Someone who spent some time (short) in China last and this year said to me – In China everything is better than in the West. An exaggeration I understood to mean – many important things are better, or appear to be.
Now that I’ve read “State of the Chinese Union 2025′ by Jeff Brown, I realise it was not an exaggeration, or not a big one.
For everyone who is interested in China as it is now, “State of the Chinese Union 2025′ by Jeff Brown, is essential reading. Especially because he can compare now and the 1990’s when he also lived and worked there.
Amazing !
https://globalsouth.co/2025/08/16/state-of-the-chinese-union-2025/

Posted by: JB | Aug 16 2025 14:06 utc | 103

steven t johnson 99 – get real, 1600 murders, armed robberies, knifings, rapes, assaults with deadly weapons are OK in the nation’s capital in just six months no less.
No this is leftwing encouraged anarchy, all part and parcel of the BLM and Antifa agenda, and the reaction to the death of the violent felon scum bucket George Kidnapper Floyd. DOA resisting a lawful arrest while high on coke and fent.
DJT will have none of this and already deployed 800 NG MP’s, and ATF, USMarshalls, FBI, Border Patrol, US Park Police, and ICE agents restore safety to the district. DC Chief of the Police Pam Smith is now history.
Murdering Catholic pilgrims on the way to evening vespers will not be tolerated in this city.
The new sheriff is in town, show up at the OK Corral and see for yourself.

Posted by: tobias cole | Aug 16 2025 18:08 utc | 105

“Haiti wants to hire private firm to collect border taxes. Not everyone is on board”
Miami Herald By Jacqueline Charles
Updated August 15, 2025 2:09 PM.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article311704944.html
Excellent article.

Posted by: Lavieja | Aug 16 2025 22:56 utc | 107

Miami Herald
“Haiti wants to hire private firm to collect border taxes. Not everyone is on board”
By Jacqueline Charles
Updated August 15, 2025 2:09 PM
“No contract has been signed,” said the official, disputing a Rewuters story that quoted private security executive and Donald Trump supporter Erik Prince that he has signed a long-term agreement with the Haitian government.
A spokesman for Vectus Global told the Herald the company has “a year-long program to help the government defeat the gangs and a longer-term role advising the government on how to restore revenue collection capabilities once the situation stabilizes.
….another source said there are several companies, including Prince’s, that are vying for the border contract.
….a task force operating out of the prime minister’s office that is leading the response to gangs is using advice from Vectus (Eric Prince co.)
….But some observers see a border contract as a throwback to a bygone colonial era. Others see it as a money grab in which the country is being mortgaged in the name of fighting criminal gangs.
….“This is scandalous,” said Samuel Madistin, a leading human rights lawyer and former presidential candidate. “The government that is here is provisional, corrupt and it represents the most mafia segment of the private sector. They do not have the legitimacy to engage the country in a long-term 10-year contract with a private firm in a plan of collecting taxes to reinforce security when they have never taken any forceful steps to reinforce the army, the national police to fight against gangs.”
….The revelations about Prince’s firm taking control of the only reliable revenue stream for the government comes on the heels of concerns over the influence the private sector exerts over the government, as members of the business community now control both the presidency of the council and the prime minister’s office.
….On Wednesday, the U.S. State Department confirmed plans to support a proposal from United Nations chief António Guterres to back the efforts of the armed international mission that’s been struggling to control the gang violence. However, observers worry that Prince’s entrance into the fray will complicate support for the Kenya-led mission because of his team’s use of weaponized drones to target Haitian gangs. There are also concerns that the presence of mercenaries in the gang fight could dissuade future efforts to scale up the current mission into a full-fledged U.N.-authorized peacekeeping force.
….People familiar with Prince’s arrival say he was introduced in Haiti by Reuven Bigio, the CEO of the GB Group, a firm founded by Gilbert Bigio, an uber rich Haitian businessman who was sanctioned by Canada in 2022 along with other prominent members of the economic elite. Among the companies’ assets is the private Lafito port in Port-au-Prince, where private military are used to provide security.
….The plan to secure the border with an outside firm to increase customs revenue is not a novel idea. It was first raised by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s Haiti Advisory Board in 2005 but quickly nixed after considerable pushback. Then Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe introduced it during the administration of President Michel Martelly, using an Israeli firm.
….Mark Hall, an American investment banker who worked in the Dominican Republic, has also tried to get support for a similar effort that involves installing 50 to 60 high tech surveillance towers along the border.
….Hall, like other proponents of the idea, argued that it is a win for Haiti, which loses an estimated $500 million annually from contraband and the lack of control at its borders…”

Posted by: Lavieja | Aug 16 2025 23:51 utc | 109

I watched a bunch of pundits today but what I keep flashing back on was the end of the Judge Napolitano special at the Rand Paul gathering Blueprint For Peace.
COL. Douglas Macgregor was sitting next to Jeff Sachs and warmed my heart by saying that he hoped for a financial crash instead of war and Jeff Sachs had a fairly negative reaction to that desired scenario….any doubts about where Jeff Sachs allegiance lies?
We do not have a few bad apples problem, it is structural and characterized as public versus private finance at the core….private finance has evolved ongoing inheritance and such for continuation of a historic elite….Pope Bob and King Chuck stick out as long time members of my God Of Mammon cult at the tope of global private finance.
I hope the next step in our civilization war is the scenario of COL. Douglas Macgregor about financial collapse of the global private finance system and its debt millstone/jackboot threat.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 17 2025 4:57 utc | 111

In the former East Germany, emigrating was a crime, punished with imprisonment, force labor, or execution (“Republikflucht”).
In the current Germany, emigrating is taxed (“Wegzugsbesteuerung“). Broadly simplifying, you have to pay tax on profits made on shares, investment funds and ETFs as if you had sold these shares on the moment of emigrating (Außensteuergesetz, par. 6).
Note that at the same time Germany is advertising abroad to get immigrants, advertising for Germans to emigrate is a crime (“Auswandererschutzgesetzes”).

Posted by: Passerby | Aug 17 2025 10:16 utc | 113

The below reminds me of the inventor – of the gun machine gun that fired square bullets ( it could also fire round bullets as well) – his name was James Puckle, Puckle advertised the gun to the British government, as to use the square bullets on savages in Africa and elsewhere – but when fighting a fellow white foe, the round bullets should be used.
“French former intelligence chief, Alexander Maranches, wrote in his memoirs once that the fight between the US – Russia is an adversary type of fight where they compete with each other, but not to death.
Whereas in the fight between US – Iran (& other West-Asian countries) the Americans see all of them as terrorists and not as adversaries and they wouldn’t blink twice to annihilate them if they have the chance.
Maranches wrote this in 1992 but today we witness it first hand”

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Aug 17 2025 11:43 utc | 115

Moscow to snuff out Western backed terrorist groups in the Sahel, Le Petit (Macron) will be disappointed oh well, he’ll just have to snort more coke and wish for better days.
I’ve also read that either China or Russia is to help rearm Iran, and quickly, before Netanyahu can organise a large attack on the country.
“Moscow is ready to provide security assistance to Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger to combat terrorism and armed groups destabilizing the Sahel, the Russian Defense Ministry has said. The West African countries have faced a decade-long jihadist insurgency that has killed thousands and displaced millions.
The ministry made the commitment during the first consultation between the defense departments of Russia and the member countries of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). During the meeting, Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov warned that terrorist threats and intensified activity by illegal armed groups persist in the Sahel region despite its leaders’ push for sustainable peace.
“We support your position on the need to strengthen security, protect territories and sovereignty,” Belousov told his Burkinabe, Malian, and Nigerien counterparts, according to an official press release.
He said the joint dialogue “would be an important forum for discussing ways to strengthen defense cooperation” between Moscow and the AES.”

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Aug 17 2025 17:06 utc | 117

Things just go from bad to worse for the little coke head Macron.
“France has confirmed that a French citizen arrested in Mali over a reported coup plot is an employee of its embassy in Bamako, but denied claims of his involvement in an alleged attempt to overthrow the West African country’s military government.
The Malian government announced last week that it had detained Yann Vezilier, accusing him of acting on behalf of French intelligence to mobilize political leaders, civil society figures, and military officers for “criminal activities aimed at destabilizing” the country.
On Saturday, the French Foreign Ministry dismissed the charges against Vezilier as “baseless,” according to a statement cited by AFP. “A dialogue is underway [with the Malian authorities] in order to dispel any misunderstanding and obtain the immediate release of this member of the French embassy in Bamako,” it added.
Relations between Bamako and Paris have deteriorated in recent years amid allegations that France is sponsoring terrorism in an attempt to undermine military regimes in the Sahel. The transitional governments of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have cut defense ties with their former colonial metropole and turned to new alliances, including with Russia, to confront a protracted jihadist insurgency that they claim French troops failed to quell despite a decade-long counterterrorism mission.”

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Aug 18 2025 14:35 utc | 119

Typical Russia. Create a problem with your own hands, for some short term gain, and then apply massive efforts trying to rectify it. Putin’s policy in S.Caucasus is an epic, monumental fail. All he wars, bloodshed, diplomacy of Russian tsars flushed down the loo.

Posted by: 63788 | Aug 20 2025 9:39 utc | 121