Battery maker CATL is still in talks with the Chinese government agencies to renew the permit but is prepared to extend the suspension for several months, Bloomberg said.
https://cnevpost.com/2025/08/10/catl-suspends-lithium-mine-production-3-months/
US Vice-President J.D. Vance said a negotiated settlement between Russia and Ukraine is unlikely to satisfy either side, and any peace deal will likely leave both Moscow and Kyiv "unhappy."
He said the US is aiming for a settlement both countries can accept.
"It's not going to make anybody super happy. Both the Russians and the Ukrainians, probably, at the end of the day, are going to be unhappy with it," he said in a Fox News interview that aired on Aug 10.
US President Donald Trump said on Aug 8 he will
meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin
on Aug 15 in Alaska to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.Mr Trump said Russia and Ukraine were close to a ceasefire deal that could end the three-and-a-half-year conflict, possibly requiring Ukraine to surrender significant territory.
Mr Zelensky, however, said Aug 9 that Ukraine cannot violate its constitution on territorial issues, adding, "Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupiers."
In the Fox News interview recorded on Aug 8, Mr Vance said the United States was working to schedule talks between Mr Putin, Mr Zelensky, and Mr Trump, but he did not think it would be productive for Mr Putin to meet with Mr Zelensky before speaking with Mr Trump.
"We're at a point now where we're trying to figure out, frankly, scheduling and things like that, around when these three leaders could sit down and discuss an end to this conflict," he said.
The thing about trading stocks is everyone has an opinion. And right now there’s an unusual divergence in the market that’s as stark as man versus machine.
Computer-guided traders haven’t been this bullish on stocks compared to their human counterparts since early 2020, before the depths of the Covid pandemic, according to Parag Thatte, a strategist at Deutsche Bank AG.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance said the United States was working to schedule talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
In a Fox News interview on Sunday, he said he did not think it would be productive for Putin to sit down with Zelenskiy before meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/vance-says-us-working-set-145243757.html
Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, is encouraging Gen Zers to reconsider the traditional college route and explore skilled trades or entrepreneurship, as recent graduates face a challenging job market.
"We need to go back to the drawing board, and if we can avoid having an entire generation stuck with $80,000 to $150,000 worth of student loans, and they can still get good jobs, we should absolutely pursue those things," Schilling told FOX Business. "I think the trades offer the best option for that."
Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed the labor market "deteriorated noticeably" in the first quarter of 2025, with recent workforce entrants taking the hardest hits.
Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, is urging Generation Z to reconsider the traditional college route and explore skilled trades or even entrepreneurship. ( / Fox News)
In June, the unemployment rate for all college graduates was just 2.7%, but among those aged 22 to 27, it was 4.8%. Meanwhile, the underemployment rate, which refers to the percentage of college graduates employed in roles that generally do not require a degree, was 33.7% among college grads overall and 41.3% among recent graduates, according to the New York Fed.
The New York Fed on Tuesday also reported a significant rise in the number of delinquent student loans after the end of a moratorium on student loan repayment and the resumption of reporting delinquencies to credit agencies.
"With the rising cost of tuition, it's $50,000 or $60,000 depending on the school now a year, it really is looking like it might not be that great of an investment," Schilling said. "Especially if you're not getting a higher-paying job, or you're just as unemployed as someone that didn't go to college."
While Schilling pointed out that degrees are still necessary to work in certain fields, like medicine and law, he said that for many, college has become a pricey and ineffective form of job training – one that does not always adequately prepare students properly to acquire employment.
"I think the cost has greatly outpaced the benefits of college," Schilling said. "… Even employers now are looking at hiring people that don't have college degrees that are better suited for the jobs."
Career paths that would be viable alternatives include skilled trades and entrepreneurship, he said. More than one million trade jobs remain unfilled in the U.S., driven by an aging and retiring workforce as well as a societal bias toward college degrees, according to Forbes.
"There are huge shortages in all the trades, whether it's electrical or plumbing or carpentry – all of these hands-on jobs – there are huge shortages in the number of people that they need to fill those jobs," Schilling said. "… And also entrepreneurship. I think the college degree obsession has led to a lack of people forming their own businesses and getting creative."
The American Principles Project, founded in 2009, is a national organization focused on campaigning and advocating for the family, according to its website.
by Darren Taylor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Major countries and regional blocs in Africa are throwing their weight behind an ambitious plan to establish a “non-circulating” currency backed by critical minerals, which are crucial to technological development, defense, and economic growth.
Analysts say a denomination based on commodities could reduce Africa’s reliance on foreign currencies—especially the U.S. dollar—and decrease its dependence on loans from China, Europe, the United States, and global financial institutions like the World Bank.
The proposed monetary unit is provisionally called the African Units of Account (AUA), according to a plan formulated by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and KPMG South Africa.
The new currency is supported by the African Union and South Africa, the continent’s biggest economic power, and could soon be piloted in a test market.
The proposal says the AUA would be traded on the international foreign exchange market, and would be less susceptible to fluctuations in individual African currencies or the U.S. dollar, making it more attractive to investors.
Economists say the backing of the currency with mineral reserves could reduce the risk perceived by lenders, potentially leading to lower interest rates on loans for development projects, especially in Africa’s energy sector.
While some in Africa’s mining industry are optimistic about the potential of such a currency, others warn that China could “weaponize” it, given Beijing’s dominance in global critical minerals supply chains.
The International Energy Agency and other organizations project that demand for critical minerals like cobalt, copper, platinum, and lithium will spike fourfold shortly, with global powers in a race to secure supplies.
Africa is at the center of the competition.
It’s the world’s poorest and least developed region, but it holds almost a third of global reserves of critical minerals, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The minerals are essential for modern technologies like smartphones and computers, in electricity grids, and in weapons such as missile systems, fighter jets, and warships.
U.S. President Donald Trump regards critical minerals as vital to the future of the United States, and he wants to secure supply chains as soon as possible.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) lists 50 minerals essential to America’s economy and national security, including cobalt, lithium, manganese, platinum, tantalum, tungsten, and vanadium.
Most are found in Africa.
South Africa, for example, is the world’s largest producer of manganese and platinum; Zimbabwe is one of the world’s top lithium producers, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) mines approximately 70 percent of the world’s cobalt.
“A well-managed and structured critical minerals currency could strengthen Africa’s hand in global resources markets and free it to leverage its abundant natural resources,” said Moeletsi Mbeki, a South African economist.
This, he told The Epoch Times, is especially important at a time when the continent seeks to mitigate economic damage from global uncertainty caused by conflicts and “market turmoil.”
“If we consider the tariffs that Trump’s slapping around, and global trade wars happening now and in the future, maybe this new currency could prevent Africa from being collateral damage,” said Mbeki.
The AfDB and KPMG proposal said the currency would be backed by a basket of some of Africa’s most important critical minerals, and would be part of an initiative to create “a more unified and stable financial system.”
The framework document suggested that key producers of critical minerals pledge a pre-agreed proportion of proven commodity reserves to “promote regional financial integration, co-operation and cross-border trade.”
Moono Mupotola, AfDB director in Southern Africa, told The Epoch Times the bank is deciding on the minerals to be included in a “test” and is set to select a “pilot country” where a study of the feasibility of the new currency will happen.
Mbeki said the currency could help Africa take ownership of its critical minerals and their processing.
“We have all these minerals, but we don’t benefit much from them, because Africa’s value chain is so weak,” he explained.
“We process less than five percent of minerals domestically, which means the real profits are earned by foreigners, especially China.
“If we can use a common currency to unite Africa’s mining industries and their governments, it’s a real step towards more independence and greater local beneficiation and profits going into African pockets.”
Professor Hambaba Jimaima, international relations researcher at the University of Zambia, said Africa’s steps toward the currency are an indication that it wants as much economic independence as possible from both China and the West, as it prepares to be a prominent player in world affairs.
“Africa’s tired of being beholden to the West for aid and trade and to China for investment and loans,” he told The Epoch Times. “It wants to use critical minerals and a currency connected to them as a basis for industrialization and greater political clout.
“Africa has given away control of critical minerals to China. Africa wants this control back. It wants to mine and refine its own resources. Critical minerals are Africa’s trump card. The currency must be seen in this light.”
But other experts, like Ugandan economist and the East African country’s former finance minister, Ezra Suruma, are skeptical.
“Critical minerals are not yet the safe investment that gold is,” he told The Epoch Times. “Prices are volatile. If there’s more stability, then certainly the idea of a critical minerals currency is worth investigating.”
Frank Blackmore, KPMG South Africa lead economist, told The Epoch Times several factors hamper the creation of a resource-based currency.
“It’s going to take a long time for most African producers to reap full reward from their critical minerals,” he said.
“A lot of places don’t have adequate electricity; transport nodes are rundown. All of this counts against production. There are also shortages of skilled labor.”
Mbeki suggested, though, that the initial pool of minerals be used as collateral to fund development and industrialization.
“That fund could be used to encourage locally-controlled exploration and mining,” he said.
Mbeki also warns that China, as much as it often declares itself dedicated to African progress, could yet be “a fly in the ointment” in the establishment of a critical minerals-backed currency.
“China doesn’t usually support plans that could erode its power,” said the economist. “I can foresee the Chinese not being very cooperative in this regard, and they could even weaponize the currency to try to make sure that African countries toe their lines.
“As long as the Chinese have so much power in critical minerals supply chains, this new currency is on shaky ground.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/africa-set-test-critical-minerals-backed-currency
Following a New York Times report that President Trump has issued a directive authorizing the Department of Defense (DoD) to conduct direct military operations against certain Latin American drug cartels designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has firmly rejected any U.S. military presence on Mexican soil.
"The United States is not going to come to Mexico with the military. We cooperate, we collaborate, but there is not going to be an invasion. That is ruled out, absolutely ruled out," Sheinbaum said, who was quoted by a new NYT report. She added that her administration would review Trump's order.
She emphasized, "It is not part of any agreement, far from it. When it has been brought up, we have always said no."
Trump's hemispheric defense push to secure the Americas has been to target drug cartels designated as FTOs. These targets include Cartel de los Soles, Tren de Aragua, and Sinaloa Cartel. The aim here is to disrupt the financial command and control nodes first, which is underway, then the physical structure of these organizations, all to break the flow of fentanyl and human trafficking into the U.S. through the southern border.
Mexican officials claim they had no advance warning of Trump's directive. However, Sheinbaum said U.S. counterparts had hinted that they would deploy U.S. forces for capture/kill missions, maritime interdictions, and cross-border SOF raids against high-value cartel targets.
Trump's new directive signals a hardened approach to ending the fentanyl crisis, mainly driven by FTOs in Mexico supplied with precursor chemicals from China. This drug death crisis claims more than 100,000 American lives each year and has become a central mandate for Trump to address.
This crisis, exacerbated by the Biden-Harris regime's globalist, open-border, nation-killing policies, amounts to what some believe is hybrid warfare waged by the Chinese Communist Party. The U.S. president is now moving to put a stop to this chemical warfare on its citizens.
Here's more from NYT's report:
It remains unclear what plans the Pentagon is drawing up for possible action, and the order raises a range of legal questions. It is also unclear what notice the Mexican government had: Although Ms. Sheinbaum said U.S. officials had told her and her team that the directive "was coming," three people familiar with the matter said Mexican officials had been blindsided.
Depending on what the United States does, Mexico could pull back its cooperation on issues like security and migration, those people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations.
For months, Mexican officials have in public and in private rejected suggestions of U.S. military action against drug cartels on Mexican territory.
The issue of U.S. military action has long raised hackles in Latin America, where the United States' history of interventions goes back well over a century.
Arturo Rocha, who resigned late last year from the Mexican foreign ministry, commented on the Trump's new directive, stating, "They need Mexico's cooperation and they need Mexico's state and society to be functioning. This isn't Afghanistan, where the state is broken, and you can do whatever you want as there's a void."
"This has always been Mexico's deepest fear, this constant sense that we could be invaded by the U.S. again," Rocha added. "It would have major implications in terms of cooperation with the U.S. going forward. The president has been clear that our sovereignty is a redline."
The drug war in Mexico has been chiefly led by the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration. But now the DoD appears to be getting involved, and U.S. military involvement across Latin America could spark geopolitical fallout with any country that doesn't agree to participate in cleaning up FTO drug cartels.
Mexican banks may soon face U.S. sanctions to disrupt cartel money laundering operations. Trump has a mandate from the American people to stop the drug death crisis; a crisis that, for some reason, globalist Democrats allowed to accelerate through open borders and failed progressive policies on the city, state, and local level that have transformed some parts of U.S. cities into crime-ridden hellholes.
