Podcasts about China

Tommy and Ben explain why Trump backed off his threat to take Greenland by force and debate whether European leaders have finally found a playbook for how to push back, the backlash to Trump's disgraceful denigration of NATO troops and their service in Afghanistan, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's bold attempt to break from the United States and forge a new international order. Then they cover the purge of top military leaders in China and widespread rumors of a coup attempt against Chinese President Xi Jinping, Jared Kushner's much-derided PowerPoint presentation on the future of Gaza, new details about how the Iranian regime crushed the recent protests and why there may now be an even greater likelihood that the US bombs Iran (again), a humiliating and terrifying profile of Kash Patel's first year at the FBI, and why a real estate forum in Saudi Arabia made us want to cry. Then Tommy speaks with Kenneth Rosen, author of Polar War: Submarines, Spies, and the Struggle for Power in a Melting Arctic, about why the Arctic is becoming a geopolitical flashpoint. Subscribe to Ben's Substack here.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Episode 1883 - brought to you by our incredible sponsors: Brunt - Get $10 Off at BRUNT with code HARDFACTOR at www.bruntworkwear.com/HARDFACTOR Quince -  Refresh your winter wardrobe with Quince. Go to Quince.com/HARDFACTOR for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.LUCY -  100% pure nicotine. Always tobacco-free. LUCY's the only pouch that gives you long-lasting flavor, whenever you need it. Get 20% off your first order when you buy online with code (HARDFACTOR).  00:00:00 Timestamps 00:04:40 Will's story from China was worth the wait! 00:19:30 Copper thieves stuck in an LA manhole were in a standoff with police  00:29:30 Delaware school bus driver gets caught banging a prostitute on the school bus  00:33:55 Which genre of music do cheaters like the most? 00:36:50 The Doomsday clock moved up four seconds to 85 seconds to midnight wow 00:39:00 The White House says we are getting more tax breaks this year  00:41:10 Someone sprayed a liquid on Rep Omar at a town hall And much more Thank you for listening and supporting the pod! Go to patreon.com/HardFactor to join our community, get access to Discord chat, bonus pods, and much more - but Most importantly: HAGFD!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer is in China on a three-day visit, the first of its kind by a British PM since 2018. The UK government views it as an opportunity to strengthen trade and cultural ties between the two nations after years of acrimony. For China, this is part of a charm offensive in the hope that some will now look at Beijing as a stable, predictable partner - in contrast to the US.Also: the body of the last remaining hostage held in Gaza has been laid to rest in Israel. In a historic change for Anglicans worldwide, the first woman to be appointed Archbishop of Canterbury is officially confirmed. Several countries in Asia have begun tightening health surveillance and screening at airports, after two cases of the highly contagious Nipah virus were confirmed in India. Kim Keon Hee, the former first lady of South Korea, is found guilty of bribery charges. How conservationists in England turn old barges that once transported coal into habitat for endangered wildlife. And we learn about the two-year-old snooker prodigy Jude Owens who's already secured two Guinness World Records.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: globalpodcast@bbc.co.uk

Watch The X22 Report On Video No videos found (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:17532056201798502,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-9437-3289"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="https://cdn2.decide.dev/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");pt> Click On Picture To See Larger PictureTrump started to put all the pieces together starting back in 2017. He was setting the stage to remove NAFTA but he was not able to because congress put roadblocks into the legislation, so he transitioned it into the USMCA and now he has trapped Canada in it. Trade deals are power of the US, the US has the leverage and the [CB] knows it.  The [DS] along with Biden, Obama and Clinton are pushing the insurgency in this country. Walz believes he has the upper hand making a deal with Trump but this is going to backfire on him and Frey. The people in MN are already upset. The D’s believe they can shutdown the government and use the DHS funding to do it. But the OBBB is funding ICE so this is going to fail. Trump has the leverage and he weakening the [DS] every step of the way. The root cause is being exposed to the country.   Economy Big Picture: President Trump and Trade Using the Art of the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Canada and the EU take trade and economic positions seemingly against U.S. interests. Simultaneously Mexico modifies all their trade positions to come into alignment with the USA. Yesterday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Mexico will no longer ship oil to Cuba.   When President Trump was asked about Prime Minister Mark Carney creating a new trade agreement with China, President Trump responded that he didn't care – it was irrelevant to him.  Yet, simultaneously inside the USMCA President Trump has the power to veto any trade agreement between Mexico or Canada and a non-member nation. So, why didn't President Trump care?  Easy, because in President Trump's mind there's not going to be a USMCA; so, he really doesn't care if Canada runs to violate it.  In real terms, Canada doing bilateral deals with other countries, especially deals potentially detrimental to the USA, only strengthens his position on dissolving the USMCA. If Canada violates the terms and spirit of the USMCA, it makes dispatch of the unliked trade agreement even easier.  Canada is helping President Trump remove the congressional justification they could use to block him.  If Canada is violating the USMCA (CUSMA), Congress is kneecapped from interference. Source: theconservativetreehouse.com (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:18510697282300316,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-8599-9832"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="https://cdn2.decide.dev/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs"); https://twitter.com/Geiger_Capital/status/2015924180160594345?s=20 https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2015949123648909631?s=20  more than officially reported. Furthermore, China officially bought an additional 0.9 tonnes in December, pushing the total gold reserves to a record 2,306 tonnes. This also marked the 14th consecutive monthly purchase. In 2025, China's total reported gold purchases reached +27 tonnes. Assuming official purchases were 10% of what China is actually buying, this suggests China acquired +270 tonnes of physical gold in 2025. China is stockpiling gold like we are in a major crisis.    2025. Why hasn’t the Korean Legislature approved it?   Because the Korean Legislature hasn’t enacted our Historic Trade Agreement, which is their prerogative, I am hereby increasing South Korean TARIFFS on Autos, Lumber, Pharma, and all other Reciprocal TARIFFS, from 15% to 25%. Thank you for your attention to this matter!   DONALD J. TRUMP PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Political/Rights DOGE https://twitter.com/alx/status/2015969948674203731?s=20 Geopolitical  War/Peace Medical/False Flags [DS] Agenda  https://twitter.com/VASenateGOP/status/2015208669336813823?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2015208669336813823%7Ctwgr%5E5081d9eb1b9220fa690d082571ec929c4f0248cc%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com%2F2026%2F01%2Fvirginia-democrats-now-seeking-double-their-own-pay%2F   pocket to line their own. TOTAL CON JOB! True. The Department of Justice did withdraw its request for arrest warrants against Don Lemon and four other individuals involved in the disruption of a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota, following a federal magistrate judge’s refusal to approve the related criminal complaints and an appeals court’s rejection of the DOJ’s emergency bid to compel the warrants.  While prosecutors could potentially pursue charges through alternative means, such as a grand jury, the specific action of withdrawing the warrant request aligns with the reported events https://twitter.com/mrddmia/status/2016208255677067439?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricBrakey/status/2015578832070123856?s=20 https://twitter.com/JayTownAlabama/status/2015584436230717786?s=20 According to recent data from the Giffords Law Center, the following 16 jurisdictions (15 states plus the District of Columbia) have explicit prohibitions on carrying firearms at demonstrations, protests, or licensed public gatherings. These restrictions vary by state, with some banning both concealed and open carry, while others target only one or apply under specific conditions (e.g., only for participants or permitted events). Note that laws can change, and some states have exceptions like for enhanced permit holders. State/Jurisdiction Concealed Carry Prohibited? Open Carry Prohibited? Notes Alabama Yes Yes Arkansas Yes No Applies only to participants in permitted demonstrations; enhanced CCW permittees are allowed. California No Yes Open carry banned generally. Connecticut No Yes Open carry banned generally. District of Columbia Yes Yes Florida No Yes Open carry banned generally. Hawaii Yes Yes Illinois Yes Yes Louisiana Yes No Applies to permitted demonstrations or parades. Maryland Yes Yes Mississippi Yes No Applies to permitted demonstrations or parades. Nebraska Yes No Applies at “political rallies” and fundraisers. New Jersey Yes Yes New York Yes Yes North Carolina Yes Yes Washington No Yes   https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/2015928285436203305?s=20 https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2016211395273011469?s=20  gets disarmed… then shot. DHS is already tracking violent agitators who assault or obstruct officers (you know, felonies). Tom Homan pushing to make these interferers “famous” via database – names, faces, employers notified. The same crowd screaming “police state” will ignore he already assaulted officers once and walked   https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/2016235731602067586?s=20 https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/2016177515845283911?s=20   nation that tramples the 4th Amendment and tolerates our neighbors being terrorized. The people of Minnesota have stood strong — helping community members in unimaginable circumstances, speaking out against injustice when they see it, and holding our government accountable to the people. Minnesotans have reminded us all what it is to be American, and they have suffered enough at the hands of this Administration. Violence and terror have no place in the United States of America, especially when it's our own government targeting American citizens. No single person can destroy what America stands for and believes in, not even a President, if we — all of America — stand up and speak out. We know who we are. It’s time to show the world. More importantly, it’s time to show ourselves. Now, justice requires full, fair, and transparent investigations into the deaths of the two Americans who lost their lives in the city they called home. Jill and I are sending strength to the families and communities who love Alex Pretti and Renee Good as we all mourn their senseless deaths.   https://twitter.com/RyanSaavedra/status/2015985227798139267?s=20 https://twitter.com/JDVance/status/2015918587609772148?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2015971665906110549?s=20 https://twitter.com/BillMelugin_/status/2016220055973855403?s=20     https://twitter.com/Recon1_ZA/status/2015778411650732184?s=20   It’s a rapid, involuntary reaction mediated by the brainstem, involving muscle tension, elevated heart rate, and adrenaline release. That repetitive exposure from them fatigues neural pathways but sustains heightened arousal, diverting cognitive resources from higher-order tasks to basic threat monitoring. It is an acute stressor, activating the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and sympathetic nervous system, which releases cortisol and adrenaline. Long exposure to this stuff impairs prefrontal cortex function critical for decision making. Pair this with the sheer annoyance, these tactics are a low-tech escalation of protest disruption, rooted in documented physiological responses to noise. In layman’s terms, they’re putting these officers on edge and triggering them to act. Pretti and Good was exactly what they wanted. It’s usually someone else who ends up dying and not the instigator. This is a great example. Watch the guy at the rear strike an officer against the head with an object. These officers, already on edge, are very likely to react to something like that. When someone ends up getting hurt, they’re all innocent. These events aren’t random. These are organised tactics. 80% of the people protesting aren’t aware that they’re being used by their own team as cannon fodder to generate outrage. https://twitter.com/DataRepublican/status/2015620564787105892?s=20   Tending the Soil on Chuffed. More about Tending the Soil later. What to know: the campaign is hosted by Chuffed and the first donation came from Jonny Soppotiuk, a Canada-based community organizer who is part of Chuffed leadership and specializes in fundraising. He is most likely a central figure in raising money. So, yeah. Starting to look like foreigners are playing a key role in all of this. That’s not all. I’ve put together a spreadsheet of 4000+ donors and their possible identities. https://twitter.com/davidson_f14299/status/2015874164679442499?s=20  Machine that's been running this country for decades. She's tied into the donors, the nonprofits, the consultants, the media networks — all the gears that keep the Machine turning. And look at what she just did. She tweeted out that webpage directing people to donate through a foreign‑operated platform. That's not some innocent little share. That's the Machine signaling to its own network — money pipelines, global partners, and political messaging all moving in sync. She knows exactly what she's amplifying and who benefits from it. And this isn't new for her. Look back at Russiagate. Her campaign funded the Steele dossier — the spark that set off years of investigations, headlines, and division. Even after the whole thing fell apart under scrutiny, the chaos it created was already locked in. That's how the Machine works: it doesn't need accuracy, it just needs momentum. And she's been one of the people who knows how to generate that momentum better than anyone. So where does she sit in the Machine? Right in the core. Not elected. Not accountable. Still pulling levers through the same networks she helped build. She's not operating inside the Machine — she's one of the people who designed the damn thing. And that's why her name keeps showing up. Not because she holds office. But because the Machine still runs on the structures she put in place — and every time she boosts a link, a cause, or a narrative, you can see those old gears turning all over again.  https://twitter.com/julie_kelly2/status/2015963638096429102?s=20 https://twitter.com/WarClandestine/status/2015941282237972649?s=20     President Trump's Plan  And we back you WHOLEHEARTEDLY in making it happen https://twitter.com/TriciaOhio/status/2015939758858371393?s=20   https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2015858856430055491?s=20   professional. He will continue to lead Customs and Border Patrol throughout and across the country — Mr. Homan will be the main point of contact on the ground in Minneapolis.” Hakeem Jeffries Backs Impeachment Push Against Kristi Noem House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his leadership team voiced support Tuesday for impeaching Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem. Nearly 150 House Democrats have sponsored articles of impeachment against Noem, first unveiled by Democratic Illinois Rep. Robin Kelly on Jan. 14, but Jeffries had not previously backed the impeachment push. Jeffries vowed Tuesday that House Democrats will launch impeachment proceedings against Noem if President Donald Trump does not fire her. Source: dailycaller.com https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/2016203259900317988?s=20   https://twitter.com/amuse/status/2016218361844174956?s=20   Minnesota State Patrol has now been activated. They could have done this the whole time, but it wasn't until after the call between Walz and Trump, and the discovery of the Signal groups involving Minnesota government officials, that this happened.   https://twitter.com/CynicalPublius/status/2015868419187544417?s=20 https://twitter.com/derrickvanorden/status/2015808200495312963?s=20 Counterinsurgency may be defined as ‘comprehensive civilian and military efforts taken to simultaneously defeat and contain insurgency and address its root causes'. Defeat refers to actively dismantling the insurgent group’s capabilities—through kinetic operations (e.g., raids, airstrikes) to kill or capture leaders, disrupt supply lines, and degrade their fighting strength. Contain means preventing the insurgency from spreading or escalating. This could involve securing borders, isolating insurgent areas, or using psychological operations (psyops) to undermine their recruitment and propaganda. The “simultaneously” part stresses that these aren’t sequential steps; they happen in parallel. You can’t just “contain” without addressing threats, nor can you defeat an insurgency if it keeps regenerating in new areas. Key challenge: Insurgents often blend into the civilian population, making it hard to target them without collateral damage, which can create more enemies. 3. Address Its Root Causes Insurgencies don’t arise in a vacuum; they’re often driven by underlying issues like political exclusion, economic inequality, corruption, ethnic tensions, or lack of basic services. The definition insists that long-term success requires tackling these “root causes” to prevent resurgence. This might include reforms such as land redistribution, anti-corruption drives, inclusive governance, or economic development programs. Without this, military victories are temporary. For instance, historical cases like the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960) succeeded partly because British forces combined military action with resettlement programs and political concessions that addressed Malay grievances against colonial rule. Broader Context and Principles Population-Centric Approach: Modern COIN doctrine, influenced by thinkers like David Galula or modern adaptations, views the local population as the “center of gravity.” The goal is to protect civilians, gain their trust, and separate them from insurgents—often summarized as “clear, hold, build” (clear insurgents from an area, hold it securely, and build sustainable institutions). Challenges and Criticisms: COIN is resource-intensive, time-consuming, and politically fraught. It can lead to prolonged conflicts, human rights abuses, or mission creep. Critics argue it sometimes ignores cultural contexts or over-relies on foreign intervention, as seen in Vietnam or Iraq. Success Factors: Effective COIN requires unity of effort (coordination between allies), intelligence-driven operations, and adaptability. Metrics for success go beyond body counts to include governance improvements and reduced violence. In essence, this definition portrays counterinsurgency as a balanced, enduring campaign that blends force with reform to not just suppress rebellion but eliminate the conditions that sustain it.    https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2015886441063055779?s=20 patriots need all the support they can get!  Background on the “Big Beautiful Bill” and ICE Funding In 2025, Republicans passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (often referred to by President Trump as the “Big Beautiful Bill”), which allocated approximately $75 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over four years. This funding was separate from annual appropriations and effectively tripled ICE’s budget, providing a multi-year “slush fund” for immigration enforcement, including deportations.  This bill was part of Trump’s broader immigration agenda and bypassed traditional yearly funding processes, allowing ICE to operate independently of short-term congressional battles. Current Shutdown Threat and Democrats’ Strategy Democrats, led by figures like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sens. Patty Murray, Chris Murphy, and others, have vowed to block the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill in the Senate. This bill includes $64.4 billion for DHS overall, with about $10 billion specifically for ICE in the current fiscal year.  Why the Shutdown Won’t Defund ICE Even prominent Democrats like Sen. Murray acknowledge that a shutdown or continuing resolution (short-term funding patch) won’t restrain ICE. The agency can draw from the $75 billion already secured via the Big Beautiful Bill, allowing operations to continue uninterrupted under Trump’s “law-and-order” immigration crackdown.  A shutdown would primarily affect non-ICE parts of DHS (e.g., TSA, FEMA, Coast Guard) and other bundled departments, forcing some federal workers to go without pay while ICE remains funded and operational.  Republican Position and “Upper Hand” The White House and GOP leaders like Speaker Mike Johnson are not yielding, insisting on passing the full package without decoupling DHS funding. They view Democratic threats as ineffective since ICE’s core operations are protected by the prior bill.  The House has already passed the DHS bill with some Democratic support, putting pressure on the Senate. Republicans are framing this as Democrats prioritizing protests over essential services, giving the GOP leverage in negotiations.    https://twitter.com/AwakenedOutlaw/status/2015946190219837842?s=20   themselves, and engage in thoughtful discourse and/or express outrage against the wholesale ridiculousness of not allowing the government to do its job and protect us…and they do so for months on matters that most would never have otherwise engaged in AND would otherwise slip out of the news cycle quickly.    The Supreme Court ends up taking the case and rules (correctly) in favor of his administration. Piece by piece through this process, legal precedence is secured. Which, as it turns out, was deemed necessary to help secure the future of our Republic writ large. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. This implies that we are directly involved in an educational process, if you will, as we all progress through the realignment. Advantage: America’s future https://twitter.com/AGPamBondi/status/2015932965528764622?s=20   violent agitators. The DOJ went to court. We got a temporary stay. NOW, the 8th Circuit has fully agreed that this reckless attempt to undermine law enforcement cannot stand. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals rules in favor of Trump admin allowing ICE agents to arrest, detain, pepper-spray or retaliate against violent anti-ICE rioters, in Minneapolis, without probable cause   (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:13499335648425062,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-7164-1323"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="//cdn2.customads.co/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");

Welcome to Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu. In today's episode, Tom and co-host Drew dive headfirst into a rapidly shifting global landscape that feels like "everything, everywhere, all at once." Against a backdrop of escalating unrest in Minneapolis following the ICE shooting of Alex Pretti, Tom and Drew unpack the fragile state of world order—from National Guard deployments and violent protests in the U.S., to economic instability in Japan and rumors of a failed coup in China's military. You'll hear sharp analysis on how intertwined global economics, politics, and social forces are driving chaos both at home and abroad. The discussion explores not only the tragic events in Minnesota, but also the deep-rooted ideological battles playing out across America, the shifting power dynamics in China, and the potential for dramatic military action in Iran. Tom and Drew break down complex issues like the ethics of resistance, the role of local government in federal conflicts, and the underlying economic moves shaping the future. If you're seeking clarity in tumultuous times and want to understand the mechanisms powering today's most urgent news stories, this episode of Impact Theory is essential listening. Tune in for thoughtful conversation that encourages critical thinking, first principles analysis, and a focus on actionable solutions for navigating uncertainty. Quince: Free shipping and 365-day returns at ⁠https://quince.com/impactpod⁠ HomeServe: Help protect your home systems – and your wallet – with HomeServe against covered repairs. Plans start at just $4.99 a month at ⁠https://homeserve.com⁠ Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at ⁠https://shopify.com/impact⁠ Incogni: Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code IMPACT at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: ⁠https://incogni.com/impact⁠ Sintra AI: 72% off with code IMPACT at ⁠https://sintra.ai/impact⁠ Huel: High-Protein Starter Kit 20% off for new customers at ⁠https://huel.com/impact⁠ code impact Bevel Health: Visit ⁠https://bevel.health/impact⁠ and use code IMPACT to get your first month free. Ketone IQ: Visit ⁠https://ketone.com/IMPACT⁠ for 30% OFF your subscription order Cape: 33% off your first 6 months with code IMPACT at ⁠https://cape.co/impact⁠ Plaud: Get 10% off with code TOM10 at ⁠https://plaud.ai/tom⁠ Pique: 20% off at ⁠https://piquelife.com/impact⁠ What's up, everybody? It's Tom Bilyeu here: If you want my help... STARTING a business:⁠ join me here at ZERO TO FOUNDER⁠:  ⁠https://tombilyeu.com/zero-to-founder?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Offer&utm_source=podca[%E2%80%A6]d%20end%20of%20show&utm_content=podcast%20ad%20end%20of%20show⁠ SCALING a business:⁠ see if you qualify here.⁠:  ⁠https://tombilyeu.com/call⁠ Get my battle-tested strategies and insights delivered weekly to your inbox:⁠ sign up here.⁠: ⁠https://tombilyeu.com/⁠ ********************************************************************** If you're serious about leveling up your life, I urge you to check out my new podcast,⁠ Tom Bilyeu's Mindset Playbook⁠ —a goldmine of my most impactful episodes on mindset, business, and health. Trust me, your future self will thank you. ********************************************************************** FOLLOW TOM: Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/tombilyeu/⁠ Tik Tok:⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@tombilyeu?lang=en⁠ Twitter:⁠ https://twitter.com/tombilyeu⁠ YouTube:⁠ https://www.youtube.com/@TomBilyeu⁠ Minneapolis ICE shooting, Alex Pretti, National Guard deployment, violent mobs, global trade war, devaluing the dollar, Chinese military purge, Xi Jinping coup rumors, illegal immigrants, law and order, economic instability, Japanese yen, yen carry trade, US treasuries, Minnesota fraud, Somali community organization, voter registration fraud, coordinated resistance, NGOs tactics, Iran military strike group, protests in Iran, regime change, international oil supply Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a speech last week in a speech at the World Economic Forum, President Trump said China was making a lot of wind turbines, but not using much wind power in their own country. Is that right? China studies professor Jeremy Wallace joins Host Ira Flatow to talk about the renewable energy landscape in China. They'll dig into how China is flooding the world with affordable solar technology, making it the cheapest form of electricity in history. Plus, what energy tech China is manufacturing, what it's using domestically, and what it's exporting.Guest: Dr. Jeremy Wallace is the A. Doak Barnett Professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins UniversityTranscripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

A.M. Edition for Jan. 28. The dollar is steadying following its biggest one-day decline since April's global tariff turmoil. That's after President Trump said he wouldn't mind a weaker currency. WSJ editor Alex Frangos explains why that statement caused such a selloff. Plus it's a big day for the AI trade as Nvidia begins selling its chips in China and suppliers post record earnings. And two Middle East leaders say they won't help the U.S. in a possible attack on Iran as allies in the region reconsider their ties with Washington. Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gregory Copley assesses China's instability under President Xi Jinping, who continues arresting generals in sweeping military purges that reveal deep fissures and distrust within the People's Liberation Army leadership.1932

Mary Kissel criticizes Prime Minister Keir Starmer's foolish decision to pursue a new embassy in the People's Republic of China, questioning the strategic wisdom of such diplomatic investment amid rising tensions.NYC YOM KIPPUR

Gregory Copley assesses China's instability under President Xi Jinping, who continues arresting generals in sweeping military purges that reveal deep fissures and distrust within the People's Liberation Army leadership.1949 STORK CLUB

Gregory Copley on Arctic competition and parallel dynamics in Antarctic waters, analyzing how major powers including Russia, China, and the United States are maneuvering for strategic advantage in polar regions.1949 HITCHCOCK AND LAMOUR STORK CLUB

Something's not adding up. Two years in a row, China's top brass is getting purged, and this time it's Xi's closest general. Accused of leaking NUCLEAR secrets, then disappears.“They haven't seen him since November. He's gone.” Why would China expose this unless they wanted to send a message?

Canada thought it could play Trump by cozying up with China, but he's not having it. From $30K Chinese EVs to trade threats, Trump calls out weak leadership and exposes what's really at stake.

Tuesday on the News Hour, the Trump administration changes its leadership for immigration operations in Minnesota after public backlash from two deadly shootings. Taiwan fears that the American operation to oust Venezuela's leader might embolden China to invade. Plus, we hear from the whistleblower who said DOGE mishandled Social Security data, a claim the Justice Department now admits is true. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Audrey Tang’s path to government had very unusual origins: she is a hacker, an anarchist and the world’s first non-binary government minister. She now serves as Taiwan’s Cyber Ambassador and continues to advocate for greater internet freedom and civic participation globally. Audrey sits down with Oz to discuss Taiwan’s AI chip manufacturing and how it impacts their contentious relationship with China, how she stopped deepfake scams head on, her opinion on social media bans and why radical transparency heals polarization.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President Trump tried to clean up the mess he made in Minnesota by moving Greg “Little Napoleon” Bovino out and lambasting Homeland Security head Kristi Noem, the president's body and mind are in pretty rough shape, and the First Lady's self-titled film is a box office stinker. It's so cold in Georgia that ice-covered trees are exploding, America's premiere weather-predicting mammal could lose his job to a hologram, and the world's hottest viral toy is a stuffed horse from China. Stephen Colbert's extended interview with Oscar-winner Sam Rockwell goes delightfully off the rails as the two talk about Rockwell's early jobs in New York City, acting gigs on cop shows, and why time travel movies usually don't work. Watch Sam Rockwell in the new film, “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die,” in theaters February 13th. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today we look at the the final part of an interview with a Chinese pastor recently released from prison, followed by some specific prayer requests for members and friends of Early Rain Church who have recently been arrested and harrassed. In China, it seems, persecution never sleeps. Let's pray for our brothers and sisters, as bound with them! I'm your China travel guide, Missionary Ben. Follow me on Twitter/X (@chinaadventures) where I present a new Chinese city or county to pray for every single day. Please send any questions or comments to a new, secure email: chinacompass@privacyport.com. Everything else can be found at PrayGiveGo.us! Why the Prison Pulpit? The goal is to remind people to pray for persecuted believers as Hebrews 13:3 teaches: “Remember those who are in prison, as bound with them.” We’ve looked at Wang Yi and Early Rain Church’s writings in the aftermath of their arrest and attack in 2018, but I’ve also regularly turned to other persecuted ministers who have gone before, such as Richard Wurmbrand, to give us a voice literally from prison. Interview with an Imprisoned Chinese Pastor (Part III) https://chinapartnership.org/blog/2026/01/persecuted-church/ Early Rain Church Prayer Requests (January 25-31) This week, we will pray for believers associated with Early Rain Covenant Church. Earlier this month, there was a series of large scale arrests similar to those in 2018. Seven church members were arrested and confined, while five other members were brought in for questioning and then released. Several of the people arrested are elders of the church. Pray for those who have been arrested and their families… Pray for brothers and sisters in Chengdu and Deyang who have been taken away, are missing, or are under surveillance at home. Pray for God to grant them peace and protection, and to experience God’s presence and strength amidst uncertainty and hardship. Especially pray for the families and children to experience God’s comfort and love in suffering. Pray for the Lord to preserve brothers and sisters in the church, to love one another, and to be united and show the witness of Christ in times of trouble. Pray for Sister Z, who was taken to jail with her husband. Their two children were taken in with them, and spent the first night at the police station. Now they have been temporarily placed with their grandmother. Pray for a seminary student who was arrested and beaten in Chengdu recently. Pray for God’s comfort and grace to be with him, that he would know the presence of the Lord even in suffering. Pray for comfort and strength for his wife, and for him to be released soon. Continue to pray for Pastor Wang Yi, who was arrested in 2018 and continues to serve time in prison. Pray for the Lord’s presence to be with him in prison, that he may even be a witness to those with him in jail, and for his family and church on the outside. Follow China Compass Thank you for listening! Subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! There’s also a donation link at PrayforChina.us if you’d like to support our China ministry. For everything else, visit PrayGiveGo.us. Hebrews 13:3: Remember those who are in prison, “as bound with them”!

We're only four weeks into the new year, but it feels like a year's worth of news has happened already. So Radio 4 asked us to do a (very early) review of 2026 so far, and we thought we'd put it in your feed as a bonus episode. Adam and Henry are in the studio. Chris joins from home as he prepares in all sorts of ways for a trip to China with the Prime Minister.They chat through the fights of the left and right that have set the tone in the early part of year before chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet pops in to discuss Trump, Greenland, Venezuala, Iran, and how the world's reacted to it all.You can now listen to Newscast on a smart speaker. If you want to listen, just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play Newscast”. It works on most smart speakers.You can join our Newscast online community here: https://bbc.in/newscastdiscordGet in touch with Newscast by emailing newscast@bbc.co.uk or send us a WhatsApp on +44 0330 123 9480.New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/4guXgXdThe presenters were Adam Fleming and Chris Mason. It was made by Chris Flynn with Chloe Scannapieco. The technical producer was Phil Bull. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.

The UK's prime minister Keir Starmer has arrived in China for a three-day visit - the first by a British prime minister in eight years.Sir Keir is seeking to strengthen trading and cultural ties between the two nations after years of acrimony.Also in the programme: We'll hear from people inside Iran as families and friends try to count the number of dead during the recent crackdown; and new research into the late novelist Terry Pratchett suggests a person's use of words could help diagnose dementia much earlier.(Photo shows UK prime minister Keir Starmer arriving in Beijing, China on 28 January 2026. Credit: Carl Court/PA)

Can a country be built from the internet up? Not as a metaphor or an online community, but as a system that replaces institutions we usually think of as fixed, money, law, and governance.In this conversation taken from The Network State Podcast, a16z cofounder Ben Horowitz joins Balaji Srinivasan to explore how internet native institutions are beginning to mirror and challenge traditional state structures. Drawing parallels to China's early special economic zones, they discuss how constrained experiments like Shenzhen tested new rules without rewriting the entire system, and why similar experimentation is now happening online.The discussion examines crypto, digital identity, and network states as attempts to turn code into coordination and coordination into legitimacy, while grappling with a core tension. Code is deterministic, but societies are not. Ben and Balaji explore where these systems work, where they break, and whether network states are a curiosity or the next phase of governance. Resources:Follow Ben on X: https://x.com/bhorowitzFollow Balaji on X: https://x.com/balajisListen to more from The Network State: https://ns.com/podcast Stay Updated:If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends!Find a16z on X: https://x.com/a16zFind a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16zListen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYXListen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg](https://x.com/eriktorenbergPlease note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see http://a16z.com/disclosures.    Stay Updated:Find a16z on XFind a16z on LinkedInListen to the a16z Show on SpotifyListen to the a16z Show on Apple PodcastsFollow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Alan Dunne is joined by Dario Perkins to examine why the global macro consensus may be fundamentally misreading the current cycle. The conversation moves from US fiscal stimulus and Federal Reserve credibility to the limits of the K-shaped economy narrative. Perkins challenges prevailing assumptions around AI-driven productivity, labor market weakness, and falling inflation, arguing that policy choices are pushing economies toward overheating rather than stagnation. The discussion extends to bond markets, term premia, Japan's normalization, Europe's fiscal pivot, and China's rebalancing dilemma. What emerges is a picture of renewed growth, rising risks, and a cycle whose ending is now becoming visible.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or via the TTU website.IT's TRUE ? – most CIO's read 50+ books each year – get your FREE copy of the Ultimate Guide to the Best Investment Books ever written here.And you can get a free copy of my latest book “Ten Reasons to Add Trend Following to Your Portfolio” here.Learn more about the Trend Barometer here.Send your questions to info@toptradersunplugged.comAnd please share this episode with a like-minded friend and leave an honest Rating & Review on iTunes or Spotify so more people can discover the podcast.Follow Alan on LinkedIn.Follow Dario on Twitter.Episode TimeStamps: 00:00 - Opening remarks and context02:25 - Global uncertainty and growth expectations05:00 - The K-shaped economy under scrutiny08:12 - Fiscal stimulus, tariffs, and timing effects11:07 - Fed independence and political pressure17:06 - The race to appoint the next Fed chair26:35 - Productivity data and the AI narrative35:51 - Labor market stall speed debate39:56 - Bond markets, term premia, and inflation risk46:03 - Japan's normalization and demographic...

AI will have at least as big an effect on society as the invention of electricity. That's the prediction of MIT's Bryan Reimer. Bryan is the co-author of the new book ‘How to Make AI Useful' in which he explores AI's power and potential to change the world. He and I sat down this week to discuss the facts, fears, and fiction around what might be the most transformational innovation of our lifetimes. Brian offers a grounded, human-centered perspective on how AI is evolving—and why most of the extreme hype and trepidation miss the point. Rather than a doomsday takeover, he frames AI as a long-term productivity tool that works best in collaboration with humans, not instead of them. Along the way, we discuss energy demands, competition between the U.S., China, and Europe, deepfakes, “oh sh*t moments,” and how everyday people can start using tools like ChatGPT right now to improve their work and lives. Bryan is a research scientist at MIT's Center for Transportation & Logistics and the MIT AgeLab. With over two decades of experience in human-centered technology research, he has become a leading voice in the future of mobility and making AI systems more practical, accessible, and beneficial for everyday use.   ✍️Please rate and review ⁠⁠Reasonably Happy⁠⁠ (DO IT!) ✍️

Welcome to EV News China — the podcast dedicated to the world's largest electric vehicle market. Each day, I bring you the latest headlines, insights, and analysis from the heart of China's booming EV industry — and decode how fast-moving developments in the east are shaping the global EV landscape.Can you help me make more podcasts? Consider supporting me on Patreon as the service is 100% funded by you: https://EVne.ws/patreonYou can read all the latest news on the blog here: https://EVne.ws/blog Subscribe for free and listen to the podcast on audio platforms:➤ Apple: https://EVne.ws/apple➤ YouTube Music: https://EVne.ws/youtubemusic➤ Spotify: https://EVne.ws/spotify➤ TuneIn: https://EVne.ws/tunein➤ iHeart: https://EVne.ws/iheart BMW PUSHES SMALL IX1 INTO CHINA EV FIGHT https://autonews.gasgoo.com/articles/news/2026-bmw-ix1-launches-starting-from-cny-228000-2014344127326302209 BYD LEANS INTO OVERSEAS MODELS TO STAY AHEAD OF TESLA https://bit.ly/4t1tkIc BYD YANGWANG U7 STRETCHES RANGE TO FOUR FIGURES https://bit.ly/4t1HFEt BYD TANG 9 TARGETS CHINA'S ENTRY-LEVEL LUXURY SUV BAND https://carnewschina.com/2026/01/22/byd-tang-9-flagship-suv-spied-in-china-official-unveil-in-h1-2026/ CHINA SWATS DOWN MUSK'S FSD TIMELINE https://evne.ws/4t17X9I CHINA'S VALUE EVS LAND IN MALAYSIA https://autonews.gasgoo.com/articles/news/first-mass-produced-wuling-bingoev-rolls-off-the-line-in-malaysia-2014333813193019393 VOLVO'S EX60 SKIPS CHINA, FOR NOW https://autonews.gasgoo.com/articles/news/volvo-ex60-makes-global-debut-china-launch-timeline-undetermined-2014338021094957057 CATL PUTS SODIUM BATTERIES TO WORK https://carnewschina.com/2026/01/22/catl-unveils-worlds-first-mass-production-sodium-ion-battery-for-commercial-vehicles/

Welcome back to Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu. In today's episode, we dive deep into the seismic shifts shaking the global financial system, with a sharp focus on the recent silver price explosion and what it reveals about our economic future. Tom Bilyeu unpacks how China's grip on physical silver supply is upending decades of western investing habits — exposing the fragility of treating critical resources as mere digital assets on a screen. You'll hear why the old stable world order is unwinding, the risks facing the US dollar, and how legendary investors like Ray Dalio and Warren Buffett are preparing for a landscape ruled by physical assets, not paper promises. This episode isn't just about silver; it's about adapting your mindset and strategy to a new era where confidence in paper assets is fading, and owning what's real is more important than ever. If you want practical actions and big-picture analysis on surviving disruptive change, you won't want to miss what Tom Bilyeu shares today. Let's get started. Quince: Free shipping and 365-day returns at https://quince.com/impactpod HomeServe: Help protect your home systems – and your wallet – with HomeServe against covered repairs. Plans start at just $4.99 a month at https://homeserve.com Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://shopify.com/impact Incogni: Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code IMPACT at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: https://incogni.com/impact Sintra AI: 72% off with code IMPACT at https://sintra.ai/impact Huel: High-Protein Starter Kit 20% off for new customers at https://huel.com/impact code impact Bevel Health: Visit https://bevel.health/impact and use code IMPACT to get your first month free. Ketone IQ: Visit https://ketone.com/IMPACT for 30% OFF your subscription order Cape: 33% off your first 6 months with code IMPACT at https://cape.co/impact Plaud: Get 10% off with code TOM10 at https://plaud.ai/tom Pique: 20% off at https://piquelife.com/impact What's up, everybody? It's Tom Bilyeu here: If you want my help... STARTING a business: join me here at ZERO TO FOUNDER:  https://tombilyeu.com/zero-to-founder?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Offer&utm_source=podca[%E2%80%A6]d%20end%20of%20show&utm_content=podcast%20ad%20end%20of%20show SCALING a business: see if you qualify here.:  https://tombilyeu.com/call Get my battle-tested strategies and insights delivered weekly to your inbox: sign up here.: https://tombilyeu.com/ ********************************************************************** If you're serious about leveling up your life, I urge you to check out my new podcast, Tom Bilyeu's Mindset Playbook —a goldmine of my most impactful episodes on mindset, business, and health. Trust me, your future self will thank you. ********************************************************************** FOLLOW TOM: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tombilyeu/ Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tombilyeu?lang=en Twitter: https://twitter.com/tombilyeu YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TomBilyeu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Secretary Brooke Rollins joins the show to break down how agricultural policy intersects with food prices, national security, and public health under President Donald Trump. Rollins discusses the mounting challenges facing American farmers, the real-world impact of tariffs on agriculture, and why transparency and compliance in food labeling matter more than ever. Lisa & Sec. Rollins also dive into the Make America Healthy Again movement, highlighting efforts to promote healthier eating while strengthening domestic food supply chains. Rollins underscores the urgency of protecting American farmland from foreign ownership—particularly by China—and explains why agricultural independence is a core pillar of U.S. national security.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of China Decode, Alice Han and James Kynge break down a seismic week in Beijing. China has effectively blown up the top of its military command, sidelining Xi Jinping's most trusted lieutenant and raising questions about loyalty, readiness, and how secure Xi really is at the apex of power. They explain what this unprecedented purge inside the PLA means—not just for China's military, but for regional stability and markets. They also unpack the post-China future of TikTok. After years of bans, lawsuits, and security concerns, a last-minute deal keeps the app alive in the U.S.—but does it truly sever Beijing's influence, or just repackage it? With 180 million American users and a generation getting its news from TikTok, we explain why this deal matters far beyond social media. And finally, Alice sits down with economist Houze Song to cut through the spin on China's economy—from headline growth numbers and export dependence to the long shadow of the property collapse and what Beijing may (or may not) do next.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The two men under investigation are in the army's highest echelon, and are some of President Xi Jinping's closest counsel. We examine the probable motives for a surprising purge. In Ukraine's freezing capital thousands upon thousands of people suffer unpredictable cuts to electricity, heat, even water; we ask them how they cope. And why Strava is leading the fitness-app footrace.Get a world of insights by subscribing to Economist Podcasts+. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cleo Paskal and Bill Roggio examine the PRC threat to Oceania from Guam's perspective. The segment details China's aggressive influence peddling and buying throughout the Pacific islands, as Beijing systematically works to undermine American strategic positioning and cultivate dependent relationships across the region.1870 HAWAII

Cleo Paskal and Bill Roggio discuss the UK's giveaway of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, highlighting China'sinfluence over the Mauritian government. The transfer raises concerns about Beijing potentially gaining strategic access to a critical Indian Ocean location near vital shipping lanes and military installations.1789 BOURBON MAURITIUS

SHOW SCHEDULE 1-26-261808 GREAT HALL BANK OF ENGLAND Bill Roggio and Husain Haqqani discuss global turmoil and confrontation, examining U.S. policy failures in Afghanistan. The conversation addresses the ongoing consequences of American withdrawal and the resurgence of threats in the region, highlighting how strategic missteps continue to destabilize the area and embolden adversaries. Bill Roggio and Husain Haqqani examine how Africa remains unprotected from jihadists and plunderers. The discussion explores the continent's vulnerability to extremist expansion and resource exploitation, with weak governance and insufficient international attention allowing terrorist networks and predatory actors to operate with increasing impunity across multiple nations. Ernesto Araujo and Alejandro Pena Esclusa analyze Venezuela's posture of public defiance while remaining privately obedient to the Trump administration. The segment explores the contradictions in Caracas's diplomatic stance, suggesting the regime's theatrical resistance masks behind-the-scenes accommodations driven by economic pressure and political survival calculations. Ernesto Araujo and Alejandro Pena Esclusa report on a spontaneous Rio rally supporting the Bolsonaro family. The demonstration reflects continued popular backing for the former Brazilian president despite legal challenges, indicating that conservative movements in Latin America retain significant grassroots energy and organizational capacity. Malcolm Hoenlein and Thaddeus McCotter discuss Iran's ongoing executions and mass murders. The segment details the regime's brutal crackdown on dissent, highlighting the systematic use of capital punishment against protesters and minorities as Tehran intensifies domestic repression amid international isolation and internal unrest. Malcolm Hoenlein and Thaddeus McCotter examine Saudi Arabia's internal disagreements over a potential air campaign against Iran. The conversation explores Riyadh's strategic calculations, balancing regional security concerns against the risks of direct military confrontation with Tehran and the complexities of American alliance dynamics. Mark Simon and Gordon Chang address Hong Kong's persecution of democracy advocates through show trials. The discussion highlights Beijing's systematic dismantling of civil liberties, using the judicial system to silence opposition figures and signal that resistance to Communist Party authority will face severe consequences. Brandon Weichert and Gordon Chang analyze the PRC using ground-based nodes to influence states. The segment examines China's expanding infrastructure of political and economic pressure points, demonstrating how Beijing leverages physical assets to project power and shape foreign government policies. John Hardie reports that Russia continues targeting heat and light infrastructure in Kyiv, while Ukraine retaliates by striking Russian infrastructure. The segment examines the escalating war of attrition against civilian utilities as both sides seek to undermine morale and economic capacity through systematic attacks on essential services. Jack Burnham reveals that Chinese academics have been granted easy access to Energy Departmentsupercomputing resources used in nuclear weapon simulations. The discussion highlights alarming security lapses allowing potential adversaries to benefit from sensitive American technology with direct military applications and strategic implications. Cleo Paskal and Bill Roggio examine the PRC threat to Oceania from Guam's perspective. The segment details China's aggressive influence peddling and buying throughout the Pacific islands, as Beijing systematically works to undermine American strategic positioning and cultivate dependent relationships across the region. Cleo Paskal and Bill Roggio discuss the UK's giveaway of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, highlighting China's influence over the Mauritian government. The transfer raises concerns about Beijing potentially gaining strategic access to a critical Indian Ocean location near vital shipping lanes and military installations. Ahmad Sharawi reports that Al Sharaa continues attacking minorities in Syria, with Kurds being driven back while the U.S. stands aside. The Druze community also faces assault as the new regime consolidates power through ethnic persecution despite initial promises of inclusive governance. Janatyn Sayeh describes Iran's mass murders amid a broken economy with no communications or internet access. The segment portrays a regime in crisis, resorting to extreme violence against its population while infrastructure collapse and international isolation accelerate the government's deteriorating grip on power. David Daoud examines how Hezbollah reigns over villages in Lebanon. The segment details the organization's methods of social control, combining armed intimidation with provision of services to maintain dominance over Shia communities and enforce loyalty to the movement's political and military agenda. David Daoud explores what Hezbollah will manage if Tehran fails. The discussion considers the organization's future autonomy and survival prospects should its Iranian patron collapse, examining whether the group can sustain itself independently or faces inevitable decline without external support.

preview for later. Guest: Mary Kissel, former Senior Adviser to the Secretary of State Summary: Kissel critiques Prime Minister Starmer's plan to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, arguing the nation is heavily influenced by China. She highlights President Trump's opposition to the deal, emphasizing that the U.S. requires the Diego Garcia military base to project power across the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific.1901 OLD HOUSE

An unbelievable true story: American businessman Mark Swidan walks into China on a routine materials trip and ends up sentenced to death. After twelve brutal years in a CCP detention camp, starvation, beatings, and nonstop pressure to confess to crimes he didn’t commit, he finally returns home after a prisoner swap. In this episode, Mark details the arrest, torture, sham trial, and the staggering failure of U.S. officials to protect him.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: First up—a major shakeup inside Beijing, as Xi Jinping purges China's top general amid allegations he leaked nuclear weapons secrets to the United States. We'll break down what this stunning move reveals about growing paranoia, internal power struggles, and instability at the very top of the Chinese Communist Party. Later in the show—even as Ukrainian and Russian officials met to discuss peace, Moscow pressed its campaign against civilians, launching air attacks that knocked out power for more than one million Ukrainians. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief DeleteMe: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/PDB and use promocode PDB at checkout. American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.orgAPR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The two men under investigation are in the army's highest echelon, and are some of President Xi Jinping's closest counsel. We examine the probable motives for a surprising purge. In Ukraine's freezing capital thousands upon thousands of people suffer unpredictable cuts to electricity, heat, even water; we ask them how they cope. And why Strava is leading the fitness-app footrace.Get a world of insights by subscribing to Economist Podcasts+. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As he considers a 2028 presidential run, Rahm Emanuel joined us in studio for a wide-ranging and candid conversation about power, politics, and the moment the U.S. finds itself in right now. Emanuel has served at the highest levels of government — in Congress, as President Obama's first chief of staff, two terms as mayor of Chicago, and most recently as U.S. ambassador to Japan. We dig into the rapidly shifting global order, including Greenland, U.S. alliances, China, Ukraine, Gaza, Israel Iran, and Venezuela. On President Trump's second term, Emanuel acknowledges that he shares some underlying goals — including the need to confront China, fight for the American worker and reassess broken global institutions — but is sharply critical of Trump's tactics, execution, and what he sees as lasting damage to America's image, alliances, and long-term leverage abroad.Emanuel is blunt in his criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conduct of the Gaza war, while also defending Israel's right to exist and protect itself. He warns that political realities around Israel have fundamentally changed inside the Democratic Party. We talk about what that mean if he decides to run for the Democratic nomination. The conversation also turns personal: growing up in Chicago, parenting, and life as one of the three Emanuel brothers — alongside Ari Emanuel, the legendary Hollywood agent, and Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a leading physician. Mosheh Oinounou (⁠⁠@mosheh⁠⁠) is an Emmy and Murrow award-winning journalist. He has 20 years of experience at networks including Fox News, Bloomberg Television and CBS News, where he was the executive producer of the CBS Evening News and launched the network's 24 hour news channel. He founded the @mosheh Instagram news account in 2020 and the Mo News podcast and newsletter in 2022.

New court filings in Coomer v. Byrne are raising serious questions after years of denials. Patrick Byrne revealed to Emerald Robinson that the filings now acknowledge Eric Coomer had contact with foreign nationals regarding Dominion voting system source code—including overseas contacts and foreigners working in Denver offices. Byrne says this directly contradicts long-standing public claims that Dominion's software was strictly American and tightly controlled, noting that election code is supposed to be handled only by fully cleared personnel. At the same time, Coomer is reportedly asking the court to bar questions about Venezuela, Serbia, and China, even as these foreign contacts are now on the record. The judge has not yet ruled, and the case is rapidly developing.

It seems as if American society is suffering from a nationwide carbon-monoxide leak. The Department of Homeland Security is implying that possessing "2 magazines" implies intent to commit a massacre; the right suddenly backs an anti-gun stance. Antifa is encouraging liberals, who usually hate guns, to "march with guns" against federal agents. While the right says illegals threaten "democracy" the left says arresting them threatens "democracy." Now the Department of Labor and Department of War have turned into Q-anon. The DOL posted "trust the plan" while the DOW posted "directed energy weapons." There is a plan and there are DEWs, but neither are what you think. This is what next generation psych warfare looks like; a loyalty trap, a Maoist 100 flowers campaign and a Soviet Operation Trust (the plan). The purpose of LARPING resistance groups is more complex than divide and conquer; their goal is to obtain identities and information on all forms of resistance. After blacklisting, censorship, and the like terrifies most to stand down, phase two begins; now the censorship lifts and random people obtain popularity in their driving of vulgar speech and narratives. This both justifies additional censorship in the long run, but also identifies voices to be cataloged that are far more of a threat. Make no mistake, all of it is run by official sources. As in Mao's China and the Soviet Union, certain individuals can post and say whatever they want because they facilitate the agenda of the state to draw out of hiding, or simply silence, those who would resist. If the initial shadow banning and the platforming doesn't scare people into submission, and If the next round of blacklisting and censorship fails to destroy the threat, the final stage is neutralization when the new RedTerror begins. Couple this with the “everything is fake” motif and the revolution against liberty, justice, and reality is complete.

Our Head of Asian Gaming & Lodging and Hong Kong/India Real Estate Research Praveen Choudhary discusses the first synchronized growth cycle for Hong Kong's major real estate segments in almost a decade.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Praveen Choudhary, Morgan Stanley's Head of Asian Gaming & Lodging and Hong Kong/India Real Estate Research. Today – a look at a market that global investors often watch but may not fully appreciate: Hong Kong real estate. It's Tuesday, January 27th, at 2pm in Hong Kong.Why should investors in New York, London, or Singapore care about trends in Hong Kong property? That's easy to answer. Because Hong Kong remains one of the world's most globally sensitive real estate markets. When [the] cycle turns here, it often reflects – and sometimes predicts – broader shift in liquidity, capital flows, and macro sentiment across Asia. And right now, for the first time since 2018, all three major Hong Kong property segments – residential prices, office rents in the Central district of Hong Kong, and retail sales – are set to grow together. That synchronized upturn hasn't happened in almost a decade. What's driving this shift? Residential real estate is the engine of this turnaround. Prices have finally bottomed after a 30 percent decline since 2018, and 2026 is shaping out to be a strong year. We actually expect home prices to grow more than 10 percent in 2026, after going up by 5 percent in 2025. And we think that it will grow further in 2027. There are three factors that give us confidence on this out-of-consensus call. The first one is policy. Back in February 2024, Hong Kong scrapped all extra stamp duty that had made it tougher for mainland Chinese or foreign buyers to enter the market. Stamp duty is basically a tax you pay when buying property, or even selling property; and it has been a key way for [the] government to control demand and raise revenue. With those extra charges gone, buying and selling real estate in Hong Kong, especially for mainlanders, is a lot more straightforward and penalty-free. In fact, post the removal of the stamp duty, [the] percentage of units that has been sold to mainlanders have gone to 50 percent of total; earlier it used to be 10-20 percent. Why is it non-consensus? That is because consensus believes that Hong Kong property price can't go up when China residential outlook is negative. In mid-2025, consensus thought that the recovery was simply a cyclical response to a sharp drop in the Hong Kong Interbank Offered Rate, or HIBOR.But we believe the drivers are supply/demand mismatch, positive carry as rental go up but rates go down, and Hong Kong as a place for global monetary interconnection between China and the world that's still thriving. Second, demand fundamentals are strengthening. Hong Kong's population turned positive again, rising to 7.5 million in the first half of 2025. During COVID we had a population decline. Now, talent attraction scheme is driving around 140,000 visa approvals in 2025, which is double what it used to be pre-COVID level. New household formation is tracking above the long‑term average, and mainland buyers are now a powerful force. The third factor is affordability. So, after years of declines, the housing prices have come to a point where affordability is back to a long‑term average. In fact, the income versus the price is now back to 2011 level. You combine this with lower mortgage rates as the Fed cut moves through, and you have pent‑up demand finally returning. And don't forget the wealth effect: Hang Seng Index climbed almost 30 percent in 2025. That kind of equity rebound historically spills over into property buying. As the recovery in residential real estate picks up speed, we're also seeing a fresh wave of optimism and actions across Hong Kong office and retail markets. So big picture: Hong Kong property market isn't just stabilizing. It's turning. A 10 percent or more residential price rebound, a Central office market finding its footing, and an improved retail environment – all in the same year – marks the clearest green lights this market has seen since 2018.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Let's talk about Trump regretting he lost Canada to China....

Revisiting this episode because sometimes you have to repeat yourself for it to stick... Truth comes in many forms. What has been draining your spirit? 5 types of people to avoid to navigate the next chapter in life in peace and freedom, and not chaos. If someone's constant complaining suffocates the joy, God is trying to nourish in you, then you must protect your inner sanctuary. The second type is the manipulator. This is the most subtle and often the most painful. Manipulation does not come with shouting. It comes wrapped in words that sound like care, like duty, like obligation. Manipulators use guilt to control. They speak of love but demand submission. God NEVER weaponizes guilt. Therefore, every person who steals your freedom is damaging the gift God placed in you.  3rd type They remind you of old mistakes, not to heal you, but to diminish you. They keep you fixed in an outdated portrait of who you once were, refusing to see the grace God has formed in you.  Your past is not a weapon for others to wield. 4th Darkness Bearers one who carries darkness. Not always in obvious ways, not always with dramatic sins, but with a presence that pulls the soul away from the light. These are the people who normalize what leads you away from God, who diminish the seriousness of sin, who feed resentment, who speak lightly of what wounds the conscience, who invite you into anger, division, or habits that cloud the clarity of prayer. A neighbor arrives not with warmth but with gossip that stains the mind. A relative comes not with compassion but with burdensome anger that pulls the spirit into old conflicts.  5th Silent but just as deadly This cold silence is not the silence of contemplation. It is the silence of indifference. It is the silence that neither builds nor comforts. A relative who shows no interest in your well-being. A friend who never asks how your heart is. A companion who takes but never gives.  Your soul is too close to eternity to be entangled in the shadows of others. Rise above the storms of others. You will live the later years as God intended, not in confusion, but in clarity, not in exhaustion, but in grace.  Pope Leo is still kicking the knowledge.  Navigate to Pope Leo Speaks on 5 Types of People to Avoid that are Peace Wreckers to view the video in its entirety. No, I am not Catholic. But, this Pope Leo XIV is literally a "cousin". And has emphatically stated he is not MAGA. As the first American-born pope, has said that his nationality means that people cannot say he "doesn't understand the United States," as they did with Pope Francis. This statement indicates that he feels his perspective is uniquely informed and that he will be more effective in his engagement with the US government. He has expressed support for US bishops who took a stance against the Trump administration's deportation policies. By doing so, he is indirectly criticizing the administration while also encouraging other bishops to follow suit. While Pope Leo XIV has stated that he wants to avoid "partisan politics," he has also said that he is not afraid to "raise issues" that are related to the Gospel. This creates a fine line that he seems willing to cross, and his comments on human dignity, immigration, and wealth inequality can be interpreted as a moral and religious critique of the administration's policies. I am not a Communist nor a sympathizer of the autocratic regime in power in China. But, I admire the shade. Leaving this felon administration on hold listening to #Obama speeches is classic!! Even Sun Tzu could have anticipate the level of shade of the new age Chinese nor 50 cent for that matter. #pettylujah  Seasonal Affective Disorder Is Treatable and all of us should be about fixing our mental health always.... If you are searching for help and direction in your struggles with depression and addiction Call 1-800-273-8255 Available 24 hours everyday   There is also an online chat feature https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat/   And if Vodka is the problem, call  1-800-662-HELP (4357) for 24/7 help. Please reach out to find joy in this season! Don't forget to navigate to www.dalesangelsinc.com for all special offers and updates on nerd news. So much to buy so little time!!

DISCOMBOBULATOR DISCLOSURE - 01.26.2026 - #910 BestPodcastintheMetaverse.com Canary Cry News Talk #910 - 01.26.2026 - Recorded Live to 1s and 0s Deconstructing World Events from a Biblical Worldview Declaring Jesus as Lord amidst the Fifth Generation War! CageRattlerCoffee.com SD/TC email Ike for discount https://CanaryCry.Support   Send address and shirt size updates to canarycrysupplydrop@gmail.com Join the Canary Cry Roundtable This Episode was Produced By:   Executive Producers Andy W*** Sir LX Protocol Baron of the Berrean Protocol***   Producers of TREASURE (CanaryCry.Support) Simon D, Cage Rattler Coffee   Producers of TIME Timestampers: Jade Bouncerson, Morgan E Clankoniphius Links: JAM   GREAT RESET/MONEY 4:24 Silver just broke another record. Here's what's driving precious metal's new surge (CNBC)   NEPHILIM UPDATE/WW3/TRUMP 11:44 White House Posts AI Slop of Trump and a Penguin in Greenland (Yahoo/Mediaite) → DOW X account posts penguin meme (X) → DOW Jan 21, teaser post about energy weapons (X) → US Homeland Security X account, military penguin meme (X) Department Of War Confirms Plans To Scale 'Directed Energy Weapons (Yahoo/Dallas Ex) Post from D.O.W. confirming D.E.W. (X) (Directed Energy Weapons Research Report 2026) Clip: Trump discombobluate Trump reveals to The Post secret 'discombobulator' weapon was crucial to Venezuelan raid on Maduro (NY Post)   BBB/MINNESOTA  49:06 Anti-ICE Signal Chats Exposed  CLIP: Signal Chat breakdown on RAV Handing donuts and coffee to protestors → Trump deploys border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota as ICE operations face violent chaos (Fox)   Tom Homen to be unleashed in MN (X) Walz "Calls Trump" to cooperate (x)   → Clip: Satanism in Minnesota Capital building thanking Tim Walz troll (X)    SHUTDOWN 1:34:00 → Another government shutdown is looming. This one could hit differently in the economy. (CBS)   GEOENGINEERING 1:38:17 Termination shock could make the cost of climate damage even higher (New Scientist)   CYBORG 1:43:54 Clip: Woman gambling in China exposed for enhanced contact lenses (X)   EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS 1:51:20 TALENT/TIME 2:02:26 END 2:22:38

Aaron breaks down the whirlwind of White House moves on Minnesota's immigration enforcement flashpoint, including President Trump's dispatch of Tom Homan, communications with Governor Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey, and the sudden withdrawal of Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino and agents. Is this strategic pressure yielding results or an unexpected retreat? Also covered: an exposed Signal chat network coordinating anti-ICE actions (now under FBI scrutiny), Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's inflammatory rhetoric, Canada's abrupt pivot away from deeper China ties after tariff threats, UK pushes for widespread live facial recognition, NATO's nod to U.S. indispensability, a jihadist stabbing in Washington State, and a retired Green Beret's chilling comparison of Minneapolis unrest to low-level insurgency tactics. The AM Update, Aaron McIntire, immigration enforcement, Minnesota protests, Tom Homan, Tim Walz, Ilhan Omar, Border Patrol, ICE agents, Signal chat investigation, Kash Patel, Canada China trade, Mark Carney, tariffs, facial recognition UK, NATO Greenland, jihad stabbing Washington, insurgency Minneapolis, Trump administration, deportation operations

I think we have to gird ourselves for a slew of Chinese AI releases in the coming weeks. Are AI inspired layoffs poised to sweep the tech industry? Meta goes with subscriptions. Uber wants to train AI for others. And Dario Amodei has a pretty stark warning about AI. China's Moonshot Unveils AI Model Ahead of DeepSeek Release (Bloomberg) Pinterest laying off 15% of workforce in push toward AI roles and teams (CNBC) TikTok says a power outage caused a 'cascading systems failure' that messed up its algorithm (BusinessInsider) Meta to test premium subscriptions on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp (TechCrunch) Uber launches an ‘AV Labs' division to gather driving data for robotaxi partners (TechCrunch) Thread On The Amodei Essay @aakashgupta Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, the chancellor has announced a package of support for pubs and music venues after the government was forced to U-turn on their plans to bump up business rates. BBC Business editor Simon Jack joins Adam to explain the measures, whilst political correspondent Joe Pike drops by to unpack the government's other big announcement of the day - capping ground rents at £250 a year for leaseholders.Plus, the PM is on his way to Beijing. Ahead of his visit, Starmer said the UK cannot afford to ignore the economic opportunities presented by working with China. His visit comes after one of the country's top generals was purged by the government. Our China correspondent Laura Bicker gives Adam a rundown of what to expect.You can now listen to Newscast on a smart speaker. If you want to listen, just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play Newscast”. It works on most smart speakers. You can join our Newscast online community here: https://bbc.in/newscastdiscordGet in touch with Newscast by emailing newscast@bbc.co.uk or send us a WhatsApp on +44 0330 123 9480.New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/4guXgXd Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. The presenter was Adam Fleming. It was made by Anna Harris with Shiler Mahmoudi. The social producer was Joe Wilkinson. The technical producers were Dave O'Neill and. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.

Shiyuan Xu was born in China and is currently an assistant professor teaching at California State University, Chico. Shiyuan received her BA from China Academy of Art and an MFA from Arizona State University. Shiyuan has exhibited nationally and internationally and is the recipient of 2021 NCECA Emerging Artist and 2017 Ceramics Monthly Emerging Artist. https://ThePottersCast.com/1197

This week we talk about social networks, propaganda, and Oracle.We also discuss foreign adversaries, ByteDance, and X.Recommended Book: Rewiring Democracy by Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. SandersTranscriptIn 2021, TikTok, a short-form video platform that's ostensibly also a social network, though which leans heavily toward consuming content over socializing, was ranked the most popular website by internet services company Cloudflare, beating out all the other big tech players, including search engine juggernaut, Google.It was a neck and neck sort of thing, with Google taking the lead some days that year, but 2021 was definitely TikTok's time to shine, as it was already popular with young people and was starting to become popular with the general public, of all ages and across a huge swathe of the planet. It even beat Facebook as the most popular social media website that year, despite, again, being mostly about consuming content rather than interacting—that was actually a prime motivator for Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to redirect its own apps in a similar direction, shifting its focus from communication and interaction between users toward the creation of binge-able content, and feeding users more of that content in a feed optimized for time-losing levels of consumption.2021 was also the first full year that TikTok was coming under scrutiny from the US government. In the preceding year, 2020, then first-term president Donald Trump said he was considering banning the app because it was becoming so popular, with young people in particular, and because it was owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance it represented a potential national security threat.So the idea was that because Chinese companies are forced, by their very nature, to do what the Chinese government tells them—that's just how things work over there—and to do so on the down-low if that's what the governments demands, and to lie about having to do what the government tells them to do, if the government tells them to thus lie, it doesn't matter that ByteDance's leadership swore up and down to the world that the company will never use its popularity, and the data it soaks up from all its users as a result of that popularity, to help the Chinese government, the Chinese military, or Chinese intelligence services.It of course will have to do that, and if it doesn't, its leaders could be black-bagged and disappeared in the night—because again, that's just how things work over there. So the Trump administration decided to make TikTok a sort of bogeyman, representing Chinese companies in general, and to some degree the presence of China in the US and throughout the Western world, and said, nope, we're not gonna let this thing continue to operate over here.It's worth remembering, too, that by 2021 the world was enmeshed in the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in China, and which Trump and his administration were ardently attempting to tie to the Chinese government—calling Covid the Chinese Flu, and even worse things, as part of that effort.So this move against TikTok and its parent company, while based on genuine concerns about the ownership of the company and how and where the data being collected by said company is handled, it should also be seen as a political maneuver, allowing Trump, during the 2020 election run-up, to look like he was taking a big stand against a big foreign threat, China.What I'd like to talk about today is a deal that was proposed way back then by the Trump administration, as a potential way out for TikTok and ByteDance, allowing it to continue operating in the US despite threats to shut it down, now that said deal, or a version of it, seems to have finally come to fruition—and what we know about the shape of the resulting new, US-based version of TikTok.—On January 18, 2025, TikTok stopped worked in the US. It voluntarily suspended all services in the country in the lead-up to the implementation of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which was passed by the US congress and signed into law by then-president Joe Biden in April of 2024. This law gave social networking services controlled by ‘foreign adversaries' 270 days, with the possibility of a 90-day extension, to divest themselves so that they're no longer considered foreign adversary-owned.This law was almost exclusively aimed at TikTok, and the idea was that TikTok, in the US, would no longer be able to legally function following that deadline if it was still owned by China, which for the purposes of this law has been labeled a foreign adversary.ByteDance could keep TikTok in the US going if it sold a majority, controlling stake of its US-based assets to non-adversary owners, but otherwise it would have to shut down.Interestingly, though Trump was the original source of concerns about TikTok and its Chinese ownership during his first administration, when he stepped back into office in January 2025, he signed a new executive order that delayed the enforcement of this Biden-signed law, and then delayed it still-further, three more times after that, saying that he wanted to give American investors the time to negotiate controlling interest of US TikTok, rather than banning it.Those efforts eventually bore fruit in the shape of a new controlling entity called TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, which is made up of a bunch of non-Chinese investment entities, including US software behemoth Oracle, an Emirati investment firm called MGX, a US investment firm called Silver Lake, and a personal investment company owned by Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Technologies. There are other, smaller investors also involved, but the red thread that runs through almost all of them is that they're big Trump supporters and funders, funneling a lot of money into Trump's campaigns, and his family businesses.So six years after the initial legal salvo was fired at TikTok in the US, the local assets are now controlled by non-Chinese investors, though the original Chinese owner, ByteDance, still owns just under 20%, compared to about 15% apiece for Oracle, MGX, and Silver Lake.The new company's board is majority-run by those investors, too, which means it's majority-run by ardent Trump supporters. We don't yet know what effect this will have on content within the app, but under full Chinese ownership, topics related to democracy, Tianamen Square, and the LGBTQ community, among others, were significantly downgraded in the algorithm, ensuring they were seldom shown to anyone, which in turn disincentivized content that those owners didn't like while incentivizing content that was pro-China, and pro-Chinese government priorities.It's considered to be likely, by analysts who watch these sorts of maneuverings, that the same will be true of this new entity, but for and against subject matter that the Trump administration is for and against. Which raises the possibility that the new US TikTok, while superficially the same as the previous US TikTok, will slowly go the way X, formerly Twitter, has gone under Elon Musk, which was dramatically pushed in a new direction under its own owner, focusing on his political and ideological priorities and punishing users who spoke against those priorities.TikTok could become more or less an extension of the Trump-verse, in other words, and could thus become something more akin to Trump's own network, Truth Social, or other right-leaning and far-right social networks, like conservative YouTube-clone, Rumble, rather than something less ideological, or maybe I should say less overtly politically ideological, like Meta's Facebook, Threads, and Instagram.Users have already noticed some changes to US TikTok after the change in ownership, though, including what sorts of data are collected.TikTok's new privacy policy, which all users have to agree to before using the app, now that the platform has changed hands, says that TikTok will be using precise location tracking, keeping tabs on exactly where users are located via their device's GPS. That's compared to the app's previous approximate location-tracking effort, which used SIM card and IP address data to understand general proximity—it still uses that data, too, but now, rather than knowing what neighborhood you're probably in, it may also know what room in your house you're scrolling from.The new US TikTok also tracks users' interactions with AI tools, including their prompts, outputs, and metadata attached to said interactions, which includes details about where users are when they're using such tools, and what time they used them.They also collect gobs of marketing data from outside sources, and based on the users' activity within the app. So things you buy, websites and other apps you visit and use, and conversations you have will all be sucked up and agglomerated into a profile that's then used to show you targeted advertising. This isn't unique to US TikTok, but the company does seem to intend to make use of more such data, and to combine it with that other stuff it's now collecting, to increase the price it can charge for ads, because they'll be a lot more specifically targeted than before.Some users are beginning to comb through the new user agreement with a fine-toothed comb, noticing, in addition to those aforementioned major changes, that the company also reserves the right to collect information about your physical and mental health, to use identifying information in the videos and images you might share, and information gleaned from people and their identifying characteristics in images and videos, and to collect biometric data, which usually means eyes and faces and walking gate and things like that, to differentiate and track people across such content. They can keep tabs on your sex life, sexual orientation and gender, your drug usage, your ethnic and racial origins, your citizenship and immigration status, your financial situation and information—all sorts of stuff is collected, and they say in the privacy policy and user agreement that they intend to do gather and store and cross-reference this kind of information whenever possible.Again, much of this isn't novel, as social platforms are gobbling up all sorts of stuff about their users all the time, mostly to refine their ad placements because that allows them to charge advertisers more for better-targeted placements, over time.That said, because of the nature of the group that now owns US TikTok and which is making executive decisions about it, including, potentially, how this data is shared, including with the US government and its many agencies, there's a chance we might see an exodus of sorts from the still younger-than-average user base of this network, because there is a nonzero chance it could become a tool in the Trump administration's utility belt for tracking down people they don't like and spreading messages that are favorable to them and their ideological aims; so basically what was happening under the previous ownership, but for the current US administration's priorities, rather than those of the Chinese government.Show Noteshttps://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-surpasses-google-popular-website-year-new-data-suggests-rcna9648https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/technology/tiktok-deal-oracle-bytedance-china-us.htmlhttps://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-new-privacy-policy/https://archive.is/20260123005655/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-23/tiktok-seals-deal-to-create-us-venture-with-oracle-silver-lakehttps://www.axios.com/2026/01/23/tiktok-deal-trump-app-banhttps://www.theverge.com/tech/866868/tiktok-usds-new-owners-algorithm-explainedhttps://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/22/5-things-to-know-about-the-tiktok-deal-00743316https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/23/business/media/tiktok-us-terms-conditions.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTokhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%E2%80%93TikTok_controversyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_ban_TikTok_in_the_United_Stateshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Americans_from_Foreign_Adversary_Controlled_Applications_Act This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

China removed its top army general in what many analysts see as a move to cement loyalty to President Xi Jinping. It's rattling Taiwan, and as special correspondent Patrick Fok reports, it comes amid already heightened fears that the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro could embolden China to mimic the move against Taipei. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Watch the full podcast! https://chinauncensored.tv/programs/podcast-323 If protests topple the Islamic Republic of Iran, this is bad news for the CCP. And in more ways than you might think. Joining us is former Marine Intelligence Officer Grant Newsham.

Can you help me make more podcasts? Consider supporting me on Patreon as the service is 100% funded by you: https://EVne.ws/patreon You can read all the latest news on the blog here: https://EVne.ws/blog Subscribe for free and listen to the podcast on audio platforms:➤ Apple: https://EVne.ws/apple➤ YouTube Music: https://EVne.ws/youtubemusic➤ Spotify: https://EVne.ws/spotify➤ TuneIn: https://EVne.ws/tunein➤ iHeart: https://EVne.ws/iheart GEELY BETS CHINA SCALE WILL BUY GLOBAL CLOUT https://evne.ws/4sO3Z4i LUXEED R7 CLAIMS WORLD'S SLICKEST SUV SHAPE https://evne.ws/3Zugnch XPENG PUSHES 7-YEAR CHEAP CREDIT IN CHINA EV FIGHT https://evne.ws/4a1Kc9c BYD DOMINATES MEXICO'S EV MARKET AS RIVALS DITHER https://evne.ws/468yXKE CHINA DRIVES CAR STANDARDS ALL THE WAY TO ANTARCTICA https://evne.ws/4pX0S7x CHINESE SUV CLAIMED TO SURVIVE DUAL TYRE BLOWOUTS https://evne.ws/3YVfU2G DONGFENG FIRES UP 16,000-TON EV DIE-CASTING PLANT https://evne.ws/4sYn9oi FAW BETS SCALE CAN SAVE HONGQI IN EV SHAKE-UP https://evne.ws/3O1aelf RENAULT GOES TO SHANGHAI TO LEARN CHINA SPEED https://evne.ws/4pWMxbg

An unprecedented shakeup at the very top of the Chinese military has shaken up the rest of the world. Xi Jinping didn't just go after a longtime friend and ally, he has gone after everyone in what increasingly looks like a paranoid, Stalinist shakeup. But why? I've told you many times before about the economic pressure on China that has only intensified more recently. But that's not the only thing. That's where it starts, but where it ends is what is increasingly being confirmed as Cold War 2.0.  Eurodollar University's Money & Macro Analysis---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What if your gold could actually pay you every month… in MORE gold?That's exactly what Monetary Metals does. You still own your gold, fully insured in your name, but instead of sitting idle, it earns real yield paid in physical gold. No selling. No trading. Just more gold every month.Check it out here: https://monetary-metals.com/snider---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------60 Minutes How China could use U.S. farmland to attack Americahttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-china-could-use-us-farmland-to-attack-america-60-minutes/NYT Xi's Purge of China's Military Brings Its Top General Down https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/world/asia/china-top-general-xi-military-purge.htmlU.S. Secret Service dismantles imminent telecommunications threat in New York tristate areahttps://www.secretservice.gov/newsroom/releases/2025/09/us-secret-service-dismantles-imminent-telecommunications-threat-new-yorkhttps://www.eurodollar.universityTwitter: https://twitter.com/JeffSnider_EDU