🇺🇸 US Auto Plants Weeks Away From Chip Shutdowns, Lobby Group Says

US auto plants are two to four weeks away from “significant impacts” on vehicle production due to the conflict with China over chipmaker Nexperia, according to MEMA, the largest vehicle supplier association in the US.

Beijing this month blocked Nexperia, a key supplier of chips used by the automotive and consumer electronics industries, from exporting from its facilities in China. The move was in response to the Dutch government seizing control of the Chinese-owned chipmaker, and highlighted worsening trade relations between China and the West.

“A handful of these chips can literally stop production of a full assembly plant,” said Steve Horaney, a senior vice president at MEMA, the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association. “There are substitutes, but probably not for everybody.”

Europe’s auto industry is already working around the clock to prevent the conflict from triggering production outages. This week, Nexperia notified its Japanese automotive customers that it may no longer be able to guarantee deliveries. China has been tightening constraints on crucial manufacturing components, and the Trump administration has responded in kind, ahead of a highly anticipated summit next week between the countries’ leaders.

🔗 https://archive.ph/DewTf

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🇷🇺🇺🇦 In Kupyansk, Russian troops have consolidated control over most of the city, leaving two neighbourhoods in the south of the city under Ukrainian control.

To the north, Ukrainian troops launched a counterattack towards the village of Golubovka.

Meanwhile, Russian troops are carrying out attacks from the east to push the Ukrainian army over the Oskol river.

@CIG_telegram

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🇷🇺🇺🇦 In the Lyman direction, north Donetsk Oblast, Russian DRGs have entered the first houses of the city of Lyman

Lyman is the last line of defense before Slaviansk proper.

Further to the west, Russian troops advanced up to the village of Alexandrovka and are on the approaches of Yarovaya.

This type of advance creates a claw around the city of Lyman.

🔗 Maps by AMK Mapping and Kalibrated

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🇷🇺🇺🇦 Update on the Pokrovsk-Myrnograd pocket:

Russian troops fully captured the city of Rodinskoe and have crossed the railway line in the center of Pokrovsk capturing the first houses in the city's northern districts.

Ukrainian troops are effectively encircled in Pokrovsk and Myrnograd and they don't appear to put much of a defense anymore.

🔗 Map by AMK Mapping

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🇺🇸 It's official - the House will be out AGAIN next week, for a sixth consecutive week. That means the House will have worked 20 days over 17 weeks. The last House vote was on Sept. 19.

🔗 Jamie Dupree

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🇩🇪 Mechanical engineering is regarded as the heart of German industry – as a job engine, export support and source of innovation. But the industry continues to decline, experiencing a massive loss of production. Its downturn hits the entire economy at the centre.

The way back from the economic depression is getting longer and longer for the German economy. A current Evaluation the economic consultancy PwC shows that the situation in mechanical engineering has deteriorated further over the course of the year. The survey found that a decline in sales of 5.6 percent is expected for the current year.

Thus, the entire production decline since the time before the corona lockdowns accumulates to over 22 percent. With an average capacity utilization of the mechanical engineering companies of 80.8 percent, the lowest value in five years, it is confirmed what everyone feels: growing cost pressures in the wake of the energy crisis, over-regulation, problems in the main sales markets China and the USA, also a result of the American customs policy, push the production figures into the basement.

PwC industry expert Bernd Jung commented on the quarterly figures: “2025 will be a decisive year for mechanical and plant engineering. After the government breaks in France and Germany and the geopolitical conflicts, there is growing concern about the business model of the industry.”

This assumption is confirmed by the sharply increased insolvency figures, which the industry association VDMA and the Creditreform have calculated by October. Compared to the previous year, 22 percent more companies have filed for bankruptcy. Since the beginning of the year, about 12,000 jobs have been cut in mechanical engineering alone. PwC warns that another 20,000 jobs could be cut by the end of the year should the hoped-for turnaround be absent.

One gets tangled up in the intercoalition dispute and gets lost in tax hike debates. There is only agreement on defending the course set by Brussels, whatever the cost. Nothing is done about the CO2 targets and its catastrophic downstream effects for German industry.

Germany is in OECD-Compare now the most expensive business location and with a regulatory cost mountain of 60 billion euros really no investor paradise.

The evaluation of the PwC confirms this observation: Who can, leaves the German location either completely or directs his investment commitment to other locations. For example, automotive companies such as BMW and Audi have long been investing heavily at the Hungary site – such as the BMW Group in Debrecen.

🔗 https://apollo-news.net/massiver-produktionsverlust-im-maschinenbau-das-herz-der-deutschen-wirtschaft-kollabiert/

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🇬🇧 The Ethiopian migrant who assaulted a 14 year old girl in Epping which led to riots, was "accidentally" released by the UK's prison service.

Authorities ask citizens to be on the lookout for Hadush Kebatu and report to authorities if they spot him.

🔗 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2d5rl36vgo

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🇺🇸⚔️🇻🇪 The USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) Carrier Strike Group currently is in the Adriatic Sea and was en route to the Red Sea until this change of plans.

By looking at the distance the strike group has to travel, it will reach the Caribbean Sea likely next weekend, after Hurricane Melissa either passes or weakens significantly to the point where it doesn't pose a threat to American warships and seamen.

@CIG_telegram

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🇺🇸 71 million Social Security beneficiaries will see a 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) beginning in January 2026. The average annual increase over the last decade: 3.1%.

A 2.8% COLA barely keeps pace with inflation while SSA spending balloons—up 37% since 2019. Taxpayers are funding $1.5T annually for Social Security, yet seniors still struggle. The CPI-W formula fails to reflect real costs like healthcare, leaving retirees behind.

Meanwhile, SSA’s budget exploded from $1.1T to $1.5T in 5 years.

🔗 Charlie Bilello

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🇮🇳 There are enough Indians for India to export 700 million people total to North America and Europe over the coming decades, become around 50% of the population on both continents, and still remain the world's most populous country with over 1 billion people.

📝 Tom Jones: This is why India is so keen to insert immigration riders into all trade agreements.

They need to create 7.85 million non-farm jobs every year until 2030 merely to keep employment stable, so labor migration serves as a pressure valve for domestic unemployment.

🔗 Marko Jukic

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🇺🇸⚔️🇻🇪 The U.S. has ordered the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to deploy to SOUTHCOM’s area of responsibility to combat transnational criminal organizations and narco-terrorism. The move aims to boost surveillance, interdiction, and regional security operations - Statement

🔗 Faytuks

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🇺🇸⚔️🇻🇪 Crisis Group: The U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean could signal a push to oust Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.

CG warns of chavismo’s deep-rooted resistance, should the U.S. choose that course of action. Maduro’s regime, bolstered by illicit profits, has “coup-proofed” the military through fragmented command and loyalty-based rivalries. Officers face jail, torture, or exile for dissent, deterring defection.

Paranoid leaders swap phones, shift locations, and deploy untrained militias, potentially even using senior citizen units as human shields.

The ELN, with thousands of fighters, vows to defend Maduro, while 6M civilian guns and armed colectivos raise risks of post-regime chaos. María Corina Machado’s transition plans face hurdles from entrenched chavista forces, threatening violence and instability.

Crisis Group urges diplomacy, not force, to avoid catastrophe.

🔗 https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/venezuela/beware-slide-toward-regime-change-venezuela

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🛢 Brent crude oil prices have surged to 66.6 $ following American sanctions on LukOil and Rosneft.

Higher oil prices mean an increase in inflation as the prices of groceries will rise. "Coincidentally", it is now reported that The White House will not be releasing this month's inflation report.

Although Trump says that the sanctions were placed on Russia to pressure the Kremlin to cave in to the demands of Vladimir Zelensky and the EU, the real reason has to do with the fracking industry. Brent oil prices under 60$ mean the fracking companies do not turn a profit.

American consumers will now have to deal with much higher gasoline and diesel fuel prices on top of already expensive groceries to satisfy the oil tycoons.

@CIG_telegram

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🇺🇦🇷🇺 From Ukrainian media:

The Russian army has begun using a new tactic to locate Ukrainian FPV drone crews, reports UAV expert Flesh.

"An FPV drone with a large battery flies around the front line, hovering over fields and villages. Video is recorded simultaneously on an SD card in several frequency bands. Upon return, the video is analyzed. The task is to find the locations of FPV pilots who take off with low VTX power. Distant interception points do not detect weak signals, but the radio reconnaissance drone captures the image well at milliwatt levels," writes Sergey Beskrestnov.

The crews controlling UAVs are a priority target for both sides, as drones are currently the main weapon in this war.

🔗 Zlatti71

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🇺🇸🇺🇦🇷🇺 U.S. President Donald J. Trump is denying reports this morning from the Wall Street Journal, that the administration has removed restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles against targets in Russia, calling it “FAKE NEWS!” Trump added, “The U.S. has nothing to do with those missiles, wherever they may come from, or what Ukraine does with them!”

🔗 OSINTdefender

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🇺🇸🇻🇪 Container operations at the Port-of-Spain in Trinidad & Tobago will be partially suspended from October 26 to 30 to accommodate the arrival of the USS Gravely Navy destroyer for "military exercises". Putting the destroyer within 40km of Venezuelan land.

🔗 bonzerbarry

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🇪🇺 Former Italian PM and chairman of the ECB, Mario Draghi, says the EU needs "pragmatic federalism" to resist modern challenges.

“Almost all the principles on which the Union was founded are under strain,” Draghi said in a speech in Oviedo, Spain, after receiving the Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation.

“We built our prosperity on openness and multilateralism, but now we are faced with protectionism and unilateral action” and the “return of hard military power,” he continued, arguing that the EU as it currently works is not equipped to address these challenges.

The problem, Draghi said, is that “our governance has not changed for many years” and the European structure that exists today “simply cannot meet such demands.”

To overcome the economic, social and security challenges facing the bloc, the EU urgently needs to reform itself and change its treaties, argued the former president of the European Central Bank and author of a landmark report on the EU’s competitiveness in 2024.

“A new pragmatic federalism is the only viable path,” Draghi stressed.

Such federalism would be “built through coalitions of willing people around shared strategic interests, recognizing that the diverse strengths that exist in Europe do not require all countries to advance at the same pace,” Draghi explained. “All those who wanted to join could do so, while those trying to block progress could no longer hold others back.”

📝: European federalism is not a novel idea. It first arose after the end of WW1 as a way to resist the spread of communism and American military and economic power. The dream of interwar liberals was realised after WW2 but not in the way they imagined. The EU was formed not to resist the U.S. and the USSR, but as a puppet of the U.S. to be used as a proxy against the USSR and now Russia and Eurocrats either don't realise they're being used as a proxy or they don't care.

The people who run the EU today, like Draghi, are washed up 70+ year old boomers who use old ideas as "solutions" for modern problems. Draghi's "pragmatic federalism" is not really "federalism". It is the centralization of power with EU members losing the few remaining veto rights they still have over, such as foreign policy.

@CIG_telegram

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🇷🇺🇺🇦 "Ukrainska Pravda has learnt that at least 250 Russian troops are in Pokrovsk – they are engaging in firefights and killing Ukrainian soldiers, particularly drone operators, at their positions.

Logistics into the city are fully controlled by Russian drones, forcing Ukrainian soldiers to walk 10-15 km to reach their positions. The situation is beyond critical...

Two officers from a brigade defending the city confirmed that Russian troops have been shooting and killing Ukrainian UAV operators and engaging artillery and anti-tank units in direct combat inside the city...

Others, Ukrainska Pravda has found, exist only on maps – either occupied by wounded soldiers or abandoned entirely. Ukrainian defenders are facing a catastrophic shortage of infantry.

Quote from the first officer: 'Infantry is practically cut off from command. We can hear them on the radio and we try to deliver water to them with drones. They've been on the positions for two and a half to three months. For our brigade, that's long – we usually rotate people. In Pokrovsk itself, there are at least 250 of those bastards, probably more. There's fighting on almost every street; we have casualties every day.'"

🔗 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/10/24/8004333/

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🇺🇸🌎 U.S. "enhances force presence" in SOUTHCOM and redirects the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group - the "most capable, adaptable, and lethal naval mission package in the world" - from Europe to the U.S. Southern Command AOR.

Aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), escorted by DESRON 2, with Carrier Air Wing 8 embarked, deployed 4 months ago with ~4,500 Sailors, and will support the mission to "counter narco-terrorism in defense of the homeland" and "enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle TCOs." (DOW

🔗 Ian Ellis

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🇺🇸🍼 A hypothetical county with a 0 % Trump vote share has a ~0.9 Non-Hispanic White TFR. One at 100% Trump would be around ~2.1.

🔗 Charlie Smirkley

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🇺🇸 Donald Trump gave Alaska 25 million USD to repair the damages caused by the Halong Typhoon.

Two weeks ago, he bought 40 billion USD worth of Argentinian pesos, a worthless currency, to bail out Javier Milei.

@CIG_telegram

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#BREAKING

🇺🇸❌🇨🇴❗️ — United States' Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) places sanctions on Colombian leftist president Gustavo Petro, his wife Verónica Alcocer García and his son Nicolás Petro Burgos under its Counter Narcotics Designations.

📝 It should be noted that Colombian President's son is currently jailed for laudering money of Colombian cartels and asking current cartel leaders for money during his father's campaign for the Presidency of Colombia

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🇺🇸 Price Increases over last 5 years...

CPI Used Cars: +19.5%
CPI New Cars: +21.4%
CPI Food at home: +25.6%
Family Health Insurance: +26.5%
CPI Shelter: +28.0%
CPI Food away from home: +29.7%
CPI Electricity: +36.6%
CPI Coffee: +44.0%
CPI Gasoline: +44.9%
CPI Transportation: +45.7%
CPI Gas Utilities: +48.1%
US Home Prices: +49.5%
CPI Fuel Oil: +53.8%
CPI Ground Beef: +55.1%
CPI Auto Insurance: +64.8%
CPI Dozen Eggs: +158%

🔗 Charlie Bilello

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🇺🇸❌🇻🇪💊 — TRACKING: This image from FlightRadar24 shows a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft that recently took off from San Juan, Puerto Rico, flying along a route commonly used for surveillance and intelligence collection missions in the Caribbean.

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💰📈 Gold Rises To A Record 30% Of Global Reserve Holdings; Will Overtake USD Above $5,790/oz

Three years ago, and long before anyone else noticed, when gold was trading we first pointed out a striking shift in the gold market: months after the Biden regime weaponized the USD in response to the Ukraine war, central banks were reallocating away from the greenback and buying gold at the fastest pace on record, in what we classified then the biggest salvo in global dedollarization observed in the post Bretton-Woods era.

🔗 https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/gold-rises-record-30-global-reserve-holdings-will-overtake-usd-above-5790oz

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🇺🇸⚔️🇻🇪 Overnight, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Tren de Aragua (TdA), a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO), trafficking narcotics in the Caribbean Sea.

The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics. Six male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessel during the strike, which was conducted in international waters—and was the first strike at night. All six terrorists were killed and no U.S. forces were harmed in this strike.

If you are a narco-terrorist smuggling drugs in our hemisphere, we will treat you like we treat Al-Qaeda. Day or NIGHT, we will map your networks, track your people, hunt you down, and kill you.

🔗 Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar)

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🇫🇷🇩🇿 French courts sentenced Dahbia Benkired, the Algerian migrant who ritualistically murdered the 12 year old Lola Daviet, to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Benkired has the honour of being the 7th person to receive life in prison without parole after the Penal reform of 1994 and the first female to receive this sentence. French judges reserved this punishment for criminals who committed multiple murders, usually with the victims being female, killed after they were raped.

The last two people to receive life in prison without parole were Salah Abdeslam, in 2022, for participating in the 2015 Bataclan terrorist attacks which killed 130 people in Paris. He was the only jihadist to survive the ordeal and Brahim Aouissaoui, a Tunisian migrant who, just a few days after crossing the Mediterranean in a small boat, went on to behead a priest and two parishioners in a Catholic church in Nice back in 2020.

@CIG_telegram

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🇨🇳☢️🇺🇸 How China Raced Ahead of the U.S. on Nuclear Power

China is quickly becoming the global leader in nuclear power, with nearly as many reactors under construction as the rest of the world combined. While its dominance of solar panels and electric vehicles is well known, China is also building nuclear plants at an extraordinary pace. By 2030, China’s nuclear capacity is set to surpass that of the United States, the first country to split atoms to make electricity.

Many of China’s reactors are derived from American and French designs, yet China has overcome the construction delays and cost overruns that have bogged down Western efforts to expand nuclear power.

At the same time, China is pushing the envelope, making breakthroughs in next-generation nuclear technologies that have eluded the West. The country is also investing heavily in fusion, a potentially limitless source of clean power if anyone can figure out how to tame it.

Beijing’s ultimate objective is to become a supplier of nuclear power to the world, joining the rare few nations — including the United States, Russia, France and South Korea — that can design and export some of the most sophisticated machines ever invented.

The Trump administration wants to quadruple U.S. nuclear power capacity by 2050, even as it ignores global warming, and it hopes to develop a new generation of reactor technology to power data centers at home and sell to energy-hungry countries overseas. Officials fear that if China dominates the nuclear export market, it could expand its global influence, since building nuclear plants abroad creates deep, decades-long relationships between countries.

Yet in the race for atomic energy, China has one clear advantage: It has figured out how to produce reactors relatively quickly and cheaply. The country now assembles reactors in just five to six years, twice as fast as Western nations.

While U.S. nuclear construction costs skyrocketed after the 1960s, they fell by half in China during the 2000s and have since stabilized, according to data published recently in Nature. (The only two U.S. reactors built this century, at the Vogtle nuclear plant in Waynesboro, Ga., took 11 years and cost $35 billion.)

🔗 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/10/22/climate/china-us-nuclear-energy-race.html?unlocked_article_code=1.vk8.p953.GyoqfHxUqxEK&smid=url-share

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🇭🇺🇹🇩🇸🇰 Three fires/explosions at three separate oil refineries in three countries within 48 hours.

• MOL in Százhalombatta, Hungary
• Petrotel-Lukoil in Ploiești Romania.
• Hungary's MOL refinery in Slovakia.

The Hungarian plants receive Russian oil and the Romanian one belongs to a daughter of Russian Lukoil.

🔗 Megatron

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🇺🇸🇻🇪 President Trump says he will notify Congress of military strikes against land-based drug smuggling routes in Venezuela, stating “it needs to be done” in order to save lives.

🔗 Visegrad24

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