🔹 Election shock and panic ensues across the EU Commission and NATO because an independent candidate (sovereigntist) won Romania's 🇷🇴 Presidential election 1st round. A Romanian constitutional court yesterday, (Nov. 28th 2024) asked the official electoral authority to recount and verify all of the ballots cast, after attempts to cancel the election failed. The US - UK - EU & Romanian media have been non-stop smearing Mr Călin Georgescu, since he won the election round on 25th Nov.

🔹 Mr. Georgescu won against 13 other candidates in the 1st round with 22.94% of the votes. Media across the West and in Romania label him 'pro- Russia', 'far-right', 'NATO critic' and 'ultranationalist' due to his 'Romania first' position. He was not invited to presidential debates hosted by Romanian media and didn't pay for political broadcasts on TV, but brilliantly used social media and podcast appearances to get his message out.

🔹 The European Parliament's 🇪🇺 liberal political group, "Renew Europe," Valerie Hyer, has called on TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to appear before the European Parliament to address concerns of social media interfering in elections. ANCOM, Romania's telecommunications market regulator will ask for the suspension of the TikTok platform in Romania.

🔹 Romania's Supreme Defense Council met to discuss possible risks to the country and its electoral process stemming from social media. Protesting against the results have started using students also, supported by political parties & NGO's against Mr Georgescu.

🔹 Mr. Georgescu holds a doctorate in pedology, a branch of soil science, and held different positions in Romania’s environment ministry in the 1990s. Between 1999 and 2012, he was a representative for Romania on the national committee of the UN Environment Program. He promotes peace for the Ukraine 🇺🇦🇷🇺 conflict and not escalation, supports the Romanian Orthodox Church, Romanian farmers, reducing import dependence, and ramping up local energy and food production.

Video Source: Ștefan Mandachi

🔹 Martial law in South Korea 🇰🇷 ends after 6 hours due to the country´s National Assembly (Parliament) constitutionally voting to revoke the declaration of emergency. President Yoon Suk Yeol lifted martial law, at 4:20 a.m, December4th, 2024. Police and military personnel were seen leaving the grounds of the National Assembly after they were reportedly earlier breaking into the building to arrest lawmakers.

🔹 Yoon said that he made the declaration "to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces and to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces. The U.S. 🇺🇸 White House National Security Council claims to have not been notified in advance of this announcement.

🔹 Yoon's declaration marks the first time in more than 40 years that the government has declared martial law. Former dictator Chun Doo-Hwan declared martial law in 1980 after seizing power in a military coup. The president urged the Assembly "to immediately cease reckless acts such as repeated impeachments, legislative manipulations and budgetary disruptions that are paralyzing the functions of the state."

🔹 Opposition parties hinted at proceeding with an immediate impeachment of President Yoon. The opposition says his proclamation of martial law utterly failed to meet the substantive requirements stipulated by the Constitution and the Martial Law Act."

🔹 Last week, President Yoon faced public opposition to arm Ukraine 🇺🇦 as a Ukrainian delegation visited with the aim "to strengthen South Korea-Ukraine security". South Korea is one of the world’s largest weapons exporters and has inked large, lucrative defense deals with Ukraine’s neighbors. However, Yoon could not promise Ukraine any weapons due also to Russia 🇷🇺 reacting by boosting ties with North Korea and US President elect Trump' Ukraine's peace plan not yet made clear.

Video Source: Al Jazeera

🔹 China bans exports to the United States 🇺🇸 of rare earth elements (REE) gallium, germanium, the metalloid antimony and other key high-tech materials with potential military applications, as a general principle, lashing back at U.S. limits on semiconductor-related exports. China firmly opposes the U.S. abuse of export control measures, illegal unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction against Chinese companies.

🔹 Antimony prices soared 40% yesterday, Dec 04th 2024 after the news broke. China 🇨🇳 imposed export restrictions on REE gallium and germanium in July 2023. China´s updated ban also include exports of super-hard materials, such as diamonds and other synthetic materials that are not compressible and extremely dense.

🔹 The U.S. military depends very heavily on China for the hard to mine 'metalloid element' antimony. The U.S. has no domestic mine ⛏️. Antimony is used to produce night vision goggles, armor-piercing bullets, explosives and nuclear weapons. China sits on reserves of over 145,000 tonnes. In 2nd is Canada 🇨🇦 with 7,000 metric tonnes. Russia 🇷🇺sits in 3rd with 6,500 metric tonnes.

🔹 Germanium is used in fiber optic products and military applications due to it being transparent to infrared radiation. Gallium is used for radio frequency chips for mobile phones and satellite 📡 communication. China produces 60% of the world's germanium and 80% of gallium. Both metals are byproducts from processing other commodities such as coal and bauxite. China has the largest portion of gallium reserves at 68% & accounted for 98% of worldwide primary low-purity gallium production in 2022.

Photo Source: Prashant Garg - Each node is a product. Size of node based on how "important" or "central" product is in international trade. Blue nodes are capital goods, silver are intermediates and green are final consumption good.

🔹 The foreign ministers of Russia 🇷🇺, Iran 🇮🇷, and Türkiye 🇹🇷 on 7th Dec. 2024, were unable to make any progress to push forward a substantial ceasefire in Syria along the path of constructive dialogue under the framework of UN Resolution 2254. Turkish attacks in southern and western Manbij, located in northeastern Aleppo is presently ongoing.

🔹 Iran´s FM said Syria 🇸🇾 was being attacked by “tens of armed terrorist groups”, adding that the armed groups were not Syrian nationals. He claimed that the US and Israel were playing a significant role in the antigovernment offensive in Syria in pursuit of a “new Middle East” agenda.

🔹 In just over a week, opposition forces in Syria have seized major cities, including Aleppo, and large swaths of territory. They’ve faced little or no resistance from the Syrian military, apart from air strikes involving Russia. The weakening of Syria’s govt is going to have massive implications in the region, as Iran would find it difficult to transfer weapons to the Lebanon´s Hezbollah. The attack on Syria, happened the day after the Israel🇮🇱/Hezbollah 🇱🇧 ceasefire started, which is now creating a new weakness for Hezbollah.

🔹 The Syrian Arab Army continues confronting armed groups in Hama and Homs, while simultaneously strengthening its positions around Damascus. HTS (Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham), a terrorist group composed of ex-al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliates, including Jabhat al-Nusra, functions as a Turkish-Israeli-US 🇺🇸 proxy in Syria.

🔹 Shiites, Alawites, Christians, family members of army, religious sites and other religious minorities face grave danger after terrorist captures. The ongoing fighting in Syria is expected to displace around 1.5 million people, says the UN 🇺🇳 World Food Programme. This is a breaking point for a food crisis in the country where 12.9 million people are already considered food insecure.

Video Source: Southfront

🔹 In the past 48 hours, Israel 🇮🇱 has totally annexed the Golan Heights of Syria seizing the UN supervised military buffer zone, bombed 320 Syrian military infrastructure and sank Syria's Navy fleet. This follows the continued collapse of Syria after former President Al-Assad fled. The terrorists 'moderate rebels' that are now in charge did not protect any of these military assets and gave no resistance to slow down Israel's annexation of Syrian territory.

🔹 Israel is in control of the strategic Syrian side of the Mount Hermon mountain range, however the IDF spokesman has denied this. The Israeli military penetrated deep into Syria, with IDF tanks spotted 25 kilometres from the Syrian capital Damascus. Egypt 🇪🇬, Qatar 🇶🇦 and Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 have condemned the incursion. Syria's Navy base at Latakia lies in ruins with no ship left intact.

🔹 However, Israel claims it was bombing Syrian military facilities housing chemical weapons stocks and long-range missiles to prevent them from falling “into the hands of extremists.” Lebanon's 🇱🇧 Hezbollah called on the UN 🇺🇳Security Council, the international community, and Arab and Islamic nations to reject and end the occupation of Syrian territories. Syria is almost totally de-militarized.

🔹 The head of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) originally affiliated with al-Qaeda, Abu Mohammed al-Golani is being hailed by western media as a future leader of Syria, but failed to mention that the US had set a $10 million reward for his capture. The UK doesn't know how to justify to the public its plans to remove HTS from it's terrorism list.

🔹 Videos are appearing on social media of reported public executions of Syrian military officials and minority groups such as Christians and Shia Alawites. None of which is reported in the corporate media. Al Jazeera reportedly saw piles of bodies, some showing signs of torture, at Harasta military hospital near Damascus, possibly from the notorious Sednaya prison under Syrian 🇸🇾 authorities.

Video source: SouthFront

🔹 Confiscating the Russian Federation's (RF 🇷🇺) frozen assets in the EU can lead to risks in clearing and settlement of securities transactions across Euro-zone and possibly start a selling spree of European bonds by international holders due to loss of trust.

🔹 Valérie Urbain, the CEO of the Euroclear group (the Belgium 🇧🇪-based clearinghouse), says confiscation entails serious risks for the organisation itself and the financial stability of Europe. Although the EU has allocated some of frozen asset's interest to Ukraine, it has not yet seized the principal assets.

🔹 Despite these warnings, EU 🇪🇺 foreign ministers met on 16th Dec. 2024 to discuss 'legal' illegal methods to do so. The EU claims to be assessing the financial implications of confiscation. 🇺🇸 President Biden has also continued to encourage the EU, which holds the bulk of Russia’s frozen cash, to pursue confiscation, including on a Dec. 13th G-7 call.

🔹 The US & EU states made no official declaration of war against Russia, making them third parties. Therefore there is no legality in the confiscation of Russian assets by the West. EU officials are fixed on legalizing illegality by confiscating private property outside the framework of a criminal trial.

🔹 Last year, the EU Commission President U. von der Leyen disregarded the European Central Bank fears that confiscation would damage the euro or financial markets. In accordance with international law, Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves are protected by sovereign immunity.

🔹 A reason the EU believes confiscation can be 'legally' done is due to the 'UN Convention 🇺🇳 on Jurisdictional Immunities of States & Their Property 2004' not yet in force. The EU's top diplomat K. Kallas, remarked that she doubted there would be any funds left to return to Russia. On Dec. 18th the EU adopted a 15th package of sanctions against Russia. Germany’s 🇩🇪 authorities have frozen Russian assets worth around 3.5 bln euro within the EU’s sanctions regime by now.

🔹 China´s 🇨🇳 DeepSeek AI model wiped out over $1 trillion in market capitalization of US technology stocks 🔻 yesterday 27th January 2025. The Chinese startup, which last week announced a breakthrough in AI technology threatens to upend the economic fundamentals of the industry.

🔹 The open-source AI DeepSeek has outperformed models from OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic in some third-party tests. The difference is that DeepSeek is offered for free, making money only by selling services to developers - not to the public – at a fraction of the price OpenAI charges. Anyone can study and copy how it was made. So hundreds of billions invested into AI by Western Tech firms may result in a negative ROI.

🔹 DeepSeek restructured the foundation of AI models, emphasizing software-driven resource optimization over hardware dependency. For example, custom communication schemes between chips to improve data transfer efficiency, memory-saving techniques, and reinforcement learning methods to minimize computational power requirements. These optimizations result in drastically lower costs compared to traditional large language models.

🔹 Estimates place the AI training cost of just $5.6 million, far less than the billions what OpenAI, Meta, and most US-based companies budget for similar operations. The mobile app for DeepSeek, skyrocketed to the No. 1 spot in app stores around the world.

🔹Not even the storm of Former 🇺🇸 President Biden’s approved restrictions on chip exports to China in the last three years stopped DeepSeek from training its latest models. "Attempts to limit China's access to US technology, in this case chips and chip equipment, have very likely incentivized China to develop on their own, and become more independent of U.S. capabilities in the process".

Video source: Reuters

🔹Gold has been hitting record highs the past few weeks in Feb, '25, hitting a all-time high 📈of $2950 USD. More than 600 tons, or almost 20 million ounces of gold, has been transported into vaults in New York City 🇺🇸 since Dec. '24. Are US traders looking to close out of short positions, or those holding physical gold in NY expects to short futures contracts to capture the outsized premium or something else going on?

🔹The gold inventory at the NY-based Commodity Exchange, (COMEX), has increased more than 70% since the start of the year. Normally, the price of gold in NY and London 🇬🇧 is roughly the same, but recently the New York price is substantially higher (a gap topping $50 per troy ounce).

🔹The COMEX warehouses used by gold traders accept only gold bars of a certain size and weight. That means the gold shipments from London go first to Swiss 🇨🇭refineries, to be melted down and reformed into a smaller shape and then sent on to NY. Swiss gold exports to the US shot up to more than 190 metric tons in Jan., triple the amount in Dec. '24.

🔹In London gold change hands in commercial vaults run by dealers such as JPMorgan Chase and HSBC. The Bank of England (BoE) also holds deposits on behalf of the UK Treasury, other central banks. The BOE is often considered the last resort to tap for the physical market.

🔹Possibly because of the urgency to get ahead of any Trump tariffs that may hit the yellow metal, both the commercial vaults and BoE’s cache have been drawn upon. The BOE saw its biggest gold outflows since 2012 in Jan. '25.

🔹China's 🇨🇳total gold imports via Hong Kong 🇭🇰 in January fell 44.8% from December as buyers avoid purchases due to record high prices. The Reserve Bank of India brought back more than 214 tonnes of gold in the past year from the vaults in Europe including those belonging to the BoE. Volumes shipped from Singapore 🇸🇬 to the US rose to about 11 tonnes in Jan., up 27% from Dec., and the largest amount since Mar. '22.

🔹Poland’s 🇵🇱 central bank has been one of the biggest buyers in recent years, with plans to increase gold to 20% of its reserves. Other big buyers have been the central banks of China, India 🇮🇳 and Turkey 🇹🇷. We're also seeing a significant surge in gold being pulled from COMEX vaults as investors take physical delivery instead of rolling future contracts over.

Video Source: Maneco64

🔹 The Arab League has expressed concern over the resurgence of violence in Syria 🇸🇾, where hundreds have been killed in recent days by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces. Since Thursday March 6th, 2025, more than 1,000 people—including Christian minorities and Alawites, have been killed.

🔹 HTS has faced repeated criticism for its treatment of minority groups, with many Syrians and foreign powers fearing it could impose strict religious rule, posing a threat to Kurds, Druze, Christians, and Alawites. US 🇺🇸 Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's warning of a terrorist takeover in Syria looks to be coming true because al Qaeda-linked terror forces in HTS are aligned with Syria’s interim new president—a former al Qaeda terrorist.

🔹 HTS terrorists are burning the homes of Alawites and Shiites, claiming that the violence isn’t just about identity but extends to dialect. “Anyone with a coastal accent is a target,” exposing the sectarian and ethnic cleansing driving these atrocities." A young man Nader Salibi mourns the the killing of his aunt’s family being Christian and living in an Alawite area in Latakia.

🔹 Images of the massacre of the village of Sharifah in the countryside of Latakia, showing Alawite victims of all ages have surfaced on social media. Images of slaughtered children in their homes are reported. The video above shows mass murder of residents of the village of Al-Mukhtariya, Latakia.

🔹Meanwhile the UK 🇬🇧 is lifting asset freezes on 24 Syrian entities, including the Central Bank of Syria, Syrian Arab Airlines, and energy companies, giving more resources to the Jolani´s HTS to commit further ethnic cleansing. The EU´s 🇪🇺 diplomatic service is publishing propaganda to cover for Syria's interim regime, claiming that pro-Assad forces are committing crimes against civilians.

🔹 Simultaneously, Israeli 🇮🇱 forces entered the village of Jumla in the Yarmouk Basin area of Daraa province for the second time in 24 hours. Israel is using the crisis to annex more Syrian territory as observers are dumbfounded as to why al-Qadea terrorists in HTS are allowing Israel to continue unhindered.

Video sources: Syrian Coast Observatory

🔹 Romania's 🇷🇴 Central Electoral Bureau (BEC) rejected the candidacy of Călin Georgescu, on 9th March for the upcoming presidential elections. The decision, taken with 10 votes in favor out of the 14-member committee, has ignited widespread protests and drawn sharp international criticism. The BEC cited a missing signature on an annex of Georgescu’s declaration of wealth as the reason for his disqualification.

🔹 Former judge at the Constitutional Court, currently a lawyer, Toni Neacșu says that BEC invented a Romanian Constitutional Court (CCR) decision that practically does not exist. The CCR convened a meeting today, (Mar. 11th), at 1700hrs, to analyze Mr Georgescu's lawyers appeals that were filed.

🔹 Law enforcement officers used tear gas to disperse protesters. Videos of police brutality surface online. Several individuals were arrested in the ensuing confrontations. The EU 🇪🇺 has declined to say anything about Romania’s decision.

🔹 In Nov. '24, Mr. Georgescu won the first round of presidential elections against 13 other candidates in the 1st round with 22.94% of the votes. The second round in Dec. '24 was cancelled by Romania's constitutional court to prevent his win, claiming Russia 🇷🇺 funded TikTok ads for Georgescu, which turned out to be false. US 🇺🇸 VP JD. Vance has criticized the election annulment.

🔹 His rejection follows his recent arrest amid an investigation into alleged extremism (with no substantial grounds), a move that had already drawn concern from high-profile figures. Some international political figures, have accused the EU of political interference in Romania’s democratic process. MEPs voted 109 'for' to 300 'against' an EU Parliament debate on the Romania crisis yesterday.

🔹 Matteo Salvini, Italy’s 🇮🇹 deputy PM, condemned the rejection, stating: “A Soviet-style Euro-coup. First, they annul the elections he was winning, then they arrest him, and now they exclude him ...”

🔹Georgescu is likely to win the replacement elections scheduled for May, as polls clearly indicated: leading with over 41% over his closest opponent, who had less than 19%. That was too much to bear, of course, for Romania’s long-suffering and deeply corrupt establishment. Blocking Georgescu from running again runs the risk of fuelling domestic unrest and straining Romania's strategic partnership with the US.

02nd June 2025 - Strange gold movements through Switzerland as China prepares the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) to compete with the London Bullion Market Association and the US's COMEX.

🔹Gold imports to Switzerland 🇨🇭 from the US 🇺🇸 jumped to the highest monthly level since at least 2012 in April 2025 after the exclusion of precious metals from U.S. import tariffs. Gold imports from the U.S. rose to 63 tons in April from 25.5 tons in March. It was the highest in monthly data going back to early 2012.

🔹 In that same month, China 🇨🇳 imported the most amount of gold from Switzerland, 23.5 tons (mainland and Hong Kong combined) compared with 2nd place the UK, at 13.2 tons and 3rd the US at 12.9 tons. China imported the most gold in nearly a year in April despite record prices, 127.5 metric tons, a 11-month high, a 73% jump from a month earlier.

🔹 Now, the SHFE will open up China’s domestic futures market to direct involvement by overseas investors and brokers. The proposed changes include allowing foreign brokers and other traders directly onto the exchange rather than operating through an onshore intermediary and including warehouses for overseas delivery.

🔹 A recently discovered “supergiant” gold ore deposit under an existing gold mine in China could be the world’s largest gold ore deposit. It is an estimated 1,100 tons stretching as deep as 9,800 feet below the surface.

🔹 Global gold investment experienced a remarkable 170% year-on-year increase 📈 during Q1 of 2025, primarily driven by substantial inflows into gold-backed Exchange Traded Funds. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank 🇪🇺 claims gold markets could be a source of danger to the euro zone’s financial stability in the event of geopolitical stress.

🔹 In April, Russia's 🇷🇺 gold share of its total reserve assets rose to a record high of 36.3%.

🔹Last month, the Bank of Namibia 🇳🇦 announced its decision to start buying gold as part of its foreign exchange reserves.

Photo source: Eric Yeung

🔹Mutual investments between Russia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are growing, with Russian investments exceeding Emirati ones by almost twofold, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted at a meeting in the Kremlin with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on August 7th 2025. This is amid the development of relations between the UAE 🇦🇪 Sovereign Fund and the Russian 🇷🇺 Direct Investment Fund.

🔹The trade turnover between Russia and the UAE reached $11.5 bln, the UAE would like this figure to be doubled both at the bilateral level and during the next five years. Both countries signed two agreements in the areas of investment and transportation. The UAE market has traditionally been highly protected by various barriers, particularly in the services sector. Under the agreements, the UAE is opening 64 sectors and subsectors to Russian service providers and Russia is opening 12 sectors to the UAE.

🔹Russia expects volumes of air transportation between both nations to grow from year to year as the statistics of this year is already above last-year statistics, by about 20-25%. Both presidents discussed expansion of cooperation between the UAE and Russia in economy, trade, investments, space and energy sector.

🔹Russia and the UAE signed the Trade in Services and Investment Agreement. which supplements the agreement on economic partnership between the Eurasian Economic Union and the UAE, and also provides for "a special bilateral cooperation framework focusing on services and investment.

🔹Both nations are calling for increased efforts to resolve the Palestinian 🇵🇸-Israeli 🇮🇱 conflict based on the creation of two states The UAE is a suitable venue for hosting the Russia-US summit according to President Putin. The UAE is ready to make additional efforts to facilitate the exchange of prisoners of war between Russia 🇷🇺 and Ukraine 🇺🇦.

Video Source: RT & TASS

🔹 Ukraine 🇺🇦 bombs oil pipeline and pumping stations supplying NATO member states Hungary and Slovakia. The Ukrainian regime attacked the oil pipeline infrastructure 3 times in a short period, halting oil 🛢 transport. U.S. President D. Trump responded to a note from Hungary´s 🇭🇺 PM V. Orbán, stating that he got “very angry” after Ukraine damaged the Russian oil pipeline that supplies Hungary.

🔹 Slovak 🇸🇰President P. Pellegrini praised President Trump’s rebuke of Ukraine’s attack. He recalled that Slovakia had declined to provide military assistance to Ukraine but was supporting the country in other areas. Hungary's FM Peter Szijjarto said the European Commission 🇪🇺, contrary to its obligations, has remained silent and done nothing, seemingly more interested in protecting Ukraine than Europe.

🔹 The attacks were focused on pipeline infrastructure in Russian and near the Belorus border. Germany's 🇩🇪PCK oil refinery in Schwedt (Brandenburg state) in eastern Germany receives part of its crude oil from Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 via the Druzhba pipeline, and is not affected. President Zelensky smirked when answering a reporter, saying friendship between Ukraine and Hungary depends on Hungary's position.

🔹 Slovakia's Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Juraj Blanar, discussed the attacks with Ukrainian FM Andrey Sibiga over the phone today (August 24th 2025) and told his colleague that the Slovnaft oil refinery located in Bratislava account for 10% of Ukraine’s oil product monthly consumption.

🔹 The Druzhba ("Friendship") pipeline, built by the Soviet Union in the 1960s, is one of the largest in the world, that carries crude oil from Russia into Europe along two main branches: one to Germany and Poland, the other to Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic 🇨🇿. Hungary's strategic oil reserves will be enough to provide oil refineries with raw materials for three months.

Highlights of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)+ Summit ending on Sept. 1st 2025, in Tianjin, China.

🔹Geopolitical:
-Laos 🇱🇦 officially joins the SCO as a dialogue partner, bringing the total number of like-minded nations to 27.
-Armenia 🇦🇲 and Pakistan 🇵🇰establish diplomatic relations.
-More than 10 new applications from various countries to join the SCO are currently being reviewed.

-Representatives of non-SCO members Malaysia 🇲🇾 and Vietnam 🇻🇳 attended.
-Representatives of 10 international organizations including the UN 🇺🇳 and ASEAN were present.
-Members strongly condemn acts causing civilian casualties and humanitarian disasters in Gaza 🇵🇸.

🔸Trade:
-China 🇨🇳 and Armenia established a strategic partnership.
-Ten intergovernmental agreements were signed between Kyrgyzstan 🇰🇬 and China.
-Members advocate creating new and modernizing existing international transport routes.
-Resolution on granting the SCO an observer status within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS);

🔹Economic:
-China will increase investments and loans to partners. Calls along with others for the creation of a SCO Development Bank. (This is not the same as the New Development Bank of the BRICS+ group).
-China will work with members to increase the installed capacity of solar & wind power by 10 million kilowatts each over the next 5 years.

🔸Security:
-Agreement among the member states on the SCO Anti-Drug Centre and Universal Centre for Countering Security Challenges and Threats of the SCO Member States.
-Statement of the SCO Heads of State Council on effectively addressing and combating the global drug problem.

🔸 Highlights of the 10th Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) held in Vladivostok, Russia 🇷🇺 on September 3rd-6th, 2025. This year's theme is "The Far East: Cooperation for Peace and Prosperity" and the forum was attended by more than 8,400 participants from 75 countries and territories.

🔹353 agreements worth a total of 6 trillion 51 billion rubles ($74.1 bln USD) were signed (excluding those agreements that constitute a commercial secret) at the forum.
🔹Russian Deputy PM Alexey Overchuk expects closer bonds between Russia and China 🇨🇳 as from September 15, China will abolish entry visa requirements for Russians with regular foreign passports for up to 30 days.

🔹Russia plans to allocate about $2 billion for the modernization of 29 airfields in the Far East.
🔹Russia is starting the implementation of the third stage of the expansion of the Eastern Railway Polygon, which will allow 210 million tons to be transported by rail by 2030.

🔹CEO of Rosatom Alexey Likhachev plans attract international partners and increase international transit along the Northern Sea Route.
🔹A fleet of robotic tractors equipped with artificial intelligence will work at fields in the Amur Region.

🔹Zvezda, the manufacturer of amphibious all-terrain vehicles, plans to produce up to 400 Arctic buses to serve routes between settlements and tourist routes.
🔹Russia’s Alrosa is currently the only profitable diamond producer in the world as the industry is going through a crisis.

🔹Deputy PM Overchuk confirms Russia and Azerbaijan 🇦🇿 understand each other well in the economic sphere and work constructively in it at the level of governments and enterprise.
🔹Laos 🇱🇦 could reroute its coffee sales from the US 🇺🇸 to Russia due to the heavy tariffs imposed by US.

Video Source: RT

🔹Global gold demand surged 📈 45% year-on-year in value terms to $132 billion in the second quarter of 2025. Global central banks now hold more gold than US Treasuries for the first time since 1996, marking a significant shift in their foreign exchange holdings.

🔹For governments worldwide, the freezing of more than $280 billion of Russian 🇷🇺 assets by G7 countries demonstrated a new geopolitical risk that foreign reserves held abroad may no longer be untouchable. Those holdings were largely euro-denominated securities, as well as U.S. dollar and other currencies.

🔹This, in turn, made governments increasingly turn to gold. China 🇨🇳 is selling off its holdings of U.S. 🇺🇸 Treasuries and increasing its purchases of gold. In April 2025, the figure dropped to its lowest since February 2009, reaching $757.2 billion.

🔹The People’s Bank of China increased its gold holdings in August for a 10th month, in a continued push to diversify its reserves away from US dollars. Bullion held by the central bank rose by 0.06 million troy ounces to 74.02 million troy ounces last month.

🔹Poland’s 🇵🇱 central bank governor plans a motion to be put forward to the bank’s management board on increasing the reserve target for gold to 30% from 20%. Turkish 🇹🇷 Central Bank total reserves reached an all-time high of $178.36 billion in the week ending Aug. 29, driven by a $2.09 billion surge in gold reserves.

🔹Azerbaijan 🇦🇿 imported 38.4 tons of gold worth $3.7 billion from 22 countries in January–July 2025. Azerbaijan and Uganda 🇺🇬 plans a cooperation agreement for mineral production in Uganda, with gold being one of the minerals.

🔹The Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador 🇸🇻 has announced the acquisition of 13,999 troy ounces of gold, equivalent to $50 million. The new purchase bumps El Salvador’s gold holdings from 44,106 troy ounces to 58,105 troy ounces, with a value estimated at $207.4 million.

Photo Source: Astana Times & Kitco

🔹EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declares that the EU 🇪🇺 is working on a new solution to finance Ukraine's defence efforts based on the immobilised (USD $300-$350 billion) Russian 🇷🇺 assets.

🔹She said "This is Russia's war, and the perpetrator must pay for it. With the cash balances associated to these Russian assets, we can provide Ukraine 🇺🇦 with a Reparations Loan... and the risk will have to be carried collectively". Though she claims not to touch the assets, other European leaders have outright called for confiscation.

🔹The Belgium 🇧🇪 PM Bart De Wever fearing such a move will result in a liquidity outflow from Euroclear group (the Belgium -based clearinghouse) crashing European financial markets, said that Russian frozen assets should stay in the Euroclear securities repository in Belgium.

🔹PM Wever is quoted saying "A whole lot of these funds are immobilised in Brussels at Euroclear. I know that there are governments that are trying to seize the money. But I would like to warn that this is not so easy legally". Belgian FM Maxime Prevot said confiscation of Russian frozen assets risks inflicting major damage on Europe's economy.

🔹Last December, Valérie Urbain, the CEO of the Euroclear, said confiscation entails serious risks for the organisation itself and the financial stability of Europe. Although the EU has allocated some of frozen asset's interest to Ukraine, it has not yet seized the principal assets.

🔹A reason the EU believes confiscation can be 'legally' done is due to the 'UN Convention 🇺🇳 on Jurisdictional Immunities of States & Their Property 2004' not yet in force. The EU's top diplomat K. Kallas, previously remarked that she doubted there would be any funds left to return to Russia.

Video Source: EU Commission

🔹 A renaissance for nuclear energy threatens to create a shortfall in the supply of uranium, with the industry body urging producers to step up efforts to find new sources as output from the current crop falls. Global uranium requirements for reactors are set to rise by a third to 86,000 tonnes by 2030.

🔹 The Sprott Physical Uranium Trust, the world’s largest holder of uranium, now has about 70 million lb. of uranium after it bought 450,000 lb. mid-Sep 2025, as nuclear energy’s strategic value comes into sharper focus. Leading technology companies are also eyeing nuclear as a way to fuel the massive data centres needed for power-hungry artificial intelligence technologies.

🔸 Russia & Eurasia:
🇮🇷 Iran and Russia signed an executive agreement to construct four 3rd-gen. advanced nuclear power units in Hormozgan, Iran, with a total value of $25 billion.
🇧🇾 Belarus unveiled a proposal to build a second nuclear power plant in the country capable of supplying energy to Russia's far-west regions.

🇰🇿 The IAEA has reaffirmed its commitment to provide assistance for Kazakhstan’s first nuclear power plant construction.
🇺🇿 Uzbekistan's President S. Mirziyoyev met with Shen Yanfeng, the chair of China’s National Nuclear Corporation, earlier this month.

🔸China:
🇨🇳 China is investigating plans to convert retiring coal-fired plants into nuclear power stations. China's Hualong One has become the most deployed third-generation nuclear reactor design worldwide.

🔸 Eastern Europe
🇭🇺Hungary has signed an agreement with China for cooperation in the field of nuclear energy.
🇨🇿 Senior diplomats of Korea and the Czech Republic have agreed to work closely together to ensure the smooth completion of the Korea-led construction of two nuclear power plants in the European country.

🇷🇸 Serbia has entered talks with Russia’s Rosatom on the potential construction of a nuclear power plant.
🇵🇱 Poland has announced an agreement to build the country's first small modular nuclear reactor.
🇭🇷 Croatia is considering the possibility of building a nuclear power plant on its territory.

🔸Africa / West Asia:
🇪🇬 Egypt has completed 33% of the construction work on the Al Dabaa nuclear power plant.
🇪🇹 Russia and Ethiopia on signed an action plan to develop a nuclear power plant project in the African country.
🇹🇷 The Turkish Akkuyu nuclear power plant project has entered the activation phase, before entering the actual operational phase.

🔸 USA /UK

🇬🇧 The USA and UK have signed a multibillion-pound Atlantic Partnership for Advanced Nuclear Energy to expand nuclear power across both nations.
🇺🇸 The owner of the closed nuclear power plant in Kewaunee, Wisconsin, USA is looking to bring nuclear energy generation back to the site after more than a decade. The Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan, USA, which was previously shut down for decommissioning, has officially regained operational status .

Photo Source: Visual Capitalist

🔹 Spot silver prices hit a record high $51USD a troy ounce on October 9th, breaching the $50 threshold for the first time since 1980. Silver prices have surged 📈 roughly 75% this year, boosted by investors seeking out safe havens, plus strong industrial demand and lingering supply deficits. The metal is considered a cheaper, alternative safe haven investment to gold, which just hit $4,000 a troy ounce for the first time ever.

🔸Warning signs are developing that there is a silver shortage and decades of manipulation of the precious-industrial metal to keep the spot price low is coming to an end:

🪙 This past week marks the highest ever weekly close in backwardation (which means that the spot price is traded well above the futures price. People are willing to pay extra to get silver now, probably because they are fearful that there won't be any physical silver to deliver in the future)— above 5%, and over 8 standard deviations from the mean. It means extreme physical tightness — spot commanding massive premium over futures.

🪙 Silver ETF's (Exchange Traded Funds) are nothing more than paper speculation of silver. Although ETFs make certain asset classes more accessible to investors and lower the barrier to entry, the investor does not physically hold the underlying asset. This is exposing the age-old problem of financial institutions issuing paper claims on hard assets they purport to hold but may not actually have as liquid assets.

🪙 The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA)🇬🇧 is huge, trading mostly "IOUs" (paper promises for metal) that can be created endlessly, far outpacing actual physical supply. London's setup risks shortages if demands for real metal surge, as vaults hold less than claimed.

🪙 The silver paper market resembles fractional reserve banking for metals, where claims exceed physical holdings, but it's not legally fraud if disclosed as unallocated (general pool claims, not specific delivery). Banks and exchanges operate under regulations permitting this leverage, assuming they can source metal on demand. Yet, when volumes spike it risks delivery failures or forced settlements, eroding trust without outright illegality.

🪙 Meanwhile silver is trading higher in China 🇨🇳 and India 🇮🇳than Western markets as Chinese industrial and retail market take physical delivery. This is also opening up arbitrage opportunities for speculators to ship physical metals to China from the West at a premium.

Media Source: Miles Franklin

🔹Japanese 🇯🇵suppliers are now among the growing number of global auto companies warning of possibly “serious” semiconductor shortages triggered by embattled chip maker Nexperia. The recent intervention by the Dutch 🇳🇱 government to seize control of Nexperia, citing the rarely-used “Goods Availability Act”, last invoked during the Cold War, has ignited a significant escalation in tensions with Beijing.

🔹Nexperia Netherlands was acquired by Chinese🇨🇳 Wingtech Technology in Oct 2018. Under the Chinese ownership the company revenue grew, while being profitable and paying off the acquired company's debt. Nexperia was efficiently delivering more than 90 billion components a year. Volkswagen warned the China-Netherlands Nexperia dispute could lead to short-term efforts on production.

🔹In the official court documents, it is very clear that the underlying reason driving the eventual takeover of the company were the prospect of escalation in U.S. trade sanctions under the 50% rule, which was officially released on September 29th. A detailed timeline of the events described in the legal brief clearly show that the entire series of events were instigated by the addition of Wingtech, which indirectly owned/controlled 100% of Nexperia, to the Entity List.

🔹Companies that have wholly owned subsidiaries can typically appoint directors and indirectly, executives. The owners generally have unrestricted access to funds. Wingtech paid $3B+ in 2018 for that right. It is only because Wingtech was placed on the Entity List that these new sets of restrictions were placed on its corporate governance rights on the company.

🔹Thus it is clear that the Nexperia case is direct fallout from the trade/tech war between the U.S. and China. The prospect of FDI and acquisitions being seized in the future dampens the ability for Chinese companies to invest. Chinese companies have already gotten the message loud and clear on the U.S. 🇺🇸but now they are seeing it in certain European countries.

🔹This exceptional move sparked immediate retaliation from Beijing, which imposed export controls on Nexperia’s China operations, escalating the global tech decoupling crisis. The most dependent companies in Europe for components from frozen and sanctioned Nexperia are VW, BMW, Stellantis, Bosch, ASML, Siemens, and Airbus. By withholding essential semiconductors, China could leverage its position in the global market, affecting industries worldwide.

🔹Nexperia, now under Dutch government control, produces large volumes of chips in the Netherlands. The majority are packaged in China and sold mostly to distributors. Today, October 23rd, Nexperia's Chinese unit has resumed supplying semiconductors to local distributors. As part of the resumption, which is confined to domestic trade, all sales to distributors must now be settled in Chinese yuan, whereas transactions had previously only used foreign currencies such as the U.S. dollar.

Video source: Egypt's QNews