Now in our 11th year on KPFT!

Going forward, new shows will post for Thursday at 6PM (CT) broadcast and re-run on Sundays at 1PM and Wednesdays at 11AM.

AUDIO:
  

TOPICS: ELECTION INFO; Sugar Land residents speak out against proposed power plant as city seeks community feedback; Finally in compliance: Harris County Jail passes state inspection for first time in 2 years; Lina Hidalgo makes first public push for proposed tax hike in State of the County address; Outgoing Houston state Rep. Shawn Thierry says she’s joining the GOP; Two-thirds of Americans say Trump unprepared to accept the election outcome: POLL; Interest rate cut expectations keep getting deeper as Powell’s ‘risk bias’ changes; US Charges Hamas Leaders in Oct. 7 Massacre in Israel and Other Terrorist Attacks; Biden preparing to block Nippon Steel purchase of U.S. Steel; China says it is ‘seriously concerned’ about US nuclear strategic report; Exclusive: U.S. sees ‘limited’ opportunity for talks with China on nuclear arms; The next front in U.S.-China tech battle? Underwater cables that power the global internet;

 

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:

1. Live online at KPFT.org (from anywhere in the world!)
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Except for timely election info, the extensive list of voting resources will now be at the end.

[18 sec] Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig on KPFT Houston at 90.1-HD2, Galveston 89.5-HD2 and our new improved Huntsville repeater at 91.9-HD2. KPFT is Houston’s Community Media. On this show, we discuss local, state, national, and international stories that may have slipped under your radar.

1. ELECTION INFO: Be correctly registered for the fall General elections, and double check at the link I’m providing to Texas Secretary of State to make sure you remain
   5. The general election is Nov. 5. The deadline for voter registration or correction of your voter registration is Oct. 7.
   6. The deadline to apply for a mail ballot is October 25. Click on the link I’m providing to HarrisVotes for the application. Please fill it out, print it, and mail it (not email or fax) before the deadline.
   7. if you are a new Texas resident, OR if you have changed your address since you last voted, OR if you have had any kind of name change for reasons such as marriage or divorce, then you MUST verify that you are still registered to vote AND you must update your voter information.
   8. The criteria required are your Voter ID number plus your date of birth, OR your Texas driver’s license number or Texas photo ID number plus date of birth, OR your name/county/date of birth.
   9. If you need to update any information, click on the voter registration link at VoteTexas(dot)gov. That will take you to an application page where you are given the option to register for the first time, OR to change your voter information, OR to replace your voter registration.
   10. Once you complete this form, you are NOT automatically registered. Instead, you MUST print it, sign it, and mail it to the address that is provided.
   11. Early Vote Centers will be open from Monday, October 21– Friday, November 1 (Mon-Sat: 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. Sun:12 p.m. – 7 p.m. )
   12. Vote Centers will accept voters from 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, November 5.
   13. Visit our “What’s on my Ballot?” page and enter your name or address to see all the contests and candidates you are eligible to vote on! (You can bring handwritten notes or printed sample ballots to the voting booth; just be sure to take it with you when you leave.)
2. Sugar Land residents speak out against proposed power plant as city seeks community feedback; By Aubrey Vogel | COM | 12:00 PM Aug 30, 2024 CDT. TAGS: Sugar Land (TX), Proposed Power Plant,
   1. As Sugar Land officials seek community feedback on a proposed power plant, some residents have banded together in opposition, citing environmental, health and property value concerns.
   2. … The city of Sugar Land is exploring the possibility of a rapid-start power plant on the 8-acre site of the former Central State Prison Farm to deliver additional power to Texas’ electrical grid. The proposed plant would have an output capacity of at least 135 megawatts, Community Impact
   3. Sugar Land Communications Director Doug Adolph said city officials hope the power plant will help address high power grid demands by adding capacity to the grid.
   4. “We’ve known for a very long time that reliable power is important to our residents, especially during hot summer months and disasters like Winter Storm [Uri] and Hurricane Beryl,” he said. “We share their concerns.”
   5. … At a May 21 meeting, Sugar Land City Council approved a ground lease option agreement with Wärtsilä Development and Financial Services, Inc.—a company dedicated to innovative technologies in the marine and energy markets—to grant land access for surveys and analysis. Additionally, Adolph said an interconnection study will determine if the project is feasible with concerns such as air quality and noise.
   6. The power plant would cost approximately $146 million to build, Community Impact Funding for the project is still being determined, although Adolph said no public tax dollars will be used. Financing, ownership and management of the project are still being negotiated.
   7. “The city is considering a revenue-sharing agreement with the developer that would [allow] the city to reinvest in infrastructure, maintenance and economic development opportunities that help maintain one of the state’s lowest tax rates, while also providing the high level of services our residents expect,” he said.
   8. What they’re saying — Since the lease agreement was approved, some Sugar Land residents such as Anna Lykoudis-Zafiris said they are concerned with the potential effects the power plant could cause, citing environmental, health and property value concerns. …
   9. Lykoudis-Zafiris is one of the principal organizers for the Stop the Sugar Land Gas Power Plant group, a Facebook group composed of nearly 900 Sugar Land and Fort Bend County residents who oppose the power plant.
   10. She and others in the group said they are concerned about the lack of transparency from the city ahead of approving the ground lease for the proposed power plant.
   11. … City officials have been working to respond to all community questions and ensure staff members are available to attend community meetings, Adolph said, although the effects of Beryl have delayed the process. …
   12. Residents are encouraged to reach out in the city’s online feedback form with questions, comments or concerns, Adolph said.
   13. … Before moving forward with the project, surveys will need to be completed and the city will need to negotiate a long-term ground lease for the power plant, Adolph said.
   14. If the city were to move forward, the proposed power plant is set to be delivered no earlier than 2028, he said.
   15. The city will also continue its community roadshow, where city officials are set to present information as well as answer questions from the public. Opportunities include:
   16. 5 at 6:30 p.m. at Telfair Central Hall, located at 121 Telfair Central Blvd., Sugar Land
   17. 19 at 3 p.m. at Landmark Community Center, located at 100 Louisiana St., Missouri City
   18. MIKE: Addresses and time for the public information opportunities are specified at the bottom of the main story.
   19. MIKE: Community Impact wrote another article in May of this year talking more about the specifics of the proposed plant. As explained in that article, “The plant will use natural gas to provide sustainable power to the Texas grid … . In the event of a grid failure, weather-resistant engines will be able to restore power within five minutes. The plant will provide electricity without relying on external grids, even during a complete blackout.”
   20. MIKE: From a map embedded in the recent article, it looks like there are quite a few residential areas within less than a mile from this proposed plant. I can see why residents would be concerned about noise and possible air pollution, emission of CO2 gases (including possible methane leaks), as well as the remote chance of natural gas accidents.
   21. MIKE: On the other hand, I can see the overall appeal of what amounts to a community emergency generator system for Sugar Land.
   22. MIKE: I wonder if this project could be enhanced with the addition of power storage capabilities.
   23. MIKE: Time will tell how this proposed project develops.
   24. REFERENCE: Link to map of site of proposed plant
   25. REFERENCE: $146M power plant in Sugar Land aims to minimize impact of weather disasters — By Asia Armour | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 10:15 AM May 31, 2024 CDT
3. Finally in compliance: Harris County Jail passes state inspection for first time in 2 years; by Monroe Trombly | HOUSTONLANDING.ORG | August 28, 2024 | 4:00 am. TAGS: Harris County Jail, Harris County Sheriff’s Office, Texas, Minimum Safety Standards,
   1. For the first time in nearly two years, the Harris County Jail is in compliance with Texas’ minimum safety standards, a significant achievement for the long-troubled facility. 
   2. The jail, operated by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, last week received a certificate of compliance from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards after passing a four-day inspection. 
   3. The Harris County Jail had been considered out of compliance with Texas’ minimum safety standards since September 2022, when an inspection found dozens of incarcerated people waiting to be processed in holding cells for more than 48 hours, a violation of state law. Follow-up inspections identified staffing shortages, failures to provide medical care and lax monitoring of a person who died in the jail.
   4. To address these problems, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office hired dozens of people and sent hundreds of people held in jail while awaiting trial from the overcrowded downtown facility to other jails.
   5. The recent actions by the sheriff’s office have come at a significant cost to taxpayers, however, including up to $50 million to send people to jails run by other agencies.
   6. The compliance certificate represents a noteworthy development for the jail, which for years has faced accusations of mismanagement and overcrowding made worse by a backlog of cases in the Harris County criminal court system. …
   7. While they gave the Harris County Jail a passing grade, state inspectors provided “technical assistance” on four fronts. 
   8. During the inspection, conducted from Aug. 12 to 15, inspectors found that the sheriff’s office had wrongly included detention officers — who responded to emergencies and transported incarcerated people to court hearings — in the state-mandated staffing ratio of one detention officer for every 48 incarcerated people.
   9. The inspectors also found two fire alarm control panels needed replacing and jail staff were late to 15 routine checks on inmates, though that number constituted less than 1 percent of the 15,668 rounds the inspectors reviewed.
   10. “Failure to address the technical assistance areas in a timely manner may result in the issuance of a notice of non-compliance,” inspectors wrote in a report.
   11. … As of Monday, there were 9,350 inmates in the Harris County Jail, as well as more than 1,300 housed in facilities near Lubbock, central Louisiana and northwest Mississippi, according to the county’s data dashboard. The Harris County Jail facilities are designed to hold up to about 9,400 inmates.
   12. Phillip Bosquez, assistant chief of detentions command at the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, said earlier this month during a jail commission meeting that the number of detention officer openings had declined from 180 to 139 over the past three months. He credited a 12 percent pay increase approved by Harris County Commissioners last year for helping to attract new hires.
   13. The improvements have coincided with a decline in jail deaths this year. Seven inmates have died so far in 2024, most recently a 49-year-old man on Monday. The jail’s sixth in-custody death came on Aug. 12. In comparison, there were 19 inmate deaths in 2023 and 27 in 2022.
   14. “There is plenty of evidence showing we’ve achieved great strides toward meeting this higher standard,” [Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez] said in his statement. “For the second year in a row, we are seeing a significant decline in the mortality rate among the people housed in our jail. We’ve also seen an uptick in our detention officer retention rate, which is a sign that work conditions are improving.”
   15. Krish Gundu, executive director of the Texas Jail Project, a nonprofit that advocates for people in county jails, said in a statement that she found the timing of the compliance certificate and the recent custodial deaths as ironic.
   16. Gundu also said she found it “deeply troubling” that jail commission inspectors provided technical assistance to the sheriff’s office during the August jail inspection, and that the agency is “still barely meeting” required staff-to-inmate ratios.
   17. MIKE: “Barely meeting” any standard is probably unacceptable, but at least progress is being made. Change can’t come overnight or fast enough, but it’s progress. And I think that we can thank the recently Democratic-dominated County Commissioners Court for biting the fiscal bullet to make this progress.
   18. MIKE: Whenever I discuss jail or prison conditions, I always quote the late, great Houston radio host David Fowler for his insightful question: “Do we send people to prison AS punishment, or do we send them to prison FOR punishment?”
   19. MIKE: The answer should always be the former.
   20. MIKE: Not everyone sent to jail is a hardened criminal. Not every person sent to jail is a multi-time offender. Not every person sent to jail is there for a serious crime.
   21. MIKE: Jail is no picnic. It’s not supposed to be. However, conditions of living, medical care, food, etc. are not only essential for the inmates, but also for the employees. And above all, it should be safe, and safety requires sufficient, and sufficiently screened and trained, staff.
   22. MIKE: I often say that you get the government you pay for. I usually mean that in terms of road maintenance, trash pick-up, water service, flood mitigation, etc., but government also pays for incarcerating some of our citizens, and they need sufficient financial support and personnel to do that job properly, fairly, and humanely.
   23. MIKE: If we want fair justice and law and order, we need to pay sufficient taxes for it.
4. Lina Hidalgo makes first public push for proposed tax hike in State of the County address; By John Lomax V, Staff writer | HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM | Aug 29, 2024. TAGS: Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, Harris County, Taxes, Storm Resiliency Projects,
   1. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo in her State of the County address on Thursday made her first public push for a proposed tax hike that would create more funds for infrastructure maintenance. 
   2. Hidalgo said in her first in-person State of the County address since 2019 that while the county’s investment in storm resiliency projects and other flood control efforts has increased since Hurricane Harvey, the total amount allotted for maintenance has remained unchanged. Harris County, she said, will struggle to maintain the $5 billion it has scheduled in new projects over the next five years without the increase. 
   3. “We can actually turn the page on flooding, and there are some other ways worth trying,” Hidalgo said. “So we now have an item on the November ballot where voters can allow us to invest in maintenance so we’re maintaining the projects we’re building.”
   4. The proposal would increase the Harris County Flood Control District’s tax rate to 4.8 cents for every $100 in property value. For someone who owns a $400,000 home, the increase would amount to roughly $60 more per year and would generate somewhere in the ballpark of $113 million in revenue for the flood control district. 
   5. Harris County’s tax rate has steadily declined since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. From a high rate of 57 cents in 2021, the most recently adopted tax rate was just 49 cents in 2023. 
   6. The $113 million generated through the proposed increase would allow the county to perform maintenance every 67 years as opposed to the current standard of every 270 years, Hidalgo said. 
   7. Per state law, the proposed hike will go before voters as a ballot item in the November election. Hidalgo thanked her fellow commissioners, who unanimously approved the ballot item at a Commissioners Court meeting in mid-August. …
   8. The ballot proposal is even supported by Republican Commissioner Tom Ramsey, who butted heads this week with county Democrats over an initiative to increase voter registration across Harris County.
   9. “We have known for 30-plus years that flood control was underfunded when it came to maintenance,” Ramsey said when Commissioners Court voted to put the proposal on the ballot. “We are today saying that’s not acceptable.”
   10. Access to child care and mental health resources were also top of mind for Hidalgo. She said the nation as a whole has been grappling with a mental health crisis in the years since the pandemic and that her office was focused on addressing some of the compounding factors that can exacerbate the issue. 
   11. Hidalgo, who took a leave of absence late last year to pursue inpatient treatment for depression at [a] mental health care facility, said her personal struggles have helped her better understand the evolving crisis in Harris County.
   12. “One thing that it taught me is just how horrible mental illness is in our community,” Hidalgo said. “The data shows it, too. After the pandemic, many more people, especially young people, are facing these mental health illnesses.” 
   13. Workforce solutions, such as providing access to career development courses, apprenticeships and other programs, are major pillars in Hidalgo’s plan to combat crime and help address mental health concerns. She said the county has invested $34 million in programs intended to help residents develop marketable skill sets. 
   14. Looking forward, Hidalgo said Harris County will remain focused on creating equitable, sustainable growth across all sectors. The energy sector remains a major priority, both for renewables and natural gas, she said. 
   15. “Harris County is strong. Harris County is growing. Harris County is resilient. Harris County is united,” Hidalgo said. “There’s just so much work on behalf of all our teams, and all of us going into building a better organization that can do the work of the people with accountability.” 
   16. MIKE: My understanding is that for the most part, as assessed property values have increased, tax rates have dropped so as to maintain an actual tax increase of about 3.5% per year. It’s especially noteworthy that even Republican Commissioner Tom Ramsey voted for this increase, and Ramsey almost never votes for a tax increase.
   17. MIKE: As for Hidalgo’s other comments on addressing childcare, job training, and community mental health concerns, I think that’s also an indication of a “whole-county” approach to community health and welfare.
   18. REFERENCE: Lina Hidalgo highlights Harris County’s resilience, need for future infrastructure investments — By Melissa Enaje | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 4:17 PM Sep 3, 2024 CDT/Updated 4:33 PM Sep 3, 2024 CDT
5. Outgoing Houston state Rep. Shawn Thierry says she’s joining the GOP; By Taylor Goldenstein, Austin Bureau | HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM | Aug 30, 2024. TAGS: Houston Democratic state Rep. Shawn Thierry, Republican Party, Party-Switching, Democratic Party,
   1. Houston Democratic state Rep. Shawn Thierry, who lost her primary after breaking with her party last year to vote for a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, announced Friday she will be switching to the Republican Party. …
   2. Thierry discussed her decision to leave the party at a national summit for the conservative parental rights group Moms for Liberty.
   3. Thierry lost a primary runoff race this May to union organizer Lauren Ashley Simmons after her challenger ran a campaign casting the incumbent as out-of-touch with the reliably blue District 146, a majority-minority district in south and southwest Houston. Thierry had sided with Republicans on several other bills last session, including a virtual ban on collegiate transgender athletes and another bill regulating book content in schools that LGBTQ advocates warned would lead to censorship. …
   4. Genspect, an anti-trans international organization that opposes gender-affirming care for children, announced earlier this month that it had hired Thierry as director of political strategy for its U.S. wing.
   5. Texas House Democratic Caucus chairman and San Antonio state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer said Thierry “was fired by the voters” of her district “because she didn’t respect their will and what they wanted for their community.” Thierry showed she now serves “special interests and not their own” after she accepted donations this year from conservative-aligned donors, he said. …
   6. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott applauded Thierry’s decision Friday in a statement. …
   7. [Lauren Ashley Simmons] declined to comment on her former opponent’s party switch, but campaign spokesperson Grant Martin said simply: “I’m glad she (Thierry) can finally live openly as her authentic self.”
   8. MIKE: Irony is usually lost on Conservative Republicans, so the comment by Grant Martin about Thierry now being able to live openly as her “authentic self” is probably lost on her. But I hope not, even if it means only a momentary sting on her choices.
   9. MIKE: It’s even more obvious now that voters in her district made the right decision about having a state representative that shares their values.
   10. MIKE: The next regular session of the Texas Legislature is set for January 14, 2025, so Thierry’s party switch should make no legislative difference for the rest of this year unless a special session is called.
6. WARNING: Statistics ahead — Two-thirds of Americans say Trump unprepared to accept the election outcome: POLL; The poll found 17% of Americans say they are not prepared to accept the results. By Steven Sparks | ABCNEWS.GO.COM | August 30, 2024, 5:11 AM. TAGS: Donald Trump, Election Denialism,
   1. Most Americans say they and Kamala Harris alike are prepared to accept the outcome of the 2024 presidential election as legitimate. Donald Trump, not so much.
   2. Eighty-one percent of Americans in a new ABC News/Ipsos poll say that regardless of which candidate they support, they are prepared to accept the outcome of the election. Fewer, but still 68%, see Harris as prepared to accept the outcome. Just 29% say the same about Trump.
   3. Nearly all of Harris’ supporters, 92%, say they personally are prepared to accept the outcome. That declines to 76% of Trump’s supporters. Instead, 21% of his supporters — which translates to 8% of all adults — are not prepared to do so.
   4. Other, sharper political divisions inform views in this poll, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates with fieldwork by Ipsos. Just 6% of Harris’ supporters think Trump is prepared to accept the election outcome, rising to a still-mild 58% among his own supporters. Ninety-seven percent of Harris’ supporters think she is prepared to accept the outcome; among Trump’s supporters, only 44% think the same.
   5. … Trump’s election denial claims resonate with some Americans.
   6. One in three (34%) lacks confidence that votes in the election will be counted accurately, similar to the share who said so in 2022. Sixty-five percent are very or somewhat confident in an accurate count; just half of them, 32%, are very confident.
   7. Moreover, an identical 34% think Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election[; this is] little changed since his inauguration.
   8. These views are strongly related: Nearly nine in 10 Americans who think Biden legitimately was elected are confident that votes will be counted accurately this year, dropping to 26% of those who think it wasn’t legitimate.
   9. Views on election integrity also are associated with preparedness to accept the outcome. Among people who are confident that votes will be counted accurately, 92% say they are prepared to accept the outcome, versus 61% of those who lack confidence in the count. And 91% of those who think Biden was legitimately elected are prepared to accept this year’s outcome, versus 64% of those who think not.
   10. … There are wide gaps by partisanship in confidence in the vote count, with half of Republicans (51%) lacking confidence it will be accurate. Ninety percent of Democrats express confidence in the count, dropping to 64% of independents and just 48% of Republicans.
   11. In a similar pattern, 96% of Democrats think Biden was legitimately elected; 66% of independents and just 30% of Republicans agree.
   12. That said, partisan divisions in personal preparedness to accept the outcome this year are much milder. About eight in 10 Republicans (78%) and independents (81%) alike say they’ll accept it, as do 89% of Democrats.
   13. Ideology is another factor: At least eight in 10 people who are liberal, moderate or somewhat conservative are prepared to accept the outcome, dropping to 64% among those who identify themselves as very conservative.
   14. Just 38% of very-conservatives are confident that votes will be counted accurately this year, rising to 50% of somewhat-conservatives, 68% of moderates, and 89% of liberals. And only 21% of very-conservatives think Biden legitimately won in 2020; this doubles to 42% of somewhat-conservatives, then jumps to 70% of moderates and 92% of liberals. …
   15. Results have a margin of sampling error of [+/-] 2 percentage points
   16. MIKE: For those who like graphs with their polling surveys, you might enjoy visiting this story. The story concludes with detailed information on the methodology of the survey. You can find that information by clicking on the article link at ThingwingRadio[dot]com.
   17. MIKE: Hopefully, none or very few of the “very-conservatives” will participate in violence if their candidate loses. After the attempted coup of January 6, 2021, and until Donald Trump and his sycophants leave the political scene, we can no longer simply assume a peaceful transfer of power. We can only cross our fingers and hope.
7. Interest rate cut expectations keep getting deeper as Powell’s ‘risk bias’ changes; BY Eleanor Pringle | FORTUNE.COM | August 29, 2024 at 5:57 AM CDT. TAGS: Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, Interest Rate Cut, Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC),
   1. At the beginning of the month Wall Street was confident—but not convinced—that it would be getting its much-anticipated interest rate cut come September.
   2. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s Jackson Hole speech sealed the deal for many that a reduction is indeed imminent. The rate currently sits at 5.25%—a more than two-decade high.
   3. But a combination of economic data and hints from FOMC members—including Powell himself—is now leading analysts to wonder if the cut will be more significant than previously expected. Powell’s “risk bias” is changing, according to some.
   4. Previously, the likes of Bank of America and investment fund Vanguard had factored in a cut of 0.25%, or 25 basis points (bps), next month, but arguments for a 50 bps (0.5%) cut are beginning to gather pace.
   5. JPMorgan, for example, this week said it is expecting the Fed to cut by 100 bps—an entire percentage point—by the end of the year.
   6. With just three meetings left that would mean at least one of the cuts would have to be 50 bps, paired with two cuts at 25 bps.
   7. The shift in expectations comes as turbulent data continue to make the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) dual mandate harder to read.
   8. That double mandate is to bring down inflation—which thus far it has been relatively successful in doing without plunging the economy into a recession—but also maximizing employment.
   9. A report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics this week revealed that unemployment rates in metropolitan areas are creeping up while demand for workers is softening.
   10. Conversely, productivity is on the rise, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said earlier this month.
   11. This has created an “odd combination of rising concerns about a U.S. slide into recession alongside financial market optimism about the future path of business sector performance,” JPMorgan wrote in a note this week.
   12. The bank added in the note seen by Fortune that the Fed is shifting from a gradualist attitude to a fear of cutting interest rates too late.
   13. This concern was aired by [Chicago] Fed chairman Austin Goolsbee in an exclusive interview with Fortune earlier this month.
   14. [Goolsbee] cautioned: “The conditions were very different when we set the rate at this level. Every month that we get an inflation like the one we just saw—where inflation is lower than expected—we just tightened in real terms.”
   15. As a result, he’s asking himself, and his fellow FOMC members, to ponder: “When does the Fed really need to be that tight?”
   16. “The answer is you only want to be that tight for as long as you have to and if you’re afraid that the economy is about to overheat,” [Goolsbee] explained. “This, to me, is not what an overheating economy looks like.“
   17. “So I do think we need to be cognizant of being this tight for too long, because if we are, we’re going to have to think about the real side of the mandate, and employment is gonna get worse.”
   18. Whether experts are pricing in a 25 bps cut, a 50 bps cut, or even an emergency off-schedule cut, one thing they can all agree on is that the FOMC is changing tack.
   19. In his speech at Jackson Hole last week, Chair Powell said: “The time has come for policy to adjust. The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks.”
   20. This suggests Powell and his peers are looking to balance both sides of their mandate, writes Wharton Professor Jeremy Siegel in his weekly comment for investment experts WisdomTree.
   21. The emeritus professor of finance at the University of Pennsylvania falls into the camp of cutting the base rate—currently between 25% and 5.5%—”to 4% or less without delay.”
   22. “In other words, [Powell] will not seek to use higher unemployment as a force to finish the job of getting inflation to 2%. This is a very important shift,” wrote Siegel, who is also a senior economist at WisdomTree.
   23. While JPMorgan may not subscribe to Siegel’s call for an immediate cut, analysts at America’s biggest bank have also noted the change in Powell’s “risk bias,” as they call it.
   24. “Last week’s communication from Chair Powell’s Jackson Hole speech confirms that this shift in risk bias has taken place and that the Fed does not want to see labor conditions ease further,” they wrote.
   25. “We believe it puts the Fed on track to deliver a roughly 100 bp step-down in rates by the end of this year.” …
   26. MIKE: This is good news for anyone who is considering a major purchase before the end of the year, whether that’s a car or a house, or some other big ticket item.
   27. MIKE: A cut of a full percentage point in the Fed rate would be a lot over a 3-month time span, but the increase in rates was also pretty rapid, so perhaps anything is possible.
   28. MIKE: If you’re thinking of shopping for a house, I’ll also note for those to whom it applies that there is an old saying in the real estate business that there is never a bad time to buy real estate. High mortgage rates tend to deter buyers, but also remember that when rates are high, demand is low and real estate prices soften. Lower rates will induce demand and prices will probably rise.
   29. MIKE: You can never lower the price you paid, but you can always refinance at a lower rate at some point in the future.
   30. MIKE: Just something to think about.
8. US Charges Hamas Leaders in Oct. 7 Massacre in Israel and Other Terrorist Attacks; By Adam GoldmanRonen Bergman and Glenn Thrush | NYTIMES.COM | Sept. 3, 2024/Updated 7:28 p.m. ET. TAGS: Yahya Sinwar, Oct. 7 massacre, Muhammad Deif, Ismail Haniyeh, Marwan Issa, Ali Barakeh, Khaled Meshal,
   1. Federal prosecutors charged Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, and five senior members of the group with planning and carrying out years of terrorist attacks in Israel, including the Oct. 7 massacre, according to a sweeping complaint unsealed on Tuesday.
   2. The criminal complaint, originally filed in New York in February, implicated two other senior members of Hamas not previously thought to be directly involved in the attacks. It also listed the number of Americans believed to have died at 43.
   3. The other leaders named are Ismail Haniyeh, who had overseen Hamas’s political office in Qatar; Muhammad Deif, the commander of the group’s military wing; Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of the group’s military wing; Ali Barakeh, a senior Hamas official based in Beirut; and Khaled Meshal, a former political leader of the group who remains a top official. Deif and Mr. Issa were killed in Israeli airstrikes during the fighting in Gaza. Mr. Haniyeh, a top negotiator in cease-fire talks, was assassinated in Iran after a bomb was covertly smuggled into the guesthouse where he was staying.
   4. Meshal, who resides in Qatar, and Mr. Haniyeh were not known to be involved in carrying out the Oct. 7 attacks. The two men, along with Mr. Barakeh, were all outside Gaza when the attacks happened, catching Israel by surprise. Mr. Haniyeh was living in Doha before his death.
   5. American and Israeli intelligence believed the plans surrounding the attack were a closely guarded secret, known only by a select few inside Gaza like Mr. Sinwar and Mr. Deif. If true, the American government’s charges against the political members of Hamas could cast a different light on the group’s activities.
   6. The charges come at a politically fraught moment as the White House tries to save cease-fire talks and after the disclosure over the weekend that Hamas executed six hostages in Gaza, including a 23-year-old Israeli-American whose death prompted an outpouring of grief across the United States.
   7. The young man, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, was among the roughly 250 who were taken on Oct. 7. He was badly wounded but thought to be alive before Hamas killed him. Seven more Americans remain in Gaza, but three are believed to have died either on Oct. 7 or shortly after. The other four are unaccounted for.
   8. “We are investigating Hersh’s murder, and each and every one of the brutal murders of Americans, as acts of terrorism,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement. “We will continue to support the whole-of-government effort to bring the Americans still being held hostage home.”
   9. American officials have charged leaders of terrorist groups in the past even though they faced little chance of capture or arrest.
   10. Among the seven counts the Hamas leaders face: conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens, conspiracy to finance terrorism, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction resulting in death and conspiracy to support terrorism resulting in death. Some of the counts date back to 1997.
   11. The complaint is largely an accounting of Hamas’s violent history over the decades, including bombings in the 1990s that killed Americans, as well as statements made by the Hamas officials singled out in the complaint.
   12. Hamas received funding through donations, cryptocurrency and transfers from the government of Iran, the complaint added.
   13. The Justice Department said the charges were kept under seal after they were filed in February in the hopes of arresting Mr. Haniyeh and perhaps additional defendants, and to prevent them from going into hiding. But after Mr. Haniyeh’s assassination, the department decided there was no longer sufficient reason to keep the charges secret.
   14. S. officials had also been gravely concerned that making the charges public would enrage Hamas and endanger Mr. Goldberg-Polin’s life. But his killing last week changed that calculus.
   15. The United States designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization in October 1997 after a spate of bombings in Israel that killed scores of civilians, including women and children. The group’s charter calls for the destruction of Israel. …
   16. The Justice Department, in bringing criminal charges, cited the breadth of Hamas’s attacks in the complaint.
   17. “Hamas and its leaders have continued to espouse the destruction of Israel as Hamas’s core purpose,” the complaint said, “and the use of murder and other acts of violent terrorism against Israelis and those who support Israel, including Americans, as its principal means of accomplishing that objective. As a central component of that mission, Hamas leaders have specifically called for retaliation against the United States in response to U.S. support of Israel’s existence.”
   18. The International Criminal Court, in the Netherlands, has issued arrest warrants over the Israel-Gaza war, accusing both sides of war crimes. In May, it requested warrants for Mr. Haniyeh, Mr. Deif and Mr. Sinwar as well as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
   19. In an Oct. 8, 2023, interview on Russia Today TV, Mr. Barakeh said that Hamas had been secretly planning the attack for two years.
   20. “The zero hour was kept completely secret,” he said. “A limited number of Hamas leaders knew it. The number of people who knew about the attack and its timing could be counted on one hand.”
   21. MIKE: This is an interesting development, and it’s certainly not unprecedented. The US has a long history of indicting foreign nationals for crimes against the US and against US citizens, even when the likelihood of actually apprehending and trying those organizations or individuals is slim to none.
   22. MIKE: There’s no way of knowing for certain what these indictments will mean for US efforts to mediate a hostage release deal between Hamas and Israel. It certainly can’t help. The question is whether negotiating parties on the Hamas side are willing to compartmentalize this development as separate from negotiations, or whether Hamas will see this as a reason — or an excuse — to stonewall further or even break off US-mediated talks.
   23. MIKE: As always, time will tell.
9. Biden preparing to block Nippon Steel purchase of U.S. Steel; The move would pose a setback for relations with Japan. By David J. Lynch and Jeff Stein | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | Updated September 4, 2024 at 5:20 p.m. EDT | Published September 4, 2024 at 1:43 p.m. EDT. TAGS: President Joe Biden, Nippon Steel, U.S. Steel, Japan, Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS),
   14. President Joe Biden is preparing to announce that he will formally block Nippon Steel’s proposed $14.9 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel, according to three people …who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a decision not yet made public.
   15. The stunning move to kill a deal featuring a corporation from Japan, a close U.S. ally, comes as Vice President Kamala Harris battles former president Donald Trump for support from union members across the industrial Midwest.
   16. The acquisition has been under investigation by the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) for potential national security implications. A White House official … said in a statement that CFIUS had not yet transmitted its recommendation to the president. Under the law, the president can block a private transaction only after receiving the panel’s final report.
   17. But after an extensive review, the Treasury-led committee appears to have concluded that the national security concerns raised by the acquisition could not be mitigated, according to two industry sources …
   18. Earlier Wednesday, before the news broke, S. Steel CEO David Burritt warned that the deal’s collapse would put at risk “thousands of good-paying union jobs” and raise “serious questions” about the likelihood that the company would remain headquartered in Pittsburgh.
   19. Last week, Nippon Steel increased its planned investment in the new U.S. Steel by $1.3 billion in addition to the $1.4 billion it had previously detailed. The Japanese company said the extra money would modernize two of U.S. Steel’s largest facilities …
   20. The companies have yet to receive any formal notification from the government. And no date for the presidential announcement has yet been set, the people with knowledge of the matter said. …
   21. The president first publicly opposed the deal in March, saying it was “vital” for U.S. Steel to remain American-owned. Administration officials privately told Japanese diplomats that the president’s stance was linked to his need to win United Steelworkers union support in the November election. Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes remain pivotal for Harris, who replaced Biden on the Democratic ticket.
   22. Harris voiced her opposition to the deal this week. In January, Trump said he would “block it instantaneously” if he were returned to the White House. Many lawmakers, especially from Pennsylvania and Ohio, also expressed dismay at the transaction.
   23. The union opposed the Nippon deal, preferring a rival bid by Cleveland Cliffs, an American steelmaker based in Cleveland. U.S. Steel had rejected its $7.3 billion offer four months before Nippon Steel weighed in.
   24. Nippon Steel sought to win union backing by promising that it would institute no layoffs or plant closures after completing the acquisition and would commit $1.4 billion to refresh U.S. Steel’s aging plants.
   25. But United Steelworkers President David McCall derided the company’s plan as “empty.” Loopholes in the deal made the promises unenforceable, he said.
   26. Nippon Steel said it was drawn to the United States by Biden’s use of tax incentives and subsidies to spur domestic production. Buying U.S. Steel, which operates both traditional blast furnaces and smaller, more efficient electric arc systems, would enable it to capitalize on the U.S. industrial rebound.
   27. Yet even as Nippon Steel’s interest validated the president’s economic policies, … [w]ithin days of its announcement in December 2023, the White House signaled concern, with National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard stating that Nippon’s bid warranted “serious scrutiny.”
   28. The only way that the president could kill the transaction would be by invoking the national security language of the CFIUS law.
   29. Yet independent analysts were baffled by the idea that allowing Japan’s Nippon Steel to acquire the Pittsburgh steelmaker would somehow harm U.S. national security.
   30. Japan has been a U.S. ally since the end of World War II. The U.S.-Japan Security Treaty obligates the United States to defend Japan if it is attacked, and almost 55,000 American military personnel are stationed in Japan.
   31. The U.S. military’s annual steel requirements, meanwhile, amount to just 3 percent of total domestic production, according to the Pentagon, suggesting U.S. Steel by itself is not essential to the national defense. The Defense Department does not buy anything directly from the company.
   32. And Nippon Steel already owns stakes in several smaller U.S. Steel companies, which employ about 4,000 American workers.
   33. Under those circumstances, many analysts regarded the Biden administration’s stance as politically driven.
   34. [U.S. Steel is] no longer is the industrial titan it once was.
   35. Today, U.S. Steel is the nation’s third-largest steelmaker by revenue, employs half as many workers as it did 20 years ago and has lost money in nine of the past 15 years.
   36. Company executives and Wall Street analysts saw Nippon Steel as a suitor that could revive the American company’s blast furnaces and equip it for intensifying global competition.
   37. The deal would have created the third-largest global steelmaker in a bid to compete with Chinese rivals.
   38. MIKE: I’ve discussed this proposed takeover of US Steel previously in an April program. At the time, I began my remarks this way: “This is a complicated situation. What should take precedence? Market efficiency and penetration? Sustainability of US Steel as a self-sufficient concern? National security in the form of American ownership of a strategically important company? Our relationship and demonstrable trust with a strategically important ally in Asia? The anti-trust implications of market dominance in the event of a takeover by a domestic company?”
   39. MIKE: I’ve linked to that show so you can follow up on the previous story and my further remarks if you should wish.
   40. MIKE: Essentially, my views on this deal have not changed much. American steel manufacturing assets are strategic enterprises, especially in the event of a national emergency.
   41. MIKE: But a company that has lost money in 9 of the past 15 years is already at risk as a going concern.
   42. MIKE: The earlier story I cited from Nikkei[dot]com included some of the specific concerns of the union about possible job losses. From what I read, it concerned what I might call “squirmy” language from Nippon Steel on that point. I quoted this bit: “Nippon Steel has proposed concessions to the USW…. It also pledged not to lay off any employees or close any plants, at least until the current collective bargaining agreement expires.”
   43. MIKE: Now sure … On the one hand, contracts stipulate things about wages, job security, etc. On the other hand, it’s understood that when that contract expires, all bets are potentially off.
   44. MIKE: This is where the Union’s concerns come into play.
   45. MIKE: My strategic concerns about foreign ownership of a company are lessened when the physical plant is still in the US. In a crisis, that plant can always be taken over by the government if the circumstances require, but that assumes that the foreign owners continue to operate the assets in the US. As owners, they can at some point opt to move those assets offshore.
   46. MIKE: Maybe Nippon Steel needs to negotiate some new job language with the union. And maybe Nippon needs to have some discussions with some appropriate part of the US government.
   47. MIKE: But in my earlier discussion of this deal, I suggested that this might be a situation where having the US government come in as an investor to reinvigorate and update US Steel’s physical plants might be appropriate.
   48. MIKE: This would not be the same as a government takeover. It would be similar to the US government’s investment in General Motors to keep the company solvent during the 2008 economic crisis.
   49. MIKE: If the government became a significant shareholder, it would provide the cash infusion needed to upgrade US Steel’s physical assets while keeping a strategic asset in US hands. At some future point, the government could — if desired or politically necessary — liquidate its share and return the company to fully private ownership.
   50. MIKE: While the American political climate would make such a move politically fraught, it seems to me to be at least reasonable as an option worth considering.
   51. REFERENCE: Thinkwing Radio, APR. 24+25+28, 2024
10. From last week’s backlog of stories was this one of US concerns about China’s growing nuclear weapons stockpile. — China says it is ‘seriously concerned’ about US nuclear strategic report; By Reuters | REUTERS.COM | August 21, 2024 @ 2:49 AM CDT/Updated 2 days ago. TAGS: China, United States, Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Deterrent,
    1. China is seriously concerned about a report that said the [United States] approved a nuclear strategic plan to focus on China’s rapid expansion in its nuclear arsenal, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Wednesday. …
    2. According to a report by the New York Times, U.S. President Joe Biden approved in March a highly classified nuclear strategic plan that focused on China’s quickly growing arsenal, but also seeks to prepare the U.S. for possible coordinated nuclear challenges from China, Russia and North Korea.
    3. “China is seriously concerned about the relevant report, and the facts have fully proved that the United States has constantly stirred up the so-called China nuclear threat theory in recent years,” said Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning at a regular press briefing.
    4. The White House said on Tuesday that the classified nuclear strategic plan approved by Biden this year is not a response to a single country or threat.
    5. The U.S. has consistently pointed to China’s expansive and growing nuclear weaponry. An annual report by the Pentagon last October said China had more than 500 operational nuclear warheads in its arsenal, and will probably have over 1,000 warheads by 2030.
    6. MIKE: This story leads nicely into the next one from the current week’s news.
11. Exclusive: U.S. sees ‘limited’ opportunity for talks with China on nuclear arms; By Trevor Hunnicutt | REUTERS.COM | August 29, 20245:40 AM CDT/Updated 2 days ago. TAGS: United States, China, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Nuclear Arms Control,
    1. The United States is pushing China to break a longstanding resistance to nuclear arms talks, seeing a “limited opportunity” for early two-way conversations on the superpowers’ approach to the issue, a senior Biden administration official said.
    2. The renewed U.S. push for nuclear talks comes as U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met top Chinese officials in Beijing to try and resolve gaping differences on a broad range of issues.
    3. … [Said an official, who sought anonymity because the matter is a sensitive one,] “They’ve signaled some willingness to start nibbling around the margins of arms control, but then they’re not very forward-leaning about following through on that. … So, I would say in 2024 the conversation is slightly more ripe than it was in 2022. … ,”the official said.
    4. The Biden administration’s assessment of the possibility and scope for such conversations has not previously been reported. …
    5. Referring to tension over the disputed South China Sea between China and a U.S. treaty ally, the Philippines, the official said decisions on long-term missile deployments to Manila would depend in part on China’s actions.
    6. Nuclear strategy remains a sticking point, however.
    7. The two countries briefly resumed official-level talks over nuclear arms in November [of 2023,] but those negotiations have since stalled, with a top U.S. official publicly expressing frustration regarding China’s responsiveness.
    8. Formal nuclear arms control negotiations had not been expected any time soon, … even though semi-official exchanges have resumed.
    9. The U.S. defence department estimated last year that Beijing has 500 operational nuclear warheads and will probably field more than 1,000 by 2030.
    10. That compares to 1,770 and 1,710 operational warheads deployed by the United States and Russia, respectively. The Pentagon said that by 2030, much of Beijing’s weapons would probably be held at higher levels of readiness.
    11. Since 2020, China has also modernised its nuclear program, starting production of its next-generation ballistic missile submarine, testing hypersonic glide vehicle warheads and holding regular nuclear-armed sea patrols.
    12. Weapons on land, in the air and at sea give China the “nuclear triad” – a hallmark of a major nuclear power.
    13. China … officially maintains a policy of no first use and maintaining a modern nuclear deterrence that is minimal. [Chinese] Officials this year urged other powers to adopt the same stance.
    14. In recent semi-official exchanges with U.S. scholars and retired officials, Chinese academics said its policies remained unchanged and described Western assessments as “exaggerations”.
    15. The Biden administration updated classified nuclear guidance this year, and a White House spokesperson previously said the update was “not a response to any single entity, country, nor threat,” despite oft-expressed concern about the nuclear arsenals of China, North Korea and Russia. …
    16. The [anonymous] U.S. official … said the scope of U.S.-China talks could initially be narrow, unlike the prior arms reduction treaty talks between the United States and Russia.
    17. “It doesn’t have to be New START-like arms control reduction conversations,” the source said, referring to the Russo-American treaty aimed at limiting deployed strategic nuclear arsenals. “But let’s talk about doctrine. Let’s talk about strategic warning. Let’s talk about risk reduction measures that each side can take to reduce the possibility of a catastrophic miscalculation. …”
    18. The topic is just one area where Washington wants to tamp down the potential for conflict with Beijing …
    19. In the South China Sea, China’s vessels have repeatedly clashed with Philippine ships. …
    20. Asked about the possibility of long-term missile deployment in the Philippines to aid in their defence, the U.S. official said, “with the Philippines, we’ve had capabilities as part of exercises,” referring to joint military exercises. …
    21. Chinese officials strongly condemned the deployment of a U.S. intermediate range missile system in the northern Philippines during exercises in April, saying they brought “huge risks of war into the region”.
    22. Economic security issues also ranked high on the countries’ agenda for talks. Ahead of a deadline for confirming steep new tariff increases on certain Chinese imports, the U.S. official signaled there would be no major softening of the initial plan. …
    23. But U.S. industry has pressured the administration to soften the initial proposals. …
    24. And ahead of the November presidential elections, the U.S. official said a clear message was being sent to the Chinese about election interference: they were “unequivocal that that would be intolerable to us.”
    25. MIKE: Nuclear arms control contemplating four major adversaries — Russia, China, North Korea, and the United States — is a far more complex problem than when it was just the US versus the USSR.
    26. MIKE: Some of you out there might ask why I’m not including the United Kingdom and France if I’m going to include North Korea. My response would be that the UK and France have not been nearly as overtly, vocally threatening to Russia and China as North Korea has been to the US and its allies.
    27. MIKE: Of course, North Korea is unlikely to enter into an arms control talks under its current government, so its nuclear arsenal has to be considered, nonetheless.
12. The next front in U.S.-China tech battle? Underwater cables that power the global internet; By Ryan Browne (@Ryan_Browne) | CNBC.COM | Published Tue, Jul 16 20241:00 AM EDT / Updated Tue, Jul 23 20247:54 AM EDT. TAGS: Underwater Cables, Global Internet, Subsea Cables, China, United States, Data Traffic,
    1. S.-Chinese tensions surrounding technology have sunk to sea lows.
    2. Subsea cables hit the headlines earlier this year after four out of 15 critical submarine cables in the Red Sea were cut amid attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Israeli U.S., and U.K. ships.
    3. Public awareness of submarine cables has grown as a result — and these networks of cables are becoming a new source of strain … between the U.S. and China.
    4. … Buried deep underwater are hundreds of massive [subsea] telecommunications cables spanning a length of nearly 1.4 million kilometers …
    5. The number of subsea cables around the planet is expected to increase in the coming years, reflecting growing demand for data traffic prompted by the spread of video streaming and cloud services.
    6. As of early 2024, TeleGeography said its data tracked 574 active and planned submarine cables.
    7. … Subsea cables are the backbone of the global internet, carrying 99% of the world’s intercontinental data traffic. …
    8. [Andy Champagne, chief technology officer of Akamai Labs, told CNBC via email,] “While we’re linked together with a complex physical web of fiber optic cables over land, the topology becomes more challenging once we plunge into the oceans,” Champagne added. “It’s really complex to install subsea cables. And, when there is an issue with a subsea cable, repairing it is a non-trivial job.”
    9. A key thing that makes subsea cables important is the impact they have when disrupted, according to Joe Vaccaro, vice president and general manager of Cisco-owned internet monitoring firm ThousandEyes.
    10. ″Individual people like you and I, we don’t say undersea cable cut. What we find is that the application we’re trying to access all of a sudden became really slow, or unavailable,” Vaccaro told CNBC in an interview. …
    11. … Subsea cables were traditionally owned and operated by telecom carriers. More recently, U.S. tech giants including Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have invested significant sums to lay down their own cables. …
    12. Citing unnamed sources in the State Department, the Wall Street Journal reported in May that U.S. officials privately warned tech firms including Google and Meta that undersea cables in the Pacific region could be vulnerable to spying by Chinese repair ships. …
    13. Estonia, meanwhile, said that China was yet to respond to a six-month-old request to help the country with its investigation into a Chinese ship it suspects cut two of its subsea cables. …
    14. These developments highlight how underwater cables are becoming a source of contention in matters of national security. The data these networks send can involve high-stakes communications, including coordinating diplomatic missions, security operations and intelligence gathering.
    15. The U.S. government’s concerns aren’t new and have been widely documented.
    16. In March 2023, a Reuters report said that an interagency committee called Team Telecom was working to prevent any subsea cable from directly connecting U.S. territory with mainland China or Hong Kong due to fears about Chinese espionage.
    17. Many international subsea cable projects are reportedly circumventing China today due to concerns over data security and Beijing’s expanding geopolitical influence. China has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to make its own underwater cable infrastructure to rival that of the U.S.
    18. … A key issue with the way subsea cables are currently set up is that connections linking entire parts of the world affect massive portions of internet infrastructure. …
    19. In times when such critical connections encounter disruptions, a “blame game” can ensue, where consumers tend to [blame] the services they’re using in the event of an outage or traffic congestion.
    20. In certain regions, Vaccaro [of ThousandEyes] added, it can actually make sense from a “performance and visibility” perspective” for firms to use a different cloud provider from the one they’re using in a different part of the world to ensure consistency of network quality.
    21. “The critical thing to remember with subsea cables is that there are specific requirements around where they can make the transition from subsea to land … and there are a limited number of geographic spots that meet these requirements,” Akamai’s Champagne said.
    22. “The result of these constraints is that the loss of a single subsea cable can have a domino effect on the land-based networks that depend on it,” he added. “The impact of a disrupted subsea cable is often much greater than the loss of a land-based cable.”
    23. MIKE: Deliberate damage to undersea cables as a result of political tension has occurred frequently across the Taiwan Strait, where China is believed to have deliberately cut data cable connecting some islands of Taiwan to the Chinese Mainland.
    24. MIKE: And while sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines connecting Russia to Germany don’t strictly fall under the subject of this story, they certainly show how undersea infrastructure is increasingly likely to be targeted in times of geopolitical tensions, whether they be “cold” or “hot”. And as this article mentions, repairing damage to such deep-sea infrastructure is a non-trivial matter.
    25. MIKE: Unfortunately, I’m sure there will be more stories on this topic.

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