Red Famine

 

I bought Anne Applebaum's book "Red Famine" about Ukraine's history in the early 20th century. The map (left) by the British Foreign Office shows the demographic impact of the civil war and the Sovietization of the country. It is impressive, a quarter of the population disappeared as a consequence of the imposition of Soviet rule. 

Copper Squeeze

 
The price of copper has fallen by nearly a third since March. Investors are selling on fears that a global recession will stunt demand for a metal that's synonymous with growth and expansion.

You wouldn't know it from looking at the market today, but some of the largest miners and metals traders are warning that in just a couple of years, a massive shortfall will emerge for the world's most critical metal — one that could itself hold back global growth, stoke inflation by raising manufacturing costs and throw global climate goals off course. The recent downturn and the under-investment that ensues only threaten to make it worse.

That's what Bloomberg says. Who invests for the next decade? I don't. 

Rainmaking in Kenya

 In Nilai, Kenya, women make a daily pilgrimage to a reservoir where they spill milk onto the parched landscape as an offering. They will perform this ceremony every day until the rain comes.

They are not more stupid than Honi HaMeagel. 

Arabic Calligraphy

 

In Ramallah, there is an exhibition of the works of a Palestinian artist who spent eight months in Israeli Opher prison. I love calligraphy and I appreciate these works, even if created by the enemy. From Al Jazeera:

Throughout his eight months in an Israeli prison, 26-year-old Palestinian artist Mohammad al-Azeez Atef found refuge in the calligraphy skills he developed from a young age.

With meager tools consisting of paper, black and red pens, a handmade paper ruler, and coffee, he produced what he believes to be approximately 170 pieces of artwork. Some of them were gifts for other prisoners, and 50 others he managed to smuggle out throughout the eight months he was in prison,  between November 2021 and June 2022.

Ukraine War

 

Sputnik webzine analyzes the military situation in Ukraine. Russia has occupied and is defending a large land strip that it considers part of Russia. Putin's original idea was to detach Ukraine from NATO, but it is looking rather difficult to achieve and now, the war's goal is to increase Russia's territory. 

The war is fought with explosive drones and cannons (artillery), After the stabilization of the front, the conflict will continue for months and years. We are selling anti-missile weapons to Germany. The population movements are increasing Germany's population to a new record. 

BTW, watched a BBC report of the Beijing student demonstration 30 years ago, and how it was dissolved with tanks. It was a massacre. Interesting how such large and bloody repression could be denied by the Chinese government all this time - as it never took place. I almost believed it. 

Parched

 
The Yang Tze river is almost dry. Heaven is showing its displeasure with the Emperor. The Chinese people seem to be rather touchy with the long COVID closures and are disobeying. Black rainless clouds all over the planet. 

Credit Suisse Shaking and Quaking

The Swiss Bank giant has lost money and top personnel in 2021 and is downsizing. I have no sympathy for Swiss banks that destroyed the bank accounts of the Jews trapped in Nazi-occupied countries and never tried to find their legal inheritors after the war. Pirates, their reputation is gone. When they lost their secret list of depositors, harming many Israelis and Jews, that was the beginning of the end. When in a fit of wokeness hired a Senegalese to manage the bank, who wrecked the bank, I concluded that they have lost their cold Lutheran minds, and the bank is doomed. So it is. Its shares are collapsing, it lost 21% in the last week, underperforming the S&P 500 by a huge margin. Further, the same trend was observed over the last ten days (-24%) and one month (-22%). This ugly giant is kaputt. The Swiss still are the wealthiest people on Earth and will not starve. 

How the world changes! I wanted to illustrate this note with a caricature of a Swiss Gold-mining Gnome, but they have totally disappeared from the internet. Apparently, the Zurich gnomes became toxic and offensive and google has erased their memory.