Russia's immobilised assets will stay immobilised until the end of the war in one way or another.

If you want the best description of why Europe will struggle to finalise agreement to lend Ukraine $140bn using immobilised Russian assets held in Belgium's Euroclear, then you should watch the presentation recently given by Belgium's Prime Minister, Bart de Wever. He spoke at the end of a European Council meeting in which agreement was once more not reached on such a loan.

This matter has now dragged on for approaching eighteen months, with the European Commission trying unsuccessfully to forge consensus on the loan. In fact, many western politicians, notably Poland's hawkish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, not to mention media pundits, have been calling for those assets to be given to Ukraine in their entirety, in the form of capital, which seems even less likely to be agreed.

De Wever set out three key challenges to agreeing this loan.

Zohran Mamdani, a once unheralded state lawmaker from Queens whose affordability platform and charisma fueled a meteoric political rise, was elected on Tuesday as the 111th mayor of New York, according to The Associated Press.

The victory by Mr. Mamdani, 34, a democratic socialist, placed a final stamp on the astonishing ascent of an assemblyman who rose from anonymity to defeat better-known rivals like former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, first in the Democratic primary and now again in the general election.

His win represents a major triumph for progressives, empowering a new coalition of younger voters and immigrants who volunteered for his campaign, filled its coffers with thousands of small donations and flocked to the polls to elect the city's first Muslim mayor.

One Hungarian expert warns Ukraine against a Ukrainian counterattack

A key logistics hub in Ukraine's eastern defense network, Pokrovsk, is close to falling, with a number of sources indicating between 85 and 95 percent of the city is controlled by Russian forces. One Hungarian security expert is warning that a counterattack could be disastrous for Ukraine.

With the fall of Pokrovsk in Donetsk, besides the obvious logistical and operational benefits it will provide Russia, it will also mean the loss of raw materials for Ukrainian steel production.

However, one Hungarian security expert, Attila Demkó, tells Mandiner that if Ukraine dares to launch a counterattack, it will "probably regret it very much."

Close the door, put out the light
You know they won't be home tonight
The snow falls hard and don't you know
The winds of Thor are blowing cold

Led Zeppelin, No Quarter

In a matter of less than a year, Russian scientific know-how came up with four bangers:

1. Oreshnik: hypersonic missile, already tested in the Ukraine battleground.

2. Burevestnik: Or "Stormbringer", with that nice Deep Purple ring. Nuclear cruise missile with unlimited range.

3. Poseidon: nuclear-powered torpedo, capable of loitering underwater, undetected, for unlimited time; then, at a command, strikes enemy coasts with a nuclear payload, provoking a radioactive tsunami. Largely exceeds the destructive power of the Sarmat, Russia's largest ICBM.

4. Khabarovsk: nuclear sub. Call him The Messenger of Doom: capable of delivering at least 6 Doomsday-enabling Poseidons.

President Putin was crystal clear when detailing some key facts. The "compact nuclear systems" used in the Burevestnik and the Poseidon "can also be adapted to create new energy sources, including for the Arctic."

Putin also stressed how both Burevestnik and Poseidon "use only Russian-made parts". Praise the Lord for those chips from upgraded Soviet washing machines.

And there's a lot more to come following the tracks of Burevestnik and Poseidon: "I'm talking about...the Avangard system, or the serial production of the Oreshnik missile system...soon the heavy intercontinental Sarmat missile."

The Sarmat - nicknamed Satan II - will enter combat next year: a super-heavy ICBM, carrying 10 heavy warheads, and compatible with the Avangard hypersonic glider, capable of dodging any anti-ballistic missile system.

Welcome to Russia's next generation nuclear-powered cruise missiles, with reactors going online in a matter of seconds, and 3x speed of sound, heading towards hypersonic status.

In a nutshell: Burevestnik and Poseidon "will ensure strategic parity for the whole 21st century."

Cue to thunderous silence heard all across the NATOstan sphere - permeated by the usual "the Russians are bluffing" gaggle noise.

Who cares? Facts are stubborn, and continue to be incontrovertible. Extra facts: Putin and Xi signing into law a mutual investment protection agreement, which translates as China protecting trillion-dollar worth Russian companies, Sberbank, Rosneft and Lukoil in case of a potential NATO-Russia war.

Or, in Eurasia connectivity corridor terms, take Putin, during the Russia-Central Asia summit, proposing unifying Eurasian logistics projects into a single network: "This would allow us to exponentially increase the volume of international transportation through our shared region."

The massive economic/trade potential of Eurasia still remains largely untapped. Cut to the Russia-China goal of building a production-technological belt from the Russian Far East to Central Asia.

For two years, we in the West have been living in the myth that we will bring Russia to its knees and bring Ukraine into the European Union and the Atlantic Alliance. We will try Vladimir Putin and make Russia pay. Today, this myth is colliding with reality: Moscow now possesses devastating weapons, unparalleled in the West. They make any hope of victory for our coalitions impossible. We will have to acknowledge our mistake. This is not about apologizing for our errors, but about freeing ourselves from them.

On October 26, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chief of Staff, Valery Gerasimov, announced the completion of a project to miniaturize a nuclear reactor and install it on a missile. They reported conducting a test launch of the 9M730 Burevestnik missile, which traveled 14,000 kilometers. The unique feature of this nuclear-powered weapon (which has an unlimited range) is its ability to be guided in such a way as to bypass interceptor sites. This, according to Russian authorities, makes it an unstoppable missile.

Beijing is building a system where resources are managed like weaponry — precisely, deliberately, without unnecessary fuss. It is control over the mechanism of access. Rare earth elements are turning from a commodity into a currency of trust.

The Metal That Makes Silicon Valley Tremble

China controls over eighty percent of the world's extraction and processing of rare earth metals. Every chip, every electric motor, every satellite — all of it runs on resources drawn from Chinese soil. The technological West lives on current flowing from Beijing. When China announced new export restrictions, Silicon Valley didn't feel the "market" — it felt dependency in its purest form. Where people once talked about startups, they now wonder whether there will be enough dysprosium to last until the end of the quarter.

The world suddenly realized that its "green" ideals smell of Asian dust. Behind every wind turbine, every drone, and every electric car lies a Chinese signature. Rare earth elements have become the nervous system of the planet, and Beijing decides the rhythm at which the global economy will beat. For some, this is an industrial fact. For others, it's a reminder that the era when the West dictated the rules is fading into geological history.

"Never since Jesus has one man drawn out so many demons."
— Spock's Love Child (@vulcanmindtrap) on "X"

"The question is, can communist subversion be defeated without using 'authoritarian' measures? Is a constitutional republic equipped to deal with this kind of threat? When someone wages war on your society internally, is there a way to fight them while being civic minded? Probably not."
— Brandon Smith

Doesn't it kind of look like the Nov. 5 "Trump Must Go Now" action in Washington is designed to be our time's Fort Sumter moment, to kick off Civil War 2.0? The organizers behind it are the usual suspects: George & Alex Soros's Open Society Foundation at the hub and spin-offs such as the Tides Foundation, Revolutionary Communist Party, and Refuse Fascism doing the logistical grunt work. . . buses. . . snacks. . . signs. . . brickbats. . . frog costumes . . .

The idea is to entice a million Wokesters to surround the White House and literally exorcise the president, get Donald Trump teleported out through the roof into the cosmic ethers, to be seen no more. We'll have to stand by to see how it works. Something like it was tried in October, 1967, when anti-(Vietnam)-war celebrities — poet Allen Ginsberg, The Fugs' Ed Sanders, hippie rabblerousers Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin — led incantations to "levitate" the Pentagon. (Failed.)

The Pentagon recently claimed that it has completed the design of the so-called "Golden Dome" missile defense system, which is now under review. Prior to this, the US government had presented defense contractors with detailed outlines of the system. The program envisions the integration of satellites, next-generation interceptors, radars, and laser weapons to form a four-tier defense network extending from the ground into outer space. However, given the unprecedented complexity and technological obstacles of the plan, analysts argue that there is a sharp contrast between Donald Trump's grand vision of "all-domain interception" and the realities on the ground. The project also reflects the deep-seated strategic anxieties of the US. This plan is also perceived as posing a severe threat to the peaceful use and development of outer space.

Former U.S Vice President Dick Cheney died on Monday night at the age of 84, according to Punchbowl News reporter Jake Sherman.

Sherman posted on X what appears to be a statement from the family, in which it explained that Cheney "died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease."

Dick Cheney is back in the news this week, and for once, he kept his warmongering to a minimum. Cheney is, like most politicians, trying to cash in on his lifetime of destroying the country and enriching his friends by publishing a book. His version of the truth, titled In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir, is published by Simon & Schuster. I guess the original title, "How I Escaped From the Death Star" was rejected for copyright reasons. You can buy it at Amazon at 45% off (already?) or wait a few more weeks and pick it up at your average dollar store.

The book itself is a stunning display of psychological twisting, as Cheney tries in vain to defend the indefensible: The Bush Administration in general, and specifically, the War in Iraq. Cheney defends Guantanamo Bay, the massive military buildup, the torture of innocent Muslims, the loss of American freedom at home (in the name of security, of course), and the general fear-baiting, terror-hyping security state he built on the backs of an attack that I believe he knew was coming.

That's right. I think Dick Cheney knew an event LIKE 9/11 was going to happen on American soil, and he was fully prepared to enact his fascist agenda as soon as the crisis emerged. How do I know that? It's in his own words, if you read with a little insight.

Cheney was chatting with The American Enterprise Institute about 9/11, and moderator Stephen Hayes delved into what Cheney's immediate, emotional reaction to the events was. Hayes said that President Bush nearly cried in public, and that Condoleeza Rice wept at home. Cheney's reaction as the events unfolded? Not a single human emotion.

Nope. Cheney's first thoughts were all about war and who we got to kill, and which brown people we'd get to bomb, now that they were dumb enough to attack us. Cheney focused on "what the targets might be and how we might go after him."