AUDIO:
TOPICS: Your Voice Your Vote: All you need to know for runoff elections in Houston; Former Garden Oaks Sears to be demolished, transformed into new development; In Alabama, another small-town paper hit in ‘open season’ on free press; Measles deaths jumped over 40% from 2021 to 2022, CDC reports; COP28 — Australia offers refuge to Pacific island nation threatened by rising sea levels; How Ukraine, With No Warships, Is Thwarting Russia’s Navy; Ukraine to Putin: You cut our power, we kneecap your biggest economic driver; COP28 — Rare earth discoveries mean coal mines could have a key role to play in the energy transition;
Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. My co-host, assistant producer and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.
Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Wednesdays at 11AM (CT) or Thursdays at 6PM on KPFT 90.1 FM-HD2, Houston’s Community Media. You can also hear the show:
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- An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.
- You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
Except for timely election info, the extensive list of voting resources will now be at the end.
- Your Voice Your Vote: All you need to know for runoff elections in Houston; By Mayra Moreno | ABC13.COM | Friday, November 10, 2023 5:56PM
- Early voting for the runoff will be Monday, Nov. 27 through Dec. 5. Runoff election day is Saturday, Dec. 9.
- The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. except on Sundays, when they’ll be open from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.
- Take note that sample ballots for the runoff will not be available until Nov. 22, and as a reminder, even if you didn’t vote on Nov. 7, you can still vote in the runoff.
- MIKE: If you didn’t mail an application for a mail-in ballot by Nov. 23 at the latest, it likely didn’t arrive on time. The last day for the County Clerk to receive a ballot application was Nov. 28, so it’s too late now, and
- MIKE: From my personal example, I sent in an application for a mail-in ballot around 11/17. Harrisvotes.com says they got it on 11/22, processed it on 11/22, and put my ballot in the mail on 11/22. All of that is a really impressive turnaround time! The ballot hit my mailbox on Saturday 11/25 and I put it in the mail on Monday 11/27 for pickup on Tuesday 11/28. This experience suggests that mail transit time each way is still about 3-4 days. You can use my personal timeline for whatever it’s worth in your considerations.
- You can visit com to find your nearest polling location, sample ballot, status of any mail-in ballot, and more.
- MIKE: FYI, if you weren’t registered to vote for the election, there is not enough time to register for this runoff. According to Harris Votes, “…You may easily confirm your voter registration status by searching for it on our websiteor the Texas Secretary of State’s website. If you are currently living in Harris County but are registered to vote in another county, you must be registered to vote in Harris County at least 30 days prior to Election Day in order to vote in Harris County.”
- MIKE: But again, if you were registered to vote in the Nov. 7 election but did not, you can STILL vote in the runoffs.
- MIKE: As with most local off-off year runoff elections, turnout is expected to be extremely low — in the 10% range. So if you want your vote to REALLY count, this is the election to vote in!
- ANDREW: Absolutely. It’s not just the mayoral race that’s on this ballot, by the way: the City Controller race and FOUR at-large city council positions should be on the ballot everywhere in Houston, and you might have other down-ballot races in the runoff too. So even if you couldn’t care less who becomes mayor, maybe look up your sample ballot anyway to see if there’s anyone on there who you DO want to win – or want to lose.
- REFERENCE: Houston early voting turnout suggests disengagement from 2023 mayoral race; While early voting numbers in Harris County were far from robust, according to two local political science professors, both said there could be a relative uptick on Tuesday, which is Election Day. By Adam Zuvanich | ORG | | Posted on November 6, 2023, 4:06 PM (Last Updated: November 6, 2023, 4:36 PM)
- Former Garden Oaks Sears to be demolished, transformed into new development; The property has remained mostly vacant since 2020 when the Sears location shuttered, according to reports by Houston Public Media. By Renee Yan | CHRON.COM | Nov 26, 2023
- The defunct Sears store, which has sat vacant at 4000 North Shepherd Drive in north Houston for the last three years, will soon be demolished to make way for a mixed-use development, according to Houston Public Media’s Adam Zuvanich.
- A subsidiary of Lamasar Capital acquired the 11.6-acre property earlier this fall. The Sugar Land-based developer recently announced its plans to transform the parcel—which includes the abandoned department store and a former auto repair shop—into a new space for both commercial and residential use. …
- Nothing specific has been shared regarding the site’s future tenants, but Lamasar Capital representatives posted on LinkedIn that more information will be announced soon.
- Although the cost of the land deal was undisclosed, the Harris Central Appraisal District placed the property’s value north of $15.5 million, per Zuvanich. …
- “Our vision for a vibrant mixed-use development in this thriving neighborhood aims to create not just residences but also a spectrum of destinations and services,” Lamasar Capital co-founder Ashiq Ali said in a news release. “Our goal is to establish a legacy that integrates innovation, serves the community, and becomes a focal point for the neighborhood’s growth and prosperity for years to come.”
- In an added statement, Fidelis CEO Alan Hassenflu said the location in Houston’s Garden Oaks neighborhood marks a prime investment opportunity to meet the area’s growing demand. According to Jeffrey, the former Sears store had operated there for more than 70 years before finally shuttering in 2020.
- MIKE: For those of us who grew up when Sears was the Walmart of its day (but better), this is a sad but inevitable outcome for this site. It’s prime real estate after all. But this store wasn’t a cookie-cutter mall store. This building is something of an architectural landmark in the neighborhood. I hope something of it can be preserved.
- ANDREW: Not having been around that area, I had to look the building up to see what it looks like. Of course, it’s on Google Maps’ Street View, but that only goes back to 2007. The really interesting images, I had to work for.
- ANDREW: I found a page on Preservation Houston’s website about the North Shepherd Sears. There’s a detailed photo of the sign, but a little lower on the page is a 1950 design concept drawing of the store, attributed to the Houston Chronicle. This concept is also from that corner, but there seem to be plenty of windows on the ground floor and all kinds of materials used in the facade on the upper part of the building, which I think looks spectacular.
- ANDREW: I also found a much smaller photo, also seemingly from the ’50s or ’60s, which shows the store in its heyday. Still plenty of windows on the ground floor, though it seems like the upper facade didn’t make it into the final construction. Even so, this would be a unique and fun-looking building to have back.
- ANDREW: As it is today, having seen the building on Street View from different angles over the years, I have to say that most of the outside has been left … fairly bland. I think the really iconic part of the building is that corner where the sign still stands. If the developers have to make more room, I would hope that they could at least keep the pieces of the building that make up that corner, and of course the original Sears sign (which I think would be so easy to keep, and maintain that there’s no reason to tear it down even if the whole building goes).
- ANDREW: But if Preservation Houston or a similar organization could get the building designated as a local landmark and save it from destruction, I’d like to see the store restored to its original design from the ’50s, upper facade included. I’m sure they could update the building to meet modern code while they’re at it, and use the area inside for some of that retail space they want to plan for. If they build a multi-story parking garage or two on some of the old parking lot, they could use the rest of the lot for new construction. The developers get their new development, and Houston gets to keep a little bit of its culture. Everyone wins.
- MIKE: Yes, many old buildings have gradually sealed up doors and windows to limit access over security concerns. But Andrew, I love so much that you did that research and saw what I saw, even seeing it for the first time. Thank you.
- MIKE: This story gets a little convoluted, but I’ll clarify some of the twists and turns at the end: In Alabama, another small-town paper hit in ‘open season’ on free press; It’s an increasingly familiar drama: Local authorities go after journalists and publishers of small papers, which find themselves on the First Amendment’s front lines. By Paul Farhi | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | November 27, 2023 at 5:00 a.m. EST
- When Don Fletcher checked the mailbox outside his newspaper’s office on Main Street in late September, he found a little gold mine waiting for him.
- Folded up inside was a copy of a grand-jury subpoena served on two employees of the local school system. The confidential document indicated that a criminal investigation into potential financial abuse was underway — a solid lead for a veteran reporter like Fletcher.
- It took a couple of weeks to confirm, but Fletcher soon broke the news in the weekly Atmore News that officials were probing the Escambia County Board of Education’s handling of federal covid-19 relief funds. What happened next, though, lifted Fletcher’s story far beyond this town nestled amid cotton fields north of the Florida panhandle.
- Days later, the local district attorney ordered the arrest of Fletcher and his boss, Sherry Digmon, the News’ publisher and co-owner. He charged both with violating a state law that prohibits the disclosure of grand-jury information — a felony punishable by up to three years in prison.
- The reporter, 69, and publisher, 72, were taken to the county lockup by police officers they had known for years. As a courtesy, the deputies waited until they were out of public view before placing handcuffs on them.
- The arrests shocked legal scholars and press advocates, who say it’s a violation of the First Amendment to prosecute a newspaper for reporting the news. More specifically, they argue that District Attorney Stephen M. Billy misapplied Alabama’s secrecy law, which criminalizes leaks by anyone directly involved with a grand jury — jurors, witnesses, court officials — but not news outlets that publish the information.
- American courts have consistently upheld the right to publish leaks as long as the information is obtained lawfully. The most famous precedent is the Supreme Court’s 1971 decision that cleared the way for the New York Times and Washington Post to publish the classified “Pentagon Papers.”
- The Atmore case is “alarming” because it criminalizes reporting, said Kirstin McCudden, a vice president of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. The incident, she said, is part of a recent string of crackdowns on the press — from Marion, Kansas., where police raided the local newspaper and its editor-publisher’s home to seize evidence after an allegation of illegally accessed state records; to Waverly, Ohio, where an editor was charged with illegal wiretapping for publishing audio testimony from a murder trial; to Calumet City, Ill., where city officials sanctioned a reporter for his persistent questioning. …
- Even though judges or other local officials eventually dismissed or dropped these other recent cases, the effect can be damaging. An arrest can harm a journalist’s reputation, run up legal bills that drain a vulnerable news outlet’s coffers — and deter other reporters from pursuing important stories.
- [Kathy Kiely, a University of Missouri journalism professor who specializes in media-law issues,] sees two forces driving the trend: The financial decline of the news media has emboldened elected officials, who no longer fear challenging once-powerful local institutions. And the partisanship of social media has persuaded some officials that the only “legitimate” news coverage is praiseworthy and unaggressive.
- It’s no coincidence that several of these episodes have occurred in small towns like Marion and Atmore — far from the hubs of national media that endured attacks on a free press from Donald Trump and his allies. Local officials “may not be aware” of these kinds of press protections because they have dealt with these crises so infrequently, said Bruce D. Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. …
- The backstory of the Atmore arrests involves complicated interpersonal entanglements and political feuds in a rural county (pop. 36,669) where the personal and professional lives of community leaders sometimes crisscross. …
- Digmon, [the publisher and co-owner of the Atmore News,] also has a second job — as one of seven elected members of the Escambia County Board of Education.
- Many newsrooms have prohibitions on staff members becoming involved in politics or local government because of the potential for conflict between the two roles. Digmon’s dual responsibilities — to the school board and to the newspaper that sometimes covers the school board — created the tension at the heart of her battle with Billy. …
- But Billy wasn’t through with Digmon. Five days after her arrest, the grand jury issued a second warrant, this one charging her with two more felonies, this time for corruption and “moral turpitude” in her conduct as a school board member. The prosecutor alleged that Digmon used her position on the school board to pressure staff to buy ads in her publications. She was arrested, again. …
- On Nov. 3, the grand jury issued a report, signed by [District Attorney] Billy, that recommended Digmon be impeached and removed from the school board. The report’s language was both blunt and insinuating. It accused Digmon of neglecting her official duties by skipping some school-related events while selectively attending others (“She always attends school conferences, accompanied by her female partner, spending several thousand dollars”). It further alleged that Digmon turned against McClung after the superintendent began questioning the ad buys. …
- While Digmon and Fletcher agreed to meet a Washington Post reporter for an off-the-record conversation, they have declined public comment on their cases. Their reticence is compelled by their bail terms, set by a judge, which prohibit them from publishing stories about the grand jury or school board until the information is on the public record.
- Brown, of the Reporters Committee, questioned the gag order, saying it is “functionally” an act of prior restraint, preventing the journalists from reporting what they may turn up through their own investigative efforts.
- That hasn’t stopped them from reporting the very public details about themselves and their own legal peril, even while awaiting their own arraignment. …
- The notion that Escambia County is a small place was brought home in the aftermath of the journalists’ arrests. [Earnest Ray White is an attorney for Digmon.] The county’s two circuit judges and a district judge all recused themselves, citing “prior professional relationships” and “social friendships” with the defendants and the district attorney. All three [judges] previously worked for Billy in the district attorney’s office, while one is also White’s nephew, who worked in his uncle’s firm for 10 years. [The lawyer for a school official] is White’s brother.
- In the meantime, Sherry Digmon has said she has no plans to quit either of her two jobs.
- MIKE: This is a follow-up of the story we discussed back in September.
- MIKE: I tried to shorten this article further, but the issues, ethics and relationships are so convoluted that cutting more would have made the story even more challenging to understand.
- MIKE: In summation though, I see this as coming down to 4 questions: 1- When is it legal to publish illegally divulged information?; 2- Ethical conflicts of interest; 3- Possible malicious prosecution, and 4- Prior restraint on reporting and free speech.
- MIKE: The possibility of malicious prosecution by DA Billy is explained more in the body of the story, but a motive is still unclear.
- MIKE: The mention of the 1971 Pentagon Papers precedent is critical to understanding this story because it made clear that publishing secret information is itself not necessarily illegal, as long as the reporter did not instigate or participate in accessing the secret documents.
- MIKE: The ethical concerns here are probably specific to small town life (the whole county has fewer than 37 thousand people), but are nonetheless a microcosm of how subtle and challenging it can be to untangle ethics in personal and professional situations.
- MIKE: The question of prior restraint regarding further reporting is perhaps especially interesting given Donald Trump’s efforts to quash any gag orders levied against him while awaiting trials. The story doesn’t suggest that issue is yet resolved in this case.
- MIKE: But the overarching issue in this case and the others cited in Marion, Kansas and Waverly, Ohio is that of a free press and the chilling effects that government interference — even if eventually determined to be illegal — can have on a free press. Such interference can cumulatively have the effect of essentially becoming prior restraint by intimidating reporters and newsgathering institutions from the legals costs of certain reporting.
- MIKE: I once read an article about a Chinese investigative reporter who learned this the hard way. When being interviewed, he said something I’ve always remembered about the lesson he took from his experience: “Freedom means knowing how big your cage is.”
- MIKE: Is that the lesson we want our legitimate press to learn?
- ANDREW: I think these stories show that it’s already a lesson that applies here, too.
- ANDREW: Let’s also remember that restrictions on the press don’t have to rely on the force of law. While in office, Trump famously revoked press passes for a major chunk of the White House press corps by changing an internal attendance policy and made reporters apply for exceptions to that policy, which could be denied if Trump or then-Press Secretary Sarah Sanders didn’t like the reporters or their outlets. The idea that government officials at all levels can kill unfavorable stories with threats and bribery is also widely-known.
- ANDREW: What we’ve all rapidly learned in the past few years is that no freedom given by law is guaranteed or unrestricted. Sometimes those restrictions are reasonable, but often they are not. This is true everywhere in the world, so every government should be equally scrutinized on what restrictions they place on the freedoms they give. In other words, the fight for a free press happens just as much here at home as it does abroad.
- MIKE: Good points. The constitutions of many autocracies, including Russia, have lots of freedom guarantees in principle, but not in practice.
- ANDREW: I think some civil rights lawyers would argue the same is true here in the US.
- MIKE: No argument from me there.
- REFERENCE: In China, an Editor Triumphs, and Fails; by Philip P. Pan | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | August 1, 2004
- Measles deaths jumped over 40% from 2021 to 2022, CDC reports; Declines in measles vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic have been tied to an uptick in measles cases, deaths and major outbreaks worldwide. By Nicoletta Lanese | LIVESCIENCE.COM | Published NOV. 18, 2023
- Measles cases, deaths and outbreaks jumped dramatically between 2021 and 2022, a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows.
- The research, published Friday (Nov. 17) in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), revealed an 18% rise in the estimated number of measles cases between 2021 and 2022. That’s an increase from about 7.8 million cases to 9.2 million. Measles deaths increased by 43% globally, from 95,000 in 2021 to 136,200 in 2022. The number of countries reporting “large or disruptive outbreaks” of measles jumped from 22 in 2021 to 37 in 2022, marking a 68% increase.
- “The increase in measles outbreaks and deaths is staggering, but unfortunately, not unexpected given the declining vaccination rates we’ve seen in the past few years,” John Vertefeuille, director of the CDC’s Global Immunization Division, said in a statement.
- “Measles cases anywhere pose a risk to all countries and communities where people are under-vaccinated,” he said. “Urgent, targeted efforts are critical to prevent measles disease and deaths.” …
- Between 2000 and 2019, vaccine coverage with the first MMR dose rose from 72% to 86% worldwide. (One dose of the MMR vaccine is 93% protective against measles, while two doses are 97% protective.)
- But in 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, coverage fell to 83%, and in 2021, it dropped to 81%, according to the MMWR. Global coverage increased to 83% in 2022 as some countries rebounded from pandemic setbacks, but in low-income countries, vaccination rates continued to fall.
- From 2019 to 2021, “coverage in low-income countries fell from 71% to 67%, then to 66% in 2022,” the MMWR states. Of 22 million children who missed their first MMR vaccine dose in 2022, more than half live in 10 countries: Angola, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Nigeria, Pakistan and the Philippines.
- “The lack of recovery in measles vaccine coverage in low-income countries following the pandemic is an alarm bell for action,” Kate O’Brien, the WHO’s director for immunization, vaccine and biologicals, said in the statement. …
- Worldwide, coverage with the second MMR dose was 74% in 2022. Coverage with both the first and second doses needs to hit 95% to protect communities from outbreaks, according to the CDC.
- MIKE: Before antibiotics, there were vaccines. In my opinion, vaccines were probably the most significant preventative for disease in human history, and probably still are. The most important health advance before that was good basic public hygiene, like washing hands with soap and water.
- MIKE: Measles is transmitted from human-to-human. There is no intermediate vector. If MMR vaccinations become nearly universal around the world, measles can be made as extinct as smallpox.
- MIKE: In the wealthy countries, anti-vaxxers continue to be a reservoir for measles and other preventable diseases. For those folks, I don’t believe that education helps, because they refuse to be educated.
- MIKE: In poor countries, greater efforts must be made for vaccines of all types to be made as available as possible.
- ANDREW: I agree. Unfortunately, a lot of the Global South doesn’t trust Western governments and institutions due to a long history of colonialism, and that extends to things like vaccination. While I can’t blame them for that mistrust, it is still important for people in those countries to be vaccinated, both for their own health and everyone else’s.
- ANDREW: I think public trust in vaccines needs to be bolstered in these parts of the world. International bodies need to not only educate the public on how vaccines are safe and effective, but also ensure that Global South nations are playing key roles in international oversight of vaccine production, and producing vaccines domestically rather than relying on the West for doses. The more people in the Global South trust and take vaccines, the safer they – and everyone on Earth – will be.
- REFERENCE: Measles (9 August 2023) — WHO.INT
- COP28 — Australia offers refuge to Pacific island nation threatened by rising sea levels; By Anmar Frangoul |CNBC.COM | Published Fri, Nov 10 2023 @ 9:48 AM EST
- Australia and the South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu are to forge closer ties thanks to a new agreement covering areas including security, migration and climate change.
- The Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union, a bilateral treaty, sees Australia pledging to create “a special mobility pathway” that will enable Tuvaluans to go to Australia to work, study and live. To start with, the number of Tuvaluans eligible to go to Australia will be capped at 280 a year.
- “With a population of just over 11,000 people, Tuvalu is extremely vulnerable to the impact of climate change, especially rising sea levels, and is trying to preserve its culture, traditions and land,” the Australian government said in a statement.
- The pact also includes an Australian pledge to “provide assistance to Tuvalu in response to a major natural disaster, health pandemics and military aggression.”
- In addition, both countries have made a commitment to “mutually agree [on] any partnership, arrangement or engagement with any other State or entity on security and defence-related matters in Tuvalu.”
- Made up of nine islands, Tuvalu — as the Australian government’s statement notes — is seriously threatened by the effects of climate change, and Tuvalu’s Department of Foreign Affairs describes climate change as “one of the most existential security risks currently threatening” the country. …
- The deal on migration is significant, and highlights how countries are having to find solutions to deal with the considerable effects of climate change. …
- MIKE: This agreement probably will not get the coverage it deserves, but it’s probably precedent-setting for our age of climate change caused by global warming.
- MIKE: Australia is a sparsely populated country about the size of the US with about 27 million people and an annual GDP per capita of US$65,000 per year. It’s always looking for immigrants, but usually limits that immigration to people with marketable skills and/or financial resources that can be self-supporting while helping to develop the country economically.
- MIKE: Tuvalu is a small island nation of about 12,000 people with an annual GDP per capita income of about US$3000-3600.
- MIKE: That wealth difference is one of the things that makes this agreement so significant. There is not a powerful economic incentive for Australia to create an immigration path for Tuvaluans so it’s not entirely altruistic, but it’s nonetheless a win-win for both sides. Depending on sea level rise, more or fewer Tuvaluans will have a path to safety, and perhaps greater opportunity. Australia gets moral points on the international political stage and possibly a new source of entry-level labor, but also expands its international reach and security in the southern Pacific.
- MIKE: If countries look in new ways at the impacts of sea level rise on peoples with nowhere to go, it may lead to more agreements creating potential escape routes for populations of distinct island nations.
- ANDREW: It’s not bad to have as an escape route, but ideally Tuvaluans wouldn’t need to use it. I hope these refuge agreements don’t start taking the place of agreements and commitments to reduce carbon emissions and help stop climate change from creating the conditions that people would have to take refuge from.
- MIKE: Metaphorically speaking, I think that ship has sailed. The world is now dealing with mitigation as part of its strategy. But as you say, it can only be a part.
- ANDREW: It depends on how you measure it, but some experts still say that we have about eight years before we hit the point of no return. Even if we do pass it, losing hope will just make mitigation harder. We may as well keep trying to stop and reverse climate change, whether we think it’s possible or not. But yes, fallback measures like this agreement should be part of that effort.
- MIKE: The “point of no return” is a different concern. Even if we hit “net zero” on CO2 emissions today, there is still inertia in the climate change we’re experiencing. Consider it something like the ballistic trajectory of a missile. After the engines shut down, the missile keeps going even as it falls to the ground.
- MIKE: That’s why humans need to be addressing climate change from a variety of directions: Mitigation, migration, greenhouse gas reduction, etc.
- ANDREW: Ah, so the ship of avoiding mitigation has sailed? That, we agree on. And speaking of missiles…
- How Ukraine, With No Warships, Is Thwarting Russia’s Navy; The commander of Ukraine’s Navy said in a rare interview that the Russian naval blockade of Odesa had been broken. He also described how the war is transforming naval tactics. By Marc Santora | NYTIMES.COM | Nov. 12, 2023 [Updated 12:31 p.m. ET] Marc Santora has been chronicling the battle of the Black Sea for nearly two years and interviewed the naval commander in Odesa.
- In a small, hidden office in the port city of Odesa, the commander of the Ukrainian Navy keeps two trophies representing successes in the Black Sea.
- One is the lid from the missile tube used in April 2022 to sink the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva, a devastating blow that helped chase Russian warships from the Ukrainian coast. On the lid is a painting of a Ukrainian soldier raising his middle finger to the ship as it bursts into flames.
- The other is a key used to arm a British-made Storm Shadow missile that slammed into the headquarters of the Russian fleet in Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. …
- Despite having no warships of its own, Ukraine has over the course of the war shifted the balance of power in the naval conflict. Its use of unmanned maritime drones and growing arsenal of long-range anti-ship missiles — along with critical surveillance provided by Western allies and targeted assaults by Ukraine’s Air Force and special operations forces — have allowed Ukraine to blunt the advantages of the vastly more powerful Russian Navy.
- “At this point, the Russian Black Sea Fleet is primarily what naval strategists term ‘a fleet in being’: It represents a potential threat that needs to be vigilantly guarded against, but one that remains in check for now,” said Scott Savitz, a senior engineer at the RAND Corporation, a federally financed center that conducts research for the United States military. “Remarkably, Ukraine has achieved all this without a substantial fleet of its own.” …
- Ukraine has nevertheless managed to negate some of [Russia’s] advantages and lately has gone on the offensive. Over the last two months, it has launched both stealthy nighttime operations by small units on jet skis and powerful missile strikes. Those strikes have hit not just the Sevastopol headquarters but also a Kilo-class submarine and a shipbuilding plant in eastern Crimea, an attack that damaged a new missile-carrying Russian warship.
- The latter strike “will likely cause Russia to consider relocating farther from the front line,” the British military intelligence agency reported …
- The war at sea has also demonstrated the impact of emerging technologies, transforming long-held theories about naval warfare in ways that are being studied around the world, perhaps nowhere more closely than in China and Taiwan.
- “The classical approach that we studied at military maritime academies does not work now,” [Ukrainian Vice Adm. Oleksiy Neizhpapa]said. “Therefore, we have to be as flexible as possible and change approaches to planning and implementing work as much as possible.”
- For example, he said, it takes years to develop and build warships and more time to update them to meet new challenges. Yet maritime drones are evolving every month. …
- While much attention over the past 20 months has focused on the land war, Europe’s largest since World War II, a desire to control the Black Sea was a key factor in President Vladimir V. Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. In 2014, when Russia illegally annexed Crimea, Ukraine lost nearly all of its ships; about 5,000 of its sailors defected, cutting the size of its navy by two-thirds. …
- Admiral Neizhpapa is fond of citing an adage of Alfred Thayer Mahan, the famed American naval officer and historian: “A nation must defend its own coast starting from the coast of the enemy.” …
- ANDREW: I’m choosing to interpret that adage as being about not limiting naval defense to just what’s on the water, because otherwise… well, your own side in war isn’t the only one that can launch a preemptive strike.
- ANDREW: We’ve talked many times since the invasion began about how the war in Ukraine would change the participants and the world, and this article is another side to that discussion. I doubt naval warfare never thought to consider land-based targets or defenses before 2022, but if this isn’t the first time that a naval strategy relied mostly on non-water-based means, I’ll be very surprised. I expect Ukraine’s naval strategy will be studied in military academies and rebel tactical meetings around the world for years to come.
- MIKE: I think the point of this story is how asymmetrical coastal naval warfare has become in terms of costs, lead times, and improved capabilities development.
- MIKE: It changes the math between countries with a significant navy and countries without. In naval terms, it’s called “access denial”; basically, making it too risky for expensive capital ships to engage close to shore.
- MIKE: The UK used a similar strategy during the 1982 Falklands War between the UK and Argentina, although the strategy was based more on disinformation.
- MIKE: Argentina had invaded and occupied the Falklands, and the UK sent a naval task force to respond, but had no other naval assets in the vicinity. In order to restrict Argentina’s naval operations in the region, the UK claimed it had submarines in the area that would sink Argentine warships. This was a strategy of access denial, although the UK actually had no subs in the area. Nonetheless, it kept Argentine warships in port or close to shore.
- MIKE: Access denial was the strategy, although information warfare was the means to accomplish it.
- MIKE: Ukraine’s strategy of access denial by showing its ability to inflict unexpected damage on Russian warships is an important strategic accomplishment, and shows how the balance of power between a significant naval power and a nation with very little naval capability can change quickly in an age of robotic warfare.
- MIKE: BTW, I’ve linked to a Wikipedia article on the Falklands War for those who are curious. It was pretty costly to both sides for a 10-day war.
- Ukraine to Putin: You cut our power, we kneecap your biggest economic driver; By Ben Lefebvre | POLITICO.COM | 11/10/2023 01:42 PM EST, Filed under: Nuclear, Russia, Jennifer Granholm, Ukraine, Oil and gas
- Ukraine is open to the possibility of attacking Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure if Moscow ramps up its targeting of Ukraine’s electric system this winter, Ukraine Energy Minister German Galushchenko said in an interview.
- Galushchenko, speaking with POLITICO in Washington, D.C., after meeting with Biden administration officials and lawmakers, said Russia has regularly perpetrated cyberattacks against Ukraine’s electric grid and is expected to ramp up physical attacks as temperatures fall and people depend more on energy to heat their homes.
- His comments came after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last month Ukraine, which has launched multiple attacks against Russian targets, would “respond” if Russia stepped up attacks on his country’s power grid this winter. This could open the door to the possibility that the European conflict could add more turmoil to global energy markets.
- When asked if Zelenskyy’s “response” could include Ukraine targeting Russia’s vast oil and gas operations — by far the biggest driver of its economy — Galushchenko replied, “It would only be fair.”
- “When answering [Russia’s attack], we would answer by taking the same approach, attacking their energy infrastructure,” Galushchenko said.
- Galushchenko stressed he was not a member of the Ukraine military and did not discuss the possible targeting of Russian energy operations with U.S. government officials. He is a member of the Ukraine national security and defense council.
- Europe has already significantly cut its reliance on Russian oil and natural gas, largely thanks to imports of U.S. liquefied natural gas. But Russia still sells large volumes of its fossil fuels to China and India, helping to keep a lid on global oil prices.
- Galushchenko downplayed the idea that attacking Russia’s ability to produce or ship its oil and gas would cause a spike in prices, saying other producers could make up the supply.
- “Attacks to the infrastructure would not be so critical for the prices, especially when you’re talking about gas and oil.” Galushchenko said. “I mean, those are the fuels which you could buy not only in Russia. I’m sure the world could manage.”
- Germany and other European countries are also facing a gas glut as warm weather has offset the need for much of the LNG it purchased in response to fears of a shortage last winter that did not materialize.
- Investigators have not yet identified who perpetrated the September 2022 sabotage that took out Russia’s Nord Stream pipeline that carried gas from Russia to Europe. But German investigators earlier this year said they found “traces” of evidence indicating that Ukrainian citizens may have been involved. …
- Galushchenko said he also pushed for sanctions targeting Russia’s nuclear industry, including state-controlled nuclear energy company Rosatom, to force Russian personnel to leave the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant complex that its military captured in early 2022.
- Nuclear fuel and technology is one of Russia’s biggest exports. Even as the United States and Europe have cut their imports of Russian oil and gas, they’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars on Russian nuclear fuel and technology in purchases that critics say fund Moscow’s war efforts. …
- MIKE: There’s an in-story link to that part about the US buying nuclear fuel from Russia. It’s both interesting and very surprising.
- MIKE: But this gets back to my earlier comment about the world being in a wartime economy. If Ukraine feels provoked to a point of attacking Russian energy infrastructure, that could raise energy prices fairly quickly once stored supplies shrink unless the difference is made up somewhere else.
- ANDREW: I think the effects of an attack on Russian energy infrastructure would be most prominently felt at the (relatively) local level. Other nations that import oil and gas from Russia, such as Germany, would probably feel the squeeze first and/or most. But such an attack would shrink the global supply of those fuels to some degree, which would have knock-on effects as the price for the now-more-limited supply goes up. Most nations of the world would probably feel that to some degree, if not all of them.
- In another story on COP28 — Rare earth discoveries mean coal mines could have a key role to play in the energy transition; By Anmar Frangoul | CNBC.COM | Published Fri, Nov 24 20231:49 AM EST, Updated Fri, Nov 24 20231:50 AM EST
- From Pennsylvania to the north of England, coal mines helped to power the Industrial Revolution, turbocharging the economic growth of countries around the world.
- Today, however, the production and use of coal has become a thorny issue, with critics slamming the fossil fuel’s huge impact on the environment. …
- As the debate surrounding coal continues, discussions about using it — and the infrastructure linked to it — in the shift to a more sustainable future have become one of the more paradoxical aspects of the energy transition.
- In May, U.S. firm Ramaco Resources offered some insight into how coal may have a role to play in the years ahead.
- Together with researchers from mining consultancy Weir International and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, it published an independent report containing a technical assessment of rare earth elements, or REE, found at one of its mines in Wyoming.
- The findings appear to be significant. “Following eighteen months of extensive core drilling and independent chemical analysis, NETL researchers and Ramaco now believe that the Brook Mine property contains perhaps the largest unconventional deposit of REEs discovered in the United States,” Ramaco said. …
- With China dominating the supply and refining of rare earths, discoveries like the one in Wyoming could be strategically pivotal as the race to roll out the technologies of tomorrow heats up.
- “The majority of REE deposits outside of China are associated with ‘conventional’ mines and found in igneous hard rock deposits, which makes them both difficult and expensive to mine and process,” Ramaco said.
- “In contrast, the REEs from the Brook Mine are characterized as “unconventional” because they are largely found in clay strata located above and below the coal seams themselves,” it added.
- “It is expected they can be mined using normal surface mining techniques and processed in a more economic and environmental manner than conventional REE mines.”
- Wyoming is not the only part of the U.S. where coal and rare earth extraction are being looked at. In April, for instance, West Virginia University said its researchers would receive an $8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
- The funding would allow them to carry on with the development and advancement of a “pioneering method to extract and separate rare earth elements and critical minerals from acid mine drainage and coal waste,” it added.
- Elsewhere, researchers at Penn State have also been focusing on ways to source rare earths and critical minerals via waste from coal mines. …
- MIKE: While the article doesn’t mention it specifically, one of the interesting things about “rare earths” is that the term itself is a misnomer.
- MIKE: Rare earths aren’t actually rare, but they are hard to access economically and can generate a lot of environmental damage and pollution to access and process.
- MIKE: As they are increasingly seen as strategic materials, sourcing them domestically is taking a much higher national priority.
- MIKE: Any benefit to repurposing coal mines as suppliers of rare earths can have many benefits to industry, local economies, and national security. It will be important, though, to apply the lessons from source countries like China and avoid making the same environmental mistakes.
- ANDREW: Yeah, my gut instinct is skepticism along the lines of the whole “clean coal” thing. The elements at this particular mine may indeed be less environmentally-harmful to harvest, but that doesn’t mean retrieving them won’t still do harm to the environment. I’m not casting aspersions, but I worry that other mining companies could jump on this idea to claim they should be exempt from environmental regulations because their “unconventional rare earth elements” (i.e., whatever the hell they pull up from their mines) are also “more environmental”. I worry more that some people will buy it.
- REFERENCE: China Wrestles with the Toxic Aftermath of Rare Earth Mining — E360.YALE.EDU
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