Sentinel minutes for week #42/2024
Status: Greenish. The prospect of a larger regional war receded as Israel said it would attack Iranian military rather than nuclear or oil targets. Mpox and H5N1 continue to pose pandemic threats.
Status: Greenish. The prospect of a larger regional war receded as Israel said it would attack Iranian military rather than nuclear or oil targets. Mpox and H5N1 continue to pose pandemic threats.
Geopolitics
Middle East
Israel says that it won’t attack Iranian nuclear sites or oil facilities; this decreases the risk of a larger regional war. Meanwhile, the US is sending sophisticated anti-missile defences to Israel, along with the US troops required to operate them.
Israel's Defence Forces killed Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas.
US stealth bombers struck underground Houthi weapons sites in Yemen, displaying US capabilities and signaling to Iran.
A drone was launched at the residence of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in an apparent assassination attempt.
Europe
Russia is testing the readiness of a nuclear missile unit. In the latest test, a unit in the Tver region will practice moving Yars missiles in the field over distances of up to 100 km under camouflage and protecting them against air attack and enemy sabotage groups.
Ukraine “will seek nuclear weapons” if it cannot join NATO, said Zelensky. However, he quickly backtracked.
The Baltics are taking some measures to deter and prepare for a possible Russian invasion.
The Economist reports that, “Vladimir Putin’s spies are plotting global chaos” and that, “Russia is enacting a revolutionary plan of sabotage, arson and assassination.” The Financial Times seconds the assessment, writing that, “Intelligence bosses warn of sharp rise in ‘aggressive behaviour’ by Russian agents.” The FT reported that suspected sabotage by Russia almost crashed a German flight earlier this year, and Russia is also suspected of planting, on a plane, a package containing an incendiary device that ended up causing a fire at a DHL warehouse in the UK. A Russian spy was also caught buying chemical lab equipment and sniper ammunition in Switzerland.
Africa
Conflict around the Horn of Africa continues and worsens; the Islamic Youth Mujahideen group is probably strengthened as a result.
North Korea blew up parts of inter-Korean road and rail links in a symbolic display of anger.
Asia
China carried out wargames around Taiwan, with a blockade component, and tested an ICBM. Will Ripley of CNN reported that, “They also published images of CCG vessels encircling Taiwan in the trajectory of a heart, called Taiwan "sweetheart" & the blockade drills an act of "love."”
Bangladesh court issues arrest warrant for exiled former prime minister Sheikh Hasina
The Americas
As the US Presidential election approaches, our forecasting team notes a relatively small prospect for turmoil in the US following the election and surrounding the next presidential inauguration. We’ll elaborate in the next edition of this newsletter.
Economists predict that US inflation and budget deficits would be higher under a Trump presidency than under a Harris presidency.
Canadian police stated that agents of the Indian government have been conducting criminal activities in Canada, including homicides, extortion and other criminal acts.
Mexico’s ex-public security chief Genaro García Luna was sentenced to 38-plus years in U.S. for taking cartel bribes.
Biorisks
H5N1
California has found more farm workers with H5N1 infections, for a total of 13 human H5N1 infections, as the state continues to find H5N1 in dairy herds as well. Serological testing for H5 bird flu in contacts of the H5N1 case in Missouri has been delayed "because key genetic changes to the main protein on the exterior of the virus found in the Missouri case meant the agency’s existing tests might not have been reliable." Meanwhile, H5N1 infections of large US poultry flocks have started to pick up for the fall. H5N1 has been confirmed in a commercial egg layer farm with 1.9M chickens in Utah and in another commercial farm with 800k layer chickens in Washington. Washington is investigating 4 human H5N1 cases among farm workers who worked with infected poultry. We can expect to see more poultry farms become infected during the fall waterfowl migration. H5N1 continues to be devastating in wildlife.
Mpox
The African CDC stated that, "Mpox is spiralling out of control." Cases continue to climb, as a vaccination campaign continues more slowly than expected.
An NPR article discusses how “triumphing over smallpox accidentally created an opening for mpox.”
Other biological risks
The world cholera vaccine stockpile is empty, and this is jeopardising work to stop the disease’s spread, says the WHO.
The Marburg outbreak in Rwanda is currently coming under control. All cases have also been linked to known infection chains; the outbreak had three major branches of transmission.
In the New York Times, David Quammen argues that, in a world filled with a wide range of existing and new viral threats, we can no longer think about viruses only in terms of the “time of the year still quaintly known as flu season.” “Today we need a broader vision. We need personal, governmental and technological responses that address the full spectrum of viruses that disrupt our lives.” Some of these viruses spread throughout the year for a variety of reasons; moreover, “Climate change is the new force applied to the viral calendar.”
Tech
Google intends to buy small modular nuclear reactors, as will Amazon.
London public transport is currently dealing with a cyberattack, with their Oyster cards being taken out of commission.
Cuba’s power grid has collapsed for a second time, just hours after authorities announced they had begun reestablishing service, the entire country was without power.
The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is now manufacturing chips for Apple at its new fab in Arizona.
Artificial intelligence
Mira Murati, former CTO of OpenAI, who recently quit, is reportedly raising funds from VCs for a new AI startup.
Anthropic announced their updated ‘Responsible Scaling Policy’.
The Pentagon is seeking the ability to create AI-generated social media users that appear to be real, for intelligence-gathering purposes.
OpenAI is reportedly threatening to declare AGI has been achieved, which would mean that investors could not profit from OpenAI’s AGI-level systems, as leverage in negotiations with its principal investor, Microsoft.
The US is considering capping exports of AI chips to some countries, with a focus on the Middle East.
An AI tool vastly improved predictions of the paths of Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
Climate
Trees and land absorbed almost no CO2 last year. If this trend continues, then climate change could “rapidly accelerate.” As reported by The Guardian, “The kind of rapid land sink collapse seen in 2023 has not been factored into most climate models. If it continues, it raises the prospect of rapid global heating beyond what those models have predicted.” It is possible that most climate models have been overoptimistic because the earth is such a complex system; it can be difficult to know about or include all of the most important factors in climate models. Needless to say, rapid climate change would pose extreme risks to humanity over a much shorter time frame than has been laid out by the IPCC and other major organizations.
The BBC discussed what it would mean for the planet if and when the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) collapses. The AMOC is essentially a complex conveyor belt for heat in the Atlantic Ocean; it moves 25% of the total heat the Northern hemisphere receives from the ocean and atmosphere. If the AMOC were to collapse, it is thought that parts of the Northern hemisphere, including Europe, would become cooler, and climate belts in the Northern hemisphere would shift to the south. Some scientists have estimated that the AMOC is likely to collapse by 2050 or even earlier.