>>52262 pb
GTMO844 US Navy Beech Huron departed San Juan Int'l se after an overnight
Swiss AF SUI025 C-560XL departed Moscow after a ground stop-prior at Helsinki, Finland and heading back to Bern/Belp Airport
FORTE10 USAF Global Hawk drone heading sw from Black Sea
morning
doing well so far.
Cloudy and pleasant
Don't get Africa until end of June (a few days here and there before)
Colonial Pipeline Partially Reopens; EPA Waives Environmental Rule To Boost Fuel Supplies
Update (1011ET): Colonial Pipeline reopened a section of its paralyzed pipeline system after a ransomware attack, reconnecting some East Coast markets with a critical supply hub, according to Bloomberg.
Colonial's line connecting storage facilities in Greensboro, North Carolina, to Baltimore has briefly resumed for a "limited period while existing inventory is available," Colonial stated Monday.
The section of line in the oil-refining part of South Texas that runs to North Carolina remains shuttered. Across the Southeast, fuel shortages have materialized at gas stations.
In a bid to alleviate some of the shortage, the Environmental Protection Agency issued an emergency fuel waiver on Tuesday for refiners to reformulate gasoline in the Mid-Atlantic area. The waiver extends through May 18 for fuel sold in Virginia, Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Pennsylvania.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/gas-run-has-begun-fuel-stations-run-dry-amid-hacked-pipeline
BLS: Job Openings Increased to Record 8.1 Million in March
The number of job openings reached a series high of 8.1 million on the last business day of March, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Hires were little changed at 6.0 million. Total separations were little changed at 5.3 million. Within separations, the quits rate was unchanged at 2.4 percent while the layoffs and discharges rate decreased to a series low of 1.0 percent.
Cap#1 shows job openings (yellow line), hires (dark blue), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS.
This series started in December 2000.
Note: The difference between JOLTS hires and separations is similar to the CES (payroll survey) net jobs headline numbers. This report is for March, the most recent employment report was for April.
Note that hires (dark blue) and total separations (red and light blue columns stacked) are usually pretty close each month. This is a measure of labor market turnover. When the blue line is above the two stacked columns, the economy is adding net jobs - when it is below the columns, the economy is losing jobs. The huge spikes in layoffs and discharges in March and April 2020 are labeled, but off the chart to better show the usual data.
Jobs openings increased in March to 8.123 million from 7.526 million in February. This is above the previous series maximum of 7.574 million. The number of job openings (yellow) were up 40.8% year-over-year. This is a comparison to the beginning of the pandemic.
Quits were up 20.9% year-over-year. These are voluntary separations. (see light blue columns at bottom of graph for trend for "quits").
https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2021/05/bls-job-openings-increased-to-record-81.html
Soybean Futures Touch $16 in Chicago, Highest Since 2012
Soybean futures touched $16 on Tuesday for the first time since 2012 as concerns mount over a supply crunch.
Surging Chinese demand and bad weather in key global-growing areas are stoking fears of grain shortages. China’s expanding hog herds need soybean meal, so the Asian giant has been buying massive amounts of the oilseed off global markets. The economic recovery from the pandemic is driving demand for agricultural goods generally, draining stockpiles and fueling food-inflation concerns. A U.S. report due Wednesday will give an updated look at expectations for global grain inventories. Soybeans for July delivery rose 1.6% to $16.125 a bushel at 8:44 a.m. in Chicago.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/soybean-futures-touch-16-in-chicago-highest-since-2012-1.1602192
Aung San Suu Kyi likely to appear in court
Myanmar's ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to attend her next court hearing, scheduled for later this month, in person. Her legal team spoke to reporters in Naypyitaw on Monday about the next session scheduled for May 24.
The lawyers said the presiding judge declared that the next session is to be held in person, not by video conferencing, at the instruction of the Union Supreme Court. Aung San Suu Kyi was detained after the military staged a coup on February 1. The charges brought against her include illegally importing handheld radios.
She has since been held at home and her trial has been held in a teleconference format. The May 24 hearing will likely give her legal team their first chance since the coup to meet her and check her condition in person.
But this session will reportedly take place at a makeshift court to be set up near her house, and it is unlikely to be open to the public.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20210511_02/
Myanmar junta goes big on giant Buddha statue in midst of crisis
Even as Myanmar's economy languishes, construction is underway on a massive Buddha statue in the capital, Naypyitaw, in an apparent bid by the junta to win the hearts and minds of the nation's religious majority.
The sitting statue will stand roughly 19 meters tall when completed next year, making it the world's largest marble Buddha, a state newspaper reports. By comparison, the bronze Buddha at Japan's Todaiji temple in Nara is about 15 meters high. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the junta chief, attended a ceremony for the statue in late April. He was joined by other military figures and members of the State Administration Council, the junta's highest decision-making body. The monument will serve as a place of prayer for national peace and stability, according to state media. The extensive coverage of the event gives the statue the trappings of a national project.
"Under the military regime established in 1988, leaders increased construction of pagodas and offerings to well-known monks," said Yoshihiro Nakanishi, an associate professor at Kyoto University who is an expert on Myanmar. Min Aung Hlaing "is apparently seeking to demonstrate the depth of his faith in order to gain support from the public," Nakanishi said. About 90% of Myanmar's population is Buddhist. On Feb. 2, the day after the coup, Min Aung Hlaing paid a courtesy call to a high priest in Naypyitaw. Afterward, the general announced that pagodas would reopen to the public for worship, lifting the restrictions enacted during the coronavirus pandemic. A military-linked television broadcaster showed footage of soldiers cleaning the pagodas.
Plans to build the giant Buddha statue in Naypyitaw predate the coup. In 2013, an entrepreneur announced a donation of the marble to build the statue. Min Aung Hlaing became a backer in 2017, and preparations began to construct the monument. The statue is being put together in pre-carved pieces of marble extracted and transported from a quarry in the central Mandalay region of mineral-rich Myanmar.
In 2009, under a previous military government, junta leader Gen. Than Shwe presided over the construction of the golden Uppatasanti Pagoda in Naypyitaw. The government had recently moved the capital from Yangon, so the structure was modeled after that city's Shwedagon Pagoda.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Myanmar-Coup/Myanmar-junta-goes-big-on-giant-Buddha-statue-in-midst-of-crisis
U.S. and French troops begin joint military drills with SDF in Japan
Large-scale ground military exercises involving troops of the Self-Defense Forces, the United States and France began in southwestern Japan on Tuesday to increase cooperation in the face of China’s growing assertiveness.
“ARC21” will be held through next Monday as Tokyo seeks to deepen defense cooperation beyond its U.S. ally to “like-minded countries,” Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said ahead of the drills. France “is the only European country with a permanent military presence in the Indo-Pacific region,” Kishi told a news conference in Tokyo. “It is also a like-minded country that shares with Japan the vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific.” The move comes as Tokyo and Washington work to boost their alliance over regional issues including the Japan-controlled Senkaku Islands, which are claimed by Beijing, in the East China Sea amid an escalation in China’s maritime assertiveness in the East and South China seas.
France has strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific, where it has territories including the French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean and French Polynesia in the South Pacific. The forces of the three countries will engage in urban warfare drills followed by amphibious operation exercises, according to the Ground Self-Defense Force. Until Thursday, the troops will be stationed at GSDF Camp Ainoura in Nagasaki Prefecture, where they will work together to plan the operations. On Friday and Saturday, the troops will be sent by aircraft to the GSDF Kirishima training ground that straddles Miyazaki and Kagoshima prefectures to engage in an urban warfare drill at the facility, which is designed to look like a remote island.
The GSDF rapid amphibious deployment brigade, dubbed the “Japanese Marines,” will be among the units participating in the exercises. Around 100 troops from the GSDF and 60 personnel each from the French army and U.S. Marine Corps will participate.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/05/11/national/sdf-us-france-joint-drills/
Michigan's deadline arrives but Enbridge vows to keep oil moving
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer says Enbridge Inc. has until Wednesday to shut a huge crude pipeline that crosses the Great Lakes. The Canadian company says it’s got the law on its side, and the oil will keep flowing.
This week’s standoff is the latest milepost in the increasingly tense dispute over Line 5, a 540,000 barrel-a-day line that supplies half of the oil and propane used by parts of the U.S. Midwest and Ontario. Whitmer argues the pipeline is too exposed to potential accidents where it crosses at the Straits of Mackinac in the northern part of the state. But the two sides are in a court-ordered mediation, and Enbridge plans to keep the line running while that plays out. The stakes are significant. Shutting the pipeline would require tens of thousands of trucks and hundreds of rail cars to transport oil and fuel by road, Enbridge has warned. Homeowners that rely on propane to warm their homes in Michigan could see prices increase. Airports in Detroit and Toronto receive jet fuel from local refineries supplied by Line 5.
As the cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline has shown, the loss of a major pipeline, even temporarily, can roil markets for crude and refined products. Whitmer, who faces a potentially difficult re-election fight next year, is trying to shut the Enbridge line years before a replacement can be built. “We intend to continue to operate the line and certainly we’re in compliance with the easement and the law,” Al Monaco, Enbridge’s chief executive officer, said on an earnings call Friday. “Courts are reviewing the state’s challenge to the pipeline and that’s going to take a while. So no decisions, in our view, are imminent.”
The dispute has soured relations between the U.S. and Canada three months after President Joe Biden, a Whitmer ally, angered Canadians by revoking a permit to the build cross-border Keystone XL pipeline. While the Keystone decision was disappointing, the continued operation of Line 5 is “nonnegotiable,” Canadian Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan said in an interview last month.
Pipelines have become a major battlefront in the fight between the fossil fuel industry and environmentalists concerned about climate change and the impact of oil spills on waterways and indigenous communities. If Whitmer eventually gets her way, a Line 5 shutdown could mark the first time a major in-service oil pipeline is forced to shutter because of environmental concerns. A U.S. judge isn’t expected to rule on whether the case belongs in state or federal court until later this year, so don’t expect the pipeline to stop operating any time soon, Matthew Taylor, an analyst at Tudor Pickering & Holt, said in a note. “We view a near-term shutdown unlikely,” he said. Enbridge plans to address concern about Line 5, originally built in 1953, by building a tunnel under the straits to house a new pipeline. Should the existing one be shut, the company has some capacity on an alternate line that bypasses the Great Lakes “but it’s not going to make a difference,” Monaco said.
The governor’s order is unenforcible without a separate order by a judge and there is “no way that’s going to happen” by the May 12 deadline, Joe Comartin, Canada’s consul-general in Detroit, said by phone. What’s more, the case is already before a federal court; any decision supporting the governor’s move would would be appealed in a process that would take years.
On Wednesday, pro- and anti-Line 5 protesters are expected to gather in Michigan and there will probably be an exchange of harsh words between Enbridge and Whitmer, but nothing more, Comartin said. Even if the governor’s order were eventually upheld, Canada could invoke a 1970s-era treaty with the U.S. that prevents either government from blocking petroleum flows, he said.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/michigan-s-deadline-arrives-but-enbridge-vows-to-keep-oil-moving-1.1602164