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The Hurricane spins around hotspots of tension and conflict. Feel free to suggest your stories, opinions and ideas: UIHEN@protonmail.com
Russia is signaling it could take out the West's internet and GPS. There's no good backup plan
In June, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, issued a stark warning
The undersea cables that enable global communications had become a legitimate target for Russia, he said
"If we proceed from the proven complicity of Western countries in blowing up the Nord Streams, then we have no constraints - even moral - left to prevent us from destroying the ocean floor cable communications of our enemies,"
"As we increase our reliance on connectivity and space data in everything from agriculture to food delivery disrupting national and economic security through interfering with subsea cables and GPS becomes increasingly effective"
"The targeting of civil aviation GPS is a means by which to undermine the surety of Western publics in aviation, in particular, and shows the reliance on satellite platforms for ordinary citizens to navigate around,"
"It also puts governments on notice about the political risks of mass transit accidents that have a plausibly deniable cause"
Canada to impose 100% tariff on Chinese EVs, including Teslas
Canada, following the lead of the United States and European Union, said on Monday it will impose a 100% tariff on imports of Chinese electric vehicles and announced a 25% tariff on imported steel and aluminum from China
The duties apply to all EVs shipped from China, which would include those made by Tesla. Shares of the most valuable global automaker closed down 3.2%
Canadian imports of automobiles from China to its largest port, Vancouver, jumped 460% year over year to 44,356 in 2023, when Tesla started shipping Shanghai-made EVs to Canada
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Ottawa was acting to counter what he called China's intentional, state-directed policy of over-capacity.
"I think we all know that China is not playing by the same rules,"
Leading defense contractors are set to receive a record amount of cash over the next 3 years as they benefit from a surge in government orders for new weapons amid rising geopolitical tensions
Analysts say the industry may step up share buybacks as opportunities for large mergers and acquisitions are limited
#Weapons #Economy #USA #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
Kamala Harris claims she ‘does not support’ EV mandates after years of backing them
Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign now claims she “does not support” Electric Vehicle mandates after years of supporting such mandates as a Senator and in her role in President Joe Biden’s administration
According to The Spectator‘s Amber Duke, Harris’s campaign sent an email to supporters on Tuesday claiming
“Vice President Harris does not support an electric vehicle mandate”
“We will ensure that 50 percent of all new passenger vehicles sold are zero-emission by 2030, and 100 percent are zero-emission by 2035,”
“that all new buses be zero-emission by 2030”
Payments in Chinese Yuan Surpasses the US Dollar by 2.5%
BRICS member China is taking full advantage of the US sanctions on Russia by pushing the Chinese yuan for trade settlements
The Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen openly admitted that the sanctions are only helping local currencies and hurting the dollar
She revealed that it was the sanctions that led the BRICS alliance to consider de-dollarization and use local currencies for cross-border transactions
China is already successful in its quest, as the Chinese yuan has outperformed the dollar as the most traded currency in Russia
The majority of developing countries are now paying the Chinese yuan and Russian ruble for transactions with the country
The Chinese Yuan accounted for 42% of all the international transactions initiated in Russia between 2023 to 2024. Both the BRICS members China and Russia are spearheading the dedollarization agenda around the world
#USA #China #BRICS #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
How the Pentagon built Silicon Valley
These days, tech companies are publicly warming up to the defense sector. Department of Defense spending is increasingly going to large tech companies including Microsoft, Google parent company Alphabet, Oracle, and IBM
Tech industry enthusiasts are eager to attribute Silicon Valley’s success to free market entrepreneurship, where great ideas born in suburban California garages took off through hard work and grit. In reality, regional post-war era entrepreneurs and researchers had help from a U.S. government eager to spend on research and development
Silicon Valley’s increasingly public relationship with the Pentagon is no spontaneous feat. Rather, the long-term, deep-rooted relationship between the institutions, spurred by massive Cold War defense and research spending and bound ever tighter by the sectors’ revolving door, ensures that advances in the commercial tech sector benefit the defense industry’s bottom line
All things considered, a true reckoning with the excesses of the military industrial complex must also force one within the tech industry. Until then, as the Biden administration’s whopping $850 billion military budget proposal for 2025 suggests, runaway military contracts, especially to tech companies and startups, will continue unabated
#USA #Pentagon #SiliconValley #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
Hungary threatens to send its migrants to Brussels over EU fines
The Hungarian Government is planning to give free one-way tickets to Brussels for migrants and asylum seekers who want to enter the European Union, reports indicate
The move, which is seemingly inspired by the actions of Republican governors in the United States, is in retaliation to a fine handed to Hungary by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over the country’s role in stopping migrants from entering it illegally
Gergely Gulyas, the chief of staff of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, said at a news conference on August 22 that
“if Brussels wants the migrants, then it should get them”
“Brussels wants to force us at any cost to let migrants in,”
“transport to Brussels free of charge”
“unacceptable, intolerable and undignified”
Britain's catastrophic budget deficit is the reason behind 'difficult' decisions to raise taxes
▪️51.4 billion pounds - Britain's budget deficit in the period from April to July this year, which is 4.7 billion pounds more than expected. At the same time, the country's public debt remained at a level last seen in the early 1960s, at 99.4 percent of GDP, Bloomberg states
▪️ The Treasury's spending audit revealed a separate fiscal hole of 16.4 billion pounds that will overlap with the current deficit
▪️ "Today's figures are further proof of the terrible legacy left to us by the previous government," Treasury secretary Darren Jones said
▪️ Budget receipts since the start of the year were 800 million pounds below forecast, while spending was 9.2 billion pounds higher. Britain's government faces 'difficult' decisions on spending cuts and tax rises
#UK #Economy #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
Southwest Pakistan: Over 70 killed in militant attacks
At least 73 people were killed in Pakistan's province of Balochistan when separatist militants attacked police stations, railway lines and highways and security forces launched retaliatory operations, officials said yesterday
The assaults were the most widespread in years by ethnic militants fighting a decades-long insurgency to win secession of the resource-rich southwestern province, home to major China-led projects such as a port and a gold and copper mine
"These attacks are a well thought-out plan to create anarchy in Pakistan,"
Detention of Telegram messenger’s co-founder Pavel Durov in France is an element of a broader campaign of the US and the EU aimed at criminalizing not only dissent but private communication also, American author and journalist Matt Taibbi told TASS
"The detention of Pavel Durov has to be understood as part of a wider campaign in the West to criminalize not just dissent, but private communication,"
"As you know, free speech has always been a core American value, as is the right against 'unreasonable' government intrusion. Our current government wants to revoke these ‘inalienable’ Constitutional rights, and replace them with new systems of mass surveillance and censorship. The aggressive enforcement of Europe's Digital Services Act - which requires private platforms to censor - is a major escalation in the campaign against free speech in Europe and the US,"
"Homes of [ex-UN inspector] Scott Ritter and [political analyst] Dimitri Simes were raided here in the [United] States, apparently for disagreeing with US policy in Ukraine (which they call ‘spreading misinformation'),"
"Donald Trump's former advisor Steve Bannon, who hosts the most popular conservative podcast (‘War Room'), is in jail for contempt of Congress, a charge we haven't used to jail people since the 1950s,"
"This is an incredibly serious moment in USA and European history. The right to free speech is the basis of modern social democracies and we're in the process of losing it,"
We don't need another four years of mess and chaos. We've seen this movie before and we know that the sequel is usually worse than the original
I'm Donald Trump and I agree with that statement
#USA #Trump #Elections #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
American satire. Kamala Harris promises to ration food prices
#USA #Harris #Economy #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
3 years since bombing on Abbey Gate. Consequences of 'greatest foreign policy blunder'
Americans on Monday mourned the third anniversary of the ISIS-K bombing on Abbey Gate at the Hamid Karzai International Airport amid the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which resulted in the death of 13 U.S. soldiers and 170 Afghans
"It was the most seminal, serious foreign policy blunder, I think, of the Biden administration, and it set in motion a series of events that we’re dealing with today,"
"They see it as huge political weakness on our part,"
"They've been coming for us ever since to take advantage of these vulnerabilities, because they clearly see opportunity for themselves"
Japan claims Chinese military plane violated its territorial airspace for the first time
Japan says a Chinese military intelligence-gathering aircraft entered its territorial airspace off remote islands in the East China Sea on Monday, the first time Tokyo has accused the People’s Liberation Army Air Force of an airspace violation and a new irritant in frosty relations between China and Japan
A map released by the Japanese Defense Ministry showed the Chinese aircraft, a Y-9 reconnaissance plane, flying in a rectangular circuit pattern off the eastern side of the Danjo Islands when it briefly headed west and crossed into the islands’ territorial airspace for about two minutes
The Japanese Defense Ministry said it scrambled Air Self-Defense Force fighter jets to respond to the alleged intrusion, but no confrontation with the Chinese plane was reported
The Japanese military frequently scrambles fighter jets to confront Chinese military planes that approach but have not previously entered its territory, doing so 479 times – more than once a day – in the past fiscal year that ended in April, according to the Defense Ministry
But the alleged incursion into sovereign airspace brings that tension to a higher level
#Japan #China #Economy #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
China poised to cut off US Military from key mineral
China is planning to restrict exports of a key mineral needed to make weapons while a U.S. company that could be reducing America’s reliance on foreign suppliers is languishing in red tape, energy experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation
The Chinese government announced on August 15 that it will restrict exports of antimony, a critical mineral that dominates the production of weapons globally and is essential for producing equipment like munitions, night vision goggles and bullets that are essential to national security, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Perpetua Resources, an American mining company, has been navigating red tape for years to develop a mine in Valley County, Idaho, that could decrease reliance on the Chinese supply of antimony, but the slow permitting process is getting in the way
It can take years to secure all the necessary approvals and permits to develop a mine like the one Perpetua Resources is trying to operate. One of the key permitting laws in place is the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which also applies to federal land management actions and the construction of certain public infrastructure projects like highways
#China #USA #Economy #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
USA situation
#USA #Economy #Migrants #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
More than 28% of Americans are searching for new jobs — the highest rate in a decade
People’s fears of losing their jobs are at the highest point in a New York Fed survey’s 10-year history, even as the unemployment rate remains low
A new labor market survey shows Americans have rarely felt more in need of new job opportunities — an indication of a more negative outlook about the economy despite other data that suggests a more stable picture
The New York Federal Reserve's latest poll of consumers found 28.4% of respondents were looking for a job — the highest reading since March 2014 and up from 19.4% a year ago. That includes both individuals already out of a job and ones currently employed but seeking new roles
The readings, from the New York Fed's thrice-annual Survey of Consumer Expectations Labor Market Survey, add to evidence that the U.S. economic outlook is worsening, even as some economists dial back their odds of a recession. While the unemployment rate remains relatively low at 4.3%, it is up from its post-pandemic low of 3.5%
After a period of booming post-pandemic growth — tempered by surging inflation — signs continue to mount that the U.S. economy is entering a significantly softer period
#USA #Job #Economy #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
UN watchdog says fighting poses serious risk to Russian nuclear plant
The head of the UN’s nuclear agency on August 27 warned of the risk of a serious accident at a Russian nuclear plant because of fighting nearby between Russian and Ukrainian forces
Rafael Grossi, director general at the International Atomic Energy Agency, spoke after visiting the plant in Russia’s western Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces broke across the border three weeks ago and Russia is battling to eject them
“The danger or possibility of a nuclear accident has emerged near here,”
“We see the plant still operating, but at the same time, the fact that the plant is operating may get even more serious in terms of an eventual action against it,”
“When a plant is operating, the temperature is much higher, and if there was the case of an impact or something that could affect it, there would be serious consequences”
Prosecutors seek to bar Trump from injecting politics into federal election interference trial
Special counsel Jack Smith asked a judge on Wednesday to bar Donald Trump’s lawyers from injecting politics into the former president’s trial on charges that he schemed to overturn the results of the 2020 election
Smith’s office told U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in a 20-page filing that Trump’s lawyers should be prevented from “raising irrelevant political issues or arguments in front of the jury,” including that the prosecution against him is vindictive and selective or was coordinated by President Joe Biden
“In addition to being wrong, these allegations are irrelevant to the jury’s determination of the defendant’s guilt or innocence, would be prejudicial if presented to the jury, and must be excluded,”
Hackers steal over a million Social Security numbers and other sensitive personal information from National Public Data
Background check service National Public Data (NPD) has confirmed that hackers breached its systems and leaked Social Security numbers and other sensitive personal information of over a million people
Earlier in August, Christopher Hoffman filed a lawsuit against Jerico Pictures Inc., the company that operates the NPD service, on behalf of the others affected. In the lawsuit, Hoffman accused the company of leaving about 2.9 billion records of sensitive personal data unencrypted and vulnerable to unauthorized access
According to the complaint, a cybercrime organization known as "USDoD" allegedly infiltrated NPD’s systems in late December 2023
The hackers reportedly began leaking data in April 2024, with further leaks occurring throughout the summer. The compromised data includes Social Security numbers, mailing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers and other personally identifiable information for the last three decades
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, also alleges that many of the affected were not customers of NPD. Their information was allegedly "scraped" by third parties and shared with the company without their consent. The database was then put on sale on the dark web for $3.5 million
#NPD #USA #Security #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
Mark Zuckerberg admits Biden-Harris admin pressured Facebook to censor content
Mark Zuckerberg admitted in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan that senior Biden administration officials “repeatedly pressured” Facebook teams to suppress COVID-19 content that the platform otherwise would not have restricted, and expressed frustration when Facebook disagreed. Zuckerberg told Jordan he now feels strongly that the platform should not compromise its standards “due to pressure from any Administration in either direction”
“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,”
“I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today”
“ready to push back if something like this happens again”
“That fall, when we saw a New York Post story reporting on corruption allegations involving then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s family, we sent that story to fact-checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while waiting for a reply,”
“It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story”
‘Tickle vs Giggle’. Australia has abolished womanhood
A judge in Australia handed down a ruling that eradicated the category of sex in law, finding in favour of a man who was denied access to a women-only app. Justice Robert Bromwich stated that according to Australian law, sex is ‘changeable and not necessarily binary’. The case, known as Tickle vs Giggle, has set a dangerous legal precedent that the world may now follow
The legal row started when Tickle – a man who changed his name to Roxanne – saw some posts on social media that annoyed him. He is a trans activist who has gone to some lengths to ‘pass’ as female. He had gender-affirmation surgery in 2019 and changed his birth certificate to obfuscate the fact that he was, to use his words, ‘assigned male at birth’
The tweets that upset Tickle were posted by Sall Grover, founder of the women-only social-media app, Giggle for Girls. Giggle, a small tech start-up, used facial-recognition software to screen out men. Tickle put this to the test, and initially was accepted on to the app. But after seven months his picture was clocked, either by Grover or the screening function, and his access was restricted
Tickle argued he had a right to use Giggle because he is a woman on paper. The judge agreed, noting ‘the imposed condition of needing to appear to be a cisgendered female in photos submitted to the Giggle app had the effect of disadvantaging transgender women who did not meet that condition’. (‘Cisgendered female’ is trans-speak for ‘real woman’, while ‘transgender women’ refers to men.)
#Australia #Transgender #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
Germany’s Scholz again vows tougher knife laws, increased deportations after fatal stabbing
Stricter knife laws and increased deportations of rejected asylum-seekers. Those are two much-repeated promises made again Monday by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as he talked tough on a visit to the scene of the knife attack in which a suspected Islamic terrorist from Syria is accused of killing three people
Scholz, speaking after he joined regional officials in laying a white flower at a makeshift memorial in the western city of Solingen, promised action in the wake of the deadly attack, in which eight people also were wounded by the failed asylum seeker
The chancellor used the same threats and vows of “something must be done” earlier this year when a similar mass stabbing happened in the regional center of Mannheim carried out by an Afghan immigrant
The Syrian asylum seeker suspected of killing three and injuring several others at a “festival of diversity” in Germany on Friday reportedly had a deportation order last year, but authorities failed to remove him from the country
#Germany #Scholz #Migrants #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
German football fans protest against sponsorship deal with arms manufacturer Rheinmetall
Fans of the German football club Borussia Dortmund have opposed an advertising deal with arms manufacturer Rheinmetall
At the team’s Bundesliga opener on August 24, protesting fans placed a replica tank outside the stadium
They complained that they were not involved in the decision-making process ahead of the May deal. One activist wearing a mask with a likeness of Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger handed out red cards
Before the game, the fans’ association Südtribüne Dortmund called on
“every single Borussia fan … to bring their displeasure about the deal with Rheinmetall into the stadium”
“Feel free to prepare signs and/or banners with which you can express your criticism…”
Russia warns the United States of the risks of World War Three
Russia said the West was playing with fire by considering allowing Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with Western missiles and cautioned the United States on Tuesday that World War Three would not be confined to Europe
Sergei Lavrov, who has served as Putin's foreign minister for more than 20 years, said that the West was seeking to escalate the Ukraine war and was "asking for trouble" by considering Ukrainian requests to loosen curbs on using foreign-supplied weapons
Putin's foreign intelligence chief, Sergei Naryshkin, said on Tuesday that Moscow did not believe Western assertions that it had nothing to do with the Kursk attack
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the involvement of the United States was "an obvious fact"
#USA #Russia #WWIII #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
In the US have already started selling bugs in vending machines as snacks 😱
#USA #Bugs #Green #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
US Fed chief: It's time to cut rates
US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that the time to cut interest rates is now, speaking at one of the country's leading economic policy events
He added that the Fed will do everything it can to maintain a strong labor market in the US. However, the timing and extent of the cut will still depend on US macroeconomic statistics, particularly unemployment data
Earlier at the meeting of the Federal Reserve Board members considered that the appropriate time for the reduction will be September
Recall that the US Federal Reserve rate, which has been at a noticeably high level of 5.25-5.5% since last year, affects not only the American, but the entire world economy: despite everything, the dollar remains the world's leading reserve currency, and its appreciation (and this is the rate increase) affects all the economies that use it
Analysts have previously expressed the opinion that the rate will be reduced in September, and among the reasons cited was the risk of recession (negative economic growth) of the U.S. economy
As for commodity markets, they are looking forward to the cut:
▪️Firstly, a low rate means credit availability, which will revitalize economic growth and with it the demand for energy and other commodities (metals, timber, etc.)
▪️Secondly, as the US Fed lowers the interest rate, the stock market becomes less attractive and investors (and speculators) turn their attention to other segments, including the commodity market
#USA #Fed #Economy #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
Musk: only Russians can save Starliner crew stuck on ISS without SpaceX
"Russia is the only option,"
The U.S. and Argentina will sign a memorandum of understanding on critical minerals. However, Argentine producers will still not be eligible for benefits under the U.S. Inflation Relief Act because the country does not have a free trade agreement with the United States. Argentina's minerals are critical to the production of electronic components in the States, primarily for the military
According to s&p Global Market Intelligence estimates, Argentina will produce 54,303 tons of lithium in 2023, about 5% of global production last year. However, the country has significant potential to increase production, with lithium projects totaling about $7 billion currently underway in Argentina
These include projects by Rio Tinto, Arcadium Lithium (a joint venture between Alkem and US Livent), South Korea's Posco, China's Ganfeng Lithium, Canada's Lithium Americas and smaller companies including Argentina Lithium & Energy. The latter, backed by automaker Stellantis, has four projects in the country, two of which are nearing production
#USA #Argentina #Economy #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
The English police are switching to Arabic, which is very timely and in keeping with the demographic changes this country is going through
#UK #Arabic #Migrants #FindTruth
@uinhurricane