Biden ‘Considering’ Request to Drop Prosecution of Wikileaks’s Julian Assange

Editor 1
-
0
Biden ‘Considering’ Request to Drop Prosecution of Wikileaks’s Julian Assange

(Headline USA) President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he is considering a request from Australia to drop the decade-long U.S. push to prosecute Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for publishing a trove of American classified documents.

For years, Australia has called on the U.S. to drop its prosecution against Assange, an Australian citizen who has fought U.S. extradition efforts from prison in the U.K.

A British court ruled last month that Assange can’t be extradited to the United States on espionage charges unless U.S. authorities guarantee he won’t get the death penalty.

Asked about the Australian minister’s request on Wednesday, during a state visit by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Biden said, “We’re considering it.”

Assange has been indicted on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over his website’s publication of a trove of classified U.S. documents almost 15 years ago.

American prosecutors allege that Assange, 52, encouraged and helped U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea (né Bradley) Manning steal diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks published, putting lives at risk.

Australia argues there is a disconnect between the U.S. treatment of Assange and Manning. Then-U.S. President Barack Obama commuted the latter’s 35-year sentence to seven years, which allowed Manning’s release in 2017.

Assange’s supporters say he is a journalist protected by the First Amendment who exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan that was in the public interest.

Assange’s wife, Stella Assange, has said the WikiLeaks founder “is being persecuted because he exposed the true cost of war in human lives.” She has said his health continues to deteriorate in prison, and she fears he’ll die behind bars.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Biden’s comment on Assange was encouraging.

“I have said that we have raised, on behalf of Mr. Assange, Australia’s national interests that enough is enough and this needs to be brought to a conclusion and we’ve raised it at each level of government in every possible way,” Albanese told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“Mr. Assange has already paid a significant price and enough is enough. There’s nothing to be gained by Mr. Assange’s continued incarceration in my very strong view and I’ve put that as the view of the Australian government,” he added.

WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson, responding to Biden’s comments, said in a statement that “it is not too late for President Biden to stop Julian’s extradition to the U.S.

“By dropping the charges against Julian he will be protecting freedom of expression and the rights of journalists and publishers globally,” Hrafnsson said. “We urge him to end this legal process; to free Julian; and to recognize that journalism is not a crime.”

Hrafnsson further claimed, without evidence that the extradition effort “was a politically motivated act” by former President Donald Trump, although the anti-Establishment populist Trump also is believed to have seriously considered a pardon for Assange.

Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, by contrast was reported to have openly speculated about the possibility of assassinating Assange via drone strike as he sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Clinton refused to confirm or deny the allegation, while insisting that it was a joke if it did happen.

After Clinton destroyed evidence in a congressional probe of her private email server, Assange struck back by obtaining and publishing a tranche of Clinton emails, as well as emails from campaign manager John Podesta and the Democratic National Committee.

Those resulted in several damning stories coming to light, notably exposing Clinton’s collusion with media sources and with the DNC to freeze out a primary challenge by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Podesta’s emails, which included bizarre and often creepy references to foodstuffs such as hot dogs and pizza, fueled online rumors that he was using coded language to conceal a child sex-trafficking ring. The online search for clues would later evolve into the so-called Pizzagate scandal and, subsequently, the QAnon movement.

Clinton falsely claimed that the server hack was a result of Trump’s collusion with Russia and, subsequently, she colluded with the CIA and the FBI to launch a baseless investigation of Trump’s campaign in order to smear his reputation.

The fallout from the Russia-collusion hoax was to destroy the reputations of several trusted and esteemed government agencies and permanently mar the faith that many Americans had placed in the integrity and functionality of the federal government.

Unlike Assange, none of the hoax conspirators were ever held criminally accountable.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Reporter Tells Congress Critters the Hard Truth: U.S. Agencies Aren’t Accountable to Them

Ken Silva
-
0
Reporter Tells Congress Critters the Hard Truth: U.S. Agencies Aren’t Accountable to Them

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Former CBS journalist Sharyl Attkisson didn’t mince words when she testified Thursday at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on press freedom, telling members that they’re failing to hold U.S. intelligence agencies accountable.

Attkisson was speaking in response to questions from Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-NY, about the committee’s proposed PRESS Act, which would block litigants and the federal government from prying into a reporter’s files—except when there is an imminent threat of violence, including terrorism, and in defamation cases.

Attkisson said she supported the legislation, but that it wouldn’t be enough to hold U.S. agencies to account. Nadler then asked her what a better solution would be. Attkisson responded with a trenchant criticism of the role the legislative branch plays in relation to agencies such as the FBI, CIA and Homeland Security.

“I think it’s a global problem that has to do with sending a message of oversight to the intelligence agencies that we know for decades have violated rights and made policies that are contrary to the Constitution,” Attkisson responded.

“I don’t think there’s been an effort they think that’s serious. I feel like the intelligence agencies feel like they’re running the committees here, rather than the committees conducting oversight of them,” she said.

“There needs to be something where they understand they would be held accountable when they do things. I don’t know what that looks like in practice.”

Attkisson knows all about the out-of-control government agencies. She is the reporter who broke numerous stories on the Obama-era Operation Fast and Furious scandal, which entailed the ATF purposely allowing firearms dealers to sell marked weapons illegally with the goal of tracking them to Mexican drug cartels.

Moreover, Attkisson had her computers hacked by federal agents, likely in retaliation for her Fast and Furious reporting.

Attkisson said she discovered she was hacked after noticing “anomalies” on her personal devices.

When she had her home and devices inspected, an investigator found that someone had attached an extra fiber optics line to her cable box.

“However, when we later went to retrieve the cable for examination by a trained specialist, it had been removed and was gone,” she said in a recent affidavit, outlining the spooky scenario. “I telephoned the Verizon technician daily to ask if he had returned to the house and retrieved the cable, but he never returned any of our calls.”

Attkisson’s litigation over the hacking is ongoing.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Seattle Schools Cancel Gifted Program in Favor of Focus on ‘Equity’

Editor 1
-
0
Seattle Schools Cancel Gifted Program in Favor of Focus on ‘Equity’

(Carleen Johnson, The Center Square) Seattle Public Schools continues getting rid of its gifted and talented program in favor of what administrators say is a more inclusive, equitable and culturally sensitive program.

Translation: The leftist city, suffering from what former President George W. Bush called the “soft bigotry of low expectations,” is opting to punish all students by lowering the academic bar due the the perceived inability of certain minorities to meet the higher-level threshold.

The district began phasing out its Highly Capable Cohorts program for advanced students in the 2021-22 school year and replacing it with a new program called the Highly Capable School Neighborhood Model.

“To address historical inequity, SPS has changed how we identify Advanced Learners and Highly Capable students,” claimed the district’s website touting the new program.

“All teachers will provide teaching and learning that is delivered with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and differentiated to meet the needs of students within their grade level,” it added. “The approach includes three tiers of service for students depending on individual needs, delivered in a way that honors individual cultures and backgrounds.”

The new model is one that has been widely practiced in schools for the past two decades in order to better conceal low performance following the greater emphasis on school accountability that began with Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” initiative.

However, rather than investing more into helping sub-par students meet the existing standards, many schools have simply modified their approach to the detriment of high-performing students through a pedagogical theory known as “differentiation.”

It effectively draws on the Marxist principle “to each according to his needs” while shifting the burden onto teachers to create multiple lesson plans for each unit of instruction in order to accommodate the different needs and interests of students.

Teachers whose students fail to perform, thus, are not accountable for their own learning since the teacher made insufficient effort to engage them, regardless of how much effort the teacher put into the task.

Plans call for the Highly Capable Cohorts program to be gone by the 2027-28 school year, with the new model available in every school by the 2024-25 school year.

Liv Finne, director of the Center for Education at the Washington Policy Center think tank, doesn’t think the change is a good idea.

“For every child that wants to do more, these advanced programs were created because they are motivated in learning, and these programs have been very popular,” she told the Center Square. “Now we see Seattle Public Schools made a racist decision and decided there are too many children of certain races in these programs.”

Finne was critical of the district’s take on equality.

“This is such a disservice to the children who have succeeded, and now they are going to push some people down so everyone is equal, and that is such a bad approach,” she said. “I’m so dismayed by it. This is all done on the basis of inclusion for everyone, but what’s actually happening is it’s being used to justify destroying successful programs.”

Finne noted that Senate Bill 5044 was passed by the Legislature in 2021 and signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee. SB 5044 adds diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism curricula to existing cultural competency training for school board directors, district staff and school staff.

She pointed out that Seattle Public Schools changed its requirements for admission to gifted programs in recent years to include more students who didn’t necessarily test well, but teachers’ saw promise in.

“They have tried to be inclusive, but I guess they’ve given up and now in their attempt to be more inclusive, they’ve decided they can’t do it,” Finne said. “So now they’re going to close the program entirely.”

The Center Square reached out to Seattle Public Schools for comment but did not receive a reply.

The district’s website offered assurances the new program is going to better than the one it’s replacing.

“The program is not going away, it’s getting better,” it claimed.

“It will be more inclusive, equitable, and culturally sensitive,” the website continued. “In particular, students who have been historically excluded will now have the same opportunities for services as every other student and get the support and enrichment they need to grow.”

Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.

Lesbian Congresswoman: Gov’t Threat to Journalists is a ‘Conspiracy Theory’

Ken Silva
-
0
Lesbian Congresswoman: Gov’t Threat to Journalists is a ‘Conspiracy Theory’

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing Thursday on protecting investigative journalists from coercion, where former CBS reporter Catherine Herridge testified about a U.S. judge holding her in contempt and fining her $800 per day for protecting a confidential source.

Much of the hearing was collegial between Republicans and Democrats, with both parties expressing disagreement with the treatment of Herridge, who was one of the few mainstream reporters working on stories such as the Biden family corruption. Herridge’s contempt charge stems from a separate story she wrote in 2017 about a Defense Department contractor with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

But while most Democrats were respectful to Herridge, one couldn’t help herself.

“Witnesses’ personal grievances are not actually attacks on the First Amendment and the free press,” said Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., who is a lesbian.

“From what I’ve seen in the materials, it’s clear that most of the allegations are disputes over employment and editorial decision-making in news organizations.”

Balint’s ignorant remarks didn’t go unchallenged. Rep. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D., immediately corrected the record.

“Contempt isn’t a conspiracy theory or an employment dispute,” he said. “If there’s a more chilling effect on the free press … I’d like to know it.”

Herridge, for her part, said she couldn’t speak much about the contempt charge against her due to the pending litigation. An appeals court has stayed the lower court judge’s $800 per day fine pending the outcome of her appeal.

She did clarify that she has no knowledge that CBS firing her had anything to do with her reporting on Biden or the pending contempt matter.

Herridge and all the committee members expressed support for the PRESS Act, which would protect reporters from situations like hers. The PRESS Act, which was introduced in the House last December, would aim to block litigants and the federal government from prying into a reporter’s files, except when there is an imminent threat of violence, including terrorism, and in defamation cases.

“It is my sincere hope that the passage of the PRESS Act will provide similar protections at the federal level,” Herridge said. “I hope that I am the last journalist who has to spend two years or more in federal court protecting their confidential sources.”

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Panicmongering UN Climate Chief: Only 2 Years Left ‘to Save the World’

Editor 1
-
0
Panicmongering UN Climate Chief: Only 2 Years Left ‘to Save the World’

(Headline USA) Humanity has only two years left “to save the world” by making dramatic changes in the way it spews heat-trapping emissions—and it has even less time to act to get the finances behind such a massive shift, declared the head of the United Nations climate agency on Wednesday, the latest example of the globalist organizations shameless exploitation of climate alarmism.

“We still have a chance to make greenhouse gas emissions tumble, with a new generation of national climate plans. But we need these stronger plans, now,” UN executive climate secretary Simon Stiell said in a speech at the Chatham House think tank in London.

Stiell acknowledged that his panicmongering may sound a bit melodramatic.

But with governments of the world facing a 2025 deadline for new and stronger plans to curb carbon pollution, nearly half of the world’s populations voting in elections this year, and crucial global finance meetings later this month in Washington, Stiell said drastic action over the next two years was “essential.”

“Who exactly has two years to save the world? The answer is every person on this planet,” Stiell said, appearing to make the appeal directly to voters in the U.S. and other countries where economic turmoil might entice some to abandon climate priorities.

While some see the Biden administration’s refusal to pursue domestic energy production as a major drag on the economy, raising overhead costs for retailers that ultimately get passed on to consumers, Stiell insisted that climate change was the true culprit behind runaway inflation and other economic concerns.

“More and more people want climate action right across societies and political spectrums, in large part because they are feeling the impacts of the climate crisis in their everyday lives and their household budgets,” he insisted.

“Cutting fossil fuel pollution will mean better health and huge savings for governments and households alike,” he added.

Not everyone was convinced such warnings will be helpful.

“‘Two years to save the world’ is meaningless rhetoric—at best, it’s likely to be ignored, at worst, it will be counterproductive,” said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer, who is also a professor of international affairs.

But the underlying purpose in stoking climate fears was less about taking meaningful policy measures at the individual level and more about generating massive amounts of money for the UN’s wealth-redistribution effort.

Failure to act on reducing fossil fuels emissions “will further entrench the gross inequalities between the world’s richest and poorest countries and communities,” Stiell claimed.

Stiell’s speech came just ahead of meetings of the World Bank and other big multinational development institutions, where poorer nations, led by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Kenyan President William Ruto, are pushing for major reforms in the systems that loan money to poor nations, especially those hit by natural disasters.

In conjunction with that push, Stiell called for “a quantum leap this year in climate finance.”

He called for debt relief for the countries that need it the most, saying they were spending $400 billion on debt financing instead of preparing for and preventing future climate change.

He called for more financial aid, not just loans, and more money from different groups like banks, the International Maritime Organization, and the G20, the world’s 20 most powerful economies. Those countries are responsible for 80% of the world’s heat-trapping emissions, he claimed.

“G20 leadership must be at the core of the solution, as it was during the great financial crisis,” Stiell said.

“Every day, finance ministers, CEOs, investors, and development bankers direct trillions of dollars,” he continued. “It’s time to shift those dollars from the energy and infrastructure of the past, towards that of a cleaner, more resilient future—and to ensure that the poorest and most vulnerable countries benefit.”

Officials said the climate finance problem needs to be fixed by the end of the year with November’s climate negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan, a crucial point.

With so many elections and places where democracies on the brink, “climate finance related to carbon policy is on the line,” said Nancy Lindborg, president of the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, at the Skoll World Forum, an ideas conference in Oxford, England.

Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare said global emissions must be halved by the end of the decade to meet the Paris climate accord’s ambition of capping global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit).

“Governments are nowhere near that, and disastrously many are still supporting new fossil fuel development,” Hare said.

“We need to see a massive strengthening of action now—faster ramping up of renewables, electric vehicles and batteries—if we’re to get serious reductions by 2030,” he continued. “The longer we wait, the more it will cost.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

China Obsessed w/ Janet Yellen’s Food Choices after Shroom Dosing

Editor 1
-
0
China Obsessed w/ Janet Yellen’s Food Choices after Shroom Dosing

(Headline USA) Ever since Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen ate mushrooms that can have psychedelic effects in Beijing last July, Chinese social-media users have been preoccupied with what she will eat next.

With Yellen was back in China this week, having stopped in Guangzhou and Beijing, many people were less interested in her dipmomacy than her dining decisions.

From her forays into Sichuan dumplings to Peking duck, mouth watering chicken or twice cooked pork—even Chinese politicians at the highest ranks of the party have taken notice of her popularity on the culinary arts scene.

Ahead of a highly anticipated bilateral meeting Sunday between Yellen and Premier Li Qiang at the Great Hall of People, he noted in his opening remarks that Yellen’s visit had “indeed drawn a lot of attention in society” with media covering her trip.

She prefers to dine among other patrons and doesn’t like partitions keeping her from other diners—making her silver hair highly recognizable when she’s out and about.

The use of her chopsticks at a restaurant in Guangzhou was also a particular observation.

A social-media account run by Chinese state media posted a catchy video of Yellen on her first night in China, eating with the U.S. ambassador and other officials at Tao Tao Ju, a Guangzhou restaurant that dates to 1880.

The post, one of the most viewed on the Weibo microblog app the next morning, praised Yellen for holding chopsticks well but added, “as a U.S. official, Yellen needs to know more about China than just food. Only by knowing more about China can we set right the American view of the world, of China, of China-U.S. relations.”

And during a Sunday meeting with Huang Yiping, the dean of Peking University, he joked that China has been watching the news of her arrival as well as her dining, to which Yellen interjected: “My chopstick skills!”

In the U.S., Yellen also often stops for fast food and at local eateries during domestic trips ahead of events to promote Biden administration policies like the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure law, and becomes the news.

A stop last November at In-N-Out burger in San Francisco before heading to the airport to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting also became a viral moment.

In China, Yellen’s very first viral moment happened when she unknowingly ate mushrooms than can become psychedelic when cooked improperly at a Yunnan restaurant called Yi Zuo Yi Wang during her first trip as Treasury secretary last July. Mushroom-gate went viral across the internet, and the restaurant has since dedicated a part of its menu to Yellen’s visit, where diners can order what she ate.

She told CNN at the time, “There was a delicious mushroom dish. I was not aware that these mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties. I learned that later.”

During the 2023 visit—marred later that month by a major hacking scandal, in which China accessed the emails of Ambassador Nicholas Burns and other top State Department officials—Yellen was criticized for her submissive behavior to her Chinese counterparts.

The true purpose of the CCP’s preoccupation with Yellen’s food may, in fact, be a manipulative tactic to further entice the Cabinet official to let down her guard, or a propaganda tactic for subtly digging at the American policymakers’ casual approach in meetings where China is eager to gain an upper hand.

FBI Director Christopher Wray warned recently that China was seeking to implant malware on hundreds of private routers that would allow them to spy on U.S. officials, corporations and other unwitting victims.

It is unclear whether Yellen’s drug use may have posed a possible security threat. However, the success in dosing Yellen may suggest a degree of vulnerability and naïveté that negotiators are able to take advantage of as China moves aggressively to supplant the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency—a move that could further devastate the U.S. economy.

In China for a second time this week, Yellen hoped to make headway on the issue of what she calls Chinese overproduction of solar products, electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries that she warns threaten global economic stability if left unchecked.

Former President Donald Trump likewise warned recently of a “blood bath” for the automobile industry if China succeeds in its plan to manufacture cheap electric vehicles in Mexico and then import them to the U.S.

This time around in Beijing, Yellen ate at Lao Chuan Ban, a popular Sichuan restaurant. She also had lunch with Beijing Mayor Yin Yong at the Beijing International Hotel.

On Monday evening, her last night in China, Yellen visited Jing-A Brewing Co. in Beijing—co-founded by an American—where she ordered a Flying Fist IPA, a beer made with American hops.

She took a sip and called it “excellent.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

FBI and National Guard Simulate Nuclear Domestic Terrorist Attack

Ken Silva
-
0
FBI and National Guard Simulate Nuclear Domestic Terrorist Attack

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The National Guard, FBI and other agencies conducted an exercise involving a “frantic search for a nuclear dirty bomb” at a basketball and hockey arena in Trenton, New Jersey last month.

As noted by The Intercept, the national security state has been conducting such exercises regularly since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But this time, government agencies were drilling for domestic terrorists, rather than groups such as Al Qaeda or ISIS.

“In just a few hours, more than 10,000 people will crowd the facility to listen to the vice president of the United States,” participants in the terrorism drill were told.

“The FBI has just received intelligence that a well-resourced domestic terrorist group has planted bombs, including one with cesium-137—a radioactive isotope—in the arena.”

The Intercept described last month’s drill as resembling post-9/11 TV series 24, which dramatized the concept of a ticking time bomb and the extraordinary measures it might justify—including torture and other such tactics.

“But 24 portrayed the dirty bomb plots as being masterminded by foreign terror groups similar to those that carried out 9/11. By pointing the finger at a ‘domestic terrorist group’ — that is, Americans — the U.S. military outpaces not just Hollywood, but also the facts,” The Intercept reported, noting that the country has yet to experience anything close to a nuclear attack from domestic terrorists.

“Though the FBI says in its fiscal year 2025 budget request to Congress that during 2023, its Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate ‘disrupted 42 incidents; made 62 arrests; and had 43 indictments, 56 sentencings and 56 convictions,’ none involved actual nuclear materials or such a dirty bomb,” The Intercept noted.

“There’s no evidence that any domestic terrorist group has ever been well-resourced enough to construct a nuclear dirty bomb. But that hasn’t stopped Washington from building on January 6 to feed its current domestic extremism obsession and fearmongering about it.”

While The Intercept is correct in that assessment, the FBI has tried to provoke a domestic terrorist nuclear attack before.

Indeed, in the FBI’s 1990s-era operation Patriot Conspiracy, or PATCON, a one-time FBI informant named Tom Posey plotted to attack Browns Ferry nuclear plant in Alabama in order to steal a cache of weapons there. Posey at the time was the leader of the Civilian Material Assistance, which was a CIA-backed group that participated in the 1980s Contra wars in Nicaragua.

“Posey thought a second American Revolution was imminent, and he hoped to help fund it by selling off these weapons for profit. To make their getaway, Posey planned to set off a bomb in the plant’s control room,” Newsweek reported in 2011 of Posey’s plot.

Posey allegedly had befriended several of the nuclear plant guards, who were in on the take, and performed reconnaissance. He finalized his plans by October 1993, but never carried them out. He was arrested that month for selling stolen night-vision goggles, but no one was ever charged for the alleged plot to attack a nuclear plant—perhaps, because Posey had been an FBI informant.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Indian Silver Imports Surge to Record Levels

Money Metals News Service
-
0
Indian Silver Imports Surge to Record Levels

(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) Indians are known to have a love affair with gold. India ranks as the number two gold-consuming country in the world behind only China.  But Indians are also pretty fond of silver. In fact, India is the world’s biggest silver consumer. 

And Indian silver demand is surging.

Silver imports skyrocketed by 260 percent in February, hitting a record high of 2,295 tons. That was up from 637 tons in January, according to a report in the Economic Times of India. 

The Times said this surge in Indian silver buying “could support global prices trading near their highest in three years.”

To put the import surge into perspective, India imported 3,625 tons for all of 2023.

According to a silver importer quoted by the Times, the big import numbers were necessary to replenish stocks that were depleted last year. 

“Indian imports are cyclical in nature. In one year, imports may be very high, and then the following year they may fall. Since imports fell in 2023 after record buying in 2022, we can expect imports to pick up in 2024.”

Some analysts project India could import upward of 6,000 tons of silver this year. Strong demand for silver in solar panel production is one of the factors reportedly driving overall Indian silver demand higher. 

The silver supply is already strained by robust demand. 

Industrial silver demand is projected to rise 8 percent to a record 632 million ounces this year, pushing overall offtake to near-record levels. 

According to the Silver Institute, investment in photovoltaics, power grid, and 5G networks, growth in consumer electronics, and rising vehicle production all helped drive industrial demand higher.

And there is no sign that demand will lag in the foreseeable future.

According to a 2022 research paper by scientists at the University of New South Wales, solar manufacturers could consume over 20 percent of the current annual silver supply by 2027. And by 2050, solar panel production will use approximately 85–98 percent of the current global silver reserves.

On the supply side, global mined silver is anticipated to fall by 2 percent year-on-year to 820 million ounces, driven by lower output from operations in Mexico and Peru. 

With a combination of historically high demand and falling mine output, the Silver Institute projected a 140 million-ounce market deficit in 2023. And that deficit appears likely to widen further in 2024.

Silver isn’t priced for these supply and demand dynamics. This could present a great investment opportunity.

Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for MoneyMetals.com with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.

Navy Admiral ‘Very Concerned’ over China’s Aggression as Possible War Looms

Editor 1
-
0
Navy Admiral ‘Very Concerned’ over China’s Aggression as Possible War Looms

(Headline USA) The head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said on Tuesday that he was “very, very concerned” about China’s aggression toward Philippine forces near disputed islands in the South China Sea.

The Chinese coast guard has repeatedly clashed with Philippine patrol vessels near the Philippines-occupied Second Thomas Shoal.

Last month, several Filipino seamen were injured when a Chinese vessel sideswiped a smaller Philippine vessel and another two Chinese coast guard ships used high-pressure water spray to shatter the Philippine vessel’s windscreen.

Asked if the submerged reef in the Spratly Islands was the most dangerous flash point in his area of command, U.S. Adm. John Aquilino said he was “very concerned about what’s happening at the Second Thomas Shoal” during a forum at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based international policy think tank.

“I’m very, very concerned about the direction it’s going,” Aquilino said.

“These actions are dangerous, illegal and they are destabilizing the region,” he added. “What’s next and how far are they willing to go in that area?”

The United States, Japan, the Philippines and Australia held their first four-way joint exercises in Philippine waters in the South China Sea on Sunday, which they said were intended to uphold freedom of navigation and overflight in a region contested by China.

Aquilino said the joint exercise demonstrated the nations’ ability to operate safely, effectively and lawfully in the region.

“Those types of events and things are exactly what we need to do to demonstrate that strength amongst the like-minded allies and partners and that we will continue to operate anywhere that international law allows,” Aquilino said.

China’s military said Sunday that it had conducted air and sea patrols and that all activities that “disrupt the South China Sea” are under control, an apparent response to naval exercises by the U.S. and its allies.

With President Joe Biden having hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a state dinner at the White House this week and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visiting China, some see subtle signs that the Democrat president—whose family notoriously engaged in a massive influence-peddling operations with Chinese businessmen linked to the CCP—may be shifting his once sympathetic tone toward the trans-Pacific adversary.

“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man…  They’re not bad folks, folks … They’re not competition for us,” Biden said in a May 2019 speech, according to Axios.

In the past month, however, the Biden administration has upped its rhetoric over a Chinese hacking operation, recently blaming Microsoft for allowing a security breach of its Outlook email platform.

The retirement of longtime State Department fixture Victoria Nuland—the acting deputy secretary of State for political affairs, who specialized in fomenting the conflict between Ukraine and Russia—was reportedly precipitated by the decision to pass over Nuland for the permanent appointment to replace retired deputy Wendy Sherman.

Instead, Biden tapped Kurt Campbell, sometimes referred to as his “Asia czar,” to the influential post just beneath Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the chain of command.

Some leftist media outlets, such as the New York Times, have even sounded the alarm that China could be the next Russia in terms of wild accusations of election interference and campaign collusion with GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump.

While the baseless efforts to link Trump to China are not likely to be believed following the yearslong Russia hoax and Trump’s own strong stance against the country while president, the timing of such stories in media outlets that work closely with intelligence agencies like the CIA and FBI to push propaganda may be significant nonetheless.

A war with China—which would likely draw in Russia, Japan and many other countries—would result in a dramatic shift in America’s election-year politics, perhaps drawing attention away from the failures of Biden’s domestic agenda, including rising inflation, crime and immigraton, as well as the culture of corruption that has consumed Washington, D.C.

Although anxieties might otherwise lead voters to resist rocking the boat in the midst of a major security threat, Biden’s own role in creating that security threat—and Trump’s past executive experience as a peace-time president—might also work to the latter’s benefit.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Alleged Antifa Terrorist Charged with Bombing Alabama AG’s Office

Ken Silva
-
0
Alleged Antifa Terrorist Charged with Bombing Alabama AG’s Office

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The man who detonated a bomb outside of the Alabama Attorney General’s Office in February was a far-left Antifa supporter with a history of mental health issues, according to Justice Department records published Wednesday.

According to the indictment and other court documents, an explosive device was detonated on Feb. 24 at approximately 3:42 a.m. outside of the Alabama AG’s Office. The device was made with fireworks, nails, metal screws and material soaked in a gasoline or lighter fluid substance, and it was hidden inside a coffee container, prosecutors wrote in a court document. No injuries or major damage to nearby buildings were reported.

At the same time, law enforcement found stickers that were placed around the AG’s office with phrases such as, “Support your local antifa.”

Investigators used traffic cams and other surveillance footage to track the suspect’s vehicle, finding that it belonged to Kyle Benjamin Douglas Calvert, 26, of Irondale, Alabama.

Investigators also found Calvert’s social media had displayed some of the same stickers left at the AG’s office. Along with “support your local Antifa,” his stickers had phrases such as, “My body. My Choice,” “Fuck work let’s riot,” “Arm the Homeless,” and, “Topple All Hierarchies.”

Furthermore, Calvert had videos where he talked about his “violent impulses.”

“I don’t understand how fucking politicians do this shit. How the fuck are people okay with this shit,” Calvert said in one video. “How the fuck are we not killing the government right now! Fuck!”

Investiagtors also talked to Calvert’s former employers. One of them said Calvert suffered from a lot of “mental struggles” and was “borderline unstable.”

“He caused immediate alarm with co-workers, who were concerned Calvert’s strange behavior and with the stickers on Calvert’s Toyota Camry which read, ‘BE GAY DO CRIME.’ Calvert was further described as a ‘loner’ who avoided eye contact with everyone, wore all black-colored clothing, and avoided speaking to other employees,” the DOJ said in a filing.

Along with his leftist politics, conservative reporter Andy Ngo found that Calvert is apparently non-binary.

Calvert had his initial appearance on Wednesday afternoon in federal court in Montgomery. U.S. Magistrate Judge Chad W. Bryan ordered that Calvert be held in custody until further proceedings. If convicted, he faces a mandatory minimum of five years in prison and a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

1...1,3601,3611,362...3,864Page 1,361 of 3,864