Issue 19
1 US military sinks 3 pirate vessels in Red Sea
2 2023 stock market review
3 Marriage and fertility rates dropping in China
4 Israel shifting to lower intensity combat operations
5 US office owners face wall of debt repayments in 2024
1/2/1974 Nixon signs national speed limit into law
I’m starting a new Substack at heartland citizen journal with a daily update of central Kansas news and sports by 6p CST. If you’re interested, subscribe – its free!
1 US military sinks 3 pirate vessels in Red Sea
On Dec. 31 at 6:30am (Sanaa time) the container ship MAERSK HANGZHOU issued a second distress call in less than 24 hours reporting being under attack by four Iranian-backed Houthi small boats. U.S. helicopters from the USS EISENHOWER and GRAVELY responded to the distress call and in the process of issuing verbal calls to the small boats, the small boats fired upon the U.S. helicopters with crew served weapons and small arms. The U.S. Navy helicopters returned fire in self-defense, sinking three of the four small boats, and killing the crews. The fourth boat fled the area. There was no damage to U.S. personnel or equipment. (@CENTCOM)
2 2023 stock market review: S&P 500 up 24%, Dow up 14%, NASDAQ up 44%
The Federal Reserve raised interest rates at the fastest clip since the 1980s, a regional banking crisis felled Silicon Valley Bank, and war broke out in the Middle East. Yet stocks kept climbing. The S&P 500 finished up 24%, just shy of its January 2022 record. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 14% to top 37000 for the first time and set seven record closes in the final days of 2023. A mania surrounding artificial intelligence and big technology stocks sent the Nasdaq Composite soaring 44%. (WSJ)
3 Marriage and fertility rates dropping in China
With the number of babies in free fall—fewer than 10 million were born in 2022, compared with around 16 million in 2012—China is headed toward a demographic collapse. China’s population, now around 1.4 billion, is likely to drop to just around half a billion by 2100, according to some projections.
Over 51 per cent of people aged between 25 and 29 in China remained single in 2022, up from 48.7 per cent for the previous year, the 2023 China Population and Employment Statistical Yearbook showed. The unmarried rate for the thirty-something age group also rose mildly, according to data based on a sample survey conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics in November 2022. Meanwhile, the annual fertility rate for women of childbearing age – the number of births for every 1,000 women aged between 15 and 49 – dropped from 31.27 in 2021 to 30.22 in 2022, the survey showed. (WSJ, South China Morning Post)
4 Israel shifting to lower intensity combat operations in Gaza
Israel will withdraw thousands of troops from Gaza, signaling a shift from the “main war” (Stage 2) to a longer, lower-intensity conflict in Gaza (Stage 3) in the next two to four weeks. (Jerusalem Post, Al Jazeera)
5 US office owners face wall of debt repayments in 2024
Billions of dollars of debt will fall due this year on hundreds of big US office buildings that their owners are likely to struggle to refinance at current interest rates. There are $117bn of commercial mortgages tied to offices which either need to be repaid or refinanced in 2024, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association. (FT)
1/2/1974 To conserve oil, President Nixon signs national speed limit into law
Thanks for reading!
Sports
XFL, USFL to merge
The merger of the USFL and XFL into one spring pro football league is now official, as the United Football League will kick off on March 30, 2024. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Dany Garcia made the announcement Sunday on the NFL on Fox pregame show. (The Athletic)
Week 17 NFL highlights
• Ravens, 49ers clinch the top seeds
• With Week 17 loss, Eagles open the door for Cowboys to win NFC East
• Bears clinch No. 1 draft pick
• AFC East Championship Game coming in Week 18 in Miami
• Colts and Texans face a winner-is-in Week 18
(The Athletic)
Rose Bowl: Michigan beats Alabama in OT 27-20
Sugar Bowl: Washington survives shootout to beat Texas 37-31
CFP national title game set, Michigan (-4.5) v Washington next Mon 1/8/24
In depth
US military expands footprint to heavily disputed South China Sea
On February 2, 1995, just over two years after the last American soldiers had left the Philippines, a Filipino navy patrol boat found a newly built structure on stilts flying a Chinese flag on a submerged reef, some 240 kilometres (149 miles) off the Philippine island of Palawan. The sailors had gone to Mischief Reef in the South China Sea after a Filipino fisherman reported being taken captive by Chinese soldiers in the area. Beijing, which claims nearly all of the South China Sea, dismissed the allegations and insisted that the octagonal structure on the reef – which was equipped with a satellite dish for communications with the Chinese mainland – was merely a shelter for its fishermen.
Today, Mischief Reef is a fully fledged Chinese military outpost, with a 3,000-metre airfield runway, radar systems and warehouses probably housing surface-to-air missile systems on land reclaimed from the sea. Chinese navy and coastguard vessels patrol the area, harassing Filipino troops, including by using military-grade lasers and water cannon, and blocking Filipino fishermen from the rich fishing grounds in the waterway by ramming their boats and seizing their catches.
Now, three decades after the Philippines ended a vast US military presence that began with the capture of the archipelago from Spain in 1898, American troops are again returning. Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who took office last year, has pivoted to Washington, in a reversal of his predecessor’s policy, expanding the US’s military footprint in the country under their Mutual Defense Treaty of 1951 and a pact called the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). He has now authorised the Pentagon to pre-position equipment and rotate forces through a total of nine sites in the Philippines. Some are in Palawan, near the disputed Spratlys, and some face north towards Taiwan, the self-governed island that Beijing claims as its own territory. Marcos has also extracted a promise from US President Joe Biden that American troops will come to the Philippines’ defence in the event of an attack on the Southeast Asian nation’s armed forces in the South China Sea, something Washington had been reluctant to commit to earlier. (Al Jazeera)
Taiwan election January 13 threatens to become geopolitical flashpoint
Beijing’s policy towards the self-ruled island it claims as its own will again be under the spotlight when voters in Taiwan go to the polls on January 13 to choose a new president and parliament, and the United States will be watching closely. At the moment, William Lai Ching-te, the incumbent vice president and the candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), is expected to emerge the winner. That result would likely rankle Beijing, which portrays Lai as a “separatist” bent on independence and ensure continued tension across the narrow strait that separates the island from China. (Al Jazeera, Economist)
