The Latest Trouble In Russian-Azerbaijani Relations Might Be Part Of A Turkish-US Powerplay

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Turkiye sees an opportunity to turbocharge its rise as a Eurasian Great Power along Russia’s entire southern periphery in ways that autonomously align with American grand strategic interests...

Russian-Azerbaijani relations are in trouble as a result of two scandals. The first concerns the recent police raid against suspected ethnic Azeri criminals in Yekaterinburg, during which time two of them died in circumstances that are now being investigated. That prompted Baku to officially complain to Moscow, after which a vicious infowar campaign was launched on social media and even among some publicly financed outlets as well alleging that Russia is “Islamophobic”, “imperialist”, and “persecuting Azeris”.

This was shortly thereafter followed by a police raid on Sputnik’s office in Baku, which had been operating in a legal gray zone after the authorities moved to effectively shut it down in February, thus resulting in the detainment of several Russians. That earlier decision was suspected to be connected to Azerbaijan’s displeasure with Russia’s response to late December’s airline tragedy in the North Caucasus that was caused by a Ukrainian drone attack at the time. Readers can learn more about it here and here.

Before determining who’s responsible for the latest trouble in bilateral ties, it’s important to recall the larger context within which all of this is unfolding. Prior to late December’s incident, Russian-Azerbaijani relations were proceeding along a very positive trajectory in accordance with the strategic partnership pact that President Ilham Aliyev agreed to with Putin on the eve of the special operation in late February 2022. That built upon Russia’s role in mediating an end to the Second Karabakh War in November 2020.

More recently, Putin visited Baku last August, the significance of which was analyzed here and here. This was followed by Aliyev visiting Moscow in October in connection with the CIS Heads of State Summit. Shortly before late December’s airline tragedy, Aliyev then gave an extended interview to Rossiya Segodnya head Dmitry Kiselyov in Baku, where he elaborated on Azerbaijan’s multi-aligned foreign policy and newfound suspicions of the West’s regional intentions towards the South Caucasus.

On that topic, the Biden Administration sought to exploit Armenia’s loss in the Second Karabakh War to more radically turn it against Russia and thus transform the country into a joint French-US protectorate for dividing-and-ruling the region, which worsened relations with Azerbaijan. The Trump Administration appears to be reconsidering that, however, and might have even agreed to let Armenia become a joint Azeri-Turkish protectorate instead. It’s this perception that’s driving the latest unrest in Armenia.

From Russia’s perspective, the French-US protectorate scenario could spark another regional war that might spiral out of control with unpredictable consequences for Moscow if they weaponize the revival of Armenian revanchism. Similarly, the Azeri-Turkish protectorate scenario could turbocharge Turkiye’s rise as a Eurasian Great Power if it leads to an expansion of its influence (especially military) in Central Asia. The ideal scenario is therefore for Armenia to return to its traditional status as a Russian ally.

Having explained the context within which the latest trouble is unfolding, it’s now time to determine who’s responsible. Objectively speaking, the Azerbaijani authorities overreacted to the recent police raid in Yekaterinburg, which signaled to civil society that it’s acceptable (at least for now) to wage a vicious infowar campaign against Russia. Some officials with an unclear connection to Aliyev then authorized the raid on Sputnik’s office as an escalation under the implied pretext of an asymmetrical response.

Given the ambiguity about Aliyev’s role in Azerbaijan’s overreactions, it’s premature to conclude that he decided to jeopardize the strategic ties with Russia that he himself cultivated, though he must still take responsibility even if mid-level officials did this on their own. That’s because Baku’s official complaint to Moscow and its raid on Sputnik’s office are state actions, unlike the recent police raid in Yekaterinburg, which is a local action. He’ll thus likely have to talk to Putin sometime soon to resolve everything.

The abovementioned observation doesn’t explain why mid-level officials might have overreacted to the Yekaterinburg police raid, which can be attributed to the deep-seated resentment that some have against Russia and speculative foreign influence. Regarding the first, some Azerbaijanis (but importantly not all and seemingly not the majority) harbor such sentiments, while the second might be linked to the scenario of the US letting Armenia becoming a joint Azeri-Turkish protectorate.

To elaborate, the US and France would struggle to turn Armenia into their own joint protectorate due to Georgia successfully repelling several rounds of Biden-era Color Revolution unrest, which aimed to pressure the government into opening up a “second front” against Russia and toppling it if it refused.

The military logistics required for turning Armenia into a bastion from which they could then divide-and-rule the region therefore are no longer reliable since they could only realistically run through Georgia.

Accordingly, the Trump Administration might have decided to cut their predecessor’s strategic losses by “giving” Armenia to Turkiye and Azerbaijan, which would repair the troubled ties that he inherited with both. In exchange, the US might have requested that they take a harder line towards Russia if the opportunity emerges, knowing that neither will sanction it since that would harm their own economies but hoping that a future situation would develop to serve as the pretext for escalating political tensions.

Mid-level officials wouldn’t be privy to such talks, but the aforesaid speculative request could have trickled down to them from their superiors, some of whom might have implied state approval for overreacting to any forthcoming “opportunity”. This sequence of events could bestow Aliyev with the ability to “plausibly deny” his role in events as part of a de-escalation deal with Putin. The whole purpose of this charade might be to signal to Russia that a new order is forming in the broader region.

As was earlier explained, that order could be a Turkish-led one upon Ankara and Baku subordinating Armenia as their joint protectorate, after which they’d streamline military logistics across its territory to turn the “Organization of Turkic States” (OTS) into a major force along Russia’s entire southern periphery. To be clear, the OTS isn’t controlled by the West, but its Turkish leader and increasingly equal Azerbaijani partner could still autonomously advance the West’s strategic agenda vis-à-vis Russia in that scenario.

Just like the US and France have unreliable military logistics to Armenia, so too does Russia, so it could struggle to deter an Azerbaijani(-Turkish?) invasion of its nominal but wayward CSTO ally if Baku (and Ankara?) exploits its latest unrest (such as if Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan falls). Moreover, the most optimal branch of the North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) runs through Azerbaijan, which could block it if Russia takes decisive action in defense of Armenia (however limited due to the special operation).

To be clear, Russia has no intention to fight Azerbaijan, but Azerbaijan’s overreaction to the recent police raid in Yekaterinburg might be a ploy to preemptively craft the perception that Russia “backed down” as a result if Moscow doesn’t take decisive action to deter Baku if regional tensions over Armenia worsen. Had it not been for that raid, then perhaps some other pretext would have been exploited or concocted, but the point is that Russia and Azerbaijan have polar opposite visions of Armenia’s geopolitical future.

That same future is pivotal for the future of the broader region as was written, but Russia has limited means for shaping the course of events due to its complex strategic interdependence with Azerbaijan vis-à-vis the NSTC and its understandable military prioritization of the special operation. The preceding constraints are self-evident, and Aliyev (and Erdogan?) might be preparing to take advantage of them, emboldened as he(/they?) might be by Russia’s perceived setback in Syria after Assad’s downfall.

Azerbaijan is aware of its irreplaceable role in turbocharging allied Turkiye’s rise as Eurasian Great Power, which is dependent on subordinating Armenia in order to then streamline the OTS’ military logistics between Asia Minor and Central Asia via the South Caucasus. If Aliyev came to believe that his country has a brighter future as part of a Turkish-led regional order instead of a Russian-led one, especially if the US signaled approval of this as speculated, then Baku’s overreaction to recent events makes more sense.

The Moscow-mediated Armenian-Azerbaijani ceasefire of November 2020 calls for the creation of a Russian-controlled corridor across Armenia’s southern Syunik Province, which Baku calls the “Zangezur Corridor”, for connecting both parts of Azerbaijan. Pashinyan hitherto refused to implement this due to pressure from the West and the Armenian diaspora therein, but if Trump decided to “give” Armenia to Azerbaijan and Turkiye instead, then he might do it but only after squeezing Russia out of this route.

Russian control would prevent Turkiye from streamlining its military logistics to Central Asia through this corridor for the purpose of replacing Russia’s influence there with its own as part of a grand strategic powerplay that autonomously aligns with the Western agenda in the pivotal Eurasian Heartland. Azerbaijan (and Turkiye?) might therefore invade Syunik if their envisaged client Pashinyan either flip-flops on squeezing Russia out or before Russia is invited into there by a new government if he falls.

The consequences of Turkiye obtaining unhindered military access to Central Asia through either sequence of events could be disastrous for Russia since its influence there is already being challenged by Turkiye, the EU, and even the UK, which just signed a two-year military agreement with Kazakhstan. That country, with whom Russia shares the longest land border in the world, has been pivoting towards the West as was assessed here in summer 2023 and this troubling trend could easily accelerate in that event.

Reflecting on all this insight, the latest trouble in Russian-Azerbaijani relations might therefore be part of a Turkish-US powerplay, one which Trump could have agreed to with Erdogan and Aliyev later jumped on board but might still have his doubts. That would account for his “plausibly deniable” role in Azerbaijan’s overreaction to recent events. If taken to its conclusion, this powerplay could risk Azerbaijan becoming Turkiye’s junior partner with time, which he’s thus far sought to avoid through his multi-alignment policy.

If that’s the case, then it might not be too late for Putin to avert this scenario so long as he can convince Aliyev that Azerbaijan has a brighter future as part of a different regional order, one that would center on Azerbaijan continuing its Russo-Turkish balancing act instead of turbocharging Turkiye’s rise. The NSTC could figure prominently in this paradigm, but the problem is that Azerbaijan’s ties with Iran and India are very strained right now, so he’d have to prospectively mediate a rapprochement for this to happen.

Anyhow, the point is that it’s premature to assume that the latest trouble in Russian-Azerbaijani relations is the new normal or that it might even precede a seemingly inevitable crisis, though both possibilities are nonetheless credible and should be taken seriously by the Kremlin just in case. The best-case scenario is that Aliyev and Putin soon hold a call to amicably resolve the issues that have abruptly toxified their ties otherwise the worst might be yet to come and it could be disadvantageous for both.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/03/2025 - 03:30

Tobacco-Free Future - Moving Forward Or Backwards?

In France, a new ban limiting smoking in several public outdoor places went into effect on July 1, marking a major step for the country once known as a nation of smokers.

As Statista's Katharina Buchholz reports, tobacco use is falling around the world and control measures have reached a critical mass of people, expanding public smoking bans and even a total phase-out of commercial tobacco use has been on the table in some countries. However, some of the most high-profile measures of this kind have already failed, raising the question whether a tobacco-free future is in the making, further away that it seems or even wholly unattainable.

Bhutan, the Himalayan nation, was the world’s first officially smoke-free country when it outlawed the import and sale of tobacco in 2004. Bhutan has become famous for its different approach to governance, which has been admired in the West, for example calculating gross national happiness or mandating that 60% of the country remain forested. But even the remote nation that cited Buddhist teachings as a reason for its tobacco ban has not been immune to outside influence and axed the majority of its ban in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic to stop smugglers which were spreading the disease. Since then, the country’s government has decided not to reinstate and instead focus on education and cessasion programs, as the ban did not actually lower smoking rates and instead created an environment free of warnings around the tobacco which was still available illegally.

More recently, New Zealand attempted to raise a smoke-free generation from 2027 onwards by not allowing anyone born in 2009 or later to legally purchase cigarettes once they turned 18, alongside many other anti-tobacco measures. The country’s approach was that of a more gradual phase-out rather than a sudden ban but its merits won’t be tested as a change in government prompted the law enacted in 2022 to be scrapped despite reportedly having widespread public support. A new conservative coalition government decided to change course after coming to power in 2023, reportedly at the request of the populist New Zealand First party. Tobacco revenue was consecutively tied to new tax cuts. This highlights another area of concern with tobacco bans and phase-outs: the cost of prevention and tax revenue losses in the short term, even though these are expected to be offset by lower public healthcare costs. However, the United Kingdom is currently mulling a similar ban that is yet to be enacted but enjoys government and public support as of now.

The New Zealand government meanwhile said that it remained committed to creating a smoke-free nation nevertheless. Several countries, including Portugal, Canada and Australia, have set similar goals, typically aiming to reduce the number of smokers to 5 percent or less in the next five to 15 years. The EU, for example, has set this date to 2040. One popular rule to inch closer to this goal has been to further limit smoking in public outdoor areas like restaurant and bar patios, beaches, parks, natural areas or even inner city streets. The aforementioned countries, sometimes on a state level, have introduced bans like these, as have several other nations around the world. Cities have also followed suit and a well-reported ban went into effect in Milan at the beginning of the year, outlawing smoking anywhere near other people, similar to the law in place in Costa Rica.

The World Health Organization last week released its tenth report on the global tobacco epidemic, a status update on its anti-smoking campaigns.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The WHO concludes that more than 6 billion people, or around 75 percent of the world population, are now covered by some kind of tobacco control measure, including graphic warnings on cigarette packages, increases in taxation, advertising bans and programs that help people quit smoking. According to the organization, less than 20 percent of the world population currently smokes, down from more than 32 percent in the year 2000. 80 percent of these people are located in middle or low income countries and are more likely males as smoking continues to be the biggest cause of preventable death globally.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/03/2025 - 02:45

Tobacco-Free Future - Moving Forward Or Backwards?

In France, a new ban limiting smoking in several public outdoor places went into effect on July 1, marking a major step for the country once known as a nation of smokers.

As Statista's Katharina Buchholz reports, tobacco use is falling around the world and control measures have reached a critical mass of people, expanding public smoking bans and even a total phase-out of commercial tobacco use has been on the table in some countries. However, some of the most high-profile measures of this kind have already failed, raising the question whether a tobacco-free future is in the making, further away that it seems or even wholly unattainable.

Bhutan, the Himalayan nation, was the world’s first officially smoke-free country when it outlawed the import and sale of tobacco in 2004. Bhutan has become famous for its different approach to governance, which has been admired in the West, for example calculating gross national happiness or mandating that 60% of the country remain forested. But even the remote nation that cited Buddhist teachings as a reason for its tobacco ban has not been immune to outside influence and axed the majority of its ban in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic to stop smugglers which were spreading the disease. Since then, the country’s government has decided not to reinstate and instead focus on education and cessasion programs, as the ban did not actually lower smoking rates and instead created an environment free of warnings around the tobacco which was still available illegally.

More recently, New Zealand attempted to raise a smoke-free generation from 2027 onwards by not allowing anyone born in 2009 or later to legally purchase cigarettes once they turned 18, alongside many other anti-tobacco measures. The country’s approach was that of a more gradual phase-out rather than a sudden ban but its merits won’t be tested as a change in government prompted the law enacted in 2022 to be scrapped despite reportedly having widespread public support. A new conservative coalition government decided to change course after coming to power in 2023, reportedly at the request of the populist New Zealand First party. Tobacco revenue was consecutively tied to new tax cuts. This highlights another area of concern with tobacco bans and phase-outs: the cost of prevention and tax revenue losses in the short term, even though these are expected to be offset by lower public healthcare costs. However, the United Kingdom is currently mulling a similar ban that is yet to be enacted but enjoys government and public support as of now.

The New Zealand government meanwhile said that it remained committed to creating a smoke-free nation nevertheless. Several countries, including Portugal, Canada and Australia, have set similar goals, typically aiming to reduce the number of smokers to 5 percent or less in the next five to 15 years. The EU, for example, has set this date to 2040. One popular rule to inch closer to this goal has been to further limit smoking in public outdoor areas like restaurant and bar patios, beaches, parks, natural areas or even inner city streets. The aforementioned countries, sometimes on a state level, have introduced bans like these, as have several other nations around the world. Cities have also followed suit and a well-reported ban went into effect in Milan at the beginning of the year, outlawing smoking anywhere near other people, similar to the law in place in Costa Rica.

The World Health Organization last week released its tenth report on the global tobacco epidemic, a status update on its anti-smoking campaigns.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The WHO concludes that more than 6 billion people, or around 75 percent of the world population, are now covered by some kind of tobacco control measure, including graphic warnings on cigarette packages, increases in taxation, advertising bans and programs that help people quit smoking. According to the organization, less than 20 percent of the world population currently smokes, down from more than 32 percent in the year 2000. 80 percent of these people are located in middle or low income countries and are more likely males as smoking continues to be the biggest cause of preventable death globally.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/03/2025 - 02:45

China Erodes US AI Supremacy As Chatbot Race Defines Path To 2030 Dominance

Former PBOC Deputy Governor Zhu Min recently warned of a coming tsunami of domestic AI innovation, predicting that China could see 100 breakthroughs of the same magnitude as DeepSeek over the next 18 months. The rise of DeepSeek—a powerful, low-cost alternative to OpenAI's ChatGPT—has ignited a bull market in Chinese tech stocks and positioned itself as a serious contender in the deepening AI arms race between Washington and Beijing. As the world slides into an increasingly fractured and dangerous bipolar order, the battle for AI supremacy is shaping up to define who controls the 2030s.

A Wall Street Journal report adds new details to China's rapid rise as a serious challenger to the U.S. in the deepening technological Cold War—one that is expected to intensify significantly by the end of the decade. The report highlights how DeepSeek and e-commerce giant Alibaba are steadily gaining market share across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, with chatbot adoption spreading from banks and research desks to commercial enterprises and academia.

OpenAI's Sam Altman should be concerned about intensifying competition...

HSBC and Standard Chartered have begun testing DeepSeek's models internally, according to people familiar with the matter. Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil company, recently installed DeepSeek in its main data center.

Even major American cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google offer DeepSeek to customers, despite the White House banning use of the company's app on some government devices over data-security concerns.-WSJ

Still, ChatGPT remains the global gold standard, thanks to advanced computing semiconductors, cutting-edge research, and strong access to financial capital. According to data from Sensor Tower, ChatGPT is the world's premier chatbot, with 910 million global downloads—far surpassing DeepSeek's 125 million.

ChatGPT leads... 

Source: Wall Street Journal 

This intensifying competition is forcing countries to choose between U.S. and Chinese chatbots. Microsoft President Brad Smith recently warned, "The No. 1 factor that will define whether the U.S. or China wins this race is whose technology is most broadly adopted in the rest of the world," adding, "Whoever gets there first will be difficult to supplant." 

US investors have pulled back on funding China's AI complex... 

Source: Wall Street Journal 

Washington's chip restrictions have cost American companies billions (e.g., Nvidia's blocked chip sales), while Beijing invests in domestic chip production. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently thanked President Trump for rolling back chip restrictions, ensuring the chipmaker remains a dominant player. 

Besides AI, Morgan Stanley analysts laid out the emerging Quantum computing race between the West and the East. 

All in all, the global adoption of Chinese AI could reduce U.S. influence worldwide and increase the risks of Chinese Communist Party propaganda operations on consumer-facing apps.

Related:

• "Bomb Data Center": Eric Schmidt Warns AI Arms Race Could Spark Global Conflict

A headline like the one above is no longer a question of if, but when...

Also:

• China Reportedly On Verge Of 100 DeepSeek-Like Breakthroughs Amid Aspirations For World Domination

The battle for digital AI supremacy is well underway, and the next dominant chatbot may not be Western-made. Those who lead in AI and the production of low-cost, advanced weapons—such as drones and hypersonic missiles—will shape the global balance of power in the 2030s and beyond. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/02/2025 - 21:20

Note: Mortgage rates are from MortgageNewsDaily.com and are for top tier scenarios.

Thursday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, Employment Report for June.   The consensus is for 129,000 jobs added, and for the unemployment rate to be unchanged at 4.2%.

• Also at 8:30 AM, The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for initial claims to increase to 239 thousand from 236 thousand last week.

• Also at 8:30 AM, Trade Balance report for May from the Census Bureau. The consensus is the trade deficit to be $69.8 billion.  The U.S. trade deficit was at $61.6 billion the previous month.

• At 10:00 AM, the ISM Services Index for June.   The consensus is for a reading of 50.8, up from 49.9.

• All US markets will close early at 1:00 PM ET in observance of Independence Day

Thiel Joins Luckey & Lonsdale To Launch New Bank Aimed At Filling SVB Void For Stablecoins, AI, Defense & Advanced Manufacturing

A group of high-profile tech investors, including military tech entrepreneur Palmer Luckey and venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale, is preparing to launch a new bank designed to serve the niche left behind by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank — and to do so with ambitions that extend deep into cryptocurrency, defense tech, and artificial intelligence.

The bank, to be called Erebor, has formally applied for a national banking charter in the United States, according to documents made public this week. Named after the “Lonely Mountain” in The Lord of the Rings, Erebor would aim to serve the "innovation economy" - start-ups and individuals in sectors often viewed as too risky for traditional lenders, including blockchain, AI, defense, and advanced manufacturing.

Erebor’s founders, who include backers of Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential bid, say their institution will fill a gap left by SVB’s 2023 collapse, which shook the tech sector’s financial infrastructure. That failure triggered panic among start-ups, many of which relied heavily on SVB’s tailored credit offerings. Though SVB’s remnants were absorbed by First Citizens and some staff migrated to HSBC, entrepreneurs and investors continue to complain of tightened credit access and fewer bank partners willing to underwrite emerging technologies, FT reports.

Erebor’s co-founders first discussed launching a bank after the collapse of SVB in 2023, according to a person close to the matter. SVB had been the main bank for US start-ups and their venture capital backers.

Its assets were sold to First Citizens, which has since relaunched SVB, and a number of its bankers moved to HSBC in the US. But investors and executives complain about a gap in banking services for fledgling tech companies since SVB’s demise — with some start-ups struggling to get the same access to capital. -FT

The application describes Erebor as “a national bank… providing traditional banking products, as well as virtual currency-related products and services, for businesses and individuals,” with a focus on customers underserved by both traditional and fintech institutions. It will also offer services to non-U.S. companies seeking access to the American banking system.

One of the bank’s major innovations, and potential regulatory flashpoints, is its plan to become a dominant player in stablecoin transactions, a controversial corner of the cryptocurrency world where digital tokens are pegged to traditional currencies like the U.S. dollar. Erebor’s filing describes its goal as becoming “the most regulated entity conducting and facilitating stablecoin transactions.”

Founders Luckey, best known for founding Anduril Industries, and Lonsdale, a co-founder of Palantir and managing partner of 8VC, are not expected to be involved in Erebor’s day-to-day operations. Instead, the bank will be led by co-CEOs Jacob Hirshman, a former adviser to crypto firm Circle, and Owen Rapaport, CEO of digital assets compliance company Aer. Mike Hagedorn, a longtime banking executive and former EVP at Valley National Bank, will serve as president.

Despite its tech-forward posture, Erebor will be headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, with a secondary office in New York City. In keeping with the start-up culture it hopes to serve, Erebor will be a digital-only bank, offering customer support and financial products exclusively through a smartphone app and website.

Much about Erebor remains under wraps. Portions of the application, including its equity structure, business plan, and shareholder identities, were submitted confidentially.

The Erebor venture underscores the ongoing realignment of financial services in the tech sector, as traditional banks grow more cautious and venture-backed firms look to build their own institutions. Whether Erebor succeeds where SVB fell — and whether its fusion of crypto, defense, and Silicon Valley politics finds regulatory favor — remains to be seen. For now, its founders are betting there’s a mountain of opportunity left to reclaim.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/02/2025 - 19:40

What's Next For CDC's Remade Vaccine Advisory Committee?

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The vaccine advisory committee remade by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to look at multiple other vaccines, after it voted to advise officials to stop recommending influenza shots that contain mercury.

Dr. Robert Malone (C) speaks during the first meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta on June 25, 2025. Recently remade by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the committee plans to review recommendations for multiple vaccines. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images

Martin Kulldorff, the new chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), said on June 26 that one proposal is to tell the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to make clear that young children should not receive the measles, mumps, rubella, varicella (MMRV) combination immunization.

Instead, the CDC would recommend that children under the age of 47 months receive two separate vaccines: the measles, mumps, rubella shot, and the varicella, or chickenpox, vaccine.

The change would reflect data that indicate the MMRV combination vaccine causes more febrile seizures, he said. The CDC said the same thing in a background paper on the subject dated June 25.

A vote on the matter could occur as early as the next meeting, which is expected to take place in August or September.

2 New Subcommittees

Kulldorff, an epidemiologist who was fired by Harvard Medical School for declining a COVID-19 vaccine, also announced two new work groups, or subcommittees.

One will examine the impact of vaccines on the childhood immunization schedules.

“It is important to evaluate the cumulative effect of the recommended vaccine schedule,” Kulldorff said. “This includes interaction effects between different vaccines, the total number of vaccines, cumulative amounts of vaccine ingredients, and the relative timing of different vaccines.”

Researchers with the CDC and other institutions said in a 2022 paper that exposure to aluminum in vaccines was associated with asthma, although they said that additional investigation was required to confirm a link.

The second subcommittee will examine vaccines that have not been reviewed in more than seven years, including the hepatitis B vaccine, the first dose of which the CDC recommends at birth for infants.

“Unless the mother is hepatitis B positive, an argument could be made to delay the vaccine for this infection, which is primarily spread by sexual activity and intravenous drug use,” Kulldorff said.

Kulldorff declined in an email to The Epoch Times to say whether he'd been directed by Kennedy to look at the measles vaccines, or to reveal any other proposals the committee plans to take up at its next meeting.

Martin Kulldorf, chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, speaks during a committee meeting at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta on June 25, 2025. Kulldorf announced the launch of two new subcommittees to examine the impact of vaccines on the childhood immunization schedules and vaccines that have not been reviewed for more than seven years. Mike Stewart/AP Photo

The Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC’s parent agency, did not respond to a request for comment, including on whether Kennedy directed the committee to vote on vaccines containing the mercury-based preservative thimerosal.

Kennedy, earlier in June, removed all 17 members of the ACIP and replaced them with Kulldorff and others.

Votes on RSV Antibody, Influenza Vaccines

During the committee’s first meeting since the replacements, it advised the CDC to add a second monoclonal antibody treatment against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) for infants.

Dr. Robert Malone, a new ACIP member, told The Epoch Times that there was extensive discussion on the antibody at the subcommittee level and that one of the reasons he voted in favor was to provide another option against the virus, given how stock of the existing antibody ran low in the past.

Retsef Levi, another ACIP member, told The Epoch Times he voted against making the second antibody available to all infants because of concerns over a lack of granular data from clinical trials for both products. He would have supported letting high-risk infants receive the new antibody.

Kulldorff also voted in favor of the antibody. He participated despite being a paid witness in a legal case against Merck, which manufactures the new antibody, in January.

Dr. Joel Lexchin, a professor at the University of Toronto who has studied conflicts of interest, told The Epoch Times via email that Kulldorff “had a clear conflict and should not have voted.”

Kulldorff has not responded to requests for comment about potential conflicts of interest. He said during the meeting he did not have any conflicts related to the issues at hand.

Lexchin previously told The Epoch Times that some of the members ousted by Kennedy should have abstained from certain votes after they received money from pharmaceutical companies that stood to be affected.

The new advisers also voted to keep in place the CDC’s recommendation that virtually all individuals aged at least 6 months receive an influenza vaccine on an annual basis, before they advised the CDC to stop recommending thimerosal-containing flu shots.

About 5 percent of the flu shots administered in recent months contained thimerosal, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Members who voted in favor of removing thimerosal said they wanted to cut down on controllable sources of mercury exposure. Dr. Cody Meissner, the only no vote, said he didn’t see a safety issue with the amount of mercury in influenza vaccines and that he was concerned the vote would imperil influenza vaccine access for some.

The FDA and Sanofi, an influenza vaccine manufacturer, said that the supply would be sufficient without the thimerosal-containing vaccines.

The meeting did not involve much debate or discussion on general influenza vaccination, according to Malone.

“We were presented with essentially language that was already approved and and had to make a decision about whether or not to endorse ... a universal influenza vaccine recommendation, as has been the case for decades. The decision was that this was not the time to fight on that hill about the universal influenza vaccine recommendation,” Malone told The Epoch Times.

Panel member Vicky Pebsworth abstained from the vote, citing a lack of discussion.

Immune Imprinting

Malone said at the close of the meeting that he would be part of a subcommittee focused on influenza and that he anticipated considering “the long-standing issue of immune imprinting and original antigenic sin, which may or may not be a concern in the case of routine annual influenza vaccination.”

Immune imprinting refers to when previous vaccinations or infections leave behind an immune memory, causing the body to produce antibodies targeting that memory, even if a new variant or vaccine is introduced.

Vaccinating people annually against influenza may be counterproductive due to imprinting, Malone told The Epoch Times.

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/02/2025 - 19:15

India's Hindustan Zinc Eyes Five Year Timeline To Move Into Rare Earth Metals

India’s Hindustan Zinc is moving into rare earths, but commercial production could take up to five years, underscoring the hurdles of building a domestic supply chain to challenge China's grip on the sector. "This (rare earth) is of strategic interest (to India)," said CEO Arun Misra in an interview, according to Nikkei Asia.

The company was the only private bidder to win a monazite mining block in Uttar Pradesh in a government auction in May. However, exploration and reserve analysis will take three to four years. "The first part is exploration and mining, and that itself could take about three or four years, because we have to evaluate (the quantity and quality) of the reserves," said CEO Arun Misra.

Global supply of permanent magnets is tight after China restricted exports of rare earths like terbium and dysprosium, both used to boost neodymium magnets’ heat resistance. Auto manufacturers have been hit hard, though China claims it is still processing export applications.

India holds 6% of global rare earth reserves but accounts for only 1% of production, compared to China’s 69%. China benefits from large bastnaesite reserves with low thorium content, reducing processing costs—a "huge difference" in operating expenses, Misra noted.

India has 12.73 million metric tons of monazite reserves, mainly in southern beach sands. However, private firms are barred from mining these due to their thorium content, which is reserved for nuclear energy under the Atomic Energy Act. Only state-run Indian Rare Earth Ltd. can mine these areas. “If monazite is decontrolled and allowed to be mined with private participation, and companies like ours participate, it will help India make magnets,” Misra said. “What is known is the (monazite content) in sea beaches, because rare earth mining has happened there for the last so many years.”

EY estimates China holds 44 million tons of rare earth reserves—40% of the global total. In a recent report, EY India's chief policy adviser D.K. Srivastava stressed the need for more R&D and global partnerships. “Any shortage will serve as a substantiative bottleneck in growth and employment,” he warned.

Nikkei Asia writes that India’s rare earth oxide imports dropped 22% year-on-year in FY 2022-23, but China’s share of those imports rose from 17.5% to 25%. The supply crunch has highlighted India’s broader reliance on imports of key minerals like cobalt, graphite, lithium, and copper—vital for EVs and energy storage. Despite large domestic reserves, India imports 60% of its graphite and does not refine cobalt locally.

According to IEEFA, this reliance will likely persist as demand for critical minerals could more than double by 2030, while domestic production will lag. “This situation (dependence on imports) is likely to continue,” it noted in a 2024 report.

In response, India launched the ₹163 billion ($1.9 billion) National Critical Mineral Mission and tasked the Geological Survey of India with 1,200 exploration projects by 2030-31. The country also aims to secure lithium and cobalt reserves abroad.

Hindustan Zinc is expanding accordingly, having acquired potash and tungsten blocks. It targets 30% of its revenue from critical minerals in five years. While Misra didn’t disclose funding details, he stated, “money was not an issue,” citing a 33% jump in profits to ₹103.5 billion in FY 2024-25. “We would like to work in sectors which are apparently difficult to operate and hence not attractive enough for other big players,” he added.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/02/2025 - 18:50

Democrats, Animated By Loathing Of Trump, Are Driving Their Party To Self-Destruction

Authored by Conrad Black via RealClearPolitics.com,

The Democrats are now implacably self-destructive. They resemble nothing so much as a slowly capsizing ship, but show by their frenzied skullduggery that America is not in decline — the opposition is rotten and hopeless but it still fights savagely. I hope readers will pardon a recitation of the party’s gradual foundering. They pushed the nation into Vietnam, mismanaged the war, and deserted their own president (Lyndon Johnson), and when President Nixon saved their war, they crucified him on what can now be seen as the utterly absurd Watergate nonsense.

President Carter was earnest and altruistic, but he helped push out the Shah of Iran to bring on the ayatollahs, a horrifying strategic blunder, and his weakness induced the USSR into Afghanistan. President Reagan uplifted the country and let America be America, and the Soviet Union and international communism collapsed. The Bushes and Clintons coasted on Reagan’s coat-tails for as long as they could.

In 2016 as it became clear that Secretary Clinton’s campaign was running into difficulties against President Trump, then a candidate, at whose nomination the Democrats had rejoiced, they tested the guardrails of American constitutional democracy by notoriously politicizing the intelligence agencies and the FBI. The National Intelligence Director, James Clapper, declared that Mr. Trump was being handled by President Putin as if the American were an intelligence “asset” of Russia.

The FBI director, James Comey, facilitated the transmission of a pastiche of lies and defamations assembled by a former intelligence agent on behalf of the Clinton campaign, as legitimate intelligence which because of its provenance did not require substantiation by the press to be published. Mr. Comey answered an inquiry, under oath, 245 times that he did not remember events he had participated in two years before.

Mrs. Clinton’s 33,000 destroyed emails on an improperly used server were naturally found by Mr. Comey not to be an obstruction of justice, but there was immediately launched the unmitigated fraud about Russian collusion in Mr. Trump’s election, to the full knowledge of then President Obama and then Vice President Biden. When this immense smear job finally collapsed, it was followed by a spurious impeachment of Mr. Trump on the grounds that he asked President Zelensky of Ukraine for the truth about the Biden family’s financial activities in Ukraine. He did not attempt to direct the answer. We now know that it was a legitimate question. 

The ludicrous impeachment proceedings had just failed as the early indications of the Covid pandemic became known and the Democrats demanded the total shutdown of the country with the evident purpose of promoting an economic depression they could then blame on the president. He was denounced as a racist for shutting off direct flights from Communist China and was denounced as being an “anti-science” Neanderthal deliberately risking the lives of the entire population, to the extent that he did not stop everything and isolate everyone.

As the election year 2020 unfolded, the death of George Floyd at Minneapolis, apparently mainly from drug-related causes but following his apprehension by a policeman who put his knee on Floyd’s neck, was seized upon by radical anarchists and anti-white organizations for so-called “peaceful protests” around the country and throughout the summer of 2020 killing dozens of people and causing billions of dollars of damage. The Democrats informally merged with the radical left that was inciting the riots and successfully demanding defunding of police in many cities. The national political press was thoroughly complicit in blaming all of the violence on “Trump chaos.” 

The Democrats recognized that Sen. Sanders could not win because of his extreme leftist views, so the party elders promised Mr. Sanders his left-wing program and substituted the innocuous old wheelhorse, Mr. Biden.  Even after all of this, it was necessary for the Democrats to distribute tens of millions of unsolicited ballots according to inevitably partially obsolete voters lists, raising concerns about the collection and casting of some millions of unverifiable and harvested ballots.

There were window-rattling ululations of joy at the invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. We now know that the mayor of Washington, Muriel Bowser, declined Trump’s offer of national guardsmen to bolster security, and Mr. Trump contends that Speaker Pelosi turned down a similar offer of national guard reinforcements for the Capitol. Years of effort to wring evidence of Mr. Trump’s involvement have failed. 

As Mr. Trump refused to vanish like a dreadful meteor as had been predicted, and retained the support of scores of millions of Americans, the Democrats resorted to the final assault on the integrity of the system and deluged him with four ludicrous political criminal indictments. The perfidy of the prosecutors combined with the skepticism of the public; Mr. Trump was effectively acquitted by 78 million of his fellow citizens in a close but decisive election, despite a partisan stonewall in the national political media and a large Democratic advantage in fundraising.

Mr. Trump returned to office much more knowledgeable about Washington and how to adopt his comprehensive program to end the massive illegal invasion by mainly destitute and frequently criminal migrants, to strengthen the market economy, roll back the green terror, and define America’s national interests in the world and credibly provide for the defense of them.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s acceptance of sharp increases in defense spending and the American and Israeli destruction of the military and terrorism-supporting potential of Iran and moves to eliminate America’s trade deficit of over $1 trillion are important accomplishments. Last week’s rejection by the Supreme Court of the Democrats’ latest obstructionist wheeze of judge-shopping to notoriously liberal federal district judges and inducing them to purport to injunct federal policies, is another Trump victory.

The great Democratic party of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and even up to a point Clinton, has given way to an unfeasible ragtag of superannuated tyros, influence peddlers, decayed servitors, and now completely unacceptable extremists personified by the likely nominee to be mayor of New York City, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, an economic Marxist who does not accept the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state and expresses sympathy for calls to globalize the intifada.

The Democrats have no plausible opponents to Mr. Trump, no policy except Trump-hate, and have carried to its logical extreme the great liberal death wish. Having failed by an unprecedented series of illegalities to defeat Mr. Trump, they have practically destroyed themselves.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/02/2025 - 18:25

Fiji Says Chinese Military Base, Missiles Not Welcome In Pacific

The tiny South Pacific archipelago country of Fiji has come out firmly against China establishing a military base in the Pacific Islands, according to a statement of Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka issued Wednesday.

He emphasized that China has no need for such a provocatively located base to demonstrate its military strength, citing its recent intercontinental ballistic missile test as evidence.

Via cntraveller 

Rabuka provided clear acknowledgement that Pacific nations are grappling with how to respond to China’s growing efforts to expand its influence, in remarks given to the National Press Club in Canberra.

"Pacific leaders have consistently aimed for a diplomatic stance of being friendly with all and enemies to none — a challenging path, but one we believe is achievable," Rabuka said.

The problem is that Pacific Islands have become a key area of geopolitical competition between US and Chinese naval power for regional security influence, especially over the last decade, and as tensions over Taiwan independence continue to boil.

Reuters reported the comments as follows:

Fiji opposes establishment of a military base by China, he said, in response to queries on Beijing’s security ambitions in a region where it already has a security pact with the Solomon Islands and a police presence in several nations.

“If they want to come, who would welcome them?” he said. “Not Fiji.”

Rabuka is proposing an "Ocean of Peace" treaty that would bind the region to unity, allow for common solutions to regional issues that arise, and which would reject coercion as a tool for for political dominance. But as Germany's DW reviews:

Beijing has spent hundreds of millions of dollars constructing sports stadiums, government offices, hospitals and roads in Pacific countries such as Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

The charm offensive has already borne fruit with Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Nauru severing longstanding diplomatic links with Taiwan in favor of China.

"We do not want superpower rivalries or big power rivalries to be played out in the Pacific," Rabuka explained in his comments. He added, "China's participation in our development should not affect how we interact with Australia, New Zealand and America."

But these referenced countries have no only long been part of the 'Five Eyes' - English speaking nations which cooperate at the highest levels on intelligence - but there's also the 'AUKUS' defense pact involving the US, Australia, and the UK. Beijing views that it is only legitimately reacting to this rising 'Western threat' in regional waters. China sees that Pacific as its own backyard.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/02/2025 - 18:00

 

 

At The Money: At The Money: Planning Your Retirement? (July 2, 2025)

Is it better to blurb or not to blurb? That is the question? In this episode of At the Money, I speak with Guest.

Full transcript coming soon.

~~~

About this week’s guest:

Christine Benz is Director of Personal Finance & Retirement Planning at Morningstar; her new book is “How to Retire: 20 Lessons for a Happy, Successful, and Wealthy Retirement.” She joins Barry Ritholtz to discuss what you need to know about planning for retirement.

For more info, see:

Professional/Personal website

LinkedIn

Twitter

~~~

 

Find all of the previous At the Money episodes here, and in the MiB feed on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, and Bloomberg. And find the entire musical playlist of all the songs I have used on At the Money on Spotify

 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT:

 

~~~

Find our entire music playlist for At the Money on Spotify.

 

The post At the Money: Christine Benz on Retirement appeared first on The Big Picture.

Putin Defends Iran's Right To Nuclear Enrichment In First Macron Phone Call In 3 Years

On Tuesday Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by phone for the first time in almost three years, at a moment of various global hotspots of interest to both countries.

A nearly two week war between Iran and Israel just ensued last month, at the end of which the US launched a major bombing campaign on three Iranian nuclear facilities. And the Ukraine war shows no ending in sight, with both sides refusing to make concessions. However, just this week the Trump administration confirmed that some weapons shipments to Kiev have been halted

A big question which lingers over Mideast tensions is the future of Iran's nuclear program. The White House's claim that the Islamic Republic's nuclear capability has been destroyed remains anything but certain or settled. Notably, Putin in the call defended Iran's ability and sovereign right to purse a peaceful nuclear energy program.

In the meantime, Tehran has halted cooperation with the UN's nuclear watchdog IAEA, with the Iranian president having signed this move into law on Wednesday, also amid outrage that its chief Raphael Grossi refused to condemn Israel and US aggression against Iran.

Following the call, the Kremlin issued an official statement summarizing the conversation between Presidents Macron and Putin. 

Below is the translated call readout issue by the Kremlin in full [emphasis ZH]...

* * *

Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron emphasized that Russia and France, as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, bore particular responsibility for upholding peace and security, in the Middle East and elsewhere, as well as for preserving the global non-proliferation regime.

In this regard, it was noted that respecting Tehran’s legitimate right to develop peaceful nuclear technology and continue to fulfill its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which includes cooperating with the IAEA, was crucial.

The two leaders spoke in favor of settling the crisis around Iran’s nuclear program and any other differences arising in the Middle East exclusively via political and diplomatic means. They agreed to maintain contact in order to coordinate their stances if necessary.

When discussing the situation surrounding Ukraine, Vladimir Putin reiterated that the conflict was a direct consequence of the policies pursued by the Western countries, which had for years been ignoring Russia’s security interests, creating an anti-Russia staging ground in the country, and condoning violations of rights of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking citizens, and at present were pursuing a policy of prolonging hostilities by supplying the Kiev regime with a variety of modern weaponry.

Any negotiated settlement must bring peace for the long term, Putin reminds Macron...

First Putin-Macron phone since 2022 as NATO's boycott of diplomacy comes to an end
- The Kremlin noted that Putin reminded Macron that the war in Ukraine “is a direct consequence of the policies of Western states,” and warned that any peace agreement in Ukraine must be… pic.twitter.com/VUmS4kNq15

— Glenn Diesen (@Glenn_Diesen) July 2, 2025

Speaking about the prospects of a peaceful settlement, the President of Russia has confirmed Moscow’s stance on possible agreements: they are to be comprehensive and long-term, provide for the elimination of the root causes of the Ukraine crisis, and be based on the new territorial realities. 

* * *

Below are more geopolitical headlines on Wednesday, via Newsquawk:

• US President posted that his representatives had a long and productive meeting with the Israelis on Gaza and Israel agreed to the necessary conditions to finalise a 60-day ceasefire during which they will work with all parties to end the war. Furthermore, the Qataris and Egyptians will deliver this final proposal and he hopes, for the good of the Middle East, that Hamas takes this deal, because it will not get better and will only get worse.
• US officials said Iran made preparations to mine the Strait of Hormuz last month although mines were not deployed in the strait, according to Reuters.
• "Iranian Minister of Communications: Internet outages in the country caused by external attacks", according to Al Jazeera.
• "Advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC: The war has stopped, but the United States and Israel have not achieved their goals", according to Iran International.
• US Pentagon has halted shipments of some air defence missiles and other precision munitions to Ukraine due to worries that US weapons stockpiles have fallen too low, according to Politico.
• Quad joint statement expresses serious concern over the situation in the East China Sea and South China Sea, while they called for the perpetrators, organisers and financiers of the April 22nd attack in Indian Kashmir to be brought to justice.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/02/2025 - 17:20

Moderna To Ask For Clearance For Combination COVID-Influenza Vaccine

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Moderna is going to ask regulators to approve its combination vaccine against COVID-19 and influenza, the company said on June 30.

The company said a phase 3 study evaluating its influenza vaccine candidate, mRNA-1010—which utilizes the same messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) platform as its COVID-19 vaccine—showed positive effectiveness.

A health care worker prepares a vaccine in New York City in a file photograph. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

In the trial, which featured 40,805 participants and compared mRNA-1010 to an existing seasonal flu vaccine in adults aged 50 and up, the relative protection from the candidate was 26.6 percent better. In a subgroup analysis among participants aged at least 65, the relative efficacy was 27.4 percent.

“Today’s strong Phase 3 efficacy results are a significant milestone in our effort to reduce the burden of influenza in older adults,” Stéphane Bancel, Moderna’s CEO, said in a statement.

Several companies, including Moderna, have been planning to introduce combination shots against COVID-19 and influenza.

Moderna, however, in May withdrew its application for approval for its combination vaccine, a move the company said came after consulting with the Food and Drug Administration.

Moderna at the time said it planned to resubmit the application before the end of 2025 after it received efficacy data from the phase 3 trial for mRNA 1010.

“An mRNA-based flu vaccine has the potential advantage to more precisely match circulating strains, support rapid response in a future influenza pandemic, and pave the way for COVID-19 combination vaccines,” Bancel said on Monday.

The trial results have been fully published or peer reviewed. Moderna said it plans to submit the results to a peer-reviewed journal.

Moderna said that the phase 3, randomized trial results showed safety results similar to those reported from a different phase 3 trial in March in the journal Vaccine. In that paper, researchers reported similar numbers of adverse events between Moderna vaccine recipients and volunteers who received existing flu vaccines. There were also fewer severe, serious, and medically attended adverse events among the Moderna recipients, with no deaths reported in that group.

“The majority of solicited adverse reactions (SARs) were mild,” Moderna said in a statement about the new study. “Injection site pain was the most common local SAR, and fatigue, headache and myalgia were the most common systemic SARs reported.

“There were no significant differences between the groups in the rates of unsolicited adverse events, serious adverse events, or adverse events of special interest.”

There are currently no mRNA flu vaccines in the United States.

The FDA did not return a request for comment by publication time.

Regulators in May approved a new COVID-19 vaccine from Moderna for adults aged 65 and older, as well as other individuals aged at least 12 who have one or more conditions that officials say put them at higher risk for severe COVID-19.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/02/2025 - 17:00

Del Monte Bankruptcy Won't Spark Canned Food Shortages  

Del Monte Foods, a major player in America's canned food supply chain, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New Jersey as part of a broader strategic restructuring effort. The company does not anticipate that the bankruptcy process will cause any disruptions to the canned food market. 

The 138-year-old food company, a U.S. unit of Singapore-based Del Monte Pacific, best known for its canned fruits and vegetables, entered into a restructuring support agreement with a group holding some of its term loan debt. The company stated it's "pursuing a value-maximizing sale process as part of an overall strategic balance-sheet restructuring." 

A filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey states the company, whose brands include Del Monte, Contadina, College Inn, Kitchen Basics, JOYBA, Take Root Organics, and S&W, said it has both liabilities and assets estimated between $1 billion and $10 billion and secured $912.5 million in debtor-in-possession financing, including $165 million in new funding, from some of its current lenders. 

"This is a strategic step forward for Del Monte Foods. After a thorough evaluation of all available options, we determined a court-supervised sale process is the most effective way to accelerate our turnaround and create a stronger and enduring Del Monte Foods. With an improved capital structure, enhanced financial position and new ownership, we will be better positioned for long-term success," said Greg Longstreet, President and CEO of Del Monte Foods.

Longstreet continued, "While we have faced challenges intensified by a dynamic macroeconomic environment, Del Monte Foods has nourished families for nearly 140 years, and we remain committed to our mission of expanding access to nutritious, great-tasting food for all. I am deeply grateful to our employees, growers, customers and vendors, as well as our lenders for their support in helping us achieve our long-term goals."

Bloomberg noted, "The development ends a challenging year for the borrower that saw its parent company Del Monte Pacific Ltd. in June elect to skip a payment to the unit's lenders as part of a lawsuit settlement tied to a controversial debt restructuring."

Del Monte's operations date back to the mid-1880s, when California-based merchants began using the name "Del Monte" to market high-quality coffee for the Hotel Del Monte in Monterey. By 1892, it expanded to canned fruit and has since grown to control a sizeable portion of the U.S. canned food market. 

The good news is that Del Monte does not expect any supply shortages in the canned food market as a result of its bankruptcy proceedings.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/02/2025 - 16:40

Ron Paul: A Big Beautiful Bill For The Military-Industrial Complex

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute,

The US Senate worked through the weekend on the “Big Beautiful Bill.” The goal was to pass it quickly to ensure the House will then pass it and send it to President Trump’s desk before the July 4th holiday.

However, disagreements among Republican Senators over reductions in spending on programs including Medicaid and food stamps as well as language in the bill eliminating “clean energy” tax credits were preventing Senate Republican leadership from getting enough votes to pass the bill.

Also, some Republicans disagree with other Republicans in both the House and Senate on increasing the state and local tax (SALT) deduction. Many conservatives see this income tax deduction as encouraging states to maintain high taxes to fund big governments.

One item in the BBB that few Republicans are objecting to is the bill’s increase in military spending. The House version of the BBB added 150 billion dollars to the Pentagon’s already bloated budget. The Senate bill gave the military-industrial complex 156 billion dollars.

Increasing military spending contradicts President Trump’s promise to stop wasting money on endless wars that have nothing to do with ensuring the security of the American people.

Some of the BBB’s military spending will be used to put troops on the border. I support strengthening border security. However, I do not support using the military for domestic law enforcement, which includes enforcing immigration laws. Soldiers are trained to view people as potential enemies, not as innocent civilians to be protected. Introducing this mindset into domestic law enforcement will lead to abuses of liberty.

Increasing spending on militarism while cutting spending on programs that help low-income Americans is bad politics and bad policy. Polls show that the majority of Americans, including many Republicans, do not support overseas intervention.

The growing opposition to our hyper-interventionist foreign policy is easy to understand. The US has engaged in numerous military actions in many countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria since the beginning of the 21st century. The American people pay for this militarism in several ways. One is the “inflation tax” imposed by the Federal Reserve in order to monetize the debt incurred by the US government for endless wars. President Trump has turned his back on his antiwar supporters by bombing Iran and by increasing military spending to over a trillion dollars.

The Republican insistence on increasing military spending is the main reason Congress cannot cut taxes without increasing the debt, making cuts in domestic welfare programs, or both. If the Republicans want to be the Make America Great Again party, they need to embrace a true America First foreign policy. This means no more regime change wars or US taxpayer supported “color revolutions.” Instead, America should return to the Founders’ vision of a country that, in the words of John Quincy Adams, does not go “abroad in search of monsters to destroy” and instead is “the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all” while “the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

A return to a noninterventionist foreign policy is the only way we will be able to begin to pay down the national debt and restore a government that adheres to the constitutional limits on its powers and respects all the people’s rights all the time.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/02/2025 - 16:20

On Thursday at 8:30 AM ET, the BLS will release the employment report for June. The consensus is for 129,000 jobs added, and for the unemployment rate to be unchanged at 4.2%. There were 139,000 jobs added in May, and the unemployment rate was at 4.2%.

From Goldman Sachs:

We do not place much weight on the ADP miss because of ADP’s limited correlation with BLS private payrolls over the last few years. We left our forecast for June nonfarm payroll growth unchanged at +85k ahead of tomorrow’s release. ... We expect payroll growth to slow from its 135k 3-month average because big data indicators were soft ... We forecast that the unemployment rate edged up to 4.3%—a low bar from an unrounded 4.24%—reflecting sequential increases in other measures of labor market slack.
emphasis added

From BofA:

June NFP are likely to rise by 95k. Although the initial claims increase in recent weeks can be attributed to seasonal volatility, continuing claims were also high during the survey week. We also see headwinds from weak college graduates hiring and summer job cuts for education & health workers. Additionally, leisure & hospitality job growth tends to slow in June when Memorial Day falls relatively earlier in the month in May (like this year). We expect the u-rate to rise a tenth to 4.3%.

• ADP Report: The ADP employment report showed 33,000 private sector jobs were lost in June.  This was well below consensus forecasts and suggests job gains below consensus expectations, however, in general, ADP hasn't been very useful in forecasting the BLS report.

• ISM Surveys: Note that the ISM indexes are diffusion indexes based on the number of firms hiring (not the number of hires).  The ISM® manufacturing employment index was at 45.0%, down from 46.8% the previous month.   This would suggest jobs lost in manufacturing. The ADP report indicated 15,000 manufacturing jobs added in June.

The ISM® services employment index for June will be released tomorrow.

• Unemployment Claims: The weekly claims report showed more initial unemployment claims during the reference week at 246,000 in June compared to 226,000 in May.  This suggests layoffs in June were higher than in May.

• Strikes: The CES strike report shows 5,600 employees returned from strikes during the reference period in June. This will boost the headline jobs number a little.

• Conclusion: Over the last year, employment gains averaged 144 thousand per month - and that was probably the trend prior to policy changes.  However, my guess is we will start to see the impact of policy uncertainty - a little more hiring hesitancy - and I'll take the under for June.

Japan Finally Admits Its Carmakers Have Been Paying All Trump Tariff Costs As Trade Talks Collapse

Last week, we sparked a stir within the financial community when we were the first to show, clearly and without doubt, that contrary to months of false narratives by the liberal "expert" class, the costs of Trump's tariffs are actually not borne by either US companies or US consumers, but rather by the exporting nation and its manufacturers. In this particular case, we showed that Japan's passenger car export prices to North America had plunged since Liberation Day, making it abundantly clear that it was indeed the Toyotas and Nissans of the world that were footing the bill of those extra $20 billion or so in month tariff revenues generated by the Trump admin.

well would you look at that: guess who is eating all those tariff costs (hint, it's not US consumers) pic.twitter.com/iwdKyeqTII

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 22, 2025

We were referencing Japan’s May trade data, which showed that car exports to the US declined 24.7% by value in May, but only 3.9% by volume, as Japanese carmakers took a big hit to their profits by slashing prices to maintain shipments and market share.

Yet this data was so very much against conventional wisdom and the fake mental models the TDS crew had constructed, that virtually not a single member of the anti-Trump echo chamber believed the findings, even when our discovery was presented by Congressman Bernie Moreno to the Fed chair a few days later as evidence that contrary to his fears, US inflation isn't soaring for the simple reason that costs are not being borne by domestic consumers (fast forward to 5 minutes in).

Powell didn’t comment when Dems sent inflation soaring with Covid lockdowns, vaccine mandates, LNG export bans, and massive tax hikes.

But he’s all too happy to attack President Trump’s trade agenda. He’s costing America 100s of billions and should resign. pic.twitter.com/GXPmQBcIPM

— Bernie Moreno (@berniemoreno) June 25, 2025

Yet still the TDS echo chamber would deny what was presented to them clear as day.

But fast forward to today, when we can finally lay this matter to rest.

This morning, none other than Japan's Nikkei, admitted that for the past three months it was none other than Japan's car industry that had been footing all the tariff-related costs following Trump's Liberation Day announcement.

According to the Nikkei, "Japanese automakers kept prices unchanged at first after the tariffs were imposed." It then goes on to state what our readers already knew, namely that "the unit price of Japanese automobile exports to the U.S. in May fell about 20% on the year, according to Japan's Ministry of Finance, indicating that Japanese automakers have been trying to absorb the cost of tariffs."

One correction to the esteemed Japanese media outlet: not "trying", but succeeding, simply because automakers have had no choice: sure, they could have hiked prices long ago but the outcome would be a collapse in demand for Japanese cars, with market share taken over by domestic producers and other, cheaper, foreign automakers. 

All of this is taking place as trade talk negotiations between the US and Japan are going nowhere, and in fact, Tokyo had gotten so emboldened by the theatrical standoff between Washington and Beijing, it thought it could get away with simply demanding away US tariffs. As a result, despite weeks of negotiation, the US-Japan teams have gotten nowhere with just one week left to go until the July 9 deadline, which is why Trump lashed out - in a very polite fashion - at the "spoiled" mercantilist Japan, which refuses to make any compromises.

“We dealt with Japan. I’m not sure if we’re going to make a deal. I doubt it with Japan — they’re very tough. You have to understand, they’re spoiled. I love Japan. I really like the new prime minister, too. Abe was one of my closest friends, as you know,” Trump said on Tuesday, referring to former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe who died in a 2022 assassination, explaining why there likely won't be a trade deal with Japan.

Trump noted this week that Japan has a rice crisis that has elevated prices, arguing the country should turn to the U.S. for rice. 

“But they and others are so spoiled from having ripped us off for 30, 40 years that it’s really hard for them to make a deal. You know, it’s very hard. As an example with Japan, they won’t take rice, and yet they desperately need rice,” he said. “They won’t take any cars, but they’ll sell millions. So, we told them, ‘Sorry you can’t do that.’”

The president said Japan will likely get a letter that would set the tariff rate ahead of the July 8 expiration of the 90-day pause on country-specific tariffs. Trump has said he will send letters soon to trading partners who haven’t struck deals.

“So what I’m going to do is I’ll write them a letter, say, ‘We thank you very much. We know you can’t do the kind of things that we need, and therefore you’ll pay a 30 percent, 35 percent or whatever the numbers that we determine,’” he said. “Because we also have a very big trade deficit with Japan, as you know and it’s very unfair to the American people.”

In other words, Trump has effectively assured Japan would be hit with across-the-board tariffs of up to 35% on its exports to the US, beyond the 24% penciled in on July 9. 

In response, Japan prime minister Ishiba said that American cars "are a tough sell in Japan" adding that his government needs to discuss with the US how to boost car imports from America.

“We can’t sell left-hand drive, huge, fuel-inefficient cars made in the US,” Ishiba said Wednesday, and he probably wasn't wrong. “We’ll discuss with the US how to produce better products and bring them into Japan, while considering Japan’s safety.” 

In a Fox News interview on Sunday, Trump lashed out at Japan over cars: “So we give Japan no cars. They won’t take our cars, right? And yet we take millions and millions of their cars into the United States. It’s not fair."

So what does Japan do now? Well, after eating billions of dollars in losses for months, the local carmakers are literally on the verge of collapse, and they are now trial ballooning that they have no choice but to do what everyone assumed they would do from day one: raise prices.

According to the Nikkei, Subaru and Mitsubishi Motors have started to raise prices while Mazda Motor is exploring doing so (none of this is actually reflected stateside yet). According to the Nikkei, "they have little choice but to raise prices, having reached their limit in absorbing cost increases."

Which is precisely what we warned back in March when we said that "Japanese Carmakers Face Catastrophic Profit Hit From Trump's Auto Tariffs." Well, the profit hit is here, and in a few weeks it will translate into one of the biggest recessions Japan has ever faces in modern history, forcing the BOJ to unleash an unprecedented stimulus, while pushing rates back to zero or negative.

And since Tokyo will be back to resorting to the oldest trick in the book, namely sending the yen crashing to offset the tariff costs - we fully expect USDJPY to hit 160 in the next 6 months - Trump is about to get a whole lot angrier at Japan and its soon-to-crash currency, at which point the world will finally move on from trade wars to currency wars and capital controls.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/02/2025 - 15:43

Iranian Hackers Say They Have 100GB Of Trump Emails

Authored by José Niño via Headline USA,

Hackers claiming ties to Iran say they possess 100GB of emails from President Donald Trump’s inner circle and may soon leak or sell the trove, after previously distributing a batch to the media before the 2024 U.S. election.

In online conversations with Reuters on Sunday and Monday, the hackers—who use the pseudonym “Robert”—claimed to possess about 100 gigabytes of emails from the accounts of “White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Trump lawyer Lindsey Halligan, Trump adviser Roger Stone and porn star-turned-Trump antagonist Stormy Daniels.”

Robert mentioned the potential of selling the material but did not provide further details about their plans or the content of the emails.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi described the breach as “an unconscionable cyber-attack.”

The White House and FBI responded with a statement from FBI Director Kash Patel, who said:

“Anyone associated with any kind of breach of national security will be fully investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) posted on X that “This so-called cyber ‘attack’ is nothing more than digital propaganda, and the targets are no coincidence. This is a calculated smear campaign meant to damage President Trump and discredit honorable public servants who serve our country with distinction”

A hostile foreign adversary is threatening to illegally exploit purportedly stolen and unverified material in an effort to distract, discredit, and divide. This so-called cyber ‘attack’ is nothing more than digital propaganda, and the targets are no coincidence. This is a… https://t.co/P30ZqhZMq0

— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) July 1, 2025

Robert first appeared during the final months of the 2024 presidential campaign, claiming to have breached the email accounts of several Trump allies, including Wiles, and subsequently distributed emails to journalists.

Reuters authenticated some of the leaked material, including an email that appeared to show a financial arrangement between Trump and lawyers for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now Trump’s health secretary.

Other documents included Trump campaign communications about Republican candidates and discussions of settlement negotiations with Daniels. Although the leaks received some media attention, they did not fundamentally alter the outcome of the presidential race, which Trump won.

A September 2024 indictment from the U.S. Justice Department alleged that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards ran the Robert hacking operation.

After Trump’s election, Robert told Reuters that no more leaks were planned. As recently as May, the hackers said, “I am retired, man.” However, the group resumed communication after the recent 12-day air war between Israel and Iran, which ended with U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites. In recent messages, Robert said they were organizing a sale of the stolen emails and wanted Reuters to “broadcast this matter.”

Frederick Kagan, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, commented that Iranian spies may be seeking retaliation through means unlikely to provoke further U.S. or Israeli military action, stating, “A default explanation is that everyone’s been ordered to use all the asymmetric stuff that they can that’s not likely to trigger a resumption of major Israeli/U.S. military activity. Leaking a bunch more emails is not likely to do that.”

Despite concerns about potential digital attacks, Iran’s hackers maintained a low profile during the conflict, though U.S. cyber officials warned that American companies and critical infrastructure operators might still be at risk from Iranian operations.

Over the last year, American-Iranian relations has reached new lows. Headline USA has reported on multiple instances of alleged Iranian plots to assassinate Trump, all in an effort to get the United States into a direct confrontation with Iran.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/02/2025 - 15:20

Establishment Democrats Created The Conditions For A Socialist Victory

Authored by Connor O'Keefe via The Mises Institute,

Last week, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani pulled off an upset and beat the establishment’s preferred candidate, Andrew Cuomo, in the Democratic primary for New York City’s mayoral election.

The race drew a lot of attention, in part because New York City is massive, and its mayor governs over more people than the governors of 39 states. But mainly, the primary gave us both the first major piece of electoral data since the election last November and a window into who is winning the struggle for the future of the Democratic Party.

Many have, appropriately, expressed horror that the earliest signs of a successful strategy for the party that’s been floundering since its loss to Trump has been embracing socialism.

Socialism is an evil system built on the violation of people’s rights. It also destroys societies and economies because it tries to ignore fundamental aspects of human action and economic law. Anyone who is at all concerned about the well-being of their communities, their nation, and their descendants should completely oppose any step towards socialism.

And make no mistake, Zohran Mamdani is a full-on socialist. He did not campaign on turning the means of production over to the workers but has been clear that he believes in that end goal and views watering down the message as a strategic necessity in the longer effort to make socialism more palatable for the public. And still, as William L. Anderson wrote last week, his policies only stand to hurt the people of New York City.

It’s clear that the political establishment is not happy about Zohran’s victory. It’s important to understand that, as terrible as they are, establishment politicians do not want America immediately transformed into a full-on socialist country. These folks are ripping the American people off. They’ve built a relatively stable redistribution scheme that benefits them. They do not want their property seized, their ill-gotten profits socialized, and the economy they rely on for their wealth and power to be run into the ground by a socialist revolution.

What the current political class wants is a steady but unyielding expansion of government that makes them and their friends richer while granting them more power and control over more of our lives. While they push the pace during emergencies, they clearly understand that moving too fast puts the entire racket at risk. And to them, politicians like Zohran Mamdani are moving too fast.

His platform calls for a level of government intervention beyond what Democrats typically campaign on these days.

He ran on freezing the rent for the approximately two million rent-controlled apartments in the city, establishing government-owned grocery stores that would sell price-controlled produce, and raising the city’s minimum wage to $30.

Establishment Democrats may be upset that a candidate won on a platform they disapprove of, but the blame for this falls squarely on their own shoulders.

The political establishment—in New York City and nationally—has created the conditions for the rising popularity of socialism that they’re now acting concerned about.

Although he is a committed socialist, Zohran’s entire campaign was built around a straightforward point: that the cost of living is way too high. That is true. While most of New York will always face relatively higher prices as long as a lot of people want to live in a city built on islands with limited space, the establishment Democrats that have been running the city’s government for decades have done a lot to force prices up a lot higher.

The city government creates shortages in most local industries with heavy licensing requirements for businesses and regulations on the behavior of vendors and consumers alike. Decades of rent control and limits on development have created a shortage of residences that make the houses and apartments that are available significantly more expensive. And the city’s high taxes have already caused many of the highest-income earners to leave.

And that isn’t unique to New York. The political establishment in many states and, especially at the national level, has been making life artificially expensive for most people with heavy interventionism and a crony, government-run monetary system that benefits the political class and well-connected rich at the expense of everyday Americans.

Most people can tell that the high cost of living we’re facing today is not due to some natural disaster or recent material constraint but is a byproduct of unnecessary policies. All Zohran had to do to win was run a campaign that spoke to that sentiment, prioritized it, and presented solutions that sounded different enough from the usual buzzwords and hollow promises the New York establishment has been repeating for decades.

And establishment Democrats are powerless to stop him because, in New York City and beyond, they have spent virtually every waking moment denying that there are any bad consequences to the many government interventions they have pushed for and enacted.

Establishment Democrats have dismissed the many economists who warned about the consequences of rent control for places like New York. And they quickly instituted a massive federal ban on evictions, including for non-payment of rent, during the covid pandemic with no concern about the potential downsides. So, from that standpoint, why can’t there be a rent freeze for New York apartments?

They’ve also helped the government take over many of the most important services in society, such as education, transportation, and the protection of persons and property—all while ridiculing those who argued that the quality of these services would decline while they also became overly expensive. And when, in every single circumstance, that is precisely what happened, establishment Democrats pretended like everything was fine. But if it were, why then couldn’t the government take on more services, such as providing food?

And finally, establishment Democrats have completely denied that the law of demand applies to wage labor and brushed off any concern that raising the minimum wage has any negative effects whatsoever. Why, then, can’t the minimum wage be $30?

The answer is that the establishment Democrats are lying. There are bad consequences to all these policies. Holding the price of rent down and protecting people who don’t pay from eviction creates shortages that make housing more expensive for everyone. Removing the pressures of the profit-and-loss system protects low-quality and inefficient service providers from the consequences of providing poor or overly expensive service. And making low-wage jobs illegal destroys those jobs. That creates shortages, which make everything more expensive, but it especially hurts the people who have no alternative besides the now illegal low-wage jobs.

As long as we continue to find ourselves in an artificial cost of living crisis with political leaders who insist that government intervention can essentially eliminate poverty without any real downsides, the “what are we waiting for” interventionism of socialists like Zohran Mamdani will only get more popular—to the detriment of us all.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/02/2025 - 14:40

"Unacceptable" - US Officials Slam Iran's Suspending Cooperation With UN Nuclear Watchdog

Update (1430ET): That didn't take long.

US State Department officials have reportedly said that Iran's suspension of cooperation with IAEA is "unacceptable", adding that Iran must cooperate fully without further delay.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric also chimed in, saying that Iran’s suspension of its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is “obviously concerning"

“We’ve seen the official decision, which is obviously concerning. I think the Secretary-General has been very consistent in his call for Iran to cooperate with the IAEA, and, frankly, for all countries to work closely with the IAEA on nuclear issues,” he told reporters.

*  *  *

In an official move which could bring Tehran into further conflict with the United States, Israel, and the West, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has signed a law which breaks all cooperation with the the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), following Israeli and US large-scale strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last month.

"Masoud Pezeshkian promulgated the law suspending cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency," Iranian state TV confirmed Wednesday.

Via Reuters

The announcement comes on the heels of Iranian parliament's initial decision last week to halt cooperation with the nuclear watchdog and monitoring body, a move triggered by Israel's surprise attack on the Islamic Republic which began on June 13.

Nearly two weeks of war followed, capped by the Trump-ordered B-2 bomber raids and huge attacks on the three key nuclear facilities of Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan.

Under the new parliamentary resolution, IAEA inspectors will need approval from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council before any access to nuclear facilities is given.

The IAEA merely said in response that it was "aware of these reports" of Tehran suspending cooperation and is waiting for formal communication from Iranian leaders.

Earlier this week, Iran’s foreign minister declared that IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, whom Iranian officials have fiercely criticized for not condemning the Israeli and US attacks, as Persona non grata.

There was also this recent alarming diplomatic fiasco centered on Grossi and threats by an Iranian newspaper:

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations said Sunday that Tehran poses no threat to the head of the UN nuclear watchdog nor its inspectors, after an Iranian newspaper claimed that Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi was an Israeli spy and called for him to be executed.

Iran’s ultra-conservative Kayhan newspaper recently alleged that unspecified documents showed Grossi to be an Israeli spy.

“It should therefore be officially announced that he will be tried and executed upon arrival in Iran for spying for the Mossad and participating in the murder of the oppressed people of our country,” the newspaper said.

“No, there is not any threat” against the inspectors or the director general, Iran’s Ambassador to the UN Amir Saeid Iravani said in an interview with US broadcaster CBS. The ambassador said inspectors in Iran were “in safe conditions.”

Just the day prior to Israel's surprise assault on Iran using dozens of warplanes, Tehran officials were outraged with a rejected a June 12 resolution from the IAEA board that accused Iran of failing to meet its nuclear obligations.

Iranian authorities then alleged this resolution served as one of the "pretexts" used to justify the Israeli and later US attacks on its nuclear facilities, which Tehran has maintained is solely for nuclear energy purposes.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/02/2025 - 14:20