GREECE BAILOUT AGREEMENT REACHED

"The agreement was laborious, but it has been concluded. There is no Grexit," European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told a news conference after 17 hours of bargaining.

He dismissed suggestions that Tsipras had been humiliated by accepting far-reaching, German-inspired terms he long promised to resist.

"In this compromise, there are no winners and no losers," Juncker said. "I don't think the Greek people have been humiliated, nor that the other Europeans have lost face. It is a typical European arrangement." -- Reuters

From the "Angela Forever" website * 

"EU President Donald Tusk said Monday that eurozone leaders had reached a unanimous deal to offer Greece a third bailout and keep it in the euro after 17 hours of marathon talks."

By Telegraph Video, and AP, video source APTN

Includes Live Updates
8:19 AM BST 13 Jul 2015

The Telegraph

A summit of eurozone leaders reached a tentative agreement with Greece on Monday for a bailout program that includes "serious reforms" and aid, removing an immediate threat that Greece could collapse financially and leave the euro.

Nine hours after a self-imposed deadline passed, the leaders announced the breakthrough early Monday.

If the talks had failed, Greece could have faced bankruptcy and a possible exit from the euro, the European single currency that the country has been a part of since 2002. No country has ever left the joint currency, which launched in 1999, and there is no mechanism in place for one to do so.

For three days of negotiations between Greece and its international creditors, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras held out for a better deal to sell to his reluctant legislature in Athens this week, even though financial collapse is getting closer by the day.

A breakthrough came in a meeting between Tsipras, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and EU president Donald Tusk. 

Details were not immediately available.

[END REPORT]

* [laughing] I don't know whether it's photoshopped  

"California's 50,000 Pot Farms Are Sucking Rivers Dry"

Lawmakers are still playing ostrich because 'legalizing' marijuana grown in California for recreational use is not going to stop massive diversions of water to the crop.  And it's not going to stop a large black market in marijuana because the regulatory burden that goes with legal pot farming will force the price of the product higher, leaving the door open for the crooks.  Beep this is a recording.  

So the only good news in the following report is that officialdom has now squarely confronted the fact that marijuana farming in California is destroying waterways at an "alarming" rate. 

And by the way the figure of 5 gallons cited in the report is at best an average; depending on the temperature and other factors, a single pot plant can use more than double that amount per day during the growing season.  And unlike the water for rice cultivation, it can't be reused.

As to whether there's a solution -- there is never a solution to opening Pandora's Box.  Marijuana farming is going to do to California what it does everywhere else it's grown for commercial purposes.    

    

California's 50,000 Pot Farms Are Sucking Rivers Dry

By Brittany Patterson and ClimateWire 

July 3, 2015

Scientific American, reprinted from Climate Wire

Each plant takes five gallons of water a day from legal and illegal water diversions

California lawmakers yesterday called for the regulation of marijuana farms to protect stream flows and help fish species like coho salmon and steelhead, which face possible extinction as the state's drought rages on.

In an informational hearing of the California State Senate Joint Committee of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Chairman Mike McGuire (D) of Healdsburg argued that a contingent of pot farmers in the state have disregarded the environment in favor of personal profit.

"Marijuana is literally sucking rivers dry," McGuire said.

The impacts of California's drought on key fisheries have been of increasing concern for wildlife agencies across the state, which have worked for decades to restore fish populations to their historic levels. In 2014, warm water conditions contributed to a 95 percent mortality of winter run brood salmon in the Sacramento River system. This year, with cold water stocks in the Shasta Reservoir—located in Northern California about 9 miles northwest of Redding—at record low levels, Chuck Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), said the state faces another loss of brood stock this winter.

Across the state, there are an estimated 50,000 small pot farms. In the last decade, under the auspices of Proposition 215, which legalized marijuana for medical use, there has been a steady increase in the amount of cannabis cultivation in Shasta, Tehama and Humboldt counties, according to DeWayne Little, a lieutenant with CDFW's Watershed Enforcement Team.

A study by CDFW and published in the journal PLOS ONE in March, found that in four watersheds that are home to both coho salmon and large numbers of marijuana farms—which use about 22 liters of water per day, per plant—the pot cultivation drained much of the river's water (E&ENews PM, March 25)

Illegal water diversions, as well as increased sedimentation and pesticide use, are the main environmental impacts from marijuana grow operations, according to Little. The problem is pronounced along California's North Coast and especially in Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties—or what's known as the Emerald Triangle, the largest cannabis-producing region in the world. In Humboldt County alone, the CDFW estimates there are about 4,000 grow operations.

Officials testify to 'alarming' water diversions

Without regulation, grow operations have moved in and are operating without best management practices, affecting natural resources as a result, Little said.

About nine months ago, California officials created a multiagency pilot program involving state and local agencies. The program is tasked with developing a regulatory program for cannabis activities, conducting targeted enforcement and engaging in education and outreach with local communities.

The seven-member team has visited nearly 100 grow sites and has issued one fine totaling $300,000, five cleanup and abatement orders, and a number of minor violation notices, said Thomas Howard, executive director of the California State Water Resources Control Board.

That rate of inspection has been considered a success, Howard said, but that level of enforcement is barely scratching the surface considering how many farms are suspected to be unregulated in the state.

As of last month, Little said several major rivers are at or near historic lows, including the Van Duzen River, the Eel River, Redwood Creek and Trinity Creek, and his team hypothesizes that these reductions in water are being caused by illegal diversions by grow operations, new and poorly constructed ponds, and improper road construction.

"We have grows that are larger than ever," Little testified during the hearing, which was also webcast live. "Streams are being diverted at an alarming rate."

Little cited a recent example of a portion of stream his team encountered near Fish Lake in Humboldt County in which pot farmers were using PVC pipe, Dixie cups, funnels and even 2-liter Pepsi bottles to divert water for 5,000 plants.

"There literally wasn't a drop of water left after that diversion," he added.

Fears of what legalized marijuana will bring

Humboldt County Sheriff Tom Allman shared similar stories. A native of Humboldt, Allman recalled the early 1970s, when "hippies" began to move to the area, bringing with them marijuana grows. But, he said, those were responsible operations. What he sees today is something entirely different.

"The old hippies are not the problem," he said. "The problem is the 20-year-olds with a sore shoulder who want to make $1 million in a year."

As a result, Allman said, the local fishing and tourism economy is being damaged. If recreational marijuana is legalized by voter referendum in 2016, he said, he fears the continued detrimental effect of unregulated pot farms on those who live on the North Coast.

Some in the marijuana industry echoed the calls of law enforcement, wildlife officials and politicians who spoke during the hearing.

"Regulate it, goodness please," said Hsieh Allen, executive director of the Emerald Growers Association, a nonprofit, member-based association of medical cannabis farmers, business owners and patients.

The California marijuana industry is estimated to produce about 20 million pounds of pot annually, and Allen said the small farmers he represents would welcome regulations and rules that treat them accordingly.

As the drought and further impacts from climate change continue, McGuire stressed that lack of action is jeopardizing entire species in California's watersheds.

"This needs to be the year that legislation is finally passed to bring forward those rules and regulations," McGuire said. "I know some people may still be uncomfortable with medical marijuana, but how many years are we going to allow this to happen?"

[END REPORT]

********

Not again: rubbernecking private drone operators force grounding of firefighting planes

It's amazing how many creeps there are in this world.  

New Zealand Herald - June 13: YUCAIPA, California (Associated Press) Authorities said a drone has again temporarily halted air tankers that were fighting a wildfire.

U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Carol Underhill said the fire broke out on the edge of the San Bernardino National Forest Sunday afternoon, prompting the evacuation of four homes.

She said firefighters at a nearby air tanker base responded swiftly and stopped the fire's forward spread at about 35 acres (14 hectares).

However, she said fire officials grounded the planes for about eight minutes until the drone left the area of the fire.

It was the fourth time in the last month that the spotting of a drone over a California wildfire prompted the Forest Service to ground the firefighting planes out of fear that the drones will collide with the aircraft.

[END REPORT

Mini-ice age starts in 15 years: Global Warmists just can't catch a break.

A frost fair on the frozen Thames. Charming.

(Alamy)

The painting is from the Telegraph's report on the findings; The Daily Mail has cool photos of the sun plus a graph and video, but RT has the clearest explanation: 

Winter is coming: Earth awaits ‘mini ice age’ in 15 years, solar cycle study suggests
July 12, 2015 00:37 - Updated 07:40
RT

Earth is facing the prospect of a ‘mini ice age’ this century, with our sun’s activity projected to fall 60 percent in the 2030s, British astrophysicists say, based on the results of new research that they claim allows exact predictions of solar cycles.

Our planet is just 15 years from a new ‘mini ice age’ that could cause extremely cold winters characterized by the freezing of normally ice-free rivers as well as by year-round snow fields in areas that have never witnessed such climate conditions before, a group of astrophysicists claim.

The scientists could draw such a conclusion based on a new model of the sun’s activity that reportedly enables the researchers to make “extremely accurate predictions” of changes in solar activity.

Although, the fact that the sun’s activity varies within a 10-12 year long cycles was first discovered almost two centuries ago, in 1843, all the previously existing explanatory models failed to fully explain the fluctuations with each cycle as well as between the cycles.

Until now, the astrophysicists thought that the variations of the solar activity depended on the dynamo caused by convecting fluid deep inside the sun.

The latest study conducted by a research team from Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, and led by Professor Valentina Zharkova demonstrated that the variations in the Sun’s activity are caused by two dynamo processes – one deep in the convection zone of the sun and one near its surface.

The research team analyzed three solar activity cycles that cover the period from 1976 to 2008 studying magnetic field activity of the sun during this time by using a technique called principal component analysis of the magnetic field observations from the Wilcox Solar Observatory in California.

The scientists discovered magnetic waves in two different layers of the Solar interior that “fluctuate between the northern and southern hemispheres of the Sun.”

“We found magnetic wave components appearing in pairs, originating in two different layers in the Sun’s interior. They both have a frequency of approximately 11 years, although this frequency is slightly different, and they are offset in time,” said Professor Zharkova.

READ MORE: Scientists reveal how pandas manage to survive on bamboo diet

Later, they also compared their findings concerning the intensity of the Sun’s activity with each year’s data on the average number of sunspots – a strong indicator of solar activity.

As a result, the team managed to create a very accurate model of predicting the solar activity fluctuations.

“Combining both waves together and comparing to real data for the current solar cycle, we found that our predictions showed an accuracy of 97 percent,” said Zharkova.

The study findings were presented at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno on July 9 andpublished in the Royal Astronomical Society papers.

The model demonstrates that solar activity will fall by 60 percent by 2030 as the magnetic waves inside the Sun will become increasingly more desynchronized during the next two cycles, especially during cycle 26, which covers the decade between 2030 and 2040.

“In cycle 26, the two waves exactly mirror each other – peaking at the same time but in opposite hemispheres of the Sun. Their interaction will be disruptive, or they will nearly cancel each other,” Professor Zharkova said.

“Effectively, when the waves are approximately in phase, they can show strong interaction, or resonance, and we have strong solar activity. When they are out of phase, we have solar minimums. When there is full phase separation, we have the conditions last seen during the Maunder minimum, 370 years ago,”she added.

The Maunder minimum is a name of a period between 1645 and 1715 characterized by prolonged low solar activity as well as by extremely cold winters in Europe and North America as it also correlates with a climatic period between 1550 and 1850 called the ‘Little Ice Age.’

[END REPORT]

The Daily Mail's explanation of the Maunder minimum mentions, "This period of solar inactivity also corresponds to a climatic period called the 'Little Ice Age' when rivers that are normally ice-free froze and snow fields remained year-round at lower altitudes."  

The Mail also says that "frost fairs" became popular. 

"Top drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman escapes prison again, Mexican officials say" UPDATED 11:20 PM EDT

11:20 PM EDT 7/12 UPDATE
Reuters - 10:54pm EDT
Mexico kingpin 'Chapo' Guzman stages brazen jailbreak in blow to president

Repeats details from reports earlier in the day that describe the particulars of the escape, but these quotes caught my eye: 

[...]
"This is going to be a massive black eye for Pena Nieto's administration," said Mike Vigil, former head of global operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

"I don't think they took into account the cunning of Chapo Guzman and the unlimited resources he has. If Chapo Guzman is able to make it back to the mountainous terrain that he knows so well in the state of Sinaloa ... he may never be captured again," Vigil said.

[...]

The flight of Guzman, who became a legendary figure in villages scattered in the sierra where he grew up in northwestern Mexico, seriously undermines Pena Nieto's pledge to bring order to a country racked by years of gang violence.

[...]

The Mexican president has come under increasing pressure to deliver on his pledges to root out corruption after becoming embroiled in a string of conflict-of-interest scandals. He was en route to France when news of Guzman's getaway broke.

Before Pena Nieto won election, politicians in his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had mocked their conservative rivals for letting Guzman escape while they ran the country, saying it would not have happened on their watch.

Days after Guzman was captured in 2014, Pena Nieto said another El Chapo escape must "never happen again."

"Given what happened in the past, truly, it would be worse than deplorable, it would unforgivable," he said then.

Over the past decade, dozens of illegal tunnels built by gangs trafficking drugs and people across the U.S.-Mexican border have cropped up, with more than 100 found since 2007.

But penetrating Mexico's highest security prison to spring the world's most infamous drug smuggler undoubtedly represents a more audacious challenge, experts said.

Rubido did not comment on why authorities had apparently failed to notice a long tunnel being built under the prison.

The capo's escape could also strain relations with the United States, which wanted Guzman extradited, said Alberto Islas, a security expert at consultancy Risk Evaluation.

"They were concerned about how dangerous he was, and they had a lack of confidence in the Mexican authorities to stop him operating from jail," he added.

[...]

****

7:55 AM EDT 7/12 UPDATE
At 5:09 AM The Dallas Morning News updated its earlier report with one by the Associated Press.  Click on the link below for the updated version.  All I'll say at this time is that Guzman's escape is not a simple prison escape; it's a terrible blow to the national government. 

****** 
Published: 12 July 2015 01:42 AM - Updated 02:38 AM
The Dallas Morning News

MEXICO CITY -- Top Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has escaped from a maximum security prison for the second time, security officials announced late Saturday.

Guzman, who headed the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, was last seen in the area of the showers in the Altiplano prison outside of Mexico City, the capital.

The National Security Commission said in a statement that Guzman went to the showers shortly before 9 p.m. and wasn’t seen for a while. Upon checking his cell, authorities found that it was empty.

A search operation began immediately in the surrounding area and highways. Flights have also been suspended at Toluca airport near the penitentiary.

Guzman was captured in February 2014 after more than a decade on the run. He faces multiple federal drug trafficking indictments in the U.S. and was on the DEA’s most-wanted list.

Guzman had been caught previously in Guatemala in 1993, extradited and sentenced to 20 years in prison in Mexico for murder and drug trafficking. He escaped from another maximum security prison, Puente Grande in western Jalisco state, in 2001 with the help of prison guards.

The Sinaloa Cartel empire stretches throughout North America and reaches as far away as Europe and Australia. The cartel has been heavily involved in the bloody drug war that has torn through parts of Mexico for the last several years.

Sinaloa is believed now to control most of the major crossing points for drugs at the U.S. border with Mexico.

More details to come.

[END REPORT]

Mosquitoes and the Birds and the Bees and the Frankensteins

Four years. That's how long the human race survives after bees become extinct.  That's my answer to Frankensteins who want to kill off all mosquito species in the name of protecting humans from mosquito-borne diseases.  From the article at Test Tube I linked to, although bees do the heavy lifting, mosquitoes along with butterflies and certain species of small birds are also pollinators. 

Right now the human race needs all the pollinators it can get.  

In addition:

In the Arctic, mosquito swarms get so thick, they darken the sky; some researchers say this plays an essential role in directing migrating birds north. They also serve as food for bats, birds, fish, and a number of other animals (including other mosquitoes). According to a study conducted by the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the population of some tundra birds could drop by as much as 50 percent if mosquitoes were to disappear.

We also need all the fish and birds we can get. But I wouldn't worry too much about any birds that depend on mosquito swarms for migratory direction. That's because human activities are destroying bird migratory routes at such a clip that migrations are disappearing in many parts of the world.

The Effects of Light and Noise Pollution on Birds

Light pollution alone -- building lights directed at the sky in cities along migratory routes -- are killing off  between 500 million and one billion migratory birds annually in the United States.  The lights wash out the stars, by which birds navigate at night, causing something termed "fatal light attraction."  The bird flocks crash into the buildings.

Noise pollution is also decimating migratory bird populations.  From a May 18 report by Christopher Solomon for The New York Times, When Birds Squawk, Other Species Seem to Listen  (H/T John Batchelor Show), birds have developed an incredibly sophisticated 'early warning system' to describe a threat but this depends on their ability to hear clearly: 

[...]
Manufactured noise coming from everything from natural-gas development to automobiles is increasingly considered a major pollutant. Eighty-three percent of the land area in the continental United States, for instance, now sits within two-thirds of a mile of a road, according to a 2003 study.

To test noise’s effects, Dr. Barber of Boise State and several colleagues built a “phantom road” in a forest outside Boise, Idaho, that is a popular stopover for birds during fall migration. The road consisted of a half-kilometer array of speakers through the woods that broadcast automobile noise and could be switched on and off.

Noise alone, they found, had harmful effects on many of the birds.

“What we found was that they had lower overall body condition and they gained significantly less weight when the road was ‘on,’ ” Dr. Barber said. The findings are under review for publication.

Birds must make a trade-off with their time between eating and being vigilant. Alarm calls help the group share that responsibility. But when birds cannot hear predators or alarms well, each must spend more time listening and less time feeding, or else move to where they feel safer, Dr. Barber said.

His related 2013 study also found more than a one-quarter decline in bird abundance when the artificial road noise was turned on; some avoided the area almost entirely.

Most migratory birds worldwide are in decline today, Dr. Barber said, and noise that hampers their ability to hear information such as warnings and forces them to change their behavior may be one factor.

Noise is relevant to his nonmigrating chickadees in cold northern Montana, too, Dr. [Erick] Greene said.

“Generally in the winter, these birds are living on the edge,” he added.

“If they don’t meet their caloric requirements today, they’re dead. And it’s a trade-off: you can feed or you can watch for predators.”

In a followup study by Barber and other researchers published in November 2103 (reported by Science Daily; Negative effects of road noises on migratory birds):

In a first-of-its-kind study by Boise State University researchers shows that the negative effects of roads on wildlife are largely because of traffic noise.

Biologists have known that bird populations decline near roads. But pinpointing noise as a cause has been a problem because past studies of the effects of road noise on wildlife were conducted in the presence of the other confounding effects of roads. These include visual disturbances, collisions and chemical pollution, among others.

"We present the first study to experimentally apply traffic noise to a roadless area at a landscape scale, thus avoiding the other confounding aspects of roads present in past studies," said Christopher J. W. McClure, post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Biological Sciences. [...]

Overfishing Gone Berserk

Then there is the impact of overfishing on migratory birds, examined by Princeton professor David Wilcove in his 2010 book No Way Home: The Decline of the World's Great Animal Migrations  

A 2010 NPR article by Robert Krulwich, Migration Blues: When Birds Don't Fly South, discussed the findings Wicove reported on.

In one sentence, during a key pit stop for certain migrating birds, the food they depend on to continue their journey, eggs laid by the horseshoe crab, was being wiped out by overfishing the crabs. The kicker is that the orgy of crab fishing (see the NPR article for the mind-boggling numbers) was to use the crabs as bait, not food for humans.

After a period of additional studies, the government sprang into executive action:

[State and federal agencies] reduced the allowable harvest of horseshoe crabs, and they prohibited any harvest at all during the period when the shorebirds are visiting. As a consequence, the overall harvest of horseshoe crabs dropped by 62 percent between 1998 and 2003. The states of New Jersey and Delaware went even further: in 2006, they declared a two year moratorium on the harvest of all horseshoe crabs."

And?

I wrote Wilcove to find out what happened. The horseshoe crab population has stopped crashing. It's even bounced back a little. As for the birds, he writes, "The tally of knots [birds] in Delaware Bay was 15,000 in the spring of 2008, jumping to 24,000 in 2009." 

 That's huge. Too huge, Wilcove thinks. The 2010 tally isn't in, "but preliminary reports placed it at around 15,000 knots." So whatever is going on, the knots aren't disappearing as fast as they used to. [...]

I don't know how the situation has progressed since then but the point, which Krulwich stresses, is that with effort it's possible to slow and even reverse the human-caused decline in bird migrations -- although those migrations aren't the only ones in trouble:

"Simply stated," says ... David Wilcove, "the phenomenon of migration is disappearing around the world. The great salmon runs of the Pacific Northwest have been reduced to a trickle ... Monarch butterflies are threatened by illegal logging of the Mexican forests where they winter. "

More and more studies show fewer creatures are migrating and those who do more often don't make it. There is no easy way to address this problem.

Tackling Light Pollution

The Atlantic Flyway route in the USA (pictured in purple) runs predominantly along the shoreline and its northern origins are in the eastern Arctic islands and the coast of Greenland. Graphic via The Daily Mail.


With regard to how light pollution affects bird migration, the way to greatly limit mass deaths of birds from fatal light attraction is simply to shut off all but essential outdoor lighting in cities that are along bird migratory routes during the migration periods.  The tactic was initiated this year in New York.  From the Daily Mail's April 15, 2015 article:

[New York] state is along the Atlantic Flyway, one of four major routes [in the USA] for migrating birds ... New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said state buildings will turn off 'non-essential outdoor lighting' from 11pm until dawn during spring and fall,
[...]
By joining with the National Audubon Society's Lights Out program, the state buildings follow the Rockefeller Center, Chrysler Building and Time Warner Center.

'This is a simple step to help protect these migrating birds that make their home in New York's forests, lakes and rivers,' Governor Cuomo said in a statement.

Lights Out efforts are already protecting birds in the east coast cities including Baltimore and Washington, and in other US metropolitan areas including Chicago, Minneapolis and San Francisco, according to Audubon.

The Lights Out project extends beyond the cities named, as the Audubon Society's article on North Carolina's Lights Out project indicates.  The article makes clear that lights out doesn't have to be a blanket proposition.  Volunteers scout out building lights that are giving the birds the most trouble, then explain the situation to the building owners.  When you consider that the owners are saving a lot of electricity by shutting off certain of their lights for a few months out of the year, they've probably been cooperative for that reason alone.

Bees, Dementia, and Nicotine Addiction 

The latest scientific speculation about what's killing off bee colonies, from The Daily Mail's June 5, 2015 article on the new research findings,  Bees suffer dementia due to metal pollution: Aluminium contamination may be behind insect decline:

Bees may be declining because they are suffering dementia compared to Alzheimer's caused by eating large amounts of aluminium.

A scientific study found high amounts of aluminium contamination in bees at levels that would cause brain damage in humans.

Bees rely on their tiny brains to navigate to flowers to collect pollen and nectar to eat.

Researchers from the universities of Keele and Sussex studied the levels of aluminium in pupae – the bag-like form bumblebee larvae before they emerge as fully grown adults.

The scientists found that the pupae contained levels of between 13 and 200 ppm (parts per million).

To put it in context, just 3ppm would 'be considered as potentially pathological in human brain tissue.'

Previous research has found when bees forage for nectar they do not actively avoid nectar which contains aluminium.

Researchers at University of Sussex collected pupae from colonies of naturally foraging bumblebees and sent them to Keele University where their aluminium content was determined.

Pesticide residues have been seen as one of the most significant causes of a decline in bee numbers.

But the researchers, whose work is published in the journal Public Library of Science One, suggest the possibility that this aluminium is also contributing to the decline.

Professor Chris Exley an expert on human exposure to aluminium, from Keele University said: "It is widely accepted that a number of interacting factors are likely to be involved in the decline of bees and other pollinators – lack of flowers, attacks by parasites, and exposure to pesticide cocktails, for example.

 "Aluminium is a known neurotoxin affecting behaviour in animal models of aluminium intoxication. Bees, of course, rely heavily on cognitive function in their everyday behaviour and these data raise the intriguing spectre that aluminium-induced cognitive dysfunction may play a role in their population decline – are we looking at bees with Alzheimer's disease?".

The Alzheimer's society advise that although aluminium was linked initially with Alzheimer's disease in humans "the link has not been proven despite continuing investigation".
[END REPORT]

The bee aluminum ingestion story got a lot of play in the news media, but just as interesting is this summary of an April 22, 2015 report on bee nicotine ingestion accompanying The Daily Mail one on bee dementia

Bees may be getting hooked on nectar laced with nicotine-related chemicals in a similar way to how humans are addicted to the drug in cigarettes.

Many insecticides contain traces of so-called neonicotinoids, which translates to 'new nicotine-like insecticides'.

And despite not being able to taste them, studies have discovered bees - especially those with parasites - will seek out plants laced with such chemicals.

Like nicotine, the neonicotinoids act on certain receptors in the nerve synapses of insects.

Back to the Mosquitoes

Mosquitoes Need Sugar, Not Blood, To Survive

July 18, 2013

Marsha Lewis, ISTV Contributing Producer

Inside Science TV

[...]
Now, researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are studying ways to trap and kill these pests by focusing on what mosquitoes are addicted to. Surprisingly it’s not blood, but sugar.

"We’re combining sugar solutions with toxicants, various types of pesticides,” said Sandra Allan, entomologist at USDA’s Agricultural Research Service.

All mosquitoes need sugar to survive. Female mosquitoes do feed on blood, but both male and female mosquitoes require sugar. In fact, a mosquito needs sugar more frequently than they need blood. Most of the time, mosquitoes get their sugar fix from flowers and other plants, but are also know to prey on humans.

“Right after they emerge, they will start looking for sugar meals,” said Allen.

Capitalizing on the mosquito's insatiable sweet tooth, researchers are using a sugar-based solution to attract the mosquitoes. Then, the toxic insecticide mixed in the sugar kills them.

So far, researchers have found five different classes of insecticides ingredients that were all toxic to mosquito species when used in the sugar baits. The liquid is safe for people and pets and can be used as a trap or a spray.

The sugar-based baits could be on the market within the next few months. [...]

Given that mosquitoes are known to develop immunity to toxins meant to kill them and that the toxins can have deadly effects on other creatures, might it be more effective to study what makes some humans attractive to mosquitoes and not others? 

And wouldn't it be more fruitful to study why some humans bitten by disease-carrying mosquitoes don't get sick from the bites and why others do?

Of course this approach would be ignored by the Frankensteins, but it would cut out nasty surprises down the line when the latest Frankenstein concoction turns out to be poisonous to humans and livestock after all.

There would be another approach that might yield interesting results, if there has been a rise in mosquito-related diseases, not accounted for by human population increases, in parts of world where the consumption of high sugar content drinks has greatly increased during the past century. Take tropical African countries, for example. Coca-Cola made its official debut into the African market almost 130 years ago.

And just a few days ago, on July 1, Allison Jackson at USA TODAY reported Study estimates sugary drinks more deadly than violent crime in Mexico:

GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Mexico is renowned for being one of the most dangerous countries in the world, so it might sound strange to hear that sugary drinks pose a bigger threat to life here than violent crime.

Sugar-sweetened beverages such as Coca-Cola,Gatorade and homemade drinks known as "agua fresca" kill far more people every year in Mexico than criminal gangs.

A study by the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University estimates a staggering 24,000 Mexicans die each year from diabetes, cancer and heart disease that are linked to sugary drinks.

Compare that figure to the roughly 15,649 murders officially recorded in 2014 and it's clear which is the biggest killer in the Latin American country.

Worldwide, the total sugary-drink death toll is estimated at 184,000, with more than 70% of deaths caused by diabetes. The researchers said this was the first detailed global report on the impact of sugar-sweetened beverages.

Out of the 20 most populous countries studied, Mexico's death rate from sugary drinks was the highest by a long way, with an estimated 405 deaths per million adults.

The United States was a distant second with an estimated 125 deaths per million adults, although its total number of deaths was slightly higher than Mexico's at 25,000.

Mexico's death rate from sugary drinks is alarming, but not all that surprising when you consider that the country is also the world's biggest consumer of sodas. The average Mexican drinks a whopping 43 gallons of soda each year — nearly 40% more than the average American, who knocks back 31 gallons.

And one of the most popular drinks in the country is Coca-Cola — it's common to see Mexicans drinking the sugar-laden drink at breakfast — with Mexicans drinking more Coca-Cola products than any other country on the planet.

"This is not complicated," said Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and senior author of the study, in a statement.

"There are no health benefits from sugar-sweetened beverages, and the potential impact of reducing consumption is saving tens of thousands of deaths each year.

[...] 

I think it's widely accepted that the disappearance of large tracts of forested regions have brought many insects including mosquitoes closer to human populations. But that would beg the question as to why some humans aren't affected by mosquitoes.  

Yet the question has been steamrolled by the Frankensteins, from these two blurbs featured in the Test Tube article about mosquitoes:

Insecticide-Treated Nets May Create Super Mosquitoes (Smithsonian)
"Two species of mosquitoes have interbred, giving rise to hybrids that can resist the most potent weapons used against them."

A Mosquito Solution (More Mosquitoes) Raises Heat in Florida Keys (NY Times)
"If the federal Food and Drug Administration gives the go-ahead for the trial, Key Haven, with 444 houses built on a tiny peninsula, would become the focal point of the first American release of several million mosquitoes genetically altered by Oxitec, a British biotechnology company."

What are we going to do with the Frankensteins -- who actually make the original Dr Frankenstein look good?  He is a very foolish man but he lives in the early part of the 1800s so he's vastly ignorant of the scope of damage that applied science can wreak.  The people who've been screwing with Nature on a grand scale in this era don't have his excuse.  And neither do governments and private charitable organizations that have been funding them.

And yet to read through the reports I've cited is to have it brought home that two very different types of scientists now exist.  That one type has a more developed conscience than the other doesn't fully explain the difference.  It is more an allover approach, a profound respect for Nature's intelligence, which separates scientists like Dr Erick Greene from the Frankensteins.  

********

Early takeaways from Ufa BRICS/SCO Summit: Modi and Sharif make nice

Indian PM Narendra Modi and Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif meeting at Ufa

Having invited India to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), China's government has publicly expressed worry in so many words that tensions between the two nuclear armed archenemies would ruin the defense alliance's broad objectives.  The photograph above shows the first fruit of China's brow-knitting.

The Indian Express along with several other Indian press outlets thinks the biggest takeaway from the meeting of Modi and Sharif at the summit has to do with Pakistan's handling of the trial of 7 Pakistani defendants in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack case, which up to this point has been a farce. This has been a very sore point with Indians; the attack, simply referred to as 26/11, was India's 9/11.  

Here's a photograph of the final text of the "statement"  read out by the foreign secretaries in Pakistan and India regarding issues the two leaders agreed to discuss further.  (Shubhajit Roy, Assistant Editor, Indian Express, posted the photo at his Twitter page):

I'm not seeing any agreement in #5 to expedite the trial, only an agreement to agree to discuss ways and means to expedite.     

It's questionable that Sharif would be able to deliver on #5;  i.e., with a nod from Pakistan's military. If he could pull it off this would be news indeed.  We'll have to see because Sharif's agreements with Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani have not panned out up to this point.

However, in this instance Pakistan's military has Beijing breathing down its neck.  So there is some room for hope.

********

Aces up the Greek government's sleeve: Location, location, location

Suffer the little refugee children 

 Newly arrived refugees wait to be registered in Mytilini harbour, Lesbos. Photograph: NurPhoto /Rex Shutterstock

Don't you dare laugh Pundita because it's not a damn bit funny. But it's just [laughing] -- all these analysts who've been saying the Greeks can't possibly wheedle more money out of the Troika. They possibly might.

UN would struggle to cope with refugees in Greece if banks fail

by Patrick Kingsley Migration Correspondent

9 July 2015 - 04.45 EDT

The Guardian 

Greek islands have received 9,000 refugees in past week alone, says United Nations, and its ability to pay for humanitarian supplies is at risk

The UN refugee agency says it will struggle to provide basic supplies to a wave of refugees in the Greek islands if the country’s banking system fails in the coming days.

Greece’s islands have in recent weeks overtaken Italy as the primary entry point for refugees to Europe, with nearly 80,000 arriving this year from Turkey – a rate six times the equivalent figure from 2014, according to the UN.

More than 9,000 have arrived in the past week alone, and a UN spokeswoman on the island of Lesbos, which has taken in around half of the arrivals, says the organisation’s ability to give them items as basic as bottles of water and sleeping mats is at risk.

Laura Padoan said: “The precarious financial situation means that if we can’t access cash readily, it could threaten our programmes because we pay our suppliers through Greek accounts. We do depend on having ready cash. A lot of programmes depend on cash purchases of Greek goods.”

The Athens government has been overwhelmed by the unprecedented wave of refugees on its eastern islands, many of which lie just a few miles from the Turkish coast, allowing refugees largely from the wartorn countries of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan to risk the short journey in rubber boats. As many as 19 are feared to have drowned in recent days.

Greek officials are struggling to process the refugees in a timely manner, meaning they are unable to quickly reach the mainland and further stretch resources on the islands. Some islanders have set up their own makeshift camps for migrants.

The government’s own camps are vastly overcrowded – with around 5,000 refugees squeezed into squalid conditions at the Kara Tepe camp on Lesbos. In at least some camps, the government has been unable to pay local caterers to provide food to the refugees, forcing the army to step in to provide emergency food at one camp on the island of Samos on Tuesday.

In the Greek parliament this week the migration minister, Tasia Christodoulopoulou, admitted the situation could lead to “imminent riots by people demanding food”.

Refugees are already losing patience, Padoan said. “There have been fights that have broken out in Kara Tepe. People are getting really frustrated. There’s a lot of tension.”

As well as a bottleneck on the islands, there is also a buildup of stranded migrants at Greece’s northern borders. In recent months, refugees trying to reach other European countries have been able to walk into Macedonia, and then through the Balkans. But in recent days, the Macedonian authorities have moved to block the passage of most refugees, leading to an increasing number of migrants in limbo in the northernmost towns of Greece.

With Hungary – the next EU country on the Balkans migrant trail – trying to make it harder for migrants to enter its borders, there are fears many will decide to stay put in Greece, further stretching the country’s resources.

Another reason refugees could be forced to remain in Greece is that reported restrictions by international money transfer companies are preventing refugees being wired the large sums of money most rely on to fund their onward journeys.

[END REPORT]

********

Greece: Water, water everywhere but how much to spare?

Giant water bag towing drinking water from Mainland Greece

 to Greek resort islands 

 
2002 - Al Sindagah on water transport

[...]
Drinking water is lighter than seawater and so the bag floats on the surface, making it easier to tow, while empty bags can be reeled onto the deck of the tug, enabling it to return to the filling station at high speed.

One of the pioneers of this process is Nordic Water Supply ASA (NWS), which signed its first commercial contract in October 1997 with the Ministry of Energy in Turkey to transport fresh water to northern Cyprus, which has been under Turkish Cypriot rule since the 1974 invasion. 

Its main competitor is Aquarius Holdings Limited, which has tugged smaller bags from mainland Greece to nearby resort islands since 1997, helping the Greek tourism industry cope with the increased demand for drinking water during the peak holiday season.

[...]

Aquarius Holdings Ltd. 

Aquarius Holdings Ltd. is sponsored by ADCECO GROUP in Abu Dhabi, U.A.E.

... Since 1997 Aquarius has been delivering potable water in bulk to the Greek Islands using polyurethane water bags. Aquarius has been operating in the Port of Piraeus for the last four years with fully equipped installation tanks and storage facilities. ... 

Water Resources in Greece 

Lake Mornos, created by a dam that was initially built for local water supply, is now partially diverted to supply Athens with drinking water

On average, Greece has quite abundant water resources of 58 billion cubic meter per year (1977–2001), of which the country uses only 12 percent. Of that, 87 percent is used by agriculture, 3 percent by industry and only 10% (or 1.2 percent of total water resources) for municipal water supply. 

However, the average masks substantial variations between years, seasons and regions. Water resources are especially scarce on the Greek islands, some of which are supplied by tanker ships or have turned to seawater desalination.

Droughts are a recurrent phenomenon throughout Greece, including a drought in 1993 that was considered the worst in at least 50 years and another drought in 2007.

Water sources of Athens

Because local water sources are insufficient and to hedge against the risk of drought, the metropolitan area of the capital Athens, where more than a third of the population of Greece lives, is supplied by five different water sources, the most distant one located almost 200 km away.
[...]
Due to the need to pump large quantities of water over long distances and mountains, the water company of Athens is the second-largest electricity customer in Greece.  

[From Wikipedia article on water supply and sanitation in Greece]

80 percent of Greece is mountainous, a key consideration with any desalination project meant to serve populations that aren't close to the desalination plant. 

Now just how large is the population?

Tricky question. From Wikipedia's article on Greece, the country's population according to the 2011 census is around 10.8 million.

That figure doesn't include expatriates, refugees/migrants, and tourists -- and commuters  From a July 9 CNN report on expatriates in Greece trying to weather the financial crisis, "Greece is a popular expat destination and estimates are that just over 188,000 European nationals lived in the country last year." The figure says nothing about expats from other parts of the world; one of the people interviewed by CNN is a Brazilian.

In the past week alone, Greece has taken in 9,000 refugees, and:

Greece’s islands have in recent weeks overtaken Italy as the primary entry point for refugees to Europe, with nearly 80,000 arriving this year from Turkey – a rate six times the equivalent figure from 2014, according to the UN.

Then you have to add the population of the tourist industry. 23 million tourists visited Greece throughout 2014. While that's a record number, Greece has long had a big tourism industry. To return to the Wikipedia article:

An important percentage of Greece's national income comes from tourism. Tourism funds 16% of the gross domestic products which also includes the Tourism Council and the London-Based World Travel. According to Eurostat statistics, Greece welcomed over 19.5 million tourists in 2009, which is an increase from the 17.7 million tourists it welcomed in 2007.

The vast majority of visitors in Greece in 2007 came from the European continent, numbering 12.7 million, while the most visitors from a single nationality were those from the United Kingdom, (2.6 million), followed closely by those from Germany (2.3 million).

You would also want to add two other factors when looking at how Greece's population impacts its water situation: 

1.  While the purchasing power for Cypriots is considerably higher than for Greeks, the cost of living is across the board much cheaper in Greece than in Cyprus. So if you're a Cypriot who lives near the border it would certainly pay to buy your groceries in Greece and even dine out there. It would also be much cheaper to rent an apartment in Greece than in Cyprus.  

So the question would be how many Cypriots live in Greece and commute to work in Cyprus.  I haven't seen a statistic that throws any light on the answer.

2.  Here we come to the fun question.  What is the 'population' of major hotel chains in Greece?

I'm afraid Wikipedia doesn't have an answer for that, either.  But someday a very energetic researcher is going to start asking such questions as they apply to tourist destinations across the world in regions that are water stressed at least part of the year.      

For a long time the Greek tourist industry was family-owned businesses -- Mom and Pop running a charming little bed and breakfast and using the kids as employees.  That kind of hotel industry surely still exists in Greece, and it doesn't use up much water.  Yet a great many tourists these days want a hotel with amenities they consider standard, such as air-conditioning, fully outfitted bathroom in every room, swimming pool, and 24-hour coffee shop. Not to mention elevators.

Such a hotel uses a great deal of water not only to service the guests but just to maintain its existence -- its infrastructure and landscaped grounds.

The factors I've mentioned don't address the more complex questions related to a country's water usage, such as efficiency of water management.  

Nor have I delved into the issue of supplying water to Greece's 227 inhabited islands. I don't know how many and the extent to which those islands depend on water from the mainland, and the extent to which the water bag towing has caught on. But the towing seems to be cheaper than the use of tankers to deliver water. And it it seems deep harbors for the tankers to dock are unnecessary with the water bags.

However, the attractive features of water bags could mean that development of additional Greek islands for tourism would become feasible -- or has already become so. (According to Wikipedia there are between 1,200 and 6,000 Greek islands, depending on the definition.) That would mean yet more freshwater hauled from the mainland.

Gather accurate statistics on all the factors I've cited and add them up. Only then could one get something approximating a picture of Greece's actual water supply situation. And maybe, just maybe, the picture could be helpful in understanding more about Greece's arson situation as it applies to land grabs. See the previous Pundita post (Greece Fire Sale). 

Because there is another question Wikipedia doesn't have an answer for at this time.  How many land grabs are water grabs spelled backward?  That question, too, extends far beyond Greece.     

******** 

Greece Fire Sale

The problem for Greece is that many elderly Greeks own very valuable underdeveloped land.  It's the same for other European Mediterranean countries.   

 Wildfires near Athens, Greece - 2009 

BICANSKI/GETTY

2007 Greek Wildfires 
... While some fires are believed to have been caused by environmental factors, others clearly were not. The fires could have been deliberately started as a way to get around Greek law which forbids property development on areas designated as forest land and to pull benefit from Greece's unique position as the only EU country without a full land registry system ... (Wikipedia)

2007

Outrage in Greece over secret plan to develop land in region ravaged by fires

2009
Wildfires rage through Greece: Thousands evacuated as flames reach Athens suburbs

2009 Greek Wildfires
... Unlike the 2007 Greek forest fires, the 2009 fires took place in eastern Attika, which is a forested-suburban region known for its illegal ribbon development, where thousands of illegal homes have been legalised ahead of successive elections by incumbent governments. This area is also expected to undergo further development and population increase as a result of new urban plans for the area. ... (Wikipedia)

2014

Home ownership in Greece 'a sick joke' as property market collapses

With over a third of households unable to meet tax obligations, four out of 10 Greeks recently told a Kapa Research poll they would willingly hand over properties to the state to fulfil future payments; one in three, unable to keep up mortgage repayments, feared their homes would be confiscated in 2014. ...  "Greeks traditionally have always regarded property as a secure investment. But now it has become a huge millstone, given that the tax burden has increased sevenfold in the past two years alone."

Wildfires near Genoa, Itay - 2009 

2009 Mediterranean wildfires

The 2009 Mediterranean wildfires were a series of wildfires that broke out across France, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Turkey in July 2009. Strong winds spread the fire during a hot, dry period of weather killing at least eight people, six of whom were in Spain. Some of the wildfires were caused by lightning, along with arson and military training.
[...]
In the Mediterranean region, the current fire frequency due to human activity is considered much larger than the natural rate. 95% of forest fires in Spain are human-induced. The 2009 Mediterranean wildfires occurred during a particularly hot and dry summer period, increasing the risk of wildfires burning out of control once ignited. 

Temperatures peaked at 44 °C (111 °F) in mainland Spain and reached 37 °C (99 °F) in Gran Canaria. These conditions, combined with insufficient fire-fighting resources and an inadequate official response in some of the affected countries, exacerbated the extent of the damage.

Uncontrolled legal and illegal scrub burning by farmers is a major cause of forest fires in the Mediterranean region. Arson, while still a significant factor, has diminished in Spain and Greece in recent years. Decreasing property values generally and the introduction of legislation in Spain to tackle the issue has diminished the financial incentive to illegally clear forested land for development by burning. [...] (Wikipedia)

The Ufa Summit and two new development banks

Takeaway quotes from second report (Bruce Jones, Brookings):

What we can expect to see out of the Ufa Summit of the BRICS [July 9] are two things. First, the members will do the exact opposite of isolating Russia; they’ll be on stage with Putin and they’ll refrain from any public criticism of his strategy in Ukraine. They aren’t particularly happy with his strategy there -- but their view is: This is not our problem.

[...] 

China, frustrated by the slow pace and lack of weighted voting in the BRICS Development Bank—now the New Development Bank (NDB), which emerged from several years of negotiations—has moved out on its own, very successfully, with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. (Dealing the United States a humiliating diplomatic blow in the process.)

Still, the BRICS’ slowing collective growth lends all the more urgency to their concern to increase their voice and decision-making role in the global economy.

So, despite what lies beneath, look for BRICS unity, not division, coming out of Moscow.  [Pundita note: He  means the summit in Ufa, not Moscow].

 Greece Can Easily Get Funding From BRICS Bank: Russia
By Sounak Mukhopadhyay
July 07 2015 - 6:48 PM EDT

International Business Times

Russia said Greece could get financing from the New Development Bank operated by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) if it buys a few shares of the institution to become a member. The bank, which is set to begin operations next April, is seen an alternative to Western financing.

Deputy Russian Finance Minister Sergey Storchak said becoming a part of the bank would require Greek officials to make a political decision.

"We do not have any co-relation between a contribution and an amount of funding,” Russian news agency Tass quoted Storchak as saying. “There is general agreement that the system of the countries’ assets will be balanced." [Pundita note:  Um, I think that need for balancing would leave Greece out but it's the thought that counts.]

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Tuesday it is necessary for the new bank to "carve out a niche" since competition among international banks is intense. He is scheduled to attend a meeting in Ufa, Russia, with other BRICS representatives.

[...]
Storchak said gaining BRICS membership should not be a problem for Greece.

The BRICS bank is expected to be capitalized initially at $50 billion, with likely growth to $100 billion.

The BRICS Summit: A shadow of the former self it never was

Bruce Jones

 July 7, 2015 - 1:45pm EDT

Brookings Institution

The BRICS are gathering in Ufa, Russia on July 9 for their seventh annual Summit. When this group came into being, in the turbulent days of the global financial crisis, it was heralded both as the future of economic growth and as a new grouping that was set to challenge the West for the leadership of the international order. How things have changed.

First, the BRICS’ supposed growth engines have slowed to a crawl. Russia is contracting, partially because of sanctions, but mostly because of the collapse of the global oil price. Brazil is in negative growth this year, and its commodity-fueled boom looks to be over, at least for the short term. India is doing somewhat better and has a dynamic new prime minister, but Delhi has a hard road ahead if it intends to generate the kind of serious economic reforms necessary to stimulate a new round of growth. China is officially still growing, but at a much slower rate than in its heyday. 

And there isn’t an economist or markets analyst around who believes Beijing’s official statistics; Chinese growth has probably slowed to somewhere around 4 percent or lower. It’s recent stock market plunge—even sharper than the Dow’s plunge in the first days of the Great Depression, with the Shanghai stock exchange having lost 24 percent of its value since June 12 -- is a harbinger of some of the challenges China faces going forward. Alone of these actors South Africa -- not actually a major economy, but part of the BRICS club for political reasons—had some good news recently. Its unemployment rate eased: to 24 percent.

Second, the strategic tensions between the BRICS are now more visible. In the period immediately after the global financial crisis these were overshadowed both by their aim of recovering from the crisis, one shared with the West, and their common ambition to gain a greater voice in the management of the global economy. But China’s growing assertiveness has shaken this dynamic.

Not for nothing did India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as part of his global “India has arrived tour” in fall 2014, describe the United States and India as “natural allies,” and invite President Obama for a historic visit to India on its Republic Day (January 26, 2015). After a major hiccup in U.S.-Brazil relations over the Snowden revelations in 2013, a weakened Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff just completed a visit to Washington which culminated in new agreements to work together on climate change and on defense production. Far from cozying up to China, several of the BRICS are nervous about China’s direction, and keen to restore and refresh their ties with Washington.
Harsh words for Putin?

So if the BRICS are slumping and tensions are rising, this should be a tough meeting for President Putin, right? After all, over the last year Putin has taken a stick to international order, and these are countries that routinely and repeatedly openly commit themselves to the international rule of law and the multilateral system. Russia’s moves in the Ukraine are as grave a threat to that order as any since the U.S. invasion of Iraq (and by most accounts more so), which they strongly condemned. So we should expect them to be full-throated in pushing back on Russia, right?

Wrong.

What we can expect to see out of the Ufa Summit of the BRICS are two things. First, the members will do the exact opposite of isolating Russia; they’ll be on stage with Putin and they’ll refrain from any public criticism of his strategy in Ukraine. They aren’t particularly happy with his strategy there—but their view is: This is not our problem.

Many of the members have long-standing ties to Russia. This is particularly important for India. Moscow stood by Delhi during several phases of their so-called “non-aligned” strategy, and Russia was a good friend to India when the United States was deepening its alliance with India’s arch-nemesis of the time, Pakistan. So India has no intention of hopping onto the U.S.-led bandwagon that seeks to isolate Russia over Ukraine. Nor do the others.

Interestingly, of all the BRICS members the only one that has pushed back on Russia slightly is China. When the United States brought a vote about Ukraine to the U.N. Security Council, China broke from its pattern and very noticeably chose not to veto the resolution alongside Russia, abstaining instead.

Second, the BRICS will double down on their pitch for a greater role in global economic governance. China, frustrated by the slow pace and lack of weighted voting in the BRICS Development Bank—now the New Development Bank (NDB), which emerged from several years of negotiations—has moved out on its own, very successfully, with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. (Dealing the United States a humiliating diplomatic blow in the process.) Still, the BRICS’ slowing collective growth lends all the more urgency to their concern to increase their voice and decision-making role in the global economy.

So, despite what lies beneath, look for BRICS unity, not division, coming out of Moscow.

[END REPORT]