Image is of the Herðubreið tuya in northeast Iceland, formed when ice sheets covered Iceland thousands of years ago. It's not really relevant to the Grindavik situation but I think they look neat. The title also doesn't make much sense but I saw the pun and took it.
Off in Iceland, different kinds of tunnels are causing problems. Underneath the town of Grindavik in southwestern Iceland, not far from the capital of Reykjavik, tens of thousands of earthquakes are portending the movement of magma in tunnels underneath the peninsula, which could breach the surface and cause an eruption. The 4000 residents of the town have been evacuated as the magma has risen to less than a kilometer below the surface.^TRG^
Icelandic volcanism is pretty fascinating, with the country sitting on the mid-Atlantic ridge, the birthing line of new oceanic crustal rock running right down the Atlantic ocean for many thousands of kilometers, as well as a hotspot, an upwelling of mantle material of debated origin which also feeds otherwise-inexplicable volcanism in the middle of tectonic plates, like Yellowstone and Hawaii.
An additional factor here is the presence of glaciers. When a volcano erupts underneath a glacier, the melting water cools the lava rapidly, causing features usually seen in volcanoes that erupt under the sea like pillow basalts, but also unique features like tuyas, which are steep-sided but flat-topped volcanoes. The rapid melting of water can also cause glacial floods called jökulhlaups.
Icelandic volcanoes have had significant regional and even global impacts in the past. In 2010, the volcano Eyjafjallajökull, which was a volcano covered by an ice cap, erupted and the ash cloud spread across Europe, causing airline disruption for about a month which caused nearly $2 billion in total losses for airline companies - though this seems pretty quaint compared to the pandemic's impact on airlines in retrospect. Back in the 1780s, the Laki volcano killed a quarter of the Icelandic population due to sulphur dioxide causing massive crop failure and cattle death. This eruption's impacts spread to Europe and beyond, causing notable worldwide temperature drops and thus crop failures and may well have been a contributing factor to the outbreak of the French Revolution, which obviously heralded the death of the feudal order and the eventual primacy of capitalism in its place. That being said, any eruption at Grindavik is very probably not going to have any significant worldwide impacts - there are over a hundred volcanoes already in Iceland, and regular climate change is doing a great job at causing mayhem right now anyway. It's also still possible that there won't be an eruption at all, at least not in the short to medium term.
Friendly reminder: when commenting about a news event, especially something that just happened, please provide a source of some kind. While ideally this would be on nitter or archived, any source is preferable to none at all given.
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
The Country of the Week is Iceland! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
This week's update is here!
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Last week's discussion post.
Why is Blackrock picking the next head of the Bank of England? Deputy Governor will almost certainly be Governor later.
https://archive.is/uX8eg
spoiler
A BlackRock Inc. executive will help choose the second most powerful official at the Bank of England, an arrangement that gives the world’s largest money manager a chance to help shape future policy direction by the central bank.Downing Street has tapped Stephen Cohen, BlackRock’s head of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, to sit on a five-member panel reviewing prospective deputy governors for the BOE. The Treasury needs to replace Ben Broadbent, the bank’s deputy governor for monetary policy, who is due to step down in June. BlackRock manages billions of pounds of macro funds in the UK, which are sensitive to the central bank’s interest-rate policy. Broadbent, an economist and one of nine members of the committee that sets interest rates, arguably holds its next most important job after Governor Andrew Bailey.
The Treasury is seeking someone with “deep financial markets knowledge” and an understanding of how those markets interact “with the real economy,” according to an advertisement for the job that pays £288,700 ($360,500) a year.
Cohen will help draw up a shortlist and then interview selected candidates before making final recommendations to Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt. Carsten Jung, a senior economist at the Institute for Public Policy Research who used to work at the BOE, said the Treasury’s arrangement gave “the appearance of a conflict of interest — given the bank is responsible for policing the financial system and making a person who represents one of the most powerful players in the financial markets part of the recruitment process.”
The Treasury didn’t respond to questions about whether Cohen’s appointment posed a potential conflict. The department said it was seeking to solicit a variety of opinions about candidates for the job.
“Given the importance of this role, panel members were chosen who bring a diversity of thought across public and private sector, with deep expertise in financial markets and macroeconomics,” the Treasury said in statement. “Stephen Cohen was chosen as someone who meets this criteria.” BlackRock and the BOE declined to comment.
While the governance code on public appointments published in 2016 required assessment panels to include a member independent of the Treasury and bank, the department has only recently appointed members without prior government or central bank experience. The only similar example cited by people familiar with the process was Abrdn Plc Chairman Douglas Flint, who sits on the panel charged with reviewing candidates for an external appointment to the BOE’s Financial Policy Committee.
The Treasury wants to use more private sector experts on appointment panels to stamp out what it perceives as group think in policymaking, according to one person with knowledge of the situation. They believe that people like Cohen and Flint bring in a perspective less influenced by the culture of government. BlackRock has long enjoyed close ties with the UK government. Former Chancellor George Osborne was an adviser to the company between 2017 and 2021. Former Osborne aide Rupert Harrison is a portfolio manager there and sits on an Economic Advisory Council created by Hunt last year. The vetting panel Cohen sits on is led by James Bowler, permanent secretary at the Treasury. It also includes Sam Beckett, chief economic adviser at the Treasury; David Roberts, chair of the BOE court of directors; and Charlie Bean, a former BOE deputy governor for monetary policy. Time Pressure
Erik Britton, director of Fathom Consulting and another former BOE economist, said that Cohen’s role “presents a risk of conflict.” There should have been “some level of parliamentary disclosure or consultation process that set out the safeguards to minimize the risk of the perception of conflicts,” Britton said. Although the appointment doesn’t need to be announced until March, the potential for a general election next year is putting pressure on the government to fill it soon. Once the prime minister dissolves Parliament, appointment processes are frozen.
Applications were due in by Wednesday, with interviews slated to be completed by Jan. 12. Headhunter Korn Ferry is running the recruitment effort. Jung, at the Institute for Public Policy Research, said it’s unclear why a BlackRock executive had to be involved in the process. “There would have been a plethora of other options for people with a deep knowledge of financial markets who don’t have a current vested interest in bank policy,” Jung said.
Three posts in a row. You work way too hard for us, comrade.
Just doing my daily news rounds I will always drop the interesting things I see here.
BlackRock and UK Gov doing a bit of the old Imperialism
Well, allowing democratically elected leaders to appoint the leader of the central bank would be authoritarian.