BREAKING NEWS ~ Continuously Updated

[Ravenlocke]

Milky Way Astronomers✨

Extreme Northern Lights from last night over Tombstone Mountain Park, Canada 🍁

These shots are unreal — some of the most breathtaking aurora photos to come out of Canada this year. 🌌✨

Tonight is the last day you will get to witness the best auroras of our lifetimes, all over Canada and most States of USA. Don't miss it.

https://x.com/fascinatingonX/status/1989693777062273119

Night Sky Today

Under the Arctic sky, Norway ✨

https://x.com/NightSkyToday/status/1989603289500123443

Night Sky Today

Northern Lights in ALASKA!

https://x.com/NightSkyToday/status/1989751472888709340

Vincent Ledvina

Driving into the aurora... captured earlier this week!

https://x.com/Vincent_Ledvina/status...21710095503566

[gini]

Perhaps a special thread for northern lights ?

[Jaak]

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by gini (here)
Perhaps a special thread for northern lights ?

We do have many magnificent Northern Lights images on the Beautiful Nature pics thread. (But these may become much more frequent now!)

[Vicus]

Putin wants Trump to DO IT

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=I-2r-qJcxKc

[onawah]

China’s Death Vans Just Got So Much Worse - Disturbing Footage & New Leaks
laowhy86
1.01M subscribers
Aug 19, 2025

"Just when I thought China's Death Vans couldn't get any worse."

(Do you think "China is the future"? I pray that it isn't!
Wonder why Bill wrote "a subtle acknowledgement that some of what you say about China may be correct."?
But no acknowledgement that much of what I've posted is true about how horrifyingly dystopian China has become ?
And why be "subtle" about such a shocking reality?
Why are there CCP propaganda pieces being posted regularly on the forum now with little debate over how true or false they are?
When it's clear that such pieces like this one are true, so much so that even the CCP isn't trying to hide the existence of the "Death Vans"...)

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=GxDCvbYoUeM

Posted by onawah (here)
I think that was actually a bit too "subtle", Bill.
I didn't recognize it as a joke because I take no pleasure in the dystopia that China has become, or in the fact that so little of that dark scenario is being exposed on the forum while so much of the B.S. CCP propaganda is being presented here as truth.
The forum's credibility has been in danger before, but I think this particular, current debacle is taking the cake.

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Posted by onawah (here)
I don't understand why you think that article would make my day, Bill.

It was a joke! No criticism intended at all... and also a subtle acknowledgement that some of what you say about China may be correct.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by onawah (here)
China’s Death Vans Just Got So Much Worse - Disturbing Footage & New Leaks
laowhy86
1.01M subscribers
Aug 19, 2025

"Just when I thought China's Death Vans couldn't get any worse."

(Do you think "China is the future"? I pray that it isn't!
Wonder why Bill wrote "a subtle acknowledgement that some of what you say about China may be correct."?
But no acknowledgement that much of what I've posted is true about how horrifyingly dystopian China has become ?
And why be "subtle" about such a shocking reality?
Why are there CCP propaganda pieces being posted regularly on the forum now with little debate over how true or false they are?
When it's clear that such pieces like this one are true, so much so that even the CCP isn't trying to hide the existence of the "Death Vans"...)

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=GxDCvbYoUeM

Here are three more videos from this guy's channel:

• China Just Lost 1 Billion People
• China and Russia are Enemies Now - This Changes Everything
• I Think China Might Invade Russia

If I may say: this is exactly why, personally speaking, I just can't take every one of the China-critical channels seriously.

[Bruce G Charlton]

Considering it is a nation of massive size and power, China has attempted amazingly little international "intervention" outside of its very immediate sphere.

What China may, or may not, do in its internal affairs, on the other side of the world - is something I regard as "not my business".

[onawah]

I don't take them all seriously either, but I normally spend enough time checking them out (there are a LOT of sources who are showing the dark side of China!) and comparing them to other sources to see if they are reliable.
It can get time-consuming, but there ARE credible sources who are watching closely, and there is often video film footage which helps a lot with determining what's real.
The source laowhy86 spent over a decade living in and travelling all over China, his wife's family is still there, and he still has many contacts there who send him information, even at peril of their lives.
The CCP closely monitors anything that might depict conditions in China in an unfavorable light, which they immediately censor if they can.
Now they even track down such individuals and capture them in their Death Vans.
So imho it's very important that the subject doesn't get buried by the massive CCP propaganda campaign that is ongoing, and which sadly, this forum has been posting much more of than the truth about China.

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Posted by onawah (here)
China’s Death Vans Just Got So Much Worse - Disturbing Footage & New Leaks
laowhy86
1.01M subscribers
Aug 19, 2025

"Just when I thought China's Death Vans couldn't get any worse."

(Do you think "China is the future"? I pray that it isn't!
Wonder why Bill wrote "a subtle acknowledgement that some of what you say about China may be correct."?
But no acknowledgement that much of what I've posted is true about how horrifyingly dystopian China has become ?
And why be "subtle" about such a shocking reality?
Why are there CCP propaganda pieces being posted regularly on the forum now with little debate over how true or false they are?
When it's clear that such pieces like this one are true, so much so that even the CCP isn't trying to hide the existence of the "Death Vans"...)

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=GxDCvbYoUeM

Here are three more videos from this guy's channel:

• China Just Lost 1 Billion People
• China and Russia are Enemies Now - This Changes Everything
• I Think China Might Invade Russia

If I may say: this is exactly why, personally speaking, I just can't take every one of the China-critical channels seriously.

[onawah]

Just because the CCP doesn't use their military to intervene and invade other countries doesn't mean they aren't actively working in many countries around the globe to further their plans for global conquest.
They know that the US and other countries have superior military power and would not stand idle.
The Belt and Road Initiative is one example of their underhanded attempts to do damage and gain power in other countries , their countless thefts of intellectual property is another, and their online hacking is probably the most concerning, by which their goal is to disable whole parts of the world in various ways including taking down the Internet and electric grid.
People turning a blind eye to such trickery is exactly why the situation has become so dangerous.
The CCP's propaganda campaign is very effective.

Posted by Bruce G Charlton (here)
Considering it is a nation of massive size and power, China has attempted amazingly little international "intervention" outside of its very immediate sphere.

What China may, or may not, do in its internal affairs, on the other side of the world - is something I regard as "not my business".

[onawah]

Here are just a few of many reliable sources saying that China's population is not what the CCP says it is.
The CCP's policies during COVID was responsible for a steep decline but there are many other reasons as well.
The CCP doesn't deny there is a decrease, but their numbers are falsified.

China Lied About Its Population — The Real Number Might Shock You. Part 1
Ken Cao
36.4K subscribers
Jul 21, 2025
"What if everything you’ve ever heard about China’s population… was a lie?
The Chinese Communist Party has long claimed that China has 1.4 billion people — the biggest population on Earth, a market so massive it commands global respect, investment, and fear. But what if I told you that number might be off by hundreds of millions? That China’s real population could be closer to 900 million — or even less?
In this explosive exposé, I pull back the red curtain and walk you through the math, the manipulation, and the madness behind one of the biggest statistical scams of the 21st century.
This isn’t a conspiracy theory. This is a full breakdown of how the CCP has inflated population data for decades — and why that lie is starting to fall apart. From fabricated birth rates and double-counted migrants to ghost cities, dying villages, and eerily empty streets, the signs are everywhere… if you’re willing to look.
📉 In this video, you’ll learn:
Why China’s population growth numbers don’t make any logical sense
How the one-child policy should have triggered a population collapse
The absurd propaganda math that claims China prevented 400 million births but still grew by 300 million
How local governments inflated numbers to get more money from Beijing
What ghost cities, dead villages, and vanishing people tell us about China’s real demographic disaster
Why the CCP’s lie is more than just a number — and how it threatens China’s future
🧠 Plus, I share a personal story that made me realize the entire system was built on phantom people and phantom numbers.
💀 And this is just Part 1.
Because when COVID hit, the whole illusion started to collapse. In Part 2, coming tomorrow, we’ll expose how the virus tore through a vulnerable, aging population — and why China’s real death toll may be far higher than you’ve been told."

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=5YqpGYt3hAU

****************
This particular source, Lei, is one of Paul's (Pythonic Cow) favorites.
Three stories that reveal China’s population collapse
Lei's Real Talk
382K subscribers
Nov 10, 2025
"China’s population collapse is no longer a distant warning — it’s happening now, in plain sight. Hospitals are going bankrupt, marriages are turning into government campaigns, and love itself is being priced and measured. In this episode, I’ll take you through three true stories that capture the unraveling of a nation: empty hospitals closing one after another, marriage booths set up in nightclubs, and young couples breaking under the weight of tradition and money. Together, they reveal what it really means when a country begins to run out of people — and hope."

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iR63cINrB-A

*****************
If you want a source with credentials.... From one year ago, but things certainly haven't improved in China since then. You can watch the full episode with Erik Bethel here: https://youtu.be/MqZNy5fSDxU?si=qD3Zn3hnphUmn0BO
World Bank Director: "I Saw the Craziest Things in China"
Shawn Ryan Clips
2.77M subscribers
Nov 16, 2024

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=bCnMz0Kx2f8

**********
China's 1.4 Billion Population is a Complete Lie (It's Much Lower) | Lei
Danny Jones Clips
Jul 10, 2025

"What if China’s 1.4 billion population was a complete lie? In this explosive episode, Chinese dissident Lei reveals insider evidence that China’s real population is far lower than the government claims. From falsified birth data to hidden death rates, Lei explains how the CCP has manipulated numbers for decades to project power, economic strength, and global influence.
Inside this episode:
Why China’s real population could be hundreds of millions lower
How falsifying data supports the CCP’s political agenda
The looming economic collapse driven by demographic decline
What a smaller population really means for China’s future as a superpower
🧠 If these numbers are true, the entire narrative about China’s rise changes overnight. "

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=FW8zalzvH-I

***************

[rgray222]

Taps run dry as water crisis forces Iran to consider evacuating its capital - 10 million people

A prolonged drought along with years of overconsumption, an inefficient agricultural sector and mismanagement have led to the problem, analysts say.

TEHRAN, Iran — A drastic new message adorns the walls of the Iranian capital, usually reserved for war heroes and weapons.

“There is a water shortage!” reads the government poster's slogan, inside a water container that is nearly empty. “It’s fall and there is still no rain.”

That’s not news to Erfan Ensani, 39, who returned home from a long day working in the textile section of the city’s central bazaar last week to find his taps running dry.

Iran is facing its worst water crisis in decades. With no end in sight and authorities warning they may even have to evacuate the capital of 10 million people, residents like Ensani are scrambling to respond.

“We didn’t have water for three days. The pressure was so low that nothing came out,” Ensani, who, like many residents, works two jobs to make ends meet, told NBC News in a recent interview in Tehran.

“The water company says we should buy pumps to solve the problem and also get a storage tank to keep some water. But that’s expensive, especially now when the economy is bad,” Ensani said.


People shop for water storage tanks following a drought crisis in Tehran

Everyone in his building is fed up, Ensani said, with some neighbors even traveling across the city to their relatives’ houses just to take a shower. Families with kids have an even more difficult time. “These are extra costs that people just can’t handle right now,” Ensani said.

President Masoud Pezeshkian said two weeks ago that extreme measures may need to be taken if there is no rain by late November.

“Even if we ration, if it doesn’t rain again, then we won’t have water at all,” he said, according to a video posted on the website of the semiofficial Tabnak news agency.

“They’ll have to evacuate Tehran.”

'A state of failure'
Tehran is now in its sixth year of drought, while temperatures that exceeded 122 degrees Fahrenheit over the summer led to power outages and an enforced public holiday.

The reservoirs that the capital depends on for water are now at only 5% of their reserve capacity, Mohsen Ardakani, the head of the Tehran Province Water and Wastewater Company, said two weeks ago, according to the semiofficial Mehr News Agency.

Iran’s 12-day war with Israel last summer also damaged water infrastructure, which has exacerbated the problem, according to Energy Minister Abbas Aliabadi, who warned two weeks ago that the government may have to resort to cutting water off completely on some nights to deal with the crisis.

The semiofficial Tasnim News Agency reported two weeks ago that water restrictions in Tehran had already begun.

Aliabadi said this week that Iran was using cloud-seeding technology in the hope of boosting rainfall, though it requires existing clouds to work.

A cloud-seeding flight was conducted in the Lake Urmia basin on Saturday, Mohammadmahdi Javadianzadeh, Head of the Organization for Development of Atmospheric Water Technologies, said.


Combination satellite images reveal variations in the water level of the Latian Dam, in northern Iran, on June 20 and Nov. 3

Part of the reason the Iranian government is so concerned is that a water crisis can build into a political grievance and fuel unrest.

Videos posted on social media and verified by NBC News showed students protesting water shortages at Tehran’s Al-Zahra University last weekend.

The issue has sometimes led to violence and arrests in the southwestern Khuzestan province, home to a large Arab minority that has long complained of neglect by the central government.

This time, many Iranians blame the state.

“The authorities have known about this problem for years, but nothing has been done,” Sadegh Razavi, a Tehran restaurant owner, said. “In a country as rich in resources as ours, it’s sad that we have no electricity in the summer and now a water crisis, too.”

The prolonged drought along with years of overconsumption, an inefficient agricultural sector and mismanagement — including decades building mega-dams of questionable utility — have led to the problem, analysts say.

“I don’t call it a crisis anymore. This is a state of failure. That’s why for years I’ve referred to it as water bankruptcy,” said Kaveh Madani, the director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health.

“A crisis is a state that you can mitigate, you can go back to normal at some point if you put forces together. But the damages we are seeing to the ecosystem, to the nature and even to many parts of the economy and infrastructure are irreversible.”

[IMG]Combination satellite images reveal variations in the water level of the Latian Dam, in northern Iran, on June 20 and Nov. 3[/IMG]
The receding waters of Latian Dam reveal a dry riverbed near Tehran, Iran, on Nov. 10

A 'no-brainer' crisis
The current situation was not a surprise to researchers based in North America who studied Iran’s water supply and the strains on it.

“It was a no-brainer,” said Ali Nazemi, an associate professor at Concordia University in Montreal.

In a 2021 study in the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports, Nazemi and other researchers warned that the Islamic Republic was overdrafting groundwater in nearly four-fifths of the landscape, which was causing Iran’s land to sink, its soil to grow more salty and its salt lakes to disappear.

The researchers, who dedicated the paper “to the people of Iran,” warned that a crisis was brewing that had the potential for “irreversible impacts on land and environment, threatening country’s water, food, socio-economic security.”

The researchers used publicly available data from Iran’s Ministry of Energy to assess the groundwater depletion. “After this paper was published, they took the data sets out of public access,” Nazemi said.

Read full story: https://www.nbcnews.com/world/iran/i...oms-rcna243430

[Ravenlocke]

Weather Monitor

Absolutely terrifying – a massive landslide at an artisanal mine has reportedly killed at least 80 people. November 15, 2025

📍Kawama, Lualaba Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).🇨🇬

https://x.com/WeatherMonitors/status...70771553534270

[Wilbur2]

When I first started visiting China on a regular basis, back around 2007, there were a lot of beggars on the streets. I bought a bicycle, and it got stolen three days later. Now, there's NO beggars. You can leave your bag or laptop outside a coffee shop and go across the street into a 7-11-style shop and buy something, then come back, and your laptop will almost certainly still be there.

The majority of Chinese will tell you, therefore, that "China is very safe". They all use EXACTLY the same sentence in Chinese to tell you this, so it's obviously a propaganda sentence that they have been fed (it never varies by so much as a single word). But how is this achieved? How do you take an unsafe country, with lots of petty crooks and thieves, and turn it into a country where there is hardly any petty crime at all? And NO beggars. And at the same time, the population falls by 400 million, mysteriously? I think you can take an educated guess at how this can be so.

Even my (Chinese) hairdresser has guessed how this can be, and told it to me, unbidden, over the last couple of weeks. Plus a guy whom I know who spent some time in a mental hospital after a couple of suicide attempts. He saw people in the mental hospital who didn't seem to have much wrong with them other than their petty criminality and poverty. My guess is that they simply scooped 200 million people up in a digger, and dropped them into a ditch (metaphorically speaking). The other 200 million will be due to miscounting and falling birth rates, no doubt.

It's nice that petty crime rates have fallen to close to zero. The fact that there are cameras EVERYWHERE (and what look like loudspeakers and microphones in the ground, badly hidden by plants and shrubs, all over the place), plus the fact that you have to carry a tracking device (er, I mean, phone) in order to pay for anything, no doubt contribute to making it hard to commit crime. I will leave it to the reader to decide whether shoveling 200 million people into a ditch is a reasonable price to pay for lower crime. I suppose it's a matter of personal taste....

I tried paying cash for everything for as long as possible. I gave up on that about a year-and-a-half ago. Many shops no longer carry change, and simply don't know what to do if you try to pay by cash, now. I got sick of waiting 20 minutes while they run to another shop to try to split your RMB100 note, every time I wanted a candy bar or a drink. Of course, if you've got nothing to hide, then you won't mind being tracked by your phone, and cameras all along every street, pointing in every direction. To people who tell me that, I usually ask, "Would it be OK if I watch you make love to your wife tonight?" We invariably discover that they, like me, DO in fact have things to hide.

[Ravenlocke]

Iran Observer

⚡️BREAKING

Iran sees rainfall for the first time in six months amid severe drought

People were urged to pray for rain

Cloud seeding operation has also begun

https://x.com/IranObserver0/status/1990091966650941587

https://x.com/iranscreenshot/status/1989601063129788757

[onawah]

But Bill, you really didn't say exactly why at all.
It was as if you thought all you had to do was mention the source you dislike and everyone would automatically get your point.
I can't help but wonder if you even watched those videos.
If you did, you would see they are all credible reporting, backed up by sources which I think you would probably consider to be credible if you really looked closely into the matter.
I think you believe laowhy86 is not credible simply because his style is not mainstream and he is actually funny and personable instead of dry and humorless like so many reporters are.
But he obviously has done and continues doing his research and to his regular viewers, he has clearly shown himself to be a serious reporter, not a frivolous entertainer, though he does manage to make his reporting entertaining.

As for China invading Russia, what laowhy86 reported on is significant, about the newest step that the CCP has taken in their planning to annex land which doesn't belong to them, just as they are actually claiming that Taiwan already belongs to them, which they have been doing for some time now.
In the maps the CCP draw, Taiwan is shown as being part of China.
And in this new video from laowhy86 he reports that it's the same now for the island Bolshoy Ussuriysk.
Following below is the video which you seem to think is bogus.

Posted by onawah (here)
I don't take them all seriously either, but I have spent enough time checking them out (and there are a LOT of sources who are showing the dark side of China!) ...and comparing them to other sources to see which are reliable.
It can get time-consuming, but there ARE credible sources who are watching closely, and there is often video film footage which helps a lot with determining what's real.
The source laowhy86 spent over a decade living in and travelling all over China; his wife's family is still there, and he still has many contacts there who send him information, even at peril of their lives, and he obviously does a tremendous amount of research.
Some of what he shares is speculation, of course, but it's based on plenty of research and personal experience, the latter of which is rare.
The same is true of his friend and cohort, Winston of youtube's "The China Show" and the channel "serpentza".
The CCP closely monitors anything that might depict conditions in China in an unfavorable light, which they immediately censor if they can.
Now they even track down such individuals and capture them in their Death Vans.
So imho it's very important that the subject doesn't get buried by the massive CCP propaganda campaign that is ongoing, and which sadly, this forum has been posting much more of than it is posting the truth about China.

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Here are three more videos from this guy's channel:[*]China Just Lost 1 Billion People[*]China and Russia are Enemies Now - This Changes Everything[*]I Think China Might Invade Russia[/LIST]If I may say: this is exactly why, personally speaking, I just can't take every one of the China-critical channels seriously.

**************
I Think China Might Invade Russia
laowhy86
1.01M subscribers Mar 15, 2025

"China is showing all of the warning signs of taking advantage of a country that's painted into a corner."
Sources:
https://www.newsweek.com/china-russia...
https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/13560
https://www.counteroffensive.news/p/t...
https://www.newsweek.com/bolshoy-ussu...
https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/ru...
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-china-...

Transcript:
"So, Russia and Ukraine, well they're in the news nonstop and rightfully so.
But what if I told you that China is secretly in the background, potentially getting ready to make the biggest land grab and ultimate betrayal the world has ever seen in modern times?
You see, China's been quietly changing Russian names of Siberian territories in Eastern Russia to Chinese ones, and it's not just for face.
They're not just doing it to play some angry nationalists in China, no, this is for world domination.
Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island on the China/ Russia border has been the subject of contention since the 1800s and there's a reason, but the biggest thing that you need to know today from this video is that China doesn't call it that.
China calls it the "Heixiazi Island" or "Black Bear Island", and it's been drawn by China as Chinese territory.
(Now you know, China and Russia, best friends forever...)
China just drew in a key territory under its ownership and instead of fighting back it looks like Russia has silently allowed this to happen and this is huge.
China is now building up the island as their very own.
You see, Russia owes China, they owe China big for its help in the invasion of Ukraine, but they don't have a whole lot to offer China other than its lands that China so humiliatingly lost in the past.
Now why does this matter? Let me put it this way; if China owns this island it would actually allow them to bypass Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, therefore ignoring US presence in Asia and in the Pacific Ocean.
China could effectively avoid all contact with US allies and literally go on a World Conquest, something I think they're planning on doing.
This makes a lot of sense with the insane naval and ship building explosion that we're actually seeing at the moment.
Now this is huge, but trust me, it actually gets a whole lot bigger and I mean physically too.
Now we are currently seeing China build up to a Taiwan invasion.
I mean they're literally making the landing pads but while I think that China's invasion of Taiwan is definitely going to happen someday, what about the invasion of Eastern Russia?
Not just talking about this island, I'm talking about the whole thing.
If you look around China's Northern regions, you will see that they are busy turning Earth into an absolute crate.
Rare Earth minerals, deposits, mines out the wazu.
China is looting and plundering every single inch of Earth that it can get its hands on and it makes a whole lot of sense with the future that the world is headed towards.
He who holds the chips and the resource for Tech production wins.
Does Taiwahave any of these resources? No.
If China invades Taiwan, Taiwan will blow up the chip factories and China will be left with an island of 20 million people that hate and reject China's rule.
Good luck!
But what if you look back up to where China's cratering the Earth in this mad rush of getting important resources?
In the Chinese provinces of inner Mongolia, Shinjang and Hong Jang where do those places border? They border Russia.
Where's the rest of those deposits that they're missing? Rare Earth minerals and resources?
They don't follow where country's borders are drawn.
They're right there on the other side of China, on the Russian side.
Why would China not make a massive effort to secretly push into these areas?
If China invaded Russia, would anyone care?
If they invaded Taiwan the whole world would lose their collective minds, but Russia?
No one's going to care if they invaded Russia.
Who's allied with Russia?
China, just China really, and do you think with China's current military buildup that Russia could fend off China?
I think not but again, aren't Russia and China friends?
No, really, I know you hear otherwise, but no.
Allied on shared goals but not long term. Don't buy the China/Russia friendship propaganda we've all seen that (let's be honest, very gay) China and Soviet posters from back in the day depict. But nobody shows these.
China and Russia hated each other for all of time. They distrust each other from the bottom of their very Souls.
Even as Communist allies, the Soviets taught people to hate China and China taught the Chinese that the Soviets were going to Nuke them. Mao hated the Soviet Union more than he hated the capitalists.
Mao built an entire underground city in Beijing to protect against the Soviets.
No one talks about this, but the Soviets and Communist China actually fought a war against each other and they've had many, many conflicts following.
China would have you believe that Russia is its long lost brother. That's all politics.
They have you believe these things because they have thousands and thousands of these Russia /China "friendship shops: that are springing up all over China, to get Chinese people to spend their hard-earned R&B in these shops to fund Russia's War efforts.
These shops sell Russian goods like chocolate and souvenirs and more, all in an effort for China to help its brother as it fights its "Justified War" in Ukraine.
But as angry Russians have found out, the vast majority of the products in these shops are counterfeit and they sell fake Russian Goods that are actually Chinese, and the money goes straight to the Chinese companies.
China betraying, lying and cheating.
Color Me surprised!
The Betrayal is real; there's no friendship here. An example of this distrust in action is the general vibe that I got when I went to the China/ Russia border.
There were banners telling Chinese people not to risk their lives running across into Russia, I guess presumably to escape.
There are military fortifications everywhere. The area feels incredibly tense and not relaxed at all
An interesting thing I discovered when I was up there was that the Soviets let Mao kind of draw the borders pretty randomly, so a bunch of White Russian people actually ended up on the Chinese side of the border and nobody knew.
Now there's actually White Russians who I met who are Chinese and it was really weird when I spoke to them because I actually had to communicate in Chinese.
To them now on the Russian side of things, they are losing a ton of men from Eastern Russia to the war in Ukraine, so because of the downturn in the economy of Russia they desperately, desperately need immigrants.
What better immigrants do they have than your Chinese compatriots, right across the border?
But people in Russia have a staunchly anti-Chinese stance against Chinese immigrants coming to Russia and why?
Well here's the deal; these parts of Eastern Russia are actually home to many minority groups of people that look Asian.
These are not white people. Russia is worried that China will softpower these minority regions of people that look Asian into the Chinese sphere of influence, effectively making them Breakaway regions, separatist regions from Russia.
They could use Chinese apps like Tik Tok and Chinese social media to spread messaging within the region and catalize the already-not-very nationalistic Asian-looking minority groups in Russia.
Many of whom have lost their husbands or fathers or uncles in the war far away in Ukraine.
They could use the typical false promise of Chinese Utopia across the border, judging from China's successful psyop on Americans who are uneducated about the reality of China, and getting them tomove over to Red Note to spread more Chinese propaganda to them.
I could see that strategy working very well.
None of these behaviors on China or Russia's side screams friendship to me.
One of China's goals is to pair up with Russia to limit US influence around the world, but if the US and Russia patch things up, and I mean even to like a tiny, tiny extent, China's about to lose a lot of its cards and its ambitions to control the region.
China thinks it owns Russia right now, but if it doesn't have a unified enemy of the US with another major power.
Well, China just lost a massive hand in this global poker game; it would make perfect sense that China over the near future would try and scoop up its old perceived territories and try to milk Eastern Russia for its resources.
The be and end all is that China's ambitions are not to chill out and be peaceful by itself, despite China's official outward message to the world that is it's a peaceful nation that just wants all the countries in the world to get along.
China's ambitions are world domination and that hasn't changed.
Mao isn't gone; I know he's a piece of jerky laying in a mausoleum right now, but Mao led the Communist Party into victory over China and that same government, that same Constitution, those same ambitions are very, very real.
As China tries to take on the US more and more it will also try and take everything around it, if not through diplomatic and economic coercion then they're going to do it by force. You'll see..."

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=3CEHHXoKwZQ

[gini]

Onawah thank you for posting about chinese matters , but imho its difficult to take these ´entertaining style´ China shows seriously.even if its news is (partially?) true ,because me personnally cant watch the sensationalistic reporting style like the one above. And many of these shows are -for me-way too long to absorb . Here in Thailand i meet more and more chinese people and they make me aware that most of the news we receive in the west is often fake or incomplete .so i´m careful who to listen to ,and whom to ´believe´.

[onawah]

Yes, I am careful too about which sources I check into, but I don't consider The China Show or laowhy86 or serpentza to be sensationalist, rather, they are very authentic in that they lived and worked and travelled all over China for over a decade, married Chinese women and so now have family members still living in China, including many connections with people they knew when they were living there. They both focus much of their time in researching and connecting with other researchers, and are obviously not making a lot of money being shills for any other anonymous someones, as I think many of those who are considered to be "professionals" probably are.
There ARE a lot of sources which are sensationalist, but they feature very impersonal reporting style, no identification of who is reporting, often using AI voices, etc. They also do report credible information, but with dramatic background music and other sensationalistic ploys. The vibe is completely different than the 3 sources I name above. Lei is another authentic source with personal experience and good connections with other credible researchers. The other sources I have referenced are also not at all sensationalistic.

Posted by gini (here)
Onawah thank you for posting about chinese matters , but imho its difficult to take these ´entertaining style´ China shows seriously.even if its news is (partially?) true ,because me personnally cant watch the sensationalistic reporting style like the one above. And many of these shows are -for me-way too long to absorb . Here in Thailand i meet more and more chinese people and they make me aware that most of the news we receive in the west is often fake or incomplete .so i´m careful who to listen to ,and whom to ´believe´.

[onawah]

Responding to last but not least of the three issues Bill named in his post https://projectavalon.net/forum4/sho...=1#post1692060
...as to why China is Russia's enemy:

Moscow's ALL Europe Bridges Is Gone—Soviet Allies BETRAY Russia as US Shuts Down ALL Exits
PPR GLOBAL
Nov 16, 2025

"Putin's energy empire is crumbling. This is not a military defeat, but the result of a flawless ‘legal trap’ designed in Washington. The US's ‘secondary sanctions’ against Lukoil and Gazprom have caused Putin to lose not only his assets in Europe, but also his most trusted allies.
In this video, we examine the diplomatic checkmate that completes Putin's global isolation:
🔹 WAVE OF SEIZURES IN EUROPE: How did the US ‘legal trap’ force Bulgaria, Germany and Romania to seize Lukoil and Rosneft assets for their own national security?
🔹 BALKAN BETRAYAL (SERBIA): Putin's stronghold Serbia was left without fuel because of its national oil company, owned by Russia's Gazprom. Panicking President Vucic abandoned Putin by calling Zelensky and signalling sanctions to the EU.
🔹 EASTERN FRONT COLLAPSES: How did Putin's ‘Plan B,’ the Eastern market, close? We analyse why and how China (Sinopec), India (IOC) and Turkey (SOCAR, Tüpraş) halted Russian oil purchases.
🔹 BILLIONS STRANDED IN THE OCEAN: We show how 380 MILLION barrels of Russian oil are stranded in the oceans due to a lack of buyers and how prices have collapsed.
🔹 COLLAPSE ON THE HOME FRONT: We reveal how this economic disaster is paving the way for mass unemployment and social unrest in Russia's ‘monotowns’ (single-industry cities).
Putin is on the verge of losing the war he started with energy blackmail, abandoned by all his allies, isolated and bankrupt."

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7UIlhixQDoY

*************
DOUBLE BLOW to Putin... Ukraine STRIKES DEEP as China Abandons Russia
The Military Show
1.91M subscribers
Nov 12, 2025

"Russia’s war machine runs on oil—and Ukraine just struck a massive blow. On November 11, Ukrainian drones hit deep inside Russia, targeting key refineries in Saratov and Orenburg, and a major oil terminal in Crimea. These attacks cripple Russia’s fuel supply as China, once a top buyer, abandons Russian crude amid new U.S. sanctions. Watch as Ukraine’s strategy, combined with shifting global alliances, threatens to choke Putin’s war economy from the inside out."

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Sxb4cNwpjFo

***************
Though Rachel Maddow is hardly what has been considered a reliable source among conspiracy theorists, she has her own channel now so perhaps she is being more honest these days and clearly, there are other more credible sources which are backing up what she's reporting here in detail:

Chaos for Putin: Deep Strikes Hit Russia as China Turns Its Back
Rachel Maddow/Deep Current Report
3.53K subscribers
Nov 15, 2025

"In this special investigation, we break down the most consequential 24 hours of the entire war — a day when Vladimir Putin was hit from two sides at once.
As Ukrainian drones tore through Russia’s defenses and struck deep inside its oil heartland, something even more destabilizing unfolded far from the battlefield:
China — Russia’s most important oil customer — quietly stepped away.
For a Kremlin that relies on refined fuel to power its tanks, jets, convoys, and occupation machinery, Ukraine’s strikes were devastating on their own.
But the real shock came when a major Chinese refiner announced it would no longer buy Russian crude, following weeks of suspensions from other state-backed firms.
This episode reveals how these two events — one explosive, one silent — converged into the single biggest blow to Putin’s war machine in years.
Using verified data, satellite imagery, economic analysis, and insider reporting, we uncover:
how Ukraine bypassed Russian air defenses to strike refineries hundreds of miles inside Russia,
why losing millions of tons of refining capacity cripples Russia’s military logistics,
how U.S. sanctions pressured China into backing away from Russian oil,
and why Beijing’s retreat may be more damaging to the Kremlin than any missile strike.
Narrated in the style of Rachel Maddow, this long-form investigation connects infrastructure to strategy, economics to geopolitics, and pressure to consequence — showing how power can collapse not with a single explosion, but with a sudden shift in the global system."

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=UmG401_VvZM

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
I just can't take every one of the China-critical channels seriously.

Meaning which of:

• You cannot take some of the China-critical channels seriously.
• You cannot take any of the China-critical channels seriously.

There is at least one channel that could reasonably be described as China-critical, as critical of Xi and the current CCP at least, namely Lei's Real Talk, that I do take seriously. Lei has, for example, made an excellent case that China has suffered a major population decline in recent years. The infiltration of the dark side into China's power centers is perhaps deeper even than in Washington DC, New York City, London, Tel Aviv, Davos, or Brussels.