Israel Takes Aim At Iran & Nuclear Fusion’s On The Horizon
April 2, 2024
Hello, readers – happy Tuesday! Today, we’re talking about Israel bombing Syria, Havana syndrome, Germany’s cannabis law, France & China’s meeting, Alex Murdaugh’s sentencing, Truth Social’s stock decline, and nuclear fusion.
Here’s some good news: Indigenous leaders of New Zealand, Tahiti, and the Cook Islands signed a treaty recognizing whales as legal persons. Conservationists hope this new designation will lead to governments offering greater protections for whales. Also, Dan Dafydd, the owner of Sinclair General Stores on one of the Orkney islands, accidentally ordered 80 cases of chocolate eggs instead of 80 eggs. He decided to run a competition and give 100 eggs to the highest bidder – the competition has already raised more than £3,000 for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for his own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.” – Marie Curie
Israel Gets Its Hands Dirty In Damascus
Israel is allegedly behind a deadly airstrike on the Iranian consulate building in Damascus, the capital of Syria. Multiple warplanes, suspected to be Israeli, dropped bombs on the Iranian consulate on Monday, killing seven Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers in the attack, including two generals. Israel didn’t officially comment, but the New York Times said four anonymous Israeli officials with knowledge of the attack confirmed that their country had carried out the bombing. In a statement made after the attack on Monday, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations said, “Iran reserves its legitimate and inherent right under international law and the United Nations Charter to take a decisive response to such reprehensible acts.”
“The Israelis are convinced that if they seek to hang back, the threat will grow and not diminish,” said one U.S. think tank analyst. “They are persuaded that as long as they do something like this periodically, their adversaries will be deterred.” Another analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations said that “the IRGC can loosen restraints on proxies in Iraq and Syria, placing American forces in jeopardy again. The Iranians could also direct Hezbollah to escalate its attacks on Israel, which have been growing bolder and more numerous.”
Havana Syndrome’s Havana Comeback
According to a new report from The Insider, Der Spiegel, and CBS’s 60 Minutes, an elite Russian intelligence unit is behind Havana syndrome, a mysterious medical condition that has affected dozens of U.S. diplomats and intelligence personnel, causing headaches, vision problems, and other spooky auditory sensations.
The U.S. government’s research into the situation has found no links between the incidents or evidence that foreign powers caused the incidents. However, the authors of the report say they’ve out-researched the federal government and intelligence community, painting a shadowy picture of a mysterious Russian intelligence unit capable of discreetly tailing U.S. intelligence assets working overseas and hitting their targets with a microwave or ultrasound beam that has a range of about 10 or 12 meters.
The report relies on the first-hand accounts of victims of Havana syndrome, as well as new documents revealing that Russia has long been working on directed energy weapons. Allegedly, the “biomarkers are metabolized by the body within hours to days.” Basically, the reporters say, you’ll just have to take these spies’ word that they’ve been attacked because the evidence is quickly washed away – and no, this isn’t some convoluted April Fools’ joke.
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Germans Get Grass
- Who says Germans can’t have a good time? As of Monday, Germans (18+) are now allowed to carry up to 25g of dried cannabis and cultivate up to three weed plants at home. At midnight local time, locals in Berlin gathered in front of the historic Brandenburg Gate for a “smoke-in” to celebrate the new rules, which proponents say will allow the government to better regulate the drug.
- “Cannabis use already existed yesterday; it has been increasing,” said German health minister Karl Lauterbach. “Now it’s coming out of the taboo zone. This is better for real addiction help, prevention for children and young people and for combating the black market, for which there will soon be an alternative.”
Setting Xi’s Expectations
- Chinese Premier Xi Jinping is set to visit France later this week and French foreign minister Stéphane Séjourné has set expectations for the visit, indicating that it’s not going to be all croissants and soufflés when Xi comes to town. In a visit to China where she met with her counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing, Séjourné emphasized E.U. concerns about the trade deficit between Europe and China.
- “The rebalancing of our economic partnership is a priority, as it is for our European partners,” she said at a joint press conference with Wang. “The European Union is a very open market, the most open in the world. But the current deficits with a certain number of countries, including China, are not sustainable for us.”
- Wang indicated China’s understanding of France’s concerns, but said he hoped that the “de-risking” strategy would not negatively affect Chinese business in Europe. “I believe the facts have proved and will continue to prove that China constitutes opportunities to Europe, rather than risks,” he said at the conference. “The two sides are partners not opponents.”
More Mixed Nuts
- South Korea’s president vows not to back down in the face of doctors’ strike (NBC)
- Imran Khan: Pakistan court suspends jail sentence in graft appeal (Reuters)
- Ex-Taiwanese President Ma visits China to help build social and cultural links (NBC)
- Exclusive: Iran alerted Russia to security threat before Moscow attack (Reuters)
- Turkey’s Erdogan dealt major election blow as opposition party wins big cities (CNN)
Middle East Mixed Nuts
- The Celebrity Chef Who Beat the U.S. Military at Getting Aid Into Gaza (WSJ, $)
- An Israeli airstrike hits a Gaza hospital tent camp, killing 2 Palestinians and hurting journalists (NBC)
- Netanyahu revives moves to shut Qatar’s Al Jazeera TV in Israel (Reuters)
- Israeli troops exit Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, leaving rubble and bodies (Reuters)
Disbarred But Behind Bars
- Alex Murdaugh was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison yesterday for stealing from clients and his law firm. The sentencing comes on top of the life sentence he’s already serving for killing his wife and son. Murdaugh also pleaded guilty in state court to financial crimes and was ordered to spend 27 years in prison.
- Federal agents had recommended a sentence of between 17 and 22 years, but U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel said he sentenced Murdaugh to a harsher punishment than suggested because he stole from “the most needy, vulnerable people” and people who “placed all their problems and all their hopes” on him.
What Goes Up Must Come Down
- In a regulatory filing on Monday, Truth Social owner Trump Media & Technology Group said it lost $58.2 million in 2023, compared with a profit of $50.5 million in 2022. Shares in the company plummeted in the wake of the news and, as former President Trump is the company’s majority stakeholder, his net worth fell by more than $1 billion.
- Shares of Trump Media dropped 21% following the new filings, though they are still up nearly 200% so far this year. Trump Media’s accountants warned that Monday’s losses “raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern” – in other words, “we might need to shut this whole thing down.”
More Nuts In America
- More than 50 million under severe weather threat from Texas to Virginia, with possible tornadoes and damaging winds (CNN)
- One dead, 5 wounded in shooting at Easter brunch in Nashville restaurant (CBS)
- Part of famed California highway crumbles into the ocean (CNN)
- ‘It was the most unfair thing’: Disobedience, school discipline and racial disparity (USA Today)
- Conservative Oregon county is trying to prosecute federal employee (NPR)
- The Church of Trump: How He’s Infusing Christianity Into His Movement (NYT, $)
Wishing Upon A 48-Second Star
- South Korean scientists say they’ve been able to sustain nuclear fusion at a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius (that’s seven times hotter than the Sun’s core) for a record amount of time, bringing nuclear fusion technology — the holy grail of clean energy — a step further. The director of the KSTAR Research Center at the Korean Institute of Fusion Energy (KFE) said the researchers’ reactor was able to maintain temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius for 48 seconds in new tests, beating the previous record of 30 seconds by over 1.5 times.
- Nuclear fusion experiments seek to replicate the reactions that gave birth to our sun and other stars, which will hopefully allow humans to one day capture power from a tiny star. KSTAR hopes to sustain a 100 million C reaction for 300 seconds by 2026, which its director says will be “a critical point” in growing the prospects for fusion energy. One expert says that fusion “has the potential to be a part of a green energy mix in the latter half of the century.”
More Loose Nuts
- How a Houthi-Bombed Ghost Ship Likely Cut Off Internet for Millions (Wired, $)
- ‘Oppenheimer’ finally opens in Japan, the only nation to experience horror of nuclear war (CNN)
- Invaders from underground are coming in cicada-geddon. It’s the biggest bug emergence in centuries (AP)
- Japan’s royal family launches Instagram account, hoping to appeal to youth (NBC)
- Scientists are breeding ‘super corals.’ Can they withstand climate change? (NPR)