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POSSIBLE TOPICS: Naming Hurricanes; Now we’re concerned about crypto mining?; Amazon Claims It Achieved 100% Renewable Energy Target In 2023—Here’s What It Means; Inflation Cooled Further in June, Welcome News for the Fed and Consumers; United States Announces Significant New Military Assistance for Ukraine; In Ukraine, Killings of Surrendering Russians Divide an American-Led Unit; Exclusive: Philippines turned down US help amid South China Sea tensions – military chief; China anchors ‘monster ship’ in South China Sea, Philippine coast guard says; Will China ever overtake the US economy?; New research finds that ancient carbon in rocks releases as much carbon dioxide as the world’s volcanoes; 

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. 

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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2. MIKE: ‘Tis the season to ask, Why do they name hurricanes? Why not just designate them as, for example, B-2024 or Beryl-2024? Hurricane names recycle over time, so just a name is not helpful for several reasons. Adding a date tells you years later exactly when the hurricane developed, and the exact name never repeats.
   1. MIKE: So, Andrew Ferguson looked it up. This is an excerpt from an article he found on Wikipedia: “At present tropical cyclones are officially named by one of eleven meteorological services and retain their names throughout their lifetimes. Due to the potential for longevity and multiple concurrent storms, the names reduce the confusion about what storm is being described in forecasts, watches and warnings. Names are assigned in order from predetermined lists once storms have one, three, or ten-minute sustained wind speeds of more than 65 km/h (40 mph), depending on which basin it originates in. Standards vary from basin to basin, with some tropical depressions named in the Western Pacific, while a significant amount of gale-force winds are required in the Southern Hemisphere. The names of significant tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean and Australian region are retired from the naming lists and replaced with another name, at meetings of the World Meteorological Organization’s various tropical cyclone committees. …”
   2. REFERENCE: History of tropical cyclone naming — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
3. Now we’re concerned about crypto mining? by Charles Kuffner | OFFTHEKUFF.COM | Posted on July 16, 2024. TAGS: Bitcoin, Blackouts, Colin Allred, Cryptocurrency, Cryptomining, Dan Patrick, Earthjustice, Election 2024, ERCOT, Freeze 2021, Hood County, Jose Menendez, Noise, Riot Blockchain, Senate, TCEQ, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Blockchain Council, The Lege.
   1. MIKE: Kuffner pulled up this article a NYTIMES, from April 09, 2023 called “The Real-World Costs of the Digital Race for Bitcoin”. I guess he felt that now is an excellent time to re-examine it, and I agree. Kuff’s comments are from this week.
   2. KUFF says: So, are we like gonna roll up the red carpet we laid out for these guys a couple of years ago?
   3. EXCERPTED — Texas is now home to 10 of 34 large Bitcoin mines.
   4. During cold spells or heat waves, Texans are commonly called on to conserve power. For example, in August 2023, the state’s grid operator issued eight conservation requests, asking the public to reduce electricity use to help prevent an emergency in which rolling blackouts could be required. Increasingly, Texas lawmakers are worried that energy-hungry mines will make it harder to keep the lights on across the state.
   5. “They’re going to put our grid at risk because of the power they’re drawing,” said state Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, at a public hearing on June 12.
   6. For more than six hours, senators on the Business and Commerce Committee pressed grid operators, public utility commissioners and representatives from industries, including manufacturing, oil and gas and cryptocurrency. Chief among legislators’ concerns was the massive growth in energy demand on the state’s main electrical grid, which is estimated to go from a peak demand of about 85,000 megawatts last year to 150,000 megawatts in 2030, according to estimates from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.
   7. Following the hearing, in a post on social media, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick declared, “it can’t be the Wild Wild West of data centers and crypto miners crashing our grid and turning the lights off.”
   8. Currently, cryptocurrency mining — mostly for Bitcoin — can draw up to 2,600 megawatts of power from the grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, ERCOT’s senior vice president, Woody Rickerson, told senators. That’s about the same amount of power used by the city of Austin, and another 2,600 megawatts of mining is already approved to connect to the grid. Even more Bitcoin mines are expected to come to Texas in the near future.
   9. ERCOT estimates that as much as 43,600 megawatts of additional electricity demand will be added to the grid by 2027 from facilities classified as “Large Flexible Loads” requiring more than 75 megawatts. In a statement to Inside Climate News, ERCOT said, “currently, the crypto mining industry represents the largest share of large flexible loads seeking to interconnect to the ERCOT System.” Data centers for artificial intelligence and facilities for producing hydrogen from water through electrolysis also make up part of the large flexible loads.
   10. To meet the major growth in demand, driven in large part by Bitcoin mining, Texas is turning to natural gas power plants, with taxpayers providing the down payment. In 2023, the Texas Legislature passed a loan program, later approved by voters as ballot Proposition 7, to give low-interest loans to companies to build or expand power plants. At first, the Texas Energy Fund will have $10 billion to award, after receiving more than $39 billion in requests.
   11. One of the companies applying for a loan is Constellation Energy, which owns the Wolf Hollow II power plant in Granbury. Constellation has an agreement with Marathon Digital, allowing Marathon to rent space next to the power plant for Bitcoin mining and purchase power directly from Wolf Hollow II.
   12. Marathon has a capacity to use up to 300 megawatts of power, and Constellation wants to add additional turbines onto Wolf Hollow II capable of generating that much power.
   13. In an application to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Constellation said the power plant expansion would include eight turbines, and it applied for air permits to release more than 796,000 additional tons of carbon dioxide per year. Such massive greenhouse gas emissions have made cryptocurrency mining the focus of intense opposition by climate activists.
   14. The deal between Marathon and Constellation, known as a power purchase agreement, is part of what makes Bitcoin mines major players in the Texas energy market — not simply consumers of power. In most agreements, crypto facilities lock in a relatively low rate to purchase electricity “behind the meter,” so the supply does not enter the ERCOT market. But Bitcoin mining companies can later decide to sell that power to the rest of the grid through the ERCOT market, rather than powering their computers.
   15. For example, Riot Platforms operates two of the largest existing Bitcoin facilities in the world, both located in Texas. The New York Times reported last year that Riot Platforms’ operation in Rockdale was the most power-intensive Bitcoin mining operation in the country, using “about the same amount of electricity as the nearest 300,000 homes.”
   16. One of the facilities has been able to pay as low as 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity, while the average price across Texas in 2022 was more than 10 cents.
   17. In August 2023, when energy prices were high amid scorching summer days, Riot Platforms made $24.2 million from reselling power purchased through their private agreements onto the wholesale energy market, almost tripling the $8.6 million the company made that month mining and selling Bitcoin.
   18. “They can game the system in a few different ways for their profit,” said Mandy DeRoche, an attorney at the nonprofit Earthjustice, who has worked on cases involving crypto mines across the country.
   19. Separately, Bitcoin companies can participate in demand response programs, in which the companies allow ERCOT operators to control the energy load of the facility and lower their usage to compensate for sudden outages or periods of high demand elsewhere on the grid. These situations arise most often during extreme weather. Companies get paid a premium by ERCOT for participating in demand response, and they get paid an additional fee each time their energy load is controlled through the program. Riot Platforms made $7.2 million from these programs in August 2023, according to a monthly earnings report.
   20. “Texas has set up a system which allows crypto mining to be significantly advantaged,” said state Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown), the chairman of the Business and Commerce Committee.
   21. KUFF says: See here, here, here, and here for some background; that third link covers the energy market arbitrage issue. This Nick Anderson cartoon is a good refresher on the situation.
   22. [MIKE: And I strongly recommend clicking on the link to that page. Continuing Kuff’s comments …]
   23. It’s not an accident that we’re surrounded by Bitcoin miners in Texas. We have taken significant steps to lure them here, and they have established a foothold. The Republican solution to ensuring that the grid didn’t collapse into a pile of dust as a result of this was to put up public money for building more natural gas power plants. Are we really changing course here? It’s been the Republicans who were the biggest cheerleaders of this. Forgive my cynicism, but that’s not how this normally works.
   24. On a side note, the story leads off with a report about all the noise that the mines generate and how annoyed people in places like Hunt County are by this. That’s a local and state issue, and people should be yelling at their County Commissioners and State Reps about it, but those lines aren’t always clear, which leads me to note that one Ted Cruz is a big Bitcoin fan. Maybe this is something Colin Allred can bash him over? You never know what might move some votes. Just a thought.
   25. MIKE: I’m not going to add anything to Kuff’s always-pithy and insightful remarks.
4. Amazon Claims It Achieved 100% Renewable Energy Target In 2023—Here’s What It Means; By Siladitya Ray, Forbes Staff | FORBES.COM | Jul 10, 2024 @ 09:38am EDT / Updated Jul 10, 2024 @ 09:40am EDT. Further Reading: Amazon Says It Reached a Climate Goal Seven Years Early (New York Times). TAGS: Amazon, Renewable Energy, sustainability, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice,
   1. Topline — Amazon claimed Wednesday it had achieved a key environmental milestone in which all electricity consumed by its operations in 2023 was “matched” with 100% renewable energy, a claim some experts say is vague on details as the tech giant released its annual sustainability report.
   2. In a blog post, the company said it achieved the goal it set in 2019 to match all power consumption across its global operations—including “data centers, corporate buildings, grocery stores and fulfillment centers”—with renewable energy, seven years ahead of schedule.
   3. Amazon said it reached the target by becoming the “largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world” for the fourth consecutive year and investing “billions of dollars” to build more than 500 solar and wind power projects across the world.
   4. The company’s claim doesn’t mean it is using 100% renewable energy to power its operations, but rather purchasing an equivalent amount of energy from solar and wind plants, which is then sent to the public electric grid.
   5. Despite purchasing the offsets, the company’s sustainability report showed Amazon’s emissions from direct operations rose 7% in 2023 on the previous year.
   6. The report also showed that Amazon’s carbon footprint has risen by 34% since the launch of its Climate Pledge in 2019—which aims for net zero carbon emissions by 2040—although it fell by 3% in 2023 compared to 2022.
   7. Big Number — 13%. That is how much Amazon claims its “carbon intensity” fell in 2023 compared to the previous year. The company describes carbon intensity as the grams of carbon dioxide emissions it generates per dollar of “gross merchandise sales.” Since 2019, the metric has fallen by more than 34%.
   8. Contra — Some experts have criticized Amazon’s climate-related claims for being vague and its reporting not being adequately transparent. The non-profit Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) which works on climate disclosures gave Amazon’s climate change report a ‘B’ rating, which is lower than the A- rating it gave last year to Apple and the A rating it has given to Google and Microsoft. Commenting on Amazon’s rating, a director at CDP told the New York Times a company “needs to actually outline” the sources it has used to come up with its calculations. In May, a coalition of the company’s employees, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, organized a walkout and criticized Amazon for “getting worse, not better, on climate.” …
   9. MIKE: The moral of this story is that you can’t trust corporations to tell you the truth in plain English. They always provide information in “corporate speak” which is at least as dubious and problematic as “politician speak”. The goal is to say what they think the public might want to hear in a way that obfuscates the actual facts.
   10. MIKE: My conclusion is that if you go by the CDP’s rating, Amazon is doing … mmm, Okay … on the renewable energy front, but weirdly are not necessarily using much renewable energy, so I’m honestly not sure how to interpret this Amazon story.
   11. MIKE: Maybe you’ll do better.
5. Inflation Cooled Further in June, Welcome News for the Fed and Consumers; Consumer Price Index inflation was 3 percent yearly in June and fell month-to-month, a sharper slowdown than expected and a relief for the White House. By Jeanna Smialek | COM | July 11, 2024. TAGS: Federal Reserve (The Fed), Inflation, Interest Rates,
   1. The Consumer Price Index climbed at a moderate pace in June compared with a year earlier and fell on a monthly basis, welcome news for Federal Reserve officials who are watching for further evidence that they have wrestled rapid inflation under control.
   2. Overall inflation was 3 percent in June on a yearly basis, down from 3.3 percent in May, and softer than the 3.1 percent that economists had forecast in a Bloomberg survey.
   3. After stripping out food and fuel prices for a sense of the underlying trend, the “core” price index climbed 3.3 percent compared to year earlier, down from the previous report. And compared to the previous month, prices dropped 0.1 percent, while the core index ticked up only slightly.
   4. In all, the very cool inflation data provided clear evidence that inflation is slowing meaningfully, exactly the kind of progress that Fed officials have been hoping to see as they contemplate when to begin cutting interest rates. The central bank has held borrowing costs at 5.3 percent for the past year, a relatively high setting that is meant to cool the economy by weighing down demand for big purchases that require loans, like houses and cars.
   5. While policymakers came into 2024 expecting to cut them several times, a spate of stubborn inflation numbers early in the year have kept them on hold. But now, evidence is mounting that inflation is truly coming under control, which could pave the way for a rate cut in the coming months.
   6. “This is the inflation report that we’ve been waiting for,” said Neil Dutta, head of economic research at Renaissance Macro. “The important story for the Fed is that this is happening at a time when the unemployment rate has been going up for the last three months, and the trade-offs are shifting.”
   7. Dutta said he thought that the Fed could even consider cutting interest rates at its meeting this month, which takes place July 30-31. Investors more widely think that the central bank will lower borrowing costs at the meeting after that, on Sept. 17-18. Expectations for a reduction at that meeting ticked up following the report.
   8. That broad-based inflation slowdown is likely to provide relief to consumers, who have been glum about the economy as they face heftier price tags in grocery aisles and as they go about their daily lives. That could in turn benefit the Biden administration, which has struggled to take credit for strong growth and a solid labor market at a time when voters are fixated on high prices. …
   9. Thursday’s inflation reading was markedly cooler than inflation’s 2022 peak of 9.1 percent. Now that inflation has come down so much, Fed officials are focused on not overdoing their effort to cool the economy: They want to fully stamp out inflation, but they do not want to cause a recession in the process.
   10. “If we loosen policy too late or too little, we could hurt economic activity,” Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said during congressional testimony this week. “If we loosen policy too much or too soon, then we could undermine the progress on inflation. So we’re very much balancing those two risks, and that’s really the essence of what we’re thinking about these days.”
   11. While Mr. Powell avoided identifying a specific month when the Fed might begin to cut interest rates during his two days of testimony this week, he did little to push back on growing expectations that a reduction could come in September.
   12. Fed policymakers officially target 2 percent annual inflation, and they define that goal using the Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation measure, which is related to Thursday’s Consumer Price Index but released later in the month. The June version of that figure is set for release on July 26, just a few days before the central bank’s next meeting.
   13. While the annual inflation numbers remain above the levels that were normal before the pandemic — and could remain sticky in the coming months, per economist forecasts — that is partly for mechanical reasons. Inflation began to slow sharply around this time last year, which means that the data going forward is being compared to those more subdued year-ago readings. The so-called base effect makes it harder for the annual figures to decelerate as quickly.
   14. Given that, Fed officials are likely to pay especially close attention to what is happening with inflation on a month-to-month basis as they try to understand how trends are shaping up. They are also watching key underlying details, which were overwhelmingly positive in Thursday’s report.
   15. Officials have spent months waiting for evidence that shelter costs are cooling, because they make up a big chunk of overall inflation and tend to move slowly. That finally happened in the June data.
   16. Adding to the good news, travel-related services like airline fares and hotel rooms outright fell in price, and a range of other service costs climbed more slowly. Goods prices have already been flat or falling on a monthly basis for some time, and that trend continued in June.
   17. “It’s a report that shows households are getting some much-welcome breathing room in key areas of their budgets,” Jared Bernstein, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in an interview. “Our work here isn’t done, but we’re moving solidly in the right direction.”
   18. And at the Fed, attention is likely to turn more and more to the job market as inflation ceases to be such a pressing problem. The unemployment rate has ticked up to 4.1 percent over the past year, up from 3.6 percent last June. Employers have fewer unfilled job openings, and wage growth is cooling after years of rapid gains.
   19. Central bankers try to achieve both slow, steady inflation and a strong labor market. After several years in which inflation was their bigger concern, Mr. Powell and his colleagues have recently been clear that they are increasingly paying close attention to both of those goals. …
   20. MIKE: So, basically promising news on the inflation front.
   21. MIKE: I would still like some consideration given to adjusting interest rates based on price inflation in specific industry segments.
   22. MIKE: I realize that this would need to be examined as a strategy, and no doubt would require enabling legislation from Congress, but I think it’s an idea worth examining.
   23. MIKE: For example, demand for housing is increasing and driving up prices and rents, so I don’t see the sense in raising interest rates to slow the development of housing. Granted, there may be upstream inflation pressure on the materials necessary for home building, so I don’t see the sense in raising interest rates in those sectors.
   24. MIKE: With my admittedly layman’s knowledge of economics, here are my thoughts.
   25. MIKE: In the simplest terms that I understand, inflation is caused by too many dollars chasing too few goods. So to fight inflation at it’s root cause, the object should be to increase the supply of goods in sectors that are showing inflationary pricing trends. To me, that would suggest that keeping interest rates low in those sectors might encourage expansion of supply of those goods and the materials required to build them.
   26. MIKE: So if housing materials are driving up the cost of building, target those materials sectors for lower rates to encourage increased supply. Lower interest rates might encourage building materials suppliers to increase production, thus reducing demand price pressure on their products. While that is being done, mortgage rates might be increased to cut demand for housing, thus cooling demand and price inflation for existing or completed dwellings until the Fed’s lower rate policies for building materials enables supply to catch up with builders’ demand.
   27. MIKE: Then mortgage interest rates can come down to encourage the building and purchasing of what would hopefully be an increased supply of dwellings.
   28. MIKE: When it comes to cars, for example, the supply shortage driving up prices may be due to shortages of steel or electronic parts. Similar to encouraging the building of housing by encouraging expansion of the supply of building materials, the Fed might keep interest rates low for suppliers that need to expand the capacity to meet the demand of automakers. Until those materials supplies can be expanded with the availability of low interest rates for those sectors, interest rates for the purchase of cars might be increased, thus cooling demand and carmakers’ incentives to raise prices. When supplies catch up to carmakers’ demands, interest rates for car buyers can be reduced without sparking car price inflation.
   29. MIKE: These ideas make the proposed policy solution sound simple, but nothing is ever as simple as it sounds. But I do think that examining the possibility of deciding interest rates on a sector-by-sector basis sounds like a better way to fight inflation than by smacking the whole economy upside the head with across-the-board interest rate hikes and reductions.
   30. MIKE: Opinions on this idea are invited.
6. United States Announces Significant New Military Assistance for Ukraine; Press Statement — Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State | STATE.GOV | July 11, 2024. Tags: Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Defense ,Office of the Spokesperson, The Secretary of State, Security, Ukraine, Weapons,
   1. As President Biden announced at a meeting with President Zelenskyy today, the United States is sending Ukraine a significant new package of urgently needed weapons and equipment to support the Ukrainian military as it continues to repel Russia’s assault.  This $225 million package, which will be provided under Presidential Drawdown Authority includes:  a Patriot missile battery, munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems; Stinger anti-aircraft missiles; ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems; 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds; Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided missiles and equipment; Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor systems; small arms ammunition; demolitions munitions and equipment; and other ancillary equipment.  This support will help strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses and reinforce Ukraine’s capabilities across the front lines.
   2. This is the eighth security assistance package the President has authorized to help Ukraine since signing the national security supplemental appropriations act.  We will deploy this new assistance as quickly as possible to bolster Ukraine’s defense of its territory and its people.  As President Biden has made clear, the United States and the international coalition we have assembled will continue to stand with Ukraine.
   3. MIKE: I wish this could have been done 6 months ago to save Ukrainian lives and infrastructure and to stymie Russian advances while Ukraine was waiting for these weapons.
   4. MIKE: I’m not sure that “better late than never” applies so much in war, but maybe these supplies will help Ukraine regain some initiative, and protect lives and assets.
   5. MIKE: It’s always important to remember that the supplies we send to Ukraine are the oldest in US inventory, and the money for Ukraine aid is ultimately spent in the US and goes toward replenishing those supplies with new materiel that then goes into the US stockpiles, and also incentivizes US defense suppliers to increase their production capacity.
   6. MIKE: This is vitally important for US security because the Ukraine war has shown us that even though US weapons and materiel stockpiles are enormous, a modern major war will burn through those stockpiles much faster than they can currently be replenished. It is thus in our national security interest to make sure that those production lines are either used, or at least preserved for wartime needs.
   7. MIKE: Russia had underused manufacturing capacity that was quickly mobilized for their war effort, and even that has proven in some cases to be inadequate.
   8. MIKE: I’ve discussed on this show that China has underused industrial capacity, and yet is building more. No doubt this capacity is part of a potential wartime mobilization, should such be needed, for example, in the event of an attack on Taiwan and a possible Pacific war.
   9. MIKE: Preserving and expanding what might be underutilized or idle production lines in the US will cost money, but that cost is negligible compared to being grossly underprepared for a major war. A prospective war for which there is a real danger within the next 5-10 years.
   10. MIKE: Even though preparedness and deterrence are expensive, the cost pales compared to a war that was not adequately deterred.
7. In Ukraine, Killings of Surrendering Russians Divide an American-Led Unit; A German medic said he was so troubled that he confronted his commander. Others boasted about killings in a group chat. By Thomas Gibbons-Neff | NYTIMES.COM | July 6, 2024. Thomas Gibbons-Neff reported this article over several months during multiple assignments to Kyiv, Ukraine, and the front lines of the war. TAGS: POWs, Unarmed Russian Soldiers, Foreign Fighters, Chosen Company, Surrendering Soldiers, Illegal Executions, Geneva Conventions, War Crimes,
   1. Hours after a battle in eastern Ukraine in August, a wounded and unarmed Russian soldier crawled through a nearly destroyed trench, seeking help from his captors, a unit of international volunteers led by an American.
   2. Caspar Grosse, a German medic in that unit, said he saw the soldier plead for medical attention in a mix of broken English and Russian. It was dusk. A team member looked for bandages.
   3. That is when, Mr. Grosse said, a fellow soldier hobbled over and fired his weapon into the Russian soldier’s torso. He slumped, still breathing. Another soldier fired — “just shot him in the head,” Mr. Grosse recalled in an interview.
   4. Grosse said he was so upset by the episode that he confronted his commander. He said he spoke to The New York Times after what he regarded as unwarranted killings continued. It is highly unusual for a soldier to speak publicly about battlefield conduct, particularly involving men whom he still considers friends.
   5. But he said he was too troubled to keep silent.
   6. The shooting of the unarmed, wounded Russian soldier is one of several killings that have unsettled the Chosen Company, one of the best-known units of international troops fighting on behalf of Ukraine.
   7. Grosse’s witness recollection is the only available evidence of the trench killing. But his accounts of other episodes are bolstered by his contemporaneous notes, video footage and text messages exchanged by members of the unit and reviewed by The Times.
   8. In a second episode, a Chosen member lobbed a grenade at and killed a surrendering Russian soldier who had his hands raised, video footage reviewed by The Times shows. The Ukrainian military released video of the episode to showcase its battlefield prowess, but it edited out the surrender.
   9. In a third episode, Chosen members boasted in a group chat about killing Russian prisoners of war during a mission in October, text messages show. A soldier who was briefly in command that day alluded to the killings using a slang word for shooting. He said he would take responsibility. …
   10. Grosse was not on that mission but said that, afterward, a fellow soldier recounted killing a prisoner. Mr. Grosse documented it in his journal. …
   11. Killing prisoners of war is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Once soldiers clearly indicate an intention to surrender, they cannot be attacked and must be safely taken into custody. The Ukrainian government has repeatedly pointed at Russian troops killing unarmed and surrendering soldiers as proof of Moscow’s lawlessness.
   12. A Greek soldier known as Zeus was at the center of all three episodes — tossing the grenade and, Mr. Grosse says, firing at the wounded Russian in the trench and bragging about another kill. He did not respond to messages seeking comment left on his phone and through Facebook.
   13. Ryan O’Leary, the de facto commander of Chosen Company and a former U.S. Army National Guardsman from Iowa, said that Zeus did not want to speak.
   14. In an interview, Mr. O’Leary denied that members had committed war crimes. He said that his fighters had killed wounded Russians, but only those who could have fought back.
   15. O’Leary said that the trench episode that Mr. Grosse recounted never happened, and that he was not on that mission. He also dismissed the significance of the text messages. …
   16. He said the grenade episode was not “black and white,” because the Russian soldier and another nearby might have posed a threat. The video leaves unanswered questions about what Chosen members saw or considered threats before the attempted surrender.
   17. But in the United States military, a video showing the killing of a surrendering soldier, regardless of the circumstances, would prompt an immediate investigation, said Rachel E. VanLandingham, a professor at Southwestern Law School and a former U.S. Air Force lawyer.
   18. “Failure to investigate is more troubling than the incident itself,” Ms. VanLandingham said. “Lack of accountability starts with lack of investigation.”
   19. The Ukrainian military has the authority to investigate accusations of war crimes and has opened investigations into claims of abuses committed by Russian forces. In response to a list of questions, the military stopped short of promising an investigation. It said “the issue raised will be thoroughly examined and verified.”
   20. The American volunteers are fighting without the backing of the United States government, which does not want to be drawn into direct combat with Russia. But the U.S. Justice Department also can investigate because Mr. O’Leary and other Chosen members are American.
   21. Soon after The Times began asking questions, Mr. O’Leary vowed to find out who was speaking to journalists.
   22. “Some stuff the reporter brought up was only known by a few people,” he wrote in a group chat. “But we will cast a wide net regardless to snare the rabbit.”
   23. The very existence of the Chosen Company is a peculiar feature of Ukraine’s war effort. Desperate for personnel, the military opened its ranks to thousands of international volunteers after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
   24. Fighters with varying degrees of experience and professionalism, some of whom would not have been allowed near a battlefield in an American-led war, were welcomed and armed.
   25. O’Leary wanted Chosen to be a home for professional, disciplined fighters. The unit — a mix that included deserters, thrill seekers and aging soldiers — became a hub for volunteers seeking combat.
   26. Grosse, a former German soldier, came to Ukraine seeking purpose and adventure. He fought alongside other foreign fighters early in the war. Then, he found his way to Chosen.
   27. The company, of about 60 people from about a dozen countries, fell under the command of Ukraine’s 59th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade. Ukrainian officers were technically in charge but, as in most foreign units, they largely performed administrative functions.
   28. Chosen often acted as shock troops, teams that could lead assaults and clear Russian positions despite heavy fire and, sometimes, heavy casualties.
   29. Internally, the company had its own reputation. Benjamin Reed, a former Chosen member from Massachusetts, said in an interview that he “heard, to such a large degree, innumerable conversations, about the executions of P.O.W.s on various operations.”
   30. Reed said that even the unit’s recruiter told him that it “was OK to kill P.O.W.s if they didn’t surrender in the strictest Geneva Convention standards.” …
   31. [MIKE: The story then details some of the circumstances of the alleged killings. In the grenade episode, the story says in part that …]
   32. The episode took place after the trench was declared clear. But artillery fire and drone attacks remained a threat. And the battlefield was dynamic: About 10 minutes earlier, an unarmed Russian soldier had frantically darted into Chosen’s trench, then hurried away before being shot and killed.
   33. O’Leary showed The Times two videos that he said proved that what followed was murky, not a “dirty kill.” The videos, which he said were unedited, were taken from a drone and a soldier’s helmet camera.
   34. In the helmet camera video, sporadic small-arms fire is audible in the distance, but no hostile fire comes from the craters. The two Chosen soldiers seen on video were somewhat exposed and scanning the area, indicators that they were not under fire.
   35. O’Leary, who was nearby in the trench, called out to Zeus and another soldier: “Three Russians in front.”
   36. One of those three was dead. Two others were in a nearby crater. One, dressed in olive-colored battle dress, seems to try to get the attention of Chosen troops. He puts his hands to his mouth, apparently calling out. He fires his weapon directly in the air, then puts it down and approaches the edge of the crater with his hands up, an internationally accepted sign of surrender.
   37. Beside him is another Russian soldier, who appears wounded and barely moves. He does not try to surrender.
   38. How much the Chosen team knew about these men is unclear, and potentially significant to the question of whether the killing that came after was justified.
   39. Grosse, the medic, said he heard a Ukrainian drone team report on the radio that a Russian soldier was trying to surrender.
   40. O’Leary initially denied that his radio was working properly. When asked, if so, how he knew that three Russians were in or near the craters, he acknowledged that some transmissions had gotten through.
   41. The surrendering Russian soldier has his hands raised for several seconds, as seen from the drone footage, when a grenade lands nearby, killing him.
   42. Zeus, who threw the grenade, was not wearing a body camera. Footage from the nearby helmet camera does not show the Russian soldier, indicating that Zeus may not have seen him.
   43. But after the explosion, Zeus indicates that he had seen him. “I think I killed a guy with a grenade in his hands,” he said, laughing. There is no indication in the drone video that the Russian had a grenade.
   44. O’Leary said that since he could not see into the crater, he had no idea if the Russian soldier or his comrades could fight back if Chosen tried to capture him.
   45. The Ukrainian military later released an edited video that shows only two seconds of the fatal encounter. It shows that the Russian has no weapon, but the moment that he raises his hands is not included.
   46. And the editing made it appear that the killing occurred in the heat of combat, rather than when the battle was all but over. A spokesman for the 59th Brigade would not discuss the video.
   47. O’Leary denied that Mr. Grosse was on the mission.
   48. But in interviews, Mr. Grosse recounted details that other Chosen members corroborated. And, using the publicly released video, The Times geolocated the battle and placed it exactly where Mr. Grosse said it had occurred. …
   49. The Ukrainian military justice system … is widely regarded as outdated and ill equipped for such situations.
   50. “Reports of human rights violations within the military have become a toxic issue for the Ukrainian government and highlighted the issue,” the Wilson Center, a Washington-based research organization, wrote in February. …
   51. MIKE: The story then goes into reporting on the other alleged kills and their circumstances, as well as evidence they were able to examine and comments from some of the soldiers and witnesses involved.
   52. MIKE: War brings out the worst in people. In fact, armies train specifically to bring out the worst in people, and for them to do their worst by command.
   53. I had to do some considerable research before making the following comments, because I am not trained in the laws of war. I’m going to summarize as best I understand what I’ve read.
   54. From my research, the laws of war get murky in the case of combatants or potential combatants in a combat zone who are not in uniform or otherwise carrying visible insignia. In general, when someone carries a weapon in a war zone, whether uniformed or not, if that person presents or has shown themselves to be a danger to a soldier, a reasonable attempt should be made to be sure of their target before the soldier fires upon them.
   55. MIKE: Anyone who is taken prisoner in a war zone is entitled to either treatment as a prisoner of war — a term with specific meanings — or as a civilian detainee and treated under laws applicable to non-combatants.
   56. MIKE: Most of the actions being described in this story are clearly war crimes by any definition I found, and the individuals involved should be investigated and, if appropriate, tried by a military tribunal. In some instances, the soldiers’ sides of the story might be weighed in evidence as mitigating circumstances under the fog of war.
   57. MIKE: This story has aspects not only pertaining to the war in Ukraine, but also in the war in Gaza. As an example, “[A]ttacking enemy forces while posing as a civilian puts all civilians at hazard. [24] Such acts of perfidy are punishable as war crimes. …”
   58. MIKE: “Perfidy” in this instance has a specific legal definition as being not permissible under the laws of war.
   59. MIKE: I’ve provided some links at the end of this story for those who might wish to do more research. If you have the time and inclination, it’s the kind of knowledge, however superficial, it pays to know in the times we live in.
   60. REFERENCES: International Law Studies – Volume 73: Annotated Supplement to The Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations, by A. R. Thomas & James C. Duncan (Editors) https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1572&context=ils — “[A]ttacking enemy forces while posing as a civilian puts all civilians at hazard. [24] Such acts of perfidy are punishable as war crimes. … It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by feigning civilian, non-combatant status. [25] … It is the policy of the United States, however, to accord illegal combatants prisoner-of-war protection if they were carrying arms openly at the time of capture. [27] — PDF Page 9.
   61. REFERENCES: “In an ethical war, whom can you fight?” (BBC.CO.UK/ETHICS/WAR) — Definitely combatants: members of military forces; members of guerrilla forces (even though not in uniform); anyone who takes up arms in the conflict, other than in direct self-defence …
   62. REFERENCES: “The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law” — GUIDE-HUMANITARIAN-LAW.ORG — “… Additional Protocol I [of the Geneva Conventions] stipulates that if an armed combatant cannot so distinguish himself, he shall retain his status as a combatant, provided that, in such situations, he carries his arms openly: 1. during each military engagement, and, 2. during such time as he is visible to the adversary while he is engaged in a military deployment preceding the launching of an attack in which he is to participate.” … “[Also], … Rule 106 of the ICRC customary IHL study provides that in international armed conflicts, “combatants must distinguish themselves from the civilian population while they are engaged in an attack or in a military operation preparatory to an attack. If they fail to do so, they do not have the right to prisoner-of-war status. …”
8. In other international news — Reuters Exclusive: Philippines turned down US help amid South China Sea tensions – military chief; By Karen Lema | REUTERS.COM | July 5, 2024 @ 3:46 AM CDT / Updated 2 days ago. TAGS: The Philippines, China, United States, 1951-Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT),
   1. The Philippines has turned down offers from the United States to assist operations in the South China Sea, after a flare-up with China over missions to resupply Filipino troops on a contested shoal, its military chief said.
   2. Tensions in the disputed waterway have boiled over into violence in the past year, with a Filipino sailor losing a finger in the latest June 17 clash that Manila described as “intentional-high speed ramming” by the Chinese coast guard.
   3. The US, a treaty ally, has offered support but Manila prefers to handle operations on its own, Armed Forces Chief General Romeo Brawner told Reuters late Thursday.
   4. [He said,] “Yes, of course, they have been offering help and they asked us how they could help us in any way. We try to exhaust all possible options that we have before we ask for help.”
   5. Manila and Washington are bound by the 1951-Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), a military pact that can be invoked in the case of armed attacks on Philippine forces, public vessels, or aircraft in the South China Sea.
   6. Confrontations between the Philippines and China in Asia’s most contested waters have increased in frequency over the past year as Beijing has pressed its claim to the waterway and Manila continued missions to bring supplies to soldiers living aboard a rusty, aging warship that it grounded on a contested shoal.
   7. Some observers … have called for direct US naval support for the resupply missions.
   8. But Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano said the Philippines wanted them to be a “pure Philippine operation”. …
   9. Ano, who spoke to his U.S counterpart Jake Sullivan last month to discuss shared concerns over China’s “dangerous and escalatory actions”, said the MDT was “far from being invoked”.
   10. “We (the Philippines and China) agreed that there will be some easing tension, but we will assert our rights, we will not compromise our national interest, and we will continue to fight and claim what is ours,’ Ano said.
   11. Neither official specified what support the US had offered.
   12. Greg Poling, a South China Sea expert at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank, told Reuters he believed the US was open to naval escorts for the resupply missions to the stranded vessel. Washington has already provided some limited support, he said.
   13. A Philippine official said last year Manila was consulting the US Army Corps of Engineers on how best to stabilise the BRP Sierra Madre, which was grounded on the contested Second Thomas Shoal, Poling said …
   14. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague ruled in 2016 that Beijing’s expansive South China Sea claims via its nine-dash line had no basis under international law, but that has not stopped China, which rejects the ruling, from being more assertive in the waterway.
   15. It has deployed coast guard vessels to patrol those areas, alarming the Philippines, rival Southeast Asian claimants and other states operating in the South China Sea, including the US, which is wary about China’s growing military power and territorial ambition.
   16. Military chief Brawner said the United States’ offer of support, made in discussions at his level, was not a direct response to the June 17 incident but rather a reflection of the enduring military alliance between the two countries. …
   17. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. …
   18. While China claims nearly all the South China Sea, a major shipping lane with about $3 trillion in trade passing through it annually, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei also claim parts.
   19. MIKE:
9. China anchors ‘monster ship’ in South China Sea, Philippine coast guard says; By Reuters | REUTERS.COM | July 6, 2024 @ 2:13 AM CDT / Updated 20 hours ago. TAGS: The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), China Coastguard, Philippine’s EEZ, Sabina Shoal, South China Sea,
   1. [It was reported on July 6^th that] The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said … that China’s largest coastguard vessel has anchored in Manila’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea, and is meant to intimidate its smaller Asian neighbour.
   2. The China coastguard’s [541-foot] ‘monster ship’ entered Manila’s 200-nautical mile EEZ on July 2, spokesperson [Jay Tarriela] for the PCG … told a news forum.
   3. The PCG warned the Chinese vessel [that] it was in the Philippine’s EEZ and asked about their intentions, he said. …
   4. The Chinese ship, which has also deployed a small boat, was anchored 800 yards away from the PCG’s vessel, Tarriela said.
   5. In May, the PCG deployed a ship to the Sabina shoal to deter small-scale reclamation by China, which denied the claim. China has carried out extensive land reclamation on some islands in the South China Sea, building air force and other military facilities, causing concern in Washington and around the region.
   6. [MIKE: As noted in the previous story I read,] China claims most of the South China Sea, a key conduit for $3 trillion of annual ship-borne trade, as its own territory. Beijing rejects the 2016 ruling by The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration which said its expansive maritime claims had no legal basis.
   7. Following a high-level dialogue, the Philippines and China agreed on Tuesday for the need to “restore trust” and “rebuild confidence” to better manage maritime disputes.
   8. The Philippines has turned down offers from the United States, its treaty ally, to assist operations in the South China Sea, despite a flare-up with China over routing resupply missions to Filipino troops on a contested shoal.
   9. MIKE: Several years ago on this show, I was very focused on tensions in the South China Sea. At the time, I was saying that it was beginning to feel like a prewar period, and that if conflict might erupt somewhere, it might be there.
   10. MIKE: It seems I had the timing right but the region wrong. At least for now. But the ingredients are still there.
   11. MIKE: Since then, I’ve read that if China has expansionist plans in the South China Sea or, more specifically, on Taiwan, they’re more likely to use what I might describe as a “frog in the heated water pan strategy”.
   12. MIKE: That is to say, rather than some overt, unmistakable hostile act, they’re likely to turn up the military and diplomatic pressure in a slow, calculated way that makes a provocation to war more ambiguous. Much like the Russians did in Crimea in 2014.
   13. MIKE: We are living in a multi-polar word with many competing nations, some vying for regional power and influence and some having global ambitions. No one country can hope to achieve such ambitions, which is why you’re seeing some new national alignments and alliances among nations that we’re accustomed to seeing more or less acting individually.
   14. MIKE: The United States has always been at its strongest and most influential with allies at its side and having its back. This is why NATO is more crucial to our national security than ever before, and why the US is seeking more allies and partners in other parts of the world.
10. Will China ever overtake the US economy?; By Nik Martin | DW.COM | July 12, 2024.China’s ambition to be the world’s largest economy has been dented by COVID-19, the real estate crisis and an aging population. Boosting growth will be the prime focus at an important Communist Party meeting. TAGS: BRICS, COVID-19, Taiwan, Uyghur community, Coronavirus, China economy, US economy, China, Xi Jinping,
    1. The idea of China‘s outstripping the United States to become the world’s largest economy has been a fixation for policymakers and economists for decades. What will happen, they argue, when the US — one of the most dynamic, productive economies — is usurped by an authoritarian regime with a three-quarters-of-a-billion-strong workforce?
    2. [MIKE: I’m assuming the presumption here is that by the time China achieves this landmark, if ever, their population will have been halved, which is an actuarial reality by the end of this century. Continuing …]
    3. Predictions of when exactly China would steal the US’s crown have come thick and fast ever since the 2008/9 financial crisis, which hampered growth in the United States and Europe for many years. Before what became known as the Great Recession, China saw double-digit annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth for at least five years. In the decade following the crisis, China’s economy continued to expand by 6%-9% annually. That is, until COVID-19
    4. As if the pandemic — which led to strict lockdown measures that brought the [Chinese] economy to its knees — weren’t enough, the Asian powerhouse was also plunged into a real estate crash. At its peak, the property market was responsible for a third of China’s economy. However, rules introduced by Beijing in 2020 put limits on how much debt property developers could take on.
    5. Many firms went bankrupt, leaving an estimated 20 million unfinished or delayed homes unsold.
    6. Around the same time, declining trade relations with the Westalso weakened growth in the world’s second-largest economy. Having encouraged China’s ascendancy for decades, by the late 2010s, the US shifted to containing Beijing’s economic and military ambitions, if only to delay the inevitable advance.
    7. Has China’s economy peaked? — The apparent change of fortunes for the Chinese economy was so stark that a new term emerged about a year ago: “Peak China.” The theory was that the Chinese economy was now burdened by many structural issues, such as a heavy debt load, slowing productivity, low consumption and an aging population. Those weaknesses, along with geopolitical tensions over Taiwan and a decoupling of trade by the West, sparked speculation that China’s impending economic supremacy may be delayed, or never happen.
    8. But Wang Wen from Renmin University of China’s Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies told DW that the notion of Peak China was a “myth,” adding that China’s total economic output reached almost 80% of the US output in 2021.
    9. Wang said that as long as Beijing maintained “internal stability and external peace,” the Chinese economy would soon overtake the US. He cited the desire of millions of rural Chinese to move to urban areas, where earnings and quality of life were reportedly much higher.
    10. “China’s urbanization rate is only 65%. If calculated at 80% in the future, it means that another 200 to 300 million people will enter urban areas, which will generate a huge increase in the real economy,” he said.
    11. Other economists, however, believe that the issues that sparked the Peak China narrative were likely building for several years.
    12. “The Chinese economy grew so fast in the early 2000s because of high productivity,” Loren Brandt, economy professor at the University of Toronto, told DW, adding that productivity was responsible for about 70% of GDP growth during China’s first three decades of reform, initiated in 1978.
    13. “After the financial crisis, productivity growth just disappeared. It’s now maybe one-quarter of what it was before 2008,” the expert in the Chinese economy added. …
    14. China’s total debts have widened to more than 300% of GDP. A large chunk is owned by local governments. Foreign direct investment has fallen for 12 months in a row, dropping 28.2% in the first five months of 2024 alone. Despite huge investments to ramp up production of new technologies, some of Beijing’s trade partners are restricting Chinese imports. …
    15. [MIKE: For comparison, I looked up the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio. Total debt reported in Jan 2024 was 123% of the total economy. That’s an uncomfortably high number, but not as bad as many developed countries in Europe, for example, and less than half the total debt of China. Nonetheless, it’s something that we’ll need tax and spending policies to address going forward. I can’t find Reuters’ source for their number, but it’s been on a steady growth curve for several years according to prior Reuters stories. Continuing with the story …]
    16. “Here is an economy that has invested enormously in [research and development], people, and first-class infrastructure. But it is not being leveraged in a way that’s helping to sustain growth in the economy,” Brandt told DW. …
    17. MIKE: The story then goes into some economists’ ideas as to the sources of China’s problems and the challenges that China will have reversing this course.
    18. MIKE: China’s economic growth is potentially a major security question for the US. In the geopolitical context of military power and power projection, per capita wealth of the Chinese people is less important than national wealth, and the power and influence that wealth can buy.
    19. MIKE: It would be nice of all the countries of the world could just get along without physically threatening each other, but individual countries have always effectively acted as individual gangs or warlords, competing for advantage at the expense of their competitors. The United Nations and the various treaties that it has enabled has helped some. Also, the United States’ post-WW2 efforts at creating and enforcing a world order based on international law and treaties has helped a great deal.
    20. MIKE: But if the world is not careful, all of that could unravel withing a generation, and we could find ourselves effectively back in the warring imperial global order of the 19^th
    21. MIKE: That is what’s at stake in Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific.
    22. REFERENCE: Major economies pile on debt as costs, burdens grow – COM
    23. REFERENCE: What Is Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), and How Is It Calculated? — INVESTOPEDIA.COM
11. And in global warming news, a science story I’ve been saving. Scientific research is showing us that humans aren’t the only cause of global warming, but at least humans are a cause we can control. From October of last year, by PHYS.ORG: New research finds that ancient carbon in rocks releases as much carbon dioxide as the world’s volcanoes; by University of Oxford | PHYS.ORG | Oct. 4, 2023. TAGS: CO₂ sink, geological carbon cycle, volcanoes,
    1. A new study led by the University of Oxford has overturned the view that natural rock weathering acts as a CO₂ sink, indicating instead that this can also act as a large CO₂ source, rivaling that of volcanoes. The results, published today in the journal Nature, have important implications for modeling climate change scenarios.
    2. Rocks contain an enormous store of carbon in the ancient remains of plants and animals that lived millions of years ago. This means that the “geological carbon cycle” acts as a thermostat that helps to regulate the Earth’s temperature.
    3. For instance, during chemical weathering rocks can suck up CO₂ when certain minerals are attacked by the weak acid found in rainwater. This process helps to counteract the continuous CO₂ released by volcanoes around the world, and forms part of Earth’s natural carbon cycle that has helped keep the surface habitable to life for a billion years or more.
    4. However, for the first time this new study measured an additional natural process of CO₂ release from rocks to the atmosphere, finding that it is as significant as the CO₂ released from volcanoes around the world. Currently, this process is not included in most models of the natural carbon cycle. …
    5. Up to now, measuring the release of this CO₂ from weathering organic carbon in rocks has proved difficult. In the new study, the researchers used a tracer element (rhenium) which is released into water when rock organic carbon reacts with oxygen. Sampling river water to measure rhenium levels makes it possible to quantify CO₂ However, sampling all river water in the world to get a global estimate would be a significant challenge.
    6. To upscale over Earth’s surface, the researchers did two things. First, they worked out how much organic carbon is present in rocks near the surface. Second, they worked out where these were being exposed most rapidly, by erosion in steep, mountain locations. …
    7. This could then be compared to how much CO₂ could be drawn down by natural rock weathering of silicate minerals. The results identified many large areas where weathering was a CO₂ source, challenging the current view about how weathering impacts the carbon cycle. …
    8. Ongoing and future work is looking into how changes in erosion due to human activities, alongside the increased warming of rocks due to anthropogenic climate changes, could increase this natural carbon leak. A question the team are now asking is if this natural CO₂ release will increase over the coming century. “Currently we don’t know—our methods allow us to provide a robust global estimate, but not yet assess how it could change,” says [Professor Robert Hilton of the Department of Earth Sciences, at University of Oxford),.
    9. [Dr. Jesse Zondervan, the researcher who led the study at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, concluded that,] “While the carbon dioxide release from rock weathering is small compared to present-day human emissions, the improved understanding of these natural fluxes will help us better predict our carbon“
    10. MIKE: As the saying goes, “The more you know …”
    11. MIKE: I think that what we’re seeing here is an example of Chaos Theory in action. In order to predict how a chaotic situation will turn out, you need to know all the possible variables that affect the chaotic event being studied. But even then, chaos has micro-variables that cannot be adequately predicted because there are too many solutions, even with perfect knowledge of the environment being studied. That’s why it’s called chaos.
    12. MIKE: Some things will never be better than a “best guess”. Even if it’s a really, really good guess.

=====================================================

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