Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

Will 2027 be the year the wealth register is introduced? Labor Minister Bärbel Bas confirmed this week on Bild that her ministry plans a representative survey of citizens next year on their assets and their views on distributive justice. A classic about-face by this government: just three weeks earlier, Bas had categorically ruled out any such plans.

Concretely, a tax-funded data collection effort involving roughly 5,000 citizens is planned. The rollout will run through an external research institute as part of an EU-wide tender, whose bidding deadline closes September 1.

“Survey experiment on wealth inequality in the population” is the innocuous-sounding name for this study — likely nothing more than a first step toward a comprehensive wealth register.

Cloaked in the mantle of scientific inquiry, politics is edging, step by step, toward the sensitive issue that has hung over the political debate for years like a sword of Damocles: the wealth register. This register — one of numerous European Union projects — is ultimately meant to enable seamless, individualized wealth assessments: the perfect tax base for the perfectly transparent citizen.

What’s new here isn’t really the format: similar wealth surveys have already been conducted every four years by institutes like Berlin’s DIW. What’s truly new is the explicit political framing and normative interpretation of the results.

Of course wealth distribution in Germany is unequal — a natural outcome of a free-market order, and an integral part of a system rooted in the principle that reward should follow performance.

The survey design and the interpretation of its results dock directly onto this inequality, and are meant to legitimize policy options such as introducing a wealth tax, raising inheritance taxes, or other redistributive measures. At least Berlin still bothers to maintain a veneer of scientific reasoning before executing its brazen raid on the middle class’s savings.

That the German government has done more than merely glance at citizens’ wealth became apparent, at the latest, this past Monday. The Federal Statistical Office reported a nationwide deficit of €71.3 billion for the first half of the year — an increase of €36.6 billion over the same period last year. The need is dire. The damage that Berlin’s and Brussels’ ideological policies have inflicted on the economy in recent years threatens to melt down the tax coffers.

Just a week earlier, the ifo Institute had warned of a fiscal tipping point. Economists concluded that tax revenue could actually shrink going forward, putting an end to Berlin’s cornucopia politics. As possible countermeasures, Berlin is now clearly planning tax hikes as well as an expansion of the tax base to include citizens’ wealth.

The situation is dire: cyclically sensitive taxes such as corporate and trade tax have shown a negative trend for several quarters now, and the wave of insolvencies sweeping the country, the growing number of business closures, and rising unemployment give no indication that this trend will reverse anytime soon.

From the citizen’s perspective, the situation looks like this: given the towering fiscal burdens an ever-expanding state apparatus imposes on him, a sovereign risks becoming a tax vassal — if he hasn’t already become one.

A state that cannot get its own budget under control tends toward fiscal highway robbery — and will not hesitate to slap heavy levies on the already multiply-taxed wealth of families and businesses.

You know the drill: it’s all done in the name of social justice. Reasons can always be found — but under this kind of policy, what erodes is the remaining sovereignty of civil society itself, the very engine of prosperity, social stability, and republicanism.

Friedrich August von Hayek would likely have judged: Germany is on the road to serfdom — and has already traveled a good stretch of it.

And anyone who still believes the reach for wealth, inheritances, and land will stop at the supposedly rich is in for a rude awakening: the truly wealthy escape the fiscal raid precisely because of their high geographic mobility.

No – the state has its sights set on those who cannot get out of its way: the classic middle class, the Mittelstand, those bound to the land, so to speak – to put it in neo-feudal terms.

The opposite of feudal would be an unrestricted right to private property — one that, naturally, also includes wealth accumulation, entirely without political debate. People are not sovereign when the sword of Damocles of arbitrary taxation hangs over them: once the state can seize assets at will, private property becomes borrowed possession — and the citizen becomes a tax serf. This is precisely why envy-fueled debates over wealth taxes and distributive justice are so dangerous: they shift power from the citizen to the state apparatus, which by its very nature knows no limits — and by now no longer even bothers to hide it.

In the end, only one bitter realization remains: a state that shamelessly lays its citizens bare, and strips away the sanctity of private property along with the last refuges of the once-sovereign citizen using a cheap, resentment-laden argument, has already broken the bond of trust between state and citizen. Wealth as the citizen’s last line of defense simply evaporates.

* * * 
About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, has worked for over 25 years, he has worked as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Authored by Sophia Lam via The Epoch Times,

More than a year before the catastrophic flash flood devastated the China-Nepal border crossing at Gyirong last week, Chinese geologists had raised concerns about the impending danger.

On August 26, a glacial-related collapse tore through Gyirong Port, one of the principal land crossings between Tibet and Nepal, destroying roads and bridges and leaving entire communities isolated and struggling to reach survivors. Villages and communities along the border have been left in ruins, with homes, roads, and infrastructure swept away.

At least 789 people have died, and more than 3,000 people are still missing.

More than a year ago, on July 8, 2025, a glacial lake outburst flood struck Gyirong County, in Shigatse, Tibet – the same area hit by the recent flash flood – destroying the Friendship Bridge on the China-Nepal border and leaving 17 people missing, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

Chinese scientists at the State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection at Chengdu University of Technology published a study three days after the 2025 flood, warning that the area could experience another glacial lake outburst flood in the wake of the July 8 disaster.

They called for stronger upstream flood warnings and recommended conducting detailed assessments of the susceptibility and risks of all glacial lakes in the basin “as soon as possible” to support “post-disaster reconstruction and long-term stability.”

A Warning Ignored

Drawing on their Qinghai-Tibet Plateau glacial lake database and risk assessments, these scientists identified 55 glacial lakes covering about 3.39 square kilometers [36 million square feet] in the watershed upstream basin of the Friendship Bridge.

Based on satellite imagery from July 8, the researchers determined that the flood was triggered by the outburst of a supraglacial lake upstream of the Purepu Zangbu River. The report found that the lake had also experienced an outburst in mid-July 2023.

According to the study, the lake began forming in 2018 and is a typical seasonal supraglacial lake rather than a permanent one.

Researchers said rising temperatures across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have intensified meltwater runoff and accelerated glacier melt, causing the lake to reach its largest recorded area.

Meltwater carrying large amounts of glacial debris may also have blocked subglacial drainage channels, preventing the lake from draining effectively. The water level eventually rose beyond historical extremes, triggering the July 8, 2025, outburst.

The researchers warned of “the possibility of another glacial lake outburst flood” due to the “many glacial lakes in this river basin.”

They also called for “strengthened” upstream early flood warning systems and more detailed hazard and “susceptibility and risk” assessments for all 55 lakes “as soon as possible.”

Xu Qiang, president of Chengdu University of Technology, repeated the findings from the 2025 report to explain the recent flood in an interview with the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) propaganda outlet People’s Daily.

“Against the backdrop of climate warming, the risk of glacial lake outburst floods and debris flows triggered by ice and rock collapses along the Himalayas is continuing to rise. Glaciers across the region are retreating, and glacial lakes are expanding, increasing the likelihood of disasters such as glacial lake outbursts and ice avalanches,” Xu said in the interview on Aug. 28.

Xu didn’t mention the cross-border early warning system, and he didn’t say explicitly whether China had taken any preventive measures or issued any warning before the flood.

China expert Li Linyi noted that Xu’s remarks echoed recommendations the Chengdu research team had already laid out a year earlier, effectively amounting to an implicit admission that the preventive measures previously proposed to authorities were never implemented.

“This is not simply an unforeseeable natural disaster,” he said in a recent interview with The Epoch Times, “but the inevitable result of absent early warning, delayed decision-making, and systematically underestimated risk.”

On Aug. 27, the South China Morning Post reported that Chinese scientists have had a cross-border early warning system with counterparts in Nepal since 2017 to monitor Himalayan glacial lake outburst floods, and that the system had reportedly issued timely alerts in past years that helped prevent casualties.

Yet despite this track record, the report did not clarify whether the system detected any anomalies or issued any alerts ahead of the Aug. 26 disaster this year.

Independent verification of such claims is difficult because under CCP rule, Tibet remains largely closed to foreign journalists, researchers, and diplomats.

Natural Disaster, or Man-Made?

The Gyirong Port is built in unstable geological terrain, according to Chinese state-run media platform Sohu. The Chengdu research report lays out in more detail the risks and hazards in the upstream regions.

By 2024, trade through Gyirong Port had already hit 4.25 billion yuan (roughly $590 million) – nearly 30 percent of all China-Nepal trade.

The disaster has drawn accusations that the CCP’s focus on the economy and disregard for known risks turned a natural hazard into a man-made tragedy.

Ethan Tu, founder of Taiwan AI Labs, wrote on Facebook on Aug. 28, “The greatest crime any of us can make is to call a man-made disaster a natural one.”

He referred to the CCP’s building of the port complex right in the middle of the river, blocking water flow and causing the disaster.

Lin Ting-hui, former deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Society of International Law, criticized the CCP for building dams, roads, and tunnels that have destroyed local ecological conditions and geological stability in Tibet and neighboring areas.

“On top of that, accelerating glacial melt means meltwater keeps seeping into loosened mountainsides – so when heavy rain hits, the resulting mudslides can end up far bigger and more destructive than they’d otherwise be,” Lin said in a recent interview with The Epoch Times.

He blamed the CCP for building the entire port complex right on top of a riverbed, calling it a move that “defies nature.”

Lin said that Gyirong has served as a vital route since the seventh and eighth centuries, once used by Tang dynasty envoys and Buddhist monks, and holds deep significance in Tibetan Buddhist history.

“In all those centuries, the area had never suffered a disaster on this scale. However, in recent years, flooding began recurring,” Lin said in a recent interview with The Epoch Times.

“The CCP’s atheism has led it to believe man can conquer nature. But people must instead respect nature, or nature will strike back.”

Tang Bing, Chang Chun, and Rex Widerstrom contributed to this report.

A Southern California corruption case unraveled in dramatic fashion after federal agents discovered tens of thousands of dollars hidden underground at the home of a longtime local politician, according to the NY Post.

Ricardo Pacheco, a former Baldwin Park councilman, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for taking bribes while in office. Investigators recovered $62,900 buried in his backyard, part of more than $83,000 ultimately seized from him.

Federal prosecutors said Pacheco used his position to help private interests win favorable treatment from the city. Much of the misconduct involved companies seeking approval to operate marijuana businesses in Baldwin Park.

Pacheco also took money from a police officer who was secretly cooperating with the FBI. Authorities said he received $37,900 from the officer and later backed a police association agreement valued at more than $4 million over three years.

The Post writes that another former elected official, ex-Compton Councilman Isaac Galvan, was caught up in the same investigation. Galvan admitted giving Pacheco $70,000 in exchange for assistance with marijuana permits and separately acknowledged failing to report more than $500,000 in income.

Both men received 18-month federal prison sentences. Pacheco was fined $10,000 and ordered to surrender nearly $220,000, while Galvan was ordered to pay more than $323,000 in restitution.

After pleading guilty and leaving office, Pacheco began cooperating with federal investigators and helped build cases against several other people tied to local government and the marijuana business.

Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker,

As President Trump has repeatedly pointed out, the Canadian government embraces a peculiar notion of national sovereignty: It depends upon the U.S. military for security and expects to sell its domestic products to Americans as if Canada were just another U.S. state. At the same time, it insists on censoring American sources of news, restricting the flow of American goods into Canada, and rebuking American foreign policy decisions.

When former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau flew to Mar-a-Lago to meet with President Trump following his 2024 re-election, the Canadian leader’s foremost concern was to prevent the new Trump administration from seeking fair and reciprocal trade (actual free trade) between the two countries – a goal that the president and his economic team had pursued during Trump’s first term and which ultimately resulted in the replacement of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). From Trump’s point of view, USMCA did not resolve decades-long trade imbalances between Canada and the United States, but it did kill NAFTA and put the U.S. in a legal position to recalibrate its economic relationship with Canada by 2026. Trudeau and the Canadians needed for the old system to endure, and he told Trump that Canada could not economically survive if Canada were forced to remove its own trade barriers against the U.S. This is when Trump suggested to Trudeau that if Canada cannot exist without American welfare, then it is operating as a de facto American state.

Trump’s unvarnished truth-telling created an international brouhaha. Never one for pretending or backing down, the president spent the next several months advising Canada to make its dependence upon the American Union official by becoming the fifty-first state. Canadians from British Columbia to Newfoundland took great offense, and the Canadian Establishment used the issue as a catalyst for installing central banker Mark Carney as prime minister, under the rationale that the former governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England was the ideal candidate for taking on President Trump.

Since his premiership began, Carney has been on a mission to ruffle Trump’s feathers and cause friction between Canada and the U.S. He has worked to strengthen Canada’s economic bonds with communist China. He has repeatedly described Canada as an extension of Old Europe, rather than part of the New World. He has promised to “defend” Greenland from any American attempts to assert dominion over the island. He has pledged additional Canadian support for Ukraine in a war against Russia that President Trump wishes to end. He has used every public speech to insult the United States as an unreliable and dangerous nation that cannot be trusted. He has declared Canada to be in an economic “war” with the U.S. and has encouraged Canadian citizens to be obnoxiously hostile toward Americans.

These provocative stances and statements might make sense if Canada were not so economically and militarily dependent upon the United States. If Carney wishes to strengthen communist China at America’s expense, he cannot expect the U.S. to give Canada the most favorable trade terms of any nation in the world. Nor can he expect America to protect Canada as an ally if Canada allies itself with America’s principal geopolitical foe. If Carney wishes to fight Americans so that the Kingdom of Denmark can continue to lay claim to a North American territory whose 56,000 residents are nearly all Inuit, then he should not expect the U.S. military to defend Canada from invasion. Furthermore, Carney should not expect the U.S. to protect Canada under a Golden Dome missile defense system for North America that depends upon having operational control of Greenland. He certainly shouldn’t expect American taxpayers to foot the bill for Canada’s national security when Canada is working to provoke a direct U.S.-Russia conflict over Ukraine. He also shouldn’t expect preferential treatment from the United States when he undermines American strategic objectives around the world.

Canada’s flamboyant pomposity is obscene.

Canada’s Hillary Clinton, Chrystia Freeland, was the trade negotiator who tried to keep Canada’s one-way tariffs intact during President Trump’s first term. She’s currently serving as an unpaid “infrastructure reconstruction” advisor (or what some might call, “the CEO of wartime money-laundering in Europe”) to Ukraine’s holdover-president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. She popped her head up from Ukraine’s funny money operations last week to denounce the United States for treating Canada as a “vassal state.”

Since Canada is not economically or militarily viable without enormous welfare assistance from the U.S., Canada is a vassal state; pretending otherwise is absurd.

But here’s the thing: Central banker Mark Carney and the Canadian Establishment have chosen to fight back against President Trump’s efforts for reciprocal trade by binding Canada to communist China, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. Carney can’t beg for help from General Secretary Xi Jinping, King Charles III, and Queen Ursula von der Leyen without making Canada a vassal state of communist China and Old Europe.

Canada is not a “middle power” because it has no power. It has squandered its natural resources and economic wealth by pursuing foolish “climate change” policies that have no effect on the weather. Sovereign nations capable of militarily defending themselves do not indulge costly, “woke” delusions. Only vassal states commit economic suicide while puffing out their chests and acting tough. Why? Because real nation states stand behind and take care of them.

It is also fascinating how Chrystia Freeland publicly argues that the best way to fight back against the Trump administration is to assist Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections. Calling it the “Donut Strategy,” Freeland says that the Canadian government must go around the White House and manipulate the American people. Canada’s minister of industry, Mélanie Joly, is doing exactly that by strategizing with prominent Democrats around the country on the best ways to undermine President Trump’s trade policies. Ontario Premier Doug Ford not only pledged to interfere in the U.S. midterm elections but also told Trump to “kiss his ass.” Central banker Mark Carney and his globalist friends are coordinating an information war against American voters. In other words, all the Canadians who whine about President Trump not respecting Canadian sovereignty have absolutely no respect for American sovereignty.

Prominent members of the Canadian government nonchalantly admit to interfering in American elections, and corporate news talking heads just nod and smile. Do you remember when news media spent years lecturing Americans about “foreign election interference” after Trump clobbered Hillary in the 2016 election? All we heard during the president’s first term was, “Russia, Russia, Russia!” Now Canadian officials admit to manipulating American voters in past elections and promise to do so again this year, and not a single pundit is even whispering, “Canada, Canada, Canada.” After Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Barack Obama’s intelligence agencies used the Russian Collusion Hoax to perpetrate a fraud against the American people, Democrats collude openly with the Canadian government to manipulate elections. Do you think that “foreign election interference” might have been just another propaganda press talking point to advance another anti-Trump narrative?

Along with Canada, the United Kingdom seems to play a central role in sabotaging Trump’s government. It was MI6 spy Christopher Steele who put together Hillary’s fake dossier on Donald Trump that triggered Robert Mueller’s two-year special counsel investigation into the president. Later, British “Russia expert” Fiona Hill testified against the president when Democrats (and Mitt Romney) turned a Biden Family corruption scandal involving Ukraine into a Trump impeachment. During her testimony, Hill insisted that Russia “meddled” in the 2016 election. Now King Charles III’s North American prime minister, Mark Carney, is openly meddling in the 2026 midterms. Will Chris Steele and Fiona Hill return to testify about Canada’s election interference? Let’s not hold our breath.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.

Submitted by The Bureau’s Sam Cooper (emphasis our own),

The Ring of Fire sits about 500 kilometers northeast of Thunder Bay in the muskeg of Ontario’s James Bay Lowlands, on Treaty 9 territory. Prospectors found it in 2007 and named it after a Johnny Cash song.

Beneath the peat moss lies the Canadian Shield, deeply seamed with nickel and cobalt for batteries used in electric vehicles and smart phones, copper for the grids that power data centers, titanium, platinum and palladium for aerospace, and the largest deposit of chromite — critical to stainless steel — in North America.

Nine Cree and Ojibwa communities live in and around it.

On September 14, Prime Minister Mark Carney opens the Canada Investment Summit in Toronto, where he is expected to pitch the Ring of Fire as Canada’s answer to a new world in which access to critical minerals has become an instrument of great-power leverage.

A coalition that advertises itself as anti-capitalist will be in Toronto too.

One of its three conveners has direct organizational ties to CODEPINK, the American anti-war group now under investigation in Washington and London.

The Indigenous and eco-justice coalition says it brings together labor unions and climate networks, and opposes “the sell-off of Canada’s public infrastructure and resources to global private capital.” From September 12 to 14, it will hold a counter-summit, “culminating in a mass rally and demonstration to crash Mark Carney’s Investment Summit.”

Of the conveners, World BEYOND War has the deepest international connections. Headquartered in the United States, it obtained its own charitable status in September 2021 after years under a fiscal sponsor. CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin sits on its advisory board.

Whether interests from Beijing sit behind CODEPINK’s funding is now a question for two Five Eyes governments. No such allegation has been made about any organization in the Ring of Fire coalition.

The Telegraph reported in August that Britain’s Home Office was examining claims that Beijing was funding pro-Palestinian protests to “sow division and chaos” in Britain.

The paper also reported that a British company linked to CODEPINK allegedly received about £250,000 from businesses connected to Neville Roy Singham, a China-based technology millionaire accused of financing Chinese propaganda.

Singham has consistently denied allegations of Beijing backing.

Yet footage from a November 2025 academic forum in Shanghai, co-sponsored by Singham with East China Normal University, showed him standing with attendees, fists raised, as the communist anthem “The Internationale” played. He is married to Jodie Evans, CODEPINK’s other co-founder.

In Washington, a congressional committee and the Justice Department are running parallel inquiries into whether Singham used his money to spread pro-China propaganda and advance the interests of Beijing.

The New York Times documented in 2023 that entities linked to Singham had supplied more than $1.4 million to CODEPINK — close to a quarter of its donations since 2017. The Times’ investigation, cited since in congressional letters and at a February 2026 Ways and Means hearing on foreign influence in American nonprofits, opened not on the Middle East causes the Telegraph raised this year but on a street fight in London.

“The protest in London’s bustling Chinatown brought together a variety of activist groups to oppose a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. So it was peculiar when a street brawl broke out among mostly ethnic Chinese demonstrators,” the Times reported. The fight, in November 2021, “started when men aligned with the event’s organizers, including a group called No Cold War, attacked activists supporting the democracy movement in Hong Kong.”

“On the surface, No Cold War is a loose collective run mostly by American and British activists who say the West’s rhetoric against China has distracted from issues like climate change and racial injustice,” the paper reported.

“In fact, a New York Times investigation found, it is part of a lavishly funded influence campaign that defends China and pushes its propaganda. At the center is a charismatic American millionaire, Neville Roy Singham, who is known as a socialist benefactor of far-left causes.”

Mr. Singham, the Times added, “works closely with the Chinese government media machine and is financing its propaganda worldwide.”

CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin’s connection to World BEYOND War is financial as well as advisory.

Her family foundation, Arc of Justice, reported a $100,000 grant to World BEYOND War in its 2022 federal tax filing, recorded as general support. The same filing lists $355,350 to CODEPINK.

The two organizations also share an institutional funder, the Tides Foundation, a large American grantmaker. World BEYOND War names Tides among its foundation supporters; Tides reported grants of $104,500 to CODEPINK in 2022 and $54,500 in 2023.

In March, CODEPINK helped organize what it called a humanitarian convoy to Cuba with The People’s Forum, one of the New York groups the Times identified as funded by Singham. Medea Benjamin, whose CODEPINK had received more than $1.4 million from Singham-linked entities, joined the trip, along with political streamer Hasan Piker. The Treasury Department opened an administrative review. Benjamin called it intimidation and denied reports that she had been subpoenaed.

In March 2025, World BEYOND War joined an anti-mining protest in Toronto — at the world’s largest mining gathering — alongside the Palestinian Youth Movement, the Sudanese Solidarity Collective, and Canadian indigenous groups.

The demonstrators denounced what they called conflict minerals and green militarism, naming cobalt, coltan, antimony, rare earths, niobium and thorium. “Every F-35 fighter jet has about 900 pounds of rare earths in it,” one argument ran. “Those weapons are being used to bomb civilians in Gaza.”

Another held that “Canadian companies can dig up critical minerals used to make the bombs that are bombing other Indigenous people, on their lands, around the world.”

On January 21, 2026, World BEYOND War published on its own site an essay by CODEPINK’s “War Is Not Green” campaigner, arguing that artificial intelligence data centers are an engine of militarized extraction, relying on critical minerals.

“The process of obtaining these minerals … requires the militarization, destabilization, and total plunder of mineral-rich regions.”

The question of whether foreign money moves through Western environmental coalitions was put to Brenda Shaffer at a Hudson Institute panel in Washington on May 19, convened by former U.S. national security official Michael Doran with research fellow Zineb Riboua and this reporter. Shaffer teaches at the United States Naval Postgraduate School’s Energy Academic Group.

She was asked about Tides — which World BEYOND War lists among its funders — and called it “an American based organization” that is “strongly affiliated with democratic causes in the US.”

“Many, many organizations and American organizations work as pass throughs for China to block energy in Canada, but also to block energy in the United States,” Shaffer said. “For instance, there’s Energy Foundation, which is based in San Francisco, which used to be a legally explicit Chinese organization, but it broke off to an American organization and a Chinese organization.”

“You see the 990 forms and you see money comes in from China to Energy Foundation,” she said. “Money goes from Energy Foundation into various environmental movements in the United States that are working against fossil fuels. And if China was really so interested about stopping fossil fuels, you would think they, the largest consumer of coal in the world, the largest producer, they would stop it at home.”

On December 16, 2025, 26 state attorneys general asked Attorney General Pamela Bondi to investigate Energy Foundation China under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, alleging it “is supervised by the National Development and Reform Commission — an arm of the Chinese government” and is led by Beijing-based former Chinese Communist Party officials. Its chief executive, Ji Zou, previously served as a deputy director general of China’s National Center for Climate Change Strategy. The letter says that “in 2023 alone it gave over $156 million in grants to environmental and climate-focused groups.”

A search of the Tides Foundation’s amended 2022 Form 990 shows that it reported $16,292,728 in grant-making expenditures and investments in East Asia and the Pacific. The filing itemizes 157 grants of more than $5,000 to recipients in that region.

Because the public-disclosure form leaves foreign recipients’ names and employer identification numbers blank, it cannot be determined from this filing whether Energy Foundation China or any other particular entity received those funds.

The public filing also does not identify Tides’ contributors, so it cannot establish whether Tides received funds from Asia.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.

Given the Trump administration’s shift from a military campaign against Iran to primarily one that seeks economic ‘strangulation’ and isolation – there’s been a big diplomatic push by the White House to get regional allies on board.

But the early case remains that reactions from other Gulf allies have so far been muted, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent earlier confirmed that Trump has been phoning world leaders to join him in isolating Iran.

But this is what makes images coming out Monday from a place further to the east so resounding, symbolic, and defiant: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is busy getting the red carpet treatment while attending the annual Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have arrived in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek for the annual Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit – the primarily China/Russia founded Eurasian political, economic and international security organization which is now made up of ten member states

The bold defiance in terms of the optics will surely not be missed by Washington:

Chinese President Xi Jinping, his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have arrived in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek for the annual Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is also attending the summit, which marks 25 years of its existence.

Also in attendance for the two-day summit which kicked off Monday, and which has already included a Putin-Xi meeting on the sidelines, are the leaders of Uzbekistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and others.

“Uncertainty grows against the backdrop of unprecedented changes” — China’s Xi Jinping tells Vladimir Putin

Notably, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is also there, and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

🇮🇷 Kyrgyz people welcomed President Pezeshkian with traditional sweets.

During his visit to Kyrgyzstan, in addition to participating in and delivering a speech at the summit of heads of state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the “SCO plus” format, President… pic.twitter.com/wL4a6dFSy2

— 𝕊𝕡𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕻𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕤 (@SprinterPress) August 31, 2026

Warm greetings between Iranian and Pakistani leaders…

#VIDEO: Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif meets Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Bishkek on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. pic.twitter.com/XdU0IBBcbP

— Saudi Gazette (@Saudi_Gazette) August 31, 2026

It must be remembered that Pakistan is a long-running nuclear-armed Washington ally… so this is awkward to say the least, for the US.

But Islamabad has also been a key mediator throughout the now 6-month long Iran war. Whenever its officials get dispatched to Tehran, the relationship with Iranian officials seems chummy and warm. This has already been on display at the SCO conference…

Meeting between the Prime Minister and the President of Iran on the sidelines of SCO CHS Meeting in Bishkek.

Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif held a meeting with the President of Islamic Republic of Iran, H.E. Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian today, on the sidelines of SCO Council of… pic.twitter.com/liQazEaA1R

— Prime Minister’s Office (@PakPMO) August 31, 2026

Tehran is hoping that its membership and active involvement in regional accords such as the SCO as well as BRICS can be a key to weathering the US-led economic storm and strong sanctions regimen.

Earlier this month, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian reaffirmed in a statement that cooperation between China and Iran “has always been conducted within the framework of international law and should not be interfered with or disrupted.” So far, US Treasury sanctions have yet to take direct aim at significant Chinese financial institutions. 

Authored by Jonathan Turley via Jonathan Turley,

Below is my column in The Hill on the latest controversy from the chambers of Judge Indira Talwani. While the court could be upheld in halting the executive order on mail-in balloting in this case, Talwani is one of a number of jurists who have been habitual blockers of executive reforms and policies. Talwani has been criticized in the past as something of a one-stop option for forum-shoppers. Her record reaffirms the rationale for justices in using the emergency docket, or so-called “shadow docket,” to deter gaming the system.

Here is the column:

This week, the Trump administration found itself in a familiar position: facing an injunction from Judge Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Indeed, it had just secured an order from the Supreme Court on its emergency docket lifting her earlier injunction on the U.S. Postal Service requiring voting lists to confirm U.S. citizenship.

The case against the executive order on mail-in ballots has reasonable arguments on both sides, although (as I have said previously) the challengers are likely to prevail in defeating the rule or at least delaying the policy until after the midterm elections. The Constitution gives states the primary responsibility over “the times, places, and manner of holding elections.”

However, the U.S. Postal Service is a federal agency, and the federal government does have a role in the funding and regulation of federal elections. More importantly, the Trump administration is arguing that it is not barring mail-in voting but merely imposing “modest informational requirements.” Non-citizens cannot vote in federal elections, and the new rule “does not displace a single state election law. And it need not and should not prevent a single voter from voting by mail.”

The controversy over Talwani is not necessarily the merits of her decision that the rule convenes the constitutional framework. Indeed, the Supreme Court did not rule on the merits and could well rule in favor of her interpretation.

The controversy is the pattern of sweeping injunctions by Talwani and a few other judges.

Litigants have been accused of forum-shopping by going to liberal, Democratically appointed judges to prevent Trump policies from being implemented in a wide array of areas, including immigration, elections, reduction in government bureaucracies, and foreign aid.

Like her colleague in Boston, U.S. District Court Judge Brian Murphy, Talwani is viewed by many as a one-stop-shop judge for forum-shopping. Both have issued hair-trigger injunctions, and both have been repeatedly reversed.

Talwani was reversed on Aug. 24 for imposing an injunction against the mail-in balloting policy. Her injunction was taken to be premature and without a legal injury, since the administration had not issued a formal rule. The truth is, the challengers had her at hello. She did not wait for a showing of a cognizable injury before issuing another injunction, because the decision appeared made before the case hit her own docket.

Previously, Talwani showed the same inclination in other cases.

For example, she issued an injunction against revoking the humanitarian parole program for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Her order was lifted on appeal.

She also issued an injunction to stop the Trump Administration from defunding Planned Parenthood. That order was also set aside on appeal.

Regardless of the outcome of this latest injunction, Talwani has offered the strongest case in favor of the expanded use of the emergency docket, also known as the “shadow docket.” Liberal law professors and litigants have bewailed the expanded use of this docket at the Supreme Court to resolve cases without the need for a long briefing and oral argument. However, judges like Talwani have created legitimate concerns over the use of the appellate system to slow or freeze new policies. This is why the “shadow docket” has become more prominent.

This year, confidential memoranda were leaked from the court on the use of the emergency docket and published by the New York Times. It was only the latest such strategic leak from a court that was once the paragon of confidentiality and civility.

The internal exchanges of the justices were illuminating as to the majority’s underlying reason for allowing this fast-track review. The immediate issue was a move by the Environmental Protection Agency to impose unlawful regulatory burdens on electric utilities despite a countervailing earlier ruling in Michigan v. EPA. Chief Justice Roberts believed (as did many) that the EPA was using the ongoing litigation to force utilities to spend billions of dollars to comply with new regulations that the Supreme Court had already rejected.

“In other words,” Roberts wrote, “the absence of stay allowed the agency to effectively implement an important program we held to be contrary to law.”

As with the national injunctions that plagued the Trump administration in its first year, this tactic was all too familiar. Litigants would go to liberal judges in Washington, Boston, and other blue cities to secure injunctions that would take years to fully litigate. That approach effectively allowed individual judges to pursue their own preferred policies or to prevent a president from carrying out promises made during an election. At most, the president might have a year left after these cases slogged through the conventional appellate process. It is an administrative version of the old adage that “justice delayed is justice denied.”

What concerned the justices was that many of these injunctions directly contravened earlier precedent, exposing the cynical purpose of these orders. For a president to be able to carry out major changes, he had to run a gauntlet of hundreds of judges, any one of whom could effectively negate reforms. In response, the Supreme Court ramped up the use of the emergency docket and cracked down on national injunctions, quickly reversing the rapidly increasing number of injunctions against the Trump administration.

With the midterm elections rapidly approaching, the odds favor challengers in either running out the clock or prevailing on the merits on the mail-in ballots. But Talwani and some other judges have reinforced suspicions of the Roberts court that some courts are willing allies of partisan groups in seeking to gum up the system.

Ironically, Roberts is one of the most likely conservative justices to be concerned with the Trump administration’s effort to force election integrity reforms on the states. Either way, it is the shadow of these judges, not the docket, that is casting the most ominous concern for many of the Supreme Court justices.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”

A number of US military top generals have taken the rare step of formally registering warnings to Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth over potential plans for a new phase of strikes against a non-compliant Iran. 

The warnings reportedly emerged through the Secretary of Defense Orders Book, which enumerates the availability of US military resources and force posture around the world – with direct input from American regional commanders.

The book is typically published twice a month, but this time it was reportedly filled with pushback by those overseeing operations in Latin America, Europe and Asia – who have seen training missions canceled, and ships and aircraft diverted to the Middle East for counter-Iran operations.

The Washington Post reported over the weekend that a chief complaint by the top officers was that the Iran conflict “has degraded their ability to fulfill homeland-defense obligations.“

Amid fresh troop movements based on new orders reportedly issued in mid-August, commanders made clear they do not agree with the new force trajectory, but are ready to carry out the Commander-in-Chief’s orders regardless.

Still, the leaking of this information, and such a rare public airing of grievances, has Hegseth and the Trump administration furious. The Washington Post reports:

The Aug. 14 orders book directs some troops deployed in the Middle East to remain there through September and some others into 2027, said those familiar with the document. The prospect of extending those forces further compelled military leaders to voice their concern, these people said.

Leaders of the U.S. European Command, the U.S. Pacific Command and the U.S. Southern Command, along with the Navy’s top admiral, responded with what is characterized in the SDOB as a “non-concur,” those familiar with the assessment said — meaning they disagree with the secretary’s order to extend their forces but will execute it nevertheless.

Another key line from generals cited in the WaPo reporting is that the Iran war – which the Trump White House early on had promised would be ‘swift’ – has been “too much for too long”.

Some pundits are warning that this alleged rare leak is an alarming sign Trump could be preparing to do something ‘big’…

I’m telling you guys and gals here: Trump is getting ready to something batshit crazy–which is why the generals and admirals are leaking SDOB to the WaPo. They’re FREAKING OUT because it’s obvious that Trump and his team are going to make them do something nutty. https://t.co/nc0tLcj0b6

— Brandon Weichert (@WeTheBrandon) August 31, 2026

That section from the WaPo report reads as follows:

Army and Air Force leadership concurred with Hegseth’s desire to extend their deployed forces, but each emphasized that doing so would come with significant risk, these people said.

Overall, the tenor from the military leadership is that the ongoing Iran operation, having reached the six-month mark, has been “too much for too long,” said one person familiar with the assessment.

The military’s warning to Hegseth, which has not been previously reported, offers new insight into the administration’s dilemma as Trump seeks to end the conflict on terms favorable to the United States while Iran, cognizant of the war’s unpopularity with most Americans and its mounting toll on the U.S. arsenal, refuses to capitulate.

As expected, the Pentagon has responded by calling it fake news and saying that leakers of classified information will be sought and dealt with.

“This fake news, poorly sourced reporting is full of inaccuracies,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement. More from Parnell on X:

Publishing highly classified assessments from the Secretary’s orders book is a crime.
It’s a betrayal of the force.
And much of what they’re publishing is inaccurate.
Of course, we demand candid military advice. Non-concurs are standard. The Secretary sees them constantly. That’s… https://t.co/Jgc4GzdXcU

— Sean Parnell (@SeanParnellASW) August 30, 2026

He added: “Decisions regarding the scope and duration of specific force commitments to any Combatant Command are made based on the current threat assessment, strategic priorities established by the President, and the advice of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Combatant Commanders. However, the Department of War does not discuss internal operational processes, including the Secretary of War Orders Book (SWOB), or specific concurrences, non-concurrences, or risk assessments provided by the Services or Combatant Commands during force allocation deliberations.”

But the reality is that this conflict is a full six months in, and the generals are perhaps keenly aware it is now in quagmire stage, with no plans for an exit or final strategic ‘mission accomplished’ vision in sight. Meanwhile, every escalation in the Persian Gulf tends to beget more escalation. What’s the endgame here? 

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is out. Early Monday evening The Wall Street Journal is the first to break the news, describing that he submitted his resignation to President Trump, following months of tensions with Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth.

Some national security sources have already been quoted as saying the development is “unsurprising” – with the WSJ writing that “Driscoll had been expected to step down this year from his role as the civilian leader of the Army after clashing with Hegseth.”

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly has confirmed that Driscoll resigned. It comes just days after the Iran war hit the six month mark, with no apparent exit strategy articulated by the White House or military leadership.

“Secretary Driscoll has been highly effective in advancing President Trump’s agenda to Make America Strong Again at the Department of the Army by providing outstanding leadership during historic military operations, restoring an emphasis on readiness and lethality, assisting with negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and more,” Kelly said in a statement.

There could be more high-level resignations at the Pentagon to come, amid several simultaneous controversies gripping internal Department of War ranks over several months. To review:

• First and foremost, there’s the Iran war and its strategy and direction, and overextension of forces.
• Next, there’s the still raging controversy over dwindling missile and interceptor supplies.
• Also important is that Hegseth has been doing some house-cleaning at the Pentagon – since the start of the administration’s term sacking a series top generals and commanders, also amid questions of loyalty.

On this latter front, the Journal presents some of the latest developments as follows:

Last week, Driscoll attended the retirement ceremony at Fort Bragg for Gen. Chris Donahue, who served as the top Army officer in Europe until Hegseth downgraded his position, effectively bringing an end to his military career. 

Donahue’s abrupt departure was presented as part of Hegseth’s broader push to shrink the number of generals and admirals by 10% overall, plus a 20% cut to the number of four-star positions, the Journal reported. 

Hegseth’s efforts at bringing radical change to the Pentagon has resulted in huge, rare frictions between his office and top generals and admirals across the globe, particularly centered on questions of force readiness and future vision and doctrine.

“Driscoll brought up concerns with the administration surrounding Army transformation and readiness and Hegseth’s blocking those efforts specifically by firing the Generals who were responsible,” the source said. https://t.co/sO1r6dYkZ7

— Idrees Ali (@idreesali114) August 31, 2026

There are some political dynamics as well, with WSJ also noting that “Driscoll is a former law school classmate of Vice President JD Vance. A former Army officer, he forged a close relationship with George, the former Army chief of staff who was fired by Hegseth in April. The two pushed soldiers to adopt new technology and become more adaptable battlefield threats.”

So all this further seems bound up with personalities, loyalties, as well as contrasting visions for the future of America’s armed forces. It should be noted that Driscoll as a Vance-ally was probably – just like the Vice President – deeply skeptical of many of the Trump’s administration’s Iran-related decisions.

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump’s administration has issued a memo to universities aimed at restricting certain internship work authorizations for international students. Officials cautioned that schools failing to comply could have their certification to enroll foreign students revoked.

The memo, which is dated Aug. 24 and issued by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said the agency “has observed a rise in Curricular Practical Training (CPT) authorizations that appear to violate regulatory requirements which permit CPT only where the training is an integral part of an established curriculum.”

“Failure to comply with SEVP regulations may result in an institution losing certification to enroll foreign students,” the memo said.

Some schools have already stopped processing applications. The University of California, Los Angeles ceased issuing certain CPT authorizations while it reviewed the guidance.

“UCLA has paused certain Curricular Practical Training authorizations while it reviews recent federal guidance and determines next steps,” a UCLA spokesperson said.

At the University of California, Berkeley, the international office described the Aug. 24 memo as “more narrow in focus, more direct, and includes content that is more restrictive in nature.”

An earlier memo had been issued in mid-August. Berkeley said it is unlikely to process certain work authorization applications “in the near future” and told international students to plan accordingly.

The university will keep handling “degree-requirement” CPT as usual and plans to resume “Doctoral Dissertation and Master’s Thesis Research CPT.”

University officials said they would consult legal experts to align processes with the new federal requirements.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE’s parent agency, said the underlying regulations have not changed.

“However, schools and employers should consider themselves on notice: under President Trump, abuse of this generous system will no longer be tolerated.”

CPT allows eligible international students to participate in internships or training when the work forms an integral part of their academic curriculum. The memo stresses that the training must connect to an established academic program.

This step fits into an overarching set of changes for foreign students. In July, DHS completed a rule ending the long-standing “duration of status” policy. That system had permitted many F, J, and I visa holders to remain in the country without a fixed departure date.

The new rule, published in the Federal Register on July 17 and effective Sept. 15, limits most stays to four years unless students apply for extensions through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Extensions will require screening, background checks, and fraud reviews. The grace period after the conclusion of studies is reduced from 60 days to 30 days.

“For nearly half a century, the outdated ‘duration of status’ system has compromised national security and created an environment ripe for immigration fraud,” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said at the time.

“By implementing clear, finite limits on these visas, the United States is reclaiming its ability to properly screen, vet, and monitor individuals within our borders.”

The rule is being challenged in court by a coalition of unions and advocacy groups that say the new rule makes the United States less competitive as a destination for international talent.

Earlier this year, ICE published the findings of an investigation into Optional Practical Training, a separate post-graduation work program.

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said investigators “have identified over 10,000 foreign students who claim to be working for highly suspect employers.”

Visits turned up empty buildings, locked doors, and addresses associated with hundreds of students who were not involved in the activity they claimed, he said. Officials also found “phantom employees” who never reported to the listed sites, as well as complex international financial transactions, according to Lyons.

Reuters contributed to this report.