altitude, in addition to the actual arsenal of nuclear weapons. Time and distance are crucial for the response (retaliation, effectively) and altitude where missiles fly, is crucial for anti-missile and other defense systems to operate. Over-the-horizon radars are crucial for all three dimensions, as early warnings give authorities time, distance and altitude to react and enact defensive measures. If they are taken out, or their ability to detect an approaching intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) seriously hindered, modern nuclear deterrence simply fails. This is the reason, why Kremlin would be forced to react if the early-warning system of Russia would become compromised by a foreign party (Ukraine/NATO). This applies also to the U.S. and all other nuclear powers. Everybody would eventually be forced to react under such a threat.
There are naturally other options than just a nuclear strike for Kremlin, but they all would need to be major, which would enflame the conflict further. If Kremlin would choose to enact a nuclear strike, it would probably use a tactical nuke, which is smaller than a strategical nuke (e.g., an ICBM), and hit a military target, like an airbase.
This is why we (with an extremely heavy heart) issue a warning of a possible nuclear strike in Europe. This warning is effective for the time being.
We don’t present any estimated likelihood for it, at this point at least, as it would be macabre. However we note that, while the likelihood is probably not very high at the moment, if strikes to Russian early-warning system continue, it will grow rapidly.
While still unlikely, we urge you to start to prepare for the unthinkable.
Student debt in the U.S. has ballooned to over $1.7 trillion, burdening millions of Americans with financial stress. Rising tuition costs and stagnating wages are considered to be the major drivers of this issue.
This survey was conducted in 2024 with a nationally representative sample of 210 students. Results were normalized by gender and income.
Data and Key Findings
Student wealth surveys can provide unique insights into the financial preparedness of younger Americans.
Starting with post-grad fears, it appears that the majority of students are afraid of either not finding a job, or paying off their debt.
Some of these worries could subside in the future, as the federal government appears committed to cancelling federal student debt.
The latest news came on May 22, 2024, when the Education Department announced it would cancel $7.7 billion for borrowers who received Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which includes professions like teachers and nurses.
Regardless, 77% of students surveyed believed that their tuition was a good investment.
Not Learning Enough
Another highlight from this study was that nearly half (49%) of students feel that their school does not do enough to teach them about personal finance.
When survey respondents were asked to choose which topic they wished they had learned more about, the most common answer was “How to do my taxes”.
