UK Prime Minister Visits US To Unveil Australian Nuclear-Sub Plan With Biden

By Kitty Donaldson Bloomberg March 12, 2023

(Bloomberg) –Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is heading to the US on Sunday to meet President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as the three nations unveil the next phase of the AUKUS nuclear submarine program, a security partnership meant to counter China.

The decision on how to move ahead will be announced Monday when the three leaders meet in San Diego. The plan will take years to produce its first vessel, probably necessitating stopgap measures, according to people familiar with the discussions. The US may base nuclear submarines in Australia or sell the country Virginia-class submarines in the interim.

Australia’s new fleet of nuclear-powered umma will be based on a modified British design with US parts and upgrades, the people said. The new alliance in 2021 ended a French plan to build non-nuclear subs with Australia, angering leaders in Paris.

Read Also: French Shipbuilding Town in Shock Over Loss of Australian Submarine Order

Ahead of the announcement, the UK is planning an update to its 2021 Integrated Review of defense and security to set out its response to increased global volatility. The Integrated Review Refresh will address the grave risks from Vladimir Putin’s Russia alongside increasing aggression from Beijing, according to Sunak’s office.

“In turbulent times, the UK’s global alliances are our greatest source of strength and security,” Sunak said in a statement.

“I am traveling to the United States today to launch the next stage of the AUKUS nuclear submarine program, a project which is binding ties to our closest allies and delivering security, new technology and economic advantage at home,” he said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning criticized the plan on Thursday, telling reporters in Beijing that the three countries should “do more things that are conducive to regional peace and stability.”

https://gcaptain.com/uk-prime-minister-visits-us-to-unveil-australian-nuclear-sub-plan-with-biden/

[There it is: "The US may base nuclear submarines in Australia or sell the country Virginia-class submarines in the interim." Forward Deployed to Australia while training Aussies on the used subs. Meanwhile, keep the tech hidden, except from those Chinese-Australian shipyard workers]

>>18503967

If you wanted to give Chinese spies access to US nuke sub tech and construction methods, what better place to do it than Australia where so many have Chinese ancestry these days?

>>18504010

Easy puppy, easy does it. Here ya go

>>18504063

kek

>>18504096

Suburban Lawns, "Gidget goes to Hell", released as single in 1979

>>18504130

>They can't possibly waste the amount of jet fuel that I think they do on me.

They buy in bulk

Danish Police Investigating Yacht Linked to Nord Stream Blasts

By Nikolaj Skydsgaard Reuters March 9, 2023

CHRISTIANSÖ in the Baltic Sea, Denmark March 9 (Reuters) – Danish police have searched for a yacht on a tiny Baltic Sea island near the Nord Stream pipeline blast sites, the local administrator said on Thursday.

German authorities confirmed on Wednesday they had raided a ship in January that may have been used to transport explosives used to blow up the pipelines.

“The police was searching for a specific boat that had moored here in September,” Soren Thiim Andersen, the highest authority on the island of Christiansö, told Reuters.

The Sept. 26 explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines, constructed to supply Russian natural gas to Europe, have become a flashpoint between the West and Russia after last year’s Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Authorities in Sweden, Germany and Denmark, who are currently investigating the blasts, say the explosions were deliberate but have not said who might be responsible.

However, this week media reports in the United States and Germany suggested a pro-Ukrainian group could be responsible.

Germany’s ARD broadcaster and Zeit newspaper reported that German authorities were able to identify a boat used for the sabotage operation.

The operation to place explosives on the seabed was carried out by six people, who sailed from Rostock on Sept. 6 and was later located on the Danish island of Christiansö, according to the reports.

Danish police in January searched for information about boats that had docked on Christiansö on Sept. 16-18, interviewing local residents, collecting footage from the harbor, and collected information from the harbor ticket machine, Andersen said.

Danish police declined to comment.

Christiansö is part of a small archipelago about 18 km northeast of the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm. The archipelago with just 98 inhabitants is a former naval fortress but remains under administration of the Danish defense ministry.

https://gcaptain.com/danish-police-investigating-yacht-linked-to-nord-stream-blasts/

>>18504250

One in five VLCCs ‘break bad’

Sam Chambers March 13, 2023

TankerTrackers.com, one of the world’s foremost sources covering illicit movements of oil, has worked out that one in five VLCCs trading today are “up to no good”.

The Samir Madani-led platform tracks ships breaking sanctions against Iran, Venezuela and Russia. It has counted 174 VLCCs out of the 900-strong fleet are currently breaking rules put in place by the US and the European Union.

The enormous growth of the so-called dark fleet, combined with China’s renewed appetite for oil, has pushed spot rates for VLCCs into six-digit territory over the past week, while prices for secondhand tonnage have doubled in the year since war in Ukraine began.

TankerTrackers.com tweeted that 19.33% of the global VLCC fleet are breaking sanctions, adding: “That means there’s greater demand for the remaining amount, and demand will remain strong if more ‘break bad’ by entering the oil sanctions trade.”

For suezmaxes, TankerTrackers.com reckons 15.2% of the fleet is breaking rules, and for aframaxes it counts 11.3%.

The bullish sentiment for VLCC spot rates over the past week has spread into the period market. Brokers Braemar report a 2015 VLCC, with scrubber retrofit, has covered a four-year deal at $43,000 per day with a string of one year optional rates at the end of the fixed term at $15,000 increments. A three-year deal has been consummated in the high $40,000s on a three-year old ship, and there are other deals at around $45,000 per day for five years.

“There is faith in this market,” Braemar noted in its most recent weekly tanker report.

https://splash247.com/one-in-five-vlccs-break-bad/

(VLCC = Very Large Crude Carrier)

>>18504472

Canada #40 >>18423955

Vanguard CEO Abandons ESG Investing Alliance: "Not In The Game Of Politics"

by Tyler Durden Tuesday, Feb 28, 2023 - 06:55 AM

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) has been a hotly debated topic over the last few years.

The seemingly unquestioned march towards corporate utopia has met with resistance among those who oppose the idea that government oligarchs should dictate the affairs of private business firms. The long-term effects of the ESG movement are largely ignored by the mainstream.

As Tom Czitron previously commented, ESG is largely justified on the basis that corporations and financial institutions should be socially responsible. They should work obsessively to address the perceived menaces of climate change, racism, sexism, and a host of subjects. Our benevolent political and economic elite define what is virtuous and what is not for a grateful public.

But, as of late, there are some naysayers that dare to stand up to the socialism-by-stealth promoters with Tim Buckley, chief executive at Vanguard, perhaps the biggest name yet to buck the ESG orthodoxy.

“Our research indicates that ESG investing does not have any advantage over broad-based investing,” Mr. Buckley said in a recent interview with the Financial Times

Matching word to deed, his comments came after he had withdrawn his firm from the $59 trillion Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, an organization that is part of the $150 trillion United Nations-affiliated Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.

“We don’t believe that we should dictate company strategy,” he said, in his first public comments about the decision.

“It would be hubris to presume that we know the right strategy for the thousands of companies that Vanguard invests with. We just want to make sure that risks are being appropriately disclosed and that every company is playing by the rules.”

As The Wall Street Journal reports, Mr. Buckley effectively claims that ESG managers are playing the fool and taking their clients’ money with them.

Fewer than 1 in 7 active equity managers outperform the broad market in any five-year period. Over the past five years, not one relied exclusively on a net-zero investment methodology.

Betting his clients’ money on politicians and regulators consistently doing the “right” thing would be irresponsible.

There is a receding chance the globe will be at net zero by 2050. No one should promise to base his entire investment strategy on such odds.

The Vanguard boss also warned investors not to expect superior returns from ploughing money into ESG funds and alternative assets - two of the fastest growing parts of the asset management industry - rather than the index-trackers championed by his firm.

“We cannot state that [environmental, social and governance] investing is better performance wise than broad index-based investing,” said Buckley.

“Our research indicates that ESG investing does not have any advantage over broad-based investing.”

The decision to withdraw from the coalition has sparked fury among environmental activists, with Al Gore calling Mr. Buckley’s decision “irresponsible and shortsighted.”

Buckley, however, said, as The FT reports, that Vanguard was “not in the game of politics”.

“Politicians and regulators have a central role to play in setting the ground rules to achieve a just transition to a lower carbon economy,” he said, when asked about the increasing politicisation of ESG investing.

As Terrence Keeley writes in an op-ed via WSJ, freeing the asset-management industry from a prevailing orthodoxy that promises wealth and environmental sanctity while delivering neither requires monumental fortitude.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/vanguard-ceo-abandons-esg-investing-alliance-not-game-politics

>>18504636

Self-identify as Los Angeles time and it's only 00:42