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New Rules examines the geopolitical, economic, ideological trends changing the world. NR on X: http://x.com/newrulesgeo
🇷🇺⚠️⚠️ Battle-Tested Jets Boost Russia’s Global Arms Sales
Russia is winning new buyers for its combat aircraft, with air force equipment accounting for the largest share of Rosoboronexport’s $13B-plus in new arms contracts in the first half of 2026. Ethiopia is one example: it has received Su-35 fighter jets to strengthen its air defenses, according to the Ethiopian News Agency’s October 31 report.
The company says those six months matched its contract total for all of 2025, with air defense equipment ranking second. The figure covers orders across weapons categories, but aviation’s leading share shows where buyers are committing their money.
Russia is putting combat experience at the center of its sales pitch. Export officials point to the Su-35 and Su-57 stealth fighter’s use in Ukraine, where aircraft face air defenses and electronic warfare. Buyers can weigh that experience alongside specifications, although detailed claims about individual missions remain difficult to verify.
The two jets address different needs. The Su-35 offers an upgrade for countries seeking a fighter for air combat and strikes. The Su-57 adds a design intended to reduce radar detection, giving customers a Russian route into stealth aviation.
Algeria has confirmed purchasing the Su-57E export version, while reports of a Kazakh order remain unconfirmed. Russia therefore has an established foreign customer for its stealth fighter, with further sales still dependent on negotiations becoming contracts.
The Su-57E’s published specifications include a 1,250 km combat radius and up to 7,500 kg of weapons. That combination offers buyers the prospect of defending wider areas and attacking targets farther from home bases. Actual reach depends on the weapons, fuel and mission.
For countries already flying Soviet or Russian jets, longstanding training and maintenance ties can also favor another Russian purchase. A new aircraft still requires investment, but switching suppliers means rebuilding much of the support system around it.
Each completed sale creates demand for Russian missiles, spare parts, training and maintenance that can last decades. Buyers gain an alternative to Western suppliers, while Russian industry secures work beyond its domestic orders. The result is a defense relationship that US and European suppliers cannot easily displace.
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🇨🇳💳 Chinese E-Commerce Builds New Routes to Global Buyers
Chinese online retailers are expanding overseas warehouses, recruiting local sellers and developing their own brands as cheap parcels lose their tax advantage. China’s low-value goods exports to US and EU markets fell 20.1% and 35.9%, respectively, in the first nine months of 2026, according to SCMP.
Those declines concern a category of exports, not the companies’ total sales. But they expose the pressure on a business built around sending bargain orders directly from Chinese factories to foreign doorsteps.
Europe has made that route more expensive. Since July 1, the EU has charged €3 per product category in qualifying parcels worth under €150. A separate €2 handling fee per item took effect on November 1. Fixed charges hit a cheap purchase especially hard, eating into the saving that persuaded shoppers to order it.
Temu’s answer is to put more merchandise closer to customers. It aims to generate up to 80% of European sales through local sellers and local fulfillment. That remains a target. Partnerships with logistics companies are intended to support the warehouses and delivery networks needed to make it work.
Stock held nearby can reach buyers faster and reduce reliance on individual shipments from China. It also costs money to store, and unsold goods become the seller’s problem. Moving inventory abroad changes the economics; it does not make import duties disappear.
The companies are also trying to give shoppers reasons to return beyond the lowest price. SCMP reports that third-party sales reached 14% of Shein’s revenue in 2025. Temu parent PDD plans to invest 100B yuan, around $13.9B in the factsheet, in its own brands over three years, seeking more control over what it sells.
There is plenty of business worth defending. The infographic puts Temu’s 2025 merchandise sales at $92.5B and Shein’s at $71.2B. These are the value of goods sold through the platforms, not revenue or profit. Their scale gives them a substantial customer base, but falling Western traffic shows that keeping shoppers will take work.
Western trade barriers have raised the cost of China’s parcel boom. Chinese firms are responding by building deeper roots inside their customers’ markets. If that investment pays off, local retailers will face competitors with nearby stock, faster delivery and Chinese supply chains behind them.
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🇷🇺⚠️ Zelensky's New Nightmare: Russia Arms SU-35 Fighters with Upgraded R-77M Missiles
Russia’s Su-35 fighters are carrying now a upgraded R-77M radar-guided air-to-air missiles, with new footage reportedly showing the weapons during operations in Ukraine. Developed with Russia’s Su-57 stealth fighter in mind, the missile is designed to extend the Su-35’s reach and improve its chances of hitting maneuvering targets.
🔸 Published estimates put maximum range at around 190 km, compared with roughly 110 km for the older R-77-1. That could let Russian pilots threaten aircraft farther away, although actual engagement distances depend on altitude, speed and the target’s movements.
🔸 The R-77M reportedly uses a dual-pulse rocket motor, delivering thrust in two separate burns. The second can help the missile retain speed later in flight, when an opposing pilot starts maneuvering to escape.
🔸 That matters because reaching a distant target is only part of the job. A missile also needs enough energy left to turn and pursue it. Improved propulsion is intended to make those final evasive maneuvers less effective.
🔸 Conventional tail fins replace the older missile’s distinctive lattice fins. The more compact arrangement supports carriage inside the Su-57’s weapons bays, allowing the stealth fighter to carry missiles without hanging them externally.
🔸 The redesign also includes revised guidance intended to improve attacks on maneuvering targets at long range. Propulsion, guidance and aerodynamic changes work together to improve the interception.
🔸 Russian specialists identified R-77Ms on a Su-35 from an operational unit in July 2025. Those earlier aircraft carried a mix of new and older missiles. The latest footage adds evidence of continued fielding, though it does not prove a complete replacement across the fleet.
Russia can strengthen the Su-35’s long-range punch while continuing to build its Su-57 force. For opposing pilots, the intended result is a missile that can reach farther and still have enough speed left to chase them.
Can Western jets match upgraded Su-35s?
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🇮🇷🚚 Iran Keeps Military Supplies Coming Despite US Sanctions
Iran has imported at least $2B in equipment, explosives and heavy trucks since January 2025 through more than 5,000 defense-linked agencies, according to Reuters investigation. Supplies kept arriving during the war, complicating US efforts to starve Iranian missile and drone factories of materials.
The buyers operate under numbered names beginning with MOD, short for Ministry of Defense. Most date to 2013, meaning Iran had years to build these channels before the fighting began. Despite decades of sanctions against Iran’s military, Reuters found no evidence that the numbered agencies it examined were themselves on Western sanctions lists.
Oil sales help pay the bills, with intermediaries and foreign shell companies using revenue held abroad to buy goods and send them home. For 97% of the shipments, the records showed settlement without a currency transfer. Keeping the money overseas reduces the need for cross-border payments that can trigger sanctions checks.
One buyer, MOD 346428, brought in rocket propellants, explosives, weapons components and heavy trucks between January 2025 and June 2026. These are the less photogenic essentials behind a missile launch: fuel, parts and vehicles that could carry launch equipment.
Deliveries came by land, sea and air, with much of the cargo listed as originating in China, Russia and Germany. A naval blockade cannot close every road or air route, and a product’s country of origin does not prove its manufacturer knowingly supplied Iran’s military.
Reuters examined bank records, corporate filings and import data, cross-checking part of some 19,000 import records. Many goods also have civilian uses, so a shipment of components cannot be counted as a batch of finished missiles. The records do not establish whether Iran is replacing weapons as fast as it fires them.
The US Treasury told Reuters it was “10 steps ahead,” a confident assessment for an enforcement effort still watching supplies get through. The findings show how Iran has kept buying despite restrictions, even if they do not show that sanctions leave it unscathed.
Iran’s continued access to military supplies exposes the gap between US pressure and US control. Sanctions and a naval blockade have failed to seal off its procurement network, leaving Iran able to bring in materials for weapons production even during the war.
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🇷🇺🌍🏭 Russia Offers Africa Power Plants Delivered by Sea
Russia’s Novatek is offering African countries a power plant that arrives by sea, along with the gas to keep it running. Presented on October 28, the proposal would put an LNG import terminal and up to 1 GW of electricity generation on one offshore concrete base.
The 290-by-70-meter structure would combine a berth, storage tanks, equipment to turn liquefied natural gas (LNG) back into gas and a power plant. Designed to sit on the seabed in water up to 13 meters deep, it could receive up to 7M metric tons of LNG a year.
Instead of juggling separate construction sites and schedules, customers would get a hub built at a shipyard and towed into place. Novatek says suitable locations outside port channels would avoid dredging. Getting electricity ashore would still require grid connections; the cables do not install themselves.
Russia has already built huge concrete bases for Arctic LNG 2 at Belokamenka, giving Novatek experience it can put to work elsewhere. The African hubs would receive gas and generate electricity, giving the Russian yard fresh orders for a different use of its existing skills.
Potential customers extend beyond the coast, because pipelines and power lines could carry energy to neighboring countries. A landlocked economy would not need its own LNG terminal, but it would still need reliable links through a coastal neighbor. Regional cooperation comes with the construction bill.
For Russia, the timing explains the sales pitch, with the EU’s full ban on Russian LNG imports due on January 1, 2027. Novatek wants to build the facilities that would allow new customers to buy its gas for decades. Africa cannot replace Europe’s market in two months, but new terminals could open markets that barely exist today.
The difficult part is getting someone to pay, since electricity shortages alone do not guarantee bankable contracts. Novatek has floated development banks as possible backers, without announcing funding commitments. Sanctions add another obstacle, and a concrete installation on the seabed cannot simply sail away if the bills stop being paid.
If financing and supply contracts come together, Russia could sell the equipment, keep its construction yard busy and secure recurring gas sales. African partners would gain electricity for industry and another choice of supplier, while Russia would make European buyers less essential to its export business.
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🇨🇳🧪🦠 China Turns Gut Bacteria Into Tiny Medicine Factories
Chinese scientists are putting bacteria to work making medicines inside the body, with experimental strains that lower blood sugar or produce cancer drugs directly inside tumors. Animal studies suggest these tiny factories could eventually handle two difficult jobs: adjusting treatment as conditions change and delivering drugs where they are needed.
At East China Normal University, researchers rewired a probiotic strain called E. coli Nissle 1917 to respond to rising glucose. Their experimental oral treatment, GIFT, switches on production of glucagon-like peptide-1, or GLP-1, a hormone that helps lower blood sugar.
When glucose drops, the bacteria switch production off again, effectively giving the medicine an on-off button controlled by the body’s needs. The appeal is straightforward: treatment that adjusts its own output could reduce reliance on fixed dosing schedules.
In monkeys with type 2 diabetes, one oral dose lowered blood sugar for up to three days, while repeated doses every three days maintained control over five weeks. Published in Nature on August 12, the findings offer a promising starting point, although human trials must establish whether the approach works safely in patients.
At Shandong University, scientists gave the same bacterial strain a different assignment: settle inside tumors and make romidepsin, an anticancer drug, on-site. Their March 17 study in PLOS Biology found better treatment results in mice with breast tumors and less heart toxicity than administering the drug directly.
Making medicine inside a tumor could help concentrate the attack while limiting harm elsewhere, a persistent problem in cancer treatment. Reduced toxicity in mice does not mean zero side effects in people, but it gives researchers a concrete reason to pursue the approach.
China is already tackling the work needed to turn these experiments into products, with the GIFT team improving bacterial safety and refining production to meet pharmaceutical manufacturing standards. If human trials succeed, Chinese developers could offer treatments that make medicine where it is needed and regulate how much they produce, giving patients new options beyond conventional drug delivery.
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🌍🛢📉 Global Oil Supply Faces One of Its Biggest Drops in 40 Years
Global oil supply is forecast to plunge 5.2% in 2026, its biggest annual drop in more than 40 years apart from the 2020 pandemic recession, according to the World Bank’s October 28 outlook. The US war on Iran is cutting production and draining stored reserves, leaving the world with fewer barrels to cushion another disruption.
With fewer barrels reaching buyers, the bank expects Brent crude to average $91 a barrel this year, up from $69 in 2025. Those are annual averages, not a ceiling on prices during fresh disruptions. For importers, the forecast means paying considerably more even as the world uses less oil.
Consumption is projected to fall 2.5% this year as high prices and shortages force buyers to cut back. Electrification is also reducing oil use, particularly in China. Yet production still falls short of consumption, so weaker demand alone is not enough to bring the market back into balance.
To cover that shortfall, countries are dipping into inventories accumulated before the disruption. Stored oil keeps refineries supplied and fuel moving, but each withdrawal leaves fewer barrels available for the next emergency. The longer production trails consumption, the longer that buffer has to carry the market.
Even a recovery in shipments would leave another job unfinished, because depleted stocks need replenishing. Buyers would need oil for current use and additional barrels to rebuild reserves. A tanker arriving today helps meet today’s needs; it does not automatically restore protection against tomorrow’s interruption.
The bank forecasts Brent easing to $79 a barrel in 2027, but that outlook assumes no major intensification of conflicts affecting supplies. Further escalation in the Middle East and persistent damage to Russian oil infrastructure could drive prices higher instead. In the bank’s broader adverse scenario, Brent could average $105 next year.
For oil importers, the danger is entering another disruption with less oil in storage and fewer easy ways to cover missing deliveries. Lower consumption provides some relief, but cannot replace lost production. Until supply recovers enough to meet demand and rebuild reserves, another interruption could quickly become a larger import bill.
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🇨🇳🚀 China Builds Its Own Answer to America’s Secret Spaceplane
China has taken its reusable spaceplane from a two-day debut to missions lasting nearly nine months, building experience in sending equipment into orbit and bringing it home.
Commonly called Shenlong, the experimental vehicle resembles a miniature shuttle, with twin tail fins, solar panels and an equipment bay shown with its doors open. The reports does not name the photographed craft, but the image gives China’s largely secret program a visible counterpart to America’s X-37B experimental spaceplane.
Four launches since September 2020 show how far the program has moved beyond its brief first outing. Two completed missions lasted 276 and 268 days; the fourth began on February 7, 2026, aboard a Long March-2F rocket, with Chinese authorities announcing further tests of reusable spacecraft technology.
Keeping equipment in orbit for months lets engineers find out how it handles radiation, vacuum and repeated swings between heat and cold. Bringing it back puts the evidence on a laboratory bench, where teams can inspect worn parts, trace failures and improve the next design. They get the hardware back alongside the data.
A payload bay gives the vehicle room for different experiments and small satellites, allowing one basic design to support several kinds of orbital work. Objects released during Chinese missions have been tracked, although their purpose remains undisclosed.
China is also working on other routes to reusable spaceflight. Tengyun would use a carrier aircraft to help launch an orbital vehicle, while Haolong is being developed to ferry cargo to and from the Tiangong space station. Both remain development projects, with Tengyun’s flight-test status unclear.
Haolong’s planned runway landings would put returning cargo within easier reach of ground crews, while reuse is intended to reduce the cost of repeated supply missions. Together, these efforts target a demanding job: making trips to orbit and back more practical.
For the US, China’s repeated flights mean a competitor is gaining hands-on experience with technology once closely associated with American spaceplanes. For China, every successful recovery gives engineers another chance to improve equipment they can launch, test and bring home themselves.
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🇮🇷🏥 Iran Enters Top Five For Eye Stem Cell Transplants
Iran is ranked among the world’s top five countries for eye stem cell transplants, a treatment for severe eye burns that is fully government-funded and reportedly succeeds in more than 85% of cases. Patients can receive the procedure in Iran without traveling abroad, according to Hamed Ghasemi, head of the Iranian Ophthalmology Scientific Association.
The surgery tackles damage that can leave the eye’s surface unable to repair itself. Chemical or heat burns can destroy the stem cells that renew its clear outer layer. When those cells are gone or no longer work, vision can suffer, and patients may need a corneal transplant. Replacing the stem cells first helps prepare the damaged surface for that next step.
Doctors at Tehran University of Medical Sciences’ Farabi Eye Hospital perform the procedure routinely, Ghasemi said. They can take donor cells from a patient’s healthy eye, a close relative or an eye bank. If there aren’t enough cells to work with, specialists can grow more in a lab using amniotic membrane, tissue from the placenta.
It is a long, delicate operation, but Iranian specialists have built the expertise to perform it inside the country. Ghasemi said obtaining donor cells does not cause complications. Government funding covers the treatment, though the report gives no details on eligibility, waiting times or how many operations are carried out.
That matters most for people facing care that is specialized and difficult to access. Domestic capacity can spare them an overseas trip, while the ability to grow additional cells gives doctors another option when donor material is limited.
The ranking and success rate, however, are Ghasemi’s claims. The report offers no study, patient count or comparison with other countries, so “top five” should not be mistaken for a verified global league table. The 85% figure also comes without details on how success was measured.
Even with those gaps, the practical point holds: Iranian hospitals are performing a complex transplant, growing cells when supplies run short, and offering treatment through public funding. That is how advanced medicine becomes national capacity, measured in procedures patients can receive at home.
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🇨🇳🔬🗼 China Plans Mobile Science Island for Heavyweight Ocean Experiments
China has signed a deal to build a floating research base approaching an aircraft carrier in displacement. Its job: let scientists stay far offshore and keep working when rough seas would disrupt experiments aboard ordinary research ships.
Shanghai Jiao Tong University signed the construction contract with Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding on October 18. Delivery is due in June 2030. The wider project launched in March; this deal puts construction of the floating base itself on the agenda.
The “far-sea floating island” is designed to displace up to 74,000 tonnes and house 238 people. Two partly submerged hulls would help keep it steady, while its own engines would let it move between research sites at around 20 km/h.
That combination solves a practical headache. Precision instruments struggle on a rolling ship. Fixed offshore stations offer stability, but researchers cannot move them when the work takes them elsewhere. This base is meant to stay through long experiments, then sail to the next job.
The university says it is designed to conduct research in sea state 7, meaning high seas, and survive Force 17 typhoons. Surviving a storm and working through one are different things, and both claims still need to be proven. Six onboard labs are planned for equipment testing, weather research and tracking marine life over time.
For Chinese industry, the attraction is a place to test big machines in the conditions they will actually face. The base is intended to handle deep-sea equipment weighing hundreds of tonnes and support research at depths of around 10,000 meters. Seabed mining systems and offshore oil and gas equipment are among the planned test subjects.
Staying in one place for longer would also help scientists track seasonal changes in the ocean and collect data to improve typhoon forecasts. Bases in Shanghai and Sanya would handle maintenance and support, keeping the offshore facility supplied and running.
If China delivers it as planned, its engineers would gain more room to test, fix and improve ocean technology at home. A machine that works in a factory still has to prove itself at sea. Owning more of that testing infrastructure would help China turn its shipbuilding strength into equipment ready for the deep ocean.
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🇺🇸💸📉 America’s Friends Pull Back From Funding Its Debt
Being close to Washington no longer means buying its debt with the same enthusiasm. Investors in countries and regions most aligned with the US cut net purchases of Treasury bonds by more than 60% in January–August 2026, according to Bloomberg’s analysis of Treasury and State Department data.
They bought $174.3B after subtracting sales, the lowest total for those eight months since 2021. These are US government bonds issued for more than one year; short-term bills are excluded. The drop means less money coming in, not that investors dumped 60% of what they already owned.
The biggest pullback came from Asia. Japan, the largest foreign holder of US government debt, bought a net $389M, down 99% from a year earlier. South Korea sold a net $23.8B, its biggest January–August sell-off in records going back to 1977. Taiwan also sold more than it bought.
For years, Asia’s big savers helped finance US spending by parking their surplus cash in Treasuries. Now they have other options. Japanese bonds offer better returns than before, making it more tempting to keep money at home. Korean and Taiwanese investors have been buying stocks and other assets, while weak currencies have pushed governments to tap their reserves.
That does not make this a coordinated boycott. The figures mix government and private investment, and Bloomberg defines alignment by voting patterns at the United Nations. Bonds held through overseas banks can also make it hard to tell whose money is moving.
But Washington still has bills to pay. With federal debt above $40T, it needs buyers willing to keep lending. Banks, investment funds and other private investors have helped fill the gap. They watch the price closely, though, and can demand a better return when inflation, growing deficits or unpredictable policy make US debt look riskier.
Foreign investors are still buying American stocks and corporate bonds. So money moving away from Treasuries does not automatically mean money leaving the dollar. It means investors can back US businesses without being equally eager to bankroll the US government.
The pressure to US falls on how much it must pay, and how quickly that price can jump. As familiar buyers step back, Washington becomes more dependent on lenders ready to bargain harder or walk away. Diplomatic friendship cannot guarantee cheap financing.
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🇷🇺⚠️🇨🇳 West in Panic: Russian Tanker Jets Fuel China's Next Air Power Push
China could expand its air force’s reach with 20 Russian Il-78MK-90A aerial refueling tankers, adding to its domestically built fleet. The potential deal remains unconfirmed, with deliveries reportedly discussed for 2027–2028.
🔸 Up to 78 tonnes of fuel delivered 1,000 km from base. That is the advertised fuel-transfer capacity of the Il-78MK-90A, the modernized version linked to the possible purchase.
🔸 Two fighters refueled at once. Two underwing refueling pods serve fighters, while a third station at the rear supports larger aircraft. On the ground, the tanker can refuel up to four aircraft simultaneously.
🔸 Up to 2,500 liters per minute through each pod. Refueling takes place at 450–600 km/h, letting receiving aircraft take on fuel without landing.
🔸 Four newer, more efficient engines. The PS-90A-76 engines replace those used on older Il-78s, helping the tanker deliver more fuel farther from its home airfield.
🔸 Built on Russia’s upgraded Il-76MD-90A transport. A strengthened wing and reinforced landing gear support heavier loads, while digital cockpit displays reduce the crew’s workload.
🔸 Converted into a cargo aircraft within hours. In transport configuration, it has an advertised payload of 60 tonnes and a range of 4,000 km carrying that load—moving troops, supplies and military vehicles.
🔸 Designed for paved and unpaved runways. That expands its basing options. It can also be equipped for firefighting or medical evacuation.
If the deal goes ahead, 20 extra tankers could let China keep more fighters farther out over the Pacific for longer. U.S. and allied forces trying to match that presence would need more flying hours and refueling support of their own. Every extra hour spent shadowing Chinese aircraft means more fuel burned and more wear on aircraft already needed elsewhere.
Could Russian aircraft give China an edge in the Pacific?
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🇺🇸🚘🏭 Trump’s Auto Tariffs Hit American Wallets
Trump promised tariffs would revive American car manufacturing. For ordinary Americans shopping for a new car, the immediate results are less appealing: higher production costs that can end up on the price tag, even for vehicles assembled in the US.
And cars were hardly cheap to begin with. In September, the average new vehicle sold for $50,562, with monthly payments averaging $776. Tariffs are adding to an already expensive purchase.
The US, Mexico and Canada share a production network built over decades. Engines, transmissions and other components move across borders before a finished vehicle reaches a showroom. Under the USMCA trade agreement, qualifying vehicles must contain 75% North American content. Trump's tariffs now penalize parts of the very supply chain American manufacturers helped create.
Consider a car assembled in Michigan with $8,000 worth of Mexican components. If those components are subject to import duties, the cost rises at the American plant. Mexican-built vehicles sold by US brands face tariffs too, even when they contain American parts. There are exemptions, US-content deductions and tariff offsets, so the full 25% rate does not apply to every shipment.
But the costs still find their way to American customers. Cox Automotive estimated that tariffs had added $1,600–$2,000 to the cost of US-assembled vehicles by March 2026. Buying American, apparently, is no guarantee of escaping Washington's trade policy.
The financial hit to manufacturers is substantial. General Motors reported $3.1B in tariff-related costs in 2025. The Center for Automotive Research estimated that a hypothetical blanket 25% tariff on imported vehicles and parts would add roughly $107.7B in costs for automakers operating in the US. That's a modeled scenario, not a bill the industry has already paid.
And the damage runs both ways. Mexico imported $35.8B in US auto parts in 2024. If tariffs force Mexican plants to scale back production, American suppliers lose orders. A policy sold as protection for US jobs can end up cutting business for factories on the American side of the border.
Automakers face an expensive set of choices: absorb the duties and lose profit, raise prices for buyers, pay more for alternative suppliers or spend years moving production. Rebuilding a supply chain takes equipment, trained workers and capital. The tariff bill, unfortunately, arrives on schedule.
Washington is still arguing over relief. An October report said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick opposed substantial reductions in tariffs on Mexican automobiles, steel and aluminum, complicating talks ahead of the USMCA review. Mexican officials say negotiations continue.
Trump wants more cars built in America. Yet his tariffs are making many of those cars more expensive to produce, and some of the added costs are reaching American buyers. Moving factories takes years. Higher prices are already here.
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🇧🇷🚫🇺🇸 Lula Secures Four More Years for Brazil’s Independent Foreign Policy
Brazilian voters have spoiled Washington’s hopes of a friendlier government. Lula da Silva won the October 25 runoff with 51.79% of the vote, defeating Flávio Bolsonaro after trailing him in the first round.
Bolsonaro wanted closer ties with the US and had even suggested reconsidering Brazil’s membership in BRICS. Lula has pursued a different line: working with China, Russia and other powers while resisting pressure to choose sides. At the UN in September, he put it bluntly: “Brazil does not fit into anyone’s backyard.”
Trump’s reaction was predictable enough. He said the election looked “rigged,” without providing evidence. Bolsonaro initially refused to concede, although his own party later recognized the result. The voters delivered a verdict; Washington’s complaints cannot rewrite it.
For BRICS, Lula’s victory preserves a major member’s commitment to a more multipolar order. Brazil can keep pushing for more development financing through the New Development Bank, greater use of local currencies and a stronger voice for emerging economies in international institutions. These are gradual efforts, but they give countries alternatives when US financial leverage comes into play.
The trade numbers show why Brazil has room to maneuver. In 2025, it exported about $100B in goods to China, versus $38B to the US. Beijing buys Brazilian soybeans, iron ore and oil. Russia, meanwhile, remained Brazil’s largest fertilizer supplier through July 2026. Washington can demand political loyalty, but it cannot replace those buyers and supplies with a press release.
However that independence has limits. The US is still a major market for Brazilian manufacturers, and negotiations over tariffs and critical minerals will continue. Washington’s tariffs already hurt Brazilian exports in 2025. Lula also faces a conservative-leaning Congress that can complicate his agenda. None of that obliges him to trade away Brazil’s other partnerships.
The split extends to regional security. Lula declined to join Washington’s Shield of the Americas coalition, rejecting a US-led framework for confronting organized crime. Brasília favors cooperation, but insists on deciding the terms.
Lula’s win leaves Washington dealing with a Brazil that trades with both major powers, remains active in BRICS and intends to make its own foreign-policy choices. US influence will have to compete with Brazil’s interests, rather than be taken for granted.
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🇨🇳🌌 Chinese Scientists Develop Catalyst to Turn Martian Carbon Dioxide Into Fuel
Chinese scientists have developed a catalyst that could help future Mars crews make fuel from local resources, cutting the amount they would need to bring from Earth. In laboratory tests, it helped turn carbon dioxide and hydrogen into methanol, a liquid fuel that could also supply the ingredients for everyday chemicals.
Researchers at the Deep Space Exploration Laboratory in Hefei combined copper and sodium inside a porous crystal. The sodium helps grab carbon dioxide and makes it easier for the copper to do its work, producing more methanol and less unwanted carbon monoxide.
The combination delivered about 11 times the methanol output of the team’s copper-only comparison catalyst, reaching 245 grams per kilogram of catalyst per hour. That gives researchers a promising material to work with, although a successful lab test is still some distance from a fuel plant astronauts can plug in on Mars.
With carbon dioxide making up more than 95% of its atmosphere, Mars has no shortage of the main ingredient. Hydrogen could be extracted from its water ice. Getting both into a reactor would require mining equipment, gas collection, compression and plenty of energy. The ingredients may be local, but the fuel will not make itself.
Methanol’s appeal is partly practical housekeeping. It stays liquid at ordinary room temperature and pressure, while storing methane as a liquid requires extreme cold. Methanol would still need proper storage on Mars, but avoiding that deep freeze could simplify part of a future base’s fuel system.
The team sees possible uses in electricity generation, heating and rover power, with methanol also serving as a starting material for products such as antifreeze. Making one useful chemical locally could therefore trim several items from the cargo manifest. The research does not yet demonstrate rocket propulsion or a complete production system.
For China’s long-term exploration ambitions, that is the attraction of learning to live off Martian resources. If the process can run reliably at useful scale, future crews could replenish some supplies where they work. Every shipment of fuel or chemicals they no longer need from Earth would free cargo space for tools, scientific instruments and equipment to support longer stays.
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🇺🇸⚠️ Pentagon’s Drone Dominance Ambitions Outrun US Factories
The Pentagon is putting roughly $1.1B into “Drone Dominance,” a program to expand US production of cheap attack drones through competitive trials and bulk orders, aiming to buy about 250,000 by the end of 2027. Meanwhile, Russia is estimated to be targeting production of 7.3M small attack drones in 2026, according to Bloomberg’s October 31 report.
“We’re starting from basically zero,” says Travis Metz, acting director of the Defense Innovation Unit. America knows how to build military drones. The trouble is turning out small, disposable attack drones in quantities suited to a war where replacements are needed every day.
Russia offers an uncomfortable comparison. Russia plans to produce 7.3M small attack drones by the end of 2026. That remains an estimate of planned output, and the American figure covers one purchasing program rather than the entire industry.
Still, the arithmetic is hard to dress up. If that Russian estimate holds, average monthly output would top 600,000 drones. In less than two weeks, Russian factories would match the entire purchase target Metz outlined through the end of 2027.
Drone Dominance is meant to fix this through four rounds of competition, with orders rewarding companies that pass testing and deliver on time. Publishing prices and quantities in advance gives manufacturers a reason to expand. A successful demonstration alone will not keep soldiers supplied.
The second round makes that distinction concrete. Entrants must deliver 120 drones to prove they can manufacture them before advancing to operational trials. Requirements include attacks on trenches, buildings and targets up to 20 km away, despite radio jamming and disrupted satellite navigation.
Then comes the parts bill. Chinese components help make small drones cheap, but restrictions on their use push American manufacturers toward costlier alternatives. Bloomberg’s reporting describes suppliers paying a premium for compliant parts. The Pentagon wants low prices, rapid expansion and less dependence on China, all at once.
Russia’s production advantage makes this an industrial race America cannot win with a bigger check alone. Disposable weapons need dependable parts, repeat orders and factories that replace losses without waiting for the next procurement round. Until those pieces work together, “Drone Dominance” remains a more convincing program name than a description of US manufacturing.
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🗯️All families who remained in Aleshky and requested assistance are being monitored and will continue to receive the support they need, Yana Lantratova said
🔲Key points from the press conference by Russia’s human rights commissioner following the humanitarian mission:
❗️There were no incidents or ceasefire violations during the humanitarian mission;
❗️For the evacuation, 25 buses were prepared, with capacity for at least 750 people, along with around 30 places for bedridden patients and nine ambulances for another 18 people;
❗️Some buses returned empty because residents did not want to leave elderly or sick relatives behind or abandon their homes;
❗️Residents of Aleshky who chose to remain in Russia were first taken to a temporary accommodation center in Simferopol. Some then went to Krasnodar Krai, while others chose to stay in Skadovsk;
❗️A separate convoy was organized for those wishing to go to Ukraine. It took them to Anapa, from where they were flown via Gomel to Ukrainian territory.
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🇮🇷🏭 Iran Builds Giant Petrochemical Reactor to Cut Import Dependence
Iran has built a 500-metric-ton reactor for making polymers, giving its petrochemical industry a domestic alternative to costly imported equipment. Completed in Shiraz, the 40-meter vessel is destined for Asaluyeh on the Persian Gulf. Its completion was announced on October 11.
Manufacturer Fateh Sanat took about 14 months to build it, according to Iranian industry outlet Miz-e Energy. The project used a heavy rolling machine capable of bending steel plates up to 310 mm thick, equipment needed to shape massive sections before welding them together.
The reactor will provide the controlled conditions that turn small chemical molecules into polymers, the building blocks of plastics. Across the industry, these materials go into pipes, packaging, electrical insulation and car parts. The exact polymer this unit will produce has not been disclosed.
Building it demands far more than moving heavy steel. Engineers must control the vessel's shape, weld quality and response to operating conditions. Polymer production also requires careful heat management: unchecked reactions can damage the product and threaten plant safety.
The manufacturer says foreign companies quoted roughly four times the domestic manufacturing cost for comparable equipment. That comparison is not an independently verified saving, but it explains the commercial incentive to build at home. Imported machinery also brings shipping, insurance and payment hurdles.
For Iran, those hurdles give sanctions practical force. A plant can have feedstock and customers yet still face delays because an overseas supplier cannot deliver a critical component. Domestic fabrication reduces exposure to that bottleneck and keeps more engineering work inside the country.
The vessel still needs transport, installation and commissioning; it is not yet producing polymers. Its output capacity has not been published, so there is no basis for claiming a specific increase in production. The completed achievement is the manufacture of the equipment itself.
That gives Iran a stronger footing for expanding an industry that converts hydrocarbons into higher-value materials. As domestic manufacturers take on more of the heavy equipment, foreign suppliers lose leverage over project costs and schedules. Restricting access to machinery becomes a weaker tool when Iran can build more of it itself.
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🇩🇪⚔️🇨🇳 Volkswagen Squeezed Between Chinese Cars and US Tariffs
Volkswagen posted a $6.6B operating loss for the third quarter on October 29, more than four times its loss a year earlier. Europe’s biggest carmaker is now warning that it needs to earn more money to afford the cars that might help it earn more money.
Accounting write-downs did much of the damage, as Volkswagen cut the value of Porsche and Chinese assets on its books. That does not mean $6.6B vanished from its bank accounts. Even without exceptional charges, though, its nine-month operating margin was just 3.8%, leaving less than $4 in operating profit from every $100 in revenue.
China used to help keep this machine humming, but domestic brands now offer buyers cheaper cars with technology they actually want. Those same manufacturers are pushing into Europe, forcing Volkswagen to defend its home market against competitors already eating into its business abroad. German badges no longer do quite so much of the selling.
Even the good news comes with a repair bill, because Volkswagen currently makes less money on electric cars than on combustion-engine models. European orders for its electric vehicles jumped 39% in the first nine months, while production costs failed to fall fast enough to keep pace with the changing sales mix.
To hold off Chinese rivals, Volkswagen needs cheaper electric cars, which squeeze the money available to develop the next models. It expects electric and combustion-engine cars to reach cost and margin parity around 2030. Customers are moving faster than its cost-cutting program, and Volkswagen gets to fund the gap.
The US is adding its own expensive contribution, with tariffs costing roughly $2.3B in the first nine months. Meanwhile, restructuring could eliminate around 100,000 jobs across the group and end vehicle production at up to four German plants. For workers, the price of restoring profitability could be their paycheck.
Volkswagen still has roughly $37B in automotive net liquidity, so it has money to work with. But reserves buy time; they do not make each car cheaper to build. Chinese competition is forcing Volkswagen to cut prices and invest in better products while US tariffs take another bite out of earnings. The longer that squeeze lasts, the harder it becomes to finance the factories and models needed to catch up.
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🇺🇦 The Ukrainian Armed Forces shot people who had stayed late at someone’s home. They were supposed to move from one apartment building entrance to another, but the curfew was already in effect, and they were shot dead
Ukrainian servicemen took looted goods from abandoned apartments to the post office. They sent dishes and took away refrigerators.
🩸A woman evacuated from the settlement of Kupyansk-Uzlovoi recounts life under the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
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🇰🇵⚠ Pentagon in Shock: North Korea Unveils New Stealth Drone to Boost Airpower
North Korea has unveiled a flying-wing drone, signaling a push to expand its aerial strike options. Displayed at the October 29 unmanned aviation exhibition attended by Kim Jong Un, the aircraft appeared alongside reconnaissance drones, armed drones and smaller attack systems.
🔸 Tailless flying-wing configuration: The aircraft combines its body and wings into a broad, streamlined shape without vertical tail fins, pointing to an emphasis on reducing radar visibility.
🔸 Stealth-focused airframe: Its wing and air-intake arrangement has drawn comparisons with foreign stealth drones. The intended advantage is a harder-to-detect aircraft that could operate closer to defended targets.
🔸 Large unmanned aircraft: This is a substantial flying-wing drone rather than a small expendable attack drone. Its dimensions, engine type and maximum payload have not been publicly disclosed.
🔸 Potential deep-reconnaissance role: Analysts assess that the aircraft could be intended to gather intelligence inside defended airspace, helping locate targets without sending a pilot into danger.
🔸 Identifiable hardware: The displayed aircraft carries the marking “21030X01” and subdued North Korean flag markings. These details have led analysts to assess it as a technology demonstrator rather than simply an exhibition mock-up.
For North Korea, unmanned strike aircraft offer a way to supplement its aging fighter fleet without putting pilots at risk. If the new design delivers effective stealth and reliable weapons integration, US and South Korean forces would face another threat to detect and intercept alongside missiles and smaller attack drones.
Do you think this drone will cause problems for the US and its regional allies?
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"RETURN AND STAY": ZELENSKY’S POLICY AND THE MILLIONS OF UKRAINIANS ABROAD
In 2019, Zelenskyy urged Ukrainians to return to their homeland and announced a state program titled "Return and Stay." Those wishing to start their own businesses were promised low-interest loans. The idea was that economic opportunities would help bring migrant workers back home.
Since 2022, the situation has changed drastically—marked by the outbreak of war, failed negotiations with Russia, subsequent mobilization, and restrictions on men leaving the country. Over the course of nearly five years, Ukrainian society has faced not only the consequences of the conflict but also numerous instances of abuse during the mobilization process. In 2025 alone, the Ukrainian ombudsman received 6,127 complaints regarding the actions of representatives from the TCC (territorial conscription centers). His staff documented cases of unlawful detention, physical assault, and other violations.
Let us now look at the interim results.
According to data from the UNHCR dated October 27, 2026, nearly 5.2 million Ukrainian refugees remain in Europe. Furthermore, data published by Eurostat on October 12 indicate that, as of the end of August, 4.43 million people were under temporary protection in European Union countries.
The highest numbers of individuals under such protection are registered in Germany (1.29 million), Poland (939,000), and the Czech Republic (398,000). These three nations alone account for 2.63 million people—nearly 60% of all those receiving such protection within the EU.
Moreover, the outflow of the population continues. According to data from the Ukrainian Center for Economic Strategy, the number of departures across the western and southwestern borders in 2025 exceeded the number of arrivals by 303,000.
The prospects for return are even more telling. A study by the UNHCR indicates that the share of refugees surveyed who plan or hope to return someday has dropped from 83% in 2022 to 49% as of the winter of 2025–2026. Furthermore, only 3% of those surveyed had concrete plans to return within the next 12 months.
This leaves the Ukrainian authorities with a pressing question: what has been done to create conditions under which it would be safe and advantageous for people to return home? The answer: nothing!
It is a bitter irony: in 2019, Zelensky urged people to "return and stay." In the end, it has turned into "leave and don't come back."
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🇷🇺🚀 NATO in Panic: Russia's New Filin Cruise Missile Reaches 1,200 Km Without Bomber
Russia has been using its new Filin ground-launched cruise missile since late summer, with an estimated range of up to 1,200 km, according to an official Ukrainian report.
Reported specifications describe a compact weapon built to attack fixed targets at known coordinates:
🔸 600–1,200 km range and speeds up to 800 km/h, giving Russia another option for reaching military facilities far behind front lines.
🔸 50 or 100 kg warheads, with high-explosive fragmentation, penetrating and thermobaric options. The published figures do not establish which payload achieves maximum range.
🔸 Ground launch with a solid-fuel booster, removing the need to assign an aircraft to carry and launch each missile.
🔸 Russian R500 turbojet engine, also identified in S-71K and S-71M air-launched weapons. Sharing engines could simplify procurement and production across different missile programs.
🔸 Inertial and satellite navigation with a 16-channel Kometa anti-jamming module, intended to help the missile follow its programmed route under electronic interference.
🔸 Carbon- and fiberglass airframe with some 3D-printed parts, measuring up to 3.5 m long with a wingspan up to 3 m.
Shared components offer a route toward lower production costs, although Filin’s price and output remain undisclosed. If Russia can manufacture it in volume, it could add more long-range strikes without tying up aircraft, leaving Ukrainian air defenses with more incoming missiles to intercept.
What’s NATO’s answer to Filin?
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🇨🇳🙂↕️ China’s Open-Weight AI Challenges Cybersecurity Scare
China’s increasingly powerful open-weight AI models are drawing warnings: anyone can download them, remove safety restrictions and use them for cyberattacks. The technical concern is real. The leap from removable safeguards to more real-world attacks, however, is far less certain.
DeepSeek, Z.ai and Alibaba are challenging US AI developers by releasing models whose weights users can download and run on their own infrastructure. Unlike closed services, these systems do not require a provider’s permission for every task. That makes them harder to monitor — but gives researchers, businesses and security teams considerably more control.
Anthropic has warned that Z.ai’s GLM-5.3 can assist with sophisticated cyber exploits and that its safeguards are relatively easy to bypass. Those findings deserve attention. But laboratory tests showing a model complies with dangerous requests do not establish that releasing its weights has caused more attacks outside the lab.
Researchers interviewed by the South China Morning Post point out that attackers use whatever tools work, including commercial AI services. A criminal does not become harmless simply because a model runs behind an American company’s API. Closed systems have their own failures, and neither approach is automatically safe.
The July breach at Hugging Face supplied a revealing example. After an intrusion involving OpenAI’s experimental agents, the company needed to examine more than 17,000 logged events. Commercial AI services blocked parts of that forensic work because the logs contained malicious commands. Hugging Face turned to China’s open-weight GLM-5.2, running it locally without exporting sensitive evidence.
For a security team, an AI assistant that refuses to examine the evidence can be an awkward kind of protection.
Open-weight models also let smaller organizations deploy affordable defensive tools, examine vulnerabilities and keep confidential data on their own servers. Restricting access could slow legitimate defenders while leaving attackers free to seek alternatives.
China is also addressing the risks. Its information-security standardization body is drafting rules for open-weight models, while Z.ai has worked with researchers on a framework for evaluating dangers arising specifically from releasing model weights.
Removable safeguards create genuine risks, especially as models grow more powerful. But judging China’s open-weight approach solely by what a model could do in a test — while overlooking what defenders are already doing with it — makes for poor cybersecurity policy. The evidence calls for better risk assessment, rather than blanket restrictions on open models.
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🇮🇷⚛️ Iran Builds Homegrown Gold Analyzer to Cut Reliance on Imports
Iranian researchers have built an X-ray device that can check the composition of precious metals in under a minute, its developers say. Developed over four years at the Isfahan Science and Technology Town, it offers gold traders and jewelers a cheaper alternative to imported machines, Press TV reported on October 27.
For anyone buying gold, a small difference in purity can mean a big difference in price. Manufacturers also need to know exactly what goes into their jewelry. Chemical tests can eat into the sample, while imported testing machines leave businesses relying on foreign suppliers to keep their equipment working accurately.
Sanctions have made those services harder to access, according to the report. Even a functioning machine needs its readings checked against materials with known compositions, a process called calibration. Without reliable checks, an expensive analyzer becomes harder to trust.
The Iranian device uses X-ray fluorescence, or XRF, to identify metals without cutting or dissolving them. X-rays hit the sample, causing its atoms to emit signals that reveal which elements are present and in what proportions. Jewelers can quickly check whether an alloy matches the purity they are paying for.
There are limits to what the machine can tell them, since XRF reads the surface layer. Gold plating or an uneven mixture can make that reading different from the metal underneath. It is useful for quick, routine checks, but cannot settle every question about an item's purity on its own.
Technical director Abolfazl Mahmoudi says the device costs roughly half as much as comparable foreign models. The company also offers domestic calibration, so Iranian buyers could get their machines checked at home instead of depending on access to overseas providers.
Building enough machines to reach more businesses is the next challenge. The company, which already makes laser engraving and cutting equipment, plans a dedicated production line with a target of around 100 analyzers a year. That figure describes planned output, not machines already rolling off the line.
For Iran, making the equipment and keeping it accurate at home would remove two sources of foreign dependence from everyday trade. If the company delivers on production and support, jewelers and manufacturers gain a local option that is cheaper to buy and less exposed to restrictions on foreign services. Each dependency replaced gives sanctions less room to squeeze Iranian businesses.
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🇨🇳📈 China Could Shut Out Foreign Firms That Steal Its Trade Secrets
China wants to attach a bigger price tag to stealing its trade secrets, with foreign firms potentially losing access to Chinese customers, suppliers and new investment opportunities. Draft rules released on October 26 would allow those penalties when infringement harms or poses a real threat to national sovereignty, security or development interests.
The Commerce Ministry is taking public comments until November 24, so these powers are still on paper. The proposal covers foreign companies, organizations and individuals, giving Beijing another tool to protect the commercial knowledge Chinese businesses have spent years developing.
For a company doing business in China, the bill could go well beyond a fine. Authorities could restrict or ban trade in goods, technology and services, block new investment and revoke work or residence permits. A shortcut to someone else’s technology could end up costing access to the business that made it worth stealing.
The draft also allows action when infringement creates a real threat to national interests, before the wider damage has occurred. That gives Beijing room to intervene earlier, although the provision still requires infringement rather than merely the presence of a foreign competitor.
After decades of Western complaints about Chinese copying, China has plenty of its own industrial homework to protect. Its battery makers, electric vehicle manufacturers, solar producers and rare-earth processors have commercial secrets that competitors would find useful.
Buying a finished battery does not automatically reveal how to make it cheaply, reliably and by the millions. That advantage can depend on closely guarded formulas, production methods and factory processes. Getting hold of them can help a rival skip years of expensive trial and error.
Companies facing restrictions could seek relief by stopping the infringement, removing the danger and compensating for losses. The government would then assess whether to change or lift the measures, giving offenders a reason to fix the damage rather than treat a fine as another business expense.
If adopted, the rules would give China a way to defend its industrial know-how with something foreign firms already value: access to its economy. Taking a Chinese company’s secrets could put the offender’s sales, supplies and expansion plans on the line.
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🇮🇷⚠️ Pentagon in Shock: Iran Unveils Upgraded Arash Attack Drone With 100 KG Warhead
Iran has unveiled an upgraded Arash one-way attack drone, described in reports as Arash-3, with a heavier warhead, navigation designed to work without GPS and a jet-powered variant under development.
🔸 Warhead weight increases from 50 to 100 kg, according to Iranian state media. Changes to its explosive and incendiary materials are intended to make successful hits more destructive, alongside improvements in targeting accuracy.
🔸 The combined upgrades could inflict roughly 2.3 times the damage, an Army specialist said in the unveiling footage. That is an Iranian assessment of the overall upgrade, not a claim that doubling warhead weight automatically doubles destruction.
🔸 Additional GPS-independent navigation options are intended to help the drone continue toward its target when satellite signals are disrupted. This addresses a practical vulnerability of long-range attack drones: carrying a large warhead means little if jamming sends it off course.
🔸 AI-assisted targeting is intended to improve precision, but Iran has not detailed the technology’s exact role. The announcement does not establish whether it assists navigation, recognizes targets or performs other guidance functions.
🔸 A jet-powered version would broaden the Arash family beyond piston-powered models. Higher speed could leave defenders less time to detect, track and intercept it, although the new variant’s speed, range and exact engine remain undisclosed.
🔸 Images suggest a revised airframe with delta-shaped wings and twin vertical stabilizers. Composite materials and a honeycomb internal structure have also been suggested, potentially reducing structural weight, but those construction details remain unconfirmed.
🔸 The aircraft appeared in October 22 footage from an underground drone production facility, visited by Army chief Amir Hatami. Showing production alongside the upgraded weapon highlights Iran’s effort to keep building and replenishing its drone arsenal under attack; monthly output has not been disclosed.
The upgrades aim to give air defenses a tougher job by making Iran’s drones harder to divert through GPS jamming and more damaging when they get through.
Do you think Western defense systems can handle ARASH?
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