What A List: Check Out The Arsenal Of Military Gear Biden Is Giving Ukraine

ByStavros Atlamazoglou
Published 3 days ago

Harpoon Block II. Image Credit: Boeing.

How much aid can we send to Ukraine? Over the past couple of months, the Ukrainian military has been expending vast amounts of long-range fire ammunition to support its defensive operations in the Donbas and its counteroffensive in the direction of Kherson.

To replenish the Ukrainian ammo stocks, the White House has greenlighted another security package, the 17th since the war began, to Ukraine.

More Ammo for Ukraine!

The new security package comprises ammunition for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and the M-777 155mm howitzers solely. Both weapon systems have been critical in the Ukrainian military’s operations, but the HIMARS particularly has been a game-changer, taking out Russian targets miles behind the frontlines.

-75,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition;

-Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).

“Today, the Department of Defense (DoD) announces the authorization of a Presidential Drawdown of security assistance valued at up to $550 million to meet Ukraine’s critical security and defense needs. This authorization is the Biden Administration’s seventeenth drawdown of equipment from DoD inventories for Ukraine since August 2021,” the Department of Defence said in a press release.

In the last two years, the U.S. has committed to providing Ukraine with approximately $8.8 billion in military aid (and billions more in economic and humanitarian assistance), with approximately $8.1 billion of that security assistance given since the conflict started more than five months ago on February 24.

In the last two months alone, the U.S. has committed almost $3 billion of security assistance to Ukraine. And since 2014, when Moscow first attacked Ukraine in Crimea and the Donbas, the U.S. has provided Kyiv with more than $10 billion in security assistance.

“To meet its evolving battlefield requirements, the United States will continue to work with its Allies and partners to provide Ukraine with key capabilities,” the Department of Defense added.

Weapons, Weapons, Weapons Headed to Ukraine

Since the Russian invasion started, the U.S. has provided or committed to providing Ukraine with the following weapon systems, munitions, military supplies, and non-lethal equipment:

Over 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems;

Over 6,500 Javelin anti-armor systems;

Over 20,000 other anti-armor systems;

Over 700 Switchblade Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems;

126 155mm Howitzers and up to 486,000 155mm artillery rounds;

72,000 105mm artillery rounds;

126 Tactical Vehicles to tow 155mm Howitzers;

NATO Stinger missile. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

22 Tactical Vehicles to recover equipment;

16 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and ammunition;

Four Command Post vehicles;

Two National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS);

20 Mi-17 helicopters;

Counter-battery systems;

Hundreds of Armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles;

200 M113 Armored Personnel Carriers;

Over 10,000 grenade launchers and small arms;

Over 59,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition;

75,000 sets of body armor and helmets;

Approximately 700 Phoenix Ghost Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems;

Laser-guided rocket systems;

Puma Unmanned Aerial Systems;

U.S. Soldiers assigned to the 65th Field Artillery Brigade, and soldiers from the Kuwait Land Forces fire their High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (U.S.) and BM-30 Smerch rocket systems (Kuwait) during a joint live-fire exercise, Jan. 8, 2019, near Camp Buehring, Kuwait. The U.S. and Kuwaiti forces train together frequently to maintain a high level of combat readiness and to maintain effective communication between the two forces. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. James Lefty Larimer)

Unmanned Coastal Defense Vessels;

26 counter-artillery radars;

Four counter-mortar radars;

Four air surveillance radars;

Two harpoon coastal defense systems;

18 coastal and riverine patrol boats;

M18A1 Claymore anti-personnel munitions;

C-4 explosives, demolition munitions, and demolition equipment for obstacle clearing;

Tactical secure communications systems;

Thousands of night vision devices, thermal imagery systems, optics, and laser rangefinders;

Commercial satellite imagery services;

Explosive ordnance disposal protective gear;

Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear protective equipment;

Medical supplies to include first aid kits;

Electronic jamming equipment;

Field equipment and spare parts;

Funding for training, maintenance, and sustainment.

WRITTEN BY Stavros Atlamazoglou
1945’s Defense and National Security Columnist, Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense journalist with specialized expertise in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate. His work has been featured in Business Insider, Sandboxx, and SOFREP.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

Who Are the Biggest Producers and Consumers of Renewables?
by Andreas Exarheas
|Rigzone Staff
|Thursday, August 04, 2022

BP's latest annual statistical review of world energy has revealed the biggest producers and consumers of renewable energy.

According to BP’s latest annual statistical review of world energy, the biggest producer of renewables in 2021 was China with a renewable energy generation figure of 1,152.5 terawatt hours (TH).

The country’s 2021 renewable energy production was up 33.9 percent compared to 2020’s figure of 863.2 TH, BP highlighted. China’s renewable energy generation stood at 742 TH in 2019, 636.4 TH in 2018, 502 TH in 2017, 369.5 TH in 2016, and 279.1 TH in 2015, BP outlined. The majority of China’s renewable energy production in 2021 came in the form of wind energy at 655.6 TH, BP pointed out.

In 2021, the U.S. had the second highest renewable energy production figure at 624.5 TH, while Germany had the third highest at 217.6 TH, according to BP, which highlighted that the U.S. figure was up 14.3 percent compared to 2020, while Germany’s figure was down 5.9 percent compared to 2020.

China was also the biggest renewable energy consumer in 2021 with 11.32 exajoules, BP revealed, outlining that this figure was up 33.1 percent compared to China’s 2020 consumption figure of 8.52 exajoules. China’s renewable energy consumption came in at 7.38 exajoules in 2019, 6.37 exajoules in 2018, 5.06 exajoules in 2017, 3.78 exajoules in 2016, and 2.90 exajoules in 2015, BP highlighted.

The U.S. had the second highest renewable energy consumption figure last year at 7.48 exajoules, while Germany had the third highest at 2.28 exajoules, according to BP’s latest statistical review of world energy.

Total renewable energy generation in 2021 was shown to have hit 3,657.2 TH, which was 16.5 percent higher than 2020’s figure of 3,146.6 TH, BP highlighted. Total renewable energy consumption in 2021 was shown to have come in at 39.91 exajoules, which was up 15 percent compared to 2020’s figure of 34.80 exajoules, BP pointed out.

To see who produced the most oil and gas in 2021, click here. 

To see who consumed the most oil and gas in 2021, click here. 

To contact the author, email andreas.exarheas@rigzone.com

Diamond exploration hits a new low — even as rough prices soar
Alisha Hiyate | August 3, 2022 | 

Diamonds recovered at the Star-Orion South project. Credit: Star Diamond.

There are few things that are more alluring and exciting than a diamond — but one of them is a significant new diamond discovery. Now those are truly rare.


In Canada, we haven’t had a significant diamond discovery for years — and the current lack of spending on exploration makes one less likely to happen in the future.

Globally, exploration for diamonds has nearly ground to a halt. In Canada last year, coal exploration attracted more spending than diamond exploration ($61 million vs. $50 million), which fell 21% from the previous year, hitting a 20-year low.

Adding to this downward momentum, in June, Rio Tinto suddenly pressed pause on its 75%-owned Fort à la Corne (Star-Orion South) diamond joint venture in Saskatchewan. After pouring more than $180 million over the past six years into a bulk-sampling program and other work to evaluate the project, Rio Tinto told JV partner Star Diamond it would not be spending more money this year “beyond what is necessary for care and maintenance.” Star Diamond, which holds 25% of the large but low-grade project, said that Rio also advised that it “intends to conduct a near-term review of its alternatives regarding the project, including its potential exit.”

It’s not clear yet what Rio Tinto will ultimately decide to do. But further investment, rather than pulling back, would have given the sector a much-needed shot in the arm. And the company, which saw its Argyle mine in Australia close in late 2020, certainly needs to replace that production and would be motivated to make the project work, if possible.

While the diamond trade and diamond prices were devastated by the pandemic, prices have made a strong comeback (in part benefiting from uneven efforts globally to avoid purchasing diamonds mined by Russia’s Alrosa). De Beers reported a 58% rise in its average selling price to US$213 per carat for rough diamonds in the first half of the year, and its rough price index rose 28% compared to the same period of 2021.

That’s not likely to help revive exploration immediately, however.

The fact is that there have been too many surprises in diamond development around the world, which have shattered investor confidence.

The Australian diamonds that no one can see
Staff Writer | August 3, 2022 | 6:06 am Education News Australia Diamond

Metamorphic diamonds are very different from the rocks normally used for jewellery, like the one pictured here. (Image by Robert M. Lavinsky, Wikimedia Commons).

Researchers working at the Clarke River Fault, west of Paluma in north Queensland, found the first metamorphic diamonds in rocks in Australia.


In a paper published in the journal Science Advances, the scientists point out that the diamonds are invisible to the naked eye.

“Don’t go to Paluma and start looking for them. Even for us, it was very difficult to find them,” Ioan Sanislav, co-author of the study, said in a media statement. “We had to analyze many, many thin sections of rock, and to prove the diamonds were there, it took about a year-and-a-half.”

Sanislav explained that metamorphic diamonds are formed in subduction zones when two land masses collide, causing the edge of one tectonic plate to descend below another and sink deep within the earth’s interior.

Photo taken from a microscope showing metamorphic diamonds in rocks collected from the Clarke River Fault west of Paluma. Diamonds are identified by the white arrows.

 (Image by Alexander Edgar, courtesy of James Cook University).

The process of metamorphism, which takes millions of years, generates a massive increase in pressure and temperature as rocks, once at the earth’s surface, descend to the mantle before coming back up in the form of metamorphic rocks containing the tiny diamonds.

As the super small diamonds are different from the more commonly recognized diamonds initially formed in the earth’s mantle, the researchers had to use a special Raman microscope to identify them.

The device works by shooting a laser beam onto a rock sample which can then be used to determine the presence of minerals contained in the rock.

“The light then gets scattered and each mineral has a characteristic response, which gets back to the detector,” Sanislav said.

Until he and his colleagues confirmed the find near Paluma, there were only six other locations in the world where metamorphic diamonds were known to exist, ranging in size from microscopic right down to nanoscopic.

“In some places, there are metamorphic diamonds which you can’t even see with a microscope. You just see a reading in the rock which indicates they are in there,” the scientist said.

Sanislav noted that he was drawn to investigate the presence of metamorphic diamonds in the Clarke River Fault due to the work of a former student, who found evidence suggesting the rocks there had potentially experienced high-pressure metamorphism.

“This discovery will influence our understanding of the tectonic models and how the eastern coast of Australia formed,” he said.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
World Series of Poker player charged with spoofing gold market
Bloomberg News | August 5, 2022 |

Daniel Shak. Credit: World Poker Tour via Flickr

A Nevada metals trader with a side gig on the world poker circuit was charged Friday with manipulating gold and silver markets using a technique called spoofing.


The Commodity Futures Trading Commission alleges that Daniel Shak, who also runs a small hedge fund, repeatedly placed orders for gold and silver futures contracts with the intent to cancel the bids or offers before execution. Called spoofing, the practice gained notoriety following a high-profile criminal case involving several JPMorgan Chase & Co. bankers.

“These charges demonstrate once again that the CFTC will vigorously prosecute to the fullest extent of the law, misconduct that has the potential to undermine the integrity of our markets,” Gretchen Lowe, the CFTC’s acting division of enforcement director, said in a statement.

The announcement comes as jurors in Chicago continued a fifth full day of deliberations in the massive JPMorgan spoofing case, in which three former bankers are accused of running a criminal enterprise and conspiring to commit price manipulation, wire fraud, commodities fraud and spoofing on precious metals futures markets.

Shak already has a history with the CFTC, having settled with the agency in March 2015 over claims that he traded during the closing minute of the gold futures market after being ordered not to.

Shak, who is the founder of SHK Management LLC, is better known for competing in more than 150 major poker tournament events in which he earned more than $11.7 million going back to 2004. Precious metals investors may also remember Shak from more than a decade ago when the Wall Street Journal reported that his hedge fund roiled the gold market after it had made bad bets, forcing him to liquidate the position and return money to clients.

Shak at the time held gold contracts worth more than 10% of the US futures market.

(By Joe Deaux)

Ten Mexican miners remain trapped in coal mine after three rescued
Reuters | August 4, 2022 

Hardhat in a mine. (Image from RawPixel, CC0).

Rescuers in Mexico, including dozens of soldiers, were working desperately on Wednesday to reach ten miners trapped in a flooded coal mine following the collapse of an inner wall, the ministry handling the disaster said.


Three miners had been rescued and hospitalized, the Security and Citizen Protection Ministry said in an update on the rescue efforts at the mine in the Sabinas municipality of the northern state of Coahuila.

Television footage showed family members outside the mine clamoring for information on the missing men.

“I hope we find them safe,” Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said earlier on Twitter. Lopez Obrador had said nine miners were likely to be trapped, but authorities revised the number later.

Some 92 soldiers were working at the scene, as well as specialists and rescue dogs, the president said.

The Labor Ministry said it had not received any complaints about safety at the mine, which began operations in January.

(By Carolina Pulice, Adriana Barrera and Valentine Hilaire; Editing by Brendan O’Boyle, Sandra Maler and Simon Cameron-Moore)

Day after Mexico mine collapse, families fret over 10 trapped miners

Reuters | August 4, 2022 | 

Stock image.

Families grew increasingly anxious on Thursday as they awaited word from rescue teams tasked with descending a flooded coal mine in northern Mexico to rescue 10 workers nearly 24 hours after an accident confined the crew deep underground.


The miners became trapped on Wednesday after their excavation work caused a tunnel wall to collapse, triggering flooding in three wells.

Erika Escobedo, the wife of one of the trapped miners, 29-year-old Hugo Tijerina, told Reuters she spent all night watching rescue efforts at the site in the northern border state of Coahuila.

“They say the water is rising,” she said, describing bigger water extraction pumps she saw hauled to the site.

Mexico’s Civil Protection agency did not immediately respond when asked about efforts to pump out the water, and if levels were rising.

Its director, Laura Velazquez, said earlier on Thursday that time was everything, and several hundred officials were “working day and night” to assist with the rescue.

Six divers from the Mexican Special Forces arrived at the site on Thursday morning to help the rescue effort along with search dogs, according to Agustin Radilla, a top military official. The mine’s wells, each 60 meters deep, were more than half flooded, Radilla added.

Families keeping vigil remained on edge.

“I want my husband to come out all right,” said Escobedo, her voice breaking in a phone interview from the site, as she watched rescuers bore another tunnel to try to reach the miners.

For now, she has told her three children not to worry about their father and that he will come home okay.

Five other miners escaped the accident. They all received medical treatment, and two have been discharged from hospital.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said investigations into those responsible for the mine’s safety will come only after the rescue effort.

“With all my soul, I want us to rescue the miners,” he said at a news conference. The mine opened in January and had no “record of complaints for any type of abnormality,” the Labor Ministry reported yesterday.

Still Elizabeth Vielma, the mother of three men who work at the site but were not involved in Wednesday’s accident, said she worried about conditions there.

“They just give them the drills and send them down,” she said.

(By Lizbeth Diaz, Kylie Madry and Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Barbara Lewis and Marla Dickerson)

Mexican president promises non-stop effort to save 10 trapped miners

Reuters | August 4, 2022 | 

Andrés Manuel López Obrador. (Image courtesy of Mexican President’s Office.)

Rescue teams will work non-stop to free 10 miners trapped in a flooded coal mine in Mexico’s northern border state of Coahuila, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Thursday.


The miners became trapped on Wednesday after three wells at the mine overflowed, causing an inner wall to collapse.

“With all my soul, I want us to rescue the miners,” Lopez Obrador told a regular news conference.

Five others were able to escape received medical treatment, and two of them have been discharged from a public clinic, Laura Velazquez, head of Mexico’s civil protection agency, said.

Several hundred local and federal officials were responding to the accident, according to authorities, underscoring a “firm commitment” to rescuing the trapped miners, which requires pumping wells to send rescue teams down to the mines.

“We haven’t slept, we’re working day and night … Time is key,” she said in a video at the president’s news conference.

Lopez Obrador added investigations into those responsible for the mine’s safety would come only after the rescue effort.

“We’ll leave all of that for later … we’re going to try to save the miners,” he said.

According to the Labor Ministry, the mine, which began operations in January, had no existing safety complaints.

In one of Mexico’s worst mining disasters, at a coal mine in Coahuila in 2006, 65 men were killed with only two bodies ever recovered. Lopez Obrador has vowed to find the bodies of the other victims. The technically complex work is expected to last through 2024.

(By Kylie Madry, Daina Beth Solomon, Ana Isabel Martinez and Barbara Lewis)

From a murderous affair to an anonymous Black jockey, the true story behind the moving pictures in Jordan Peele's 'Nope'

Yoonji Han

Muybridge's study of a horse in motion reveals a glimpse into the world of Black jockeys in the 19th and 20th centuries. Eadweard Muybridge/National Gallery of Art

The movie 'Nope' features a clip of a Black jockey on a galloping horse.

Eadweard Muybridge, an English photographer, sought to capture horses and other animals in motion.
His photos offer a glimpse into the success of Black jockeys in the 19th and 20th centuries.

One of the early visuals in Jordan Peele's "Nope" features a clip of a Black jockey on a galloping horse in an entrancing loop.

"Did you know that the very first assembly of photographs to create a motion picture was a two-second clip of a Black man on a horse?" Emerald Haywood, played by Keke Palmer, asks at the start of the movie.

The clip was made of a series of photographs shot by Eadweard Muybridge, an English photographer who emigrated to the United States in the mid-1800s.

Like the characters in "Nope," who try to take photos and videos of an elusive alien presence, Muybridge set out to capture a near-impossible shot using 19th-century technology: galloping horses.

Muybridge's photographs not only helped advance understanding of animal motion, but also offer a glimpse into Black success during the Jim Crow era, according to historians.

"The world of sports and entertainment was one of few in which African Americans could excel," John Ott, an art history professor at James Madison University, said. "The photographs show the opportunities and the means by which they could achieve a middle-class livelihood."
The story behind Muybridge's photography project

Starting in 1873, former California governor and industrialist Leland Stanford first commissioned Muybridge to photograph one of his horses. The project ended up a success, capturing the horse at full speed.

The work Muybridge and Stanford began was interrupted in October 1874, when Muybridge discovered his wife had had an affair with their friend. He tracked the friend down and shot him point-blank. Muybridge was arrested that night.


When he went on trial for murder in February, Muybridge pleaded insanity due to a severe head injury he suffered in a stagecoach accident more than a deade prior. He was ultimately acquitted on the grounds of justifiable homicide. By 1877, Muybridge resumed his work with Stanford.

Muybridge captured more running horses at Stanford's farm in 1878. "The Horse in Motion" series included photographs of one horse, Sallie Gardner, with a jockey who some historians believe may have been a Black rider.



By Eadweard Muybridge, Animation: Nevit Dilmen - 

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division;

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a45870, Public Domain, Link

The clip used in "Nope" comes from a later project Muybridge worked on with the University of Pennsylvania in around 1883. He and Stanford had fallen out over credit issues. The university tasked Muybridge with expanding his earlier project to look at other forms of motion, from the movement of kangaroos and lions to humans performing somersaults and lifting weights.

Muybridge published his final compendium, titled "Animal Locomotion," in 1887. The collection included photographs of an unnamed Black jockey riding a horse named Sallie G. The only other person of color featured in the collection was Ben Bailey, a mixed-race boxer.

Historians say the inclusion of Black athletes was double-edged

As an outsider from England, Muybridge was not deeply involved in the political and social struggles in the US, according to art historian and curator Philip Prodger. But he said the inclusion of Black athletes in Muybridge's collection offered a glimpse into their place in the social milieu at the time.

Sports presented one of the few opportunities for Black Americans to achieve a middle-class life, according to historians. The majority of the Black population at the time were laborers and took on other service jobs.

"Boxing and horse racing were two fields where they could make a name for themselves and could mingle with white Americans," Ott said.

Black jockeys in particular saw major success. In 1875, the inaugural year of the Kentucky Derby, 13 of the 15 jockeys who competed were Black. Fifteen of the first 28 Derbys were won by Black jockeys.

James Winkfield, a two-time Kentucky Derby winner, raced across Europe after encountering racism in America.

 Courtesy Kentucky Derby Museum/Kinetic Corporation

But the opportunities came at a cost. The success of Black jockeys exposed them to long-standing racist ideas that African Americans were animalistic and "lesser," according to Ott. He added that horse-racing was also a physically punishing sport: Jockeys had to keep their weight down, and many turned to alcohol to curb their hunger.

As jockeys, which were originally not regarded as a high-status job, became more respected as a profession, and as horse-racing became more lucrative, Black Americans were increasingly shut out, Prodger said.

In 1905, the Washington Post published an article titled, "Negro Riders on the Wane: White Jockeys' Superior Intelligence Supersedes," where the author argued that the decline in Black jockeys was because the sport was no longer considered "ignoble."

"It cuts both ways, but it's ultimately a story of African Americans using opportunities available to them and recognizing the importance of imagery — using it to present themselves as accomplished," Ott said.

POLITICAL ECONOMY OF FOOTBALL
EPL sets high bar in European soccer, finances and glamor


Thu, August 4, 2022



GENEVA (AP) — The world’s richest soccer league starts a new season in England on Friday as the rest of Europe looks for ways to catch up.

Off the field, the English Premier League is a commercial juggernaut with broadcasting deals worldwide fueling player transfers and wages most others cannot match. It helps explain why some clubs created the Super League project.

League riches helped English champion Manchester City make the marquee summer signing. Erling Haaland’s arrival from Borussia Dortmund cost City more than 100 million pounds ($122 million) in transfer and agent fees.

While Haaland was a boyhood City fan whose father played there, he was also lured to a competitive league that avoids the one-club dominance recently seen in Germany, Italy and France.

On the field, five different teams have won the Premier League in the past 10 seasons, including Leicester’s stunning 2016 title. Though City has four of the past five titles, two were epic duels with Liverpool.

The Champions League is also feeling Premier League power with four different teams in the past four finals, including two all-English games. Liverpool was in three of the past five finals while winning just one Premier League title.

Those same four teams — City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham — are England’s entry in the Champions League this season.

Manchester United and Arsenal qualified only for the second-tier Europa League and are by far the wealthiest clubs in it.

Here’s a look at English financial dominance and the challenge for other top leagues:

ENGLAND’S EARNING

Premier League broadcast rights earned 3.64 billion euros ($3.7 billion) last season with Spain’s La Liga next best at around 2 billion euros ($2.04 billion), according to UEFA’s annual survey of European soccer.

“This is of course the best example in the world of how to market a sports competition,” Jacco Swart, managing director of the 30-nation European Leagues group, said in praise.

Evenly weighted cash distribution gave the worst Premier League team, Norwich, 98 million pounds ($119 million) in prize money that beat the entire budget for most European clubs.

English clubs took 10 of the top 18 places in the latest Deloitte list of highest earners. Abu Dhabi-owned Man City led with 644.9 million euros ($657 million).

The total wage bill for 20 Premier League clubs was 2.88 billion euros ($2.93 billion) in 2020, according to UEFA – 1 billion euros ($1.02 billion) above La Liga, and more than Germany’s Bundesliga and Italy’s Serie A combined.

SPAIN'S CHASING

La Liga skews prize money toward top clubs with the winner taking about 160 million euros ($163 million), up to three times more than other clubs.

It's good for Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético Madrid — who have won all the league titles since Valencia’s in 2004 — though not for competitive balance.

“They do not have a very long tradition of selling (rights) collectively,” Swart said.

Real Madrid’s response to tough times was winning yet another Champions League by improbably ousting the top three English clubs and Paris Saint-Germain.

Madrid and Barcelona have long raised their Champions League earnings by using influence at the European Club Association — which they left to launch the failed Super League — to steer prize money toward storied clubs.

Barcelona has eased its own financial crisis, fueled by long-term overspending on wages, by trading future TV rights money for cash now from an investment firm.

Signing FIFA player of the year Robert Lewandowski from Bayern Munich was one result, though Barcelona's reputation is being hit by pressuring Dutch midfielder Frenkie de Jong to take a pay cut.

A Spanish success has been coach Unai Emery lifting, first, Sevilla and now small-town Villarreal to overachieve and win a combined four Europa League titles.

GERMANY'S CULTURE

The Bundesliga’s “50+1” ownership rule is widely liked for protecting clubs’ identity and preventing takeovers by the oil-rich states, oligarchs and billionaires lured to the Premier League.

Clubs controlling a majority of voting rights is embedded in German culture, which also curbs ticket and pay-TV prices — a principled stand which reduces revenue.

“What people are willing to pay to watch football in England is totally different to what people are prepared to pay in Germany,” Swart said.

The average season ticket price is 1,095 pounds ($1,325) at Arsenal but some Dortmund fans can pay just 240 euros ($244).

Dortmund also excels signing and nurturing English teenagers, then selling them back to the Premier League. Haaland’s former teammate, Jadon Sancho, went to Man United for a four-fold profit and Jude Bellingham is likely next.

ITALY’S DECLINE

After hosting the 1990 World Cup, Serie A was the rich, glamor league. Decline followed the 1992 launches of the Premier League and Champions League, and Italian stars started moving to Chelsea and even unfashionable Middlesbrough.

Serie A clubs fell further back by playing in city-owned stadiums -- some shared, with an athletics track, and dating fast -- they could not exploit commercially.

Juventus opened its own stadium in 2011 and won nine straight titles. Red tape has not helped stadium building plans in Rome, Milan and elsewhere, frustrating a new wave of American club owners.

Chinese ownership at AC Milan and Inter Milan has been complicated, though both ended a decade-long wait to win Serie A.

Italy’s favored bid to host the 2032 European Championship can spark a needed stadium modernization program and play has improved on the field.

Attack-minded teams Atalanta and Napoli helped Serie A shed a reputation for negative play, which dulled global interest in paying for broadcast rights.

FRANCE

Ligue 1 has mostly been owned by Paris Saint-Germain since Qatar bought the club in 2011 months after being named the 2022 World Cup host.

Lyon and Marseille have not won titles since 2008 and 2010, respectively, and both are now in American ownership.

Lyon’s new majority owner, John Textor, arrived in June promising to spend to pursue PSG at home with European ambitions next.

Marseille has had turmoil in six years under former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, though is now back in the Champions League.

Another foreign owner driving a renewed challenge at Nice is Monaco-based British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, who was often linked to bids for Chelsea.

The overseas ownership model offers some stability after the collapse two years ago of the league’s touted new broadcast deal.

___

More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Graham Dunbar, The Associated Press

Sun Life shares up after earnings beat, U.K. unit sale

Nichola Saminather
Thu, August 4, 2022 

The Sun Life Financial logo is seen at their corporate headquarters in Toronto

PROVIDER OF BENEFIT PLANS TO CONSTRUCTION TRADES UNIONS IN CANADA

By Nichola Saminather

TORONTO (Reuters) -Sun Life Financial shares jumped on Thursday after reporting a better-than-expected second-quarter profit and announcing the sale of its U.K. business as well as an asset management partnership with the buyer, Phoenix Group Holdings.

Earlier on Thursday, Canada's second-largest life insurer agreed to sell its closed business in the United Kingdom to Phoenix for 248 million pounds ($301 million), and become its strategic asset management partner, managing about C$9 billion ($7 billion) of Sun Life UK's general account.

Sun Life expects to get a "good chunk" of the $25 billion Phoenix plans to deploy in North American fixed income and alternative investments over the next five years, CEO Kevin Strain said on an analyst call on Thursday. He added it will make up for some lost revenue and support earnings.

Strain said Sun Life has no current plans to sell other closed blocks, including the payout annuity part of the U.K. business, which it retained, and an individual life business (IFM) in the United States.

"We like the dynamics of those closed blocks," Strain told Reuters, adding these businesses can generate strong earnings and cash flow and good return on equity for at least 10 more years.

Sun Life shares rose 2.8% to C$60.80 in early afternoon trading in Toronto on Thursday, on track for its highest close in nearly eight weeks. The Toronto stock benchmark rose 0.14%.

Late on Wednesday, Sun Life reported core earnings per share of C$1.52, beating analysts' estimates of C$1.39, helped by improvement in its U.S. business and a better-than-expected performance in Canada that offset underwhelming results from its asset management and Asian units.

Sun Life executives said U.S. benefits provider DentaQuest, whose acquisition it closed on June 1, would help drive its goal of 10% organic growth in its U.S. group benefits business.

"DentaQuest has been a growth engine over its history," Dan Fishbein, president of its U.S. unit, said on the analyst call. "We think there's a lot of potential in the DentaQuest business on multiple fronts to continue to win new government contracts."

He cautioned that the business is "very lumpy" with small but very large contracts that could lead to sporadic growth in earnings.

($1 = 0.8243 pounds)

($1 = 1.2862 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting By Nichola Saminather; Editing by Josie Kao)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M; OLD SCHOOL

Coinbase ex-manager pleads not guilty to insider trading charges

 Representations of the Ripple, Bitcoin, Etherum and Litecoin virtual currencies are seen on motherboard in this illustration picture

Wed, August 3, 2022 
By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) -A former Coinbase Global Inc product manager and his brother pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to wire fraud charges in what U.S. prosecutors called the first insider trading case involving cryptocurrency.

Ishan Wahi, 32, the former product manager, was arrested last month in Seattle on charges he shared confidential information with his brother Nikhil and their friend Sameer Ramani about forthcoming announcements of new digital assets that Coinbase would allow users to trade.

Nikhil Wahi also pleaded not guilty during an arraignment on Wednesday in Manhattan federal court before U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska. Ramani, who was also charged, is at large.

Prosecutors said Nikhil Wahi and Ramani used ethereum blockchain wallets to acquire the assets and traded at least 14 times before Coinbase announcements in June 2021 and April 2022. The announcements typically caused the assets to rise in value and generated at least $1.5 million in illicit gains, prosecutors said.

Coinbase is one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges.

David Miller, a lawyer for Ishan Wahi, said the charges should be dismissed because insider trading needs to involve securities or commodities and this case did not.

Miller also said Coinbase tested new tokens before it publicly listed them, meaning the information his client was accused of sharing was not confidential.

Noah Solowiejczyk, a prosecutor, countered that the information was nonpublic and the prosecution was consistent with previous wire fraud cases.

U.S. regulators are weighing how to oversee cryptocurrency trading.

Coinbase did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Last month, the company said it had shared with prosecutors its findings from an internal probe into the trading.

Bail for the Wahi brothers was set at $1 million each. Their next court appearance is scheduled for March 22. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed related civil charges against them.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New YorkEditing by Bernadette Baum)