Important Takeaways:
- China Moves to Dominate World Food Supply: ‘Food Is Power’
- During the pandemic, Americans experienced food shortages due to the impact on the world’s vulnerable supply chain. While that situation has somewhat recovered, another global event could make that recent experience the new normal.
- Two experts warn a brewing battle between the United States and China over control of the world’s food supply could become such an event.
- This new war is happening right now – without armies or any shots being fired. It’s a global struggle with deadly consequences. Who will dominate the world food supply?
- “Food is power. We need to remember that. And this is very dangerous for the United States,” warned Kip Tom, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for Food and Agriculture.
- Tom explained that China is determined to seize control of the African continent. “It’s not about the mining and the critical minerals. It’s about agricultural productivity,” he explained.
- Gatestone Institute’s China analyst Gordon Chang agrees, believes China has a food problem. “It’s worsening food shortages, self-sufficiency, percentages for food for China are relentlessly falling,” Chang said.
- Chang contends China is motivated by the doctrine of tianxia – the belief that the CCP has the right to rule all under heaven and is obligated to do so.
- “China is trying to dominate food because it wants to rule the world,” he explained. “And so, we’ve got to understand the context of what is occurring and the significance of what is occurring. And we Americans have not been good at doing that. We just ignore what our enemies say. We ignored Osama bin Laden until 9/11, and we’re ignoring the Chinese now.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Bidenomics Hits Tech: Silicon Valley Salaries Plummet amid Layoffs and Economic Uncertainty
- The Mercury News reports that Silicon Valley, long known as the epicenter of innovation and high-paying tech jobs, is facing a harsh reality as companies tighten their belts and slash jobs and salaries. According to recent research by Women Impact Tech, a tech advocacy organization, Silicon Valley has experienced the biggest drop in pay compared to other tech hubs, falling 15 percent from 2022 to 2023.
- The impact of these layoffs and salary cuts is felt by many, including Krista DeWeese, a 47-year-old marketing professional from Fremont. DeWeese has been laid off four times in the last eight years and is currently working as a contract worker at a health science company. Despite her education and experience, she struggles to find secure work that pays enough to keep up with the high cost of living in the Bay Area.
- Fresh graduates are also feeling the pinch. Genevieve Richards, a San Jose native who graduated from Cornell University in 2022, applied to 300 jobs after her internship ended, only to be offered progressively lower salaries. She decided to pursue a graduate degree abroad in Dublin, Ireland, where she found a better work-life balance and more affordable living conditions.
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Important Takeaways:
- Russian nuclear warships are heading to Cuba for joint military drills with their Caribbean allies.
- Cruise ship passengers were left horrified after spotting Russian warships from their cabin windows, leading to a stark warning from a leading defense expert.
- Passengers on board the cruise liner said they saw six ships passing by in broad daylight off the coast of Florida.
- “I just happened to look outside and I saw one of the ships, so I went outside to investigate,” one passenger told CNN. “I could see six ships at one time across the horizon. There have been ships in sight most of the day. I was surprised how close they are, we are not that far off shore.”
- The sighting comes as NATO ships are currently escorting a Russian naval contingent en route to Cuba. The convoy includes American warships USS Truxtun, USS Donald Cook, and Piedra CG (758); Canadian Navy ship HMCS Ville de Québec (FFH 332); French Navy high seas patrol vessel Teriieroo A Teriierooiterai (P780); and the Frigate La Fayette (FS Guepratte F714).
- The Russian warships recently conducted drills in the Atlantic, demonstrating Moscow’s commitment to projecting power amid ongoing tensions with the West over Ukraine.
- While Russia has previously sent warships to the Caribbean, the latest visit comes after Putin’s warning that Moscow could provide similar weapons to adversaries of the West if Ukraine’s allies allow Kyiv to use their weapons against targets in Russia.
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Important Takeaways:
- San Francisco’s Bay Area is transformed into Mad Max dystopia as thousands of jeering fans descend on back-to-back sideshows
- Acrid smoke is greeting San Franciscans on their way into work this morning after another terrifying night of sideshows took Oakland and the waterfront.
- Police refused to intervene and not a single arrest was made among the thousands who risked their lives as cars tore round their city centers in what has become a routine occurrence.
- Onlookers were sent flying as cars plowed into them at one event in Oakland, and a torched Chevy provided a grisly centerpiece to the Embarcadero spectacle as tire smoke reduced visibility to near zero.
- Vehicles and spectators melted away as police eventually arrived with reinforcements but by 3am the action had moved to the intersection of Valencia and Cesar Chavez streets in the Mission District where passengers clung to the vehicles as their drivers struggled maintain control.
- A motorist was beaten and hauled out of his car which was then stolen when he accidentally drove into an area taken over for a sideshow in Menlo Park in April.
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Important Takeaways:
- UN Security Council Passes US Ceasefire Resolution, Analyst Warns Language Putting Gaza under PA Dangerous
- At the United Nations, the Security Council approved that U.S. resolution. It calls for the return of the hostages and an end to the war through a three-phased plan.
- Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority welcomed the resolution.
- It calls for a two-state solution and “stresses the importance of unifying the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.”
- Itamar Marcus, founder of the Palestinian Media Watch, believes that language in the resolution is dangerous.
- “We saw the October 7th massacre by Hamas, which was a direct result of Palestinian Authority education, not Hamas education,” Marcus noted.
- Marcus dismisses the claim by the State Department that the P.A. has been “revitalized.”
- “The problem is that the Palestinian Authority teaches its people that Israel has no right to exist – that killing Jews is something that Allah wants; that destroying Israel is not only a national goal for Palestinians, but it’s also a goal for Islam because Israel is on holy Islamic land, Marcus asserted, and added, “These are the things that have to be changed in the Palestinian Authority and we haven’t seen any indication of any change at all in the new government.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary reveals why restaurants are closing down across America and warns MORE closures are on the way
- The US restaurant industry finds itself on the menu.
- Seemingly every day, there’s a headline announcing a bankruptcy, layoff or store closure impacting one of the country’s most beloved brands.
- Last month, Red Lobster filed for Chapter 11 after closing nearly 100 stores. Cracker Barrel – with restaurants in 45 states – has seen its share value plummet over the last year. The once-booming chain Boston Market, which boasted 1,200 locations in the 1990s, is now reportedly down to two do
- So, what’s behind this fast-casual reckoning?
- It’s proof the inflation virus is still infecting America’s post-pandemic economy.
- Supply chains crippled by the COVID pandemic lockdown haven’t recovered. Food costs – especially for proteins like chicken, beef and seafood – are up 30 to 40 percent over the last 36 months. Worst of all for the restaurant industry – customers haven’t returned from the shutdowns.
- Business closures and social-distancing mandates forced people to change the way they eat. Sixty million Americans – a massive chuck of the population that is aged 60 years and above – were forced to use their smartphones to order a ‘treat’ dinner for the very first time in 2020.
- In order to survive, many have had to transform themselves into commercial kitchens specializing solely in takeout.
- Some businesses will have to go bankrupt, reorganize themselves entirely and move to less expensive areas.
- However, there’s nothing to be done when consumers simply refuse to spend.
- Newsom signed a law in September jacking up the minimum wage for fast-food workers from $16-per-hour to $20 – making decades-old businesses unprofitable overnight.
- One California trade group estimated the Maduro-style edict led to the firing of nearly 10,000 workers even before the law went into effect on April 1.
- A West Coast Burger King franchisee with 140 restaurants announced he’d replace workers with digital order-taking kiosks. A major Pizza Hut operator eliminated delivery services and laid off thousands of drivers.
- Now, just 90 days into the new regime, businesses are dropping like flies.
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Important Takeaways:
- Russian naval vessels practiced hitting targets with long-distance missiles in simulated drills in the Atlantic Ocean ahead of a planned visit to Cuba.
- The nuclear-powered Kazan submarine and Admiral Gorshkov frigate, which carries hypersonic Zircon missiles, staged the computer drills with high-precision weapons against “naval groups of a mock enemy” over a distance of 600 kilometers (373 miles), the Defense Ministry in Moscow said in a statement Tuesday.
- The vessels are due to arrive in Cuba on Wednesday, Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news service reported, citing Russian Navy chief Alexander Moiseyev.
- None of the Russian vessels is carrying nuclear weapons and they pose no threat to the region, the Cuban Foreign Ministry said on its website June 6. The visit to Havana from June 12-17 is in line with the historically friendly relations between Cuba and Russia, it said.
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Important Takeaways:
- More armed conflicts took place worldwide in 2023 than any other year since the end of the Second World War, according to a Norwegian study published Monday.
- Last year saw 59 conflicts of which 28 were in Africa, the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO) showed.
- But the number of countries which experienced conflicts declined from 39 in 2022 to 34.
- The number of deaths in combat also halved to around 122,000 over the previous year, according to data collected by Sweden’s Uppsala University from NGOs and international organizations
- “Violence in the world is at an all-time high since the end of the Cold War,” said Siri Aas Rustad, PRIO researcher and the main author of the report covering trends during the period 1946-2023.
- “The figures suggest that the conflict landscape has become increasingly complex, with more conflict actors operating within the same country,” she explained.
- According to PRIO, the increase in the number of conflicts can be partially attributed to the Islamic State spreading across Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and the involvement of a growing number of non-state actors such as the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Group to Support Islam and Muslims (JNIM).
- While the number of combat deaths decreased last year, the accumulated number for the past three years is the highest for a three-year period in 30 years.
- A total of 28 armed conflicts were registered in Africa, followed by Asia with 17, the Middle East with 10, Europe with three and the Americas with one.
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Important Takeaways:
- Major fault line off West Coast could trigger catastrophic 9-magnitude earthquake, study finds – and it’s due to blow
- An underwater fault line along the US West Coast could trigger a mega quake that would be more devastating than California’s ‘Big One,’ a new study suggests.
- Using underwater mapping techniques, scientists have mapped the Cascadia Subduction Zone – a 600-mile fault line extending from southern Canada to northern California – in never-before-seen detail.
- It has revealed that the fault splits into four segments instead of being one continuous strip like most fault lines. The discovery could prove more catastrophic because the tectonic plates can slide under each other, creating more pressure and more severe earthquakes.
- California’s San Andreas is poised for an up to 8.3-magnitude quake, for comparison.
- If an earthquake of over 9 magnitude struck the West Coast US it could generate tsunamis reaching 100 feet high or more, kill more than 10,000 people and cause over $80 billion in damages in just Oregon and Washington alone.
- Disaster emergency plans in Oregon and Washington warn that in the aftermath of a quake that big, they could face a wave of long-term deaths due to disease from exposure to dead bodies, animal carcasses, contaminated water and Hazmat spills from commercial, industrial and household sources.
- A similar fault zone off the coast of Japan erupted in 2011, creating a magnitude 9 quake that caused a devastating tsunami to strike the country, killing nearly 20,000 people.
- Now scientists are worried that a similar calamity could impact the US in the coming years, reporting that quakes caused by Cascadia occur roughly every 500 years, with the last one taking place in 1700.
- ‘The recurrent interval for this subduction zone for big events is on the order of 500 years,’ Wang said.
- ‘It’s hard to know exactly when it will happen, but certainly, if you compare this to other subduction zones, it is quite late.’
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Important Takeaways:
- A deadly outbreak of tornadoes last month caused $4.7 billion in damages across the Southern, Southeastern and Central U.S., making it one of the costliest weather events of the year so far, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Monday.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said there had been 11 confirmed weather and climate disaster events so far this year with losses exceeding $1 billion, with the total price tag topping $25 billion. There were more than 165 tornadoes during the May 6-9 outbreak, impacting Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, officials said.
- A southern derecho —a widespread and long-lived wind storm associated with rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms— also caused more than $1 billion in damage in May, according to government data. The May 16-17 storm spanning from Texas to Florida killed at least eight people and caused $1.2 billion in damages. Winds topping 110 mph tore through parts of central and eastern Texas during the storm. The NOAA described May as a “turbulent month.”
- The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, which is predicted to be above normal, began at the start of June and will last until Nov. 30. Federal forecasters predict 17 to 25 named storms, 8 to 13 hurricanes, and 4 to 7 major hurricanes of category 3 or higher.
- Last year, there were 28 weather events with losses exceeding $1 billion each —surpassing the previous record of 22 in 2020.
- In 2022, there were 18 extreme weather events that caused at least $1 billion in damage each, totaling more than $165 billion.
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