Zerohedge

Authored by Lee Taylor via DailySceptic.org,

Last week, Britain’s comedy treasure, Ricky Gervais, took to social media to rant about how his proposed billboards for Dutch Barn Vodka had been rejected.

Each banner featured a dark but hilarious slogan that would have inevitably won the applause of Britain’s disillusioned masses.

Its rejected lines include:

• “Dutch Barn, drugs this good are usually illegal.”

• “Dutch Barn, your tube driver’s favourite drink in the morning.”

• “Dutch Barn, one day you’ll be underground for good.”

Ironically, the slogan to cause the most amusement of all among social media followers was the following:

• “Welcome to London, don’t forget your stab vest.”

Brits particularly appreciated this version as it bravely stood as a dark, tongue-in-cheek nod to Britain’s knife-crime epidemic.

But to the rule makers it was just another offensive idea that was banned due to being too ‘inappropriate’. 

Merely a day after Gervais delivered his rant, reality took a terrifying turn. On a Doncaster-to-London train, a man went on a blood-fuelled rage, stabbing 10 innocent people. Real life quickly turned darker than the joke, and not even the most intuitive writers could have scripted it. 

Gervais, who has made a career out of saying what others daren’t, simply held up a mirror. The reaction proved his point: in Britain today you can be stabbed on your commute, but you can’t harmlessly address it on a poster. And, if you have to know a single fact about the British psyche, it is that we cope by mocking life’s miseries – that’s the British spirit for you.

Transport for London was quick to deny the censorship, insisting the campaign was never formally rejected. Who knows, maybe it was all a publicity stunt – but that only underscores the point. In today’s climate, Gervais’s kind of humour wouldn’t stand a chance of official approval.

Advertising used to be a marketplace of ideas, brash, creative, sometimes tasteless, but free. Now it’s a managed space policed by people who think their job is to protect us from ourselves. The regulators pore over copy like priests parsing scripture, deciding what the public may or may not see. ‘Misleading’, ‘offensive’, ‘harmful’. The list of forbidden words grows weekly.

But this isn’t just about prudishness or brand safety. It’s about ideology. The modern advertising world has become a proxy for the wider culture war: a class of bureaucrats and creative-industry lifers enforcing political orthodoxy under the guise of ‘standards’. They’re terrified of a complaint on X and paralysed by the idea that someone, somewhere, might take offence.

On the Underground, censorship is practically civic policy. The same network that hosts endless government propaganda about ‘climate action’ and ‘diversity’ suddenly loses its appetite for satire, religion or, heaven forbid, criticism of London itself. Remember the “Are you beach body ready?” poster that was banned for hurting feelings? The one showing a woman in a yellow bikini? Sadiq Khan couldn’t get to a microphone fast enough to declare London a “body-positive” zone. But as Gervais says: “Just because you’re offended, doesn’t mean you’re right.”

Since then, Khan’s office has vetoed everything from meat adverts to oil campaigns, always in the name of public virtue. He governs the capital like a headmaster confiscating magazines, deciding what adults are allowed to look at between stations. It’s not public transport anymore; it’s a rolling sermon.

That’s why Gervais’s intervention matters. He isn’t some fringe provocateur. He’s one of Britain’s most-watched comedians, adored across class and political lines. When he takes aim at hypocrisy, whether it’s celebrity moralising or political correctness, people listen. He has an instinct for where the real line of public decency lies, and it’s a long way from where our cultural gatekeepers have drawn it. 

The fact that even he can’t get a joke past the bureaucrats tells you how far we’ve drifted. If Gervais can’t advertise satire, what hope is there for anyone trying to challenge consensus thinking? When the king starts killing the jester, you know the kingdom’s in trouble.

Advertising should be judged by one metric alone: does it persuade? If it’s stupid, tasteless or misses the mark, the market will kill it. Viewers will sneer, consumers won’t buy, and brands will learn. That’s accountability, not a panel of political appointees policing tone and subtext.

It’s time to strip moralism out of marketing. Dismantle the cosy club of regulators, councils and committees that treat adults like children. Let the people, the supposed targets of all this messaging, decide what offends them and what doesn’t. Because when you hand censorship to the state or its cultural proxies, it never stops at adverts. It spreads. One day you can’t mock London crime; the next you can’t discuss it. 

Lee Taylor is CEO and Founder of marketing agency Uncommon Sense.

The United States is working with its Arab partners to bring an end to the conflict in Sudan, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Nov. 4, describing the situation as “very complicated.”

Speaking at a press briefing, Leavitt said Washington is “actively engaged in efforts” to mediate peace and remains “committed to working with our international partners, including Quad members—Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE—as well as others, to lead a negotiated peace process that addresses both the immediate humanitarian crisis and the longer-term political challenges.”

The Quad refers to an informal diplomatic grouping of the United States and the three Arab countries that coordinate over shared regional interests.

As Evgenia Filimianova details below for The Epoch Times, last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it was appalled by reports that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a Sudanese paramilitary group, killed more than 460 people at a hospital in the western city of el-Fasher. The RSF denied the accusations.

The patients and their companions were reportedly killed on Oct. 29 at Saudi Hospital by RSF members in the city of el-Fasher, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Tedros said that before this latest attack, the WHO had verified 285 attacks on health care facilities in Sudan with at least 1,204 deaths and over 400 injuries of health workers and patients, since the start of the conflict in 2023.

The U.S. State Department condemned the reported mass atrocities and called on RSF to “stop engaging in retribution and ethnic violence.”

“The United States will continue working with partners to find a peaceful path forward. There isn’t a viable military solution, and external military support only prolongs the conflict. The United States urges both parties to pursue a negotiated path to end the suffering of the Sudanese people,” the State Department said in a Nov. 1 statement posted on X.

Leavitt acknowledged an uptick in reporting on the conflict and said she had discussed the developments with Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier that day. She added the administration was in “pretty frequent communication” with Arab partners about the conflict.

The war in Sudan has devastated Africa’s third-largest nation.

The fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF has claimed more than 61,000 lives in Khartoum State alone, according to a 2024 study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Sudan Research Group.

The United Nations has said that over seven million people have been displaced within Sudan as of mid-October, compounding an already dire humanitarian crisis.

A medic waits in a makeshift clinic as displaced Sudanese gather after fleeing el-Fasher city in Darfur, in Tawila, Sudan, Oct. 29, 2025. Mohamed Jamal/Reuters

Diplomatic Push for Cease-Fire

In September, Washington and its Quad partners—Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—jointly proposed a three-month humanitarian truce in Sudan, to be followed by a permanent cease-fire and a nine-month transition to civilian rule. The Sudanese government rejected the proposal at the time.

Two weeks later, on Oct. 24, the United States hosted the Quad members in Washington to advance collective efforts toward peace and stability in Sudan.

The group reaffirmed its commitment to the September plan and agreed to form a Joint Operational Committee to coordinate urgent priorities, including humanitarian access, a cease-fire, and an end to external support for the warring sides.

U.S. President Donald Trump “wants peace, and we are united in our commitment to ending the suffering of the Sudanese people,” U.S. senior adviser for Arab and African affairs, Massad Boulos, said following the meeting.

Boulos has been leading the diplomatic outreach in the region. Over the weekend, he held talks with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and later met with Arab League officials in Cairo.

He said discussions in Egypt focused on “expanding humanitarian access and advancing efforts to resolve the conflict in Sudan,” as well as on counterterrorism cooperation and regional migration issues.

Boulos said the region’s most urgent challenges were addressed during his meeting with Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

“We condemned the horrific crimes against civilians in El Fasher and called for urgent action to protect civilians and end the violence,” he said.

Escalating Atrocities and Global Reaction

The assault on el-Fasher in late October drew global condemnation. Reports from aid organizations and residents described mass killings, sexual violence, and attacks on humanitarian workers during the offensive.

“We are deeply disturbed by the horrific escalation of violence and attacks against civilians in el-Fasher,” Boulos said on Oct. 29. “The deliberate targeting of vulnerable populations through acts of violence and retribution is both abhorrent and unacceptable.”

He said those responsible “must be held accountable,” and urged RSF leaders to turn commitments to protect civilians into “concrete actions on the ground.”

At a forum in Qatar on Nov. 4, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged Sudan’s warring parties to “come to the negotiating table” and end the “nightmare of violence.”

Sudanese men who fled al-Fasher city, after Sudan’s paramilitary forces killed hundreds of people in the western Darfur region, collect water at a camp in Tawila, Sudan, on Nov. 1, 2025. Mohammed Bakry/AP

The foreign ministers of Germany, Jordan, and the United Kingdom on Nov. 1 jointly called for an immediate cease-fire in Sudan.

“For too long, this terrible conflict has been neglected, while suffering has simply increased,” British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said at the Manama Dialogue security summit in Bahrain on Nov. 1.

She pledged a further $6.5 million of humanitarian support in response to the violence in el-Fasher.

Authored by Guy Birchall via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Paris prosecutor’s office announced on Nov. 4 that it has opened an investigation into TikTok over allegations that the platform allows content that promotes suicide and that its algorithms could urge vulnerable young people to end their lives.

The statement said the information had been brought to their attention by a deputy of the National Assembly who had conducted an inquiry into the “psychological effects of TikTok.”

The office added that of particular concern was the insufficient moderation on the platform, the easy access children had to it, and its algorithm, which the inquiry found “likely to push vulnerable people toward suicide.”

Paris police’s cybercrime brigade, which will head up the probe, will look into potential crimes, including pushing products or methods that could be used for suicide and allowing illicit transactions linked to organized crime.

Should charges and convictions follow, the guilty parties could face penalties of up to 10 years in prison and fines of 1 million euros ($1.15 million).

“We strongly refute the accusations and legal grounds referred to in the press release of the Paris prosecutor and will vigorously defend our record,” a spokesperson for TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company Bytedance, said.

“With more than 50 preset features and settings designed specifically to support the safety and well-being of teens, and 9 in 10 violative videos removed before they’re ever viewed, we invest heavily in safe and age-appropriate teen experiences.”

The announcement of the investigation follows a lawsuit against TikTok brought by a number of French families, and a probe by the parliament in Paris into the psychological impact of the social media site on children.

Last year, seven families sued TikTok France, accusing the platform of failing to moderate harmful content and exposing children to life-threatening material. Of those seven families, two experienced the death of a child.

One was 15-year-old Marie Le Tiec, whose mother, Stephanie Mistre, discovered videos promoting suicide methods, tutorials, and comments encouraging users to go beyond “mere suicide attempts” after looking through her daughter’s phone after she died.

Mistre said TikTok’s algorithm had repeatedly pushed such content to her daughter.

“They normalized depression and self-harm, turning it into a twisted sense of belonging,” Mistre said.

The parliamentary report, published Sept. 4, gave a scathing assessment of TikTok, calling it a “hellish algorithm” that pushes children “towards the worst” and “locks them in a bubble” away from adults.

It also said that TikTok and other social networks’ economic systems find “a financial interest in endangering minors through dangerous algorithmic design and a lack of moderation, all while denying it.”

The report recommended banning social media for children under 15 years of age and imposing a “digital curfew” for those between 15 and 18.

The investigation comes amid growing concerns in numerous countries about the impact of social media on children.

Australia has announced a ban on under-16s setting up social media accounts, which is due to come into force on Dec. 10.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said her government would ban social media use for children under the age of 15, telling lawmakers that online culture has “unleashed a monster” epidemic of depression and anxiety in young people.

Denmark’s Scandinavian neighbor, Norway, has also set the wheels in motion to limit access to social media for those aged 15 and under, beginning a consultation process on a new law in January.

In September, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also mentioned during her State of the Union address in Strasbourg that she was monitoring developments in Australia concerning the ban.

“I am watching the implementation of their policy closely to see what next steps we can take here in Europe. I will commission a panel of experts to advise me by the end of this year on the best approach for Europe,” von der Leyen said.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

After two years of sluggish activity, Europe’s economic engine is forecast to regain traction.

As Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao shows in the chart below, The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) latest World Economic Outlook projects that the region’s combined output will reach $31.4 trillion (€27.0 trillion) in 2026, with the biggest gains concentrated in Western Europe.

Data for this visualization comes from the IMF’s World Economic Outlook database. It ranks every European country by projected nominal GDP in current U.S. dollars and euros.

Regions are assigned by the UN Geoscheme.

Germany Leads Europe’s Largest Economies

Germany is expected to reclaim momentum, adding almost $400 billion to its economy between 2024 and 2026.

At $5.3 trillion, it will account for roughly 17% of all European GDP.

Rank	European Country	ISO Code	2026 GDP (billions USD)	Readable Label (USD)	Readable Label (EUR)
1	🇩🇪 Germany	DEU	$5,328	$5.3T	€4.6T
2	🇬🇧 UK	GBR	$4,226	$4.2T	€3.6T
3	🇫🇷 France	FRA	$3,559	$3.6T	€3.1T
4	🇮🇹 Italy	ITA	$2,702	$2.7T	€2.3T
5	🇷🇺 Russia	RUS	$2,509	$2.5T	€2.2T
6	🇪🇸 Spain	ESP	$2,042	$2.0T	€1.8T
7	🇳🇱 Netherlands	NLD	$1,413	$1.4T	€1.2T
8	🇵🇱 Poland	POL	$1,110	$1.1T	€955B
9	🇨🇭 Switzerland	CHE	$1,075	$1.1T	€924B
10	🇧🇪 Belgium	BEL	$761	$761B	€655B
11	🇮🇪 Ireland	IRL	$750	$750B	€645B
12	🇸🇪 Sweden	SWE	$712	$712B	€612B
13	🇦🇹 Austria	AUT	$604	$604B	€520B
14	🇳🇴 Norway	NOR	$548	$548B	€471B
15	🇩🇰 Denmark	DNK	$500	$500B	€430B
16	🇷🇴 Romania	ROU	$445	$445B	€383B
17	🇨🇿 Czechia	CZE	$417	$417B	€359B
18	🇵🇹 Portugal	PRT	$365	$365B	€313B
19	🇫🇮 Finland	FIN	$336	$336B	€289B
20	🇬🇷 Greece	GRC	$305	$305B	€262B
21	🇭🇺 Hungary	HUN	$270	$270B	€232B
22	🇺🇦 Ukraine	UKR	$224	$224B	€193B
23	🇸🇰 Slovakia	SVK	$168	$168B	€144B
24	🇧🇬 Bulgaria	BGR	$142	$142B	€122B
25	🇭🇷 Croatia	HRV	$113	$113B	€97B
26	🇷🇸 Serbia	SRB	$112	$112B	€96B
27	🇱🇺 Luxembourg	LUX	$108	$108B	€93B
28	🇱🇹 Lithuania	LTU	$105	$105B	€90B
29	🇧🇾 Belarus	BLR	$91	$91B	€78B
30	🇸🇮 Slovenia	SVN	$86	$86B	€74B
31	🇱🇻 Latvia	LVA	$52	$52B	€45B
32	🇪🇪 Estonia	EST	$51	$51B	€44B
33	🇮🇸 Iceland	ISL	$43	$43B	€37B
34	🇧🇦 Bosnia & Herzegovina	BIH	$36	$36B	€31B
35	🇦🇱 Albania	ALB	$32	$32B	€28B
36	🇲🇹 Malta	MLT	$30	$30B	€26B
37	🇲🇩 Moldova	MDA	$21	$21B	€18B
38	🇲🇰 North Macedonia	MKD	$21	$21B	€18B
39	🇲🇪 Montenegro	MNE	$10	$10B	€9B
40	🇦🇩 Andorra	AND	$5	$5B	€4B
41	🇸🇲 San Marino	SMR	$2	$2B	€2B
N/A	🇪🇺 Western Europe	W EUR	$12,848	$12.8T	€11.0T
N/A	🇪🇺 Northern Europe	N EUR	$7,322	$7.3T	€6.3T
N/A	🇪🇺 Southern Europe Europe	S EUR	$5,861	$5.9T	€5.0T
N/A	🇪🇺 Eastern Europe	E EUR	$5,397	$5.4T	€4.6T
N/A	🇪🇺 Europe	EUR	$31,427	$31.4T	€27.0T

Note: Euro figures from exchange rate conversion. 1 USD = 0.86 EUR

Close behind, the U.K. and France are projected at $4.2 trillion and $3.6 trillion, respectively.

Together, the trio will generate over 40% of Europe’s total economic activity. This underscores how the big markets dominate the regional picture.

ℹ️ Related: In fact, the German economy is as big as the entire Eastern European economy ($5.4T).

Southern and Eastern Europe Show Diverging Paths

The continent can effectively be divided into two halves: the Northern and Western half and the Southern and Eastern half.

Italy and Spain, Southern Europe’s heavyweights, are on course for modest expansion, at $2.7 trillion and $1.8 trillion in 2026.

Rank	European Region	2026 GDP (billions USD)	Readable Label (USD)	Readable Label (EUR)
1	🇪🇺 Western Europe	$12,848	$12.8T	€11.0T
2	🇪🇺 Northern Europe	$7,322	$7.3T	€6.3T
3	🇪🇺 Southern Europe Europe	$5,861	$5.9T	€5.0T
4	🇪🇺 Eastern Europe	$5,397	$5.4T	€4.6T
N/A	🇪🇺 Europe	$31,427	$31.4T	€27.0T

In Eastern Europe, Russia is projected at $2.5 trillion, aided by energy exports, while Poland breaks into the continental top 10 at $1.1 trillion.

However, despite a decade of super-charged growth that has lifted real GDP per capita in the East, there’s still a ways to go to close the income gap with the West.

ℹ️ Related: Take a look at where living standards have grown the most in Europe in the last decade.

Europe’s Economic Outlook for 2026

The IMF has good and bad news for Europe.

The good news is that the pandemic and energy shocks have passed and the continent is officially in recovery mode thanks to “good policy decisions.”

This had led to higher real wages that have boosted consumption, particularly in Germany, the largest economy.

The bad news is that Donald Trump’s trade war is causing uncertainty and will shave off 0.5% of growth, which will be somewhat offset by higher infrastructure and defense spending.

However, in turn this higher government spending is coming at the expense of debt.

How does Europe’s economy look when accounting for local prices? Check out Breaking Down Europe’s Economy, Adjusted for Living Costs on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Via Remix News,

In yet another example of the massive foreign crime wave engulfing Europe, new data shows that foreigners in Italy are vastly overrepresented in violent crimes and predatory crimes such as robbery and sexual assault.

The 2024 data shows that a significant number of arrests in Italy are targeting foreigners, making up 34.7 percent of arrests.

However, when it comes to more serious predatory crimes, the figure is much higher. For public street robberies, foreign make up 60.1 percent of suspects and for robberies in total, it is 52.3 percent. Foreigners are responsible for 61 percent of burglaries, and 69 percent of pickpocketing cases, according to new crime data analyzed by Italian newspaper Il Sole 24.

For sexual assault, foreigners are responsible for 43 percent of all such cases.

This is despite foreigners making up only a small share of the Italian population. According to the Ismu Ets report, as of Jan. 1, 2024, there were 5.7 million foreign people in Italy. Of these, 5.3 million were residents, making up 9 percent of the Italian population. This is compared to 8.2 percent in 2014.

For drug dealing, foreigners are responsible for 39 percent of cases, 24.5 percent of car thefts, 29 percent of smuggling cases, and 23.7 percent of homicides.

Italy does not track the foreign background of Italian suspects, but in recent years, a many high-profile cases have involved exactly these type of citizens.

The data is also skewed for a number of reasons. While citizens from other European countries like Austria and France are also counted as foreigners, they make up a very small percentage of foreign criminals, with suspects from Africa and North Africa even more vastly overrepresented.

Approximately 321,000 of these foreigners were illegal migrants, making up a very small share of the overall Italian population.

Italian journalist Francesco Totolo, citing this data, wrote: “Nearly 1 in 2 sexual assaults is committed by the 9% of the resident population in Italy, foreigners. Thefts, pickpocketing and robberies: over 6 out of 10 arrested are foreigners.”

Analisi del Sole 24 sulla criminalità in Italia (e la correlazione tra criminalità e immigrazione)

👉 quasi 1 violenza sessuale su 2 è commessa dal 9% della popolazione residente in Italia, gli stranieri

👉 furti, scippi e rapine: oltre 6 arrestati su 10 sono stranieri pic.twitter.com/etuq0reqKK

— Francesca Totolo (@fratotolo2) November 3, 2025

Irregular immigrants — those without a valid residence document or with an expired permit — represent 5.6 percent of foreigners in Italy and are thought to have a greater impact on crime than legally resident immigrants.

One influential study on the subject (Barbagli, Colombo, 2011), which analyzed data from 1988 to 2009, found that 70 percent of crimes committed in Italy by immigrants were committed by illegal migrants.

According to Paolo Pinotti, vice-rector of Bocconi University in Milan and founder of the Clean study center on crime, this dynamic remains true today, although Interior Ministry data does not disaggregate between regular and irregular immigrants.

Pinotti suggests that if this breakdown were available, it would show that the disproportionate share of foreigners in total arrests is mainly due to illegal migrants who commit small predatory crimes for economic reasons, or even crimes such as sexual violence, https://rmx.news/crime/milan-is-out-of-control-due-to-migrant-crime-ita…

“Foreigners who are regularly present in the territory, however, they have a propensity for crime in line with that of Italians,” he stated.

The province with the greatest weight of foreigners in the total number of arrestees is Prato (62 percent), a figure nearly double the national average. This is partially explained by the high percentage (around 25 percent) of foreign residents in the Tuscan province.

Other areas with high percentages include the large metropolitan areas of Milan (55.8 percent) and Florence (56 percent), where street crimes like thefts and robberies have multiplied. Border territories also show high figures: Imperia (54.8 percent), Bolzano (54.7 percent), Trieste (51.5 percent), and Gorizia (48.8 percent).

Read more here…

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

Close the door, put out the light
You know they won’t be home tonight
The snow falls hard and don’t you know
The winds of Thor are blowing cold

Led Zeppelin, No Quarter

In a matter of less than a year, Russian scientific know-how came up with four bangers:

1. Oreshnik: hypersonic missile, already tested in the Ukraine battleground.

2. Burevestnik: Or “Stormbringer”, with that nice Deep Purple ring. Nuclear cruise missile with unlimited range.

3. Poseidon: nuclear-powered torpedo, capable of loitering underwater, undetected, for unlimited time; then, at a command, strikes enemy coasts with a nuclear payload, provoking a radioactive tsunami. Largely exceeds the destructive power of the Sarmat, Russia’s largest ICBM.

4. Khabarovsk: nuclear sub. Call him The Messenger of Doom: capable of delivering at least 6 Doomsday-enabling Poseidons.

President Putin was crystal clear when detailing some key facts.

The “compact nuclear systems” used in the Burevestnik and the Poseidon “can also be adapted to create new energy sources, including for the Arctic.”

Putin also stressed how both Burevestnik and Poseidon “use only Russian-made parts”. Praise the Lord for those chips from upgraded Soviet washing machines.

And there’s a lot more to come following the tracks of Burevestnik and Poseidon: “I’m talking about…the Avangard system, or the serial production of the Oreshnik missile system…soon the heavy intercontinental Sarmat missile.”

The Sarmat – nicknamed Satan II – will enter combat next year: a super-heavy ICBM, carrying 10 heavy warheads, and compatible with the Avangard hypersonic glider, capable of dodging any anti-ballistic missile system.

Welcome to Russia’s next generation nuclear-powered cruise missiles, with reactors going online in a matter of seconds, and 3x speed of sound, heading towards hypersonic status.

In a nutshell: Burevestnik and Poseidon “will ensure strategic parity for the whole 21st century.”

Cue to thunderous silence heard all across the NATOstan sphere – permeated by the usual “the Russians are bluffing” gaggle noise.

Who cares? Facts are stubborn, and continue to be incontrovertible. Extra facts: Putin and Xi signing into law a mutual investment protection agreement, which translates as China protecting trillion-dollar worth Russian companies, Sberbank, Rosneft and Lukoil in case of a potential NATO-Russia war.

Or, in Eurasia connectivity corridor terms, take Putin, during the Russia-Central Asia summit, proposing unifying Eurasian logistics projects into a single network: “This would allow us to exponentially increase the volume of international transportation through our shared region.”

The massive economic/trade potential of Eurasia still remains largely untapped. Cut to the Russia-China goal of building a production-technological belt from the Russian Far East to Central Asia.

Ain’t got no deal on Russia-China

Well, these sharp facts are inbuilt in the new, emerging global reality, now a historical process – in sharp contrast with the paroxysms of Deep Desperation exhibited by the fragmented West and, significantly, the rise and rise of unilateral Empire of Chaos bullying.

Exhibit A is of course Venezuela.

The Circus Ringmaster – in a revamped remix of the war on drugs meets the war on terra – is mulling:

Bombing of Venezuelan military bases; deployment of Navy SEALS to capture or kill President Maduro; “securing” – as in invading and seizing Venezuelan oil fields, after controlling their key airfields; or even all of the above.

Trump 2.0, totally bypassing the US Congress and of course the illegality of assassinating foreign leaders, is already drafting dodgy legal “justifications” to go after Maduro as a “narco-terrorist” – much to the delight of ghastly Nobel Prize 5th columnist Machado, the female Guaido.

Total psyops is in full effect – complete with intimidating B-52 and B-1 bombers and the deployment of aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and thousands of troops.

Venezuelans though are not impressed. Diego Sequera, from the excellent Mission Verdad, notes, “if you take how things are seen from here you get the feeling that nothing will happen. No social breakdown, no one’s freaking out. Everyone is about their business looking for la plata with an end-year holiday mood.”

Still, they have to run rings over Circus Ringmaster – who wants all that oil so bad (the takeover of natural resources is essential to maintain the Empire) and pathetic neo-con gusano Marco Rubio’s only obsession in life: regime change in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.

And that brings us, once again, to the insoluble Empire of Chaos drama. TACO Trump, even if his brain is not capable of conceptualizing it, may be coming to grips with the hard facts of life: he cannot “win” – or impose a “deal” – on the Russia-China strategic partnership.

On the contrary: he needs to find diversionist tactics to evade the fact he is being inflicted a massive strategic defeat in Ukraine (yes, it’s his war now) while he simply does not have the cards (all made in China) to win a protracted trade-tariff-tech war against Beijing, as demonstrated in that G-2 in South Korea. Managed decoupling is already on.

Still, the supreme delusion of American military might persists, graphically incarnated by the clownish Secretary of Forever Wars. Can’t harm Moscow or Beijing? Caracas will do.

Oh, that Shakespearean sound and fury signifying…nothing, as the Empire of Chaos devours itself by re-colonizing the vassal puppies (Europe), financial shakedown-style, while threatening/ bullying selected Global South latitudes.

Emmanuel Todd has summed it all up, succinctly. What to do when “this is indeed the first American strategic defeat on a global scale, in a context of massive deindustrialisation in the United States and difficult reindustrialisation”, while “it is already too late to compete [with China] industrially.”

Hence the vociferous, bullying Circus Ringmaster, without saying a word (a miracle, in his particular case) progressively hitting TACO-on-steroids territory when it comes to Russia-China.

That’s our cue to the new Netflix series: the Empire of Rage lashing out, irrationally, against anyone, any nation, it deems weaker, a graphic demonstration of its massive resentment. Those fishing boats are full of narco-terrorists because I say so. Kill them all.

An extra danger is that the EUro-chihuahuas take a cue from this irrational drive to increase their Russophobic provocations inter-galactically. The only rational way to deal with it would be by Oreshniking them.

The mountains are high, but the Emperor is everywhere

A classic Chinese motto, repeated dynasty after dynasty, merrily states that “The mountains are high, and the Emperor is far away”. Well, in our contemporary case, there’s no mountain high enough – to borrow from Motown – and the all-seeing Emperor of Chaos, enabled by AI, is everywhere.

Yet even that is not enough to prevent him from collapsing inside his own schizophrenic bubble, unleashing Primal Fear into the intertwined plutocracies of Big Money, Big Oil and Big Tech.

Dystopia Central: it’s not hard to draw the map of the deep, dark geostrategic void self-described “elites” plunged themselves in.

And that brings us to how – in which register – the Russian leadership is watching the show. No expectations: realism prevails.

There may be a Trump 2.0 escalation in Ukraine – or not. There may be a more devastating attack on Iran – or not. There may be a serious regime change attempt in Venezuela – and that one is a near certainty. Trump 2.0, after all – complete with Zionist oligarchs on backing vocals – is a privileged psycho-killer realm.

And then there’s the ultimate chimera: de-dollarization – which is happening in practice, slowly but surely, without being named, in several domains. Only four months ago, the Circus Ringmaster was in panic: “BRICS was set up to hurt us; BRICS was set up to degenerate our dollar and take our dollar … off as the standard”.

The panic is still there. So when in doubt – and when you can’t strike Russia-China – the next “best” option is to strike another BRICS member. Demand capitulation from Iran. Or else. Tehran, as much as Caracas, is not impressed.

Chinese wisdom, once again, would solve the enigma: “Let him be strong, the breeze will blow over the hills; let him be arrogant, the bright moon will shine on the vast rivers.”

It will be a very rough ride – to stare down the Empire of Chaos without letting it unleash Total Dementia, destabilizing Africa, West Asia, the Caribbean, everywhere, using the Syria al-Qaeda playbook (the former headchopper is to be received at the Oval Office soon).

Are China-Russia – and a great deal of the Global Majority – really ready? Call it an auspicious vow.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

How do you know i) a bubble is about to burst, or ii) an corporate fraud of epic proportions is about to unwind? Look no further than Enron or Lehman Brothers, where Jeff Skilling and Dick Fuld, respectively, launched an all out attack against the market in general, and shorts in particular as a last-ditch desperation move to distract from the imminent demise of their insolvent companies. 

It may not be that dire just yet, but in a recent podcast alongside Brad Gerstner and Satya Nadella, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, when asked by Gerstner, who is an OpenAI investor (that whole “non-profit” thing is long dead and buried for those who haven’t been paying attention), how a company with $13BN in revenue can afford $1.4T in commitments. Altman’s reply? “If you want to sell your shares, I’ll find you a buyer.” 

Actual translation: no answer. And while Sam didn’t blame the market or the shorts – yet – he is starting to blame the longs for not having enough faith. 

🚨 Brad Gerstner, an OpenAI investor, asks Sam Altman how a company with $13B in revenue can afford $1.4T in commitments. Altman’s reply? “Happy to find a buyer for your shares.” Translation: No answer. Very concerning. 🚩 pic.twitter.com/9jJKGw9QbF

— WallStreetPro (@wallstreetpro) November 2, 2025

He is not the only one: earlier today his #2 doubled down when she blamed – get this – the market for being too pessimistic and not having enough “exuberance.”

In an onstage interview at the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference in California on Wednesday, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar suggested the market is overly focused on anxiety about a possible bubble in the artificial intelligence sector and should muster more “exuberance” about the technology’s potential.

“I don’t think there’s enough exuberance about AI, when I think about the actual practical implications and what it can do for individuals,” Friar said “We should keep running at it.”

The practical implications being putting 150 million people out of work, but let’s ignore that.

Of course, Friar doesn’t actually care about the lack of exuberance: what she – and her boss – are much more concerned about is the epic circle-jerk vendor financing deals (see “The Stunning Math Behind The AI Vendor Financing “Circle Jerk““) that have served as the basis for much of the AI bubble rally, and somehow always have OpenAI in their centers, are finally being scrutinized.

at this rate tomorrow morning we will get this headline

*OPENAI SIGNS DEAL WITH OPENAI TO BUY AND SELL $100 TRILLION WORTH OF STUFF TO AND FROM ITSELF

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 4, 2025

As Bloomberg notes, there has been mounting scrutiny in recent months on soaring valuations for AI companies as well as the accelerating spending spree from tech firms on data centers and chips to support artificial intelligence development. OpenAI alone has committed to spending more than $1.4 trillion on AI infrastructure, even though the company remains unprofitable and has only $13BN in revenue, as noted above. 

To support its AI data center buildout, OpenAI has made a series of increasingly more outlandish deals with firms like Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices that have been criticized as circular financing arrangements. Nvidia, for example, agreed to invest as much as $100 billion in OpenAI to help fund its data center expansions. OpenAI, in turn, committed to filling those sites with millions of Nvidia chips. But in the interview, Friar said, “I kind of reject the premise completely.”

“We’re all just building out full infrastructure today that allows more compute to come into the world,” Friar said. “I don’t view it as circular at all,” she continued. “A huge body of work in the last year has been to diversify that supply chain.”

You know who also didn’t view a glut of capacity as excessive,? Global Crossing: they too were one of the world’s most valuable companies for a while… and then the went bankrupt. 

As for whether OpenAI’s “deals” are circular, let’s ask Morgan Stanley:

Of course, OpenAi knows very well just how farcical the whole circular financing circle-jerk is, and is also very well aware what the endgame is… it’s precisely what we said a month ago: the government will step in sooner or later, and OpenAi is now doing everything it can to make it “sooner.”

The money is not the problem: AI is the new global arms race, and capex will eventually be funded by governments (US and China). If you want to know why gold/silver/bitcoin is soaring, it’s the “debasement” to fund the AI arms race.

But you can’t print energy https://t.co/qwdD8QbVON

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 14, 2025

Besides the daily barrage of “deals” with chipmakers, OpenAI revealed today that it is also eying a broad mix of financing sources to fund its infrastructure efforts, and especially one: you.

Friar said OpenAI is “looking for an ecosystem of banks [and] private equity” to support its ambitious plans, and hinted at a role for the US government to “backstop the guarantee that allows the financing to happen,” but did not elaborate on how this would work.

Federal loan guarantees would “really drop the cost of the financing,” she explained, enabling OpenAI and its investors to borrow more money at lower rates to meet the company’s ambitious targets. Because there is nothing like a company with $14BN in revenue, $1 trillion in “valuation” and $1.4 trillion in commitments, than loading up to the gills with government backstopped debt. See, if only Enron and Lehman could do the same, both would still be around. 

The proposal — unusual for a Silicon Valley tech giant — would theoretically reduce OpenAI’s borrowing costs since the government would absorb losses if the company defaulted. Such guarantees would also dramatically expand OpenAI’s potential lender pool, as many banks and financial institutions face strict limits on high-risk lending.

Asked for clarification, an OpenAI spokesperson said Friar was speaking in the context of the broader AI industry. There are currently no immediate plans about OpenAI pursuing a federal backstop, the spokesperson said.

“Currently.”

The American Dream isn’t cheap. Owning a home, raising a family, and retiring comfortably now total over $5 million across a lifetime for a household.

This milestone has grown increasingly out of reach as the median age of a U.S. homebuyer has risen to 56, up from 31 in 1981. Meanwhile, U.S. fertility rates have hit record lows amid rising unaffordability.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows the cost of the American dream in 2025, based on analysis from Investopedia.

ℹ️ The full methodology that shows how Investopedia calculated each of these costs can be found here.

The American Dream Costs $5 Million Over a Lifetime

Below, we show the lifetime cost for a household of each key markers of the American Dream:

Retirement is set to cost $1.6 million, the biggest expense overall.

This was calculated by taking $63,609 in average U.S. retirement spending per year, while factoring a 2.5% rate of inflation over 20 years. Today, 86% of Americans say its their dream to retire comfortably.

Home ownership has an average lifetime cost of $957,594. To calculate these costs, Investopedia applied the median U.S. home price of roughly $415,000 with a 20% down payment. Then, payments for a 30-year fixed mortgage at 6.69% were calculated, excluding maintenance and Homeowners Association fees.

As we can see, car ownership also comes at a large cost—estimated at $900,346. However, it’s worth noting that this applies to a household buying two new cars every 10 years. While this includes insurance costs, maintenance, and monthly payments, it does not factor in the proceeds from selling your car.

Meanwhile, raising two children will total $876,092 (including a four-year degree at a public college). If your dream is to have a wedding, the average cost now stands at $38,200, including the ring, ceremony, and reception.

Sponsored By: Cboe

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on America’s home buyers by generation.

Authored by Dustin Bass via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Winston Churchill was a man of action. He was born in 1874, during a period known as the Pax Britannica (1815–1914) and during the relative peace that had settled over Europe after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Nonetheless, as a young man, Churchill understood that military service was a sure path toward political elevation. To become a great leader in the political theater, he believed he first needed to be one in the theater of war. The following is what was required to make him the greatest leader of the 20th century.

Experience

Churchill was not an academic. He considered his schooldays to be “the only barren and unhappy period of my life.” Aside from writing and history, he did not perform well in school, thus he never attended university. He did, after three attempts, gain entrance to Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, graduating in 1894 near the top of his class and joining the 4th Queen’s Own Hussars.

From 1895 to 1900, Churchill witnessed the action he sought while doubling as a war correspondent in Cuba, India, Sudan, and South Africa, during which he was awarded the Spanish Order of Military Merit, the India Medal, the Queen’s Sudan Medal and the Khedive’s Sudan Medal, and the Queen’s South Africa Medal.

After losing his election to the House of Commons in 1899, Churchill returned to the battlefield to cover the Second Boer War in South Africa. It was here Churchill would make his name. On Nov. 15, 1899, while he was aboard an armored train, the Boers attacked, derailing several cars. Despite his journalistic position, Churchill led the charge to protect the train and clear the track, enabling it to escape. Thirty-eight British soldiers were either killed or wounded, and 23 were taken prisoner, Churchill among them.

Just as with his schooldays and garrison duties, being a prisoner of war proved boring. It was, however, an opportunity for further adventure. One December night, he escaped the prison and traveled approximately 300 miles across enemy lines to safety in today’s Mozambique, where he was welcomed as a hero.

A thirst for adventure and his literary gift for conveying those adventures not only made him one of the highest paid war correspondents, but enabled him to cultivate his image.

Knowledge

As noted above, Churchill was not an academic. Nonetheless, he loved literature and history, and whenever he was not writing his war correspondences, engaging in battle or competing in polo, he was reading and studying. The extensive downtime in military life allowed him to devote hours to study. He studied Parliamentary debates, wrote down the arguments, and established his perspective on each. As Churchill scholar James Muller noted, “Churchill made himself his own university by reading great books.”

Certainly Churchill read for leisure, but the histories and biographies, as well as those debates, were not leisure reads. He utilized his present time in the military to create ammunition for his political future. Just as he craved adventure, he craved knowledge and wisdom in order to fuse together prudence with his courage.

Principles

By the time Churchill took his seat as a member of Parliament in 1901, he had fought bravely in four wars, become one of the world’s best war correspondents, and had written five books. He was, at the age of 26, already a known commodity. Knowledgeable? Yes. Courageous? Certainly. Principled? Without question.

As with any political figure, one must choose a party, and Churchill initially chose the Conservatives (Tories). He did not, however, choose party over principle. For example, as a Free Trader, a position the Conservatives had long held, he became vocally critical of his party when it began to shift toward protectionism. On May 31, 1904, he took a huge political risk during a session of Parliament when he walked from the Conservative side to the Liberal.

Churchill remained with the Liberal Party for the next two decades until it began supporting the up and coming Labour Party. For Churchill, Labour leaned too close to socialism, a political movement he abhorred throughout his life. In 1924, Churchill returned to the Conservatives where he remained for the rest of his political career.

Just as he understood the risks of courage on the battlefield, he understood the risks of courage in politics. For the sake of principle, such risks were worth taking.

Prescience

Churchill’s experiences and exhaustive study of human history perhaps developed his prescience. Whether he developed it or it was simply innate, Churchill’s insight into human affairs was often proven correct well, including his perspectives on the dangers of Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Revolution, appeasing Adolf Hitler, trusting Joseph Stalin and the Soviets as an ally, the human cost of giving India independence too soon, and the coming Cold War. Furthermore, as Minister of Munitions during World War I, he proved the strongest supporter of what he called “land caterpillars” (i.e. tanks), ensuring their development and necessary inclusion in the war.

Though such prescience often left him labeled a war monger, he called that accusation “cruel and ungrateful.”

Reflecting on his leadership during World War II, he stated, “Ten years in the political wilderness had freed me from ordinary party antagonisms. My warnings over the last six years had been so numerous, so detailed, and were now so terribly vindicated, that no one could gainsay me. I could not be reproached either for making the war or with want of preparation for it.”

Time

“London will be in danger and in the high position I shall occupy,” Churchill told a friend in 1891, “it will fall to me to save the Capital and save the Empire.”

Of course, when he made that statement no one would have believed him. Indeed, had he attempted to lead a political or military cause, no one would have followed him. 

Somehow Churchill knew at a young age he was destined for greatness, and he dedicated himself to that proposition. His courage in both the military and political arenas, coupled with his willingness to stick to his principles and speak unfashionable truths, had prepared him to guide Great Britain through its darkest hour.

His decades of marching on life’s proving grounds ensured his voice rose above the rest, enabling his listeners to adopt his courage, even when he stated, “If this long island story of ours is to last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood on the ground.”

To be the champion of—and to be championed for—such a statement doesn’t happen simply because one is a fine writer, although that is something for which Churchill was certain known. Rather, it comes through a long and arduous journey, and is forged by qualities that made Churchill the greatest leader of the 20th century. These are qualities today’s leaders would be prudent to follow.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

A two-day operation led to the arrest of 70 illegal immigrants in Oklahoma, which included 34 drivers operating a semi-truck or a commercial vehicle, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a Nov. 4 statement.

The arrests were made in partnership with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol between Oct. 28 and 29, said the agency. It is part of Operation Guardian, which has “resulted in the arrest of many illegal aliens driving trucks that had been issued Commercial Drivers Licenses in states with sanctuary policies such as California, Illinois, and New York,” the agency said.

In places that follow sanctuary policies, local officials refuse to enforce immigration laws or comply with federal authorities.

Out of the 34 illegal immigrant truck drivers, 26 were issued a commercial driver’s license (CDL) while eight were “dangerously driving” vehicles without such licenses, ICE said.

The illegal immigrants are from 15 different nations, including China, Mexico, Turkey, Colombia, India, Guatemala, and Venezuela.

As The Epoch Times’ Naveen Athrappully details below, ICE said illegal immigrants who operate vehicles without proper authorization pose a threat to public safety and undermine the rule of law. The operation sends a “clear message” that such activities won’t be tolerated, it said.

Operation Guardian is a deportation initiative implemented in February and led by Oklahoma’s Commissioner of Public Safety Tim Tipton.  Oklahoma aims to use existing state and federal regulations to transfer offending illegal immigrants for deportation proceedings.

“Operation Guardian continues to successfully keep Oklahomans safe,” said Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt.

“To lawfully operate a commercial motor vehicle in Oklahoma, you must be here legally, and you must be able to understand English. These are common-sense standards that we will continue to enforce.”

On April 28, President Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring that all commercial vehicle operators in the country be proficient in English.

“There’s a lot of communication problems between truckers on the road,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at the time. “We’re going to ensure that our truckers, who are the backbone of our economy, are all able to speak English.”

In an Oct. 30 statement, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said 223 illegal immigrants, including 146 truck drivers on Indiana highways near the Illinois state line, were arrested as part of an enforcement operation targeting public safety threats.

The illegal immigrants have engaged in criminal activity, including drug trafficking, assault, child abuse, domestic battery, driving under the influence, and fraud, DHS said. Out of the 146 drivers, more than 40 were issued CDLs, mostly by New York, California, and Illinois.

“Far too many innocent Americans have been killed by illegal aliens driving semi-trucks and big rigs. And yet, sanctuary states around the country have been issuing illegal aliens commercial driver’s licenses. The Trump Administration is ending the chaos,” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

In August, an illegal immigrant from India was arrested after making an illegal U-turn in an 18-wheeler in Florida, colliding with a minivan and killing three people. He pleaded not guilty in September.

Strengthening Driver License Rules

In a Sept. 26 statement, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) said it had conducted a nationwide audit that uncovered a “catastrophic pattern” of states issuing driver’s licenses illegally to foreign nationals.

Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced emergency actions to make noncitizens ineligible for a nondomiciled CDL unless they meet “a much stricter set of rules,” FMCSA said.

The stringent regulations include undergoing a mandatory federal immigration status check that uses the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system.

“What our team has discovered should disturb and anger every American,” Duffy said.

“Licenses to operate a massive, 80,000-pound truck are being issued to dangerous foreign drivers—often times illegally. This is a direct threat to the safety of every family on the road, and I won’t stand for it. Today’s actions will prevent unsafe foreign drivers from renewing their license and hold states accountable to immediately invalidate improperly issued licenses.”

The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants submitted comments to the Federal Register, criticizing the move to end nondomiciled CDL for foreign nationals, the group said in an Oct. 29 statement.

The move will not only threaten the livelihood of immigrant drivers but also the stability and well-being of the United States, the committee said.

“Trucking is a job that requires long nights and days away from loved ones. It is a hard job that not many willingly sign up for. As a result, the industry has struggled to keep drivers on staff,” said the group.

“Assailed by these steep labor shortages, immigrant workers have picked up the slack: 18 percent of truckers are foreign-born. Like so many other industries, immigrants fill the jobs others do not want.”

During an Oct. 30 press conference, Duffy announced that the DOT will seek to withhold federal government funds from states issuing nondomiciled CDLs to foreign nationals who are unlawfully in the United States.

States need to ensure that people who receive such licenses are proficient in English, Duffy said.