Japan's exports are ramping up despite the Iran War:
Japan’s exports jumped +11.7% YoY in March, the 2nd-highest since May 2024.
This marks a sharp acceleration from the +4.0% increase in February.
Exports to China drove the surge, rising +17.7%, led by chips, electronic components, and industrial metals.
At the same time, imports soared +10.9% YoY, widening the trade surplus to ~$4.2 billion, the highest since December 2020.
Meanwhile, crude oil imports fell -7.3% in value terms, as tankers that had already departed before the war continued arriving through mid-March.
China’s demand is driving the Japanese economy.
“Under Trump, the US imports less and seems uninterested in providing security to allies. Indeed, it appears prepared to undermine global security in pursuit of its narrow interests. The petrodollar is in deep trouble — and with it, the mechanism of dollar recycling that has underpinned lower US borrowing costs for the past 50 years. Yet another pillar of US economic supremacy is coming undone.”
https://t.co/fxztTiJlSo
💢 HORRIFIC: Lebanon “death call” drone strike
A man was killed in an Israeli drone strike moments after leaving his family to avoid putting them at risk, according to accounts circulating from southern Lebanon.
Videos show him exiting his vehicle and running into a nearby field before being targeted and killed. Footage shows the moments before the strike, with the man fleeing the area alone.
The incident echoes a previously documented case in Tallousa, near the Israeli border, where 62-year-old Ahmad Tarmas reportedly received a call from the Israeli army asking whether he wanted to “die alone or with his family.”
He left his home and was killed minutes later in a drone strike.
Similar “death call” accounts have been reported in southern Lebanon, journalist Radwan Mortada reported.
This afternoon the young man seen running from the vehicle received a call from the Israeli army telling him he could die alone or die with his family in the car.
He ran from the vehicle into a field and was struck and killed by an Israeli drone.
This is not the first time that the Israeli army has used this tactic. It is pure barbarism. Abject terrorism.
“How were the Greeks able to invent philosophy and tragedy? In this book Richard Seaford argues that a large part of the answer can be found in another momentous development, the invention and rapid spread of coinage which produced the first ever thoroughly monetised society.”
Tucker Carlson on Trump:
I’ve always liked Trump and still feel sorry for him, as I do for all slaves.
He’s hemmed in by other forces. He can’t make his own decisions. It’s awful to watch.
Source: Newsmax
Tucker Carlson Network responds to Trump:
Trump is under a level of pressure that most people cannot fathom, with rabid Israel Firsters viciously harassing him any time he dares to stray even slightly from their favorite country’s agenda.
Their shameless pursuit is steadfast enough to make even a man like Donald Trump go mad. They are as persistent as any group in history, no matter how well the White House has treated them in the past.
Trump is facing a level of pressure that is dark enough to make him abandon his campaign promises and morph into the precise kind of politician he once vowed to destroy.
He would not have let that happen unless his personal stakes were really high.
Exclusive: President Trump has repeatedly promised his top administration officials pardons before he leaves office, according to people who have heard his comments. https://t.co/VBXZxVZO1t
Eventually the Japanese are going to pick up on the fact that in a US-China war in Asia, neither US nor China would be destroyed but Japan may very well be.
The bases in Japan are even less survivable than the ones in the gulf.
Project Hail Mary writer Andy Weir on social commentary in books:
"I dislike social commentary. Like… I really hate it. When I’m reading a book, I just want to be entertained, not preached at by the author. Plus, it ruins the wonder of the story if I know the author has a political or social axe to grind. I no longer speculate about all possible outcomes of the story because I know for a fact that the universe of that book will conspire to ensure that the author’s political agenda is validated. I hate that."
"I put no politics or social commentary into my stories at all. Anyone who thinks they see something like that is reading it in on their own. I have no point to make, and I’m not trying to affect the reader’s opinion on anything. My sole job is to entertain, and I stick to that."
"To that end, I also don’t talk about my personal political opinions publicly. I don’t want readers to even know, honestly. I don’t want that in the back of their minds as they read my stuff."
Is this why he has the #1 sci-fi movie in decades?