Russia unveils new Arctic shipping plan to challenge US maritime dominance

Russia aims for year-round navigation on the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor – to ensure flexibility and security of international supply chains, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Eastern Economic Forum.


👉 Earlier, Putin stressed that the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor's importance becomes more obvious amid trade chains breakdowns caused by Middle East conflict. He touted the route as one of the safest and most dependable.


Russia and China are jointly developing the Trans-Arctic transport corridor, with the Northern Sea Route as its backbone — Russia’s direct challenge to the Suez Canal as the primary link between Europe and Asia.

Everyone Talks About U.S. Debt But Europe May Be in Worse Trouble

America’s debt problem is impossible to miss. Federal debt has crossed $40.08T, another $1.9T deficit is expected this fiscal year and the 30-year Treasury yield is around 5.25%, its highest since 2007.


Yet the next Western debt crisis may begin across the Atlantic.


Washington has advantages that buy it time. The United States issues the world’s principal reserve currency, collects taxes through one federal government and sells debt through one enormous Treasury market. It can attract foreign capital and push part of the cost abroad. That does not make $40T harmless, but it can delay the reckoning.


The eurozone has no comparable safety valve. It has one currency and one central bank, but 20 governments issuing their own debt, running separate budgets and answering to different voters. The ECB must set one monetary policy for economies with very different debts and growth rates.


France shows why this is dangerous. Its 10-year bond yield has risen to about 4.15%, its highest since 2008 and now slightly above Italy’s. The European Commission expects a 5.1% French deficit this year and public debt near 120% of GDP by 2027. The problem can no longer be blamed on Greece or another small southern economy. France is the eurozone’s second-largest economy and one of the states meant to support rescue mechanisms for everyone else. If its debt starts trading like the old European “periphery,” the line between rescuers and rescued begins to disappear.


Germany offers little comfort. Its 10-year yield is near 3.3%, a 15-year high, while its industry remains weak. Europe’s two central powers are paying more to borrow just as Brussels prepares another spending surge.


The EU plans to mobilize up to €800B for rearmament. Member states must also finance ageing populations, expensive energy, social programs and support for Ukraine. Budget cuts provoke resistance. More borrowing raises yields. ECB intervention places more national debt risk onto the shared monetary system.


The United States can abuse the dollar’s global role for longer. Europe may hit the wall first because it carries heavy debts without a genuine federal state standing behind them. One central bank cannot reconcile every national budget forever. So yes, America’s debt matters. But the louder surprise may come from a European Union that spent years presenting itself as the responsible alternative. Washington has a dangerous debt problem. Europe has the same problem inside a system poorly designed to survive it.


No sympathy is required. Both created this predicament through wars, sanctions, subsidies and promises they can no longer finance cheaply. Now we get to see which model breaks first.

⚡️🇳🇪- The Nigerien government appears to have lost control over a significant portion of the armed forces amid an ongoing military mutiny.

▶️ Both loyalist and mutinous forces are reportedly contacting military units across the country, attempting to rally them to their respective sides and calling troops back toward the capital, Niamey.


▶️ Notably, the National Gendarmerie has reportedly remained inside its barracks and has yet to clearly align itself with either side. The reason for its apparent inaction remains unclear.


▶️ The situation is increasingly becoming a race to secure the loyalty of the bulk of Niger’s armed forces, although developments in Niamey could determine the outcome before reinforcements arrive.


▶️ The unrest points to significant discontent within sections of the Nigerien military.

US approves use of landmark pancreatic cancer drug that’s shown to boost survival

The Food and Drug Administration approves a groundbreaking new drug for advanced pancreatic cancer, offering US patients a more effective treatment against one of the deadliest types of cancer.


FDA officials give expedited approval to the first-of-a-kind pill, called daraxonrasib, which blocks a mutated protein that fuels tumor growth in more than 90 percent of pancreatic cancer cases. It’s an approach that previously eluded drugmakers for decades. The daily pills will be sold by Revolution Medicines under the brand name Rasonque. A one-month supply would cost approximately $39,800, the company announced.


Patients taking the drug nearly doubled their survival time, with fewer severe side effects, in a study that randomly assigned them to receive the experimental treatment or more chemotherapy. The company-funded study enrolled 500 patients whose metastatic, or spreading, cancer had quit responding to prior treatment. Patients getting the new treatment lived for a median of 13.2 months compared with 6.7 months for chemotherapy recipients. Side effects included skin rash, mouth sores, diarrhea, and other digestive issues. “This is one of the most anticipated approvals I can think of,” Dr. Andrew Coveler of the Fred Hutch Cancer Center says. “This medicine is not a cure but a significant improvement.”


Pancreatic cancer is among the deadliest forms in large part because it is hard to detect before it starts spreading to other organs. The American Cancer Society estimates that about 67,000 new cases will be diagnosed in the United States this year and more than 52,000 people will die from the disease. The five-year overall survival rate is 13%.

𝐃𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐏𝐚𝐲 $𝟐𝟏.𝟓 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐒𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐅𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐑𝐚𝐜𝐞- 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐞𝐱-𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐁𝐢𝐚𝐬

The company used race and sex in employment decisions connected to its diversity initiatives, the Justice Dept. said. Deloitte denied the allegations.


#AssHoleCo #FofS

Aug. 25 - US military transport plane lands in Moscow

An American Boeing C-17A Globemaster III military transport aircraft has reportedly landed in Moscow, according to online air traffic monitoring systems.


According to available data, the aircraft, which departed from Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, made a stop in Riga before arriving in Moscow around 7:00 a.m. UTC


A source within EU air traffic control authorities reported that the plane, having originally flown from Andrews Air Force Base to Latvia, had indeed continued its journey toward the Russian border. The source confirmed that the aircraft proceeded toward Russia's border after its stop in Riga. Additionally, the source noted that prior to this, the plane had also visited Charleston Airport.

Iranian hackers shut down UK power plant for four days

Hackers linked to Iran reportedly succeeded in shutting down a British power plant for four days in what is being described as an unprecedented cyberattack against the UK’s energy infrastructure.

The targeted facility has not been identified, but British officials said it was a relatively small power station and that its shutdown did not affect the country’s wider electricity supply. Nevertheless, the incident is significant because it appears to mark the first known case in which hackers linked to the Iranian regime successfully forced a British power-generation facility offline.


Employees spent four days restoring the plant to operation.


The attack was reported to Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre, which operates under the GCHQ intelligence agency. Following the incident, the British government briefed senior energy executives and circulated additional security guidance to companies operating critical infrastructure.

Syrian court sentences Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia over civil war atrocities

A Syrian court sentences former ruler Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia, after convicting him over charges of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” during the country’s civil war.
The ruling against Assad, who fled with his family to Moscow as Islamist-led forces closed in on Damascus in December 2024, is the first under the transitional authorities who this year began trying figures from the former government, both in person and in absentia.


The court also sentenced Assad-era official Atif Najib, who was arrested in January last year, to death for “crimes against humanity” committed when he was head of political security in Daraa province, the cradle of the country’s 2011 uprising.


The court convicted Najib, a cousin of ousted ruler Assad, of crimes including murder, “the intentional killing of children under 15,” and “torture leading to death.”

Envoy condemns France’s attempts to blame Russia for wildfires in Europe

French officials show disrespect for their own people by accusing Russia of links to wildfires in the country, Russian Permanent Representative to the international organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov said.


"Some French officials and journalists claim that Russia is somehow involved in the massive wildfires in France. They simply do not respect their own population," he wrote on X.


Wildfires in Europe, particularly in Spain and France, have reached record levels this year. The European Commission previously said that 13 aircraft, 4 helicopters and hundreds of firefighters from across the European Union were mobilized to help fight the fires through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.


https://thinktank.x-pulse.org//posts/5704

Pro-Iran channels released a video from March 2026 of Mojtaba Khamenei 

Pro-Iran channels have released a video of Mojtaba Khamenei. However, this video is from March 2026... The video had been shot before he became Iran’s Supreme leader, but he avoids appearing in public due to security considerations, an Iranian source said.