week ending Aug 10

 "This Is Not 2007/8" - Hawkish Fed's Bullard Confirms "Mid-Cycle Adjustment" - With stocks rebounding dead-cat-like overnight, St. Louis Fed President Jim Bullard may have just stolen the jam out of the market's donut, confirming Powell's more hawkish comments that "this is a mid-cycle adjustment" and sees no recession on the horizon. The normally outspoken dove commented that he "would not consider the latest tit-for-tat with China an intensification" and added that "now is the time to see if we bought enough insurance." The St.Louis Fed head noted that he "does not see conditions warranting a 50 basis point cut all at once," and that The Fed "has already adjusted for trade uncertainty," adding that The Fed "should not react to short-term market moves." Further disappointing the liquidity-addicted market, Bullard - who is currently a voter on the Fed’s policy-setting committee - said that "US monetary policy is considerably more accommodative than it was as of late last year" and added that "while additional policy action may be desirable, the long and variable lags in the effects of monetary policy suggest that the effects of previous actions are only now beginning to impact macroeconomic outcomes", in effect pushing back against the market's demands for 3 or more rate cuts by the end of the year. Instead, Bullard suggested that monetary policy is already sufficiently accomodative, noting that "policy has already adjusted to the fact that trade uncertainty will remain high" and that it remains not clear "Fed wants to ‘pile on’ more monetary accommodation until it is clear how moves so far will effect the economy" especially since the impact of changes in Fed policy will become more apparent in the second half of 2019 or early 2020. But the most disappointing was Bullard's warning that it is a losing game for the Fed to respond to stock market movements, and that the Fed "should not react to short-term market movements", even though that's precisely what the Fed has been doing for the past decade. Meanwhile, addressing the macro environment, he said that the Fed may be stuck with a volatile global trade environment for years, but cannot respond to the “day-to-day gave and take” of major nations feuding over the rules of the game, which ironically is precisely the opposite of what Powell said last week, further compounding the market's confusion by Fed communications.

Trump Renews Powell Attack- I Was Right... Fed Must Cut Rates Bigger And Faster - The ink on the Fed's latest rate cut - the first in a decade - still hasn't dried, and here comes the president demanding, drumroll... more. As we expected earlier, when we noted the not one, not two, but three surprise rate cuts by Asian central banks, and said that it's only a matter of time for Trump to chime in, Donald Trump did just that when in a trio of tweets, the president once again lashed out at Powell for not only not cutting more than just 25 bps - because it is "too proud to admit their mistake of acting too fast and tightening too much (and that I was right!)" - but also because the rest of the world is now winning the race to the bottom: "They must Cut Rates bigger and faster, and stop their ridiculous quantitative tightening NOW" Trump boomed, even though the Fed ended their "ridiculous quantitative tightening" LAST WEEK.Trump also unveiled that he is now a yield curve expert, although what he means by "yield curve is at too wide a margin" is not exactly clear since the 3M-10Y curve just hit a new 12 year low of -40bps as the entire yield curve now screams recession. “Three more Central Banks cut rates.” Our problem is not China - We are stronger than ever, money is pouring into the U.S. while China is losing companies by the thousands to other countries, and their currency is under siege - Our problem is a Federal Reserve that is too..... ....proud to admit their mistake of acting too fast and tightening too much (and that I was right!). They must Cut Rates bigger and faster, and stop their ridiculous quantitative tightening NOW. Yield curve is at too wide a margin, and no inflation! Incompetence is a.......terrible thing to watch, especially when things could be taken care of sooo easily. We will WIN anyway, but it would be much easier if the Fed understood, which they don’t, that we are competing against other countries, all of whom want to do well at our expense! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2019

  Fed may be forced to reassure stressed global markets- Kemp – (Reuters) - Global investors are flocking towards the safety of the dollar, euro and yen and prime-rated government bonds as fears of a recession and a downturn in equity valuations surge. The good news is that most indicators suggest the level of financial market stress remains moderate rather than severe, which will provide some reassurance for policymakers. The bad news is that stress can move from moderate to severe very quickly, something policymakers will want to ensure does not happen. The U.S. Treasury yield curve has continued to invert, a clear signal that bond traders expect a prolonged slowdown and more interest rate cuts. The 3-month to 10-year segment of the curve has been continuously inverted for 2-1/2 months so far with long rates now 34 basis points below the short end, the most extreme inversion since April 2007. In the last five decades, sustained inversions lasting three months or more have always signalled the arrival of a recession in the next 12 months (https://tmsnrt.rs/2MOUikw). The current inversion is already more severe than the mid-cycle slowdowns of 1995 and 1998, though not yet quite as serious as before the end-of-cycle recessions in 2001 and 2008. Before the last two recessions, inversion peaked at 59 basis points in March 2007 (recession started in December 2007) and 85 basis points in December 2000 (recession began in March 2001). But in a sign of increasing stress that will worry policymakers, the curve has continued to invert despite the quarter-point cut in interest rates announced by the Federal Reserve at the end of July. Fed funds futures imply interest rate traders expect the U.S. central bank to cut interest rates by at least another 50 basis points and probably 75 basis points before the end of the year. Rate cuts totalling 75-100 basis points before year-end would be similar or slightly larger than during the downturns of 1995 (75 basis points) and 1998 (75 basis points) but smaller than during the last two recessions.Fears about a global slowdown and a fall in the price of equities and other risky assets have already prompted a traditional flight to safety from higher-risk to lower-risk assets. As bond prices have surged, yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) have fallen to just 10 basis points, from more than 30 basis points in late July, and over 100 in November 2018. TIPS yields are down to the lowest level since October 2016, when the central bank was struggling to boost a sluggish economy and the federal funds rate was still set at a post-crisis rate of just 25-50 basis points.

Howard Marks- Is It The Fed's Job To Keep Market Dislocations At Bay Forever? - Howard Marks, co-founder of Oaktree has emerged as the latest (billionaire) voice to criticize the Fed (after Carl Icahn did it earlier in the day) for cutting interest rates last month, according to an interview with Bloomberg TV. Marks believes that more monetary stimulus will simply boost asset prices further, which will just serve to widen the income inequality gap. To which, we and anyone can only respond: he is absolutely correct.Sure, it's a relatively simple concept, but then again so is not racking up $22 trillion in debt and catalyzing debt bubbles that, depending on sector, are approaching or have already eclipsed levels seen before the 2008 Great Recession. Marks opens his latest memo to clients, dated July 26, asking, "...is it the Fed's job to sustain expansions and keep market dislocations at bay ad infinitum?"With the bull market now passing a decade-long with record low unemployment, Marks says the economy simply doesn’t need the Fed's help. He argues that the rate cut last week will make it harder for people with less savings, and also lenders, to earn decent returns. Marks said: "The process of lowering the rates causes assets to inflate. There will be more wealth piled up by the people who have assets and it’ll be harder for people who just have a little bit of savings to make a return." He continued: "We stimulate the economy when it's doing poorly and we want to wake it up from the doldrums. We generally don’t stimulate the economy after ten good years. We usually accept that there will be an ebb and flow to the cycle and there might be a justified recession. We have the lowest employment rate in 50 years and you usually don't stimulate at those times.""I don't think it should. I don't think the Fed's job is to make sure there's never a recession," he continued. "If I ran the Fed what I would do is when the economy is roaring, I would try to cool it off so there's not too much inflation. When it's really weak I'd try to stimulate it. In between, I'd leave it alone."His timing for speaking out and blaming the Fed appears spot on. The likelihood of a US recession in the next year has risen to 35% in August from 31% previously. Trade tensions continue to fuel uncertainty and the yield curve appears to be forecasting that a recession is inevitable.

When You Get An Email Like This From The Fed, It May Be Time To Panic -- Yesterday, in a lengthy article referencing the escalating dollar and funding liquidity shortage as a result of the aggressive rebuild of the Treasury's cash balance from $133BN to $350BN in the aftermath of the debt ceiling deal, we said "Forget China, The Fed Has A Much Bigger Problem On Its Hands."  As we explained in detail, the main reason why the Fed should be concerned, is that according to a research report from BofA's Marc Cabana which we used extensively in the report, the Fed may be forced to launch Quantitative Easing as soon as Q4 to provide the market with the much needed liquidity, or else suffer the consequences of a major liquidity shortage. To wit, in describing the various steps the Fed can engage in, this is what the BofA strategist said:  Outright QE: after OMO dealer capacity is exhausted the Fed may need to start permanently expanding its balance sheet. The Fed would likely describe this as offsetting "bank reserve demand and growth in other non-reserve liabilities". Regardless, it would represent the Fed permanently buying USTs outright to maintain control of funding markets well above the ZLB.  Well, it appears that the Fed paid attention, because moments ago we received an email from a Federal Reserve researcher which should make everyone very, very nervous. Specifically, the "rather urgent request" from a Fed staffer (no, not Edward Quince) seeks the full Cabana report whose gist, as noted above, is that the Fed will have to launch QE4 in very short notice to offset the upcoming liquidity drain. Incidentally, this was our conclusion to our Tuesday article (which for those who missed it can be found here):   Bank of America believes "the Fed will need to step in to offset these funding market pressures through outright balance-sheet expansion or QE, potentially in 4Q." And while the Fed could get ahead of these issues by laying out a framework around money market control before greater criticisms and questions emerge about the independence of monetary/fiscal policies or the path to MMT, it won't do that, and instead it will wait for another, even greater "Lehman-like" crash to float the idea of imminent QE... which is precisely what Nomura warned about earlier in the day.. Based on the Fed's email, we wonder if it means the Fed is now seriously contemplating following through on Cabana's recommendation, and if so, does the market crash first, or is it about to price in QE4 and soar. We expect to find out very soon.

PIMCO Warns Negative US Treasury Yields "Swiftly Change From Theory To Reality" - It is no longer absurd to think that the nominal yield on U.S. Treasury securities could go negative. Last week the German 30-year government bond yield dipped into negative territory for the first time ever. Around $14 trillion of outstanding bonds worldwide, or 25% of the market, now trade at negative yields, according to Bloomberg. What was once viewed as a short-term aberration – that creditors are paying debtors for taking their money – has already become commonplace in developed markets outside of the U.S. Whenever the world economy next goes into hibernation, U.S. Treasuries – which many investors view as the ultimate “safe haven” apart from gold – may be no exception to the negative yield phenomenon. And if trade tensions keep escalating, bond markets may move in that direction faster than many investors think.   Many observers blame central banks like the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) that are taxing banks’ excess reserves with negative deposit rates and have made bonds scarcer by removing them from the market through their purchase programs. However, we believe central banks are not the villains but rather the victims of deeper fundamental drivers behind low and negative interest rates. The two most important secular drivers are demographics and technology. Rising life expectancy increases desired saving while new technologies are capital-saving and are becoming cheaper – and thus reduce ex ante demand for investment. The resulting savings glut tends to push the “natural” rate of interest lower and lower. Against this backdrop, the financial history of the last decade is littered with central banks that either kept the “money” rate of interest above the “natural” rate or tried to raise it too early (the ECB in 2011) or too far (the Fed in 2018). Both were punished by market forces and have had to reverse course. One likely factor behind the savings glut and negative interest rates is negative “time preference.” Once upon a time, economic theory maintained that people always value today’s consumption more than tomorrow’s consumption – and thus display positive time preference. This made sense in a world where people usually died before they retired and struggled to satisfy basic needs. However, it can be argued that in affluent societies where people can expect to live ever longer and thus spend a significant amount of their lifetimes in retirement, more and more people demonstrate negative time preference, meaning they value future consumption during their retirement more than today’s consumption. To transfer purchasing power to the future via saving today, they are thus willing to accept a negative interest rate and bring it about through their saving behavior. (For more on this, see No End to the Savings Glut, one of the first pieces I wrote after joining PIMCO four years ago.)

10-year yield drops below 1.6%, 30-year yield nears all-time low as collapse in rates accelerates - Investors again rushed for the safety of government bonds and dumped stocks on Wednesday, exacerbating the August exodus away from risk assets as traders around the world settled in for a U.S.-China trade war without an end in sight. The flight to safety sent the yield on the 10-year Treasury note — used as a benchmark for mortgage rates and auto loans — falling to a low of 1.595%, the lowest since autumn 2016. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond bottomed around 2.12%, near its all-time low reached in 2016. The 10-year Treasury rate is about 40 basis points below its level one month ago, down more than 35 basis points in August alone and representing a sizable move for the relative stable U.S. bond market. The yield ended July above 2%. Bond yields move inversely to their prices; yields fall when investors demand Treasurys. The head-turning moves in the bond market weren’t isolated to the United States, however, as rates in Germany and the United Kingdom clinched record lows across the board on Wednesday. The yield on the German 10-year bund hit a new all-time low of -0.6% while the 30-year bund also hit a record at -0.137%. The 2-year German yield touched -0.849%. The U.K. 10-year and 30-year yields both hit record lows at 0.432% and 1.081%, respectively. The U.S. Treasury yield curve also exacerbated its recent flattening and inversion, with the spread between the yield on the 3-month Treasury bill and that of the 10-year Treasury note close to -40 basis points. The spread between the 2-year Treasury yield and the 10-year yield, a longtime recession gauge, hit a low of 7.4 basis points, its lowest level since June 6, 2007.

 Yield Curve Blares Loudest U.S. Recession Warning Since 2007 - The latest eruption in the U.S.-China trade dispute pushed a widely watched Treasury-market recession indicator to the highest alert since 2007.Rates on 10-year notes sank to 1.714% on Monday, completely erasing the surge that followed President Donald Trump’s 2016 election. At one point, they yielded 32 basis points less than three-month bills, the most extreme yield-curve inversion since the lead-up to the 2008 crisis. The moves follow reports that China is responding to the American president’s threat of more tariffs by allowing the yuan to fall and halting imports of U.S. agricultural products. Many major investors expect the slide in 10-year yields to continue given the risk that a protracted dispute creates for markets.Count BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest asset manager, among them. The firm’s global chief investment officer of fixed income, Rick Rieder, foresees 1.5% for the 10-year.“We could be in a significantly lower-rate environment for a while” given that central banks are poised to ease, Rieder told Bloomberg Television on Monday.The outlook for steeper declines resonated in options markets, too, which saw trades targeting a drop through 1% this month.Columbia Threadneedle’s Ed Al-Hussainy also sees the potential for a further leg down in the 10-year benchmark, but says Federal Reserve rate cuts could help the yield curve reverse its current course.“Potentially now the curve starts to steepen because the Fed is being pressured -- by a combination of data and obviously downside risks in trade -- to be more forceful,” the senior strategist said in a phone interview.Heavy buying in fed funds futures contracts since the Fed delivered its quarter-point reduction last week means the market is now pricing in another reduction in September, and then some. Al-Hussainy expects investors to turn to even more aggressive positioning for rate cuts. He says the signal from the curve suggests money markets should be pricing in a higher probability of the Fed’s policy rate going to zero in the coming year.

 July 2019 Yield Curve Update --Kevin Erdmann - The yield curve has taken a sudden turn for the worse. The Fed's tradition of using interest rates to convey their monetary stance is such a constant source of confusion.  The conversation about yields so often seems to hinge on the idea that the central bank is in full control of interest rates and uses them to make it more or less profitable to borrow and invest.  It baffles me how ubiquitous this sort of idea is in both professional finance and economics. Recent movements in yields are a great case in point.  It is common to hear this shift described in terms of expectations about Fed rate cuts.  But the whole yield curve shifted down.  This is not a sign that the Fed will be loosening monetary policy more aggressively.  This is a sign that they won't be loosening aggressively enough.  The neutral rate just changed, leaving the Fed behind as a victim of institutional inertia.  That is in contrast to recent times when yields did react to clear signals from the Fed that it was going to be more aggressive.  In those cases, short term rates fell and long term rates increased. I only update my graph of the adjusted yield curve inversion monthly, so the red dot for July is at about the same spot as it was at the end of June.  Of course, the 10-year rate has dropped 25bp since then.  So, unless some sort of economic or political development greatly improves economic prospects in spite of a tight monetary posture, raising 10 year yields back up, then we are already at a point where, even with short-term rates at zero, the yield curve will be effectively inverted.  This will likely lead to complaints about how the Fed is using QE4 to keep long term interest rates low to boost investment and asset prices, including from many otherwise sensible people who are generously paid to manage other people's assets.

 Entire US Curve Inverts As 30Y Yield Drops Below Effective Funds Rate - We have a bingo. With yields crashing across the world after the overnight panic by three central banks to cut rates more than expected, it was only a matter of time before the 30Y tumbled below the effective Fed Funds Rate, which most recently was at 2.13%. That happened moments ago when he 30Y tumbled as low as 2.12%, 1 basis point below the EFF, and in the process inverting the entire US yield curve and basically telling Bernanke he has to cut rates another 4 times (and/or start QE) or else suffer the coming recession.

Q3 GDP Forecasts: 1.6% to 1.9% --From Merrill Lynch: We continue to track 1.8% for 2Q GDP and 1.7% for 3Q. [Aug 9 estimate]   From the NY Fed Nowcasting Report:  The New York Fed Staff Nowcast stands at 1.6% for 2019:Q3. [Aug 9 estimate].   And from the Altanta Fed: GDPNow;The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the third quarter of 2019 is 1.9 percent on August 8, unchanged from August 2. [Aug 8 estimate]  CR Note: These early estimates suggest real GDP growth will be in the high 1% range annualized in Q3.

A Decline in Capital Investment Reveals the False Promise of Trump’s Tax Bill -- With Donald Trump using his Twitter feed as a flamethrower on a daily basis, other significant developments, particularly policy ones, often don’t get the attention they deserve. Take last week’s G.D.P. report from the Commerce Department, which detailed a sharp slowdown in capital spending by American businesses during the second quarter of this year. To understand the full significance of this development, you need to go back to the first year of the Trump Administration.  In October, 2017, the White House Council of Economic Advisers published a white paper that claimed the Administration’s proposal to slash the tax rate on corporate profits would increase the average household income by at least four thousand dollars a year, and perhaps as much as nine thousand dollars. To say the least, it wasn’t entirely clear how presenting corporations with such a gift would generate this huge boost in living standards, but Kevin Hassett, a conservative economist who was the head of the council, suggested one possible route. “I would expect capital spending to really take off if the tax bill passes,” hetold the Washington Post. Hassett’s prediction was certainly a bold one. At the end of 2017, Congress passed a bill cutting the corporate-tax rate from thirty-five per cent to twenty-one per cent. The legislation also contained a second element designed to boost capital investment: it allowed businesses to deduct the cost of certain types of capital spending all at once in their tax returns rather than spreading the cost throughout a number of years. As businesses equipped American workers with the latest machinery and information technology, the workers would become more productive, and their wages would rise. That was Hassett’s theory, anyway, and a number of other conservative economists espoused it, too. It didn’t take long for the White House to claim that the tax bill had worked. This time last year, Trump pointed out that private-business investment was rising at an annual rate of more than nine per cent. As usual, Trump was exaggerating. The upturn in business investment during the first half of last year was by no means unprecedented, but it did represent an increase on the previous few years. However, it was fleeting. In the second half of last year, the growth in business investment fell sharply, and the slowdown has continued into 2019. During the second quarter of this year, according to last week’s G.D.P. report from the Commerce Department, it turned negative. If you exclude investment in residential real estate, which also fell, business-fixed investment declined at an annual rate of 0.6 per cent in three months, from April to June.

America’s Indefensible Defense Budget - The sheer size of the military establishment and the habit of equating spending on it with patriotism make both sound management and serious oversight of defense expenditures rare. As a democracy, we are on an unusual and risky path. For several decades, we have maintained an extraordinarily high level of defense spending with the support of both political parties and virtually all of the public. The annual debate about the next year’s military spending, underway now on Capitol Hill, no longer probes where real cuts might be made (as opposed to cuts in previously planned growth) but only asks how big the increase should be.  The political momentum that drives this annual increase, disconnected from hard thought about America’s responsibilities in a transformed world, threatens to become—or may have already become—unstoppable. The consequences are huge. At home, defense spending crowds out funds for everything else a prosperous economy and a healthy society need. Abroad, it has led us to become a country reflexively reliant on the military and one quite different from what we think ourselves to be or, I believe, wish to be. If you have read anything about defense spending in recent years, it was probably expressed as a percentage of GDP. At roughly 3–4 percent (it was more than 40 percent in 1944, 15 percent during the Korean War, and over 10 percent in the early 1960s), it seems eminently affordable. But this almost universally used measure is close to meaningless, except to make rough international comparisons. It makes no sense to expect that external threats will expand in parallel with a country’s economic growth. A country whose economy has grown by, for example, 30 percent has no reason to spend 30 percent more on its military. To the contrary, unless threats worsen, you would expect that, over time, defense spending as a percentage of a growing economy should decline. Instead, the valid measure of affordability is defense spending’s share of the federal discretionary budget: that is, of all federal spending other than the mandatory allotments to entitlements and interest on the national debt. Discretionary spending is everything else the government does:   Defense spending now accounts for almost 60 percent of the budget: everything else is accommodated in the remaining two fifths. By this measure, defense spending looks anything but easily affordable. Nor, on its projected path of continuing growth, does it look sustainable.

The Military-Industrial Jobs Scam - Yves here. This is a very important post, documenting how despite defense contractor claims to the contrary, increased military spending has been accompanied by job losses in the US. This should come as no surprise. Military contracting is an exercise in pork, and regularly flagrantly disregards national security. A classic example: US uniforms and boots are made in China.  Originally published at TomDispatch -- In the last month, Donald Trump and Marillyn Hewson, the head of Lockheed Martin, the nation’s top defense contractor and the largest weapons producer in the world, have seemed inseparable. They “saved” jobs at a helicopter plant. They took the stage together at a Lockheed subsidiary in Milwaukee. The president vetoed three bills that would have blocked the arms sales of Lockheed (and other companies) to Saudi Arabia. Recently, the president’s daughter Ivanka even toured a Lockheed space facility with Hewson.  On July 15th, the official White House Twitter account tweeted a video of the Lockheed CEO extolling the virtues of the company’s THAAD missile defense system, claiming that it “supports 25,000 American workers.” Not only was Hewson promoting her company’s product, but she was making her pitch — with the weapon in the background — on the White House lawn. Twitter immediately burst with outrage over the White House posting an ad for a private company, withsome calling it “unethical” and “likely unlawful.”  None of this, however, was really out of the ordinary as the Trump administration has stopped at nothing to push the argument that job creation is justification enough for supporting weapons manufacturers to the hilt. Even before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, he was alreadyinsisting that military spending was a great jobs creator. He’s only doubled down on this assertion during his presidency. Recently, overriding congressional objections, he even declared a national “emergency” to force through part of an arms sale to Saudi Arabia that he had once claimedwould create more than a million jobs. While this claim has been thoroughly debunked, the most essential part of his argument — that more money flowing to defense contractors will create significant numbers of new jobs — is considered truth personified by many in the defense industry, especially Marillyn Hewson.  The facts tell a different story.

New Defense Secretary Immediately Faced With Challenges In Iran, UK  - Newly confirmed Defense Secretary Mark Esper takes the reins at the Pentagon this week in a particularly strained moment between Iran and the United States, days after the former exacerbated the uncertainty in the region by seizing a British-flagged oil tanker traveling through the Strait of Hormuz.  Within a week of his confirmation, Esper will travel to the headquarters of U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for U.S. forces in the Middle East, to discuss how the United States will protect its own commercial vessels traveling through the strait. CENTCOM has already announced a “multinational effort” to “enable nations to provide escort to their flagged vessels while taking advantage of the cooperation of participating nations for coordination and enhanced maritime domain awareness and surveillance”—but questions have lingered over the specifics of that effort. The Iranian incident has also exposed the delicate condition of U.S.-UK relations, another minefield that Esper will have to navigate. Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt said Monday that the U.K.will take steps to bolster maritime security in the Persian Gulf, but that those efforts will be “European-led” and “will not be part of theU.S. maximum pressure policy on Iran.” Esper on Wednesday said that the U.S. and European efforts will be “complementary” and insisted that the two allies are on the same page.  Tensions with Iran have been on the rise since May, when the Trump administration began warning of what it described as an aggressive campaign by Iran designed to get the United States to back off its “maximum pressure” strategy. Trump in 2018 withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal—which traded sanctions relief for curbs on Tehran’s nuclear weapons program—arguing that it was too narrow in scope and allowed Iran to get away with too much other bad behavior. The U.K. has publicly backed Washington’s assessment of an elevated threat posed by Iran, but it did not support President Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement and it has throughout the spring called for de-escalating tensions with Tehran.

Iran's Foreign Minister Confirms He Was Sanctioned For Rejecting Trump Invitation - We detailed days ago how last month Trump secretly reached out to Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, inviting him for direct talks at the White House via a sit down in New York with Sen. Rand Paul.  Zarif has now confirmed that he was sanctioned by the US Treasury last Wednesday specifically as retribution for rebuffing Trump's request. "On my trip to New York, I was told that I would be sanctioned within two weeks unless I accepted the offer, which I fortunately did not accept," he said at a Monday press conference. A journalist for The New Yorker had first revealed late last Friday that during an hour long meeting with Trump's recently tapped intermediary with Iran, Sen. Paul, Zarif expressed that he could not meet with Trump without approval from Tehran. After discussing various ideas related to convincing the White House that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons, and ways to restart negotiations on equal footing, Zarif is reported to have in the end rejected the unprecedented invitation to meet with Trump after expressing concerns that it would be little more than a photo opportunity. Zarif described Monday that he had met with multiple senators and congressmen on his latest UN trip, which he did not name due to the sensitivity of their diplomatic discussions.   Addressing the sanctions, Zarif said that "boycotting a country's foreign minister means that your negotiations fell short," and further that US desperation is distancing the possibility of a diplomatic track.  Iran foreign minister Zarif says he was told in New York that if he doesn’t accept Trump’s invitation to meet him at the White House, he will be sanctioned in two weeks. He adds: “fortunately I didn’t accept it and I was sanctioned”.pic.twitter.com/VZgIEXk8hf

Nobody Speaks For The United States - Trump Bashes Macron Over Mixed Signals Toward Iran - President Trump took to Twitter Thursday to express frustration over the US "maximum pressure" campaign designed, according to prior statements, to bring the Iranians back to the table to "negotiate a better deal" after the White House's unilateral pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal brokered under Obama. He slammed EU countries, particularly France, for sending mixed signals. "Iran is in serious financial trouble," Trump stated. "They want desperately to talk to the US...". Of course, all evidence suggests otherwise, which is why the president followed by calling out European powers for thwarting US policy efforts at taking Iranian oil exports down to zero. "I know Emmanuel means well, as do all others, but nobody speaks for the United States but the United States itself," Trump continued. ....I know Emmanuel means well, as do all others, but nobody speaks for the United States but the United States itself. No one is authorized in any way, shape, or form, to represent us! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 8, 2019 A report in a major Middle East publication Al Monitor claimed Macron had invited Iran's President Hassan Rouhani to meet with Trump at ​the G7 summit in Biarritz in late August; however, a follow-up Reuters report quoted a French diplomat as saying the story was false. The Reuters story stated unambiguously: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has not been invited to this month’s G7 summit, a French diplomat said on Wednesday, denying a media report published as European leaders seek a way to defuse a brewing confrontation between Tehran and Washington. While Trump didn't specify in his tweet exactly what he was referring to, it appears his words were aimed at the reports that suggested France was claiming to act with US backing, while simultaneously sidestepping US sanctions, which have lately included the US Treasury targeting Iran's top diplomat, FM Javad Zarif.

Why did the US exit INF Treaty- What you’re not being told -- US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is halfway through his tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The tour’s timing, coming just weeks after Esper was officially sworn in, affirms the notion that the Pentagon’s top priority is China. Despite the heavy focus of the US government and the mainstream media regarding Iran and the Gulf region of late, I also suspect China would be more of a focus for official talks with Esper than Iran would be. Countries like New Zealand are more than happy to toe Washington’s line with regard to the Iranian issue – just ask any Iranian who has tried dealing with Immigration New Zealand (INZ). Let’s frame this issue in another way: the US doesn’t want mid-range missiles stationed throughout the region to combat Iran. Anyone who thinks they do is, simply put, an imbecile. As Foreign Policy explained, the “choice of Asia for his [Esper’s] first international trip since he was confirmed was a deliberate one, designed to signal that Asia remains the department’s top priority.” That being said, I don’t need official information requests to determine if my assertions are correct or not, when I can just quote Esper directly. “Our strategic competitors are China and Russia, principally, in that order,” Esper recently said. This can be seen in the formal decision by the US to exit the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia. While on the face of it, it looks as if the US is directly taking action against Russia (and don’t get me wrong, it totally is doing that as well), the fact remains that the US wants out of this treaty because it was concerned it was limiting its ability to combat China in the Asia-Pacific theater. 

Pentagon Chief in Favor of Deploying U.S. Missiles to Asia - NYT — The American defense secretary, Mark T. Esper, said Saturday that he was in favor of deploying ground-based missiles to Asia, a day after the United States formally pulled out of a Cold War-era arms treaty that directly limited such weapons. Mr. Esper, speaking to reporters on his way to Australia, said he would like to see the deployment within “months” but did not specify an exact timeline, the types of weapons the United States would deploy and where exactly they would be positioned.  Such a move would be likely to anger China and North Korea, two countries that have long opposed the deployment of American military hardware anywhere near their borders, and would most likely prompt further consternation from allies that Washington was veering dangerously close to starting a new arms race. In 2018, the United States announced it would withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces agreement, known as the I.N.F. treaty. On Friday, the United States formally did so, months after Russia said it would suspend its observation of major aspects of the pact in a “symmetrical” response. The demise of the treaty left a major hole in NATO’s defense, and the world body said on Friday that it would respond in a “measured and responsible way” to a deployment of missiles by Moscow that violated the pact. The accord banned land-based missiles that could travel 310 to 3,417 miles. Russia has repeatedly denied breaching the pact. On Saturday, Mr. Esper was careful to say that the deployment of any American missiles to Asia would be “conventional” in nature and within “I.N.F. range.” His pledge to field shorter-range missiles to the region has not stopped the Pentagon from looking toward an I.N.F.-free future in which longer-range ground-based missiles might soon be tested and deployed. But Mr. Esper also expressed caution on Saturday over how long those types of weapons would take to reach the field. “It’s fair to say, though, that we would like to deploy a capability sooner rather than later.”

US to ring China with missiles in nuclear arms race - Within hours of the official withdrawal by the United States on Friday from the world’s most important nuclear treaty, the Pentagon made clear that it intends to ring China with missiles amid a rapidly accelerating nuclear arms race. Speaking to reporters during a trip to Australia, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the Pentagon would deploy missiles prohibited under the treaty “sooner rather than later.” “I would prefer months,” Esper said. The deployment of medium-range missiles in the Pacific would turn the Chinese coast and the Pacific islands surrounding it into a nuclear battlefront, putting the lives of billions of people in China, the Koreas, Japan, Taiwan and the broader region at risk. The INF treaty banned the US and Russia from developing missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,000 kilometers, meaning that most of Europe and much of the Pacific were off limits to the stationing of nuclear missiles.In subsequent comments, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is accompanying Esper on his trip to Australia, declared that the United States had been “asleep at the switch” with regard to the “danger” posed by China. He then reemphasized Esper’s declaration that China’s peaceful economic growth constituted a military threat to the United States. However, as technological trends shifted military balances and the United States escalated its conflict with China, Washington increasingly came to view the Cold War-era treaty as conflicting with its aims of militarily encircling Beijing, which was not a signatory. With the potential deployment of US nuclear missiles just minutes in flight-time from the Chinese mainland, tensions will be on a hair trigger, with the huge population of the region living under the specter of nuclear annihilation. Responding to the US withdrawal from the INF treaty, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that “the world will lose an invaluable brake on nuclear war.”  In defending his decision to station missiles in a densely populated area thousands of miles away from America, Esper accused China of “weaponizing the global commons using predatory economics.” In other words, China, by carrying out peaceful economic activities, is threatening the United States, and that should therefore be countered with the threat of military annihilation.

China warns of countermeasures if U.S. puts missiles on its ‘doorstep’(Reuters) - China threatened countermeasures on Tuesday if the United States deploys intermediate-range, ground-based missiles in Asia and warned U.S. allies of repercussions if they allow such weapons on their territory. U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Saturday he was in favour of placing ground-launched, intermediate-range missiles in the region soon, possibly within months. Washington formally pulled out last week from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a 1987 pact with the former Soviet Union that banned ground-launched nuclear and conventional ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500-5,000 km (310 to 3,400 miles). U.S. officials had accused Russia of not complying with the treaty but the withdrawal also allows the Pentagon to develop new weapons to counter China, which boasts an increasingly sophisticated land-based missile force. Beijing was not a party to the deal and refused to join. Fu Cong, director general of the arms control department at China’s foreign ministry, said Beijing “will not stand idly by” and watch the United States base missiles in Asia. “If the U.S. deploys missiles in this part of the world, at the doorstep of China, China will be forced to take countermeasures,” Fu told reporters. “I urge our neighbours to exercise prudence and not to allow the U.S. deployment of intermediate-range missiles on their territory,” Fu said.

US Secretary of State demands greater Australian involvement in war drive against China -US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo used a visit to Sydney last weekend for annual Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) to issue bellicose denunciations of China and to demand greater Australian involvement in Washington’s aggressive confrontations with Beijing and also Iran. Pompeo and US Defence Secretary Mark Esper were feted by the Liberal-National Coalition government, the Labor Party opposition and the corporate press, underscoring Australia’s complete alignment with the US war drive in the Asia-Pacific and internationally. The AUSMIN talks followed the official US withdrawal last Friday from the INF treaty, which placed restrictions on its deployment of medium and long-range missiles. Speaking in Sydney, Esper immediately signalled that the Pentagon would deploy missiles prohibited under the treaty “sooner rather than later.” His remarks made clear that the US plans to encircle China with missiles, potentially carrying nuclear weapons, dramatically raising the danger of war in the region. Both US officials stressed Australia’s central role in this war drive. Speaking to the media on Sunday alongside Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, Pompeo described the US-Australia alliance as an “unbreakable relationship.” The comment was an unmistakable warning that Washington will not tolerate any deviation by Australia from its plans.

North Korea fires more weapons, denounces US military drills (AP) — North Korea continued to ramp up its weapons demonstrations by firing two presumed short-range ballistic missiles into the sea Tuesday while lashing out at the United States and South Korea for continuing military exercises that the North says could derail fragile nuclear diplomacy. North Korea’s fourth round of weapons launches in less than two weeks came amid a standstill in nuclear negotiations and after President Donald Trump repeatedly dismissed the significance of the country’s recent tests despite the threat the weapons pose to allies South Korea and Japan and to U.S. bases there. Experts say Trump’s downplaying of the North’s weapons display has allowed the country more room to advance its military capabilities as it attempts to build leverage ahead of negotiations, which could possibly resume sometime after the end of the allies’ drills later this month. South Korea’s military alerted reporters to the launches minutes before the North’s Foreign Ministry denounced Washington and Seoul over the start of their joint exercises on Monday. The ministry’s statement said the drills, which North Korea sees as an invasion rehearsal, leave the country “compelled to develop, test and deploy the powerful physical means essential for national defense.” The statement from an unidentified spokesperson said Pyongyang remains committed to dialogue, but it could seek a “new road” if the allies don’t change their positions.

Snubbed by North Korea, Pompeo hits other Asian turbulence — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo left Thailand on Saturday with his hopes for resuming nuclear talks with North Korea dashed, while facing an escalating trade war with China and a potentially devastating breakdown in relations between key American allies Japan and South Korea.After three days in Bangkok that the Trump administration had expected could herald an end to the impasse in North Korea negotiations, Pompeo instead departed without progress on that front as Pyongyang continued to launch ballistic missiles, heightening unease over prospects for a denuclearization deal. Pompeo expressed disappointment that the North had sent neither its foreign minister nor a counterpart for the chief U.S. negotiator to the Thai capital.  "I wish they'd have come here. I think it would have given us an opportunity to have another set of conversations, and I hope it won't be too long before I have a chance to do that." Yet despite what he and other U.S. officials say are ongoing lower-level contacts with Pyongyang, there is no date or venue set for a resumption in negotiations more than a month after President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung Un met at the De-Militarized Zone separating the two Koreas. At that time, administration officials said they believed a new round of talks was just weeks away. Four senior U.S. officials accompanying Pompeo to the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional security forum said North Korea's decision not to attend the conference, which has in the past served as venue for high-level engagement between the two countries, had been a surprise to both the Thai hosts and the other participants. One of those officials said the North's absence was mentioned by every delegation that Pompeo and top U.S. envoy Stephen Biegun met with in Bangkok.   "Unfortunately, the North Koreans missed this opportunity,"   The official added that the North's absence "probably hurts their own interests" and that its failure thus far to agree to a new round of negotiations "is not a positive or constructive response by them."

Russia, US arms race fears after Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty collapses -Russia has warned it would be “forced” to ramp up missile production if the US did the same, following the collapse of a Cold War-era nuclear pact. Moscow and Washington tore up the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty on Friday, triggering fears of a new arms race. “In order to avoid chaos that has no rules, limits and laws, one needs to once again weigh all possible dangerous consequences and start serious dialogue without any ambiguities,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a statement. “We are ready for it.” Moscow has blamed Washington for unilaterally ending the 1987 treaty which was signed by US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The agreement limited the use of conventional and nuclear missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometres. Washington and NATO accused Russia of developing the new 9M729 missile which they say violates the treaty, but Russia says its range falls short of 500 kilometres.

Russia Will Be Forced To Deploy Banned Missiles If US Does- Putin - Things are already developing fast after last Friday the US timetable for saying in the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF) ran out, after six months prior President Trump gave an ultimatum to Russia to cease violating its terms or the US would rip up the landmark 1987 arms control treaty. Immediately after, Washington also signaled plans to test a new ballistic missile in the coming weeks, as the AP reported upon the deal's final collapse.  And now Putin has hit back, saying Monday Russia will be forced to develop land-based short and intermediate range missiles if the US starts doing so, according to state-run RIA. He also is reported to have decried the United States' exit from the treating as worsening global safety.   Putin met Monday with members of Russia’s Security Council, focusing on Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the INF, TASS reports. "In our opinion, the United States’ actions, which have led to the termination of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, will inevitably entail devaluation, undermine the entire global security architecture, including the strategic offensive arms treaty and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons," he told the council, according to a Kremlin press service statement.  "This scenario means the resumption of an unbridled arms race," Putin emphasized. But crucially, he also said Russia stands ready to resume full-fledged negotiations with the United States. "Russia deems it necessary to resume without any delay full-fledged negotiations on ensuring strategic stability and security," he said. "We are ready for this." He explained that he's instructed Russian defense and intelligence services to closely monitor any further US steps toward developing and placing intermediate-and shorter-range missiles. Moscow's consistent position has been to blame the US for collapse of the treaty, with both sides over the past couple years frequently pointing the finger at the other for violating its terms, namely a ban on all land-based missiles with a range of between 310 and 3,400 miles.

US Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman resigns - U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman on Tuesday turned in his resignation letter to President Trump.“American citizenship is a privilege and I believe the most basic responsibility in return is service to country,” Huntsman wrote. “To that end, I am honored by the trust you have placed in me as the United States ambassador to Russia during this historically difficult period in bilateral relations."“It is my hope that this will allow sufficient time for a successor to be nominated and confirmed,” he added. “I pledge my full effort in facilitating a smooth transition that ensures our foreign policy goals are kept in proper focus.”His resignation will take effect Oct. 3.Huntsman, a former Utah governor, is planning to move back to the state in the fall and is reportedly weighing another gubernatorial run. He wasexpected to leave his role amid speculation that he would launch a bid to run for state office.The 59-year-old ambassador was elected as Utah’s governor in 2004 and again in 2008. He left his post in 2009 to become the U.S. ambassador to China at former President Obama’s request. He resigned in 2011 to pursue an ultimately unsuccessful GOP presidential run.

The Persistent Myth That Trump Opposes War - Caitlin Johnstone - Whenever I criticize the foreign policy of the current US administration, I always get some pushback from Trump supporters who insist that this president is doing more good than harm by “fighting the Deep State” and, even more commonly, by “keeping us out of wars”.  This notion that Donald Trump is some kind of peace president, or even the notion that he puts any more inertia on the US war machine than his predecessor did, is contradicted by all facts and evidence we have available to us. Trump has not ended a single one of the wars his predecessors started, and has added dangerous escalations against Venezuela, Iran, and nuclear-armed Russia.  One of the difficulties in addressing this persistent myth, besides the obvious fact that everyone now lives in tightly cloistered information echo chambers of confirmation bias-feeding validation loops, is that the myth is in some ways bipartisan. Whenever Trump mumbles one of his empty appeals to non-interventionist principles, his supporters lap it up while half of the Democrats start attacking the president for being insufficiently hawkish. Trump’s talk about withdrawing from Syria is a perfect example of this; the troops are still there, but Dems attacked him for irresponsible “isolationist” behavior and his supporters got their fairy tale about their president ending wars. Everyone gets what they want, including the military-industrial complex that Trump pretends to oppose.

 Unqualified UN Ambassador is the Perfect Weak Link -President Donald Trump’s recent choice of the relatively unknown Congressman John Ratcliffe for Director of National Intelligence and his elevation of Kelly Craft as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations—despite concerns about her inexperience—illustrates the power vacuum within Trump’s cabinet, and the opportunities this opens up for interventionists like National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.The rash of remarkably unqualified and inexperienced candidates for top slots points to a presidency that values personal loyalty to Donald Trump above the ability to govern effectively. This atmosphere favors those with Washington insider status and the policy goals to bring it to fruition, say defense analysts who spoke to TAC. Trump’s recent picks “fit the pattern of the eroding of competence which is particularly happening in the national security apparatus,” said Trita Parsi, associate professor at Georgetown University, in an interview with TAC. These are “clearly people that are just willing to go along with whatever the political agenda is.” “My view on this is that any appointment on Trump’s foreign policy staff after the ascent of Bolton will reflect Bolton’s will,” said Mark Perry, TAC senior writer and author of The Pentagon’s Wars. “Which is to say: if Kelly Craft meets with Bolton’s approval, it’s because he views her as weak.” Almost everyone else who originally held a senior national security job has now left the Trump administration, including the defense secretary, national security adviser, attorney general, FBI director, secretary of state, White House chief of staff, secretary of Homeland Security, and director of the Secret Service.This week, the Senate confirmed multi-million dollar Republican donor Kelly Craft to replace Nikki Halley, who left her post as ambassador to the United Nations at the end of 2018. Craft was mostly absent from her previous position as Trump-appointed ambassador to Canada. Before that she was appointed delegate to the UN by President George W. Bush, and headed her own business advisory firm in Kentucky. That is where her resume seems to end. She has no other government or foreign policy background, academic or professional, to speak of.This makes her one of the least experienced people to ever hold the post.

No policy change on Kashmir, says U.S. - The United States on Friday said that there is no change in its policy on Kashmir and called on India and Pakistan to maintain calm and restraint. “No”, replied State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus when asked by reporters if there has been any change in America’s policy on Kashmir.The U.S. policy has been that Kashmir is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan and it is up to the two countries to decide on the pace and scope of the talks on the issue. “And if there was, I certainly wouldn’t be announcing it here, but no, there’s not,” Ms. Ortagus said in response to a follow up question. She said the United States supports dialogue between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. “It’s something that we’ve called for calm and restraint by all parties. We want to maintain peace and stability, and we, of course, support direct dialogue between India and Pakistan on Kashmir and other issues of concern,” the U.S. State Department spokesperson said.

Trump Imposes New Sanctions on Venezuela -- President Donald Trump imposed further sanctions on Venezuela, freezing the government’s assets in the U.S. and adding immigration restrictions in a move aimed at stepping up pressure on the regime of Nicolas Maduro. Property belonging to the Venezuelan government “may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in,” Trump said in an executive order released late Monday by the White House. The U.S. will also block entry into the U.S. by any Venezuelan citizen determined to have assisted or acted on Maduro’s behalf. Together, the moves put Venezuela on the same footing as countries like North Korea and Iran that the U.S. has sought to isolate from the rest of the world, and threaten nearly any company or person who deals with the country with exile from the international financial system. The measures “increase the business risk for anybody that has any prospect of doing business in the United States, if it keeps doing business the government of Venezuela,” National Security Adviser John Bolton told reporters in Lima on Tuesday. “That includes any foreign entity, government, corporation, person who contributes to keeping the Maduro regime in power.” While the new order is sweeping in scope, it’s unclear whether the new measures will have a significant impact since the vast majority of the Venezuelan government’s income derives from oil and gold -- two areas where Maduro’s regime already faces heavy sanctions. Bolton declined to say how Trump’s latest move will affect companies such as Chevron Corp., which was just granted a three-month waiver allowing it to continue producing oil and gas in the country. “Chevron has received a limited new license for 90 days and we’re going to be continuously evaluating all activities in Venezuela,” Bolton said. “I would say to the board of directors and shareholders of any American company, is it in your corporate culture to engage in commercial activity that supports a brutal dictatorship?” Chevron is reviewing the Trump order, said Kent Robertson, a company spokesman. “We continue to believe that we are a constructive presence in the country,” he said via email.

 Washington hits Venezuela with full economic embargo -  President Donald Trump late Monday signed an executive order imposing a harsh, Cuba-style economic embargo on Venezuela as part of Washington’s broad push to force leader Nicolás Maduro out of power. In a letter to Congress, Trump said the measure was necessary in light of Maduro’s “continued usurpation of power” and ongoing human rights abuses in the South American nation. The new measures are expected to be announced Tuesday, as representatives from dozens of countries will be meeting in Peru to discuss the Venezuela crisis.Washington has slapped more than 100 current and former Venezuelan officials with sanctions in recent years and has severely restricted Venezuelan oil and gold exports. But Monday’s measures put the country on par with Cuba, Iran, Syria and North Korea as being economically isolated by the United States. The embargo carves out exceptions for food, clothing and other humanitarian aid being sent to Venezuela. Venezuela has called the sanctions “economic warfare” and blames the measures for its hyperinflation and food and medicine shortages. The United States and many independent observers, however, say it’s Venezuelan corruption and mismanagement that have gutted the economy.

Bolton warns China, Russia not to double down on support of Maduro (Reuters) - U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton on Monday warned China and Russia not to double down in support of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, saying Venezuela might not repay its debt to them after Maduro falls. Bolton said a democratically elected government in Venezuela may view the two countries as hostile powers for supporting what he called the “criminal regime” of Maduro for so long, and could opt not to pay them back billions of dollars in loans. Ongoing support for Maduro “could affect repayment of their debt after Maduro falls,” Bolton told journalists in Peru on the eve of a summit there on Venezuela’s political crisis. Bolton said he would give a speech at the summit that outlines a new U.S. initiative to find a peaceful transfer of power in Venezuela. Russia and China turned down invitations from Peru to attend the gathering of more than 50 countries. The United States, most Latin American countries and most Western democracies have called for Maduro to step down, recognizing Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s rightful president. In January, Guaido invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency, arguing Maduro’s 2018 re-election was illegitimate. Russia and China continue to back Maduro, who has called Guaido a puppet of the United States and retains control of most institutions.

5 Reasons Why Trump’s Venezuela Embargo Won’t End the Maduro Regime - The U.S. has announced an economic embargo on Venezuela, intended to put an end to President Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime.In an Aug. 5 executive order, President Donald Trump said that the tough new sanctions – which target any company or individual outside of Venezuela doing business directly or indirectly with Maduro’s government – were a response to the Maduro regime’s “continued usurpation of power” and “human rights abuses.”All Venezuelan government assets in the United States are also now frozen.The new measures represent a significant escalation from previous sanctions, which mainly targeted government officials and some key industries such as oil and gas, gold and finance.But my analysis of Venezuela’s political and economic crisis suggests that an embargo alone will not provoke Maduro’s ouster. Here are five reasons why.

• 1. Venezuela’s Economy Is Already Broken. Embargos are a foreign policy tool meant to pressure rogue governments into changing their ways by cutting off their cash flow. t’s too late for that in Venezuela. Maduro’s cash-strapped government defaulted on its dollar-based bonds in 2017. This year it has failed to make payments on US$1.85 billion that Deutsche Bank and Citigroup loaned Venezuela using the regime’s gold as collateral. Venezuela’s government is nearly bankrupt.
• 2. The Embargo Leaves Some Cash Flows Untouched. Trump’s harsh new sanctions on Venezuela are not a full trade embargo like the Cuba embargo, which has almost totally isolated the island from world markets since 1962. Imports and exports with the private sector – a still sizable marketdespite Maduro’s socialist policies – will continue to flow freely, as will remittances from Venezuelans living abroad.
• 3. The Poor, Not the Regime, Will Be Hurt the Most. Venezuelans with access to dollars – through remittances or savings squirreled away before the crisis – are surviving this crisis. They can afford food, medicine and gasoline, and buy other goods to barter. But most Venezuelans today are desperately poor. According to the United Nations, 90% of people there live in poverty. That’s double what it was in 2014.
• 4. China and Russia Still Support Venezuela. Maduro has few international allies. When the Trump administration led efforts earlier this year torecognize opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president of Venezuela, 60 countries joined it. But China and Russia continue to be the Venezuela’s most powerful international boosters and have bailed out Maduro by giving his government massive loans in the past. Both have vetoed every U.S. effort to pass resolutions against Maduro’s government within the United Nations.
• 5. Remember Cuba?  Embargoes rarely produce regime change of the sort Trump seeks in Venezuela. Just consider Cuba, which this year celebrated the 66th anniversary of its communist revolution – 57 years after the Kennedy government imposed a trade embargo against it. The Cuba embargo didn’t end the Castro regime; it fueled anti-American sentiment, handing the Castros an easy scapegoat for all the country’s problems – thereby improving the government’s own popularity.

US-China Direct Investments Plunge To Five-Year Low Amid Intensifying Trade War - American and Chinese investors' willingness to deploy capital into each other's countries has plummeted to a five-year low amid escalating trade tensions between the two countries, according to a new study by research firm Rhodium Group.Two-way foreign direct investment (FDI) between the US and China fell 18% YoY to $13 billion in 1H19 and approached levels not seen since 1H14.  The souring mood between both countries reflects an increasingly uncertain economic environment that has intensified a synchronized global slowdown."China is also facing macroeconomic pressures that make it unlikely Beijing will loosen outbound capital controls anytime soon. These controls also remain a major hurdle for foreign firms and portfolio investors (especially those with fiduciary duties).," the report said. Merger and acquisition activity by Chinese firms in the US dropped somewhat sharply in 1H19 as Beijing tightened outbound capital controls to address increasing financial risks and macroeconomic concerns mounting in its domestic markets."Beijing's outbound direct investment controls and its crackdown on highly leveraged private investors continued to weigh on Chinese FDI in the US. A deliberate tightening of liquidity in China's financial system further exacerbated headwinds, forcing firms to clean up their balance sheets instead of investing abroad," the report said. The downturn has also been the result of a more stringent deal inspection of foreign acquisitions imposed by the Trump administration.

China Halts U.S. Agricultural Purchases as Trade War Heats Up - China is stepping away from further U.S. farm imports after President Donald Trump ratcheted up tensions with its biggest agricultural trading partner last week. The Chinese government has asked its state-owned enterprises to suspend purchases of U.S. agricultural products, people familiar with the situation said. Also, privately run Chinese crushers that had received retaliatory-tariff waivers on American soybeans from Beijing have stopped buying the commodity due to uncertainty over trade relations, other people said.President Trump on Thursday proposed adding 10% tariffs on another $300 billion in imports from Sept. 1, marking an abrupt escalation of the trade war between the world’s largest economies shortly after the two sides restarted talks. Bureaucrats in Beijing were stunned by Trump’s announcement, according to Chinese officials who’ve been involved in the trade talks, and Beijing has pledged to respond if the U.S. insists on adding the extra tariffs. China's imports of U.S. soybeans dropped to lowest since at least 2004.  China’s state-run agricultural firms have now stopped buying American farm goods, and are waiting to see how talks progress, the people said, declining to be identified as they’re not authorized to speak to the media. Meanwhile, the private crushers haven’t received notices from the government on any policy change since the U.S. escalated tensions last Thursday, people said. “The leverage that China has is its large agricultural purchases,”   “This does affect U.S. farmers and the rural U.S. voting base that’s normally in support of Donald Trump. If they hit back before the election, that’s the obvious way to retaliate.”

China lets yuan break key 7 level for first time in decade as trade war worsens - (Reuters) - China let the yuan breach the key 7-per-dollar level on Monday for the first time in more than a decade, in a sign Beijing might be willing to tolerate more currency weakness that could further inflame a trade conflict with the United States.The sharp 1.4% drop in the yuan comes days after U.S. President Donald Trump stunned financial markets by vowing to impose 10% tariffs on the remaining $300 billion of Chinese imports from Sept. 1, abruptly breaking a brief ceasefire in a bruising trade war that has disrupted global supply chains and slowed growth.  Some analysts said the yuan move could unleash a dangerous new front in the trade hostilities - a currency war. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) provided the early impetus for yuan bears by setting a daily rate for the currency at its weakest level in eight months.

China Takes On Trump by Weakening Yuan, Halting Crop Imports - China responded to President Donald Trump’s tariff threat with another escalation of the trade war on Monday, letting the yuan tumble to the weakest level in more than a decade and asking state-owned companies to suspend imports of U.S. agricultural products. The moves antagonized Trump, who used Twitter to accuse China of “currency manipulation” which “will greatly weaken China over time!” He has previously criticized Beijing for not keeping to promises to buy more U.S. crops. Stocks and emerging-market currencies sank on concern a prolonged conflict between the superpowers will weigh on global economic growth, while haven assets including the Japanese yen, U.S. Treasuries and gold climbed. Investors increased bets on Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts. “It’s among the worst-case scenarios,” said Michael Every, head of Asia financial markets research at Rabobank in Hong Kong. “First markets sell off, then Trump wakes up and this all gets far, far worse.” In a statement published Monday evening in Beijing, People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gang said China won’t use the yuan as a tool to deal with trade disputes. “I am fully confident that the yuan will remain a strong currency in spite of recent fluctuations amid external uncertainties,” Yi said, adding that the bank will work to ensure “reasonable and legal demand” by companies and the public for foreign exchange. Trump last week proposed adding 10% tariffs on another $300 billion in Chinese imports from Sept. 1, abruptly ramping up the trade war between the world’s largest economies shortly after the two sides had restarted talks. Chinese bureaucrats were stunned by Trump’s announcement, according to officials who’ve been involved in the negotiations. The threat of more tariffs came just as Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior members of the Communist Party gathered for a secretive summer getaway in Beidaihe, a seaside town about a three-hour drive from Beijing. Xi had already faced pressure for weeks to take a harder stance on trade -- particularly after the U.S. blacklisted telecom equipment giant Huawei Technologies Co.

 China confident of keeping yuan stable: central bank - (Xinhua) -- China's central bank reiterated on Monday that it has the confidence and capability of keeping the yuan exchange rate basically stable. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) attributed the weakening of the currency beyond 7 yuan per U.S. dollar on Monday to factors including measures of unilateralism and protectionism, as well as the expectation of additional tariffs on Chinese goods. Despite the weakening, the yuan has maintained basically stable and strong against a basket of currencies. "The PBOC has the experience, confidence and capability of keeping the yuan's exchange rate basically stable at a reasonable and balanced level," the statement said.

Rating China’s retaliation in the trade war: ‘On a scale of 1-10, it’s an 11’- Wall Street analysts warned investors to brace for the trade war between the United States and China to further intensify, after it ratcheted up over the weekend to a level that Cowen says, “on a scale of 1-10, it’s an 11.” “Overnight, Chinese government retaliated against new U.S. tariffs, and it’s designed to get the President’s attention,” Cowen analyst Chris Krueger said in a note to investors Monday. A Morgan Stanley team of analysts said, “investors should behave as if further escalation will happen in 2019.” If that escalation does come, the firm estimated that a global economic recession will come in the next nine months. “We take its literal message of planned tariffs quite seriously. There’s a pattern of responding to insufficient negotiation progress with escalation,” Morgan Stanley said. This is “a new and potentially more volatile phase,” Compass Point analyst Isaac Boltansky said, adding that China’s response “marks a pronounced escalation in trade tensions between the world’s largest economies.” China responded on Monday in two ways to President Donald Trump announcing the U.S. will add 10% tariffs to $300 billion worth of Chinese goods. First, China’s central bank allowed its currency the yuan to fall “below 7 to the dollar, which is a psychologically significant threshold,” Krueger said. Second, Krueger noted that the Chinese told state-controlled buyers “to halt all purchases of U.S.agricultural imports. ” “It looks like those rotting soybeans will continue to rot, and is a tough hit to Midwestern (Trump states) farm interests after the President promised relief,” Krueger said.

China just showed why Trump can’t win with tariffs -- China opened up a new front in President Trump's trade war on Monday, sending Wall Street into a tizzy. Basically, China's central bank adjusted the value of its currency down to its lowest point in over a decade. Investors, fearing President Trump will respond with another tariff escalation, reacted by fleeing stocks for the safety of bonds and Treasuries — causing the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq to fall 3 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively, by the end of the day. And they're likely right. Yet it's also the case that the low value of the renminbi versus the U.S. dollar really is a problem worth addressing.  Right now, as we all know, Trump is relying on tariffs to carry out his trade war. The primary strategy here is to browbeat China into accepting various reforms. But thus far, China hasn't been overly inclined to cooperate, and Trump's tariff threats keep escalating: He's already imposed 25 percent tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese exports to the U.S. And last week, he threatened a 10 percent tariff on another $300 billion worth, which would basically make every last dollar of Chinese exports subject to U.S. duties.  The drop in China's currency is a problem for this strategy because it largely neutralizes the pain of Trump's tariffs. The whole idea behind the tariffs is to raise the cost of Chinese exports in the domestic American market, so that Americans buy less of them. But a fall in the value of China's currency lowers the cost of those exports for Americans, thus offsetting the tariffs' effect. Indeed, the People's Bank of China explicitly said the new, lower value target was retaliation for the "unilateralism and trade protectionism measures and the imposition of increased tariffs on China." Trump promptly took to Twitter to rage about "currency manipulation."

China’s exit from US agriculture is a devastating blow to an already struggling sector - Agriculture has been a weapon of choice in the escalating trade war between the world’s two largest economies. With China officially pulling out of buying U.S. agricultural products, American farmers are losing one of their biggest customers. It could be a devastating blow in an already tough year for crops and commodity prices. It may also dent U.S. gross domestic product and hurt companies like Deere, whose business is directly tied to farming in the Heartland. “Sales have already been lower this crop year because of the existing tariffs. If we went all the way to no China exports whatsoever, that would of course result in even larger market and price impacts,” “Cutting China completely out of the market would be a very big deal.” China made up $5.6 billion in U.S. farm product exports in 2018, according to the U.S. Census. It’s the world’s top buyer of soybeans and purchased roughly 60 percent of U.S. soybean exports last year. Westhoff estimated that soybean prices have already dropped 9% since the trade war began last July. From September 2017 to May 2018, soybeans exports to China totaled 27.7 million tons. That number dropped by more than 70% to 7 million tons during the same nine-month period in 2018 and 2019, according to an analysis by University of Missouri. Westhoff estimated an additional $4 billion drop on soybean exports after the effects of tariffs but before the total loss of China as a customer. Tariffs also have a ripple effect across other crops, he said. With less demand for soybeans, farmers end up planting more crops like corn. That results in lower corn prices because there’s much more supply. “There are going to be some serious repercussions for farmers,” China is the fourth largest market for U.S. farm exports, behind Canada, Mexico and Japan. She also highlighted a “languishing” trade pact with Canada and Mexico that has yet to be signed. New tariffs are another “financial whammy on top,” said Judge, who was also Iowa’s secretary of Agriculture. While farming exports are a relatively small portion of the United States’ annual $20 trillion in GDP, Judge said it will directly hit farmers and exacerbate other problems they were already facing. U.S. net farm income has dropped 45 percent since a high of $123.4 billion in 2013 to about $63 billion last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

China fires biggest warning shot yet in trade war and now it’s up to Trump to decide how far to go - China has added its currency to the weapons it is willing to use in the trade war with the U.S., and it is now up to President Donald Trump to determine how much further the situation can escalate. China on Monday allowed its currency to slide below what has been a psychological red line—the key 7 yuan to the dollar level — for the first time since 2008. China also halted new purchases of U.S. agricultural products, according to state run media. The Chinese picked two sore spots for Trump, who has protested the strong dollar and railed against other countries he says are weakening their own currencies for trade advantage. He has also attempted to boost Chinese purchases of agriculture products to limit the impact on farmers, who have also received some federal funding to offset the string from the lost sales. Trump blasted China Monday for manipulating its currency, and the U.S. Treasury labeled China a “currency manipulator” after the close of U.S. trading. But strategists say the next moves could also be his, and that it will be clear how serious China is about cheapening its currency at the next fixing early Tuesday. The People’s Bank of China each day sets a rate for the yuan, allowing it to trade in a band against the dollar that is 2 percent on either side of its midpoint value. That is the onshore currency, or CNY. The offshore currency CNH is used by foreign investors and banks and it fell to a record 7.09 per dollar. “I think its their biggest signal yet,” said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex. “The Chinese are signalling that they have lost confidence that they can reach an agreement with Trump. And until now they were willing to go along and play the game.” Chandler said China was labeled a currency manipulator for the first time in 15 years and out of the normal schedule of review. “What has happened between April and last night that China is manipulating the currency? The currency is down 2.5% this year. If they’re manipulating the currency lower for export advantage, they’re not doing a very good job,”

A quick note on China’s devaluation -- Jared Bernstein - Just back from ranting about this on CNBC so I’ll quickly share some thoughts on the news that the Chinese yuan broke 7/$, in a depreciation that threatens trade-war escalation.Bottom line: the trade war may be about to get worse, and that won’t be good for markets, consumers, and the global economy. It’s hard to see a way out between these two sides, though electoral politics could force Trump to stand down next year. The numbers:

• –Depreciations offset tariffs. That is, a 10% tariff, paid by importers and passed forward to consumers, is fully offset by a 10% depreciation. This is especially relevant in the case of Trump’s latest plan to place a 10% tariff on $300 billion more in Chinese goods, two-thirds of which are consumer goods (shoes, apparel, toys, cell phones).
• –The yuan depreciated over 1% relative to the dollar since last night and about 13% since its peak in March of 2018 (see figure above).
• –Markets, which have been highly sensitive to the ups and downs of the Trump/China trade war, ain’t loving this; Dow futures are down about 300 points prior to today’s opening.
• –If the market’s trade-related losses (which began last week) continue, it raises the question of the extent to which worsening financial conditions counteract the impact of last week’s Fed rate cut, and thus raises the likelihood of further cuts.
• –What’s freaking out the markets is their expectation that Team Trump will view this as an escalation. In fact, China’s central bank said the move was “due to the effects of unilateralist and trade-protectionist measures and the expectations for tariffs against China.”
• –I share the market’s expectation. Trump obviously has more weighty, tragic issues to deal with today, but one thing he seems to understand is the role of currency movements in this fight and I expect him to hit back.
• –The most obvious response would be to raise the 10% on the $300bn to match the 25% already in place on the rest of our imports from China.
• –These dynamics aren’t pretty for China either. They have to worry about the impact of the devaluation on capital flight, an increasing problem in China. Also, since many Chinese firms borrow in dollars, this makes their debt service more expensive.
• –Meanwhile, the whole damn trade war looks to be going badly from Trump’s perspective, predictably so as such wars tend to ding both imports and exports. In fact, in the most recent quarter, exports/GDP were close to a 10-year low and the trade deficit hasn’t improved at all on Trump’s watch.

US declares China a currency manipulator, says it’s using yuan to gain ‘unfair advantage’ in trade - The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday designated China as currency manipulator, a historic move that no White House had exercised since the Clinton administration. “Secretary Mnuchin, under the auspices of President Trump, has today determined that China is a Currency Manipulator,” the Treasury Department said in a release. “As a result of this determination, Secretary Mnuchin will engage with the International Monetary Fund to eliminate the unfair competitive advantage created by China’s latest actions.” The formal designation — the first since President Bill Clinton’s administration in 1994 — came after China on Monday allowed its currency to breach a psychological level. “In recent days, China has taken concrete steps to devalue its currency, while maintaining substantial foreign exchange reserves despite active use of such tools in the past,” the Treasury Department added. “The context of these actions and the implausibility of China’s market stability rationale confirm that the purpose of China’s currency devaluation is to gain unfair competitive advantage in international trade.” The yuan fell to 7 against the dollar earlier in the session for the first time since 2008. “I think many people in the private sector may not conclude it is a currency manipulator. The key rule is it’s not intervening consistently or persistently to weaken the currency and therefore the private sector, like economists and strategists may not be convinced,” said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn. “This is another step in the currency war,” he added. “This also makes trade more difficult. This is probably bi-partisan. Many Republicans and Democrats think china is taking advantage of us.” Even before the formal designation, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to voice his opinion, accusing Beijing of manipulating its currency as the trade war between the world’s largest economies intensified. “China dropped the price of their currency to an almost a historic low,” Trump said in a tweet. “It’s called ‘currency manipulation.’ Are you listening Federal Reserve? This is a major violation which will greatly weaken China over time!”

US-China trade conflict escalates to currency war -  Stock markets fell sharply around the world yesterday amid fears of a currency war, after China allowed its currency, the renminbi, to fall below the benchmark of 7 to the US dollar. The move was taken in response to US president Trump’s escalation of the trade war by threatening a 10 percent tariff on an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese goods from September 1. Late yesterday, the US Treasury named China a “currency manipulator,” signalling that the trade war is escalating into a currency war. It said China has a “long history of facilitating large-scale intervention in the foreign exchange market. In recent days, China has taken concrete steps to devalue its currency, while maintaining substantial foreign currency reserves despite the active use of such tools in the past.” The US accusation of manipulation stands reality on its head. Chinese authorities have been actively intervening in currency markets, not to drive down the value of the renminbi, but to prevent it falling lest this lead to an outflow of capital. Yesterday’s decision, following the US tariff threat, indicates a reorientation. Announcing the currency move, which would have been taken after top-level discussions in the government, the People’s Bank of China said the fall was “due to the effects of unilateralist and trade-protectionist measures and the expectations for tariffs against China.” In a further response, the state-owned Xinhua newsagency reported that Chinese companies had already suspended their purchases of US agricultural products and that the government would “not rule out” imposing tariffs on agricultural products purchased after August 3. The US decision to further escalate tariffs was taken against initial opposition from US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, but was supported by leading anti-China hawk Peter Navarro, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal . It clearly led to the conclusion being drawn in Beijing’s ruling circles that after more than a year of continuous escalation by the US of trade war measures there was absolutely no prospect of reaching any agreement with Washington and it was necessary to prepare for what President Xi Jinping has characterised as a “long march.”

Mr. Market Swoons as Trump Administration Escalates Trade War with China With “Currency Manipulator” Charge -- Yves Smith - It was hard to miss that Mr. Market had a bad day on Monday as a result of China setting the level of the renminbi about 1.5% lower, below 6.90, in response to the Trump Administration announcing plans to slap 10% tariffs on $300 billion of goods as of September 1, in addition to the $250 billion of goods subject to 25% tariffs in July. The effect of the September measure, if Trump follows through, is that virtually all of China’s exports to the US would be subject to tariffs. The selloff continued overnight in Asia as the Administration designated China a currency manipulator after US market hours. The initial declines overseas stabilized after China nudged its currency a wee bit higher. Business Insider’s recap of the Monday action as the Dow closed 760 points lower, which was merely the biggest fall since last December: The escalation has spooked global markets, wiping between 2.9% and 3.5% from all major US indices and setting off a global sell-off. Overseas, 2.5% was slashed from the European FTSE, 1.8% from the German DAX and 2.2% from the French CAC. The price of iron ore plunged 6.6% while the price of gold, seen as a safe haven during stock market volatility, jumping around 1.6% as investors flocked to it. The Wall Street Journal on the market opening overseas: In Tuesday morning trading in Asia, benchmark stock indexes in Japan, Australia and Hong Kong were among the major decliners with each falling more than 2%. China’s Shanghai Composite fell 1.9%, while South Korea’s Kospi declined 1.6%, all building on retreats the previous day…. Financial analysts noted that the designation of China as a currency manipulator was largely symbolic, a message that the US was not backing down. However, it’s worth noting that despite the fact that the renminbi really was undervalued during the early years of the Obama Administration, Treasury always punted on its April-October reports to Congress on designating China, which ran a hard peg back then (it moved to what is often called a “dirty float”) as a currency manipulator. It’s not clear that there is any good path to a de-escalation, much the less a resolution. On the one hand, Trump in his one role where he displays a high degree of competence, that of master troll, has played the game with China (and North Korea) of dialing up rhetoric and threats and then backing off. On the other hand, Trump’s trolling has already hurt some American exporters, such as farmers. And stock market investors don’t like being in the crossfire. Stock market performance has been one reason that Trump’s base has stuck doggedly with him. Recall that the median income of Trump voters was higher than the median for US households overall, and above the median for both Clinton and Sanders voters. Anecdotal data, such as focus group findings, suggest that higher income Trump voters have given him good marks above all for the gains in their portfolios during his time in office.

China responds to US after Treasury designates Beijing a ‘currency manipulator’ - The response from the People’s Bank of China comes at a time of rapidly intensifying trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies. On Monday, the U.S. Treasury accused Beijing of deliberately influencing the exchange rate between the yuan and the U.S. dollar to gain an “unfair competitive advantage in international trade.”The move fulfills President Donald Trump’s promise to recognize China as a currency manipulator for the first time since 1994.The announcement followed a sharp drop in the yuan against the dollar, with the Chinese currency breaching the 7-per-dollar level for the first time since 2008. A drop in a currency’s value makes that country’s products cheaper on the international market.“The United States disregards the facts and unreasonably affixes China with the label of ‘currency manipulators,’ which is a behavior that harms others and oneself,” the PBOC said in a statement on Tuesday. “The Chinese side firmly opposes this.”The PBOC said it would not only “seriously undermine the international financial order, but also trigger financial market turmoil. It will also greatly hinder international trade and the global economic recovery, and ultimately will suffer from it.”China’s central bank set the yuan’s official reference point at stronger than the key 7 yuan-to-the-dollar point on Tuesday.The move appeared to calm financial markets, initially rocked by fears the U.S.-China trade war was devolving into a currency war.

 Bank of America- What Trump Did Is A Game Changer --For the past year, one of the points of biggest contention among economists and traders is that despite what is now a 1+ year trade war with China, inflation due to higher tariffs has been strangely missing, with some claiming that the goods targeted in previous tariff rounds were either not "consumer" enough, or simply had more affordable substitutes from other, non-Chinese supply chains, allowing US consumer to avoid having higher prices passed upon them.However, all that is about to change, because as Bank of America team of economists writes, Trump's latest tariff announcement from last Thursday, when the president shockingly unveiled 10% tariffs on $300BN in Chinese imports starting September 1, "is a major escalation." The reason for this is that past measures had mostly avoided consumer goods. By contrast, the threatened tariffs would cover $120bn of consumer goods, out of $300bn in total, which includes goods such as computers and cell phones, toys and sports equipment, and apparel and footwear. Specifically, apparel and footwear - untouched by previous rounds - make up nearly 20% of the value of goods on the list; toys account for roughly 10% and cell phones comprise about 17% of the value of goods in the latest tariff list.Some of this tariff will be absorbed by corporate margins but retailers will look to "share" this tax with consumers, attempting to increase prices. This means that the consumer - which has been the bright spot in the recovery - could be hit. The consumer has otherwise been fairly insulated from the global pain, supported by steady job growth, strong stock market returns and falling borrowing costs. Indeed, consumer sentiment climbed to a cycle high as retail sales surged higher throughout 2Q. And since BofA expects the latest round of proposed tariffs to be implemented, either on schedule or later this year, the period of dormant trade war inflation is about to end with a bang, not a whimper. Once the tariffs are implemented, BofA will be "closely watching the data on consumer spending." The first step will be to see if there is any evidence of price adjustment in the CPI data; consumer confidence would likely be hit. And watch if consumers actually change their spending behavior. If consumers cut back, "we are in for a much more difficult path for growth" according to BofA.

 A Forever Trade War Looms as Trump Deepens Battle With China - Donald Trump’s trade battle with China is starting to look like a forever war -- a quagmire with no end in sight, no clear path to a resolution and more potential land mines for an already weakening global economy. With his move last week to announce his biggest tariff hike yet on imports from China, the president made clear he was exasperated with counterpart Xi Jinping and a perceived lack of Chinese urgency. While Trump portrayed the threat as a move to pressure Beijing to cut a deal, China responded with a painful measure of its own -- letting its currency tumble to the lowest in more than a decade. By doubling down on a negotiating tactic that has yet to deliver any meaningful results and is damaging the U.S. and Chinese economies, Trump appears to have made any deal less, rather than more, likely. Moreover, it increasingly looks like he and his team may not have any other ideas on where to go next or how to bring an end to the fight. “We did not enter this particular trade war with China with a clear plan for how to get out,’’ said Philip Levy, a member of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers who is now chief economist for freight forwarder Flexport. “The plan for how to get out seems to have been ‘We’ll threaten them, they’ll succumb and then we’ll be happy.’ So far we haven’t seen anyone talk about what if they don’t succumb?’’ Rather than bend, Chinese officials responded Monday by letting the yuan depreciate and cutting off purchases of American soybeans. They’re pledging to retaliate further if Trump goes ahead with his threat to impose tariffs starting Sept. 1 on Chinese imports. Those include consumer goods like smartphones, kids’ clothes and toys, and together are worth some $300 billion in annual trade, or more than the entire $250 billion already hit with import taxes by Trump. Investors are starting to grasp the potential for a protracted conflict. U.S. equities last week had their worst week of the year and were tumbling again Monday along with emerging-market currencies. Treasuries rallied with the yen and gold as traders bid up haven assets. Morgan Stanley economists said in a research note Monday that if the higher U.S. tariffs and China’s retaliation last for four to six months, the global economy will be in a recession in nine months.

US Holds Off On Huawei Licenses As China Halts Crop-Buying - The White House is holding off on a decision about licenses for U.S. companies to restart business with Huawei Technologies Co. after Beijing said it was halting purchases of U.S. farming goods, according to people familiar with the matter. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose department has vetted the applications to resume sales, said last week he’s received 50 requests and that a decision on them was pending. American businesses require a special license to supply goods to Huawei after the U.S. added the Chinese telecommunications giant to a trade blacklist in May over national-security concerns. The U.S. decision rattled stocks, bonds, currencies and even soybean prices around the world. Huawei suppliers Micron Technology Inc. and Western Digital Corp. declined as much as 2.2% after news of the delay in license approvals, while Qualcomm Inc., Xilinx Inc. and NeoPhotonics Corp. all fell more than 1% in after-hours trading. Huawei’s dollar bond spreads widened by 10 to 15 basis points Friday morning, while the Australian dollar and offshore yuan weakened versus the greenback and the yen gained. President Donald Trump said in late June after agreeing to a now-broken trade truce with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Japan that some restrictions on Huawei would be loosened. But that promise was contingent upon China beefing up its purchases from American farmers, which Trump has complained the country has failed to do. In the past week tensions have escalated further as Trump said he would impose a 10% tariff on $300 billion of Chinese imports as of Sept. 1 and his Treasury Department formally labeled China a currency manipulator. Still, Trump said last week there were no plans to reverse the decision he made in Japan to allow more sales by U.S. suppliers of non-sensitive products to Huawei. He said the issue of Huawei is not related to the trade talks.

China accuses US of 'deliberately destroying' world order - China stepped up the trade war rhetoric on Tuesday, accusing the US of “deliberately destroying international order” with “unilateralism and protectionism”. A day after Washington branded China a currency manipulator in a rapidly escalating trade dispute, China’s central bank said it “deeply regretted” the move by the US and said such behaviour “seriously undermined international rules” and damaged the global economy. In a strongly worded editorial in the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist party, China accused the US of “deliberately destroying the international order” and holding its own citizens hostage. Without mentioning Donald Trump or Washington’s accusations of currency manipulation, it said: “Today some in America are obsessed with American privilege to the point of destroying international rules and the international system … These Americans need to wake up!” “The responsibility of big countries is to provide the world with stability and certainty while creating conditions and opportunities for the common development of all countries,” according to the editorial. “But some people in the United States do just the opposite,” it said. On Monday, the US labelled China a currency manipulator, in a move that brings already tense relations to a boil. The US treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, accused China of manipulating its currency “to gain unfair competitive advantage in international trade”. The US will now ask the International Monetary Fund to “eliminate the unfair competitive advantage created by China’s latest actions”. It is the first such move since 1994 and came as international stock markets fell on fears of an escalation in the simmering conflict between the two trading superpowers. The Dow Jones index lost close to 3% on Monday following similar falls in Asia and Europe.

Trump dismisses fears of long-lasting trade war; China sees severe global impact - U.S. President Donald Trump dismissed fears of a protracted trade war with China on Tuesday despite a warning from Beijing that labeling it a currency manipulator would have severe consequences for the global financial order. Trump, who announced last week he would slap a 10% tariff on a further $300 billion in Chinese imports starting on Sept. 1, tweeted that “massive amounts of money from China and other parts of the world” were pouring into the U.S. economy. He also pledged to stand with American farmers in the face of Chinese retaliation. China has halted U.S. agricultural purchases and raised the possibility of additional tariffs on U.S. farm products. U.S. farmers, a key political constituency for Trump, have been among the hardest hit in the trade war. Shipments of soybeans, the most valuable U.S. farm export, to top buyer China sank to a 16-year low in 2018. While Trump played down the prospect that the trade dispute could be drawn out, St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard said the U.S. central bank may be stuck with a volatile global trade environment for years. “I think of trade regime uncertainty as simply being high in the current environment,” Bullard said at a National Economists Club luncheon. “I do not expect this uncertainty to dissipate in the quarters and years ahead.” The U.S. Treasury Department said on Monday it had determined for the first time since 1994 that Beijing was manipulating its currency. It acted after China decided to let the yuan fall below the key seven-per-dollar level for the first time in more than a decade, rattling financial markets and dimming hopes for an end to a trade war that has dragged into a second year.

In Trump-Xi Fight, Both Leaders Make Big Bets That May Backfire - When Xi Jinping first met Donald Trump back in 2017, the Chinese leader said they had “a thousand reasons to make the China-U.S. relationship a success, and not a single reason to break it.”Two years on, ties are at their lowest point in decades -- and they appear to be worsening by the day. Trump’s threat to raise tariffs on all Chinese goods last week shattered a truce reached with Xi just weeks earlier, unleashing tit-for-tat actions on trade and currency policy that risk accelerating a wider geopolitical fight between the world’s biggest economies.A big part of the problem is that neither leader believes the other is serious about making a deal: China sees Trump as posturing ahead of the 2020 election, while U.S. officials think Xi is looking to wait him out for a better deal. Either way, the political space for compromise is diminishing as hardliners take center stage, prompting investors to weigh the potential economic fallout. For Trump, the bet is that a hard-line stance on China will help him win another four years in the Oval Office. His administration has proudly trumpeted what it calls the most robust response in decades to a rising China, and most Democratic candidates agree with the need to stay tough on Beijing even if they don’t agree with Trump’s tariffs. While U.S. farmer and business groups have sounded the alarm over his latest escalation of trade tensions, the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate cut last week -- and the prospect of more to come -- may give Trump some breathing space. The president tweeted Tuesday that he’d support a fresh round of aid to farmers hurt by tariff increases, if necessary, and said the economy was in a “strong position” with money “pouring into the United States for reasons of safety, investment and interest rates!”The political calculations for Xi are harder to grasp, given the secretive nature of the Communist Party. But analysts say he’s under pressure from senior leaders currently meeting in the seaside town of Beidaihe to get tougher as U.S. ties deteriorate, corporate giant Huawei Technologies Co. comes under attack and protests in Hong Kong spiral out of control. China’s move on Monday to let the currency weaken past 7 yuan to the dollar and halt agricultural purchases marked a stark escalation in its response to Trump, which had been restrained for months. His administration labeled Beijing a currency manipulator in return.

Larry Summer tweets on China US trade, currency war - The escalating trade war between the U.S. and China is potentially creating “the most dangerous financial moment” since the global crash at the end of the last decade, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said. Markets have been on sell-off mode since last week, with Wall Street seeing its worst trading day this year on Monday. There are deep concerns about the heightened tension in the relationship between the U.S. and China, after President Donald Trump said he would slap new tariffs on Chinese goods and the Treasury Department declared Monday that Beijing is manipulating its currency. The Dow ended more than 700 points lower and investors flocked to safe havens on Monday, including gold and bonds. The precious metal is hovering around a six-year peak and bond prices continue to fall. “We may well be at the most dangerous financial moment since the 2009 Financial Crisis with current developments between the U.S. and China,” Summers, who was Treasury secretary under former President Bill Clinton and an economic advisor to former President Barack Obama, said on Twitter late Monday. The global financial crisis, which began in 2008, became the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Summers added: “Markets are now suggesting the highest risk of recession since 2011. …The collapse in medium- and long-term interest rates is ominous.” Analysts at Goldman Sachs said Monday they do not expect the world’s two largest economies to reach an agreement over trade before the 2020 election. As a result, the investment bank is projecting two more rate cuts this year, in September and October. “The Fed has been increasingly responsive this year to trade war threats, bond market expectations, and global growth concerns,” Goldman Sachs said in a note. “In light of growing trade policy risks, market expectations for much deeper rate cuts, and an increase in global risk related to the possibility of a no-deal Brexit, we now expect a third 25 basis points rate cut in October, for a total of 75 basis points of cuts (this year),” the bank added.

Navarro says US will take strong action against China if it devalues yuan to ‘neutralize tariffs’ - White House trade advisor Peter Navarro said China plans to devalue its currency — and if it does, the U.S. will respond forcefully. “Clearly, they are manipulating their currency from a trade point of view,” Navarro told CNBC’s “Closing Bell ” on Friday. “They’re going to, and we’re going to take strong action against them.” Earlier this week, China allowed its currency to drop against the dollar to a key level unseen since 2008. The Trump administration later labeled Beijing a “currency manipulator. ” Navarro said China was taking actions to deal with the effects of tariffs. “China has devalued its currency by over 10% with the express purpose of neutralizing tariffs, full stop,” Navarro said. Last week, President Donald Trump abruptly ended a cease-fire with China by announcing 10% tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods, claiming China failed to buy U.S. farm goods as it promised. The trade war continued to boil over this week as China announced it would stop buying American agricultural products in retaliation for Trump’s surprise tariffs threat. Navarro said that every American farmer will be “made whole” and “will not be hurt by China.” He also insisted that China, not U.S. consumers, will suffer financially because of tariffs.

White House economic adviser calls Wall Street Journal a communist paper after it names next recession for him - White House economic adviser Peter Navarro on Thursday suggested that The Wall Street Journal is a like a Chinese Communist Party newspaper. In an interview on Fox Business, host Maria Bartiromo noted that the Journal had suggested naming the next recession after Navarro due to his support for President Donald Trump’s tariff policy. “Economic expansions don’t end on their own,” the paper’s editorial board wrote. “They almost always end due to policy mistakes. Mr. Trump’s willy-nilly trade offensive could be the mistake that turns a slowdown into the Navarro recession.” Navarro told Bartiromo that the Journal had a history of criticizing Trump. “The Wall Street Journal will write what it writes,” Navarro quipped, comparing the paper to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s official newspaper. “It doesn’t sound a lot different from the People’s Daily in terms of the news that it puts out.”

Trump Says It’s ‘Fine’ If September China Talks Are Canceled - President Donald Trump said talks with China planned for next month could be called off after the trade war between the world’s biggest economies abruptly escalated in recent days. “We’ll see whether or not we keep our meeting in September,” Trump said as he left the White House Friday for a fundraiser in the Hamptons. “If we do, that’s fine. If we don’t, that’s fine.” The president also tamped down speculation that the U.S. would intervene in currency markets to devalue the dollar. When asked whether he’d take such action, he replied: “No, we don’t have to.” Yet he added lower interest rates from the Federal Reserve -- a move the president is pressing for -- would have the same effect. U.S. stocks fell as markets reacted to a possible pickup in trade tensions. The Bloomberg dollar index, which measures the U.S. currency against a basket of peers, briefly jumped following Trump’s comment on the greenback, before sliding to trade 0.1% lower. Inside the White House, hawks have been pushing for a direct Treasury intervention in currency markets by pointing to a slowdown in U.S. manufacturing, which many economists have blamed on tariffs imposed by Trump and uncertainty surrounding his trade war with China. Trump’s comments signaled there’s no end in sight to the trade feud between the two largest economies. Trump last week said new tariffs on Chinese imports will take effect Sept. 1, shattering a truce reached with President Xi Jinping weeks earlier and unleashing tit-for-tat actions on trade and currency policy that risk accelerating a wider geopolitical fight between the two countries. Trade negotiators are currently scheduled to meet again in Washington in September. Recent escalations have raised the possibility that negotiations could break down once again. “I’m not ready to make a deal” with China, Trump added, acknowledging the talks set for September. “Whether or not they’re canceled, we’ll see.” Trump also accused China of misrepresenting the strength of its economy -- something suspected by many analysts -- saying their latest reported quarterly growth of 6.2% is “phony.” Asked what he thought China’s true growth rate was, he replied: “Maybe neutral.” But Trump said the two countries still have “an open dialogue,” adding that the tariffs have been amazing. “We’re doing very well with China,” Trump said Friday. “We’re talking to China. We’re not ready to make a deal but we’ll see what happens.”

The "National Emergency Loophole": How Trump Will Intervene In The Market To Crush The Dollar --In the aftermath of the Chinese yuan devaluation, and the subsequent, and even more stunning, designation of China as a currency manipulator, one thing is clear: the first major currency war of the decade, if not the century, is now a fact.Which brings up several follow up questions: now that the tap has been broken, who will the US designate a manipulator next - Vietnam, Germany, Switzerland? But an even more apropos question is whether the US, now that all bets are off, will intervene directly in the currency market to devalue its own currency.To answer that question we go back in time almost one year, when this question popped up for the first time, and when to answer it, we wrote "The "National Emergency Loophole": How Trump Could Intervene In The Market To Crush The Dollar." And so, now that the topic of US intervention in the FX market is quite topical, we report our article from August 2018, with some minor edits.The "National Emergency Loophole": How Trump Could Intervene In The Market To Crush The Dollar

China Isn't the Economic Manipulator in This Trade War. Trump Is - Jeffrey D. Sachs - The latest round of tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese goods imposed by Trump last week has seriously rattled world markets. The Chinese currency has now depreciated against the dollar, sending stock markets into a tailspin. Trump immediately blamed China for "currency manipulation," and our craven Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin then violated the Treasury's own guidelines by formally designating China as a currency manipulator in order to keep in step with his intemperate boss.  The only economic manipulation here is Trump's. His tariffs have caused gratuitous and serious damage to the US economy, the world economy and the global trading system. The Chinese currency has now weakened in the offshore market close to the psychologically relevant rate of 7.0 yuan per US dollar, with the offshore currency rate on Tuesday at around 7.05 yuan per dollar. As China's currency weakens (with one dollar buying more yuan), China's exports gain competitiveness relative to US goods and services. There was nothing magical about the 7.0 threshold except for the fact that China had implicitly resisted its currency weakening beyond 7.0 in the interest of closing a trade deal with the United States. The weakening of China's currency therefore conveys three pieces of information. First, it strengthens the view that no trade deal is likely in the short term. Second, it suggests — consistent with a multitude of evidence — that China's macroeconomy has suffered as the result of the US tariffs. Third, it suggests that China will let its currency continue to depreciate in order to help stabilize China's trade and overall growth. It does not suggest, except in Trump's imagination and the Treasury's outlandish claim, that China is manipulating its currency. This is true even according to the arbitrary standards of America's own trade laws, much less according to objective standards. According to the US Treasury's own criteria before Monday's pronouncement, a country may be considered a "currency manipulator" if three tests are met. First, the country has a significant bilateral trade surplus with the United States of at least $40 billion. Second, the country has a material current account surplus overall of at least 2% of GDP. Third, the country has been consistently intervening in the foreign exchange market to keep its currency weak, with an accumulation of foreign exchange reserves of at least 2% of GDP over the preceding six to 12 months. In China's case, only the first of these three criteria is met.

Krugman on Trump and Trade: Not Tariffic -  Peter Dorman - I’m no fan of the Trump tariff tantrum, but weak criticism of it does no one a service.  And while I agree with Paul Krugman on a lot of things, he has a long history of being misguided on trade policy.  Alas, his op-ed in today’s New York Times continues the legacy of the Bad Krugman, not the good one..

• 1. He cites a graphic from the Peterson Institute for International Economics that claims that Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods have risen to 21.5% this month from 3.1% under Obama (under the Most Favored Nation provision).  Applied to $500 billion in imports from China, that comes to almost $100 billion more in tariff collections, right?  Not so fast.  He reproduces a FRED chart that shows tariff revenue rising by only about $35 billion during the same period.  He hedges a bit (“the revenue numbers don’t yet include the full range of Trump tariffs”) and then tries to squirm his way out of the evidence that US consumers aren’t really paying $100 billion more for these goods.  We’ll get to the squirm in a moment, but note that some portion of the tariff will be paid by Chinese producers in the form of lower prices to maintain market share, and the evidence suggests that this portion is much too great to simply handwave away.
• 2. The squirm is Krugman’s assertion that the missing tariff revenue can be partly explained by trade diversion, where some goods formerly supplied by China will now come to us from producers in other countries like Vietnam.  Here there are two problems.  First, trade diversion does not explain the missing tariff revenue, since we are still looking at $500 billion of Chinese exports to the US.  Second, it is wrong to assume, as Krugman apparently does, that the shift from Chinese to Vietnamese suppliers can be interpreted as a hidden tax on US purchasers—“instead of importing from China, we buy stuff from higher-cost sources like Vietnam”—since there a multiple reasons why Vietnam might be a less desired source than China at the same price, such as quality, delivery reliability or Chinese domestic content rules. 
• 3. Finally, to the extent tariffs function like a tax on domestic consumers—and of course they do insofar as we pay them—they can be offset through fiscal expansion.  Krugman is right to snicker at the Trump tax cut, whose benefits mostly accrued to corporations, which in turn mostly used them to finance stock buybacks.  So far, so good.  But in principle we could institute other, more beneficial types of fiscal expansion; in fact, that’s a central pillar of the Green New Deal.  So the bottom line is that, while there is a modest fiscal drag from unproductive tariffs on Chinese goods, what makes this a macroeconomic problem is that there isn’t a corresponding fiscal lift from environmental and infrastructure spending.

 The 16 Month-long Blip in Soybean Prices -- Menzie Chinn - On July 9, 2018, reader CoRev disparaged futures prices as accurate predictors of future spot prices for soybeans, writing:  no one has denied the impact of tariffs on FUTURES prices. Those of us arguing against the constant anti-tariff, anti-Trump dialogs have noted this will probably be a price blip lasting until US/Chinese negotiations end. We are on record saying the prices will be back approaching last year’s harvest season prices.  On 3/22, after Trump’s announcement of the Section 301 action against China, the August 2019 soybean futures contract closed at 1030. As of today, the contract closed at 852.  Source: Barchart.com accessed 8/4/2019, 7:30PM Central. Dashed line at 3/22/2018.  That’s a 17.3% decline in the soybean price (as documented in Chinn and Kucko 2014, the futures expiring in one year is an unbiased predictor of the spot price one year hence; thus no need to worry about contango/backwardation). The “blip” has thus lasted 16 months, with no end in sight.  Trump’s latest comments seem to suggest no resolution until after the 2020 elections. If so, then that would be a “blip” of 31 months.  So…tired…of…winning…

 Mexico vows to take legal action against U.S. after El Paso massacre  -Mexico on Sunday threatened to take legal action against the United States for failing to protect its citizens after this weekend'smass shooting in the border city of El Paso. Of the 20 people gunned down at a Walmart adjacent to the Cielo Vista Mall, at least seven were Mexican citizens, and Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard promised Mexico City will act. In a statement, the Foreign Ministry called the attack in El Paso a"terrorist act against innocent Mexicans." Ebrard called Saturday's shooting an “act of barbarism.” “The president has instructed me to ensure that Mexico’s indignation translates into ... efficient, prompt, expeditious and forceful legal actions for Mexico to take a role and demand that conditions are established that protect ... Mexicans in the United States,” Ebrard said in a video posted on Twitter. Ebrard was in El Paso on Monday to meet with the victims and offer support from the Mexican government. The foreign minister said in a translated statement Monday that he offered a message solidarity from the Mexican people to the families.  Mexican officials will be participating in the investigation and trial of the gunman and will consider extraditing the suspect to face charges in Mexico if necessary. "We consider this to be an act of terror, obviously in U.S. territory, but against Mexican citizens," Ebrard said. "So we will be sharing all the details with authorities." At least eight of the dead and six of the injured were Mexican citizens, according to the Mexican government. Ebrard condemned racism and xenophobia in his statement, and called El Paso a binational community.El Paso, America's 22nd-largest city with an estimated population of 682,669, is more than 80 percent Hispanic or Latino, according to U.S. census data. El Paso sits just across the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juárez, which has a population of 1.3 million.

 Uruguay issues travel alert for US, warning of deadly hate crimes - Uruguay on Monday issued a warning for its citizens who are traveling to the United States in the aftermath of two deadly mass shootings. The foreign ministry of the South American nation told its citizens to exercise extreme caution “against growing indiscriminate violence, mostly for hate crimes ... which cost more than 250 people their lives in the first seven months of the year." Because of “the indiscriminate possession of firearms by the population,” travelers are advised “to avoid areas with large concentrations of people like theme parks, shopping centers, art festivals, religious events, food festivals and any kind of cultural or sporting gathering.” The warning comes two days after a gunman opened fire at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart. Less than 24 hours later, at least nine people were killed and more than two dozen injured in a Dayton, Ohio, shooting. The two shootings are not believed to be linked. The shooting in El Paso has drawn particular concern from the Hispanic world. Patrick Wood Crusius, the suspected gunman, drove eight hours from the Dallas-Fort Worth area to El Paso, which sits on the Mexican border and has a high concentration of Hispanic people. Crusius allegedly wrote a racist, anti-immigrant manifesto before the attack, which described fears of a Latino “invasion."

 For Latinos, El Paso is a devastating new low in a Trump era - Working with immigrants for 30 years, Pablo Alvarado has lived through decades of antagonism toward Latinos. It came in political waves that washed over California, Arizona and other states. There was Proposition 187 in the 1990s, the Minuteman protests, “America’s toughest sheriff” Joe Arpaio and his hard-line policing tactics.Nothing compares to the reality Latinos are facing today, Alvarado said.“It’s a destructive moment for this country,” said the executive director of the Los Angeles-based National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “This is the first time when I feel as if our adversaries have declared war against our immigrant community.” The massacre of 20 people Saturday by a man who traveled 650 miles to a Walmart in El Paso, reportedly with the intention of shooting “as many Mexicans as possible,” marks what appears to be one of the deadliest hate crimes ever against Latinos. The mass violence — and the bigoted motive that echoed the worst racist rants of anti-immigrant hard-liners — marked for many Latinos a devastating new low in the Trump era.Like Alvarado, many Latinos on Sunday said they felt that the anger toward their community is reaching a boiling point, fueled by the heated politics of immigration. Many said they believe that hostility is encouraged by a president who attacked a federal judge’s impartiality for being “a Mexican,” who frequently refers to asylum seekers and migrants who cross the border without authorization as part of an“invasion,” and who, at a rally speaking about migrants, said: “How do you stop these people? You can’t,” and then chuckled and joked along when someone in the crowd shouted, “Shoot them.”

ICE rounds up nearly 700 immigrants in sweep through Mississippi poultry plants - The Trump administration has given its real response to the fascist massacre in El Paso, Texas, demonstrating its sympathy for the anti-immigrant ravings of the gunman who murdered 22 people, nearly all of them Hispanic, by carrying out the largest immigration raid since Trump entered the White House. On Wednesday, an army of 650 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, including heavily armed SWAT teams, surrounded seven poultry processing plants in Mississippi and detained all who could not prove they were in the US legally. There is no indication what proportion of the 680 detained, nearly all Latinos, are in fact undocumented. ICE officials said all those without documents would be processed for deportation, with a few “humanitarian” exceptions. The plants are owned by two large food processing companies, Koch Foods Inc. of Park Ridge, Illinois (not connected to the Koch brothers oil empire), and Peco Foods of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. They are located in six small towns ringing the city of Jackson, the state capital—Bay Springs, Canton, Carthage, Morton, Pelahatchie and Sebastopol. At the Koch Foods plant in Morton, where reporters witnessed the detentions, about 70 family members, friends and other residents gathered outside, shouting, “Let them go! Let them go!” as three buses were driven up and filled with detainees. Workers were handcuffed with zip ties, their belongings were placed in plastic bags and they were boarded onto buses destined for the Mississippi National Guard base in Flowood. Press reports said that the nearly 700 workers would be processed at an airplane hangar on the base, separating them into various categories, ranging from those to be immediately deported to those to be released because they were in fact US citizens. In a previous large-scale raid in Tennessee, the day after 100 workers were detained 500 children did not go to school. Given the far larger scale of the Mississippi raid, it is likely that thousands of children are being directly affected. In Scott County, where Morton and Sebastopol are located, School Superintendent Tony McGee told the press that students ranging from kindergarten through high school had a parent detained in the raid. He said that school bus drivers had been asked to return children to their school if there was no one at home to receive them. ICE and Justice Department officials claimed that there was no connection between the timing of the raid and Trump’s visits to Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, the same day.

“Don’t Look Away”: Videos and Images of Weeping Children and Loved Ones Spread as ICE Arrests 680 in Mississippi Heartbreaking images and videos of weeping children and loved ones spread rapidly on social media Wednesday night after Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested nearly 700 workers at several Mississippi food processing plants in a series of coordinated raids that were described as "the largest single-state workplace enforcement action in U.S. history." "Days after the El Paso massacre where a gun wielding maniac parroted Trump's anti-immigrant hate, a battalion of ICE agents abducted 680 Latinx and immigrant men and women on Trump's orders." —Greisa Martínez Rosas, United We Dream Mississippi's local WJTV reported following the ICE raids that "many children of those arrested across the state are now left homeless with nowhere to go." "These children," WJTV reported, "were relying on neighbors and even strangers to pick them up outside their homes after school and drive them to a community fitness center where people tried to keep them calm. But many kids could not stop crying for mom and dad." Among those appearing on local television news cameras was 11-year-old Magdalena Gomez Gregorio, who pleaded that her father, among those missing after the raids, to be returned to her. "My dad is not a criminal," Gregorio said through tears. Watch: As ProPublica reporter Dara Lind pointed out on Twitter, young children of immigrants have lived in constant fear of their parents being swept up at any moment by President Donald Trump's deportation force. "I've spoken to school employees in cities where there were no raids," noted Lind, "saying that sometimes kids came in midday asking to call and see if parents were still home."

  There's a record number of immigrant-founded companies on the Fortune 500, despite Trump-era policies  - A new report finds that 45% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children, among them tech heavy-hitters like Amazon, Apple, Tesla, and Google parent company Alphabet.While the contribution of immigrants to startups has long been known, these recent findings are increasingly relevant due toPresident Donald Trump's policies affecting migration. Most recently, the current administration has tightened asylum rules for migrants by making it harder for family members to receive protection, which could keep thousands from seeking refuge in the US.According to the report, conducted by research organization New American Economy, the 45% of companies founded by immigrants or their children generated $16.1 trillion in revenue in 2018, a higher proportion than in previous years. The number of companies on the list has also increased: there were 204 in 2011, and 223 in 2019. Of those, 101 were founded by people born outside the US, and 122 were founded by the children of immigrants. Famous examples abound: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' adoptive father was Cuban, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs' biological father was Syrian, Tesla cofounder Elon Musk is South African, and Google cofounder Sergey Brin was born in Russia. (In other words, a world without immigrant founders would mean you couldn't google Amazon return policies on your iPhone after parking your Tesla.)

Trump Urges Federal Death Penalty Delivered "Quickly, Decisively" For Hate Crimes & Mass Murders - In the wake the two weekend mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, which left 31 dead and many dozens injured, President Trump has rolled out newly proposed legislation expanding federal death penalty cases to include hate crimes and mass killings. Today, I am also directing the Department of Justice to propose legislation ensuring that those who commit hate crimes and mass murders face the DEATH PENALTY - and that this capital punishment be delivered quickly, decisively, and without years of needless delay. pic.twitter.com/BDXdpelK7F— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2019This comes after less than two weeks ago the Department of Justice announced that for the first time in nearly two decades it will resume capital punishment. Attorney General William Barr had announced on July 25 that the process for the execution of five death-row in mates is set to move forward, marking the first federal executions since 2003. "Congress has expressly authorized the death penalty through legislation adopted by the people’s representatives in both houses of Congress and signed by the President," Barr said in a written statement previously released by the DOJ.But Monday's announcement means the DOJ will seek to tighten existing law to ensure "hate crimes" and "mass murders" will be tried as capital cases. His solemn address at the White House condemned the gunmen in the two deadly mass shootings: “These barbaric slaughters are an assault upon our communities, an attack against out nation and a crime against all of humanity,” Trump said. “Hate has no place in America. In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacism,” he added.

Trump explores executive action on guns -- President Donald Trump is exploring ways to use regulatory power and executive action to curb gun violence after a pair of deadly shootings over the weekend — a move driven by his aides’ belief that Congress is incapable of coalescing around consensus legislation in a heated 2020 election cycle. White House officials on Monday said Trump and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr are “resolved” to take action after the shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. The administration is exploring solutions “that actually make an impact,” as opposed to “things that feel good,” one Trump aide said. Trump has increasingly relied on his executive authority to address issues that have stained his administration, including the gun violence epidemic. Ten months after a teen gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., last year, the Trump administration issued a rule — at the president’s request — to ban the sale and possession of devices known as bump stocks, which allow semi-automatic firearms to simulate automatic weapons. The National Rifle Association opposed the rule, arguing at the time that bans have rarely “worked on anything.”

Amnesty International issues travel warning for US -- The human rights organization warns gun violence has led to a "human rights crisis" in the US. The killings of 31 people in attacks at the weekend have renewed pressure on President Trump to strengthen gun controls.  Amnesty said the US government was guilty of "prioritizing gun ownership over basic human rights," and thereby failed to protect people living in and traveling to the US. Campaign manager for the End Gun Violence campaign at Amnesty International USA Ernest Coverson told DW the US "should be held accountable" for the threat posed by gun violence to people's livelihoods.  Coverson added that "gun violence has become so prevalent in the US that it amounts to a human rights crisis." The advisory warned travelers to the US:

• To remain cautious that the country does not adequately protect people’s right to be safe.
• To avoid places where many people congregate, including shopping malls, schools and places of worship.
• To exercise extreme caution when visiting local bars, nightclubs and casinos.
• That their race, country of origin, ethnic background, sexual orientation or gender identity may place them at higher risk.

 The Next Big Vote on Gun Control May Be in the Supreme Court - After this weekend’s mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, pressure to reform gun laws has focused on Congress—and, as usual, Congress seems stymied about what to do. But with far less attention, an important strand of the debate has now landed in the Supreme Court.Last week, the gun-maker Remington, which had annual sales of approximately $600 million in 2017, asked the Supreme Court to overturn a Connecticut decision that gave Sandy Hook families the ability to sue the company over the way it marketed the weapon used in the 2012 school massacre.The ability to bring suits against gun manufacturers would give American citizens a powerful tool to hold gun-makers liable for the damage their weapons cause—much as cigarette companies were vulnerable to suits for the harms of tobacco. It’s not clear whether John Roberts’ court will take the case, and if it does, whether it will side with the families or uphold protections that gun-makers have enjoyed since the Bush administration.At issue is a 2005 law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which gives gun manufacturers and dealers immunity from the vast majority of lawsuits that could be brought as a result of crimes committed with their firearms. NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre called it “the most significant piece of pro-gun legislation in twenty years.”He was right that the law would be a boon to gun manufacturers and dealers. Federal appeals courts in New York and California concluded that the law precluded lawsuits under New York and California law. Federal courts in D.C. and Colorado—along with state courts in Alaska, Illinois and Missouri—also held that the law barred suits against the gun industry. But the Connecticut case dramatically expanded an exception to the PLCAA. Earlier this year, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 decision that the estates of victims of the Sandy Hook massacre could sue the manufacturer of the assault rifle used by the man who murdered them under state law because it advertised its product in a manner that could promote mass shootings, such as its slogan, “Forces of opposition, bow down. You are single-handedly outnumbered.”

Hollywood Is Launching A Satirical Movie About Elites Hunting, Killing Trump Supporters - A new thriller by Universal Studios called “The Hunt” has been met with fury in the wake of two politically motivated mass shootings. The horrifying plot features liberal “elites” who go to a resort called The Manor where they are able to hunt down and brutally murder a dozen “deplorables.” I swore I was going to stay away from politics but…well, let’s just say if you haven’t muttered “WTF” yet today, you will soon.  But don’t worry. It’s “satire.” The violent, R-rated film from producer Jason Blum’s Blumhouse follows a dozen MAGA types who wake up in a clearing and realize they are being stalked for sport by elite liberals…  …The Hunt stars Betty Gilpin from GLOW and Hilary Swank, representing opposite sides of the political divide. It features guns blazing along with other ultra-violent killings as the elites pick off their prey. The script from Damon Lindelof and Nick Cuse reviewed by The Hollywood Reporter revolves around third-rail political themes. (Original title: Red State Vs. Blue State.) (source) The trailers for the movie were so gory and horrifying, particularly in the aftermath of last weekend’s mass shooting tragedies, ESPN  pulled the ads. Over the Aug. 3 weekend, ESPN pulled an ad for the film that it had previously cleared, while AMC ran the spot during the season premiere of its drama The Preacher. It’s unclear whether the ads were identical, but the one yanked by ESPN opened with a sound resembling an emergency broadcast signal. A rep for ESPN parent Disney declined to comment on the move, but an ESPN source says no spots for the film will appear on the network in the coming weeks. (source) Studio gossip hints that people within Universal are divided about the advertising for this film.While one high-level Universal source says the studio has pulled some ads that are beginning to air and appear online “for content and placement,” others say the matter is still under discussion internally. A major ad blitz on television and the web had been planned for the beginning of September, says one insider. A trailer is already online. Given the fraught political climate — particularly in the wake of the attack in El Paso, which was motivated by anti-immigrant bigotry — studio sources say Universal is evaluating its plans in what one called “a fluid situation.” A high-level insider says top executives want to stand by Blum, one of the studio’s most prolific and successful producers, as well as filmmaker Craig Zobel, and see the project as a satire addressing an issue of great social importance. But this person says plans could change “if people think we’re being exploitative rather than opinionated.” (source)

How many guns there are in the U.S. International research has found that U.S. mass shootings cannot be explained by a violent culture, racial divisions or mental health, the N.Y. Times' Max Fisher and Josh Keller write in "The Interpreter" column. It's simply the "astronomical number of guns."

• "The United States has 270 million guns and had 90 mass shooters from 1966 to 2012."
• "No other country has more than 46 million guns or 18 mass shooters" — the U.S. is way worse than the Philippines, Russia, China or India.
• Americans alone own 40% of all guns in the world, more than all civilians combined in 25 other countries.

Countries with the highest gun ownership rate, per a survey by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva:

1. United States: 120.5 per 100 people
2. Yemen: 52.8 per 100 people
3. Montenegro: 39.1 per 100 people
4. Serbia: 39.1 per 100 people
5. Canada: 34.7 per 100 people
6. Uruguay: 34.7 per 100 people
7. Cyprus: 34.0 per 100 people
8. Finland: 32.4 per 100 people
9. Lebanon: 31.9 per 100 people
10. Iceland: 31.7 per 100 people

What the Fight Over Means Testing Is Really About - Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ilhan Omar discussed their companion bills to cancel all student debt in the United States. Unlike the plan put forward by Senator Elizabeth Warren, which limits debt cancellation for those earning $100,000 and phases it out entirely at $250,000, the Sanders/Omar plan would apply to everyone. When asked why, Sanders offered a simple answer: “I happen to believe in universality.”   Sanders, who has thus far refrained from criticizing Warren, kept his remarks positive. But Omar’s office contrasted Warren’s proposal unfavorably with hers, calling it “a complicated means-tested plan to keep out a doctor or lawyer who might be earning a good living.” “Means-tested” is clearly used unflatteringly here, because it has become a pejorative shorthand to describe and dismiss a certain kind of Democratic politics. As the headline to a 2017 essay by The Week’s Ryan Cooper put it, “The road to hell is paved with means-testing.” Any test of an individual’s financial status can be described as a “means test,” although the practice has largely been used to target aid to the poor, as with food stamps, Medicaid, or welfare benefits. While the practice has obvious merits, some on the left have contended that this is both stigmatizing and creates “poverty traps.” The limits in Warren’s plan don’t fit the typical means-testing pattern. Instead of targeting the poor for inclusion, they target better-off households for exclusion. If you believe federal resources are scarce, there’s clear policy value in targeting some government services to those deemed most in need. Most industrialized democracies, including the Nordic states, do this in one form or another.  But the U.S. is unusually parsimonious with social services, and the means-testing impulse has often limited access to already sparse benefits. For student debt cancellation, this poses pragmatic problems—won’t households just defer income to qualify for payouts?  Imagine the scion of a billionaire—say, the daughter of the current president—toiling in a make-work office job at $35,000 a year while waiting for a trust fund payout. She would qualify for debt relief under the Warren plan, thwarting its primary goal and triggering political fallout. The practice can be taken to absurd extremes. Kamala Harris’s widely (and rightly) mocked variant of the Warren/Sanders plans, designed to promote black entrepreneurship, would cancel student debt—but only $20,000—for “Pell grant recipients who start a business that operates for three years in disadvantaged communities.”

Column: Health insurance companies are useless. Get rid of them - Michael Hiltzik - The most perplexing aspect of our current debate over healthcare and health coverage is the notion that Americans love their health insurance companies.  This bizarre idea surfaced most recently in the hand-wringing over proposals to do away with private coverage advocated by some of the candidates for the Democratic nomination for president. Oddly, this position has been treated as a vote-loser. During the first round of televised debates on July 30 and 31, only four of the 20 candidates raised their hands when asked if they would ban private insurers as part of their proposals for universal coverage: Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Kamala Harris of California, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Harris later backed away, releasing a “Medicare for all” proposal that would accommodate private insurers at least for the first 10 years.  She should have stood her ground. The truth is that private health insurers have contributed nothing of value to the American healthcare system. Instead, they have raised costs and created an entitled class of administrators and executives who are fighting for their livelihoods, using customers’ premium dollars to do so.  “Health insurers have been successful at two things: Making money and getting the American public to believe they’re essential,” says Wendell Potter. He should know, since he spent decades as a corporate communications executive in the industry, including more than 10 years at Cigna.   The insurers’ success in making themselves seem essential accounts for the notion that Americans are so pleased with their private coverage that they’ll punish any politician who dares to take it away. But the American love affair with private insurance warrants close inspection. Let’s start by examining what the insurers say are their positive contributions to healthcare. (These claims all come from the website of the industry’s lobbying organization, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP).

 Sue Gordon has resigned as deputy director of national intelligence — Sue Gordon, a career CIA official who is serving as the principal deputy director of national intelligence, told the White House she would leave her job today after she learned she would be passed over as director of national intelligence, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter. President Donald Trump confirmed that Gordon would be leaving on Twitter this evening, not long after Bloomberg News was the first to report her departure. Trump said Gordon had announced she would be leaving on Aug. 15, and called her “a great professional with a long and distinguished career” for whom he had “developed great respect.” In a second tweet, he said her departure coincided with the retirement of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, whose planned exit on Aug. 15 was previously announced. “A new acting director of national intelligence will be named shortly,” said Trump. The source with direct knowledge told NBC News that Coats had recommended that Gordon replace him, but that White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told him they had someone else in mind. When Coats told that to Gordon, she felt she had no choice but to hand in her resignation, the source said. Her departure may raise the hackles of both Republican and Democratic senators, who supported her vigorously. The source said she recently had assured Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the committee, that she would stay on and serve as acting DNI.

White House drafting executive order to tackle Silicon Valley’s alleged anti-conservative bias - The White House is circulating drafts of a proposed executive order that would address allegations of anti-conservative bias by social media companies, according to a White House official and two other people familiar with the matter — a month after President Donald Trump pledged to explore "all regulatory and legislative solutions" on the issue. None of the three would describe the contents of the order, which one person cautioned has already taken many different forms and remains in flux. But its existence, and the deliberations surrounding it, are evidence that the administration is taking a serious look at wielding the federal government’s power against Silicon Valley. ..“If the internet is going to be presented as this egalitarian platform and most of Twitter is liberal cesspools of venom, then at least the president wants some fairness in the system,” the White House official said. “But look, we also think that social media plays a vital role. They have a vital role and an increasing responsibility to the culture that has helped make them so profitable and so prominent." Two other people knowledgeable about the discussions also confirmed the existence of the draft order. None of the three people could say what penalties, if any, the order would envision for companies deemed to be censoring political viewpoints. The order, which deals with other topics besides tech bias, is still in the early drafting stages and is not expected to be issued imminently. "The President announced at this month’s social media summit that we were going to address this and the administration is exploring all policy solutions," a second White House official said Wednesday when asked about the draft order.

 Russiagate Is Deader Than Ever --Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg --The ruling by U.S. District Judge John Koeltl to dismiss the Democratic National Committee’s lawsuit against Russia, the Trump campaign and others on Tuesday may look like something of an afterthought now that Robert Mueller, the special counsel, has failed to find evidence of a criminal conspiracy between Russia and Trump’s team. It is, however, anything but anticlimactic: It contains some hard truths for those still hanging on to the Trump-Russia story. The DNC sued in April 2018, painting a picture of collusion between a Russian government eager to get Trump elected and a Trump campaign that was “a willing and active partner in this effort.” This picture, unlike Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s eventual report, was based on “connecting the dots” – an exercise in which many commentators have happily engaged since Trump won the 2016 election.  Even at the time it was filed, the DNC lawsuit was widely dismissed as a political stunt. But it also followed the example of the Democrats’ legal action against President Richard Nixon’s re-election committee after Watergate, which ended in a $750,000 settlement when Nixon resigned. Koeltl refused to penalize the DNC for suing frivolously: Indeed, the case helped him clarify some important points. In his ruling, Koeltl, who once worked for Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, first explained that Russia cannot be sued in a U.S. court for government actions planned in Moscow. That seems obvious, but the DNC disputed it in the lawsuit, and there’d been a lot of public indignation about Russia’s actions on U.S. soil that contravene U.S. laws.  Another point Koeltl makes is that, though it’s not OK to steal documents such as personal and work-related emails, it’s perfectly OK to disseminate and publish them under the First Amendment – as long as the disseminator isn’t also the thief. This has important implications for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whom neither Mueller nor anyone else has accused of actually stealing the emails of DNC operatives and Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta – or, indeed, any of the classified documents WikiLeaks has published. It can be argued that he helped some of the whistle-blowers to steal files and that constitutes a crime, but in general, he shouldn’t be held responsible for publishing pilfered material.

 Judge questions Barr's handling of Mueller findings | TheHill -- A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Monday pressed Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers on why the public shouldn’t be allowed to see redacted portions of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, suggesting that he may be willing to consider releasing at least some of the restricted document. Judge Reggie Walton, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, posed the questions during a hearing on a pair of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits seeking the redacted portions of the report. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and BuzzFeed News reporter Jason Leopold filed the lawsuits earlier this year. The cases have since been consolidated, and attorneys for each party split the arguments during Monday’s hearing. Walton in particular raised concerns about Attorney General William Barr’s initial handling of Mueller’s report, indicating that he believed there were discrepancies in how Barr characterized the report and the former special counsel’s actual findings. “I do have some concerns because it seems to me difficult to reconcile the contents of the Mueller report and statements made by the attorney general” about the report, Walton said. The judge pointed to a letter authored by Barr weeks ahead of the report's release that said Mueller determined there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election and Barr’s suggestion that the president was cleared by the report. Mueller has since stated that his office did not investigate collusion but instead whether any Trump campaign officials conspired with Russians in 2016. And the former special counsel has repeatedly stated that his report does not exonerate President Trump. DOJ lawyer Courtney Enlow pushed back, saying that Barr was not required to release the report at all under the special counsel regulations but did so anyway. She said the attorney general's actions were in “good faith.”

Andrew McCabe sues FBI over firing, alleges plot by Trump to oust those disloyal to the president  -- Andrew McCabe, the acting FBI director who authorized an investigation into President Trump for ties to Russia and possible obstruction of justice, filed a lawsuit against the bureau and the Justice Department on Wednesday, alleging he was illegally demoted and fired as part of a plot by Trump to remove those who were not politically loyal to him. McCabe asked that a federal judge declare his termination a “legal nullity” and essentially allow him to retire from the FBI as planned, with all the benefits that would have afforded him. He was fired from the bureau in March 2018, just hours before he was set to retire, costing him significant retirement benefits. The termination came after the Justice Department inspector general found that McCabe made an unauthorized disclosure to the media, then lied to investigators about it. “It was Trump’s unconstitutional plan and scheme to discredit and remove DOJ and FBI employees who were deemed to be his partisan opponents because they were not politically loyal to him,” the lawsuit alleges, adding that McCabe’s firing “was a critical element of Trump’s plan and scheme.”  Justice Department and FBI spokeswomen declined to comment. White House officials did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. The inspector general referred McCabe’s case to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, which has beenusing a grand jury to determine whether McCabe should also be charged criminally. McCabe has long asserted that he did nothing wrong and that his termination, ordered by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, was a politically motivated effort by Trump to undermine the FBI’s work. Trump had criticized Mc­Cabe even before he was removed.

 The mysterious case of Jeffrey Epstein - There are several confounding mysteries surrounding the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the 66-year-old "financier" who was arrested July 6 on a federal sex trafficking indictment that alleges he recruited and sexually abused dozens of minor girls, some as young as 14 years old, beginning at least in or about 2002. And for reasons I will discuss in a moment, don't expect clarity anytime soon. The first mystery is how Epstein, a former high school math teacher from Brooklyn, accumulated wealth estimated at about a half billion dollars, with mansions in Palm Beach and Manhattan, a private island in the Carribean, and a private jet nicknamed the "Lolita Express" on which he hosted many famous people, including former president Bill Clinton, former national security adviser Sandy Berger, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, former Colombian president Andrés Pastrana, and Prince Andrew, Duke of York. The New York Times describes Epstein as "a hedge fund manager." However, Epstein's company, the blandly named Financial Trust Co., has no website, no record of any transactions, and no filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, strongly suggesting that he has never managed other people's money, as he long claimed.  The second mystery is, if the allegations against Epstein are true—and he admitted to at least some of the charges in a 2008 plea deal in Palm Beach County, Florida—how was he able to carry on for so many years without any significant interference by law enforcement?  According to Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald, the feds had the goods on Epstein more than a decade ago, identifying 36 underage victims of sexual abuse. A 53-page federal sex trafficking indictment was prepared, but then it was shelved in favor of a highly unusual Non-Prosecution Agreement (or NPA) that essentially shut down the investigation into Epstein and his wealthy and powerful network of friends. This NPA was approved by Alexander Acosta, the top federal prosecutor in Miami, who later became President Trump's secretary of labor. Acosta explained that he had been told to back off, and that Epstein was above his pay grade: "I was told Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave it alone." The surprising thing about Epstein's NPA is not that it kept him out of federal prison, but rather that the federal government went further and granted immunity from prosecution to "any potential coconspirators of Epstein." This type of agreement is unheard-of and quite shocking.   This leads to the third mystery surrounding the Epstein case: Who are his coconspirators and why were they granted immunity from prosecution? Acosta provided an important clue when he said he was told to back off because Epstein "belonged to intelligence." Others have claimed that Epstein's residences were equipped with hidden cameras and microphones in the bedrooms that Epstein reportedly used to record the sexual assault of underage girls by his high-profile guests. So was Epstein involved in a sexual blackmail operation exploiting children and targeting prominent politicians and other public figures? If yes, what was the involvement of U.S. intelligence officials? The answers to these questions could help explain Epstein's wealth, and the unusual NPA that immunized his coconspirators. But the answers could also be embarrassing to powerful men on both sides of the political aisle.

 Jeffrey Epstein ‘misappropriated vast sums of money from me,’ Les Wexner says - Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier currently under indictment for alleged child sex trafficking, misappropriated more than $46 million from L Brands founder and chairman Les Wexner and his family, Wexner revealed Wednesday. And Wexner also said in a letter to the “community” of his charitable Wexner Foundation, “I am embarrassed that, like so many others, I was deceived by Mr. Epstein.” “I know now that my trust in him was grossly misplaced and I deeply regret having ever crossed his path.” Epstein for years was known for managing Wexner’s personal finances before the first criminal probe into his penchant for getting massages from girls became public. Numerous stories about Epstein noted that Wexner was his only known client. Wexner, 81, said he learned that money was missing only after he decided in 2007 to sever his relationship with Epstein after Epstein was placed under investigation for alleged sexual misconduct with young girls in Florida. “We discovered that he had misappropriated vast sums of money from me and my family,” Mr. Wexner wrote in his letter to the Wexner Foundation Community. “This was, frankly, a tremendous shock, even though it clearly pales in comparison to the unthinkable allegations against him now,” wrote Wexner, whose L Brands owns Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works. Wexner’s letter said that, ”We were able to recover some of the funds ” misappropriated by Epstein. But Wexner did not disclose how much money that was.

 Gov. DeSantis orders criminal probe of Jeffrey Epstein case - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has ordered a state criminal probe into the actions of the Palm Beach sheriff and the former Palm Beach state attorney for their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein underage sex trafficking case.DeSantis’ move comes as Sheriff Ric Bradshaw has come under increasing scrutiny for his decision in 2008 to give Epstein, a politically connected multimillionaire, unusually lenient work release privileges even though Epstein was a convicted sex offender who had been accused of molesting dozens of underage girls.State Sen. Lauren Book, a Democrat from Plantation, collected more than 4,000 signatures on a petition demanding that the Republican governor ask the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to undertake the investigation. Ultimately it was Bradshaw who requested the inquiry, although only after several days of mounting pressure. “We got support for this from all over the country,’’ Book said Tuesday. “Many of them are sexual assault survivors who have lived in the shadows for so long and who wanted to let Jeffrey Epstein’s survivors know that they are not alone.’’Epstein, 66, is now under indictment in New York, charged with sex trafficking minors — both in Palm Beach and in Manhattan, where Epstein owns sprawling homes. Epstein was investigated in Palm Beach, starting in 2006, but then-State Attorney Barry Krischer wanted to charge him with a misdemeanor.The case was transferred to the FBI, which discovered even more victims, and federal investigators gathered enough corroborating evidence to fill a 53-page federal indictment. The indictment, however, was inexplicably shelved under then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, who signed off on an agreement that allowed Epstein to plead guilty to lesser charges in state court.As part of the deal, Epstein was jailed in a private wing of the Palm Beach County stockade. But within a few months, he was allowed to have his own driver pick him up and take him to an office he had set up in West Palm Beach, where he spent up to 12 hours a day, six days a week.

Apollo Doth Protest Too Much: Our Leon Black-Jeff Epstein Post Elicits Intervention by Apollo’s Flack -- Yves Smith - Many readers have been following with prurient interest the saga of serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein, and in particular media speculation connected to the Very Important People whose names and personal contacts appear in Epstein’s “Little Black Book,” seized by the FBI andcurrently publicly archived here, courtesy Jon Cook of Gawker. One listing that got a lot of attention was that of billionaire Leon Black, founder of private equity heavyweight Apollo.After the black book became public, the press dug deeper into the long-standing relationship between Black and Epstein, with the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and more recently, the New York Times weighing in.In a sign that Apollo is in the public relations version of Defcon 1 over l’affaire Epstein, we got a call and an e-mail from Apollo’s hired mouthpiece, insinuating that we really should have talked to them. Had the PR professional bothered even a cursory look into our work on Apollo or private equity generally, he might have realized that contacting us could be counterproductive, particularly since no financial firm has ever deigned to muscle take official interest in this humble website.¹ It wasn’t just that Black’s name appeared in Epstein’s famed black book. Since 1997, Epstein served as an “original trustee” of the Leon Black Family Foundation. Black has disavowed state filings that listed Epstein as on the board through 2012, years after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to solicitation of prostitution. Black claims the state filings were inaccurate and said he asked Epstein to resign in 2007.This relationship alone is enough to raise eyebrows. Men at Black’s level are hyper-attentive to their personal wealth. The notion Leon Black, who has access to the best tax experts in the world, and himself is a renowned financier, would hire someone with no credentials in tax or accounting to advise on his affairs would seem nonsensical had it not actually happened. More bad news dripped out. The Wall Street Journal published a long expose, Jeffrey Epstein Burrowed Into the Lives of the Rich and Made a Fortune, Bloomberg reported Jeffrey Epstein Had a Door Into Apollo: His Deep Ties With Leon Black, with insider accounts of how Epstein was permitted to approach Apollo principals to pitch his “tax strategies”. An individual mentioned as hosting one meeting disputed that it had occurred. Black a denial that didn’t address a key Bloomberg claim: that Black had allowed Epstein to solicit senior executives at Apollo. Black merely said that Epstein had never done business with Apollo.² Black first sent an e-mail to employees, then wrote his investors, then read the employee e-mail as part of Apollo’s quarterly conference call. The investor presentation failed to address a New York Times account that a Black-controlled entity had given $10 million to an Epstein charity in 2015.

Court releases documents about Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged madam Ghislaine Maxwell - A federal appeals court on Friday unsealed nearly 2,000 pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier charged with child sex trafficking, and Ghislaine Maxwell, his former girlfriend and his alleged procurer of underage girls.  The documents include one containing flight records showing that PresidentDonald Trump flew on Epstein’s private plane in January 1997, from a Palm Beach, Florida, airport to Newark, New Jersey.  In another document, one of Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Giuffre, says Maxwell directed her to have sex with former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, a Maine Democrat, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and other prominent people.  Giuffre, who had worked as a locker-room attendant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, also said that Epstein “told me that Donald Trump is a good friend of his,” but that she never saw the two men together. And she said in a deposition that she never had sex with Trump or flirted with him.The White House had no immediate comment on the mention of Trump’s name on the flight logs. Richardson’s office denied he ever met Giuffre, and called the allegations “completely false.” Mitchell in a statement said, “The allegation contained in the released documents is false. I have never met, spoken with or had any contact with Ms. Giuffre.” The files released Friday are part of a defamation lawsuit that Giuffre filed against Maxwell several years ago. The suit accused Maxwell of calling Giuffre, a liar for claiming that Maxwell and Epstein sexually abused her when she was underage. Giuffre had also alleged that she was sexually abused while in Epstein’s circle by “numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known Prime Minister and other world leaders,” as well as noted lawyer Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor. Maxwell, a British socialite who is the daughter of late media mogul Robert Maxwell, later settled that defamation case with Giuffre. The terms of that settlement are not known. But Maxwell had tried to keep filings in the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan sealed.

 Jeffrey Epstein Sent Girl to Governor and Senator for Sex, She Testified - Jeffrey Epstein and a friend sent an underage girl to have sex with former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell and asset manager Glenn Dubin, she testified in court documents that were made public Friday -- allegations the three deny. Virginia Giuffre, now an adult, says she was also sent to modeling executive Jean Luc Brunel and the late MIT scientist Marvin Minsky, according to parts of a 2016 deposition she gave. The testimony by Giuffre, who claims she was a “sex slave” for Epstein from 2000 to 2002, expands on her previous allegations, in court filings and tabloids, that she was forced to have sex with the U.K.’s Prince Andrew and Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz. Both men have strenuously denied those allegations.Epstein, a convicted sex offender, faces new federal criminal charges of sexually trafficking minors. None of the other men were defendants in the settled lawsuit, and they haven’t been accused by authorities. But their appearance in the newly public papers adds to the list of those who could be tarnished by their apparent association with him.Richardson, in a statement, said he’d never met Giuffre, called the allegations "completely false" and said that during his limited interactions with Epstein he’d never seen him in the presence of underage girls.Mitchell said the allegation in the released documents is false. In a statement, he said he never met, spoke with or had contact with Giuffre, or knew of or suspected that Epstein had inappropriate conduct with underage girls. Dubin and his wife, Eva, called the allegations "demonstrably false and defamatory." In an emailed statement, a spokeswoman added: “The Dubins have flight records and other evidence that definitively disprove that any such events occurred." The Giuffre deposition, parts of which were attached as exhibits to court filings, includes her testimony responding to newspaper articles about her experience -- outlining how she said she had been hired by Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort before Maxwell wooed her to work as a masseuse for Epstein. After that, Giuffre testified, Maxwell and Epstein began farming her out to powerful men.

Epstein Maintained Post-Prison Ties To Wall Street Titans - Who Gladly Embraced Him -- Millionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein remained in the good graces of Wall Street titans both during and after his 13-month work-release jail stint in 2008 - 2009, who only severed ties with the registered sex offender when the heat was back on, according to Bloomberg.   For example, Barclays CEO and longtime associate Jes Staley "visited Epstein on the private island, accompanied by his wife Debora," in 2015 - seven years after everyone knew Epstein was a pedophile. They would sever ties months later as new accusations of sexual abuse were levied against the financier, while weeks later the now-defunct Webstie Gawker published his "little black book" containing over 1,000 names of prominent individuals and their contacts.   While not accused of participating in any of Epstein's illegal activities, Staley - who visited Epstein at his Palm Beach office while the Epstein was on prison work-release, has come under fire by those who want to know exactly how close the two were. By all accounts, Epstein played a pivotal role in Staley's rise while running JP Morgan's private bank - referring wealthy clients to the banker and helping to arrange the bank's 2004 acquisition of Highbridge Capital Management.  Staley left JPMorgan in 2013 before joining hedge fund BlueMountain Capital Management. In December 2015 joined Barclays as CEO. Staley aside, Epstein somehow managed to maintain his relationships on Wall Street despite his sex-offender pedophile lifestyle, including billionaire Leon Black, former Israeli Prime Minister (and current candidate for the job) Ehud Barak - and was able to secure preferable stock allocations in dozens of IPOs. Via Bloomberg: 

• Apollo Global Management’s Black met with Epstein at the company’s New York offices. Black dispatched Apollo co-founder Marc Rowan to attend a meeting at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion with representatives of Edmond de Rothschild Group to discuss how the two firms could work together more closely, people with knowledge of the meeting said. Florence Gaubert, a spokeswoman for Edmond de Rothschild, said she wasn’t aware of any meeting and that the bank has no business links with Apollo or Epstein.
• BV70 LLC, a charity controlled by Black, donated $10 million to Epstein’s foundation Gratitude America, even as the New York Attorney General’s Office questioned whether another of Epstein’s foundations was complying with state registration requirements.
• Epstein invested in a partnership started in 2015 by Barak, prime minister from 1999 to 2001, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Lead US Prosecutor In Epstein's 2008 Case Unexpectedly Resigns - Something big is about to hit in the Jeffrey Epstein drama, which in recent days has quietly slipped to the last page in the local media. Moments ago, the Miami Herald whose reporting in 2018 reincarnated the Epstein pedogate scandal, reported that Marie Villafaña, the lead federal prosecutor who helped negotiate the controversial plea deal for accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, has submitted her resignation to the Justice Department.Villafaña’s lawyer, Jonathan Biran, confirmed her resignation to the Miami Herald, saying that she has long planned to transition to a legal career in healthcare, and now plans to join the federal Department of Health and Human Services, because allegedly, she handled a number of healthcare fraud cases in South Florida in recent years.Her shocking departure comes amid a sprawling federal probe into the role she and other federal prosecutors, including her former boss, Alexander Acosta, had in sidelining the 53-page indictment against the wealthy New York schmoozer and convicted pedophile in favor of a state plea to minor prostitution charges in 2008. Epstein, 66, was accused of molesting dozens of underage girls, most of them 14 to 16 years old, at his Palm Beach mansion more than a decade ago. He is now facing federal sex trafficking charges involving minors brought against him last month by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York. The DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility is probing whether Acosta, who resigned his cabinet post as Trump's secretary of labor last month — and other U.S. prosecutors involved in the 2007-2008 case — committed misconduct in negotiating the secret pact with Epstein. A federal judge in February ruled that the prior deal was illegally negotiated because Epstein and federal prosecutors concealed it from his victims in violation of the Crime Victims’ Rights Act.

Jeffrey Epstein dies by apparent suicide in New York jail - Jeffrey Epstein, the politically connected financier and registered sex offender charged recently with sexually abusing dozens of young girls in the early 2000s, has apparently died by suicide in prison, according to two people familiar with the matter. Epstein, 66, hanged himself in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, though the exact timing was unclear according to ABC News, which was first to report the development.Epstein, a multimillionaire with ties to celebrities and politicians including President Trump and former president Bill Clinton, was arrested last month on federal sex trafficking charges that could have put in him prison for 45 years. Prosecutors alleged he abused dozens of young girls at his Manhattan and Palm Beach, Fla., homes and enlisted his victims to bring him others. Epstein had pleaded not guilty in the case, and a federal judge had recently denied his request to be released to home confinement. Last month, Epstein was found in his cell with marks around his neck, and authorities were trying to determine if he was attacked or attempted suicide. He showed no obvious signs of distress at a later court hearing.  A Justice Department spokeswoman and a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s Office in New York, which brought the new case against Epstein, declined to comment. Spokespeople for the Bureau of Prisons, officials with the Metropolitan Correctional Center and Epstein’s lawyers did not immediately return messages seeking comment.  Epstein’s case had attracted widespread attention — in part because of his wealth and political connections, and in part because of a lenient plea deal he reached more than a decade ago to resolve similar allegations. That 2008 agreement allowed Epstein to plead guilty to just two state charges in Florida, avoiding federal exposure entirely, and spend just 13 months in jail, with work-release privileges.

A Shocked World Reacts To News Of Epstein's Impossible 'Suicide' - Americans awoke Saturday to some truly surprising and disturbing news: Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier pimp of underage girls to the world's rich and famous, had somehow managed to kill himself inside his cell at the Manhattan Correctional Center, despite being on 24/7 suicide watch following an alleged suicide attempt a few weeks back.After the New York Post captured photos of Epstein's body being wheeled out of the MCC, the online rumor mill immediately swung into hyperdrive, with distinguished journalists like NYT editorial board member Paul Krugman and many others questioning the official narrative of what happened.  If we were living in a paranoid fantasy universe, I would be very suspicious about the Epstein suicide, even about whether it was really suicide. And you know what? The Epstein case itself shows that we *are* kind of living in a paranoid fantasy universe — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) August 10, 2019Notably, his death came just days after a lawsuit document dump revealed a number of notable individuals, from late MIT professor Marvin Minsky, to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, hedge funder Glenn Dubin, late MIT scientist modeling company founder Jean Luc-Brunel, all had been serviced by Epstein's haram of underage girls.Now, many are looking at Epstein's suicide under  a veil of suspicion.Even a former FBI agent is questioning the official narrative. This is a frustrating turn of events. Justice for the allegedly enslaved girls and accountability for the monsters who abused them just died with Jeffrey Epstein. It is certainly getting harder for people to say they’re just conspiracy theories. — Jeff Cortese (@jeffreycortese) August 10, 2019

Corzine's Hedge Fund Granted SEC Registration, Warned To Stay Away From Illiquid Securities - Jon Corzine, the former CEO of Goldman (and New Jersey) and the man who singlehandedly brought down trading powerhouse MF Global with a few Italian bonds is back, baby... with a few conditions. As Bloomberg first reported, Corzine’s application to register his new hedge fund, JDS-JSC, LP, was approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission, however in a novel spin, "it attached a series of seldom-seen conditions" for the fund of the former executive who many claim should have been barred from working in the industry. Among the restrictions on Corzine’s firm, are limitations on his ability to handle customer cash and invest in less-liquid assets. Amusingly, the SEC order includes "trading parameters" that bar JDC-JSC from engaging in prop trading - which is bizarre for an investing vehicle whose entire operation is prop trading by definition - and also require it to have a “reasonable basis” to expect that, under normal conditions, each of its funds could be “orderly liquidated” within five trading days. According to David Tawil, co-founder of Maglan Capital, that would restrict Corzine to trading in only the most liquid of markets, such as those for currencies and large-cap stocks. “There aren’t many assets you can blow out in five days,” Tawil said in a telephone interview. "I really don’t understand what magic Corzine thinks he is going to perform in markets with these shackles on.” The answer may be simpler than David thinks: inside information, which is one thing the formerly best connected executive on Wall Street will have plenty of. Although in this age when all that matters are central banks, it is unclear if even having inside information will allow one to consistently generate P&L. Separately, each fund is ordered to have investors give 65 days notice in order to withdraw capital, though the firm may agree to shorten this to no less than 30 days, according to the order, making it a glorified E-Trade account with virtually no lock-ups (and certainly no gates). Each fund also must have an independent administrator to handle client subscriptions, redemptions and cash; Corzine himself “will not be involved” in these activities.  Ironically, whereas the CFTC permanently banned Corzine from the futures industry, he somehow was given a pass by the SEC, although one assume his tenure at Goldman had something to do with it.

 How Trump’s political appointees thwarted tougher settlements with two big banks -Since Donald Trump’s election, federal white-collar enforcement has taken a big hit. Fines and settlements against corporationshave plummeted. Prosecutions of individuals are falling to record lows.But just how these fines and settlements came to be slashed is less well understood. Two settlements with giant banks over financial crisis-era misdeeds provide a window into how the Trump administration has eased up on corporate wrongdoers.In settlements last year with the two big U.K.-based banks, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, political appointees at the Trump administration Justice Department took the unusual step of overruling staff prosecutors to reduce the settlements sought, leaving billions of dollars in potential recoveries on the table, according to four people familiar with the settlements.In the case of RBS, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided that the charges should not be pursued as a criminal case, as the prosecutorial team advocated, but rather as a less serious civil one.Both cases were developed by the Obama administration DOJ and involved accusations that the banks misled buyers of residential mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 financial crisis. Prosecutors seemingly found numerous examples of bankers knowingly selling lemons to their customers. The mortgages they were putting into securities were “total fucking garbage,” one RBS executive said in a phone call that was recorded and cited in a DOJ filing. A Barclays banker said a group of loans “scares the shit out of me.” Mortgages that went into the two banks’ securities lost a total of $73 billion, according to calculations used by the government. In March 2018, the DOJ settled with Barclays for $2 billion, a sum dictated by Trump appointees that was far below what the staff prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn had sought. The settlement with RBS occurred in August 2018, for $4.9 billion. After Rosenstein downgraded the case from criminal to civil, other Trump appointees concluded that the settlement amount should be about half of what staff prosecutors in the District of Massachusetts had sought.DOJ spokeswoman Sarah Sutton said that the Barclays and RBS settlements held the banks accountable for serious misconduct, and that the penalties recovered from the banks were fair and proportionate compared with those previously obtained from other banks. She did not respond to detailed questions about how the two settlements were reached and why key decisions were dictated from Washington. “They were largely negotiated by career attorneys in the Department and U.S. Attorneys’ offices with the support and collaboration of Department leadership,” Sutton wrote in an email. Aspects of how the DOJ came to settle the cases have been recounted. The New York Times reported on Rosenstein’s decision in the RBS case. But this is the first extensive account of how the banks secured the favorable outcomes.

  Anticipating recession, banks start scrubbing loan books -- While the Federal Reserve is doing what it can to extend the economy’s growth streak, some banks are preparing for the inevitable downturn — including letting loans in riskier segments run off without rushing to replace them. Bank executives used second-quarter conference calls to highlight specific business lines that are raising concerns. Several banks are pulling back from commercial real estate, but lending overall is expected to get more conservative, said Eric Compton, a banking analyst with the credit rater Morningstar. “Regulators are partly responsible for this, and I also think there is some institutional memory around how bad the last crisis was, that it was concentrated within the banking system, and the banks this time around do not want that to happen again,” Compton said. “The banks are actively positioning in a more conservative way, especially when compared to the last cycle.” Table listing credit segments to concern to a half dozen banks Banking executives backed up that assessment in discussions with analysts. Keith Cargill, CEO of the $29.9 billion-asset Texas Capital Bancshares, said the Dallas company has been de-risking its portfolio, especially in leveraged and energy-industry loans, which can be especially sensitive to economic slowdowns. Texas Capital's book of commercial-and-industrial and leveraged loans — the bank combines the two categories — shrunk 13% over six months to $1.1 billion as of June 30. Executives said they are planning to cut this portfolio by 30% for the full year, either by letting loans run off or being selective in refinancing credits. “I really believe we're de-risking the balance sheet early compared to some banks,” Cargill said on a July 17 call with analysts. Lenders at CenterState Bank in Winter Haven, Fla., used to win more than half of C&I loan opportunities, but the $17 billion-asset company has begun stepping away from more of these deals, President and CEO John Corbett said on a July 24 earnings call. CenterState passed up on about $700 million of loans in the second quarter. About 85% of those would have involved underwriting terms that were too lax in CenterState’s eyes, Corbett said.

‘It’s crazy’: Chase Bank forgiving all debt owed by its Canadian credit card customers -- U.S.-based Chase Bank is forgiving all outstanding debt owed by users of its two Canadian credit cards: the Amazon.ca Rewards Visa and the Marriott Rewards Premier Visa. The bank retired both cards last year and said it's wiping out cardholders' debt to complete its exit from the Canadian credit card market. Affected customers can't believe their luck. "I was sort of over the moon all last night, with a smile on my face," said Douglas Turner of Coe Hill, Ont., after learning he's off the hook for the $6,157 still owing on his now-defunct Amazon Visa. "I couldn't believe it." After 13 years in the Canadian market, Chase decided to fold its two Visa cards in March 2018. The bank — which is part of global financial services firm JPMorgan Chase & Co. — wouldn't say how many Canadians had signed up for the cards or how much debt was outstanding. Douglas Turner was still paying off what he owed on his Amazon.ca Rewards Visa card when he learned his more than $6,000 in debt had been obliterated. (Submitted by Douglas Turner) But it is likely that many cardholders were still paying down their debt, including Turner. Every month, he said he put $300 toward his big bill, racked up by making purchases on Amazon for items such as electronics and supplies for his six dogs. When he received a letter from Chase this week, Turner expected bad news. "I'm thinking, 'OK, I missed a payment.'" He instead learned that his sizeable credit card debt had been obliterated, and that his latest $300 payment — submitted after Chase made its debt-forgiveness decision — would be reimbursed. "It's crazy," said Turner, a 55-year-old long-haul trucker. "This stuff doesn't happen with credit cards. Credit cards are horror stories."

What to make of banks’ growing exposure to leveraged loans - Over the past year or so, many bankers, analysts and even some policy makers have downplayed the risks so-called leveraged loans pose to the banking system because, they say, it’s primarily hedge funds, insurance firms and other nonbank financial institutions making the bulk of them. But reports from three regulatory agencies released in July show that leveraged loans on banks’ books have been rising steadily in recent years. Even if banks aren’t making the loans directly, the reports found, they are holding stakes in these loans either as participants in loan syndications or through collateralized loan obligations, which are composed of leveraged loans. In its report released on July 30, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. also expressed concern that “leveraged loans have become increasingly risky… as lender protections have deteriorated” and that banks may be indirectly taking on more risk by providing loans to the nonbanks that issue corporate debt. “Indirect exposures are opaque and could transmit stress from the corporate sector into the banking system,” the FDIC said in the report. Taken together, the findings from the FDIC, the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England would appear to challenge some policymakers’ claims that banks’ exposure to leveraged lending is minimal, said Mayra Rodríguez Valladares, a financial regulations consultant. She pointed specifically to comments made by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell after a Federal Open Market Committee meeting in June, in which he said that the risk in leveraged lending “isn’t in the banks, it’s out in those market-based vehicles.” “With all due respect, I was deeply troubled by [Powell’s] comment,” she said. “It’s just not true. The data tell a different story.” Leveraged loans are credits issued to corporate borrowers that already hold high levels of debt, and frequently are rated as non-investment-grade borrowers. The market for such loans has grown rapidly over the past decade as investors in search of higher yields have poured hundreds of billions into financing the loans, and lenders have offered more and more concessions to borrowers to win new business. In the U.S. alone, lenders issued $816.4 billion of leveraged loans in 2018, compared with $721.4 billion in 2013 and $136.3 billion in 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The great unknown is how those lucrative but risky loans would fare if the economy weakens. A number of congressional Democrats are worried that the loans could quickly go bad in a downturn, potentially triggering a recession.

  2020 race pulls Warren away from Senate Banking — It’s a scene everyone braces for on the Senate Banking Committee. An executive or Trump-appointed regulator sits in a witness chair pondering how tough the questions will be, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., enters the room. After Wells Fargo announced millions of fake accounts were opened in customers’ names, former CEO John Stumpf faced Warren at a September 2016 hearing where she called on him to resign. Less than a month later, he did. At a hearing the following year, she grilled Stumpf's successor, Tim Sloan, who has since left the bank. She has similarly taken regulators to task, rarely mincing words. At a hearing last year for Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Kathy Kraninger, then the nominee to run the agency, Warren said Kraninger's alleged involvement in the administration's border family separation policy is "a moral stain that will follow you for the rest of your life." But with Warren now on the presidential campaign trail, her presence on the Banking Committee has been more muted. She missed an opportunity last month to question Facebook executive David Marcus over the company's much-criticized cryptocurrency plan, and was also absent at the committee's most recent hearing with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. “To the extent that industry reps are up there … and she’s not there to question them, there is some relief,” said Brian Gardner, a policy analyst at KBW. Warren’s last public appearance at the Senate Banking Committee was in May, when she criticized Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting for setting a “low bar” for holding troubled institutions like Wells Fargo accountable. The full committee has held 13 public meetings since then, without Warren being in the room. Observers say her absence has been felt, with the tone of Democratic questioning less severe.

Fed to launch real-time payments system in 2023 - The Federal Reserve announced Monday it would create and implement a system that would allow consumers and businesses to send and receive money instantaneously by 2023. The system, called the FedNow Service, would allow any U.S. bank to immediately complete debits, virtual transfers and checks. Those transactions can take up to three days to finalize with current technology, posing challenges for households with tight budgets and limited financial flexibility. “Everyone deserves the same ability to make and receive payments immediately and securely, and every bank deserves the same opportunity to offer that service to its community,” said Fed Governor Lael Brainard in a speech announcing the decision. “FedNow will allow faster payments to reach banks of all sizes and their customers across the country.” The FedNow system will operate nonstop and is set to launch in four years. The Fed’s board of governors approved the proposal on Aug. 2 in a 4-1 vote, with only Randal Quarles, the Fed vice chair for supervision, opposing the plan. The Fed currently processes payments by settling debts between banks in large, daily batches, which delays recipients' access to funds. There is substantial bipartisan support for some type of national system to eliminate payment processing delays, along with the late fees and overdraft costs they create for consumers.

 Is Fed vote on real-time payments a sign of a wider split? — As the Federal Reserve Board has moved to tweak post-crisis rules, Chairman Jerome Powell and Vice Chairman of Supervision Randal Quarles have voted in lockstep on regulatory relief measures from supervision of large banks to reforms of the living will process. But the Fed's announcement earlier this week that it will create its own real-time payments system, known as FedNow, revealed a split between the two men on a key policy issue. Powell sided with Govs. Lael Brainard and Michelle Bowman, a former community banker, to support the effort and Quarles cast the lone dissenting vote. Quarles' dissent in the 4-1 vote has raised questions of whether the payments vote was an aberration, or a sign of a wider policy disagreement. (The board's other vice chairman, Richard Clarida, also voted in support of FedNow.) “It shows there are some differences between Powell and Quarles, with Quarles appearing to be a bit more sympathetic to some of the things big banks want,” said Ian Katz, an analyst at Capital Alpha Partners. Such a visible split among the board's more senior governors is rare. Brainard, the last Obama-appointed governor on the board, has more consistently dissented from decisions to ease the post-crisis bank regulatory framework. But in this case, Quarles, who has spearheaded the central bank's regulatory reforms, was in the minority. “This is certainly the largest example of a space between" Powell and Quarles "on a policy issue we’ve seen, but it’s not the only one,” said Gregg Gelzinis, a research associate for the economic policy team at the Center for American Progress. He noted, for example, that Quarles has signaled support for doing more to ease big-bank capital requirements, which Powell has not done. "Quarles’ public statements have tended to go farther than Powell’s and Quarles has shown more of a willingness to sort of rewrite the post-crisis rule book," he said. The Fed did not comment for this story. Observers have speculated that Quarles, a former private equity investor and Treasury Department official in the George W. Bush administration, sympathized with large banks' view that the Fed's involvement will slow adoption of real-time payments in the U.S. The Clearing House, a payments company that is owned by the nation’s largest banks, has been operating its own real-time system since 2017.

 And now, the hard part of the Fed’s path to real-time payments - Small institutions waited years to find out whether the Federal Reserve would build its own real-time payment system. Now that the central bank has finally announced its plans to move forward, though, the real wait is just starting. After six years of indecision, the U.S. central bank announced plans Monday to build a real-time payment system that is meant to eventually link more than 10,000 banks and credit unions across the country. The Fed’s slow process was a reflection of the competing demands it faced, as well as the significance of its decision. Kansas City Fed President Esther George compared Monday’s action to the birth in the 1970s of the automated clearing house network, which now accounts for roughly 15% of all U.S. payments. “The last time the Fed offered a new service, certainly of this magnitude, would have been some 40 years ago,” she said during a question-and-answer session that was webcast by the Fed. “This is a very, very momentous decision,” added Fed Gov. Lael Brainard. But the Fed also said that it does not expect its real-time payment service to be available until 2023 or 2024, which means that the central bank is now back on the clock. Below are five takeaways from the Fed’s long-awaited announcement. The dream of connecting every bank is still a long way off. Two years ago, a task force convened by the Fed established a goal that by 2020, everyone in the U.S. should be able to receive fast, secure payments. It is not clear whether that goal might have been achieved if the Fed had elected to defer to the private sector, rather than making the choice it announced Monday.   The Clearing House, the big bank-owned payments company that launched a real-time system in 2017, noted Monday that it currently reaches more than 51% of demand deposit accounts in the country. But that reach is mostly a result of the megabanks’ large market share. Many smaller banks and credit unions have been reluctant to enroll in the private-sector-led service. What is clear is that after the Fed’s announcement, the task force’s 2020 goal will not be met. And even 2023 seems unlikely. While the Fed expects its real-time service to be available in four or five years, officials said that achieving nationwide reach will likely take longer. 

 Capital One hack compromises personal data of 106 million credit card applicants - Capital One Financial Corporation announced on July 29 that it had been hacked 10 days earlier “by an outside individual who obtained certain types of personal information relating to people who had applied for its credit card products and to Capital One credit card customers.” A company press release reported that the personal information—including 140,000 Social Security numbers and 80,000 bank account numbers—of as many as 106 million Capital One consumer and small business applicants between 2005 and 2019 had been compromised. It also reported that “approximately 1 million Social Insurance Numbers” of Canadian credit card customers had been hacked. Simultaneously with the Capital One announcement, the FBI reported that it had arrested Paige A. Thompson, a 33-year-old Seattle-area woman who was a former cloud computing services engineer, and charged her with computer fraud and abuse in connection with the Capital One data breach, one of the largest to ever impact a financial institution. According to the Capital One press release, the company immediately fixed “the configuration vulnerability” that had been exploited and added, “it is unlikely that the information was used for fraud or disseminated.” It also said, “no credit card account numbers or log-in credentials had been compromised.” As with all such previous breaches of public personal information held by giant corporations, the number one priority of Capital One management is investor damage control and girding against the potential liability claims by the public. The stock of Capital One dropped by 6 percent on Wall Street the day after the revelations. Under a subheading of “What are the expected financial impacts of the incident,” the company does not focus upon the potential impact of the breach on consumer credit scores from the identity theft and fraud that will inevitably result from stolen social security numbers. Instead, Capital One reports that the breach will cost the company between $100 and $150 million from “consumer notifications, credit monitoring, technology costs and legal support.” The company further goes on in detail about how the losses will be reported on its financial results as well as the fact that Capital One has insurance that covers a “cyber-risk event,” but it “is subject to a $10 million deductible and standard exclusions and carries a total coverage limit of $400 million.” This is from a company that was worth $373.6 billion as of June 30 and had net earnings of $1.6 billion in the second quarter of 2019.

Warren presses Capital One CEO for more details about breach — Sen. Elizabeth Warren is pressing Capital One for details on the bank's recent security breach that compromised the personal information of more than 100 million consumers. In a letter to Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank, the Massachusetts Democrat asked why the bank didn’t detect the breach for nearly four months and how it plans to prevent a breach in the future. “It is also disturbing that Capital One did not detect the breach until nearly four months after the incident,” Warren wrote to Fairbank Thursday. “The public deserves to know exactly what the company plans to do to ensure that consumers' accounts and application information are protected from the consequences of Capital One's security failures.” Capital One announced last month that data from roughly 100 million people was illegally accessed after Paige Thompson, a former Amazon Web Services employee, allegedly broke into the bank’s server. Thompson was allegedly able to decrypt data and access names, phone numbers, and addresses, as well as over 100,000 Social Security numbers and tens of thousands of bank account numbers. Warren is asking Capital One for a detailed timeline of the breach and other information such as security-related decisions by the bank prior to the breach and its actions after discovering the breach. She also inquired about how many social security numbers, birth dates and individual addresses were accessed, as well as how the bank plans to contact credit card applicants affected by the breach who did not ultimately become customers. "If Capital One does not have up-to-date or accurate contact information for every individual, what steps will Capital One take to ensure that these individuals are still notified in a timely manner?" she said. Warren also sought information on whether executives at Capital One or Amazon Web Services, which hosts the bank’s database, are being held accountable for security failures; whether regulators were informed of the breach before it became public; and how the bank intends to mitigate the impact on affected by consumers beyond just providing free credit monitoring and identity theft services.

Equifax on the hot seat for running out of data breach settlement funds -- Even when making restitution to victims of its massive 2017 data breach, Equifax still can’t seem to avoid a mess. The credit reporting agency is now attracting a ton of scrutiny after the Federal Trade Commission revealed in an urgent announcement to the public that the pool of Equifax settlement funds used to pay cash claims to victims is quickly running dry. And that victims who step up to file a claim going forward should probably just go ahead and pick a non-cash alternative.

 FAA concealed flaws in Boeing aircraft after Lion Air crash in Indonesia - A newly uncovered risk assessment published internally within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after Lion Air Flight 610 crashed into the Java Sea last October, killing all 189 people aboard, shows that the regulator was aware of potentially catastrophic flaws in the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft. The agency’s analysis concluded that it “didn’t take that much” for the malfunction that doomed the plane to occur, yet US regulators allowed to plane to continue to fly until the same fatal flaw caused the crash less than five months later of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which plunged to the earth just outside of Addis Ababa, killing a further 157 passengers and crew. Both planes crashed within minutes of takeoff when a newly installed automated flight control system, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), malfunctioned, repeatedly pitching the nose of the plane downward and overriding attempts by the pilots to gain control and stabilize the aircraft. Boeing installed MCAS in its recently introduced 737 Max 8 short- and medium-haul work horse model as a low-cost means of compensating for the upgraded 737’s tendency to stall. The stalling problem was caused by retrofitting the half-century-old 737 design with new and bigger engines, rather than designing a new airframe to properly incorporate the changes. The world’s largest aircraft manufacturer rushed the plane into production in 2017 to counter a challenge from its European rival, Airbus. The 737 Max quickly became Boeing’s best-selling commercial aircraft, accounting for some 40 percent of the company’s record profits and pushing its stock price to new heights, fueling the stock market surge that followed Trump’s election. The design and production shortcuts provided enormous savings for Boeing, which the company used to shell out $43 billion dollars to its shareholders in the form of stock buybacks. The findings, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, further expose the collusion between Boeing and the FAA in developing the 737 Max 8. After the first crash, the regulator concealed the seriously flawed nature of the plane. It even issued a “continued airworthiness notification” to Boeing 737 Max operators for three days after the second crash, withdrawing it only after regulators in the rest of the world had grounded the plane.

 Opioid Distributors Propose $10 Billion Settlement To Make Flood Of Lawsuits Go Away - Three major opioid distributors have offered to pay $10 billion to settle claims that the helped fuel the ongoing US opioid epidemic, as nearly 2,000 lawsuits loom against the drug giants, according to Bloomberg. McKesson Corp, Cardinal Health Inc. and Amerisource Bergen Corp - which account for the majority of prescriptions supplied to pharmacies - made the verbal proposal while negotiating with a group of state attorneys general, according to three people familiar with the offer who aren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter.The proposal marks the first time in two years of discussions that the three distributors have put an actual dollar figure on a resolution. Responding to the offer, the National Association of Attorneys General countered with a demand for $45 billion paid over decades to cover the costs of the public health crisis brought on by opioid abuse, addiction and overdoses. Whether the distributors and attorneys general can agree to a deal remains uncertain. But reaching a compromise may not be the toughest hurdle. The distributors face almost 2,000 additional lawsuits brought by cities and counties across the U.S., with a separate group of lawyers leading the litigation. Getting them to sign on to any deal could prove challenging.McKesson spokeswoman Kristin Hunter Chasen said in an emailed statement, “We regularly engage with the state attorneys general, but the company has made no settlement offers.”The people familiar with the matter reiterated the companies -- including McKesson -- have made an opening proffer of a settlement price. Chasen declined to elaborate on McKesson’s discussions to resolve the litigation. Spokeswomen for AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health declined to comment on the discussions or on what one company said was “speculation.” –Bloomberg In July, UK-based drugmaker Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB Group) paid the US government a record $1.4 billion to end criminal and civil probes into allegations of illegal marketing of opioid addiction treatment medication, according to the US Justice Department.   According to Nephron Research analysts, a global settlement covering all opioid manufacturers could cost between $30 billion and $55 billion, while Wells Fargo analyst David Morris says it could reach $100 billion.

How AT&T Iniders Were Bribed to ‘Unlock’ Millions of Phones -A DRAMATIC SAGA that began with a civil lawsuit between AT&T and former employees has resulted in a high-profile arrest. Muhammad Fahd, 34, and his co-conspirators allegedly paid AT&T employees more than $1 million in bribes over five years to install malware and spying devices at their offices in Washington, according to a Department of Justice indictment unsealed Monday. Fahd was first arrested in Hong Kong in February 2018, and was extradited to the United States Friday. He is accused of orchestrating an elaborate conspiracy from the other side of the world, designed not to steal sensitive customer data or proprietary information but to illegally “unlock” more than 2 million AT&T cell phones.  The newest iPhones and Android smartphones can now cost upwards of $700. To afford them, millions of Americans sign one- or two-year contracts with their mobile carriers, which allows them to pay for their phones in monthly installments. As a protection against theft, carriers “lock” the devices, stopping them from being easily sold or used with another mobile network. Customers can request to unlock their phones for valid reasons like traveling overseas, but an ecosystem of shady entities has sprung up that offer to do it without proper authorization. Some claim to carry out the process via technical means, but Fahd and those who worked with him are accused of recruiting AT&T employees to help unlock phones from the inside, paying one worker as much as $428,500 over five years.

Microsoft contractors reportedly listen in on Skype call recordings, often from their own homes  -- Microsoft contractors are listening in on recordings of Skype calls and interactions with the Cortana voice assistant, according to areport by Vice's Motherboard on Wednesday. The company described the effort to Business Insider as an effort to improve its AI-powered services.With Skype — the voice-over-IP service Microsoft bought back in 2011 — the company is using human contractors, who often work from home, to analyze recordings of conversations taking place via the app's translation service, the report said. Contractors are also said to be reviewing voice commands from Cortana users, which can contain personal information, including home addresses and other sensitive details.The privacy policies for both Skype and Cortana say that voice snippets may be analyzed to help improve these respective services. However, as Motherboard points out, there is no indication in either policy that the analysis would be conducted by a human contractor.A company s pokesperson told Business Insider that it "collects voice data to provide and improve voice-enabled services like search, voice commands, dictation or translation services. We strive to be transparent about our collection and use of voice data to ensure customers can make informed choices about when and how their voice data is used."

Instagram 'Trusted Partner' Caught Harvesting Vast Personal Data To Create Detailed Dossiers - Thanks to lax oversight and technical loopholes, Instagram allowed one of its vetted advertising partners harvest vast amounts of public user data to create detailed records of users' physical locations, bios, and photos which were intended to disappear after 24 hours, according to Business Insider.  In clear violation of Instagram's rules, the San Francisco-based marketing firm Hyp3r was able to operate under the radar for the past year as one of the company's preferred "Facebook Marketing Partners." "HYP3R's actions were not sanctioned and violate our policies. As a result, we've removed them from our platform. We've also made a product change that should help prevent other companies from scraping public location pages in this way," said an Instagram spokesperson, following a Wednesday cease-and-desist letter sent to the Hyp3r. The existence of the profiles is a stark indication that more than a year after revelations that Facebook users' data was exploited by Cambridge Analytica to fuel divisive political ad campaigns, Facebook's struggles in locking down users' personal information not only persist but also extend beyond the core Facebook app. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook but operated as a mostly separate business, has been largely insulated from the privacy backlash and scrutiny that has rocked its parent company. But the wealth of the data contained in people's fleeting Instagram activity, from family-vacation snapshots to restaurant appetizer photos, can provide valuable fodder for a variety of outside actors, who can repurpose the information in ways users never expected or agreed to. -Business Insider  Hyp3r made unauthorized use of Instagram data in three key ways:

1. It took advantage of an Instagram security lapse, allowing it to zero in on specific locations, like hotels and gyms, and vacuum up all the public posts made from the locations.
2. At these locations, it systematically saved users' public Instagram stories — a type of content designed to vanish after 24 hours —including the individual photos that users shared in the stories, in a clear violation of Instagram's terms of service.
3. It scraped public user profiles on a broad basis, collecting information like user bios and followers, which it then combined with the other location information and data from other sources. -Business Insider

Fannie and Freddie: Combined REO inventory declined in Q2, Down 18% Year-over-year -Fannie and Freddie earlier reported results for Q2 2019. Here is some information on Real Estate Owned (REOs). Freddie Mac reported the number of REO declined to 5,869 at the end of Q2 2019 compared to 7,135 at the end of Q2 2018. For Freddie, this is down 92% from the 74,897 peak number of REOs in Q3 2010.Fannie Mae reported the number of REO declined to 17,913 at the end of Q2 2019 compared to 22,007 at the end of Q2 2018. For Fannie, this is down 89% from the 166,787 peak number of REOs in Q3 2010.Here is a graph of Fannie and Freddie Real Estate Owned (REO).REO inventory decreased in Q2 2019, and combined inventory is down 18% year-over-year. This is close to normal levels of REOs.

Farmageddon- Farm Loan Delinquencies And Bankruptcies Soar, Incomes Plunge - Following years of depressed farm income and rising debt levels, a review of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) quarterly report by Tri-State Livestock News reveals that "delinquency rates for commercial agricultural loans in both the real estate and non-real estate lending sectors are at a six-year high." About 2.5% of commercial real estate loans in agriculture were 30 days past due in 1Q19, up from 2.1% in the prior quarter and above the historical average of 2.1%. 2.3% of non-real estate loans in agriculture held by commercial lenders were 30 days past due, up from 1.5% in the previous quarter and above the historical average of 1.7%. Delinquency rates for commercial lenders haven't been this high since 2013. Delinquency rates of agriculture loans aren't at crisis levels yet but have trended above historical averages in the last several years as farm incomes in the Midwest and Mid-Southern states have collapsed over the previous six years.Net farm income, a broad measure of profits, has fallen 45% since a high of $123.4 billion in 2013 to about $63 billion last year, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).Farm incomes are expected to be significantly lower in 2019 as record floods devastated large parts of the Farm Belt this year.About two-thirds of agriculture banks surveyed by the St. Louis Fed said their farm clients were severely affected by the flooding and other adverse weather conditions through summer. Farm incomes in several regions of the Midwest have become stable this year thanks to President Trump's farm bailout(s) and elevated corn prices that started in May due to yield concerns following wet weather, according to bankers surveyed by the Kansas City Fed.

Black Knight Mortgage Monitor for June: Increase in Delinquencies due to Timing and Seasonal Factors -Black Knight released their Mortgage Monitor report for June today. According to Black Knight, 3.73% of mortgages were delinquent in June, down slightly from 3.74% in June 2018. Black Knight also reported that 0.50% of mortgages were in the foreclosure process, down from 0.56% a year ago.This gives a total of 4.23% delinquent or in foreclosure. Press Release: Black Knight Mortgage Monitor: Affordability Improves on Rate Drops, Reaches an 18-Month High in July; Home Price Growth Deceleration Begins to Level Off  After 15 months of declining year-over-year home price growth, the company revisited the home affordability landscape. As Black Knight Data & Analytics President Ben Graboske explained, as a result of falling interest rates and slowing home price appreciation, affordability is the best it’s been in 18 months. “For much of the past year and a half, affordability pressures have put a damper on home price appreciation,” said Graboske. “Indeed, the rate of annual home price growth has declined for 15 consecutive months. More recently, declining 30-year fixed interest rates have helped to ease some of those pressures, improving the affordability outlook considerably. In November 2018 – when rising interest rates hit a seven-year high and home price growth fell by half a percent in a single month – it took 23.3% of the median household income to make the principal and interest payments when purchasing the average-priced home. As 30-year rates fell to 3.75%, that share fell to 21.3%, the lowest it’s been in 18 months. Here is a graph from the Mortgage Monitor that shows the National delinquency rate over time. From Black Knight:

• June's nearly 11% jump in delinquencies was one of the top five such single-month increases in the past decade and one of the top 15 on record back to 2000
• However, while significant, it wasn’t unexpected given the seasonal and calendar-related pressures weighing on the market
• On average, over the past 20 years, the national delinquency rate has increased by 2.5% in June
• More impactful is that the month ended on a Sunday, which means servicing operations are closed on the last two calendar days of the month and cannot process last-minute payments
• June has ended on a Sunday three times in the past 20 years; the last two (2002 and 2013) saw an average monthly delinquency rate increase of 11.1%, nearly identical to this year
• Delinquencies tend to improve in the month following a Sunday month-end, which may help to counter the seasonal rise typically seen in July

 MBA: Mortgage Applications Increased in Latest Weekly Survey - From the MBA: Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest MBA Weekly Survey - Mortgage applications increased 5.3 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending August 2, 2019. ... The Refinance Index increased 12 percent from the previous week and was 116 percent higher than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 2 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 2 percent compared with the previous week and was 7 percent higher than the same week one year ago. “The Federal Reserve cut rates as expected last week, but the bigger influence on the financial markets was the beginning of a trade war with China. The result was a sharp drop in mortgage rates, which will likely draw many refinance borrowers into the market in the coming weeks,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA Senior Vice President and Chief Economist. “The 30-year fixed rate mortgage fell to its lowest level since November 2016, and the drop resulted in an almost 12 percent increase in refinance application volume, bringing the index to a reading over 2,000 – its highest over the same time period. We fully expect that refinance volume will jump even higher this week given the further drop in rates.”  Added Fratantoni, “Lower mortgage rates did not pull more homebuyers into the market, as purchase volume slipped a bit last week, but still remains around 7 percent ahead of last year’s pace.” .. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($484,350 or less) decreased to 4.01 percent from 4.08 percent, with points increasing to 0.37 from 0.34 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans.

Mortgage Rates Fall Sharply, 3.5% 30 Year Fixed - From Matthew Graham at MortgageNewsDaily: Just When You Thought Rates Wouldn't Go Any Lower Mortgage rates were already in great shape on Friday after having fallen to the lowest levels since November 2016. Rather than draw inspiration from the week's big ticket events (Fed announcement and jobs report), the biggest source of inspiration was a flare-up in trade tensions following Trump's announcement of new tariffs on Chinese imports. Trade war drama flared over the weekend as China's central bank set the country's currency at the weakest levels in more than a decade.… Mortgage-backed securities (MBS)--the bonds that directly influence mortgage rates--have a hard time keeping up when financial markets are this volatile. Mortgage lenders also tend to proceed cautiously when dropping rates to multi-year lows in the midst of a these sorts of big market swings. That means mortgage rates haven't dropped nearly as quickly as Treasury yields, but they're nonetheless at the lowest levels since November 2016 today. [30YR FIXED - 3.5% - 3.75% (wider range than normal due to volatility)] This graph from Mortgage News Daily shows mortgage rates since 2014. This graph is interactive, and you could view mortgage rates back to the mid-1980s - click here for graph.

Mortgage Rates and Ten Year Yield    -- With the ten year yield at 1.63%, and based on an historical relationship, 30-year rates should currently be around 3.5%. As of yesterday, Mortgage News Daily reported: Lowest Rates Since November 2016  Mortgage rates hit their lowest levels since November 2016 late last week and they've proceeded to set a new long-term low each day since then. [30YR FIXED - 3.5% - 3.75% (wider range than normal due to volatility)] The graph shows the relationship between the monthly 10 year Treasury Yield and 30 year mortgage rates from the Freddie Mac survey.Currently the 10 year Treasury yield is at 1.63%, and 30 year mortgage rates were at 3.75% according to the Freddie Mac survey last week - and rates will probably be lower in the survey for this week.The record low in the Freddie Mac survey was 3.31% in November 2012 (Survey started in 1971).  To fall to 3.31% on the Freddie Mac survey, and based on the historical relationship, the Ten Year yield would have to fall to around 1.4% (but there is some variability in the relationship).

 Could there ever be negative long-term mortgage rates in the U.S.?  - Falling rates: The phrase is music to a mortgage originator's ears. But is it possible, even when it comes to the volume stimulating effects that a favorable rate environment brings, for there to eventually be too much of a good thing? It's a question with immediate resonance in some other developed economies, where government bonds are trading at negative yields and pulling other market-based rates along for the ride. Rates in Denmark have fallen to zero percent for 20-year mortgages. With global tensions building and increasingly affecting the U.S. market, industry experts are watching the rate environment evolve in ways that lack meaningful precedents. For some, recent history offers some reason to doubt the U.S. is headed toward a Europe-like outcome. "If [negative rates] were going to happen, I think we were more likely to have experienced that during the Great Recession. Rates are low today for different reasons," said Daniel Jacobs, a managing director at TruLoan Mortgage. "But who knows what will happen with the current dynamics in the marketplace." Of course, a low-probability event is by definition one that has some chance of occurring and market action suggests the sure thing is viewed as somewhat less sure. "If you look at the implied probabilities in market-traded instruments like derivatives, it would be a very low probability. However, that relative probability is a fair amount higher than what it was even just a few months ago," said Sean Hundtofte, chief economist at digital mortgage lender Better.com. The idea of negative mortgage rates may sound like bottom-line Armageddon, but the conditions under which it would occur would provide built-in buffers. Mortgage companies would still be able to generate money from the spread between their borrowing rate and their lending rate or fees. "Your real return on money or your real cost of borrowing should still be positive," Hundtofte said. Still, lenders would need to determine how to restructure their "financial plumbing" to account for such a rate scenario, he said. Some countries have handled negative short-term mortgage rates by adjusting principal or making payments to borrowers. For now, prepayments are the more pressing concern for the mortgage industry when it comes to falling rates. The drop in rates this week has already driven prepayment speeds to higher-than-expected levels,

 CoreLogic: House Prices up 3.4% Year-over-year in June -- Notes: This CoreLogic House Price Index report is for June. The recent Case-Shiller index release was for May. The CoreLogic HPI is a three month weighted average and is not seasonally adjusted (NSA). From CoreLogic: U.S. Home Price Insights Through June 2019 with Forecasts from July 2019  Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased year over year by 3.4% in June 2019 compared with June 2018 and increased month over month by 0.4% in June 2019 compared with May 2019 (revisions with public records data are standard, and to ensure accuracy, CoreLogic incorporates the newly released public data to provide updated results).The CoreLogic HPI Forecast indicates that home prices will increase by 5.2% on a year-over-year basis from June 2019 to June 2020. On a month-over-month basis, home prices are expected to increase by 0.5% from June 2019 to July 2019.“Tepid home sales have caused home prices to rise at the slowest pace for the first half of a year since 2011. Price growth continues to be faster for lower-priced homes, as first-time buyers and investors are both actively seeking entry-level homes. With incomes up and current mortgage rates about 0.8 percentage points below what they were one year ago, home sales should have a better sales pace in the second half of 2019 than a year earlier, leading to a quickening in price growth over the next year.”, Dr. Frank Nothaft, Chief Economist for CoreLogic CR Note: The CoreLogic YoY increase had been in the 5% to 7% range for several years, before slowing last year.The year-over-year comparison has been positive for more than seven years since turning positive year-over-year in February 2012.

Grass Gestapo Out Of Control- $30K Fine & Potential Foreclosure For Too-Long Lawn -  A few weeks ago, I noticed a woman standing in my neighbor’s yard doing something I thought was pretty damn strange: she was measuring blades of grass with a tape measure. Then I noticed the city truck parked on the street. Turns out, the woman was with codes compliance or whatever they call it…apparently, her job is to drive around looking for reasons to harass and extort people for things like tall grass.When I realized who she was and what she was doing, my next thoughts were:“Are there not real problems in this city that need attention? There are people who drive around and measure grass for a living? And these employees are paid with taxpayer money…to extort taxpayers?”It isn’t like there aren’t real problems in this city. Like most regions in the US, there are things like potholes, traffic light outages, crime, and other random issues that, to a logical thinker, seem more pressing than the height of residents’ lawns. Since when did having tall grass become a crime? In many parts of the United States, allowing your grass to reach a certain height will lead to an unpleasant visit from the Grass Gestapo. I know, because it happened to me a few days after I spotted the Lawn Police measuring my neighbor’s grass. We were the lucky recipients of a letter informing us that OUR grass was too tall and that if we didn’t address the “violation” there would be consequences.So, we mowed the grass and thought the issue was resolved.A few weeks later, we got another letter from the city. Apparently, we are now on some kind of lawn maintenance watch list. Here is an excerpt from the second letter. I have added my own observations and commentary (the parts in bold and italics):

 Consumer Credit Rises To Record $4.1 Trillion As Student, Auto Loans Hit All Time High -After two months of torrid gains for revolving, or credit card debt, moments ago the Fed reported in its monthly consumer credit report that in June US consumer hit the breaks hard on new credit-fueled spending. In June, revolving credit declined by $80.5 million, the first such drop since March, and only the sixth decline since 2015. However, this was more than offset by a $14.7 billion increase in non-revolving, or student and auto loan, credit as total consumer credit in June rose by $14.6 billion, modestly below the $16.1 billion expected. Meanwhile, the May data was revised upward, from $17.1 billion to $17.8 billion. And while the reversal in June credit card use may prompt fresh questions about the strength of the US consumer despite the latest upward revision in the personal saving rates, one place where there were no surprises, was in the total amount of student and auto loans: here as expected, both numbers hit fresh all time highs, with a record $1.605 trillion in student loans outstanding, an increase of $6.8 billion in the quarter, while auto debt also hit a new all time high of $1.174 trillion, an increase of $8.4 billion in the quarter. In short, whether they want to or not, Americans continue to drown even deeper in debt, and enjoying every minute of it.

Update: Framing Lumber Prices Down 20% Year-over-year --Here is another monthly update on framing lumber prices.   Lumber prices declined from the record highs in early 2018, and are now down 15% to 25% year-over-year. This graph shows two measures of lumber prices: 1) Framing Lumber from Random Lengths through Aug 2, 2019 (via NAHB), and 2) CME framing futures. Right now Random Lengths prices are down 25% from a year ago, and CME futures are  down 15% year-over-year. There is a seasonal pattern for lumber prices, and usually prices will increase in the Spring, and peak around May, and then bottom around October or November - although there is quite a bit of seasonal variability. The trade war is a factor with reports that lumber exports to China have declined by 40% since last September.

 Retail Apocalypse Claims Latest Victim: Barney's Files For Bankruptcy; Blames Rising Rents, Fewer Customers - Ultra luxury department store chain Barney’s probably did not use a plush, Louis Vuitton letter pouch in which to submit its Chapter 11 filing at Bowling Green yesterday, but the result is the same: the iconic Madison Avenue store officially filed for bankruptcy protection and laid out its plans to shut down most of its stores, according to Bloomberg. The company cited rising rents and fewer visitors to its stores as the reasons for its restructuring.In its bankruptcy filing, the company listed assets of between $100 million and $500 million and liabilities of between $100 million and $500 million. This will be its second bankruptcy after going bankrupt in 1996 after it fell out with a Japanese partner.The Chapter 11 filing will allow Barney's to stay open while it finds a buyer for its slimmed-down business and negotiates with landlords. The company is owned by billionaire Richard Perry and has secured $75 million in new capital to help with its financial commitments. Chief Executive Officer Daniella Vitale said: "Like many in our industry, Barneys New York’s financial position has been dramatically impacted by the challenging retail environment and rent structures that are excessively high relative to market demand."  Many of the company's most famous stores, including the ones on Madison Avenue and in downtown New York City, are going to remain open. Stores in flagship locations like Beverly Hills, San Francisco and Boston will also stay open, as willl two of the company's warehouse locations, while its online operations will also continue to operate. Stores in Chicago, Las Vegas and Seattle will close, as well as five smaller concept stores and seven of the company's warehouse locations.

BEA: July Vehicles Sales decreased to 16.8 Million SAAR -- The BEA released their estimate of July vehicle sales on Tuesday. The BEA estimated sales of 16.82 million SAAR in July 2019 (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate), down 1.8% from the June sales rate, and down slightly from July 2018.  Sales in 2019 are averaging 16.9 million (average of seasonally adjusted rate), down 1.5% compared to the same period in 2018.  This graph shows light vehicle sales since 2006 from the BEA (blue) and an estimate for July (red).  A small decline in sales to date this year isn't a concern - I think sales will move mostly sideways at near record levels.  This means the economic boost from increasing auto sales is over (from the bottom in 2009, auto sales boosted growth every year through 2016).

Wholesale Sales Growth Plunges To Lowest Since 2016 - (graphs) Wholesale Trade sales and inventory data both disappointed in June with the former tumbling for the second month in a row and the latter well below expectations.Wholesale Sales fell for the second straight month (down 0.3% MoM against +0.2% expectation), dragging the YoY change in wholesale sales to its weakest since Trump's election in Nov 2016. Wholesale Inventories were unchanged MoM (below the +0.2% expectation) as it seems maybe the big inventory build has capped out once again... Is the inventory juicing over?  It certainly seems that "we built it" but "they did not come"

July Producer Price Index: Core Final Demand Down 0.1 MoM -  Today's release of the July Producer Price Index (PPI) for Final Demand came in at 0.2% month-over-month seasonally adjusted, up from 0.1% last month. It is at 1.7% year-over-year, unchanged from last month, on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. Core Final Demand (less food and energy) came in at -0.1% MoM, down from 0.3% the previous month and is unchanged YoY NSA at 2.1%. Investing.com MoM consensus forecasts were for 0.2% headline and 0.2% core. Here is the summary of the news release on Final Demand: The Producer Price Index for final demand advanced 0.2 percent in July, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Final demand prices moved up 0.1 percent in both June and May. (See table A.) On an unadjusted basis, the final demand index rose 1.7 percent for the 12 months ended in July. In July, the rise in final demand prices was led by a 0.4-percent increase in the index for final demand goods. Prices for final demand construction rose 0.6 percent. In contrast, the index for final demand services declined 0.1 percent. The index for final demand less foods, energy, and trade services fell 0.1 percent in July, the first decrease since declining 0.1 percent in October 2015. For the 12 months ended in July, prices for final demand less foods, energy, and trade services moved up 1.7 percent. More… The BLS shifted its focus to its new "Final Demand" series in 2014, a shift we support. However, the data for these series are only constructed back to November 2009 for Headline and April 2010 for Core. Since our focus is on longer-term trends, we continue to track the legacy Producer Price Index for Finished Goods, which the BLS also includes in their monthly updates. As this (older) overlay illustrates, the Final Demand and Finished Goods indexes are highly correlated. As the next chart shows, the Core Producer Price Index is far more volatile than the Core Consumer Price Index. For example, during the last recession producers were unable to pass cost increases to the consumer.

Tariff Fears Caused a U.S. Import Surge. Now Warehouses Are Full - A short drive outside Los Angeles lies one of the world’s biggest warehouse complexes -- 1.8 billion square feet of capacity, enough room to house 9 million cars -- is “bursting at the seams.” The warehouse district is part of the Inland Empire, serving the port of Long Beach and the twin port of Los Angeles, where Seroka is executive director. Together they handle almost half of American’s maritime trade with China. If you live in the U.S., especially the western half, your toothbrush, television or shoes may well have passed through the Empire. Bloated storage facilities are a consequence of President Donald Trump’s trade war with China and an illustration of how it’s throwing supply lines into disarray, forcing business to improvise. But as the tariffs keep mounting, they’re running out of solutions to avoid them. Imports have been piling up there over the past year or so -- offering a kind of safety valve for the more than 200,000 U.S. businesses, from Home Depot to Walmart, that use the California ports. They could rush goods through customs anytime Trump threatened new charges on imports, saving millions of dollars in some cases. Then they could keep the stuff in the Empire until delivery time, sometimes for weeks or months longer than normal. Now, Seroka says that spare room is down to an unprecedentedly low level of about 1%-2%. Try to squeeze in more stuff, in other words, and it’ll be impossible to drive forklifts around or even walk the aisles. So companies won’t be able to repeat this cost-saving strategy when the next tariff deadline arrives. And Trump just said it’s less than a month away, on Sept. 1. He tweeted last week that the U.S. will start charging 10% on about $300 billion of Chinese imports that have escaped tariffs so far. The U.S. on Monday formally labeled China a currency manipulator in a rapid escalation of the trade war. For importers, “the ability to front-load, as they did last year, to a large extent is taken off the table,” said Jock O’Connell, an international trade adviser at Beacon Economics. It’s not just near ports that storage space is strained, he said. “The surge in imports late last year, driven by anxieties over higher tariffs, coincided with the continued explosion of e-commerce in generating a largely unprecedented demand for warehouse space.”

Farm Crisis Spreads As US Corn Exports Plunge To 19-Month Low  - American farmers have just lost their fourth-largest customer as China pulls out of buying US agriculture products this week. It's a devastating blow in an environment of poor weather conditions across the Central and Midwest US and collapsing commodity spot prices, could trigger farm crisis 2.0. "Sales have already been lower this crop year because of the existing tariffs. If we went all the way to no China exports whatsoever, that would, of course, result in an even larger market and price impacts," Pat Westhoff, director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri, told CNBC. "Cutting China completely out of the market would be a very big deal."Even before China officially said it would stop buying US agricultural products, the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) weekly export sales data shows US corn exports plunged to a 19-month low in June and could be depressed even further in July as elevated spot prices and increased foreign competition continued to weaken exports, reported Reuters. Corn shipments in the first ten months of the 2018-19 year that started Sept. 1 totaled 46.6 million tons, down 5% from a year earlier, and June was the first month in the 2018-19 year corn exports fell below prior-year levels. USDA's weekly data showed the US had 6.7 million tons of corn to export during the last two months of the year to meet the full-year forecast of 53.3 million tons.As of July 25, USDA's weekly export sales data showed unshipped 2018-19 corn at 3.89 million tons, the smallest volume for the date in at least five years. Monday morning's inspections data put US corn shipments at 631,289 tons in the week ended Aug. 1.Total US corn commitments for 2018-19 reached 49.9 million tons as of July 25.With US corn exports sliding lower, South American shipments have surged to meet demand. No. 2 exporter Brazil shipped 6.3 million tons in July, setting a new record for total exports of any month.USDA estimates, Brazil, Argentina, and Ukraine, will export a combined 99.5 million tons in the 2018-19 year, a 52% increase versus the prior year.

U.S. cows and pigs gorge on bakery rolls, pet food as corn prices surge (Reuters) - U.S. farmers are feeding their livestock everything from outdated pet food and leftover bakery rolls to crops imported from South America after unprecedented spring planting delays boosted prices for locally grown corn. Corn is typically used to fatten hogs, cattle and poultry, but its high price has farmers in the $150 billion U.S. meat and dairy industry looking elsewhere to keep down costs. Agricultural cooperatives, equipment dealers and plants that process corn into ethanol have already been strained because farmers were unable to plant millions of acres this spring due to widespread flooding. Meat producers are now turning to substitutes in an attempt to keep production costs down and stretch out supplies of corn held in storage. Many expect corn prices will climb even higher once harvesting starts this fall because yields are expected to be weak due to springtime flooding. Feed is typically the biggest cost of raising farm animals, so adjusting diets has become critical for producers who are also grappling with a U.S.-China trade war that has hurt exports of American agricultural products including pork. Higher corn prices could raise costs for meat producers like Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N), which reports earnings on Monday. Ohio farmer Jim Heimerl, who sells 700,000 pigs a year, swapped out corn for dry pet food, which he acquires through a broker and can be outdated or mislabeled. Heimerl is also feeding his hogs more wheat middlings, which are a byproduct of the flour milling process. “We’re already starting to ration our corn out,” he said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicted in July that farmers will harvest the smallest corn crop in four years. Many grain traders and analysts expect the agency will lower its harvest estimate after surveying farmers again about plantings. Most-active corn futures Cv1 hit a five-year high in July and are now trading around $4 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, up 7% from a year ago. Farmers have seen prices climb even more in cash markets in areas where rains washed out plantings. 

U.S. rail traffic fell for sixth straight month in July -  For the sixth consecutive month, U.S. rail traffic tumbled in July compared to year-ago levels, according to Association of American Railroads (AAR) data. U.S. railroads originated 1,264,100 carloads last month, down 4.8 percent, and 1,314,333 intermodal containers and trailers, down 6.1 percent year over year. Combined, the railroads originated 2,578,433 carloads and intermodal units, a 5.5 percent decline compared to July 2018 levels. Six of the 20 carload commodity categories that AAR tracks every month posted gains in July. They included petroleum and petroleum products, up 6,465 carloads or 11.5 percent; all other carloads, up 2,866 carloads or 9.9 percent; and metallic ores, up 2,456 carloads or 7.7 percent. Commodities that logged decreases last month included coal, down 43,954 carloads or 10.3 percent; crushed stone, sand and gravel, down 6,350 carloads or 5.1 percent; and primary metal products, down 4,884 carloads or 9.9 percent. “Rail traffic in July, as in many other recent months, was held back by declines in three of the largest rail traffic segments, coal, grain, and intermodal,” said AAR Senior Vice President of Policy and Economics John Gray in a press release. Despite a summer heat wave, very low natural gas prices weakened seasonal demand for coal-generated electrical power, he said. "These same low natural gas prices appear to have allowed chemical production to pretty much hold steady even in the face of the uncertainty around foreign trade which has been the source of much of the recent growth in chemical production," added Gray. Trade policy uncertainty also had an impact. "With 50 percent of rail intermodal business which is overseas — including international trade, both imports of consumer and intermediate manufacturing components and exports such as food products — trade policy uncertainty continues to drag down this traffic segment," 

FedEx, Memphis freight shows trade war, China, Europe's slower economy - Ten years into its long hot streak, the U.S. economy is cooling. How can you tell? Look at the volume of freight handled at Memphis International Airport, home to FedEx Express’ World Hub. Air freighters loaded and unloaded 6% less cargo in June than a year earlier, Memphis airport officials say. It’s tempting to relate the drop to Memphis-based FedEx’s widely reported new Amazon strategy. But dialing back the Amazon business doesn’t entirely explain the cargo decline at Memphis International, the largest U.S. cargo airport.  "The 6% decline is consistent with a general slowdown in global trade,” said Christopher Low, chief economist at FTN Financial, the investment arm of First Tennessee Bank, the largest bank based in Memphis. It’s too soon to say mass layoffs are coming. It’s way too soon to say that. But check on the world. Low ticks off the warning signs:China’s growth has tapered off. Brexit worries have slowed the United Kingdom. Europe’s urban air pollution concerns have dogged sales of German-made cars. No country has fallen into a recession, but the web of business that helps fill the air freighters flying in and out of Memphis no longer seems as strong.Low figures the U.S. will avoid a recession. The Federal Reserve recently cut interest rates. Another cut seems probable. And companies such as automakers are scaling back output, trying to pare down inventories of parts and supplies without resorting to layoffs. In past recessions inventory gluts led to mass layoffs. At the same time the trade war with China shows no signs of abating. Only 10 years ago economists and business analysts doubted Washington would ever provoke China for fear U.S. interest rates would soar if Beijing stopped its all-important purchase of U.S. Treasury bonds and bills.

Class 8 Orders Crash 81% To Lowest Monthly Total Since 2010 - Preliminary North America Class 8 net order data shows the industry booked 10,200 units in July, an astonishing  081% year over year fall, according to ACT Research. This is also down 21% from June and marks the lowest monthly order tally since February 2010. Net trailer orders also continued to plunge, according to data released about a week ago.  Kenny Vieth, ACT’s President and Senior Analyst said in late July that heavy truck and trailer industries would be heading for a market correction in 2020. He stated:  “Data that support our forecast of an impending market correction continue to mount, with the biggest driver of the change for both Class 8 and trailers being the continued building of new equipment inventories in 2019 that will require right-sizing in 2020. Since March 2018, ACT’s forecasts have targeted 2019’s third quarter as the point at which the supply of Class 8 tractors and demand for freight services would likely tip so far as to break the current period of peak vehicle production, as demand reverts to the mean. Current data and anecdotes make a strong case that the call for a Q3 inflection remains intact.” Recall, in early July we reported that Class 8 orders were down for the eighth month in a row, falling a stunning 70% in June to 13,000 units, according to FTR data. The figure was up 20% sequentially, but still followed a 71% decimation in May. Jefferies' Stephen Volkmann wrote in a note last month that the figures indicate a SAAR of ~178,000 Class 8 trucks and noted that the sequential growth compares to a sequential drop of 27% in May, when SAAR estimates were 139,000 units.  We will look to see if he updates his estimates based on July's data.

Derail- Traffic Declines Across US Railroads Signals Broad Industrial Slowdown - New data from the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported US Class I rail traffic for the week ended July 27, of 534,498 carloads and intermodal containers, down 4.4% compared with the same week last year, reported Railway Age. The slowdown in rail traffic is the result of a broad-based industrial downturn that is hitting American manufacturers, originating from Asia and Europe as a global synchronized structural decline. Trade disputes between the US and China have accelerated the downturn on almost every continent, sending world trade volumes lower.Total carloads for the week were 261,706 carloads, declined 3.5% YoY, while US weekly intermodal container volume was 272,792 for the week, slipped 5.3% YoY. About 70% of carload commodity groups posted negative YoY change versus the same week in 2018. Only nonmetallic minerals, petroleum and petroleum products, and "other" posted gains for the same week in 2018.  For the first 30 weeks of 2019, railroads reported the cumulative volume of 7,549,879 carloads, down 3.2% from last year. Intermodal containers for the first 30 weeks posted 7,963,475 units, down 3.6% from last year. All rail traffic combined for the first 30 weeks this year was 15,513,354 carloads and intermodal container units, a drop of 3.4% compared to last year. One of the main reasons behind the sudden rail decline in the US could be the broad-based industrial slowdown that started shifting US manufacturing PMIs lower in late 2018.Economic Cycle Research Institute's (ECRI) US Leading Index of Manufacturing PMIs (USLIMPMI) anticipated the current cyclical industrial downturn in late-2017, has since shown up in declining ISM and Markit manufacturing PMIs.The USLIMPMI now points to an industrial slowdown that is gaining momentum across the country. ISM PMI recently slipped to a nearly-three-year low and the Markit PMI fell to a nearly-ten-year low in July. This weakness in growth will further lean on rail volume through summer into fall.

ISM Non-Manufacturing Index decreased to 53.7% in July -- The July ISM Non-manufacturing index was at 53.7%, down from 55.1% in June. The employment index increased to 56.2%, from 55.0%. Note: Above 50 indicates expansion, below 50 contraction. From the Institute for Supply Management: July 2019 Non-Manufacturing ISM Report On Business®  “The NMI® registered 53.7 percent, which is 1.4 percentage points lower than the June reading of 55.1 percent. This represents continued growth in the non-manufacturing sector, at a slower rate. This is the index’s lowest reading since August 2016, when it registered 51.8 percent. The Non-Manufacturing Business Activity Index decreased to 53.1 percent, 5.1 percentage points lower than the June reading of 58.2 percent, reflecting growth for the 120th consecutive month. The New Orders Index registered 54.1 percent; 1.7 percentage points lower than the reading of 55.8 percent in June. The Employment Index increased 1.2 percentage points in July to 56.2 percent from the June reading of 55 percent. The Prices Index decreased 2.4 percentage points from the June reading of 58.9 percent to 56.5 percent, indicating that prices increased in July for the 26th consecutive month. According to the NMI®, 13 non-manufacturing industries reported growth. The non-manufacturing sector’s rate of growth continued to cool off. Respondents indicated ongoing concerns related to tariffs and employment resources. Comments remained mixed about business conditions and the overall economy.”  This graph shows the ISM non-manufacturing index (started in January 2008) and the ISM non-manufacturing employment diffusion index.  This suggests slower expansion in July than in June.

Markit Services PMI: Growth Continues in July - The July US Services Purchasing Managers' Index conducted by Markit came in at 53.0 percent, up 1.5 from the final June estimate of 51.5. The Investing.com consensus was for 52.2 percent. Markit's Services PMI is a diffusion index: A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the sector; below 50 indicates contraction. Here is the opening from the latest press release:Commenting on the PMI data, Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at IHS Markit said:“An improvement in the overall rate of business growth signalled by the services PMI for July is welcome news, but the overall weak pace of expansion remains a concern. The PMIs for manufacturing and services collectively point to GDP expanding at an annualized rate of under 2% in July, below that seen in the second quarter and among the weakest seen over the past three years."A sharp drop in future expectations meanwhile suggests downside risks have increased in the near-term at least, hinting that the upturn in growth seen in July could prove short-lived and that GDP growth could remain disappointingly modest in the third quarter."Optimism is at its lowest ebb since comparable data were first available in 2012 as companies have grown increasingly concerned about the year ahead, fueled by trade war worries and wider geopolitical jitters, as well as growing worries that the economic cycle has peaked." [Press Release] Here is a snapshot of the series since mid-2012.

GM: VP Pence was mistaken about funds for buying idled plant - General Motors says U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence was incorrect in saying that a fledgling electric vehicle maker and a new affiliated company have secured funding to buy GM’s shuttered Lordstown plant in Ohio. Pence made the comments Tuesday while visiting Lancaster, Ohio. GM spokesman Jim Cain tells The Vindicator in Youngstown that $25 million obtained by Workhorse Group Inc. from private investors is not directly related to a sale of the Lordstown plant. The newspaper reported that Pence’s office and a Workhorse spokesman didn’t immediately respond to follow-up inquiries about the vice-president’s comments. Cain says discussions about the details and conditions of a potential purchase are ongoing between GM, Workhorse and its new affiliated company. Cain says the buyer would be that affiliate, not Workhorse.

 Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims decreased to 209,000 -- The DOL reported: In the week ending August 3, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 209,000, a decrease of 8,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 2,000 from 215,000 to 217,000. The 4-week moving average was 212,250, an increase of 250 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 500 from 211,500 to 212,000.  The previous week was revised up. The following graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since 1971.

 BLS: Job Openings "Little Changed" at 7.3 Million in June --Notes: In June there were 7.348 million job openings, and, according to the June Employment report, there were 5.975 million unemployed. So, for the sixteenth consecutive month, there were more job openings than people unemployed. Also note that the number of job openings has exceeded the number of hires since January 2015 (over 4 years). From the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary: The number of job openings was little changed at 7.3 million on the last business day of June, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the month, hires and separations were little changed at 5.7 million and 5.5 million, respectively. ... The number of quits was little changed in June at 3.4 million. The quits rate was 2.3 percent. The quits level was little changed for total private and decreased for government (-19,000). The following graph shows job openings (yellow line), hires (dark blue), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS. This series started in December 2000. Note: The difference between JOLTS hires and separations is similar to the CES (payroll survey) net jobs headline numbers. This report is for June, the most recent employment report was for July. Note that hires (dark blue) and total separations (red and light blue columns stacked) are pretty close each month. This is a measure of labor market turnover. When the blue line is above the two stacked columns, the economy is adding net jobs - when it is below the columns, the economy is losing jobs. Jobs openings decreased in June to 7.348 million from 7.384 million in May. The number of job openings (yellow) are down 1% year-over-year. Quits are up 2% year-over-year. These are voluntary separations. (see light blue columns at bottom of graph for trend for "quits"). Job openings remain at a high level, and quits are still increasing year-over-year. This was a solid report.

Labor Market Slowing: Job Openings Drop To 4 Month Low As Hiring Slows Most In 2 Years (5 graphs) Just in case the last few payrolls reports weren't sufficient to inform the general public that the US economy is slowing, moments ago we got the latest JOLTS which confirms that the US labor market is going through a rough patch, as the total number of job openings printed at 7.348 million, which while above the 7.326 million expected, was -36K below the upward revised May print of 7.384 million, and the lowest since February. That said, even with the slowing number of job openings, there was still more than 1.3 million more job opening than unemployed workers. Perhaps more concerning is that for another month, we saw continued decline in the number of hires, which slid by 58K to 5.702MM, roughly in line with what the payrolls implied number suggested... ... but it was also 2.2% below the year-ago print, resulting in the biggest percentage decline in the number of hires year over year as the job market clearly slows. Finally, the last concerning indicator was the so-called "take this job and shove it indicator", the total level of "quits" which shows worker confidence that they can leave their current job and find a better paying job elsewhere. This number showed another decline, this time by 45K workers, to 3.433 million, a new 2019 low, suggesting that US workers are becoming increasingly unsure they can find a better paying job elsewhere. 

Notes on the June JOLTS report: weakness but no imminent downturn -  I thought I’d take a look at the one piece of data that came out this week, the June JOLTS report. First of all, the “hiring leads firing” mantra continues to be true:  [Note: data averaged quarterly to cut down on noise.] Interesting that hiring has been essentially flat for a full year, and total separations (“firing”) for the past three quarters: But the layoffs and discharges part of separations continues down YoY, a good thing, and what initial jobless claims and the unemployment rate also show, if weakly: But the relative weakness of the employment situation show up in the YoY% changes in hiring, voluntary quits, and job openings (all normed to zero at their current levels in the below graph):  Note that the changes aren’t as bad as during the 2015-16 shallow industrial recession, or  immediately before the 2007 recession (they’re more like 2006 levels). I thought I’d extend Monday’s graph of monthly manufacturing, residential construction, and temporary job changes back through the weak 2015-16 period and compare that as well: The “shallow industrial recession” featured more negative manufacturing and temporary jobs months than this year so far.  Again, the takeaway is weakness, but no imminent downturn.

Summer Teen Employment -- Here is a look at the change in teen employment over time. The graph below shows the participation rate and employment-population ratio for those 16 to 19 years old. The graph is Not Seasonally Adjusted (NSA), to show the seasonal hiring of teenagers during the summer. A few observations:
1) Although teen employment has recovered some since the great recession, overall teen employment had been trending down. This is probably because more people are staying in school (a long term positive for the economy).
2) A smaller percentage of teenagers are seeking summer employment. The seasonal spikes are smaller than in previous decades. So a smaller percentage of teenagers are joining the labor force during the summer as compared to previous years. This could be because of fewer employment opportunities, or because teenagers are pursuing other activities during the summer.
3) The decline in teenager participation is one of the reasons the overall participation rate has declined (of course, the retiring baby boomers is the main reason the overall participation rate has declined over the last 20 years).

California Scrubs Controversial Kamala Harris-Era Arrest Reports - The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has scrubbed arrest records from Sen. Kamala Harris's controversial tenure as the state's top law enforcement official, according to the Washington Free Beacon.  The purge was conducted during a 'routine website redesign,' removing public access to several key incarceration reports. Twice a year, the CDCR releases information about the number of new individuals incarcerated in the California prison system as part of its "Offender Data Points" series. These reports provide important information on demographics, sentence length, offense type, and other figures relevant to criminal justice and incarceration.Until recently, these reports were publicly available at the CDCR's website. A search using archive.org's Wayback Machine reveals that as of April 25, 2019—the most recent indexed date—ODP reports were available dating back to the spring of 2009. As of August 2019, the same web page now serves only a single ODP report, the one for Spring 2019. The pre-2019 reports have been removed. -Washington Free Beacon During the Democratic debates on Wednesday night, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) excoriated Harris's record as California Attorney General, rattling off a laundry list of 'inconvenient' facts - such as the 1,500-plus Californians Harris sent to prison for marijuana-related offenses, blocking evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until forced to do so by the courts, and using prison inmates as cheap labor.

 Puerto Rico’s governor is gone, but protesters say more change is needed -- In the hours before Governor Ricardo Rossello resigned late Friday, Puerto Rico's House of Representatives confirmed Pedro Pierluisi as successor — but protesters who called for Rossello to step down aren't happy with the decision."The ones being proposed by the current political party, they are unacceptable candidates and the people of Puerto Rico do not want them," said Ana Portnoy Brimmer, a Puerto Rican writer and protester.Some of the largest protests in the U.S. territory's history broke out in July after 900 pages of profanity-laced, sexist and homophobic chat message logs were released involving Rossello and 11 other men, including government officials.Though Pierluisi was confirmed Friday afternoon, legislators say that his role is still in dispute.Portnoy Brimmer has been on the ground in Puerto Rico. She told Day 6 guest host Nana aba Duncan what she and others are hoping for following the governor's resignation. Here's part of that conversation.

Another governor ousted in Puerto Rico as protests continue - On Friday, the former governor, Ricardo Rosselló, had stepped down in response to three weeks of mass demonstrations triggered by the publication of leaked text messages exposing influence peddling and jokes about shutting down public utilities, killing opposition politicians and dead hurricane victims. Before officially resigning, Rosselló nominated Pierluisi as his secretary of state, the next in line to the governorship (the post was vacant because its previous occupant had already resigned in the scandal that swept away Rosselló). Only the House of Representatives had confirmed Pierluisi by Friday, but Pierluisi still claimed power, leading to the legal challenge by the Senate. The Senate and the Supreme Court are now rescinding the 2005 stipulation 14 years after its approval, not out of any concern for democratic rights, but as a politically-calculated conspiracy to install a different representative of Wall Street, which is demanding that the political crisis be used to push through even greater social cuts. As signaled by the thousands demonstrating on Friday evening outside the governor’s residence, with chants and signs calling for the immediate resignation of Pierluisi, his government would have immediately generated an even greater social upheaval due to opposition against his right-wing background. As resident commissioner (Puerto Rico’s nonvoting member in the US Congress) from 2009 to 2017, Pierluisi backed the creation of the Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB), a colonial outfit stripping Puerto Rico of any self-governance, to implement brutal austerity measures on behalf of the island’s creditors on Wall Street. After leaving office, he rejoined a private law firm whose main client was the FOMB. The Los Angeles Times reported that soon after the announcement of the ruling Wednesday, protesters were already outside the governor’s mansion, yelling through a loudspeaker, “Pierluisi out! The constitution of Puerto Rico should be respected!”

 How Private Prisons Affect Sentencing -- The first private prison in the US opened in 1984. Over the next three decades, the imprisoned population increased by 194% while the country’s overall population increased by only 36%. This column examines the relationship between these two events, asking whether the growth of the private prison industry contributed to climbing incarceration rates. It concludes that private prisons moderately increased sentence lengths but not the likelihood of conviction, and finds no evidence that private prisons directly influenced judges or exacerbated existing racial biases in the judicial system. A decade ago, two judges in Wilkes-Barre, in the US state of Pennsylvania, accepted more than $2 million in bribes as part of a scheme to benefit one private prison facility over its competitor, as well as funnelling hundreds of juvenile delinquents into the jail, often for trivial offenses. The ‘kids for cash’ scandal and the ensuing investigation brought the problems with a for-profit private prison system to the public’s attention. Aside from potentially compromising the integrity of the judicial system, the scandal raised the question of whether the increase in the presence of private prisons in the US since the mid-1980s bore any relation to the simultaneous increase in the size of the nation’s prison population. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, more than 2.2 million people were incarcerated in federal, state, and county prisons in 2014. In the roughly three decades since the first private prison in the US opened in 1984, the imprisoned population increased by 194%, while the overall population increased by only 36%. There is no doubt that private prison operators have spent money attempting to influence sentencing policies and help elect officials who would in turn help the industry. In 2016 and 2017, private prisons and the companies that serviced them spent $12.4 million on lobbying state lawmakers or state campaigns, according to the National Institute on Money in Politics. There is also no doubt that private prison operators have an economic interest in harsher sentences. The Corrections Corporation of America’s 2014 Annual Report includes the following warning: “The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices.”

Texas police apologize for horseback officers leading black man by rope - Texas police have apologised after an image of two white officers on horseback leading a handcuffed black man by a rope caused an outcry online.Galveston Police Chief Vernon Hale said on Monday the technique was acceptable in some scenarios, but that "officers showed poor judgment in this instance".He said there was no "malicious intent" and has changed department policy to "prevent the use of this technique".Many people on social media said the photo evoked images of the slavery era.According to a news release from the Galveston Police Department, the two mounted officers, named only as P Brosch and A Smith, arrested Donald Neely for criminal trespass.The officers were taking Mr Neely to a police staging area. Police clarified that he was not tied with the rope, but "was handcuffed and a line was clipped to the handcuffs". The department added: "We understand the negative perception of this action and believe it is most appropriate to cease the use of this technique."

A Scene from “Operation Clean Sweep” in Boston: Crushed Wheelchairs - As “Operation Clean Sweep” continues in Boston’s South End this week, witnesses to a crackdown in the city’s so-called “Methadone Mile” say they saw a jarring sight: wheelchairs tossed into trash trucks and crushed. Photos shared online Tuesday night during a police operation in the area appear to show several wheelchairs among a mass of items in the back of a Department of Public Works trash compactor. “You could hear the metal crushing noise. It was really loud. They just tossed it in and crushed it,” says Cassie Hurd, a Boston homeless advocate who at the time had been observing the area with a group called SIFMA NOW, which advocates for safe injection facilities in the state.Hurd says about 15 BPD and state police cruisers, along with a DPW trash truck, rolled up to Mass. Ave. after dark and began telling the people congregating there to leave. Any unattended items were confiscated, she says, including at least three wheelchairs.“We spent a significant amount of time with someone who lost his wheelchair. He is not able to be mobile without it, and not having a home, nowhere to sit, nowhere to go, and was having pain. He couldn’t really balance or walk,” Hurd says. “He had left his wheelchair for a minute and his partner tried everything to keep the wheelchair. She pleaded with police and was sobbing and crying. They took it and threw it in the back of the truck and it was devastating to watch. There was nothing anyone could do to prevent them from throwing it out.” The man, who she identified as Jarrod, told her he had been injured in a hit-and-run car crash about a week earlier and had been prescribed the wheelchair by a doctor. His backpack had also been taken and trashed in the sweep, she says he told her.

22% Of Millennials Say They Have No Friends --A staggering 22% of millennials (aged 23 - 38) surveyed by YouGov say they have no friends, while less than 1/3 say they have at least 10 friends.  Meanwhile 30% of Millennials say they 'always or often feel lonely.' According to the New York Daily News, Even if younger Americans are overstating their isolation, the jarring numbers reflect long-term rising trends in loneliness. Studies have indicated that loneliness has myriad negative mental and physical health effects.“Strong social relationships support mental health, and that ties into better immune function, reduced stress and less cardiovascular activation,” Debra Umberson, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas, told Time magazine in 2015.Oddly, 25% of Millennials surveyed also said they don't have any acquaintances. Is social media to blame? As the Daily News points out, "a 2018 study out of the University of Pennsylvania linked usage of apps like Facebook and Instagram to social isolation. “Using less social media than you normally would leads to significant decreases in both depression and loneliness,” the study’s author, psychologist Melissa Hunt, said at the time."Meanwhile, according to Vox, many 30-somethings have a hard time making new friends as they get older, as their lives become busier and friends move away.  More recently, in a 2016 paper, researchers in Germany found a peak of loneliness in a sample of 16,000 Germans at around age 30, another around age 50, and then increasing again at age 80.

6th-Grader Dragged Out Of Class For Saying Gender-Confused Boy Is A Boy - The school district claims he wasn’t punished. But it dragged him out of class for the day and warned him not to correctly identify the biological sex of a classmate again.Liberty Counsel said an Ohio school district backed down after the religious liberty law firm warned that it could not punish a sixth grader for disagreeing with classmates who said a boy with gender dysphoria was actually a girl.According to the narrative by Liberty Counsel in a press release and subsequent fundraising pitch, the school uniformly referred to the gender-confused male (“Boy A”) as a girl and used female pronouns for him.In a redacted letter to the school district, Liberty Counsel said Boy A had started publicly identifying as a female this spring. It became “heavily discussed at the school, particularly by a group of girls” in John’s classes who quickly started treating Boy A as a girl and frequently discussing his “transition” with him in art class.John is also in that class, and considers Boy A a friend. He was “subjected to conversations about these issues constantly, on at least a weekly or semi-weekly basis,” because the girls and Boy A sat directly behind him.On May 13 the girls claimed that “taking girl hormones” and eventually getting his “male private parts removed” would turn Boy A into a girl. John “disagreed as a factual matter” and said he was “not a girl.” Another boy agreed that sex is “what you’re born with,” and cannot be changed by hormones and surgery, and a third boy “may have said something to a similar effect,” according to Liberty Counsel. Their art teacher overheard the conversation and reported John and the boys to the assistant principal, falsely claiming they were “bullying” Boy A and that the third boy called him a “homosexual.”

 MVP math suing Wake County parent for 'libel and slander' after he criticized program — The company behind a controversial math curriculum being used in Wake County public schools has filed a lawsuit against a Cary parent, accusing him of "libel and slander" and "tortious interference with business relations" after he criticized the program.An attorney for the Utah-based Mathematics Vision Project, or MVP, said the company decided to sue parent Blain Dillard after he made "false statements" about the company. Dillard says he is "innocent of all allegations and can defend each and every point made in the summons."MVP attorney Joseph Shapiro told WRAL News the company "believes in and supports public discourse, especially relating to the education of our children. Society has, however, placed limits on public discourse. One of those limits is a restriction against false statements. MVP’s legal action against Mr. Dillard is an effort to preserve these boundaries and maintain the civility, dignity, and productiveness of public discourse." The lawsuit claims Dillard "commenced a crusade against MVP" and “acted with reckless disregard” as he knowingly made false and defamatory statements with the intent to harm MVP's reputation. The company wants a jury trial and is seeking damages for Dillard’s "defamatory statements" and "intentional interference" with the company’s business.Dillard has spoken at numerous Wake County Board of Education meetings and with the news media about his dislike of MVP, which he says caused his 10th grade son to go from being an A and B math student to failing the subject in a short time period.In addition to his public comments, Dillard created a website, blog and Facebook group dedicated to sharing his criticisms of the program and the Wake County Public School System's use of it. He has also filed numerous public records requests to get information and has emailed math teachers in both Wake County and Utah to get their thoughts on the program.In an email Tuesday, Dillard said MVP's lawsuit "is an attempt at intimidation and bullying to silence my and other parents' free speech advocating for our children's education." Dillard's supporters have created a GoFundMe page to raise money for his defense against MVP.

 When Idiocy Becomes Hardwired  - The post-war baby boomers were the first “spoiled” generation, with tens of millions of children raised under the concept that, “I don’t want my children to have to experience the hardships that I faced growing up.” Those jurisdictions that prospered most (the EU, US, Canada, etc.) were, not coincidentally, the ones where this form of childrearing became most prevalent. The net result was the ’60s generation – young adults who could be praised for their idealism in pursuing the peace movement, the civil rights movement, and equal rights for women. But those same young adults were spoiled to the degree that many felt that it made perfect sense that they should attend expensive colleges but spend much of their study time pursuing sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Flunking out or dropping out was not seen as a major issue and very few of them felt any particular guilt about having squandered their parents’ life savings in the process. The boomer generation then became the yuppies as they hit middle age, and not surprisingly, many coddled their own children even more than they themselves had been coddled. As a result of ever-greater indulgence with each new generation of children, tens of millions of Millennials now display the result of parents doing all they can to remove every possible hardship from their children’s experience, no matter how small. Many in their generation never had to do chores, have a paper route, or get good grades in order to be given an exceptional reward, such as a cell phone. They grew to adulthood without any understanding of cause and effect, effort and reward. Theoretically, the outcome was to be a generation that was free from troubles, free from stress, who would have only happy thoughts. The trouble with this ideal was that, by the time they reached adulthood, many of the critical life’s lessons had been missing from their upbringing. In the years during which their brains were biologically expanding and developing, they had been hardwired to expect continued indulgence throughout their lives. Any thought that they had was treated as valid, even if it was insupportable in logic. And, today, we’re witnessing the fruits of this upbringing. Tens of millions of Millennials have never learned the concept of humility. They’re often unable to cope with their thoughts and perceptions being questioned and, in fact, often cannot think outside of themselves to understand the thoughts and perceptions of others. 

 Credentialism and Corruption: A Second Look at the College Admissions Scandals --We’ve had yet another college admissions scandal enter the headlines, briefly, and so I thought I’d aggregate the other recent college admissions scandals; it’s surprising — or not! — how prevalent they are. Then I’ll do a simple piece of arithmetic that I haven’t been able to find in the coverage.  This aggregation is by no means exhaustive[1]; what is most striking is the routine seaminess of it. Sometimes the institution is corrupt (e.g., Harvard), and sometimes the ingenious providers of professional services are corrupt. In all cases, the parents who participate in these schemes are corrupt. Gaming Guardianship (professional services). From Inside Higher Ed: [T]hat parents in suburban Chicago had taken part in a scam to increase their children’s eligibility for need-based financial aid for college. The scam, apparently devised by independent college consultant Lora Georgieva, owner of Destination College in Lincolnshire, Ill., involved parents giving up legal guardianship of their children during the junior or senior year of high school to a friend or family member. That allowed the student to claim independent status, meaning that eligibility for financial aid was based only on the student’s earnings rather than the parents’ income and assets. Yes, you read that correctly. Parents gave up legal guardianship of their children for the purpose of qualifying for financial aid for college. In Lake County, Ill., alone, there were 38 cases in 2018 where a probate court judge granted transfer of guardianship for a teenager in the junior or senior year of high school. Most of those cases involved families living in homes valued at more that $500,000. “Operation Varsity Blues” (multiple Ivies and wannabe Ivies). The Guardian:  Defendants in the case include parents and college athletics coaches.The wealthy parents were part of the biggest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice, prosecutors say, accused of conspiring to get their kids into elite colleges through bribery and cheating. The FBI investigation was dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues”.Administrators of the SAT and ACT college exams were bribed to allow someone else to pretend to be the student and take the exam in their place, according to a criminal complaint. In other cases, the proctors gave the students answers or fixed their wrong answers after they had taken the test. The children sometimes faked learning disabilities so that they would be able to take the tests at facilities where staff had been paid off, the complaint says; parents paid between $15,000 and $75,000 a test to participate in the cheating scheme, which was allegedly masterminded by William Singer, who ran a college prep company called The Key.  Fencing Coach Gets House (Harvard). Deadspin:  “Clout Goes to College (University of Illinois). Chicago Tribune: Juice at the Board of Regents (University of Texas at Austin). Texas Tribune, one of many examples:

 Pence Slams Colleges Over Free-Speech Zones, Safe Spaces -  Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that safe spaces and free speech zones on America's college campuses are “antithetical to the process of learning” and that he is proud of young people for challenging various speech codes on their campuses.Pence made these comments during an event hosted by Christian conservative nonprofit the Alliance Defending Freedom and made clear that campus free speech is an issue that President Donald Trump takes seriously. Earlier in 2019, Trump signed an executive order tying federal research dollars to free speech on campus, as Campus Reformreported at the time. WATCH (relevant portion begins around the 14:10 mark):“We’ve sent a very strong message to campuses, universities, and colleges around the country that the freedom of speech is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution, and we expect our institutions of learning to respect that and respect diverse views on our campuses, and create an environment that is conducive to learning,” Pence said.The Vice President continued by expressing that he is “encouraged” by young students on college campuses who are standing up to restrictive speech codes.“And this is — I must tell you: I feel somewhat encouraged not just because of the strong stand the President has taken, but because of the courageous stand that we’ve seen young people taking on campuses around the country, challenging these — what do they call them? — 'safe zones' that emerged; you know, challenging speech codes that have emerged on campus,” Pence said. “All of those things are antithetical to the process of learning.”He noted that more and more students are starting to challenge speech codes, and that it’s no longer just conservatives battling them anymore.“The encouraging thing...is I see it’s not just conservatives that are speaking out against this now,” Pence said. “It’s actually very encouraging that many liberals are recognizing the political correctness, the reality of speech codes and censorship on our campuses.” Pence said that it is critical that free speech and discourse are kept safe on college campuses, and told the audience what he does whenever he sees protests. “ “Whenever I see somebody waving an unflattering sign or — you know, some people shouting something out — I always look at my kids and I say, 'That’s what freedom looks like. That’s what freedom sounds like.' Right?  And the ability to disagree,” Pence said.

Student Debt Crushes Homebuying Dreams For Millennials , Now Delayed 8 Years - The student debt crisis is rapidly expanding, hitting a new record high of $1.6 trillion in 2019 and surpassing auto loans and credit card debt post-GFC. About 44 million Americans, or 20% of adults, have insurmountable student debts. About 11% of them are in student loan default, and by 2023, as many as 40% could be underwater. The life-altering impacts of student loan debt on millions of millennials is debilitating towards their financial health.Many are drowning in student debt, working in the gig-economy with two jobs and can hardly afford rising rents and necessary food items.At least 60% of millennials have no savings, and their poor financial health has contributed to the reason why so many young adults can't afford a downpayment on their first home. A new study published by the Urban Institute says the current homeownership rate of young adults is 37%. That's 8% lower than the homeownership rate Generation X and baby boomers had at the same age. "If the homeownership rate for millennials had stayed the same as previous generations," the study noted, "there would be about 3.4 million more homeowners today."The study determined that 36% more graduates who had eliminated their debt (or never had any) owned a home and graduates who paid off their debt were 7x more likely to purchase a home.About 40% of millennials have student debt, according to the AARP, and Clever Real Estate says the student debt has delayed home buying by eight years for millennials. The Federal Reserve has said that "a $1,000 increase in student loan debt lowers the homeownership rate by about 1.5 percentage points for public 4-year college-goers during their mid-20s, equivalent to an average delay of 2.5 months in attaining homeownership." So that means with the average student about $37,0000 in debt, that's a 7.7-year delay in homebuying.

Doctors Argue Plans To Remedy Surprise Medical Bills Will ‘Shred’ The Safety Net - Chances are, you or someone you know has gotten a surprise medical bill. One in six Americans have received these unexpected and often high charges after getting medical care from a doctor or hospital that isn’t in their insurance network. It’s become a hot-button issue in Congress, and high-profile legislation has been introduced in both the House and Senate to make the medical providers and insurers address the billing question and take the consumers out of the dispute.  That means doctor specialty groups, hospitals and insurers are among the stakeholders that could be financially affected by the outcome.  The effort has caught the attention of Physicians for Fair Coverage, a coalition formed by large companies — firms such as US Acute Care Solutions, U.S. Anesthesia Partners and US Radiology Specialists — that serve as corporate umbrellas for medical practices. The group is running a $1.2 million national commercial about these congressional efforts. The ad began airing in mid-July. The ad issued a warning: “What Congress is considering would cut money that vulnerable patients rely on the most. That means seniors, children and Americans who rely on Medicaid would be hurt.” We wondered: Will any of the surprise billing proposals being debated in Congress really affect Medicaid and these patients — “shredding the safety net,” as the ad claims? So we dug in. We reached out to Physicians for Fair Coverage (PFC) to find out the basis for this claim, but the phone number listed on their website no longer worked. Several emails and a direct message on Twitter later, we connected with Forbes Tate Partners, the public relations firm that produced the ad. We were then referred to Megan Taylor, a spokeswoman for PFC. “When we talk about the safety-net, we’re talking about the health care system that the uninsured and underinsured rely on — like emergency departments, where two-thirds of the acute care is provided to uninsured Americans and where half of the acute care provided to Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program patients is delivered,” Taylor wrote in an email. To be sure, studies have shown that ERs see a large share of vulnerable patients. But independent experts we spoke with still didn’t follow the ad’s logic. “I’d like to think that I’m fairly well-informed about surprise billing legislation, but I’m struggling to understand what argument they are even trying to make here,” Benedic Ippolito, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who has testified before a Senate committee on this issue, wrote in an email.

 Too many female doctors go part-time or stop working — why that’s a big problem -Physicians aren’t immune to the trade-offs working women face, new research shows. Female doctors are more likely than their male peers to shift to part-time work or stop working a few years after completing their medical training, according to a recent study published in the journal JAMA Network Open. Women, moreover, are more likely than men to cite family as a consideration in determining their work status.Despite progress regarding gender roles and women’s workplace rights, the authors wrote, “today’s young women physicians still struggle to have it all and therefore reduce their work hours at substantially higher rates than men in an effort to reduce work-family conflict.”“It’s very common for people to see this and say some women are just choosing to put family first — which is wonderful and a great choice for anyone who wants to make that. But in reality, what we’re seeing is that often there isn’t choice,” lead study author Elena Frank, the director of the University of Michigan’s Intern Health Study, said in a statement. The U.S. is projected to experience a shortage of between 46,900 and 121,900 physicians in both primary care and specialty care by the year 2032, according to a report published in April by the Association of American Medical Colleges.The attrition of full-time female physicians could make matters even worse, the authors suggested, and not just because of the blow to leadership diversity in health care: Research shows that hospital patients treated by female doctors are less likely than those treated by male doctors to die or be readmitted within a month of being discharged. In fact, one 2018 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that female heart-attack patients had better survival rates when treated by female doctors than by male doctors. Female patients’ mortality rates decreased when their male doctors had more female colleagues, the research found, and when they had more experience caring for female patients.

Colorectal Cancer Rises Among Younger Adults - Colorectal cancer is typically considered a disease of aging — most new cases are diagnosed in people over age 50. But even as the rates decrease in older adults, scientists have documented a worrisome trend in the opposite direction among patients in their 20s and 30s.Now, data from national cancer registries in Canada add to the evidence that colorectal cancer rates are rising in younger adults. The increases may even be accelerating. “We thought that this trend would slow down or level off after people first noticed it a few years ago,” said Darren Brenner, a molecular cancer epidemiologist at the University of Calgary and lead author of the new study, published on Wednesday in the journal JAMA Network Open.“But every year we keep seeing the increase in colorectal cancer among young people, and it is very alarming.” Between 2006 and 2015, the last year for which figures are available, colorectal cancer rates increased by 3.47 percent among Canadian men under age 50, Dr. Brenner and his colleagues found. And from 2010 to 2015, rates increased by 4.45 percent among women under age 50. Yet colon and rectal cancers have been steadily decreasing among older adults in Canada because of increased awareness of the disease and widespread use of screening tests like colonoscopies, which can identify and remove colon polyps before cancer develops. The pattern is quite similar to that observed by researchers in the United States. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin reported last week that the proportion of newly diagnosed colorectal patients under age 50 rose from 10 percent in 2004 to 12.2 percent in 2015. Younger patients were also likely to have advanced cases more often than older patients.   Recent lifestyle changes may be partly to blame. Obesity and sedentary lifestyles, for example, are linked to colorectal cancer, as are poor diets low in fiber. Patients with chronic inflammation or Type 2 diabetes have also been found to be at increased risk for the disease. But experts are not entirely convinced these are the only factors at work. Trends in obesity among people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds don’t always correspond to an increase in colorectal cancer, according to Ms. Siegel.

Vaping Leads to 14 Hospitalizations in Two States -- The number of young people needing hospitalization due to vaping in Wisconsin and Illinois continues to climb after 14 young people in those two states were admitted for breathing problems, health officials from both states announced last week, as CNN reported.Seven other cases are also under investigation in Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Department of Health and Services said in a statement, while issuing a warning that the department strongly advises people to refrain from using e-cigarettes. The Centers for Disease Control has now joined the investigation.  All of the patients had severe lung damage, and presented with symptoms such as shortness of breath, fatigue, chest pain, and weight loss. The severity of illness has ranged, with some needing medical assistance to breathe. Most patients have improved, but it is unknown if they will suffer long-term effects from the damage, according to Gizmodo.Another Wisconsin man in his mid-20s was put in a medically induced coma after using a vape cartridge containing THC that he bought on the street, according to Fox6 News in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It caused trauma to his heart and lungs.The 11 teenagers who were hospitalized in Wisconsin were normally healthy teenagers, "and they were coming in with severe respiratory illnesses, and in some cases, they actually had to go to the intensive care unit and were placed on ventilators," said Thomas Haupt, a respiratory disease epidemiologist with Wisconsin's Department of Health Services, to CNN. In both Illinois and Wisconsin, doctors remain unclear what caused the severe respiratory reactions. The only link so far is vaping "but we don't know what they vaped, where they got their vaping liquids, all this needs to be determined at this point," said Haupt, as CNN reported.

 Cities again see more overdose deaths than country towns (AP) — U.S. drug overdose deaths had been most common in Appalachia and other rural areas in recent years, but they are back to being more concentrated in big cities, according to a government report Friday.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that both urban and rural overdose death rates have been rising, but the urban rate shot up more dramatically after 2015.That probably is due to a shift in the current overdose epidemic, said Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a drug policy expert at the University of California, San Francisco.The epidemic was initially driven by opioid pain pills, which were often as widely available in the country as in the city. But then many drug users shifted to heroin and fentanyl, and the illegal drug distribution system for those drugs is more developed in cities, Ciccarone said.Another possible explanation: rising overdose deaths among blacks and Hispanics, including those concentrated in urban areas, he added.“Early on, this was seen as an epidemic affecting whites more than other groups,” he said. “Increasingly, deaths in urban areas are starting to look brown and black.”

Double-Blind - LAST MONTH, researchers at King’s College London analyzed the DNA of nearly seventeen thousand people with anorexia as well as more than fifty-five thousand control subjects and discovered eight “risk loci” that were more common among anorexia sufferers than the control population. A locus is a position on a chromosome which correlates to one or several genes, and hence to a genetic attribute. In other words, the researchers effectively found a set of genetic attributes that anorexia sufferers were more likely to have. Depression, anxiety, and obsessive compulsive disorder were among them, which was expected. But so was the ability to burn fat more quickly, the natural propensity to do more physical activity, and increased resistance to type 2 diabetes. This study is just one of many recent developments in a very promising method of biomedical research known as the genome-wide association study (GWAS), in which scientists take a large sample of genetic data provided by healthy volunteers and people with a particular disease and analyze it to find genetic variations that are common in those with the disease.  In addition to anorexia, similar progress has been made for conditions like schizophrenia, heart disease, type 2 diabetes,skin cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, depression, andobesity, among others. PRS research has led to the prescription of statins, or cholesterol-lowering drugs, for patients at greater risk of heart disease before they begin to show symptoms. And recently, genome-sequencing was usedto screen 350 babies in the intensive care unit of a Cambridge Hospital for genetic defects: a quarter of them were found to have underlying conditions which could then be treated, and overall, the care plans were adjusted for 75 percent of the babies screened. The eventual routine implementation of PRS research into clinical practice will likely improve diagnosis times and change treatment plans, as these examples demonstrate.   But there is a catch. This groundbreaking research is relevant mostly to people of European descent. In short: white people. While every GWAS uses a vast amount of genetic data, it is often of European origin only. And while it is well known that findings from the genetic data of one ethnic group cannot be easily generalized to another population, the practice persists. This is acknowledged as a flaw by researchers in almost every study I consulted, and yet none had taken steps to mitigate it. Additionally, the disparity has hardly been reported on.

Florida health officials declare public health emergency for hepatitis A --  -Martin and Brevard counties are among 17 in Florida "critically impacted" by the hepatitis A virus.They're the main concern for Florida Department of Health officials and the reason the state's surgeon general declared a  'public health emergency' Thursday evening.Florida Surgeon General Dr. Scott Rivkees said Friday he believes the declaration will make people take the matter more seriously. The number of people diagnosed with hepatitis A in Florida keeps increasing, he said. A 'critically impacted' county has at least 10 cases per 100,000 people, said Emerson George, communications director for the state Department of Health. The 15 other counties are: Citrus, Glades, Hernando, Hillsborough, Lake, Liberty, Manatee, Marion, Okeechobee, Orange, Pasco, Pinellas, Sumter, Taylor, and Volusia, according to the Florida Department of Health. There are 2,034 hepatitis A cases statewide this year. Pasco County leads the state with 358 cases, followed by Pinellas with 328; Volusia with 179; Orange with 140 and Marion with 109, according to the state health department. Brevard County has 64 cases and St. Lucie County has 30 cases. Martin County, with 32 virus cases, also has had four deaths attributed to it. Friday, Indian River County joined them all in experiencing an 'outbreak' of the virus when health department officials in Vero Beach said a food service worker was diagnosed with the virus and is the county's fifth case. During a public health emergency, public and private places and businesses are asked to sanitize their bathrooms at least once per day with a solution of one and two-thirds cups of chlorine bleach per gallon of water or another cleaning product that specifically details it kills the virus.

 Philippines declares epidemic after more than 600 die from dengue fever - The Philippines declared a national epidemic Tuesday after an outbreak of dengue fever killed more than 622 people this year. There have been more than 146,062 cases of dengue recorded between January and June 20, according to the country’s health department. The department said that the number of recorded cases is 98 percent higher than the same period in 2018. Health Secretary Francisco Duque said it was important for local areas to access national funds to treat the outbreak and provide a “localized response” in a Tuesday news release. During the week of July 14 to July 20, the country documented 10,502 cases, 71 percent higher than the same period in 2018. The Western Visayas area of the country was hit hardest, with more than 23,000 documented cases. There were also large outbreaks in Calabarzon, the Zamboanga Peninsula and Northern Mindanao. The Health Department said Tuesday it is launching a program aimed at destroying mosquito breeding sites. Dengue is a viral infection spread by mosquitoes that can cause joint pain, vomiting, nausea and a rash. In extreme cases, it can cause breathing problems, hemorrhaging and organ failure, The Guardian reported. The dengue vaccine was outlawed in the country after 14 children died out of more than 800,000 who received it in 2016 and 2017. However, presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said the government may consider reintroducing the vaccine with the “utmost caution,” Reuters reported. Sanofi, the drug giant that developed the vaccine, has denied that the deaths were linked to the vaccine. However, Duque said that even if the vaccine was reimplemented, it would not be given to children. It is approved for children ages 9 and older.

No One Understands Lyme Disease  -- Lyme disease exposes how overrated medicine is. People have come to expect modern science to be able to detect and cure bacterial infections, at the very least – and yet for Lyme, a bacterial disease transmitted by ticks, the tests are shockingly inaccurate, and antibiotic treatment doesn’t always take away the often debilitating symptoms like joint pain, fatigue, brain fog and headaches. Some doctors admit they aren’t sure of the answer. Others, self-styled “Lyme literate” doctors, are stepping into the void, often diagnosing based on weak evidence and exposing patients to months or years of potentially harmful antibiotic therapies. Patients suffering mysterious symptoms can be forgiven for gravitating toward those providers who act like they are sure. The unrealistic expectations are part of the problem. A frank discussion is hampered by outrage and fear. Media reports often emphasize that the disease is on the rise, with 30,000 reported cases a year in the U.S. and an estimate that the real number is 10 times higher. Once endemic to New England, and named for a town in Connecticut, Lyme disease is spreading west, south and north. Climate change is blamed for its northward climb, but experts say changes in ecology may explain the expansion into warmer southern climates. A loss of biodiversity is favoring the rodents that provide steady hosts for the disease-carrying ticks. The good news is that most cases are curable with a course of antibiotics. But outrage followed when, in June, a piece in the New York Times tried to deliver that reassuring message. The author using her own 9-year-old son’s case as an anecdote. Some commenters said the story implied that all cases are curable, when in fact a substantial minority report persistent fatigue and other neurological symptoms.

 CDC Shuts Down Military Lab Studying Ebola, Plague Amid Fears It's Getting Out Through Wastewater -- The laboratory at Fort Detrick, the  U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, has been sent a cease-and-desist order by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention after a second inspection showed sloppy handling of deadly germs and viruses.The CDC inspected the military research institute in June and inspectors found several areas of concern in standard operating procedures, which are in place to protect workers in biosafety level 3 and 4 laboratories, spokeswoman Caree Vander Linden confirmed in an email Friday.The CDC sent a cease and desist order in July.After USAMRIID received the order from the CDC, its registration with the Federal Select Agent Program, which oversees disease-causing material use and possession, was suspended. That suspension effectively halted all biological select agents and toxin research at USAMRIID, Vander Linden said in her email. (source)  At this time “no infectious pathogens, or disease-causing material, have been found outside authorized areas.” The New York Times reports that the CDC could not provide more specific details due to “national security reasons.”  The laboratory, which is located in Frederick, Maryland, studies different deadly bugs for biological warfare purposes. They have failed inspection specifically by the Federal Select Agent Program, which oversees the possession, use and transfer of biological select agents and toxins that could potentially pose a severe threat to public, animal or plant health.   The suspension was due to multiple causes, including failure to follow local procedures and a lack of periodic recertification training for workers in the biocontainment laboratories, according to Vander Linden. The wastewater decontamination system also failed to meet standards set by the Federal Select Agent Program, Vander Linden said in a follow-up email. (source) It’s important to note that the USAMRIID facility was flooded in May of 2018. In May 2018, storms caused a flood at the Fort Detrick facility, seriously damaging its 10-year-old steam sterilization plant, which provides high-tech wastewater management. The plant was offline for months, and the incident resulted in upgraded biosafety procedures. But as Vander Linden told the Frederick News-Post, the new protocols significantly increased “operational complexity” at the facility. The CDC inspection found that the “new procedures were not being followed consistently,” along with the discovery of “mechanical problems with the chemical-based decontamination system, as well as leaks [inside the lab]. (source)

The Colorado Rapids casually let everyone know that the plague still exists in 2019 --Just after noon, the Colorado Rapids tweeted out a press release regarding their upcoming Saturday match, the post-game fireworks and parking situation:   Statement regarding tomorrow's match, fireworks and closures around @DSGpark due to plague.  Release: (link: http://bit.ly/Statement0802) bit.ly/Statement0802 FAQ: (link: http://bit.ly/RapidsFAQ0802) bit.ly/RapidsFAQ0802     It’s easy to miss at first, but once you come back to read the tweet again, you’ll notice the word “plague”, which seems like something that deserves more than a standard press release. In the linked article, the team says:“Following recommendations from the Tri-County Health Department and the City of Commerce City, the Colorado Rapids game with Montreal Impact on Saturday, August 3 at 7PM will go ahead as scheduled. However, it has been recommended that the post-game fireworks display be cancelled due to the confirmed presence of plague-infested fleas affecting prairie dog colonies in the surrounding areas. Additionally, in accordance with the Tri-County Health Department’s recommendation for the safety of all attendees, parking lots at DICK’S Sporting Goods Park will be restricted to asphalt lots until further notice.”   I admit that I don’t have the most in-depth knowledge about the conditions of many cities in America, or in the world, but I really thought that the plague was a thing that existed between the 6th and 14th century. Not in Denver, Colorado in 2019. And certainly not something that is affecting people going to soccer games.  “Yeah, all of eastern Colorado is basically a high prairie and we have prairie dogs like the south has kudzu. They get fleas that basically carry plague on them and every so often they have to do stuff like this so they don’t pass it on to humans.

Chipotle and Sweetgreen Bowls Contain Cancer-Linked ‘Forever Chemicals’ - Those popular burrito bowls at Chipotle and those takeaway salad bowls at Sweetgreens that see lunch rush lines going out the door and down the block have a dirty little secret, according to an independent investigation from the non-profit news site, New Food Economy. The plain, beige fiber bowls that are designed to withstand grease so they don't turn to mush when they get wet are touted for their durability and for being fully compostable. They are even certified by third-party groups like the Biodegradable Products Institute and they feel like they would turn back into dirt if they were mixed into a compost heap. Yet, New Food Economy, found that all of those molded fiber bowls contain PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. PFAs are a wide-range of more than 4,000 fluorinated compounds that do not biodegrade. The chemicals lining the bowls usurp the fully compostable claim, since those chemicals will never break down. When the bowls are tossed into a compost heap, the chemical leech into the ground. So, rather than make black gold for farmers, the bowls may actually be making toxic compost. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, PFAS are man-made chemicals that are "very persistent in the environment and in the human body — meaning they don't break down and they can accumulate over time," as People reported.   What does it mean for our health when we eat a salad off of a bowl lined with fluorinated compounds? That is not clear, but probably nothing. Exposure to the worst PFAS has been linked to kidney and testicular cancers as well as thyroid disorders and colitis, according to New Food Economy. Yet, those cancer-causing chemicals are either not present in the fiber bowls or they are not present at levels that approach toxicity. Furthermore, while the bowls contain the PFAS, any trace absorption into your food or onto your hands is minimal.

Vinyl gloves used at certain McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s locations may contain toxic chemicals linked to reproductive issues - Fast-food workers wear gloves to keep meals from getting contaminated, but those gloves can also contain chemicals that could be harmful to human health, according to a recent investigation.A national group of environmental organizations called the Coalition for Safer Food Processing and Packaging recently discovered a type of chemical called phthalates in vinyl gloves used at certain McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's locations. Phthalates have been found to interfere with the reproductive functions of both men and women and impede brain development in children.  The investigation used citizen science (informal research that usually has a limited sample size) to test more than 100 gloves made by more than 30 distributors and used across 15 restaurant chains in the US. The coalition found phthalates in gloves at a McDonald's and Wendy's in Michigan, another McDonald's in Maine, and a Burger King in Colorado. Workers at other locations of the same chains used gloves without any detectable levels of phthalates. The coalition also found that certain vinyl-glove brands produced some gloves with phthalates and others without.

Synthetic Polymer Contamination in Bottled Water - Abstract: Eleven globally sourced brands of bottled water, purchased in 19 locations in nine different countries, were tested for microplastic contamination using Nile Red tagging. Of the 259 total bottles processed, 93% showed some sign of microplastic contamination. After accounting for possible background (lab) contamination, an average of 10.4 microplastic particles >100 um in size per liter of bottled water processed were found. Fragments were the most common morphology (66%) followed by fibers. Half of these particles were confirmed to be polymeric in nature using FTIR spectroscopy with polypropylene being the most common polymer type (54%), which matches a common plastic used for the manufacture of bottle caps. A small fraction of particles (4%) showed the presence of industrial lubricants. While spectroscopic analysis of particles smaller than 100 um was not possible, the adsorption of the Nile Red dye indicates that these particles are most probably plastic. Including these smaller particles (6.5–100 um), an average of 325 microplastic particles per liter of bottled water was found. Microplastic contamination range of 0 to over 10,000 microplastic particles per liter with 95% of particles being between 6.5 and 100 um in size. Data suggests the contamination is at least partially coming from the packaging and/or the bottling process itself. Given the prevalence of the consumption of bottled water across the globe, the results of this study support the need for further studies on the impacts of micro- and nano- plastics on human health.

MAGA Supporters Clean 12 Tons Of Trash From West Baltimore Streets - According to WBAL-TV Baltimore, 300 volunteers on Aug. 5 took to the streets of northwest Baltimore, cleaning up trash from alleyways in an "Americans Helping Americans" event organized by conservative activist Scott Presler.Starting at 7 am at the intersection of North Fulton Avenue and Westwood Avenue (highest per capita homicide rate in the country), hundreds gathered to lend a hand in "Making Baltimore Great Again." About 12 hours later, volunteers collected more than 12 tons of trash, almost 1 ton per hour, in a massive cleanup effort in hopes to revive the dying city.Many of the volunteers were from other states, such as Ohio, and North Carolina, and most of them traveled from abroad because they heard about the cleanup effort on Presler's social media channels. "I never intended it to turn into a national event. It was never supposed to be this big," Presler told The Epoch Times. Presler, who said he is proud to wear the MAGA hat, is a grassroots right-wing activist who has several hundred thousand followers on social media."I'm a big Trump supporter, but I wanted people to know that's not the reason we're coming here today. This is not a pro-Trump rally, and this is not an anti-Rep. Cummings rally," Presler said. "This is truly the community coming together."  Some Baltimoreans were thankful for the cleanup effort since they said the city had neglected their neighborhoods for decades. Presler spoke with community members about the deteriorating city. He said, "the people of Baltimore love their country and love their city and 'they're proud to live there," but the government isn't doing anything to resolve the trash problem.  He put out a tweet on July 28 to his followers on Twitter, asking for help in the cleanup effort. By the 29th, he had nearly 100 volunteers from across the country. Presler kept the details of the cleanup effort secret, for fear that the far-left Antifa group might show up and cause trouble. He said there were no incidents during the event itself, apart from the fact that the cleanup team needed more dumpsters. Presler said city officials wouldn't grant him a permit to store dumpsters on the street."For 3 days, we respectfully called the office asking for an update," he said in an Aug. 7 tweet. "The city of Baltimore never approved the permits, so we did it, anyway." Presler said a second cleanup effort in the city could be imminent and already has 30 volunteers. People have been reaching out to him in deindustrialized areas across the country who want to start similar efforts.

Record-Setting Harmful Algae Blooms in New Jersey's Largest Lake - Less than a week after the official start of summer, New Jersey's largest lake was shut down by state officials due to a harmful algae bloom. Now, well into the heart of summer, Lake Hopatcong remains closed. And, several other lakes that have seen their waters turn green due to a rise in cyanobacteria have also been shut down, including Budd Lake and parts of Greenwood Lake.  Summer economies have been shattered by New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection warnings about the blue-green algae. Lakeside rentals, swimming instructors, sailing teachers, boat rental operators, mini-golf clerks, ice cream vendors and many others who depend on a seasonal income have seen their bottom line decimated by the beach closures, according to the New York Times.  The warning for Greenwood Lake was issued in mid-July, but triggered the cancellation of the lake's annual powerboat race during the last weekend in August.   Cyanobacteria, DEP officials warn, produce toxins that can cause skin irritation, stomach cramps, vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, fever, sore throat, headache, muscle and joint pain, blisters of the mouth and liver damage, as the Morristown Daily Record reported.  This summer has seen an unusually intense wave of algae blooms that have shutdown lakes in the Pacific Northwest and every beach on the Mississippi Gulf coast. Scientists say the climate crisis is probably a factor in the increase of cyanobacteria, which can grow in dense clusters and produce toxic substances. An increase in the frequency and intensity of rainstorms has pushed fertilizer runoff into waterways. Add to that hot, sunny days and the conditions are set for a harmful algae bloom, which are appearing more frequently and earlier in the season, according to the New York Times.

'Alarming' Explosion of Toxic Pesticide Use Causing Insect Apocalypse in United States: Study - The rapid and dangerous decline of the insect population in the United States—often called an "insect apocalypse" by scientists—has largely been driven by an increase in the toxicity of U.S. agriculture caused by the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, according to astudy published Tuesday in the journal PLOS One.   The study found that American agriculture has become 48 times more toxic to insects over the past 25 years and pinned 92 percent of the toxicity increase on neonicotinoids, which were banned by the European Union last year due to the threat they pose to bees and other pollinators.Kendra Klein, Ph.D., study co-author and senior staff scientist at Friends of the Earth, said the United States must follow Europe's lead and ban the toxic pesticides before it is too late."It is alarming that U.S. agriculture has become so much more toxic to insect life in the past two decades," Klein said in a statement. "We need to phase out neonicotinoid pesticides to protect bees and other insects that are critical to biodiversity and the farms that feed us."  "Congress must pass the Saving America's Pollinators Act to ban neonicotinoids," Klein added. "In addition, we need to rapidly shift our food system away from dependence on harmful pesticides and toward organic farming methods that work with nature rather than against it."According to National Geographic, neonics "are used on over 140 different agricultural crops in more than 120 countries. They attack the central nervous system of insects, causing overstimulation of their nerve cells, paralysis, and death." With insect populations declining due to neonic use, "the numbers of insect-eating birds have plummeted in recent decades," National Geographic reported. "There's also been a widespread decline in nearly all bird species." As Common Dreams reported in February, scientists warned in a global analysis that by decimating insect populations, widespread use of pesticides poses a serious threat to the planet's ecosystems and ultimately to the survival of humankind.

Insect Apocalypse- US Farmland 48 Times More Toxic To Insects Than 25 Years Ago – A new study shows how "insect apocalypse" is unfolding across America's farmland since neonicotinoid pesticides were introduced several decades ago. Researchers found that farmland across the country is 48 times more toxic to insect life than 25 years ago, and neonicotinoid pesticides account for a large majority of the increase in toxicity. "It is alarming that US agriculture has become so much more toxic to insect life in the past two decades," said Kendra Klein, Ph.D., study co-author and senior staff scientist at Friends of the Earth."We need to phase out neonicotinoid pesticides to protect bees and other insects that are critical to biodiversity and the farms that feed us." Published in the journal PLOS ONE on Tuesday, the new study is a complete assessment of pesticide usage on farmland in the US, is the first study in the world to quantify how dangerous fields have become for insects by providing YoY changes in toxicity levels of the soil. The increased toxic load measured in the study could explain why insect populations are collapsing in the US.  Klein said neonicotinoids are more toxic for insects than traditional pesticides and are widely used by farmers. These dangerous chemicals can remain in the soil for months to years after one application."Congress must pass the Saving America's Pollinators Act to ban neonicotinoids," said Klein."In addition, we need to rapidly shift our food system away from dependence on harmful pesticides and toward organic farming methods that work with nature rather than against it." The study suggests neonicotinoids are a major factor in the recent decline of insects, along with climate change and habitat destruction, leading scientist to warn of an "insect apocalypse."

A Crashed Israeli Lunar Lander Spilled Tardigrades on the Moon - IT WAS JUST before midnight on April 11 and everyone at the Israel Aerospace Industries mission control center in Yehud, Israel, had their eyes fixed on two large projector screens. On the left screen was a stream of data being sent back to Earth by Beresheet, its lunar lander, which was about to become the first private spacecraft to land on the moon. The right screen featured a crude animation of Beresheet firing its engines as it prepared for a soft landing in the Sea of Serenity. But only seconds before the scheduled landing, the numbers on the left screen stopped. Mission control had lost contact with the spacecraft, and it crashed into the moon shortly thereafter. Half a world away, Nova Spivack watched a livestream of Beresheet’s mission control from a conference room in Los Angeles. As the founder of the Arch Mission Foundation, a nonprofit whose goal is to create “a backup of planet Earth,” Spivack had a lot at stake in the Beresheet mission. The spacecraft was carrying the foundation’s first lunar library, a DVD-sized archive containing 30 million pages of information, human DNA samples, and thousands oftardigrades, those microscopic “water bears” that can survive pretty much any environment—including space.  But when the Israelis confirmed Beresheet had been destroyed, Spivack was faced with a distressing question: Did he just smear the toughest animal in the known universe across the surface of the moon?  In the weeks following the Beresheet crash, Spivack pulled together the Arch Mission Foundation’s advisers in an attempt to determine whether the lunar library had survived the crash. Based on their analysis of the spacecraft’s trajectory and the composition of the lunar library, Spivack says he is quite confident that the library—a roughly DVD-sized object made of thin sheets of nickel—survived the crash mostly or entirely intact. In fact, the decision to include DNA samples and tardigrades in the lunar library may have been key to its survival.

New IPCC Report Warns of Vicious Cycle Between Soil Degradation and Climate Change - This Real News Network interview with Greenpeace’s Diana Ruiz discusses the new IPCC Climate report, “Climate Change and Land,” which issues a dire warning about how climate change and destructive land use reinforce each other, leading to serious threats for soil quality and hence human survival.

Top climate change scientist quits USDA, says Trump administration tried to bury his study -A top climate scientist is quitting the Department of Agriculture (USDA), accusing the Trump administration of attempting to bury a report he authored about rising carbon dioxide levels affecting rice yields, Politico reported Monday.  Lewis Ziska, a 62-year-old plant physiologist who has worked at the USDA for over 20 years, told the outlet that department officials not only questioned the findings of the study but also tried to suppress press coverage of it. “You get the sense that things have changed, that this is not a place for you to be exploring things that don't agree with someone's political views,” he said in an interview. “That's so sad. I can't even begin to tell you how sad that is.”Ziska's study found that rising carbon dioxide levels were causing rice to lose nutrients.A USDA spokesperson told The Hill in a statement that objections to promoting Ziska's rice study were based on scientific disagreement, not political considerations. “This was a joint decision by ARS national program leaders — all career scientists — not to send out a press release on this paper,” the spokesperson said, citing three concerns with the data used in the report.  "USDA is not suppressing climate change research," they added.The move comes as USDA is already losing a large portion of its scientists and research staff as it uproots two research-focused agencies from Washington, D.C. to the Kansas City area. Nearly two-thirds of staff have said they will not make the move.Ziska is not the first administration official to resign over claims that the administration is censoring climate science. Last week, an intelligence analyst at the State Department said he left his post after officials blocked his congressional testimony about the national security implications of climate change. A National Park Service (NPS) employee had stepped forward just a week before, alleging she lost her job after refusing to remove mentions of the human causes of climate change from a peer-reviewed paper before it was published.

Nutrient deficiencies in rice grown under higher carbon dioxide could elevate health risks for tens of millions - As a result of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, Earth is experiencing many discernable changes, such as melting glaciers, higher global sea levels, and an overall greening of the planet. But increasing carbon dioxide concentrations are also causing many invisible effects, including detrimental changes to the nutritional content of food. In the past decade both laboratory and free-air studies have shown that crops of many dietary staples, including wheat, barley, rice, potatoes, and soybeans, develop lower concentrations of iron, zinc, protein, and other nutrients crucial to human health when they are grown under elevated levels of carbon dioxide. However, the specific implications of these changes for global health have been difficult to estimate, in part because these calculations are based upon experimental data that can take years to generate. Now a recent study in the AGU journal GeoHealth finds declines in B-vitamin concentrations in rice grown under elevated carbon dioxide concentrations may increase the future health risks of large numbers of people around the globe. B vitamins, including thiamin (B-1), riboflavin (B-2), and folate (B-9), are important nutrients that support many bodily functions, including healthy cell metabolism and brain function. They also help prevent infections, and regulate hormone and cholesterol production. Many developing countries depend on rice as a primary source of many B vitamins. As a result of the projected changes in B vitamins in rice, "tens of millions of people will be at risk of developing new B-vitamin deficiencies, with all the health implications that come with them,"   With those losses averaging 17 to 30 percent—much higher than what has been observed for other nutrients in rice—the researchers wondered what the health implications would be for what Smith described as "the single-most important food calorically in the world."

Mekong River at its lowest in 100 years, threatening food supply -- A SEVERE DROUGHT that has caused water levels in Southeast Asia’s Mekong River to drop to their lowest in more than 100 years could have devastating consequences for fish, as well as the tens of millions of people living and working along the river, experts warn.The crisis began when critical monsoon rains, which usually start in late May in the Mekong region, failed to arrive. Dry conditions, driven by the El Niñoweather phenomenon and exacerbated by climate change, persisted well into July. At that time, observers say, the situation was made worse byhydropower dam operators upstream, in China and Laos, withholding water for their own purposes.Although the rains finally began to fall in the last week in much of the river basin, with water levels now slowly rising, experts warn that the potential damage from the drought could be worse than in 2016, when another drought caused forest fires around Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia and widespread disruptions to food production.  Many rice farmers in the region have been unable to plant their main crop, raising fears of a heavily diminished harvest this fall. Less water flow could also have a devastating impact on fish reproduction in the Mekong River basin. This is normally the time when fish use rising water levels as a cue to spawn and to disperse their young, but there is little evidence of this happening so far this year. Perhaps even more alarming, experts expect that droughts and disruptions to the water flow of the Mekong will become more common, and they warn that it could eventually lead to the collapse of the entire ecosystem. “With the completion of more mainstream dams and the cumulative effects of climate change, that tipping point” for when the Mekong can no longer sustain these changes “may be coming closer,”  Few rivers in the world rise and fall with the seasons as much as the Mekong, which can drop up to 40 feet in some places at the end of the dry season. When the monsoon rains arrive, they normally produce a flood pulse that brings with it sediment essential to agriculture as well as enormous amounts of larvae and tiny fish, including many critically endangered species such as the Mekong giant catfish, that are swept into the Tonle Sap Lake and other floodplains where they can mature.  “Without the flood pulse, fish may delay or skip spawning,” says Zeb Hogan, a National Geographic Explorer and fish biologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, who leads a USAID project called Wonders of the Mekong. “For rare and endangered species, this situation threatens their survival, and for commercially important fish species, future harvests could be significantly reduced.”

Damming the Mekong Basin to Environmental Hell - Major dam construction projects have become a favorite pastime of some autocratic governments, with China leading the way. But, far from protecting against water shortages, as supporters promise, large dams are contributing to river depletion and severely exacerbating parched conditions. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the basin of the Mekong River, which is running at a historically low level. Known as the “mother of waters” in Laos and Thailand, the Mekong flows from the Chinese-controlled Tibetan Plateau to the South China Sea, through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Farmers in the river basin, Asia’s Rice Bowl, produce enough rice to feed 300 million people per year. The basin also boasts the world’s largest inland fishery, accounting for an estimated 25% of the global freshwater catch.This vital waterway is now under threat, largely owing to a series of Chinese-built mega-dams near the border of the Tibetan Plateau, just before the river crosses into Southeast Asia. The 11 dams currently in operation have a total electricity-generating capacity of 21,300 megawatts – more than the installed hydropower capacity of all the downriver countriescombined. And they are wreaking environmental, economic, and geopolitical havoc. For starters, by reducing the flow of freshwater and nutrient-rich sediment from the Himalayas into the sea, these mega-dams are causing a retreat of the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam. The resulting seawater intrusion is forcing rice farmers to switch to shrimp farming or growing reeds. Moreover, according to a Mekong River Commission study, hydropower development through 2040 – which includes several more Chinese mega-dams under construction or planned – will result in a 40-80% decline in fish stocks (by biomass). Migratory fish will disappear across much of the basin, which presently is second only to the Amazon in terms of fish species diversity. Dams are also disrupting the Mekong’s annual flooding cycle, which helps to refertilize farmland naturally by spreading nutrient-rich silt, besides opening giant fish nurseries. Earlier this summer, China’s maintenance work on its Jinghong Dam resulted in the release of torrents of water. The resulting floods in Thailand and Laos destroyed crops and disrupted fish, damaging local people’s livelihoods.

Trump administration authorizes 'cyanide bombs' to kill wild animals --The Trump administration has reauthorized government officials to use controversial poison devices – dubbed “cyanide bombs” by critics – to kill coyotes, foxes and other animals across the US. The spring-loaded traps, called M-44s, are filled with sodium cyanide and are most frequently deployed by Wildlife Services, a federal agency in the US Department of Agriculture that kills vast numbers of wild animals each year, primarily for the benefit of private farmers and ranchers. In 2018, Wildlife Services reported that its agents had dispatched more than 1.5 million native animals, from beavers to black bears, wolves, ducks and owls. Roughly 6,500 of them were killed by M-44s. On Tuesday, after completing the first phase of a routine review, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would allow sodium cyanide’s continued use in M-44s across the country on an interim basis.

 3 Southern Resident Orcas Missing, Presumed Dead --  The extremely endangered population of Southern Resident killer whales off the coast of Washington and British Columbia fell to 73 after 3 orcas went missing, the Center for Whale Research said in a statement.The Washington state-based research center takes an annual survey of the killer whale population from the extremely endangered pods that once frequented the Salish Sea in southwestern Canada and northwestern Washington daily in the summer months. Now, the declining Chinook salmon stocks means the whales are rarely seen and are starving to death, as CNN reported. "They aren't getting their prey, and that's the problem," said Michael Weiss, a field biologist with the Center for Whale Research, to CNN. Weiss said this problem started in the 90s when the population was around 100 whales, but it has been in a steady decline ever since.  "It is right inline with the trajectory that has been predicted for several years," said Howard Garrett, co-founder and board president of Orca Network on Whidbey Island, Washington, as the Global News in Canada reported. "It's very, very sad. These are known individuals. People care about them, we've gotten to know them over many, many years and we know their family lines … and now we'll see them never again." "I predicted we would be in this fix," said Ken Balcomb, founding director of the Center for Whale Research, as the Seattle Times reported. "Until we solve this food issue, we will keep going through this trauma, getting all excited when there is a baby and all upset when there is a death. We have to take care of the food problem."

Ocean Heat Waves Kill Coral Instantly, Study Finds - Marine heat waves are increasing in frequency, duration and intensity, which spell trouble for corals, according to new research from scientists working at the Great Barrier Reef. The increased frequency in heat waves is a direct byproduct of the climate crisis the scientists say, as theBBC reported. The researchers knew that oceanic heat waves contributed to coral degradation, or bleaching, where the coral sheds the colorful algae covering and nourishing it and the coral slowly starves. What surprised the scientists was just how rapidly they died off when they experience a heat wave, according to Agence France Presse.  Yet, while corals can often regenerate after a bleaching event once ocean temperatures are more hospitable to the corals' symbiotic algae, heat waves that come on rapidly and linger are separate existential event that cause immediate death. Reefs will also have to weather extreme marine heat waves, which is "a distinct biological phenomenon from bleaching events," according to the study's authors, led by William Leggat, a coral reef expert at the University of Newcastle in Australia, as Vice's Motherboard reported. "Now, we see there is also a temperature at which the coral animal itself suffers from heat-induced mortality," explained co-author Tracy Ainsworth, a marine biologist at the University of New South Wales, in an email, as reported by Vice. "This isn't starvation, this is the animal itself undergoing mortality directly from the heat of the water."

"Ocean heatwaves that WIPE OUT marine life are occurring at double the rate experts had expected, a study shows."OCEAN heatwaves that wipe out marine life are occurring at double the rate experts had expected, a study shows. The extreme warm spells — thought to be linked to global climate change — can last for months, killing fish and crustaceans and destroying coral reefs and kelp forests. The new study warns that damage they cause to ecosystems is harming fishing and aquaculture industries. Lead author Dr Andrew Pershing, chief scientific officer at the US Gulf of Maine Research Institute, said: ‘Across the 65 ecosystems we examined, we expected about six or seven of them would experience these “surprises” each year. ‘Instead, we’ve seen an average of 12 ecosystems experiencing these warming events each year over the past seven years, including a high of 23 “surprises” in 2016.’ In 2018, the water temperature off San Diego hit a record 27.3C — the highest figure on the Californian coast since records began more than a century ago. In 2016 and 2017, high temperatures killed half of the shallow water corals of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. A huge patch of warm water, a third the size of the US, formed in the Gulf of Alaska in 2013. Dubbed The Blob, it wiped out fish, birds and whales. Previous research has shown the number of ocean heatwaves doubled between 1982 and 2016.

Green Turtles Are Mistaking Plastic for the Sea Grass They Normally Eat -- Endangered green turtles are having a problem. They're mistaking plastic pollution for the seaweed they survive on, according to new research from the University of Exeter in the UK and the Society for the Protection of Turtles in Cyprus, as Newsweek reported. Green sea turtles use their eyesight to find food, so long, thin bits of green, black or clear plastic that resemble sea grass deceived many turtles. And, the younger they were, the more likely they were to mistake plastic for their dietary staple, study reported. The paper was published in the journal Scientific Reports. Black trash bags, fragments of fishing ropes and takeaway bags all have the potential to confuse turtles, theBBC reported. "Previous research has suggested leatherback turtles eat plastic that resembles their jellyfish prey, and we wanted to know whether a similar thing might be happening with green turtles," said Dr. Emily Duncan, of the University of Exeter who was the paper's lead author, in a statement. "Sea turtles are primarily visual predators — able to choose foods by size and shape — and in this study we found strong evidence that green turtles favor plastic of certain sizes, shapes and colors."  The researchers studied of 34 turtles that had washed up on the beaches of the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus. They were able to look at the insides of 19 turtles. All of them had swallowed plastic. One had swallowed 183 pieces of plastic, the BBC reported. The plastic crisis is particularly troubling for younger turtles, which ate more plastic than the older ones, possibly because they were "less experienced" and so "more likely to eat the wrong food," the study said.

Rivers of Dust: Water and the Middle East - It is written that “Enannatum, ruler of Lagash,” slew “60 soldiers” from Umma. The battle between the two ancient city states took place 4,500 years ago near where the great Tigris and Euphrates rivers come together in what is today Iraq. The matter in dispute? Water. More than four millennia have passed since the two armies clashed over one city state’s attempt to steal water from another, but while the instruments of war have changed, the issue is much the same: whoever controls the rivers controls the land. And those rivers are drying up, partly because of overuse and wastage, and partly because climate change has pounded the region with punishing multi-year droughts. Syria and Iraq are at odds with Turkey over the Tigris-Euphrates. Egypt’s relations with Sudan and Ethiopia over the Nile are tense. Jordan and the Palestinians accuse Israel of plundering river water to irrigate the Negev Desert and hogging most of the three aquifers that underlie the occupied West Bank. According to satellites that monitor climate, the Tigris-Euphrates Basin, embracing Turkey, Syria, Iraq and western Iran, is losing water faster than any other area in the world, with the exception of Northern India. The Middle East’s water problems are hardly unique. South Asia—in particular the Indian sub-continent—is also water stressed, and Australia and much of Southern Africa are experiencing severe droughts. Even Europe is struggling with some rivers dropping so low as to hinder shipping. But the Middle East has been particularly hard hit. According to the Water Stress Index, out of 37 countries in the world facing “extremely high” water distress, 15 are in the Middle East, with Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia heading the list. For Syria and Iraq, the problem is Turkey and Ankara’s mania for dam building. Since 1975, Turkish dams have reduced the flow of water to Syria by 40 percent and to Iraq by 80 percent. According to the Iraqi Union of Farming Associations, up to 50 percent of the country’s agricultural land could be deprived of water, removing 124 million acres from production.

A Fourth of the World Is Living Under Extreme Water Stress, Says New Research - One quarter of the world's population are living in areas where the competition for water resources is extreme, according to a new report from the Washington-based global research group World Resource Institute (WRI), as The Guardian reported.  Around the world 17 countries, including India, which is home to 1.3 billion people, face extreme water stress. That means, "irrigated agriculture, industries and municipalities withdraw more than 80 percent of their available supply on average every year," the WRI report said. "Such a narrow gap between supply and demand leaves countries vulnerable to fluctuations like droughts or increased water withdrawals," the report said, as Deutsche Welle reported. The report cautioned that increased water stress and the climate crisis could lead to more "day zeroes," a term that was coined when Cape Town, South Africa approached the brink of completely running out of potable water, according to The Guardian"The picture is alarming in many places around the globe, but it's very important to note that water stress is not destiny," said Betsy Otto, WRI's global water director, to The Guardian. "What we can't afford to do any longer is pretend that the situation will resolve itself."In addition to the 17 countries facing extreme water stress, New Mexico ranked on par with the United Arab Emirates and Eritrea in Africa as the only state with extremely high pressures on its water system.After New Mexico, California ranked second with its water pressure under high stress. It was followed by Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska.Looking at the global picture, Qatar, with a total score of 4.97 on a scale of 5, tops the list of 17 extremely high water-stressed countries. It is followed by Israel, Lebanon, Iran, Jordan, Libya, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Eritrea, UAE, San Marino, Bahrain, India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Oman and Botswana. The Middle East and North Africa are home to 12 of the 17 countries suffering from extreme stress. Additionally, another 27 countries make up the "high baseline water stress" list.

 UK: Major flooding narrowly averted after Toddbrook dam collapse - Around 1,500 residents of Whaley Bridge returned to their homes Tuesday and Wednesday after being evacuated for almost a week due to the partial collapse of a reservoir wall. Whaley Bridge is a small town in England’s Peak District national park that lies just below a dam that supports up to 1.2 million tons of water constituting the 0.5km long Toddbrook reservoir. It only became known that the dam was in danger of collapse on August 1, following several days of heavy rain. A Canal & River Trust (CRT) employee working alone noticed the force of the water cascading over a section of the concrete spillway had led to cracks and a partial break away. Barry Rudd, a trust volunteer, said he arrived at the dam at midday to find the employee “desperately trying to reduce the levels by opening the valves. He was running up and down the reservoir with a rake clearing debris and adjusting and tracking the valves, but there was just so much water coming over the top it began to wash away the clay wall.” Once the danger was apparent, up to 6,500 residents were evacuated from the town and nearby Furness Vale and New Mills. The entire area was cut off for days. The Peak District lies between Manchester and Sheffield and the heavy rainfall and flooding resulted in the only rail line between the two cities being closed for five days after being declared unsafe. A huge logistical operation involved workers labouring around the clock to prevent the dam bursting, which saved Whaley Bridge from severe flooding as well as other towns and villages further downstream. Part of the operation required fire and rescue workers to pump vast amounts of water out of the reservoir into the River Goyt. The operation was hindered due to some of the huge infrastructure cuts imposed over the last decade. In the first critical hours, only one industrial pump was available. Eventually more were secured, enabling around one billion litres of water to be pumped out in four days. A Royal Air Force helicopter was deployed to drop over 1,000 sandbags and 600 bags of aggregate to plug the gap in the dam’s defences, after which construction workers poured in concrete to create a temporary seal.

SC built 1,200 houses in flood-prone coastal areas. And sea levels keep rising. Despite rising seas and increasing storm threats, South Carolina residents have built more than 1,200 homes since 2010 in areas of the coast that are forecast to flood more often in coming decades, a new study says. Most of the new homes, valued at $1.3 billion, were clustered in Charleston County, the historic but increasingly storm soaked community that has attracted hordes of new residents in recent years. The city of Charleston already is dealing with floods that occur on sunny days because of rising sea levels.But Charleston and South Carolina aren’t alone in seeing new construction in areas expected to flood more often, says the study by a climate science group and a national real estate corporation’s research division.Nationally, nearly 20,000 homes have been built since 2010 in coastal areas that will become increasingly prone to flooding by the middle of the century, according to Climate Central and Zillow’s report. In North Carolina, 1,910 homes have been built since 2010 that face increased flood risks in the future, the report said. Both Carolinas rank in the top 10 in new home construction in high-risk areas. The issue should be of concern to people who live on the coast or are thinking of moving there: lives will be threatened by higher water, and property values of the new houses will suffer because of the threat of flooding, according to Climate Central and Zillow. At the same time, taxpayers from across the country are potentially on the hook to bail out property owners if a major storm destroys the new houses. “This research suggests that the impact of climate change on the lives and pocketbooks of homeowners is closer than you think,’’ Skylar Olsen, Zillow’s economic research director said in a news release this week.

The Gulf Stream is slowing down. That could mean rising seas and a hotter Florida The Gulf Stream, the warm current that brings the east coast of Florida the mixed blessings of abundant swordfish, mild winters and stronger hurricanes, may be weakening because of climate change. Visible from the air as a ribbon of cobalt blue water a few miles off the coast, the Gulf Stream forms part of a clockwise system of currents that transports warm water from the tropics up the east coast and across the Atlantic to northwestern Europe. In the frigid climate near Greenland, the water cools, sinks and flows south again, rolling through the deep ocean toward the tropics. This marine circulatory system has reached its weakest point in 1,600 years, recent studies show, having lost about 15% of its strength since the mid-20th century. Scientists disagree on whether climate change or natural cycles account for the slowdown. But a consensus has emerged that climate change will lead to a slower Gulf Stream system in the future, as melting ice sheets in Greenland disrupt the system with discharges of cold fresh water. A weaker Gulf Stream would mean higher sea levels for Florida's east coast. It could lead to colder winters in northern Europe (one reason many scientists prefer the term climate change to global warming). And it could mean that a lot of the heat that would have gone to Europe would stay along the U.S. east coast and in Florida. "If you slow down the sinking of water in the North Atlantic, that means you have a pileup of waters along the eastern seaboard of the United States and the Gulf of Mexico," said Brenda Ekwurzel, director of climate science for the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group. "That means that you have increased regional sea level rise just from that ocean circulation change. So that's not good for New York City, Norfolk or along Florida." "Your cooling mechanism to get that water to the north is slowing down," she said. "This slowing down of your natural air conditioning, by getting that hot water from the Gulf Stream flowing northward, means that you have that hotter water sticking around and not getting out of your region as fast." It's unclear the extent to which any weakening has reached the system's southern leg off Florida, also known as the Florida current. That current is driven partly by winds and partly by the pull from the sinking of cold water in the north. While less visible than beaches and sunshine, the current plays a powerful role in establishing Florida's identity. "It's one of the things that makes fishing so good here, the ability of the Gulf Stream to bring in migratory fish,"

July equaled, and maybe surpassed, the hottest month in recorded history - According to new data from the World Meteorological Organization and Copernicus Climate Change Programme, July at least equalled, if not surpassed, the hottest month in recorded history. This follows the warmest ever June on record. The data from the Copernicus Climate Change Programme, run by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, is fed into the UN system by WMO. The figures show that, based on the first 29 days of the month, July 2019 will be on par with, and possibly marginally warmer than the previous warmest July, in 2016, which was also the warmest month ever. The latest figures are particularly significant because July 2016 was during one of the strongest occurrence of the El Niño phenomenon, which contributes to heightened global temperatures. Unlike 2016, 2019 has not been marked by a strong El Niño. “All of this means that we are on track for the period from 2015 to 2019 to be the five hottest years on record. This year alone, we have seen temperature records shattered from New Delhi to Anchorage, from Paris to Santiago, from Adelaide and to the Arctic Circle. If we do not take action on climate change now, these extreme weather events are just the tip of the iceberg. And, indeed, the iceberg is also rapidly melting,” Mr Guterres said.Exceptional heat has been observed across the globe in recent week, with a string of European countries logging record highs temperatures that have caused disruption to transport and infrastructure and stress on people's health and the environment. As the heat dome spread northwards through Scandinavia and towards Greenland, it accelerated the already above average rate of ice melt.

July 2019 Was World's Hottest Month Ever Recorded --July 2019 was the warmest month globally ever recorded, according to data released on Monday by the European Union's climate change agency.  "While July is usually the warmest month of the year for the globe, according to our data it also was the warmest month recorded globally, by a very small margin," Jean-Noel Thepaut, head of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a statement."With continued greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting impact on global temperatures, records will continue to be broken in the future."July 2019 was slightly warmer, by 0.04 degrees Celsius (0.072 Fahrenheit), than the previous record, which was set three years ago. Extreme heat was felt across Europe last month. Germany recorded 42 degrees Celsius, its highest temperature since records began, and Paris also endured its hottest day on record. Robert Vautard of the Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace, a research institute that looks into climate science, said the heat wave "was so extreme over continental Western Europe that the observed magnitudes would have been extremely unlikely without climate change." At the beginning of last month the EU's agency announced it had been the hottest June ever recorded.  The European Union's satellite-based observation network said on their website: "The latest data show that this year continues to bring record-breaking temperatures. Every month in 2019 has ranked among the four warmest for the month in question, and June was the warmest June ever recorded. It is now confirmed that July was also an exceptional month."

Earth’s Hottest Month Lights a Fire for Progress --July 2019 was the hottest month in recorded human history, with record-breaking temperatures in many parts of Europe, wildfires raging over tens of thousands of square miles of Arctic Alaska and Russia, and a staggering ice melt in Greenland that dumped 197 billion gallons of water into the ocean — 12.5 billion tons of which melted over a single day. All the while, the Trump administration has been actively suppressing climate science while pushing scientists and other officials out of their jobs. It also proposed weakening coal-burning power plant emissions rules,relaxed sage-grouse protection in land coveted by energy developers, continued to weaken protections for Bears Ears National Monument, and greenlit a controversial plan to allow drilling in Alaska's Cook Inlet that could harm beluga whales and other marine mammals.The administration also appointed William Perry Pendley, a staunch foe of America's public lands, as acting head of the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees 250 million acres. The appointment could set the stage for the liquidation of public lands and unfettered fossil-fuel development around the country, further driving greenhouse gas emissions fueling the climate crisis. Oh yeah, and Trump's reelection campaign also started selling plastic straws to "own the libs." And internationally, Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — often referred to as the "Trump of the South" — fired the head of the agency responsible for tracking deforestation in the Amazon, which has increased sharply under that administration. Again, this will have a devastating effect on the climate, not to mention the wildlife and Indigenous peoples who live in these forests. On the other side of the equation, Extinction Rebellion and other activist groups continued to pick up steam.  Utilities are closing coal plants, investment banks are pulling out of fossil-fuel projects, and a major credit ratings agency has started to pay attention to climate risks.

57 Dead, 18,000 Hospitalized in Japan Heat Wave -  - While the worst of this summer's heat seems to have passed in the U.S. and Europe, Japan is in the throes of a dangerous heat wave. The end of the rainy season last week brought a dangerous heat wave that claimed the lives of 57 people in Japan and sent tens of thousands to the island nation's hospitals for heat related illness, the Japan Timesr eported. The week that started on July 29 saw triple the number of heat-related hospitalizations as the week before. At 18,347, that's the second highest number since heat-related records started in 2008, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency, as the Japan Times reported.The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said the surge in hospitalizations, deaths and people collapsing from heat stroke is partly due to people's bodies, which adapted to the cool weather of the rainy season and did not sweat much, have been unable to cope with the sudden spike in temperature, according to the Japan News.The JMA said a seasonal rain front lingered over Honshu from late June to mid-July. Plus, a high pressure system in the Sea of Okhotsk also brought cold winds from the north, resulting in cloudy, cool weather across the country, as the Japan News reported. That ended abruptly.From July 1 to July 23, one person died in Japan from heat stroke. The following week, the official end of the rainy season, saw 11 deaths when temperatures reached 98.6 degrees in central Japan, according to theJMA. Last week when 57 people died, temperatures in Kumagaya City and Isesaki City reached 101 degrees, while Fukushima and Osaka registered readings of 98 and Tokyo 95, according to the UPI. While Japan suffered from more hot temperatures today, Japanese authorities asked residents to stay cool and hydrated since the heat is expected to last until September.

 Indonesian president hands over management of forests to indigenous people -- Indonesia has had a long history of conflict over control of its massive areas of tropical forests that are spread across the many thousands of islands that make up the archipelagic nation. Declaration under former Dutch colonial rule of state ownership of all forests was rarely accepted by the millions of people who lived in them and who had managed them sustainably for centuries. Widodo’s recent formal handover of titles is a highly symbolic step in the long fight for recognition by indigenous communities, whose customary rights remained contested by the new nationalist government after independence in 1945 despite being enshrined in the founding constitution. The islands now known as Indonesia have long been home to thousands of distinct ethnic groups with their own languages, customs and identity. “The recognition of customary management of forests is not restricted to the acknowledgment of communities’ rights as stated in the 1945 Constitution. Recognition also means an appreciation of Indonesia’s original values and its identity as a nation,” said Widodo in his opening speech at the Declaration of Recognition of Indigenous Forests event held at the presidential palace in Jakarta, Indonesia, on 30 December 2016.  The event was attended by international and national figures, including representatives of the nine indigenous communities receiving customary titles. Of the nine recipients, the Kajang were noted by Widodo as a national model from which others could learn. The road leading to recognition was long and fraught, with conflict between the Kajang, different levels of government and the private sector over control of the forests.

Charred forests not growing back as expected in Pacific Northwest -- Camille Stevens-Rumann was a student of raging wildfires well before she began formally researching their impact on the environment. The Colorado-based forestry professor fought wildfires that swept through the region while pursuing an undergraduate degree, observing how they influenced the landscape. "After getting tired of just wielding a chainsaw, I moved back to getting degrees in fire ecology," Stevens-Rumann, 33, told CBC News. "I got really interested in thinking about how we're managing our landscapes, and how [the] decisions we're making even on the fire line are influencing how those ecosystems are recovering after."Her research has taken her from the charred forests of America's Rocky Mountain ranges all the way to the Pacific Northwest, just south of the B.C. border. What she's found: certain tree species are having a tough time growing back in areas that have been affected by wildfires due to warming temperatures — a discovery that could have major implications for both the forestry sector and long-term climate change targets. Among Stevens-Rumann,'s work was a 2017 study of nearly 1,500 sites charred by 52 wildfires in the U.S. Rocky Mountains. Her research found that lower elevation trees had a tough time naturally regenerating in areas that burned between 2000 and 2015 compared with sites affected between 1985 and 1999, largely due to drier weather conditions.  More recently, a 2019 study written by her colleague Kerry Kemp found that both Douglas fir and Ponderosa pine seedlings in the Idaho's Rocky Mountains — just south of B.C. — were also struggling in low-lying burned areas due to warmer temperatures, leading to lower tree densities. Stevens-Rumann says there are many similar forests facing the same challenges in B.C.'s Southern Interior, while repeat wildfires in the province are likely also to inhibit regrowth in many areas. As a result, some ecosystems will no longer be able to support tree species. Instead they may convert to grasslands, she said.

Indonesia sends thousands of security personnel to combat forest fires (Reuters) - Indonesia is deploying thousands of military and police to douse forest fires after declaring an emergency in six provinces on the island of Sumatra and in the province of Kalimantan on Borneo, a disaster mitigation official said on Wednesday. Indonesia has faced global pressure to put an end to slash-and-burn clearance of land, often to plant palm and pulp plantations, particularly after devastating fires in 2015. Fires Indonesian farmers use to clear land during the dry season can rage out of control, bringing a choking haze that can affect neighbours such as Singapore and Malaysia. Drought has hit large parts of the archipelago as a mild El Nino weather pattern disrupts the dry season, weather officials say, with its peak now expected to run from mid-August to mid-September. The number of hot spots has been increasing, with 124 intense enough to suggest fires detected nationwide by Wednesday morning, said Agus Wibowo, a spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. The government has declared an emergency in the provinces of Riau, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Jambi, South Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan, where extensive peatlands are particularly prone to fires, he added. Authorities have brought in 5,679 additional personnel to five of the provinces, drawn from the military, police and the regional disaster mitigation agency, Wibowo said. Also being deployed are aircraft that can run water bombing operations. In Riau, disaster authorities have made available 17 helicopters, with 10 more pressed in from private firms, the military and the forestry ministry, he added.

Arctic wildfires: How bad are they and what caused them? - BBC (includes many graphics) Wildfires are ravaging parts of the Arctic, with areas of Siberia, Alaska, Greenland and Canada engulfed in flames and smoke.Satellite images show how the plumes of smoke from the fires, many caused by dry storms in hot weather, can be seen from space.While wildfires are common at this time of year, record-breaking summer temperatures and strong winds have made this year's fires particularly bad.They are now at "unprecedented levels", says Mark Parrington, a wildfires expert at the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (Cams).Eastern Russia and Alaska, both within and outside the Arctic Circle, have been particularly badly affected.Russia's Federal Forestry Agency says more than 2.7m hectares (6.7m acres) of remote forest are currently burning across six Siberian and eastern regions.However, Greenpeace Russia says as many as 3.3m hectares are burning - an area bigger than Belgium.Smog has prompted several regions to declare states of emergency and smoke has blown across major cities like Novosibirsk, blotting out the sun and making it difficult for some people to breathe.The smoke from the Siberian fires has even spread to Alaska and parts of the west coast of Canada.In Alaska, as of 31 July, 105 large fires had burned more than 0.7m hectares (1.78m acres).The majority of the blazes were caused by lightning strikes, according to the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center.Greenland is also battling a fire in Qeqqata Kommunia, close to the Arctic Circle Trail, popular with hikers. The area has been experiencing a heatwave, which has also meant the sea ice has been melting at a fast rate. Canada's Arctic is also suffering. One large wildfire in the Northwest Territories, inside the Arctic Circle, has burned at least 45,500 hectares (112,000 acres) according to the Northwest Territories Environment and Natural Resources agency, although the area is likely to be bigger.The wildfires are not just having an impact on the ground. They release harmful pollutants and toxic gases into the atmosphere.Thick smoke is visible on satellite images and distinguishable from every-day clouds across vast areas of the Arctic.Nasa has traced the megatons of harmful particles in that smoke - and where they have gone.The satellite images on the left below show the fires as red dots. The globe on the right shows the concentration of black carbon particles - or soot - released by the fires.This soot can be harmful to humans and animals, entering the lungs and bloodstream. It also plays a role in global warming. Nasa scientists say the soot absorbs sunlight and warms the atmosphere. If it falls on ice or snow, it reduces reflectivity and can trap more heat, speeding up the melting process.

Alaska records warmest month ever in July with coastline barren of sea ice - A heatwave pulsating through the Arctic helped push Alaska to its warmest month ever recorded in July, with the state’s vast coastline left completely barren of sea ice. Alaska’s average temperature in July was a record 58.1F (14.5C), nearly 1F above the previous monthly high set in July 2004, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Cities and towns across the vast US state, such as Anchorage, Utqiaġvik (formerly known as Barrow) and Kodiak all had their warmest month in 125 years of record-keeping. This heat, 5.4F warmer than the long-term average for July, helped spur wildfires that shrouded much of Alaska in a pall of smoke and has now resulted in a remarkable melting away of shoreline ice. There is now no sea ice within 150 miles of Alaskan shores, according to an analysis by the National Weather Service. The pace of ice loss is “unprecedented” in 40 years of satellite records, scientists said, with the Bering Sea, which separates Alaska from Russia, left completely ice-free. “It looks like the worst case scenario put forward by the IPCC [International Panel on Climate Change] could be an underestimate because we are seeing ice melting now that we expected 30 to 40 years from now. It’s alarming because it’s very fast-paced and the consequences are hard to predict.”

PIOMAS August 2019 -  Arctic Sea Ice by Neven -  Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: 2019 had a real opportunity during July to further move away from 2012, but failed to do so. Both years had a volume loss that was well below the 2007-2018 average of 6037 km3, which isn't that surprising given how low they both already are. 2017 had even less of a volume loss, and so 2019 is still lowest and the gap with number 2 has grown a little bit. All other years, except for 2014, managed to close the gap somewhat.  Here's how the differences with previous years have evolved from last month:  Wipneus' version of the PIOMAS graph shows how this year's volume loss slowed down during the second half of July, when it actually should have increased the gap to be able to compete with the big drop that was caused by the GAC during the first week of August 2012:  Consequently, the anomaly trend line on the PIOMAS volume anomaly graph has shot up again somewhat, back to the one standard deviation zone: Because sea ice extent actually dropped quite a bit towards the end of the month, and thus volume was spread out over a relatively smaller ice pack, average thickness is no longer lowest on record. It's still among the lowest, however: 2019 is still lowest on the Polar Science Centre average thickness graph: If we look at a direct comparison for PIOMAS volume distribution between 2019 and 2012, as produced by the inimitable Wipneus, we can see that 2012 will catch up a lot in the coming 10 days in the blue zone in the East Siberian Sea. Blue means that in 2019 the ice there is thinner than it was back in 2012. Of course, the GAC will quickly take care of that difference. But conversely, there's a lot of dark red, in the CAA, the western Beaufort, east of Novaya Zemlya, and between Svalbard and Franz Josef Land, where the ice isn't looking all that great (to put it mildly) and thus 2019 could easily equal 2012: Due to personal circumstances, I haven't been able to follow this melting season in every single detail (hence not a lot of extra analysis this month). From what I've seen on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum, written by commenters I've known for years and highly respect, my gut feeling says this year won't be able to break the 2012 records.

The Greenland ice sheet poured 197 billion tons of water into the North Atlantic in July alone -- An extraordinary melt event that began earlier this week continued through August on the Greenland ice sheet, and there are signs that about 60 percent of the expansive ice cover saw detectable surface melting, including at higher elevations that only rarely see temperatures climb above freezing.  On Thursday, the ice sheet saw its biggest single-day volume loss on record, with 12.5 billion tons of ice lost to the ocean from surface melt, according to computer model estimates based on satellite and other data. Records of daily mass loss date back to 1950. “This model, which uses weather data and observations to build a record of ice and snowfall, and net change in mass of the ice sheet, is remarkably accurate,” says Ted Scambos, a senior researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Colorado. “I would accept the result as fact. 12.5 billion tons [lost] in one day, and the highest single-day total since 1950,” Scambos said.  July 31 was the biggest surface melt day since at least 2012, with about 60 percent of the ice sheet seeing at least 1 millimeter of melt at the surface, and more than 10 billion tons of ice lost to the ocean from surface melt, according to data from the Polar Portal, a website run by Danish polar research institutions, and the NSIDC. According to Ruth Mottram, a climate researcher with the Danish Meteorological Institute, the ice sheet sent 197 billion tons of water pouring into the Atlantic Ocean during July. This is enough to raise sea levels by 0.5 millimeter, or 0.02 inches, in a one-month time frame, said Martin Stendel, a researcher with the institute.

Greenland's ice wasn't supposed to melt like last week until 2070 - During the past week, temperatures at the highest reaches of the Greenland ice sheet rose above freezing, melting snow at the Summit Station (10,550 feet above sea level) for the first time since July 2012 and perhaps only the third time in the last seven centuries.  Across lower elevations around the margins of the ice sheet, bare glacial ice melted at an unprecedented rate, losing 12.5 billion tons of water on Thursday alone, with daily losses likely exceeding any point in at least the past 70 years.  The Greenland ice sheet covers an area the size of Alaska with enough ice to raise global sea level by more than 20 feet. Greenland gains ice each winter from compacting snow accumulation and loses ice from melt water and icebergs discharged to the ocean. A dry, warm spring this year left a thin snow cover over bare glacial ice. Spring warming followed by a large melt event in June led scientist Jason Box of the Geological Survey of Greenland to predict record ice losses this year. The peak of the melt season passed in mid-July with more typical summer conditions, but the past week again saw a large increase in the area and intensity of melt across the Northern Hemisphere’s remaining ice sheet. This latest heat wave was particularly unusual as a dome of warm air arrived from the east, associated with the remnants of the record-setting European heat wave last month. Most large melt events on Greenland involve warm, humid air masses arriving from North America and the western Atlantic Ocean. This surge of warm air started in North Africa, traveled north across Europe and then westward across the North Atlantic Ocean toward and across Greenland. Air masses originating over North Africa are known to reach Greenland — Saharan dust has been traced to the ice sheet — but this recent air mass was exceptionally warm. By following the path of the heat wave, scientists predicted the extensive melt several days in advance. Air temperatures at Summit hovered near or above freezing for more than 11 hours on Wednesday, which is nearly twice as long as the last melt event there in 2012. Satellite data that I process for the National Snow and Ice Data Center showed more than 60 percent of the surface area of the ice sheet melting last Wednesday. While this is a smaller melt area than in mid-July 2012, the melt extent was second only to 2012 for late July. More detailed satellite images show that snow has melted from a large area along the western edge of the ice sheet, leaving more exposed ice than in 2012 in several areas. Numerous meltwater rivers and lakes, and dark, dust-encrusted ice reached areas higher on the ice sheet. Images comparingsummer 2018 and summer 2019 show a larger area of bare ice and meltwater lakes this summer. Several of the Danish Meteorological Institute weather stations on the ice sheet have recorded greater melt rates in 2019 than in 2012.

Research Highlight: Loss of Arctic's Reflective Sea Ice Will Advance Global Warming by 25 Years - Losing the remaining Arctic sea ice and its ability to reflect incoming solar energy back to space would be equivalent to adding one trillion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere, on top of the 2.4 trillion tons emitted since the Industrial Age, according to current and former researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.At current rates, this roughly equates to 25 years of global CO2 emissions. It would consequently speed up the arrival of a global threshold of warming of 2ºC beyond temperatures the world experienced before the Industrial Revolution.  Scientists and analysts, including the authors of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report released in October 2018, have stated that the planet runs the risk of catastrophic damage ranging from more intense heat waves and coastal flooding to extinction of terrestrial species and threats to food supply if that threshold is passed. The results were published June 20 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. In “Radiative Heating of an Ice-Free Arctic Ocean,” former Scripps graduate student Kristina Pistone, now with the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute based at NASA Ames Research Center, and Scripps climate scientists Ian Eisenman and Veerabhadran Ramanathan used direct satellite observations to assess the impact of a potential ice-free Arctic Ocean. The authors of the study conclude that the loss of sea ice will add a globally-averaged 0.7 watts per square meter (W/m²) of solar heating to the Earth system, 0.21 W/m² of which has already occurred between 1979 and 2016.  The amount of additional heat introduced into the Earth system because of Arctic melt is equivalent to an increase in CO₂ concentration from 400 to 456.7 parts per million.

Harvard Scientists, Funded By Bill Gates, To Begin Spraying Particles Into The Sky To Dim The Sun - What was once a conspiracy theory is now the subject of congressional debate, peer-reviewed studies, and now a Harvard experiment. Harvard scientists will attempt to replicate the climate-cooling effect of volcanic eruptions with a world-first solar geoengineering experiment. The university announced this month that it has created an external advisory panel to examine the potential ethical, environmental and geopolitical impacts of this geoengineering project, which has been developed by the university’s researchers.According to Nature Magazine, Louise Bedsworth, executive director of the California Strategic Growth Council, a state agency that promotes sustainability and economic prosperity, will lead the Harvard advisory panel, the university said on 29 July. The other seven members include Earth-science researchers and specialists in environmental and climate law and policy.What was once a conspiracy theory will soon be a reality—any day now.Known as the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx), the experiment will spray calcium carbonate particles high above the earth to mimic the effects of volcanic ash blocking out the sun to produce a cooling effect. The experiment was announced in Nature magazine last year, who was one of few outlets to look into this unprecedented step toward geoengineering the planet. If all goes as planned, the Harvard team will be the first in the world to move solar geoengineering out of the lab and into the stratosphere, with a project called the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx). The first phase — a US$3-million test involving two flights of a steerable balloon 20 kilometres above the southwest United States — could launch as early as the first half of 2019. Once in place, the experiment would release small plumes of calcium carbonate, each of around 100 grams, roughly equivalent to the amount found in an average bottle of off-the-shelf antacid. The balloon would then turn around to observe how the particles disperse. Naturally, the experiment is concerning to many people, including environmental groups, who, according to Nature, say such efforts are a dangerous distraction from addressing the only permanent solution to climate change: reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

I Went to a Climate Change Denial Conference. It Made Even Less Sense Than You’d Think. - There’s no need to worry about reducing the greenhouse gases driving climate change—all that carbon dioxide is actually “greening the planet.” The Green New Deal, on the other hand, would send the country back to the stone age, or at least the pre-industrial era. Those were among the eye-popping and often-conflicting views expressed yesterday at the Heartland Institute’s 13th International Climate Change Conference, a gathering of climate change deniers that took place at the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C., just blocks from the White House. The vast majority of the world’s climate scientists agree that climate change could prove devastating to life as we know it unless we take swift and sweeping action to decarbonize the economy . But those “wild predictions have been pronouncedly exaggerated,” according to the British gadfly Lord Christopher Monckton, who holds the title 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley.  One of the more colorful figures in the climate denial universe, Monckton ticked off a list of problems scientists have linked to climate change that Monckton says we really don’t need to worry about. According to him, the world is seeing less, not more, drought; sea levels are falling not rising; forest fires are causing less damage; hurricane activity is decreasing, too; and carbon dioxide is actually improving the global environment by “greening” places like Australia’s Great Sandy Desert. “That’s why we need more CO2, because it greens the planet,” he declared. Other conference panelists joined Monckton in cycling through a series of theories long debunked by peer-reviewed science. Some believe, like Monckton, that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are growing but provide more benefits than threats. (One Heritage Foundation official went so far as to suggest carbon dioxide emitters should get paid a subsidy rather than face the kind of carbon tax scheme policymakers have discussed; of course, the oil industry already does receive billions in subsidies.) Others argued that CO2 levels are in fact not rising, while still others say we should be more concerned about a coming ice age. “The real problem is we have a lot more to worry about with global cooling than with global warming,” said Rodger Bezdek, an energy analyst and Heartland policy advisor.

Pretend Underdogs: Inside a Climate Denier Conference at Trump Hotel - Joseph McCarthy, The Weather Channel - I entered Trump International Hotel in Washington last Thursday with a three-person team to cover the Heartland Institute’s 13th International Conference on Climate Change. I left with two. Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus that humans are causing climate changeby burning fossil fuels, this free-market think tank, which has received large sums of fossil fuel money, continues to hawk various strains of climate change denial. And they weren’t happy that The Weather Channel had brought along George Mason University researcher John Cook, who tracks disinformation and climate change denialism professionally. About two hours into the conference, interim Heartland President and Director of Communications Jim Lakely pulled us aside. “You have two choices,” the stocky, spikey-haired man told us in a small conference room filled with empty cardboard boxes. “Either John leaves, or you all leave.”  (Cook was not on the press list, but was an official correspondent with The Weather Channel for the occasion.) This gesture — “He’s not welcome on principle,” Lakely said — set the tone for the next several hours, during which former NASA climate communications specialist Laura Faye Tenenbaum, sound recordist Rachel Falcone and I would listen to a cabal of policy wonks, contrarian scientists and communicators sounding a little too certain in their denial to deserve the title, “skeptics.” (The visit to the conference was part of the reporting for a new investigative podcast series on climate denial and disinformation coming from The Weather Channel this fall.)

 How High School Students Are Collaborating to Organize Youth Climate Strikes -- Young people are often told that they don't have the ability to truly make a difference in the world. Not being able to vote can be a very powerless feeling. Youth are discouraged to be engaged in politics because, in theory, they don't have as much life experience or perspective. We, Elise and Liam, wanted to challenge this idea, especially when it comes to climate change. With the impending reality of our earth's demise, we took it upon ourselves to create a difference in Boise, Idaho, the place we both call home.   We started hearing about Greta Thunburg around the same time as the rest of the world, as she skipped school to protest for climate action outside the Swedish Parliament in August of 2018. Suddenly, more and more climate strikes were beginning to gain momentum and attract attention. Organizations like Zero Hour, Fridays for Future, and US Youth Climate Strike were making headlines, and thus the youth climate movement was born and thriving. We decided to join the rest of the world to show our local and national politicians that climate action is critical, and we won't sit idly by watching the continuation of exploitation of earth's natural resources.   In mid-February of 2019, a local youth activist organization posted the news around the March 15th strike called on by Alexandria Villasenor on their social media feed. When I saw that people were finally getting together to create some action behind the climate crisis, I was ecstatic and quickly wrote back, "How can I help? Who is leading this?" and only after a few minutes received a message back saying "no one in Idaho had stepped up to put our name on the map, this could be a great opportunity for you!" Once I heard that, I quickly sent an email to the US Youth Climate Strikes saying I wanted to be the state lead for the climate strikes, and within the next few days, I had been added to the national slack team and shared google folder. I quickly realized that it couldn't be done alone and I knew Elise was extremely passionate about environmental issues, so I told her there was no way she was not helping me with this, and of course, she happily agreed. From there, we began creating a team, getting logistics ready and striking every Friday, just as Greta does. It first started with me sitting alone on the steps but soon Elise and other members of our group began to join in.  After Elise and I solidified that we were going to do lead the strikes I began to reach out via social media, posting on my Instagram story asking who would be interested in helping out. Within a day, we had made a team and the craziness that is planning a protest began. With a group of about 12, it had its difficulties: trouble communicating, low turn out to calls, and much more, but through it, Elise and I definitely found out how to pull our own weight and the weight of others. I was spending endless hours in and out of school working on things such as emails, press, permits, outreach, and just generally how to create a protest from the ground up.

Exxon Accused of Pressuring Witnesses in Climate Fraud Case - Prosecutors in New York are accusing ExxonMobil of trying to discourage potential witnesses from testifying about whether the oil giant misled investors over the costs it may face from future climate regulations. They're asking a judge to block Exxon from making what they describe as "unreasonable" and extensive requests for documents from the witnesses.New court filings reveal that Exxon sent letters to a group of investment advisers and shareholder activists who prosecutors want to put on the stand, informing them they will be subject to subpoenas from the company seeking documents relevant to the case if they choose to testify.Because of their roles investing in and engaging with Exxon over climate change, these witnesses' testimony could prove critical to the state's case.With opening statements scheduled to begin Oct. 23, a lawyer in New York Attorney General Letitia James's office wrote that the request would "impose disproportionate burdens on these witnesses in a transparent attempt to discourage them from testifying voluntarily, and threatening to upend the trial schedule." The attorney general's office has asked Justice Barry Ostrager of New York Supreme Court to order Exxon to halt its requests for documents. While prosecutors had agreed to allow Exxon to interview the witnesses before the trial, the company went further by sending at least one witness what the attorney general described as an expansive request for documents and communications, including "all documents concerning your oil and gas holdings" and more. Exxon wrote on July 30 that it planned to send documents requests to seven witnesses.  Aaron Caplan, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and expert in legal ethics, said the letter from Exxon included in the court filing was unusually aggressive and tested ethical bounds, though he said Exxon could argue that it is simply being thorough in its defense. "It tiptoes right up to the line of impropriety," he said. "And whether it crosses that line is up to interpretation."

 Why We Need Publicly Owned Energy for a Green New Deal  --Whether it’s 11 years or 18 months, we haven’t got long to make the big, bold changes needed to prevent global climate catastrophe.   If we’re going to have a chance of preventing widespread disaster, we can’t keep waiting for the private sector to deliver our clean, green energy future. Public ownership is the way to transition quickly to zero carbon, hand in hand with workers, citizens and communities.   We don’t own much of our energy, individually or collectively. The UK is rich in offshore wind, butonly 7% is owned by UK entities and only 0.07% is in UK public ownership. We’ve flogged off our nuclear to China and France – for ‘£17 billion of risk and not much benefit’ as Aditya Chakrabortty points out. Our energy infrastructure is owned by National Grid and other private companies owned by investors from Qatar to China, to US to Hong Kong. The Big Six supply companies (British Gas, E.ON, EDF Energy, nPower, Scottish Energy and SSE) are owned by UK, French, German and Spanish investors.  These investors aren’t interested in clean, green, affordable energy. They’re interested in their profits. That’s why since energy was privatised we’ve seen rip off prices, burning of fossil fuels and a lack of investment in the infrastructure we need. The government needs to set the pace and start the race. Bringing energy into public ownership would save us around £3.2 billion in dividends and a lower cost of borrowing – money that could be reinvested in getting us to our carbon targets quicker.

Asia is the right place for a US ‘Green New Deal’  -- Rather than a national Green New Deal, playing off the vast public works program launched by President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, a Development Green New Deal would see the U.S. support projects to curb carbon emissions in emerging economies in Asia and elsewhere. These countries happen to be where China is pouring in resources to build infrastructure, mostly under the umbrella of its Belt and Road Initiative.  Even though some estimates put the cost of the Green New Deal plan at as much as $10 trillion, its ambitious program of remaking the U.S. economy would have far less impact on global carbon dioxide levels than comparable spending in Asia. Despite its reputation as an environmental laggard, U.S. carbon emissions actually fell 14% between 2005 and 2016. Global emissions, however, grew 59% over the period, with those of India up 101%. Vietnam, Bangladesh, China and Indonesia posted similar increases. Just the growth in Indian emissions over 2015 and 2016 more than offset the decline in America's. There is no mystery about this. Much of Asia, home to half of the world's population, is experiencing much faster economic growth than the U.S. while relying more heavily on coal-fired power. Yet Asia is rich in renewable energy resources like sunlight and wind. Across large swathes of Asia as well as Africa, the energy grid is barely extant so Development Green New Deal investment could set the direction of development in a climate-friendly direction.  Idealistic as the notion of a Development Green New Deal may sound, it would dovetail with bipartisan concern about rising Chinese influence across Asia and Africa and provide a meaningful alternative to Beijing's BRI. The U.S. cannot afford to continue its general benign neglect of developing Asian and African countries. The Republicans and Democrats have occasionally in the past recognized their common need to address this, such as when they united behind creating new trade preferences through the African Growth and Opportunity Act in 2000.

N.Y. carbon pricing plan creates quandary for FERC --New York's grid operator is preparing a landmark plan to put a price on carbon dioxide emissions in the power sector that could head to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.The New York Independent System Operator's move, expected later this year, could pose a direct challenge to Republican FERC Chairman Neil Chatterjee and Commissioner Bernard McNamee, who so far have declined to assert any role in curbing greenhouse gas emissions while considering whether to approve natural gas projects.It would also mark the first effort of its kind by any of the electricity markets overseen by FERC and, if approved, could spark similar action in other regions, experts say.The ISO sees its proposal — in the works for nearly two years — as complementary to sweeping climate legislation signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) last month.The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act calls for slashing CO2 emissions from New York's power sector 70% by 2030, achieving 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040 and net-zero greenhouse gas emissions throughout the state's economy by 2050. The legislation did not anticipate separate action on carbon by the ISO."  The grid operator, Dewey said, is looking at "coming up with a strong market signal that achieves the dual objectives for New York of the most economic dispatch of power and a methodical, systematic way of reducing carbon output. "Understandably, the new climate legislation is forcing all parties to take a closer look at all the options available to achieve the aggressive goals. We look forward to partnering with the state on reaching the new targets for carbon reductions," Dewey said  .Under its plan, the ISO would attempt to incorporate the social cost of carbon emissions into its wholesale energy markets by using a carbon price in dollars per ton of carbon dioxide emissions. The cost would be assessed for electricity generators, which in turn would factor the amount into their offers to sell into the ISO market.

Low on Water, California Farmers Turn to Solar Farming - If California is to meet its goal of running on 100-percent clean electricity by 2045, fields that once grew hay are going to have to start producing electrons. That’s according to a new report from The Nature Conservancy that estimates the state will need to cover an area at least twice as large as Yosemite National Park with solar panels and wind turbines.That may seem like an ambitious ask, but the amount of California land devoted to renewable energy is already slated to grow exponentially. Part of the driving force is water scarcity: A state law now requires water regulators to figure out how to balance their accounts so that groundwater levels stop dropping. (For the past 50 years California has been pumping far more water out of the ground than filters back into aquifers.) To comply, farmers would have to stop irrigating at least half a million acres, according to a study by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.Letting valuable land go unirrigated isn’t exactly appealing to many growers. But the Nature Conservancy report suggests a good chunk of that acreage could be used for solar and wind farms. The report states that between one-third and one-half of the space needed by the state for renewables could come from agricultural acres starved for water.California farmers have already begun embracing solar panels. For some grow operations, installing a small number of solar panels has been a way to save on energy bills. A few years ago the Bowles Farming Company, near Los Banos, California, put up solar panels on four acres to partially offset the electricity needed for a new drip-irrigation system. “When we converted to drip we started to see increased costs because we’d gone from gravity-driven irrigation to pump-powered irrigation,” said Derek Azevedo, the executive vice president of Bowles. Azevedo said the investment is paying off, and the company is planning on erecting more panels.Other farmers are converting much bigger sections of their land to solar farms. The Los Angeles Times recently listed a few of the major projects underway: There are plans to build the largest solar farm on earth on agricultural land, in California’s Central Valley. Maricopa Orchards, at the southern end of the Central Valley, is putting up 4,000 acres of solar panels, and setting aside 2,000 acres of habitat for kit foxes and burrowing owls, as environmental mitigation. But for all the energy sense it makes to plant solar panels in sun-soaked agricultural areas, the Nature Conservancy notes that there may be pushback when it comes to the impact on native flora and fauna. Unless new solar operations are placed carefully, those miles of panels could destroy important habitat for wildlife, and cover some of the most bountiful farmland in the world.

Duke Drops Largest Solar Project in North Carolina Procurement — Its Own -  North Carolina completed its first competitive solar solicitation in April, as called for in amajor energy compromise the legislature passed in 2017. Unlike almost anywhere else, the law stipulated that regulated monopoly Duke Energy, as well as its unregulated renewables developer arm, could compete in the utility’s home territory against independent power producers. Duke could even buy projects from its competitors in the procurement.GTM covered the outcome at the time, but the story took a new turn, because Duke canceled its largest project within roughly two months of winning it. Though the contract had Duke's name on it, the utility was going to buy it from a third-party developer.  "We thought it was an attractive price," Duke Energy spokesperson Randy Wheeless said of the developer's bid. "When they went back and double-checked some numbers, they realized they couldn’t come in at the price they had promised." High-profile projects sometimes fall through, and utility and developers alike have expressed satisfaction with how the process unfolded overall in North Carolina. Nobody is complaining about the roughly $260 million the solar procurement is expected to save ratepayers over the next 20 years. Still, the canceled project raises questions about the unconventional structure of the solicitation, which sees the utility competing with other developers while also interacting with them as a power purchaser and a potential acquirer.

Feds: Wind industry struggling to find workers - Wind industry employers can't find workers, and graduates of wind training programs can't find jobs, according to those surveyed for a federal report released yesterday.

States sue Trump administration for reduced penalties on fuel efficiency - Thirteen states filed suit against the Trump administration Friday, arguing it was breaking the law by cutting penalties for automakers that do not meet Obama-era fuel efficiency standards. The suit, led by California's and New York’s attorneys general, goes after a National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) rule that lowers penalties for manufacturers from $14 to $5.50 for every tenth of a mile per gallon (mpg) they fall below fuel efficiency standards. “This rule is just another misguided and reckless attempt by the Trump Administration to roll back the clock on our clean air standards,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “Without strong penalties for violating these fuel efficiency standards consumers, our economy, and our environment all remain in danger. As we’ve done in the past, we will continue to fight this battle against the Trump Administration’s efforts to ignore the realities of climate change.” The suit is the latest step in a long saga between California and the Trump administration over fuel efficiency standards. The Trump administration proposed freezing the Obama-era fuel standards — something that has driven condemnation from both states and the auto industry. The standards from the Obama administration would have required automakers to produce cars and light trucks that reach an average of 51 mpg by 2026. The deal was designed to create one national fuel economy standard after decades of allowing California and other states to adopt their own more aggressive standards. California has been on a mission to protect its right to more aggressive fuel standards ever since the Trump administration proposed weakening them. After stalled negotiations between the state and federal entities, California announced last week that they had sidelined the administration and entered into an agreement with four automakers to establish new fuel economy standards similar to what was agreed to under Obama.

Ethanol producer says tariffs will hurt ethanol sales An ethanol plant in northwest Iowa suspended production last week and industry officials say it won’t be the last. Ethanol plants in Iowa and across the Midwest are expected to sharply cut back on their production in the coming weeks. DeLayne Johnson, CEO of Quad County Corn Processors in the northwest Iowa town of Galva, says the two biggest reasons for the reductions are oversupply and the trade dispute with China. “Tariffs are actually reducing our exports,” Johnson says, “and in addition, the small refinery exemptions EPA has given to Exxon, Shell, Mobil and others is certainly eating into the demand as well, to the tune of 2.8 billion gallons of ethanol and about 1-billion bushels of corn.” Plymouth Energy in Merrill suspended production last week. That’s one of at least ten ethanol plants nationwide to temporarily shut down. Three others have closed. While recent exports have helped, Johnson says tariffs from two of the nation’s biggest ethanol customers are countering that. “With the tariffs, we’re really not able to move anything into China and that’s potentially as much as a billion gallons a year,” Johnson says. “Also, Brazil, there’s a significant tariff there which they are also a very large client. So, we are really missing two of the largest markets.” Iowa is the nation’s largest ethanol producer, making a record 4.35 billion gallons in 2018. Johnson says biofuel processors in Iowa and elsewhere will need to change up their operations in the future. “That will be very important as we move forward for people to continue to diversify and get more value out of that kernel of corn,” Johnson says. The margins for ethanol production in the western corn belt have fallen to a four-year seasonal low while ethanol inventories are at their highest levels in nine years.

 Brazil Considers Dropping Barriers to US Ethanol-- As China turns its back on American ethanol in a lingering trade spat, Brazil is considering opening its doors to U.S. biofuel. Brazilian authorities are debating whether to yield to Washington’s request to lift ethanol-import duties as a way of facilitating talks for a bilateral trade deal with the U.S., two people with direct knowledge of the matter said. A broad trade accord would benefit many Brazilian products and may be announced by October. Officials in Brazil’s Economy Ministry are willing to remove ethanol barriers while those from the more protectionist Agriculture Ministry are pushing to renew the current import quotas with zero tariffs, the people said, asking not to be identified because talks are private. Brazil Agriculture minister Tereza Cristina confirmed that a discussion is going on within the government. There’s no decision yet, she said, and there may not be one until the end of the month, when the quota ends. ”Any market opening may be done gradually in order to not hurt Brazil’s sector,” she told journalists Monday in event in Sao Paulo. Two years ago, Brazil slapped a 20% tariff on U.S. ethanol shipments that exceed an annual quota of 600 million liters (158 million gallons) after American corn-ethanol imports surged, flooding the Brazilian market and pushing down prices. A biofuel deal between the two nations would come as a relief for the U.S. ethanol industry, which has been beset by a supply glut and the weakest margins in more than 15 years. American producers had expanded rapidly to cater to fast-growing Chinese demand, only to be left without buyers amid President Donald Trump’s trade war with Beijing. A decision would have to be made by the end of this month, when the quota expires and a 20% duty on all imports would go back into effect, the people said.

N.C. charging stations can now sell by the kilowatt-hour instead of minute - Plug your electric vehicle into a North Carolina charging station sometime soon and you may be billed for the electricity you consume, not just the time you spend at the outlet. Under a new state law, charging outlet operators can now buy electricity from their local utility and resell it by the kilowatt-hour, as RV campgrounds and marinas have long done. By exempting plug-in stations from regulation as public utilities, the Tar Heel State is now the 30th to permit such sales. According to the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center, six other states enacted similar rules in the last quarter alone. “This is regulatory cleanup that many states have undertaken,” said Dave Schatz, director of public policy at ChargePoint, the nation’s largest electric vehicle charging network. “We’re really glad that North Carolina has gotten there.” ChargePoint — which installs stations at workplaces, retailers, universities, local government buildings and the like — says many of its customers want to bill by the kilowatt-hour to improve the experience for drivers. “Kilowatt-hours are the gallons of gas that go into an electric vehicle,” Schatz said. “It’s very easy for drivers to understand they have a ‘tank’ that holds 60 kilowatt-hours, and they’ll be paying X dollars for each kilowatt-hour they consume.” Charging stations may not begin billing for kilowatt-hours right away. But the industry believes the ability to do so will make stations more transparent and profitable, ultimately expanding the number of plug-in outlets in the state.

 Tightening Nickel Supply Threatens Electric Vehicle Boom - For Tesla and its chief competitors in the race for global domination of electric vehicle sales, it ain’t all about lithium ion.  There are other valuable metals needed to make the battery packs do what’s asked of them, with nickel being essential. Tesla and its battery producer partners, and other automakers and their suppliers, are worried about the longer-term supply of nickel according to a new study by BloombergNEF. The study predicts that EV makers will be driving demand for nickel about 16 times to 1.8 million tons in the next years.Class-one nickel, a high-purity material used in batteries, is expected to see demand greatly outstrip supply in the next few years. That will be fueled by meeting the large Chinese EV market, and other global markets where demand is expected to grow.That need for class-one nickel will outstrip supply within five years, according to the study.One problem has been a lack of real investment in new mines for materials including nickel, Tesla’s global supply manager of battery metals, Sarah Maryssael, said at a Washington meeting in May. That could drive up prices as battery demand increases greatly. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is concerned about having enough economically viable — and available — metal to continue meeting its growing electric car demand. That will take off even more as the company taps into China’s booming markets.  “They are getting ready to have the new factory in China, and are at full capacity in North America,’’ Peter Bradford, chief executive officer of nickel producer Independence Group NL, said. “They recognize the biggest risk from a strategic supply point of view is nickel.’’Bradford’s industry had been focused mainly on supplying the metal to stainless steel. By 2030, the BloombergNEF study expects that batteries will account for more than half of demand for the valuable class-one nickel.Metal suppliers have been scrambling to find the right metal to fill that demand. Australian firm BHP, the biggest maker, is betting on bright-turquoise colored nickel sulphate. That will be taking place at its nickel refinery south of Perth, with plans to potentially carry out the industry’s largest expansion.

Study: Electric scooters increase carbon emissions in most cases - Electric scooters have taken cities like Raleigh, North Carolina, by storm in the last year, propelled by an allure of convenience and environmental sustainability. But a new analysis, published today in the journal Environmental Research Letters, finds that scooters actually increase carbon pollution more often than not.  Thought by its authors to be the first of its kind, the peer-reviewed study from North Carolina State University shows scooters create half the pollution per mile that gasoline-powered vehicles do. The problem: scooter trips only supplant car trips a third of the time. Even so, experts say the nascent electric scooter industry has the potential to both invert that fraction and reduce its overall life-cycle emissions. “If these scooters are definitely replacing cars, that can be a great thing,” said Joe Hollingsworth, who authored the study while an engineering master’s student at N.C. State. “But there’s still a lot of room to improve.” Hollingsworth, undergraduate Brenna Copeland, and their professor Jeremiah Johnson began their research last year after both Lime and Bird scooters descended on the streets, seemingly overnight. They noticed that a phone notification from Lime told users their ride was “carbon free.” That sparked the question: Really?  On average, they found scooters cause 202 grams of climate pollution per mile. Because early models tended to last less than a year, their production made up half of their life-cycle impact. Daily collection for charging and redistribution with mostly gasoline-powered vehicles made up another 43%. “While the scooters themselves don’t have tailpipes,” Johnson said, “the cars that were picking them up largely did.”

Power outage hits Jakarta and Indonesia’s Java and Bali islands - Indonesia's state electricity company said power will return to Jakarta by Sunday night after a power failure affected tens of millions of people.The blackout struck the capital city of Jakarta and its suburbs, home to about 40 million people. The islands of Java, where Jakarta is located, and Bali, were also impacted. It halted commuter trains in Jakarta, including those on the city's newly-opened MRT metro lines, and turned off traffic lights in a city known for its traffic congestion. ATMs and mobile phone services were disrupted, and homes, stores and apartment buildings lost electricity.The problem was traced to the failure of a gas turbine at a major power plant and an unidentified disruption at another power facility, state electricity company PLN announced on Sunday."The blackout was caused by trips [errors] on the Suralaya turbine gas from number 1 to 6, while the turbine gas number 7 is off. Cilegon turbine gas-powered power plants in Banten are also experiencing troubles," I. Made Suprateka of PLN added. By Sunday evening, almost 50 percent of West Java island, including Jakarta, had its power returned, PLN later said. Hospitals and the city's airport, producing electricity with generators, were not affected by the blackout.

Power restored to some areas in Indonesia capital, parts of Java after 9 hours - (Reuters) - Power has been restored in most parts of Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, after the city of 10 million people went without electricity for more than nine hours due to technical issues, state power company PLN said on Sunday. A man talks with a security officer at a Commuterline station as it is closed due to a major power blackout in Jakarta, Indonesia, August 4, 2019. REUTERS/Gayatri Suroyo The outage, which also hit neighbouring provinces, spread across an area home to more than 100 million people and appeared to have affected most of the capital, prompting the use of generators in some offices, malls and apartments. The blackout began just before noon local time (0500 GMT). PLN said it had been able to switch 17 electrical substations around Jakarta back on by 9 p.m. but two others were still in the process of being restarted and four remained off. “The recovery process is still ongoing and indeed it cannot be turned back on at once immediately, but rather gradually we try to normalise with maximum efforts,” Sripeni Inten Cahyani, acting chief executive of PLN, said in a statement. At a news conference earlier on Sunday, Cahyani said it would take a few more hours to restore power to West Java and Banten provinces. She blamed faulty transmission circuits on the Ungaran to Pemalang power line in Central Java for causing voltage drops that hit power networks in Jakarta as well as West Java and Banten provinces.

The hidden costs of unreliable electricity | Bill Gates - Many people without reliable access to electricity live in rural villages where even health clinics can’t count on having power. After an outage, doctors sometimes have no way of telling whether the life-saving vaccines in their refrigerators have spoiled. It can be even more stressful if a power outage occurs at night. Sometimes health workers have no choice but to treat patients by candlelight, or by the light of a mobile phone.Even recharging a mobile phone is tricky when there isn’t electricity at home. It requires walking to a local store and paying 25 cents or more to plug the phone into a solar-powered outlet. That cost adds up fast. It’s actually hundreds of times more expensive to use charging stations than it is to charge a phone at home. But those without electricity don’t have an alternative. Mobile phones enable families to access services and business opportunities that improve their lives, so many pay whatever they have to in order to use their phones.These hidden expenses are a daily reality for the nearly 1 billion people who live in energy poverty. That’s one reason why increasing access to electricity is critical to lifting the world’s poor out of poverty. The good news is that, since 2016, the number of people living without reliable electricity has dropped by more than 200 million. That’s two hundred million more people who can now study after sundown, use electronic appliances, and charge their phones at home. At the same time, increased energy consumption means increased greenhouse gas emissions. Methods of generating electricity like coal and natural gas generate carbon dioxide, so unless we decarbonize the way we produce energy, emissions will continue to increase—and climate change will get worse—as energy consumption goes up. The problem is that many of today’s low carbon energy technologies aren’t a viable alternative yet. While deploying wind and solar in many places around the world is going to be hugely important for tackling climate change, we need innovation in things like storage to make them realistic solutions for the world’s poorest. Plus, many people experiencing energy poverty live in areas without access to the kind of grids that are needed to make those technologies cheap and reliable enough to replace fossil fuels.

China coal mine approvals surge despite climate pledges (Reuters) - Approvals for new coal mine construction in China have surged in 2019, government documents showed, with Beijing expecting consumption of the commodity to rise in the coming years even as it steps up its fight against smog and greenhouse gas emissions. Long-term cuts in coal consumption are a key part of China’s energy, environment and climate goals, but the fivefold increase in new mine approvals in the first-half of 2019 suggests China’s targets still provide ample room for shorter-term growth. China’s energy regulator gave the go-ahead to build 141 million tonnes of new annual coal production capacity from January to June, compared to 25 million tonnes over the whole of last year, Reuters analysis of approval documents showed. The projects included new mines in the regions of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Shanxi and Shaanxi that are part of a national strategy to consolidate output at dedicated coal production “bases”, as well as expansions of existing collieries, the National Energy Administration (NEA) documents showed. Beijing aims to raise the share of non-fossil fuels in its overall energy mix to 15% by the end of next year from around 14.3% currently, and to 20% by 2030. It cut the share of coal to 59% last year, down from 68.5% in 2012.

Democrats step up pressure on fossil-fuel industry - Bernie Sanders says the industry is a criminal enterprise. Joe Biden is vowing to take action against it. Other candidates are competing to say who will wean America from its products the soonest. The fossil fuel industry is squarely in the cross hairs of Democrats running for the White House as they move sharply to the left on climate change, evoking growing alarm from a sector that’s found support in the Trump administration. It has moved to rescind regulations on oil drilling and proposed extraordinary measures to aid coal mining. “We are made out to be just some kind of evil force,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of Western Energy Alliance, which represents oil and gas producers. “They are doubling down on it and adding very hostile rhetoric.” Big oil and its Republican allies say the Democrats’ swing to the left on the issue will backfire with voters, especially in states such as Ohio, which Trump won, in part, with an appeal to aggrieved coal miners. These critics have commissioned studies asserting that the Democratic polices would cost millions of jobs while increasing pump prices for gasoline. But that hasn’t deterred candidates, such as Sanders, a Vermont senator. “We’ve got to ask ourselves a simple question: What do you do with an industry that knowingly, for billions of dollars in short-term profits, is destroying this planet?” Sanders said during the most recent Democratic candidate debate. “I say that is criminal activity that cannot be allowed to continue.” The Democratic Party’s eagerness to demonize the industry is a marked shift from the 2016 election cycle, when Hillary Clinton embraced natural gas as a “bridge fuel” to cleaner power sources and declined to endorse a ban on the drilling technique known as fracking.

  Up to 300 gallons of oil may have spilled into the Snake River from a leaking dam turbine - Up to 300 gallons of oil may have leaked into the Snake River from a power-generating turbine at Lower Monumental Dam. The Army Corps of Engineers reported the suspected spill this week, but it’s unclear when it possibly happened. The Army Corps disclosed the incident to regulators and the environmental group Columbia Riverkeeper under the terms of a 2014 settlement agreement. Columbia Riverkeeper had sued to stop oil releases from the eight dams on the lower Snake and Columbia rivers.  The group issued a statement Thursday calling the most recent disclosure the latest in a series of spills that highlight the threat posed by the four aging Snake River dams. The Corps reported that 200 to 300 gallons of unspecified “turbine oil” may have leaked from a turbine shaft at Lower Monumental, about 40 miles northeast of the Tri-Cities. The Washington Department of Ecology confirmed it was also notified of the potential spill, which will be confirmed once the Army Corps takes an inventory of oil in the turbine. A state spokesman said the agency has received no reports of a sheen appearing on the river.

LG&E’s Coal Ash Pollution Is Seeping Into Ohio River, Herrington Lake -  New testing confirms three Louisville Gas and Electric power plants are illegally contaminating groundwater flowing into the Ohio River and Herrington Lake.The pollution is coming from waste sites storing decades worth of ash leftover from burning coal for energy.Coal ash contains a cocktail of potentially harmful chemicals and is polluting Louisville’s drinking water source, but that pollution has not affected the quality of the city’s drinking water.“These constituents are getting into the Ohio River, but at concentrations probably equal to what we have in the Ohio River,” said Gary Revlett, LG&E environmental affairs director. “We’re not concerned from a risk standpoint, a [health-risk standpoint.]”As a result of the violations, the Environmental Protection Agency requires LG&E to close down the waste sites within five years. LG&E is already in process of closing all 19 of its coal ash ponds at a cost of more than $900 million — at no new additional costs to ratepayers.Earlier this year, WFPL News reported on groundwater pollution at coal-fired power plants owned by LG&E and Kentucky Utilities. Here’s a brief update on the pollution found in the latest round of testing from each of the plants: 

• Mill Creek – Groundwater monitoring at this plant in southwest Louisville found the cancer-causing pollutant arsenic at 19 times higher than the EPA’s drinking water standards. The coal ash contaminants are present in groundwater that flows to the Ohio River.
• E.W. Brown ­– Groundwater monitoring at the plant near Danville found unpermitted levels of lithium — a neurotoxin — and molybdenum in the groundwater that flows into Herrington Lake.
• Ghent – Groundwater monitoring at the Ghent Generating Station northeast of Carrollton found unpermitted levels of lithium and molybdenum in groundwater that flows into the Ohio River.

Advocacy groups file West Virginia pollution suit » A coalition of advocacy groups has filed a lawsuit against four West Virginia coal and chemical facilities alleging serious violations of the federal Clean Water Act, Kallanish Energy reports.The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Charleston, West Virginia.The facilities named are Lexington Coal’s Surface Mine No. 10 and Low Gap Surface Mine in Mingo County, Justice group/Bluestone Coal’s Red Fox Mine in McDowell County, Dana Mining’s Prime No. 1 Mine in Monongalia County, and Eagle Natrium’s chemical plant in Marshall County.The advocacy groups contend the facilities have been dumping toxic chemicals into local waterways in violation of their permits. The coalition includes the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Appalachian Voices and the Sierra Club. They had filed of their intent to sue under federal law last June.The notices alleged violations of the federal Clean Water Act and the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. The notices also went to federal and state regulators. The federal government quietly removes a metric ton of plutonium from a South Carolina nuclear complex following a court order to do so; it was not immediately clear where the material went. (Post and Courier)

Judge sides with DEQ on Duke Energy coal ash removal - A North Carolina administrative law judge ruled Friday that the state Department of Environmental Quality had the proper legal authority to order Duke Energy to excavate each of its coal ash pits across the state.  The decision by Judge Selina Malherbe to grant DEQ’s partial motion to dismiss will limit the scope of Duke’s appeal of the state’s lawsuit against the company as it moves forward, according to the DEQ.   “DEQ stands by its determination that the best way to protect public health, communities and the environment is to excavate coal ash impoundments across the state,” DEQ Secretary Michael Regan said in a statement.On April 1, the DEQ ordered Duke Energy Progress LLC to excavate all remaining coal ash impoundments in North Carolina, saying it had “determined excavation of all six sites is the only closure option that meets the requirements of Coal Ash Management Act to best protect public health.” There are nine coal ash basins on the six sites — Allen in Gaston County, Belews Creek in Stokes County, Cliffside/Rogers in Cleveland and Rutherford counties, Marshall in Catawba County, and Mayo and Roxboro in Person County.Duke Energy appealed the order on April 26, saying it wants to protect customers from excessive cost and disruption, and that it has been safely closing coal ash basins according to state and federal law.The state wants Duke Energy to excavate all of its coal ash pits and to move the sludge to lined pits in other locations. Duke Energy wants to cap some of the pits in place. “While we are disappointed in the ruling on this issue, we will proceed with the appeal, standing firm in our belief that the NCDEQ decision is wrong, not based in science and engineering – and not in the best interest of our customers and communities,’’ Duke Energy said in a statement. Duke alleges that the state’s order “mandates the most extreme option for the lowest-risk basins, ignoring information that clearly shows capping the ash in place would continue to fully protect people and the environment.” The judge ruled that Duke Energy failed to state a claim for relief and dismissed the following claims:

Angry miners blocking coal train are boarding buses to get back pay— — Dozens of laid-off Kentucky miners are boarding buses bound for West Virginia to press a federal judge to get them the millions in dollars in back pay their bankrupt employer owes them.The Harlan County miners, who have been blocking a Blackjewel train car filled with coal as part of a weeklong protest, are traveling to a federal bankruptcy court hearing in Charleston, West Virginia, where a judge will decide whether to approve the sale of Blackjewel’s assets.Tennessee-based Kopper Glo Mining successfully bid for Harlan County's Lone Mountain and Black Mountain mines, according to the results of an auction made public Sunday.Contura Energy won the bidding for mines in Wyoming and West Virginia. Other companies bought additional elements of Blackjewel’s assets.   The results did not make clear whether idled mines would reopen or workers would be asked to return. Kopper Glo could not be reached Sunday. But the miners say they hope to push the judge to make sure they are paid amid the bankruptcy and sale. "Every family is hurting real bad. We just want our back pay,” miner Chris Lewis said recently at the protest, where some miners will remain on Monday.

Feds seek to bar Blackjewel coal shipment over unpaid wages - Federal officials have asked a judge to block the shipment of a train load of coal in Harlan County until employees of bankrupt Blackjewel LLC get paid for mining it. The U.S. Department of Labor filed the motion Monday. The final paycheck that Blackjewel issued to employees in Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia on June 28 bounced after the company shut down July 1, costing 1,100 people their jobs. Miners say the company owes them for the two-week check period covered on the June 28 check and six days they worked in the next pay period before the shutdown. The case was winding its way through bankruptcy court with no indication when, or if, the employees would get reimbursed for the cold checks when they took matters into their hands on July 29, blocking train tracks at Cumberland to prevent coal from Blackjewel mines from moving out.The miners were mad the company had gotten paid for the coal they worked to produce, but they hadn’t gotten paid.The miners allowed CSX Transportation to move its engines, but have continued to block the tracks to prevent the cars of coal from being moved.

Trump Wage Enforcers Use Obama Tool to Aid Protesting Miners -- The Trump administration’s move to back Kentucky coal miners who protested unpaid wages by blockading their employer relies on a powerful if rarely used tool criticized as overly punitive to businesses when President Barack Obama wielded it. The tactic, called “hot goods,” seeks to freeze the movement of goods produced by workers who were shorted on pay. Under prior Republican and Democratic administrations, the Labor Department utilized it against employers in garment, agriculture and manufacturing industries, sometimes to considerable blowback. When it was used against an Oregon berry farm in 2014, the fruit was at risk of rotting and the department’s Wage and Hour Division administrator was hauled before Congress. But even in a White House dedicated to overturning many of Obama’s policies, a mix of political forces and public outcry in Kentucky have cleared the path for a nonpartisan, positive reception. “I think that’s a particularly good use of the hot goods provision—when they’re trying to make sure that whatever resources are available to the employer are used to pay people that produced the goods and make them whole,” said Michael Hancock, a former Labor Department official who now represents workers at plaintiff-side firm Cohen Milsten in New York. “DOL is very careful in its use of hot goods; it doesn’t use them unless there’s some good and compelling reason.” Acting Labor Secretary Patrick Pizzella filed the hot goods motion Aug. 5 in the Charleston, W.Va., bankruptcy court overseeing the Chapter 11 case of the mine’s operator, Blackjewel LLC. If approved by the judge, transportation of coal from the Harlan County mine would have to stop until the workers are paid. The department intervened after the miners worked in shifts to block railroad tracks and prevent a train from leaving the mine when they learned they wouldn’t get their final paychecks. A former coal baron announced this week that he is donating $1 million, or $2,000 apiece to the 508 miners, but that won’t shield Blackjewel from paying the wages.

Conservation Groups Move To Protect Royalties Regulation - A collection of conservation groups announced that it will fight against a move to reduce federal regulations regarding mineral royalties. The current regulations greatly increase the amount energy companies pay to the federal government. When energy companies extract coal, oil, or natural gas from federal or tribal lands, they pay royalties meant to reimburse taxpayers for the use of public land. Until recently, energy companies could sell their minerals to an affiliated company for a price below its market value and pay royalties based on that lower figure. But in 2016, a new federal rule made it so that energy companies have to pay royalties based on the first sale of its minerals to a company they are not affiliated with. Now, energy companies have launched a lawsuit to overturn the 2016 rule and some conservation groups are jumping into the fray to keep it intact. The Powder River Basin Resource Council's Bob LeResche said this is an important issue. "Minerals are public assets and should be paying for schools and roads and things like that rather than for high executive salaries and corporate profits," LeResche said. The National Resources Defense Council, the Northern Plains Resource Council and the Wilderness Society are also joining the suit.

Trump’s Top Energy Regulator Invites Execs to Coal Country - President Donald Trump’s chief energy regulator has invited a group of environmentalists, energy executives and other industry leaders to the heart of Coal Country for a summit on “the future of American energy.” Neil Chatterjee, the Republican chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and a longstanding champion of the coal industry, recently sent invitations for the Oct. 21 summit. The event comes as the independent agency faces mounting criticism that it’s become more political under his charge, and as high ranking officials in the Trump administration continue to push for action to aid the coal industry. Held in partnership with the University of Kentucky, the location was chosen because “it’s a pivotal time in the Bluegrass state and a historic moment as we continue to experience changes in our generation mix,” according to the invitation seen by Bloomberg. Chatterjee’s office confirmed details of the invitation, saying in a statement that “the Chairman liked the idea of getting outside of the ‘DC bubble’ to provide a different landscape and format for these important conversations.” Confirmed guests include Tyson Slocum, energy director for advocacy group Public Citizen; Abby Hopper, chief executive of the Solar Energy Industries Association; and Joe Blount, chief executive of Colonial Pipeline, according to a statement. Chatterjee, a Kentucky native who formerly advised Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on energy policy, has been criticized for promoting policies that favor coal, including an ill-fated proposal to curb coal plant retirements by paying generators for having fuel on-site. Members of the commission are supposed to be fuel-neutral.

How McConnell's coal guy is helping Trump remake federal energy policy - Add the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to the list of technocratic regulatory agencies thrown into turmoil as President Donald Trump’s appointees seek to steer its agenda. Current and former regulators, staffers and industry officials say Trump and his chosen chairman, former Mitch McConnell aide Neil Chatterjee, have politicized an independent agency typically known for nonpartisan rulemaking on issues including natural gas pipelines and regional power markets. The dissension has made it difficult to retain staff, fill a vacant commissioner post and issue rulings on critical issues facing the nation’s electricity supply. The tension has escalated in the past two years as the White House and Energy Secretary Rick Perry have pressed FERC to endorse financial support packages for economically ailing coal and nuclear plants — many supplied with coal or owned by allies of the president. The climate at FERC has become so politically charged that one Republican state regulator turned down a potential appointment to a vacant seat on the commission — normally a major honor — after being approached by someone on behalf of the White House, according to three sources familiar with the situation. “The current state of discourse in Washington made me question whether I would be able to influence our national energy policy, or effect any change for that matter,” said the regulator, who asked not to be identified because of ongoing business with FERC. Interviews with more than a dozen current and former FERC regulators, staff and industry officials reveal widespread concerns about the agency’s direction under Chatterjee, a former staffer for the Senate majority leader who critics say behaves more like a political operative than a regulator. “We've had a few eyebrow-raising departures of senior staffers who were nowhere near retirement age that are a real loss,” outgoing Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur, a nine-year agency veteran nominated by former President Barack Obama, told POLITICO last month. “I think there's been a sense of increased politicization and partisanship that's had an impact on the culture.”

Trump’s Top Energy Regulator Invites Execs to Coal Country - President Donald Trump’s chief energy regulator has invited a group of environmentalists, energy executives and other industry leaders to the heart of Coal Country for a summit on “the future of American energy.” Neil Chatterjee, the Republican chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and a longstanding champion of the coal industry, recently sent invitations for the Oct. 21 summit. The event comes as the independent agency faces mounting criticism that it’s become more political under his charge, and as high ranking officials in the Trump administration continue to push for action to aid the coal industry. Held in partnership with the University of Kentucky, the location was chosen because “it’s a pivotal time in the Bluegrass state and a historic moment as we continue to experience changes in our generation mix,” according to the invitation seen by Bloomberg. Chatterjee’s office confirmed details of the invitation, saying in a statement that “the Chairman liked the idea of getting outside of the ‘DC bubble’ to provide a different landscape and format for these important conversations.” Confirmed guests include Tyson Slocum, energy director for advocacy group Public Citizen; Abby Hopper, chief executive of the Solar Energy Industries Association; and Joe Blount, chief executive of Colonial Pipeline, according to a statement. Chatterjee, a Kentucky native who formerly advised Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on energy policy, has been criticized for promoting policies that favor coal, including an ill-fated proposal to curb coal plant retirements by paying generators for having fuel on-site. Members of the commission are supposed to be fuel-neutral.

“Nuclear energy is never profitable”, new study slams nuclear power business case - A new study of the economics of nuclear power has found that nuclear power has never been financially viable, finding that most plants have been built while heavily subsidised by governments, and often motivated by military purposes, and is not a good approach to tackling climate change. The study has come from DIW Berlin, a leading German economic think-tank, and found that after reviewing the trends in nuclear power plant construction since 1951, the average 1,000MW nuclear power plant would in an average economic loss of 4.8 billion euros ($7.7 billion AUD). The report comes amid a hot debate over the future of nuclear power in both Germany and Australia.The report published by the German Institute for Economic Research (known as DIW Berlin) reviewed the development of 674 nuclear power plants built since 1951, finding that none of the plants was built using ‘private capital under competitive conditions’.“The results showed that in all cases, an investment would generate significant financial losses. The (weighted) average net present value was around minus 4.8 billion euros,” the study says. “Even in the best case, the net present value was approximately minus 1.5 billion euros. The authors included conservative assumptions with high electricity prices, low capital costs, and specific investment. Considering all assumptions regarding the uncertain parameters, nuclear energy is never profitable.”The report authors are also pessimistic about the future of nuclear power, concluding that nuclear power will remain unprofitable into the foreseeable future.Unlike Australia, Germany has a history of nuclear power use, which as recently as 2010, supplied around a quarter of Germany’s electricity. The government led by Angela Merkel has committed to the complete phase-out of nuclear power by 2022.

South Carolina says U.S. government shipped ton of plutonium out of state — Officials in South Carolina say the U.S. government followed a requirement to remove weapons-grade plutonium from the state. South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said 1 metric ton (2,200 pounds) of nuclear material has been shipped out of the Savannah River Site near Aiken. The U.S. Energy Department was ordered in 2017 to remove that much plutonium by January. Federal court records said half the plutonium was sent to Nevada. Wilson's statement Wednesday didn't say where the other half was shipped. South Carolina sued the federal agency after it halted a plan to turn plutonium once used to make nuclear weapons into fuel for nuclear reactors. The Energy Department owes the state $200 million in fines in part because 11 metric tons (24,250 pounds) of plutonium remain at the site.

Feds secretly remove ton of plutonium from SC as part of court order — The federal government has quietly moved a metric ton of weapons-grade plutonium out of South Carolina, chipping away at a stockpile of potentially lethal nuclear material still at the Savannah River Site. The cross-country move, done to comply with a late 2017 federal court order, was disclosed Wednesday night by S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson, who had sued the U.S. Department of Energy over the stockpile. The agency had faced a January deadline to remove the material. “Today’s news that one ton of weapons-grade plutonium has been removed from the state is a victory for South Carolinians and the rule of law,” Wilson said in a prepared statement. “The Department of Energy disregarded many of its obligations to the state, and this outcome confirms the state will not sit idly by while the department does so.”Still, more than a 11 metric tons of the nuclear material remain at the Savannah River Site, a 310-square-mile nuclear complex 20 miles south of Aiken and about 130 miles northwest of Charleston. The material is stored at an aging reactor-turned-nuclear-storehouse that has previously been described as in poor condition.The move comes at a time when Wilson and the state’s legal team are trying to get the federal government to pay $200 million in fines levied against the Energy Department for failing to remove the plutonium in a timely manner. The department has repeatedly drawn the ire of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster.Federal law had mandated, beginning Jan. 1, 2016, that the Energy Department pay South Carolina $100 million for every year it failed to process plutonium at the never-completed Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at SRS or get 1 metric ton of the material out of the state.The Energy Department had been ordered by a federal court to remove at least 1 metric ton of the material from the site by the start of 2020. The agency’s weapons and nonproliferation arm, the National Nuclear Security Administration, has now completed the effort months ahead of the deadline. To comply with the court order, a half-metric ton was shipped to Nevada prior to November 2018, according to federal court documents. That clandestine campaign incensed that state’s governor and its congressional delegation, who complained that the shipment was only disclosed after a lawsuit was filed to prevent such a move from happening.

PA Health Department to distribute potassium iodide to residents – WFMJ  --- Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf's administration has announced that it will distribute free potassium iodide to five locations in Pennsylvania that are near nuclear power plants. The five locations are within 10 miles of the plants. The Department of Health will offer the potassium iodide on Thursday, August 22. According to the release, potassium iodide helps protect the thyroid gland against harmful radioactive iodine. The release says that potassium iodide is safe for everyone, even those that are pregnant or nursing as long as they are not allergic to it. The nuclear facilities included are Beaver Valley Power Station, Limerick Generating Station, Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Susquehanna Steam Electric Station, and Three Mile Island Generating Station. The Beaver Valley Mall is the closest location to get potassium iodide locally. The tablets will be distributed from 2 p.m to 7 p.m.

Radiation Spike Detected After Russian Rocket Explodes At Testing Facility -- It's been a bad week for accidental explosions in Russia, as a second massive blast killed two people and injured six at a Barents Sea military facility after a liquid-propelled rocket engine exploded.  A "short-term increase in radiation" was detected in the port city of Severodvinsk at 11:50 a.m., falling back to normal range around 2 p.m. according to the Straits Times, which added that the incident happened in close proximity to shipyards where nuclear submarines are produced.   "During the test of a liquid propellant jet engine, an explosion occurred and the equipment caught fire," said a Russian spokesman. "As a result of the accident, six defence ministry employees and a developer were injured. Two specialists died of their wounds."  The blast occurred in the town of Nyonoksa, about 40km from the port city of Severodvinsk, Interfax reported. The area in Russia's northern Arkhangelsk region is home to a weapons testing range for the navy. "There's no radioactive contamination," a spokeswoman for the Arkhangelsk region, told AFP. -Straits Times According to the Moscow Times, the Dvina Bay area of the White Sea would be closed to shipping for the forseeable future.  The incident comes days after a series of massive explosions rocked a town near an ammunition depot in Russia's Krasnoyarsk region, killing one and injuring thirteen - including two military officers.  A giant fireball and shockwave was captured on film after a fire broke out in a storage area for powdered artillery charges, according to Russia's TASS news agency. As a result, 16,500 people were evacuated from their homes.

U.S.-based experts suspect Russia blast involved nuclear-powered missile (Reuters) - U.S.-based nuclear experts said on Friday they suspected an accidental blast and radiation release in northern Russia this week occurred during the testing of a nuclear-powered cruise missile vaunted by President Vladimir Putin last year. The Russian Ministry of Defense, quoted by state-run news outlets, said that two people died and six were injured on Thursday in an explosion of what it called a liquid propellant rocket engine. No dangerous substances were released, it said. Russia’s state nuclear agency Rosatom said early on Saturday that five of its staff members died. A spokeswoman for Severodvinsk, a city of 185,000 near the test site in the Arkhangelsk region, was quoted in a statement on the municipal website as saying that a “short-term” spike in background radiation was recorded at noon Thursday. The statement was not on the site on Friday. The Russian Embassy did not immediately respond for comment. Two experts said in separate interviews with Reuters that a liquid rocket propellant explosion would not release radiation. They said that they suspected the explosion and the radiation release resulted from a mishap during the testing of a nuclear-powered cruise missile at a facility outside the village of Nyonoksa. “Liquid fuel missile engines exploding do not give off radiation, and we know that the Russians are working on some kind of nuclear propulsion for a cruise missile,”

FirstEnergy Solutions moves to ditch union contracts for bailed out plants, drawing Democrats' ire --On the same day in July that Ohio lawmakers approved state-wide customer charges to give FirstEnergy Solutions a six-year $1.1 billon nuclear plant subsidy, the company told a bankruptcy court it could not honor existing contracts with unions representing power plant employees and intended to negotiate completely new bargaining agreements once it emerged as a reorganized company. That revelation emerged Friday in an objection to the company's latest reorganization plan by lawyers representing locals of the Utility Workers Union of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The unions were among more than half dozen parties in the case filing objections. Listen to the fifth episode of our Energy Cloud podcast series and hear from experts from Navigant and Opus One Solutions as they lay out what has already been accomplished with transactive energy, and where it’s headed. In a reference to the FES reorganization plan filed July 23 — less than 12 hours after House Bill 6 had been approved by the legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine — the unions argue that the company intends to use the court to emerge from bankruptcy without its union contracts. And that contradicts the testimony of David Griffing, the company's vice president of governmental affairs, the union filing to the court charges.  Griffing assured lawmakers in April before an Ohio House subcommittee that "that new [collective bargaining agreements] were in essence agreed upon … Both parties … believe the negotiations were acceptable." But Friday's filing on behalf of the union locals indicates that the company has neither agreed to assume the existing contracts nor reached new ones with the unions at two of the three FES nuclear plants, Perry, east of Cleveland and Beaver Valley, near Pittsburgh.

Power switch: Cleveland starts move to 100% renewable energy by 2050 - When the City of Cleveland revised its 10-year-old Climate Action Plan in 2018, it set an ambitious goal: to use 100% clean, renewable energy by 2050. This followed the United States’ 2017 withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson made the commitment to clean energy, joining 200 other mayors nationwide.While it may seem like a lofty initiative for a city once notorious for its pollution, it was a no-brainer to include 100 percent renewable clean energy while updating the Climate Action Plan, says Cleveland’s chief of sustainability Matt Gray.“We had around 12 neighborhood workshops, an advisory board of over 90 organizations, and tons of resident engagement,” he says. “What came out as one of the key priorities is green energy and clean energy.” As a result, the city is pursuing ways to implement solar- and wind-powered energy (the initiative is focused on electricity usage and not natural gas at this time), both on a large scale—Cleveland Public Power pledged to purchase 25 percent of its power from theIcebreaker Wind offshore wind farm, for example—and a small scale, exploring the creation of a “green bank” that can help smaller businesses with proportionate budgets install solar panels.'

Wind industry says Ohio’s proposed turbine ‘incident’ reporting rules are too vague - A state board that approves wind farm siting is also considering new requirements related to building codes. Ohio’s wind industry could soon face more hurdles to siting and producing wind farms if regulators approve new rules on building codes and incident reporting. The proposed rules would require various components of wind farms to comply with building code regulations. They also call for prompt reporting of “incidents” at wind farms, as well as regulatory approval before facilities start up again after those events. The building code requirements “state the obvious and should not be controversial,” said lawyer John Stock in comments filed with the Ohio Power Siting Board in July on behalf of wind farm opponents. Stock represents opponents in various cases dealing with individual wind farms. He has also represented the Murray Energy coal company in regulatory proceedings. But the proposed rules present multiple problems, according to industry and environmental advocates. The proposed rule “runs afoul of the existing Building Code, which exempts major utility facilities — including commercial scale wind farms — from compliance, oversight, and enforcement,” said Dickinson Wright attorney Christine Pirik and colleagues in comments filed on behalf of the Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Coalition. As written, the rules could even lead to revisiting cases on which the board has already issued necessary approvals, the renewable coalition’s comments noted. For example, the board might aim to alter existing certificate conditions that had already been developed after lengthy consultation with regulatory staff. At a minimum, confusion and uncertainty would result, harming the wind industry and communities that rely on it, the renewable coalition’s comments continued. “The lenders and equity investors upon whom developers rely need some degree of long-term regulatory and operational predictability to justify the significant up-front capital investment associated with large scale wind projects.” 

Renewable energy credits in Ohio on the chopping block - Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis - After spiraling lower during the final week of July, over-the-counter prices for in-state solar renewable energy credits in Ohio were mixed during the week ended Aug. 1, still reeling after legislation was passed that would eliminate the state’s solar carve-out starting in 2020.Dropping $7 the week prior, Ohio 2019 in-state solar RECs were down almost $3 during the week ended Aug. 1 to $6.83/MWh. Ohio 2020 in-state solar RECs, which dropped $14.50/MWh in the prior week, rose 13 cents to an average of $8.13/MWh.Market analysts anticipate the impact of the legislation will ultimately work to push Ohio in-state SREC prices down to the $4.00/MWh level. Although it remains unclear, it is likely that Ohio-generated SRECs will be eligible to be sold in the Pennsylvania Tier I REC and Ohio REC market instead, analysts said.The Ohio legislation signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine at the end of July would also lower and freeze the state’s renewable energy mandate from 12.5% to 8.5% in 2026. As of Aug. 1, Ohio-located 2019 RECs came in at $5.38/MWh, up 7 cents, while 2020 RECs saw an index at $5.62/MWh, losing 1 cent week over week.

Niles company supplying natural gas to Southington ordered to cease operations | vindy.com - The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has fined One Source Energy of Niles, which supplies natural gas to about 118 residential customers in Southington, and ordered it to cease operations Sept. 6. The commission found One Source lacks the managerial, technical and financial resources necessary to safely operate a natural-gas utility, the PUCO said in a news release. The commission issued a $25,000 fine to One Source for its failure to comply with a previous commission order to cease enrolling new customers. One Source also failed to acknowledge or correct alleged violations resulting from two PUCO safety inspections and failed to appear at PUCO hearings, the PUCO says. A call to One Source from The Vindicator was not returned Thursday or Friday. Matt Schilling, PUCO spokesman, said One Source started providing natural gas to customers in 2016 without even notifying the PUCO, which learned of the operation because of a billing complaint by a customer. After that, One Source filed an application with the PUCO, but it was incomplete. The company failed to carry out other requirements and was ordered to stop enrolling new customers but ignored that request also, Schilling said. If One Source continues to ignore PUCO requirements, the PUCO will ask the company that supplies gas to One Source to cut off the gas. The PUCO is also asking the Ohio Attorney General’s office to take legal action against One Source.

Ethane storage coming to Monroe -- The plan to store natural gas liquids in underground salt caverns along the Ohio River, about 12 miles south of a proposed ethane cracker plant in the Dilles Bottom area of Shadyside, may soon become a reality.David Hooker, president of Mountaineer NGL Storage and the parent company of Denver-based Energy Storage Ventures, told the Monroe County Commissioners Monday that all permits have been approved and construction could begin the first quarter of next year.“It’s been a long time coming,” he said. “There’s been a lot of discussion about this Appalachian storage hub,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is build a storage facility because we think it’s needed. We think it’s important to everything that’s going on out here in terms of what can be for this valley, meaning more industry back here. Rather than (sending) it to the coast and ship it out of here, let’s keep it. That’s what storage does.” He said plans have been ongoing since 2013 and storage is the final stage of the production process. “Salt is the safest and most used way of storing liquid hydrocarbons in the country. There’s over a billion barrels of it in this country. We’re only talking about three million barrels. … It’s not very big, and it’s been going on for 70 years. You choose this stuff because it truly is the safest way to store those kind of hydrocarbons.” Hooker added that about $27 million has already been invested in Ohio, including $9 million for right of way and mineral rights for 200 acres of land in Monroe County. The company has also spent $6 million for technical validation such as ensuring the salt was the correct quality and depth, with methods including geo-mechanical and cavern mechanics, environmental analysis, and drilling bore holes to be certain of the ground’s stability. $12 million was also spent for engineering and permitting for Westlake Construction, administrative costs and other expenses.

Fracking boom - The Columbus Dispatch -- Six years ago, oil and gas company Antero Resources showed up in Belmont County, promising money to a struggling community in exchange for rights to drill on residents’ land.Oil and gas companies promised thousands, and in some cases millions, of dollars in an area where an estimated 14% of county residents live below the federal poverty level.Many in the community signed on.In Barnesville, 80% of landowners signed leases to allow Antero to drill for natural gas on or under their land. Schools have received an influx of money, and about 150 oil and gas jobs have been created in the county.But now a growing number of residents in eastern Ohio are wondering whether they are paying too high a price for the fracking bonanza.Amid the drilling boom, environmentalists and health experts have descended upon Belmont and neighboring Appalachian counties in an effort to measure the impact of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, on water quality, air emissions and even emotional health.“The evidence is strengthening and growing,” said Nicole Deziel, an assistant professor at the Yale School of Public Health, who has traveled to the region for three years to study air and water quality. “Scientists are quickly conducting health studies to better understand whether there are health impacts or not.” Activists say the clock is ticking. They hope to have clear findings before the oil and gas industry potentially takes a big next step.Chemical company PTTGC America, based in Thailand, is considering building a “cracker” plant on the west bank of the Ohio River in Belmont County that would convert an oil and gas byproduct into ethylene, a key ingredient in producing plastics and chemicals. Such a plant could produce hundreds of high-paying jobs and potentially draw plastics plants seeking access to the ethylene.This month, JobsOhio, the state’s economic development nonprofit agency, awarded a $30 million grant to ready the site, and PTTGC America already has invested more than $100 million to conduct engineering designs.“I am very hopeful we’re going to get a final decision ... and get to the point where they can move forward,” said Larry Merry, executive director of the Belmont County Port Authority. The cracker plant would be the largest economic development project in the state.

Gulfport Energy reports profit - Earnings double from second quarter of last year. Gulfport Energy reported a profit of $235 million, or $1.47 per diluted share, during the second quarter of this year, according to a press release Thursday. The Oklahoma City-based driller’s profit doubled from the same quarter in 2018. Gulfport drilled five wells and began production from 25 wells in the Utica Shale during the quarter, and is operating one horizontal rig. The company produced 124 billion cubic feet equivalent of natural gas during the quarter, with Utica wells contributing 77 percent of the total.

Study: Thousands Of Ohioans Live Near Natural Gas Storage Wells – WOSU - An estimated 30,000 Ohioans live within 650 feet of an underground natural gas storage well, according to a study published this week in the journal Environmental Health.The study examined storage facilities in six states, finding that 65 percent of wells are in urban and suburban areas. The wells hold natural gas before delivery to businesses and households.“Looking at these wells, I realized that they were in people’s backyards,” said lead author Drew Michanowicz, a research associate at Harvard University’s Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment. “They were in neighborhoods — somewhat different than you might think of new, unconventional wells in rural areas.”Many wells appear to predate the development that grew up around them, he said. Michanowicz said he hopes the research will offer more insight into a part of the natural gas supply chain that isn’t often discussed.In 2015 and 2016, a months-long leak at the Aliso Canyon storage facility in Southern California led to the displacement of thousands from the area. SoCalGas later paid out a nearly $120 million settlement over the leak.Such leaks of methane from storage wells can contribute to climate change, Michanowicz said. State data on leaks in Ohio was not immediately available.Ohio’s storage wells are clustered in several places across the state, including southern Lorain County, between Mansfield and Wooster, northwest of Canton and south of Lancaster. “When you look at the storage wells in the Stark, Summit and Wayne County areas that are from Dominion, those date back to the 1940s, well before that area became populated,”  Congress approved new regulations for pipelines and storage facilities in the wake of the Aliso Canyon leak. The federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issued rules in late 2016, but stayed the enforcement of some regulations in June 2017.

Hydraulic Fracturing May Carry Serious Health Risks For Nearby Residents: Investigative Report - AboutLawsuits.com - An investigative report warns that shale-gas mining practices, such as hydraulic fracturing, are negatively impacting the health of individuals who live in nearby areas, including the unborn children.The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published the second in a series of reports earlier this month, titled “The Human Toll“, which highlights the side effects of pollution caused by hydraulic fracturing and other gas mining practices. The report indicates that numerous studies have found gas extraction is linked to a variety of health problems.More commonly referred to as “fracking”, hydraulic fracturing involves drilling and fracturing of shale rock to release oil and gas.  .Problems from fracking have previously been linked to negative environmental effects to the surrounding communities, due the impact on drinking water, as well as increased dust and exhaust from drilling rigs, compressors and the transportation of the water, sand and chemicals. The process has also been linked to increased earthquake activity. The extent of the potential harm to humans living close to these fracking sites has yet to be determined.This latest report cites a compendium published by the Concerned Health Professionals of New York and Physicians for Social Responsibility, which found that, out of 1,778 peer-reviewed studies, 90.3% published from 2016 through 2018 linked fracking with harm or potential harm.“In our review of the data, seventeen compelling themes emerged; these serve as the organizational structure of the Compendium,” the compendium’s authors state. “Readers will notice the ongoing upsurge in reported problems and health impacts, making each section top-heavy with recent data.”According to the investigative report, studies have linked living near fracking operations to an increased risk of asthma in school children, an increased risk of preterm births, low birth-weight babies and high-risk pregnancies. Some studies have also found an increased risk of birth defects, miscarriages, and other health problems.The report notes that health outcomes worsen the closer a person lives to shale gas operations, and that these health problems can occur below established safe exposure thresholds. It was released on the same day as a study by researchers at the University of Colorado which found that pregnant women who live near fracking operations face an increased risk of having a child with congenital heart defects.

Fracking causes environmental damage and birth defects, new study shows - Fracking has revolutionized the extraction of oil and gas in just a few years, but this highly efficient method comes with environmental and health risks. Now, a new metastudy details its adverse effects on the local environment, the climate and human health.The new report, published by Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York, brings together the findings of more 1,700 studies, articles and reports tying fracking activities to a host of health problems including birth defects, cancer and asthma. It’s the sixth edition of a report originally published in 2014, which helped inform New York State’s decision to ban fracking. A group of public health professionals that included Sandra Steingraber, a professor of environmental studies and sciences at Ithaca College, had wanted to make sure sound science was part of that decision.“So, we went to work, translating the science into plain English for our political leaders, members of the press and, most importantly, people in frontline communities who are going to be compelled to endure the risks that fracking brings to people's health,” Steingraber says. “When we first did this, we didn't call it a compendium, we called it a memo,” she says, “because there were only nine studies in the peer-reviewed literature. When we finally banned fracking in New York in December 2014, we had an edition of the compendium with 400 studies. At that point, people all over the world were … thinking about fracking — whether to allow it or not — so our compendium was in great demand. So we've kept going with it.”  “Across all these data we saw a plethora of recurring problems and harms, and we uncovered no regulatory framework that could avert these harms,” Steingraber says. “In other words, there's no evidence that fracking can operate without threatening public health directly or without imperiling climate stability, on which public health, of course, depends.”

Report: ‘No Evidence That Fracking Can Operate Without Threatening Public Health’ - In 2010 when I first started writing about hydraulic fracturing there were more questions than answers about environmental and public-health threats. Those days are over. In June the nonprofits Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York released the sixth edition of a compendium that summarizes more than 1,700 scientific reports, peer-reviewed studies and investigative journalism reports about the threats to the climate and public health from fracking. The research has been piling up for years, and the verdict is clear, the authors conclude: Fracking isn't safe, and heaps of regulations won't help (not that they're coming, anyway)."Across a wide range of parameters, from air and water pollution to radioactivity to social disruption to greenhouse gas emissions, the data continue to reveal a plethora of recurring problems and harms that cannot be sufficiently averted through regulatory frameworks," write the eight public health professionals, mostly doctors and scientists, who compiled the compendium. "There is no evidence that fracking can operate without threatening public health directly and without imperiling climate stability upon which public health depends." The research collected and summarized is wide-ranging and includes the harms not just from drilling and fracking, but the long tail of the process, including compressor stations and pipelines, silica sand mining, natural-gas storage, natural-gas power plants, and the manufacturing and transport of liquefied natural gas.

No safe way to conduct fracking | vindy.com -- Science. Evidence. Facts. Do these even matter anymore in U.S. policy? They should – especially when it comes to issues that affect our health and environment, like fracking. Concerned Health Professionals of New York and my organization, Physicians for Social Responsibility, recently released a remarkable compendium of research on the subject. It summarizes and links to over 1,500 articles and reports and has become the go-to source for activists, health professionals and others seeking to understand fracking. The new studies we looked at expose serious threats to health, justice, and the climate. A 2018 study in the Journal of Health Economics, for instance, found that the babies of Pennsylvania mothers living within 1.5 miles of gas wells had increased incidence of low birth weight. Babies with low birth weight (under 5.5 pounds) are more than 20 times more likely to die in infancy than babies with healthy birth weight. Babies exposed in utero to fracking are likely to face additional challenges throughout their lives. They may suffer long-term neurologic disability, impaired language development and academic success, and increased risk of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Other researchers are finding that fracking wells and associated infrastructure are disproportionately sited in non-white, indigenous or low-income communities. But you don’t have to live near wells and pipelines to be at risk. We all face harm from fracking’s impact on the climate. So-called “natural gas” is 85-95 percent methane, a short-lived but highly potent greenhouse gas. Over its first 20 years in the atmosphere, methane traps about 86 times more heat than carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, as the research we collected finds, methane-leakage rates from drilling and fracking operations have “greatly exceed” earlier estimates.

The Growing Case to Ban Fracking - “There is no regulatory framework for fracking that will keep the toxins out of air and water, or will protect the climate from carbon and methane releases. It can’t be done. It can’t be made safe.  Like lead paint, we finally have to ban it.”   So concludes Sandra Steingraber of Concerned Health Professionals of New York in an interview. She is one of five authors of a newly released compendium of scientific and media findings on the dangers of shale gas development her group coauthored with Physicians for Social Responsibility. This report is the sixth in a series that looks at peer-reviewed scientific articles, as well as government reports and investigative stories, on the wide variety of harms created by the fracking industry. The reports examine the human rights implications of poisoning drinking water with fracking chemicals; the heavy climate impacts of methane release, in both the extraction and transportation of fracked natural gas for export; the industry’s weak record on worker safety; and increased earthquake activity in communities near fracking operations.   Fracking extracts shale oil by injecting a mix of sand, water, and chemicals, many of which are known to be toxic, into horizontal wells drilled into rock. As Steingraber explains, “To get the sand grains down there and not clog plumbing, you have to add chemicals that lubricate. Also, shale is a living organism so you have powerful biocides to kill off the microbiota on shale. It’s toxic and there is no way to turn reverse that. Fresh drinkable water is turned to poison.”   The industry has taken off thanks to support for domestic energy development under successive administrations. In 2018, the United States eclipsed both Saudi Arabia and Russia in natural gas production. Natural gas is mostly methane, some thirty timesmore powerful a heat-trapping gas than carbon, in a fracking industry leaky both in gas extraction and transport. As the increased supply has lowered prices, the industry hassought to expand exports, building the infrastructure to export liquified natural gas to other countries. For Steingraber, the notion that the United States would crack open its bedrock and fill its drinking water with known carcinogens in order to export energy to other countries is nothing short of blasphemy.  “By design liquified natural gas has to leak so it’s already bad,” she says, “but getting it set up for transport is a climate disaster on steroids. It also creates a terrorist threat.”  She points to one of the fifteen main themes of the report—the challenge to the notion that natural gas can help wean us off coal. “The common discourse is that natural gas [because it burns more cleanly than coal] is a bridge fuel,” she notes. “Now, not only can we show there is no evidence for that, but that fracking leads to a terrible place.”

Pennsylvania is Discharging Radioactive Fracking Waste Into Rivers As Landfill Leachate, Impacting The Chesapeake Bay & Ohio River Watersheds - Water that travels ninety-one miles down the West Branch of the Susquehanna River from the Lance Corporal Abram Howard Memorial bridge in Williamsport, Pennsylvania ends up at the Pennsylvania Governor’s Residence on the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg. On any given day, Governor Tom Wolf could look out from his window to wildlife on the River and people recreating in the waters rushing by. But what Wolf can’t see, is that his own Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has allowed radioactive material from fracking waste to be discharged into that River through sewage facilities upstream. A Public Herald investigation has uncovered that DEP is allowing 14 Sewage Waste Treatment Plants to discharge radioactive fracking waste as landfill leachate into 13 Pennsylvania Waterways. The process DEP created to “treat” and discharge the leachate through sewage plants appears to date as far back as the fracking boom (2009 or longer).  The size of this story is vast and the numbers are overwhelming. The 14 discharge points hit waterways across the Commonwealth. In the east, the effluent of pollution flows from three facilities upstream of Harrisburg down the Susquehanna River into Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay. In the west 11 facilities — one hitting the Allegheny River from a plant in Johnstown, another reaching the treasured Youghiogheny River — are discharging radioactive fracking waste as landfill leachate into the Ohio River watershed. At start of 2019, there were 15, not 14, sewage facilities overseen by DEP to send landfill leachate to waterways. But one facility, the Belle Vernon sewage plant in Fayette County, shut down its leachate intake in May after superintendent Guy Kruppa said it was “killing their bugs.”  When we asked the Department to provide the total annual volume of leachate for each of the 15 facilities, the DEP told Public Herald, “We do not have this information available.”  Our own review of sewage discharge data from the Belle Vernon Plant says the total amount of landfill leachate potentially released to these 15 facilities, on the low end, is 547,500,000 million gallons per year (36,500,000 million gallons annually per facility), depending on rainfall. On the high end we’re looking at 1.6 billion gallons of leachate per year. Where and how this is all happening is best illustrated in the Public Herald interactive map “How Radioactive Fracking Waste Gets Into Pennsylvania Waterways” — produced with FracTracker Alliance.

Too much rain is messing with pipeline operators' infrastructure plans - There have been plenty of high-profile landslides dislodging and destroying oil and gas pipelines over the past few years, just as rains have wreaked havoc outside the oilfield — collapsing Route 30 in East Pittsburgh last year, opening up a giant sinkhole at a shopping plaza in Greensburg last month.The oil and gas industry is both a victim and a perpetrator of this dislocated earth. With hundreds of well pads and thousands of miles of pipelines newly added to the ground in Pennsylvania over the past decade, the industry’s development disturbs the surface and eliminates some trees and vegetation that would otherwise absorb rainfall. Then the rain, in turn, floods culverts, soaks the ground and moves soil without regard for what pipelines may be relying on its support. What we usually hear about is the big stuff — the fireballs in the sky documented by live-streaming drivers and neighbors. Last year alone, three newly laid pipelines snapped under pressure from landslides in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio — causing explosions, evacuations and millions of dollars in damage. But in the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s violations database, there are many more unsung examples of how the earth slips and slides around energy infrastructure, sometimes punching right through erosion barriers and sometimes just menacing them with increasing rain. More than a few times, pipeline and extraction companies cited for erosion violations by the DEP pleaded not guilty by reason of weather — record-breaking, abnormal weather. The weather is indeed not normal. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said June of this year marked the wettest 8-month, 9-month, 10-month, 11-month, 12-month, 18-month, 24-month, 36-month and 48-month periods in Pennsylvania since record-keeping began in 1895. Over the past 12 months, nearly 2 feet more of rain fell than in an average year in Pennsylvania last century. According to Pennsylvania’s official Climate Impacts Assessment — last revised in 2015 — it will get worse from here. Rains will come more frequently in heavy bursts than in the past. And that will make fixing hillside slips even more challenging. “Sometimes the weather gets so inclement that you can’t do anything. It’s like a soup sandwich,” A few years ago, a heavy rain might have delayed Ben Wright’s hydroseeding company, Hydrogreen LLC, by an extra day.“This year, if there’s a storm, we’re out for four to five days because the soil is too wet to get equipment on,” he said.

Sunoco says Mariner East 2 system ‘backfired’ during maintenance but no risk to public --Sunoco Pipeline confirmed on Tuesday that its Mariner East pipeline system “backfired” during routine maintenance late Monday at the Boot Road pumping station in West Goshen Township, Chester County.In a statement, the company did not explain what caused the backfire but apologized for the noise, which alarmed neighbors and fueled longstanding concerns about the safety of the new pipelines, which carry highly volatile natural gas liquids.“During routine maintenance last evening at our Boot Station in West Goshen Township, there was a backfire on a flare stack at approximately 8:20 p.m. ET as the station was brought back online,” the company said in a statement. “This resulted in a loud noise, similar to what happens when a car backfires. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused to our neighbors.” Company spokeswoman Amanda Gorgueiro said the incident affected Mariner East 2, which had been shut down for planned maintenance. She said there was no release of liquids and no risk to public safety.  Tom Casey, a pipeline opponent who lives about a quarter mile from the pumping station, said the explosion was very loud, and shook his house. “It sounded like a bomb going off,” he said. “It was instant and severe. It shook my house, it shook my neighbors’ houses. They all came out thinking that a tree had fallen.”

Pipeline experts say vapor buildup likely led to explosion at Chester County pump station -- Was Monday’s explosion at a Mariner East 2 pumping station in Chester County a routine maintenance glitch, as Sunoco Pipeline said, or was it a “dry run” for the catastrophe predicted by critics of the natural gas liquids pipelines? The public won’t know the answer to those questions until state and federal regulators, or Sunoco itself, release reports on an incident that scared residents near the station on Boot Road in West Goshen Township, leaving some to say that they had dodged a bullet. For now, independent pipeline experts say the blast appears to have been caused by the relighting of a pilot in a flare used by Sunoco for burning off excess gases, at a time when vapor had accumulated there. The pilot seems to have been extinguished for maintenance, during which time explosive hydrocarbons built up in the tube, and were ignited when the pilot was re-lit, causing the explosion, said Rich Kuprewicz, a pipeline expert who has consulted for the township. He does not have first-hand knowledge of Monday’s event but discussed it based on his experience of how pumping stations work. “If you shut off that pilot light and didn’t do certain procedures that normally you would follow, you could end up within the flare with combustible gas that, when you did ignite the pilot, it would cause what they call a backfire,” Kuprewicz said. “I’m going to call it what it is: It’s an explosion.” In 2015, Kuprewicz’s company, Accufacts, concluded in a report for the township that Sunoco had exceeded federal safety requirements in its plans for the pumping station. On Tuesday, he said that whatever the cause of the incident, Sunoco should clearly and quickly explain how it happened and how it will prevent a recurrence, addressing a public that already has deep misgivings about the safety of the pipelines running through their crowded neighborhood. “They could argue that it’s a minor backfire, but look, they are in a hyper-sensitive environment where people are just looking for a reason to hang you,” he said. “You just don’t do these things.”

2 state constables broke law while working for Mariner East pipeline, Chester DA says - Two Pennsylvania constables abused their elected positions while working as private security subcontractors for the controversial Mariner East pipeline project, the Chester County District Attorney’s Office said Thursday. Kareem Johnson, 47, of Coatesville, and Michael Robel, 58, of Shamokin, were charged with official oppression, Pennsylvania Ethics Act violations, and related offenses. Johnson is a constable in Coatesville and Robel is a constable in Northumberland County. As state constables, which are elected positions, they have duties that include protecting polling places, serving arrest warrants, transporting criminal defendants for courts, and providing security in courtrooms. They are paid by the courts. In 2018, Johnson was paid $36,785 by Raven Knights, a Harrisburg company, to work private security in Chester County, the District Attorney’s Office said. Johnson allegedly failed to report the income as required by the Ethics Act. Robel was paid $27,995 by Raven Knights from 2018 through 2019 to work private security for the Mariner East project, the prosecutors said. He also allegedly failed to report his income under the Ethics Act. Sunoco Pipeline is building three adjacent pipelines to transport natural gas liquids such as propane across the state from the Marcellus Shale region through Chester County to a terminal in Delaware County, where Sunoco is a major employer.

Southwestern cutting drilling rigs in Appalachian Basin - Southwestern Energy is reducing its rigs in the Appalachian Basin for the remainder of 2019,Kallanish Energy reports. The rig count is being reduced from six rigs in the first half of 2019, to two rigs by the end of the third quarter, the Texas-based company said.The independent producer said total capital investment for full-year 2019 “is not expected to exceed $1.15 billion” due to what it called capital efficiency improvements. It spent $693 million on capital projects in the first half of 2019. “Swn’s position as a leading Appalachia producer is underpinned by its operational outperformance, continued cost reduction, disciplined capital allocation and prudent commodity risk management. This, combined with a strong balance sheet and no material near-term debt maturities, provides resilience in this volatile commodity price environment,” said president and CEO Bill Way, in a statement. He said the company intends to return to free cash flow by the end of 2020. The company reported a second quarter 2019 net income of $138 million, or 26 cents a share, and adjusted net income of $40 million, or 8 cents per share. That compares to net income of $51 million, or 9 cents per share, in Q2 2018. The company recorded total quarterly production of 186 billion cubic feet-equivalent (Bcfe). The total's down from 234 Bcfe in the year-ago quarter due to the December 2018 divestment of Fayetteville assets. It's up 11% compared to 2Q 2018 after factoring in the sale.The company reported 148 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of gas production, along with 937,000 barrels of oil production and 5.50 million barrels of natural gas liquids production in the Appalachian Basin. Production was 79% natural gas, 3% oil and 18% natural gas liquids. Oil production was up 30% and Ngl production was up 13%. In Q2 2019, the company drilled 41 wells, completed 40 wells and placed 36 wells to sales. It captured a weighted average realized price of $2.61 per thousand cubic feet-equivalent including derivatives and excluding 44 cents/Mcfe of transportation costs. That is essentially flat, compared to Q2 2018, Southwestern said.

PES refinery to begin neutralizing hydrofluoric acid Monday - Workers at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery in South Philadelphia are planning to start neutralizing tens of thousands of barrels of a highly toxic chemical beginning Monday. The refinery is shutting down after an explosion and fire destroyed part of the plant. The company has entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The chemical, hydrofluoric acid, is one of the most dangerous industrial substances in use. Refineries use it as a catalyst to create high-octane fuel and it was an integral part of the unit that exploded at PES back in June. The company’s own risk management plan, filed with the Environmental Protection Agency as a requirement under the Clean Air Act, describes a catastrophic worst-case scenario involving hydrofluoric acid. If 143,262 pounds of hydrogen fluoride were released over 10 minutes, a toxic cloud could travel for more than seven miles and affect more than a million people, including in schools, homes, hospitals, prisons, playgrounds, parks, and a wildlife sanctuary. The chemical penetrates the skin and reacts with the calcium in bones. Swallowing just a small amount, or getting small splashes on the skin, can be fatal, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In its gaseous state, the CDC says, low levels of hydrogen fluoride can irritate the eyes, nose and respiratory tract. Breathing it at high levels “can cause death from an irregular heartbeat or fluid buildup in the lungs.”

Dangerous South Philly refinery chemical still poses threat to community  - The dangerous task of disposing of a toxic chemical at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery could put workers and the surrounding community at risk, according to city officials. Hydrofluoric acid is integral to the creation of high-octane gasoline. It’s used at about 48 alkylation units in the United States — and was used at the South Philadelphia refinery, where an explosion in June destroyed the unit and led to the closure and bankruptcy of the plant. But until the 33,000 gallons of hydrofluoric acid remaining at the site are treated and neutralized, the incident area remains unsafe and off-limits to anyone not wearing protective clothing. Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel said firefighters with the hazardous-materials unit remain at the site 24/7. “Rest assured we will be down there sharing this risk with the community and doing our best to stand between the community and danger,” Thiel said, “and we will continue to do that.” Hydrofluoric acid is one of the most dangerous industrial chemicals in use. “It’s a very special acid,” said May Nyman, professor of chemistry at Oregon State University. “It’s important for certain applications. But it’s also very dangerous.” At room temperature, HF is a gas, but for industrial use, it is dissolved into a liquid solution. Swallowing just a small amount of HF or getting small splashes on the skin can be fatal, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The acid molecules are very small and can easily penetrate the skin and get directly into bones, where the acid reacts with calcium and effectively dissolves the bones. In the gaseous state, the CDC says, low levels of HF can irritate the eyes, nose and respiratory tract. Breathing it at high levels “can cause death from an irregular heartbeat or fluid buildup in the lungs.”

WV oil and gas production reaches record high for tenth consecutive year — The Mountain State’s oil and gas industry continues to reach new heights, according to data from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. The state’s oil and gas production levels in 2018 surpassed 2017 levels, marking the 10th consecutive year of output increases. According to the DEP’s Office of Oil and Natural Gas, natural gas production in the state rose to 1.8 trillion cubic feet in 2018 from 1.5 trillion cubic feet in 2017, a year-over-year increase of 17 percent. Anne Blankenship, executive director of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association, said the state continues to benefit from its abundant natural resources. “To put this monumental volume of gas production into context, the average West Virginia household consumes about 72 thousand cubic feet of natural gas per year,” she said. “We produce enough gas in one day to meet the needs of all West Virginians.” Charlie Burd, executive director of the Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia, said the industry has come a long way in just over a decade. “We started developing horizontally in late 2007. In 2008, we only produced 256 billion cubic feet of natural gas,” he said. “That’s many more times now than then.” Oil production in West Virginia grew nearly 60 percent, from 7.5 million barrels in 2017 to 12 million barrels in 2018. This is the largest amount of oil produced in the state since 1900, when West Virginia produced 16 million barrels, according to the DEP. Doddridge County is the state’s most prolific natural gas producer at 434 billion cubic feet a year. 2018 production in Doddridge County increased 53 billion cubic feet over 2017 levels, growing by 14 percent year-over-year. In Tyler County, production grew by 59 percent to 272 billion cubic feet from 2017 to 2018, making it the state’s second largest gas-producing county. Coming in third, Ritchie County saw production increase 26 percent from 2017 to 2018, rising from 158 billion cubic feet to 200 billion cubic feet in the span of one year.

Natural gas industry leader says years of production increase threatened - — For the 10th straight year the output of West Virginia oil and natural gas production has risen, bringing record-high numbers, according to data from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). West Virginia Oil & Natural Gas Association (WVONGA) said numbers from the DEP’s Office of Oil and Natural Gas indicated production of natural gas in 2018 rose to 1.8 Tcf (trillion cubic feet) from 1.5 Tcf in 2017, a year-over-year increase of 17 percent. Anne Blankenship, Executive Director of WVONGA attributed the consistent rise to a few things on Wednesday’s MetroNews ‘Talkline.’ “The boom in the Marcellus Shale here that we are sitting on top of in West Virginia and more specifically the advances in technology that we make every year,” she said. She added the drilling technology getting better and better equals an increase in production which turns to gas prices being lower. But Blankenship said lower prices can be a double-edged sword because supply and demand in a low priced environment is not a good thing for a production company. “Because the prices are so low, you do see drillers pull back,” she said. “You do see some decreases and we may see them next year. We may not see quite the increase as far as a percentage as we saw in 2018.” WVONGA said oil production in West Virginia grew nearly 60 percent, from 7.5 million barrels in 2017 to 12 million barrels in 2018. This is the largest amount of oil produced since 1900 when the state produced 16 million barrels. 

'Getting in the way:' Inside the standoff over the Mountain Valley Pipeline - Virginia Mercury — The roar of construction echoed through the hollow, as a bulldozer pushed dirt on an impossibly steep slope hundreds of feet up the ridge. At the bottom of the slope, a makeshift fence and stack of pallets marked a boundary — the edge of a support camp for tree-sitters who for 10 months have blocked the path up the other side of the hollow.These are the battle lines on the ground in the fight over the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 303-mile natural gas transmission line intended to transport gas from the fracking fields of northern West Virginia through the rugged terrain of eastern Appalachia to a compressor station in southern Virginia’s Pittsylvania County.The encampment on Yellow Finch Lane has become a hotspot over the summer. In July, three protesters were arrested at the camp after others walked onto an MVP work site on a nearby road. An Austin man who had sat in a tree on the site for several months was also arrested after locking himself to a concrete structure and halting pipeline construction for several hours.   The protesters, mostly young people, had traveled to Elliston not just from other parts of Virginia, but from West Virginia, Louisiana and beyond.Above the support camp, a tree-sitter wore a cap, sunglasses and what appeared to be a balaclava to protect his identity. He shouted over the bulldozer’s roar to explain why he’d put his body in the pipeline’s path.n  “At this point, I can’t imagine doing anything else,” the tree-sitter said. “The effects of global climate change, U.S. imperialism and colonialism, and too much not taking a stand. I can’t imagine doing anything else. That’s why I’m here. There really is nothing else more important than our planet. There’s nothing more important at this moment.”  That was Monday, July 29, the deadline that MVP had requested a federal judge to rule against the tree-sitters and allow U.S. Marshals to move in and remove them. The day came and went without such a ruling.  On Friday, a federal judge refused a request from the pipeline company to add tree-sitters as defendants to an existing case seeking a preliminary injunction. While the tree-sitters and their supporters try to hold the line on the pipeline, a small army of lawyers are using the courts to halt construction. So far they’ve succeeded in creating a variety of regulatory obstacles that present significant challenges to the Mountain Valley Pipeline, as well as the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, another project seeking to transport natural gas from northern West Virginia to the Southeast, have yet to overcome. Both pipelines must obtain new authorization to cross federally managed land in Virginia and West Virginia, the Appalachian Trail and waterways along the entirety of the route.

MVP tree-sitters allowed to stay in pipeline's path, judge rules - Good news arrived Friday for opponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. A federal judge ruled that tree-sitters blocking construction in eastern Montgomery County will not be forced down from their positions. EQT, the corporation backing the pipeline, has been pushing to have the protesters removed so it can begin with tree-cutting in that location, which is just off Route 460 near Elliston. Judge Elizabeth Dillon denied Mountain Valley’s injunction Friday in Roanoke federal court. It could have led to U.S. marshals showing up to force down the tree-sitters. The two tree-sits near Elliston are the last remaining ones in the MVP path. Multiple unidentified people have rotated in and out of them. Pipeline opponents say multiple people have been arrested in the last month at that site for allegedly being on the pipeline’s planned path. Dillon said in her written decision that she ruled this way in part because the property owners are not helping the protesters. “There is no allegation or proof here that the tree-sitters are acting in concert with the landowners,” Dillon wrote. In past cases, both property owners and tree-sitters have faced punishment from the same federal court for actions deemed to be preventing pipeline construction. A similar Mountain Valley request did not go the protesters' way. In May of last year, Dillon ruled that “Red” and Minor Terry needed to come down from their Roanoke County tree-sits after being up in trees on Bent Mountain for more than a month.

MVP tries again to remove 2 tree-sitters who have blocked work on the pipeline for nearly a year - Unable to convince a federal judge to remove two tree-sitters blocking work on the Mountain Valley Pipeline, attorneys for the company are turning to state court in an effort to end the long-standing dispute. Mountain Valley filed a request Tuesday in Montgomery County Circuit Court for a temporary injunction to have the protesters extracted from two trees they have occupied on a wooded slope near Elliston for nearly a year. On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Elizabeth Dillon denied a similar request on the grounds that the company had improperly gone after the two unidentified protesters as part of an eminent domain case used to take private land for the controversial pipeline. The tree-sitters had no ownership interest in the land and therefore could not be named as defendants in the case, Dillon ruled. She suggested that Mountain Valley pursue other options in either federal or state court. In its filing Tuesday, the Pittsburgh-based company expressed frustration in dealing with what is now the longest active blockade of a natural gas pipeline on the East Coast, according to Appalachians Against Pipelines. “MVP will sustain irreparable harm if the occupations are permitted to continue,” attorney Wade Massie wrote, saying the company had already spent more than $100,000 in extra construction costs and could incur another $250,000 to work around the tree-sitters. Perched on wooden platforms about 50 feet off the ground, in a white pine and a chestnut oak, the protesters have blocked work off Yellow Finch Lane since Sept. 5, 2018. They are positioned in such a way that any attempt to cut the trees — some of the last still standing along the pipeline’s 303-mile route through the two Virginias — could result in a life-threatening incident. Mountain Valley asked a circuit court judge to order the tree-sitters to come down, and if they refuse, to “direct law enforcement to take all necessary action to remove defendants from the tree stands and easements.”

Pipeline protester arrested in Montgomery County  — Work on the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Montgomery County has been halted due to a protester on the site. The protester, identifying themselves as River Nason, has gotten onto a piece of welding machinery, according to a release from the Appalachians Against Pipelines. “It is a common misconception that we all contribute to and suffer from environmental damage equally,” Nason said in the release, “It is large corporations like EQT that are destroying our homes while their CEO’s look on from their penthouses.” According to the press release, the site that Nason is protesting on is located in a very rural section of Montgomery County, Va. The location in the release is described as not being visible from the public road and, “Requires a difficult hike to access.” “This is why ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ is not enough,” Nason said in the release, “We will never be able to recycle enough empty milk jugs to make up for the hundreds of miles of forests and farmlands that the MVP has devastated in its wake.” With this not being the first protester, both law enforcement and pipeline workers have grown accustomed to the happening. In November of last year, a protester locker herself atop of a boom tractor in Lindside, of Monroe County, in an attempt to stop the pipeline work. As she did so, a sign, reading “ANTIPATRIARCHY, ANTIPIPELINE,” hung from the machinery. Before her protest, another protester stood their ground on an excavator on November 19. She was removed by West Virginia State Police and was charged with obstructing an officer, littering, tampering with a vehicle, and trespassing.

Regulators stop work on 2 miles of Mountain Valley Pipeline in Montgomery County - Virginia regulators ordered Friday that all work cease on construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline along a 2-mile section of the route in eastern Montgomery County. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, in stopping work on the project for the first time, cited lapses in compliance with an approved erosion and sediment control plan. Agency director David Paylor said in a news release that his agency is “appalled” by findings during a Thursday inspection. Inspectors found a work site without control measures near U.S. 11/460, DEQ spokeswoman Ann Regn said. Elsewhere in the same area were control devices that had not been maintained, she said. “It’s a violation of the certification,” Regn said of the lapses found. “We did this certification to ensure natural resources are protected. We said all along we were going to hold them to a high standard.” Conditions seen during the site visit showed “an imminent and substantial adverse impact to water quality is likely to occur as a result of the land disturbing activities,” DEQ said in a letter to the company, which is based in Pennsylvania. Clearing, grading and trenching were banned in the affected area until DEQ had signed off on steps to fix the problems. Paylor’s reaction was to evidence “that construction priorities and deadline pressures would ever rise above the proper and appropriate use of erosion control measures,” the government’s statement said. Environmental advocate Russell Chisholm said in a release that he was “appalled” that the company’s skimping on control measures to advance the project surprised the DEQ. Citizens have repeatedly reported similar lapses in permit compliance for at least a year, said his statement, issued by the Protect Our Water Heritage Rights Coalition, an anti-pipeline group with constituents in Virginia and West Virginia. Chisholm is its co-chair.

Stop-work order does not go far enough, pipeline opponents say - A stop-work order on a 2-mile section of the Mountain Valley Pipeline doesn’t stop the widespread environmental problems along the remaining 301 miles of the project, opponents said Tuesday. Less than a week after the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality ordered work to cease on a section of the pipeline in eastern Montgomery County, a citizens group monitoring construction called yet again for a full stop-work order. “There are too many unresolved questions to allow this project to continue with impunity,” said Russell Chisholm, lead coordinator for the Mountain Valley Watch and co-chair of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights coalition. Chisholm and others who spoke at a news conference asked why DEQ ordered Mountain Valley to stop work Friday because of violations of erosion and sediment control measures — problems that have occurred repeatedly since work began last year. The most recent lapses — which included a work site near U.S. 11/460 with nothing to curb runoff — marked the first time DEQ inspectors found an imminent and substantial risk to water quality, the standard set by a state law that allowed them to stop work on the natural gas pipeline until the problems are corrected. Details of the violation remained unclear Tuesday. A report from a Thursday inspection that led to the stop-work order the next day was not released by DEQ. Mountain Valley spokeswoman Natalie Cox said a construction crew with the joint venture reported “an incident regarding erosion and sediment control measures” to DEQ that led to the inspection and stop-work order. The stop-work order states that Mountain Valley failed to construct and maintain environmental protections, “and/or the erosion and sediment control measures that have been installed are not functioning effectively.”

Bernheim Alleges LG&E Hid Information About Gas Pipeline From Public - In a bid to stall or stop the Bullitt County Pipeline Project, Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest has filed a complaint with utility regulators alleging Louisville Gas and Electric bypassed the typical process for a new natural gas pipeline and in doing so hid information from the public.LG&E first mentioned the need for a new gas pipeline during a 2016 rate case. Utility regulators approved the pipeline in 2017 and have also agreed to prevent public disclosure of a study and map identifying the proposed route.Opponents say LG&E’s strategy has prevented the community from working together. Instead, individual landowners say they were left to fend for themselves with little information to go on as LG&E tried to buy the remaining properties necessary to build the pipeline.“From day one they have isolated us from one another. I asked repeatedly, ‘give me a general path of the pipeline,’” said Vanessa Allen, a homeowner who has so far refused to sell to LG&E. “I would have gone door to door, all along they kept saying ‘oh we don’t even know if it’s going here.’”The pipeline would also run three-quarters of a mile through the Cedar Grove Wildlife Corridor, a 494-acre property Bernheim bought in 2018. While it would mostly run underneath existing electric transmission lines, Bernheim warns the project would do irreparable harm to habitat for rare and endangered species.Bernheim Executive Director Mark Wourms said it wasn’t just that LG&E shielded information about the pipeline. He said state regulators — the Kentucky Public Service Commission — allowed the utility to keep news of the pipeline secret.“And the PSC allowed LG&E to keep this pipeline quiet for several years while it was under study and engineering review,” he said. Public Service Commission Spokesman Andrew Melnykovych declined to comment except to say the commission’s approval of the project speaks for itself.

Major Long Distance Gas Transmission Pipeline Explodes & Burns Homes in Kentucky - The NTSB is investigating after a gas pipeline exploded, destroying homes, killing a woman and injuring several others early Thursday in Lincoln County, authorities said. The explosion occurred in the Indian Camp Trailer Park about 1:20 a.m. just outside Junction City, Kentucky, and flames shot up 300 feet in the air, according to Lincoln County Emergency Management director Don Gilliam. The fire — that could be seen dozens of miles away in Lexington and other communities — engulfed some homes and damaged others while residents fled. Nine homes were destroyed or extensively damaged, Gilliam said. “We are immensely sorry,” said Devin Hotzel, spokesman for Enbridge, the parent company of Texas Eastern that owns the line. He apologized during a meeting Thursday night to help affected residents with their immediate housing, food and medication needs. Lisa Denise Derringer, 58, was killed, the Lincoln County coroner’s office told WKYT. An autopsy was scheduled for Thursday, Kentucky State Police Trooper Robert Purdy said. Her daughter, Candy Ellis, wrote on Facebook that her mother called in her last moments. “She called me but couldn’t speak this morning,” Ellis said. “I have to believe that her heart was at peace when I was calling her name.” At least five were injured in the blast, Gilliam said. The injuries did not appear to be life-threatening. Ephraim McDowell Regional Medical Center in Danville treated five injured victims and four were released, a spokesperson said. Kentucky State Police Trooper Robert Purdy describes how a deputy rescued two people who were in danger after a gas pipeline explosion in Lincoln County Ky., on Aug. 1, 2019. One of the injured was a Lincoln County sheriff’s deputy who helped rescue an elderly man and woman. “Without him being there at the right time, we could have had more casualties than what we had,” Purdy said of the deputy. Although up to seven people were unaccounted for in the early hours after the blast, by noon Thursday, all had been located, Purdy said. The fire was out by 8 a.m., Purdy said. Anything within 500 yards of the fire and explosion had some kind of damage, he added. Of the nine hardest hit homes, five were destroyed and four were extensively damaged. More received less serious damage. Others were uninhabitable temporarily with water and electric service turned off. Enbridge will provide assistance, including temporary housing, to victims if needed, Hotzel said.

Safety Questions Raised After Kentucky Explosion On Enbridge-Owned Pipeline -- An explosion on an Enbridge-owned pipeline in Kentucky prompted the latest in a series of questions surrounding the safety of the energy firm's lines running through Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest. The incident on the Texas Eastern natural gas system killed one person and injured five others.While releasing the company's second quarter financial results Friday, Enbridge President and CEO Al Monaco said their hearts go out to the family and community."Our first concern of course is for those impacted, so we’ve mobilized resources to assist and support them," said Monaco. "Secondly, we're working with the federal agencies to investigate what happened and how the learnings can improve our approach and that of the industry in the future."The cause of the explosion in Kentucky isn't yet known. Superior Mayor Jim Paine said he wants to know if something similar could happen to his city. The company has 11 pipelines that move crude oil and natural gas liquids through Enbridge’s Superior Terminal."While industry sometimes results in accidents, I think we need to make sure we have the safest possible working and living environment around these resources," said Paine.  The Superior community has been affected by explosions on the company’s system in the past. In 2007, two Superior men were killed in an explosion while they were working on an Enbridge pipeline near Clearbrook, Minnesota. Federal regulators issued the company a $2.4 million finefor the incident in 2010.

Second explosion this year on same pipeline - The last inspection of Enbridge’s Texas Eastern gas pipeline system may have been about four years ago, according to Jim McGuffey. He’s an incident commander with Enbridge who participated in a press conference Thursday after the company’s pipeline explosion resulted in one death, several injuries and the total destruction of at least five homes and multiple other structures in the Moreland community of Lincoln County. According to the company’s website, the pipeline system can transport 11.7 Bcf (billion cubic feet) per day of gas, extending from the Gulf Coast of Texas to the Northeast, through Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. This is the second incident this year — the same pipeline exploded in Ohio in January. . A Reuters.com story says the explosion injured two people and damaged homes.  Enbridge posted update messages on its website, saying it is “continuing to respond to the incident,” and that the National Transportation Safety Board “has assumed control” of the site. “The NTSB is investigating the incident and Enbridge is supporting that investigation,” and the company has “mobilized emergency response personnel and resources to the site, and we are continuing to work alongside first responders.” During Thursday’s noon press conference, McGuffey said the area contains three different pipelines, all 30 inches in diameter and located five feet below ground. He said the company’s pipelines in the area “had a sufficient amount of covering to protect them from heat.” Thursday, McGuffey said the company stopped the flow of gas in the pipeline that ruptured, and “dramatically decreased the pressure” in the other two pipelines while the investigation is ongoing. Other federal agencies were also on the scene, authorities said, such as the FBI and ATF — which is protocol when there’s an explosion.

The company behind the Kentucky explosion is also behind the worst inland pipeline accident in US history - A gas pipeline explosion in rural Kentucky early Thursday killed one person and sent five others to the hospital. The blaze also set homes on fire and destroyed railroad tracks.The pipeline is owned by Enbridge, a Canadian multinational company whose fuel networks crisscross all over the United States and Canada. This particular line was part of Enbridge’s Texas Eastern system, a network that carries natural gas south from the Marcellus and Utica shale of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia to refineries in the Gulf Coast.The explosion in Kentucky is not the first Enbridge incident this year. In January, an Enbridge natural gas pipeline on the same system exploded in Ohio, igniting a fireball that injured two people and damaged homes. In November 2018, a ruptured Enbridge natural gas pipeline ignited a fire that evacuated part of a First Nations territory in British Columbia, Canada. But Enbridge also moves liquid fuel, and has been behind some of the biggest pipeline accidents in US history, including the catastrophic Kalamazoo River spill. In 2010, an Enbridge pipeline burst, spilling roughly 1 million gallons of thick, sticky Alberta tar sands crude oil into the river ecosystem near Kalamazoo, Michigan. Tar sands crude oil is nothing like its conventional crude oil counterpart; it is thicker and heavier, and must be diluted with a cocktail of chemicals that often include benzene and other carcinogens in order to flow through pipelines. That spill took years and more than a billion dollars to clean up, making it the largest and most expensive inland oil spill in US history. In 2012, an Enbridge line spilled more than 50,000 gallons of crude oil in Wisconsin, which required 17,000 tons of contaminated soil to be removed. The same year, an Enbridge line spilled and more than58,000 gallons in Alberta, Canada.   A report published by the environmental group Greenpeace found that between 2002 and 2018, Enbridge averaged a rate of one hazardous liquid pipeline accident every 20 days, for a total of 307 spills and 2.8 million gallons released into the environment. Thirty of those incidents reportedly contaminated water resources, including 17 incidents that were reported to contaminate groundwater.

Enbridge Texas Eastern gas pipe remains shut after Kentucky blast (Reuters) - Canadian energy company Enbridge Inc said the section of its Texas Eastern pipe that killed one person when it exploded on Thursday remained shut while the company works with federal and state officials to investigate the incident. The blast near Danville, Kentucky was the second so far this year on the Texas Eastern system following an explosion in Ohio in January that injured at least two people. It was also the third big blast for Enbridge in less than a year following an explosion in British Columbia on its Westcoast system in October. Enbridge said the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board assumed control of the incident site and the company was supporting that investigation. Enbridge said Texas Eastern has three lines between its Danville and Tompkinsville compressors in Kentucky that make up its 30-inch (76-centimeter) pipeline system. The lines are Line 10, 15 and 25. The blast occurred on Line 15. At the time of the blast, about 1.7 billion cubic feet of gas (bcfd) was flowing south from the Marcellus and Utica shale in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia through the damaged section of pipe toward the Gulf Coast, according Refinitiv data. That represents about 2% of the 90 bcfd of gas produced in the Lower 48 U.S. states. One billion cubic feet of gas is enough to supply about five million U.S. homes for a day. The gas was flowing on Texas Eastern from producers in the Marcellus and Utica shale to utilities along the pipe route and industrial and liquefied natural gas export terminals along the Gulf Coast.

Enbridge to keep Kentucky gas pipe shut for at least a week after blast - (Reuters) - Canadian energy company Enbridge Inc said the section of its Texas Eastern pipeline in Kentucky that exploded on Thursday, killing one person, will remain shut through at least Aug. 12.  Enbridge said in a notice to customers Monday afternoon it is working with federal and state officials investigating the incident and has not estimated when the damaged section of pipe will return to service. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has assumed control of the incident site in Kentucky and Enbridge said it is supporting that investigation. The blast, near Danville, Kentucky, was the second so far this year on the Texas Eastern system following an explosion in Ohio in January that injured at least two people. It was also the third big blast for Enbridge in less than a year following an explosion in British Columbia on its Westcoast system in October.

Enbridge works to return Texas Eastern natgas pipe after Kentucky blast (Reuters) - Canadian energy company Enbridge Inc said it is working on a plan to put in service a couple of pipelines adjacent to the Texas Eastern natural gas pipeline in Kentucky that exploded on Aug. 1, killing one person. The company, which made the announcement on Thursday, did not say when the two pipes would return to service. Earlier in the week, the company told customers it expected they would remain shut at least through Aug. 12. Enbridge said it is working with several agencies looking into the blast, including the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation. The blast, near Danville, Kentucky, was the second so far this year on the Texas Eastern system following an explosion in Ohio in January that injured at least two people. It was also the third big blast for Enbridge in less than a year following an explosion in British Columbia on its Westcoast system in October. Enbridge said Texas Eastern has three lines between its Danville and Tompkinsville compressors in Kentucky that make up its 30-inch (76-centimeter) system. The lines are Line 10, 15 and 25. The blast occurred on Line 15. Traders noted the Kentucky incident had only a temporary impact on production in the Appalachia region, which returned to record levels earlier this week. At the time of the blast, about 1.7 billion cubic feet of gas (bcfd) was flowing south from the Marcellus and Utica shale basins in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia through the damaged section of pipe toward the Gulf Coast, according to data from analytics firm Refinitiv. That represents about 2% of the 90 bcfd of all the gas produced in the Lower 48 U.S. states. One billion cubic feet of gas is enough to supply about five million U.S. homes for a day

Explosions in Three States Highlight Dangers of Aging Fossil Fuel Infrastructure  - DeSmog --On August 1, for the third time in as many years, Enbridge's Texas Eastern Transmission gas pipeline exploded. This tragic incident in central Kentucky killed a 58-year-old woman, Lisa Denise Derringer, and injured at least five others. Flames towered 300 feet high when the 30-inch diameter pipe ruptured at 1 a.m. and forced at least 75 people to evacuate. This explosion joins a string of others in the past several weeks involving America’s aging fossil fuel infrastructure — including a network of 2.6 million miles of pipelines, roughly half of which are over 50 years old, and over 130 oil refineries, many of which are 50 to 120 years old.  The Kentucky incident came less than 24 hours after ExxonMobil’s Baytown, Texas, petrochemical plant saw its second major fire this year. Last week’s Baytown explosion injured 66 workers and has already spurred at least three lawsuits against the company, including one by a worker alleging his burns were far more serious than ExxonMobil had indicated. Just over a month earlier, a massive fireball and series of explosions ripped through the largest refinery on the East Coast, the Philadelphia Energy Solutions complex.  It may be months before federal investigators reach conclusions about the cause of each accident, but all three incidents took place at sites with a long history of operations — and accidents.  On Monday, Philadelphia Energy Solutions, which first started refining oil back in 1870, long before the invention of gasoline-powered automobiles, began the job of neutralizing and removing over 30,000 barrels of a deadly chemical used in the part of the refinery that exploded.  The Baytown, Texas, refinery complex where last week’s fire took place is slated to mark its 100^th year of operations next year. In the past century, it has expanded from a plant originally designed to refine 2,500 barrels of oil a day to a sprawling 3,400 acre complex. Today it hosts a 584,000 barrel-a-day refinery plus multiple chemical and plastics plants, including the petrochemical site where the recent fiery blast occurred.  The gas pipeline behind the Kentucky explosion, the 8,835 mile long Texas Eastern line, was rapidly built in 1943 to carry liquid petroleum from Texas to New York and other East Coast destinations, and was converted to carry natural gas after World War II ended. In January, it had exploded in Ohio, injuring two and destroying two homes. In 2016, the Texas Eastern exploded in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, leaving one man hospitalized for months with severe burns.  “With the rate of corrosion on this pipeline, there are many sections of the pipeline that are essentially a ticking time bomb,”

Wheeler Signs Proposal for Pipeline Projects to Bypass Clean Water Act -- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler signed a proposal Thursday night to change Clean Water Act rules and streamline the federal permit approval process for infrastructure projects like pipelines.The change would limit the ability of states to cite the Clean Water Act to block or delay projects from companies with incomplete permits, which has been a frequent tool used by groups in New York and other states fighting new natural gas pipelines. Signing the proposal opened a 60-day comment period, and Wheeler plans to formally announce this change at a National Association of Manufacturers event Friday."This is another example of the Trump administration bending the definition of cooperative federalism to mean they'll respect the rights of states that agree with it politically and will go after states…when they don't," said Christopher Gray, spokesman at NYU's School of Law's State Energy and Environmental Impact Center. For a deeper dive: Wall Street Journal

U.S. Northeast fuel sellers brace for uncertain winter for heating oil supply — Fuel distributors in the U.S. Northeast are preparing for an uncertain heating oil season this winter, with some locking in additional contracts, as upcoming global sulfur regulations are due to pull on distillate fuel demand, market participants said. The East Coast region has become vulnerable to price increases this winter, traders said, citing new shipping rules limiting sulfur content in refined fuels, along with the shutdown of Philadelphia Energy Solutions’ 335,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) refinery complex, a key supplier for the region. Those factors could squeeze heating oil supply, they said, while unplanned refinery outages could exacerbate any constraints. Fuel distributors said they were trying to get ahead of this problem to ensure adequate winter supply. During sudden cold snaps, the need for heating oil jumps sharply in a region that relies more on the fuel than any other part of the United States. Households in the Northeast account for about 80% of total U.S. households that use heating oil, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). About 5.7 million U.S. households use it as their primary fuel. Heating oil closed at $1.7532 a gallon on Wednesday, the lowest since January, but prices tend to rise in the winter. Strategies to prepare for the season vary by distributor, said Christian Herb, president of the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association. “Some members on the retail side are definitely taking action to lock in some more gallons,” Herb said. “More people are taking some additional actions than in previous years.” The East Coast relies on waterborne international imports as well as shipments from the Gulf Coast via Colonial Pipeline for much of its fuel supply needs. Local refiners help supply the rest. However, some of that supply will be unavailable after PES decided to shut its Philadelphia-area refinery, the largest in the region, due to a fire in late June. The facility produced an estimated 125,000 bpd of gasoline and 110,000 bpd of diesel, according to a note from Wood Mackenzie.“That region does supply the Northeast with petroleum products that are now going to need to be either shipped in via Colonial or shipped in externally,”

How this Southern Tier group is trying to work around NY fracking ban - A Tioga County landowners group appears willing to press ahead in challenging New York's hydrofracking ban by using an unconventional method of natural gas drilling designed to circumvent the prohibition. Tioga County Partners wants to drill on a 53-acre site in Barton using gelled propane, an arcane process that skirts the existing drilling ban. Rather than using a water and chemical mixture favored in hydrofracking, the process intended for use in Tioga County "involves the transport of propane to the well site, the chilling of that propane, and the mixture of chemical additives into the propane," according to documentation submitted by the sponsor. But much like hydrofracking, propane would be pumped into the shale formation more than a mile below the surface, fracturing the rock and freeing trapped natural gas deposits. Propane used in the process will be recovered, sponsors said, leaving few, if any, remnants in the ground. "Waterless hydraulic fracturing was first performed in Canada in 2008 and since then has been used to successfully treat more than 2,600 zones at over 800 sites in North America," Tioga Energy Partners said in its submission. State regulators are now establishing the scope of the environment review that will eventually be submitted by sponsors. In reviewing the impact statement, DEC staff said it will keep a keen eye on the potential climate change impact of the process, noting the state's initiative to eliminate nearly all greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Additionally, the DEC wants assurances from the applicant that dangers from transporting and storing propane — "a potentially explosive material" — will be mitigated. Due to explosion risks, propane fracks — also known as “gas fracks” — typically use robotics to keep workers out of the “hot zone” during operations. The technology is still developing and has not been widely used, especially in places where water is available.

NYMEX September natural gas settles 5.1 cents lower on record-high production — The NYMEX September natural gas contract fell in Monday trading, continuing Friday's slide to find new 39-month lows.  The front-month contract shed 5.1 cents, settling at $2.070/MMBtu, trading in a range of $2.029-$2.109/MMBtu. The core winter months of December and January also dropped by 4.1 cents and 4.0 cents in Monday trading, settling at $2.372/MMBtu and $2.506/MMBtu, respectively. "It's pretty clear that the market is driving lower on the avalanche of gas being produced,"  US dry production hit an all-time high this weekend at 90.4 Bcf/d on Saturday, soaring over 90 Bcf/d for the first time, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics. Production is forecast to stay around these levels, hovering at 89.9 Bcf/d over the next eight to 14 days. Month-to-date levels remain significantly higher than year-ago levels with August, averaging 90 Bcf/d, 8.4 Bcf higher than last year's level of 81.6 Bcf/d, Platts Analytics data shows. On weather in the US, McGillian said "without a hot forecast in the Eastern half, there's nothing to stop gas from hitting $2[/MMBtu]." Looking ahead, the most recent eight- to 14-day weather outlook from the National Weather Service predicts cooler-than-average temperatures for much of the Northeast and Midwest, which could put downward pressure on prices. Total demand sits at 83.1 Bcf on Monday, 3.4 Bcf under last week's average of 86.5 Bcf/d, mostly driven by a decrease in LNG feedgas demand, which saw a 27% drop from last week's average of 5.5 Bcf/d to Monday's 4 Bcf, according to Platts Analytics. Power burn is expected to drop from Monday's 39.9 Bcf to 39.3 Bcf/d over the next week, before bumping back up to 40.9 Bcf/d over the next eight to 14 days, Platts Analytics data shows.

U.S. natural gas demand is at a record - and prices keep dropping – Reuters - U.S. natural gas demand is at an all-time high and expected to keep rising - and yet, prices are falling. U.S. gas futures this week collapsed to a three-year low, while spot prices were on track to post their weakest summer in over 20 years. In other markets, such lackluster pricing would cause investment to retrench and supply to contract. But gas production is at a record high and expected to keep growing. Demand is rising as power generators shut coal plants and burn more gas for electricity and as rapidly expanding liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals turn more of the fuel into super-cooled liquid for export. Analysts believe the natural gas market is not trading on demand fundamentals because supply growth continues to far outpace rising consumption. Energy firms are pulling record amounts of oil from shale formations and with that oil comes associated gas that needs either to be shipped or burned off. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, gas futures this week dropped to $2.03 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), the lowest since May 2016. For the summer, spot gas prices at the Henry Hub benchmark in Louisiana were on track to fall to their lowest since 1998. Gas speculators last week boosted their net short positions to the highest on record, according to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. “All the bulls are gone,” said Kyle Cooper, consultant at ION Energy in Houston. The market is expecting a big boost in gas output this fall after Kinder Morgan Inc’s (KMI.N) Gulf Coast Express pipeline comes online in September and releases some of the gas currently stranded and being burned in the Permian. So much associated gas is coming out of the ground that gas prices in the Permian basin in Texas and New Mexico, the biggest U.S. shale oil formation, have turned negative on multiple occasions this year. Meg Gentle, CEO of U.S. LNG company Tellurian Inc, said current pipeline expansion plans will not meet record gas production in the Permian, leading to severely depressed prices at the Waha Hub in West Texas, which touched a record low of negative $9/mmBtu in April.

Opposing Forces Lead To Choppy Natural Gas Price Action -- So far this week, natural gas prices have maintained some volatility, plunging to new multi-year lows early yesterday morning, but have bounced back since then to levels very close to where we ended the day back on Friday. Opposing forces have been at work this week leading to this choppy price action. On the bearish side, we have new all-time highs in production. We also have seen a drastic reduction in LNG intake over the last few days. These two factors initially were the focal points of the market, leading us to the fresh lows early yesterday morning. All the while, weekend gas burns were more impressive, and we continue to see a supportive hotter than normal weather pattern, with forecast GWDDs above normal for the next 15 days, with good model agreement on such a pattern. As a result, the market said, "not so fast" to the bear parade, rallying off those fresh lows rather quickly, leading us to where we are today as we wait to see which side is able to gain the upper hand. A lot of unknowns remain, such as the duration of the LNG decline, and if the upcoming demand regime is enough to negate or outweigh the bump up in supply.

U.S. natgas futures rise nearly 2% on forecasts for hot weather ahead of storage report - U.S. natural gas futures rose almost 2% on Thursday as record power demand in Texas and forecasts for hotter weather and greater cooling demand in late August lifted prices from a near three-year low in the prior session. That increase comes despite the impending release of a federal report later Thursday that is expected to show a bigger than normal storage build. Analysts said utilities likely added a bigger-than-normal 59 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas into storage during the week ended Aug. 2. That compares with an injection of 46 bcf during the same week last year and a five-year (2014-18) average build of 43 bcf for the period. If correct, the increase would boost stockpiles to 2.693 trillion cubic feet (tcf), 3.8% below the five-year average of 2.800 tcf for this time of year. The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its weekly storage report at 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT) on Thursday. Front-month gas futures for September delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange were up 3.1 cents, or 1.5%, to $2.114 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) at 9:29 a.m. EDT (1329 GMT). On Wednesday, the contract closed about a penny over Monday’s $2.070 close, which was the lowest settle since May 26, 2016. Analysts said gas futures have traded near multiyear lows since May because record production and mild spring weather allowed utilities to inject huge amounts of gas into storage, shrinking a massive inventory deficit and removing any concern about shortages in the winter even though power demand and liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports are on track to hit all-time highs this year. The amount of gas in inventory has remained below the five-year average since September 2017. It fell as low as 33% below that average in March 2019. But with production expected to keep growing, analysts said stockpiles should reach a near-normal 3.7 tcf by the end of the summer injection season on Oct. 31.

US natural gas in storage rises 55 Bcf to 2.689 Tcf: EIA - US natural gas in storage rose 55 Bcf to 2.689 Tcf for the week ended August 2, the US Energy Information Administration reported Thursday. The injection was less than an S&P Global Platts' survey of analysts calling for a 57-Bcf injection. The wider survey responses were between 54 and 65 Bcf. The build was also less than the Platts Analytics' storage model forecast calling for an injection of 61 Bcf. The build was above the 46-Bcf injection reported during the corresponding week in 2018 and also more than the five-year-average of 43 Bcf, according to EIA data. It marked the second-smallest injection since April 5. As a result, stocks were 343 Bcf, or nearly 15%, above 2.346 Tcf a year earlier and 111 Bcf, or 4%, below the five-year average of 2.800 Tcf. The EIA reported a 16-Bcf build in the East to 613 Bcf, compared with 571 Bcf a year earlier; a 24-Bcf injection in the Midwest to 701 Bcf, compared with 576 Bcf a year earlier; a 5-Bcf build in the Mountain region to 161 Bcf, compared with 148 Bcf a year earlier; a 2-Bcf addition in the Pacific to 272 Bcf, compared with 245 Bcf a year earlier; and a 7-Bcf injection in the South Central region to 941 Bcf, compared with 808 Bcf a year earlier. Total inventories are now 33 Bcf below the five-year average of 646 Bcf in the East, 1 Bcf above the five-year average of 700 Bcf in the Midwest, 16 Bcf below the five-year average of 177 Bcf in the Mountain region, 21 Bcf below the five-year average of 293 Bcf in the Pacific and 43 Bcf below the five-year average of 984 Bcf in the South Central region. The NYMEX Henry Hub September contract edged up about 5 cents from its opening price to $2.13/MMBtu following the report's release.

EIA Report Reveals Smaller-Than-Expected Natural Gas Build, But Is It Enough To Turn The Tide In Prices? - Contrary to the very bearish EIA report last week, today's report showed a natural gas build that was a little smaller than market expectations, with an injection of 55 bcf last week compared to the consensus estimate around 60 bcf. Part of the miss came from over-estimating the build in the South-Central region. We believe the record cool temperatures a couple of weeks ago led to the big bearish miss last week, as temperature extremes in either direction are often more difficult to model. This may have led to the over-estimation this week. Last week's weather was not hot by any means, but did not have nearly the same level of cooler air around as the prior week. Natural gas prices responded to the number by advancing higher, with the September contract up nearly 2.5% as of this writing. While we are around 10 cents off the lows, the downtrend remains intact for now. Could today's number be a sign that the paradigm may finally be shifting? That may be a bit premature. While it did reveal a lower-than-expected build, the supply / demand balances implied are not exactly bullish when looking at the same week in previous years. We also are faced with the likelihood of a couple larger builds in the next two weeks, thanks to the sharp decline in LNG exports due to Sabine maintenance, which typically lasts around three weeks. With all that said, we continue to be locked into a weather pattern favoring hotter than normal conditions, i.e. more demand for natural gas, as measured by our Gas-Weighted Degree Days. The pattern has been hot-dominated, however, since the final third of June, and it hasn't been enough to stop the downward slide. The flavor of this pattern is a bit different, though, with more emphasis in key regions of the South, such as Texas, where the hottest weather of summer is on the way. Time will tell if this new pattern sticks, and is enough to finally tighten balances to the point where we can put together and sustain a rally as we move closer to a time when seasonality begins to turn bullish, typically just after the Labor Day holiday.

Natural Gas Prices End The Week Virtually Unchanged From Last Friday -  If you took this week off and are just now checking in, you'd think absolutely nothing had happened, as natural gas prices ended this week almost exactly the same as last week, with the September contract down just 2 ticks on the week. Of course, the week had its usual moves along the way, plunging to a new prompt month multi-year low of 2.029 Monday morning before recovering. There were a few more attempts to dip under the 2.10 level throughout the week, including this morning, but none of them held. The reason? Bullish and bearish factors continue to battle for control in determining the next move. We highlighted yesterday how the reported build in yesterday's EIA report was less than expected, but hardly bullish when comparing the same week in previous years. The LNG decline remains a bearish force as well, one which the market may be stuck with for another couple of weeks yet. With less natural being taken into LNG plants, the next couple of EIA reports will show inflated builds relative to what they otherwise would. We also had new production highs this week. On the bullish side, we have the weather pattern, which remains in its hot-biased mode, with above normal demand overall for the foreseeable future. This has been the mode of the pattern ever since the demise of the El Niño base state back in late June. One key change occurred this week, however. Notice the lack of heat in Texas on the above map, as the strongest heat since the pattern turned hotter has been in the eastern U.S. Texas is now seeing its hottest weather of the summer, with 100 or better in the major cities of Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. This stronger heat is forecast to continue at least for another week or so, as seen on our official forecast maps. Because Texas is a very important state when it comes to natural gas usage, stronger heat there can lead to higher natural gas burns, which we have seen confirmed in this week's data.

United States sets new daily record high for natural gas use in the power sector  --The United States likely set a new daily record on Friday, July 19, of 44.5 billion cubic feet (Bcf) for natural gas consumption by electric power plants, according to S&P Global Platts. U.S. power sector natural gas consumption exceeded the previous record of 43.1 Bcf—set on July 16, 2018—on five days in July. Higher-than-normal temperatures and relatively low natural gas prices contributed to increased natural gas consumption by electric generators.Higher electricity demand for air conditioning during a heat wave from July 15 through July 22 drove the increased power generation, especially from natural gas-fired generators. Although the highest temperatures occurred during the weekend, most states east of the Rocky Mountains experienced warmer-than-normal weather in the days leading up to the heat wave. From July 16 through July 21, the average maximum temperature exceeded 85°F in most parts of the country.Relatively low natural gas prices have also led to higher natural gas-fired generation this summer. According to Natural Gas Intelligence, natural gas spot prices at the Henry Hub in Louisiana averaged $2.33 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) from July 16 through July 21. So far this summer (June 1–August 1), Henry Hub prices have averaged $2.31/MMBtu, 19% lower than during the same period last year. Spot natural gas prices elsewhere in the country have been even lower than those at Henry Hub. Natural gas prices at the Chicago Citygate—the regional price benchmark for Midwestern states—have averaged 19¢/MMBtu lower than Henry Hub prices so far this summer. Regional spot prices in the Northeast (such as Dominion South in western Pennsylvania) have traded 30¢/MMBtu lower than Henry Hub.

In the United States, most petroleum is consumed in transportation – EIA - Petroleum, which consists of crude oil and refined products such as gasoline, diesel, and propane, is the largest primary source of energy consumed in the United States, accounting for 36% of total energy consumption in 2018. Crude oil is processed at petroleum refineries to make many different products, such as motor gasoline, distillate fuel oil, hydrocarbon gas liquids, and jet fuel. More than two-thirds of finished petroleum products consumed in the United States are used in the transportation sector. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) U.S. petroleum flow diagram helps to visualize U.S. petroleum supply (production, imports, and withdrawals from storage) and disposition (consumption, exports, and additions to storage). The large number of refined products and outlets for sale (e.g., gasoline stations) makes data difficult to collect and end-use consumption difficult to calculate. EIA uses petroleum product supplied to estimate petroleum consumption. EIA calculates product supplied by adding field production, refinery and blender net production, and imports and then subtracting stock change, refinery and blender net inputs, and exports. Petroleum product supplied increased for the sixth consecutive year in 2018, totaling about 20 million barrels per day (b/d). In 2018, U.S. exports of crude oil reached a record high of 2.0 million b/d, an increase of about 0.8 million b/d from 2017. U.S. crude oil exports have increased significantly since the beginning of 2016, after the U.S. Congress lifted restrictions on exporting crude oil. In addition, U.S. exports of total petroleum products reached a record high of 5.6 million b/d in 2018, an increase of 0.3 million b/d from the previous year. The United States imported about 8 million b/d of crude oil in 2018, a 3% decrease from 2017. Net imports of crude oil and petroleum products were down to about 2 million b/d, the lowest level since 1967. The United States still imports crude oil because of geographic and quality considerations.

 Energy expenditures per dollar of GDP are highest in energy-producing states - According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) State Energy Data System (SEDS), every state saw increased total energy expenditures and total energy expenditures as a percentage of gross domestic product(GDP) in 2017 compared with the previous year. Only the District of Columbia had a decrease in total energy expenditures. States such as Louisiana, Mississippi, and Wyoming, which tend to have relatively more energy-intensive industries, have a much higher percentage of energy expenditures per dollar of GDP. The District of Columbia and states that have concentrated urban areas with less energy-intensive industries, such as Massachusetts and New York, have the lowest expenditures per GDP.U.S. total energy expenditures (the amount of money spent to consume energy in the United States) increased in 2017 for the first time since 2014, reaching $1.14 trillion. U.S. GDP, calculated as the total value of goods and services produced in the United States including energy, totaled $19.5 trillion in 2017, 4% more than 2016 levels in nominal terms and 2% more in real terms (adjusted for inflation).In 2017, U.S. energy expenditures per GDP reached 5.8%, up from a record low of 5.6% in 2016, after its first annual increase since 2011. These increases are primarily a result of increased average U.S. energy prices, up almost 9% nationally from 2016 to 2017. Average U.S. prices for petroleum and natural gas increased by 14% and 13%, respectively, and electricity prices increased by 2%. Total U.S. energy consumption increased by less than 1% during the same time. Louisiana had the highest energy expenditures per GDP of any state in 2017 at 13.5%. In this ranking, Louisiana has been the highest every year since 1997, the earliest year for which EIA has state data. In 2017, 50% of the state’s total energy expenditures occurred in the industrial sector, which includes its energy-intensive petrochemical industry. Overall, Louisiana’s total energy expenditures increased by nearly 21% from 2016 to 2017, the largest percentage increase of any state during that period.

Enbridge: Unsupported segment of Line 5 has grown beyond 75-foot limit - An unsupported span of Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 oil pipeline beneath the Straits of Mackinac has grown to 81 feet, surpassing the 75-foot limit outlined in the company’s easement agreement with the state. Enbridge notified the state of the development Wednesday and said it applied for approvals to place screw anchors or supports along that segment of the pipeline in March 2018 but is still waiting on an answer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Canadian company said it already has received state permits for the work from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy. The unsupported span measured 66 feet last summer, but officials discovered it had grown to 81 feet last month, Enbridge spokesman Ryan Duffy said Wednesday. The company's easement agreement allows for a 90-day window in which to address the unsupported span, he said. Exposed sections of the Line 5 oil pipeline that don’t lie on the lake bed are required to have supports or screw anchors attached to them at least every 75 feet. The areas needing support change from year to year as soil washes away or erodes. "Since learning about it, we’ve been talking with the Army Corps and have told them we want to get out there as quick as we can," Duffy said.

Wide Gap Opens Beneath Enbridge's Line 5 In Great Lakes - Enbridge said this week that erosion has caused a wider gap beneath an unsupported section of its Line 5 oil pipeline in the Great Lakes than the gap allowed under the pipeline company’s agreement with the state of Michigan.The gap has now increased to 81 feet, wider than the 75-foot upper limit set by Enbridge’s easement agreement with Michigan, and up from 66 feet last summer, the company’s spokesman Ryan Duffy told The Detroit News on Wednesday.The wider gap poses “no safety or integrity risk,” Enbridge says, although Michigan regulators told AP they were unable to immediately confirm such an assessment.Enbridge applied to obtain a permit to have supports or screw anchors installed at the unsupported section in March 2018, but it is still waiting for a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the company says.“Since learning about it, we’ve been talking with the Army Corps and have told them we want to get out there as quick as we can,” Duffy told The Detroit News.“This notice reinforces the need to decommission Line 5 as quickly as possible,” the office of the Michigan Attorney General said in a tweet, referring to the latest issue with the oil pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac.“This erosion makes the 66-year-old pipeline increasingly vulnerable to anchor strikes and potential ruptures and reinforces the need for the legal action Attorney General Nessel has taken to remove the pipeline from the Straits,” AG Nessel’s spokeswoman Kelly Rossman-McKinney said in a statement to The Detroit News. Enbridge, for its part, plans to build a tunnel to house Line 5 and is conducting research in the Straits of Mackinac this week to understand the conditions.

Agency readies decision on underwater oil pipeline supports(AP) — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it’s preparing to decide whether to let Canadian oil transport company Enbridge install supports for its underwater oil pipeline in Michigan’s Straits of Mackinac.Enbridge disclosed Wednesday that erosion had opened a gap beneath one of two Line 5 pipelines in the channel linking Lakes Huron and Michigan. The gap is about 6 feet (1.83 meters) wider than allowed under a state easement.The company says the pipe’s integrity isn’t threatened. But it wants to install more than 50 screw anchors for greater stability.Michigan has granted a permit. Enbridge says it’s been waiting 16 months for the Army Corps to do likewise.Spokeswoman Lynn Rose said Thursday the Corps recently received information it needed from Enbridge to make a decision, which will come soon.

DNR investigating Jackson County mine spill; unknown material discolored Trempealeau River  - State environmental officials are investigating a spill at a Jackson County frac sand mine that discolored water in the Trempealeau River. According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the spill occurred Saturday at Wisconsin Proppants Hixton mine in the town of Curran, about 12 miles northwest of Black River Falls. It’s not clear how much material was released or if it involved mine wastewater, which can contain high concentrations of toxic metals as well as chemicals used to process sand. DNR spokesman Andrew Savagian said the release was not stormwater runoff. “We know there was a spill event at Wisconsin Proppants,” Savagian said. “We know it happened. We don’t know the impacts.” The DNR took water samples Tuesday, which have been sent to the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene to test for the presence of metals. Staff are scheduled to return to the site Wednesday to further assess the impacts and necessary cleanup. Savagian said the plant operator, WP Operations, contacted the DNR and “has taken steps to mitigate the release and potential impacts.” Plant manager Hamilton White referred questions to the DNR. “I’m really not at liberty to talk about it,” he said. “It’s not a major breach of any kind.”

Oil association president says Edwards’ support of coastal erosion lawsuits is devastating to state’s economy - The president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association has said Gov. John Bel Edwards’ push for parish coastal erosion lawsuits against companies in the gas and oil industries has hurt the state's economy.“Over the past couple of years, the U.S. oil and gas sector has experienced a boost in activity that is everywhere except in Louisiana," LOGA’s President Gifford Briggs told the Louisiana Record. "We have a tax rate and a legal climate that is holding Louisiana’s oil and gas industry from reaching its full potential. We look forward to hearing all of the gubernatorial candidates share their plan to reignite Louisiana’s energy industries.”For now, a couple of those candidates have already criticized Edwards', including GOP gubernatorial candidate Rep. Ralph Abraham who released a statement making it clear that should he win the race, he'll end Edwards’ “war on the gas and oil industry.”  Abraham said Edwards has gone beyond encouraging parishes to file lawsuits against oil and gas industry leaders, to signaling that if others don’t sue, he will.“How can we expect our energy and job producers to keep investing in Louisiana and the coastal waters that surround us if our governor and chief executive officer of the state has declared all-out war on the industry?" Abraham said. "We can’t. We also shouldn’t be surprised that our largest economic competitor, Texas, is reaping the rewards of Edwards’ energy assault. Texas welcomes energy growth with open arms, and the economy in Texas is booming as a result of it.”His competitor, Eddie Risponse, made similar comments against Edwards. According to The Advocate, Risponse said, “I’m going to do everything I possibly can as governor to reverse what we have today by this governor. Thousands of jobs are lost to feed these greedy trial lawyers.”

Energy Transfer plans VLCC-capable crude export terminal near Nederland — Energy Transfer is looking to enter the crowded field of proposed US deepwater crude export terminals capable of fully loading VLCCs, with a project that connects to the company's 28-million-barrel Nederland, Texas, terminal, executives said Thursday on the company's second-quarter earnings call.  Mackie McCrea, chief commercial officer, said the project would stand out from competitors because of the vast amount and diversity of supply that collects at Nederland, which he called the largest above-ground oil storage in the country.  "If you look at Nederland and you look at the amount of barrels that come in -- pipelines that come from Canada, from Cushing, from West Texas -- every major area comes into Nederland," McCrea said. On the market side, McCrea said: "We just have to be competitively priced. We're working on our costs, and we're negotiating with potential shippers. We feel real good about how we're progressing." McCrea said Energy Transfer would soon file an application with the US Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration, and the project would take at least 2 1/2 years.  Energy Transfer owns the 570,000 b/d Dakota Access crude pipeline that moves about 40% of Bakken production. It aims to increase capacity to 1.1 million b/d by late 2020, feeding more Bakken crude to Midwest and Texas Gulf Coast refining and export markets. Seven other companies have proposed deepwater oil ports across the Gulf of Mexico to move the next wave of US crude exports, although not all of the proposed capacity will be needed.

US oil rig count hits fresh 19-month low amid broad drilling slowdown — The US oil rig count fell to a 19-month low this week as drilling activity waned in nearly all major basins, information published by RigData showed Thursday. The number of active US oil drilling rigs edged down by 11 to 815 this week, the lowest since January 2018 and 100 lower than year-ago levels. The decline in oil drilling activity led the combined US oil and gas rig count down 11 to 1,022 last week, itself a 19-month low. Rig count declines were seen in most major oil-focused basins. Active Permian and Williston basin rigs fell back one each to 437 and 57, respectively, while the SCOOP-STACK and Denver-Julesburg basin each shed two active rigs, bringing counts there to 76 and 30, respectively. In the West Texas Eagle Ford basin, the number of active oil rigs was unchanged on the week at 81. The number of active drilling permits was sharply lower last week at 860, down 279 from the week prior and the lowest since early May. The drilling slowdown comes amid a steep decline in oil prices in recent weeks. Front month WTI futures have fallen more than 10% from mid-July as weakened global economic indicators have weighed on oil demand growth outlooks. WTI futures were down more than 5% during the reporting week. Improved efficiencies and rising well completion rates have allowed operators to increase production outlooks in second quarter guidance even as total rig counts have ebbed. New-well oil production per rig in the major basins is forecast at 715 b/d in August, up 10 b/d from 705 b/d in July, according to US Energy Information Administration data. The greatest efficiency gains are forecast for wells in the Bakken, which is slated to edge up 15 b/d to 1,424 b/d, and in the Permian, which is expected 12 b/d higher at 684 b/d in August. At the same time the number of drilled but uncompleted wells across all basins has continued to slip, falling to 8,248 in June. Total DUCs are down 0.8% from a February peak of 8,315, according to the latest EIA data. The nationwide gas rig count was unchanged this week at 207 as counts across major basins remained range bound. Still, the total gas rig count was down 21 from year-ago levels. Active rigs in the Marcellus and Haynesville plays fell back one each to 51 and 53 this week, respectively. But these declines were matched by the addition of two rigs in the Utica Shale basin, putting the active rig counts there up to 17. The Haynesville decline put rig counts down to the lowest in at least 19 months.

Oil Price Correction Triggers Shale Meltdown -It was a rough week for the U.S. shale industry. A series of earnings reports came out in recent days, and while some drillers beat expectations, there were some huge misses as well. Concho Resources, for instance, saw its share price tumble 22 percent when it disclosed several problems at once. Profits fell by 25 percent despite production increases. Concho conceded that it would slash spending and slow the pace of drilling in the second half of the year. It also said that one of its projects where it tried to densely pack wells together, which it called “Dominator,” the results were not as good as they had hoped. The project had 23 wells, but production disappointed. The “30 and 60 day production rates were consistent with our other projects in that area, but the performance has declined,” Leach said. So, the company will abandon the densely packed well strategy and move forward with wider spacing. In the second quarter the company had 26 rigs in operation, but that has since fallen to 18. At the start of the year, the company had 33 active rigs. The company reported a net loss of $792 million for the first six months of 2019. As Liam Denning put it in Bloomberg Opinion: “It’s sobering to think that Concho, valued at more than $23 billion in the spring of 2018 and having since absorbed the $7.6 billion purchase of RSP Permian Inc., now sports a market cap of less than $16 billion.” The reason these results are important is because they may not be one-off problems for individual companies, but are more likely indicative of the problems plaguing the whole sector. Whiting Petroleum had an even worse week. Its stock melted down on Thursday, falling by 38 percent after reporting a surprise quarterly loss that badly missed estimates. The company announced that it would cut its workforce by a third. According to the Wall Street Journal and Wood Mackenzie, a basket of 7 shale drillers posted a combined $1.58 billion in negative cash flow in the first quarter, four times worse than the same period a year earlier.

 The Worst Is Still To Come In Energy Markets -- It’s been a rough week for the stock market across the board, but there is one sector that’s hurting more than all the rest. The only sector currently in a bear market is the energy sector, which fell more than 6 percent at the beginning of the month, making it the number-one worst performer on the S&P 500 Index.   One major factor at least partially causing the downturn is a recent escalation of the now more-than yearlong trade war between the United States and China, which heated up to new levels last week when United States President Donald Trump tweeted that he would be imposing a further 10 percent tariff on a further $300 billion of Chinese goods starting on September first. China quickly retaliated, predictably following the tit-for-that model that the both sides of trade war have followed since its beginning last year, by allowing its tightly controlled currency to drop to its lowest value in over a decade, exacerbating trade tensions between the two countries by making Chinese goods less expensive for U.S. markets and, conversely, making U.S. goods more prohibitively expensive for Chinese consumers. “The U.S.-China trade war has always been serious. Now it's starting to get scary,” CNN Business reported, mincing no words about the precariousness of the U.S. market going forward.  Just after Trump’s Thursday tweets announcing September 1st’s newly escalated tariffs against China, oil prices immediately dropped by 8 percent “with the stocks of oil producers also plummeting, some by more than 10 percent” in what was “the largest single-day drop in oil prices in the past three years” according to a report from Forbes. And the surf is only going to get rougher going forward. Speaking to CNBC on Mondays edition of “Trading Nation,” head of technical analysis at worldwide brokerage and investment bank Oppenheimer Ari Wald said, “it’s a bearish trend and a poor risk-reward. [...] The sector has just not been rewarded when oil rises to the same degree it’s been slammed when oil falls.” CNBC uses West Texas crude to exemplify this trend, pointing out that the region’s crude oil “has surged more than 110 percent since bottoming in 2016. Over that period, the XLE energy ETF has added just 19 percent.” Oppenheimer’s Wald went on to say that the sector’s largest stock Exxon Mobile is also projected to continue a downward trend, in a turn of events that is sure to have a negative impact on the energy sector as a whole.

US Drops Another Eight Oil, Gas Rigs - The U.S. rig count continued its decline this week as the nation dropped another eight oil and gas rigs, according to weekly data from Baker Hughes, a GE Company. Six oil rigs and two gas rigs were shed, bringing the total number of active rigs to 934, which is 123 fewer rigs than a year ago. Alaska led all states in rig losses, shedding four rigs this week. Louisiana and Oklahoma dropped two rigs apiece while Kansas and Texas dropped one rig each. New Mexico was the only state to add rigs, tacking on two. Among the major basins, the Cana Woodford and Haynesville lost three rigs and two rigs, respectively. The Granite Wash added two rigs as did the Permian. Energy research firm Rystad Energy recently refuted speculations that the Permian’s well performance was declining. In fact, fracking operations in the Permian continue to break records. The Permian’s total number of active rigs stands at 444, accounting for almost half of the nation’s active rig count.

Texas Oil, Gas in Mild State of Contraction - Texas' upstream oil and gas economy is in a mild state of contraction, according to oil economist Karr Ingham. Halfway through 2019, Texas’ upstream oil and gas economy is in a mild state of contraction, according to Karr Ingham, petroleum economist for the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers and creator of the Texas Petro Index (TPI). “The TPI achieved its cyclical peak in October 2018 and since then has declined for six of the last eight months, including four months in a row through June,” Ingham said in a July 31 release. Since, Oct. 2018, the TPI has lost 2.9 percent of its value.  The industry has declined in the following areas:

• Crude oil and natural gas prices
• Rig count
• Drilling permits
• Crude oil well completions
• Value of statewide natural gas production
• Upstream industry employment

However, where Texas is not slacking is in its crude oil and natural gas production. In June, the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that Texas crude oil production exceeded five million barrels per day (bpd) in May. For reference, production was 3.6 million bpd in March 2015 and 3.1 million bpd in September 2016, according to data from the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. Ingham also noted that Texas is now producing 42 percent of the nation’s crude oil output, while the Texas portion of the Permian alone is contributing 25 percent to total U.S. crude oil production. As for Texas upstream oil and gas employment, in June there were 224,600 industry-related jobs. This reflects both the addition of 43,000 jobs since the downturn and 2,200 jobs lost since October 2018.

Is the US Shale Boom Winding Down? -U.S. shale oil output growth is slowing and nowhere is this more evident than in the Permian Basin, where growth will be under 1 percent in August according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The EIA estimated July Permian production reaching 4.23 MMbbl/d (millions of barrels of oil per day), an increase of 55,000 b/d (barrels per day) on June. In contrast in July, the EIA revised production downwards to 4.17MMbbl/d, forecasting growth of just 34,000 b/d by the end of August. Now many companies, ranging from EOG Resources Inc. to smaller players such as Laredo Petroleum Inc., are dropping their 2019 growth forecasts. Producers in various North American oil-rich shale basins are dialling back growth plans in the face of a growing number of complex problems which are killing returns and discouraging investors. The biggest and constant constraint on attracting new money and rewarding investors is the high rate of shale well depletion -- as much as 70 percent in the first year -- which forces companies to keep spending on new wells just to maintain output. Slowing growth in the Permian basinNow, a new crop of problems including a combination of operational bottlenecks, and market and logistical factors, are reducing output growth in the Permian basin and raising investor concerns. New well flows are not what they used to be, since wells are drilled further away from sweet spots or placed too close to each other in order to make the most of all that very expensive acreage. Also, the prolific Permian basin is now producing the wrong type of oil. The growth in super-light oil output in the last year, is not an unalloyed blessing since, the majority of U.S. refineries are dedicated to processing heavier and medium crudes imported from Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Ecuador and Mexico. The absence of heavy Venezuelan oil, due to the embargo on imports, has made blending the lighter oil from the Permian basin more difficult at home and has constrained export opportunities, since there are only a few condensate splitters or simple refineries able to handle Permian light crude in Europe. The shale energy revolution is now over a decade old and investors and lenders are becoming impatient for a return rather than laying out more money to compensate for high rates of well depletion or finance new wells.

Time Is Almost Up For U.S. Shale - A top U.S. shale executive said that it may only be the Midland basin in the Permian that can grow production beyond 2025. Aside from Midland, every other shale basin may be on borrowed time, with the best acreage already picked over and oil prices languishing below $60 per barrel. It’s been a brutal two weeks for the U.S. shale industry, clobbered by a series of poor financial results from several drillers at a time when oil prices more broadly are in freefall. The latest was Oasis Petroleum, which plunged by more than 30 percent on Wednesday, after the company said it would probably spend a little bit more than previously expected, and might produce a little bit less. Last week, Concho Resources admitted that one of its more promising experiments, a 23-well project, suffered from poor results because the wells were packed too closely together. The company’s share price plunged by more than 22 percent because investors realized that perhaps Concho Resources, and other shale drillers like it, may not be able to produce as much oil as expected from a given level of spending.But the hits keep on coming. President Trump announced a new round of tariffs, scheduled to take effect in September. China responded by digging in, and letting its currency depreciate, which set off a global panic about currency wars and a slowing economy. Oil entered a bear market, down more than 20 percent from a recent peak in April. U.S. energy stocks across the board fell to new depths.Prices recovered on Thursday on rumors about more OPEC+ cuts, but that has done little to dispel concerns about U.S. shale.  The industry faces both medium and long-term challenges as well. Pioneer Natural Resources, one of the larger producers in the Permian and widely considered one of the stronger companies, warned about the future of drilling. “Rig count and Tier 1 acreage is being exhausted at a very quick rate,” Pioneer President and CEO Scott Sheffield told analysts on an earnings call on August 6, referring to the Delaware basin, which has seen a surge of activity most recently.  “I am lowering my expectations of the Permian, reaching 1 million barrels of oil per day growth annually as it did in 2018,” Sheffield said. “I'm still convinced the Permian will reach 8 million barrels a day at a much slower pace with the Midland Basin as the only growing basin in the U.S. past 2025.”   8 million barrels per day is not exactly peanuts. That would amount to another doubling of output compared to today’s levels. But Sheffield said that everywhere outside of the Midland sub-basin within the Permian faces an uncertain future.

Permian Not on Its Way Out - A handful of industry insiders have speculated that the Permian may be on its way out, noting that well productivity in the region is declining. That’s what Rystad Energy highlighted in a company statement posted on its website on Friday. The energy research company emphasized in the statement, however, that the truth is “quite the opposite”. “Some market participants argue that the average well performance in the Permian is already declining, based on speculations of depletion of core inventory, as well as a growing share of child wells and well spacing challenges,” Rystad Energy said in the statement. “After careful analysis, we do not find sufficient evidence in the data to support these speculations,” Artem Abramov, Rystad Energy’s head of shale research, added in the statement. “We conclude that the average new production per well in the basin matches the all-time highs seen in early 2019, despite depletion concerns,” Abramov continued. Abramov went on to state that a typical horizontal Permian well currently produces approximately 830 barrels of oil per day during its second month of production, which is an “all-time high level”. Earlier this year, Regina Mayor, global sector head of energy and natural resources for KPMG, revealed in a television interview with Bloomberg that she thought “Permania” was alive and well and here to stay. In a separate television interview with Bloomberg back in January, Fatih Birol, executive director at the International Energy Agency, said, “we have not seen the full impact of the shale revolution yet”. “[There is] more to come both for oil and gas and it will have huge implications for the oil industry, gas industry and the markets,” Birol told Bloomberg in the interview.

Qatar Pumping $550MM Into Permian Midstream Player - Oryx Midstream Services revealed Wednesday that Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) will invest approximately $550 million in the company. In a statement published on its website yesterday, Oryx said an affiliate of QIA has acquired a “significant” stake in the business from an affiliate of Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners. Oryx also noted that QIA has committed to invest in the development of the company. The partnership is the latest in a series of investments undertaken by QIA across the United States, where QIA aims to increase investment to $45 billion in the coming years, Oryx highlighted in the statement. "The significant investment and commitment from QIA alongside Stonepeak’s strong operational and capital support will allow us to continue to grow our footprint in the Permian Basin and deliver the highest level of service to current and future customers,” Oryx CEO, Brett Wiggs, said in a company statement. “We are thrilled to lead Oryx in partnership with these world-class investors,” he added. The CEO of QIA, Mansoor Al-Mahmoud, said, “we believe that Oryx represents a strong midstream platform with tremendous growth potential, and we look forward to working with our new partners at Stonepeak”. “This acquisition is a further demonstration of QIA’s strategy to increase the size of our U.S. portfolio, and to invest more in major infrastructure projects,” he added. Oryx describes itself as the largest privately-held midstream crude operator in the Permian Basin. The company, which was founded in 2013, is focused on developing, acquiring, owning and operating midstream assets in the Permian Basin region. The QIA is the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar. The organization describes itself as an important building block of the Qatar National Vision 2030 and a respected professional global investor.

 Permian Fracking Continues to Break Records - The prolific Permian Basin continues to break records. Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the Permian broke old records in June, according to energy research firm Rystad Energy, who estimates there were as many as 18 wells fracked per day in June. Previously, fracking operations in the Permian peaked at 520 wells in August 2018. Rystad estimates almost 550 wells were fracked in June. “The Midland platform has undoubtedly been the driver of this upwards trend with consistent month-over-month increases,” said Oleksii Shulzhuk, senior analyst on Rystad’s shale team. “According to our latest estimate, fracked wells totaled 339 in June 2019, constituting a whopping 70 percent growth since the first quarter of 2019, when an average of 200 wells were fracked per month.” Nationwide, U.S. fracking operations saw a strong recovery in June with 49 wells fracked per day, an increase of five daily wells since May. “This puts fracking in June just one daily well short of reaching the all-time high rate that was achieved in August 2018, when 50 wells were fracked across the U.S.,” Shulzhuk added. The U.S. saw the spring months experience flattened average fracking activity, with just one well per day increase in both March and April followed by a two well-per-day decline in May. Conversely, June experienced an increase of five wells per day across all major shale-producing regions in the U.S. – driven by the Permian, Eagle Ford, Bakken and the SCOOP/STACK play in Oklahoma .

Permian fracking activity sets new records with fewer people -- Companies are hydraulically fracturing more oil wells in the booming Permian Basin than ever before and getting it done with far fewer workers than just a year ago, according to new studies. The trends show that the industry, on an efficiency kick since the last oil bust, is becoming ever more productive as investors press energy companies to lower costs and boost profits. Oilfield services firms fracked 18 Permian wells a day in June for a monthly total of about 550 wells, easily surpassing the August 2018 record of about 520 wells, according to the research firm Rystad Energy. They did it with 20 percent fewer fracking crews, according to a separate report from another research firm, Kayrros. A fracking crew typically has about 30 workers. “Thanks to ever shorter frac times, well completions are holding steady,” the Kayrros report. This intensifying activity comes despite subdued oil prices. Oil settled Wednesday at a seven-month low of $51.09 per barrel in New York as prices got battered by rising U.S. crude stockpiles, a slowing global economy and weakening growth in worldwide energy demand. While much of the new drilling and future Permian growth is focused on the Delaware Basin, the western lobe of the Permian, most of the well completion activity is still occurring in the more mature Midland Basin. The United States is producing more than 12 million barrels of oil a day, with more than one-third coming from the Permian. “This latest batch of fracking activity confirms our belief that prospects look promising for U.S. shale production in the second half of the year,” said Oleksii Shulzhuk, senior analyst on Rystad Energy’s shale team. Fracking activity had plunged late last year as oil prices collapsed by more than 40 percent from October to Christmas time, but the activity has recovered this summer after modest growth in the spring. Fracking activity also has grown in South Texas’ Eagle Ford shale, North Dakota’s Bakken shale and in Oklahoma, but not to the extent of record breaking activity in the Permian, Rystad said. Nationwide, Rystad said 49 wells were fracked per day in June — up by five daily wells since May — which is just shy of the record of 50 wells per day in August 2018.

Exxon, Chevron move to dominate Permian as smaller players pull back - - The Big Oil companies Exxon Mobil and Chevron are keeping their promises to dominate the Permian Basin, rapidly ramping up production as smaller companies contend with declining drilling activity, muted oil prices and a skeptical Wall Street unwilling to finance their growth. Exxon Mobil has, by far, become the Permian’s most active driller with more than 50 rigs operating in the West Texas oil field, increasing production there by nearly 90 percent in 12 months. Chevron, along with Occidental Petroleum of Houston, is one of just two companies producing more than 420,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day from the region, the companies said Friday in their quarterly earnings reports.  The Permian, now the world’s most productive oil and gas basin, is producing about 4.2 million barrels of crude oil a day, more than one-third of the nation’s record output of more than 12 million barrels a day. The basin, by far the central focus of the shale boom, also is the country’s second-most prolific natural gas producer.  Small and midsize oil firms led the so-called shale revolution, proving horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques. Exxon and Chevron — and energy majors generally — came to shale slowly, but now they are using their deep pockets, size and diversified income to continue to invest in drilling projects in the Permian and drive growth there. To a lesser extent, the European energy majors Royal Dutch Shell and BP also are focusing on Permian growth.  Earlier this year, Exxon and Chevron both pledged to churn out close to 1 million barrels of oil equivalent a day from the Permian by 2024.  Exxon has the acreage to eventually drill 6,500 Permian wells, Chapman said. So far, they’ve brought only about 100 new wells online.   Exxon Mobil, headquartered in Irving, said its profits fell more than 20 percent in the second quarter to $3.1 billion from about $4 billion in the previous year, blaming low natural gas prices and smaller petrochemical profit margins. Exxon’s petrochemical profits were the worst in 11 years because of a global glut in chemicals and plastics supplies.  Chevron’s petrochemical business was also hit by shrinking profit margins. But both energy giants said they view the slowdown in petrochemicals as temporary.

U.S. WTI Midland crude back in positive territory: traders (Reuters) - U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude in Midland traded in positive territory for the first time in more than a month on Monday on expectations a new pipeline from the nearby Permian basin will begin operation soon, traders said. WTI Midland for September traded as strong as 15 cents per barrel above benchmark futures, the strongest level since late June. On Friday, the grade traded at a midpoint of a discount of about 65 cents per barrel to futures. Plains All American Pipeline LP set rates for its 670,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Cactus II pipeline from the Permian basin to the Corpus Christi area on Friday, effective the same day, triggering expectations among market participants the line will begin service soon. Commodities merchant Trafigura, one of the biggest shippers on the line, intends to ship full contractual volumes once the line starts up, a source told Reuters in June. The trading house has signed a long-term agreement with Plains to ship a total of 300,000 bpd of crude and condensate on the Cactus II pipeline. A surge in oil production had outpaced pipeline takeaway capacity in the Permian, the biggest oil basin in the country, depressing Midland prices for over a year.

Texas regulator issues fines for 270 oil and gas safety violations- The Railroad Commission of Texas assessed $864,689 in fines involving 270 enforcement dockets against operators and businesses at the Commissioners' conference this week. The Commission has primary oversight and enforcement of the state's oil and gas industry and intrastate pipeline safety.One docket involved $6,202 in penalties after an operator failed to appear at Commission enforcement proceedings. Operators were ordered to come into compliance with Commission rules and assessed $315,187 for oil and gas, LP-Gas or pipeline safety rule violations. Pipeline operators and excavators were assessed $543,300 for violations of the Commission's Pipeline Damage Prevention rules.

Texas Oil Regulator Shifts Stance on Gas Flaring-- An unusual split vote by Texas regulators over the flaring of natural gas shows that the days of giving a free pass to the controversial practice in the Lone Star state may be numbered. The chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees the oil and gas industry in the state, dissented during a recent hearing over a flaring permit. Wayne Christian said there’s too much gas being burned off out of convenience rather than necessity, and he’s concerned about the “frequency and ease” with which companies are being allowed to continue with the practice. While his comments didn’t alter commission policy, they indicate a change may be coming. Texas is widely regarded as the most oil-and-gas-friendly state, and the commission has never turned down a request to burn excess gas. But the volume now being flared -- more than residential gas demand for the whole of Texas -- has attracted criticism for both its wastefulness and the carbon-dioxide emissions that come with it.  Permian flaring rose about 85% last year, according to data from Oslo-based consultant Rystad Energy. Josh Price, an analyst at Height Capital Markets, said he doesn’t believe regulators will clamp down on flaring until new pipelines are completed and substantially relieve the oversupply, which could come next year, but the chairman’s comments show how the commission is shifting on the issue and that concerns over flaring in Texas are growing. The commission decided to “make a political statement saying ‘We are hearing people. We understand that this is becoming an issue and we’re going to do something about it,’” Price said in an interview. “That, coming from the chairman, has the most impact.” The commission grants flaring permits for up to 180 days. Without that, the only alternative for some producers is the so-called shut-in of oil or gas wells to curb output. Special extensions to permits can be granted, usually for up to two years, Price said. Christian made his comments Tuesday during a commission meeting in Austin to hear an attempt by pipeline operator Williams Co. to block the request for a flaring permit made by EXCO Resources Inc. It was the first time a driller has asked for a permit for all of the gas coming out of wells that are already connected to pipelines, and also the first time a midstream company has lodged a protest.

Plains All American to begin commercial service on Texas pipeline next week (Reuters) - U.S. pipeline operator Plains All American Pipeline LP expects to begin partial service on its 670,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Cactus II pipeline next week, Chief Executive Willie Chiang said on Tuesday. Houston-based Plains has filled about half the crude line, which runs from the Permian Basin in West Texas to the U.S. Gulf Coast. It plans to start full operation by the first quarter of 2020, Chiang told investors on a conference call. The Plains pipeline would be the first of three new lines beginning operations in the next few months that is expected to ease a bottleneck in West Texas that has weighed on regional oil prices. The pipeline will be able to connect to the Corpus Christi, Texas, area, which includes extensive crude export and storage terminals, by the end of September, Chiang said.

New U.S. pipelines poised to start price war for shale shippers (Reuters) - The operators of two new pipelines in West Texas shale fields are offering discounted prices to attract shippers accustomed to high fees to move oil to export hubs, according to the pipeline companies and federal filings. These bargain rates, in one case half the initial published rate, will aid strapped oil producers that once had to sell their oil for about $10 less per barrel because of transport constraints to move their oil from the largest shale oil field in the country. But pipeline companies, which have in the past year raced to add new capacity to flow oil from the Permian Basin to the refining and export hub on U.S. Gulf Coast, will face pressure to cut rates in coming weeks, said oil traders and analysts. The two operators - EPIC Midstream and Plains All American (PAA.N) - are opening lines that combined will in coming months be able to carry about 1.6 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) from West Texas to the Gulf Coast. A third line, the 900,000 bpd line being developed by Phillips 66 (PSX.N), will open later this year that will boost total capacity to flow oil from the region by two-thirds. “There’s no way another 2.5 million bpd are waiting to get sent to Corpus Christi (Texas),” said Sandy Fielden, an analyst at Morningstar. “Clearly, there’s going to be too much capacity ... There will be buying up of barrels in Midland like it’s going out of style.” GRAPHIC: tmsnrt.rs/2GVze8d

U.S. shale shippers will pay surcharge for Trump steel tariffs - (Reuters) - Plains All American Pipeline LP (PAA.N) said on Friday it will tack on a fee for users of a new oil pipeline to pay for the cost of the Trump administration’s tariffs on imported steel, with analysts and traders calling it the first U.S. energy pipeline operator to do so. In addition to the steel levies announced last year, President Donald Trump on Thursday said he plans to expand U.S. tariffs to $300 billion in Chinese imports, escalating a trade dispute that has increased costs for American consumers of everything from steel to electronics to shoes. Houston-based Plains will begin charging shippers a 5 cents per barrel fee on its 670,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Cactus II pipeline next April to offset higher construction costs from “governmental regulation and tariffs,” according to a filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Plains last year estimated the 25% steel tariff would add $40 million to its costs for the $1.1 billion pipeline, which runs 550 miles (885 km) from the Permian basin of West Texas and New Mexico, the top U.S. shale field, to the U.S. Gulf Coast. The Trump administration last year imposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminum to shield U.S. producers from overseas competition and protect jobs. It was one in a series of tariffs imposed by Trump since becoming president in 2017. “This is an example of how harmful trade policies such as steel tariffs and quotas are hurting the U.S. energy industry, economy, and potentially energy consumers,” said Natalia Sharova, a spokeswoman for the trade group American Petroleum Institute.

What’s in the way of this Texas pipeline? A cute songbird. The golden-cheeked warbler, an endangered songbird native to Central Texas, always seems to be flitting around controversy. It proved to be a roadblock derailing the Texas Department of Transportation’s plans to build a toll road in 2016. Prominent politicians in Texas say protections for the bird infringe on property rights. And in the last few years, the diminutive bird has survived multiple attemptsto remove it from the federal endangered species list.Now the warbler is at the center of a fight between Kinder Morgan and landowners in the Hill Country who want to block the company’s proposed pipeline through the 25-county region. Last fall, Kinder Morgan unveiled plans to build the Permian Highway Pipeline, a 430-mile conduit capable of transporting 2.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Permian Basin in West Texas to the Gulf Coast. The pipeline route would cut right through some of the most pristine parts of the state, including vast swaths of oak-juniper woodlands, the warbler’s preferred habitat. It would also run over the Edwards Aquifer, a source of drinking water for more than two million people in Texas.A group of Hill Country landowners, the Travis Audubon Society, and Hays County, part of the Austin metro area, recently notified Kinder Morgan that it plans to sue the company if it applies for federal permits to build the pipeline without an adequate plan to protect the warbler and other endangered species in the area.“They want to do the bare minimum, so long as it’s cheap and fast,” said David Smith, an attorney representing the group. “This is all about trying to get their project built faster than their competitors’ projects. But none of their competitors are insisting on going through a very environmentally sensitive part of the state.” The battle over the Permian Highway Pipeline comes amid a fracking boom in the Permian Basin, which is expected to provide a third of the country’s crude oil this year. It recently eclipsed production from Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar field, the world’s biggest oil field.

Kinder Morgan ordered to pay Hill Country landowner nearly $250,000 in property damages - A real state commission overseeing land condemnation issues has ordered Houston pipeline operator Kinder Morgan to pay a Hill Country landowner nearly $250,000 in property damages.In a Thursday morning decision, the three-member panel of the panel of Blanco County Special Commissioners ordered Kinder Morgan to pay landowner Matthew Walsh $233,500 in damages for the company's proposed Permian Highway Pipeline project.Kinder Morgan is seeking to build the $2 billion pipeline to move 2.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Permian Basin of West Texas to the Katy Hub near Houston but faces stiff opposition along the proposed route through the picturesque Texas Hill Country.A company appraisal  valued the 50-foot easement on Walsh's land at $16,707 but the Blanco landowner got legal help from the Texas Real Estate Advocacy and Defense Coalition and filed a claim stating that the overall damage to the appraised value of his 53-acre property was $261,663. Walsh claimed the pipeline project would delay building a home on the property and selling the land in the future."I feel like I've been living in a nightmare since I heard about the pipeline coming through my land last October," Walsh said in a statement released by the , a nonprofit group opposed to the project. "Kinder Morgan's initial offer was insultingly low. I hope that other landowners will hear my story and join me in fighting for fair compensation."

It Doesn’t Matter At All That Oil is Priced in Dollars #43,656 - Dean Baker - The New York Times ran a piece on China's devaluation of its currency, which warned that the move could hurt China because commodities like oil, which are priced in dollars, will become more expensive for companies in China. While it is true that the devaluation will make imported goods more expensive, the fact that some are priced in dollars is irrelevant. Suppose oil was priced in yen. Other things equal, the decision to devalue against the dollar would also mean that Chinese yuan is devalued against the yen. This would lead to the same increase in the price of oil as if oil were priced in dollars. The pricing in dollars is simply a convention, there is special importance to it in international trade.The piece also raises the prospect that the drop in the value of the yuan, "could spur wealthy Chinese to take their money out of the country." While it could have this effect, it may also have the opposite effect. Once the yuan has dropped in value the question is whether it is likely to fall further. This drop may lead many investors to believe that a further decline is unlikely, just as if the stock market fell by 20 percent, investors may come to believe that further decline is unlikely and therefore may be anxious to buy into the market. It is also important to put the drop of the yuan in some context. The devaluation reduced the value of the yuan by less than 1.5 percent against the dollar. This is a large single day movement, but it is not that unusual for currencies to move around by this amount against each other even without government intervention. Also, a 1.5 percent reduction in the value of the yuan will not have large effects on the price in China of oil or other commodities.

Dems want to kill oil and gas leasing. Here's why it matters --Democratic presidential candidates are rallying behind the idea of stopping new leases to extract fossil fuels from federal lands, with the majority of the field pledging to act on the issue if elected in 2020.Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, for example, first made the pledge in April as part of her plan for transforming the federal government's relationship with public lands. Since then, at least 19 other candidates have endorsed an executive order to halt new leases, according to the campaigns and The Washington Post. Warren and at least eight others would extend the ban to new offshore drilling in federal waters.The idea of stopping new leases is grounded in the notion that the U.S. government has a particular responsibility for emissions stemming from fossil fuels extracted from federal property or via transfers of government-owned mineral rights.The U.S. Geological Survey concluded last year that fossil fuels from federal lands and waters account for 24% of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions throughout their life cycle.Because the government oversees those resources, it has the power to dictate whether they are brought out of the ground in the first place, activists argue.  Regardless of the political viability, cutting federal leasing could have broad consequences — politically and financially — for swaths of the United States.Thirty-five states receive money from offshore and onshore development, but most of that cash is concentrated in a few big winners — meaning Democrats' promised action could have an outsize effect on those regions.New Mexico, the largest producer of oil on federal land, has the most money to lose. Energy-related income from leasing, production royalties and other fees contributed $635 million to New Mexico's coffers in 2018. That year, a single oil and gas lease sale brought in record revenue of $1 billion, which was split between the state and federal government.Wyoming wasn't far behind its southern neighbor, taking in $564 million last year from federal energy programs.  Some coastal states would lose revenue if the ban included offshore drilling, and popular programs funded by leasing dollars could run out of money.

Health officials: Pipeline leaks 10K gallons of oil (AP) — North Dakota’s Health Department says more than 10,000 gallons of oil has spilled from a pipeline in Williams County. The agency says in a statement that the spill was reported Friday by Samson Oil & Gas USA Inc. Environmental scientist Brian O’Gorman says the spill occurred Thursday north of Williston at a well pad and affected a small patch of nearby grassland. O’Gorman says the cause of the spill is under investigation. He says no water sources were affected. O’Gorman says about 4,200 gallons had been recovered by late Friday afternoon and the spill was contained.

A legacy of salt contamination draws attention, research to Bottineau County oil fields  -- Wildcatters first hit oil here in the 1950s, bringing jobs to the region but also scarring the farmland by dumping brine into evaporation pits dug into fields. Oil drilling still occurs today, and although the state has since outlawed the pits, pipelines leak saltwater on occasion. On a recent bus tour of the area, local farmer Daryl Peterson grabbed the microphone to talk about brine, which is salty water that comes to the earth’s surface alongside oil and gas at well sites. “You can look off any direction and see a lot of damage,” he said. He asked the driver to slow down by a bald spot every mile or so, including at a small tract of land southeast of Renville that a farmer seeds each year. “I have never seen it harvested once,” Peterson said. “It will not grow a crop.” A little further down the road, he nodded to the distance. “We call this the ‘Great White Salt Flats’ off to the right,” he said. “It runs for half a mile.” Peterson, who’s had brine spills on his own farmland, offered commentary to a group of landowners, state officials and oil workers on a tour hosted by North Dakota State University Extension and the Northwest Landowners Association. He said he’s for oil development, but it needs to be done responsibly because brine contamination is costly and takes land out of production. “The best choice is to do better regulation, better maintenance and prevent the spills,” he said. “The onus right now is falling on the landowners.” And it’s tough on those who lease land, such as Matt Peterson, who farms an area northwest of Renville where a saltwater pipeline owned by Petro Harvester leaked in 2011. The company has since installed a tile drainage system that captures water in pipes underground. Sumps pump it — along with the salt it carries — back up, and trucks carry the fluid away for disposal. Local landowners estimate that the leak damaged 26 acres eight years ago, and 20 acres remain sterile today.

 Tribal leaders request hearing about increase in oil carried by Dakota Access Pipeline --South Dakota tribal leaders are requesting a public hearing in North Dakota about a proposed increase in oil carried by the Dakota Access Pipeline. Energy Transfer Partners plans to expand the pipeline's capacity from more than 500,000 barrels per day to as much as 1.1 million barrels to meet growing demand without constructing additional pipelines or rail shipments. The pipeline carries oil from North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois. The tribal leaders say they haven't been adequately informed about the plans and are asking the North Dakota Public Service Commission to hold a public hearing. The Commission is receiving public feedback until Aug. 9 before it announces whether it'll hold a hearing. "The water comes down through here, our territory, so we have to make sure that the water is clean and stays clean," Rosebud Tribal President Rodney Bordeaux said in a statement. Cheyenne River Tribal Chairman Harold Frazier said he has serious safety concerns about an increase in the pipeline's oil flow. "We don't know if the pipeline is capable of handling (it), and I haven't seen any documents to justify that," Frazier said in a statement. The construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline sparked massive protest at Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota in 2016. The pipeline was completed and began moving oil in 2017. 

BNSF investigating report of petroleum sheen - BNSF Railway Co. will be working in the Whitefish River today following a report of a petroleum sheen in the river.The company is investigating a complaint of a petroleum sheen received by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality in the river near the Whitefish Landing river access site, according to Maia LaSalle, public affairs director for BNSF.“We continue to work with Montana DEQ, [U.S. EPA] as well as the city of Whitefish in regards to that report,” LaSalle said in a release.Access to the area will be controlled due to heavy equipment operating in the area near the river access site in the morning on Wednesday. The park, sandwiched between the river and the city’s bike path, just west of the intersection of Miles Avenue and Railway Street, is near the railroad roundhouse.A major cleanup of the Whitefish River was completed by BNSF in 2013, involving the excavation of petroleum-contaminated soils in the river.Mayor John Muhlfeld on Monday said a citizen complained of seeing a petroleum sheen about 20 feet in length in the river, about 15 feet off shore from the public access point.“BNSF sent an investigative team out and they agitated the sediments in the river,” he said. “They followed up and pressure washed the river bottom to see if they could find where the sheen was coming from, but the sheen is still there.”Muhlfeld said BNSF plans to use an excavator in the river, along with appropriate precautions to protect the river. “They are looking to further investigate and characterize where the sheen is coming from,” he said. “They expect it’s probably coming from an upland area, meaning an area between the roundhouse and the shoreline of the river. Perhaps the liner they have in place to intercept any residual petroleum is not functioning.”

Trump fracking plan targets over 1 million acres in California - The Trump administration on Thursday detailed its plan to open more than a million acres of public and private land in California to fracking, raising environmental concerns at a time when opposition to oil and gas drilling in the state is intensifying.The action would end a five-year moratorium on leasing federal land in California to oil and gas developers. That pause came after a federal judge ordered the Obama administration to halt similar leasing efforts until it could better evaluate the environmental risks of hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking.Trump’s plan – first proposed by the administration in 2018 — targets public and private land spread across eight counties in Central California: eastern Fresno, western Kern, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura.The move drew immediate criticism from environmentalists, who said it would pose health risks and worsen air quality in a part of the state notorious for pollution.“The Central Valley has some of the worst air quality in the nation, and we know fracking and drilling make air quality worse,” said Clare Lakewood, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy group.Lakewood said Trump’s plan would unleash a “fracking frenzy” that would endanger people and wildlife alike.Once a plan is finalized and approved, environmental groups are expected to sue to block it, as they have in the past. Proposed by the Bureau of Land Management, the plan is only the latest in a series of attempts by the federal government to open public land in Central California to fracking.

Trump plan to allow new fracking on California coast, Central Valley moves forward - The administration insists it is abiding by the the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 as it promotes responsible energy exploration. The agency’s plan could result in up to 37 new oil and gas wells drilling on new land leases over the next 20 years, primarily in Fresno, Monterey and San Benito counties, according to the BLM’s preferred plan. BLM estimates that the oil and gas industry directly supports 3,000 jobs and $623 million in tax revenue within those counties.  A separate Bureau of Land Management office in Bakersfield already released a supplemental environmental impact statement last month that considers new oil and gas development on 1.6 million acres of public land across another region of California, which includes Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura counties. The planning area includes about 400,000 acres of public land and 1.2 million acres of federal mineral estate, according to the report.  That plan calls for the use of hydraulic fracturing on 40 new wells over the next 10 years. The extraction method is currently primarily used in California to enhance oil production in the San Joaquin Valley, home to some of the largest producing oil fields in the country.  The bureau has not issued any fracking leases since a 2013 court ruling that the agency had violated the National Environmental Policy Act without first considering environmental impacts of the practice.  While California remains one of the largest oil producing states in the nation, production has steadily declined over the last three decades.  Thousands of Californians submitted comments to the agency in protest of the plan to open more land for drilling and fracking. Among the concerns are increased air pollution and potential contamination of groundwater, a limited resource in Central California.

Berkeley gas hook-up ban appears likely to spread to other California cities: WSPA head  — The move to ban natural gas hook-ups to certain types of new-builds in Berkeley, California, could soon spill over to other municipalities across the state, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association said Wednesday. "In the city of Berkeley builders will be prohibited from receiving permits that include gas infrastructure," Catherine Reheis-Boyd said the LDC Gas Rockies and West Forum in Los Angeles. "Wow. Can you imagine if every local municipality takes up this issue? It's death by a 1,000 cuts." Passed by the city council last month, the ban takes effect on January 1, 2020. It bans gas hook-ups in new multi-family construction, but provides some allowances for first-floor retail and certain types of large structures. The measure looks poised to spread to other cities across the state, with approximately 50 municipalities mulling their own version of such a law. Part of the reason cities are looking to implement such a measure is due to Senate Bill 100. Signed into law last September, It intends to eliminate all gas use by 2045 as the state plans to shift to 100% renewables by that time. However, renewable gas will be allowed under the law. Electricity generation is intended to replace gas in those new-builds for purposes such as heating and cooking. "We've heard a lot about the push against fossil fuel use in Colorado, but California is like Colorado on steroids," said Reheis-Boyd, whose organization represents the oil and gas industry in California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Arizona. "We are at a tipping point in California." The rapid push to renewables, combined with multiple fees and taxes, have caused California energy costs to increase by 25% over the past several years, while the rest of the US has only increased by about 3%.

Republicans push DOT to quash Wash. crude-by-rail law -- A group of House and Senate Republicans are pressing the Department of Transportation to intervene against a Washington state law that they say could prevent the shipment of Bakken crude oil and natural gas to Pacific Northwest ports and refiners.

Pair of Calgary-based fracking firms report double-digit Q2 revenue declines -Two of Canada’s biggest oil and gas well-fracking companies are posting double-digit percentage revenue declines as energy exploration spending slowed in the quarter ended June 30. Calfrac Well Services Ltd., which has operations in Canada, the U.S., Russia and Argentina, reported revenue of $430 million, a 21 per cent fall from $545 million in the same period of 2018. Trican Well Service Ltd., which is focused on the Canadian market, reported revenue of $110 million, a 36 per cent decline compared with $172 million in second quarter 2018. The Calgary-based companies step in after a well is drilled to prepare it for production, performing operations including hydraulic fracturing, where liquids, sand and chemicals are injected under pressure to break up tight underground formations and free trapped oil and gas. Calfrac reported a net loss of $42 million, up from a loss of $15 million a year earlier, as its job count and pricing levels declined in both Canada and the United States. Trican’s net loss improved to $29 million from $35 million as it continued to sell equipment and cut costs, including implementing an unspecified number of job cuts during the second quarter. Both companies said they expect stronger business conditions in the second half of 2019.

China Rescues Venezuela's Worn Oil Refineries -- A Chinese contractor has agreed to shore up Venezuela’s derelict refining network to ease fuel shortages, potentially complicating the Trump administration’s push for regime change in the oil-rich country. Wison Engineering Services Co., a Shanghai-based chemical engineering and construction company that is using China’s ‘Belt and Road’ infrastructure program to expand overseas, agreed last month to repair Venezuela’s main refineries in exchange for oil products including diesel, according to people with knowledge of the deal. U.S. financial sanctions aimed at starving the current regime of revenue contributed to the decision to revive a domestic refining industry crippled by years of mismanagement and under-investment, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is confidential. The deal mirrors the OPEC producer’s other arrangements with Russian and Chinese oil majors, under which payments are made in crude by Venezuela’s cash-strapped national oil company. Wison’s repairs are expected to last six months to a year, according to another person. The Nicolas Maduro administration was having difficulties navigating the U.S. economic blockade even before the U.S. announced additional restrictions on Aug. 5. Last month state-controlled Petroleos de Venezuela SA was importing Russian gasoline through Malta to relieve shortages, a slow and expensive route to the Caribbean nation. Irregular fuel supplies have crippled mobility in a country where shortages of food and basic medical supplies have already caused a health crisis and led to one of the largest mass migrations of recent times. PDVSA, as the state producer is known, has been directing most available gasoline to Caracas, where Maduro is most vulnerable to mass protests. The Trump administration was hoping to swiftly chase Maduro out of power earlier this year, and has criticized China and Russia for supporting what it considers a criminal and repressive regime. China and Russia have an interest in preventing the complete collapse of Venezuela’s oil industry because it’s the only way to recoup the tens of billions of dollars in loans and investments they have made in the past decade. Wison’s deal also underscores how the oil-hungry Asian nation remains committed to Venezuela as a strategic location for foreign investment.

Very little public support for relaxing rules and regulations around fracking -- A major new public attitudes survey on fracking reveals very little public support for relaxing the rules and regulations around fracking -- a key demand of major shale gas extraction companies. The team, including Professor Lorraine Whitmarsh from Cardiff University, also found that people have low trust in the energy companies involved and want decisions taken at a local level. The independent survey shows only 8% of people in the UK think that the 'Traffic Light System' currently used to monitor and regulate seismic activity during fracking is too stringent and just 22% support the UK government regulator changing the threshold of seismic activity at which hydraulic fracturing must cease from 0.5 to 1.5 magnitude. These will be challenging results for those calling on the industry regulator, the Oil and Gas Authority, to relax the rules and regulations around fracking. Currently any tremor measuring 0.5 magnitude or above means fracking must be temporarily stopped while tests are carried out. The main sources for information about shale gas extraction are from environmental non-governmental organisations such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the National Trust, and Campaign for the Protection of Rural England with 48% using this source 'sometimes' or 'often'. Only 12% of people said they trusted shale gas industry groups or firms to provide information about fracking and only 11% said they want the UK government to make the decisions about shale gas extraction sites. 41% of participants want decisions for planning consent to be taken at the local level (e.g. council planning). The most trusted sources of information are the British Geological Survey (61%) and university scientists (59%), supporting the need for further independent research into the environmental impact of shale gas extraction.

 Cuadrilla seeks permission to keep fracking until 2021 - Cuadrilla will apply for permission to continue work at the UK’s most advanced fracking site as the industry seeks a way forward despite regulation it claims is stifling business.Chief executive Francis Egan will ask Lancashire County Council to let the firm continue for another 18 months on top of the current period. Its license at the Preston New Road is set to run out at the end of November, 30 months after it was granted. However, Egan said, the firm will only have drilled or fracked at the site for 21 of those months. The extra time would give Cuadrilla the chance to drill two more wells on top of the two it has already drilled. It has permission, but did not have the time, the company said.There will be no changes to the substance of the planning permission, and the site will still be decommissioned and restored by April 2023, Egan said.It comes as the Oil and Gas authority today approved Cuadrilla’s plans to start fracking at its second well. The approval included one year for flaring gas, the OGA said today. Shale gas proponents have pointed to British gas as a less carbon intensive way of meeting the UK’s gas needs. Liquid natural gas, imported from places like Qatar, is estimated to have a carbon footprint around a fifth higher. However protesters worry that fracking can cause earthquakes, and contaminate groundwater.

Europe's Oil Demand May Not Dip as Much as Some Claim - However, Europe's domestic oil production outlook remains weak. Europe today (per IEA definition, which notably includes Turkey) utilizes oil for 30 percent of its energy, just slightly below the global average. Consuming 15.5 million b/d, Europe accounts for 16 percent of global demand, or double its share of the population. Since 2012, Europe’s consumption has quietly risen 4 percent but still peaked in 2006 at just over 17 million b/d. The 28-member European Union accounts for about 80 percent of the continent’s total oil usage. Europe has accounted for a third of all refinery closures around the world, with capacity down 15 percent to 15.7 million b/d since 2000. Germany, Europe’s largest economy, illustrates the structural decline in oil demand that defines the continent. In 2018, Germany consumed 2.3 million b/d, a steady fall from 2.7 million b/d in 2000 and 3.4 million b/d in the late-1970s. CarsParticularly in the west, Europe has been at the forefront of climate change policies to curtail greenhouse gas emissions. Reductions in oil demand are a priority because the transport sector has surpassed power and now accounts for nearly 30 percent of Europe’s CO2 emissions. With transport making up 60 percent of total oil consumption, significantly expanding the electric car fleet is fundamental to Europe’s strategy to meet the Paris Agreement signed in December 2015. This is a hefty chore. Europe has about 500 oil-based cars for every 1,000 people. And the December riots in Paris illustrate how carbon and fuel taxes to cut consumption lack general public support. At 30-40 cents per kWh, Europe’s home power rates are three to four times higher than those in the U.S. In addition, the ability of more wind and solar to displace oil is regularly overstated. Renewables are strictly sources of electricity, a sector where oil plays just a tiny role (2 percent of all power). Numerous cities and governments have announced impending bans and deadlines for the phase-out of petrol and diesel cars. The outlook for electric cars to displace oil ones is basically positive in Europe. Norway, for instance, is the global leader with electric cars holding a 40 percent market share. Best-case scenario puts Europe’s battery electric vehicle adoption for the fleet at 40 percent by 2030 and 80 percent in 2050.

Norway's Trillion Dollar Fund Isn't Ditching Oil After All - Norway’s US$1-trillion fund - the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund - sent shockwaves through global markets nearly two years ago when it said in November 2017 that it recommended the removal of oil and gas stocks - around US$35 billion worth of shares - from the fund’s equity benchmark index to make Norway’s wealth and economy less vulnerable to a permanent drop in oil and gas prices.  The initial proposal of the fund - which has amassed its vast wealth from none other than Norway’s oil and gas revenues and is therefore commonly referred to as ‘the oil fund’--was to dump all oil stocks from its portfolio, including significant stakes in Big Oil worth billions of U.S. dollars each.  Nearly two years later, after compromises and subsector changes in the index provider FTSE Russell that Norway uses as a reference, the initial proposal of dumping more than US$35 billion of oil stocks has been now narrowed down to stakes in purely exploration and production companies worth a total of less than US$6 billion - and also worth less than the fund’s stake in Shell alone.  Norwegian economists tell Bloomberg that the heavily reduced (not final yet) list of oil stocks for sale will likely have a very small effect and is reduced to a “symbolic” divestment, while Greenpeace’s finance campaign director for the Nordics, Martin Norman, described to Bloomberg the whittled-down proposal as “completely scandalous.”The initial proposal shocked the markets as investors started questioning whether other major funds would follow suit and opt out of fossil fuels at a time when shareholders, investors, and environmentalists are increasingly pressing major oil companies to start taking climate change seriously and to prepare their business portfolios for a world of peak oil demand, whenever that may come. After months of deliberations, Norway’s government proposed in March 2019 that the fund divest from 134 companies classified by the index provider FTSE Russell as belonging to the exploration and production subsector. As at the end of 2018, the Norwegian fund held stakes in E&P companies—under FTSE Russell’s classification for such—with an approximate value of US$7.8 billion (66 billion Norwegian crowns).   To compare, as of the end of 2018, the fund’s total equity holdings in oil and gas firms had a value of US$37 billion, spread in investments in 341 companies, including just below 1 percent in each of Exxon and Chevron, 2.45 percent in Shell, 2 percent in Total, 2.31 percent in BP, and 1.59 percent in Eni. The stake in Shell alone was worth US$5.9 billion.

Environmental Agency files complaint against petroleum  - The Environmental Affairs Agency decided to file a complaint against the General Petroleum Company (GPC) in Ras Ghareb of the Red Sea governorate after the company’s work caused oil pollution to spread over a distance of 150 meters in the Dai al-Qamr area amid warnings of the spots extending to other areas and impacting beaches and maritime life on the Red Sea. The Agency added that the complaint will be submitted to the Attorney General of Red Sea Prosecution Abdel Maged al-Qasas to investigate the company’s officials on charges of polluting the beach and damaging maritime life. Environmental sources asserted that the results of the technical report on the oil stains revealed that the stain data were identical to those of the oil samples of the GPC, and added that the agency’s technical committee will determine the value of financial compensations expected for the affected marine environment. The Environment Ministry announced July 5 that it spotted a crude oil spill covering 1,500 meters off the coastal area of Ras Ghareb in the north of the Red Sea governorate and declared a state of emergency while cooperating with the Petroleum Ministry to determine the spill’s source. Crude oil spill pollution has covered the coastal area of Ras Ghareb six times, causing severe damage to the beaches and marine life of the Red Sea.

Pertamina prepares 45 boats to handle oil spill - Pertamina Hulu Energi Offshore North West Java (PHE ONWJ) has prepared 45 ships to deal with the oil spills in Karawang waters, West Java. The oil spill was caused by a leak in PHE's offshore oil and gas platform in July.  PHE ONWJ and a team of international experts on well control have begun drilling to stop gas bubbles around the YY platform since last Thursday.As of Wednesday, August 7, the YYA1-RW drilling stage has reached a depth of 540 meters and preparing to drill the 17-1/2 hole section. The drilling began two days ahead of the original schedule and is targeted to reach a depth of 2,765 meters, PHE VP for relations Ifki Sukarya said in a press release here on Wednesday."The mobilization of the Rig Up Jack Soehanah around the relief well is carried out in conjunction with the geo-hazard and geotechnical survey, so there is no waiting time. Some preparatory work can be carried out simultaneously to speed up the two-day polling time from the original plan," Ifki said.The emergence of gas bubbles around the YY platform began on Friday morning, July 12, 2019. In accordance with safety standards, PHE ONWJ then stopped drilling activities and activated the Incident Management Team (IMT).PHE ONWJ workers are making maximum efforts to cope with the abnormal conditions, following operating procedures. "The first priority is the safety of workers, the community and the surrounding environment," Ifki said. To clean up the coast from Pertamina's oil spill, around 5,000 residents in nearby areas are involved. These fishermen are paid to compensate for the inability to go to sea for fishing because of the oil spill.

Demand for Nigerian oil dire as U.S. competition ramps up -(Reuters) - Nigerian oil has suffered its slowest sales of the year in August, traders said, as U.S. exports of competing light, sweet grades flood traditional markets in Europe and Asia. The changes illustrate how U.S. President Donald Trump’s strategy for “energy dominance” is reshaping oil markets worldwide, as U.S. oil exports surged 260,000 barrels per day in June to a monthly record of 3.16 million bpd. Crude from Africa’s top exporter has largely been pushed out of the U.S. market in the last decade due to booming domestic output. Exports to the United States slid to zero for three weeks in July, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. But now shale oil from the U.S. Permian basin is pouring ever more into traditional strongholds for Nigerian oil in Western Europe, India and Indonesia. Both Nigeria and the United States are big producers of the kind of light, sweet grades that are ideal for refining into gasoline. According to IHS Markit, Europe has imported around 46% of Nigeria’s oil since the beginning of 2019, India nearly 18%, and the rest of Asia about another 10%. “They’re facing bigger competition from the U.S., and in the last few weeks, U.S. exports have really picked up,” one major buyer of West African crude told Reuters. As many as forty cargoes for export in August were still in need of buyers when Nigeria began publishing its preliminary programme for September exports beginning on Jul. 18.

Australia negotiating with Trump administration to buy emergency oil supplies The Morrison government is negotiating with the Trump administration to buy millions of barrels of oil from America's tightly guarded fuel reserve under an emergency strategy to lower the risk of Australia plunging into an economic and national security crisis.The deal forms a core plank of a new push to shore up dangerously low domestic storage levels, which have left the nation vulnerable to price hikes and rationing in the event of war or disaster in the oil-rich Middle East or increasingly volatile South China Sea. Australia needs an oil reserve in the event of an emergency according to Energy Minister Angus Taylor who has been in talks with the US to provide that supply. Australia imports 90 per cent of its liquid fuels but only has enough petrol and crude oil to last 28 days – well below the 90 days it is obliged to store under an agreement with the International Energy Agency. Overall, Australia has just 57 days of net coverage compared with 92 for New Zealand, 280 for Britain and 700 for the United States.

Australia to consider reserving some gas for home market (Reuters) - Australia, the world’s top liquefied natural gas exporter, on Tuesday said it would consider forcing gas producers to reserve some supply for the domestic market, as it looks to cut energy bills for households and manufacturers. Resources Minister Matthew Canavan and Energy Minister Angus Taylor said they would review a range of policies, including so-called gas reservation, pipeline access and price transparency to come up with options by February 2021. Australian conservative and Labor governments have long resisted calls for domestic gas reservation on the view that interfering in the market could distort prices and deter new production in the long run. However, following a tripling in wholesale gas prices over the past five years after the start-up of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from eastern Australia, the government has come under pressure to boost supply and cut prices. “Past approvals of large gas export projects have not adequately considered the impact on the domestic gas market and that has contributed to some of the pressures we have seen in recent years. We cannot afford to repeat these past mistakes,” Taylor and Canavan said in a joint statement. Any gas reservation would not affect the state of Western Australia and would only apply to future developments, Canavan said in a televised media conference. Two years ago the government introduced the controversial Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism, which requires the resources minister to decide each year whether to limit LNG exports from Queensland state to avert any forecast local shortage.

China's Largest Oil Company Caught Importing Iranian Crude -The Trump Administration's decision to reimpose sanctions on the Iranian oil trade has dramatically reduced Iranian crude exports - but it hasn't stopped some of the US's largest economic rivals from accepting shipments of Iranian crude, according to several media investigations. Not only has China continued to import Iranian crude, so have several other Asian and Mediterranean countries, according to data from several tanker tracking services studied by the New York Times and other media organizations. Per the NYT, in April 2018, before Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal, Iran exported 2.5 million barrels of oil per day. One year later, that figure was at one million. And in June, after the end of the exceptions or waivers, ships in Iranian ports loaded about 500,000 barrels per day, according to Reid I'Anson, an energy economist at Kpler, a company tracking seaborne commodities. Of course, this fact isn't lost on the Trump Administration, which, according to the FT, has been tracking the movements of tankers linked to China's biggest state-run oil company amid signs that the ships are helping to bring in Iranian crude. China National Petroleum Corp, via its subsidiary, the Bank of Kunlun, has, in recent months, employed a fleet of tankers to move oil from Iran to China. And an NYT visualization of tanker traffic shows the route some of these tankers take while moving oil from Iran to China and elsewhere in the region.  Below are satellite images of some of these tankers docking at Chinese ports. Last week, the Treasury Department sanctioned Chinese oil trader Zhuhai Zhenrong for buying oil from Iran. The decision was intended to send a message to other Chinese firms, and anyone else buying Iranian oil who also hoped to do business with the US. But targeting CNPC would be an especially serious escalation at a time when tensions between the US and China are nearing a breaking point. Even as satellite data and imagery suggest that the tankers linked to Bank of Kunlun are employing tactics including turning off tracking devices and changing their names.

 US Oil Likely in China's Crosshairs-- China is expected to start avoiding U.S. crude oil imports as trade tensions ratchet up, according to traders and analysts, ensnaring a key commodity that has largely escaped the tit-for-tat trade war. After tensions escalated over the past week, some Chinese buyers will likely begin reducing purchases of oil from the U.S. in anticipation that Beijing will impose tariffs, according to traders who supply American oil to China, asking not to be identified due to company policies. Retaliatory levies on U.S. natural gas and soybeans have already choked off China’s imports of those commodities. Adding crude oil to the mix disrupts further what should be a mutually beneficial energy relationship between the world’s biggest crude producer and importer. The U.S. surpassed Saudi Arabia and Russia to take the top spot last year, while China became the world’s largest oil buyer in 2017. If U.S. President Donald Trump goes ahead with new tariffs threatened to begin Sept. 1, Beijing will likely retaliate with duties on most, if not all, of its U.S. imports, including oil, Michal Meidan, director of the China Energy Programme at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, wrote in a note. Sinopec, China’s largest refiner, continues buying American oil, according to a person familiar with the matter. Unipec, the company’s trading arm, plans to load two supertankers with Bakken and Permian crude this month for shipment to its refining system and is looking for supplies in September, the person said. It “looks like a tariff on crude oil is inevitable if things escalate,” said Li Li, an analyst at Shanghai-based commodities researcher ICIS-China. One trader at a company that supplies China and has a long-term contract to buy U.S. crude said Beijing will probably apply retaliatory tariffs, though there has been no official notice of such a move. Two other traders who regularly sell American crude to China said they expect refiners to rein in purchases to show their support for President Xi Jinping, even if no tariffs are applied. Sinopec’s imports of U.S. crude will continue unless prices are uneconomical or if an import levy is imposed, said a person familiar with the matter. That said, not all of Unipec’s purchases will necessarily end up in China, as the company has been reselling cargoes to other destinations in Asia and Europe where returns are more attractive.

 Oil prices could crash by $30 if China buys Iranian crude: BofA -Crude oil prices could sink by as much as $30 a barrel if China decides to buy Iranian crude oil in retaliation to the latest U.S. tariff measures, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “While we retain our $60 a barrel Brent forecast for next year, we admit that a Chinese decision to reinitiate Iran crude purchases could send oil prices into a tailspin,” a BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research report said Friday, warning that prices could sink by as much as $20-30 a barrel in that scenario. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce has threatened countermeasures after President Donald Trump threatened to slap a 10% tariff on $300 billion dollars of Chinese goods. The decision Thursday floored oil markets and sent crude plunging 8% — the most in four years. Analysts warn that “oil volatility is set to rise again” as markets wait for a Chinese response to the latest US tariff threat, which could include purchasing Iranian oil. “This decision would both undermine US foreign policy and cushion the negative terms-of-trade effects on the Chinese economy of rising US tariffs,” the report added. Shipments of Iranian oil fell below 550,000 b/d (barrels per day) in June from about 875,000 b/d in May and about 2.5 million b/d in June 2018, according to data from S&P Global Platts. Roughly half of Iran’s exports were shipped to China in June and July, according to the firm. But a Chinese decision to purchase Iranian oil in a further defiance of U.S. sanctions could act as a double edged sword, according to other analysts. “Iran would welcome any opportunity to increase its production whether or not it breaches the terms of the U.S. sanctions, but the strategy there would introduce China to a partner over which it doesn’t have an enormous amount of control,” “Don’t forget there are other producers that would also be targeting that trade with China, so for instance you could see Iraq or Saudi Arabia step in and try and discount the volumes that they would be exporting to China as a way to circumvent Iran getting that extra market share,” he added.

Hedge Funds Were Divided On Oil, Until Trump Tweeted- Kemp (Reuters) - Hedge fund managers were deeply divided over the future direction for oil prices, until the United States announced fresh tariffs on China and sent prices plunging late last week.Hedge funds and other money managers increased their net long position in the six major petroleum futures and options contracts by 20 million barrels over the seven days ending on July 30.But hedge fund buying came when trade talks between the United States and China appeared to be back on track and before the announcement on Aug. 1 of new tariffs (https://tmsnrt.rs/2Yv8PJu).Fund managers were net buyers of Brent (+20 million barrels), U.S. heating oil (+7 million) and European gasoil (+6 million) but sellers of NYMEX and ICE WTI (-11 million) and U.S. gasoline (-2 million).Before the tariff announcement, there were indications of a deep split between those portfolio managers bullish about oil because of supply disruptions and OPEC cuts and those bearish because of the economy.Funds added 37 million barrels of bullish long positions, as well as 17 million barrels of bearish shorts, in the week ending July 30, according to exchange and regulatory records.Bullish longs rose to 844 million barrels, up from a recent low of just 744 million in the middle of June. But bearish shorts also climbed to 241 million, the highest level since February.Before the tariff announcement, the market was more evenly split between hedge fund bulls and bears than at any time since the middle of June.But the announcement bombed into this delicate balance, severely disrupting traders' assumptions, sending Brent tumbling by more than 7% on Aug. 1, the largest one-decline for more than three and a half years.From a positioning perspective, the oil market still looks close to balance, with a roughly equal chance of short covering or long liquidation moving prices higher or lower. From a fundamental perspective, however, the economic outlook has clearly deteriorated, with U.S. interest rate traders marking up the probability of recession sharply.

Oil prices fall 2% as US-China trade war concerns hit demand outlook --Global oil benchmark Brent futures fell more than 2 per cent on Monday on global growth concerns after US President Donald Trump last week threatened China with more tariffs, which could limit crude demand from the world's two biggest buyers. Brent crude fell $1.38, or 2.2 per cent, to $60.51 a barrel by 12:49 p.m. EDT (1649 GMT). US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 28 cents, or 0.5 per cent, to $55.38 a barrel, finding some support from a draw in inventories at the Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub and delivery hub for WTI. Stocks at Cushing fell nearly 2.4 million barrels in the week to Aug. 2, traders said citing data from market intelligence firm Genscape. The front-month WTI contract traded at a premium of 12 cents to the second-month, the highest since April. "The escalation in the US-China trade is another negative for the oil demand outlook, as the fallout from the spat continues to greatly impact the Asian economic region, which is key to the oil demand outlook," said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital Management. Both crude benchmarks plummeted by more than 7 per cent last Thursday to their lowest level in about seven weeks after Trump's announcement, before recovering somewhat to leave Brent down 2.5 per cent on the week and US crude 1 per cent lower. Trade war worries hit global equities again on Monday, while stoking a rally in safe-haven assets including the Japanese yen, core government bonds and gold. Trump last week said he would impose a 10 per cent tariff on $300 billion of Chinese imports starting on Sept. 1 and said he could raise duties further if China's President Xi Jinping failed to move more quickly towards a trade deal.

Oil Struggles As Markets Rocked By Trade War - Oil prices fell again on Monday, with Brent down in particular, dipping below $60 per barrel. The catalyst this time was the firm response by China to proposed U.S. tariffs. China let its currency depreciate to 7 yuan to the dollar, which immediately sparked further retaliation from Washington. The Treasury Department labeled China a currency manipulator, taking the standoff to another level. Perhaps the silver-lining is that the pressure is now on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates again – a long-sought objective by President Trump. But, the markets are not taking any comfort in this dynamic.  On Tuesday, markets started on a positive note after China apparently softened its tone, with the central bank setting a stronger target for the yuan than expected, an indication that China is not yet ready to use its currency as a weapon.    WTI traded in Midland rose to its strongest level since June after Plains All American Pipeline set rates for its 670,000-bpd Cactus II pipeline on Friday, raising expectations that it would begin service soon. Cactus II is one of three pipelines expected to come online this year connecting the Permian to the Gulf Coast.   Higher tariffs on China is dragging down oil, raising expectations of a cut in global growth. But the industry is also paying more for steel because of the tariffs. Plains All American said that it would charge oil producers 5 cents per barrel because of the tariffs.  Iran seized another oil tanker on Sunday, this time an Iraqi ship that Iran says was smuggling fuel to Arab countries.  According to S&P Global Platts, 1 in 7 new natural gas combined-cycle power plants are running at shockingly low levels. More than 33,000 MW of capacity had capacity factors below 40 percent in 2018. Some plants are even shutting down in California because of surging solar power and depressed electricity prices.   Young people are increasingly steering clear of the oil and gas industry, owing to a combination of factors, including fears about job insecurity and the climate crisis. As a result, the industry could find itself short on talent as aging workers head into retirement.

Oil hovers around $60 as US-China trade tensions weigh - Oil prices rebounded slightly on Tuesday from big falls in recent sessions, but Brent crude remained near seven-month lows around $60 a barrel due to escalating trade tensions between China and the United States. Brent prices have lost more than 9% in the past week, with U.S. President Donald Trump vowing to impose new tariffs on Chinese imports and China making further moves against U.S. agricultural cargoes. The United States also responded to a decline in China’s yuan on Monday by branding the country a currency manipulator. International benchmark Brent futures were up 0.28% at $59.98 a barrel, having dipped earlier in the session to their lowest since Jan. 14 at $59.07. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 0.24% to $54.79 per barrel. “This morning’s slight price recovery is hardly worthy of mention. Concerns about demand and the escalating trade conflict are still keeping the oil market in a stranglehold,” Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch said in a note. “As far as the oil market is concerned, there are two key questions: 1) Why should China carry on buying U.S. crude oil? and 2) Why should China continue to adhere to the U.S. sanctions when it comes to buying Iranian oil?” Global equities hit a two-month low and Brent fell more than 3% on Monday as traders worried the dispute between the world’s two biggest oil buyers would dent demand, helping to prompt Tuesday’s short-covering.

Oil Slumps Into Bear Market-- Brent oil slid into bear-market territory, as the U.S.-China trade spat threatened to expand into a currency war and investors despaired about the damage to crude demand. The rout for London-traded futures picked up speed as Tuesday’s session drew to a close, with Brent ending the day down 1.5% The global benchmark has now fallen more than 20% since a late-April peak, meeting the common definition of bear market. Prices slumped despite a modest rally in equity markets after the People’s Bank of China moved to strengthen the yuan on Tuesday. The Trump administration had earlier declared the Asian nation a currency manipulator, opening the potential for even harsher impacts on global trade. “We shouldn’t underestimate the potential impact of a full-blown trade war between the world’s two biggest economies,” said Bart Melek, head of global commodity strategy at TD Securities. “This could very well mean we as a market significantly overestimated demand growth for oil and we could easily be in a surplus situation in 2020.” Brent crude prices are down more than 9% this month as global economic worries eclipse the rising threat of supply disruptions in the Middle East. Iran could step up its operations against tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil chokepoint, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said on Monday. Brent for October settlement fell 87 cents to settle at $58.94 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe Exchange. West Texas Intermediate for September delivery lost $1.06, or 1.9%, to $53.63 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. WTI for October traded at a discount of $5.35 to Brent for that month, a gap that’s narrowed markedly in recent days as trade fears undercut the outlook for global oil prices.

Oil's post-crash bounce fades as buy-the-dip proves a bust- Kemp (Reuters) - Oil prices have continued to drift lower after plunging last week, highlighting the risk for traders trying to exploit mean-reversion strategies by buying futures contracts after a sharp fall in prices. Front-month Brent futures prices tumbled by more than 7% on Thursday, a percentage change equivalent to more than three standard deviations for all daily price moves since 1990.The one-day percentage decline was largest for more than three and a half years since February 2016, when prices were still close to their cyclical lows at just over $30 per barrel.But if some traders were hoping prices would show a significant short-term bounce after such a severe sell off, they have been disappointed.Front-month futures prices rose by just 2.3% on Friday, then fell again by 3.4% on Monday, and are still trading below last Thursday's close. Experience suggests prices do tend to bounce slightly in the days after a sharp sell-off, so there is an exploitable trading strategy, but gains tend to be small and highly uncertain.  Buying the dip is risky with relatively low expected returns and a high probability of making a loss. Since 1990, front-month futures prices have fallen by 7% or more on a total of 44 days, including last Thursday, out of a total of more than 7,500 trading days.  By far the largest decline occurred on Jan. 17, 1991, when prices plunged by almost 35%, and was linked to the first Gulf War.The Jan 1991 decline was an extreme outlier (the next largest percentage decline was less than 14%) so it has been excluded from the analysis that follows.Following a decline of 7% or more, prices generally bounce in the days that follow, rising on average by a total of around 3.5% (https://tmsnrt.rs/2MLbDeb).Most of the gains occur in the first 6-7 trading days after the initial slump and have largely disappeared within 10-20 days.Rises are slightly more common than further falls in the first 10 days, but the margin is narrow, and they become almost equally likely after around 15 days.Any post-crash bounce is small and fleeting, and it is almost as common prices will continue drifting lower.For smaller crashes, where prices decline by 5% or 3% in a single day, the expected price bounce becomes even more marginal and transient.

Oil prices fall sharply for second day, tracking volatile stock market - Oil futures prices closed sharply lower Tuesday — including a roughly seven-month low for international benchmark Brent — as contracts gave up early gains once the stock market pared its recovery. Oil fell as questions persisted over global demand for energy, uncertainty that’s tied to U.S. tensions with major trade partners. West Texas Intermediate crude for September delivery was down $1.06, or 1.9%, to $53.63 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest finish since June 17, according to Dow Jones Market Data. WTI traded in positive territory briefly Tuesday, up to $55.42. Crude fell 1.7% on Monday and WTI is now off 19% from its 2019 settlement high of $66.30 hit on April 23. U.S. stocks were higher late but off their best levels of the session, and the Dow briefly turned negative, as investors digested the latest development in an intensifying trade spat, with China in particular. “Concerns about demand and the escalating trade conflict are still keeping the oil market in a stranglehold,” said Carsten Fritsch, analyst with Commerzbank. Oil markets have dropped, and recovered, in step with other risky assets over recent sessions. Last week, the U.S. oil benchmark suffered its biggest one-day fall in more than four years after President Trump moved to impose additional import tariffs on Chinese goods and China pledged retaliation. China’s currency on Monday weakened, trading at the key 7 yuan to the dollar level and sparking a global selloff in equities and oil, while sending investors scampering into haven assets such as gold and bonds. The U.S. responded to the decline in the yuan by branding China a currency manipulator Meanwhile, global benchmark October Brent crude BRNV19, +2.77% fell 87 cents, or 1.4%, at $58.94 a barrel on ICE Europe Tuesday, the lowest since Jan. 8. It traded up to $60.56 earlier, but has now shed some 4.7% so far this week. That trims the year-to-date gain to about 9.5%, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Oil Price Forecast Majorly Revised at Fitch - Fitch Solutions Macro Research (FSMR) analysts have made a “major downward revision” to their Brent oil price forecasts, the company’s latest outlook report has revealed.The analysts now expect prices to average $67 per barrel this year, $65 per barrel in 2020 and $61 per barrel in 2021. This compares to FSMR’s previous forecasts of $70 per barrel in 2019, $76 per barrel in 2020 and $80 per barrel in 2021.  “The revision reflects a deteriorating economic outlook and a sharper than expected slowdown in oil demand,” FSMR analysts stated in the report, which was sent to Rigzone on Tuesday. “Tight market management by OPEC and Russia, coupled with a steep decline in exports from Venezuela and Iran, have failed to revive prices and upwards of three million barrels per day of supply is now sitting on the sidelines, waiting for a point of re-entry,” the analysts added.The Bloomberg consensus, which was highlighted in the report, forecasted that Brent would average $67.7 per barrel in 2019, $67.8 per barrel in 2020 and $67.5 per barrel in 2021. Back in May, analysts at FSMR saw the price of Brent averaging $73 per barrel this year. In March the analysts lowered their average annual price forecast for Brent for 2019 from $75 per barrel to $73 per barrel. Last month, Abhishek Kumar, head of analytics at Interfax Energy in London, revealed that Interfax Global Gas Analytics was forecasting that Brent will average $68 per barrel this year. Ann-Louise Hittle, vice president of macro oils at Wood Mackenzie, revealed back in June that the company was projecting Brent to average $68 per barrel in 2019.

WTI Extends Losses Despite 8th Weekly Crude Draw In A Row - An ugly day in the energy complex saw WTI tumble to a $53 handle as US-China trade tensions were anything but calmed (despite the equity market's exuberance).“We shouldn’t underestimate the potential impact of a full-blown trade war between the world’s two biggest economies,” said Bart Melek, head of global commodity strategy at TD Securities.“This could very well mean we as a market significantly overestimated demand growth for oil and we could easily be in a surplus situation in 2020.” API:

• Crude -3.43mm (-2.8mm exp)
• Cushing -1.6mm
• Gasoline -1.1mm (-1.2mm exp)
• Distillates +1.2mm (+200k exp)

Crude stocks fell for the 8th week in a row, with a bigger than expected draw of 3.43mm barrels last week. WTI accelerated its losses into the NYMEX close and hovered around $53.80 ahead of the API print and started to drift lower after the data hit...

Oil Prices Plunge After Surprise Crude, Gasoline Build -Oil prices have plunged overnight (back near 7-month lows) as global growth fears accelerate (despite a bigger than expected crude draw from API) as traders wait to see if official DOE data confirms the API print.“The bearish and deteriorating global macro situation seems to have the upper hand, pushing oil lower and lower,” said Bjarne Schieldrop, Oslo-based chief commodities analyst at SEB AB. DOE

• Crude +2.39mm (-2.8mm exp) - biggest build since May
• Cushing -1.504mm
• Gasoline +4.44mm  (-1.2mm exp) - biggest build since Jan
• Distillates +1.529mm (+200k exp)

After 7 straight weeks of draws, DOE reports crude inventory built by 2.39mm barrels last week (and Gasoline stocks also jumped)US Crude production continued to rebound last week from storm-driven shut-ins

Oil falls after EIA data shows surprise build in inventories, sets new 7-month low on trade tensions - Oil prices fell further on Wednesday, extending recent heavy losses as deepening U.S.-China trade tensions weighed on the outlook for the global economy and energy demand. Brent crude futures were down 3.56%, at $56.84 a barrel, setting a fresh seven-month low. Prices have lost more than 20% since hitting their 2019 peak in April. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down 3.8%, at $51.57. U.S. crude stocks rose last week, while gasoline and distillate inventories also rose, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. Crude inventories rose by 2.4 million barrels in the last week, compared with analysts’ expectations for a decrease of 2.8 million barrels. Brent has plunged more than 10% over the past week after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would slap a 10% tariff on a further $300 billion in Chinese imports from Sept. 1, sending global equity markets into a tailspin. “The market continues to grow more uncertain about the demand outlook given the deterioration of trade talks between China and the U.S.,” ING analysts said in a note. The bank lowered its 2019 price outlook, mostly because of demand concerns, forecasting that global oil supplies will exceed consumption in the first half of next year.

Oil Craters On Fears of Currency War - Oil prices plunged on Wednesday as fears of economic recession rose after a wave of interest rate cuts from around the world. In rapid succession, the central banks of India, New Zealand and Thailand cut interest rates on Wednesday as they scrambled to protect their economies and exports from the fallout from the U.S.-China trade war. The rate cuts are a sign that the battle between Washington and Beijing poses threats to the global economy.Higher U.S. tariffs on China would slow both economies, but the response of the Chinese government could be to weaken its currency in an effort to offset the effect of tariffs. On Monday, China’s yuan weakened to around 7 to 1 to the U.S. dollar – although the official anchor stopped just short of that threshold – the weakest since the global financial crisis in 2008. China’s central bank has thus far refrained from letting it weaken further, as there are a litany of risks of letting the yuan depreciate too much.But because of China’s importance to the global economy, and because currencies are interconnected, and because the dollar-yuan relationship sets the tone for global monetary policy, the sudden weakening of the yuan puts tremendous pressure on other emerging markets. Two days after the yuan dropped, India, New Zealand and Thailand quickly moved to cut their interest rates. “This is a defensive action by countries seeking to protect themselves from the collateral damage of rising global trade tensions, amid weakening domestic growth,” said Eswar Prasad, former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China division, according to the New York Times.  But defensive action can beget more defensive action. As more currencies depreciate, more pressure is piled on others to follow suit. The danger is a cascading race to let currencies depreciate, ultimately leading to a kind of currency war. The dollar is the world’s reserve currency, and an incredibly liquid safe haven asset, so capital tends to flow into the dollar in times of turmoil. That is especially true when other currencies are depreciating. As such, the dollar tends to see upward pressure in times of upheaval, which can be problematic. President Trump has already been berating the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates deeper; he won’t be too pleased if the dollar starts to strengthen relative to other currencies.

  Oil price falls to lowest point in eight months - The price of international oil standard Brent crude plummeted to its lowest point since the beginning of the year today as trade war worries gripped the market. The 3.2 per cent oil price drop came after a torrid week for markets, with prices down by around $8 since last Wednesday. A barrel of the black stuff reached lows of $56.77 this afternoon. “Oil has been crushed by recent events and the risks posed to the global economy and therefore the demand outlook,” said Craig Erlam, an analyst Oanda. Meanwhile WTI crude, the US standard, hit $52.06 per barrel, down 2.9 per cent on the day. Yesterday US President Donald Trump said that the trade row with China was unlikely to be drawn out further. But that was not enough to calm global markets after he slapped tariffs on more Chinese goods last week. “The market continues to grow more uncertain about the demand outlook given the deterioration of trade talks between China and the US,” ING analysts said in a note. It comes as tensions in the Middle East have worried traders in recent weeks. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has boarded both British and Iraqi ships going through the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile British Royal Marines have boarded an Iranian oil tanker they said was breaking European sanctions on Syria. The two sides have also been facing off over the Strait of Hormuz, with the US Navy last month downing an Iranian drone over the strait. It came after several small attacks on international tankers going through the strait, which the US blames on Iran and its proxies.

US Cuts Brent Oil Price Forecast - The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has cut its Brent spot price forecast to $64 per barrel in the second half of 2019 and $65 per barrel in 2020 in its latest short-term energy outlook (STEO).In its previous STEO, released in July, the EIA’s Brent spot price forecast for the second half of the year and 2020 was $67 per barrel.  Commenting on its latest projections, the EIA said in its August STEO that the forecast of “stable” crude oil prices is the result of its expectations of a “relatively balanced global oil market”.Earlier this week, Fitch Solutions Macro Research (FSMR) analysts made a “major downward revision” to their Brent oil price forecasts.The analysts now expect prices to average $67 per barrel this year and $65 per barrel in 2020. This compares to FSMR’s previous forecasts of $70 per barrel in 2019 and $76 per barrel next year. The Bloomberg consensus, which was highlighted in the report, forecasted that Brent would average $67.7 per barrel in 2019 and $67.8 per barrel in 2020.Back in May, analysts at FSMR saw the price of Brent averaging $73 per barrel this year. In March the analysts lowered their average annual price forecast for Brent for 2019 from $75 per barrel to $73 per barrel. In its August STEO, the EIA also forecasted that U.S. crude oil production will average 12.3 million barrels per day (MMbpd) in 2019 and 13.3MMbpd in 2020. Both of these would be “record levels”, the EIA highlighted.The EIA estimates that U.S. crude oil production averaged 11.7MMbpd in July, which it pointed out was a 0.3MMbpd drop from the June level.“The declines were mostly in the Federal Gulf of Mexico (GOM), where operators shut platforms for several days in mid-July because of Hurricane Barry,” the EIA stated in its August STEO. “EIA estimates that GOM crude oil production fell by more than 0.3MMbpd in July. Those declines were partially offset by the Lower 48 States onshore region, which is mostly tight oil production, where supply rose by more than 0.1MMbpd,” the EIA added.

Saudis Discussing Options to Halt Oil Slide-- Saudi Arabia has phoned other oil producers to discuss possible policy responses as oil prices fell to a seven-month low, a Saudi official said. The kingdom won’t tolerate a continued slide in prices and is considering all options, the official said, asking not to be identified discussing private talks. He didn’t say what measures were being discussed. Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, has already cut production more than required under the agreement between the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies outside of the group. Oil has been swept up in a global market meltdown as the U.S.-China trade dispute worsened, spurring fears it would morph into a currency war. The deteriorating economic situation prompted rate cuts this week in New Zealand, India and Thailand amid concern there could be a recession. West Texas Intermediate crude rebounded Thursday after the Saudi efforts were revealed, following Wednesday’s 4.7% plunge. The U.S. benchmark crude rose 3.2% to $52.72 a barrel as of 1:07 p.m. in Singapore. Planned gatherings in Abu Dhabi in the week starting Sept. 9 will be critical for leaders of the OPEC+ group, especially the Saudi and Russian energy ministers, to signal their intentions on production in the wake of oil’s price collapse, said Helima Croft, chief commodities strategist at RBC Capital Markets. “This has been a tough week for them,” Croft said. “I do not think that these guys are complacent. I can imagine that Secretary General Barkindo is on the phone with Khalid Al-Falih and Alexander Novak right now. I can imagine the dialog is pretty ferocious.”

 Oil jumps 2.5% due to firm yuan, expectations of more OPEC cuts - Oil jumped more than $1 a barrel on Thursday on expectations that falling prices could lead to production cuts, coupled with a steadying of the yuan currency after a week of turmoil spurred by an escalation in U.S.-China trade tensions. Brent crude was up $1.29 at $57.53 a barrel, after hitting a session high of $58.01. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures settled up $1.45 per barrel at $52.54, 2.84% higher. China’s yuan strengthened against the dollar and its exports unexpectedly returned to growth in July on improved global demand despite U.S. trade pressure. “Brent and WTI were rebounding on the combination of a stronger-than-expected official fix in the yuan, alleviating currency war fears,” said Harry Tchilinguirian, global oil strategist at BNP Paribas in London. Reports that Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, had called other producers to discuss the slide in crude prices might also have supported the market, he said.Both crude contracts fell to their lowest since January on Wednesday after the U.S. Energy Information Administration said U.S. crude stockpiles rose last week after nearly two months of decline as imports hit their highest since January. “We believe the oil market is starting to price in the fear of a severe and multi-year breakdown in U.S.-China economic relations,” Crude oil shipments into China, the world’s largest importer, in July rose 14% from a year earlier as new refineries ramped up purchases. Fuel exports continued to climb as supply outstripped demand in the world’s second-largest oil consumer. Saudi Arabia plans to keep its crude

Oil Prices Rebound After Sliding 5% Overnight - Oil prices rebounded on Thursday in Asia after plunging almost 5% overnight on rising crude stockpiles.U.S. Crude Oil WTI Futures jumped 3.1% to $52.69 by 1:08 AM ET (05:08 GMT), while International Brent Oil Futures gained 2.9% to $57.88.Oil prices were supported today by reports of possible producer actions to prop up oil markets.Citing an unnamed official from Saudi Arabia, Bloomberg said the world's top exporter contacted other producers and is in talks to take action to halt the slide in prices.Oil prices slumped overnight after the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported in its weekly oil inventory dataset that crude stockpile rose by 2.39 million barrels in the week to August 2.That was compared to forecasts for a stockpile draw of 2.85 million barrels, after a decline of 8.5 million barrels in the previous week.The EIA also reported that gasoline inventories unexpectedly surged by 4.44 million barrels, compared to expectations for a draw of 0.72 million barrels, while distillate stockpiles increased by 1.53 million barrels, compared to forecasts for a gain of 0.48 million.Ongoing Sino-U.S. trade war was also cited as a headwind for oil prices.Hopes of a quick trade deal diminished after the U.S. slapped additional tariffs on more Chinese goods.Tensions escalated further after the People’s Bank of China reportedly devaluated the yuan this week, prompting Washington to label Beijing as a currency manipulator. China and the U.S. are the world’s biggest oil importers.

 Oil Rebounds From Seven-Month Low-- Oil advanced for the first time this week after Saudi Arabia signaled it’s taking steps to stabilize the market, which has been rocked by the escalating U.S.-China trade war. While futures in New York rose 2.8% on Thursday, they are still down over 10% in August. Prices got a reprieve after officials from the world’s largest oil exporter said it will keep oil exports below 7 million barrels a day and allocate less crude than customers demand next month. OPEC’s biggest producer will also scale back output in September. That helped oil rebound from the lowest close since January, after it tumbled along with other risk assets this week on concern that the trade spat between Beijing and Washington will hurt the health of the global economy. Growth in world oil demand is slowing and won’t exceed 650,000 barrels a day in 2019, according to major commodities trader Vitol Group. “One of the world’s largest crude suppliers saying they’ll try to re-balance the market is providing traders some comfort,” said Michael Loewen, director of commodity strategy at Scotiabank. “The Saudis will do whatever is necessary to keep the market afloat. They have proven they will do so in the past by cutting supply, so there’s no reason to question whether they’ll do it again.” West Texas Intermediate oil for September delivery advanced $1.45 to settle at $52.54 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent for October settlement climbed $1.15 to settle at $57.38 on the ICE Futures Europe Exchange. The global benchmark crude traded at a premium of $4.92 to WTI for the same month. Saudi Arabia has already cut production more than required under an agreement between the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and the group’s allies including Russia. Planned gatherings in Abu Dhabi early next month will be critical for leaders of the OPEC+ coalition to signal their intentions on production, said Helima Croft, chief commodities strategist at RBC Capital Markets. Meanwhile, U.A.E. Energy Minster Suhail Al-Mazrouei said on Twitter that “oil market fundamentals are good” and prices are undergoing a “temporary over-reaction, which is driven by speculation.”

  Oil jumps more than 3% on European stockdraw despite demand slowdown forecast Oil prices jumped on Friday, supported by a drop in European inventories and expectations of more OPEC output cuts despite the International Energy Agency reporting demand growth at its lowest since the financial crisis of 2008. Brent crude futures gained $1.10, or 1.9%, to $58.48 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up $1.96, or 3.7%, to settle at $54.50 a barrel. “Despite a further cut in oil demand growth by the IEA, oil prices are trading marginally higher, as the demand growth cut was already announced previously by the head of the IEA and the agency still expects larger inventory draws for 2H19,” said UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo. The IEA said global oil demand to May from January grew at its slowest since 2008, hurt by mounting signs of an economic slowdown and a ramping up of the U.S.-China trade war. Oil prices rose after Euroilstock data showed total crude and product inventories of 16 European nations in July were slightly lower than in June. Yet crude oil prices have lost about 20% from 2019 peaks reached in April. Brent was on track for a weekly drop of about 5%, while WTI was set to fall about 2.4%, after markets this week were weighed down by unexpected build in U.S. crude stockpiles and on fears of slowing demand amid the deepening China-U.S. trade war. Russia’s energy ministry said the IEA’s estimates were largely in line with its own forecasts and that Moscow had taken into account the possibility of a slowdown in oil demand when it extended an output reduction deal with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Saudi Arabia, de facto leader of OPEC, plans to maintain

August: Economic woes hold sway over geopolitics - IEA - While geopolitical tensions in the Middle East Gulf remain high, with US sanctions recently extended to more Iranian officials and a Chinese oil importer, as well as another tanker seizure, oil prices (Brent) have eased back from the most recent high of $67/bbl. Shipping operations are at normal levels, albeit with higher insurance costs. The messages from various parties that vessels will be protected to the greatest extent possible, and the IEA’s recent statement that it is closely monitoring the oil security position in the Strait of Hormuz will have provided some reassurance.There have been concerns about the health of the global economy expressed in recent editions of this Report and shown by reduced expectations for oil demand growth. Now, the situation is becoming even more uncertain: the US-China trade dispute remains unresolved and in September new tariffs are due to be imposed. Tension between the two has increased further this week, reflected in heavy falls for stock and commodity markets. Oil prices have been caught up in the retreat, falling to below $57/bbl earlier this week. In this Report, we took into account the International Monetary Fund’s recent downgrading of the economic outlook: they reduced by 0.1 percentage points for both 2019 and 2020 their forecast for global GDP growth to 3.2% and 3.5%, respectively. Oil demand growth estimates have already been cut back sharply: in 1H19, we saw an increase of only 0.6 mb/d, with China the sole source of significant growth at 0.5 mb/d. Two other major markets, India and the United States, both saw demand rise by only 0.1 mb/d. For the OECD as a whole, demand has fallen for three successive quarters. In this Report, growth estimates for 2019 and 2020 have been revised down by 0.1 mb/d to 1.1 mb/d and 1.3 mb/d, respectively. There have been minor upward revisions to baseline data for 2018 and 2019 but our total number for 2019 demand is unchanged at 100.4 mb/d, incorporating a modest upgrade to our estimate for 1Q19 offset by a decrease for 3Q19. The outlook is fragile with a greater likelihood of a downward revision than an upward one.

Oil Markets On Edge Despite Price Bounce – The main news today comes from the IEA, which called global oil demand “fragile” amid signs of a slowing economy. “The situation is becoming even more uncertain: the U.S.-China trade dispute remains unresolved and in September new tariffs are due to be imposed,” the Paris-based agency said in its monthly report. “The outlook is fragile with a greater likelihood of a downward revision than an upward one.” While Saudi Arabia’s promise to keep oil exports below 7 million bpd has given oil prices a boost, sentiment remains undeniably bearish.  The IEA’s latest Oil Market Report shows some worrying numbers on oil demand. Consumption declined in May by 160,000 bpd year-on-year. Between January and May, demand was only up by 520,000 bpd, the weakest increase since 2008. Overall, the agency cut global demand growth for 2019 to 1.1 mb/d. The data offers further evidence of an economic slowdown.  Reports suggest that Saudi Arabia called other producers to explore deeper action in response to sliding prices. The report alone helped spark a rebound in prices. The Oil Kingdom also announced that it would keep oil exports below 7 million bpd.  Permian oil producers could see not onlyexpanded midstream capacity, but also lower fees as new pipelines bring competition. As much as 1.6 mb/d of capacity is coming online in the next few months, with another 900,000 bpd set to be operational before the end of the year. The midstream bottleneck will quickly transform into a surplus. “There’s no way another 2.5 million bpd are waiting to get sent to Corpus Christi (Texas),” Sandy Fielden, an analyst at Morningstar, told Reuters. “Clearly, there’s going to be too much capacity ... There will be buying up of barrels in Midland like it’s going out of style.”  The potential for economic recession combined with ongoing increases in supply growth pose a rather gloomy recipe for oil prices heading into next year. Recent developments have “sent cold shivers” through the oil team at Rystad Energy, the consultancy said in a release. 

Oil Jumps Most in Month - Oil surged the most in nearly a month as investors digested Saudi Arabia’s latest plan to help stabilize prices following a large dip earlier in the week that was fueled by demand concerns. WTI advanced 3.7% in New York on Friday, paring its weekly loss to 2.1%. Escalating tensions between China and the United States along with a surprise gain in U.S. stockpiles pushed prices to a seven-month low during the week. Yet, Saudi Arabia retaliated to the rout with a plan to limit output and exports in September, a move that seemed to placate the market. Oil was "vulnerable for a correction,” said Gene McGillian, a senior analyst and broker at Tradition Energy in Connecticut. "Right now, the Saudis’ willingness to take steps has kind of stemmed the market slide. The question is how much can that rally work without other producers stepping up as well? Given this trading environment, these kind of big price swings are more expected than not.” Saudi Arabia, the top producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, plans to keep oil exports below 7 million barrels a day next month as it allocates less crude than customers demand, according to unnamed officials from the kingdom. State-run Saudi Aramco will provide customers across all regions with 700,000 barrels a day less than they requested, the officials added. A large-volume bullish options trade was also reported just after 9 a.m. in New York, for 25,500 contracts -- equivalent to 25.5 million barrels of oil. The buyer of the options would profit from a tighter supply and demand outlook for WTI at the end of the year, helping to push oil prices higher. West Texas Intermediate crude for September delivery advanced $1.96 to settle at $54.50 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the biggest increase since July 10. Meanwhile, WTI is edging closer to its 50-day moving average, which it has held below since the beginning of the month. Brent for October settlement rose $1.15 to end the session at $58.53 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe Exchange. The global benchmark crude traded at a $4.16 premium to WTI for the same month, the smallest discount in more than a year. Despite the daily advance, it’s hard to ignore crude’s plummet this week due to growing fears that the trade spat between the U.S. and China will expand into a currency war. Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency trimmed forecasts for oil-demand growth this year and next, and called the demand outlook “fragile” in a report Friday.

Iran 'seizes Iraqi tanker in Gulf for smuggling fuel' -  Iran has seized another foreign tanker in the Gulf, state media reports claim. Iranian forces seized the Iraqi ship for "smuggling fuel for some Arab countries" and detained seven sailors, according to the reports. Iraq's oil ministry has said it has no connection to the seized vessel and that it is working to gather information about it. The incident comes amid heightened tensions after the US tightened sanctions on Iran's oil sector. The sanctions were reimposed after Washington's unilateral withdrawal from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal. If confirmed, the Iraqi tanker would be the third foreign vessel to have been seized by Iran in recent weeks. On 13 July, the Iranian coastguard detained the Panama-flagged MT Riah. The Revolutionary Guards' Sepah News site said at the time that the ship was seized during naval patrols aimed at "discovering and confronting organised smuggling". Also last month, Iran seized the British-flagged tanker the Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz, saying it had collided with a fishing vessel. Fars news agency reported that the operation to seize the ship was carried out last Wednesday near the Gulf island of Farsi. The vessel was carrying about 700,000 litres (154,000 gallons) of fuel at the time, according to a Revolutionary Guard Corps commander quoted in state media. The tanker was reported to have been taken to Bushehr Port in south-western Iran and its fuel handed over to the authorities. Iranian reports say the tanker was Iraqi but the nationalities of the seven crew have not been disclosed. In a statement carried by the Iraqi News Agency, Iraq's oil ministry said it had no connection with the ship. "The ministry does not export diesel to the international market," it said, adding that authorities were seeking more information about who the vessel belonged to.

Iran seizes Iraqi oil tanker smuggling fuel in Gulf: TV -  (Reuters) - Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized an Iraqi oil tanker in the Gulf which they said was smuggling fuel and detained seven crewmen, Iran’s state media reported on Sunday, in a show of power amid heightened tension with the West. The vessel was intercepted near Iran’s Farsi Island in the Gulf, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency said. The elite Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has a navy base on Farsi Island which is located north of the Strait of Hormuz. “The IRGC’s naval forces have seized a foreign oil tanker in the Persian Gulf that was smuggling fuel for some Arab countries,” the Guards commander Ramezan Zirahi told state TV. The state news agency IRNA, quoting the Guards, said it was an Iraqi ship that was seized on Wednesday night in the Gulf. Zirahi said it was carrying 700,000 liters of fuel, without elaborating on the nationalities of the detained crewmen. “The boats of the IRGC navy were patrolling the area to control traffic and detect illicit trade when they seized the tanker,” Fars quoted Zirahi as saying, adding that the seizure was in coordination with Iran’s judicial authorities. Iran, which has some of the world’s cheapest fuel prices due to heavy state subsidies and the fall of its currency, has been fighting rampant fuel smuggling by land to neighboring countries and by sea to Gulf Arab states. “The tanker was transferred to the Bushehr port, where its fuel was handed over to the authorities,” Zirahi told TV.

Iran Owns the Persian Gulf Now – It has long been an accepted fact within the U.S. foreign-policy community that if any country blocked or interfered with shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the United States and its allies would use the awesome force at their disposal to defend freedom of navigation. Yet like so much else in this era, long-held truths and ironclad laws have turned out to be elaborate fictions.   The United States has invested great sums in the Middle East over many decades to undertake a few important tasks—notably protecting the sea lines—but this task does not seem to be something the current president believes to be a core American interest. After all, on June 24, President Donald Trump tweeted: “China gets 91% of its Oil from the Straight, Japan 62%, & many other countries likewise. So why are we protecting the shipping lanes for other countries (many years) for zero compensation. All of these countries should be protecting their own ships on what has always been a dangerous journey.”   Anyone who still believes that the United States is going to challenge Iran directly should reread Trump’s tweet. It is more than that, however. It is a harbinger of what is to come in U.S. foreign policy.  The United States is leaving the Persian Gulf. Not this year or next, but there is no doubt that the United States is on its way out. Aside from the president’s tweet, the best evidence of the coming American departure from the region is Washington’s inaction in the face of Iran’s provocations. Officials and analysts will often counter this, conjuring the number of personnel, planes, and ships the United States maintains in and around the Gulf, but leaders in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Manama, and Muscat understand what is happening. They have been worrying about the U.S. commitment to their security for some time and have been hedging against an American departure in a variety of ways, including by making overtures to China, Russia, Iran, and Turkey. On Wednesday, the Emiratis and Iranians met for the first time in six years to discuss maritime security in the Gulf. That is a positive development. And while both sides insist the meeting was routine and low-level, there is no doubt that American inaction has officials in Abu Dhabi rethinking how to deal with the Iranian challenge, which may run counter to U.S. efforts to isolate Tehran.

Russia Gains Stranglehold Over Persian Gulf - In a potentially catastrophic escalation of tensions in the Persian Gulf, Russia plans to use Iran’s ports in Bandar-e-Bushehr and Chabahar as forward military bases for warships and nuclear submarines, guarded by hundreds of Special Forces troops under the guise of ‘military advisers’, and an airbase near Bandar-e-Bushehr as a hub for 35 Sukhoi Su-57 fighter planes OilPrice.com has exclusively been told by senior sources close to the Iranian regime. The next round of joint military exercises in the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Hormuz will mark the onset of this in-situ military expansion in Iran, as the Russian ships involved will be allowed by Iran to use the facilities in Bandar-e-Bushehr and Chabahar. Depending on the practical strength of domestic and international reaction to this, these ships and Spetsntaz will remain in place and will be expanded in numbers over the next 50 years. This gradual roll-out of Russian capability in a country is the Kremlin’s tried and tested operating procedure for leveraging economic and/or political support for a country into that country allowing itself to be used as, effectively, one large multi-level forward military base for Russia. Exactly the same plan was used, and remains in place, in Syria, with Russia maintaining a massive army presence in and around Latakia, Syria, despite having repeatedly made assurances that it was to withdraw from this military theatre. In the early stages, these troops – again, in reality all Spetsnatz foreign operatives – appeared in the guise of military advisers and to provide ‘security staff’ for the huge Russian Khmeimim Air Base and the S-400 Triumf missile system in place in and around Latakia. This Russian presence was later duly expanded and formalised under an agreement signed with Syria in January 2017, which allowed Russia to continue its operations in Latakia and also to utilise the naval facility at Tartus for the next 49 years. This is precisely the format of agreement that has been agreed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the last few days, despite muted protest from the broadly pro-JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) nuclear deal allies of President Hassan Rouhani. Given how poorly Iran has fared in its recent dealings with Russia – most notably over its Caspian Sea oil and gas rights– Iran’s decision to go ahead with this latest deal may seem surprising to many but is the product of two key reasons. First, Iran has no other choice of a potential geopolitical ally in its current fight against sanction-induced economic austerity and political marginalisation. The second reason is that President Rouhani and his broadly moderate pro-West, pro-JCPOA supporters have lost the confidence of many who voted for him due to his inability to deliver the economic prosperity that he promised would result from the nuclear deal agreed in 2015 and implemented on 16 January 2016. “This includes [Supreme Leader, Ali] Khamenei, who supported Rouhani for the first few years but now has no choice but to go along with the IRGC’s recommendations, and this Russia deal is at the forefront of these,” said a senior Iran source.

Iran warns Britain of ‘mother of all wars’ over naval patrols in Strait of Hormuz --President Rouhani warned that conflict with Iran would be “the mother of all wars” as Tehran further raised tensions in the Persian Gulf by agreeing to joint naval patrols with Russia. Tehran has signed a military deal with Moscow that will see the two countries’ navies hold joint military exercises in the Gulf this year as Iran and Washington beef up their opposing military alliances in the region. During a military ceremony on Kish Island, to the south of the Iranian mainland, Rear-Admiral Hossein Khanzadi announced the joint patrols, potentially risking confrontation with two British warships that are part of US-led patrols to protect commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. A sixth of the world’s oil exports and a third of liquified natural gas are transported through the 25-mile waterway, which is the only route from the Gulf countries to the open sea. Although it is an international shipping lane, meaning that Iran cannot legally block those that pass through it, vessels must go through Iranian waters at its northern end and Omani waters to the south. It was in these Iranian waters that Tehran seized an Iraqi oil tanker over the weekend. The US Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain, is responsible for protecting the shipping lane. While the details of the Tehran-Moscow deal are classified, Admiral Khanzadi revealed that a significant part of it related to naval co-operation. He also criticised the western countries that are escalating their military presence in the Persian Gulf. “The show that arrogant countries, most importantly the US and Britain, put on is only a big bluff and a dishonest act aimed to create the impression that the region is unsafe,” he said.

Iran is reportedly jamming ship GPS navigation systems to get them to wander into Iranian waters Ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf have reported unusual GPS interference, among other problems, and the US believes Iran is to blame.The Department of Transportation's Maritime Administrationissued a warning on Wednesday about threats to commercial vessels posed by Iran, saying that ships operating in the region could have a variety of issues, including "spoofed bridge-to-bridge communications from unknown entities falsely claiming to be US or coalition warships."At least two incidents were said to involve GPS interference, it said."Due to the heightened regional tensions, the potential for miscalculation or misidentification could lead to aggressive actions against vessels belonging to US, allied, and coalition partners operating in the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and Gulf of Oman," US Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, said in an emailed statement.It added that ships had reported experiencing "GPS interference, bridge-to-bridge communications spoofing, and/or other communications jamming with little to no warning."In some cases, a US defense official told CNN, Iranian navy and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vessels have spoofed merchant ships' automatic identification system to make themselves look like commercial shipping vessels. The official said Iran had GPS jammers operating on Abu Musa Island, in the Persian Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz, apparently to cause ships and aircraft to inadvertently wander into Iranian waters or airspace, thus justifying a seizure.

Iran Has Hundreds of Naval Mines. U.S. Navy Minesweepers Find Old Dishwashers and Car Parts. - The U.S. Navy officer was eager to talk.  He’d seen his ship, one of the Navy’s fleet of 11 minesweepers, sidelined by repairs and maintenance for more than 20 months. Once the ship, based in Japan, returned to action, its crew was only able to conduct its most essential training — how to identify and defuse underwater mines — for fewer than 10 days the entire next year. During those training missions, the officer said, the crew found it hard to trust the ship’s faulty navigation system: It ran on Windows 2000. The officer, hoping that by speaking out he could provoke needed change, wound up delaying the scheduled interview. He apologized. His ship had broken down again.  Thousands of miles away in the Persian Gulf, another officer, this one assigned to a minesweeper in the Navy’s 5th Fleet, offered much the same account. While tensions with Iran seem to escalate by the day, the officer said the four minesweepers based in the Gulf were so physically unreliable that he doubted his superiors would actually send them into action in a crisis.  The ships are one of the Navy’s primary tools for finding and neutralizing mines. They use sonar to hunt for them. The bombs are then disabled by divers, underwater drones or towing equipment dragged behind the stern.  But the aging minesweepers routinely need repairs, the officer in the Persian Gulf said, and the companies that used to make a variety of spare parts no longer exist. A sailor recently aboard one ship said the sonar meant to detect mines was so imprecise that in training exercises it flagged dishwashers, crab traps and cars on the ocean floor as potential bombs.

Deadlock over Iranian cargo ships exposes deep crisis of Brazilian ruling class - Two Iranian vessels, the Bavand and the Termeh, were docked from early June to July 27 at Paranaguá, in the southern state of Paraná, the country’s third largest port, until finally receiving the fuel needed for their return journey. They had been chartered by the Brazilian company, Eleva Química, having brought in loads of urea, a petrochemical product used as fertilizer, and set to return to Iran loaded with 100 tons of Brazilian corn. Petrobras, Brazil’s state-run oil company, however, declined to supply diesel to the ships out of fear of US reprisals. According to O Globo, the basis for the decision had been a specific communication by the US government to Brazilian authorities that the importation of urea from Iran is subject to restrictions unilaterally imposed by Washington and companies and ports that facilitate its trade could be subject to sanctions. The conspiratorial character of the decision, which the government could not justify on the basis of international law, but only by invoking the “US communication,” unleashed a court dispute that revealed the increasing breakdown of the Brazilian political system. After Petrobras’ refusal to fuel the ships, the Paraná state justice covering the city of Paranaguá initially granted an injunction to Eleva Química forcing Petrobras to supply fuel to the vessels under penalty of a daily fine. In response, both the Brazilian Attorney General’s Office and the Brazilian Solicitor General’s Office appealed the injunction. Two days later, questioned about the issue, Bolsonaro answered contemptuously: “You know we are aligned with their [US] policy. So we do what we have to do.” Finally on July 25, Supreme Court President José Antônio Dias Toffoli ordered Petrobras to supply fuel to the vessels. He added that doing so under a court order would facilitate Petrobras’s defense in face of threats from Washington. Most remarkable, however, was Toffoli’s argument that Petrobras’ refusal to fuel the vessels would damage Brazil’s trade balance, as Iran is a major trading partner, responsible for one-third of the exports of Brazilian corn.

 China Mulls Joining US 'Escort' Coalition In Gulf Even As It Defies Iran Oil Embargo -China is, to the surprise of many observers, actually mulling joining a proposed US-led maritime coalition to protect oil shipping lanes in the Gulf following Iran's military confirming it has seized three foreign tankers this summer. “If there happens to be a very unsafe situation we will consider having our navy escort our commercial vessels,” the Chinese ambassador to the UAE Ni Jian told Reuters in Abu Dhabi. “We are studying the U.S. proposal on Gulf escort arrangements,” China’s embassy later confirmed. The question that remains, however, is which side would the Chinese escort actually be trying to protect? Perhaps Beijing joining such a joint operation is a strategy for attempting to shape outcomes in the Gulf? After all, while the consideration is on the table it remains that China is among a handful of countries that continues to defy US sanctions, as it continues to import its crude via at least a dozen Iranian tankers, a New York Times investigation confirmed just days ago.  But at a time the White House has struggled to get its proposed joint maritime mission off the ground, given deep reluctance in Europe, President Trump over a month ago directly appealed to China and Japan via a tweet, saying they “should be protecting their own ships” in the contested region. China gets 91% of its Oil from the Straight, Japan 62%, & many other countries likewise. So why are we protecting the shipping lanes for other countries (many years) for zero compensation. All of these countries should be protecting their own ships on what has always been....— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 24, 2019 It remains unclear whether any formal request accompanied the public appeal. China has walked a fine line in the crisis, not wishing to add more fuel to the fire of worsening Sino-US relations, especially with recent failed attempts to mend the trade war.

S.Korea Weighing Military "Options" To Protect Its Shipping In Persian Gulf South Korea is denying a Yonhap news agency report which said US Defense Secretary Mark Esper issued a f ormal request to South Korea to send troops to join a proposed US-led maritime force in the Strait of Hormuz to protect international tankers sailing near Iran, according to Bloomberg. Esper is said to have directly appealed to Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo during a meeting in South Korea. Seoul is said to be considering "various options," according to Reuters, since South Korean vessels frequent the strait. Despite Seoul officials now downplaying the story, a prior Reuters report detailed early this week:  The Maekyung business newspaper, citing an unidentified senior government official, said South Korea had decided to send the anti-piracy Cheonghae unit operating in waters off Somalia, possibly along with helicopters. ...“It is obvious that we have to protect our ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, isn’t it? So we’re considering various possibilities,” deputy ministry spokesman Ro Jae-cheon told a regular news briefing on Monday. The current mixed messaging coming out of Seoul, however, suggests plans could be stalled, possibly as official wait and see if the White House plans for a global force gets off the ground. Meanwhile the only European country to enthusiastically jump on board the US administration's joint patrol plan has been the United Kingdom, with Germany and France trying to distance themselves, even as they attempt to form a European-led maritime initiative. At the moment France, Japan, and India have said they are undecided.  Earlier this week it was revealed that China also, to the surprise of many observers, is actually mulling a reported invitation to join the proposed US-led maritime coalition to protect oil shipping lanes in the Gulf following Iran's military confirming it has seized three foreign tankers this summer.

Boris Johnson backed plan to send British troops to Yemen - Boris Johnson supported sending British troops to Yemen while he was foreign secretary in a mission aimed at controlling a port which had become a strategic prize in the bitter conflict, The Independent has learnt. The operation was proposed at a period of particularly vicious strife, with mounting civilian casualties. It envisaged royal marines taking over Hodeidah, which had become the only effective lifeline for aid going into the country, with airspace shut off due to a Saudi-led blockade. Now that Mr Johnson is in Downing Street that option “remains very much on the table”, according to government officials. The British initiative last year would have needed agreement with the two opposing sides, the Houthis and the coalition under Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and close liaison with international relief agencies. The plan had been originally envisaged by MP Tobias Ellwood when he was at the Foreign Office in 2017 working under Mr Johnson, who encouraged him to develop it further. Mr Ellwood then proposed the mission at a strategy meeting in summer 2018 after moving as a minister to the Ministry of Defence. The issue was discussed as an offensive by the Saudi-led coalition was looming. The plan was supported by Mr Johnson and received the backing of the national security adviser Mark Sedwill and a number of commanders.

Yemeni Houthis launch drone attacks on Saudi aiports, airbase (Reuters) - Houthi forces in Yemen launched drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid air base as well as the Abha and Najran civilian airports, the Houthis’ military spokesman said on Monday. Houthi forces spokesman Yahya Saria said the attack on Abha airport “hit its targets”, and air traffic was disrupted at both Abha and Najran. All three locations are in southwest Saudi Arabia, near the border with Yemen. But an official at Saudi’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) told Reuters that traffic is running as usual at both Abha and Najran airports and there was no disturbance. A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen had earlier said that Houthi drones had been intercepted and downed heading in the direction of civilian airports. The Houthis, who control the Yemeni capital Sanaa, have in recent months stepped up attacks against targets in Saudi Arabia. In response, the coalition has struck military sites belonging to the group, especially around Sanaa.The Houthis on Thursday said they launched missile and drone attacks on a military parade in the southern port city of Aden, the seat of Yemen’s internationally-recognized government and a stronghold of the coalition, killing dozens. The escalation in violence threatens a United Nations-sponsored deal for a ceasefire and troop withdrawal from the flashpoint coastal city of Hodeidah, which became the focus of the war last year when the coalition tried to seize its port, the Houthis’ main supply line and a lifeline for millions of Yemenis. 

Turkey to launch offensive in Kurdish-controlled area in northern Syria (Reuters) - Turkey will carry out a military operation in a Kurdish-controlled area east of the Euphrates in northern Syria, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday, its third offensive to dislodge Kurdish militia fighters close to its border. Turkey had in the past warned of carrying out military operations east of the river, but put them on hold after agreeing with the United States to create a safe zone inside Syria’s northeastern border with Turkey that would be cleared of the Kurdish YPG militia. But Ankara has accused Washington of stalling progress on setting up the safe zone and has demanded it sever its relations with the YPG. The group was Washington’s main ally on the ground in Syria during the battle against Islamic State, but Turkey sees it as a terrorist organization. Erdogan said both Russia and the United States have been told of the planned operation, but did not say when it would begin. It would mark the third Turkish incursion into Syria in as many years.

Pentagon Warns It Will Prevent Unacceptable Turkish Invasion Of Northern Syria - Turkey has for days been poised to unilaterally invade northern Syria over US objections, which Ankara officials say is to establish a 32 kilometer (20 mile) inside the war torn country, giving Turkey complete control of a region where the Syrian Kurdish YPG operates (People's Protection Units). Turkey has long considered the US-backed group, which forms the core of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to be a terrorist extension of the outlawed PKK. The Pentagon has condemned the impending Turkish unilateral move, with US Defense Secretary Mark Esper telling reporters early Tuesday that it would be unacceptable and thwarted by Washington, though it's unclear how far the Pentagon would be willing to go. "What we're going to do is prevent unilateral incursions that would upset, again, these mutual interests that the United States, Turkey and the SDF share with regard to northern Syria," Esper said. Crucially, according to ABC News, US officials "have made clear that an invasion is an extremely risky venture that could threaten the safety of U.S. forces working with the SDF...". On Sunday Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that his forces would launch an operation in Syria east of the Euphrates River at an unspecified start date, and noted that the US and Russia had been notified. In ongoing negotiations this summer the US and Turkey have clashed over just such a "safe zone," given Turkey wants the area completely clear of Kurdish armed groups, which the Pentagon simultaneously backs. Turkish defense officials have lately threatened their "patience is limited" as the army builds up its forces along the border. The Foreign Ministry on Friday warned, "We won't let this process be dragged out. If our expectations aren't met, we are fully capable of taking whatever measures [are needed] to ensure our national security." Ankara has long condemned US training, logistics support, and weapons going to the YPG, especially as it operates in Manbij, a key Syrian Kurdish stronghold near the border with Turkey. US officials have been present in Ankara for talks early this week to try and negotiate a last minute settlement to avoid the invasion, with Esper noting Tuesday there's been "progress" made on certain key issues.

 Pentagon report says ISIS is 're-surging in Syria' following Trump's troop withdrawal -  ISIS is "re-surging" in Syria less than five months after President Donald Trump declared the terror group's caliphate there had been 100% defeated, according to a newPentagon inspector general's report on the fight against ISIS."Despite losing its territorial 'caliphate,' the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) solidified its insurgent capabilities in Iraq and was re-surging in Syria," the report, which was published on Tuesday, warned.President Donald Trump has repeatedly touted his administration's role in driving the terror group from areas under its territorial control, telling a Cabinet meeting last month, "We did a great job with the caliphate. We have 100% of the caliphate, and we're rapidly pulling out of Syria." But the new report said the partial withdrawal of some US troops from Syria has already impacted the fight against the remnants of ISIS, making it harder to advise local allies on the ground and depriving the US of the ability to monitor areas that are described as potential recruiting zones that would allow the group to replenish its ranks.Asked about the report's findings on Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the "administration is incredibly mindful of the success we've had versus ISIS," while acknowledging that he had not read the report. "I'm sure it's the case that there's pockets where they've become a little stronger. I can assure you there are places where it's become weaker as well," Pompeo said.

 Drone Strike By Pro-Haftar Forces On Public Assembly Kills Over 40 In Libya - Pro-Haftar forces in Libya have been accused of yet another mass atrocity, this time in an airstrike on a public building in southwestern Libya, according to new reports, following an attack on a migrant center in Tripoli July 3rd which killed 44 people and wounded some 180. Al Jazeera is reporting a new drone strike Monday killed at least 40 people who were attending a wedding ceremony in the town of Murzuq:  Reports said forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar launched the attack on Sunday in the town of Murzuq. Al Jazeera learned that the victims were attending a wedding when the attack took place. Hours later the AFP said the drone attack was carried out on a town hall meeting where over 200 people were present, but details remain unclear. The air strike left "42 dead and more than 60 injured, 30 of them critically" in Qalaa neighborhood, according to eyewitness statements made to the AFP.Tripoli's GNA government immediately called for a full investigation and is connecting to downed drone to the mass casualty airstrike. Recently there's been growing evidence that UAE and Turkish-supplied drones have been operational in the hands of Haftar forces.  International monitors now count nearly 1,100 killed since Haftar's bid to take Tripoli began on April 4; however, the current chaos and proxy war still unfolding in the North African country has been largely ignored in American media. Since longtime Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi's overthrow and field execution by UK and UK backed-rebels in 2011, which was facilitated by a US-NATO bombing campaign, the country has existed in chaos and anarchy, with up to three and sometimes four governments vying for control over the population.

French-backed Libyan militia airstrike kills 42 civilians - On Monday, a month after military strongman Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) bombed a refugee detention camp near Tripoli, killing 44 people, LNA aircraft repeatedly bombed a government building in the southern Libyan city of Murzuq. In three strikes, they killed 42 people and left over 60 wounded, including 30 in critical condition. Victims of the bombing reportedly included guests from a wedding that had recently taken place at a nearby venue. Murzuq municipal councilman Ibrahim Omar reported that 200 local dignitaries had assembled at the building “to settle social differences.” He added, “No armed or wanted people were among them. … Haftar bombed unarmed civilians.” Omar called for humanitarian aid, saying that the local hospital was overflowing and could not cope with the large number of casualties from the bombing. The LNA released a statement declaring that it had targeted “Chadian opposition fighters,” which, according to Al Jazeera, is a phrase that in LNA briefings “usually refers to Tebu tribesmen opposing them in the area.” Haftar’s forces had occupied Murzuq, the center of an oil-rich region in the southwest of the country, in April. However, the LNA apparently lost control of it after sending many of its forces northwards to attack Tripoli. The House of Representatives of the rival Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli issued a statement that the LNA’s bombings “have gone beyond war crimes to crimes against humanity.” Responsibility for the atrocity in Murzuq lies above all with the NATO imperialist powers. After going to war with Libya in 2011, backing various Islamist and tribal militias to destroy Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime and plunging Libya into a decade of bloody civil war, they are now waging a bitter proxy war across the country. After the LNA bombing of the Tajoura refugee camp near Tripoli last month, US officials vetoed a neutrally worded UN Security Council resolution drafted by the UK, calling for a cease-fire.

UN Report Shows US Forces Kill More Afghan Civilians Than ISIS & Taliban...Combined - The war in Afghanistan has reached new levels of insanity as a UN report shows US forces are killing more civilians than ISIS and Taliban combined.  For the last several decades, the US government has openly funded, supported, and armed various terrorist networks throughout the world to forward an agenda of destabilization and proxy war. It is not a secret, nor a conspiracy theory—America arms bad guys. The situation has gotten so overtly corrupt that the government admitted in May the Pentagon asked Congress for funding to reimburse terrorists for their transportation and other expenses. Seriously. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. A new report from the United Nations shows the US and its allies in Afghanistan have killed more innocent men, women, and children than the group they claim are the bad guys, the Taliban.The now 18-year-old quagmire in Afghanistan is raising serious questions and once again, it appears that the civilians are taking the brunt of the hit — not the ostensible enemy.According to a report in the NY Times:In the first six months of the year, the conflict killed nearly 1,400 civilians and wounded about 2,400 more. Afghan forces and their allies caused 52 percent of the civilian deaths compared with 39 percent attributable to militants — mostly the Taliban, but also the Islamic State. The figures do not total 100 percent because responsibility for some deaths could not be definitively established. The higher civilian death toll caused by Afghan and American forces comes from their greater reliance on airstrikes, which are particularly deadly for civilians. The United Nations said airstrikes resulted in 363 civilian deaths and 156 civilian injuries.“While the number of injured decreased, the number of civilians killed more than doubled in comparison to the first six months of 2018, highlighting the lethal character of this tactic,” the United Nations report said, referring to airstrikes. Naturally, the US military calls this report by the UN anti-American propaganda.

US Afghan envoy praises ‘excellent progress’ in Taliban talks (AFP) - The US and the Taliban have made "excellent progress" in the latest round of talks in Doha to craft a peace deal, Washington's Afghanistan envoy said on Monday. The foes have been meeting in Qatar since Saturday for an eighth round of talks to thrash out a historic accord that would slash the US military presence in Afghanistan. In return, the United States is demanding that the Taliban prevent the country from being used as a safe haven for jihadist groups including Al-Qaeda. "Building on excellent progress in Kabul last week, I've spent the last few days in Doha, focused on the remaining issues in completing a potential deal with the Taliban," tweeted US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad. The conclusion of a deal "would allow for a conditions-based troop withdrawal," he wrote adding that "we have made excellent progress." The Taliban did not immediately respond to requests to comment on the talks' progress. Khalilzad said that he was flying to New Delhi "for pre-scheduled meetings to further build international consensus in support of the Afghan Peace Process". A deal between the two sides could pave the way for direct talks between the government of President Ashraf Ghani, although the insurgents view his administration as illegitimate. "My team and Taliban representatives will continue to discuss technical details as well as steps and mechanisms required for a succesful implementation of the four-part agreement we've been working toward since my appointment," Khalilzad tweeted. "Agreement on these details is essential," the US envoy added. The four pillars of any deal would be a US withdrawal from Afghanistan, a commitment by the militants not to shelter jihadists, intra-Afghan dialogue, and a ceasefire.

Moon calls for ‘peace economy’ with N. Korea, slams Japan (AP) — South Korea’s president on Monday described the country’s escalating trade war with Japan as a wake-up call to revamp its economy and issued a nationalistic call for economic cooperation with North Korea, which he said would allow the Koreas to erase Japan’s economic superiority in “one burst.” President Moon Jae-in made the comments in a meeting with senior aides to discuss Japan’s imposition of trade curbs on South Korea. They came as a surprise since North Korea has raised tensions in recent weeks with tests of new short-range weapons that pose a threat to South Korea’s security. “The advantage Japan’s economy has over us is the size of its (overall) economy and domestic market. If the South and North could create a peace economy through economic cooperation, we can catch up with Japan’s superiority in one burst,” Moon said in the meeting at Seoul’s presidential Blue House. “Japan absolutely cannot prevent our economy from taking a leap. Rather, (Japan) will serve as a stimulant that strengthens our determination to become an economic power,” he said. Moon’s claim that South Korea could overcome the trade dispute with Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, by cooperating with North Korea, a desperately poor nation currently under crippling U.N. sanctions, shows that he is running out of ideas for seeking leverage against Japan, which for decades has maintained a huge trade surplus with South Korea, some analysts said. Even if economic cooperation between the Koreas fully resumes after quick progress in nuclear diplomacy — which looks increasingly unlikely — rebuilding the North’s economy following decades of isolation and policy blunders could be a long and excruciating process.

 Amid growing diplomatic row, sales of Japanese cars in South Korea slump – Sales of Japanese-brand autos in South Korea slumped in July amid the worsening diplomatic row that has led to consumer boycotts and efforts by Seoul to cut the economy’s reliance on imports from Japan. Industry data out of South Korea on Monday showed Toyota Motor Corp. sales tumbled 32 percent from a year earlier and Honda Motor Co.’s sales skidded 34 percent. Although automakers are still assessing the main factors driving the declines last month, industry participants worry declining sales will continue in August as diplomatic tensions grow. Japan tightened controls in July on exports to South Korea, escalating a row over wartime forced laborers and sparking a boycott by South Korean consumers of Japanese products and services, from cars, beer and pens to tours. On Friday, Japan escalated tensions by removing South Korea from a list of export destinations approved for fast-track status. “Showroom visits are declining while consumers are holding off on signing contracts,” a Honda Korea official said, asking not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. A Honda Korea spokesman said the automaker needs to assess the reason for the July sales fall and whether it is related to Japan’s export curbs, or summer holidays. A Toyota Korea spokeswoman declined to comment on the drop.

The Japan-South Korea Trade Dispute: What to Know - Council on Foreign Relations - Japan and South Korea are showing no signs of backing down from a trade dispute that could disrupt global production of smartphones, computers, and other electronics. The recent flare-up, rooted in historical disagreements, marks a deterioration in the relationship between two important U.S. allies. Last month, Japan placed export restrictions on chemicals and other materials that South Korea’s tech industry needs to produce semiconductors and smartphone screens. Japanese officials claimedthat the materials had been illegally sent to North Korea, where they could be used to make weapons.Japan added more restrictions on Friday. Officials announced that they would remove South Korea from their list of trusted trade partners, making it harder for Japanese companies to sell to South Korean buyers. The decision won’t go into effect for twenty-one days. Japan produces almost all of the world’s supply of three materials—fluorinated polyimides, photoresists, and hydrogen fluoride—that South Korean tech giants Samsung, LG, and SK Hynix rely on. Japanese exporters will now have to get permission before sending the materials to South Korea, a process that takes about ninety days.Experts estimate that these companies have one to three months of stockpiled materials. If the trade dispute lingers, the global tech industry could feel the sting, since South Korean companies produce more than half of the world’s semiconductors and more than 90 percent of smartphone screens. Seoul hasn’t retaliated yet, but President Moon Jae-in warned tech companies to prepare for a prolonged trade dispute and encouraged them to develop the capability to produce the restricted materials. South Korean consumers haveboycotted Japanese goods, including clothes and beer.There are also worries that the spat could upend security cooperation in the Pacific between Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Last week, South Korean officials threatened to revoke an intelligence-sharing agreement with Japan that experts say is crucial to dealing with North Korea.

Japan steps back from South Korean trade war The Japanese government has permitted the export to South Korea of a key chemical required for semiconductor manufacturing – the first approval granted since Tokyo tightened export restrictions on three strategic materials on July 4. Last month’s move raised fears about production stoppages impacting the global electronics supply chain and plunged Seoul-Tokyo relations into what was seen as their worst crisis since diplomatic relations were established in 1965. It was unclear whether Thursday’s development would cool the simmering emotions that have been marked, in South Korea, by political and media fury, demonstrations, Japanese product boycotts and even protest suicides. Tempers have been cooler in Tokyo, but even so, the dispute there has been marked by some unusually blunt language by Japanese officials toward South Korea. Key chemical released Japan’s trade ministry on Thursday permitted the shipment of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photoresist, also known as resist, one of the three chemicals whose exports terms had been tightened. Commenting on the move, Hiroshige Seko, Japan’s trade minister, said Japan “will not misuse” its export curbs. The release of the material was confirmed by South Korea Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon during an inter-agency meeting on Thursday morning, according to Yonhap news agency. But Lee offered no information on the supply of two other key materials, fluorinated polyimides and hydrogen fluoride. According to Japanese media, a Japanese company which applied to export hydrogen fluoride to a South Korean partner in mid-July was still awaiting approval. “The biggest burden on the economy is uncertainty,” Lee said, calling the Japanese export restrictions “unjustifiable.” Still, he said he was determined to resolve the ongoing issue diplomatically.

Amazon Plant In China Accused Of Forcing High School Interns To Work 60 Hour Weeks -  In addition to not paying taxes and putting the entire brick and mortar retail industry out of business single-handedly, Amazon has now opened itself up to even more criticism. The company is being accused of using a Chinese assembly plant that relies on temporary workers, including high school interns, and overtime limits set beyond law, according to Bloomberg.   In fact, Foxconn fired two executives from the plant, which assembles Echo speakers and Kindle e-readers, in response to a labor group's allegation that it cut wages and broke labor laws. This marks the second time that Amazon and its Taiwanese peer have been under scrutiny for the treatment of workers at the Hengyang plant. The plant’s chief and head of human resources were fired, while managers at the plant who were responsible for using interns were "punished", according to Foxconn.  China Labor Watch said: “Amazon and Foxconn responded that they would make improvements to the factory’s working conditions. However, CLW’s 2019 investigation found that Foxconn’s working conditions did not improve, and instead deteriorated.”The labor group deemed the factory's wages too low to support a "decent standard of living last year". Since then, they've been slashed another 16% in 2019. The poor salary hasn't been enough to fill the company's 58 assembly lines, which require 7,000 people to operate during peak production, which begins in July. To fill the void, Foxconn instead tapped interns as young as 16 from vocational schools, some of which were forced to work overtime.

 China’s exports unexpectedly rise in July — but more US tariffs may weigh on trade --  China on Thursday reported trade data that was better than expected despite mounting economic pressure from elevated U.S. tariffs. The Asian economic giant said its U.S. dollar-denominated exports in July rose 3.3% from a year ago while imports fell 5.6% during the same period. The country’s overall trade surplus last month was $45.06 billion, according to customs data. China’s trade surplus with the U.S. was $27.97 billion in July, lower than the previous month’s $29.92 billion, the data showed. From January to July, China’s trade surplus with the U.S. has totaled $168.5 billion. Lu Yu, a portfolio manager at Allianz Global Investors, said a weaker Chinese yuan versus the U.S. dollar and other currencies has helped Chinese manufacturers to sell their goods overseas. That’s despite the U.S. imposing 25% tariff on $200 billion of Chinese goods in May after trade negotiations stalled. The depreciating yuan “is helping the exporters in China to export not just to the U.S. because it dampens the impact of the tariff hike, but also help them to export to other countries,” she told CNBC’s “Street Signs” on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had expected Chinese exports lasts month to fall by 2% from a year ago, and imports to decline by 8.3% compared to the same period last year. The country’s overall trade surplus in July was forecast to be $40 billion, according to the Reuters poll. In June, exports from China fell 1.3% year-on-year while imports fell 7.3% over the same period, customs data showed. Trade surplus that month was $50.98 billion, according to the data.

 China Goes Big on Commodities Purchase Amid Shifting Trade War - Commodity purchases by China rebounded strongly in July. Imports of soy to coal and crude oil gained, signaling demand in the world’s biggest buyer remains solid even as a trade spat with the U.S. escalates. The increase comes as the nation’s overall imports shrank less than forecast while export growth rebounded, signaling some recovery in trade before new tariffs threatened by the U.S. The nation’s total imports “look surprising,” with the strong commodity component driven by both rising prices and volumes, said Betty Wang, senior China economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Hong Kong. “Coal and crude oil volumes also held up, which could be seen as signs of rising energy demand,” she said, adding that higher iron ore prices year-on-year also boosted the value of imports. Soybean shipments jumped in July to the highest level in almost a year as Chinese crushers boosted volumes from South America, and before halting U.S. purchases. Imports rose to 8.64 million tons last month, from 6.51 million tons in June and 8 million a year ago. The strength may persist through August and September, which could raise inventories and slow future purchases. Coal imports surged to the highest in six months as companies brace for tougher import controls in the second half. Shipments jumped 13% in July from a year ago to 32.89 million tons, handing authorities further impetus to clamp down as they aim to keep annual volumes at levels similar to last year’s. The end of a peak maintenance period saw China’s crude oil imports recover in July as state refiners rebuild stockpiles. Purchases climbed 14% on-year to 41.04 million tons. Additional crude oil quota to private refiners should keep imports upbeat in the second half, according to a note from ANZ. Iron ore sees yet more evidence of rebounding supply. Chinese imports soared to 91 million tons in July from 75 million a month earlier as output disruptions in Australia and Brazil ease. Purchases were also up slightly from a year ago. Chinese buying of overseas copper concentrates rose to a record amid an ongoing push to boost domestic refining capacity. And while inbound cargoes of unwrought copper and products fell from a year earlier, they were up from the prior month as import premiums rose.

Copper hits 2-year lows as metals demand outlook dims (Reuters) - If you believe that “Doctor Copper” is a sensitive gauge of the health of the global economy, then you should be worried.  London Metal Exchange (LME) copper fell through the year’s low of $5,725 per tonne on Friday and hit a 26-month low of $5,640 early on Monday. The trigger for the slump was the latest escalation of the trade stand-off between the United States and China, President Trump announcing the imposition of more tariffs on Chinese goods effective the beginning of next month. Copper has been used as a proxy for trading the on-off trade talks for some time and funds had amassed a significant short position on the CME copper contract even before Friday’s break-down. However, what’s troubling Doctor Copper and just about every other LME-traded base metal, with the single exception of nickel, is the accumulating evidence of a global manufacturing downturn. Quite evidently, an escalation of trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies is not going to help an already fragile industrial economy.

China Faces The Worst Of Both Worlds As PPI Deflation Arrives While Food Inflation Soars  - As if China did not have its hands full with a trade war, a plunging yuan and growing civil unrest in Hong Kong, which is fast becoming the potential epicenter for the next global crisis (and which Steve "The Big Short" Eisman thinks is the next black swan), it now also has deflation to worry about at a time when its ability to boost liquidity in the system is severely limited... or maybe it's soaring inflation China should be concerned about.On Friday, China's National Bureau of Statistics reported that the Producer Price Index (PPI), i.e. factory prices, fell 0.3% in July from a year ago, missing the modest 0.1% decline expected by analysts. This was the first annual decline in China's PPI in three years - since August 2016 - and just like back then, was largely the result of tumbling commodity prices which in turn depressed both manufacturing and raw material goods prices. And with oil sliding, and iron ore plunging, not to mention the whole trade war thing, it does not seems like a rebound is imminent at all. Worse, since PPI is closely linked to corporate profitability, the decline suggests that China is badly lagging in the credit impulse arena despite having started off 2019 with a bang and some of the biggest increases in Total Social Financing on record.So what's the big deal: China has always been able to boost inflation, all it had to do was turn on the credit spigot and inject a few trillion in new bank and shadow loans into the economy. Maybe that was the case in the past, but this time it will have a big headache, because even as PPI declined for the first time in three years, consumer prices jumped 2.8%, and coming in hotter than the 2.7% expected, were tied for the highest annual headline inflation since February 2018; before that one would have to go all the way to 2013 to find a hotter CPI print.

 Second night of tear gas as Hong Kong protesters defy China warnings - Riot police fired tear gas at pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong Sunday evening during a second consecutive night of clashes, as China delivered fresh warnings over the unrest battering the city. The semi-autonomous southern Chinese city is reeling from two months of protests and violence triggered by opposition to a planned extradition law that has evolved into a wider movement for democratic reforms. In the latest unrest, police fired brief volleys of tear gas at protesters who were approaching their lines in the well-heeled Sheung Wan district. The clashes were short-lived as protesters rushed into the subway and moved to a new location -- the bustling shopping district of Causeway Bay where multiple roads were occupied. The latest unrest came as China's official Xinhua news agency published a new commentary on Sunday saying "ugly forces" were threatening the country's "bottom line". Hong Kong's protests constitute the most significant popular revolt in decades, directly challenging Beijing's rule as well as channelling rage at both the local leaders and police. But they have had little luck persuading their opponents who have only hardened their stance. More than 200 protesters have been arrested -- dozens charged with rioting -- while the Chinese military has said it is ready to quell the "intolerable" unrest if requested. The last fortnight has seen a surge in violence on both sides with police repeatedly firing rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse increasingly hostile projectile-throwing crowds. Demonstrators have embraced the mantra "be water" -- a philosophy of unpredictability espoused by local martial arts legend Bruce Lee -- in a bid to keep the city's already overstretched police force guessing. On Saturday evening police fought hours-long battles with small groups of hardcore protesters in Tsim Sha Tsui -- a harbourside district known for its luxury malls and hotels -- after they besieged a police station and used a giant slingshot to fire bricks at the building. Further clashes occurred in Wong Tai Sin, a nearby working-class district where large crowds of angry residents joined protesters. On Sunday afternoon, protesters held two large rallies in Tseung Kwan O and Kennedy Town that began peacefully but soon descended into violence as protesters took over nearby roads. Small groups of masked protesters threw bricks and eggs at the local police station, smashing multiple windows. By Sunday evening roads were still occupied in Causeway Bay and Tseung Kwan O, and a tunnel under the harbour was blockaded for the third time this weekend.

Hong Kong protesters seize roads and tunnel in defiance of China warnings - Anti-government protesters in Hong Kong erected barricades in a popular shopping district and blocked a major tunnel Saturday evening (Aug 3), defying increasingly stern warnings from China over weeks-long unrest that has plunged the city into crisis. The semi-autonomous southern Chinese financial hub has seen two months of protests and clashes triggered by opposition to a planned extradition law that quickly evolved into a wider movement for democratic reforms.  Authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing this week signalled a hardening stance, including with the arrests of dozens of protesters, and the Chinese military saying it was ready to quell the "intolerable" unrest if requested.  But protesters have remained unyielding, vowing to hold multiple occupations and rallies into next week, sending tensions soaring once more.  On Saturday evening, hundreds of masked protesters put up makeshift barricades across multiple roads in Tsim Sha Tsui, a popular shopping and tourist district on the harbourfront. They also surrounded Tsim Sha Tsui police station, hurling water bottles and bamboo sticks.They also blocked one of the three cross-harbour tunnels connecting to the main island, causing widespread traffic chaos. In a statement, police called on protesters to "stop their illegal acts" and told members of the public to avoid the area. Earlier in the day protesters marched through the densely populated neighbourhood of Mongkok, which has previously seen clashes between police and demonstrators, chanting slogans and calling for residents to join a planned strike on Monday.

General strike by Hong Kong workers against extradition law - Workers across multiple sectors are due to strike today in Hong Kong in support of the demands of protesters for the government to withdraw its law to allow extradition to the Chinese mainland. The general strike follows nearly two months of massive protests involving a significant proportion of the city’s population, amid fears that Beijing will use the law to seize and intimidate political dissidents and critics. The strike is likely to hit transport, including rail and air services, banking and finance, the civil service and a range of social services. Scores of small businesses, coffee shops and food outlets have announced that they will be shut for the day. Last Thursday hundreds of employees held a brief “flash mob” protest and on Friday thousands of civil servants staged a rally of their own to show their support for strike action. Estimates of the number of workers who will participate vary widely. At a press conference on Saturday, members of the strike’s organising committee told the media that 14,000 workers across more than 20 sectors had signalled their support for the strike and had applied for leave to take part. A spokesman for the strike’s organising committee named Chan condemned the Hong Kong government for failing to listen the demands of the protestors and the police for their use of violence. “When society has become like this, we need to paralyse it temporarily to force the government to face the problems,” he said. Carol Ng Man-yee, chairwoman of the Confederation of Trade Unions (CTU), suggested that the figure could be far higher. She told the South China Morning Post: “This is a citywide strike. Judging from the 1 million turnout for the June 9 march, I reckon the number of people joining the strike might reach 500,000.” The CTU, which has nearly 200,000 members in affiliated unions, has called for public support for the strike, but does not appear to have called strike action as such. The union umbrella group is closely aligned with the pan-democrats, the official opposition in the Legislative Council, which is using the protests to try to pressure the pro-Beijing administration for concessions.

Strike grips Hong Kong as leader warns protests challenge China’s sovereignty (Reuters) - Police fired tear gas at protesters in multiple parts of Hong Kong on Monday after a general strike hit transport and the city’s Beijing-backed leader warned its prosperity was at risk. The protests surpassed earlier shows of dissent in scale and intensity, seemingly stoked by Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam’s refusal once again to meet any of the protesters’ demands, while warning of an “extremely dangerous situation”. What started several months ago as demonstrations over an extradition bill that would have let people be sent to mainland China for trial have grown into a much broader backlash against the city government and its political masters in Beijing. The protests are the greatest political threat to the former British colony’s government since it returned to Chinese rule and one of the biggest popular challenges to Chinese leader Xi Jinping since he came to power in 2012. Amid extensive disruptions to trains and traffic, tens of thousands of demonstrators fanned out across Hong Kong, spreading pockets of activism to most of its main three regions: Hong Kong island, Kowloon and the New Territories. Police stations were besieged and roads occupied. In the evening, a group of men armed with sticks tried to attack the black-clad protesters in the North Point district. Riot police used tear gas in districts including Wong Tai Sin, Tin Shui Wai, Tai Po, and Admiralty close to the city’s government headquarters.

Violent Chaos Breaks Out In Hong Kong: Police Stations Set On Fire, Triads Beat Protesters, City Paralyzed - The situation in Hong Kong is rapidly deteriorating, with violence breaking out in seven locations Monday afternoon as the citywide strike crippled transportation.   What were supposed to be peaceful sit-ins in different districts turned into riots, "with Wong Tai Sin and Harcourt Road seeing the most intense confrontations as protesters kneel instead of flee, to shield themselves while tear gas rounds and sponge grenades rain on them," according to SCMP.  VIDEO: Hong Kong police launch rounds of tear gas and try to clear pro-democracy protesters who had gathered near a police dormitory in the working-class district of #WongTaiSin #HongKongProtests pic.twitter.com/GkuCBM0DCV — AFP news agency (@AFP) August 5, 2019 Protesters threw a suspected gasoline bomb at police after first being attacked by bricks.  Riot police used crowd control measures in at least five locations - targeting those filing the streets. 82 people were arrested for offences including rioting, unlawful assembly, assaulting a police officer, obstructing police and possession of offensive weapons.  Fighting broke out between protesters and local residents, while reports of 'white shirted' men believed to be triad gang members began beating protesters as the evening devolved. ‘

Masked Hong Kong protesters hold rare press conference - Three masked youngsters from Hong Kong's anti-government movement took the unusual step on Tuesday (Aug 6) of holding a press conference to demand democracy, liberty and equality and condemn the city's pro-Beijing leaders. Dressed in the movement's signature yellow construction helmets and hiding their identities with face masks, the two young men and one woman billed their gathering as a civilian press conference "by the people, for the people". "We call on the government to return the power back to the people and to address the demands of Hong Kong citizens," they said as they read out their statements in both English and Cantonese. The semi-autonomous southern Chinese city has been wracked by two months of protests and clashes between police and increasingly hardcore demonstrators in the biggest threat to Beijing's rule since its 1997 handover from Britain. But the protests are largely leaderless and organised online through social media and messaging apps. Tuesday's appearance was the first time people from within the movement have delivered a statement in a formal setting.

Xinhua Headlines: Protesters cause mayhem as HKSAR chief executive warns of "very dangerous situation" (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong's transport network was partially paralyzed on Monday as protesters brought fresh chaos. Metro commuters were seriously affected by protesters, as many lines suspended operations. At Fortress Hill metro station, protesters repeatedly blocked train car doors, causing the suspension of operation. "No nonsense. We want to go to work. Leave us alone," said a middle-aged commuter, confronting a black-clad radical. The metro system in Hong Kong transports about 5.8 million passengers a day. A husband who moved his pregnant wife out of a train car cried out: "Don't you ever come close to a pregnant woman. Call the ambulance, now!" Footages aired by local broadcasters also showed motorists angrily accusing radicals of blocking traffic on the city's main avenues. Flights were canceled at Hong Kong International Airport, one of the busiest airports in the world. A passenger surnamed Woo said he was unable to fly to Japan as planned. "It is very selfish for some people to hurt the interests of the vast majority of residents in the name of so-called democracy," Woo said. More Hong Kong residents decided that they would go to work anyway and were not bothered by leaving home one or two hours in advance to avoid traffic disturbances. "I have a very simple demand today -- that is to go to work no matter what," a resident surnamed Lai told local media.

Helmets, goggles sent from Taiwan to HK protesters - Hong Kong students and emigrants in Taiwan have been buying helmets, goggles, umbrellas, plastic wrap and Band-Aids in bulk and couriering them to pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.Meanwhile, authorities in mainland China have reportedly been intercepting Hong Kong-bound parcels containing similar items bound for Hong Kong as the protests show no sign of slowing down in the former British territory.Hongkongers in Taiwan say Beijing has told mainland package service companies like SF Express to step up checks of the contents of parcels before delivering them to people in Hong Kong. With helmets and other items running out in Hong Kong as more people join the rallies, Taiwan has become the main source of supplies thanks to its geographical proximity, and more importantly, the island’s pro-Hong Kong ethos and its sympathetic government.

China warns India of 'reverse sanctions' if Huawei is blocked - sources (Reuters) - China has told India not to block its Huawei Technologies [HWT.UL] from doing business in the country, warning there could be consequences for Indian firms operating in China, sources with knowledge of the matter said. India is due to hold trials for installing a next-generation 5G cellular network in the next few months, but has not yet taken a call on whether it would invite the Chinese telecoms equipment maker to take part, telecoms minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said. Huawei, the world’s biggest maker of such gear, is at the center of a geopolitical tug-of-war between China and the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration put the company on a blacklist in May, citing national security concerns. It has asked its allies not to use Huawei equipment, which it says China could exploit for spying. Two sources privy to internal discussions in New Delhi said India’s ambassador in Beijing, Vikram Misri, was called to the Chinese foreign ministry on July 10 to hear China’s concerns about the U.S. campaign to keep Huawei out of 5G mobile infrastructure worldwide. During the meeting, Chinese officials said there could be “reverse sanctions” on Indian firms engaged in business in China should India block Huawei because of pressure from Washington, one of the sources said, citing a readout of the ambassador’s meeting. In response to Reuters’ questions, China’s foreign ministry said Beijing hoped India would make an independent decision on 5G bidders. “Huawei has carried out operations in India for a long time, and has made contributions to the development of Indian society and the economy that is clear to all,” spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement.

India's Auto Market Crashes- 200,000 Job Losses In 3 Months, One Million At Risk - A downturn in the Indian automobile industry has led dealerships to cut at least 200,000 jobs in the last three months amid an unprecedented sales decline, reported India Today.The Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) warned that the automobile downturn would continue to cycle down through 2H19, leading to more job losses with dealerships and across the entire industry."The majority of job cuts have happened in the last three months...It started around May and continued through June and July," FADA President Ashish Harsharaj Kale told Press Trust of India.Kale said, "Right now most of the cuts which have happened are in front-end sales jobs, but if this (slowdown) continues, then even the technical jobs will be affected because if we are selling less then we will also service less, so it is a cycle." When asked about job losses, he said, "Close to about two lakh [200,000].""It is a guesstimate that our members have already cut 7-8% of the jobs in most of the dealerships as the degrowth has been very high," he added. Around 2.5 million Indians were employed directly through 26,000 automobile showrooms operated by 15,000 dealers. Dealerships indirectly employ another 2.5 million, he added.

Kashmir leaders under house arrest as unrest grows - Top politicians in Indian-administered Kashmir have been put under house arrest, days after thousands of troops were deployed to the disputed region. Public meetings have been banned and reports say mobile networks and the internet have been restricted. Last week authorities also ordered tourists and Hindu pilgrims to leave, citing a "terror threat" against an annual pilgrimage to a major shrine. It is unclear what is behind the latest moves, which have stoked tensions. No explanation for the government's actions has been given as yet but it comes amid speculation that Delhi might be poised to revoke some of Kashmir's special privileges - specifically Article 35A, a constitutional provision, which among other things, prevents people from outside the state buying land there. A cabinet meeting to discuss the situation has ended and home minister Amit Shah will address parliament.

India scraps special status for Kashmir amid crackdown (Reuters) - India on Monday revoked the special status of Kashmir, the Himalayan region that has long been a flashpoint in ties with neighboring Pakistan, moving to grasp its only Muslim-majority region more tightly. In the most far-reaching political move in one of the world’s most militarized regions in nearly seven decades, India said it would scrap a constitutional provision that allows the state of Jammu and Kashmir to make its own laws. “The entire constitution will be applicable to Jammu and Kashmir,” Interior Minister Amit Shah told parliament, as opposition lawmakers voiced loud protests against the repeal. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged India and Pakistan, which also claims Kashmir, to exercise restraint. The U.S. State Department said it was closely following the events and expressed concerns over reports of detentions. Foreign ministry officials briefed envoys of several countries on the changes to the state’s administrative status, saying they were aimed at promoting good governance, social justice and economic development.

 Correcting a historic blunder - August 5, 2019, will go down in the constitutional history of India as a glorious day. A historic blunder committed about 70 years ago, on October 17, 1949 during the course of the Constituent Assembly debates has finally been set right. Article 370, which entered the draft constitution 70 years ago as Article 306A, has finally been abrogated. Nobody should complain because the abrogation of this discriminatory article has always been a running theme for the BJP and Jana Sangh. Nobody should have entertained any doubt that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a leader possessing grit and determination, who was instrumental in hoisting the Indian Tricolour at Lal Chowk on January 26, 1992, would have spared this illogical entity in our Constitution when the appropriate moment came. Article 370, which became history yesterday, has a notorious history. It was introduced into the draft constitution on by N Gopalaswami Ayyangar as Article 306A. Through this provision, Ayyangar had proposed that “Kashmir state” would have special powers to be excluded from the purview of the laws that the Parliament of India would make and also would have the power to make its own laws. “Why this discrimination?”, asked Maulana Hasrat Mohani, the member from United Provinces. Ayyangar gave an unconvincing reply, that there existed special circumstances in the state and hence the special provisions. He was challenged by members like Mohani who asked why different accessions were being treated differently. Ayyangar’s logic was bizarre. The Instrument of Accession’s relevance was limited to joining the Dominion, he argued, adding that what mattered for the Indian Republic that was going to take shape on 26 January 1950, was the decisions in the Constituent Assembly. He was no doubt clever in making this distinction between the Dominion and the Republic, but not logical.

India Moves to Strip Kashmir of Autonomy, Potentially Setting Up Conflict in Disputed Territory   EARLY MONDAY MORNING, the Indian government announced a change to its constitution, revoking the autonomy of the disputed northern state of Jammu and Kashmir and potentially setting the stage for a major new conflict. The change opens the door to a situation similar to Chinese policy in Tibet and Xinjiang and Israeli policy in the West Bank, allowing the Indian government to move huge numbers of settlers into Kashmir, the country’s only Muslim-majority region, thereby forcibly transforming its demographics.The decision to revoke the statute, Article 370, comes amid an unexpected crackdown by the Indian government on the Indian-controlled half of the province, over which neighboring Pakistan also lays claim. Over the last several days, prominent Kashmiri political leaders and activists — including many seen as supportive of Indian government rule — have been detained or placed under house arrest. Thousands of Indian soldiers and paramilitaries have been deployed to the region, adding to the whopping 600,000 already stationed in a place widely referred to as the most militarized region on earth. The abrupt escalation caused widespread alarm. In addition to the military deployments and arrests, a curfew has been imposed on civilian movements. Internet and mobile phone access for Kashmiris has beencompletely cut off. Tourists have been ordered out of the state, and the Indian government has alleged the existence of terror threats against religious pilgrims, who are in the province to visit the famous Amarnath shrine complex. Taken together, the moves seem to be a clear preparation for possible violence.“The recent deployments of troops and security measures have sown a lot of fear and panic among people in Kashmir,”  “The government would not have taken all these steps if they didn’t have a big plan in the works.”

Kashmir turmoil: Internet, broadband, landline services snapped, unprecedented developments taking place - India Today, news video

Pakistan says it will exercise all possible options to counter 'illegal steps' - Pakistan on Monday said that it would "exercise all possible options to counter the illegal steps" taken by India regarding Indian-occupied Kashmir (IoK). The comments came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's governmentintroduced plans to weaken the special rights of residents in occupied Kashmir, amid heavy deployment of security forces and suspension of phone and internet services in the valley. In a press release, the Foreign Office (FO) strongly condemned and rejected the move by the Indian government, stressing that IoK was internationally recognised as a disputed territory. "No unilateral step by the Government of India can change this disputed status, as enshrined in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions," read the statement. "The decision will never be acceptable to the people of IoK and Pakistan." "As the party to this international dispute, Pakistan will exercise all possible options to counter the illegal steps," the statement read while reaffirming Pakistan's commitment to the Kashmiri cause. Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood summoned the Indian high commissioner to the FO and handed him a strong demarche on the Indian government's actions regarding IoK. "The foreign secretary conveyed Pakistan’s unequivocal rejection of these illegal actions as they are in breach of international law and several UN Security Council resolutions," a second FO statement said, adding that he also underscored Pakistan’s condemnation of the actions aimed at "further consolidating the illegal occupation" of IoK. Mahmood also condemned other measures taken by Indian authorities to suppress the Kashmiri people, including the imposition of a curfew, deployment of tens of thousands of additional troops, house arrest of Kashmiri leaders and suspension of communication services.

India Cluster Bombed Pakistan As Line Of Control Tensions Flare Up -- Another regional conflict could be brewing between India and Pakistan along the Line of Control (LoC) that separates Kashmir. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday requested the international community to mediate the developing crisis as India continues to strengthen its military forces in Kashmir and ordered tourists and pilgrims to leave the Jammu and Kashmir state."President Trump offered to mediate on Kashmir. This is the time to do so as the situation deteriorates there and along the LoC with new aggressive actions being taken by Indian occupation forces. This has the potential to blow up into a regional crisis," Khan tweeted.Khan accused India on Saturday of shelling and using cluster bombs on civilians across densely populated areas on the LoC. He asked the United Nations to monitor the situation.  Pakistan's military released images of the cluster bomb's submunitions that were unexploded on the Pakistan side. Other photos surfaced on social media of a town in Pakistan being shelled by Indian forces late last week."Use of cluster bombs by Indian Army violating international conventions is condemnable," Major General Asif Ghafoor, chief spokesman for Pakistan's armed forces, tweeted.India has denied the use of cluster bombs, which releases explosive bomblets that are intended to kill people and destroy vehicles. These weapons are banned under the Geneva Convention governing international warfare. Pakistan's accusations this weekend come after India claimed Pakistani terrorists were preparing attacks on Hindu pilgrims in Kashmir, leading to a significant build-up of Indian forces in the area with the mandatory evacuation of tourists in the region on Saturday.

Pakistan vows to fight India’s ‘illegal’ Kashmir move -  Pakistani PM Imran Khan has vowed to fight India's decision to revoke Indian-administered Kashmir's autonomy, including at the UN Security Council. Mr Khan said the move was in breach of international law, adding that he feared ethnic cleansing by India. The region remains locked down, a day after India announced the move. The Himalayan region of Kashmir is claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan, but each country controls only part of it. There is a long-running separatist insurgency on the Indian side, which has led to thousands of deaths over three decades. India accuses Pakistan of supporting insurgents - an accusation Pakistan denies, saying it gives only moral and diplomatic support to Kashmiris who want self-determination. The Pakistani prime minister said he wanted to "tell the world" about the decision announced by the Indian government on Monday. "Through the United Nations Security Council, we are studying it now, we will raise it in General Assembly, we will talk to heads of States at every forum... we will raise it in the media and tell the world," he told parliament on Tuesday. Mr Khan said he thought the removal of special status would allow India to change the demographic make-up of the Muslim-majority state. "I am afraid that [India] will now carry out ethnic cleansing in Kashmir," he said. "They will try to remove the local people and bring in others and make them a majority, so that the locals become nothing but slaves." Earlier, Pakistan's powerful army chief said his troops stood by Kashmiris in their "just struggle". Neighbouring China has also voiced opposition to the Indian move, describing it as "unacceptable".

Decades of Insular Pakistani Leadership is to Blame For The World’s Failure to Care About Kashmir - Yesterday, India effectively annexed the formerly occupied region of Jammu and Kashmir by abrogating Article 370 of the Indian constitution and the related presidential order 35A. 370 provided for limited autonomy in Jammu and Kashmir whilst 35A forbade non-Kashmiris from purchasing real property in Jammu and Kashmir. With these provisions gone, New Delhi is set to build so-called settlements of non-indigenous peoples in a further attempt to weaponise a change in the demographic makeup of the majority Muslim region that the UN still recognises as a disputed territory. Furthermore, the sub-region of Ladakh which has been part of Jammu and Kashmir since before the foundation of modern India will become a separate entity to be ruled directly by New Delhi.  Many in Pakistan now fear that either a short term attempt at genocide against the Muslim majority of Indian annexed Jammu and Kashmir will take place or that otherwise an intensified campaign of ethnic cleaning is about to commence. The inward flow of thousands move heavily armed Indian soldiers into Jammu and Kashmir has only added fuel to this potential fire whilst the withdrawal of Hindu pilgrims from the disputed territory is an equally ominous sign. In either case, the wider world has ignored the issue with the exceptions of the Turkish President and Malaysian Prime Minister who have each expressed concern in phone conversations with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. But everywhere else in the world, the story hardy registered.  Why is it that Kashmir is ignored even when a major event occurs? The blame for this lies ultimately at the feet of multiple Pakistani governments whose lethargy, parochial attitudes, corrupt leadership and insularity have led the world to lose whatever interest it might have had in Kashmir. For India, a country that typically and cleverly maintains two distinct national narratives, one for internal consumption and one for international audiences – little needs to be said to the outside world about its version of developments in Kashmir. India is well aware that until and unless war breaks out between two nuclear armed neighbours, no one in the wider world will care what New Delhi does in or to Kashmir.

Pakistan army chief says military will 'go to any extent' to support Kashmir cause -  (Reuters) - Pakistan’s army chief said on Tuesday the country’s military will “go to any extent” to support people in the contested Kashmir region, after arch rival India revoked special status in its portion of the territory. “Pakistan Army firmly stands by the Kashmiris in their just struggle to the very end,” said General Qamar Javed Bajwa after meeting with top commanders in Rawalpindi. “We are prepared and shall go to any extent to fulfil our obligations in this regard,” he added, without elaborating further. India on Monday dropped a constitutional provision for the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which has long been a flashpoint in ties with neighboring Pakistan, to make its own laws.

Pakistan's Army Prepared To Support Kashmir As PM Khan Warns More Suicide Attacks Coming - After yesterday's unprecedented revocation of an over 50-year old constitutional article which gave Indian-administered Kashmir special autonomous status, Pakistan's army has shot back in provocative statements saying it will "go to any extent" to support Kashmiris amid an Indian military crackdown. "Pakistan Army firmly stands by the Kashmiris in their just struggle to the very end," said General Qamar Javed Bajwa after meeting with top commanders over the crisis.  "We are prepared and shall go to any extent to fulfill our obligations in this regard," he added, without specifying what form this might take. At the same time Pakistan's foreign minister informed the United Nations it is prepared to act in response to the "critical situation".  The now voided Article 370 is legally and historically what assured a high degree autonomy for the Indian administered Muslim-majority state, enshrined in the constitution, which inhabitants there see as justifying remaining part of India. The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata leadership in New Delhi, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, revoked the Jammu and Kashmir's (J&K) status quo ability and rights to maintain their own local governance on Monday. We noted this could put India and Pakistan on a direct collision course for war, following reports of weekend shelling in the contested region by Indian forces — indeed CNN has reported Indian-controlled Kashmir is on "lockdown" with phone lines and internet cut, as tens of thousands of Indian troops have been freshly deployed, and with key prominent local politicians under house arrest.   Videos out of Jammu posted to social media showed uniformed Indian soldiers filing through the streets in densely populated towns immediately following the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir's special status.

Heavy Clashes Erupt Between Indian, Pakistani Forces In Kashmir - Reuters reports intense clashes broke out Wednesday along the Line of Control in contested Kashmir between Indian and Pakistani troops.  Citing local media, Reuters described that "troops on the border had exchanged heavy fire and that Pakistani troops have fired mortars in the clashes." The exchange of fire took place according to local media at the Sunderbani Sector along the Line of Control (LOC) after 10pm local time, with each side blaming the other for breaching a ceasefire.   Though few details were given, especially with a near total communications blackout on the Indian-administered side in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), military observers have been expecting intensifying shelling and clashes between the nuclear armed rivals after earlier this week the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata leadership in New Delhi revoked Article 370 of the constitution which protected Muslim-majority J&K's special autonomous status.Unverified social media reports from regional observers say the death toll is mounting amid a broad Indian crackdown on its side of the LOC.Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan placed his armed forces on alert and on Wednesday recalled its ambassador while expelling its Indian envoy, and crucially took the drastic step of suspending bilateral trade with India. PM Khan further directed the military to "continue vigilance" after previously saying Pakistan would take "all possible options" in support of Kashmir's Muslim-majority population - this after regional media reported "tens of thousands" of Indian troops have surged into Kashmir, while a phone and internet blackout is in place. A day prior to the fresh clashes, which are likely to escalate without external mediation, Khan had suggested a "genocide" could be unfolding as Indian reinforcements continued pouring into the restive border region.

Pakistan Suspends Bilateral Trade With India, Expels Envoy -- The Kashmir crisis triggered by India's revoking of Article 370 from its constitution has exploded into a fast escalating renewed crisis between nuclear armed arch-rivals India and Pakistan. Merely within the last 24-hours Pakistan has recalled its ambassador while expelling its Indian envoy, and more importantly has taken the drastic step of suspending bilateral trade with India. “We will call back our ambassador from Delhi and send back their envoy,” foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi announced in televised comments, according to the AFP, while a separate government statement declared trade suspended and a downgrading of diplomatic ties. The committee has decided on "downgrading of diplomatic relations with India" and "suspenstion of bilateral trade with India," according to the statement.  PM Khan further directed the military to "continue vigilance" after previously saying Pakistan would take "all possible options" in support of Kashmir's Muslim-majority population - this after regional media has reported "tens of thousands" of Indian troops have surged into Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), while a phone and internet blackout is in place. In a worrisome sign that the two historic rivals and neighbors could be again moving to open war, Khan is reported to have said, "We have to choose between dishonor and war."Pakistan's foreign minister informed the United Nations early this week it is prepared to act in response to the "critical situation"- which Khan reiterated to the high level defense committee meeting Wednesday.

To Stave off Potential Global Concern, India Accuses Pakistan of Being ‘Alarmist’ -A day after Pakistan downgraded diplomatic ties and suspended trade, India urged Islamabad to review these measures in order to keep diplomatic channels buzzing, even as New Delhi accused them of presenting an ‘alarmist’ picture to the world.“The Government of India regrets the steps announced by Pakistan yesterday and would urge that country to review them so that normal channels for diplomatic communications are preserved,” said a press release issued by the Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday.The MEA’s response came after Pakistan’s National Security Council decided on five measures:

• Downgrading of diplomatic relations with India.
• Suspension of bilateral trade with India.
• Review of bilateral arrangements.
• Pakistan to go to UN, including the Security Council.
• August 14 (Pakistan’s Independence Day) to be observed in “solidarity with brave Kashmiris”. India’s Independence Day will be marked as “Black Day”.

Thereafter, Pakistan foreign office announced late on Wednesday night that India has been asked to withdraw high commissioner Ajay Bisaria in Islamabad and high commissioner-designate Moin-ul-Haq will not be sent to New Delhi to take up his post.

Bangladesh primary school teachers demand government nationalise schools - Hundreds of teachers and workers at non-government primary schools in Bangladesh are continuing their agitation to demand that the Awami League-led government nationalise their schools. The protestors, who represent tens of thousands of non-government primary teachers at over 4,000 schools, are also calling for permanent jobs and enlistment in the official Monthly Pay Order (MPO) scheme. The MPO is a pay system for teachers in state-controlled public schools and government-approved institutions. In 2013, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League-led government took over about 26,000 schools in the face of mass action by Bangladesh teachers. Four thousand private schools, however, were not included in the program. There are many categories of educational institutes under non-MPO educational institutes. These include primary and secondary schools, colleges, technical and vocational institutions and Islamic-based madrasas. Teachers and employees at these schools depend on student tuition fees. An estimated 16,000 non-government school teachers do not receive regular salaries. The non-government primary teachers began a sit-down demonstration outside the National Press Club in Dhaka on June 16. On July 3 they started a hunger strike. About 230 fell sick during the protest, including six from dengue fever, one of whom—a teacher from Faridpur—died on July 12. The teachers have told the media that they are determined to win their demands.

More than 8 out of 10 people in the world will live in Asia or Africa by 2100 - Our World in Data - The United Nations projects that world population growth will slow significantly over the course of the 21st century, coming close to its peak at 10.9 billion by 2100.But how is this growth distributed across the world? How does the world look in 2100 compared to today?In the chart below we see the global population split by region. This shows historical data, but also projections to 2100 based on the UN's medium growth scenario.The striking change between now and 2100 is the expected growth in the African population. Today, its population is around 1.3 billion; by 2100 it's projected to more than triple to 4.3 billion.Over the past 50 years Asia experienced rapid population growth. Today its population stands at around 4.6 billion. By 2050 it's expected to rise to 5.3 billion, but then fall in the latter half of the century. You can read more about the driving force behind these demographic changes here. By 2100 Asia's population is projected to fall almost back to levels we see today.

Pentagon Study Shows Violence Has Skyrocketed in Africa -Since U.S. Africa Command began operations in 2008, the number of U.S. military personnel on the African continent has jumped 170 percent, from2,600 to 7,000. The number of military missions, activities, programs, and exercises there has risen 1,900 percent, from 172 to 3,500. Drone strikes have soared and the number of commandos deployed has increased exponentially along with the size and scope of AFRICOM’s constellation of bases.The U.S. military has recently conducted 36 named operations and activities in Africa, more than any other region of the world, including the Greater Middle East. Troops scattered across Africa regularly advise, train, and partner with local forces; gather intelligence; conduct surveillance; and carry out airstrikes and ground raids focused on “countering violent extremists on the African continent.”AFRICOM “disrupts and neutralizes transnational threats” in order to “promote regional security, stability and prosperity,” according to its mission statement. But since AFRICOM began, key indicators of security and stability in Africa have plummeted according to the Defense Department’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon research institution. “Overall, militant Islamist group activity in Africa has doubled since 2012,” according to a recent analysis by the Africa Center.There are now roughly 24 “active militant Islamist groups” operating on the continent, up from just five in 2010, the analysis found. Today, 13 African countries face attacks from these groups — a 160 percent increase over that same time span. In fact, the number of “violent events” across the continent has jumped 960 percent, from 288 in 2009 to 3,050 in 2018, according to the Africa Center’s analysis. While a variety of factors have likely contributed to the rise in violence, some experts say that the overlap between the command’s existence and growing unrest is not a coincidence.

Mexico cartel hangs bodies from city bridge in grisly show of force - The merciless dogfight between Mexican drug cartels has produced its latest macabre spectacle with the discovery of 19 mutilated corpses – nine of them hung semi-naked from a bridge – in a city to the west of the capital. The massacre, in Uruapan 250 miles from Mexico City, was claimed by the increasingly dominant Jalisco New Generation cartel which posted a large white banner beside the dangling bodies of its victims.“Lovely people, carry on with your routines,” it read, beneath the group’s capitalised red initials, CJNG.At least 10 other dismembered and bullet-riddled bodies were reportedly found dumped in two nearby locations.Michoacán state’s attorney general, Adrián López Solís, blamed the killings on a clash between rival cartels battling for control of the region’s drug trade. Troops were being m obilized to investigate the crimes and catch the killers, he said.

Venezuela hyperinflation hits 10 million percent. ‘Shock therapy’ may be only chance to undo the economic damage Venezuela’s crisis has been marked by corruption, hyperinflation, one of the world’s highest homicide rates, food and medicine shortages and the largest exodus “in the recent history of Latin America,” according to the U.N. Refugee Agency. Its chances to recover may start with President Nicolas Maduro stepping down or being forcibly removed — either by the opposition or through foreign military intervention. But that would just be the first step to get the ruined economy on the road to recovery. A major course of economic shock therapy will be required. Venezuela’s hyperinflation rate increased from 9,02 percent to 10 million percent since 2018, according to the International Monetary Fund, though it is expected to decline to back below 1 million percent due to recent moves by the country’s central bank, according to a recent IMF forecast. But the economic situation remains dire: The IMF says the cumulative decline of the Venezuelan economy since 2013 will reach 65% this year — for 2019 the annual decline forecast has increased from 25% to 35%. The five-year contraction is one of the worst in the world over the past half century and one of the few that was not caused by armed conflicts or natural disasters, the IMF stated earlier this week. Some experts believe that in order to regain control over Venezuela’s monetary system and zero out hyperinflation, drastic decisions will need to be taken. “ Shock therapy supports the implementation of drastic economic policies to combat hyperinflation, shortages, reduce the budget deficit — Venezuela’s current budget deficit stands at –29.95% in relation to GDP — and transition from a state-controlled economy to a mixed one. It was used in post-communist Poland and Russia, and in other countries like Chile and Bolivia, where it successfully ended hyperinflation..

World Economy Edges Closer to a Recession as Trade Dread Deepens - The escalating trade war between the U.S. and China is nudging the world economy toward its first recession in a decade with investors demanding politicians and central bankers act fast to change course.  The latest setback hit German industrial production, which in June registered its biggest annual decline in almost a decade, highlighting the severity of a manufacturing slump in Europe’s largest economy. In the Asia-Pacific region, central banks in New Zealand, India and Thailand made surprise interest-rate cuts trying to safeguard their economies from global headwinds.  In the U.S., recession risk is “much higher than it needs to be and much higher than it was two months ago,” Lawrence Summers, a former U.S. Treasury secretary and a White House economic adviser during the last downturn, told Bloomberg Television. “You can often play with fire and not have anything untoward happen, but if you do it too much you eventually get burned.”  Summers, a Harvard professor, still sees a less than 50/50 chance that the U.S. enters a recession in the next 12 months. Investors are much more bearish: A closely watched segment of the yield curve, the difference between 10-year and three-month U.S. Treasury debt, inverted the mostsince 2007, indicating bets on protracted weakness.  As U.S.-China trade relations sour, policy interest rates are going down. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand on Wednesday stunned investors by dropping its benchmark rate by 50 basis points, double the expected reduction and sending the kiwi tumbling. Thailand also surprised, cutting by 25 points. India’s central bank lowered its rate by an unconventional 35 points. While tight labor markets globally and the recent shift by central banks should provide a cushion, economists are starting to war game for how a recession could happen. Their fears are mainly centered on the damaging effects of tariffs.

Column: Global economy is probably in recession – Kemp (Reuters) - The global economy is probably in recession, with most cyclical indicators showing business activity is flat or falling. Recessions become obvious only once they are well established given the lagging nature of most economic data. And end-of-cycle recessions are usually impossible to distinguish from mid-cycle slowdowns until well after the slowdown has started.  But almost all the main economic and industrial indicators that provide a reliable guide to the business cycle confirm the economy has already slowed severely (https://tmsnrt.rs/2Yyra8r). Global manufacturing surveys, industrial output, new orders, business investment, construction activity, motor vehicle production and freight volumes are flat or down compared with a year earlier. The most comprehensive numbers show manufacturing production and trade flows were essentially flat in May compared with a year before. More recent data from purchasing surveys and industrial production indicates the slowdown worsened in June and July. By most measures, the global economy is in the midst of the deepest slowdown since 2015, and in many cases since 2009. Financial markets and commodity prices show a high probability the economy is in recession or will be soon. The U.S. Treasury yield curve has been inverted for more than two months and signals the highest probability of recession since April 2007. Major equity indices are flat or down compared with a year ago, despite the sharp reduction in government bond yields and risk-free interest rates since then. Cyclical bellwethers such as Germany’s giant chemicals company BASF and U.S. heavy equipment maker Caterpillar have seen their shares fall sharply over the last year. Oil prices have sunk more than 22% since the end of April, and are down 20% compared with August 2018, despite severe U.S. sanctions on oil exports from Iran and Venezuela. Brent’s six-month calendar spread has collapsed, despite the extension of production restraint by Saudi Arabia and its allies in the OPEC+ group and signs of a slowdown in new well drilling in the United States. Non-oil commodity prices have also been falling or flat since the middle of 2018, as consumption growth has decelerated.

Central banks around the world are surprising markets with aggressive rate cuts: Here’s why - The Reserve Bank of India cut rates by 35 basis points for a fourth straight meeting this year, while the Bank of Thailand unexpectedly cut its rate by 25 basis points for the first time since 2015. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) stunned markets with a 50 basis point cut, twice the expected level, to take its official cash rate to an all-time low of 1%. The Reserve Bank of Australia, meanwhile, held rates at a record low following cuts in June and July. The main takeaway from the raft of monetary policy easing points to central banks signaling major concerns about the outlook for economic growth, and resorting to sharp monetary policy action in order to stave off a downturn. Central banks often resort to lower interest rates in environments like this in order to boost money supply in the economy, stoke demand and provide an impetus to growth. Rabbani Wahhab, senior fixed income portfolio manager at London & Capital, told CNBC on Wednesday that the timing and size of the rate cuts from New Zealand, Thailand and India sends out a clear message to their respective economies and the rest of the world. He further pointed out that the central banks are of the opinion that “it’s not just the large economic blocs such as the U.S. and the euro zone that need easier monetary conditions, but other economies which are part of the global machine.” The key drivers for monetary policy loosening from central bankers are softening domestic outlooks, falling annual growth rates and expectations, low inflation and weakening business and consumer confidence. Global long-term interest rates have declined to historically low levels to accommodate this, with the European Central Bank (ECB) citing these concerns as it hinted at a potential rate cut later this year, along with the U.S. Federal Reserve, which last month announced its first cut since the 2008 financial crisis. The regional headwinds are compounded at the moment, however, by the risks to global growth arising from the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China.

Central Banks Are in Panic Mode — for Good Reason -- Pam Martens -- On July 30, 2019, the day before the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve, cut interest rates by one-quarter of one percent, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note closed the day at 2.06 percent. Early this morning, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury stood at 1.65 percent, a stunning decline of 41 basis points in 8 days. A yield evaporation on U.S. sovereign debt that resembles a snow cone in July is not consistent with a strong economy. It is consistent with a seriously sputtering economy and a stock market out over its skis in terms of valuation. In addition to the collapsing yield in the benchmark 10-year, we now have a seriously inverted yield curve with the 3-month T-bill yielding 2.01 percent this morning versus the 10-year T-note yielding 1.65 – a difference of 36 basis points.An inverted yield curve means that investors are gobbling up longer-term Treasury debt (thus driving down its yield) on the expectation that as the economy slows or goes into recession, there will be less demand for money, thus lower inflation, thus ever lower long-term yields to be had; thus it’s better to grab what you can get now.The yield on the 10-year Treasury may be falling more rapidly than it otherwise would because the Federal Reserve finds itself in the unenviable situation of having a half empty arsenal to manage a future recession or more severe economic upheaval. The Fed’s rate-cut on July 31 of this year was its first since the financial crisis. It started this easing program from a meager 2.25 to 2.50 percent Fed Funds rate. It now has just 2.00 to 2.25 percent left in its arsenal. Should it need to ease as aggressively as it did in 2008, it would be completely out of bullets in four months’ time. That’s a serious problem because deep recessions or major financial shocks do not end in four months.

Putin’s Pledge to Ditch the Dollar Is Slowly Becoming a Reality –  Russia is acting on a pledge by President Vladimir Putin to shrink the role of dollar in international trade as tensions sour between Washington and Moscow. The shift is part of a strategy to “de-dollarize” the Russian economy and lower its vulnerability to the ongoing threat of U.S. sanctions. But while the central bank was able to quickly dump half of its dollar holdings last year, progress in trade has been slow due to ingrained use of the greenback for many transactions. The share of euros in Russian exports increased for a fourth straight quarter at the expense of the U.S. currency, according to central bank data. The common currency has almost overtaken the dollar in trade with the European Union and China and trade in rubles with India surged. The dollar’s share in import transactions remained unchanged at about a third. “There’s been a strong incentive to change, not just for Russia but for its trading partners too,” said Dmitry Dolgin, an economist at ING Bank in Moscow. “The European Union is also now facing trade pressure from the U.S.” pushing them to try to reduce dependence on the dollar, he said. The euro came close to replacing the dollar as the currency of choice for Russian exports to the European Union, with its share climbing to 42% in the first quarter from 32% a year earlier. Russia still relies on the dollar for more than half of its $687.5 billion annual trade, though less than 5% of those deals are with the U.S. Part of Russia’s motivation to shift is that companies suffer delays on as much as a third of international payments in dollars because Western companies have to check with the U.S. whether the transactions are allowed, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in December. Euro Takeover The euro’s share also increased in Russia’s $108 billion annual trade with China, jumping to more than a third of export settlements in the first quarter from almost nothing at the start of 2018. This shift, which covers commodity sales and big state contracts, has been accelerated by the development of payment infrastructure at the central bank and other lenders, according to Sofya Donets, an economist at Renaissance Capital in Moscow. Trade in yuan is difficult because of capital restrictions that limit foreigners’ access to Chinese assets, Dmitry Timofeev, who heads the Finance Ministry’s sanctions department, told the RBC newspaper. “The yuan isn’t completely convertible, which means it can’t play a significant role in world trade,” Timofeev said.

Russian opposition plans new protest despite over 1,000 arrests - (Reuters) - Russia’s anti-Kremlin opposition said it was planning a nationwide protest next weekend despite police forcibly detaining over 1,000 people on Saturday for attending what they said was an illegal march in Moscow to demand free elections. Saturday’s protest, conceived by opposition activists as a peaceful walk to protest against the exclusion of their candidates from a Moscow election next month, was systematically and sometimes violently dispersed by police. OVD-Info, an independent monitoring group, said on Sunday that police had detained 1,001 people on Saturday, up from its earlier estimate of just over 800 people. Many but not all of those detained were later released by police, but OVD-Info said 19 were kept in custody overnight. It said some of those detained had their phones confiscated and had been denied access to a lawyer. Russian investigators had initiated a criminal case against one man, accusing him of injuring a police officer, the TASS news agency reported. Faced with a wave of summer protests, authorities have opened criminal proceedings for what they term mass civil unrest, an offence punishable with up to 15 years in jail.

Ukraine's Zelensky Presses Putin For Peace Talks After Four Soldiers Killed - Significant escalating clashes between pro-Kiev forces and Russian-backed separatists in the contested Donetsk region has resulted in the deaths of four Ukrainian soldiers, government officials said Wednesday.  Ukraine's Defense Ministry issued a statement saying pro-Russia separatists opened fire at Ukrainian military positions on August 6, which killed the soldiers in a hail of mortars, machine guns, and assault rifle fire. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned the attack as an attempt to "undermine" Ukraine's push for a peaceful resolution, which has been a key and popular part of the newly elected "outsider" president's platform, who had won an unexpected landslide victory last April after pledging to end the war in Donbass. Zelenskiy further called on EU countries as well as Russia to "meet as quickly as possible to resume negotiations." Though since the conflict began in April 2014 there's been an estimated over 13,000 people killed in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Tuesday's flare up in intense fighting marked the highest daily casualty toll since a truce was declared three weeks ago.  Ukraine's president spoke to President Putin by phone Wednesday, reportedly urging him to pressure Donbass fighters into holding firm to peace talks.

Turkey Received $1 Billion Bailout From China As Reserves Ran Out -- The last few months have seen the Turkish Lira rallying, rebounding off record lows, despite nothing positive coming from that country... and now we may have a better idea of how this lift was achieved (or how investors were fooled). As Bloomberg reports, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter said, Turkey received around $1 billion worth of funds from China in June under a swap agreement that dates back to 2012. The cash boosted Turkey’s foreign reserves in an election month and at a time when they were under intense scrutiny from investors.The scrutiny was due to the fact that, as we detailed previously, traders were questioning the reality of Turkey's reserve data - which had been grossly manipulated for swap contracts and was - in real terms - practically zero...The chart below shows two sets of numbers: Turkey's true net foreign reserves, and the number that the central bank had used for public consumption, which includes the nominal amount of swaps.Confirming the FT's analysis, a former senior official at Turkey’s central bank, who did not wish to be named (as it would mean an instant prison sentence by the country's "executive president"), said the extra dollars had been borrowed, not earned. "This is not an orthodox [approach to] central bank reserve build-up."So China stepped in to bail out Erdogan. The June inflow was the first time Turkey received such a substantial amount under the lira-yuan swap agreement with Beijing, one of the people said.The question now is - what was Erdogan's quid pro quo here. With NATO scrambling over Turkey's decision to install Russian missile defense systems, is this 'friendly gesture' from China designed to confirm BRI issues will be swept under the carpet?

Sites using Facebook ‘Like’ button liable for data, EU court rules -- Companies that embed Facebook’s “Like” button on their websites must seek users’ consent to transfer their personal data to the U.S. social network, in line with the bloc’s data privacy laws, Europe’s top court said on Monday. According to the European Court of Justice ruling, a site that embeds the Facebook “like” icon and link on its pages also sends user data to the US web giant. “It seems that that transmission occurs without that visitor being aware of it and regardless of whether or not he or she is a member of the social network Facebook or has clicked on the ‘Like’ button,” it said. Under EU data protection law, therefore, a European retailer and the US platform are jointly responsible for gathering the data and sending it to Facebook’s Irish subsidiary. Users should therefore be warned and asked to consent to their data being gathered, although the retailer is not responsible for what Facebook does with it later. “As a result of this case, companies that embed this ‘like’ button on their website cannot hide behind Facebook any longer,” said Monique Goyens, of the European Consumer Organisation. “The decision therefore underlines the right for internet users to always get information on what data are collected and how they are used by websites,” she said. 

What Plunging Global Semiconductor Sales Says About Autos, IT & How the Economy Reacts to Uncertainties - Wolf Richter - Global chip sales plunged 16.8% in June from June last year, to $32.7 billion, on a three-month moving average basis, and are down 22% from the peak in October 2018, according to the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics today. As deepest and most relentless plunge in semiconductor sales since the Financial Crisis continues, any hopes for a V-shaped recovery, such as during the Financial Crisis, have been shelved:This was the fifth month in a row that the three-month moving average has been in the range of $32 billion to $33 billion, down about $10 billion from the peak in October last year, the steepest dollar-drop ever. During the Financial Crisis, sales plunged and then bounced back instantly, for a perfect V-shaped recovery. But this time around, sales have been stuck at low levels for five months already.In percentage terms, the 22% drop from the peak pales compared to the 39% plunge during the Financial Crisis and the 45% plunge during the long dotcom bust. The dotcom-bust plunge was the worst, not only the deepest in percentage terms, but also by far the longest in duration.For the first six months of 2019, semiconductor sales dropped 14.5% compared to the same period last year. And sales were down “across all major regional markets and semiconductor product categories,” the report by the Semiconductor Industry Association said. Sales fell in all major geographic regions in June (three-month moving averages compared to the same period last year): The culprits span the spectrum, from the decline in smartphone sales to the crypto-mining collapse. But now add a new one that is spreading across the globe: What was at first thought to be a localized drop in China and a little bitty dip in the US and some squiggles in Europe has now turned into a serious global downturn, and there are a lot of semiconductors in each new vehicle rolling off the assembly line. While chips for EV-related components such as battery management systems are still experiencing growth, chips for ICE-vehicle components are getting hit. This include the multitude of chips in emission systems, engine management systems, transmissions, fuel systems, lighting systems, infotainment systems, driver assist systems, etc.

Euro zone factory malaise impacting services growth: PMI - (Reuters) - Euro zone business growth almost ground to a halt in July as demand dried up, according to a survey which showed a deepening downturn in manufacturing is affecting the bloc’s dominant services industry. Last month the European Central Bank all but promised to ease policy further as the bloc’s growth outlook deteriorates and Monday’s survey will do little to sway market expectations for loosening. IHS Markit’s Euro Zone Composite Final Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), considered a good measure of overall economic health, dropped to 51.5 in July from June’s 52.2. That matched a preliminary reading, but in the past month moved closer to the 50 mark separating growth from contraction. “The service sector continued to sustain the expansion of the overall euro zone economy at the start of the third quarter, but there are signs that the scale of the manufacturing downturn is starting to overwhelm,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit. Figures last week showed factory activity contracted in July at its fastest rate in six years and a PMI for the services industry fell to 53.2 from 53.6 the month before and below the flash reading of 53.3. Forward-looking indicators suggested there won’t be a turnaround anytime soon and demand for services waned, hit by falling new export business — which includes trade between member countries of the euro zone. The sub-index dropped to 49.2 from 49.4. That had an effect on broader optimism and a composite future output index fell to 58.8 from 59.2, its lowest reading since October 2014. With the outlook gloomy — affected by trade war worries, slowing sales growth and Brexit woes — Williamson said the PMI indicated third-quarter economic growth of only around 0.1%, slower than the 0.3% predicted in a Reuters poll last month.

German Industry Suffered Worst Annual Drop in a Decade in June - German industrial production registered its biggest annual decline in almost a decade, highlighting the severity of the trade-inflicted manufacturing slump in Europe’s largest economy. Output was down 5.2% in June from the previous year, the most since late 2009, when the country was recovering from the Great Recession that followed the global financial crisis. The numbers are the latest in a series pointing to a quickly deteriorating outlook that’s also starting to affect the labor market. German output down most in almost a decade as trade war bites The U.S. and China have stepped up their fight over import tariffs in recent days, bringing the world closer to fully fledged trade war that will also have grave consequences for Germany and the 19-nation euro area. Trade uncertainty and slowing global growth have already hit German factories in recent months and forced industrial giants including Daimler and Continental to lower their profit outlook. Companies have announced job cuts, and unemployment started to increase. Industrial production dropped 1.5% in June from the previous month, driven by an even steeper decline in manufacturing. The sector “remains mired in a downturn,” the Economy Ministry said in a statement Wednesday, adding that a disappointing performance in the second quarter was primarily due to weakness in metal, machinery and car production. The numbers come on the heels of a report on Tuesday that showed factory orders increased in June. The ministry cautioned though that the sector hadn’t yet reached a turning point. The Bundesbank predicts the economy contracted in the second quarter, and receding confidence among companies and investors is feeding speculation that Germany may be headed for a recession. A first estimate for the April-June period will be released on Aug. 14. Germany’s weakness is damping momentum in the euro area. The European Central Bank is reviewing monetary stimulus measures including further cuts to interest rates and renewed quantitative easing to prop up the region’s economy.

In Stunning Upset, Germany's Far-Right AfD Set To Defeat Merkel's CDU In The Country's East -  In a stunning development for German politics, Germany’s anti-immigrant, nationalist party Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has taken the lead in the east of the country ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), just a month before regional elections in the eastern states of Saxony and Brandenburg, an opinion poll showed on Sunday. The AfD is currently polling at 23%, ahead of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, which is at 22%, according to a poll carried out by Bild. The far-left Die Linke is in third place at 14% while the Greens are at 13% and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) on 11%.The eastern states of Brandenburg and Saxony hold regional elections on Sept. 1, followed by Thuringia a month later.As shown in the map below, the AfD has taken a leadership position in Germany's formerly communist, and more economically backward eastern states. The good news for Europe's establishment is that in the west of the country, the AfD remains further back, and last polled in fourth position at 12%, with the CDU at 27%, the Greens 25% and SPD 13% in the Kantar Emnid poll of 1,419 conducted from July 25-31. The AfD barged on the scene in 2017, when it entered Germany’s national parliament for the first time as the third largest party, helped by voter anger at Merkel’s decision to welcome asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa.As Reuters notes, an inevitable defeat for the SPD in Brandenburg, where it has won all of the last six elections there since German reunification in 1990, and the CDU in Saxony would put more pressure on the coalition partners to rethink their alliance in national government, while further derailing the German political establishment.As Bloomberg adds, the former communist east that saw massive right-wing protests last year is now back in focus as voters in three states go to the polls this fall. In Saxony and Brandenburg, Merkel’s Christian Democrats and their junior partner, the Social Democrats, are set to lose for the first time since reunification in 1990 to the upstart AfD.

Germany Pins Hopes on Parliament to Thwart Johnson’s Brexit Plan - Germany doesn’t believe Boris Johnson will be able to make good on his threat to take Britain out of the European Union without a deal, according to two government officials, weakening the new prime minister’s negotiating position with the bloc. German officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they expect Parliament to thwart any attempt to rip the country out of the bloc without an agreement to smooth the process. Irish officials take a similar view. Johnson has vowed to deliver Brexit on Oct. 31 “do or die.” He says he wants to cut a new deal with the EU but has set an ultimatum that the other side has made clear it can’t accept -- he wants to scrap a measure designed to keep the Irish border free of checkpoints. Johnson has said his threat to walk away must be credible to the other side, and as part of that strategy has increased spending on no-deal preparations. The credibility of his threat is undermined by the opposition he faces in Parliament. His overall working majority was reduced to just one after a special election last week and there’s long been a clear majority against a no-deal split. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Monday he would call for a vote of no-confidence at "an appropriate very early time" once Parliament gets back to work in September. If Corbyn succeeds, then a general election would be triggered. Still, Dominic Cummings, a key adviser to Johnson and a major player in the 2016 referendum campaign, has told officials that even if Parliament forces an election, it’s already too late to stop a no-deal split, according to the Telegraph newspaper. The government could call an election after Oct. 31 -- and allow Britain to tumble out of the bloc during the campaign -- the Telegraph reported him as saying. He said the EU is making a mistake thinking the U.K. is bluffing. In Berlin, officials see elections as a safety net. They expect a general election would strengthen the pro-EU parties, raising the possibility of a new government led by a coalition of Labour and Liberal Democrats, the officials said.

Mark Carney warns of instant shock from no-deal Brexit  - A no-deal Brexit would result in an instant shock to the UK economy, the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has warned. Items such as petrol and food would become more expensive if the UK leaves the EU without an agreement, he said. He predicted the value of the pound would fall in response to what he described as a "real economic shock". "The change in trading relationship means that real incomes will be lower," he told the BBC's Today programme. But he rejected claims that the Bank's decision to cut growth forecasts was gloomy, after former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith accused him of reviving "project fear". Mr Carney said "you're hard pressed" to describe the Bank's forecasts in that way. On Thursday, the Bank said the economy was expected to grow by 1.3% this year, lower than its earlier projection of 1.5%, if the UK leaves the EU with a deal.It did not say what it expected to happen in the case of a no-deal Brexit.But Mr Carney told the BBC there was a "significant possibility" that a deal would not be struck. "The economics of no deal are that the rules of the game for exporting to Europe or importing from Europe fundamentally change," he said. As a result, he said, "very big" and "highly profitable" industries in the UK would become "uneconomic". "Very difficult decisions will need to be taken," he said, explaining that those would have a "knock-on" effect on the economy. He pointed to carmakers, food manufacturers and chemical firms as some of those that would be hardest hit. "These are the sectors that have not been investing," he said. "One of the reasons why the economy has slowed is that business investment has been very, very weak."

Tory rebels threaten Boris Johnson after majority cut to one - Boris Johnson faced a grave threat to his control of parliament on Friday as he was warned that Conservative rebels could cross the House of Commons to foil Brexit in the aftermath of a byelection that reduced his working majority to just one MP. Overnight, the Liberal Democrats’ Jane Dodds won a crucial byelection in Brecon and Radnorshire by a margin of 1,425, overturning the Tories’ previous majority of more than 8,000. The result prompted immediate recriminations across the party. Conservative no-deal sceptics warned about the rapidly growing threat the government could face from the reinvigorated Lib Dems, while insiders blamed Theresa May’s administration for choosing a candidate who had already been ousted for expenses fraud. One of the most prominent Conservative supporters of a second referendum told the Guardian on Friday he was actively considering defecting to the Lib Dems or sitting as an independent, a move that would leave Johnson at the helm of a minority government. Dr Phillip Lee, the former justice minister, who first suggested he could quit the party in his own podcast, On the House, told the Guardian he was not alone among colleagues considering defecting or resigning if the government pursued no deal. “I have things to think about over the summer, but it is not just me,” he said. “There are a number of colleagues who are spending the summer reflecting on what is the right way for them to confront this no-deal scenario. Of course, it is difficult for all of us because we joined the Conservative party, but it has morphed into something a lot different to what I joined in 1992.” Although Johnson might be able to rely on Labour Brexiters and independents to vote for a deal, Lee suggested that the government could still be threatened by the many Conservatives in the party’s centre who had been alienated by the number of rightwingers in Johnson’s cabinet. “At the moment Boris Johnson has a very difficult pitch to play and that has been made even harder by the formation of this cabinet,” he said. “There are increasingly people who think, ‘Even if my career is over, I can’t put my name to this.’

Fintan O’Toole: Ireland can stop a no-deal Brexit. Here’s how - One Irish political party has the power to change the balance of power at Westminster and to alter the dynamics of British politics, prevent a no-deal Brexit, avoid a hard UK-Ireland border and save the economy of Northern Ireland from catastrophe. It can do this without compromising its principles. All it needs is boldness, imagination and patriotism. Here’s how. Boris Johnson’s radical right-wing administration has no effective majority in the House of Commons, even with the support of the DUP. But given the fragmented state of the opposition, Johnson may still be able to drive onwards towards the Brexit deadline of October 31st and over the edge of the cliff. There is one party that can stop him: Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin holds seven seats at Westminster but leaves them vacant. Calling on the party to take those seats is rhetorically satisfying but pointless. In the first place, it has an impregnable argument for not doing so. It won these seats on an abstentionist platform. And it did so in 2017, when Theresa May was pushing for a very hard Brexit. Its voters knew the dangers and supported abstention anyway. That fact cannot be set aside. And secondly, even if Sinn Féin was somehow able to make an immediate decision to occupy its seats when the Commons returns in September, the effect would probably be counterproductive. The Brexiteers and their media wing would generate hysteria about the Provos thwarting the will of the British people. Johnson would relish it. Wavering Tories would step back into line. So, what’s needed, and needed urgently, is something much more imaginative: a pact among all the anti-Brexit parties in Northern Ireland – Sinn Féin, the SDLP, Alliance and the Greens. The agreement would have four basic elements. First, the seven Sinn Féin MPs will stand down temporarily, triggering byelections in Foyle, West Tyrone, Fermanagh & South Tyrone, Mid Ulster, Newry and Armagh, South Down and West Belfast. As it happens, all of these constituencies except Mid Ulster and West Belfast are bounded by the Border.

Boris Johnson has no intention of renegotiating Brexit deal, EU told  - Boris Johnson has no intention of renegotiating the withdrawal agreement and a no-deal Brexit is his “central scenario”, European diplomats have been told, amid hardening evidence in Westminster that the government is expecting to crash out of the EU. Brussels diplomats briefed after a meeting between the prime minister’s chief envoy and senior EU figures in Brussels said that Britain’s refusal to compromise was understood to have been clear to those attending. Instead David Frost, the government’s new chief Europe adviser, is said to have sought discussions on how negotiations could be reset after the UK crashes out on 31 October. “It was clear UK does not have another plan,” a senior EU diplomat said of the meetings with Frost. “No intention to negotiate, which would require a plan. A no deal now appears to be the UK government’s central scenario.” The disclosure came as No 10 insisted the government was “ready to negotiate in good faith” but made clear that Johnson would only agree to a deal without what he refers to as the “undemocratic backstop” – the mechanism to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland that could keep the UK in a customs union. The EU has repeatedly said the backstop is not up for negotiation. The UK’s failure to provide any proposals on how to deal with the controversial Irish backstop was felt to be significant by EU officials who spoke to the Guardian. Frost was said to have told the officials that a technological solution to the Irish border was the UK’s preferred option before admitting that “it would not be ready now for Brexit”. “Even if EU gave up the backstop there is no alternative,” a diplomat concluded of the discussion. “That message has now gone loud and clear to capitals, it was useful to hear it from horse’s mouth,” the EU source said. “Reality is sinking in.”

Boris Johnson’s Fake Radicalism - Craig Murray We hear much about Johnson coming to power as an iconoclastic figure willing to cut a swathe through the ranks of the Establishment and especially the Civil Service, aided by blue skies thinker Dominic Cummings.In fact nothing could be further from the truth. There has never been a Prime Minister more entrenched in and deferential to the London Establishment than Boris Johnson.It may seem strange that Johnson’s very first executive decision on coming in to 10 Downing Street was to cancelthe long delayed judicial inquiry into UK involvement in torture and extraordinary rendition. On the face of it, there were political attractions for Johnson in pursuing the issue. The policy of complicity in torture had been established by Tony Blair and Jack Straw, with as ever the active collaboration of Alastair Campbell. A judicial inquiry would hold them to account, and given they are not only New Labour but a leading Remainer posse, you would think Johnson would have pushed forward with the chance to expose them. Plus he likes to pose as something of a social liberal himself. So why was Johnson’s urgent priority to cancel the torture inquiry?The answer is that scores of very senior civil servants were deeply implicated in British collusion in extraordinary rendition. Those directly guilty of complicity in torture include Sir Richard Dearlove, Sir John Scarlett, Sir William Ehrman, Lord Peter Ricketts and Sir Stephen Wright. It was Johnson’s fellow old Etonian, Sir William Ehrman, who chaired the series of meetings in the FCO on the implementation of the policy of getting intelligence through torture. I testified on this subject, with documentary evidence, before the Intelligence and Security Committee of the House of Commons in secret session. The Committee’s report commended me because without my evidence that series of meetings, which at Ehrmann’s instruction were held without minutes or record, would never have come to light.

Boris Johnson pledges £250m for NHS artificial intelligence The government has announced its third successive hand-out to the NHS in as many days with a pledge by Boris Johnson of £250m to be invested in artificial intelligence. The prime minister claimed AI would transform care and cut waiting times as he announced the money for a national artificial intelligence lab, to work on digital advances to improve the detection of diseases by predicting who is most likely to get them. However, health experts warned that the NHS had a poor record with technology and any new systems would need “robust evaluation” to ensure they did more good than harm as well as proper implementation with safety standards and training. They also raised concerns over where the money was coming from and whether it was the result of trade-offs elsewhere in the cash-strapped health service. AI is already being used in some hospitals to predict cancer survival and cut the number of missed appointments. It is used to identify those patients most likely not to turn up, who will then be given a reminder phone call. On Tuesday, the prime minister promised £1.8bn towards the maintenance and rebuilding of crumbling hospitals, estimated to need a total of £6bn. On Wednesday, he promised changes to a pension tax hitting the best-paid doctors and nurses that has resulted in their cutting back on extra shifts. The latest announcement would help the NHS become a world leader in AI, he said

A no-deal Brexit even after a no-confidence vote: how could it happen? - Do you remember when the prospect of a no-deal Brexit was supposedly so remote that it was scarcely worth discussing in advance of the referendum? “The day after we vote to leave,” Michael Gove said in April 2016, “we hold all the cards and we can choose the path we want.” As Theresa May began her negotiations with the European Union, no deal next became a theoretical possibility that had to be “kept on the table” as part of the poker game. As Boris Johnson told the Commons in July 2017: “There is no plan for no deal, because we’re going to get a great deal.” Then, during the Conservative leadership contest, Johnson declared that the chances of leaving the EU without an agreement were “a million to one against” – Bullingdonese for “quite likely, I suppose, but I do wish you’d stop asking”. Now, at last, we have entered a quite different strategic and doctrinal zone, in which no deal is presented not only as an outcome that is endurable, but – for many Brexiteers – positively desirable. They contemplate the prospect of a “clean” exit not with a sense of impending collective failure, but the millenarian zeal of a religious cult on the verge, at last, of reaching the hill upon which they will build a new Jerusalem (while feasting on chlorinated chicken sandwiches). In Johnson’s pledge that the UK will leave on 31 October, “no ifs or buts”, there is at least a bracing clarity. We know, finally, what we are dealing with: a prime minister, aided by the reassembledVote Leave campaign masquerading as a government, who will do absolutely anything to achieve this primary and defining objective. What might his methods include? I do not believe that the prime minister and his team are as enthusiastic as some suggest about an early autumn election. That said, Johnson is throwing cash about like a politician preparing for electoral battle – witness the £2bn boost for the NHS he announced in the Sunday Times. And the Friday meetings in Downing Street chaired by his de facto chief of staff, Dominic Cummings, clearly have a focus and ferocity consistent with preparations to go to the country.

Leaving on October 31 won’t be the end of this. Brexit will never be over - Here are the three most important words in political communication: repetition, repetition, repetition. Most people don’t notice most of what goes on in politics. Squalls at Westminster pass most people by, and rightly so: a country that has to fixate on its own politics is a country in trouble. The best political communicators know that by saying the same thing over and over and over again, they can do two important things.  First, they can eventually get their message through to the wider electorate. Second, they can choose the territory on which their opponents must fight them. Boris Johnson is an effective political communicator. Despite his studied image of disarray, he can and does stick to his chosen script. Time and time again, Johnson has repeated that he will “get Brexitdone by October 31”. He’s even got a countdown clock in No 10, a gimmicky but effective way to underline his message yet again. That message has become the baseline for political debate about Brexit: advocates and opponents are all talking about how and if he might “get Brexit done” by the end of October.  The alleged importance of that date may yet become the central feature of a general election in the next three months. Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s top adviser, is practically daring MPs to block Britain’s exit on Halloween, and give him an excuse for a People vs Parliament election where the Conservatives (and their Brexit Party allies?) ask voters for a clear mandate to finish the job started by the 2016 referendum and finally “get Brexit done”.  Johnson’s message falls on fertile ground. The idea of getting Brexit done, over and finished so we can “move on” and focus on other, more important issues is attractive to many people, and not just ardent Brexiteers. Around Westminster it’s still common to hear politicians and others talking about projects and priorities “after Brexit”, looking forward to the day when political attention isn’t consumed by EU relations. But here’s a simple, grim fact about Brexit that has been successfully obscured by Johnson’s repetitive focus on the Halloween deadline. Brexit will not be “done” by October 31, 2019. Or 2020. Or 2030. In truth, Brexit will never be “done”.

Brexit: unintended consequences  -With dreadful slowness, the penny is beginning to drop: the man who calls himself prime minister has absolutely no intention of seeking to renegotiate Mrs May's Withdrawal Agreement. He is set on a no-deal Brexit and has been ever since he assumed his current position. Currently, he is not even going through the motions of a renegotiation. Through the day, yesterday, this was unequivocally reinforced, with a Downing Street spokesmansaying that Britain will quit the EU on 31 October "whatever the circumstances". There are "no ifs or buts", he added.No 10 also insisted that six Bills, previously seen as key for an orderly exit from the EU, would not be needed in the event of a no-deal, in one fell swoop removing the need for further parliamentary cooperation. This could prove to be a blow for MPs who were seeking to use the six Bills, variously on immigration, fisheries and other sectors, as vehicles for tabling amendments aimed at preventing a no-deal crash-out. But the No 10 spokesman said: "None of the exit bills currently before Parliament are needed ahead of exit day in the event that we don't leave with an agreement. There are some statutory instruments that may be necessary and we will bring them forward in good time. We have an existing immigration act that can be used". With that, no-deal is now the reality that we have to learn to live with, now ever-more apparent as EU officials conclude that there is "no basis for meaningful talks" with the UK, as long as Johnson insists on removing the backstop. At the same time, they are saying: "The deal reached on Britain's withdrawal from the European Union is the 'best possible' and is not up for negotiation". For the EU, therefore, a no-deal is now the "working hypothesis", with no expectations that parliament will be able to stop it happening. Through the media, we are also beginning to see something of the broader Johnson game plan, which seems to be more attuned to winning a general election which will keep the incumbent in office than it has to do with a Brexit settlement.

History Holds Few Lessons If Brexit Means Crashing Out of EU  - U.K. officials wondering how to cope if Britain crashes out of the European Union can generally agree that there’s no real precedent for how it might pan out.  That’s the theme Bank of England Governor Mark Carney played to when he spoke to lawmakers on Nov. 1 -- exactly one year before he’s set to man the front line defending the post-Brexit economy. “This is rare,” he said. “It doesn’t happen.” The unique nature of Britain’s challenge if Boris Johnson’s government doesn’t reach a deal with the EU makes the job of finance officials all the tougher, because it forces them to rely on imagination to model complex outcomes as they prepare a response. While the projected slump in the pound has happened regularly in response to past shocks, the same can’t be said for a sudden shutdown in commerce.  “You’re completely re-ordering U.K. trade overnight -- our supply system and the country itself,” said Cathal Kennedy, an economist at RBC Capital Markets and former U.K. Treasury official. “In the context of the economic history we know, post-Second World War, it’s almost unique in stepping back from that, in a pretty dramatic way.”  This lack of precedent is noteworthy in a global economy that has suffered multiple bouts of turbulence. Britain itself has also had its fair share of emergencies since World War II. Here’s a cursory look at some of the U.K.’s previous international economic crises over the years.

 Brexit hazard warning lights: UK economy contracts for first time since 2012 (Reuters) - The British economy shrank unexpectedly for the first time since 2012 in the second quarter, dragged down by a slump in manufacturing just as Prime Minister Boris Johnson prepares to leave the European Union with or without a divorce deal. In the most startling economic warning sign since the 2016 Brexit referendum, gross domestic product fell at a quarterly rate of 0.2% in the three months to June, below all forecasts in a Reuters poll that had pointed to a flat reading. Sterling fell to $1.2080, matching the 31-month low it reached on Aug. 1. Against the euro, the pound sank to a new two-year low of 90.70 pence, trading last 0.6% weaker at 92.66 pence. Year-on-year economic growth slid to 1.2% from 1.8% in the first quarter, Britain’s Office for National Statistics said, its weakest since the start of 2018. Annual growth in June alone was the weakest since August 2013 at 1.0%.

UK enters shock economic downturn ahead of Brexit, first since 2012 (Reuters) - Britain’s economy shrank for the first time since 2012 in the second quarter, a severe hangover from a pre-Brexit stockpiling boost and one that bodes poorly as Prime Minister Boris Johnson gears up to leave the EU in October. Sterling slid to a new 31-month low against the dollar after data showed output in the world’s fifth-largest economy fell by 0.2% in the three months to June compared with the previous quarter, below all forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists that had pointed to a flat reading. With Johnson’s government committed to leaving the European Union on Oct. 31, regardless of whether he can secure a transition deal to avoid trade disruption, the outlook for the remainder of 2019 is uncertain. The world economy has also slowed due to the trade conflict between the United States and China. Year-on-year economic growth slid to 1.2% from 1.8% in the first quarter, Britain’s Office for National Statistics said, its weakest since the start of 2018. “There is ... little doubt that the economy is stalling, regardless of the volatility in the data,” PwC senior economist Mike Jakeman said.

Britain After Brexit: Welcome to the Vulture Restaurant - “Britain has no leverage, Britain is desperate … it needs an agreement very soon. When you have a desperate partner, that’s when you strike the hardest bargain.” So warned former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers on Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme this morning, as new foreign secretary Dominic Raab jets off on a tour of North America to investigate potential trade deals.“Britain has much less to give than Europe as a whole did, therefore less reason for the United States to make concessions,” said Summers, a senior figure in both the Clinton and Obama administrations. “You make more concessions dealing with a wealthy man than you do dealing with a poor man.”Summers is of course right. But he makes a key mistake. He assumes that Raab, Johnson and the new cabinet care about defending the interests and autonomy of most people in the UK. He seems to be under the impression that Brexit was about taking back control.In reality, the brand of Brexit promoted by Tory hardliners has long been about pulling Britain under the shadow of American capital. Not as a 51st state, with votes and constitutional rights, but as an outhouse for US business, a sort of colder, paler version of Puerto Rico. We will be forced to accept US-style deregulation, with its poor standards for workers and consumers. We will have our assets stripped clean off the bone. Even before Brexit, we are fast becoming a pawn in the Pentagon’s global games. We won’t become Americans, though. We’ll have no say in the standards that will govern our new Atlantic common market. Nor will we be permitted to help decide who stands in the planet’s biggest pulpit. Nor will we have much significant say in our own foreign policy. The UK has chosen to shift from participating in one power block to sitting on the outer edges of another.

Secret report reveals government fear of schools chaos after no-deal Brexit - Schools may have to close, exams could be disrupted and fresh food for pupils’ meals could run short because of panic buying with prices soaring by up to 20%, according to a secret Department for Education analysis of the risks of a no-deal Brexit obtained by the Observer. The five-page document – marked “Official Sensitive” and with the instruction “Do Not Circulate” – also raises the possibility of teacher absences caused by travel disruption, citing schools in Kent as particularly at risk. On the dangers of food shortages to schools, it suggests that informing the public of the risks could make matters even worse. In a section entitled School Food, it talks of the “risk that communications in this area could spark undue alarm or panic food buying among the general public”. And it adds: “Warehousing and stockpiling capacity will be more limited in the pre-Xmas period. The department has limited levers to address these risks. We are heavily dependent on the actions of major suppliers and other government departments to ensure continued provision.” Listing the actions the department would take in the event of food shortages affecting schools, the document says: “In light of any food shortages or price increases we will communicate how schools can interpret the food menu standards flexibly. DfE may make exceptional payments – or submit a prepared bid to HM Treasury for additional funding. Worst case scenario estimate of the increased costs – £40 to £85m a year for schools in relation to free school meal provision based on price increases of 10-20%.”