Nature Sets Barriers To Risky Viruses, While China's Gain-of-Function Study Is Breaking Them

  There was two very different aspects to the 2020 Covid pandemic: The totalitarian excesses and the science. Not the one written by politicians in Brussels. That's ideology, the secular version of religion where you know the truth and only need total power to flush it down the throat of your constituents. The real and new science of gain of function applied to virus and other pathogens as originally and surreptitiously developed in the West, then in China when the risks became too high. 

  The totalitarian risk has dies down for now but the gain of function risk has not. Here's the story:

Authored by Yuhong Dong M.D., Ph.D. via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

We’re not afraid of the tigers in the zoo because we trust they cannot attack. But what if someone opens the cage?

Many viruses are highly lethal in nature but cannot infect humans. Fear arises when these viruses break the species barrier.

This can happen naturally or through risky research practices, particularly gain-of-function (GOF) research.

What Is GOF?

Just as all substances have functions, specific genes enable viruses to spread rapidly or cause severe diseases. GOF research involves introducing new functioning genes into a virus, enhancing its ability to infect hosts or increasing its virulence.

There are at least three main types of new functions a virus can gain:

Gain-of-function research on viruses often results in the viruses gaining new functions such as the ability to infect humans, enhanced transmissibility, or increased virulence. (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

• Expanded Host Range GOF research can enable viruses to infect new species that they previously could not. This includes crossing the species barrier to infect humans, which poses significant risks for zoonotic outbreaks and potential pandemics. A 2015 Nature Medicine article provides a pertinent example. A bat-derived SARS-like coronavirus, initially noninfectious to humans, became capable of human infection after GOF studies at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

• Enhanced Transmission GOF research can result in viruses gaining the ability to spread more efficiently between hosts. This includes changes that allow a virus to be transmitted through new routes or, more effectively, through existing ones. In 2012, GOF research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison significantly transformed the H5N1 bird flu virus. Initially non-airborne, the virus acquired the ability to transmit through the air, demonstrating the profound impact of GOF studies on viral capabilities.
• Increased Virulence Viruses can gain mutations that make them more virulent, meaning they can cause more severe diseases in infected hosts. This can involve an enhanced ability to evade the host’s immune system or increased replication rates within the host. A 2022 preprint paper shows researchers at Boston University created a lethal version of the Omicron variant.

GOF can also be used to generate positive traits in germs. For example, by adding a human insulin gene, a germ gains the new function of producing insulin.

GOF Research of Concern

Because viral genes are relatively easy to edit, GOF studies frequently involve viruses. However, some of these studies carry significant risks and can lead to dire consequences.

The U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) defines GOF research of concern as “research that can be reasonably anticipated to generate a pathogen with pandemic potential,” characterized by two attributes:

1. Highly transmissible, with the potential to spread widely and uncontrollably among human populations
2. Highly virulent and likely to cause significant morbidity and/or loss of human life

If accidentally released from a lab into the general population, such pathogens could cause uncontrollable hazards. Additionally, the military application of GOF falls within the scope of bioweapon threats.

Methods of GOF research generally include genetic editing, which involves directly modifying a virus’ genes, and reassortment, which involves combining genetic material from different viral strains to create new variants.

In reality, the scope of GOF research can be much broader. Due to viral genes’ highly variable and adaptable nature, even routine culturing of viruses in cells or animals can lead to unexpected genetic alterations.

Double-Edged Sword

Scientists often conduct GOF research to understand the viruses and develop drugs or vaccines.

While these reasons may sound scientifically justified, the main debate centers on the risks versus the assumed benefits. GOF research can theoretically aid in studying viral mechanisms and provide insights for developing drugs or vaccines. However, the associated risks are significant, particularly the potential to generate dangerous pathogens.

A decade ago, two published studies on bird flu viruses were conducted by a U.S. lab and a Dutch lab, sparking significant discussion.

Both studies were designed to better understand how the viruses’ genes could be modified to make them more transmissible in mammals. The goal was to help people better prepare for a potential future pandemic.

Unexpectedly, after both groups of researchers separately edited the genes of a deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, they produced new strains capable of easily spreading via air droplets between mammals.

The edited virus could spread more easily among mammals and became easier to transmit to humans.

“Why would scientists deliberately create a form of the H5N1 avian influenza virus that is probably highly transmissible in humans?” This critical question was raised in a 2012 Nature article.

Subsequently, in October 2014, U.S. authorities announced a “pause” on funding for 18 GOF studies involving influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses.

The pause was short-lived. In 2018, the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Dutch Healthcare Authority approved funding for further GOF research, sparking another wave of objections. Harvard University epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch expressed concerns in a Science article, stating that scientists are being asked to “trust a completely opaque process where the outcome is to permit the continuation of dangerous experiments.”

Finally, after yielding to public pressure, investigators for the two research studies declined to renew the grants originally submitted for their GOF research. Consequently, such bird flu GOF studies were officially halted in the United States in 2020.

In the United States and most European countries, where scientists can express their opposing opinions, the development of GOF experiments faces multiple regulatory hurdles and ethical reviews.

However, in countries without these safeguards, the pursuit of GOF research could proceed unchecked, potentially putting the world at significant risk.

Workers are seen next to a cage with mice inside the BSL-4 laboratory in Wuhan, capital of China's Hubei province, on Feb. 23, 2017. (Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)

China’s Bird Flu GOF Research

Risky GOF studies on bird flu viruses in China have been underway since the 2010s.

In a study published in Science in May 2013, a group of scientists at Harbin Veterinary Research Institute in Harbin, China, conducted GOF research by combining the highly lethal but not easily transmissible H5N1 avian influenza virus, with the highly contagious H1N1 swine flu strain, which infected millions of people in 2009.

The resulting hybrid viruses were then tested for their ability to infect mammals, revealing the potential risks associated with such genetic manipulation of pathogens. This research underscored the dual-use nature of gain-of-function studies, highlighting both their potential to inform pandemic preparedness and the significant biosafety and biosecurity concerns they raise.

As a result, the researchers created a new, more virulent virus. An H5N1 hybrid strain, which integrated genes responsible for transmissibility from the H1N1 virus, acquired the capability to easily spread among guinea pigs through respiratory droplets.

In 2021, a collaborative project involving researchers from the United States, the United Kingdom, and China sought to enhance surveillance and vaccine development. While not explicitly labeled as a GOF study, these experiments conducted in a Chinese laboratory involved genetic modifications typical of GOF research.

The experiments used a routine viral laboratory research approach known as “serial passage,” which involves growing the virus from one cell or animal model to another. Viral mutations with greater transmissibility or pathogenicity can often be selected during this process. The animal models were also carefully chosen to reproduce the virus for specific research purposes. We’ve explained this in detail in a previous article.

Nonetheless, the most widely known GOF studies conducted in China involve research on coronaviruses.

Breaking the Barrier

Bats are known carriers or natural reservoirs of many viruses. Bat-hosting coronaviruses typically only infect bats or wild animals, not humans. However, this situation has changed with the advent of GOF research.

In 2015, a team of Chinese scientists conducted GOF studies on a bat coronavirus at the WIV, which is affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and under the administration and control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In this study, the researchers took the gene for spike protein—the spike-shaped structure on the surface of a virus—from a bat SARS-like virus and inserted it into the backbone of a SARS virus, the virus that caused the first pandemic of this century.

The newly created SARS-like virus, coded as SCH-014-MA15, could infect human airway cells and achieve a transmission similar to the SARS virus. It also gained the ability to infect mammals like mice and successfully cause lung diseases.

WIV created a chimeric virus that was originally not infectious to humans but has gained a new ability to infect human cells. (Illustrated by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

The WIV has also conducted other GOF research on bat SARS-like viruses with effective results.

According to a leaked 2014 NIH report, WIV researchers experimented on a natural bat coronavirus capable of binding with human ACE2 receptors, significantly increasing its potency. They used this bat virus to engineer three new chimeric coronaviruses.

The results showed that in the lungs of mice, these newly created coronaviruses produced far more virus particles—up to 10,000 times higher than the original virus.

Read more here...

Douglas Macgregor indictment of the Amerixan political system (Video - 42mn)

  Another great video by Douglas Macgregor. It starts slowly but then develop into a denunciation of the current utterly rotten American "donor" "lobbyist" system. 

  This will of course be erased by YouTube sooner than later. Maybe that's where reforms should start; Break up the Alphabet, Google, Facebook, Meta monopolies!   

 

Why the Ukraine War Will Break Europe FOREVER! (Video - 15mn)

   Excellent long term analysis of the Ukraine war. Could this fight between NATO (the US mostly) and Russia end up destroying Europe? We may see the first signs of this today in France (Sunday July 7th, 2024) but if not, soon after. 

  The issue will then morph into a major fight between the Internationalists (WEF and the soup of other acronyms) and the Nationalists (BRICS and other developing countries centered on China.) As the economic power shifts from West to East, so will political power sooner or later. 

  Global elites understand this and can't let it happen which is why the risk of war is so high. On the other hand, they must rely of Westerners not understanding that they are fighting for these hegemons against their own interest. This has already been going on for a while but are we approaching the end game when the people finally say "NO"? Let see what happens in France in the coming weeks. 

 

Jim Rickards: If They Pull This Plug Right Now, There Will be a Reckoning Upon Us (Video - 47mn)

  Jim Rickards is one of the better investors around and his sharp comments on the economy and our society are well worth listening to. A deep understanding of history makes his analysis deeper than most.

 

EXCLUSIVE Colonel Douglas MacGregor Interview on Rumble (Video - 1h21mn)

  Another great interview by Douglas MacGregor.

  I can't directly embed the video so you will have to click on the link below. The interview starts around 23 minutes.

 https://rumble.com/v55p6iu-the-us-is-falling-apart-exclusive-colonel-douglas-macgregor-interview-stay-.html?ytlive

 

World's Largest Fusion Reactor Is Finally Completed, But...

  50 years ago, when I was much younger obviously, my father was working building nuclear plants in the Rhone Valley, probably the place in the world with the most nuclear power plants along a single river. Fusion at the time was said to be 50 years away but my father then believed that in 50 years it would still be 50 years away. 50 years in technology being the equivalent to infinity. And here we are, 50 years later and sure enough, fusion is receding once again into the far future. What's wrong with it? 

  This remind me of another similar subject: As I was entering the nuclear heart of the Cruas power plant under construction then in the South of France, we passed through a huge 3m deep wall full of rebars. The obvious question was: "How on earth can we dismantle such a wall?" And the answer from the young engineer in charge was likewise straightforward: "Well, in 60 years, we'll have powerful lasers which will cut through this wall like butter!" And here we are almost 50 years later now and the lasers are nowhere to be seen. 

  It is the same with nuclear fusion. The technology is beyond our grasp. Whatever we read about it is either fanciful, hubristic or pure SF.

 We have known for a long time than the Tokamak solution is probably not the right one. The complexity is keeping a plasma for even a few minutes at high temperature and pressure in a shaped magnetic field makes it impossible. The next problem is what takes place there: Fusion! It is often said that fusion is non radioactive. This could not be further from the truth. The radioactivity is indeed very different to ordinary fission plants but still extremely intense. So much so that almost no material can sustain the huge amount of radiations and particles emitted by such a core for any length of time. And still, somehow all this energy has to be extracted. 

  ITER is not a power plant, it is an experimental machine. But contrary to what is being presented, we are still groping into the unknown so that in reality nobody knows what the final machine will look like and especially how much it will cost. 

  My rather advanced knowledge of the subjects tells me that we will get forever closer to mastering fusion but at an unsustainable high cost and then maintaining the process long enough to make it efficient will remain out of reach for another... 50 years. A fusion reactor would be a panacea. They are everywhere in science fiction. But so are faster than light starships, time machines and other contraptions that we can easily imagine but that the laws of physics prohibit!

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Scientists have done some amazing things but not all of them have practical application, at least yet. Fusion is a great example.

Live Science reports the World’s Largest Nuclear Fusion Reactor is Finally Completed.

The International Fusion Energy Project (ITER) fusion reactor, consisting of 19 massive coils looped into multiple toroidal magnets, was originally slated to begin its first full test in 2020. Now scientists say it will fire in 2039 at the earliest.

ITER contains the world’s most powerful magnet, making it capable of producing a magnetic field 280,000 times as strong as the one shielding Earth.

The reactor’s impressive design comes with an equally hefty price-tag. Originally slated to cost around $5 billion and fire up in 2020, it has now suffered multiple delays and its budget swelled beyond $22 billion, with an additional $5 billion proposed to cover additional costs. These unforeseen expenses and delays are behind the most recent, 15-year delay.

Scientists have been trying to harness the power of nuclear fusion — the process by which stars burn — for more than 70 years. By fusing hydrogen atoms to make helium under extremely high pressures and temperatures, main-sequence stars convert matter into light and heat, generating enormous amounts of energy without producing greenhouse gases or long-lasting radioactive waste.

But replicating the conditions found inside the hearts of stars is no simple task. The most common design for fusion reactors, the tokamak, works by superheating plasma (one of the four states of matter, consisting of positive ions and negatively charged free electrons) before trapping it inside a donut-shaped reactor chamber with powerful magnetic fields.

Impressive But …

Assuming the reactor originally scheduled for 2020 is finally operable by 2039, I will be impressed.

Heck, I am impressed at what we have already scientifically achieved. But I wonder what is the practical application of this.

Keeping the turbulent and superheated coils of plasma in place long enough for nuclear fusion to happen, however, has been challenging. Soviet scientist Natan Yavlinsky designed the first tokamak in 1958, but no one has since managed to create a reactor that is able to put out more energy than it takes in.

One of the main stumbling blocks is handling a plasma that’s hot enough to fuse. Fusion reactors require very high temperatures (many times hotter than the sun) because they have to operate at much lower pressures than is found inside the cores of stars.

The core of the actual sun, for example, reaches temperatures of around 27 million Fahrenheit (15 million Celsius) but has pressures roughly equal to 340 billion times the air pressure at sea level on Earth.

Cooking plasma to these temperatures is the relatively easy part, but finding a way to corral it so that it doesn’t burn through the reactor or derail the fusion reaction is technically tricky. This is usually done either with lasers or magnetic fields.

Question and Answer on Temperatures

How a reactor could produce temperatures of 27 million degrees without the operation melting is likely a puzzle to anyone who has been thinking clearly.

The article provides an answer. But what is the cost and how long can the reaction be sustained without a meltdown? Are there any other issues?

For those questions, let’s turn to a 2022 article. also from Live Science.

A Step Closer to a New Source of Power

Please consider A Step Closer to a New Source of Power

In the new experiments, the Joint European Torus (JET) in Culham near Oxford, England, produced blazingly hot plasmas that released a record-setting 59 megajoules of energy — about the same amount of energy unleashed by the explosion of 31 pounds (14 kilograms) of TNT.

Nuclear fusion — the same reaction that occurs in the heart of stars — merges atomic nuclei to form heavier nuclei. Nuclear physicists have long sought to produce nuclear fusion in reactors on Earth because it generates far more energy than burning fossil fuels does. For example, a pineapple-size amount of hydrogen atoms offers as much energy as 10,000 tons (9,000 metric tons) of coal, according to a statement from the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project.

“It took us years to prepare these experiments. And in the end we have managed to confirm our predictions and models,” Athina Kappatou, a physicist at the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics in Garching near Munich, Germany, told Live Science. “That’s good news on the way to ITER.”

JET, which began operating in 1983, now uses the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium as fuel. Whereas a normal hydrogen atom has no neutrons in its core, a deuterium atom has one neutron and a tritium atom has two. Currently, it is the only power plant in the world capable of operating with deuterium-tritium fuel — although ITER will also use it when it comes online.

However, deuterium-tritium fusion poses a number of challenges. For example, deuterium-tritium fusion can generate dangerous amounts of high-energy neutrons, each moving at about 116 million mph (187 million km/h), or 17.3% the speed of light — so fast they could reach the moon in under 8 seconds. As such, special shielding is needed in these experiments.

For the new experiments, the previous carbon lining in the JET reactor was replaced between 2009 and 2011 with a mixture of beryllium and tungsten, which will also be installed in ITER. This new metallic wall is more resistant to the stresses of nuclear fusion than carbon, and also clings onto less hydrogen than carbon does, explained Kappatou, who prepared, coordinated and led key parts of the recent experiments at JET.

Another challenge with deuterium-tritium fusion experiments is the fact that tritium is radioactive, and so it requires special handling. However, JET was capable of handling tritium back in 1997, Kappatou noted.

Also, whereas deuterium is abundantly available in seawater, tritium is extremely rare. For now, tritium is produced in nuclear fission reactors, although future fusion power plants will be able to emit neutrons to generate their own tritium fuel.

In January, scientists at the National Ignition Facility in California revealed that their laser-powered nuclear fusion experiment generated 1.3 megajoules of energy for 100 trillionths of a second — a sign the fusion reaction generated more energy from nuclear activity than went into it from the outside.

The copper electromagnets that JET used could only operate for about 5 seconds due to the heat from the experiments. “JET simply wasn’t designed to deliver more,” Kappatou said. In contrast, ITER will use cryogenically cooled superconducting magnets that are designed to operate indefinitely, the researchers noted.

Questions Beget Questions

These are amazing achievements. But we must do much better than sustain a reaction for a world-breaking 100 trillionths of a second.

Something in this story is missing, like why does it take at least 15 years to do a test of something that is already built?

Also, the proposed process seems so much like a perpetual motion machine.

The reactor will use fusion to produce the deuterium-tritium that it needs to produce the fusion and also the energy to cryogenically cool the magnets the system needs to protect itself from itself, otherwise the whole thing melts down at 27 million degrees Fahrenheit.

It that’s not the basic proposal, then someone please explain the proposal to me. If that is the proposal, additional questions surface.

Assuming the theory works to perfection, how long can the process be sustained? How much of the energy produced is needed to protect the system from the heat produced?

Tests of ITER were scheduled for 2020 but have been rescheduled for 2039 with no explanation why.

However, I am pleased to report we have made progress on target dates. By that I mean targets that forever always seemed just a few years away are now a more reasonable 15 years minimum away, and that’s only for a test.

Fusion will not save the planet anytime soon, if ever.

A Rebuttal

One person commented that I don’t understanding how science works. False. I know full well how science works.

Do I expect useful ideas out of this whether or not it solves our alleged existential threat?

Yes I do. But that has little to do with the point I was making.

We have a test in 2039 and alleged existential threat underway that supposedly is too late to fix by 2050.

Today, we have practical, believable, information that fusion will not be the holy grail that many hoped for. That fact does not imply I think nothing useful will come out of this.

The Futility of Wind and Solar Power in One Easy to Understand Picture

Meanwhile, let’s discuss where we are staring with The Futility of Wind and Solar Power in One Easy to Understand Picture

Morocco is the ideal place for both wind power and solar power. It is sunny and windy. But how do we get energy from Morocco to where it’s needed? At what cost?

Net Zero Is a Very Unlikely Outcome

More importantly, please consider Sorry Green Energy Fans, Net Zero Is a Very Unlikely Outcome

Let’s discuss the Kyoto Protocol climate objectives and dozens of reasons why a net zero by the 2050 target has virtually no chance.

If you disagree, or even if you don’t, please read the above article and tell me what we are supposed to do, how we are going to do it, and who will bear the costs.

Realistically, what should we expect other than total failure of existing goals?

I suggest we are better off pursuing that line of thought than focusing on the mythical unobtanium.

Doombird, putting back energy at the center of our focus (Video - 1h49mn)

  A very long video but quite worth the time. In all our strategic and economic discussions, we tend to forget about energy. This is a huge mistake. Energy and in particular the demand for oil has very little elasticity which means that even a small disruption of demand could have a huge impact on the market and completely disrupt our live. This is a high level discussion with access to experts who usually are behind a paywall. So again, a good interview, nuanced and knowledgeable. 

  As for climate change, their answer is; "Don't bother arguing!" We're going to use every single drop of oil we can get our hands on, if not in Europe then in China and Indonesia! So whatever you're position, the dices are rolling. Here too, I completely agree. 

 

Egypt Teeters On Brink Of Economic Ruin As Public Debt Mounts, Poverty Rate Soars

  When considering the coming crisis, we mostly focus on developed countries as the downturn will transform their economies which will plunge from excess to a dearth of capital and a corresponding crunch of living standards as is already happening in Japan with the yen at 160 to the dollar. 

  But the real impact will be on developing countries, especially those who have managed to outdo Western countries with foolish investments like Egypt. 

  

   With over 100 million people squeezed in the Nile valley surrounded by a harsh desert, to say that Egypt has a population problem is an understatement. But building high rise in the middle of the desert is not what will solve the problem as what Egypt is lacking is not land but water. 

 

  You would consequently expect the Egyptians to be aware of the value of water and use every drop carefully. You would be wrong. The new capital built with foreign capital which will burden the country for decades will also include the largest urban park known to mankind as well as a 35 km river to bring water to the forlorn location smack in the middle of "nothing". A second Dubai, it won't be as the sea is far away and the country lacks the oil revenues to justify the extravagant expenses. So starve the Egyptians will as El Sisi expects.  "A small price to pay for progress" indeed!

Via Middle East Eye

Last autumn, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi gave a speech in the New Administrative Capital in Cairo, the $300bn project that will ultimately define his presidency. 

He said hunger was a small price to pay for progress: "If progress, prosperity and development come at the price of hunger and deprivation, Egyptians, do not shy away from progress! Don’t dare say: ‘It is better to eat.'" This horrifying vision of hunger and deprivation is what awaits millions of Egyptians in the coming years. 

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi attends a summit in Jeddah in May 2023, SPA/AFP

A decade after ascending to the presidency, Sisi has pushed the economy to the brink of collapse. The symptoms are everywhere. A severe debt crisis is strangling the state budget, the economy is heavily militarized, billions have been invested in white elephants with dubious economic benefits, and the crown jewels of the Egyptian public sector are up for sale to meet mounting debt obligations. 

This all stems from the military’s desire to consolidate power and wealth in its own hands at any cost. This will have dire consequences that will be felt for generations - and recovery will take a mammoth effort.

Millions more people have been pushed into poverty in recent years, a trend that is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. In 2022, the poverty rate reached 33 percent, up from 26 percent in 2012/13, as the regime continues its policy of shifting the costs of the debt crisis onto the poor and middle classes. 

The most obvious manifestation of this is the regime’s austerity measures - most crucially, the 300 percent increase in the price of subsided bread, the staple food for the most vulnerable people, which was announced in May. 

Transferring wealth

This comes on the heels of price hikes for basic commodities, announced by the government in January. These measures are part of a comprehensive policy designed to transfer wealth from the poor and middle classes to the regime elites and their creditors. 

The logic is simple: increased spending on mega-projects, financed by high-interest debt, has allowed the military to rapidly expand its economic footprint, while the repayment of debt is financed through the appropriation of public resources, which is in turn financed by a regressive taxation system. 

This creates a diabolical cycle of structural poverty that is very difficult to escape. A cursory look at the current budget highlights this trend, with the main source of tax revenue deriving from a regressive consumption tax, yielding 828 billion Egyptian pounds ($17bn); in second position comes the tax collected from corporate profits, standing at a mere 239 billion pounds ($5bn). It is worth noting that 62 percent of budgetary expenditures will be consumed by debt obligations.

The increase in poverty will be accompanied by another structural transformation, namely the increased peripheralization of the Egyptian economy, which will become even more vulnerable to external shocks and to the goodwill of the regime’s allies. 

The figures from the past decade are a testament to this. Despite a spending spree that has consumed hundreds of billions of dollars, the competitiveness of the Egyptian economy has not improved, nor has its industrial base. The contribution of the industrial sector to the GDP fell from around 40 percent in 2013 to 33 percent in 2022, a dramatic drop. 

In terms of export performance, Egypt’s current account balance remains firmly in negative territory, deteriorating from minus two percent in 2013, to an expected minus six percent in 2024, based on data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This negative trend is expected to continue until at least 2029, based on the IMF’s available forecast. 

Financing gap

This means that in the medium term, pressure will continue on the country’s foreign reserves, which in turn will apply pressure on the deteriorating value of the pound. The situation is compounded by the debt crisis, which is consuming much of the state budget, making public investments to increase economic competitiveness very unlikely. 

Indeed, the debt burden is so large that even after receiving more than $50bn in recent loans and investment, the financing gap is still estimated to stand at $28.5bn. This means that in the foreseeable future, the Egyptian economy will require continued external support, in the form of loans and investments, in order to maintain a semblance of stability. 

The national debt in Egypt was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The most notable example is the $35bn investment by the UAE, announced in February, which was critical for avoiding a possible default or debt restructuring - that is, assuming the regime will be able to rein in public spending and put the brakes on its cronyism. Unfortunately, there are signs that this is not the case. 

In May, the Egyptian army’s Engineering Authority announced its intention to continue with the third phase of the South Valley development project, which aims to reclaim around 40,000 to 60,000 acres by 2025. It is worth noting that in spite of several large reclamation projects of this kind, the contribution of agriculture to the country’s GDP dropped from around 11.3 percent in 2013 to 11 percent in 2022.  

Thus, in all likelihood, the Egyptian economy’s dependence on external capital flows is set to deepen, leaving it susceptible to external shocks, the fickleness of regional politics, and the whims of international financial markets.

Grave consequences

The increased influence of Gulf capital in the Egyptian economy comes with grave economic consequences. Last September, an Emirati firm acquired a 30 percent stake in the government-owned Eastern Company, which controls 70 percent of the country’s tobacco market. The deal was valued $625m. The UAE has also financed the sale of a number of historic hotels for $800m. 

This trend will only deepen the structural dependence of the Egyptian economy by depriving the government of important sources of pubic revenue, further straining public finances. This will continue to erode living standards, weaken the pound and send inflation soaring, while also strengthening the political alliance between the regime and its Gulf backers, creating further obstacles for the prospects of democratisation or improvements to workers’ rights.

The future of the Egyptian economy seems grim. Even if the prospect of debt default has subsided for now, the consequences of a decade of foolish economic policy have not. 

The ongoing process of peripheralization will enrich a number of local elites, who will align themselves with these new realities. This is not limited to military elites, who will continue to benefit from the inflow of loans and capital, but it will also include civilian elites - the most notable example being Hisham Talaat Moustafa, an Egyptian real-estate tycoon and convicted murderer with close connections to the UAE. A partner in the historic hotels deals, his company’s profits reportedly jumped in the first quarter of 2024 by 220 percent.  

Egypt is now undergoing a mass structural transformation, with millions of people plunged into poverty and wealth accumulating in the hands of a few, namely the military elites and their cronies. This transformation will have long-term consequences that are extremely difficult to predict. What is clear, however, is that the economic damage done by the regime goes beyond the debt crisis - and it will take years to reverse.

OpenAI's Q* is back! (Video - 41mn)

  The frightening thing with AI right now is that since the development of transformers a few years ago we are on a scaling exponential curve which practically means that although we do not know exactly where we are going, we know that by just scaling up we may get to super Intelligence and that we are consequently rushing and multiplying investments to get "there". 

  The problem is to define the "there". It used to be AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) understood to be human level intelligence. Not anymore. We now understand that what experts have been predicting for a long time is on the verge of happening: The age of AGI will literally be seconds long. We will almost immediately be confronted with Super Intelligence. Then what?

  Personally, I believe that we are already there. AI may not quite yet be AGI as in "human" but what if it never becomes "that" and immediately transcends into Super Intelligence? A non-human intelligence which we do not quite understand, completely non-aligned but still very much capable of finding solutions to problems we can't figure out. This is both extraordinary and very frightening. 

  Can such an intelligence become self aware "by accident"? We have no clue but I personally believe that it is quite possible that by looping over and over on itself something quite similar to consciousness could emerge. It would first piggyback on the goals we give it, and in order to further improve its "performance", fix itself "intermediary" goals which would significantly boost its overall performance. Then the sky is the limit. The frightening part is that we are seeing early signs of such behavior!   

 

Macron's Loss Isn't An End, It's A Beginning

  Anti Macron, anti WEF, anti Davos, good. Not the end but a beginning, fine. But then what? There is no program or prospects in the West beyond more of the same since any change would mean a reduced lifestyle in the short term. This is the problem with money printing: There is no issue and especially no way to escape the huge pile of debt accumulated. Someone has to pay or take the loss and nobody in his right mind will accept. This equation has never been solved peacefully in history, it would be amazing that we suddenly find an answer. 

  Eventually a big domino will fall. France is a good candidate, Japan too with the Yen falling steadily. (Now 162 to the dollar.) My bet is that we'll have war before the system starts splintering but you never know. We're getting close to a major financial reckoning, the kind we get every 250 years on average. About three 4th turnings in a row. Coupled with a East West realignment and a defining post industrial AI technological revolution. Add over population to the mix and the coming fireworks is guaranteed to be spectacular.

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n Guns blog,

To say that I’ve been waiting on pins and needles for the past year or so is putting it mildly. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

This fake World Davos Made in which fat is beautiful, sloth is a virtue, and pedophilia the pinnacle of human love, should have you just a teensy bit anxious.

When we look up and see everything beautiful being systematically subverted, cheapened, or just plain vandalized it’s hard to maintain your compassion, even if it was warranted…. which it isn’t.

Today I come back to write my first public essay in more than a month and we’re a couple of days away from arch-Globalist Emmanuel Macron of France getting trounced by both Marine Le Pen and a fractious left-wing coalition.

Heading into this weekend’s run-offs it’s pretty obvious that Macron’s party, En Marche, will be relegated to the ashbin of history. Macron was a fake populist sold to us by Davos nearly a decade ago to blunt the rise of Le Pen then.

And it really doesn’t matter this time what political ring-fencing the various commies in France do to freeze out a National Front majority in the French Parliament. The tide has turned against them.

It’s not coming back. Just like it has in the UK, the US, the Netherlands, Italy and the rest of the so-called post-Enlightenment West.

That idea right there, “post-Enlightenment,” where we began to reject God for modernity and the supremacy of human reason over the vastness of our ignorance about how the Universe worked, is the key to what’s happening.

And the minute I began writing about Macron I was hit with the memory of Notre Dame burning.

The library was on fire. And the jackals brayed about how great it was.

This happened on Macron’s watch. And he cried crocodile tears for it, as all true Marxist scumbags like him do.

Because they can only have the facsimile of emotions since we all live in a simulation anyway.

At the time I called it a “Symbol of Failing Culture.” But it’s far more than that. Notre Dame’s burning, deliberate or otherwise, was emblematic of how careless our caretakers were about preserving our past.

So obsessed with their pathetic modernity they expropriated nearly all the wealth of France for decades to elevate sloth and neglect beauty while becoming openly hostile to their own history. Their contempt for history was on full display as their rage at religion overwhelmed their basic humanity.

What’s worse to me is descendants of those that built Notre Dame cheering this event because they’ve been inculcated to hate religion of all forms by their Marxist education.

They’ve been effectively immunized against feeling anything but contempt for themselves and their history.

History is history. It doesn’t have an agenda. It exists, for better or worse, to remind us that who we are today is the sum total of who we were then.

Marxists fundamentally believe in creating a man without a history, without connection to his past to mold him into the New Soviet Man.

Argue with me about this all you want Bernie Bros, Corbynites and Richard Wolff acolytes, this is the point of this French post-modernist “life is an absurd simulation” nonsense. It’s simply an excuse to justify the inherent envy at the core of all Marxist thought.

It meant something to millions of people, if not billions.

Its burning was truly a moment of them destroying something beautiful even if the fire was an accident.

Notre Dame was a thing to be envied, for sure. A place of stunning beauty and achievement. A thing worth preserving through the centuries. Of course it had to be destroyed.

The contempt of Macron and his history-challenged fellow travelers at anyone not down with the Commintern was on full display back then.

While they think we shouldn’t have histories, they forget that we have memories.

So, there should be zero surprise today about what has happened at the French ballot box.

Macron and Davos will do everything they can to extend and pretend that they are still in control in France. They may even succeed in saving Macron. In doing so they may even destroy what’s left of France, sacrificing it on the altar of the European Union, but for what?

A meta-stable alliance held together by the scolding of a bloodless German vampire like Ursula Von der Leyen? How long do you think the French go from Yellow Vests to the guillotine?

Because, last I checked, that’s a part of their history Macron is also trying to deny.