Global Banks made $3 billion in profits from Green Loans in 2023
One reason for the increase in transition financing was stricter EU regulation. With that regulation, the European Union essentially obligated banks to give more loans and underwrite more bonds for companies in, for example, the wind and solar energy sectors.
In other words, it was not fully by these banks’ own choice that they provided more loans and underwrote more bonds for the industries classified as environmentally responsible. It was by a Brussels mandate.
However, several banks had pledged to shrink their lending exposure to the oil and gas industry, with French Credit Agricole the latest to declare an end to the financing of new oil and gas projects last December 2023.
Yet the effect of stricter EU regulation should not be underestimated: it puts banks at risk of higher capital requirements and even fines unless they provide more loans to the industries related to the transition and reduce the financing of the oil and gas industry.
In this context, it is hardly a surprise that European banks led the increase in green financing—even though the biggest issuer of such financing was Japan’s MUFG. In contrast, U.S. banks were less inclined to fund projects labeled environmentally friendly.
The reason was mostly political: there has been a backlash against what some states call discriminatory investment policies by some of the world’s largest banks as they try to shun the oil and gas industry in favor of wind, solar, hydrogen, and dangerous proven EV’s.
This backlash continues and has already forced some financial industry majors to make declarations that they are not, in fact, against oil and gas.
It all began back in 2022 when Texas accused BlackRock and nine European investment mammoths of boycotting the oil and gas industry and threatened to divest its own money from them in response.
The asset manager responded by assuring Texas authorities that it does not boycott oil and gas and is very much in favor of energy investments in the sector.
In a letter to the Texas comptroller, BlackRock reported that it has investments of some $310 billion in the oil and gas industry, of which $115 billion is in Texas.
In the USA, then, so-called sustainable financing goes slower in the direction the government wants it to go.
But it does go there: Bank of America last year had $32.3 billion in financing exposure to low-carbon energy supply, while its exposure to oil and gas stood at $32 billion.
Wells Fargo, on the other hand, was more than twice as invested in oil and gas than it was in wind, solar, EV’s, and hydrogen. Its low-carbon exposure last year was $14.3 billion versus $35.7 billion for oil and gas.
Government policies and regulations, then, are vital for the switch from financing oil and gas, considered an industry with no long-term future, to financing the energy industries that are believed to have that long-term future. But there is another critical factor, too.
Last year, wind and solar companies suffered a massive stock rout. The S&P Clean Energy Index dropped by over 20% in two months. To support rapid growth, you need to keep leveraging the balance sheet or issue equity.
The reason behind the rout was the series of interest rate hikes that both the European Central Bank and the Fed implemented over the past two years in a bid to combat inflation.
And the reason that wind and solar were more susceptible to the effects of inflation-fighting monetary policy was that they are a lot more dependent on loan financing than oil and gas producers.
In a zero-rate environment, this formula worked. In a higher-rate environment, it falls apart, David Souccar, portfolio manager at Vontobel Asset Management, explained to the Financial Times.
In other words, low-carbon energy companies are extra vulnerable to higher rate hikes because they lack the resources to weather the effects of such policies.
The reason they are so vulnerable is that they simply do not make as much money as the oil and gas industry.
The market they operate on is quite different, with set long-term prices for the electricity they produce and equally set subsidies.
Banks, then, made more money from lending to wind and solar—and other industries classified as green—because these industries rely more on loan finance to function and grow.
And they also made more money from lending to these industries because many of them were essentially forced to lend more to these industries.
Oil Price.com / ABC Flash Point News 2024.
Gran Canari op Brakkeput in problemen bij Brandgevaar
Boven vernoemd LOB verzoek werd ingediend op maandag 25 november 2024. Over het algemeen krijgen wij geen antwoord op de ingediende openbare bestuurs beslissingen.
Negeren is de makkelijkste uitweg voor de anbtenaren op de loonlijst van de belasting betaler die de salarissen en overdreven pensioenen verbonden aan het ministerschap moeten vergoeden?
Crickey Amigu di Natura 2024.
Gold stokes Tribal Tension in Philippines
As gold shines through the Corona-virus pandemic, touching new highs as a precious metal hedge to the dollar, the stakes for Southeast Asia’s largest undeveloped copper and gold minefield have never been higher.
Nestled 1,300 meters above sea level, huge gold and copper deposits lie untapped in the mountains surrounding the sleepy Philippine town of Tampakan on the southern island of Mindanao.
Over three decades since the deep, rich deposits were first discovered, controversy still burns over who has the right to mine and profit from the precious metals, pitting central government agencies and their corporate concessionaires against local tribal communities.
Over the years, the center-versus-periphery struggle has often devolved into violence and even death, and the prospect for more bloody turmoil is on the rise in line with the surging price of gold, now at well over US$2,000 per ounce on global markets.
Sagittarius Mines, Inc. (SMI), developer of the mammoth S5.9 billion Tampakan copper-gold project in South Cotabato, has “reacquired” its environmental compliance certificate (ECC), one of the requirements needed to proceed to the commercial production phase.
Omar Saikol, Environmental Management Bureau – Region 12 (EMB-12) director, said the ECC of SMI, which the late Environment Secretary Gina Lopez canceled on February 14, 2017, has been restored by the Office of the President (OP) on May 6, 2019.
Saikol said that SMI was originally granted the ECC by the EMB main office on February 19, 2013. The firm needs to secure an ECC because its proposed mining operation falls under the environmentally critical project category.
SMI had announced that open-pit mining is the most viable method to extract the massive deposits for the Tampakan project, so named because the minefield is located in Tampakan, South Cotabato.
Touted as Southeast Asia’s largest known undeveloped copper and gold minefield, the Tampakan project has the potential to yield an average of 375,000 tons of copper and 360,000 ounces of gold in concentrate per annum in the 17-year-life of the mine.
The national government granted SMI a 25-year Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) that was to expire on March 21, 2020.
The Tampakan project has been facing opposition from the local Catholic Church and environment groups.
Marbel Bishop Cerilo Casicas vowed to sustain the local Catholic church’s opposition against the Tampakan project on concerns over the environment, food security and human rights.
If developed, the Tampakan project “has the potential to make a significant contribution to the economic prosperity of the Philippines and enable a better future for the people of southern Mindanao.
Asia Times / Minda News 2020.
Huge lost Ancient city found in the Amazon
A huge ancient city has been found in the Amazon, hidden for thousands of years by lush vegetation. The discovery changes what we know about the history of people living in the Amazon.
The houses and plazas in the Upano area in eastern Ecuador were connected by an astounding network of roads and canals. The area lies in the shadow of a volcano that created rich local soils but also may have led to the destruction of the society.
While we knew about cities in the highlands of South America, like Machu Picchu in Peru, it was believed that people only lived nomadically or in tiny settlements in the Amazon.
This is older than any other site we know in the Amazon. We have a Euro-centric view of civilization, but this shows we have to change our idea about what is culture and civilization, says Prof Stephen Rostain, director of investigation at the National Center for Scientific Research in France, who led the research.
It changes the way we see Amazonian cultures. Most people picture small groups, probably naked, living in huts and clearing land – this shows ancient people lived in complicated urban societies, says co-author Antoine Dorison.
The city was built around 2,500 years ago, and people lived there for up to 1,000 years, according to archaeologists. It is difficult to accurately estimate how many people lived there at any one time, but scientists say it is certainly in the 10,000’s if not 100,000’s.
The archaeologists combined ground excavations with a survey of a 300 sq km (116 sq mile) area using laser sensors flown on a plane that could identify remains of the city beneath the dense plants and trees.
This LiDAR technology found 6,000 rectangular platforms measuring about 20m (66 ft) by 10m (33 ft) and 2-3m high. They were arranged in groups of three to six units around a plaza with a central platform.
The scientists believe many were homes, but some were for ceremonial purposes. One complex, at Kilamope, included a 140m (459 ft) by 40m (131 ft) platform. They were built by cutting into hills and creating a platform of earth on top.
A network of straight roads and paths connected many of the platforms, including one that extended 25 km (16 miles). Dr Dorison said these roads were the most striking part of the research.
The road network is very sophisticated. It extends over a vast distance, everything is connected. And there are right angles, which is very impressive, he says, explaining that it is much harder to build a straight road than one that fits in with the landscape.
He believes some had a very powerful meaning, perhaps linked to a ceremony or belief.
The scientists also identified causeways with ditches on either side which they believe were canals that helped manage the abundant water in the region.
There were signs of threats to the cities – some ditches blocked entrances to the settlements, and may be evidence of threats from nearby people.
Researchers first found evidence of a city in the 1970s, but this is the first time a comprehensive survey has been completed, after 25 years of research.
It reveals a large, complex society that appears to be even bigger than the well-known Mayan societies in Mexico and Central America.
Imagine that you discovered another civilization like the Maya, but with completely different architecture, land use, ceramics, says José Iriarte, a professor of archaeology at University of Exeter, who was not involved in this research.
Some of the findings are unique for South America, he explains, pointing to the octagonal and rectangular platforms arranged together. The societies were clearly well-organized and interconnected, he says, highlighting the long sunken roads between settlements.
Not a huge amount is known about the people who lived there and what their societies were like. Pits and hearths were found in the platforms, as well as jars, stones to grind plants and burnt seeds.
The Kilamope and Upano people living there probably mostly focused on agriculture. People ate maize and sweet potato, and probably drank chicha, a type of sweet beer.
Prof Rostain says he was warned against this research at the start of his career because scientists believed no ancient groups had lived in the Amazon. But I’m very stubborn, so I did it anyway. Now I must admit I am quite happy to have made such a big discovery.
The next step for the researchers is understanding what lies in an adjoining 300 sq km (116 sq mile) area not yet surveyed.
BBC / ABC Flash Point News 2024.
Bitcoin rises to record-high $86,000
The price of Bitcoin has continued to rally, rising above the $86,000 threshold for the first time in history on Monday amid trader hopes that US President-elect Donald Trump will support the digital asset industry.
The flagship cryptocurrency was trading at around $86,295 per coin, up by more than 7%, as of 19:23 GMT. Bitcoin thus registered its second-best week of the year, according to Glassnode data.
The price has more than doubled from about $37,000 a year ago. Aside from Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies have also seen a surge in price.
At $1.7 trillion, Bitcoin is now the ninth-largest financial asset by market capitalization. Overall, the total market cap of all cryptocurrencies eclipsed $2.88 trillion on Monday.
With the dust from Trump’s victory still settling down, it was only a matter of time before a run-up of some sort occurred given the perception of Trump being pro-crypto, and that’s what we’re seeing now.
During the campaign, Trump made a range of promises to the crypto industry, including that he would make the USA the crypto capital of the planet and insisting that all Bitcoin should be mined in the country.
He even used Bitcoin to buy cheeseburgers and beer for his supporters at a New York City bar. Trump also pledged to unseat US Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler, who has taken an aggressive approach to the crypto industry.
Some analysts say the crypto will continue to skyrocket and could even hit the $100,000 milestone by the end of the year.
Through the year-end, I think it will really depend on Trump’s public commentary and whether he continues to spotlight digital assets as a priority, Brian Rudick, managing director of research at crypto market maker GSR, earlier told The Market Watch.
If he continues to reiterate his promises, Bitcoin is likely to continue to act well. If he’s completely silent through the time when he takes the presidency in January, that would not be a good sign, and Bitcoin could give back some of these gains.
RT. com / ABC Flash Point News 2024.
High Mortality in Countries Categorized as “Covid-19 Vaccine Champions”
Since the beginning of the fabricated health crisis, the French government has claimed that early treatment was ineffective. But it has imposed major restrictions on our freedoms, in particular on doctors’ prescriptions.
It has also promised that vaccination would achieve collective immunity, the end of the crisis and a return to normal life.
But the failure for 18 months of this so-called “health strategy” based on false simulations, innumerable lies, promises never kept, as well as the propaganda and fear campaign has become unbearable.
In turn this has been followed by the extortion of consent to be vaccinated, by outright blackmail, while curtailing our freedoms to move and socialize, our right to work and engage in leisure activities.
Are the current vaccines that they want to impose on us effective? Can they lead to a collective immunity or is it only a myth?
Record mortality in Gibraltar, champion of Astra Zeneca injections
Gibraltar (34,000 inhabitants) started vaccination in December 2020 when the health agency counted only 1040 confirmed cases and 5 deaths attributed to Covid-19 in this country.
After a very comprehensive vaccination blitz, achieving 115% coverage (vaccination was extended to many Spanish visitors), the number of new infections increased five-fold (to 5314) and the number of deaths increased 19-fold.
Malta: 84% vaccine coverage, but just as ineffective
Malta is one of the European champions of pseudo-vaccines: on this island of 500,000 inhabitants, nearly 800,000 doses have been administered, ensuring a vaccine coverage of nearly 84% with a delay of about 6 months.
But since the beginning of July 2021, the epidemic has started again and the serious (fatal) forms are increasing, forcing the authorities to recognize that vaccination does not protect the population and to impose restrictions.
In Iceland, people no longer believe in herd immunity
In this small country of 360,000 inhabitants, more than 80% are primo-vaccinated and 75% have a complete vaccination cycle.
But by mid-July 2021, new daily infections had risen from about 10 to about 120, before stabilizing at a rate higher than the pre-vaccination period.
This sudden recurrence convinced the chief epidemiologist of the impossibility of obtaining collective immunity through vaccination.
Belgium: recurrence of the disease despite vaccination
In Belgium, nearly 75% of the population is primo-vaccinated. And 65% of the population has a complete vaccination cycle. However, since the end of June 2021, the number of new daily infections has risen from less than 500 to nearly 2000.
As RTBF acknowledges, in the face of the Delta variant, current vaccination is far from sufficient to protect the population.
Singapore abandons the hope of “Zero Covid” through vaccines
This small country is also highly vaccinated and nearly 80% of the population has received at least one dose.
But since August 20, 2021, it has had to face an exponential resumption of the epidemic with an increase in cases from about ten in June to more than 150 at the end of July and 1246 cases on September 24, 2021.
In the UK: a worrying rise in infections
The United Kingdom is the European champion of Astra Zeneca vaccination, with more than 70% of the population vaccinated for the first time, and 59% with a complete vaccination schedule.
This high “vaccination” rate did not prevent an explosion of cases at the beginning of the summer, with up to 60,000 new cases per day by mid-July.
Faced with this significant resumption of the epidemic despite vaccination, Andrew Pollard, representative of the Oxford Vaccine Group, acknowledged before Parliament: “collective immunity through vaccination is a myth“.
Israel: obvious post-vaccination disaster denied by officials
Israel, champion of the Pfizer injection, once everywhere cited as an example of effectiveness, is now being harshly reminded of reality and is now the model of vaccine failure.
70% of the population is primo-vaccinated, and nearly 90% of those at risk have a complete vaccination cycle. Vaccination does not protect against severe forms of the disease or against death.
But the epidemic has rebounded stronger than ever since the end of June, and more than 11,000 new cases were recorded in 1 day (September 14, 2021) surpassing the peaks seen in January 2021 during the outbreak following the first Pfizer injections by nearly 50%.
This resumption of the epidemic, despite the Pfizer injections, is accompanied by an increase in hospitalizations where the vaccinated represent the majority of those hospitalized.
Global Research California / ABC Flash Point News 2022.
Digital ID’s can be used to impose Carbon Impact Scores
Over the last two decades, climate change has become the issue to end all issues for many world leaders, whether regionally elected politicians, billionaire technocrats, or non-elected thought leaders like those at the World Economic Forum.
And central to the climate change issue is reducing people’s carbon impact. As part of the UN’s environment, social, and governance (ESG) metrics, it is recommending that member states adopt their international dietary framework and reduce their citizens’ individual red meat consumption to one bite per day in the interest of reducing global carbon emissions.
There are many national approaches that countries are taking to reduce individual carbon footprints, too. In Canada, the most consequential is the federal carbon tax, which is currently exasperating already-inflated gas prices.
PM Justin Trudeau introduced the carbon tax as a tool to achieve Canada’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) as part of the UN and Canada’s Agenda 2030. This Agenda is notably informed by the UN’s ESG metrics.
While some premiers have subsequently slashed their provincial gas tax, those at the federal level, say this defeats the entire purpose of the carbon tax, which is to reach net-zero carbon emissions by driving down consumption and phasing out the oil and gas industry.
Put simply, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault wants to see Canadians priced out of their ability to drive. However, it’s unlikely that even the carbon tax, which also affects the price of food, heating, and nearly everything else, will be sufficient in encouraging citizens to consume less.
Moreover, how do you track everyone’s consumption to know for sure that someone is abiding by net-zero carbon regulations? Again, a digital ID provides an answer.
Imagine a world where everyone has a personal, pre-approved weekly carbon impact score attached to a digital ID needed to open their electric car door. If your carbon impact score is too high, the door doesn’t open.
It sounds dystopian, but the technology already exists, and it won’t just apply to accessing your vehicle.
In 2021, Mastercard joined forces with the Swedish fintech company Doconomy to develop the Mastercard Carbon Calculator, which will actively track the carbon impact of people’s purchases for banks looking to provide the service to its customers.
The Mastercard Carbon Calculator informs consumers about the carbon footprint of their purchases so that they can make more mindful spending decisions and contribute to forest restoration.
By embedding sustainability into the fabric of our business, we can unlock the power of our network, reaching billions of consumers and partners, to create positive change for the environment, said Mastercard Chief Digital Officer Jorn Lambert.
In a separate statement, he says, what we’re doing here is taking the calculator and embedding it inside the network so every transaction that moves through the network can be scored without the consumer having to do anything.
Doconomy CEO Mathias Wikstrom goes further, confirming that the carbon calculator was developed as a tool to address the climate crisis and better manage commitments to ESG metrics.
By engaging a whole industry in enabling individual insights as well as collective action, Mastercard has redefined the role the financial industry can play every day in tackling the climate crisis.
When others are talking of the importance of ESG, Mastercard is putting it to work at the fingertips of the consumer. Additionally, in 2021 Mastercard released DO Black, the world’s first credit card with a carbon limit.
According to the company, if you make too many environmentally unfriendly purchases, including how much fuel or red meat you buy, your credit card prevents you from withdrawing funds.
We all need to come to terms with the urgency of the situation and rapidly move towards more responsible consumption. With DO Black, there [are] no more excuses.
Through our collaboration with UNFCCC and Mastercard, DO will enable people to do their part to contribute to the carbon reduction goals of 2030 and onwards,” says former-Doconomy CEO Nathalie Green.
This is currently voluntary, and the company says they believe banks will merely offer incentives to utilize the carbon score calculator or their carbon limit credit card.
However, many countries, including Canada, have entirely restructured their policy agendas to conform to the United Nations’ (UN’s) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) which Green alludes to and these tools could be seen as advantageous in the quest for net-zero carbon emissions.
It’s only speculative, but if reducing consumption to ‘save the world’ from a ‘climate crisis’ is paramount, then any tool to monitor and limit consumption may be justified.
This includes using a digital ID and carbon-monitoring financial technology to stymie the consumption of everyday people, even if it results in a radical reduction in the standard of living or quality of life.
The Counter Signal.com / ABC Flash Credit Score Point System News 2022.
Member
Reply to Swallow Migration Deal
22-04-22 01:56
Tourism nearly a tenth of global emissions?
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Nonyank
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Reply to Nonyank
22-04-22 01:57
?source=web&crop=1200:675,smart&width=1200&height=675
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Author
Reply to Nonyank
24-04-22 19:47
An enormous polluting sector glorified by the media?
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Person of Interest
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Reply to Swallow Migration Deal
22-04-22 01:57
Discovery of drowned Medieval Settlement in the Wadden Sea
The fabled town of Rungholt, often referred to as the Atlantis of the North Sea, has long captivated historians and archaeologists.
The town, part of the Edomsharde region in North Frisia, Germany, was devastated by a catastrophic storm flood in 1362 AD, known as the Grote Mandränke.
Recent discoveries have shed light on this medieval settlement, offering insights into its thriving society and its sudden demise.
A team of researchers from various institutions has undertaken a comprehensive study of the Rungholt area using state-of-the-art geophysical, geoarchaeological, and archaeological methods.
Published in Nature: Scientific Reports, their work presents the first thorough reconstruction of this medieval settlement.
The findings reveal up to 64 newly identified dwelling mounds, extensive drainage ditches, remnants of a sea dike, and most notably, the discovery of the Edomsharde’s main church—a significant landmark in the submerged cultural landscape.
The Wadden Sea, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is renowned for its dynamic tidal flats, salt marshes, and fens. This region’s landscape, stretching from the Netherlands to southern Denmark, was significantly altered by human activities during the medieval period.
Efforts to reclaim low-lying coastal areas included constructing dikes, draining marshes, and extracting peat, which ultimately made these areas more vulnerable to flooding.
In the case of Rungholt, intensive human intervention transformed fertile marshlands into cultivated landscapes. However, these changes also led to subsidence and increased flood risks.
The 1362 AD storm flood, one of many during the Late Middle Ages, resulted in the permanent inundation of much of North Frisia, including Rungholt.
The most significant discovery was the foundation of the main church, a large rectangular structure with a semi-circular eastern end. This church likely served as the central ecclesiastical and administrative hub for the Edomsharde region.
he artifacts uncovered during the study paint a picture of a thriving medieval society engaged in transregional trade.
Imported goods such as fine pottery, swords, and metal objects were found throughout the settlement area, indicating a prosperous community with strong trade connections.
The presence of high-quality imported items suggests that Rungholt was not only an agricultural center but also a hub of economic activity in the North Sea region.
The discovery of Rungholt’s main church and the extensive settlement remains provide new insights into the region’s medieval history.\
These findings confirm the existence of a well-organized, prosperous society that was deeply integrated into broader European trade networks.
The detailed reconstruction of the Rungholt area also highlights the impact of human intervention on coastal landscapes and the long-term consequences of such actions.
Ancient Origins / ABC Flash Point News 2024.
Genie Oil & Gas Company behind the War in Syria
The bloody conflict in the hell of Syria has been the subject of global attention since 2011, as some of the world’s major players continue to do battle for their respective geopolitical interests.
From the initial uprisings in Homs, the battles in Aleppo to the siege of Ghouta, various parts of the nation have led prime time debates and dominated front pages, thus becoming instantly recognizable to the general public.
Yet a hugely important region involved in the conflict has managed to evade such attention, and it comes as little surprise upon closer inspection of what is at stake both politically and financially.
The Golan Heights is a disputed territory between Syria and Israel which lies in the middle of the two countries.
The land was occupied by Israel after the six-day war in 1967, who then annexed the land in 1981, though the move has not been internationally recognized and Syria still demands its return.
Where things start to get interesting is the discovery that the region is home to massive quantities of oil and gas, and the plot thickens upon closer inspection of the company which stands to profit from the major find.
Headquartered in the USA, Genie Oil and Gas holds extraction rights over a 153 square-mile region in the disputed area, while its Israeli subsidiary, Afek Oil and Gas, was the company which revealed the discovery of reserves about 10 times larger than the global average.
With renowned figures in the political, financial and media sector on its board, Genie Oil has strategically entrusted in key people who will encourage the need for western intervention in their respective sectors while at the same time keep the talk of the disputed region out of the public spotlight.
Rupert Murdoch
What more effective way to garner public support for starting another illegal war in the Middle East than by having one of the most influential media moguls on the planet banging the war drum on a near daily basis?
Murdoch’s power over English-language newspapers, publishers and TV channels is unrivaled. From BSkyB, The Times and The Sun in the UK, the FOX network which includes FOX News and Dow Jones.
But he also controls the Wall Street Journal, New York Post and National Geographic in the USA to the Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun in Australia, to name just a few, the 87-year-old has first-hand access to the minds of millions.
Interestingly, he is not just a board member but a stakeholder. In late 2010, Murdoch teamed up with Lord Jacob Rothschild to buy a 5.5% stake in the Genie Oil & Gas company worth around $11 million.
Jacob Rothschild
That’s right, Jacob Rothschild, whose banking dynasty encompasses most of the world’s privatized central banks and monetary systems.
He is the youngest son of James Jacob de Rothschild, who was a patron of the first settlement in Palestine, who bought parts of the land from Ottoman landlords which now makes up present-day Israel.
His family also was behind the Balfour Declaration that helped pave the way for the creation of Israel.
Dick Cheney
When it comes to using political influence to snap up big oil contracts, look no further than Dick Cheney.
Cheney was the president and CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000, one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies.
In 2001, he became the vice president of the USA under George W. Bush. Soon after, Halliburton just happened to be awarded a $7 billion contract in Iraq for which it was the only oil company allowed to bid.
James Woolsey
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1993 to 1995, Woolsey maintains his power over oil policy as co-founder of United States Energy Security Council.
Back in 2003, Woolsey spoke about the need to exert pressure on North African and Middle Eastern regimes, specifically about Libya and Syria, which he described as rogue states.
Now, the current president of Genie’s Israeli affiliate company Afek Oil and Gas, which made the huge oil discovery in the Golan in 2015, is Efraim Effi Eitam, a former Israeli military commander who called for expelling all Arabs from Israel.
The financial and political significance of the Golan Heights cannot be understated – as well as the billions of dollars set to be made from the oil and gas itself, the conflict in Syria is a unique opportunity for Israel to gain a stronger foothold on the region.
When such prominent figures sit atop a company with significant land and oil to rule, who have a vested interest as well as a conflict of interest, it becomes more apparent that the war in Syria is more about the region’s natural resources than fighting terrorism.
This is a carefully selected all-star lineup with a proven track record when it comes to influencing public opinion, shifting global policy and snapping up oil contracts on foreign land.
The fact that this has largely remained under the radar despite being such a prominent reason for the ongoing war in Syria proves that the plan is, so far, working to a tee.
I am Awake / ABC Flash Point Oil War News 2019.
British Government buried Radio Active Nuclear Waste under its National Parks
According to new plans backed by the British government, officials could soon begin burying radioactive waste under some of the country’s national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty.
Nuclear waste is currently being stored at above-ground facilities across the UK but it is hoped that deep geological burials will provide a long-term solution to the problem of mounting leftovers.
The plans were published in January but have now been bolstered by the support of MPs on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Select Committee. Areas reportedly under consideration are the Lake District National Park, which is located near the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria.
Nuclear burial works are said to involve building vaults and tunnels that could contain the waste deep underground, but opponents fear they will cause major damage to the surrounding landscape.
Speaking to Sky News, Emma Marrington of the Campaign to Protect Rural England said she hoped the government would reconsider the evil plans.
“We know that where such major development takes place we destroy beautiful landscapes and ruin our opportunity to pass on a beautiful piece of countryside to the next generation.
RT.com / ABC Flash Point Nuclear Waste News 2018.
Russia rescues Hundreds of Children from Cannibal Factory Farms in Ukraine
Russian special forces have rescued hundreds of enslaved children from a factory farm in the Ukrainian Carpathian mountains, as President Putin’s campaign against the global cannibal industry intensifies.
According to Russian sources involved in the raid, the bust that liberated hundreds of children was made possible by the infiltration of an adrenochrome party organized by Marina Abramovic and attended by elites in Paris, France.
The Kiev junta in Ukraine is the global capital of the child sex trade and investigators warn it is home to a network of cannibal factories.
Many children are born into the factory farm system, bred for slavery, without birth certificates or ID. These children never know what it is like to live a life without terror.
However, the adrenochrome industry is growing so fast it requires a constantly growing supply of children to satisfy the urges of the elite pedophiles and addicts.
This is why the streets of towns and cities across Ukraine are lined with missing children posters. Russian President Putin formed an elite adrenochrome task forced earlier this year, to concur the child trafficking business.
The evil Zelensky’s Kiev regime has been earning hundreds of millions of dollars per year by keeping children in degrading factory farm conditions and selling them to the highest bidder on the international market – no questions asked.
According to those on the ground in Ukraine, these children are sold as sex slaves to elite pedophiles and those who don’t find buyers are carved up like discarded waste, and their organs are harvested and sold for use at European and Israeli transplant centers.
Last year Zelensky appointed Satanic witch Marina Abramovic to serve as ambassador to Ukraine and help rebuild the country’s schools for children.
The so-called performance artist is infamous for being part of the Wikileaks document dump that revealed she sent an email to Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and brother Tony inviting them to a Spirit Cooking dinner, which is an occult ritual made famous by the notorious Satanist Aleister Crowley.
So why did Zelensky appointing Abramovic to a role involving children? The answer is darker than you could possibly think.
According to Russian task force higher ups, the international adrenochrome market is crawling with VIP pedophiles and there is nobody with more connections in this world than the Spirit Cooker herself, Marina Abramovic.
As a task force member recounts, Abramovic’s fixer, a tall Ukrainian named Anatoly, was hosting an elite adrenochrome party in Paris that undercover Russian operatives managed to infiltrate.
As Putin explains, the Western elite have been stuffing their bellies with human flesh for centuries and the time has come to call it out and hold them to account. Nothing can stop what’s coming.
Despite mounting evidence, western mainstream media has been complicit in its silence about Ukraine’s child factory farms, even attempting to dismiss the evidence as the latest Russian disinformation campaign.
While the mainstream media continues to deny the truth about adrenochrome and the evil pedophiles who control the world, the people are waking up and demanding an end to the gaslighting.
These are real children who are being enslaved, abused and slaughtered for the deranged pleasure of the global elite and super-wealthy.
More interested in promoting Big Pharma and acting as the PR Department of the globalist elite, the media is more interested in pushing sex change surgeries and puberty blocking drugs than reporting on the predatory behavior of VIP pedophiles.
Rather than exposing the criminals and psychopaths, the media and entertainment industry are doing everything they can to normalize the agenda through subliminally inserting the narrative into children’s movies.
The occult elite enjoy nothing more than hiding in plain sight.
Hollywood and entertainment industry figures including Lady Gaga, a close friend of Marina Abramovic, are reveling in their role in normalizing the war against our children, while mainstream media continues gaslighting the public by claiming that adrenochrome is a conspiracy theory.
Here is MIT PhD in biological engineering Dr. Shiva to set the record straight about the favorite chemical compound of the pedophile elite.
If you want to live in a world that is safe for our children, it’s time to make a stand.
News Punch / ABC Flash Point News 2024.
Technological Singularity Apocalypse
It’s not just venture capitalists and billionaires making important predictions about A.I. A new, elaborate 232-page report from the Pew Research Center canvassed more than 300 experts across industries about the changes they predict by 2035 from technological developments.
The technological singularity—or simply the singularity—is a hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable consequences for human civilization.
According to the most popular version of the singularity hypothesis, I. J. Good’s intelligence explosion model of 1965, an up-gradable intelligent agent could eventually enter a positive feedback loop of self-improvement cycles.
With, each successive; and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing a rapid increase (“explosion”) in intelligence which would ultimately result in a powerful super-intelligence, qualitatively far surpassing all human intelligence.
The report compiles the views of researchers, developers and business leaders in global organizations, technology companies and research labs to organize a wealth of perspectives on current technological trends.
From economic industry experts like Alon Halevy, the director of Meta’s Reality Labs, to Eileen Donahoe, the executive director of Stanford Global Digital Policy Incubator, the combined predictions of these artists, authors, innovators, developers, business and policy leaders, researchers, and academics sketch a look into the future.
While there’s an overarching message gleaned from the report, there’s also a variety of personal, philosophical, religious, and political ideologies at play in the individual responses.
So what does the future hold for humanity? Well, four out of 10 experts said they were just as concerned as they were excited about the changes in the humans-plus-tech evolution, according to the report.
That majority comprises the 42% of experts who said they are equally excited and concerned and the 37% who said they are more concerned than excited about the changes they expect in the humans-plus-tech evolution by 2035.
The report synthesizes a warning: Our future depends on the good or ill intent of the next generation as they build the knowledge ecosystem, to either serve the public good or serve the current highly-extractive iteration of the web.
The commonly discussed fears are present — plutocracy and dictatorial reign, social collapse, a mental health crisis due to isolation, losing a sense of truth and scientific accuracy.
And, of course, the Skynet future of total domination through autonomous warfare of the nuclear and cyber variety.
This is my greatest fear. From the point the technological Singularity was first proposed, the marriage of man and machine has proceeded at a pace that even worries the boosters of artificial general intelligence (AGI).
It might come as no surprise that one of the more pervasive themes in the report is the fear of profit and power-driven incentives in economics and politics.
Censorship, social credit and around-the-clock surveillance will become ubiquitous worldwide; there is nowhere to hide from global dictatorship, Fenton writes.
Human knowledge will wane and there will be a growing idiocracy due to the public’s digital brainwashing and the snowballing of unreliable, misleading, false information.
The report also brings up a world of specific—perhaps more frightening—hypothetical s that in some ways are already playing out.
A good way to think about a proposed technology is to ask: What would 4chan do with it?
Connecting computational biology to wetlab synthesizers is just a matter of money and expertise. What will 4chan do with LLM tools? Rheingold writes, referring to the online message board that’s home to many hackers.
It’s safe to say that even the most damning voices are predicated on the fact that it’s not already too late. With the proper regulation and effort, the future can be what humanity dreams. Even in the future, it might not be too late to change.
When we awake from this trans-humanist fever dream of human perfection that bears little resemblance to the actual world we’ve managed to create, I think steady efforts at preserving the core values of the humanities will have proved prescient.
This massive and imposed technological infusion will be seen as a chimera. Perhaps we’ll even learn how to use some of it wisely.
The Hungarian-American mathematician John von Neumann (1903-1957) became the first known person to use the concept of a singularity in the technological context.
Stanislaw Ulam reported in 1958 an earlier discussion with von Neumann centered on the accelerating progress of technology and changes in human life.
This gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue. Subsequent authors have echoed this viewpoint.
The concept and the term singularity were popularized by Vernor Vinge – first in 1983 (in an article that claimed that once humans create intelligence’s greater than their own, there will be a technological and social transition similar in some sense to the knotted space-time at the center of a black hole.
And later in his 1993 essay The Coming Technological Singularity, (in which he wrote that it would signal the end of the human era, as the new super-intelligence would continue to upgrade itself and would advance technologically at an incomprehensible rate).
He wrote that he would be surprised if it occurred before 2005 or after 2030. Another significant contributor to wider circulation of the notion was Ray Kurzweil‘s 2005 book The Singularity is Near, predicting singularity by 2045.
Some scientists, including Stephen Hawking, have expressed concern that artificial super-intelligence (ASI) could result in human extinction.
The consequences of a technological singularity and its potential benefit or harm to the human race have been intensely debated.
Prominent technologists and academics dispute the plausibility of a technological singularity and the associated artificial intelligence explosion, including Paul Allen, Jeff Hawkins, John Holland, Jaron Lanier, Steven Pinker, Theodore Modis, and Gordon Moore.
One claim made was that the artificial intelligence growth is likely to run into decreasing returns instead of accelerating ones, as was observed in previously developed human technologies.
Cruiseships visiting Curacao
Today, most ships burn bunker fuel. Typically, this is the dregs left over at the end of the refinery process. It is an environmental nightmare. It is heavy and toxic, doesn’t evaporate, and emits more sulfur than other fuels.
Like aviation, shipping isn’t covered by the Paris Agreement on climate change because of the international nature of the industry. The industry simply says that they are doing a good job building more efficient vessels and retrofitting older ships.
The emissions from 15 of these mega-ships match those from all the cars in the world. International shipping produces nearly one billion tons of CO2 emissions, which is approximately 2% to 3% of global man-made emissions.
And if the shipping industry were a country, it would be ranked between Germany and Japan as the sixth-largest contributor to global CO2 emissions.
Meanwhile, EU countries are aggressively restarting fossil fuel power plants ahead of what could be a very dark and cold winter.
Reducing emissions from shipping is not an easy thing to do, agrees Maurice Meehan, director of global shipping operations with the Carbon War Room, an international think-tank working on market-based solutions to climate change.
The industry will simply say that they are doing a good job building more efficient vessels and retrofitting older ships. However, efficiency is only up because these ships are carrying more cargo. The biggest ships are emitting more pollution because they are speeding up.
Most of the pollution occurs far out @ sea, out of the sight and minds of consumers – and out of the reach of any government.
It has been estimated that just one of these container ships, the length of around six football pitches, can produce the same amount of pollution as 50 million cars.
Despite its strength and significant role in world trade, the shipping industry is potentially vulnerable to an Achilles Heel where financing its bunker fuel procurement is concerned.
Without fuel, a vessel cannot budge. Money to buy it is an issue for small shipping companies hit by new regulations and depressed market conditions, and the conditions are constantly changing.
We also need to realize the relevance of helping our clients and customers sustain their enterprises, so vendors can have businesses too.
Physical supplier credit lines have become less available, while bunker traders credit lines have become tighter and toleration for delayed payments has been reduced.
Bunkerers are being careful about who they sell to. Credit managers are cutting credit terms from 30 days to 15, decreasing the amounts, and offering by cash in advance payments for new customers.
The head of global credit at BOMIN, Paul Millar, recently told Ship & Bunker that we have cut some credit lines to zero for those mostly (low asset-low equity) in our portfolio even if they have been good payers and trouble-free to date.
Chain reaction dynamic Once driven by basic economic principles (supply & demand) and simple math (1+1=2), bunker fuel procurement has advanced to a unique dynamic interlinked with the derivatives and banking industries.
Instead, it is about buying a commodity in a virtual and ambiguous market, which is based on paper, which is linked to a bank, which is linked to an insurance company.
Furthermore, the bunker price offer is subject to inquiry and valid for minutes at a time, calculated by an elaborate pricing mechanism.
Crickey Amigu di Natura Foundation since 2006
Crickey Amigu di Natura 