Lazaman

Embrace the flaws within and without...

[Kathleen Tyson @Kathleen_Tyson_]

Trump ordered Europe to end the war in Ukraine two weeks before his summit with Putin in Alaska. Europe doubled down on Ukraine instead, providing targeting and long range missiles to extend the war. US cut funding and weapons to Ukraine, but Europe picked up the slack.

Whatever deal Trump and Putin agreed in August 2025 is impossible so long as the war in Ukraine persists.

If Trump wanted to end the Ukraine war today, all he has to do is turn off Starlink, stop ISR, and withdraw NATO command and control operations. Russian troops would be in Kiev by the weekend.

So Ratcliffe did not go to Moscow, bypassing London and Brussels, to end the Ukraine war. He went to cut a deal, maybe restoring the deal struck in Alaska.

Possibly no US interference in Ukraine conquest for a free hand and no Russian interference in the Levant, Gulf, and Iran.

Russia communicated to Iran the next day it had turned down the US offer of lifted sanctions to further cooperate with Iran.

Why settle for being restored to the Western order when Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran are shaping a new global order?

[Margarita Simonyan @M_Simonyan]

Maria Zakharova on British decision to provide Kiev with the blueprints for "Storm Shadow" missiles:

"Any British military facilities and hardware, located both inside the Ukraine and beyond its borders, may become legitimate targets in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian soil using British weapons. Those complicit in war crimes, including actions targeting our civilian population, will be penalized proportionally to their offenses."

"Trying to inflict a 'strategic defeat' on Russia is doomed to fail, though London has already thoroughly smeared its hands in it. We urge all residents of the UK to ponder the unavoidable catastrophic fallout of their own government's hostile actions."

[DD Geopolitics @DD_Geopolitics]

🇷🇺 Maria Zakharova:

"Any British military facilities and hardware, located both inside the Ukraine and beyond its borders, may become legitimate targets in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian soil using British weapons. Those complicit in war crimes, including actions targeting our civilian population, will be penalized proportionally to their offenses."

[Kyle Chan @kyleichan]

Huawei is starting to challenge Nvidia outside of China.

Despite production constraints that limited the number of AI chips it could even sell domestically, Huawei now seems confident enough to start exporting its latest Ascend chips.

Small start, but big implications.

[David Fishman @pretentiouswhat]

Ironically, the primary purpose of the Three Gorges Dam is flood control, not power production, although that is of course an important secondary function of the facility.

The question "what if the dam fails?" is an incomplete hypothetical. Any engineering project, from a bridge to a skyscraper to a power plant, has some small risk of failure. The probabilistic question that should be asked is: "what is the risk if the dam isn't there?"

For that, we don't have to look for hypothetical counterfactuals. Before the Three Gorges Dam was built, major flooding events along the Yangtze occurred in 1998, 1954, 1935, and 1931, to name just the 20th century ones. Hundreds of thousands drowned across these events, plus several million deaths more attributed to subsequent disease and starvation.

If there is rainfall downstream at the same time as snowmelt or rainfall upstream, the combined water ingress can cause rivers and lakes to burst their banks, flooding communities and croplands. The reservoir functions as a huge sponge, absorbing upstream water to shield bodies of water downstream. It can also release water at strategic times later, for example to stabilize water supply during droughts.

Since the dam's construction, there have been two major flood seasons on the Yangtze, in 2010 and 2020, and neither produced mortality anywhere close to the past. So the 3GD is not just NOT a "really terrible" idea; it is probably among the most life-saving hydraulic engineering projects ever undertaken...AND it produces power.

Many hydroelectric facilities worldwide share this design logic, including Egypt's Aswan Dam, built to control the flooding of the Nile River, and India's Hirakud Dam, built to control the flooding of the Mahanadi River. To a lesser extent, the USA's Hoover Dam and TVA dam projects as well. All were conceived as water management projects first and power projects second.

[Ikkyu Sojun @ConciousLabRat]

The last time a reserve currency died this way, the issuer still believed it owned the world.

In 1956 Britain sent troops to Suez.

Sterling was still the world’s second reserve currency.

Then the money left.

Not because the pound suddenly became ugly. Because the people holding it realized the empire that issued it could no longer dictate terms.

Washington simply withheld the dollars. Britain folded. The privilege vanished in weeks.

Today the same movie is playing in reverse.

European capital is not “discovering” the euro.

Large sums of EU money are rotating out of dollar assets into euro-denominated ones. Not because Brussels suddenly became competent but because the United States has become a less reliable custodian of other people’s savings.

The EU is realising the US has become a risky asset.

Forty trillion in debt, a Treasury buying its own bonds with printed money, a military that keeps learning it cannot close the Strait it once owned.

The people who spent eighty years parking their surplus in dollars because America was the adult in the room have started treating America like the teenager who maxed the card and picked a fight it cannot finish.

This is the quiet revolution no one is naming and for the first time since 1945, European money managers are pricing American political risk higher than European political risk.

Reserve currencies do not collapse when the last soldier dies.

Sterling didn’t die in 1956.

It was simply left on read.

[Ryan Milton 弥瑞恩 @1860rm]

🇺🇸🇷🇺I’m an American, I was in Russia when I was a teenager in 1991 when it began to crash and it was terrible.

I’ve been to Russia twice since, in 2023 and in 2025.

President Putin has done God’s work and has saved his nation and made it prosperous, safe, and the envy of many other nations.

He completely saved Russia.

And that’s why they hate him.

I don’t hate him, I wish United States would give up the Russophobia.

[Patricia Marins @pati_marins64]

“CIA Director Ratcliffe traveled unannounced to Moscow to warn Russian officials against attacking NATO members and providing military aid to Iran, US media reports.”

You don’t make a surprise, desperate trip to a country you’re imposing sanctions on unless it’s to ask for something.
It only takes two brain cells to see that this kind of visit is to ask for something, not to make threats.

And curiously, after the CIA director’s visit, Russia has announced that President Pezeshkian and Putin are set to meet next week in Kyrgyzstan, on the sidelines of the SCO summit.
There are no coincidences in this field. Just as there is no chance that the Iranian president will carry a message from the Russians capable of changing anything.
The truth is that the Russians did very little for Iran in the war. Incredibly, Iran fought almost entirely with a national industry and rare allies, which today makes it hard to apply pressure for an end to the state of war.

https://t.co/P6RN2eyQzB

[Will Schryver @imetatronink]

‼️ I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for people concerned with geopolitics and war to understand the relationship between those things and the current state of the global currency system upon which all international relations are now predicated.

*HIGHLY RECOMMENDED*

[Jostein Hauge @haugejostein]

China's industrial dominance is undeniable.

It now makes almost all of the world's solar PVs, more than half of the world's ships, and a third of the world's chemicals.

The combined pace and scale of China's industrialization is something we've never seen before.

[Rina Lu🇷🇺 @rinalu_]

The Vatican's foreign minister just arrived in Moscow. At the exact same time as the CIA director. He met Lavrov. The CIA guy met Naryshkin. If you think that's a coincidence, you haven't been paying attention to how the Vatican actually operates. Let me remind you: the Vatican backs Ukraine and every crime committed against not only Russian civilians but the Orthodox Church itself. Ukraine kills monks and priests. The Vatican stays silent. Vatican is a geopolitical power that pulls strings across continents. The fact that mainstream analysts never discuss the Vatican's influence only proves how powerful they really are.

[Kathleen Tyson @Kathleen_Tyson_]

It’s not China ‘dumping’ US Treasuries. It’s Dutch civil servants and teachers dumping 84% of UST holdings in 18 months!

[James Wood 武杰士 @commiepommie]

🇨🇳🇺🇸 China is no longer catching up to the US in clinical trials. It is overtaking and the numbers from GlobalData just made it official.

Four new white papers map the whole situation. Phase 1 trials in China run 53% faster than in the US. Average cycle time is seven months shorter. In oncology, America takes 26.16 months. China does it in 17.23. In CNS and infectious disease the gap stretches to 2.7–3.2 times, even Phase II still delivers a 21% speed advantage.

Cost is the other half, with Phase 1 work in China being 30–50% cheaper. An infectious disease trial that costs US sponsors 7.6 million, runs for 3.1 million here. Oncology is 32% lower, CNS is 43% and Metabolic is 39%. Other therapeutic areas see 46% savings too. Every major area.

The volume indicates a structural change.

China-led innovative drug trials grew eleven-fold: 163 in 2015 to 1,806 in 2024.

Global share in 2015: the US held 46%, China held 4%. A 42-point gap.

By 2025: US 33%, China 30%. Three points. On the current trajectory China takes the lead on pure trial numbers in 2026–2027.

Quality is moving just as fast too.

First-in-Class pipelines: China grew at a 26% CAGR from 2020–2025. The US managed 15%. China’s FIC assets rose from 152 to 484, a 3.2-times jump. The US went from 1,736 to 3,459, which is a doubling. New molecular entity approvals in China grew at 21% CAGR, more than double the US rate of 9%. China’s share of global FIC assets climbed from 8% to 12% and is on track for 15–18% by 2027.

This is not the “world factory” any more. It is speed, cost, volume and quality all achieved at once.

Washington can see it and they aren’t happy and the panic is now public. US industry leaders and officials have already admitted that China has passed the United States in the most innovative early-stage trials. China is no longer a low-cost testing ground, it is becoming a genuine source of new drugs. The response has been the same containment strategy: Biosecurity Act restrictions, blocked NIH data access and attempts to wall off Chinese clinical data.

But the cracks are already showing and they run deep. BIO’s own CEO and major investors warn that cutting China collaboration does not make American innovation stronger, it slows new medicines reaching US patients and simply hands leadership to Europe. European firms can intermediate Chinese assets into the American market through “Euro-washing”, leaving US companies and investors outside the value chain.

Meanwhile, the commercial reality keeps pushing through: Wuxi AppTec still derived nearly 70% of its 2025 revenue, over 31 billion RMB, from US clients. Merck, Pfizer and others run deep clinical programmes here. Hard decoupling keeps running into hard incentives.

For those who continue pushing the old story that China cannot innovate, the data is the answer and they are wrong. The 42-point gap is now three points and overtaking is not a theory anymore. The only question is when.

How many more white papers will it take before the “China can’t innovate” story is finally put to bed?

[steve hsu @hsu_steve]

Clip from excellent DW documentary on drone warfare.

"War against Russia is one thing. War against China is quite another. China make all our electronic components. You know, I use electric components to make circuit boards, to make timers for the bombs we use all the time. Can I find components that are made outside of China? No. So, what happens if we go to war with China and we suddenly feel and realize that we haven't got factories that make a lot of stuff that becomes essential..."

Note, Dutch guy is wrong about DJI being a state-owned company.

Worth watching the whole thing:
https://t.co/DwvjqTTOdS

[David Lee @DavidLe76335983]

New world record for humanoid 100 meter was set again on Tuesday at the 2nd #WorldHumanoidRobotGames
#China's #Tiangong Ultra humanoid #‌robot clocked 8.85 s in the first group of the large-size #100-meter semifinal, surpassing its previous record of 9.39 s set during the opening ceremony

[Alvin Foo @alvinfoo]

Maextro S800, developed by Huawei and JAC, is the top-selling ultra-luxury sedan in China, frequently outsells traditional foreign luxury cars like the Porsche Panamera and BMW 7 Series combined.

- 5.48-meter luxury sedan
- All-wheel drive
- 4 LiDAR sensors
- Up to 1,333 km total range

Price : from RMB 728,000 / $93,000

[Will Schryver @imetatronink]

@mimtheman1940 Because when you're dealing with an empire in existential crisis, you must administer death by a thousand cuts in order to not evoke a trapped animal reflex in a beast who, at the very least, could destroy a city in a fit of fury.

These things must be done delicately.

[Thomas Fazi @battleforeurope]

Great news!!! The world totally needed another think tank pushing for more supranational centralisation, neoliberalism and war! And under the leadership of Mario “we will do whatever it takes (to destroy the welfare state)” Draghi! 😍

[Kathleen Tyson @Kathleen_Tyson_]

I am going to be very clear.

I detest the ‘extraterritorial dollar’ thesis that all dollars in accounts globally are deemed to be in New York subject to US freezing and seizure. I drafted the New York Fed appellate Amicus Brief against foreign dollar account seizures in 1988.

I detest unilateral sanctions as illegal violations of the UN Charter.

If Iran can finally destroy the power of OFAC and the massive legal, technology, consultancy sanctions industries spawned in the last 4 decades of parasitical exploitation they will do the future world a huge service.

[The Sirius Report @thesiriusreport]

The big myth is the world needs to utilise dollars.

The reality is the US needs the world to desperately utilise dollars.

It is why years ago that Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were killed, under bogus pretexts, because in reality they suggested not utilising the dollar in energy and other trade.