A company called Holtec has become the voice for restarting the nuclear power revolution in the U.S.

As it becomes clear that the nation’s needs for power are far underserved, and will certainly be in the future with the adoption of AI, one company, currently the “top US manufacturer of storage equipment for nuclear waste”, is advocating for restarting cold reactors across the country. 

Lately, the company’s ambitions have soared. Since 2019, it’s acquired four retired nuclear plants originally intending to decommission them: Indian Point (NY), Oyster Creek (NJ), Pilgrim (MA), and Palisades (MI), according to Bloomberg.

Tearing down old reactors promised good returns due to the hefty trust funds tied to cleanup costs. Holtec quickly became the nation’s leading nuclear decommissioner.

And, as the report notes, despite initially purchasing Palisades to dismantle it, Holtec is now planning to restart the reactor with a $1.5 billion loan from the DOE, marking the first time a cold reactor would be revived in the U.S. However, Holtec lacks experience in running nuclear plants.

While concerns have been raised due to Holtec’s safety violations in the past four years of decommissioning, others consider such infractions normal in this tightly regulated industry. Nevertheless, nuclear power is increasingly seen as key to curbing greenhouse gas emissions, and Holtec aims to have Palisades online again soon and launch its own small modular reactors (SMRs) by the end of the decade. 

SMRs, factory-built reactors that can be assembled onsite, represent a highly complex and largely unproven endeavor for Holtec and the industry – yet one we have written about extensively as the obvious next step for the industry. Just yesterday we highlighted Sam Altman’s now-greenlighted nuclear SPAC, trading under ALCC before switching to OKLO at the end of this week. 

Holtec, meanwhile, is headquartered in Jupiter, Florida, but its business hub is the Camden, New Jersey campus and factory. Founder and CEO Krishna Singh’s office overlooks the Delaware River, facing Philadelphia, where he earned a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1972 after emigrating from India.

He specialized in heat-exchange systems, crucial training for reactor design, which involves managing the high temperatures generated by fission reactions to produce power.

Bloomberg writes that Holtec made its mark with a storage system for spent uranium fuel rods, addressing the mid-1980s problem of overcrowded indoor cooling pools. Singh’s innovation was a durable rack that minimized fuel rod movement during earthquakes, allowing plants to store more rods in the pools. With this patented design, he founded Holtec, and within a few years, his racks dominated the market.

Traditionally, decommissioning involved shutting down reactors and letting them sit for decades. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) gives operators up to 60 years to complete the process, funded by a trust built from utility ratepayer contributions. For instance, Palisades had $552 million in its trust fund when it closed. The long timeline allows funds to grow and radioactivity to decay.

However, Holtec, NorthStar Group Services Inc., and EnergySolutions Inc. have adopted a different approach, starting decommissioning much earlier. Leveraging their expertise with radioactive materials, they complete the job in years instead of decades, keeping a share of any leftover trust fund money.

“Not only does Holtec intend to bring Palisades back online, it also plans by the end of the decade to have its own small modular reactors up and running,” Bloomberg writes.

Back in April we had previously written that a lot of the U.S.’s reactors could wind up coming back online. “There are a couple of nuclear power plants that we probably should, and can, turn back on,” Jigar Shah, director of the US Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office, told Bloomberg in an interview.

In March, Shah’s office approved a loan to Holtec International Corp. to reopen the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan. This was a historical shift, and it was the first nuclear power plant to be reopened in the US, setting a precedent for atomic energy to make a triumphal comeback. The plant could begin producing power as early as the second half of 2025.

Nuclear power is the largest single source of carbon-free electricity. Given onshoring trends, electrification of transportation and buildings, and, of course, as we’ve noted in “The Next AI Trade,” the proliferation of AI data centers will overload power grids nationwide unless a significant upgrade is seen.

We again highlighted the enormous investment opportunity last month titled “Everyone Is Piling Into The “Next AI Trade””, which lists companies powering up America for the digital age.

Nearly 3.5 years ago, we provided readers with a straightforward investment thesis: “Buy Uranium: Is This The Beginning Of The Next ESG Craze” Back then, it became apparent to us that the resurrection of the nuclear power industry was imminent. 

And the trend is only gaining steam as the revival of nuclear power plants will continue benefiting some of the largest uranium producers, such as Cameco. We told readers to buy uranium stocks, such as Cameco around the $10 handle – now it’s at $50 a share. 

You can read Bloomberg’s full feature on Holtec here. 

Authored by Keith T. Holcomb via RealClearDefense,

Public confidence in the military has slipped. One major reason is the politicization of senior military officers, who show an increasing propensity to compromise their integrity to gain influence and achieve both budgetary and policy goals. Their willingness to spin carefully parsed and knowingly misleading testimony and advice compromises civilian control of the military. Simply stated, these generals and admirals are not providing full and complete representations of plans, concepts, and assessments to senior civilians in the executive and legislative branches, thereby depriving them of the unbiased information they require to make decisions required by the Constitution.

In an era of increasing complexity, cleverly constructed narratives that present simplified, politicized positions to the general population have taken on out-sized importance. Senior officers increasingly are attempting to manipulate policy making by intentionally reducing complex reality to simple narratives designed to appeal to partisan audiences. 

Integrity has two meanings pertinent to this issue: the common understanding of integrity as honesty and the less common and more formal understanding of integrity as the quality of being whole and complete. 

Preparation for and experience in combat develops strong wills. Senior officers motivated by the desire to get the biggest possible piece of the pie for their services are tempted to dissemble to win the internecine budget and policy fights that are the lifeblood of official Washington. When these wills are not properly constrained by higher commitments to integrity and respect for the decision-making province of civilian authorities, generals and admirals can succumb to the temptation to deceive. 

These deceptions can take many forms. A senior officer can choose to highlight some information. Conversely, they can obfuscate, discredit, or ignore other information. They can allude to expert knowledge or classified information to undercut or deflect questions that challenge their assertions. They can use the age-old technique of making strawmen of opposing views. Worse, they can engage in or encourage subordinates or cultivated commentators to engage in ad hominem attacks on the messengers of alternate views. 

While the hyper-political environment sees daily evidence of such behaviors, some senior officers have exercised considerable self-discipline and have not let advocacy for a position override respect for the prerogatives of senior civilians. In short, just because they have the leadership persona, verbal skills, and communication staffs to construct one-sided positions and perhaps even succeed in the manipulation of some people, they have worked to develop full and balanced representations of the issues at hand. Theirs has been a triumph of professional ethics over the abuse of information to achieve their ends.

Regrettably, that admirable conduct is in decline and that decline is a contributing factor for decreasing public trust in the military. The American public may not know the specific capabilities of various weapons or the operational implications of various policies. But constant exposure to spun narratives has trained them to recognize manipulation when they see and hear it. Many resent being manipulated, and their sense that such techniques are being used by the Nation’s most senior officers undermines their trust and confidence in the military. The military was once recognized as a profession culturally apart from the rest of society, but no longer. America’s military, and its senior officers especially, are increasingly viewed as no less cynically self-interested than the rest of the elite class.

The decline of senior officer integrity increasingly impacts civilian decision makers. Not long ago, overbooked national leaders could confidently “repose special trust and confidence” in the senior officers providing assessments and recommendations to them. The disciplined and honorable behaviors of past generations of generals and admirals certainly validated this special trust and confidence. But, with a rise in manipulative narratives, civilian leaders and their staffs are more likely to feel compelled to dig into the details of complex military matters to gain the full and complete picture they need to discharge their responsibilities.

In short, it is past time for senior officers to forego their increasing addiction to the power opiate of clever narratives and work to present full and balanced representations of the issues at hand.

Absent immediate internal reform by the Department of Defense, civilian leaders will increasingly have to turn, just as they have with other federal agencies, to independent investigations to gain a more complete understanding of national security issues.

Brigadier General Keith T. Holcomb, (U.S. Marine Corps, ret.), is a former USMC Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. His last assignment was as Director of the Training and Education Division, U.S. Marine Corps Combat Development Command.

With draconian export controls and blacklisting by Washington elites, Chinese tech giant Huawei is still operating and, in fact, producing new high-tech smartphones with components increasingly sourced from domestic suppliers. 

A new teardown analysis by tech repair company iFixit and consultancy TechSearch International, first reported by Reuters, shows Huawei’s Pura 70 Pro has a NAND memory chip sourced domestically from the Chinese telecom equipment maker’s in-house chip unit, HiSilicon. 

iFixit and TechSearch found the Pura 70 handset was operating on a Huawei-made advanced processing chipset called the Kirin 9010. They said the new chip is likely an “improved version” of the advanced chip used by Huawei’s Mate 60 series, which was launched last year to compete with Apple’s iPhone 15 lineup. 

“While we cannot provide an exact percentage, we’d say the domestic component usage is high, and definitely higher than in the Mate 60,” Shahram Mokhtari, iFixit’s lead teardown technician, said. 

Mokhtari continued, “This is about self-sufficiency, all of this, everything you see when you open up a smartphone and see whatever are made by Chinese manufacturers, this is all about self-sufficiency,” Mokhtari said.

The central theme is that a worsening tech war between Beijing and Washington pushes Huawei to source more handset components in domestic markets. This is an alarming development for Washington politicians, who have spent several years sanctioning China to prevent them from acquiring high-tech Western chips and chip-making tools, as well as the hope of imploding China’s tech-creating abilities. However, the restrictions are backfiring, as Huawei now manufactures smartphones with more domestically sourced chips than ever.  

Just wait for the day when Chinese state media, such as the Global Times, boasts that Huawei’s phones are made entirely with domestic parts. Given the current trajectory, we believe that day is approaching.

Reuters cited analysts who believe Huawei’s phones are denting iPhone market share in the world’s largest handset market. 

However, since the Pura 70’s components are not entirely sourced domestically, IFixit and TechSearch’s analysis shows South Korean company SK Hynix makes the DRAM chip. 

Given the chip restrictions, SK Hynix told Reuters it had been “strictly complying with the relevant policies since the restrictions against Huawei were announced and has also suspended any transactions with the company since then.”

The analysis showed that the processor used by the Pura 70 Pro was 7 nanometers (nm), similar to the chip used to power the Mate 60. 

“This is significant because news of the 9000S on a 7nm node caused a bit of a panic last year when US lawmakers were confronted with the possibility that the sanctions imposed on Chinese chipmakers might not slow their technological progress after all,” iFixit said.

iFixit continued, “The fact that the 9010 is still a 7nm process chip, and that it’s so close to the 9000S, might seem to suggest that Chinese chip manufacturing has indeed been slowed.”

The re-emergence of Huawei, taking on Apple, has infuriated Washington. There was a report from Bloomberg earlier this week that the US revoked licenses that allowed Huawei to buy semiconductors from Qualcomm and Intel. 

The biggest takeaway: Huawei is on a mission to entirely source components from local suppliers as the tech war between China and the US heats up. 

Authored by Jonathan Lesser via RealClearEnergy,

Forty-two was the mystical number that explained “life, the universe, and everything” in Douglas Adams’ comic novel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  Today, another mystical number, the so-called social cost of carbon (SSC), is providing the excuse for the Environmental Protection Agency and green-energy-enamored state regulators to enact crippling energy policies.

The SCC is the thumb on the scale that can justify virtually any policy aimed at eliminating fossil fuels. When the EPA first proposed its rule to reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, the agency’s cost-benefit analysis determined the benefits would be minuscule. Any putative benefits, it turns out, would come instead from reductions in carbon emissions and, here’s the key, based on a calculated value for the SCC.  The same was true for the EPA’s earlier attempt at carbon regulation via a “Clean Power Plan,” which was shut down by the Supreme Court. But here we are again with the agency’s newest rules trying to force coal plants to further reduce mercury emissions and to force both coal and natural gas-fired power plants to capture 90% of their carbon emissions. The technology to accomplish this doesn’t exist and EPA Administrator Michael Regan admitted the rule will force the closure of fossil-fuel power plants.

The SCC values used by the EPA are derived from calculations in integrated planning models (IPMs). Those models assume a simplistic linear relationship between carbon emissions and world temperature (never mind that the validity of that linear assumptions is a subject of deep debate in scientific circles). The models then assume that the resulting temperature increases cause all forms of environmental doom – rising sea levels, more disease, and declining agricultural production – for which yet more estimates are made to assign future cost consequences. Here’s the key: the IPMs project these costs out for the next 300 years (not a typo). Then, those far future costs are “discounted” to estimate a value in today’s dollars by using truly absurd assumptions about such things as inflation and economic growth.

A tongue-in-cheek forecaster’s creed is “Give them a number or give them a date. Don’t give them both.” Attempting to predict the future three centuries hence may be standard fare for science fiction writers, but basing energy policies on such predictions is insane.

Imagine someone in the year 1724 predicting life – and technology – today. Benjamin Franklin was 18 years old and working in his father’s print shop. George Washington would not be born for another eight years. The French scientist Antoine Lavoisier, who first identified carbon as an element in 1789, would not be born until 1743. The first patent on a flush toilet would not happen for another half-century. Thomas Edison would not invent the light bulb and the telephone for another 150 years. Could anyone in 1724 have imagined automobiles, mobile phones, and MRI machines? How about integrated circuits, nuclear power, and B-2 bombers?

To presume we can accurately predict, or even imagine, what the world will look like 300 years from now is just as preposterous. Yet, simplistic models and arbitrary assumptions are being used to drive energy policy decisions today. Using the SCC estimates, and assuming that new technologies will magically appear, the EPA can justify virtually any pollution control regulation, including those that effectively mandate electric vehicles. Similarly, even though offshore wind generation costs five times more than natural gas and coal, the SCC can “prove” the benefits of offshore wind exceed its costs. New York State, for example, assumes that, by 2040, thousands of megawatts of “dispatchable emissions-free generators” (the equivalent of a natural gas generator burning pure hydrogen) will provide the necessary backup for unreliable offshore wind, even though no such generators exist.

Contrary to the economic fantasies peddled by green energy advocates, policies to eliminate fossil fuels based on the supposed benefits captured by the SCC will cripple the U.S. economy. Electricity prices, coupled with ill-considered plans to electrify virtually everything, will soar. Supplies will dwindle, requiring rationing, either explicitly or through rolling blackouts, such as those experienced every day in South Africa. Rather than creating some green energy nirvana, the lack of adequate and affordable electricity will cause societal decay.

All of this based on a made-up number.

Jonathan Lesser is a senior fellow with the National Center for Energy Analytics and president of Continental Economics.

A major security scandal is developing at Japan’s Yokosuka Naval Base, where drone footage was recently filmed above an American nuclear-powered supercarrier without any activated anti-drone systems to intercept hostile unmanned aerial vehicles. This comes as loitering munitions, also known as kamikaze drones, are the hottest weapon on the modern battlefield in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

X account “这是我小号4”, translated in English from Chinese as “This is my trumpet number 4,” uploaded aerial videos and images of Yokosuka Naval Base. Some of the footage was directly over the USS Ronald Reagan. 

The X account wrote in English, “For anyone who thinks it’s fake….” They attached a screenshot of the drone’s flight path of the naval yard on a map to the post. 

For anyone who thinks it’s fake pic.twitter.com/PdfwHAnwqj

— 这是我小号4 (@Xiao_Hao_4) April 2, 2024

The latest data from intel research firm Strategic Forecasting shows USS Ronald Reagan was recently moored at Yokosuka Naval Base. Footage from the drone was taken in early April. 

The account posted additional images of the naval yard and US warships. 

pic.twitter.com/JOCfTFMI68

— 这是我小号4 (@Xiao_Hao_4) May 8, 2024

Where are the anti-drone systems to guard against this type of aerial security breach? 

pic.twitter.com/5Qx1CLQbIn

— 这是我小号4 (@Xiao_Hao_4) April 4, 2024

In English again, the account said, “It took a month for the Japanese army to just realize…” The person was referring to a news story by the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, also known as NHK, covering his activity on social media about posting drone videos of US and Japanese warships. 

It took a month for the Japanese army to just realize… https://t.co/TH6mWxQZV8

— 这是我小号4 (@Xiao_Hao_4) May 8, 2024

NHK cited Ministry of Defense officials who said drone videos were “likely genuine.” Other sources we spoke with confirmed the videos are likely real and noted the possibility that this could’ve been a Chinese-made DJI drone. 

Why didn’t the US and or Japan activate electromagnetic counter-measures against the drone?

The next question: Did a Chinese spy – pilot this drone?

By Simon Watkins of OilPrice.com

Since the mid-1990s, China’s extraordinary economic expansion almost singlehandedly drove a supercycle in key commodities prices it required to power such growth, including oil and gas. In 2013, it became the world’s largest net importer of total petroleum and other liquid fuels and, as late as 2017, its still high rate of economic growth allowed it to overtake the U.S. as the largest annual gross crude oil importer in the world. Late 2019 saw much of this activity grind to a halt as Covid hit the country, and the economic slowdown was exacerbated by its Draconian ‘zero-Covid’ policy that saw complete shutdowns of major economic centres at the slightest hint of infection. However, 2023 saw it achieve its official gross domestic product (GDP) growth target of “around 5 percent” – posting 5.2 percent in the end. The same official target is in place this year, with the key questions for oil markets being whether this will be achieved and if so, how easily?

16 April saw China’s National Bureau of Statistics release the country’s Q1 GDP figure, which showed a 5.3 percent year-on-year increase. This was way above consensus analyst expectations of 4.6 percent and was also a rise from the Q4 2023’s 5.2 percent. “Aside from the continued decline in the property sector, policy support is filtering through investment,” Eugenia Victorino, head of Asia strategy for SEB in Singapore exclusively told OilPrice.com. “With property sales now 60 percent lower than their mid-2021 peak, transaction volumes are now comparable to levels last seen in 2012,” she added. “Investments in other sectors are also picking up, particularly in manufacturing and energy production and supply, and in the coming months, infrastructure investment will also start to accelerate on the back of fiscal stimulus,” she said. “The strong performance in the first two months of the year suggests that an economic recovery is underway,” she underlined. March’s key Caixin/S&P Global China manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) also came in very bullish. At 51.1 in the month, up from 50.9 in February (above 50.0 indicates expansion), it was the strongest since February 2023. “Overall, China’s manufacturing sector continued to improve in March, with expansion in supply and demand accelerating, and overseas demand picking up,” said Caixin Insight Group senior economist, Wang Zhe. April’s Caixin China General Manufacturing PMI also increased – to 51.4, beating estimates of 51 – and recording the sixth straight month of growth in factory activity. New orders rose the most in over a year and foreign sales increased at the fastest pace for nearly three-and-a-half years.

This robust performance across several major sectors in China’s economy – including, crucially manufacturing – is in sharp contrast to the growth drivers seen last year. In the immediate aftermath of Covid, the country’s growth became reliant on just reopening the economy and removing negative policies – property, consumer, and geopolitics – rather than on aggressive stimulus, to drive activity, Rory Green, chief China economist for GlobalData.TSLombard exclusively told OilPrice.com at the time. “For the first time, a cyclical recovery in China [was] being led by household consumption, mainly services, as there [was] a great deal of pent-up demand and savings – about four percent of GDP – following three years of intermittent mobility restrictions,” he said. In terms of the effect that this had on oil prices at the time, it is apposite to note that transportation accounts for just 54 percent of China’s oil consumption, compared to 72 percent in the U.S. and 68 percent in the European Union. In 2022 and early 2023, net oil and refined petroleum imports were eight percent lower by volume than the pre-Covid peak, with infrastructure and export-oriented manufacturing partly offsetting lower mobility and less property construction. At that phase of China’s economic rebound, then, oil demand did increase, but the scale of this was far from sufficient to drive oil prices significantly higher on its own. This was even more the case, as China continued where possible to buy oil from Russia at a substantial discount.  

Before this ‘Covid Phase’, China had already undergone several transitions in its core economic growth model, the effects of which continue to be felt to this day. From 1992 to 1998, its annual economic growth rate was basically between 10 to 15 percent; from 1998 to 2004 between 8 to 10 percent; from 2004 to 2010 between 10 to 15 percent again; from 2010 to 2016 between 6 to 10 percent, and from 2016 to the 2019 between 5 to 7 percent. For much of the period from 1992 to the middle 2010s, much of China’s massive economic growth was founded on a huge energy-intensive expansion of its manufacturing capabilities. This also involved the mass migration of new workers from the countryside and into the cities, which required a huge energy-intensive infrastructure build-out. Even after some of China’s growth began to switch into the less energy-intensive service sectors, its investment in energy-intensive infrastructure build-out remained very high. This pattern continued for many years, alongside the third phase of China’s economic growth, which was the rise of a middle class that powered domestic consumption-led demand for goods and services. All these phases had the net result of markedly increasing China’s demand for oil and gas. 

Although this ‘Post-Covid Phase’ of growth currently looks like one that will see powerful drivers from several sectors of China’s economy – including manufacturing – it does not necessarily mean that oil prices will feel the full effects of this. The key reason here is that China continues to buy oil at greatly reduced prices not just from Russia, but also from Iran and Iraq too, through various mechanisms analysed in full in my new book on the new global oil market order. Despite sanctions in place on the first two of these countries, the U.S. is happy to look the other way for the most part, as oil demand being satisfied ‘off the official books’ ultimately feeds through into lower demand elsewhere in the global energy markets, so reducing bullish price pressure. Additionally, China does not want to encourage higher oil prices from any of those multitude of Middle Eastern countries over which it has developed an influence because the U.S. and several of its key allies remain China’s major export customers. The U.S. alone still accounts for over 16 percent of its export revenues. Rising energy prices in these countries could again fuel inflation and cause interest rates to rise, bringing the prospect of economic slowdown with them, as was seen in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. According to a senior source in the European Union’s (E.U.) energy security complex spoken to exclusively by OilPrice.com recently, the economic damage to China – directly through its own energy imports and indirectly through damage to the economies of its key export markets in the West – would dangerously increase if the Brent oil price remained over US$90-95 pb for more than one quarter of a year. 

Rising energy prices also have direct ramifications in U.S. presidential elections, in which China does not want to be seen playing a part, at least overtly. Longstanding estimates are that every US$10 pb change in the price of crude oil results in a 25-30 cent change in the price of a gallon of gasoline, and for every 1 cent that the average price per gallon of gasoline rises, more than US$1 billion per year in consumer spending is lost, adversely affecting the U.S. economy. Historically, around 70 percent of the price of gasoline is derived from the global oil price. This feeds through into the second part of this equation, as also analysed in full in my new book, which is that since the end of World War I in 2018, the sitting U.S. president has won re-election 11 times out of 11 if the economy was not in recession within two years of an upcoming election. If it was in recession in this timeframe, then only 1 sitting president has won out of 7 times (although even the 1 is debatable).

As fully expected, Russian President Vladimir Putin struck a defiant tone in his speech at Moscow’s Red Square for the annual events commemorating Russia’s WW2 victory. Addressing thousands of soldiers in ceremonial attire, Putin accused the “arrogant” West of stoking conflict around the world. 

“We know what the exorbitance of such ambitions leads to. Russia will do everything to prevent a global clash,” he said. “But at the same time, we will not allow anyone to threaten us. Our strategic forces are always in a state of combat readiness,” he stressed in reference to the country’s nuclear forces.

Via AP

The 71-year-old leader hailed that “Victory Day unites all generations,” and vowed: “We are going forward relying on our centuries-old traditions and feel confident that together we will ensure a free and secure future of Russia.”

He called Victory Day “very emotional and poignant” as “Every family is honoring its heroes, looking at pictures with dear faces and remembering their relatives and how they fought.”

He contrasted the “heroes” – Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, with the West – which is “fueling regional conflicts, inter-ethnic and inter-religious strife and trying to contain sovereign and independent centers of global development.”

Present for the ceremony was nearly 10,000 Russian troops, including 1,000 who have fought inside Ukraine. According to AP correspondents, Putin underscored his ‘nuclear deterrent’ messaging by having nuke-capable missiles present: 

Nuclear-capable Yars intercontinental ballistic missiles were pulled across Red Square, underscoring his message.

The Soviet Union lost about 27 million people in World War II, an estimate that many historians consider conservative, scarring virtually every family.

One theme which emerged from Putin’s speech is that the West has ignored and forgotten the immense sacrifice that Russians made in defeating the Nazis in WW2.

Russian🇷🇺 President Vladimir Putin presides over the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow

Did you know? It would take approximately 51.3 years to hold a minute of silence for each of the 27 million Soviets that died in World War 2

More coveragehttps://t.co/H1LZRQsy0p pic.twitter.com/Rx67mkTUs0

— Afshin Rattansi (@afshinrattansi) May 9, 2024

Putin’s family too was personally impacted by the war and defense of the homeland:

As Putin tells it, his father, also named Vladimir, came home from a military hospital during the war to see workers trying to take away his wife, Maria, who had been declared dead of starvation. But the elder Putin did not believe she had died — saying she had only lost consciousness, weak with hunger. Their first child, Viktor, died during the siege when he was 3, one of more than 1 million Leningrad residents who died in the 872-day blockade, most of them from starvation.

For several years, Putin carried a photo of his father in Victory Day marches — as did others honoring relatives who were war veterans — in what was called the “Immortal Regiment.”

Putin in the speech emphasized, “Today we see how the truth about the Second World War is being distorted. It hinders those who are used to building their essentially colonial policy on hypocrisy and lies.”

The man sitting next to Putin on the podium is war veteran Yevgeny Kuropatkov, who will turn 101 this year.#VictoryDay #Moscow #Russia
pic.twitter.com/gYCvMVmhTf

— StellaMoscow (@SgforgoodStella) May 9, 2024

He also addressed the Ukraine conflict specifically, pointing out that the entire West is working tirelessly to defeat Moscow.

“We know, and you know this better than anyone else, the enemy has enough modern tools, since the entire Western community is working for our enemy, dreaming about Russia ceasing to exist in its current form,” Putin described.

Putin concluded his speech with the words, “Glory to the valiant armed forces! For Russia! For victory! Hurray!”

🗣 Putin concluded his speech at the parade with the words, “Glory to the valiant armed forces! For Russia! For victory! Hurray!” pic.twitter.com/hJKpzZQCNG

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) May 9, 2024

He called what’s going on a “system of confrontation” by the collective West, which views Russia as “weak”. “I am sure they are now convinced that this was far from the reality, and rather the opposite is true,” he emphasized.

Authored by Savannah Fortis via CoinTelegraph.com,

TikTok, the popular social media platform for creating and sharing short-form videos, said it will now start automatically labeling artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content (AIGC) when it is uploaded to the platform. 

On May 9, the social media giant said it is partnering with the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) and will be the first media-sharing platform to implement its Content Credentials technology.

TikTok has already been requiring content creators to label realistic AIGC for over a year, along with anything made with its own TikTok AI effects.

However, the recent development implements auto-labeling on AI-generated content created using other platforms. It said this will be done with the Content Credentials technology which attaches metadata to content that the platform can use to instantly recognize and label AIGC.

The statement said the increase in auto-labeled AIGC on TikTok will be “gradual at first” as soon as Content Credential is implemented on other platforms to metadata, it will be able to label more content.

 For the time being, the feature will only be available for images and videos, with the intention of bringing it to audio content in the near future.

The social media platform has also joined the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), led by Adobe. Dana Roa, the general counsel and chief trust officer at Adobe, said:

“At a time when any digital content can be altered, it is essential to provide ways for the public to discern what is true.”

In addition to the AI labeling, TikTok said it will also be rolling out media literacy resources, which were developed alongside MediaWise and WITNESS. 

The social media platform intends to release 12 videos throughout the year highlighting universal media literacy skills and explaining how TikTok tools like AIGC labels can further contextualize content.

This comes as AI continues to advance and has the capacity to create more realistic content, sparking a rise in AI-generated deepfakes.

On May 8, authorities in Hong Kong discovered an unlicensed, fraudulent cryptocurrency exchange that faked connection with Elon Musk, posting AI-generated videos and images of Musk on its website and social media handles.

A few days prior, Berkshire Hathaway co-founder Warren Buffett said the impact of AI concerning illicit financial activities is comparable to the advent of the atomic bomb and nuclear weaponry.

This came after exposure to a deepfake of himself that was able to realistically mimic the way he dressed, moved and talked.

The US military has reportedly completed building the off-shore pier for Gaza humanitarian aid deliveries, but it has yet to be anchored to Gaza’s shore that this crucial part of the process has been held up due to inclement weather in the eastern Mediterranean. 

“As of today, the U.S. military has completed the off-shore construction of the Trident pier section, or the causeway, which is the component that will eventually be anchored to the Gaza shore,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Thursday.

Reuters: US flagged cargo vessel carrying aid to a pier built by the US off Gaza sets sail from Larnaca, Cyprus.

“Today there are still forecasted high winds and high sea swells, which are causing unsafe conditions for the JLOTS components to be moved, so the pier sections and military vessels involved in its construction are still positioned at the Port of Ashdod,” she added.

Cyprus’ foreign ministry on the same day announced that the first vessel carrying humanitarian aid to be offloaded on the newly US-constructed pier is en route. 

It comes two full months after President Biden first unveiled the plan for the US Army to construct a pier. “The US vessel, loaded with much needed humanitarian assistance, departed from the Larnaca port with the aim of transferring as much aid to Gaza as possible through the maritime corridor,” said Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos.

The Pentagon indicated further that it hopes to have the final causeway section of the pier in place and functional by “later this week.”

“The Sagamore is a cargo vessel that will use the JLOTS system [Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore system], and will make trips between Cyprus and the offshore floating pier as USAID and other partners collect aid from around the world,” Singh explained in the briefing.

Time is of the essence given the United Nations is now warning that northern Gaza is already in a state of “full-blown famine.” Additionally hundreds of thousands of civilians are now fleeing the southern city of Rafah as the city faces an imminent IDF ground invasion.

At the UN Security Council (UNCS), China in particular has been stepping up its criticisms of Washington policy on Israel of late. Beijing has also been highlighting US ‘hypocrisy’ in daily press briefings. For example, the Chinese foreign ministry this week issued a statement saying “China… strongly calls on Israel to heed the overwhelming demands of the international community, stop attacking Rafah, and do everything it can to avoid a more serious humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip.”

Hamas has continued to threaten the project, especially if US troops are found to be at the pier site:

Qassam mortar teams (six) vs IDF excavators and troop positions establishing the Netzarim corridor. The corridor divides the Strip and connects to the US Army pier project south of Gaza City. [Qassam Brigades 1/5] pic.twitter.com/48mJEhSEzP

— Jon Elmer (@jonelmer) May 2, 2024

Bloomberg has further featured the following Chinese Embassy statement: 

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, criticized the US for talking about “a ceasefire while pouring weapons” into the “biggest humanitarian tragedy in the 21st century,” in an emailed statement.

China has lately launched its own efforts at mediating the conflict, given it hosted Hamas and Fatah officials in Beijing last week for rare talks aimed at achieving Palestinian political unity.

Authored by David Dimolfetta via nextgov.com,

Key federal agencies have resumed discussions with social media companies over removing disinformation on their sites as the November presidential election nears, a stark reversal after the Biden administration for months froze communications with social platforms amid a pending First Amendment case in the Supreme Court, a top senator said Monday.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. (L) speaks with NightDragon Founder and CEO Dave DeWalt (R) at the 2024 RSA conference in San Francisco, California. David DiMolfetta/Staff

Mark Warner, D-Va., who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters in a briefing at RSA Conference that agencies restarted talks with social media companies as the Supreme Court heard arguments in Murthy v. Missouri, a case that first began in the Fifth Circuit appellate court last July. The case was fueled by allegations that federal agencies like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency were coercing platforms to remove content related to vaccine safety and 2020 presidential election results.

The Supreme Court is expected to decide whether agencies are allowed to stay in touch with social media firms about potential disinformation. Missouri’s then-Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed the suit on the grounds that the Biden administration violated First Amendment rights pertaining to free speech online in a bid to suppress politically conservative voices.

According to Warner, communications between agencies and social platforms resumed roughly around the same time that multiple justices appeared to favor the executive branch’s stance on the issue, he said. 

“There seemed to be a lot of sympathy that the government ought to have at least voluntary communications with [the companies],” he said, adding that, in the event of election interference attempts akin to Russia in 2016, the Biden administration should more forcefully call out nation-state entities that attempt to meddle in the U.S. election process.

Warner said his committee will convene a hearing on elections security in two weeks. The panel was supposed to hold the session with CISA Director Jen Easterly and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines last month, but it was postponed amid GOP attempts to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

For around six months, agencies chilled their communications with social firms about election security and other disinformation flash points. Warner previously said that White House lawyers had been “too timid” in their legal interpretation of the case, especially given that the high court allowed the Biden administration to temporarily continue their talks until a ruling was made.

Officials fear that a loss of faith in electoral systems at home could lead to a repeat of the widespread voter fraud claims that occurred during the 2020 presidential election, which ended in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. On the domestic front, content moderator staff reductions at social media companies have also been deemed a major risk to election integrity, and election workers worry they will face threats of violence from voters who don’t accept the polling results.

Additionally, artificial intelligence tools have already been used to augment election disruption efforts around the world.

“If the bad guy started to launch AI-driven tools that would threaten election officials in key communities, that clearly falls into the foreign interference category,” said Warner, though it may not necessarily take a formal definition of misinformation, and may be deemed a “whole other vector of attack,” he added.

Foreign adversaries have been found deploying fake social media personas that have engaged with or provoked real-life users in an attempt to assess U.S. domestic issues and learn what political themes divide voters.

The U.S. has been putting its foot down in diplomacy talks on election interference, telling major economic adversaries like China to not intervene in election processes come November. Two weeks ago in Shanghai and Beijing, cyberspace and digital policy ambassador Nathaniel Fick and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken gave a stern warning to Chinese officials about election dynamics.

“The secretary … delivered a very clear message that we view interference in our domestic democratic process as dangerous and unacceptable,” Fick said in a separate RSA briefing with reporters Monday. “Diplomacy is most important when it is most challenging, which is why the discussions with the Chinese at this moment matter a lot,” he said.