Zelensky Relieved As Trump Quietly Drops A Key Demand

A key Trump demand of the Zelensky government was quietly dropped as a condition of peace talks as well as the Ukraine minerals deal, which was finally signed this week.

Washington is no longer seeking to pressure or force President Volodymyr Zelensky to hold elections that could result in his being ousted office for the sake of peace, according to information in The Telegraph. 

"The demand has been quietly dropped from the latest set of American proposals for a ceasefire," The Telegraph writes. "The American decision to stop demanding elections is designed to placate the Ukrainian officials who have argued against swathes of a seven-point peace plan tabled by Mr Trump."

The minerals deal still has to be formally approved by Ukraine's parliament, according to the nation's constitution. Below is said to be the current seven-point plan offered by Trump, aspects of which were previously rejected by Ukrainian officials...

As for dropping the demand for Zelensky and parliament to hold elections, the Kremlin itself seems to have somewhat quieted down on this in recent weeks.

Without doubt, Moscow still wants to see Zelensky go, but appears willing to not press the issue if he were willing to give up territory for the sake of ceasefire (which so far isn't happening - not even regarding Crimea).

Zelensky's term in office expired in May 2024, and Ukrainian parliament has recently reaffirmed the 'constitutionality' of Zelensky's mandate as leader of the country during wartime. Trump soon after taking the Oval called him a 'dictator' who canceled elections, and even long before that called him the "world's greatest salesman" as he received hundreds of billions from the US and Western allies.

Meanwhile, fresh statements from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio express continued optimism on the potential for peace. He says "they're closer" to peace - in reference to Moscow and Kiev.

Source: ANSA

"For a hundred days he has done efforts to bring about peace… Look, we’ve gotten closer. We – for the first time – we haven’t known this for three years – we kind of can see what it would take for Ukraine to stop. We can see what it would take for the Russians to stop," Rubio said.

He then noted, "They’re closer, but they’re still far apart. And it’s going to take a real breakthrough here very soon to make this possible… or I think the president is going to have to make a decision about how much more time we’re going to dedicate to this," he added.

It's been widely reported that during Zelensky's impromptu 15-meeting with President Trump on the sidelines of the pope's funeral last weekend he was able to ease the pressure on Kiev coming from Trump.

"Zelensky's advisers were divided about whether he should even risk the tête-à-tête after the disaster in the Oval Office," Axios reported days after the meeting. "But after it, Zelensky felt he'd managed to shift Trump's thinking about Putin for the first time, the sources say."

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 14:20

RFK Jr: HHS Became A "Collaborator In Child Trafficking" Under Biden

Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. said Wednesday that HHS is no longer facilitating child trafficking in the United States and is instead “very aggressively” searching for the hundreds of thousands of migrant children lost by the Biden administration.

“We have ended HHS’s role as the principal vector in this country for child trafficking,” Kennedy said during a White House Cabinet meeting with President Trump and other top administration officials to mark the first 100 days of the president’s second term.

“During the Biden administration, HHS became a collaborator in child trafficking for sex and for slavery, and we have ended that,” RFK Jr. declared.

In November 0f 2022, an HHS volunteer came forward to accuse the Biden regime of knowingly participating in the sex-trafficking of minor children after observing how it processed unaccompanied migrant children at an HHS Emergency Intake Site in Pomona, California.

The whistleblower, Tara Lee Rodas, went to Project Veritas with her first hand account of how the Biden regime’s corrupt child sponsorship program exploited and endangered vulnerable unaccompanied minors by placing them with criminal, noncitizen sponsors.

In some cases, dozens of unaccompanied alien children (UAC) were sent to the same residence of an unvetted sponsor.

Thousands of these minors “ended up in punishing jobs across the country—working overnight in slaughterhouses, replacing roofs, operating machinery in factories—all in violation of child labor laws,” the New York Times reported in February of 2023.

In August of 2024, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General released a blistering report showing that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had lost track of up to 320,000 unaccompanied minors over the previous five years.

Approximately 291,000 of those were released into the U.S. and never given a date to appear in immigration court.

Another 32,000 children were released with hearing dates but failed to show up to their immigration hearings.

“We’re very aggressively going out and trying to find these 300,000 children that were lost by the Biden administration,” RFK Jr. said Wednesday.

Homeland Security agents in California recently rescued two teenage migrant sisters from Honduras who were being held in captivity at a hotel in West Covina, California, the New York Post reported.

Christopher Ramirez was allegedly “pimping” the  sisters, ages 16 and 18, sources told the Post.

The youngest victim was placed in the custody of Biden’s HHS, which placed her with her sponsor.  The older teen was released after declining “services or placement.”

Cops with the West Covina Police Department initially found the girls and arrested Ramirez on local charges.

The feds are still looking for co-conspirators who helped move the migrant girls, who are from Honduras, from Texas to California and forced them into prostitution, sources said.

Ramirez is also facing federal charges.

The Trump administration has reunited approximately 5,000 unaccompanied migrant children with family members or “safe guardians” in its first 70 days, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Trici McLaughlin said in an X post.

“Unlike the previous administration, President Trump and Secretary [Kristi] Noem take the responsibility to protect children seriously and will continue to work with federal law enforcement to reunite children with their families,” said McLaughlin.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 14:05

125,000 New Yorkers Fled For Florida The Last 5 Years, Taking $14 Billion With Them

More than 125,000 New Yorkers relocated to Florida over a recent five-year span, draining the Empire State of nearly $14 billion in income, according to a new report from the Citizens Budget Commission (CBC), a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog, reported on by the New York Post.

Roughly a third of those fleeing New York City—some 41,251 residents—resettled in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward counties between 2018 and 2022, resulting in a $10 billion loss in adjusted gross income (AGI) for the city. An additional $3.8 billion in income was lost to other Florida destinations.

“They are getting something more beneficial to them,” said CBC President Andrew Rein. “The key is with any place you need the benefits to outweigh the cost. The question right now for New York is what do we offer?”

The CBC attributes the exodus to a mix of affordability concerns, public safety, quality of life, and lingering pandemic effects. Only 30% of New Yorkers rated city life as “good or excellent” in 2023—down from 50% pre-pandemic.

The Post writes that high-income earners led the charge. Miami-Dade saw an influx of ex-New Yorkers with average incomes topping $266,000. Palm Beach newcomers earned around $189,000, while Fairfield County, Connecticut, drew residents with an average income of $141,000. Notably, New York’s top 1% of earners pay 40% of the state’s income taxes.

“One of the critical issues of our time is keeping our competitiveness for businesses and residents,” Rein said. “We need to focus on ensuring we don’t tax too much, that we are a safe place to live, and that people find quality of life to be high.”

Florida wasn’t the only winner. Nearby suburbs absorbed thousands of city dwellers:

• Long Island gained 138,000 NYC expats, costing the city $11.1 billion in AGI.

• Westchester County added nearly 60,000, for a $5 billion hit.

• Fairfield County took in 31,000, costing $4.9 billion.

• Bergen County, New Jersey, saw over 30,000 newcomers, with a $1.8 billion impact.

Altogether, relocations within the Northeast accounted for a $22.8 billion loss in AGI and a population decline of more than 230,000.

Despite a doubling of millionaires in New York from 2010 to 2022—from 36,000 to 70,000—the state’s share of U.S. millionaires dropped sharply, falling from 12.7% to 8.7%.

“Our competitiveness depends in part on quality of life and public safety,” said Rein. “Simply put, some people found the value proposition of other places to be higher than New York City.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 13:40

The Awards You Never Get When Investing

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

In investing, success is often judged by numbers - returns on investment, percentage gains, and the ability to outperform benchmarks like the S&P 500. 

However, some investors frequently pursue a peculiar set of “awards” without realizing the pitfalls they embody. These unspoken goals, while tempting, rarely lead to sustainable investment success. If there were awards for some of these common but ill-advised behaviors, they would likely cause more harm than good. Here are some of the “investing awards” you’ll never receive, because chasing them isn’t worth the cost.

I Never Sold At A Loss Medal

Market volatility is an inherent aspect of investing. Striving to avoid all losses, or drawdowns, is unrealistic. Trying to sidestep volatility often leads to lower returns and missed growth opportunities. Overly conservative investments may not keep pace with inflation, steadily eroding purchasing power. Managing risk effectively instead of avoiding it is essential for long-term portfolio success.

Many investors pride themselves on never realizing a loss, believing that holding every position until it turns profitable is a badge of honor. However, this mindset often leads to holding onto poor performers indefinitely, tying up capital that could be better deployed elsewhere. This behavior is a classic example of behavioral mistakes investors make, specifically the “disposition effect,” where investors hold losing assets too long while selling winners too early. Focusing solely on avoiding losses often damages overall portfolio returns.

Like everything in life, there is a “season” and a “cycle.” When it comes to the markets, “seasons” are dictated by the “technical and economic constructs,” and the “cycles” are dictated by “valuations.” The seasons are shown in the chart below.

As such, successful investing requires disciplined pruning to maintain a healthy garden. Recognizing when an investment no longer aligns with your strategy and cutting losses early frees up capital for better opportunities. There is no award for stubbornly holding a stock that continues to drag down your portfolio.

I Took On As Much Risk As I Could Award

During bull markets, taking on excessive risk seems attractive. High-risk assets like speculative tech stocks or cryptocurrencies often deliver eye-catching gains. Some investors view risk-taking as bravery. But the reality is that high risk doesn’t guarantee higher returns; it is frequently quite the opposite. As Howard Marks previously discussed, risk and volatility aren’t the same thing. For years, many investors (and academics) have been taught that volatility, the ups and downs of stock prices, equals risk. However, volatility is just one part of the picture, but risk is the probability of losing money. Just because prices bounce around doesn’t mean you’re at risk of a loss.

However, “High risk equals high reward” is not always true. Just because an investment has a higher degree of risk does not guarantee it will deliver superior returns. Given that risk is the probability of losing money, taking on excess risk does increase the potential for poor returns over time. In other words, increasing risk increases the potential for significant losses. As such, investors must be careful about chasing returns without fully understanding the risks. The goal should be to weigh the possible outcomes and ensure the potential reward is worth the risk taken.

A good example was in 2022, when retail investors chasing meme stocks, SPACs, and IPOs suffered significantly heavier losses than the index. At that time, the ARK Innovation Fund, managed by Cathy Wood, was an example of peak speculation in the market. However, since then, those investments failed to recover. In other words, speculative risk-taking did not lead to outsized returns.

Sustainable investing requires aligning investments with financial goals and risk tolerance to avoid exposing one’s future to unnecessary volatility. Diversification, not reckless risk-taking, remains the best tool for improving risk-adjusted returns. While speculative investments lack the excitement and thrill, prudent investors build strategies focused on taking calculated, strategic risks that contribute to long-term wealth.

“You don’t get rewarded for taking risk; you get rewarded for buying cheap assets. And if the assets you bought got pushed up in price simply because they were risky, then you are not going to be rewarded for taking a risk; you are going to be punished for it.” – Jeremy Grantham

Successful investors avoid “risk” at all costs, even if it means underperforming in the short term. The reason is that while the media and Wall Street have you focused on chasing market returns in the short term, ultimately, the excess “risk” built into your portfolio will lead to inferior long-term returns. Wile E. Coyote never received an award for chasing the Roadrunner over the cliff.

I’m a Long-Term Investor (Only When I’m Losing Money) Certificate

A common rationalization is to claim to be a long-term investor only when losses mount. When an investment underperforms, investors often tell themselves they are simply “staying the course,” using time to justify inaction. Research by Barberis and Thaler (2003) on behavioral biases shows that loss aversion—the tendency to prefer avoiding losses over acquiring gains—strongly influences this behavior.

True long-term investing demands more than patience; it requires a disciplined, objective framework. This means purchasing quality assets with strong fundamentals, establishing clear investment theses, and periodically reassessing those theses. Successful investors, like Warren Buffett, have emphasized that staying invested in a poorly performing asset without reevaluating it is not long-term investing—it is emotional decision-making disguised as strategy.

A good example is Intel (INTC) versus Texas Instruments. Over the last five years, Intel has lost 62% of its value as it lost its chip-making dominance to companies like AMD, Nvidia, Broadcom, and others. For investors holding Intel, many are hoping that something will occur and they can recover that loss. However, at any point over the last 5 years, they could have sold Intel and bought virtually any other chip maker and increased their wealth. While there are many examples, this exemplifies the point of opportunity cost. Holding a losing asset for long periods eats away at the wealth-building process and consumes our most precious commodity: time.

Building a resilient portfolio is not about loyalty to individual positions. It is about effective asset allocation, risk management, and ongoing evaluation. Markets evolve, industries change, and even once-promising companies can lose their competitive edge. Recognizing when an investment no longer fits your portfolio’s long-term goals—and having the discipline to move on—is a hallmark of professional investing, not a weakness.

I Never Used Stop-Losses Or Managed Risk Ribbon

Some investors view risk management strategies like stop-losses, portfolio rebalancing, and diversification as unnecessary restraints on potential gains. Instead, they trust intuition, believing they can “ride out” volatility. Behavioral research (Shefrin, 2000) shows that overconfidence is one of individual investors’ most common mistakes, often leading to catastrophic losses when market conditions change suddenly.

Managing risk effectively isn’t about fear or pessimism. It is about protecting your capital from irreparable damage so that you can continue participating in future market growth. Stop-losses are designed not to predict downturns but to limit exposure to individual positions that deteriorate beyond acceptable thresholds. Similarly, rebalancing prevents portfolios from drifting into unintended risk concentrations over time.

An example of risk management can be very simplistic. For example, using a 40-week moving average as a “risk off” indicator can help avoid more protracted market drawdowns.

We can apply a “risk management” strategy to that moving average to reduce risk during corrective periods. For this example, when the S&P 500 breaks below the 40-week moving average, stock exposure is reduced by 50%, and it reverses to 100% when the index crosses above that moving average. The results are shown below.

While there are times when investors were triggered to reduce and then increase exposures quickly, the 2000 and 2008 financial crises underscored the consequences of unmanaged portfolios. Many investors holding full exposures to equities without risk controls suffered permanent losses (Brunnermeier, 2009). Risk management is the bridge between surviving market turbulence and thriving in long-term wealth creation. No one ever received an award for riding markets substantially lower. Such is not a testament to resilience—it is an avoidable failure.

I Beat the S&P 500 Medallion

Outperforming the S&P 500 is often portrayed as the ultimate measure of investing success. However, data from the SPIVA U.S. Scorecard shows that approximately 85% of actively managed U.S. equity funds underperform their benchmarks over ten years. While not every manager underperforms yearly, and periods of outperformance exist, the persistent challenge highlights the difficulty of consistently beating the S&P 500.

Pursuing benchmark-beating returns can lead investors into dangerous territory. Studies in behavioral finance (Statman, 2000) show that investors chasing outperformance often engage in high-turnover strategies, excessive trading, and speculative bets. These behaviors introduce additional risks and higher transaction costs that erode potential gains. The result is that investors, while trying to “beat the index, ” consistently underperform over time. As noted in the 2024 Dalbar Research report:

As noted above, even the most simplistic of risk management strategies can improve returns over time while maintaining a focus on investment goals. Instead of fixating on beating the benchmark, focus on building a portfolio that aligns with your financial goals and personal risk tolerance. Ultimately, true investing success isn’t measured against a broad index. No one will ever give you an award for beating an index from one year to the next. However, they will measure your success by what matters most: whether you achieved your objectives, like securing a comfortable retirement or funding important goals.

Conclusion: Building a Smarter Path to Investing Success

To avoid the costly mistakes outlined above, investors must adopt a disciplined, process-driven approach to managing their portfolios. Sustainable investment success comes from understanding, not reacting to, market behavior. Here are the critical steps you should take:

• First, embrace losses as part of the investment journey. Prune weak investments when they no longer fit your strategy, reallocating capital to stronger opportunities rather than waiting for recoveries that may never come.

• Second, respect risk. Avoid equating bravery with excessive risk-taking. Build portfolios aligned with your personal financial goals and loss tolerance, focusing on diversification and asset valuation rather than speculative bets.

• Third, redefine long-term investing. Remaining loyal to a poor investment out of hope wastes time and wealth. Maintain objectivity by reassessing whether each holding still meets your original investment thesis.

• Fourth, implement active risk management. Use stop-loss strategies, periodic rebalancing, and technical indicators like the 40-week moving average to protect against significant drawdowns. Managing risk is about ensuring survival, not limiting success.

• Finally, stop chasing the S&P 500. Focus instead on achieving your financial objectives with consistent, risk-adjusted returns. Outperformance is meaningless if you fail to meet real-world needs, like securing retirement income or building generational wealth.

Successful investing is not about winning arbitrary “awards.” It is about managing risk, preserving capital, and steadily compounding returns toward your goals. Ignore the noise, stay disciplined, and remember: no one hands out awards for reckless investing—only consequences.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 13:20

Netanyahu Stirs Fresh Controversy: Victory In Gaza Is Top Priority, Not Hostages

According to fresh reporting in Haaretz, Israel is preparing tens of thousands of orders calling more reserve soldiers to active duty, amid an expected expansion of ground operations in the Gaza Strip.

But more reservists are increasingly needed as Israel's military once again becomes more engaged in places like Syria, Lebanon, the Golan Heights, and security crackdowns in the West Bank.

Via Reuters

The Haaretz report suggests that a surge of additional soldiers will free up more forces to focus efforts on defeating Hamas in Gaza.

One of the areas of expected new operations is the town of Muwasi on the Gaza coast. Israel is claiming that it has become a safe haven for Hamas, and that militants are hiding in what has become a sprawling tent city of the internally displaced, and so has to be cleared of all Palestinians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has meanwhile unleashed fresh controversy related to these expanded operations. He essentially admitted that the remaining hostages are not the country's top priority, but the ultimate defeat of Hamas is.

"We have many objectives, many goals in this war. We want to bring back all of our hostages," Netanyahu said. "That is a very important goal. In war, there is a supreme objective. And that supreme objective is victory over our enemies. And that is what we will achieve," he added. He had issued the words at an Independence Day event in Jerusalem on Thursday.

This was enough to outrage families of the victims, who have been begging Israeli leaders to restart negotiations with Hamas, in hopes of brokering the freedom of the remaining captives.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum issued a response to these words of Netanyahu. "Prime minister, the return of the hostages is not ‘less’ important – it is the supreme goal that should guide the government of Israel," a statement said. "The families of the hostages are concerned."

As for the remaining captives, Netanyahu addressed this is the same remarks, saying "We want to bring all our hostages home. We’ve so far brought back 147 alive, and 196 total," but that "There are another up to 24 alive, 59 total, and we want to return the living and the dead."

Netanyahu's description of goals in Gaza and what he prioritizes were echoed in prior remarks last week by hardline Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in a CNN interview.

The war which has been on since the terror attacks of Oct.7, 2023 - has become deeply divisive among Israeli society:

Hundreds of Israelis walking in Tel Aviv tonight with photos of children killed in Gaza demanding to stop the attacks now. pic.twitter.com/XjDA9o6EIe

— Breaking the Silence (@BtSIsrael) April 26, 2025

"We need to tell the truth — bringing back the hostages is not the most important goal. It is, of course, a very, very, very, very important goal," he began his comments. And there was a but...

"But anyone who wants to destroy Hamas and eliminate the possibility of another Oct. 7 must understand that in Gaza, there can’t be a situation where Hamas remains present and intact," he emphasized.

It's unknown how many hostages might still be alive. Family members worry that with each passing day and week, the chances of survival grow slim, also given the steady bombings and that it's an active war zone, also with little food and medicines.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 13:00

'No Participation Trophies': Trump Revamps Performance Reviews For Top Bureaucrats

Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClearPolitics,

Performance reviews are about to become much more difficult for the upper echelon of federal government employees.

The Trump administration will soon introduce rules to end what the Office of Personnel Management describes as an “everyone gets a trophy” culture permeating the federal workforce, RealClearPolitics is first to report.

The ranks of the Senior Executive Service, top bureaucrats serving throughout the government and across administrations, swelled to around 8,000 under President Biden. Most live in Washington, D.C. They typically earn an annual salary between $183,000 and $250,000. An overwhelming majority, 96%, according to an OPM memo, receive above-average performance ratings even as public trust in government continues to crater.

But standards will soon tighten. It is called “forced distribution.”

The new OPM rule limits the number of bureaucrats who can earn top ratings, a metric tied to promotions and end-of-the-year bonuses. It also eliminates Biden-era requirements that evaluated executives based on their promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The stated goal is instead an evaluation of job performance, not political ideology. Now only top performers, acting OPM director Chuck Ezell told RCP, will earn top performance rankings. 

“The American people deserve a federal government led by executives who are held to the highest standards,” Ezell said. “This proposed rule restores accountability, rewards true excellence, and ensures senior leaders deliver real results. OPM is proud to take this important step to strengthen performance among the highest levels of the federal workforce.”

The elite of career civil servants, these senior employees are normally little noticed and non-controversial. Permanent bureaucracy has come under attack during the Trump administration, however, and the White House sees the top ranks of federal employees as the face of the so-called “deep state.”

“There are no participation trophies,” a White House official said of the new standards, telling RCP that from now on, trophies, in this case top-tier performance rankings, “are for winners.”

The new standards come as Trump continues his long march through the administrative state. His administration has already implemented rules to gut civil service protections for government employees perceived as undermining the White House agenda. Thousands of federal workers have been fired. Entire government agencies, in some cases, shuttered.

Critics accuse the White House of trying to politicize the federal workforce and of trying to remake the executive agencies in Trump’s image. The Senior Executives Association, a trade group for federal employees with an office in downtown D.C., previously balked at proposed reforms. The head of that organization, Marcus Hill, insisted that top bureaucrats had earned their jobs through merit “based on demonstrated competence, character and capability in their fields of expertise.”

But the administration argues that change is needed because a sclerotic establishment is undermining self-government. This is the mission of Elon Musk and his team at the Department of Government Efficiency.

“If the bureaucracy is in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?” Musk asked earlier this year while fielding questions from reporters in the Oval Office.

“If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives,” he said while standing behind the Resolute Desk next to the seated president, “then we don’t live in a democracy.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 12:00

European Union Continues Sabotaging Trump's Ukraine Peace Efforts

The European Union at this point seems much more open about its willingness to sabotage Trump efforts toward achieving peace in Ukraine. 

The EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas has told the Financial Times in a fresh interview this week that the bloc will not recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea under any circumstances. Really, this should be the most obvious and 'easiest' concession to make, but alas Brussels is saying no!

Kaja Kallas, via European Parliament 

The White House is seeking to pressure the Zelensky government to get to the negotiating table fast, and the quickest and easiest concession would be expected to center on letting go of Crimea, which Moscow declared part of the Russian Federation after a 2014 popular referendum.

"I can’t see that we are accepting these kind of things. But we can’t speak for America, of course, and what they will do," Kallas said. "On the European side, we have said this over and over again... Crimea is Ukraine."

"There are tools in the Americans’ hands that they can use to put the pressure on Russia to really stop this war," Kallas continued. "President Trump has said that he wants the killing to stop. He should put the pressure on the one who is doing the killing."

This has basically been the Ukrainian government's position all along as well. For this reason, she said Brussels and other European capitals are still focused on "working with the Americans and trying to convince them why the outcome of this war is also in their interest, that Russia doesn’t really get everything that it wants." But again, Crimea should be the easiest issue.

On the question of the scenario where Washington successfully resets relations with Moscow and eventually withdraws arms and intelligence support for Kiev, she said:

"It is clear that these types of discussions are going on in certain member states and maybe hopes that we don’t really have to support [Ukraine] any more," said Kallas, the former Estonian prime minister. "But it’s also a false hope, because if you look at Russia, that is investing more than 9 per cent of its GDP on the military, they will want to use it again."

Currently the US is reportedly seeking to convince Kiev and Europe of a de jure recognition of Russia's control over Crimea and de facto recognition of Russian areas of control in eastern Ukraine, based on a 'freeze' of battle lines.

Trump presidential special envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg told Fox News this week that Ukraine is ready to make territorial concessions, but wouldn't consider any ceded territory as a permanent situation. 

"Not de jure forever, but de facto, because the Russians actually occupy that and they've agreed to that. They know that if they have a ceasefire in place, which means you sit on the ground that you currently hold, that's what they're willing to go to," Kellog said. "You have your line set, and they're willing to go there," Kellogg emphasized. 

But it's clear the Kremlin sees this as an issue of sovereignty and permanence, given President Putin has described the four annexed territories and Crimea as "ours forever".

Zelensky has lately reiterated to reporters on the question of giving up Crimea, "There is nothing to talk about. This violates our Constitution. This is our territory, the territory of the people of Ukraine."

This was after late last month Vice President JD Vance made clear, "We’ve issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it’s time for them to either say yes or for the United States to walk away from this process."

Kaja Kallas, the grossly inept "Diplomatic Chief" of the EU lies through her teeth in Munich

She suggests Russian civilians haven't died in Donbass, Crimea, Belgorod, and Kursk. Thousands have.

The fact that EU and NATO cash / weapons have done the killing demands she lies pic.twitter.com/apwFAkKvpC

— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) February 16, 2025

"The only way to really stop the killing is for the armies to both put down their weapons, to freeze this thing and to get on with the business of actually building a better Russia and a better Ukraine," he said in April while traveling overseas to Asia.

It goes without saying that freezing the war now would certainly give Russian forces a huge advantage, given the immense territory in the East they now hold - and this seem precisely what Kiev and Europe are unwilling to accept.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 11:40

Native-Born Workers Surge By Over 1 Million, Back To All-Time High, As Govt Employees Tumble

For much of the past 4 years we dutifully reported, month after month, how the US labor market under the Biden administration "grew" almost entirely on the back of "foreign-born" workers, who - as we also first revealed and eventually was widely accepted - were primarily illegal aliens:

• Great Replacement Job Shock: 1.3 Million Native-Born Americans Just Lost Their Jobs, Replaced By 635,000 Immigrants: Sept 2024

• Wall Street Admits The Biggest Economic Shocker: All Jobs In The Past Year Have Gone To Illegal Aliens: June, 2024

• Stunning statistic: there has been ZERO INCREASE  in jobs for native-born workers in over five years, since July 2018!: Jan 2024

More importantly, as we predicted at the start of 2024...

How is this not the biggest political talking point right now: since October 2019, native-born US workers have lost 1.4 million jobs; over the same period foreign-born workers have gained 3 million jobs. pic.twitter.com/Z5HVWmQ24C

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 15, 2024

... the composition of the labor market would become one of the biggest political talking points, one which was hammered constantly by Trump in his political rallies and during his debate with Biden.

We bring this up because deep inside today's jobs report we got the best news yet: after literally flatlining in late 2019, having plunged during covid and barely recovering to its pre-covid levels, the number of native born workers is now back to its all time high, 132.228 million.

That's because in April, the number of native-born workers surged by just over 1 million, from 131.186 million to 132.228 million. Meanwhile, the number of foreign-born workers - who as we explained previously were mostly undocumented, or illegal, aliens - dropped by 410K from a record 32.225 million.

Or, as so many people have already said, this is what a majority of Americans voted for.

Actually, they voted for something else too: after hitting a record high in December, the last month of Biden's admin, the number of Federal government employees has declined for 4 consecutive months to the lowest level in over a year. Thank you DOGE.

So while there has been pain, and there will be a lot more pain, America is finally returning to some semblance of a long-term viable trendline.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 11:25

Two Americans Charged In Operating International Child Exploitation Ring

Authored by Rachel Acenas via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Two leaders of a child exploitation network known as 764 have been arrested, federal officials announced on Wednesday.

764 leader Prasan Nepal in a booking photo. Courtesy of Guilford County Sheriff's Office

Prasan Nepal, 20, of High Point, North Carolina, was arrested on April 22 in North Carolina. Leonidas Varagiannis, 21, was arrested on April 29 in Greece on an international warrant.

Both defendants face charges of operating an international child exploitation enterprise, marking a major takedown of an operation that targets innocent children, according to FBI Director Kash Patel.

“This is a significant case in our renewed mission to crack down on child sexual exploitation and abuse—heinous crimes that no child or parent should ever be faced with,” Patel said on Wednesday in a statement on social media platform X.

The defendants allegedly recruited others to exploit children and coordinated the operation through encrypted messaging apps.

Varagiannis has denied the allegations. He appeared in court on Wednesday before an appellate prosecutor and opposed extradition, according to Greek judicial authorities and his lawyer.

“Throughout the period during which the alleged offenses took place, he was residing in Greece. Therefore, Greek law and courts have jurisdiction over the case, and his extradition is explicitly prohibited,” his lawyer Xanthippi Moysidou said.

Nepal is currently in the Guilford County, North Carolina, jail on a federal hold and has a public defender.

Federal prosecutors allege the two men targeted children as young as 13 years old from late 2020 through early 2025 across multiple jurisdictions through the 764 criminal enterprise.

764 is a network of online groups that “methodically target and exploit minors and other vulnerable individuals,” according to a public service announcement posted by the FBI on March 6.

“These networks use threats, blackmail, and manipulation to coerce or extort victims into producing, sharing, or live-streaming acts of self-harm, animal cruelty, sexually explicit acts, and/or suicide,” the FBI said.

The material is used as leverage to force victims to perform acts of violence and even self-harm. The network also engages in swatting and harassment to silence its victims.

A criminal complaint unsealed on Wednesday in the District of Columbia shows examples of online manuals used by the defendants to instruct others on how to groom and extort minors. The guides taught others specifically how to target vulnerable children online, according to the affidavit, and ultimately coerced and threatened them into creating degrading content.

‘The allegations in this case are not only disturbing, they are also every parent’s nightmare,’ U.S. Attorney Edward R. Martin Jr. said in a Department of Justice statement on April 29.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. The DOJ launched the initiative in May 2006.

The initiative utilizes federal, state, and local resources to locate, arrest, and prosecute those who exploit children through the internet. It also aims to identify and rescue victims.

Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday called for swift justice in the case.

“These defendants are accused of orchestrating 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,” Bondi said in a statement. “We will find those who exploit and abuse children, prosecute them, and dismantle every part of their operation.”

Varagiannis will remain in custody until a court of appeals rules on the U.S. extradition request.

If convicted, both defendants face a maximum penalty of life in prison.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

From NTD News

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 11:20

Pre-Tariff Surge In Aircraft Orders Sends US Durable Goods Orders To Record High In March

While Apple's Tim Cook was adamant on the call last night that he had seen no 'pull forward' of demand due to the tariffs, it seems every other firm in the US did as Durable Goods Orders soared in March (final print this morning at +9.2% MoM)...

Source: Bloomberg

However, Core Durable Goods (ex Transports) was unchanged MoM - suggesting considerable front-running of tariffs for planes and autos...

Source: Bloomberg

US Factory Orders rose 4.3% MoM (slightly less than the +4.5% expected) - a big jump

Source: Bloomberg

And like with Durable Goods, Core Factory orders (ex Transports) actually fell 0.2% MoM...

Source: Bloomberg

The surge in orders was largely driven by a 139% MoM spike in non-defense aircraft and parts...

Source: Bloomberg

Which pushed total orders to a new all-time record-high...

Source: Bloomberg

The question is - what happens in April - post Liberation Day?

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 10:10

A Taxing Showdown: Trump Says Harvard Will Lose Tax-Exempt Status

The woke liberal elites, perched high in their Harvard University ivory towers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have been plotted at extreme levels on the "F*ck Around and Find Out" (FAFO) chart, which illustrates their relationship between taking risks ("f*ck around") and facing consequences ("find out") in response to President Trump's simple request to dismantle the toxic framework of diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus. 

The standoff between President Trump and woke elites deepened on Friday morning after the president wrote on Truth Social: "We are going to be taking away Harvard's Tax Exempt Status. It's what they deserve!" 

On Wednesday, President Trump suggested to U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon that the federal government may stop giving the far-left university grants: "And it looks like we are not going to be giving them any more grants, right Linda?"

The president has launched a formal review into the $9 billion in federal funding for the university. He demanded the university end DEI and crack down on anti-Semitic protests fueled by pro-Palestinian groups. 

F*ck Around:

• "Will Not Surrender" - Harvard Snubs Trump Admin's Demands Tied To $9 Billion Funding

Find Out:

• Trump Threatens Harvard's Tax-Exempt Status Amid Federal Funding Freeze

Last week, the president asked the Internal Revenue Service to revoke Harvard University's tax-exempt status. The Ivy League school's failure to wind down woke and toxic liberal agendas that undermine the nation has left it at the end phase of FAFO. 

On Thursday night, Trump told students in his commencement address at the University of Alabama: "The next chapter of the American story will not be written by the Harvard Crimson. It will be written by you, the Crimson Tide."

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 09:45

Futures Rise Ahead Of Payrolls After China Hints At Trade Talks

US equity futures gained ahead of the April Payolls report, but were well of their highs, after China said it is assessing the possibility of trade talks with the US, the first sign that negotiations could begin between the two sides since Donald Trump hiked tariffs last month. As of 8:10am ET, S&P futures are up 0.4% while Nasdaq 100 contracts add 0.2%, limited by weakness in the tech sector as Apple and Amazon.com shares fall in premarket after their respective updates appeared to underwhelm investors. If the S&P 500 closes in the green on Friday, it would mark a ninth day of gains, the longest winning streak for the US benchmark since November 2004. Asian markets were also broadly higher and Europe's Estoxx 50 advances 1.5% in early London session, with risk sentiment stoked after China hinted at the possibility of trade talks. Bond yields are unchanged, reversing an earlier drop, oil and USD are both lower, while gold rebounds +0.7% from recent losses. Today, all eyes on NFP at 8.30am ET to assess market sentiment; Consensus expects a 138k print vs. 228k prior and the Unemployment Rate to hold at 4.2% (more in the full preview here).

In premarket trading, Apple falls 3% after the iPhone maker reported China sales that were disappointing, and warned about the impact of tariffs. Amazon.com slips 0.5% after the e-commerce and cloud-computing company gave a weaker-than-expected outlook for operating income as tariff uncertainties weigh. Here are the other Mag7s: Alphabet +0.8%, Meta +1%, Nvidia +1.1%, Microsoft +0.3%, Tesla +0.4%. US-listed Chinese stocks rise as Beijing says its assessing the possibility of trade talks with America (Alibaba (BABA) +3%, Baidu (BIDU) +2%, NetEase (NTES) +1.3%). Airbnb (ABNB) fell 5% after issuing a weak outlook for the second quarter, citing economic uncertainties for softer travel demand in the US. Here are some other notable premarket movers:

• Ardelyx (ARDX) drops 17% after the biotech firm’s first-quarter revenue missed estimates,
• Atlassian (TEAM) sinks 17% after the software company gave an outlook that analysts are cautious about, although Barclays questioned the scale of the stock’s drop.
• Block (XYZ) sinks 21% after the financial services and digital payments company cut its adjusted operating income guidance for the full year.
• Chevron Corp. (CVX) slips 2% as the company will reduce share buybacks this quarter after oil prices tumbled.
• Cytokinetics (CYTK) falls 11% after the drug developer said US regulators need more time to review a safety plan for the company’s experimental heart drug aficamten.
• Duolingo (DUOL) gains 8% after raising its full-year sales and profit outlook as artificial intelligence offerings drive users to its higher-priced subscriptions.
• Exact Sciences (EXAS) gains 11% after the maker of the Cologuard cancer test boosted its revenue and adjusted Ebitda forecasts for the full year following a largely better-than-expected first quarter.
• Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) climbs about 1% after the company met earnings estimates due to higher production from low-cost projects, allowing it to maintain its share buybacks despite the recent drop in crude prices.
• Ingersoll Rand (IR), a company that makes equipment designed to control the flow of energy such as air and gas compressors, falls 4% after the reducing its full year adjusted Ebitda forecast.
• LendingTree (TREE) declines 13% after the online loan marketplace cut its revenue guidance for the full year. The company also trimmed the upper end of its forecast range for year adjusted Ebitda.
• Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO) declines 15% after announcing a delay in the release date of Grand Theft Auto VI.
• Twilio (TWLO) rises 8% after the communications software firm boosted some fiscal year forecasts.
• Reddit (RDDT) rises 8% after the social-networking company gave a second-quarter forecast that beat expectations.

Optimism is steadily fueling an equity comeback. If the S&P 500 closes in the green on Friday, it would mark the longest winning streak for the US benchmark since November 2004. Indeed, investors are now betting on a more market-friendly stance from President Donald Trump in the coming months, and fears about a US recession could diminish further if Friday’s key jobs report shows resilience, according to Bank of America Corp.’s Michael Hartnett. 

“It seems we may have reached peak policy uncertainty,” said Kevin Thozet, a member of the investment committee at Carmignac in Paris. “There are talks ongoing, and Trump seems to have watered down some of his policies. If you add in that the earnings season has been fairly positive, the overall backdrop isn’t that bad.”

Even so, bets are rising the Federal Reserve will be forced to accelerate interest rate cuts to head off an economic slowdown.  Money markets are pricing in almost four quarter-point rate cuts in 2025, one more than was anticipated before Trump’s tariff announcement on April 2.

Meanwhile, economists expect the jobs report to show only 138,000 new positions added in April after the data blew away expectations in March. The surveys behind the report were conducted the second week of April, when Trump put some levies on hold and sharply raised those on China goods (full preview here).

European stocks followed their Asian counterparts higher The Stoxx 600 is up 0.8%, led by gains in mining, technology and construction names. Utilities underperform.  Here are some of the biggest movers on Friday:

• ING shares rise as much as 5.7% as analysts welcome the Dutch bank’s ‘solid’ first-quarter results and net profit beat, while warning the increase to CET1 guidance by year end may disappoint investors.
• Shell shares rise as much as 4.4% in London after the oil major’s first-quarter profit beat expectations, and it announced a $3.5 billion buyback.
• Commodity stocks are outperforming in Europe on Friday as oil and metal prices got a boost after China said it was evaluating having trade talks with the US, raising optimism that negotiations could reduce tariffs between the two largest economies.
• NatWest shares rose as much as 4.5%, hitting their highest level since 2011, after the UK bank delivered a profit beat to mark a “strong start” to 2025, according to RBC Capital Markets.
• Danske Bank shares rise as much as 3.9% after reporting pretax profits that beat estimates, driven by better-than-expected net interest income and fee income.
• SSP Group shares rise as much as 7.4% after a Financial Times report issued after the close on Thursday said activist investor Irenic Capital Management is building a stake in the catering and food concession company and plans to push management to boost profitability.
• Atalaya Mining shares jump as much as 6.6%, hitting their highest level since early October, after it was confirmed the copper-focused firm will join the FTSE 250.
• Colruyt shares fall as much as 19%, the steepest drop since September 2022, after the Belgian retailer cut its full-year guidance, citing stronger competition in the domestic market and lower-than-anticipated food inflation.
• Landis + Gyr shares fall as much as 8.2% after the Swiss energy management firm reported 2024 results that Vontobel analysts say were below expectations and cut its dividend.
• BASF shares fall as much as 3.3% after the German chemicals firm said uncertainty caused by US trade tactics means it can’t make reliable predictions for its business this year.

Earlier, Asian stocks surged to their highest level more than five weeks in broader regional rally after China said it was mulling trade talks with the US. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose as much as 1.8% to the highest since March 25, with TSMC, Alibaba and Tencent among the biggest boosts. The key regional gauge is on track for a third-straight week of gains in the rebound from Donald Trump’s tariff offensive. Taiwan’s benchmark advanced more than 2% Friday, leading gains around the region as many markets reopened after holidays. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index climbed more than 1% after China’s Commerce Ministry said it was assessing the possibility of trade talks with the Washington, the first sign since Trump hiked tariffs last month that negotiations could begin. Mainland markets remain shut. Australia and Singapore are gearing up for federal elections to be held on Saturday, with cost-of-living issues top of mind for voters in both nations. Australian stocks rose for a seventh straight day ahead of the vote, while shares were higher in Singapore on Friday.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index falls 0.4%. The Aussie dollar and Swedish krona are leading gains against the greenback. EUR/USD rose 0.3% to 1.1329; GBP/USD rose 0.1% to 1.3229

In rates, treasuries are flat ahead of the US jobs report, as 10-year yields reverse a 2 bpsdrop to trade flat at 4.22%. Gilts outperform, with UK 10-year yields falling 7 bps to 4.41%. Bunds fall, with little reaction shown to euro-area CPI which rose slightly more than expected in April.

In commodities, oil prices decline as traders weigh the possibility of US-China trade talks and a fresh sanctions threat against Iranian flows against a potential supply hike from OPEC+. WTI falls 0.8% to $58.80 a barrel.  Spot gold rises $22 to around $3,260/oz. Bitcoin edges up 0.3% toward $97,000.

Looking at today's calendar, the highlight is April jobs report (8:30am), and March factory orders and durable goods orders (10am)

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 mini +0.3%
• Nasdaq 100 mini +0.2%
• Russell 2000 mini +0.8%
• Stoxx Europe 600 +0.9%
• DAX +1.5%
• CAC 40 +1.4%
• 10-year Treasury yield -2 basis points at 4.2%
• VIX -0.5 points at 24.08
• Bloomberg Dollar Index -0.4% at 1224.77
• euro +0.3% at $1.1328
• WTI crude -0.8% at $58.74/barrel

Top Overnight News

• China said Friday it was weighing starting talks with the U.S. to halt a trade war, but only if Washington shows sincerity through concrete measures such as by canceling tariffs against Beijing. WSJ
• China has started to exempt some goods from tariffs that may cover about $40 billion, or a quarter of its imports from the US, to soften the blow of the trade war on its own economy. BBG
• Japan’s chief negotiator expressed hopes of reaching a trade agreement with the US in June, even as a media report indicated the two sides remained at odds on the key issue of its car exports. BBG
• The US is working to ensure tensions between India and Pakistan don’t escalate, JD Vance said. He also told Fox News India will be among the first trade deals done. BBG
• US President Trump is planning to release his FY 2026 budget on Friday, according to Axios. It was separately reported that President Trump is to propose slashing USD 163bln in government programs in budget blueprint: WSJ.
• US Envoy told NATO allies that US President Trump may skip the NATO summit; Trump may not attend if there is no 5% spending target agreement: Spiegel
• Eurozone CPI for Apr runs hot on headline (+2.2% vs. the Street +2.1%) and esp. on core (+2.7% vs. the Street +2.5%, and up from +2.4% in Mar) BBG.
• US bank reserves dropped by $209 billion to $3 trillion in the week through April 30. That’s the lowest since Jan. 1 and the biggest weekly decline this year. BBG
• Apple added to fears about levies, warning its costs will jump by $900 million this quarter. Amazon cut its operating profit projections, saying it expects to be “materially affected” by tariffs, FX fluctuations and recession worries. AAPL -3.15% premkt, AMZN -85bps. BBG
• America’s money managers are more bearish today than they have been in nearly 30 years. Barron’s latest Big Money poll of professional investors finds 32% of respondents bearish on the outlook for stocks over the next 12 months—the highest percentage since at least 1997. BBG

Trade/Tariffs

• US Department of Commerce launched the Section 232 steel and aluminium inclusions process which allows US manufacturers and trade associations to request the inclusion of new derivative articles under Section 232 steel and aluminium tariffs, according to a statement cited by Reuters.
• De minimis exception for products from China and Hong Kong imported to the US is now voided, as scheduled.
• US Secretary of State Rubio said the Chinese want to meet and talk, while he added those talks will come up soon and there's a broader question about how much we should buy from China going forward.
• China is said to be conducting an assessment on US trade negotiations and urged the US to demonstrate sincerity for trade talks, while it urged the US to correct mistakes regarding tariffs and noted it is currently evaluating possible US trade talks.
• China's MOFCOM said the tariff and trade war was unilaterally initiated by the US and the US should show its sincerity in talks, while it added the US has repeatedly expressed its willingness to negotiate with China on the tariff issue and has recently taken the initiative to convey information to the Chinese side through relevant parties on several occasions, hoping to talk with the Chinese side. MOFCOM added that China’s position has always been the same: 'talk, the door is open,' as well as noted the US should show sincerity if it wants to talk and that in any possible dialogue or meeting if the US does not correct its unilateral tariff measures, it has no sincerity at all. Furthermore, it stated the US should be prepared to take action in correcting erroneous practices and cancelling unilateral tariffs.
• Japanese PM Ishiba said there is no change at all to Japan’s stance of requesting the US to cancel tariffs, while he added they are not in a situation where common ground has been found yet but he received a report from Economic Minister Akazawa that talks were forward-looking. Furthermore, Ishiba commented that reaching a deal in haste is not necessarily in the best interest.
• Japanese Finance Minister Kato said Japan's huge US Treasury holdings are among the tools it can wield in trade negotiations with the US but added that whether Japan wields that card is a different question.
• Japan's Economic Minister Akazawa said that US tariff negotiations lasted for 130 minutes and they were able to have a thorough discussion in which repeated its request for a review of tariffs on Japan, while they talked about how Japan can expand trade, non-tariff measures and economic security with the US. Akazawa said they told the US that tariff measures are regrettable and they want to hold the next meeting after mid-May, while they asked the US to review tariff measures on auto parts and the negotiation was handled as a package. Furthermore, they did not talk about China during the talks and he understands that the US wants to reach some kind of agreement within the 90-day window with various countries.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks traded mostly higher as many regional participants returned from the Labor Day holiday and with some hopes for US-China trade talks. ASX 200 gained with the advances led by outperformance in the energy sector following the upside in oil prices and with a continuation of the status quo seen as the outcome in tomorrow's federal election with Australian PM Albanese highly favoured to win a second term. Nikkei 225 rallied at the open but is off intraday highs after stalling near the 37,000 level and following a surprise increase in Japan's unemployment rate. Hang Seng outperformed on return from the holiday closure and despite the continued absence of mainland participants, while there were reports that China is currently evaluating possible US trade talks and noted that the US has repeatedly expressed its willingness to negotiate with China on the tariff issue, although it urged the US to demonstrate sincerity for trade talks and correct its unilateral tariff measures.

Top Asian news

• China-linked group was accused of meddling in Australia's election with the Chinese Communist Party-linked Australia Hubei Association said to have mobilised volunteers to support an independent candidate ahead of Saturday's federal election in Australia, according to Nikkei.

European bourses (STOXX 600 +1%) are entirely in the green as the region returns from holiday; sentiment today has been boosted following a strong session on Wall Street in the prior session, and mostly positive APAC trade overnight. Price action has been relatively rangebound and near recent highs, with traders ultimately cautious ahead of the day's key US NFP report. European sectors hold a strong positive bias; Tech tops the pile, followed closely by Industrials (lifted by post-earning strength in Airbus) whilst Utilities is found at the foot of the pile. A number of banks reported today; Standard Chartered (+1%, strong Q1 results), ING (+4.5%, reported record deposit growth and launched EUR 2bln share buyback), Danske Bank (+4%, strong results across the board and guidance range topped expectations), NatWest (+1.9%, Q1 headline figures beat expectations and suggested 2025 income to be at top-end of guidance range).

Top European news

• UK by-election: Reform wins Runcorn and Helsby by a margin of six votes with 38.7% of the total vote.

FX

• USD is currently softer vs. all major peers with DXY snapping a run of 3 consecutive sessions of gains which have in part been driven by the recent recovery in US risk assets. This in part has been driven by the performance of corporate America in Q1 earnings season and hopes of a US-China trade deal. On the former, reports suggest that China is conducting an assessment on US trade negotiations and evaluating possible US trade talks. DXY currently sits within Thursday's 99.61-100.37 range.
• EUR firmer vs. the USD and one of the better performers across the majors. From a fundamental perspective, attention has been on comments from EU negotiator Sefcovic who said Europe is ready to make US President Trump an offer, in which Brussels wants to increase purchases of US goods by EUR 50bln to address the “problem” in the trade relationship. On the data front, EZ HICP Flash metrics incrementally topped expectations, but ultimately had little impact on the Single-Currency.
• USD/JPY initially extended on the prior day's BoJ-spurred upward momentum but then pulled back from resistance just shy of the 146.00 level. There was little reaction seen following reports of US-Japan tariff talks or comments from Japanese Finance Minister Kato who said Japan's huge US Treasury holdings are among tools it can wield in trade negotiations with the US but added whether Japan wields that card is a different question. More recently, a report in the Nikkei suggested that US trade negotiators presented a framework for an agreement with Japan, however, Japan strongly opposed the proposal. In recent trade USD/JPY has dipped below the 145.00 mark.
• GBP is firmer vs. the USD but modestly so and below the opening levels of the week despite the notable rally on Monday. Price action for Cable has largely been at the whim of the Greenback with incremental macro drivers for the UK exceptionally light aside from some upbeat commentary on the prospects of a UK-US trade deal.
• Antipodeans are both firmer and supported by the current risk-environment which has been underpinned by hopes of a potential US-China trade deal (China is both nation's largest trading partner). AUD has overlooked disappointing Australian Retail Sales data and is looking ahead to Saturday's federal election with PM Albanese seen as likely to secure a second term.

Fixed Income

• USTs are contained into NFP. The headline is expected to show a marked cooling in the pace of Payrolls to 130k (prev. 228k), with a range of 25-195k. The report will be scoured for signs of Trump’s tariffs and associated reciprocal measures impacting the US labour market. USTs holding around 112-00 in 111-23+ to 112-01+ confines, a tick below Thursday’s base but some way clear of that session’s 112-20 peak; the high occurred in the early US morning, before the ISM release. On the trade front, US trade relations with constructive reports in the FT around EU concessions to address the trade deficit with the US in addition to reports that the US has reached out to China to seek talks alongside constructive MOFCOM language.
• Elsewhere, the Japanese Finance Minister stated that Japan’s holdings of USTs could be “among such cards” used in trade negotiations, though Kato added “whether we actually use that card, however, is a different question”. Little move was seen in USTs at the time.
• Bunds opened near enough unchanged at 131.75 after the Labour Day holiday. Just after the resumption of trade they lifted to a 131.81 peak for the session before slipping as low as 131.34 in the early European morning as participants reacted to the US-China updates overnight. Thereafter, lifted around 25 ticks from that low but remained in the red and held around that mark into data. EZ HICP came in hotter across the board and the ex-Food & Energy measures eclipsed the forecast range alongside Services jumping to 3.9% (prev. rev. 3.5%); Bunds knee jerked lower but remained well within earlier confines and have since pared the entire move and are back to holding off lows but remain in the red by around 10 ticks.
• Gilts opened lower by around 20 ticks, catching up to the slight bearish bias in APAC hours on the points outlined in USTs. Thereafter, the benchmark began to inch its way higher and is currently modestly outperforming at the top-end of a 93.30-91 band, just eclipsing Thursday’s 93.88 high. In terms of the slight outperformance, there isn’t a clear or overt headline driver behind it and instead it may be a function of Gilts not being capped/weighed on in the way that USTs and EGBs are by progress on trade talks.

Commodities

• The crude complex opened with a positive bias, continuing the upside seen in the prior session, which stemmed from the broader risk-on sentiment and after Trump's latest Iran threats. As the session progressed, the complex has been gradually cooling off those highs, to currently trade lower by around USD 0.40/bbl. Brent July'2025 currently trades in a USD 61.72-62.72/bbl range.
• Precious metals are broadly in the green, benefiting from the softer Dollar. XAU/USD is firmer today, attempting to make back some of its recent losses; currently higher by around USD 21/oz, in a USD 3,227.67-3,263.36/oz range.
• Base metals hold a strong positive bias, benefitting from the positive risk tone and the softer Dollar. Sentiment has also been boosted as both US and China suggested a willingness by the other side for talks. 3M LME Copper currently +1.8%, and trading within a USD 9,241.95-9,411.15/t range.

Geopolitics: Middle East

• "Israel understood from Washington that if it decides to strike Iran, it will most likely do so alone as long as the nuclear negotiations continue", according to Sky News Arabia citing AP quoting an Israeli official
• Israeli PM Netanyahu said Israel attacked a target last night near the Syrian presidential palace in Damascus.
• Israeli Home Front said Northern Israel is under rocket attack from Yemen, according to Al Jazeera.
• Houthi-affiliated media reported US warplanes targeted the Yemeni capital Sana'a, according to Sky News Arabia.
• US Secretary of State Rubio said this is the best opportunity for Iran and that Iran should not be afraid of inspectors including Americans, according to a Fox News interview.

Geopolitics: Ukraine

• Ukrainian PM says two of the three documents on US minerals deal will not need ratification, according to a member of parliament.
• Ukraine's Parliament plans ratification vote on US minerals deal on May 8th, according to a lawmaker cited by Reuters.
• US VP Vance said Russia's war in Ukraine is not going to end anytime soon. It was separately reported that US Secretary of State Rubio said Ukraine and Russia's positions are still a little far apart, while he added it's going to take a breakthrough soon on Ukraine to make this possible or else the President will have to decide how much time to dedicate to this.

US Event Calendar

• 8:30 am: Apr Change in Nonfarm Payrolls, est. 137.5k, prior 228k
• 8:30 am: Apr Change in Private Payrolls, est. 124.5k, prior 209k
• 8:30 am: Apr Change in Manufact. Payrolls, est. -5k, prior 1k
• 8:30 am: Apr Unemployment Rate, est. 4.2%, prior 4.2%
• 8:30 am: Apr Average Hourly Earnings MoM, est. 0.3%, prior 0.3%
• 8:30 am: Apr Average Hourly Earnings YoY, est. 3.9%, prior 3.8%
• 10:00 am: Mar Factory Orders, est. 4.45%, prior 0.6%
• 10:00 am: Mar F Durable Goods Orders, est. 9.2%, prior 9.2%
• 10:00 am: Mar F Durables Ex Transportation, est. 0%, prior 0%
• 10:00 am: Mar F Cap Goods Orders Nondef Ex Air, est. 0.1%, prior 0.1%
• 10:00 am: Mar F Cap Goods Ship Nondef Ex Air, est. 0.3%, prior 0.3%

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

I briefly went back inside my old school (Hampton) last night for the first time in 33 years to help record a fund raising video. So I’m feeling a little nostalgic and old this morning. However, it could also be the incredible heatwave we’re having for the time of year playing tricks on me.

In markets as most of Europe was enjoying the one of the hotter May Day holidays on record, the S&P 500 (+0.63%) closed within 1.18% of its April 2nd close, just minutes before the Liberation Day press conference after the bell that day. This now also brings its gains over the last 8 sessions to a huge +8.65%. Indeed, that marks the fastest 8-session gain since November 2020, back when markets were surging after the announcement of the Pfizer vaccine that offered a path out of the pandemic. Meanwhile, other tariff-related moves also unwound, with the dollar index (+0.78%) hitting a 3-week high (albeit -3.43% below April 2nd close), whilst US HY spreads tightened -16bps. There continued to be mounting optimism around the trade war, following on from US trade representative Greer’s comments that deals were moving closer.

This optimism has continued overnight after China's Ministry of Commerce said that it's evaluating trade talks with the US. The ministry said this comes as "the US has recently sent messages to China through revenant parties" and urged Washington to shows "sincerity" towards China. Against that background Asian equities are higher on the news (more below), with S&P 500 (+0.77%) and NASDAQ 100 (+0.50%) futures also moving higher even after unwhelming results from Apple and Amazon last night.

Amazon’s Q1 performance was actually a touch above expectations, but the company gave weaker-than-expected guidance for the current quarter on the back of tariffs, projecting an operating profit of $13bn to $17.5bn (vs. $17.8bn expected). Amazon’s shares fell -3.2% in extended trading, mostly reversing a +3.13% gain during yesterday’s regular session. Apple delivered a modest headline beat across revenue ($95.4bn vs $94.6bn expected) and earnings, but weaker revenue in China ($16bn vs $16.83bn) was seen as a concerning sign of the potential trade war challenges. Apple stock slid by -3.8% after-hours (+0.39% yesterday). Both companies may be helped by the renewed trade optimism overnight. For more on tech’s recent performance, see our team’s April tech performance review here.

Looking back at yesterday, the tech earnings the night before played a big role in the market rally, with the Magnificent 7 surging +2.79%, alongside a +1.52% move for the NASDAQ. Microsoft gained +7.63% and Meta +4.23% after their results. Nvidia posted a +2.47% advance, also helped by a Bloomberg report that the US is considering easing restrictions on Nvidia chip sales to the UAE.

Earlier yesterday the risk-on tone had received additional support from the latest batch of US data, which wasn’t as bad as feared. In particular, the ISM manufacturing print only fell to 48.7 (vs. 47.9 expected), which wasn’t too much of a dip from the 49.0 reading in March, and still above its levels from May-November last year. Admittedly, the weekly initial jobless claims did tick up to 241k (vs. 223k expected), but that could be explained by a surge in New York, which probably reflected difficulties in the seasonal adjustment around the Easter holidays, so it wasn’t seen as a sign of a rapidly deteriorating labour market.

Staying on the data, the next watchpoint will be the US April jobs report out today, which is the first to cover the period since Liberation Day, and one of the first hard data points we’ll have. As a reminder, our US economists expect headline nonfarm payrolls to grow by +125K (vs +228K previously), with private payrolls at +125k (vs. +209k previously). So they see a reversion after a strong March, particularly within the leisure/hospitality and retail sectors but note the late Easter has the potential to distort the data and seasonal adjustments. They also expect unemployment to remain unchanged at +4.2%. You can see their full preview and register for their post-release webinar here.

Yesterday’s data also triggered a notable rise in Treasury yields, which unwound their initial decline after the ISM manufacturing release. With the release better than expected alongside the wider risk-on tone, investors dialled back their expectations for Fed rate cuts, and the 2yr Treasury yield moved up +9.6bps on the day to 3.70%, whilst the 10yr yield was up +4.86bps to 4.22%.

In Europe, markets were fairly quiet given Germany, France and Italy were closed for a public holiday. However, the UK’s FTSE 100 (+0.02%) advanced for a 14th consecutive day, which is a joint record since the index was formed back in 1984. And with most of Europe not trading, the STOXX 600 also saw a muted gain of +0.02%. Otherwise, gilt yields moved higher in line with US Treasuries, with the 10yr yield up +4.1bps on the day to 4.48%. They are both up around another +1.5bps overnight.

Coming back to Asia, equity markets are largely rising this morning boosted by the positive overnight performance on Wall Street amid China’s openness to trade negotiations. This is outweighing concerns about the effect of tariffs, which were initially triggered by disappointing earnings from Apple and Amazon. As I check my screens, the Hang Seng Tech Index (+3.37%) is surging with the Hang Seng (+1.63%) also trading sharply higher. Elsewhere, the S&P/ASX 200 (+0.91%) and the Nikkei (+0.53%) are also trading higher with the KOSPI (+0.19%) seeing minor gains. Meanwhile, China markets are closed for the Labour Day public holiday.

Early morning data showed that Australian retail sales experienced a third consecutive month of expansion in March. The +0.3% m/m increase, while marginally below the projected +0.4%, followed a +0.2% gain in the preceding month. This is a small support to the house view that the RBA should cut 25bps this month.

To the day ahead now, as mentioned earlier we will see US data releases on April Jobs, as well as March’s factory orders. Other notable data includes France March budget balance, Italy April manufacturing PMI, budget balance, March unemployment rate, Eurozone April CPI, March unemployment rate. Earnings include Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, Apollo and Natwest.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 08:24

Take-Two Plunges After Delaying Grand Theft Auto VI

Take-Two's wholly owned label, Rockstar Games, waited until the end of the week to disappoint global gamers—at least they didn't wait until Friday evening to announce yet another delay for Grand Theft Auto 6.

Take-Two released an 8-K filing just moments ago, embedded with a press release that specified Rockstar is now planning to release the video game that normalizes violent crime for May 26, 2026, pushed out from Fall of 2025.

GTA 5 has been delayed before...

• Decemeber 2023: Analysts Fear Possible Delays Of Grand Theft Auto VI Release

• May 2024: Take-Two Shares Drop After Grand Theft Auto VI Delayed Again

Take-Two Chairman and CEO Strauss Zelnick wrote in the press release: 

"We support fully Rockstar Games taking additional time to realize their creative vision for Grand Theft Auto VI, which promises to be a groundbreaking, blockbuster entertainment experience that exceeds audience expectations.

"While we take the movement of our titles seriously and appreciate the vast and deep global anticipation for Grand Theft Auto VI, we remain steadfast in our commitment to excellence. As we continue to release our phenomenal pipeline, we expect to deliver a multi-year period of growth in our business and enhanced value for our shareholders."

News of the delay comes one day after technology news website Engadget reported that Xbox consoles and video games will experience price hikes. The average price for a AAA-rated game could soon be north of $80, if not $100. Read... "Grand Theft Auto VI Priced at $100?" This Gaming Analyst Believes So.". 

Since the first GTA was released in 1997, the video game industry has been in a deflationary death spiral, with costs to develop games rising while retail prices crater. 

GTA fans will have to wait another year, meaning the gap since GTA 5 debuted will exceed 13 years.

Take-Two's premarket losses are around 10% in New York. If losses are sustained through the cash session, this will mark the largest down day since November 8, 2022. 

Take-Two really knows how to disappoint gamers. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 08:20

Frustrated With Boeing, Trump Reportedly Turns To L3Harris For "Interim" Air Force One Jet

Frustrated by repeated delays in Boeing's new Air Force One production timeline, President Trump has reportedly commissioned defense contractor L3Harris Technologies to retrofit a Boeing 747 previously used by the Qatari government as an interim presidential aircraft. 

The Wall Street Journal reported that L3Harris has been tasked with retrofitting the Qatari 747 with communications systems and other equipment to transform the luxury aircraft into Air Force One. 

According to the people familiar with the matter, President Trump requested that L3Harris complete the needed retrofitting of the jumbo jet by as early as fall.

In February, FOX Business' Edward Lawrence confirmed that Boeing had suffered global supply chain snarls that changed project timings and delayed the completion date to 2029. 

White House communications director Steven Cheung told FOX Business at the time: "It is ridiculous that the delivery of a new Air Force One airplane has been delayed for such a long time," adding, "The president working on identifying ways to speed up the delivery of a new plane, which has been needed for a while."

Months later, WSJ's L3Harris report may suggest that there were very limited options to speed up the Boeing delivery. 

Here's more from the report:

Before Trump's inauguration, White House Military Office and senior Air Force officials considered canceling Boeing's contract for the new planes, according to people familiar with the matter. White House officials under Trump have also discussed whether they can sue the plane manufacturer, some of the people said.

Trump initially tapped the bloated defense contractor to build the next-generation presidential aircraft during his first term, aiming to replace the aging fleet. Boeing's failure to deliver on time has become emblematic of the broader military-industrial complex: bloated, sluggish, and unaccountable.

The military-industrial complex's failures must urgently be corrected. For now, L3Harris is stepping in, aiming to deliver a retrofitted Qatari 747 as an interim Air Force One jet by this fall.

America's defense space needs more domestic competition if it wants to compete in the 2030s. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 07:45

The False Claims Of WHO's Pandemic Agreement

Authored by David Bell via The Brownstone Institute,

One way to determine whether a suggestion is worth following is to look at the evidence presented to support it. 

If the evidence makes sense and smells real, then perhaps the program you are asked to sign up for is worthy of consideration. 

However, if the whole scheme is sold on fallacies that a child could poke a stick through, and its chief proponents cannot possibly believe their own rhetoric, then only a fool would go much further. This is obvious – you don’t buy a used car on a salesman’s insistence that there is no other way to get from your kitchen to your bathroom.

Delegates at the coming World Health Assembly in Geneva are faced with such a choice. In this case, the car salesman is the World Health Organization (WHO), an organization still commanding considerable global respect based on a legacy of sane and solid work some decades ago. 

It also benefits from a persistent misunderstanding that large international organizations would not intentionally lie (they increasingly do, as noted below). The delegates will be voting on the recently completed text of the Pandemic Agreement, part of a broad effort to extract large profits and salaries from an intrinsic human fear of rare causes of death. Fear and confusion distract human minds from rational behavior.

WHO Likes a Good Story?

The Pandemic Agreement, and the international pandemic agenda it is intended to support, are based on a series of demonstrably false claims:

• There is evidence of a rising risk of severe naturally occurring pandemics due to a rapid (exponential) increase in infectious disease outbreaks 

• A massive return on financial investment is expected from diverting large resources to prepare for, prevent, or combat these

• The Covid-19 outbreak was probably of natural origin, and serves as an example of unavoidable health and financial costs we will incur again if we don’t act now.

If any of these were false, then the basis on which the WHO and its backers have argued for the Pandemic Agreement is fundamentally flawed. And all of them can be shown to be false. However, influential people and organizations want pandemics to be the main focus of public health. The WHO supports this because it is paid to. 

The private sector invested heavily in vaccines, and a few countries with large vaccine and biotech industries now direct most of the WHO’s work through specified funding. The WHO is obligated to deliver what these interests direct it to.

The WHO was once independent and able to concentrate on health priorities – back when they prioritized the main drivers of sickness and premature mortality and gained the reputation they now trade from. In today’s corporatized public health, population-based approaches have lost value, and the aspirations of the World Economic Forum hold more sway than those dying before sixty. 

Success in the health commodities business is about enlarging markets, not reducing the need for intervention. The WHO and its reputation are useful tools to sanitize this. Colonialism, as ever, needs to appear altruistic.

Truth Is Less Compelling Than Fiction

So, to address these fallacies. Infectious disease mortality has steadily declined over the past century despite a minor Covid blip that took us back just a decade. This blip includes the virus, but also the avoidable imposition of poverty, unemployment, reduced healthcare access, and other factors that the WHO had previously warned against, but recently actively promoted. 

To get around this reality of decreasing mortality, the WHO uses a hypothetical disease (Disease X), a placeholder for something that has not happened since the Spanish flu in the pre-antibiotic era. The huge Medieval pandemics such as the Black Death were mostly bacterial in origin, as were probably most Spanish flu deaths. With antibiotics, sewers, and better food, we now live longer and don’t expect such mortality events, but the WHO uses this threat regardless. 

Thus, the WHO has been reduced to misrepresenting fragile evidence (e.g. ignoring technology developments that can explain rising reports of outbreaks) and opinion pieces by sponsored panels in order to support the narrative of rapidly rising pandemic risk. Even Covid-19 is getting harder to use. If, as appears most likely, it was an inevitable result of laboratory manipulation, then it no longer even serves as an outlier. The WHO’s pandemic agenda is squarely targeted at natural outbreaks; hence the need for “Disease X”.

The WHO (and the World Bank) follow a similar approach in inflating financial Return on Investment (ROI). If you received an email promoting over 300 to 700 times return on a proposed investment, some may be impressed but sensible people would suspect something amiss. But this is what the Group of Twenty (G20) secretariat told its members in 2022 for return on investment on the WHO’s pandemic preparedness proposals. 

The WHO and the World Bank provided the graphic below to the same G20 meeting to support such astronomical predictions. It is essentially subterfuge; a fantasy to mislead readers such as politicians who are too busy, and trusting, to dig deeper. As these agencies are intended to serve countries rather than fool them, this sort of behavior, which is recurrent, should call into question their very existence.

Figure 1 from Analysis of Pandemic Preparedness and Response (PPR) architecture, financing needs, gaps and mechanisms, prepared by WHO and the World Bank for the G20, March 2022. Lower chart modified by REPPARE, University of Leeds.

A virus like SARS-CoV-2 (causing Covid-19) that mostly targets the sick elderly with an overall infectious mortality rate of about 0.15% will not cost $9 trillion unless panicked or greedy people choose to close down the world’s supply lines, implement mass unemployment, and then print money for multi-trillion-dollar stimulus packages. In contrast, diseases that regularly kill more and much younger people, like tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS, cost far more than $22 billion a year in contrast. 

A 2021 Lancet article put tuberculosis losses alone at $580 billion/year in 2018. Malaria kills over 600,000 children annually, and HIV/AIDS results in similar numbers of deaths. These deaths of current and future productive workers, leaving orphaned children, cost countries. Once, they were the WHO’s main priority.

Trading on a Fading Reputation

In selling the package, the WHO seems to have abandoned any attempt at meaningful dialogue. They still justify the surveillance-lockdown-mass vaccinate model by the logic-free claim that over 14 million lives were saved by Covid vaccines in 2021 (so we all have to do that again). The WHO recorded a little over 3 million Covid-related deaths in the first (vaccine-free) year of the pandemic. For the 14 million ‘saved’ to be correct, another 17 million would somehow have been due to die in year two, despite most people having gained immunity and many of the most susceptible having already succumbed.

Such childish claims are meant to shock and confuse rather than educate. People are paid to model such numbers to create narratives, and others are paid to spin them on the WHO websites and elsewhere. An industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars depends on such messaging. Scientific integrity cannot survive in an organization paid to be a mouthpiece.

As an alternative, the WHO could advocate for investment in areas that promoted longevity in wealthy countries – sanitation, better diet and living conditions, and access to basic, good medical care. 

This was once the WHO’s priority because it not only greatly reduces mortality from rare pandemic events (most Covid deaths were in people already very unwell), but it also reduces mortality from the big endemic killers such as malaria, tuberculosis, common childhood infections, and many chronic non-communicable diseases. It is, unequivocally, the main reason why mortality from major childhood infectious diseases like measles and Whooping cough plummeted long before mass vaccinations were introduced.

If we concentrated on strategies that improve general health and resilience, rather than the financial health of the pandemic industrial complex, we could then confidently decide not to wreck the lives of our children and elderly if a pandemic did arise. 

Very few people would be at high risk. We could all expect to live longer and healthier lives. The WHO has elected to leave this path, instill mass and unfounded fear, and support a very different paradigm. While the Pandemic Agreement is not essential to it, it is an important part of diverting further funds to this agenda and cementing this corporatist approach into place.

The United States has done well by stepping out of this mess, but continues to push many of the same fallacies and was instrumental in sowing the mess we now reap. While a few other governments are questioning, it is hard for any politicians to stand with truth when a sponsored media stands squarely elsewhere. 

Society is once more enslaving itself, at the behest of an entitled few, facilitated by international agencies that were set up specifically to guard against this. At the coming World Health Assembly, the pandemic fairytale will almost certainly prevail. 

The hope is that a well-deserved erosion of trust will eventually catch up with the global health industry and too few countries will ratify this treaty for it ever to come into force. To fix the underlying problem though and derail the pandemic industry train, we will need to rethink the whole approach to cooperation in international health.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 05:00

Radio Liberty Let The Cat Out Of The Bag Regarding The EU's Game Plan For Ukraine

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

Russia can expect nothing in return from the EU if Putin concedes to allow their troops and aircraft to deploy in and patrol over Western Ukraine...

Russia has long warned that any unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine of the 30-day sort that Zelensky has proposed could create an opening for NATO to expand its military influence in that country. Hitherto dismissed as a conspiracy theory by the West, Radio Liberty just let the cat out of the bag. The unnamed officials who they cited in their recent article confirmed that they envisage this “buy[ing] the Europeans time to assemble a ‘reassurance force’ in the Western part of Ukraine” and organize “air patrols” there.

Their reported game plan is “keeping the Americans onboard” the peace process, “sequencing” the conflict by clinching a ceasefire that’ll later lead to a lasting peace, and using the aforesaid interim period to carry out the abovementioned military moves for pressuring Russia into more concessions. 

What’s omitted from Radio Liberty’s article is that Russia has threatened to target Western troops in Ukraine, who Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth earlier said wouldn’t enjoy Article 5 guarantees from the US.

Even if Putin agrees to this concession that’s assessed to be among one of the five significant differences between him and Trump that prompted Trump’s angry post against Putin, Radio Liberty reported that this still wouldn’t lead to de jure European recognition of Russia’s territorial gains. 

The same goes for them lifting sanctions or returning any of its €200 billion of seized assets. More sanctions might even soon be imposed and the windfall profits from those assets will “bankroll Ukraine’s military needs”.

Given what Radio Liberty revealed, Russia can therefore expect nothing in return from the EU if Putin concedes to allow their troops and aircraft to deploy in and patrol over Western Ukraine. Any hopes of restoring Ukraine’s antebellum buffer state status would be crushed, and it can’t be ruled out that the EU’s zone of military activity could later expand to the Dnieper or beyond. One of the special operation’s goals was to prevent the West’s eastward military expansion so that would be another major concession.

Putin’s decades-long close friend and influential senior aide Nikolay Patrushev just told TASS earlier this week that “For the second year in a row, NATO is holding the largest exercises in decades near our borders, where it is practicing scenarios of offensive actions over a large area - from Vilnius to Odessa, the seizure of the Kaliningrad region, the blocking of shipping in the Baltic and Black Seas, and preventive strikes on the permanent bases of Russian nuclear deterrent forces.”

Secretary of the Security Council Sergey Shoigu told the same outlet several days prior that “Over the past year, the number of military contingents of NATO countries deployed near the western borders of the Russian Federation has increased almost 2.5 times…NATO is moving to a new combat readiness system, which provides for the possibility of deploying a 100,000-strong group of troops near the borders of Russia within 10 days, 300,000 by the end of 30 days, and 800,000 by the end of 180 days.”

When the EU’s prioritization of the Baltic Defence Line and Poland’s complementary East Shield are added to the equation, coupled with plans for expanding the “military Schengen” to speed up the eastward deployment of troops and equipment, the trappings of Operation Barbarossa 2.0 are apparent. Putin can’t influence what NATO does within the bloc’s borders, but he has the power to stop its de facto expansion into Western Ukraine during a ceasefire, which could partially hinder its speculative plans.

Conceding to them, which he might agree to do for the five reasons mentioned in the second half of this analysis here from early March, would lead to Russia’s mutual defense ally Belarus being surrounded by NATO along its northern, western, and then southern flanks. That could make it a tempting future target, but Western aggression might be deterred by the continued deployment of Russia’s Oreshniks and tactical nuclear weapons, the latter of which Belarus has already been authorized to use at its discretion.

Conceding to Western troops in Ukraine in exchange for the economic and strategic benefits that Russia hopes to reap from the US if their nascent “New Détente” takes off after a peace deal would therefore entail conventional security costs that could be managed through the means that were just described. At the same time, however, hardliners like Patrushev, Shoigu, and honorary chairman of Russia’s influential Council on Foreign and Defense Policy Sergey Karaganov could dissuade him from such a deal.

Putin must therefore decide whether this is an acceptable trade-off or if Russia should risk losing its post-conflict strategic partnership with the US by continuing to oppose NATO’s de facto expansion into Western Ukraine, including via military means if EU forces move into there without Russian approval. His decision will determine not only the future of this conflict, but also Russia’s contingency planning vis-à-vis a possible hot war with NATO, thus making this the defining moment of his quarter-century rule.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 03:30

Where Malaria Has Been Successfully Eradicated

As Statista's Anna Fleck shows in the chart below, a total of 45 countries and one territory had managed to eradicate malaria as of January 2025, according to data from the World Health Organization. 

 

You will find more infographics at Statista

A place is eligible to apply for a WHO certification of malaria-free status once it has had zero indigenous cases of malaria for three consecutive years. 

In 2025 so far, Georgia is the latest country to have met this requirement, following after Egypt and Cape Verde last year.

The United States was declared malaria-free in 1970, alongside Italy and the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, India still is endemic with more than two million cases reported there in 2023.

Worldwide, malaria is still endemic in 83 countries.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 02:45

"Every Night, Be Afraid!" - Tesla Owners Targeted By Left-Wing Activists In Vienna

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix news,

Tesla owners in Vienna are increasingly finding threatening flyers placed on their vehicles, warning them of potential vandalism and public backlash if they do not sell their cars.

The notes, which have appeared on multiple vehicles in recent days, are part of an apparent campaign by left-wing extremists who have made Tesla — and its CEO, Elon Musk — a target due to his political positions and support for populist parties across Europe.

One flyer, titled “Our condolences! It’s not your fault. It will only be your fault if you don’t act now”, warns Tesla owners that they are driving a vehicle associated with “right-wing agitator” Elon Musk.

The note urges drivers to sell their cars while they still can, hinting at consequences such as public shaming and criminal damage to the vehicle.

The leaflet reads: “Now you own a car that you may be ashamed of, whose value has gone to its knees and you have to be afraid every night that someone will scratch a big ‘fuck Tesla’ into your paintwork.” 

The document continues with suggestions such as speaking to employers about removing Tesla vehicles from company fleets, and even discussing the matter with friends and family in an effort to ostracize the brand.

The campaign is not limited to Vienna. Similar anti-Tesla actions have been reported in several other European cities. In Berlin and Paris, Teslas have been defaced with spray paint and stickers labeling drivers as supporters of “right-wing conspiracy.” In Amsterdam, demonstrators have held protests outside Tesla garages and engaged in confrontations with drivers, calling their cars “capitalist machines” and demanding they abandon them.

In March, an arson attack that knocked out power to a Tesla factory and parts of Berlin was claimed by a left-wing terror group.

“Together, we are bringing Tesla to its knees. Switch off for Tesla. Greetings to everyone on the run, in the underground in prisons and in the resistance! Love and strength to all Antifa,” read a letter by the perpetrators published in the German media.

The vandalism is, in part, fueled by left-wing politicians who have made inflammatory remarks about Musk and his company.

In January, after Musk endorsed the Alternative for Germany (AfD) ahead of the country’s federal elections, Poland’s Sports Minister Sławomir Nitras said, “I can only say this much, listening to these words: Probably no normal Pole should buy a Tesla anymore.”

Berlin Senator Cansel Kiziltepe, of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), went further earlier this week, comparing Tesla to “Nazi cars.”

“Who wants to drive a Nazi car? Manufacturers of electric cars are experiencing a sales boom – apart from Tesla,” she said.

Authorities in Vienna have not yet commented on the distribution of these flyers, but some Tesla owners have expressed concern for their safety and the security of their property, according to Austrian news outlet Exxpress.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/02/2025 - 02:00

Trump Demands Sisi Give US Ships Free Passage Through Suez, Support Against Houthis

Via Middle East Eye

US President Donald Trump asked his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, for American ships to enjoy free passage through the Suez Canal in an April phone call, as the US presses ahead with its bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen.

Trump has made no secret of his belief that US vessels should transit the strategic waterway for free. On Saturday, he publicly demanded as much, saying the canal "would not exist without the United States of America." One Egyptian MP was reported as characterizing the Trump administration's moves as blackmail and rubbished Trump's claim about the canal's existence, saying it was "purely Egyptian".

Via AFP

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Trump raised the issue with Sisi directly this month. The two leaders spoke on April 1.

An Egyptian readout of the call stated that the two leaders "discussed developments in the Middle East and mediation efforts to restore calm to the region, which reflects positively on navigation in the Red Sea."

At the end of 2024, Egypt’s presidential office said the country had lost at least $7bn in Suez Canal revenue.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump told Sisi the US wanted Egyptian support for its campaign against the Houthis, including military assistance, intelligence sharing and funding, because the US bombing campaign would help to restore traffic through the Red Sea and Suez Canal. Sisi sidestepped the request and told Trump the best way to address the Houthi threat was a ceasefire in Gaza.

The conversation dovetails with Trump’s public messaging on the Suez Canal. His reasoning also aligns with that of private discussions between US senior officials, as revealed in a leaked Signal group chat earlier this year.

"As I heard it, the president was clear: green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return," one person identified in a group chat started by national security advisor Mike Waltz was revealed as saying in The Atlantic.

The person was identified as SM, which appears to refer to Trump adviser Stephen Miller. "If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost, there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return," the Signal user said. 

Trump’s demand for Egypt to provide military support or economic assistance to the US is a stark reversal in the two countries' post-war relationship, which usually has it the other way around. 

The US brokered the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Since then, the US has provided roughly $1.3bn in military aid to Egypt. But ties between Egypt and the US have been dented by Israel’s war on Gaza. US diplomats in Cairo have tried to dissuade the Trump administration from pressing Egypt to accept forcibly displaced Palestinians, Middle East Eye reported previously. 

Egyptian officials are already simmering with anger at the US for siding with Israel when the latter seized Gaza’s southern city of Rafah in May 2024 and accused Egypt of being negligent in policing the border.

MEE revealed in March that the UAE, a close patron of Egypt, was lobbying the Trump administration against a plan that Cairo introduced to the Arab League for post-war governance of the Gaza Strip.

According to US and Egyptian officials, the US has told Egypt it is considering cutting military aid. The officials say the threat to cut aid stems from frustration within Trump’s inner circle that Egypt has refused to accept forcibly displaced Palestinians.

#US aircraft carriers pass through the Suez Canal... without fees and #Egyptians watch and cannot do much. #Trump said he won't pay. https://t.co/Hyz0mVfMpu

— Observer (@nasermoh29) May 1, 2025

Trump’s call for Sisi to support the US bombing campaign against the Houthis is not the first time Sisi has had to resist appeals to become involved in Yemen. Egypt was one of the first countries to leave a Saudi-led coalition that was bombing the Houthis in 2016.

Egypt has a long history in Yemen, and the Arabian Gulf country is often equated to Egypt’s “Vietnam” by Arab officials - a play on the US’s gruelling war in Asia. During the 1960s, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser intervened in Yemen’s civil war, backing so-called Republicans against Royalists.

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/01/2025 - 23:50

Why Did Russia Officially Acknowledge North Korea's Military Assistance In Kursk?

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

Russia wants the world to know that North Korea might play a larger role in the conflict...

Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov’s acknowledgement that North Korean troops helped expel Ukraine from Kursk ended around nine months of speculation about their role in the conflict. Rumors began to circulate after Russia and North Korea updated their strategic partnership last June and reaffirmed its mutual defense clause. Western, Ukrainian, and South Korean media then alleged that North Korea sent troops to help Russia while the Kremlin reacted coyly to these reports.

It was only in late October that a clearer picture began to emerge after Putin lent credence to these claims by saying that “Images are a serious thing. If there are images, then they reflect something” upon being asked about satellite images of North Korean troop movements. He also said during the same press conference that “We know who is present there, from which European Nato countries, and how they carry out this work”, thus hinting at Russia’s motive in requesting North Korea’s assistance in Kursk.

Adversarial media’s reports about North Koreans fighting within Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders remain unconfirmed, including the disputed regions that Russia claims as its own in their entirety, but it’s now an indisputable fact that they were fighting within Russia’s universally recognized borders. Kursk region was invaded by Ukraine last August as part of an ultimately failed ploy to swap whatever it could occupy there for some of the Ukrainian-claimed land under Russian control.

Just like Ukraine reportedly requested Western assistance for fighting Russia inside its pre-2014 borders per Putin, who also accused the West of assisting Ukraine’s attacks inside Russia’s universally recognized borders, so too did Russia request North Korea’s assistance for fighting Ukraine in Kursk. His motive was therefore to reciprocally respond to the West’s direct but still unofficial military involvement in the conflict by having North Korea enter the fray on Russia’s side in a similarly clandestine manner till now.

This segues into the why North Korea would agree to Russia’s request, which was presumably for aid (agricultural, military-technical, and space-related) and experience, the latter with regard to having its troops learn how to fight a modern war in case of future hostilities with the South. Given the mutual defense basis for complying with this request, Russia could return North Korea’s favor in that event, the scenario of which might deter its enemies from provoking a war in the peninsula like Pyongyang fears.

Officially acknowledging North Korea’s role in Kursk might have been more about sending a message to Ukraine, however, since the precedent of Putin claiming that the West assists its attacks inside Russia’s universally recognized borders could lead to North Korea participating in an expanded ground offensive. 

Russia might make a major push in Sumy, Kharkov, and/or even Dniepropetrovsk regions, all universally recognized as Ukrainian, either during the ongoing peace talks or especially if they collapse.

The Damocles’ sword of large-scale North Korean involvement in any offensive might be sufficient for coercing Ukraine into concessions or crushing its forces but it could also backfire if the US doubles down on its military aid to Ukraine in response as part of a policy of “escalating to de-escalate”. In any case, Russia wants the world to know that North Korea might play a larger role in the conflict, thus making its official acknowledgement a powerful but risky diplomatic card to play at this pivotal moment.

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/01/2025 - 23:00