The US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is now airdropping millions of doses of oral rabies vaccines (ORV) throughout several Southeastern states, as wild raccoons and other wildlife are reportedly spreading the disease.

The program to scatter the vaccines in the mountainous forests of the Western North Carolina region is being coordinated between the USDA and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS). Affected counties include Buncombe, Haywood, and Transylvania counties.

“Avoiding contact with wild animals and vaccinating our domestic animals and pets is the best way to prevent rabies, which can often be fatal,” said Erica Berl, NCDHHS Deputy State Public Health Veterinarian, in a press release. “The wildlife rabies vaccination program prevents the spread of rabies among animals in the wild, which in turn prevents humans, pets, and other animals from becoming infected.”

The vaccine, RABORAL V-RG, comes in a matchbook-sized plastic packet which is coated in fishmeal, or encased inside a fishmeal polymer coating.

“Humans and pets cannot get rabies from contact with the baits, but if they encounter them, they should leave them undisturbed,” said the USDA. “Dogs that consume large numbers of baits may experience an upset stomach, but there are no long-term health risks. If adults or children come in contact with baits, immediately rinse the contact area with warm water and soap.”

More via the Epoch Times‘ Matt McGregor;

The program began in August distributing throughout the Northeast to mid-Atlantic regions such as Maine, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

It continued into mid-September from mid-September to mid-October in Massachusetts.

Throughout October, the program will be dispersing vaccines by airplane, helicopter, and vehicle in the Southern states such as Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

In Canada, it’s been used since 1985, and in Europe, it began in 1980.

There are 16 states in the U.S. distributing vaccines for raccoons.

Texas uses them for gray foxes and coyotes.

“Rabies is a serious public health concern,” the USDA said in an August press release. “While rabies is almost always fatal once symptoms appear, it also is 100% preventable. Human exposures can be successfully remedied if medical attention is sought immediately following exposure.”

Ninety percent of rabies cases in the United States are found in wildlife, the USDA said.

“Costs associated with rabies detection, prevention, and control may exceed $500 million annually in the United States,” the USDA said.

The goal of the program, according to the USDA, is to keep raccoons from spreading the virus to states where it hasn’t been found or isn’t widespread.

Rabies affects the central nervous system, the WHO said.

“In up to 99% of cases, domestic dogs are responsible for rabies virus transmission to humans,” the WHO stated in a 2023 Fact Sheet.  “Yet, rabies can affect both domestic and wild animals.”

Children between the ages of 5 and 14 are often victims of rabies, the WHO said.

“The incubation period for rabies is typically 2–3 months but may vary from 1 week to 1 year, depending on factors such as the location of virus entry and the viral load,” the WHO said. “Initial symptoms of rabies include generic signs like fever, pain, and unusual or unexplained tingling, pricking, or burning sensations at the wound site. As the virus moves to the central nervous system, progressive and fatal inflammation of the brain and spinal cord develops. Clinical rabies in people can be managed but very rarely cured, and not without severe neurological deficits.”

The two main types of rabies are furious rabies and paralytic rabies.

Furious rabies causes hyperactivity, hallucinations, a fear of water and fresh air, excitable behavior, and ultimately, after a few days, death caused by cardiorespiratory arrest.

Paralytic rabies is what is found in 20 percent of human cases, and is a kind that is more subtle than the former.

“Muscles gradually become paralyzed, starting from the wound site,” the WHO said. “A coma slowly develops, and eventually, death occurs. The paralytic form of rabies is often misdiagnosed, contributing to the under-reporting of the disease.”

Diagnosis for detecting a rabies infection is limited.

“Unless the rabies-specific signs of hydrophobia or aerophobia are present, or a reliable history of contact with a suspected or confirmed rabid animal is available, clinical diagnosis is difficult,” the WHO said. “Human rabies can be confirmed intravitam and post mortem by various diagnostic techniques that detect whole viruses, viral antigens, or nucleic acids in infected tissues (brain, skin or saliva).”

Rabies is present on all continents except Antarctica, the WHO said, with over 95 percent of deaths occurring in Asia and Africa, though cases aren’t frequently reported.

In the U.S., hematophagous bats have become the primary source of human rabies deaths, the WHO said, because rabies in dogs has been contained.

“Bat-mediated rabies is also an emerging public health threat in Australia and Western Europe,” the WHO said.

“Human deaths following exposure to foxes, raccoons, skunks, jackals, mongooses, and other wild carnivore host species are very rare, and bites from rodents are not known to transmit rabies,” the WHO said.

“This prevents the virus from entering the central nervous system, which would invariably result in death,” the WHO said.

*  *  *

Remember… if you are bitten by a rabid animal and you become afraid of water, it’s over.

Authored by Roger Kimball via American Greatness,

On September 14, 2001, George W. Bush, exercising “the power vested in [him] as President of the Untied States,” issued Proclamation 7463, a “Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks.” That got the ball rolling on the construction of the surveillance state.

At the time, the extreme measure seemed justified. Three days earlier, the United States had suffered its most devastating terrorist attack in history.

But how about this: On September 8, 2023, Joe Biden quietly renewed the Bush era emergency measures for another year. I was told there would be no math, but that makes 22 years and counting that a vast array of surveillance assets have been mobilized against—against whom?

When George W. Bush was president, they were focused on al Qaeda and kindred groups.

Today?

Today, that fearsome governmental power is still assembled. Increasingly, however, it seems to be focused against those the administration fears or dislikes.

Traditional Catholics, for example, or parents upset with their local school boards.

At the head of the list of potential “domestic extremists” are the tens of millions of people who support Donald Trump (not to mention, of course, Trump himself). A couple of days ago, Hillary Clinton took to CNN (it would be CNN) to say that something needed to be done to silence those misguided people who supported Trump. “Maybe,” she said, “there needs to be a formal deprogramming” of MAGA “cult members.”

Apparently the FBI agrees. According to a much-cited article in Newsweek, the agency has created a “new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers.” That article suggests that the FBI is struggling to combat genuine threats without attacking people who simply support Trump and other populist candidates. I wonder, though, how scrupulous they are being in protecting people’s Constitutional rights to free speech and political dissent.

Actually, I do not wonder. It is quite clear, as The New York Post observed, that the agency is deploying “some of the same counterterrorism methods honed to fight al Qaeda” in its scrutiny of Trump supporters and “AGAAVE,” i.e., “anti-government, anti-authority violent extremism” (an acronym that, as the Post suggested, “looks like a typo for a sugar substitute”).

Let me reprise here something I wrote back in April of this year: As a working principle, the conviction that things are always worse than they seem is hard to beat.

Along with the observation from William Dean Howells that the problem for a critic isn’t making enemies but keeping them, that mournful conviction that things are worse than they seem has the twin clarifying advantage of being psychologically helpful and empirically true.

Both have stood me in good stead.

That is to say, if Johnny Mercer was right that one should “accentuate the positive,” one should also avoid the attitude of Dr. Pangloss who, Leibnizian that he was, taught that this is “the best of all possible worlds.”

As readers of “Candide” will recall, that rose-colored sentiment didn’t do much to protect Cunégonde.

I was reminded of this constellation of mottos while reading Jacob Siegel’s long and meticulously researched “Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century.”

Siegel’s brilliant if melancholy overview shows in exhaustive detail how the U.S. government, abetted by the mainstream media and what has come to be called “elite” or “ruling class” opinion generally, has repurposed surveillance tools developed to combat terrorism and turned them against the American people.

I know that sounds dramatic. In fact, it’s actually an understatement.

We have been vouchsafed glimpses of life behind the curtain for a while now. Hillary’s Clinton’s recent CNN rant and FBI’s new, extra-wide category of what counts as “extremism” or incipient terrorism show that the threat is metastasizing.

Siegel focuses mostly on developments in the United States. But it’s worth noting that the story he unravels is an international concession, proceeding, for example, with initiatives such as the Davos-inspired “Great Reset.”

I have written about various aspects of the phenomena that Siegel aggregates in his sinewy and alarming essay. For example, I wrote about Matt Taibbi’s exposé of “Hamilton 68,” a shadowy group of anti-Trump activists who succeeded in publicly branding anyone or anything they didn’t like as emanating from “Russian disinformation.”

“Instead of tracking how ‘Russia’ influenced American attitudes,” Taibbi notes, “Hamilton 68 simply collected a handful of mostly real, mostly American accounts, and described their organic conversations as Russian scheming.”

Simply in terms of volume, Taibbi estimates that Hamilton 68 “may go down as the single greatest case of media fabulism in American history.” Virtually every major news organization in America was involved: NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

Even fact-checking sites such as Politifact and Snopes, Taibbi notes, “cited Hamilton 68 as a source. The people at Hamilton 68 simply targeted individuals they didn’t like, individuals such as Devin Nunes, Mike Flynn, Tulsi Gabbard, or Donald Trump—and then smeared them as witting or unwitting stooges of Vladimir Putin.

The whole scheme, Taibbi shows, was a splendid example of “digital McCarthyism, taking people with dissident or unconventional opinions and mass-accusing them of ‘Un-American activities.’”

But Siegel shows this was the but the tip of the censorship iceberg. His essay shows that kindred developments stood behind the state narrative about COVID-19, the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, the Jan. 6, 2021, protest at the Capitol, “domestic terrorists,” as well as anything having to do with Trump.

A critical moment was Jan. 6, 2017. It was then, in the waning days of the Obama administration, that Jeh Johnson, head of the Department of Homeland Security, placed the property of all 8,000 election jurisdictions under the control of the DHS.

“It was a coup,” Siegel notes, that Johnson had been aiming at since 2016.

At first, he was blocked by local authorities who explained that, as the Constitution stipulates, running elections was the sole responsibility of state legislatures. Johnson justified his action by invoking the emergency of (totally spurious) “Russian interference.”

His success meant that in the final weeks of the Obama administration, “the new counter-disinformation apparatus scored one of its most significant victories: the power to directly oversee federal elections that would have profound consequences for the 2020 contest between Trump and Joe Biden.”

But Siegel shows that the rot began much earlier. Remember the “Global War on Terror” mounted by the Bush administration following the terrorist attacks of 9/11?

It was then that the Patriot Act and kindred initiatives (like  Proclamation 7463) licensed the construction of a sprawling surveillance network, ostensibly focused on foreign bad guys but soon repurposed in a way that “suspended constitutional rights and placed millions of Americans under a shadow of mass surveillance.”

“The seamless transition from the war on terror to the war on disinformation,” Siegel writes, “was thus, in large measure, simply a matter of professional self-preservation. But it was not enough to sustain the previous system; to survive, it needed to continually raise the threat level.”

And raise the threat level “it”—the deep state—has consistently done, such that anyone who challenges its diktats is regarded as an enemy. How did this happen? Americans didn’t choose to give up their liberties and constitutional rights. The choice was made for them.

As Siegel writes: “Americans are no longer presumed to have the right to choose their own leaders or to question decisions made in the name of national security. Anyone who says otherwise can be labeled a domestic extremist.”

Siegel’s essay is a tour de force whose richness and detail I can only hint at here. If I had to summarize his findings, I would emphasize three points.

• First, that “after the pretense of fighting a foreign threat fell away, what was left was the core mission to enforce a narrative monopoly over truth.” We see that everywhere, whether the subject is Trump, Jan. 6, COVID, Russia, the joys of transsexuality, or the brittleness of the Constitution in the face of the perpetual emergency foisted upon us by the permanent state.

• The second point follows that brittleness: “The pattern in these cases is that the ruling class justifies taking liberties with the law to save the planet but ends up violating the Constitution to hide the truth and protect itself.”

• And that brings me to the third and most fundamental principle that Siegel has uncovered in this harrowing piece of work: That the ruling class, the elite that officiates over the ceremonies, perquisites, and directives of the deep state, are bound by one overriding conviction. “As a class,” Siegel concludes, “their highest principle is that they alone can wield power.” No one who reads this essay can doubt that this is true.

As I say, things are always worse than they seem.

Gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson celebrated the grand opening of its new headquarters in Tennessee on Saturday after leaving its longtime home in Massachusetts for the more gun-friendly state.

The company’s new digs in Maryville, TN are approximately 650,000 square feet, as part of the company’s $125 million relocation plan announced in 2021.

The ribbon cutting event showcased renowned competitive shooter Jerry Miculek, who set an NRA record for hitting six steel plates with a 9mm revolver in 1.88 seconds.

Congratulations, NRA World Champion @Jerry_Miculek! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 @Smith_WessonInc pic.twitter.com/AUrB7l2GFp

— NRA (@NRA) October 8, 2023

“From where I stand, the next 170 years of Smith & Wesson are looking pretty good,” Smith & Wesson President and CEO Mark Smith said on Saturday during the grand opening. “It is something special here in Tennessee.”

He cited a welcoming regulatory environment and close collaboration with the Tennessee state government as a crucial piece of the plan to relocate. The company has said the new facility would create hundreds of jobs.

Tennessee has moved to loosen gun restrictions in recent years under Republican leadership. In 2021, the state passed a law to allow most adults 21 and older to carry handguns without a permit that requires first clearing a state-level background check and training. –AP

Smith & Wesson was established in 1852 in Connecticut, before soon moving its headquarters to Springfield, MA.

“Congratulations to Smith & Wesson on their grand opening in Tennessee. This move is a testament to their enduring legacy, their commitment to firearm excellence, and to the importance of preserving America’s gun industry and Second Amendment rights in a fair environment,” NRA Executive Director of Advancement, Tyler Schropp, told Fox News.

“Representing millions of NRA members and gun owners, the NRA was proud to be the tip of the spear for the passage and enactment of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that saved America’s firearm industry,” he continued, citing the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that prohibits firearms manufacturers from being held liable if their products are used to commit a crime.

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

The Biden administration is furiously trying to contextualize its past, unsupportable policies that have sown global chaos, especially in the Middle East. 

But the more it spins, the clearer its culpability. Does it really believe that the long-agreed-upon U.S. green-lighting of $6 billion in sanctions relief to Iran has had no role in Iran’s terrorist support of Hamas, whether psychological or material or both? 

Do they think we are that stupid?

Even a first-grader might surmise that if a terrorist state knows that an impending $6-billion bonanza will shortly arrive in its coffers, then it will more readily in the here and now send arms to Hamas—on the logical assumption that those costs soon will be more than covered, while making the additional assumption that the United States is complicit in its own fungible use of sanctions relief cash, and thus not innately hostile to Tehran’s self-professed agenda.

 In short, Tony Blinken is either a naif, a fool, or to use his words “misinforming”.

These administration’s megaphones who deny such fungibility always end up mouthing the same arguments as the lying and murderous theocracy in Tehran.

But then why not—given the Biden-appointed Robert Malley, previously known as Obama’s ISIS advisor (and we remember how that worked out in Iraq), and a self-declared expert on Hamas rapprochement, eagerly accepted the offer to restart the disastrous Iran deal and normalize Iranian-American relations?

And Malley was indeed eagerly at work—until he was stripped of his security clearance for his alleged unlawful dissemination of classified documents, and in addition fell under further scrutiny allegedly for treasonous efforts to insert pro-Iranian activists into the State Department.

What also was behind the initial, natural instincts of the State Department’s  “U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs”?

On news of the attacks, our State department in Pavlovian fashion immediately posted: “We urged all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.”

Yes, as lots of us predicted, that insane virtue signal would eventually be taken down – but only in response to Americans outraged at its amoral inanity.

Was our government’s first inclination to stop Israel’s counter-responses to systematic Hamas murdering? Should Israelis accept another 800, 1,000, or 2,000 dead women and children in the interest of abiding by the instruction of the American “Office of Palestinian Affairs” to avoid “retaliatory attacks”?

For that matter, does the Biden administration admonish Ukraine to refrain from “retaliatory attacks”—since, in its logic, responding to Putin’s “terror” with Ukrainian counter “violence” would “solve nothing”?

Or is it just Israel, a democratic ally, that deserves these sermons?

Or do they not reflect the embarrassing reality that there is a core Democratic base—the toxic Squad, AOC’s Democratic Socialists, the fusion media, and some of the identity politics caucuses—who are Hamas apologists, even if that bankrupt ideology descends into ignoring or condoning the abject slaughter of civilians in their homes?

And are we really to believe, as told, that resumption of hundreds of millions dollars in aid to the Palestinians was also not fungible and used to aid the current murderous agendas of Hamas?

But do not just believe supporters of Israel about that reality.

Instead, read what dissidents in the State Department themselves warned at the time of the dangers of Biden’s resumption of aid to the radical Palestinians:

 “We assess there is a high risk Hamas could potentially derive indirect, unintentional benefit from U.S. assistance to Gaza. There is less but still some risk U.S. assistance would benefit other designated groups.”

The administration is, of course, back peddling furiously, given its prior appeasement of Iran and Hamas, if not an outright tilt against Israel—again policies that reflected the embarrassing core constituency of the Democratic Party.

Americans should not listen to what Biden’s team now conveniently says, but instead to what it actually does in the upcoming weeks when it is under fire by its base in the new woke Democratic Party, as the Israelis have to go into Gaza, end this toxic death machine, and confront the Hamas global propaganda machine.

A hard rain is soon going to fall abroad.

And the United States better get its house in order, whether defined as standing with its few dependable allies left, securing its own oil and gas supplies, protecting its borders, un-woking and rebooting its suspect military, recalibrating its all too often incompetent and politicized intelligence bureaus—and thus preparing for a world turned upside down.

During the weekend we warned readers that after Friday’s face-ripping short-squeeze Goldman’s prime brokerage cautioned that “Long-Only Sellers had become Exhausted, and HF Short Covering Begins“, signaling a change in market sentiment was taking place, which coupled with the shortest CTAs on record…

… and dealer gamma flipping positive, and thus conducive to further stock gains…

… indicating we would see a continuation higher in the most shorted names, one which would lift the broader market higher.

Many balked, saying there was no way we could get a risk rally after the deadliest clash involving Israel in decades, and yet, not only did stocks reverse early weakness, but spoos surged higher after some early weakness in what was a carbon copy of Friday’s meltup…

… one which pushed all sectors from deep red to green…

… and sent the Goldman most-shorted basket ripping higher for the 4th afternoon in a row as the massive hedge fund short overhang is getting increasingly concerned, and starting to frontrun the next squeeze.

Adding to the upside fuel, just days after we saw the Put-Call ratio hit the highest level in 2023…

… the upward drift in the market meant a theta inferno, and hedged traders liquidated puts en mass, leading to a second consecutive dump in the VIX, following Friday’s meltdown.

And since the VIX has so far failed to break above 20, we are now just shy of 100 sessions in which the VIX has closed below 20, the longest such stretch since Oct 2018 when, ironically, the market tumbled after the Fed realized it will need to be far more hawkish.

Finally, 0DTE punters lifting the S&P delta flow all day pretty much assured today’s green close.

What was the driver behind today’s meltup?

Surely it wasn’t the war in the middle east which sparked an oil buying spree just days after the biggest liquidation in oil in over a year…

… which helped squeeze the S&P energy sector 3.4% higher, its biggest intraday jump since Jan 2, right on schedule after the biggest pile up in energy shorts just days earlier.

*S&P 500 ENERGY INDEX GAINS 3.2%, MOST INTRADAY SINCE JUNE 2 https://t.co/h6an6n2UCx

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 9, 2023

… perhaps as the market realized that the liquidation driven by the DOE’s most grotesquely manipulated gasoline demand number in history…

How ridiculous was last week’s DOE gasoline demand print? So ridiculous, it was the biggest outlier on RECORD to ethanol-implied gasoline demand.

Translation: yet another example of DOE desperate to slam oil prices by “adjusting” the underlying data pic.twitter.com/o3EqzNDpis

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 9, 2023

… won’t last long if Iran’s 1mmb/d in “embargoed” excess production is taken off the market.

No, none of that moved the broader market. What did, and what cracked the Bloomberg dollar index sharply lower, was multiple Fed speakers such as Dallas Fed Lorie Logan and Fed vice chair Philip Jefferson echiung what SF Fed Mary Daly said on Friday, suggesting that soaring 10Y yields/term premium have done the Fed’s tightening job for them, and no more hikes are coming. This is how UBS’s trading desk put it:

Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson sounds dovish. He said he will remain cognizant of tightening financial conditions through higher bond yields and will keep that in mind when assessing the future path of policy. Also, he said the Fed is in a sensitive period of risk management, where they have to balance the risk of not having tightened enough, against the risk of policy being too restrictive.

The unexpectedly dovish wind blowing from Fed talking heads sent the Dec24 SOFR futures surging more than 20bps higher…

… and as the sudden dovish sentiment blew away much of the recent hawkish hangover which meant that the first full rate cut has now been moved to June from July…

… we also saw 10Y (implied) yields tumble 20 bps from Friday’s close, because even though cash Treasuries were closed for Columbus Day, 10Y futures surged, indicating that 10Y yields were last trading around 4.60%, the lowest level in about a week.

While the dovish reversion in sentiment helped propel stocks higher, it also sent gold and silver – both of which had tumbled at the end of September and into October, back to to the highest level since the start of the month.

Of course, if the Fed’s tightening cycle is over and rate cuts are starting to get priced in again, expect to see precious metals – and stocks, crypto, and everything else for that matter – push sharply higher in coming days.

Authored by Peter Berkowitz via RealClear Wire,

Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. From 2019 to 2021, he served as director of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department. His writings are posted at PeterBerkowitz.com and he can be followed on Twitter @BerkowitzPeter.

While China works on developing advanced space lasers and microwave weapons, the CCP is also planning to double the size of its space station over the next several years, as part of a larger effort to lure international space missions away from NASA’s International Space Station (ISS), which is slated to be decommissioned sometime around 2030.

The Chinese station, known as the Celestial Palace, will now contain six modules instead of three, and the lifespan of the facility will be increased to more than 15 years vs. 10 years.

The Celestial Palace, currently home to three astronauts, reached full operational status late last year.

After the expansion, it will still only be about half as large as the ISS, and won’t be able to host as many astronauts simultaneously.

The CCP has claimed that it will become a “major space power” around the time the ISS is decommissioned in seven years.

The China Academy of Space Technology, a unit within the CCP primary space contractor, announced the plan at an astronautical forum in Azerbaijan on Oct. 4.

The announcement follows several claims by Chinese state-owned media last year that “several countries” had already reached out to the CCP in the hopes of being included in future missions to the station. –Epoch Times

While the CCP says lots of countries want to board their station, the European Space Agency said earlier this year that they don’t have the budgetary or political approval to green-light European astronauts for future missions. The USA, meanwhile, has banned any official collaboration between NASA and the CCP space program.

More via the Epoch Times;

To that end, retired Gen. David Thompson, then the U.S. Space Force’s vice chief of space operations, said in 2021 that the CCP was attacking U.S. space infrastructure “every single day.”

These reversible attacks, in which U.S. satellite architecture or cyber systems are compromised temporarily, have largely been seen as China’s preparation for a real war.

Similarly, the regime is conducting research and development of capabilities that could dismantle space-based U.S. infrastructure, upon which its navigation and missile defense systems are built.

The CCP has itself stated that it’s on a mission to become the global leader in space exploration, technology, and law-making, according to an official white paper released earlier in the year.

“In the next five years, China will integrate space science, technology, and applications while pursuing the new development philosophy, building a new development model, and meeting the requirements for high-quality development,” the report reads.

“It will start a new journey toward space power.”

The use of the Celestial Palace as a means of projecting soft power is therefore an important aspect of the CCP’s attempts to dismantle U.S. influence and values internationally by projecting an image of the socialist regime as an alternative to U.S. liberal democratic leadership.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

The world needs $14 trillion in cumulative investments in the oil sector by 2045 to ensure market stability and avoid energy and economic chaos, OPEC said in its annual World Oil Outlook on Monday.

The annual investments need to be around $610 billion on average, the bulk of which should go to the upstream segment, the cartel said, rebuffing calls for a halt in investments in new supply.

The cumulative investments in the upstream need to be around $11.1 trillion by 2045 or an average of $480 billion per year. Downstream and midstream requirements are estimated at a total of $1.7 trillion and $1.2 trillion by 2045, respectively.

“If these investments do not materialize, it represents a considerable challenge and risk to market stability and energy security,” OPEC said in the annual report, in which it also raised its long-term oil demand forecast to 116 million bpd in 2045, up by 6 million bpd from the demand for that year expected in the 2022 annual outlook.

“Ensuring that these investments are made and sustained is a key challenge and of utmost importance to the stability of oil markets and security of supply,” OPEC said in the 2023 outlook.

This year, upstream investment is set to rise by 13%, to $360 billion, but this will only bring capital expenditure back to pre-pandemic levels.

“Hurdles to upstream investment, or even calls to curtail investment, are not helpful in this regard, and raise the risk of supply shortfalls and market volatility,” the cartel warned.

OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais commented in the foreword to the report,

“Calls to stop investments in new oil projects are misguided and could lead to energy and economic chaos.”  

“History is replete with numerous examples of turmoil that should serve as a warning for what occurs when policymakers fail to acknowledge energy’s interwoven complexities,” Al Ghais noted.

Update(1350ET): Casualties in the Gaza Strip are soaring (at over 560 dead) after a full day of very heavy, frequent airstrikes by the Israeli Air Force. For the first time Monday, Israel says it has pacified the border, with a military spokesperson announcing, “There are no terrorists crossing the fence from Gaza into Israel.” The confirmed death toll among Israelis is now over 900.

“Since this morning, there have been a few encounters with terrorists. There have been none at all in the last few hours,” the military spokesman said. Israel earlier announced a full “siege” of Gaza, and there are signs a ground invasion could be imminent. Hamas and Gaza militants have announced holding at least 100 hostages, but now Hamas is threatening to execute them. Netanyahu on Sunday had warned Palestinian civilians to begin clearing out, but as some observers have noted, where will they go? 

According to the latest from the Times of Israel on Hamas’ new threat to kill more Israelis:

The Hamas terror group is threatening to begin executing hostages in response to Israeli strikes in Gaza carried out without warnings, the spokesperson for Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades says, according to Gaza’s Shehab news outlet.

“From this hour, any targeting of our people in the safety of their homes, without warning, will be met with the execution of civilian hostages, which will be broadcast with video and audio,” says the spokesperson, who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Obeida.

A defense official reportedly told Knesset members in a briefing earlier in the day that Israel was not dropping dummy bombs on roofs of buildings set to be targeted, meant to warn civilians to flee.

Many of these hostages, foreigners among them, are believed to have been kidnapped from the Saturday music festival which had been taking place in the southern desert, near the border with Gaza.

Meanwhile more shocking footage has emerged as Hamas invaded the event and began shooting civilians at random: 

New footage from the music festival in Israel

pic.twitter.com/lgPr7FiBaJ

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) October 9, 2023

* * *

Update (1100ET): Israel has confirmed its forces are now striking targets in southern Lebanon, as the conflict slides into the much-feared scenario of a two-front war… Hamas in the south, Hezbollah in the north. Interestingly, it seems that Gaza-based militants are trying to provoke Hezbollah’s entry into the war, given they need the firepower and for the IDF to be bogged down in the north:

ALERT Palestinian Islamic Jihad claims Israel infiltration from Lebanon: official

ISRAELI WARPLANES ARE BOMBING SOUTHERN LEBANON.

This is a severe escalation. This came after clashes between Israeli occupation forces and unknown gunmen.

Hezbollah won’t sit and watch. Expect a retaliation. pic.twitter.com/55oD5HLeBj

— Hadi Nasrallah (@HadiNasrallah) October 9, 2023

According to CNN:

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a brief statement on Monday that its helicopters are currently striking in Lebanese territory. No further details were provided. 

Earlier, the IDF said a “number of armed suspects” who “infiltrated” into Israel from Lebanon were killed, and that IDF soldiers were searching the area.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers said in a statement on Monday that it has reported explosions near Al-Boustan in southwest Lebanon.

There are also reports IDF heavy armor has been seen headed to northern border with Lebanon:

Cross-border attacks are intensifying in the growing tit-for-tat:

BREAKING: Israeli army targets three Hezbollah watch towers in southern Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/TAlBAzCm92

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) October 9, 2023

* * *

The total death toll among both sides as all-out war between Israel and Gaza militants enters its third day has topped 1,100 – with most of these deaths being Israeli, at an estimated 800.

Israel’s defense minister has as of Monday ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza which alarmingly includes cutting off all supply of electricity, fuel, and food, but even water for a densely packed population of 3+ million people in the strip.

Yoav Gallant said, “I have given an order – Gaza will be under complete siege.” He added: “We are fighting barbarians and will respond accordingly.”

At the same time a statement from energy minister Israel Katz confirmed, “I instructed that the water supply from Israel to Gaza be cut off immediately.”

GAZA pic.twitter.com/W9S8m1zd36

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) October 9, 2023

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have reportedly retaken all the southern towns and settlements which were hit hardest by Saturday’s shock invasion of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militants from Gaza.

A fuller picture of the devastation is still emerging. Israeli authorities have confirmed recovery of 260 bodies from the site of the desert music festival which was among the first to be invaded by Hamas gunmen…

Mapping and timing the atrocities at the Nova Festival near Rei’m on Saturday morning (long thread).

Working with new drone footage, multiple sets of satellite imagery, and videos, it was possible to assemble a small idea of what happened in a small area.

Note- content warning pic.twitter.com/Y6QoOxo2Bg

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) October 9, 2023

Meanwhile, the IDF continues to pound the Gaza Strip on an unprecedented scale, with top Israeli officials increasingly voicing their approval for a ground invasion, which some say is imminent: 

Israeli strikes in Gaza have killed at least 493, including dozens of children, and left 2,651 injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

An incursion by Gaza militants of this scale has not been seen in Israel since the nation’s founding in 1948.

But if an Israeli ground assault does ensue, it will be deeply controversial inside Israel given the likely high casualties the IDF will take on (as has been the case in prior high-risk ground incursions).

There are emerging reports that Gaza-based terrorists have beheaded IDF soldiers:

Can confirm that images showing Hamas beheadings of IDF soldiers exist. Do not go searching for them.

Haven’t seen images of that magnitude since ISIS was prevalent.

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) October 8, 2023

At the same time, Hamas and PIJ terrorists are now holding some 100 Israeli hostages taken in Saturday’s cross border raids.

According to Reuters, Qatar is currently seeking to mediate hostage negotiations. The Palestinian side has demanded the release of some 5,000 of their own who have been held in Israeli jails, sometimes for years.

There are believed to be Americans (or dual US-Israeli citizens) currently in captivity in Gaza:

A spokesperson for the NSC said the agency can confirm the deaths of “several” U.S. citizens, but did not provide a specific number.

“We extend our deepest condolences to the victims and to the families of all those affected, and wish those injured a speedy recovery,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement shared with The Hill.

Additional US media sources reported that so far four Americans have been confirmed killed. And later in the morning on Monday the State Department announced nine Americans have been killed.

U.S. STATE DEPT SPOKESPERSON CONFIRMS THE DEATH OF NINE AMERICANS IN ISRAEL

NEW: American citizens have been taken as hostages by Hamas according to Israel Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer.

In response to these reports, Secretary of State Blinken says the US is “working overtime.”

One person who doesn’t seem to be working overtime is Biden who… pic.twitter.com/kXU8cyDbUy

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 9, 2023

BBC is also reporting that at least 10 British citizens are feared dead or missing. According to Israeli officials, the numbers of Americans confirmed to be in captivity could grow as more details emerge:

Ron Dermer, Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, confirmed American citizens were among those taken captive but gave no details about them or those who had been killed.

“Unfortunately, I can’t,” he told CNN. “We have a lot of dual citizens in Israel. I suspect there are several, but we’re still trying to sort through all of all this information after this horrific surprise attack and we’ll make sure to put that information out so that the loved ones of these people who were killed and who are held hostage, they know as quickly as possible.”

On Sunday the Pentagon announced it is sending an aircraft carrier and warships near Israel in a “show of support” – also as Americans as well as dual passport holders and tourists scramble to get out.

Ben Gurion international airport has come under a barrage of rockets fired from the strip, disrupting all flights in and out.

BREAKING: Direct hit on Ben Gurion airport, Tel Aviv by the Palestinian resistance’s missiles pic.twitter.com/doj3dIKcXt

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) October 9, 2023

developing…

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

President Biden is considering asking Congress for a massive $100 billion spending package for the Ukraine war, The Telegraph reported on Saturday.

The idea of the huge spending package would be to fund the proxy war through the 2024 election without having to worry about the growing opposition to the policy in Congress, as the majority of the House and the Senate currently still support arming Ukraine.

“The ‘big package’ idea is firmly supported by many throughout the administration,” a source familiar with discussions on the matter told The Telegraph. “

Supporters of Ukraine want this to be a one-and-done big bill, and then not have to deal with it until after the next election.”

Defense News recently reported that multiple senators have also proposed passing a massive Ukraine aid package to get through a whole year. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) put the price tag at $70 billion.

An unnamed Biden administration official told The Telegraph that the White House is “not making any decisions about whether to do one big package or about how much it would be” until after a new House speaker is elected to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), which is expected to happen on Wednesday.

While the majority of Congress supports more spending on the Ukraine war, it could be difficult to bring a massive aid package to the floor of the House for a vote due to the sway GOP opponents of the policy have over the speaker. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) launched the effort to oust McCarthy after accusing him of cutting a secret deal with the Democrats on Ukraine aid.

If a $100 billion aid package is authorized by Congress, it would bring total US spending on the proxy war to about $213 billion.