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Wed, 10 Dec 2025 03:35:00 +0000 Western Colleges Help Build China's Digital Dragnet With Taxpayer Funds, Study Warns
Western Colleges Help Build China's Digital Dragnet With Taxpayer Funds, Study Warns
Western Colleges Help Build China's Digital Dragnet With Taxpayer Funds, Study Warns
Submitted by The Bureau's Sam Cooper,
Over the past five years, some of the world's most technologically advanced campuses in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom — including MIT, Oxford and McGill — have relied on taxpayer funding while collaborating with artificial-intelligence labs embedded in Beijing's security state , including one tied to China's mass detention of Uyghurs and to the Ministry of Public Security, which has been accused of targeting Chinese dissidents abroad.
That is the core finding of Shared Labs, Shared Harm , a new report from New York–based risk firm Strategy Risks and the Human Rights Foundation. After reviewing tens of thousands of scientific papers and grant records, the authors conclude that Western public funds have repeatedly underwritten joint work between elite universities and two Chinese "state-priority" laboratories whose technologies drive China's domestic surveillance machinery — an apparatus that, a recent U.S. Congressional threat assessment warns, is increasingly being turned outward against critics in democratic states.
The key Chinese collaborators profiled in the study are closely intertwined with China's security services. One of the two featured labs is led by a senior scientist from China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), the sanctioned conglomerate behind the platform used to flag and detain Uyghurs in Xinjiang; the other has hosted "AI + public security" exchanges with the Ministry of Public Security's Third Research Institute, the bureau responsible for technical surveillance and digital forensics.
The report's message is blunt : even as governments scramble to stop technology transfer on the hardware side, open academic science has quietly been supplying Chinese security organs with new tools to track bodies, faces and movements at scale.
It lands just as Washington and its allies move to tighten controls on advanced chips and AI exports to China. In the Netherlands' Nexperia case, the Dutch government invoked a rarely used Cold War–era emergency law this fall to take temporary control of a Chinese-owned chipmaker and block key production from being shifted to China — prompting a furious response from Beijing, and supply shocks that rippled through European automakers.
" The Chinese Communist Party uses security and national security frameworks as tools for control, censorship, and suppressing dissenting views, transforming technical systems into instruments of repression ," the report says. " Western institutions lend credibility, knowledge, and resources to Chinese laboratories supporting the country's surveillance and defense ecosystem. Without safeguards … publicly funded research will continue to support organizations that contribute to repression in China ."
Cameras and Drones
The Strategy Risks team focuses on two state-backed institutes: Zhejiang Lab, a vast AI and high-performance computing campus founded by the Zhejiang provincial government with Alibaba and Zhejiang University, and the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (SAIRI), now led by a senior CETC scientist. CETC designed the Integrated Joint Operations Platform, or IJOP — the data system that hoovered up phone records, biometric profiles and checkpoint scans to flag "suspicious" people in Xinjiang.
United Nations investigators and several Western governments have concluded that IJOP and related systems supported mass surveillance, detention and forced-labor campaigns against Uyghurs that amount to crimes against humanity.
Against that backdrop, the scale of Western collaboration is striking.
Since 2020, Zhejiang Lab and SAIRI have published more than 11,000 papers; roughly 3,000 of those had foreign co-authors, many from the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. About 20 universities are identified as core collaborators , including MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, UC Berkeley, Oxford, University College London — and Canadian institutions such as McGill University — along with a cluster of leading European technical universities.
Among the major U.S. public funders acknowledged in these joint papers are the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Department of Transportation. For North America, the warning is twofold: U.S. and Canadian universities are far more entangled with China's security-linked AI labs than most policymakers grasp — and existing "trusted research" frameworks, built around IP theft, are almost blind to the human-rights risk.
In one flagship example, Zhejiang Lab collaborated with MIT on advanced optical phase-shifting — a field central to high-resolution imaging systems used in satellite surveillance, remote sensing and biometric scanning. The paper cited support from a DARPA program, meaning U.S. defense research dollars effectively underwrote joint work with a Chinese lab that partners closely with military universities and the CETC conglomerate behind Xinjiang's IJOP system.
Carnegie Mellon projects with Zhejiang Lab focused on multi-object tracking and acknowledged funding from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Office of Naval Research. Multi-object tracking is a backbone technology for modern surveillance — allowing cameras and drones to follow multiple people or vehicles across crowds and city blocks. "In the Chinese context," the report notes, such capabilities map naturally onto "public security applications such as protest monitoring," even when the academic papers present them as neutral advances in computer vision.
The report also highlights Zhejiang Lab's role as an international partner in CAMERA 2.0, a £13-million U.K. initiative on motion capture, gait recognition and "smart cities" anchored at the University of Bath, and its leadership in BioBit, a synthetic-biology and imaging program whose advisory board includes University College London, McGill University, the University of Glasgow and other Western campuses.
Meanwhile, SAIRI has quietly become a hub for AI that blurs public-security, military and commercial lines.
Established in 2018 and run since 2020 by CETC academician Lu Jun — a designer of China's KJ-2000 airborne early-warning aircraft and a veteran of command-and-control systems — SAIRI specializes in pose estimation, tracking and large-scale imaging.
Under Lu, the institute has deepened ties with firms already sanctioned by Washington for their roles in Xinjiang surveillance. In 2024 it signed cooperation agreements with voice-recognition giant iFlytek and facial-recognition champion SenseTime, as well as CloudWalk and Intellifusion, which market "smart city" policing platforms.
SAIRI also hosted an "AI + public security" exchange with the Ministry of Public Security's Third Research Institute — the bureau responsible for technical surveillance and digital forensics — and co-developed what Chinese media billed as the country's first AI-assisted shooting training system. That platform, nominally built for sports, was overseen by a Shanghai government commission that steers AI into defense and public-security applications, raising the prospect of its use in paramilitary or police training.
Outside the lab, MPS officers have been charged in the United States with running online harassment and intimidation schemes targeting Chinese dissidents, and MPS-linked "overseas police service stations" in North America and Europe have been investigated for pressuring exiles and critics to return to China.
Meanwhile, Radio-Canada, drawing on digital records first disclosed to Australian media in 2024 by an alleged Chinese spy, has reported new evidence suggesting that a Chinese dissident who died in a mysterious kayaking accident near Vancouver was being targeted for elimination by MPS officers and agents embedded in a Chinese conglomerate that the U.S. Treasury accuses of running a money-laundering and modern-slavery empire out of Cambodia.
The new reporting focuses on a former undercover agent for Office No. 1 of China's Ministry of Public Security — the police ministry at the core of so-called "CCP police stations" in global and Canadian cities, and reportedly tasked with hunting dissidents abroad.
Taken together, cases of alleged Chinese "police station" networks operating globally, new U.S. Congressional reports on worldwide threats from the Chinese Communist Party, and the warnings in Shared Labs, Shared Harm suggest that Western universities are not only helping to build China's domestic repression apparatus with U.S. taxpayer funds, but may also be contributing to global surveillance tools that can be paired with Beijing's operatives abroad .
To counter this trend, the paper urges a reset in research governance : broaden due diligence to weigh human-rights risk, mandate transparency over all international co-authorships and joint labs, condition partnerships with security-linked institutions on strict safeguards and narrow scopes of work, and strengthen university ethics bodies so they take responsibility for cross-border collaborations.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/09/2025 - 22:35 Close
Wed, 10 Dec 2025 03:10:00 +0000 Israel Launches New Wave Of Huge Airstrikes On Lebanon
Israel Launches New Wave Of Huge Airstrikes On Lebanon
Israel's military has confirmed it carried out new waves of air attacks in southern Lebanon that damaged several homes and buildings, which the IDF said primarily targeted Hezbo
Read more.....
Israel Launches New Wave Of Huge Airstrikes On Lebanon
Israel's military has confirmed it carried out new waves of air attacks in southern Lebanon that damaged several homes and buildings, which the IDF said primarily targeted Hezbollah training camps.
The largescale attacks occurred despite what's supposed to be a agreed upon truce in effect going all the way back to November 2024 . Prior to that, Hezbollah had been engaged in daily exchanges of rocket and drone fire, in a war which kicked off in tandem with the Gaza war.
via Associated Press
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported late Monday that new strikes hit Mount Safi, the town of Jbaa, the Zefta Valley, and the area between Azza and Rumin Arki, and cited that "several waves" were launched, but there appeared no initial reports of casualties.
Despite the ceasefire, Israel is vowing to essentially finish off Hezbollah after already having largely decimated its leadership in 2024. The IDF announced that "military structures and a launch site belonging to Hezbollah , used to advance terror attacks against IDF troops and the State of Israel, were also struck."
"The targets that were struck, and the military training conducted in preparation for attacks against the State of Israel, constitute a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon and a threat to the State of Israel," the statement added.
Significantly, the aerial assault reached some 20-30 km north of the Israel's border , as described by Israeli Army Radio.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said these operations are "likely" to continue and that Israel will not stop until 'terror infrastructure' is destroyed and dismantled. Israeli citizens of far northern settlements and communities have only recently been able to safely resettle in their homes.
"We are enforcing in Lebanon, without compromise, against any Hezbollah armament and any violation of the ceasefire," Smotrich said.
"It is likely that we will soon need to return and operate there to preserve the gains achieved against Hezbollah," added the minister.
"We will not allow Hezbollah to remain. Residents of the north deserve to live in complete security in their communities ," he described. "There will no longer be a situation in which towns are the front line and the IDF is behind them. The IDF will be the front protecting the communities, and the communities will be behind it."
Washington has also lately been pressuring the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah; however, the Shia militant group is actually far better armed than the Lebanese Army. Ironically it has been the United States which has kept Lebanon's military intentionally weak, on fears that any heavy armaments could be used against Israel.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/09/2025 - 22:10 Close
Wed, 10 Dec 2025 02:45:00 +0000 'Iryna's Law' And The Bad Decisions That Make It Necessary
'Iryna's Law' And The Bad Decisions That Make It Necessary
'Iryna's Law' And The Bad Decisions That Make It Necessary
Authored by Daniel McCarthy via The Epoch Times,
What will it take to get crime under control in our subways and public transit systems?
On Monday, Dec. 1, news broke of another passenger set on fire in New York City’s subway—although this story wasn’t all it seemed.
The homeless man who at first said he was the victim of an attack turned tight-lipped when police pressed him about what happened.
Had he set his own clothes ablaze to attract attention?
In the wild environment our subways have become, a malicious attack or a madman’s self-inflicted injury are both all too believable.
Most trips on the New York City subway or Washington’s Metro system don’t resemble a clip from “Mad Max,” but sooner or later anyone who rides the rails of our cities regularly encounters insanity, aggression, and the prospect of violence—or actual violence, including the murderous kind.
The life-changing and very nearly life-ending attack on Bethany MaGee, the woman set aflame on a Chicago Blue Line train last month, was no hoax.
Nor was the assault that killed Iryna Zarutska on a commuter train in Charlotte, North Carolina, this summer.
Nor was the burning alive of Debrina Kawam on the New York City subway in December 2024.
None of those women had any reason to fear for her life, yet a commute turned into unspeakable terror.
And it was predictable—not because these victims had anything special to fear but because everyone knows what’s allowed to happen in the tunnels and on the trains.
If a thug with 72 arrests to his name—such as the man who tried to immolate the 26-year-old MaGee in Chicago—or with “just” 14 arrests—such as Zarutska’s murderer—decides that this is the day to take an unsuspecting victim, what chance does the victim have?
Her fate was already decided by judges who chose to not lock up men who were a demonstrated threat to the public.
The killers and would-be killers are only half the problem.
The other half are the judges and lawmakers who put them on the streets in the first place, leaving them free to ambush unsuspecting victims on train cars, where they can’t escape.
(MaGee did try running, but her attacker caught up and torched her.)
Legislators in North Carolina, at least, are trying to stop this murderous chain of events before it begins, by putting men with criminal records like those of Zarutska’s killer in prison or mental institutions as soon as they start breaking the law.
“Iryna’s Law” restricts cashless bail, requires judges to order more mental evaluations, and makes it easier to involuntarily commit offenders found to be disturbed.
It also attempts to restore the death penalty in North Carolina, which has been blocked for nearly 20 years by legal challenges.
The law is a good start, and other states need similar reforms to incarcerate and institutionalize more of the people who commit horrors such as the subway attacks of recent months.
There’s a federal role in this, too, including rigorous enforcement of immigration law.
Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, the man charged with burning Kawam to death, is an illegal immigrant who should never have been in this country to begin with.
Yet more is needed: not only zero tolerance toward violent and repeat offenders, but also zero tolerance in the political process for judges who go easy on them.
Some states elect judges, and voters in those places can make known just how they feel about judges’ culpability for crimes committed by the lawbreakers they set loose.
And states have provisions for impeaching judges, just as the federal government does.
Where judges egregiously endanger the public with their leniency toward criminals, they should be impeached and removed from office.
It wouldn’t take many examples before soft-on-crime judges got the message.
Of course, judges themselves, where they aren’t elected by the public, are appointed by politicians who have to answer to voters—and those pols should feel the heat, too.
Five years ago, progressives were pushing, in all seriousness, to “defund the police” and “abolish bail,” meaning, in the latter instance, simply releasing a wider array of arrestees.
In most of the country, those slogans were not political winners, but advocates for these policies count more on elite sympathy, especially within the legal profession, than they do on ballot-box victories.
Their gamble is that most Americans pay no mind to the inner workings of state courts and legislatures, so what loses in an election can still win where laws and legal precedents are actually made.
This populist moment in national politics arises from the distrust our leaders have engendered among the public.
But leaders in states and cities have betrayed Americans’ trust, too, and their betrayal turns public transportation into scenes of public execution for innocents such as Zarutska.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/09/2025 - 21:45 Close
Wed, 10 Dec 2025 02:20:00 +0000 Mississippi Has The Highest Credit Card Delinquency Rate, Florida The Lowest
Mississippi Has The Highest Credit Card Delinquency Rate, Florida The Lowest
Mississippi Has The Highest Credit Card Delinquency Rate, Florida The Lowest
The map, via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, highlights how credit card delinquency varies widely across the U.S. in 2025.
These figures represent the share of credit card accounts that became 30 or more days past due from Q1 to Q2. The data for this visualization comes from WalletHub .
Southern States Lead in Delinquencies
The Deep South stands out with the nation’s highest delinquency rates. Mississippi tops the list at 37%, followed by Louisiana at 32% and Alabama at 31%.
These levels are far above the national norm and suggest elevated financial pressures, including lower median incomes and higher reliance on revolving debt. Several neighboring states—Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and South Carolina—also exceed 25%.
Rank
State
Credit Card Delinquency (Q1-Q2, 2025)
1
Mississippi
36.69%
2
Louisiana
32.11%
3
Alabama
30.52%
4
Arkansas
28.11%
5
South Carolina
25.49%
6
Oklahoma
25.43%
7
Texas
24.77%
8
Tennessee
24.62%
9
North Carolina
24.19%
10
Kentucky
24.07%
11
Indiana
23.92%
12
West Virginia
23.71%
13
Delaware
22.76%
14
Georgia
22.40%
15
Missouri
22.26%
16
New Mexico
21.37%
17
Pennsylvania
21.08%
18
Michigan
20.89%
19
South Dakota
20.64%
20
Wyoming
20.23%
21
Kansas
19.76%
22
Arizona
19.72%
23
Nebraska
19.71%
24
Ohio
19.66%
25
Maryland
19.45%
26
Minnesota
19.17%
27
Virginia
19.09%
28
Nevada
18.58%
29
Idaho
18.42%
30
Wisconsin
18.35%
31
Maine
18.27%
32
Connecticut
18.16%
33
Oregon
17.87%
34
Montana
17.17%
35
Alaska
16.90%
36
Colorado
16.85%
37
Illinois
16.58%
38
New Jersey
16.57%
39
North Dakota
16.26%
40
New Hampshire
15.59%
41
New York
15.53%
42
Rhode Island
15.21%
43
California
15.08%
44
Washington
14.99%
45
Utah
14.94%
46
Hawaii
14.90%
47
Massachusetts
14.68%
48
Vermont
14.67%
49
Iowa
14.36%
50
Florida
13.99%
Midwestern and Northeastern States Remain More Stable
Most states across the Midwest and Northeast report delinquency shares between 15% and 21%. These levels reflect more stable household budgets and stronger credit profiles.
States like Iowa (14%) and Minnesota (19%) show some of the lowest delinquency rates, pointing to higher financial resilience.
Western States Show Mixed Patterns
The Western U.S. presents a more mixed landscape. California, Washington, Utah, and Hawaii all sit near the lower end at around 15%, suggesting relatively healthy consumer finances despite high living costs.
Meanwhile, states like Arizona and Nevada land closer to 19–20% in late payments.
If you enjoyed today’s post, check out The United States of Unemployment on Voronoi , the new app from Visual Capitalist.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/09/2025 - 21:20 Close
Wed, 10 Dec 2025 01:55:00 +0000 New York Archdiocese Agrees To Mediation For Settling 1,300 Claims Of Sexual Abuse
New York Archdiocese Agrees To Mediation For Settling 1,300 Claims Of Sexual Abuse
New York Archdiocese Agrees To Mediation For Settling 1,300 Claims Of Sexual Abuse
Authored by Melanie Sun via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The Roman Catholic Church in New York and more than 1,300 people who have accused its priests and lay employees of sexual abuse have agreed to enter mediation to resolve the claims.
Archbishop of New York cardinal Timothy Dolan holds his homily during a Mass in his own titular Church ‘Nostra Signora di Guadalupe a Monte Mario’ at the northern outskirts of Rome? on May 4, 2025 in Rome, Italy. Franco Origlia/Getty Images
Announcing the negotiations on Dec. 8, the Archdiocese of New York said it hopes to reach a global settlement that would provide victim-survivors with “the most financial compensation possible.”
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who has led the archdiocese since 2009, said in an open letter that “darkness has cast a shadow” on the church.
“As we have repeatedly acknowledged, the sexual abuse of minors long ago has brought shame upon our Church. I once again ask forgiveness for the failing of those who betrayed the trust placed in them by failing to provide for the safety of our young people ,” Dolan said. “Yet, as our faith teaches us, light will always conquer darkness.”
The Archdiocese of New York, which serves 2.5 million Catholics across nearly 300 parishes—the second-largest population of registered Catholics nationwide after the Archdiocese of Los Angeles—has taken the significant and necessary further steps to allow it to “bring peace and consolation to victim-survivors and their families,” Dolan said.
Adding to voluntary compensation efforts by the archdiocese in 2016, dubbed the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program (IRCP), the cardinal said the church has “made a series of very difficult financial decisions” that, when finalised, should liquidate at least $300 million “to provide compensation to survivors of sexual abuse.”
The decisions included laying off staff, cutting 10 percent of the operating budget, and selling significant real estate assets. The sales include the former archdiocesan headquarters on First Avenue in Manhattan.
Dolan also said the compensation efforts were being complicated by ongoing legal struggles with Chubb Insurance Companies, which ?has refused to pay claims for policies that included “coverage for sexual misconduct claims, for itself and the parishes, schools, and archdiocesan charitable organizations.” The church said it had purchased such general liability insurance coverage for ?the decades coinciding with the allegations of abuse.
“Despite accepting millions in premiums from the archdiocese, Chubb has steadfastly refused to honor the policies it issued ,” the cardinal said.
Chubb accused the ?archdiocese of tolerating and covering up child sexual abuse for decades and called for more transparency, saying the archdiocese has refused to share “what they knew and when.”
St. Patrick's Cathedral, the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, in New York City, on Sept. 8, 2015. Spencer Platt/Getty Images
“The insurance that the Archdiocese bought covers accidents, it does not provide compensation for knowingly allowing a pattern of abuse to persist for many years,” Chubb said in a statement. “There’s a reason insurance doesn’t cover this kind of behavior as it would reward those who facilitate criminal conduct rather than those who take vigilant steps to mitigate risk and protect children from abuse.”
‘Time for Reckoning’
The settlement is to be negotiated by a third-party mediator, whom both sides agreed would be retired Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Daniel Buckley.
Buckley successfully negotiated the $880 million settlement between the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and 1,353 victim-survivors of sexual abuse in 2024. That archdiocese is the largest in the nation, with about 4.4 million registered Catholics.
Dolan also said that the parish in the archdiocese where most of the claims of abuse were filed has declared bankruptcy. That parish—Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Scarsdale—is facing imminent court proceedings related to “alleged abuse by a former lay employee at the parish,” the cardinal said.
Most of the lawsuits against the archdiocese were filed after New York’s Child Victims Act was enacted in 2019. It extended the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits involving child sexual abuse, creating a one-year retrospective window that allowed petitioners to file historical claims of clergy abuse.
Before this, under the archdiocese’s voluntary compensation effort established by Dolan to compensate victims abused by priests or deacons of the archdiocese, 189 victim-survivors were recognised by the church and compensated more than $40 million.
Attorney Jeff Anderson, who represents some 300 of the 1,311 accusers whose claims date from 1952 to 2020, said that the archdiocese agreed to negotiate settlements over ?the next two months. This is ahead of civil litigation against it that is due to come to trial next year.
“The time for reckoning is now, and it’s long past due ,” he said.
St. Patrick's Cathedral, the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York in New York City, on Sept. 8, 2015. Spencer Platt/Getty Images
He added that any settlements will have to be accompanied by full disclosure of wrongdoing and measures to prevent future abuse.
According to the archdiocese’s website, since the Catholic Bishops of the United States adopted the Charter on the Protection of Children and Young People in 2002, the church has implemented preventive measures through the “Safe Environment Program,” designed to prevent and respond to any incidents of child sexual abuse.
“We are dedicated to insure the safety of children and young people who have been entrusted to our care in our parishes, schools, religious education classes and other programs ,” the website notice reads .
The archdiocese said that since the charter’s adoption, it has identified only one case of credible sexual abuse of a minor involving an active clergyman. Law enforcement was immediately notified and handled the case. The priest was also removed from ministry by the archdiocesan review board.
“Please join me in praying for the victim-survivors, their families, and all who have experienced the horror of abuse,” Dolan said. “It is my heartfelt prayer that together as a family of faith, we may experience healing, hope, and light this Christmas season.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/09/2025 - 20:55 Close
Wed, 10 Dec 2025 01:30:00 +0000 Oil Trading Giant Warns Of Looming "Super Glut" Due To Supply Surge
Oil Trading Giant Warns Of Looming "Super Glut" Due To Supply Surge
Echoing what has become a now daily refrain by commodity bears everywhere, Saad Rahim, chief economist of commodity-trading giant, Trafigura, said that the oil mark
Read more.....
Oil Trading Giant Warns Of Looming "Super Glut" Due To Supply Surge
Echoing what has become a now daily refrain by commodity bears everywhere, Saad Rahim, chief economist of commodity-trading giant, Trafigura, said that the oil market faces a “super glut” next year as a burst of new supply collides with weakness in the global economy. According to Rahim, new drilling projects and slowing demand growth would weigh further on already depressed crude prices next year.
“Whether it’s a glut, or a super glut, it’s hard to get away from that,” Rahim said in remarks alongside the company’s annual results.
Brent crude has fallen 16% this year, on track for its worst year since 2020. Prices are expected to be further damped by major projects coming online next year, including in Brazil and Guyana.
The glut thesis is hardly new, and has been popularized by banks such as Citi and Goldman for the past year. As Goldman analyst Daan Struyven wrote in his latest oil tracker note, "global visible oil stocks have built by nearly 2mb/d over the past 30 days." The banks expects them to grow significantly more in the coming years.
Meanwhile demand from China, which is widely seen as aggressively stocking its strategic petroleum reserve by 500kb/d (and as much as 1 mm/d according to some estimates) and is the world’s biggest oil importer, is expected to grow more slowly next year due to its huge fleet of electric vehicles, which have sharply reduced petrol demand. Low prices this year have prompted China to buy more crude to fill its strategic stockpile.
“China needs to keep buying at this rate, for that super glut to not show up even earlier,” Rahim added.
The US government has also been trying to keep oil prices low, and President Donald Trump has pledged to “drill, baby, drill” in a push to increase American production. There has also been speculation that the US will also refill its SPR which was largely emptied by Biden but since that will promptly drive prices higher, so far this has been nothing but speculation, and meanwhile the US barely has any reserves for a true emergency.
Ben Luckock, head of oil trading at Trafigura, said in October that he expected oil prices could fall below $60 a barrel before rallying. “I suspect we’ll go into the $50s at some point across Christmas and the new year,” he said at the time.
According to the FT, Trafigura reported net profits of $2.7bn during the fiscal year that ended in September, down slightly from $2.8bn the previous year, and a five-year low after years of bumper profits linked to Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine when most commodity traders were breaching sanctions and making a killing in the process.
Its non-ferrous metals trading division reported a record year, due in part to the profits made by shipping copper into the US amid the disruptions caused by whipsawing tariff rules, according to people familiar with the matter.
Trafigura CEO Richard Holtum said “significant headline-driven volatility” had been a major driver for markets this year and that the trend would continue in 2026.
“Trading conditions were not easy last year and our trading team put on a really credible performance across all divisions,” said Holtum.
However, the small drop in profits, combined with rising payouts to Trafigura’s employee-shareholders, meant group equity fell slightly, to $16.2bn, from $16.3bn the previous year, marking the first time this figure has shrunk since 2018.
Payouts to Trafigura’s employees rose to $2.9bn, up from $2bn during the prior year. The company, whose top management is based in Geneva, pays out “dividends” to its employee-shareholders, including by buying back the shares of departing employees over time.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/09/2025 - 20:30 Close
Wed, 10 Dec 2025 01:05:00 +0000 Conrad Black: Trump's Approach To Curbing Crime Is Proving Effective
Conrad Black: Trump's Approach To Curbing Crime Is Proving Effective
Conrad Black: Trump's Approach To Curbing Crime Is Proving Effective
Authored by Conrad Black via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
There’s no doubt that President Donald Trump’s campaign to reduce urban crime is fundamentally popular. The overwhelming majority of Americans oppose crime, particularly violent crime that threatens them in their homes or while engaging in daily activities on city streets and sidewalks.
Some Democrats continue to align themselves with individuals and groups broadly disapproved of by the public , including violent criminals who entered the country illegally and whose civil rights are defended on technical grounds prior to deportation. The same is true for disruptive university activists who block respected speakers and threaten Jewish students.
Members of the Louisiana National Guard patrol the grounds of the Washington Monument at the National Mall in Washington on Sept. 7, 2025. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File
There is broad public support for Trump’s efforts to seal the southern border and reduce the number of illegal immigrants entering the country—from approximately 3 million annually under President Joe Biden to near zero today. Understandably, urban crime and illegal immigration are closely linked in the public’s mind. While the public supports the administration’s primary goals—to sharply reduce crime and completely end unlawful entry—the president is sometimes perceived as heavy-handed. A more refined approach could help secure the support these policies warrant.
The deployment of National Guard troops in Washington has been notably effective. Even the strongly partisan Democratic mayor, Muriel Bowser, thanked the president for their presence . Violent crime has declined by more than 50 percent, and petty crimes have dropped 40 to 50 percent. At the same time, the administration has begun restoring Union Station —a historic structure long plagued by vagrancy and drug use—revamping the Kennedy Center, and adding a grand ballroom to the White House , all reportedly without taxpayer cost. The president’s commitment to restoring Washington as a city of grandeur and civic pride is widely supported, both by Washingtonians and the public at large.
Meanwhile, some Democratic leaders in cities such as Chicago have accused the federal government of an “occupation ,” suggesting it has no jurisdiction, despite Chicago being part of the United States. Such objections come as Metropolitan Chicago’s gun-related crime rate is reportedly 10 times that of similarly sized Toronto. Greater law-enforcement presence is clearly needed. However, the National Guard is a costly option, especially when guardsmen are deployed from out of state. For instance, guardsmen in Washington are from West Virginia, as Democratic governors of neighboring states declined to assist. Their deployment over four months has cost more than $200 million.
The National Guard has also been deployed to Los Angeles and other cities to contain riots opposing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Border Czar Tom Homan has stated that 74 percent of deportees have violent histories and pose a threat to public safety. President Trump has emphasized that ICE targets “the worst of the worst.” While these claims may be accurate, they’re not universally accepted and would benefit from clear substantiation.
Critics—including many in the national political media—allege that the administration is targeting law-abiding, family-oriented individuals who entered illegally years ago and have since become productive residents, while some dangerous individuals escape detection. Even if the administration’s numbers are correct, that still suggests that 24 percent of deportees, according to Homan, aren’t dangerous. These individuals often become the focus of sympathetic features in outlets such as The New York Times. As with tariffs and other complex policies, the administration would benefit from refining its enforcement strategy to transform it into a broadly accepted success.
Given the sharp increase in attacks on ICE agents, it’s reasonable for agents to wear masks and body armour and to move discreetly when detaining suspects . The president’s strong defence of ICE appears justified, provided enforcement efforts truly focus on serious offenders rather than longtime residents who have otherwise complied with the law.
The administration might consider a version of President Bill Clinton’s initiative to fund 100,000 additional police officers —provided they’re deployed to high-crime areas rather than low-risk districts or desk roles. A balanced combination of National Guard support and increased local policing might be effective if Democratic mayors, often resistant, can be persuaded to cooperate. If not, federal authorities may need to persist with guard deployments, but should require local governments to share the financial burden.
Less than a year into his presidency, President Trump is fulfilling his campaign promises and has broad public backing. It would be a political setback if minor adjustments in policy execution prevent his administration from securing unambiguous public support. He should take steps to prevent inflammatory comparisons —such as those likening of his administration’s approach to that of Nazi Germany’s—from gaining traction. Politicians making such remarks should be held accountable not only for the deterioration of major cities but also for perpetuating inflammatory rhetoric.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/09/2025 - 20:05 Close
Wed, 10 Dec 2025 00:40:00 +0000 Washington, DC Has The Highest Share Of Renters In America, Nearly Double National Average
Washington, DC Has The Highest Share Of Renters In America, Nearly Double National Average
About one in three U.S. households rents, a ratio that has stayed surprisingly steady over the past six decades.
But
Read more.....
Washington, DC Has The Highest Share Of Renters In America, Nearly Double National Average
About one in three U.S. households rents, a ratio that has stayed surprisingly steady over the past six decades.
But with mortgage rates soaring from 2.7% in 2020 to almost 7% today - and home prices continuing to climb - the share of renters has edged up.
Today, it takes $121,400 to afford a typical home, or 43% higher than the average salary.
This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld, shows the share of Americans renting versus owning by state, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau .
A Closer Look at Renting vs. Owning in America
As the table below shows, states with the highest share of renters are found in states with high costs of living , led by Washington, D.C. and New York.
Despite residents of Washington, D.C. having the highest average hourly wages nationally— reaching $51.30 in real terms—the number of renters far surpasses that of homeowners.
As a result of limited housing supply, it has one of the most competitive rental markets in the country. High home prices, and an influx of out-of-state residents, notably New York City and Boston, are further putting strain on renters.
Meanwhile, 45.7% of people in New York rent, ranking in second. In the Big Apple, the average monthly rent is $4,100 for a one-bedroom apartment in 2025, rising 22% in the past five years.
California (44.2%), Nevada (39.9%), and North Dakota (38.8%) round out the top five states by share of renters.
In contrast, West Virginia has the smallest share of renters across states, at just 24.5%. Supporting home ownership is its affordability, with the median home sale price standing at $225,506 in Q2 2025, significantly lower than the national median of $410,800.
To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on rent prices in America by state.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/09/2025 - 19:40 Close
Wed, 10 Dec 2025 00:15:00 +0000 Aussie Data Centers Could Swallow 40 Million Litres Of Water Per Day, That's About 80,000 Households
Aussie Data Centers Could Swallow 40 Million Litres Of Water Per Day, That's About 80,000 Households
Aussie Data Centers Could Swallow 40 Million Litres Of Water Per Day, That's About 80,000 Households
Authored by Jerry Zhu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Australia’s utility industry warns the country’s current water supply is not enough to accommodate the explosive growth of data centres and artificial intelligence (AI).
A photo of the Global Switch data centre in Ultimo of Sydney, Australia taken on May 9, 2025. Courtesy of Kevin Lee
The Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA), the nation’s peak water body, says data centre developers are seeking about 5 to 40 million litres of water per day to cool down their facilities.
That’s the equivalent of 70,000 to 80,000 households or 16 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Data centres, which store information for governments to businesses, cycle water through their facilities to cool down servers and prevent overheating.
However, the development of AI, which has much higher computational power, storage, as well as electricity needs, is also driving up the base requirements of data centres.
In fact, the WSAA estimates that by 2030, data centres in Sydney alone are estimated to use 10.5 billion litres a year (1.9 percent of Sydney Water’s supply).
By 2035, this is expected to balloon to 90 billion litres a year, the equivalent of 15 to 20 percent of supply.
Sydney is arguably the tech capital of Australia with 90 data centres currently in the state of New South Wales (NSW), followed by 40 in Victoria. Future data centre developments could be much larger and energy-intensive, the report says.
Adam Lovell, executive director of WSAA, stressed the need for Australia to plan its water use carefully.
“Australia is well positioned to become a global data centre hub, and that needn’t be at the expense of our water resources ,” Lovell said.
“The key is to help the sector become smart water users.
“We have a history in Australia of developing innovative solutions to make sure industrial users through to residential consumers have reliable access to water supplies.”
The report contained five recommendations, including implementing efficiency standards, recycling water, more transparency by publishing metric on water and energy use, early collaboration between data centres and water utilities, and creating new frameworks for developments.
Greens MP Airs Concerns About Data Centre Water Needs
Abigail Boyd, Greens MP of the NSW Legislative Council, raised concerns about data centre water use in late November.
“The latest Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal [IPART] determination for Sydney water prices notes that Sydney Water estimates that the water needs of data centres may be up to 250 megalitres per day by 2035 to fuel the explosion of artificial intelligence products,” she said during Question Time in NSW Parliament.
“That would be almost 20 percent of Sydney Water’s total water usage being consumed by data centres ...” she said (pdf ).
“What is the minister doing to advocate for a more responsible approach to artificial intelligence and data centre development so that new infrastructure, like water connections , is appropriately prioritised towards housing and is not fuelling the latest tech bubble?”
In response, Rose Jackson, Labor minister of water and housing, said Sydney Water had not prioritised capital investment for data centres and that housing targets were the priority.
“The government is having collaborative conversations with Sydney Water and energy providers because some of the pressures that the member has identified in relation to water also relate to energy and ensuring that New South Wales is open for business and supporting the future economic needs of the tech sector,” Jackson said.
“We want New South Wales to be a place where investment occurs so that we are at the cutting edge of emergent technology, and we can take advantage of it,” she added.
“Sydney Water is exploring a number of innovative opportunities to ensure that data centre development can be supported without putting pressure on the prioritised capital delivery for housing ,” the minister said, noting that the water needs of data centres could also change as technology improves.
Federal and state ministers are expected to discuss the country’s growing water demands in Brisbane on Dec. 12 amid the government’s newly released artificial intelligence plan.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/09/2025 - 19:15 Close
Tue, 09 Dec 2025 23:50:00 +0000 "Godless Demons": Teen Commits Suicide After "Sextortion" As International Crime Ring Targets American Children
"Godless Demons": Teen Commits Suicide After "Sextortion" As International Crime Ring Targets American Children
Federal authorities are investigating the death of a 15-year-old West Virginia boy as part of a broader examinat
Read more.....
"Godless Demons": Teen Commits Suicide After "Sextortion" As International Crime Ring Targets American Children
Federal authorities are investigating the death of a 15-year-old West Virginia boy as part of a broader examination into sextortion networks that have increasingly targeted American teenagers, resulting in what experts describe as a national crisis of online predation, the New York Post reported.
Bryce Tate, 15
Bryce Tate, a student at Nitro High School in Cross Lanes, was discovered dead in his home on November 6 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The tragedy unfolded roughly three hours after he began communicating with someone who contacted him via text message around 4:30 p.m.
His father, Adam Tate, has concluded that his son fell victim to a sophisticated extortion operation. Details shared with the Post indicate that the scheme began with photographs that were not artificially generated but rather appeared to show an actual girl who had previously been victimized herself.
Such schemes follow a well-established pattern, where criminals solicit explicit images from their targets, then threaten to share those images with the victim's social circle unless a ransom is paid.
The extortionists demanded $500 from Bryce, according to his father.
"My son had 30 freaking dollars and he's like, 'Sir, I'll give you my last $30.' And these cowards wouldn't take it," Tate told The Post.
The scammers appear to have done their homework, compiling detailed information about the teenager's daily life to create a convincing facade.
"They acted like a local 17-year-old girl. They knew which gym he worked out at, they knew a couple of his best friends and name-dropped them. They knew he played basketball for Nitro High School ," Tate explained. "They built his trust to where he believed that this was truly somebody in this area."
Tate also rejects the characterization of his son's death as simply a suicide.
"They say it's suicide, but in my book it is 100% murder," he said. "They're godless demons , in my opinion. Just cowards, awful individuals, worse than criminals."
During the last 20 minutes of his life, Bryce was bombarded with roughly 120 messages. Law enforcement officials explained to his father that this tactic creates "tunnel vision to where you can't set your phone down," trapping victims in a spiral of panic and fear.
Bradford Arick, a public affairs specialist with the FBI, told The Post that "The FBI has seen a huge increase in the number of sextortion cases involving children and teens being threatened and coerced into sending explicit images online."
According to a representative from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children who spoke with the Post, the organization logged more than 33,000 sextortion reports involving children in 2024 alone. The first half of 2025 has seen comparable numbers.
While the FBI would not discuss the particulars of Bryce's case, citing an active investigation, the messages he received bear the hallmarks of a criminal enterprise known as 764—an international operation with tentacles reaching into Russia, Europe, Africa and the United States.
Earlier this month, the Department of Justice announced indictments against five individuals in the United States connected to Greggy's Cult, a 764 affiliate. Among those charged was an active-duty member of the Navy.
The FBI previously characterized 764 as a "violent online network that seeks to destroy civilized society through the corruption and exploitation of vulnerable populations, which often include minors."
In April, Attorney General Pam Bondi minced no words in describing the organization, calling it "one of the most heinous online child exploitation enterprises we have ever encountered — a network built on terror, abuse and the deliberate targeting of children."
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/09/2025 - 18:50 Close