Monthly Archives: March 2024

China Against United States at the World Trade Organization

China filed a complaint in March 2024 at the World Trade Organization over the U.S.’s Inflation Reduction Act, saying that it was discriminatory and distorted fair competition. Under the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Biden signed into law in August 2022, consumers in the U.S. won’t be able to claim a $7,500 clean-vehicle tax credit if they buy cars containing battery components from a “foreign entity of concern” starting in 2024. The policy will extend to the minerals that go into battery components in 2025. The move was seen by industry players as a way to reduce China’s role in the U.S. EV-industry supply chain.

The definition covers any firm based in China, including subsidiaries of U.S. companies, as well as companies elsewhere that are 25% or more owned by state-backed entities from China. The rules also apply to Iran, North Korea and Russia. In February 2024, Biden ordered the U.S. Commerce Department to open an investigation into foreign-made software in cars, citing Chinese technology as a potential national-security risk. The probe could lead to restrictions on the use of certain parts in cars in the U.S.

In 2023, China became the world’s biggest car exporter, surpassing Japan and Germany, while China’s EV maker BYD overtook Tesla to become the bestselling pure EV maker in the world in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Excerpts from Sha Hua, China Files WTO Complaint Against U.S. Over Electric-Vehicle Subsidies, WSJ, Mar. 26, 2024

How Binance Hijacked the Central Bank of Nigeria

Tigran Gambaryan, Binance’s head of financial-crime compliance, flew to Nigeria’s capital to solve a problem: The government had blamed the world’s largest crypto exchange for crashing the currency… He hasn’t come back. Nigerian authorities detained Gambaryan and a colleague, Nadeem Anjarwalla, a U.K. and Kenyan national and Binance’s regional manager for Africa, according to the men’s families. The Binance employees, who are being held in a guarded house, haven’t been charged with any crimes. The government, which invited them to Nigeria for meetings, hasn’t publicly discussed the detentions.

Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy with a population of more than 220 million, has faced many currency crises before. This is the first time that crypto has played a starring role.
Nigerians flocked to cryptocurrencies in recent years to shelter their savings from a soaring inflation rate, which hit nearly 30% in January, and a plunging currency, one of the worst-performing in the world this year. Two-thirds of the population lives in poverty. The country has the second-highest adoption of crypto in the world, after India, according to an index compiled by Chainalysis, a data provider. Nigerians received about $60 billion worth of crypto transactions in the 12 months through June 2023, according to Chainalysis.

Because the government rationed who could exchange the local currency for the dollar and at what exchange rate, many sought refuge in digital currencies pegged to the U.S. dollar, known as stablecoins. The stablecoin trade in essence became a black market, displaying an unofficial exchange rate between the local currency, the naira, and the dollar that was much weaker than the government’s rates. Binance, the most popular exchange, became the go-to place to check that black-market rate, according to currency traders. Bayo Onanuga, a special adviser to the Nigerian president, accused Binance of setting the exchange rate for Nigeria and hijacking the role of the central bank…A persistent gap between what the government thought the currency was worth, and the rate on Binance’s website, proved intolerable. Onanuga told The Wall Street Journal that Binance was cooperating with authorities and compensation to Nigeria was being discussed.

Binance said it would stop any services involving the naira, dealing a blow to its efforts to rebuild its business in fast-growing emerging markets. The Nigerian Communications Commission ordered telecommunications companies to restrict access to the websites of Binance and other crypto platforms. Olayemi Cardoso, the head of Nigeria’s central bank, suggested that crypto platforms were being used to manipulate the market. In the case of Binance, he said, $26 billion had passed through its platform in Nigeria in 2023 from sources and users whom the central bank couldn’t adequately identify. He didn’t say where the figure came from…

Founded in 2017 in China, Binance has a history of drawing the ire of governments. It has long operated without a headquarters and under the radar of regulators, offering unlicensed trading through its global website. In November 2023, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao stepped down as chief executive and pleaded guilty to violating U.S. anti-money-laundering requirements. The company agreed to pay $4.3 billion in fines, the largest ever levied on a crypto firm. Zhao is currently awaiting sentencing in the U.S.

The use of cryptocurrencies tied to the U.S. dollar has ballooned in countries across the developing world. In economies under financial stress where actual dollars are scarce, such as Turkey, Argentina and Russia, locals have turned to crypto exchanges and the dollar-like digital currencies they offer as an alternative.

Excerpts from Patricia Kowsmann et al., Crypto Gets Blamed for a Real-Life Currency Crisis, WSJ, Mar. 12, 2024

How Russia Invaded Microsoft

Microsoft said in March 2024 a Russian state-sponsored hacking group that stole information from its senior leadership team is still using that information to gain unauthorized access to its internal systems. The technology company disclosed in January 2024 that the group, which it has identified as Midnight Blizzard, had extracted information from a small percentage of employee email accounts, including members of its senior leadership team and employees in its cybersecurity and legal teams. Since that disclosure, the group has used that information to gain access to Microsoft’s source code repositories and internal systems. The volume of some aspects of the attack, including password sprays, jumped 10-fold in February compared with the already large volume Microsoft encountered in January, it said.

“Midnight Blizzard’s ongoing attack is characterized by a sustained, significant commitment of the threat actor’s resources, coordination, and focus,” Microsoft said. The company said that its investigations of Midnight Blizzard activities are continuing and that it is coordinating efforts with federal law enforcement. In a blog post last August 2023, Microsoft said it had detected Midnight Blizzard, previously known as Nobelium, launching targeted social-engineering attacks that used Microsoft Teams chats to phish for credentials. The former Nobelium group has been linked by U.S. authorities to the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation and is known for its involvement in the massive SolarWinds hack of 2020.

Excerpts from Dean Seal, Microsoft Says Russian-Sponsored Hackers Still Using Stolen Information, WSJ, Mar. 9, 2024

What Do We Know about the Plastic Chemicals that Leach into Food?

Countries are currently negotiating a global plastics treaty to end plastic pollution. It is essential that the treaty addresses plastic chemicals because all plastics, from food packaging to car tires, contain thousands of chemicals that can leach into foodstuffs, homes, and the environment. Since many of these chemicals are hazardous, they can damage human health and the environment.

Plastic chemicals comprise all chemicals in plastics, including additives, processing aids, and impurities. A previous report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and other international institutions identified 13,000 plastic chemicals. The new PlastChem Report shows that there are more plastic chemicals than previously known, with over 16,000 chemicals included in the new PlastChem database that accompanies the report.
Further key findings of the report include:
• At least 4,200 plastic chemicals (or 26%) are of concern because of their high hazards to human health and the environment,
• More than 400 chemicals of concern can be present in each major plastic type, including in food packaging, and all tested plastics leached hazardous chemicals,

The report recommends : Increased transparency on the chemical composition of plastics is essential for closing data gaps, promoting a comprehensive management of plastic chemicals, and creating accountability across plastic value chains. A unified reporting, disclosure of the chemical composition of plastic materials and products as well as a “no data, no market” approach are recommended to ensure that essential
information about plastic chemicals becomes publicly available.

Excerpts from New Report Identifies Plastic Chemicals of Concern and Highlights
Approaches Towards Safer Plastics, Press Release of PlastChem, Mar. 14, 2024

If the United States is a Surveillance State How Does it Differ from China?

In November 2023, Michael Morell, a former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), hinted at a big change in how the agency now operates. “The information that is available commercially would kind of knock your socks off…if we collected it using traditional intelligence methods, it would be top secret-sensitive. And you wouldn’t put it in a database, you’d keep it in a safe.”

In recent years, U.S. intelligence agencies, the military and even local police departments have gained access to enormous amounts of data through shadowy arrangements with brokers and aggregators. Everything from basic biographical information to consumer preferences to precise hour-by-hour movements can be obtained by government agencies without a warrant.

Most of this data is first collected by commercial entities as part of doing business. Companies acquire consumer names and addresses to ship goods and sell services. They acquire consumer preference data from loyalty programs, purchase history or online search queries. They get geolocation data when they build mobile apps or install roadside safety systems in cars. But once consumers agree to share information with a corporation, they have no way to monitor what happens to it after it is collected. Many corporations have relationships with data brokers and sell or trade information about their customers. And governments have come to realize that such corporate data not only offers a rich trove of valuable information but is available for sale in bulk.

Earlier generations of data brokers vacuumed up information from public records like driver’s licenses and marriage certificates. But today’s internet-enabled consumer technology makes it possible to acquire previously unimaginable kinds of data. Phone apps scan the signal environment around your phone and report back, hourly, about the cell towers, wireless earbuds, Bluetooth speakers and Wi-Fi routers that it encounters….The National Security Agency recently acknowledged buying internet browsing data from private brokers, and several sources have told me about programs allowing the U.S. to buy access to foreign cell phone networks. Those arrangements are cloaked in secrecy, but the data would allow the U.S. to see who hundreds of millions of people around the world are calling.

Car companies, roadside assistance services and satellite radio companies also collect geolocation data and sell it to brokers, who then resell it to government entities. Even tires can be a vector for surveillance. That little computer readout on your car that tells you the tire pressure is 42 PSI? It operates through a wireless signal from a tiny sensor, and government agencies and private companies have figured out how to use such signals to track people…

It’s legal for the government to use commercial data in intelligence programs because data brokers have either gotten the consent of consumers to collect their information or have stripped the data of any details that could be traced back to an individual. Much commercially available data doesn’t contain explicit personal information. But the truth is that there are ways to identify people in nearly all anonymized data sets. If you can associate a phone, a computer or a car tire with a daily pattern of behavior or a residential address, it can usually be associated with an individual.

And while consumers have technically consented to the acquisition of their personal data by large corporations, most aren’t aware that their data is also flowing to the government, which disguises its purchases of data by working with contractors. One giant defense contractor, Sierra Nevada, set up a marketing company called nContext which is acquiring huge amounts of advertising data from commercial providers. Big data brokers that have reams of consumer information, like LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters, market products to government entities, as do smaller niche players. Companies like Babel Street, Shadowdragon, Flashpoint and Cobwebs have sprung up to sell insights into what happens on social media or other web forums. Location data brokers like Venntel and Safegraph have provided data on the movement of mobile phones…

A group of U.S. lawmakers is trying to stop the government from buying commercial data without court authorization by inserting a provision to that effect in a spy law, FISA Section 702, that Congress needs to reauthorize by April 19. The proposal would ban U.S. government agencies from buying data on Americans but would allow law-enforcement agencies and the intelligence community to continue buying data on foreigners…But many in the national security establishment think that it makes no sense to ban the government from acquiring data that everyone from the Chinese government to Home Depot can buy on the open market. The data is valuable—in some cases, so valuable that the government won’t even discuss what it’s buying. “Picture getting a suspect’s phone, then in the extraction [of data] being able to see everyplace they’d been in the last 18 months plotted on a map you filter by date ranges,” wrote one Maryland state trooper in an email obtained under public records laws. “The success lies in the secrecy.”

For spies and police officers alike, it is better for people to remain in the dark about what happens to the data generated by their daily activities—because if it were widely known how much data is collected and who buys it, it wouldn’t be such a powerful tool. Criminals might change their behavior. Foreign officials might realize they’re being surveilled. Consumers might be more reluctant to uncritically click “I accept” on the terms of service when downloading free apps. And the American public might finally demand that, after decades of inaction, their lawmakers finally do something about unrestrained data collection.

Excerpts from Byron Tau, US Spy Agencies Know Your Secrets. They Bought Them, WSJ, Mar. 8, 2024

See also Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government Is Creating a New American Surveillance State by Byron Tau (published 2024).

How Much Are Your Eyes Worth? Altman has an answer

Worldcoin is appealing a decision from Spain that temporarily banned it from scanning people’s eyes in exchange for cryptocurrency tokens…The Spanish Data Protection Agency, or AEPD, ordered a precautionary measure prohibiting Worldcoin’s activities in the country for up to three months after it received several complaints on the collection of data from minors, and what it said were other infringements.

Worldcoin operates as an open-source protocol, according to its website. Users download a wallet app that supports a digital identity known as World ID. To get their identity verified, users stand in front of a physical imaging device known as the orb that relies on sensors to scan their eyes “to verify humanness and uniqueness.” More than 4 million users across 120 countries signed up for World ID, with orb verifications taking place in 36 countries, according to Worldcoin’s website.

The AEPD said its precautionary measure effectively called on Tools for Humanity—the company of which OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman is a co-founder—to cease the collection and processing of personal data through its Worldcoin project and to stop using the data it had gathered so far in Spain.

Excerpts from Mauro Orru, Sam Altman’s Eye-Scanning Worldcoin Venture Appeals, WSJ, Mar. 7, 2024

Chinese Gangs, Crypto Scams and the Deaths of 100,000 Americans

Chinese crime syndicates are using cryptocurrencies to launder billions of dollars, including money raised from helping supply drugs to the U.S. or scamming American victims…They are using crypto to launder the profits of drug dealing and illegal gambling, and have made huge amounts from investment scams that promise easy returns in the cryptocurrency markets. Crypto addresses linked to a group of suspected chemical traders based in China have received more than $37.8 million worth of assets since 2018 in exchange for shipping a key ingredient of fentanyl, the research firm Chainalysis said in a report in 2023. These shipments are often sent to Central America and Mexico, where drug cartels use them to manufacture the drug, which is then shipped to the U.S.

In October 2024, the U.S.’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned a network of individuals and companies based in China over the manufacturing and distribution of ingredients used in fentanyl and other drugs. Some of those individuals held cryptocurrency wallets to send and receive funds, the Treasury Department said. Fentanyl use by Americans has become a major public health issue, contributing to more than 100,000 deaths a year, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Scammers in China and Florida shared the same two crypto wallet addresses, implying they are likely parts of the same group, according to a joint investigation published in January 2024 by ChainArgos, a Singapore-based blockchain data platform, and Bitrace, a China-based blockchain research group…Chinese law-enforcement agencies across the country have investigated more than 800 cases, shut down five underground banks used to help process payments, and uncovered about $4 billion worth of funds based on blockchain data…Chinese prosecutors also have charged well-known crypto executives. Zhao Dong, founder of a major over-the-counter crypto platform in China called RenrenBit, was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2022 after providing crypto-exchange services to an illicit business involved in overseas gambling and so-called pig-butchering scams.

Tether, a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, has been used as a way for these groups to switch between different fiat currencies.

Excerpts from Weilun Soon, Chinese Gangs Use Cryptocurrencies to Launder Billions, WSJ, Mar. 2, 2024

Delete America: China’s Document 79

A 2022 Chinese government directive aims to get US technology out of China—an effort some refer to as “Delete A,” for Delete America. Document 79 was so sensitive that high-ranking officials and executives were only shown the order and weren’t allowed to make copies… It requires state-owned companies in finance, energy and other sectors to replace foreign software in their IT systems by 2027.

American tech giants had long thrived in China as they hot-wired the country’s meteoric industrial rise with computers, operating systems and software. Chinese leaders want to sever that relationship, driven by a push for self-sufficiency and concerns over the country’s long-term security…Document 79, named for the numbering on the paper, targets companies that provide software—enabling daily business operations from basic office tools to supply-chain management. The likes of Microsoft and Oracle are losing ground in China

Excerpts from Liza Lin, China Intensifies Push to ‘Delete America’ From Its Technology, Mar. 7, 2024

The Real Price for ‘Green’ Energy

Civilization would not exist were it not for miners. Every year the world’s oldest industry supplies hundreds of megatons of the primary metals and minerals that are essential to all subsequent industries—from medical devices to kitchen appliances, aircraft, toys, power plants, computers and cars. Hence it’s consequential when the governments of Europe and the U.S. implement policies requiring that global mining expand, and soon, by 400% to 7,000%. Those policies are meant to force a transition away from the oil, natural gas and coal that supply 80% of global energy. But it’s an unavoidable fact that building the favored transition machines—wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars—will require astonishing quantities of minerals to produce the same amount of energy.

The other challenge involves people. Mining has always been as much about people as it has about geology, technology and money. In “The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives,” Ernest Scheyder highlights the myriad difficulties faced by the people who build mines, as well as those hurt by or opposed to them. As Mr. Scheyder notes, mining is “dirty work.” That’s no invective; it’s just reality…He focuses on the social and political dynamics that accompany big mining projects because, as he writes, there’s “no way around the fact that mines are gargantuan creations that maim the Earth’s surface.” He makes clear that his goal isn’t to question the need for more mines but to understand “whether these lands should be dug up in an attempt to defuse climate change,” especially when some lands are considered sacred by their neighbors and inhabitants.

Excerpts, ‘Mark P. Mills, The War Below’ Review: Digging for Minerals, WSJ, Mar. 3, 2024

Darfur Forever: when a country is not a country

Iran unsuccessfully pressed Sudan to let it build a permanent naval base on the African country’s Red Sea coast, something that would have allowed Tehran to monitor maritime traffic to and from the Suez Canal and Israel, according to a senior Sudanese intelligence official. Iran has supplied Sudan’s military with explosive drones to use in its fight with a rebel warlord and offered to provide a helicopter-carrying warship if Sudan had granted permission for the base…

Sudan had close ties with Iran and its Palestinian ally Hamas under longtime strongman Omar al-Bashir. After Bashir’s ouster in a 2019 coup, the leader of the country’s military junta, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, initiated a rapprochement with the U.S. in an effort to end international sanctions. He also moved to normalize relations with Israel. Iran’s request to build a base highlights how regional powers are seeking to take advantage of Sudan’s 10-month-old civil war to gain a foothold in the country, a strategic crossroads between the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa with a 400-mile Red Sea coastline. Sudan’s military has been fighting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Burhan’s former second-in-command, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, since mid-April 2023. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises The Biden administration has accused both the Sudanese military and the RSF of committing war crimes. The U.S. alleges the RSF also has committed crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and ethnic cleansing in the Darfur region in western Sudan. U.N. officials have criticized Sudan for aerial bombing of civilian neighborhoods and depriving Sudanese civilians of desperately needed humanitarian aid. U.N. agencies have also accused the RSF of atrocities, including ethnically motivated attacks in Darfur…

The Wall Street Journal reported in October 2023 that Egypt has supplied drones to the Sudanese military and trained Sudanese troops in how to use them. The United Arab Emirates, meanwhile, has been sending weapons to the RSF, the Journal reported in August 2023…Dubai is the biggest importer of Sudanese gold and in 2022 a U.A.E.-based consortium signed a $6 billion deal to build a new port facility on Sudan’s Red Sea coast.

Excerpts from Nicholas Bariyo, Iran Tried to Persuade Sudan to Allow Naval Base on Its Red Sea Coast, WSJ, Mar. 3, 2024

What Do You Do When You Are Up for Sale?

Under an executive order issued on February 28, 2024, specific classes of Americans’ sensitive data, including genomic, biometric, personal health, geolocation, financial and certain types of personal identifiers, will generally be barred from being sold or transferred in vast tranches to “countries of concern” or vendors known to supply data to them. The countries of concern are China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, and have a record of misusing data on Americans, an official said.

In 2023, the U.S. intelligence community issued a groundbreaking report acknowledging that the vast amount of Americans’ personal data available for sale, which are often bought and repackaged by data brokers and then resold through a labyrinthine ecosystem of vendors and resellers, has provided a valuable stream of intelligence for the U.S. government and adversaries alike. The report, commissioned by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, admitted that such streams created significant threats to privacy, and had rapidly grown in scale such that they had begun to replicate the results of intrusive surveillance techniques, such as hacking, that are typically more targeted.

The executive order is notably silent on the purchasing of commercially available data sets by the U.S. government.

Excerpts from Dustin Volz, U.S. Limits Sales of Americans’ Personal Data to China, Other Adversaries, WSJ, Feb. 129, 2024

Oil Companies Never Die: the advantage of geothermal energy

Oil-and-gas companies are accelerating investments in geothermal energy, betting the technologies that fueled the shale revolution can turn the budding industry into a large producer of clean power… Many of these companies are using the same technology employed by frackers, but instead of searching for oil and gas, they are looking for underground heat. The new geothermal industry is the result of a surprising confluence of interests among the oil-and-gas, technology and green power industries. The heat that the drillers find underground can be used to generate a steady, round-the-clock supply of carbon-free electricity, which is coveted by tech companies for their power-hungry data centers.

Finding pockets of underground heat is relatively easy in places with lots of geothermal activity, including parts of the U.S., Indonesia and New Zealand. When the heat is deeper in the earth, it is more difficult and more expensive to find. Those constraints have kept the sector’s share of U.S. electricity generation at less than 1%. …Oil companies understand subsurface geology, have experience building infrastructure projects and have cash available to deploy. That is why Chevron is joining with other companies and pursuing geothermal pilot projects in Japan, Indonesia and the U.S.

Excerpts from Amrith Ramkumar, Frackers Are Now Drilling for Clean Power, WSJ, Feb. 29, 2024

Cars as a National Security Risk: Tesla v. BYD

In February 2024, President Biden ordered the Commerce Department to open an investigation into foreign-made software in cars, citing Chinese technology as a potential national-security risk. Chinese efforts to dominate the global auto industry posed clear security risks to the U.S. “Connected vehicles from China could collect sensitive data about our citizens and our infrastructure and send this data back to the People’s Republic of China,” Biden said in a statement. “These vehicles could be remotely accessed or disabled.”

The Biden administration has been trying to reduce the U.S. auto industry’s reliance on China, including using tax credits to boost electric-vehicle sales and pushing automakers away from Chinese suppliers. China became the world’s biggest auto exporter, shipping an estimated 5.26 million domestically made vehicles overseas, according to the China Passenger Car Association. Part of that growth came in the electric-vehicle market, where the country sold more than one million China-made EVs overseas.

Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk has said Chinese car companies have already had much success outside of China and that they are now the “most competitive” globally. “If there are not trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world,” Musk said during Tesla’s earnings call in January 2024.

The Chinese government has also raised national-security concerns about Western-designed cars sold to its own citizens, saying they could be used for gathering data and information. In 2021, China restricted the use of Tesla vehicles by military staff and employees of key state-owned companies, saying the car’s cameras record images constantly and obtain data, including when, how and where the vehicles are used.

Excerpts from Gareth Vipers, Chinese Automakers Pose U.S. National-Security Threat, Biden Says, WSJ, Feb. 29, 2024

Underground Empires: Hamas v. Israel

Senior members of Hamas’s leadership in exile met in Doha, Qatar, earlier in February 2024 amid concerns that its fighters were getting mauled by an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip. Enemy troops were killing dozens of militants each day as they methodically overran Hamas strongholds. Then a courier arrived with a message from Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza, saying, in effect: Don’t worry, we have the Israelis right where we want them. Hamas’s fighters, the Al-Qassam Brigades, were doing fine, the upbeat message said. The militants were ready for Israel’s expected assault on Rafah, a city on Gaza’s southern edge. High civilian casualties would add to the worldwide pressure on Israel to stop the war, Sinwar’s message said, according to people informed about the meeting…

Hamas fighters are now trying to avoid large firefights and instead use small-scale ambushes—using tools ranging from rocket-propelled grenades to recorded voices of hostages to lure Israeli troops into traps. The ambushes have little chance of holding territory against Israel’s armored maneuvers. But they’re tailored to Hamas’s limited capabilities…Many in Israel’s military, from senior commanders to ordinary soldiers who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, worry that their accumulation of tactical wins on the battlefield might not add up to a lasting strategic victory. After nearly five months of intense fighting, Israel is still far from its declared war aim of eliminating Hamas as a significant military and political entity. “Fighting the enemy is like a game of whack-a-mole,” said an Israeli reservist in Khan Younis with the 98th Division….

Degrading Hamas’s capabilities is a realistic goal for Israel’s military, said Hussein Ibish, a scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, a think tank in Washington. But sustaining it would require fully occupying Gaza, which would give Hamas a target for a never-ending insurgency, he said. “Recent history shows that you can be an effective insurgency on a shoestring,” said Ibish. “Anyone can make an IED,” or homemade bomb, he said. “It’s easy to get a pistol. If you’re willing to die, you can kill soldiers.”

Hamas… has shifted to hit-and-run attacks by tiny groups of two or three men, sometimes just one individual….Other Hamas ambushes use so-called sticky bombs, improvised explosives that attach themselves to Israeli armored vehicles with magnets or duct tape.…Hamas also tries to kill Israeli troops by putting booby traps in buildings throughout Gaza, many Israeli soldiers say. Booby traps have been widely found in the homes of Hamas operatives, but also in many civilians’ homes, Israeli soldiers said. Early on the explosives were placed around the buildings’ entrances. The Israelis soon stopped using the front door, instead blasting or bulldozing their way through the walls of a house. Hamas has adapted, placing explosive traps in items inside buildings, from gas storage balloons to children’s’ toys, Israeli soldiers said….In other cases, Hamas used voice recordings of hostages begging for help in Hebrew to try to draw soldiers into an ambush…

The Israelis have made only partial progress in finding and destroying Hamas’s vast tunnel network. Israeli officials now estimate that Hamas built around 350 miles of tunnels under Gaza, which is less than 30 miles long and up to 8 miles wide. There are thought to be several hundred tunnels under Khan Younis alone, which occupies an area roughly the size of the Bronx in New York…Hamas uses the tunnels as military headquarters, to maneuver across the enclave’s cities, protect its leaders, hide Israeli and other hostages, manufacture weapons and conduct hit-and-run attacks. The tunnels also contain a fixed-line phone system that Hamas used to communicate earlier in the war, along with walkie-talkies, burner SIMs and satellite phones. But with Israel hacking into those systems, the militants have increasingly shifted to using runners to convey verbal or written messages.

The Israeli army has found no systematic solution for finding and destroying Hamas’s tunnels, many soldiers said. Tunnel entrances have been found in homes, schools, mosques, courtyards, streets and farm fields. Some are covered by steel doors, others by mattresses in a home. Israeli forces have mostly relied on drones and robots to search tunnels, only sending soldiers in later to avoid firefights in the narrow passages.

Excepts from Marcus Walker, Why Hamas Thinks it Still Could Win the War, WSJ, Feb.29, 2024

The Curse of Nano-Plastics: Plastics in the Placenta

A flurry of recent studies has found that microplastics are present in virtually everything we consume, from bottled water to meat and plant-based food. Now, University of New Mexico Health Sciences researchers have used a new analytical tool to measure the microplastics present in human placentas. In a study published February 17 in the journal Toxicological Sciences, a team led by Matthew Campen, reported finding microplastics in all 62 of the placenta samples tested, with concentrations ranging from 6.5 to 790 micrograms per gram of tissue.

Although those numbers may seem small (a microgram is a millionth of a gram), Campen is worried about the health effects of a steadily rising volume of microplastics in the environment. For toxicologists, “dose makes the poison,” he said. “If the dose keeps going up, we start to worry. If we’re seeing effects on placentas, then all mammalian life on this planet could be impacted. That’s not good.”…The researchers found the most prevalent polymer in placental tissue was polyethylene, which is used to make plastic bags and bottles. It accounted for 54% of the total plastics. Polyvinyl chloride (better known as PVC) and nylon each represented about 10% of the total, with the remainder consisting of nine other polymers…

Plastic use worldwide has grown exponentially since the early 1950s, producing a metric ton of plastic waste for every person on the planet. About a third of the plastic that has been produced is still in use, but most of the rest has been discarded or sent to landfills, where it starts to break down from exposure to ultraviolet radiation present in sunlight. “That ends up in groundwater, and sometimes it aerosolizes and ends up in our environment,” Garcia said. “We’re not only getting it from ingestion but also through inhalation as well. It not only affects us as humans, but all off our animals – chickens, livestock – and all of our plants. We’re seeing it in everything.”…The concentration of microplastics in placentas is particularly troubling, he said, because the tissue has only been growing for eight months (it starts to form about a month into a pregnancy). “Other organs of your body are accumulating over much longer periods of time.”

Excepts from Michael Haederle, Microplastics in Every Human Placenta, Feb. 20, 2024

Death at Five Times the Speed of Sound: Hypersonics

The U.S. is years behind its biggest rivals in cutting-edge hypersonic missile technology. Silicon Valley is betting it can help the military catch up…Silicon Valley’s entry into the hypersonic race is one of the most ambitious examples of its recent dive into the defense industry…Seth Winterroth, a partner at Eclipse Ventures, a Silicon Valley defense-tech venture firm that backed hypersonic startup Ursa Major, said the enormity of the technical challenge of hypersonic systems requires collaboration between startups, large defense firms and the government…

Hypersonic aircraft and weapons fly at five times the speed of sound or faster, which is at least 3,800 miles an hour. The aircraft must be able to withstand temperatures of thousands of degrees. The major powers of the world are in a race to develop the most sophisticated missiles that can be launched from long distances, evade air defenses, maneuver and strike targets quickly—before the enemy can make preparations or even know they are coming….

Beijing surprised U.S. military leaders when, in 2021, it launched a hypersonic missile over the South China Sea that traveled at speeds of more than 15,000 mph. Russia is using hypersonic missiles against Ukraine, including a new one Moscow says can travel eight times the speed of sound with a 660-pound warhead.

Excepts from Heather Somerville, Silicon Valley’s Next Mission: Help the U.S. Catch China and Russia in Hypersonic Weapons, WSJ, Feb. 28, 2024