September 18 2024

FLASH Federal Reserve to announce new interest rate today, market expect 0.5% cut
1 Hezbollah Hit by Massive Clandestine Exploding Pagers Attack, Thousands of Casualties
2 Meta Unveils Instagram Teen Accounts with Parental Controls
3 Meta Bans RT and Russian State Media Networks from All Platforms
4 Young U.S. Women Increasingly Identify as Liberal, Widening Gender Gap
5 U.S. Shrugs as World War III Approaches
9/18/1977 Voyager I takes first photo of Earth and the Moon together

See the new Ad Astra Podcast! Released on Apple and Spotify around 9a CST.

FLASH Federal Reserve to announce new interest rate today, market expect 0.5% cut

1 Hezbollah Hit by Massive Clandestine Exploding Pagers Attack, Thousands of Casualties

Overview  

Pagers carried by thousands of Hezbollah operatives exploded at about the same time Tuesday afternoon in what appeared to be an unprecedented attack that authorities said injured almost 2,800 and killed nine across Lebanon. Many of the affected pagers were from a new shipment that the group received in recent days, people familiar with the matter said. A Hezbollah official said many fighters had such devices, adding that some people felt the pagers heat up and disposed of them before they burst. Hezbollah said a number of pagers carried by its members exploded simultaneously at 3:30 p.m. local time. It couldn’t immediately be determined what caused the blasts, which were spread out across the country in several areas where Hezbollah has a heavy presence. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for the attack. 

How they did it?  

Israel carried out its operation against Hezbollah on Tuesday by hiding explosive material within a new batch of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon, according to American and other officials briefed on the operation. The pagers, which Hezbollah had ordered from Gold Apollo in Taiwan, had been tampered with before they reached Lebanon, according to some of the officials. Most were the company’s AR924 model, though three other Gold Apollo models were also included in the shipment. The explosive material, as little as one to two ounces, was implanted next to the battery in each pager, two of the officials said. A switch was also embedded that could be triggered remotely to detonate the explosives.  

Context  

This was the backbone of Hezbollah and Iranian communications in Lebanon and Syria.  Lacking communications except on public cellular phones, it will be difficult for Hezbollah to launch coordinated missile attacks on Israel, as they have done as recently as the last few days. The last time this level of cyber attack was mounted, that we know of, was the US and Israeli attack on Iran's uranium enrichment centrifuges in 2010.  That was the Stuxnet computer worm.  Stuxnet caused the controllers of the centrifuges to speed them up too fast until they broke down and their spinning carbon-carbon rotors disintegrated.  So far as is known, there were no casualties in the Stuxnet attack.   

Retaliation  

Hizbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel for a sophisticated and co-ordinated attack that detonated thousands of pagers carried by the Lebanese militia’s members, killing at least a dozen and injuring thousands and plunging Beirut into a widespread panic.

Article Source: WSJ, NYT, Weapon and Strategy Substack, FT

2 Meta Unveils Instagram Teen Accounts with Parental Controls

Today, we’re introducing Instagram Teen Accounts, a new experience for teens, guided by parents. Teen Accounts have built-in protections which limit who can contact them and the content they see, and also provide new ways for teens to explore their interests. We’ll automatically place teens into Teen Accounts, and teens under 16 will need a parent’s permission to change any of these settings to be less strict.  Private accounts: With default private accounts, teens need to accept new followers and people who don’t follow them can’t see their content or interact with them. This applies to all teens under 16 (including those already on Instagram and those signing up) and teens under 18 when they sign up for the app.

Article Source: Meta

3 Meta Bans RT and Russian State Media Networks from All Platform

Facebook owner Meta said on Monday it was banning RT, Rossiya Segodnya and other Russian state media networks from its platforms, claiming the outlets had used deceptive tactics to carry out covert influence operations online. The ban, strongly criticised by the Kremlin, marks a sharp escalation in measures by the world's biggest social media company against Russian state media, after years of more limited steps such as blocking the outlets from running ads and reducing the reach of their posts. In addition to Facebook, Meta's apps include Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads. Prior to the ban, RT had more than 7.2 million followers on Facebook and more than 1 million followers on Instagram. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday: "Meta is discrediting itself with these actions.”  Moscow branded Meta an "extremist" organisation in 2022 and blocked Instagram and Facebook, objecting to changes in Meta's hate speech policy designed to allow users to vent their anger over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Moscow's pre-existing bans on Instagram and Facebook may limit its ability to respond to Meta's state media block, but WhatsApp, which Russia has stopped short of banning so far, is used by millions of Russians. Telegram Messenger, whose Russian founder Pavel Durov was placed under formal investigation in France last month, is also widely used in Russia.

Article Source: Reuters

4 Young U.S. Women Increasingly Identify as Liberal, Widening Gender Gap

Forty-one percent of U.S. women aged 18 to 29 identify as liberal, surpassing both their male age peers and women and men in older age groups. Young women's identification as politically liberal increased modestly between 2001 and 2014, at the same time significant societal and political events were occurring. However, it rose to a new high of 34% in 2015, after which it rose to as high as 44% (in 2020 and 2021) and is 41% thus far in 2024. Mirroring their heightened liberal self-identification, today's young women also hold more liberal views on specific issues, particularly the environment, abortion and gun laws.

Article Source: Gallup

5 U.S. Shrugs as World War III Approaches

the recently released report of the Commission on the National Defense Strategy. This panel of eight experts, named by the senior Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate Armed Services committees, consulted widely across government, reviewing both public and classified information, and issued a unanimous report that, in a healthy political climate, would be the central topic in national conversation. The bipartisan report details a devastating picture of political failure, strategic inadequacy and growing American weakness in a time of rapidly increasing danger. The U.S. faces the “most serious and most challenging” threats since 1945, including the real risk of “near-term major war.” The report warns: “The nation was last prepared for such a fight during the Cold War, which ended 35 years ago. It is not prepared today.” Worse, “China and Russia’s ‘no-limits’ partnership, formed in February 2022 just days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has only deepened and broadened to include a military and economic partnership with Iran and North Korea. . . . This new alignment of nations opposed to U.S. interests creates a real risk, if not likelihood, that conflict anywhere could become a multitheater or global war.” Should such a conflict break out, “the Commission finds that the U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat.” To summarize, World War III is becoming more likely in the near term, and the U.S. is too weak either to prevent it or, should war come, to be confident of victory.

Article Source: Walter Russell Mead, WSJ Opinion

9/18/1977 Voyager I takes first photo of Earth and the Moon together

Sources

2. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hundreds-of-hezbollah-operatives-pagers-explode-in-apparent-attack-across-lebanon-cf31cad4?st=q6SbCj&reflink=article_copyURL_share; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/17/world/middleeast/israel-hezbollah-pagers-explosives.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare; https://open.substack.com/pub/weapons/p/exploding-pagers-in-lebanon-and-syria?r=d9vo5&utm_medium=ios; https://on.ft.com/4erg7QC

3. https://about.fb.com/news/2024/09/instagram-teen-accounts/?utm_campaign=article_email&utm_content=article-13628&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sg

4. https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/meta-bans-rt-other-russian-state-media-networks-2024-09-17/?utm_campaign=%5BREBRAND%5D+%5BTI-AM%5D+Th&utm_content=1095&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cio&utm_term=124

5. https://news.gallup.com/poll/649826/exploring-growing-liberal-views-young-women.aspx?utm_source=gallup_brand&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=front_page_september_4_09242024&utm_term=information&utm_content=identify_as_liberal_textlink_2

6. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/u-s-shrugs-as-world-war-iii-approaches-devastating-bipartisan-report-716bda71?st=dvVn26&reflink=article_copyURL_share