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The Badlands.
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Running the Badlands.
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Explain those Badlands.
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That's a hell of a name.
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Everybody here?
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All right, Good afternoon, Everybody. Today is August 12, 2025. I'm your host, Gordon McCormick. This is Geopolitics with Ghost. How is everybody doing today? And no, I'm not. We're not dressed up today because all my. My suit, my clothes are at the. My jacket and everything is at the Laundromat. Getting ready, packing up for Gart. So it is time. Hit the road. We are excited about that. And actually, we will start today with an ad read from our friends over at. Excuse me, you just stall for another second at My Pillow Foreign, a large retail store has just canceled a large order, leaving My pillow with a ton of Extra MyPillows. But you know what? That's their loss in your gain. MyPillow is offering the Classic Collection for wholesale prices only, 19.98 for a standard MyPillow. But it gets even better.
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02:50
Perhaps you're out west. Good to. Good to see you. Let's see. Let's jump into the news now. Well, let's start here. So I know I covered this morning on Breaking History around Balance Daily, but I think it's most relevant for this audience. So we might as well just start here and we'll spend just a minute recapping it. But being that this actually happened during, like, during this show, actually funny Enough. I was sitting in this room. I'm, I'm streaming from my son's room right now because have people in my kitchen. So I'm not streaming from my kitchen, but I was actually sitting in my son's room when streaming from there when Tammy Bruce was running that press conference. We don't need to play the video games. I probably have already played it several times for this audience.
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But the news story is Trump nominates X Fox News host Tammy Bruce as Deputy UN Ambassador. The the Truth Social post from Trump. From President Trump, I am pleased to announce that I am nominating Tammy Bruce, a great patriot television personality and best selling author as our next Deputy representative of the United States to the UN with the rank of Ambassador. Since the beginning of my second term, Tammy has been serving with distinction as spokesperson of the State Department where she did a fantastic job. Tammy Bruce will represent our country brilliantly at the United Nations. Congratulations, Tammy. Yeah, and so they actually, they actually included the video in this article. Let me see if what video they include here. I'm just curious.
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The President has just written on Truth Social that Mike Waltz is going to become the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Well, there you go. Fabulous. And in addition to that, he says that in the interim Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as National Security Advisor while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department. Do you know how long he's going to be serving in both roles? It is clear that I just heard this from you. I had, I, this is the magic. Well, I, I have some insights as to the potential of certain things that might happen. But when the president, and this of course is all presidential decisions. Right, right. So I'm with the State Department.
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I, it is as I think would be clear to all of you don't want to get ahead of your skis in drawing conclusions or speculating about what may occur and you can have a general sense of what's possible and then you see that manifest usually. But I think the one thing I certainly that I've learned is that things don't happen until the President says they're going to happen. So the fact that is, which was obviously truth Social. Yeah. So that is the miracle of modern technology and the social media. So that is an exciting moment here.
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I think that as I know Secretary Rubio, this is a man who is, I think you all know, has worn several hats from day one in managing the nature of what's happened here at the State Department, at usaid and perfect assessments about who would implement his agenda. And in this case, he's chosen certainly the secretary and Mr. Waltz to facilitate his agenda moving forward. Not, not entirely surprising, I have to say. And good news for the American people. Some insights that this might happen. Could you just. Well, I think no, I can't. But thanks for asking. You do have knowing the secretary. Sure. And knowing this building. How do you see this working and what advantages do you see with Secretary Rubio's experience in this new role? Well, and also his experience certainly in the Senate for so long.
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He knows everyone in the city and we've seen the secretary operate in with.
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All right, that's enough of that. I just wanted to see if she said anything about the UN Or Mike Waltz. So interesting dynamic here. You know, in that clip she is revealing that she had no idea Mike Waltz was being sent to the UN this is news to me. I'm just hearing this for the first time. I don't blame her for saying that she wasn't going to provide any insight into like the decision making here. But that's, it's not for something, that's not something you would put out to the press regardless. But the fact that she has been sent off to the Atlanta Misfit Toys is interesting because Mike Waltz is still to this point. This was back in. When did that happen again? I want to say it was April, maybe May says Trump's nominee for weights being confirmed by the Senate.
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Yeah, it doesn't say. But the fact that Mike Waltz after like whatever it's been two months, three months since he's been, since he was appointed, still has not been confirmed by the Senate. So he's like in limbo. I mean, I assume he's not, hasn't taken a job somewhere else, you know, while he, while he's waiting to become the UN Ambassador, she's not going to go become the deputy ambassador. It's very clear that Mike Waltz was fired. I mean I, I'm sure most people it's going totally go under the RAdar that Tammy Bruce was just fired. But that's exactly what happened is she was just fired and she was fired because of the insulting comments she made towards the Saudis two weeks ago during the two state confab. Total misstep by her. No reason for it. Rubio pro.
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I would imagine Rubio probably something was said to Rubio as well. Although I said at the time, I said Bruce should resign, Rubio should not. It's not enough, I think to warrant Rubio resigning, but I think that Bruce should 100% resign because she came out with that statement that was just so vicious and then she was humiliated because the Arabs came out and demanded that Hamas surrender, which she had just finished saying that they were supporting Hamas. So way to go Tammy. That was just terrible analysis on your part. But whatever. Wish you the best.
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And on that point we'll start here with this with the story where we finished up Balance Daily Italian PM agrees with Palestinian authorities Abbas over no Future for Hamas in Gaza Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Maloney and Palestinian Prime President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to a phone call on Tuesday that Hamas must release all Israeli hostages and accepted that it has no future in governing the coastal enclave of Gaza. Maloney expressed concern over the Israeli decision last week to occupy Gaza, describing the humanitarian situation there as unjustified and unacceptable and calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities. She highlighted Italy's commitment to humanitarian aid such as the Food for Gaza initiative airdrops and the evacuation of more than 150 Palestinian children needing treatment, the Wafa news agency reported.
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She added that Italy is ready to assist in stabilizing and reconstructing Gaza and highlighted the importance of a political process for a just lasting peace in the Middle east through a two state solution. The two leaders agreed to meet in New York City on the sidelines of the UN Generals assembly in September, a highly anticipated occasion where several countries have pledged to recognize the state of Palestine, including France and Canada. Yeah, so this is notable in my opinion. I like to, when I'm running through, I'm sifting through the headlines, I'm sifting through the news cycle. There's a lot of trash in the news cycle. There's a lot of just, there's a lot of regurgitation like the same news story kind of being told over and over again with different headlines, slightly different takes, but kind of the same story over and over again.
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There's also a lot of just like nonsense, misinformation, disinformation, bad reporting, bad analysis. But there's also like moments where 2 meter 2 speakers will, or, I'm sorry, two leaders will speak to one another or make some kind of a gesture together that I take as symbolic, I take as significant. And I like to take those moments and kind of just put them in my back pocket. Like put them in, take them off the assembly, this assembly line and put them in my little bag because I think it means something. And this would be one of those moments. Mahmoud Abbas, I think I, I've thoroughly made the case to this audience that I think him and Trump are dear friends. I think Trump supports Mahmoud Abbas.
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He made a promise to him on camera May 3, 2017, that he was going to make sure that Abbas was the president that liberated Palestine and informed the official the formally created the Palestinian state, which requires the complicity of all of your neighbors, as international law says that in order to codify your borders, every country sharing those borders with you has to agree and recognize your sovereignty. And of course, Israel has not recognized Palestine. Palestine did it did recognize Israel in 1993. Mahmoud Abbas recognized Israel in 1993 when he signed the Oslo Accords at the Clinton White House. And it has not been reciprocated yet. Of course, Georgia Maloney, our girl, she is definitely our girl. I think in Europe, in Western Europe, I think you can make the argument that Victor Orban is our guy in the East.
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I mean, Putin is definitely our guy in the Far east of Europe, along with Lukashenko, Victor Orban, Robert Fitzo, Giorgio Maloney, Nigel Farage. And then it would appear that Macron and Keir Starmer have at least capitulated the Trump. It seems like they have capitulated. Mark Rute, you know, for all the bad things I have to say about NATO and the fact that I don't think NATO should exist at all, Mark Rute, I think has certainly acted like a whipped dog whenever he's around Trump. So, yeah, that's this is a story that I just wanted to glance at because it's in the same outlet Arab News Saudi Prince wins Prestigious British International Sword at Sandhurst. The Prince received the honor during the Sovereign's parade on Aug. 8, recognizing him as the top performing international cadet among a cohort from across the globe.
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Brigadier Ben Wilde, this stellar achievement by Prince Saud highlights the value of what Sandhurst offers some of the finest military leadership training to be found anywhere in the world. Prince Saud bin Mohammed bin Abdullah, Turkey, has made history as the first Saudi officer cadet to be awarded the prestigious International Sword at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. The prince received the honor during their Sovereign's parade on Aug. 8, recognizing him as the top performing international cadet among a cohort from across the globe. The award celebrates exceptional leadership, discipline and military excellence. Brigadier Ben Wild, I assume that means Brigadier General Ben Wilde, the British defense attache to Saudi Arabia, told Arab News, quote, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a long history with the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and a deep defense relationship that stretches back to the Second World War.
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The stellar achievement by officer cadet Prince Saud highlights the value of what Sandhurst offers. Some of the finest military leadership training to be found anywhere in the world. It is hoped that the relationship with Sandhurst will go from strength to strength in the future as the kingdom's military forces evolve to meet the challenges of the future. Says Wild said that what set Prince Saad apart was his immense physical and mental resilience. He led by example during the most demanding physical challenges, even inspiring those observing Ramadan to maintain rigorous training throughout the holy month. He is a superb communicator and military planner, achieving one of the highest scores on the entire course in the challenging military planning examination. On the field, he excelled in leading infantry tactical operations, demonstrating calm under pressure, strategic acumen, and the ability to inspire his team during realistic combat exercises.
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Beyond his operational skills, he served as an outstanding representative for his country, volunteering to lead aid Al Fatir celebrations and fostering an understanding of Islamic culture within a diverse environment. Selfless, professional, humble and gracious, he proved himself a natural leader and role model for all cadets in the commissioning course. Yeah, I mean, there's. I'm. By camera later, look at this. I mean, some Matt, Eric and a few others might look at this and say that, you know, this is a. This Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst is historically a place where bad guys are groomed, so to speak, for lack of a better word. But that doesn't necessarily mean that every person that comes out of there is a servant of the regime or a servant of the City of London. Obviously this guy is going to have loyalties to the Kingdom. I want to.
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This is actually an interesting development because I think the other way to look at this is that Saudi Arabia. One thing that Saudi Arabia has never really had is like a really strong military leader. Not since the founder of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Abdulabziz. And, Or I'm sorry, Ibn Abdul ABZ is. Because it's like he's relate. He's descended from. Doesn't matter. But I want to figure out who this guy's father is. I want to see how he's related. Just give me, just indulge me for a second. Let me, let me figure this out. His father is. So he is a son of salmon. So he is actually. And his mother is Fada. I, I think fada might be MBS's. Let me see. Yes. So this is MBS's full brother. Okay, that's What I thought this guy is MBS's full brother. That's very encouraging.
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So that makes this a very encouraging development. So MBS's full brother, what is the first Saudi national to receive this sword, this award and what this means? I mean, if you consider that, I think all of the Salmon children, even the half brothers, they all seem like good people. They all seem like decent people. I haven't really found anything to indicate that any of them have been in, you know, tied up in the kind of operations that some of their relatives have been caught up in. And really what Saudi Arabia needs is a good military leader. So because I know that what MBS has planned is he wants to build a strong Saudi military, not because he wants to warmonger or anything like that, but he wants sovereignty.
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And part of sovereignty means that you can project strength and you can have peace through strength and not be dependent on the United States military to basically occupy your country and act as your military force for you. So I think this is actually, now that I know for a fact that this is MBS's full brother, not his half brother. That's very encouraging. I think this is actually a good development and Saudi Arabia needs somebody like this. So he'll probably come back and get plugged into the Saudi military and we'll see what happens with him. Young guy, but a future leader of Saudi Arabia, so good for them. Let's go to, let's check back in on Azerbaijan. So last Friday, Trump announced a peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia, a subject that we've been discussing on this show.
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We've been discussing it really on Breaking History a lot. A very interesting situation, an interesting dynamic. And this headline is Iran Objects to US Plan for Armenia Azerbaijan Transit Route. Washington's corridor policy proposal is a ploy to isolate the country as well as Russia and weaken the influence of both in the region. Iran has condemned a US Plan to establish and control a transit route through Armenia or I'm sorry, through. Yeah, through Armenia, warning that it poses a. A threat to regional stability and would undermine Tehran's security interests. On Friday, Armenian Prime Minister Nicole Pashishnian, Azerbaijani President Elam Aliyev and U. S. President Donald Trump signed an agreement in Washington to open the Zangazur transport corridor.
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The route links mainland Azerbaijan to its enclave of Nikshi Nikki Chevon through a narrow strip of land in the southern Armenian in southern Armenia along the border with Iran. Under the agreement, the US will manage the corridor under Armenian sovereignty. Via a 99 year land lease, subletting it to a consortium for construction and operations. While Tehran said it welcomes peace agreements between Yerevan and Baku, those are the two capitals of those two countries. It vehemently opposes placing the corridor under US control. Iranian officials argue that it would cut Iran off from Armenia and destabilize the South Caucus Caucasus by allowing a foreign military and commercial presence.
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Ali Akbar Velayati, senior advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the project a geopolitical scheme by the US and Israel to weaken the Islamic Republic, sever its connection with the Caucasus and impose a land blockade on both Iran and Russia. He claimed it was part of a wider NATO backed strategy supported by Pan Turkic movements to shift the western focus from Ukraine to the Caucasus. The Caucasus is one of the, quote, the Caucasus is one of the most strategic geographical points in the world and this corridor will not be a transit route in Trump's possession, but a graveyard for his mercenaries, volatile Vala Yati said, adding that Russia is also strategically against this project. Moscow has said it welcomes efforts to achieve stability and prosperity in the south caucuses and to normalize relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
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Foreign Minister Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakarova stressed that the best solutions are those developed by the countries in the region and their immediate neighbors, specifically Russia, Iran and Turkey. She noted that trilateral agreements signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia after the 2020 Nagorno Karabakh War remain in force and relevant and that Armenia's border with Iran continues to be guarded by Russian border forces under a 1992 treaty. Yeah, so this is very interesting. I mean obviously Iran is expressing an opinion that I have also expressed where I think that Azerbaijan and Armenia, like this conflict is being used as a excuse basically to merge the Ukraine and Israel wars. They seem to recognize that as well.
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And from their perspective, you know, in the, in the sphere of public optics like devolution and Q and all the things that we have studied aside speculation on the future, aside the future of the intelligence agencies and the sovereignty of the American people, this would be a concerning development, you know, 10 years ago, like under Obama or even under Biden, because they're right that a 99 year land lease could easily be used by the CIA, by Langley, by the State Department to send mercenaries over there to basically launch destabilizing operations or just regime change operations in any of the surrounding countries. And again, if we go to, let me see, I think I have this Pulled up. Yeah. So here's the map. Let's actually throw this in the mind map. So here's the map. All right. So they're talking about, if you can.
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See, there's this. You see our Armenia, like gets really skinny down here in the south. This random little blob of land that has no name attached to it is actually part of Azerbaijan. It's physically disconnected from the main part of Azerbaijan. And so the idea is that this corridor is going to run at the southern border of Armenia and it's going to connect the two parts of Azerbaijan so that Azerbaijani people can move back and forth safely. As they point out there have been Russian troops stationed there since 1992. Peacekeeping troops, like additional peacekeeping troops I believe were deployed in 2020 when a, like a conf. Another armed conflict broke out there. I had Joaquin Flores on here a few weeks ago. He was on Breaking History as well.
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He explained to us how after those peacekeeping troops were deployed by Putin in 2020, Pashishnian, who's the Armenian president, told Aliyev to attack Armenia after those troops were in place. And then Armenia, like wouldn't defend, which would force Russia to step in and defend. All that's very interesting. I mean, all like assuming that everything that Joaquin told us, and I have no reason to believe that it's not accurate is accurate. That's all fascinating, you know, but frankly, if the American government does return to, under the control, the earnest control of the American people, then this could be a long term good move. A 99 year land lease. 99 years is a long time. So again, from the perspective of Iran, 50 years from now, things could be very different.
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Even if we do enter the golden age tomorrow, 50 years from now, are we still in the golden age or has the deep state returned? I understand why they're skeptical. I, I don't blame them for being skeptical. The other thing I wanted to point out though, from this story is the idea of using a land lease that is exactly what I speculated would be used maybe in like a mineral deal, like these mineral rights deals that have been mentioned with Ukraine, with the drc, the Democratic Republic of Congo, a number of other places. You know, how do you like, how do those mineral rights work if they're under the control of the national go like of the U.S. government? Is it like a land lease situation? And that just speaks to Donald Trump's real estate acumen.
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That is definitely something a real estate developer would come up with a 99 year land lease, which is like, that's like the typical deal that's given to a gas station. Like if you want to make a, if you want to turn a corner lot, a corner commercial lot at like an intersection into a gas station, maybe it's functioned as a, a Rite Aid or a CVS or whatever and you want to turn it into a gas station, you have to sign a special like 99 year lease, 100 year lease that basically says that for the next 100 years this land is going to operate as a gas station. Because it requires you to. I think you have to, I'm pretty sure you have to change the zoning, but you also have to excavate a bunch of dirt, put giant oil tanks in the ground.
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You know, causes all sorts of issues for anybody who wanted to come in and use it as something else. You can't just build a building on top of those oil tanks. You have to then excavate and remove the oil tanks. So, you know, a 99 year land lease is pretty typical for like a gas station because again, like you drive around your local city, your local town, a lot of the buildings that you see, even the buildings that are like, you know, chains, are not necessarily owned by those businesses. A lot of the times the real estate is actually owned by somebody else and the owner of that business who built the building is just leasing the land. I know several people, I've been involved in those deals.
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I have friends who own businesses where their 20,000 square foot facility is on land that they don't actually don't own, they just lease the land. So anyway, it all has to do with structuring the deal. You know, sometimes the owners of the land don't want to sell the land, they want to maintain ownership of it. They want to collect rent. So they end up collecting rent every month from the person. Leasing sometimes can benefit the business owner because if they don't have to go out and plop a bunch of money down, a bunch of cash down, or a loan down to buy the land, they just have to agree to pay a certain amount every month in perpetuity, you know, in perpetuity for 99 years, that can just be part of their operating budget.
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So it saves them a lot of cash on hand, you know, capital at the startup. So there are reasons that you do it this way now that's different from probably what's happening here, but that just go, there's a lot of like finessing that you can do when you put deals together. And I think this is what Trump loves to do. He loves to put deals together. He loves to structure a deal in a way where everyone walks away feeling like they won or feeling like they got what they wanted out of the deal. That's a great deal. That's a deal that has been put together very well. And Trump has talked about that in his books. He talks about how if somebody walks away from the deal feeling like they got screwed, then you didn't put a very good deal together.
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And that person, it's going to be hard to come back in the future and do another deal with that person. You know, you've pretty much, you've shot yourself in the foot because maybe you won this deal, but there's 10 more deals to be done with this person. And now you're not going to get any of those opportunities, you know, especially in a place like New York City where he was operating, where you had a lot of the same players, you know, buying and selling high rise buildings. So interesting dynamics here. I am really fascinated by that stuff and I like to track it. So. All right, let's go to, I think let's go to Russia because we spent Friday talking about Israel. So I think we'll probably steer clear of Israel today unless there's something I noticed that comes up.
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But we're going to go to Russia. Russia reveals expectations for Putin Trump summit Obviously, the really big news is this meeting that's going to be happening in Alaska this Friday. Oh, whoops. I'm sorry, I'm not sharing my screen. Boom, there we go. Very, very big news. August 15th meeting in Alaska. Let me just check on the chat, make sure that I haven't done it, I haven't done something wrong. Nope, I don't see any fires to put up yet. So we will keep plowing forward. The Alaska meeting could boost efforts to restore ties with the US Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said. Russia sees the upcoming Alaska summit between President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump as a chance to mend strained relations and tackle long running disputes, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said.
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In an interview with Isvestia on Tuesday, Rabkov said the much anticipated meeting is the in the largest US state set for August 15 would not only focus, would focus not only on settling the Ukraine conflict, but also on bilateral ties that sank to an all time low during the administration of former U.S. president Joe Biden. Quote, we hope that the forthcoming high level meeting will give an impulse to the normalization of bilateral relations which will allow us to move forward on several issues, he said, confirming that restoring air links could be one of the items discussed. Direct passenger flights between Russia and the US were suspended in 2022 after Washington imposed sweeping sanctions over the Ukraine conflict, Ryabkov said. Added that it is clear that the leaders will focus on other topics, referring to the Ukraine conflict.
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On Monday, Trump said the summit, which he described as a feel out meeting, would explore a potential deal involving the swapping of territory between Russia and Ukraine as part of a settlement. However, no official acknowledgment that at this stage there is an in a there is no observable progress regarding the return of Russian diplomatic property to the US he was referring to several compounds, including Russia's San Francisco consulate, which were closed by US authorities in 2016 2017. At the same time, Washington said the closures, as well as expulsions of dozens of Russian diplomats were in response to alleged election interference. Recent files declassified by US Director of a National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard have substantially undermined that claim. Moscow has accused the US of the expropriation of property protected by diplomatic immunity.
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Following Trump's inauguration in January, Moscow appointed Alexander Darchief as its new ambassador to Washington. In June, he met with the US President, telling him that he would do everything to restore Russian American relations and bring them back to normality in common sense. Excuse me. He added that Russia and the US are destined to have a non confrontational peaceful existence. A lot of signal there. There's a lot of signal. Let's start. The fact that this is a full circle moment. Friday represents a full circle moment. The fact that it's happening during GART is fantastic. Big shout out to the Trump team for making that happen. But remember, this all goes back to before Trump was even elected president in 2016. The accusations of Russia interfering in the election because they wanted Trump in.
33:45
We now know that actually Putin saw Hillary Clinton as much more pliable and easier to control than Trump. Doesn't mean that he likes her more than Trump or wanted her in president as president more than Trump. It just means that he had leverage over her where he didn't really have any leverage over Trump. And you know there's a reason that the deep state didn't want Trump and Putin to best friends right out the gate because if they had been, the world would probably look like a very different place than it does right now. But you know, the dark night of the soul like this. Maybe all these hardships we've endured will make us better, stronger and free from a lot of these sociopaths who slither around in the shadows. Let's see.
34:29
I want I wanted to look at Zelensky, but then also yeah, I wanted to look at Zelensky, but I also wanted to look at Ukraine, just Ukraine in general. The reason I was hesitating is because there's this story Jailed Russian Armenian tycoons family files 500 million dollar lawsuit against Yerevan, which is the capital of Armenia Samvel Cara Petions relatives are demanding that the government provide compensation for losses linked to the nationalization of his company. The family of a jailed Russian Armenian tycoon has reportedly launched a 500 million dollar case against the government of Armenia led by Prime Minister Nicole Pashishian over the nationalization of his company Samville. Cara Carapetian was arrested in June after the allegedly calling for the seizure of power while publicly supporting the Armenian Apostolic Church in an ongoing confrontation with Pashan.
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Following Carapan's arrest, the prime minister announced that it is time to nationalize Carapitian's firm, Electric Grids of Armenia, and called for swift action. The Armenian Parliament later passed legislation enabling the state to confiscate the company. The nation's utility services regulator opened a case against Electric Grids of Armenia in mid July and temporarily put a senior member of Peshnishian's civil Contract party in charge of the company. The family wants Yerevan to provide compensation for both existing and expected future damage, task reported, citing sources close to Carapetian earlier. The businessman's relatives also filed a lawsuit with the Arbitration Institute, the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, a tribunal that specializes in commercial and investor state disputes. Invoking a 1995 bilateral investment treaty between Armenia and Cyprus in late July, the tribunal ruled that Yavon must refrain from taking any further steps to seize the electric utility company.
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The decision is binding on the Armenian government. The businessman himself has remained in custody since June 18 following a court decision that placed him under arrest for two months as a probe against him is ongoing. Carapetian is one of several high profile figures to have been targeted in Yavon's recent crackdown on the opposition. Archbishop Bagrat Gan, the head of the Shirak Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Bishop Mikhail Aan have also been detained. The arrest came in response to mass protests led by the church and its supporters. The demonstrators accused Pashishin of betraying Armenia's national interests by handing over several border villages to Azerbaijan. Moscow has said that it is closely Monitoring the developments, particularly those concerning Carapetian, who holds Russian citizenship.
37:31
It's interesting because, you know, the idea that Pashishin is betraying Armenia, the Armenian national interest by handing over border villages to Azerbaijan aligns with the assertions made by our friend Joaquim Flores who said that Pashishnian and Aliyev, the Armenian prime minister is like they're working together. Like even though the, on the surface, Armenian, Azerbaijan are enemies and long time enemies, the leaders are actually have their hands in each other's pockets, you know, playing grab ass. So that's interesting, very interesting. But it supports that. I mean if he's actually given this nemesis country, you know, this arch rival country villages. Okay, so let's pivot to Ukraine. Putin thanks Kim Jong Un for support in Ukraine. I mean this is the big headline on RT and actually the headline just changed. So now we're gonna go there next.
38:45
Putin thanks Kim Jong Un for support in Ukraine conflict. The Russian president has praised his North Korean counterpart during a phone call between the two leaders. I swear we've seen this is from today, but we, I've seen This story published 15 times in the past two months. It's like every week there's another story where Putin is like, I love Kim Jong Un so much. He is like a brother to me. That's, it's pretty crazy how hard they're hammering this narrative. Russian President Vladimir Putin has thanked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for backing Moscow in the Ukraine conflict. The Kremlin has said in the phone call between the two on Tuesday, Putin praised Kim for Pyongyang's assistance in the liberation of Russia's Kursk region, which Ukrainian forces seized last August.
39:27
The two leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening cooperation under the countries strategic partnership Agreement and agreed to maintain direct contacts. Putin highly appreciated the Pyongyang's support in repelling Kiev's incursion and the courage, heroism and selflessness shown by the North Korean soldiers. The press release reads. Pyongyang's mission in the Kursk region was launched in connection with a bilateral Treaty signed in June 2024, which includes mutual defense clauses. Close ties between Russia and North Korea, which date back to the Soviet era, have been given a new impetus since the start of the Ukraine conflict, with Pyongyang expressing firm support for Moscow's effort to defend its national interests, particularly when it comes to NATO expansion.
40:10
Pyongyang has described Kiev's troops which had entered Kursk region as neo Nazi forces and said it took part in the Russian operation in order to help thwart an adventurous political and military attempt of the Western forces and Ukrainian authorities to turn the tide in the broader conflict, according to the Kremlin. Putin has also briefed him ahead of the much anticipated talks with US President Donald Trump scheduled for August 15, with the Ukraine conflict expected to be top of the agenda. Now, this is interesting, very interesting, because again, the headline here is talking about K, which again, Kirst, happened months ago. Like Kim Jong Un helped Putin liberate Kirk months ago. Okay. I don't think that's actually what this phone call was about. This phone call was obviously about Alaska and about the meeting on Friday. And here's why. Let me. There's two things that.
41:03
There's two things that I think are important here. One, very recently, I think last year. I'll go find the article. The US Added a million square kilometers to the continental shelf, the ocean around Alaska. You see the purple? So the blue is what we already had and the purple is what we added. And basically, I believe international law says that 200 miles out from your coastline is your, your water rights. Basically, that's considered your sovereign water territories. 200 miles in every direction. All right? And there's probably, there's, obviously there's exceptions where you have countries that are closer together than 200 miles. You, you have that in the case here between Russia and America. And that's where it probably, I would imagine, probably reverts to what's called riparian rights in real estate.
41:58
In the real estate world, riparian rights are written, which is referring to rivers. I used to be a realtor, so I had to study all this stuff 15 years ago. But the way riparian rights work is because sometimes rivers, you know, will move over time. Like erosion and stuff will eat away at the land and the rivers will kind of like move. So riparian rights move with the river. So if a river were to shift, you know, like a major flood or a mudslide happens, and in a river, a part of a river shifts over, you know, 50 yards or 100 yards, the rights like. And you have property owners on opposite sides of the river. In theory, the riparian rights extend to the middle of the waterway.
42:42
So you measure if the water, if the river is 50ft wide, you get 25ft one side, the other side gets 25ft. I imagine if you go to places like Mississippi, like the Mississippi river, which is a much wider river, it's probably more Like a certain distance out into the water. You don't get halfway across the Mississippi river, but I'm talking about rivers that are, you know, 100 yards across or less something, you know, something like that. Something that's more. The James river is really the one that comes to mind for me. But anyway, I'll pull this article up. This is from. Because that happened last year, but it actually was that one. And then. So this is interesting because this actually like happened under the Biden administration. Let's see the 2023. So see.
43:46
On December 19, 2023, the United States Department of State announced the results of its US Extended Continental Shelf project. It declared an expansion in the outer boundaries of the United States Continental Shelf in numerous regions. The US Extended Continental she partially overlaps with the ES or ECS areas of Canada, the Bahamas and Japan. And these areas, the United States and these countries will need to establish maritime boundaries in the future. And I believe, if I'm not mistaken, this is a, this was something that I think was commissioned by the Trump administration. Let's go to the PDF, the executive summary from this. Where's John Harold? I need John Harold here to read through this document for me and spit out some bullet points. But I just want to see when it was commissioned because I'm pretty sure this was probably commissioned during the Trump administration.
44:45
It says from 2014 till 2023, analysis and documentation of the US Extended Continental Shelf was led by US ESC or ECS Project Office located in Boulder, Colorado. The EC, the US ECS Project Office is staffed with experts from Department of State noaa, which is the National Ocean Something Association. I forget, I forget what the first A stands for, and the University of Colorado, and has been supported by close scientific and technological cooperation with scientists from the usgs, which is the United States Geological Survey, and the center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, noaa, a joint hydrographic center located at the University of New Hampshire. In addition to the agencies and organizations referred to previously, other members of the US esc, ecs, I'm Sorry Task Force have also made important contributions to delineating the outer limits of the US Extended Continental Shelf. I'm just curious.
45:53
It says that they're, they've been working on this since 2014, but something tells me that it probably actually got kicked into high gear under the Trump administration. You know, this stuff just drags out for years and it just becomes a giant money pit for let's invest billions of dollars into something that doesn't require, you know, 10 years to actually do, but maybe it does. I don't know. Yeah. And so here it's showing as the other map I was showing displayed. It wasn't just Alaska they were looking at. They were looking at the Pacific coast and the Atlantic coast, but also the Gulf of Mexico. So all the areas that are like this reddish purplish color they added, and these areas up here are. My understanding is that they actually have found like rare earth minerals.
46:40
Let's search for minerals and see if we can find anything. Minerals, resources. Yeah, it's probably actually not going to be in here because that probably would get a little political if they were like, oh, yeah, there's a bunch of rare earth stuff here. But let's see. I'm just curious. So this is showing, this map right here is showing the Arctic region. The map depicts the outer edge of the continental margin. White line with purple edges. The 350 nautical mile distance constraint. Orange line, the depth constraint. Yellow line of the US Russia maritime boundary. Blue line in the key geographic features of the region. NCE is Northern Chutchke Elevation inset shows point spacing of 0.5 nautical miles. All right, so it says that the. Let's, let's get our bearings here. White line with purple edges is this one right here.
47:32
And that is the outer edge of the continental margin. The, the 350 nautical mile distance constraint is this pink line right here. So that's 350 nautical miles out from the northern coast of Alaska. And then the depth constraint is the yellow line, which is this one, I think, right here. Yeah, this one right here is the depth constraint. And then what is this one? Areas enlarging right here. Why would you need to enlarge in that? I'm not getting anything more from this than from this. But that's a strange little chart. What is interesting though, is that Putin and Trump have both been talking about how important the Arctic is, that the Arctic actually has a ton of resources underneath the ice. It's a very strategic location.
48:34
I think there's been talks about like the nuclear submarines are up there all the time circling one another. There have been talks about sub bases being built up there. Here's a nice little graph. But what I want to know about is I want to know about the mineral and the minerals and the oil. But that doesn't appear to be part of this. This, that doesn't appear to be part of this. But here's what is part of this is. Let's Go to. All right, so here's from the Alaska Beacon. US Preparing to claim new ocean territory off Arctic Alaska and in central Bering Sea. The claims to extended continental shelf territory to be asserted by the US State Department include an area within the Arctic Ocean that is bigger than California and that. Yeah.
49:28
So those two purple areas that we're showing here is twice the size of California. This, and this is twice the size of California. So when you look at California right here, which is about right there, it's twice the size of California that we've added just around Alaska. It's pretty significant. And I don't think this aligns with, like, the globalist agenda. Like, I don't think the global. While the globalists would have been happy to exploit U.S. resources, U.S. tax dollars, U.S. state Department resources, to explore the ocean so that they could have the information, they weren't doing it in 2014 so that the United States could add territory to its sovereign. Its sovereign land. Unless, of course, that effort was to circumvent or prevent or subvert Putin from doing it and Russia from doing it.
50:22
Yeah, and so this article is just kind of explaining again, what, like, why this is. This is happening and some of the. Some of the factors that are. That are in. In play here. The other article that I wanted to share, though was this one. So this is a month later, US Declares expansion of its continental shelves. And then it becomes official. This is January 2024. So this is again last year, Biden. Under Biden, this happened. Okay. And then I'm sorry, the real article was this one, which is because Trump just announced something. You're kidding me. Why is this thing not coming up? Here it is. Trump administration plans for oil deep in Arctic Ocean, where US Claim has yet to be recognized. This is from May of 2025. So this is three months ago. And this is where we're getting into the.
51:48
Okay, now it's all starting to make sense. The Trump administration is eyeing the possibility of oil leasing in Arctic Ocean. In Arctic Ocean areas more than 200 miles from shore, an area where U.S. territorial rights are unclear. Information about the Trump administration's plans to add a high Arctic planning area to the federal offshore oil and gas leasing program announced two weeks ago was provided April 29.
52:11
In a formal solicitation for public comment, the U.S. bureau office Energy of Ocean Energy Management, a division of the Department of the Interior, said it will accept public comments for 45 days on its proposal to reorganize the federal offshore leasing program, including the addition of the High Arctic Area the new area proposed for inclusion in the oil and gas leasing program is part of the ocean territory to which the US Government is claiming new rights following a sea mapping program conducted over several years. The area is part of what is known as the Extended Continental shelf, which goes beyond exclusive economic zone borders that typically end at 200 nautical miles from shore. The U.S. state Department in December 2023 began the process of claiming over 200,000 square miles of Arctic sea floor in the extended continental shelf.
52:59
The area is more than twice the size of California nations. Territorial rights and extended continental shelf areas beyond the 200 nautical mile limits are limited to the seafloor and seas and subsea areas under international maritime law. They do not include any rights in the waters above, such as fishing rights. That's an important distinction. So they aren't protected private fishing waters, but you can dig down underneath and hit hit the bedrock. I think that's important. A lot of the fish, I think I'm pretty sure China was using like their fishing rights to build some of those islands. You know, the islands that you hear about that they were building the artificial islands and then they put like runways on the islands and call it an air base. I'm pretty sure they were using their fishing like their fishing rights to do that.
53:50
If I if I recall, if I'm remembering that correctly, says Oil potential and industry interest also unclear Mark Myers, a geologist and former director of the U.S. geological Survey, said there is some indication of oil and gas potential in the High Arctic region designated for possible inclusion in the BOEM program. He pointed to the Circum Arctic Resource appraisal released in 2008 by the USGS. The study used data collected from by cross crews working on two icebreakers, the US Coast Guards Healy and the Canadian coast guards Lewis S. St. Laurent. But that information too is preliminary, Myers said.
54:26
It's possible that some of the southern area would have oil and gas potential based on the KARA study, but a more robust technical evaluation of the area for oil and gas potential would be something that would need, that would be important for the federal government to do, said Myers, who also served previously as commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources and director of the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas.
54:49
But you know, the point is that it's exciting and a really good sign that we are looking at the commercial viability of gas and oil projects in the ocean as opposed to water turbine energy projects, wind turbine energy projects, you know, kind of these useless projects that became really popular, quote unquote popular or prevalent under Obama, but really were just like money laundering schemes to give money to billionaires who basically would build some prototypes, put them in the water, they'd fall apart, and then. And then the company would file for bankruptcy after all the money was spent. Yeah, I mean, that happened with a lot of those, like green energy programs that Obama put in, is that all the companies ended up going bankrupt. Nobody was held accountable. They, the money was all spent. You know, that should all be adjudicated.
55:41
But while we're on Alaska, let's just. I think this is an interesting article here. Where, where in Alaska will Trump and Putin meet? History offers clues. The U.S. presidents have twice before met world leaders in Alaska airports. That's interesting. Here's a picture of Nixon meeting with Emperor Hiro Hero Hito of Japan on September 26, 1971 in Anchorage at the home of General Robert George Ruig, commander in chief of the Alaskan Command at L Element. El Minf. El Minfdorf. Wait. El Minf. Door. Elmendorf. Elmendorf. Elmendorf. Why is it so hard for me to say that? Elmendorf. Okay, I'm sorry. That was just me being an idiot. Air Force Base. It was the first ever meeting of a US President in a Japanese monarch. Interesting, says U. S President Donald Trump and Russian President Putin are set to meet in Alaska on Friday.
56:41
The announcement immediately raises questions, many questions for Alaskans, chief among them where the White House has yet to release any specifics on where the two leaders will convene, how long the meeting will last, or any other relevant logistics. Officials in Alaska are not sure either. As of Monday, three days after Trump announced the summit, neither the Alaska governor NOR the state's two U.S. senators were able to share details about their visit, their spokesperson people said. Anchorage Mayor Suzanne Le France said early Monday the city had not been involved in the discussions around a potential visit, but was willing to assist. Adding to confusion surrounding the event. In a Monday press conference, Trump said that he is, quote, going to Russia on Friday, end quote. Preparations for the meeting, however, are moving ahead in Alaska.
57:27
He did say that, by the way, and I thought that was interesting. And I wonder, it would be kind of hilarious if they ended up meeting on the Russian side of, like, the water. Like that would be kind of funny, but I do think it'll be on the. Or maybe they'll meet like on an island that is like right there on the border. It'd be kind of funny. But this does also, I think, follow a pattern of behavior from Trump, especially in the campaign, especially after like the assassination attempt, where they would wait till like two days before a rally and then they would announce where the rally was. I was working on airports at the time around the east coast, and there were some rallies held at airports.
58:08
And so I was speaking to the people who were responsible for like, planning from the airport side, who were responsible for planning, like these rallies. And they were telling me how like much of a, like a cluster, it was like how it was a scramble because they were, they got like two days of notice that they were gonna have to repurpose these airports like a hangar in the airport for a rally. But they did that for security because if you give people too much time, then they can devise plans on how they're gonna, you know, infiltrate the rally or whatever. Okay. And it says this other meeting was Ronald Reagan with Joe Pope John Paul II on May 2, 1984. And what I'm looking for is I'm looking for proposed locations.
58:52
In a sign of solidifying plans, the Federal Aviation Administration published a notice Monday closing miles of airspace around Anchorage on Friday because of VIP travel around the city. Shannon McCarthy, spokeswoman, spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, said that there are several temporary flight restrictions scheduled for this Friday. There could also be traffic delays across the municipality, McCarthy said, adding that the department will have more information on which roads will be affected in the coming days. Because we have so many VIPs moving, we anticipate that they could be arriving at different airports. If history is any precedent, it's possible the two leaders may meet within an airport, such as Ted Stevens, Anchorage International Airport. President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II met in Fairbanks International Airport in May 1994. Or, I'm sorry, 1984.
59:44
After greeting an audience assembled at the airport, Reagan and the Pope conversed privately in a converted terminal lounge during the pontiff's two hour stop in Alaska, the Daily News reported at the time. In September 1971, Nixon met with Emperor the Emperor of Japan at Elmendorf, crushed at that time Air Force base in Anchorage, 5,000 spectators packed a hangar to watch Nixon welcome the emperor who stop at Anchorage on his way to Europe. Lasted two hours. And then here's Joe Biden meeting with military members and their families at the Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson on September 11, 2023. Here's Alaska Governor Bill Walker and President Xi Jinping in Anchorage. And here's Obama being a dumbass in the Snow City Cafe in Anchorage. Okay, okay, so we'll See? We'll see. I want to go back to Ukraine now. Well, wait. One other thing.
01:00:49
I gotta give a shout to Matt. Eric. High speed rail project between Russia and America, because Matt's been talking about this for as long as I've known him for a year and a half to going on two years. Actually, it is two years now. It'll be two years in September that him and I have been doing the show together. But this is so. Look at this. This is from yesterday. Proposal for a Bering Strait Peace Tunnel A bridge for a new era of international cooperation Reports of a possible meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump in Alaska have sparked Russia renewed discussion about the long envisioned Bering Strait tunnel, a project seen by many as a potential symbol of peace building and cooperation.
01:01:41
Supporters argue that such an intercontinental link between Russia and the United States could serve as both a practical transport route and a gesture towards improved relations. In a time of renewed calls for stability and constructive engagement, few projects match with symbolic and practical potential of the proposed Bering Strait Peace Tunnel. This rail and infrastructure link connecting Russia and in Alaska and Russia's Chotka region would unite the American and Eurasian continents. According to proponents, it has the potential to mark the beginning of a new era of dialogue and collaboration between the United States, Russia and other nations, offering a channel for improved communication and cooperation. The idea of linking Eurasia in North America across the Bering Strait dates back to the late 19th century.
01:02:33
In 1890, William Gelpin, the first territorial governor of Colorado, proposed an intercontinental railway with a tunnel under the Bering Strait as part of a global transportation network. Canada also explored northern rail expansion concepts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as routes toward Dawson City, which could have been integrated into a wider transcontinental system. The Russian czar, Nicholas II gave provisional approval in 1905 for an ex for exploration of a rail tunnel. But by 1907, amid political instability after the 1905 revolution and fears of American encroachment, his government withdrew support. In 1906, a consortium of Russian, American and French interests announced an ambitious project reported in the New York Times, but archival evidence suggests it remained a preliminary concept.
01:03:24
At the 1945 Potsdam Conference, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin proposed to US President Harry Truman that they link their rail networks through a bridge or tunnel. But Truman declined. Amid Cold War tensions In the mid 20th century, re in the mid 20th century, engineer Tung Yin Lin promoted the idea of an intercontinental peace bridge. Joseph Strauss, chief engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge Also publicly discussed the potential of a bearing link. In 1981, Dr. Soon Myung Moon announced his vision for a peace tunnel. An 85 kilometer link under the Bering Strait. Estimated that US$200 billion at the time as part of a global peace highway. He reiterated this vision during the 2005 inauguration of the Universal Peace Federation, an inaugural tour through 100 nations. His advocacy was one of the several factors that revived interest in the. In the idea.
01:04:16
The international Bering strait Regional Group IBSRG and its successor, IBSRG. Man, that's a mouthful. Have since provided a multilateral platform for engineers, economic economists, policy makers, and peace advocates to explore feasibility. Yeah, and it just goes on to kind of give a little bit more background. Don't need to read through the whole thing. I was hoping to get a map of it. Let's see. See if either one of these gives us a map. I mean, can y' all just commission someone? Can you commission anybody just to draw a line on a map? Can anybody draw a line in a map? There we go. Look. Look at these lines. Look at that. We got a line on the map right through the middle of Alaska, straight down through Canada into what looks like deadwood. Is that deadwood? No, it's Colorado. That's Colorado. I'm sorry.
01:05:19
Then it goes right through Colorado, through Mexico, through Panama, and all the way down to Argentina and Chile. Okay, cool. That's cool. Well, man. And like, Matt's been talking about this forever. It wouldn't surprise me if the reason that. The reason I went through all that is Putin called Kim Jong Un maybe to talk about this, because Matt was suggesting that the. That the rail line was going to go to Korea, like, South Korea. Like, that was the target. And that would make a lot of sense, like, from the American side, because they're one of our biggest trade partners. So for us to build, but in order to get to South Korea, you got to go through where? North Korea. So, Kim Jong Un, your water park might get some visitors here pretty soon.
01:06:09
Brad, Nabi, living in Alaska could get there a lot quicker than I could. Let's see. All right, let's take a quick break. It's Mads. We'll be back here in a minute. This is Geopolitics with ghosts.
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01:09:03
Sam? Everybody here? Inside?
01:10:21
All right, we are back. Geopolitics with ghosts. I feel like I'm getting this producer thing down pretty well. I feel like I'm. I mean, there's nowhere to go but up. I mean, I'll give you that, but I don't know, I mean, killing myself right now, who knows, maybe I'll just give up the whole like, geopolitical, like, analysis bit and I'll just become like a producer. You think? I think I'm good enough to do that yet. I don't know, maybe a few more episodes without any technical issues. How about this? Let's get through this episode without any technical issues before we start talking about a career in this. All right. How's the chat doing? Looks like everyone's pumped up for the Bering Straight Peace Tunnel. I think people are very excited for a high speed railroad going into Russia, into Korea.
01:11:16
I mean, I would go visit Kim Jong Un. I would do a guard. If we could get on a train and go like, we could just do the. The whole guard could be on the train and we could just go like the whole conference could be on the train. And at the end of the conference, we're in North Korea and we go to the water park with Kim Jong Un. That would be. That would be worth the price of admission for sure. Jungle Rumble made a good point. I wonder what, which Boring company will get the contract to drill the new tunnel. That's a good point. Man. It's awfully. Isn't it. Isn't it convenient that Elon Musk has this boring company? Yeah. There are no coincidences. I would agree with that. All right.
01:11:54
And then there is actually another element of this that Chris Paul had brought to my attention yesterday. And that is this should have done this before the commercial. That's my. My mistake. So we have a clean break away from. Away from Alaska. But it's. This is from TWZ outlet. Outlet called twz. Howard Altman is the author. August 8th says unprecedented Chinese icebreaker deployment off Alaska being monitored by the US and somebody else in the chat made a good point. This. This must be why Trump is so obsessed with the icebreakers. Remember when he said he's like, we don't have any icebreakers. We have to leave. We have to borrow Canada's icebreakers all the time. Like, we need our own icebreakers. This is probably what he's talking about. And it says Chinese.
01:12:53
China's increase, increasing presence near Alaska comes as the US Is scrambling to field more icebreakers. The U. S. Military and Coast Guard are monitoring the. In the simultaneous appearance of five Chinese icebreaker vessel, icebreaking vessels in region near Alaska. That unprecedented precedented presence represents two and a half times the number of icebreakers currently capable of being operated in the entire Arctic region by the US Coast Guard. So wait. If it's two and a half times the capacity of the US and it's five, what's five divided by two and a half? It's like one icebreaker. So do we have, like one or. We have two icebreakers. We have two icebreakers. Plans are currently underway to build dozens more. It says another is scheduled to be commissioned on Sunday. So a third one. We're gonna have a third icebreaker launched on Sunday. That's exciting.
01:13:44
It's very exciting. I wonder if. Is Putin gonna break. Break the champagne bottle? Coast Guard to commission Coast Guard cutter Storis and Junot. Juno. Juno. Yeah. Am I saying that right? I think it's a. I think it's an Eskimo word, as you know. I have to ask Brad and Abby, since they're Eskimos, if I'm saying that word right. Yeah. And then here's a. Here's a story says Allied Pact aims to close yawning icebreaker gap with adversaries the U.S. canada and Finland have a new plan to boost production of icebreakers critical in the increasingly important Arctic region. And this is from July of 2024. But back to this article. The Chinese icebreakers, which include a number of research focused types, are being monitored by North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD and U.S. northern Command NORTHCOM.
01:14:35
As a Northcom spokesperson told the war zone Thursday evening, the presence of that must be what this outlet is. TWZ is the war zone. The presence of so many Chinese icebreaking ships near Alaska was first reported by the G Captain Maritime news website. Pull that. Well, we'll just keep that one in the back pocket. Although the quote, although the vessels are operating international waters and not considered a homeland defense threat, their numbers represent an increase from years past. The spokesperson said NORAD and U.S. nORTHCOM will continue to monitor the ship's progress while operating in the region. NORAD is responsible for the identification and warning of maritime tracks of interest and works closely with Canada and interagency partners to do so.
01:15:19
The Coast Guard, quote, detected and responded to two Chinese research vessels operating in the U. S. Arctic and is currently monitoring a total of five similar vessels in or near the US Arctic. It just goes on to give their names. But the joke that Chris Paul made when he shows this, he's like, it looks like Xi is providing, he's providing our icebreakers for our meeting with Putin. And I think that might be accurate. If it's not, at least it's a funny. I kind of think it's maybe it's Putin just having a little bit of fomo. Like, he's like, he just, he wants to remind Trump and Putin that he's still around. Like, feel free to pick up the phone and call me, guys. Wish me happy birthday. Which Putin did do, by the way. Putin called Trump, Angie.
01:16:03
And I think they have like the same birthday or their birthdays are similar because I remember that story being reported together where Putin called G and said Happy birthday. Called Trump and said happy birthday. But that was like in the middle of some. What was that really big event that happened? It was, I think it was when were bombing Iran. We were like bombing Iran and Trump was like, I want to start off the press conference by letting everyone know that Putin called me and wish me a happy birthday. Yeah. Because that was the middle of June. That Trump's birthday, I think is the middle of June. And that was June 13th is when Israel attacked. It's when Israel attacked Iran. Hold one second. Got my wife calling. All right, anyway, we'll pivot away from Alaska now.
01:16:51
We spend a lot of time in Alaska. Let's go to you back to Ukraine. Sorry, hold one second. Just doing some housekeeping. Some housekeeping meaning happy wife, happy life. Right guys? All right, this is from today. Zelinsky softens stance on land concessions Telegraph from a telegraph Ukraine could agree to give up claims to Russian territory in exchange for a path to NATO, sources have told the newspaper. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zielinski could agree to concede land to Russia and the freezing of the current front lines as part of the potential conflict settlement, the Daily Telegraph reported on Monday, citing sources. Zelensky has in public at least refused to accept Ukraine's territorial losses or relinquish claims to Russian territory.
01:17:48
A deal reportedly under consideration could see Ukraine cease attempts to take control of Russia's Lugansk People's Republic, Donetsk People's Republic and Crimea and retain control of part of the parts of Russia's Zipporazai and Kirson regions it already occupies. These regions overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in referendums in 2014 and in 2022. Ukraine remains strongly opposed to any settlement in which it gives up more the land than what is currently controlled by Russian forces, the report claims. In exchange, however, Ukraine would demand robust security guarantees, including weapons deliveries from the west and a clear path to NATO membership, according to the report. Not going to happen. Sorry guys, that's my own color commentary. You're not joining NATO, so just get over it.
01:18:48
The apparent softening of Zelensky stance comes ahead of the highly anticipated summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US Counterpart Donald Trump. On Friday, an unnamed Western official told the British daily that the plan can only be related to the current positions held by the militaries, adding that the weekend saw some frantic diplomacy between Kiev and its Western backers. The report also claims that the EU had decided to support Ukraine's vision for peace in an effort to boost its diplomatic position in dealing with both Trump and Russia. On Monday, Trump said that he and Putin would discuss a potential deal that would involve a land swap between Russia and Ukraine, noting that it would be to the betterment of both. Apart from the aforementioned territory, Moscow also controls currently controls Swast land in Kharkov Sumi and Dnipro Dipney Dnipropetrovsk regions.
01:19:42
I think I said that actually with the right accent. Just gonna go with that. But Zelensky has publicly rejected any territorial concessions to Russia. Moscow has insisted that any peace deal must involve Ukraine's withdrawal from Donbass, Zaporizai region and Kirsten region, Kiev's commitment to stay out of NATO as well as any as the country's demilitarization and de. Nazification. Gotta get rid of the Nazis. Okay, that, yeah, I mean, that's. None of. That's really news, but this might be news. This is just got posted, just got published. Ukraine plotting. Ukraine plotting new provocation to sabotage Putin. Trump meeting mod. This would be very much on brand with like the Zelensky character archetype. Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are set to meet in Alaska on Friday.
01:20:46
Ukraine is preparing a new provocation to disrupt negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, a group of foreign journalists has already been taken to the city of Chongyov in Kharkov region in order to prepare a series of reports about residents of the city in the frontline zone. The ministry said the Ukrainian army is plotting a provocative strike using UAVs and missiles one of Chukiov's densely populated residential areas or a hospital, which will be immediately recorded by the Western journalists brought in. Well, look, give me a second to process this. A group of foreign journalists has already been taken into the city of Chongyov. Let's find out where the city is. Let's, let's look at some maps. I need visuals. I need maps. That's an interesting little.
01:21:44
Check out the, check out the flag of this region. That is definitely an Islamic flag. But which makes sense though, because Ukraine is traditionally a Turkic, a like trans Turkic region. I mean, it was originally, it was the Scythians back in the ancient times, like the ancient Greeks, ancient Rome. The, the Scythians were kind of like a European nomadic, you know, Aryan nomadic civilization. Rode everyone horseback. They're like the, the group of people in Game of Thrones that ride everyone on the horses. The name escapes me. That's like what they're based on. The Scythians basically, you know, carry around ute. So there's like those tents that you roll up and you put in your backpack. And then they were kind of replaced by the Bulgers and the, in the roofs. You know, the Russians, the Bulgers, the Kazarians.
01:22:51
And then ultimately after the Kazarians, the Huns came in. The Huns came in. But actually the Golden Horde, the Mongolians, I'm sorry, not the Huns did come in there, but then the Mongolians come in there. And the Mongolians, of course, bring like the Turkic, the Kazarians, the Mongolians The Huns to an extent bring in the Turkic, Central Asian culture and ethnicity. They didn't necessarily bring in the Muslim culture. The Muslim culture, of course, comes from the Middle East. But anyway, I'm ranting at this point. Let's go back. I want to see where this map is. So show me a map. All right, so we are. There's Kharkiv. And Kharkiv, if I'm not mistaken, I think Kharkiv is where. I mean, that video that went viral back in like 2022 of that Russian soldier who talked about finding those.
01:24:08
Like, basically he was describing an adrenochrome farm where they found like kids just chained up and like body parts everywhere. And he was like, he looked like he had people. Like, he looked like he was never going to sleep again after what he saw. But he basically described like a scene from a horror movie. And it sounded like they were trafficking the kids and doing some pretty evil stuff to them. But it was Kharkiv where that facility allegedly was located. And so now we are at this little village outside of Kharkiv. Okay, so they're saying they're going to do a strike on Charkuv or Chukiv in order to prepare a series of reports about residents in the city.
01:24:52
On the front line of the zone, the Ukrainian army is plotting a provocative strike using UAVs and missiles as one of Chukiav's densely populated residential areas or a hospital, which will be immediately recorded by the Western journalists brought in as a result of the Kiev regime's provocation. All responsibility for the strike and the civilian casualties will be placed on Russia's armed forces. Provocations are also possible in other settlements controlled by Ukraine. A statement published on Tuesday said. In April 2022, Ukrainian forces claimed to have found the bodies of hundreds of people in the Kiev suburb of Bucha shortly after Russian troops left the area as part of a goodwill gesture by Moscow amid peace talks with Kiev. Ukraine immediately blamed the deaths on Russia and subsequently used the incident as one of the main reasons for its withdrawal from the peace negotiations.
01:25:41
Moscow had has reportedly said the so called massacre was a false flag operation intended to tarnish its image and derail the diplomatic process. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said he appealed to the UN Security Secretary General Antonio Guitar three times to provide the lists of bodies found in Bucha, but there is just silence in response. Interesting. The Russian Foreign Ministry has also accused Ukrainian forces of executing civilians in a Donbass Town as part of a false flag operation designed to wrongly frame Moscow for war crimes. According to the ministry, witnesses claim that mercenaries, including alleged Polish nationals, carried out dozens of killings in Solidova in Russia's Donetsk People's Republic, before retreating in the face of advancing Russian troops in late October. All right, well, let's just keep an eye on. Let's keep an eye on Chunk. Chunk of.
01:26:36
And if all of a sudden like a hospital blows up there, we'll know that it was actually the CIA who did it and not. And not Putin. I kind of want to look at that. I'm gonna look at that in a minute, but. All right. Seems like, huh. All right. This is a good one. Top US And Russian diplomats talk by phone ahead of Alaska summit. President Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are set to meet in the US State on Friday. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has held a phone conversation with his American counterpart Marco Rubio, just days ahead of a meeting between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. Moscow said on Tuesday the two top diplomats discussed certain aspects of the upcoming summit and confirmed that both sides want a successful outcome. A statement by the Russian ministry said.
01:27:41
Moscow did not provide any further details about the call. The State Department has not commented so far. The much awaited meeting between the Russian and American leaders is scheduled to take place on August 15th. Trump and Putin are expected to discuss the possible settlement of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev and a range of bilateral issues in person for the first time since the US President took office in January. Russia sees the event as a chance to mend strain relations and tackle long running disputes. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryopkov said earlier on Tuesday, Moscow hopes he will give an impulse to the normalization of bilateral relations and help the two nations move forward on several issues. He said. Trump has described the Alaska summit as a feel out meeting. Yeah, we've already read all that. That. Okay. Re.
01:28:27
By the way, Riobkov, indulge me for a minute. I want to see if R is Rob Cough. The guy from Rob Cough, I think is. I'm looking for my. Where's my Africa map? If he's the deputy Foreign minister, he might be a different deputy foreign minister, but I want to see. Is he the guy that went down and negotiated it was meeting right here. No, that was Deputy Foreign Minister Eunice Beck Yukonov. Okay, so different deputy foreign minister going to Africa. That's fine. Just wanted to know. Just curious. Let's get back to. I think. I think that was. Yeah, we hit. We hit the. The meat of that story. Okay, so now we can. We can kind of pivot. We'll pivot across Asia now. Hit a few Asian hit a few Asian stories, maybe one Middle east story, one or two Middle east stories.
01:29:31
And then I like doing Africa story. I haven't done any Africa in a while. Oh, you know what we're gonna do? I do have a Maduro story that we didn't get to on Badlands Daily. India and China are set to resume direct flights from According to Bloomberg, announcement is likely the Shanghai Cooperation Organization announcement is likely during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin this month, the news agency has said. India and China are preparing to resume direct passenger flights as soon as next month, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with ongoing negotiations. New Delhi has asked airlines such as Air India and Indigo to be ready to begin flights in China at short notice with a formal announcement like we do during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in China on August 31, the news agency said.
01:30:19
India, Indian and Chinese carriers previously operated direct flights between key cities before they were suspended during the outbreak of the COVID 19 pandemic in 2020. The resumption of direct flights is seen as the latest sign of a thaw between the Asian neighbors, whose relations were strained because of a deadly clash in the Himalayas in 2020. Efforts to normalize ties between began in October 2024 after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan. Both leaders approved an agreement to disengage from areas of tension and a commitment to work towards restoring relations. Following multiple rounds of military and diplomatic talks, proposals to ease trade and investments restrictions between India and China have gained momentum. Beijing has long requested the resumption of direct flights between mainland China and India.
01:31:13
Last month, New Delhi restarted issuing tourist visas to Chinese citizens after a five year pause. In June, a group of Indians crossed over into Tibet for the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, one of the holiest pilgrimages in Hinduism for the first time since 2020. China has also eased curbs on shipments. China has also eased curbs on shipments of urea to India, which is the world's top importer of the crop nutrient, another Bloomberg report said. The warming of ties between New Delhi and Beijing comes as India's relations with the US Face challenges as after President Donald Trump shortly sharply raised tariffs on Indian goods over the Asian country's imports of Russian oil in July, top officials from Beijing, Moscow and New Delhi expressed interest in reviving a trilateral IRC format, which stands for Russia, India, China, irc. Rick. All right, Rick. All right, Ricky.
01:32:21
Well, that is interesting. That also makes me think about, let me see. That makes me think about. So India and China, like India and China restoring relations as it says they were. It looked, it looked like they were headed towards kinetic war. After that conflict in the Himalayas in 2020, I think there were a few other like little skirmishes that happened, I want to say, in 2021, 2022. I, I just remember, I remember Steve Bannon specifically in 2022 talking about the conflict between India and China and how India was going to be a two front war. Kind of like Europe was during, like Germany was during World War II. We're fighting Pakistan in the west and fighting China in the east. Yeah, that's interesting. Okay. Very, very interesting. Let's go to, let's go to the Saudi Foreign Ministry.
01:33:28
We'll go ahead and just get into the Middle east and then we'll go to, from there we can go to. Why, why is my settings on here? My settings on here change. I like the black background X, but that's fine. And then we'll go to Africa after the Middle East. I'm sorry, Maduro. After the Middle east and then Africa and the Saudi Foreign Ministry. I really just want to see what they're up to. So what I like to do, just people who've watched me know this, I like to go through this feed specifically and just see what they're doing. Who are they meeting with, who are the people that are coming that they're calling, who's coming to visit them in Riyadh. They've, it's basically just been like a revolving door of diplomats for the past five years.
01:34:20
But well, since 2023, I mean since I have been tracking it on X for the past two years. But I guess actually no, 2022. Right. It wasn't 2022. When wasn't that when we got back on X? I can't remember. It doesn't matter. But I bet you we're going to see some interesting names come up here. So let's go back. Let's, let's look back the past couple days. This is just a good like exercise to do because I do think that the Saudis, there's a lot of signal in what the Saudis are doing. I think that they are diplomats that are running around kind of putting out fires and bringing people together, using their money and their clout to Entice people and create new incentive structures so people don't feel like they have to beholden to the. The unipolar regime, the unipolar hegemony.
01:35:11
So, so today's the 12th, so let's go back to. We'll start here. Singapore, August 9th. MBS and his father wishing the President of Singapore congratulations on their national day of independence. After that, we have the Foreign Ministry expressing the condolence, sincere condolences to the Republic of Lebanon over the death and injury of several Lebanese army personnel while on their duties in several in southern Lebanon. It doesn't call out the IDF here, but my guess is that they were attacked. They were killed by the idf. That would be my guess. Vice Minister of Foreign affairs meeting with Vice Minister of Foreign affairs from where? Ms. Allison Dilworth. Who's Allison Dilworth? Well, Allison Dilworth doesn't have an X account, otherwise they would have tagged her. She is from the US Embassy and consulates in Saudi Arabia. Okay, so she's, she works, she's one of ours.
01:36:21
She works for the US I don't know her background, but okay, fair enough. Not going to judge anybody if I don't. Haven't had a chance to dig on them. All right, and then, so then that takes. Now we're in August 10th. Feisa Ben Farhan calls. He holds a call with the British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy. Okay, so that's a little bit of signal there. Britain and France obviously have been coming out in pretty strong support of Palestine lately. Oh, here's MBS welcoming the king of Jordan, the Hashemite king of Jordan, Abdullah arriving in Neom. I believe Neom is where they were hosting. Was it the Arab League? No, the Arab League's not. No, it's not the Arab League. I think it's just. It looks like it's. Looks like it's the Hashemite king and his son. Here's the crown prince.
01:37:17
So that's the crown prince of Jordan talking mbs young guy, probably about the age of mbs. Next one is Saudi Arabia welcoming the Australian announced Australia's announcement of its intention to recognize the state of Palestine and then New Zealand's consideration. Announcement that they're going to consider announcing recognizing the state of Palestine. It's, it's an engagement to be engaged. Right. They're. They're announcing that they're going to think about very strongly maybe recognizing the state of Palestine. But Australia says they will recognize the state of Palestine at the UN meeting, I believe, September 3rd, which is in like three weeks, not that far away. Then you get the Deputy Minister of Political affairs meeting with a German ambassador, Michael Kinsgrab. It's worth noting that Germany just announced that it's going to launch an embargo against Israel.
01:38:16
It's no longer going to ship any weapons to Israel, which is pretty significant when you consider that Germany is the leader of the European economy. Without Germany, Europe wouldn't have an economy aside from like tourism. They basically would just be Disney World. Without Germany, like all they would have is effectively tourism. They'd have some, you know, wine and cheese exports from France, some leather exports and fashion exports from Italy. But yeah, I mean, without Germany, they wouldn't have any manufacturing whatsoever. Oh, here's a very notable one. This is from yesterday. MBS receiving a phone call from State of Palestine. The President of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas. You can guess what they were talking about. Then you have the Vice Minister of Foreign affairs receiving the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Somalia. That is pretty notable because Somalia is right next to Yemen.
01:39:17
You know, Yemen and Somalia together kind of control the. What's that? I mean, Somalia is the horn of Africa, so together they kind of control. I'll show you. It's not Hormu, that's on the Iranian side, but it's the Gulf of Aden. There it is. So here's Somalia, here's Yemen. So look, I mean that whole entire coastline is the Gulf of Aden. And the Gulf of Aden is where all these issues have been happening. All these, you know, like the Houthis attacking these ships. A lot of that is happening in either the Gulf of Aden or in the Red Sea over here, but mostly like right here around the Dilac archipelago. This archipelago. Look at all these islands. Let's see if we can pull up an actual look at these islands.
01:40:05
There's like all these uninhabited, tiny little islands in the dialect archipelago, which is technically a part of Eritrea. Eritrea's president, by the way, is probably the most base leader in the world and he's been president for like 30 years. Super based, won't allow like any outside money, influence, whatever. However, these islands, I'm pretty sure like every intelligence agency in the world has like a base in these islands, including like Mossad, including I think Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas. Like surely the Houthis probably are somewhere in here. MI6, CIA, the IRGC, Iran, like all of them have bases on these little islands and who knows what the hell they're doing there. But shifty stuff probably happening in those islands. All right, I'm getting off track here. Let's get back to the, let's go back to the exercise. We have. So that was Somalia.
01:41:03
And then you have them greeting the ambassador of North Macedonia. Okay, so the Balkans. Then you have, oh, look at that, a phone call from Zielinski. I wonder what he's probably asking for money, probably, you know, because mom and dad cut off his allowance. So now he's calling up the piggyback, he's calling up the big stack, mbs, asking if he can borrow a few chips so he can keep playing at the high rollers table. Discuss the latest developments of the Ukrainian crisis. His Royal Highness the Crown Prince reaffirmed the kingdom support for all efforts to resolve the crisis and achieve peace. Then you have, deputy Foreign Minister for protocol affairs received the credentials of the ambassador of Australia as well as the ambassador to the Republic of Chile. You also have the Iraqi ambassador to Saudi Arabia, which is a woman. That's pretty notable.
01:42:02
So the ambassador from Iraq to Saudi Arabia is a woman. That seems pretty notable for the Middle east that between, not only between two countries but one of the countries being Saudi Arabia. You know, you're sending a woman. It's a sign of the times that are changing. It's positive sign. And then finally you have the ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Farouk, who is from Pakistan. So you got Farooq from Pakistan rounding it out. All right, well, never mind. There's a few more. No, look, we got a few more. A phone call to Faisal Bin Farhan from Marco Rubio. Do you think Marco Rubio was calling up Faisal Ben Farhan to grovel and apologize for what Tammy Bruce said:2 weeks ago? Because that's what I, that's the first thing I would expect.
01:42:53
If I'm Faisal Ben Farhan, I'm like, hey, do you want to apologize for making an ass out of yourself for Tammy Bruce making an ass out of the State Department two weeks ago? Yeah. Oh, look at this. Then you, then they received the ambassador from Russia. So you got Russia, you got Sergi Kozlov. So Russia. Then you have Spain. So look at that. I mean, I just went through two days or three days of like social media posts which aren't telling you anything. They're just saying, hey, these two people are talking. And we got what? We got Marco Rubio, we got Zelensky, we got Russia, we have Pakistan, Iraq, Palestine. What's the other one? Not Palestine, but Jordan. And by the way, it's like if you're wondering, well, don't these guys, like, talk every day? They're neighbors. No, they don't.
01:44:04
Like, it's actually pretty rare to see, you know, Mahmoud Abbas's face pop up. Speaking to mbs, that doesn't happen every day. I bet you there's only a handful of times that they've posted this image right here. So anyway, it just goes to show, if you just track this kind of stuff, you can pick up, like, you can infer a lot from these kind of conversations. People are talking and they're talking and it's not being reported because nothing of substance is being reported. That doesn't mean the conversations aren't happening. And the Saudis are at the center of all this stuff and the people who are talking to them then turn around and are a part of these major announcements that have geopolitical impacts. And the Saudis continually are at the heart of it.
01:44:46
Australia, Australia coming out and saying, oh, yeah, we're going to recognize Palestine. That's a big deal. They're, they're part of Five Eyes. All right, so let's, we're running short on time. So I wanted to hit Maduro. Let's do Maduro. And I have that pulled up from Badlands media and the headline is DOJ doubles reward from Maduro to $50 million in escalated crackdown on Narco Terrorism says. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday announced that the US Justice Department and State Department are offering an unprecedented $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, accusing him of collaborating with terrorist. Terrorist organizations and drug cartels to flood the US with deadly narcotics. Quote, maduro uses foreign terrorist organizations like Trend Aragua, the Sonola Cartel and the cartel the Suns to bring deadly drugs and violence into our country.
01:45:51
Bondi said in a video statement. The DEA seized 30 tons of cocaine tied to Maduro in his network, with nearly 7 tons directly linked to Maduro himself. According to Bondi, the cocaine trade she noted as the primary funding source for cartel operations in Venezuela and Mexico. That's funny because I thought the cocaine operations were. The cocaine trade were the primary funding source for the CIA and the State Department. That, that's. I was under that impression, but maybe it's the cartels. Wait, the cartels make money off of cocaine? I had no idea. That's groundbreaking information. Many of the seized narcotics are laced with fentanyl, contributing to widespread overdose deaths across the U.S. in addition to drug seizures, the Department of Justice has confiscated more than $700 million in Maduro linked assets, including two private jets and nine vehicles.
01:46:41
Yet Maduro's reign of terror continues, Bondi said, calling him one of the world's most largest narcotics traffickers and direct threat to national security. I was under the impression that the CIA was the world's largest narcotics trafficker, but again, I might have my facts mixed up. Get back to me on that. Bondi. She confirmed the reward for Maduro's capture has been doubled, emphasizing that under President Trump's leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and will be held accountable for his despicable crimes. Maduro, by the way, is definitely in the club. He is part of the sovereign alliance. So I don't really put a lot of stock into announcements like this. However, however we are going to talk about. Thank you for reminding me. Pam Bondi, Shine bomb. Let's talk about Shine bomb. Come on, Shine bomb. Where you at? Why won't this page load?
01:47:56
Because the story is that the US Military wants to do operations against the cartels across the border and Claudia Scheinbaum, the Jewish president of Mexico, and I only say that because it's very notable that a Jewish woman was elected president after like 50 of her. Her opponents like all ended up dead, like died somehow. Like I don't know how many it was. It may have been like 25 opponents, like all died. Dozens of opponents all die, like in the lead up to the election. I think, I think a lot of those opponents weren't directly running against her. I think they were just like lower level candidates. But still it's, they were all like the opposition party. They weren't part of her party. In a country with the highest per capita of Catholics in the entire world, that's Mexico, highest per capita.
01:48:50
What are the odds U. S Army will never set foot in Mexico territory, vows. Claudia Sheinbaum, President hits back at reports that Washington could strike drug cartels in its southern neighbor. President Claudia Sheinbaum on Monday this is from the Financial Times in London rejected the prospect of US Military intervention in her country, insisting Mexico's independence was not at risk. Her comments come after reports last week that President Donald Trump had signed a secretive directive ordering the US Military to target Latin American cartels, including several that send drugs across the border from Mexico. Quote, we will never put our sovereignty at risk. We will never put Mexico's independence at risk. Mexico is a free, sovereign, independent country.
01:49:30
She said the prospect of Washington taking military intervention against the cartels has hung over the bilateral relationship after Trump declared eight of them terrorist organizations in his first weeks in office. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week, we cannot continue to just treat these guys as local street gangs. They have weaponry that looks like what terrorists, in some cases armies have. It allows us to now target what they're operating and to use other elements of American power, intelligence agencies, the Defense, the Department of Defense. That's a great point.
01:50:01
Because what like once you designate these organizations as terrorist organizations, you can then utilize the really draconian, heavy handed legal instruments that were put in place, for lack of a better word, by the Bush administration, by the Obama administration, maybe even by the Clinton administration, but definitely by the Bush administration after the Patriot Act. I'm thinking like of the executive order. I'm thinking primarily of the Military commissions Act of 2006, which says that if you aid and abed terrorists in any capacity, even if you are totally white collar, yourself are a terrorist and you go straight to Guantanamo Bay. Okay, so it says the US And Mexico have been engaged in tense negotiations over trade, security and migration since Trump retook office.
01:50:55
Sheinbaum's government has obtained better trade terms than most countries, with the vast majority of its exports passing tariff free under the US Mexico, Canada trade deal usmca. However, Washington's pressure over drug cartels and military involvement has escalated in recent months with Trump saying Sheinbaum was a lovely woman, very lovely, the loveliest, but is also so afraid of the cartels she can't even think straight. That is hilarious. However, Washington's pressure over drug cartels and military involvement has escalated in recent months with Trump saying Sean bomb was. I'm sorry, I just read that. Earlier this year, Mexico's president rejected Trump's offer for U. S. Military assistance in tackling the groups. And her stance in the face of Washington's threats has pushed her approval ratings to above 70%. However, her comments were focused on an intervention by soldiers on the ground.
01:51:44
While Mexican security analysts are more concerned about the possibility of drone strikes, Sheinbaum said on Monday. We collaborate, we coordinate on security matters and others, but we never subordinate ourselves and we will never, ever allow the US army or any other institution of the US to set foot and Mexican territory, ever. Mexico's economy is deeply integrated with the U.S. which is this, which is its number one trading partner with, but with the two countries. But the two countries have a fraught history that included the US taking about half the nation's territory in a 19th century war. That was Teddy Roosevelt, right? I think that was Teddy Roosevelt. The Rough Riders, or was that Cuba? That might have been Cuba. Fact check me on that chat.
01:52:30
Shine Bomb has stepped up security cooperation and taken a tougher approach to the drug cartels than her mentor and predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Abredor, but is under increasing pressure to investigate whether there are links between the groups and officials from her own party. Yeah, so now it's kind of starting to come into focus why this woman was installed and I believe she was installed, of course. Why was she installed though? Like against all odds, this woman like rose up and pretty nefarious background if you know and if you understand her background. She has a questionable back. I won't say nefarious, I'll say questionable background. An eyebrow raising background, her parents and whatnot. You know, one hand, what do you expect the president of a narco state to say in the face of this kind of rhetoric?
01:53:22
Like, is she going to come out and say, oh yeah, like come on in, like come after the cartels. That would lead to her being assassinated pretty quickly. I would assume so. She has to like, let's assume she is actually helping Donald Trump and she's a white hat and she's playing a role, you know, trumpamania, like that kind of thing maybe. Very possible. I remain open to that. I would expect her to still come out and say there's no way we're ever going to let the US military come in here and go after the cartels because again, like that's going to show your hand a little too much to the cartels. I do like the idea of the drone strikes against the cartels as much as I oppose that kind of stuff in like random countries around the world, like the Middle East.
01:54:07
Mexico represents a much more clear and present danger on the home front being that we share a border with it and there's a lot of demonstrable proof that it is involved in trafficking operations. Not just drug trafficking, but weapons trafficking, child trafficking, human trafficking, all that. I mean we all became pretty familiar with that over the past two years, especially during the run up to the election. So am I okay with like US Drones, like the moral question, I mean there's the legal question and the moral question of US drones taking out cartel like cartel guys on the Mexican side who ultimately are trying to flood fentanyl into our country and traffic kids and all that? Absolutely. I'm okay with that because I view them as a, a enemy Combatant. Just like, you know, we would. We would say in isis, like.
01:55:04
Like if ISIS was in Mexico in a building, like, planning operations against the United States, a drone strike against that building would be pretty well warranted, I would think, if you could absolutely, beyond all reasonable doubt, prove, like, who was in the building and what they were up to. Yeah, I mean, it's. I kind of view it as one in the same State Department might have something to say about it. The CIA might have something to say about it because you're. You're going after their guys and, I mean, are you going to need to. It might start a little bit of some. Some bad feelings in the State Department, but I'm just throwing a lot of jokes out there because the CIA loves to traffic cocaine and is, like, the world's number one cocaine trafficker.
01:55:46
But of course we're going to blame it on Maduro and Shine Bomb because they're Hispanic. But, you know, it is what it is. I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of Hispanics in the CIA, too. How's the chat doing? I haven't checked in on y' all in a while. This has kind of been talking to myself. I think we need to hit the rants. We'll save Africa for. We'll save Africa for. We'll make. When I get back from Gart. There'll be no show on Friday. We're not going to do a show on Friday. We are going to do a show tomorrow breaking history, not a geopolitics show. I am, however, going to be on filling in for Cancon tomorrow morning on Badlands Daily. So you'll get another helping of Geopolitics with Ghost in a condensed, abbreviated form tomorrow morning. Let's hit the rants. Yeah, Alan.
01:56:47
Alan is laughing in the chat and saying she's owned by the cartels. Yeah, I mean, I think ostensibly she is, but again, very useful narrative vehicle to explain to the public. Look at the Mexican president is owned by the cartels, but it wouldn't surprise me if she was actually installed to prevent this from happening, to prevent cooperation in shutting down the cartels. Because if you consider the fact that all these operations around the world. I've been reading about different trafficking operations being shut down, child trafficking and drug trafficking, you know, the intelligence agencies are losing all their. Their revenue streams. And so you got to think that, like, the major Mexican cartels are probably, like, at the core of, like, the revenue for the people who benefit from that stuff. And, like, and I'm talking about people in The US Government.
01:57:36
So, you know, reinforcing, like the bulk or the bulwark of that. Of that infrastructure in those revenue streams is critical. Mission critical. All right. The walrus, $5. Good morning, Gordon. Good morning, Walrus. Good afternoon. And let's see if we got any boosts. Appreciate you being here. Hit the thumbs up, guys. Share the. Share the show. Spread the word. Let's. Let's. Let's spread this cult as far as we can take it. All right, Media Matters, you're watching right now and you probably aren't because you. I think you probably watch John and Ash more than you watch me. But if you are watching, welcome to the cult of geopolitics. Let's go to BadlandsMedia TV, BalanceMedia TV events. Get your virtual ticket for Gart. Gart's gonna be a lot of fun. Really looking forward to this one. Let's see, we got at $50. Thank you.
01:58:47
And I think I may have read this on Friday at. But I'm gonna read it again because it's $50. And I really appreciate your generous support says Ghost. Please check out Tucker's second interview with Tony Aguilar. Riveting and shameful. How the Palestinians are suffering. Please dig on it. Thanks. I have had a chance to watch the second interview yet, but I am going to do that and I will follow up next week when we come back from Gart. I will follow up with my findings from that interview. But thanks again for the inter. For the rants. Halo, Daisy. I read that the other day. But yes, looking forward to speaking more to Gary or Greg rather, next week. Armor up 27. Thank you, Ghost, for the diligent work you do in your manner of presentation, helping connect the dots with fluidity. Fluid, fluid.
01:59:37
Fluidity and understanding. Sorry, sometimes my enunciation is just not there. I think that's everything. Yep. That should. That should about do it. That should about do it. Oh, Keith o'. Higgins. Keith o' Higgins coming in at the. At the bell. Slipping in. Hey, Ghost, you neglected to mention the Chinese influence in Azerbaijan, the Belt and Road Projects. Also, if Shine Bomb is a white hat, can she wear it after Labor Day? It's a great question, Keith. Okay, I don't. You know, I don't follow the Labor Day rules because I will put on. I'll put on like, white before. After Labor Day or before. Before Memorial Day. My wife will yell at me for it. But some rules are just meant to be broken. Sylvia in. In California says Ghost. Cult. Yes. We are starting a cult, guys. And the cult of geopolitics.
02:00:31
Because geopolitics can be fun and we can learn enough about it where these people can't control us with their lives. Cesu's asked if I was trying to share my screen. I'm not trying to share my screen. I was just reading rants. But we're good. So I will see you all tomorrow morning on Balance Daily and tomorrow afternoon on Breaking History, but then in gart. Hoping to see a lot of you there. And y' all have a great day. Hit the thumbs up. We are gonna get out of here. Oh, yeah. I never really gave any commentary on the music selection, but, you know, this song kind of invokes celebration, people gathering, weddings, that sort of thing.
02:01:18
I don't think, I don't think there's a wedding this time, but there was a wedding at some past guards so, you know, we will go out on this one. Have a good day. Week night. See you next week.
02:01:49
Natural delight? Every border was dancing in the moonlight? Everybody here is out of sight? They don't bark and they don't bite? They keep things loose? They keep things alive? Every border was dancing? Dancing in the moonlight? Dancing in the moonlight? Everybody feeling warm and riding? Such a fine natural sight? Everybody dancing in the moonlight? We like our phone and we never fight? You can't dance and stay up tight? It's supernatural delight.
02:02:44
Thank you so much for joining us. And don't forget to hit the thumbs up on this video. And a special thank you to all of our advertising partners. Please remember to shift your dollars to support those businesses that support Badlands Media sa.
The Badlands.
00:10
Running the Badlands.
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Explain those Badlands.
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That's a hell of a name.
00:25
Everybody here?
00:28
All right, Good afternoon, Everybody. Today is August 12, 2025. I'm your host, Gordon McCormick. This is Geopolitics with Ghost. How is everybody doing today? And no, I'm not. We're not dressed up today because all my. My suit, my clothes are at the. My jacket and everything is at the Laundromat. Getting ready, packing up for Gart. So it is time. Hit the road. We are excited about that. And actually, we will start today with an ad read from our friends over at. Excuse me, you just stall for another second at My Pillow Foreign, a large retail store has just canceled a large order, leaving My pillow with a ton of Extra MyPillows. But you know what? That's their loss in your gain. MyPillow is offering the Classic Collection for wholesale prices only, 19.98 for a standard MyPillow. But it gets even better.
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02:50
Perhaps you're out west. Good to. Good to see you. Let's see. Let's jump into the news now. Well, let's start here. So I know I covered this morning on Breaking History around Balance Daily, but I think it's most relevant for this audience. So we might as well just start here and we'll spend just a minute recapping it. But being that this actually happened during, like, during this show, actually funny Enough. I was sitting in this room. I'm, I'm streaming from my son's room right now because have people in my kitchen. So I'm not streaming from my kitchen, but I was actually sitting in my son's room when streaming from there when Tammy Bruce was running that press conference. We don't need to play the video games. I probably have already played it several times for this audience.
03:55
But the news story is Trump nominates X Fox News host Tammy Bruce as Deputy UN Ambassador. The the Truth Social post from Trump. From President Trump, I am pleased to announce that I am nominating Tammy Bruce, a great patriot television personality and best selling author as our next Deputy representative of the United States to the UN with the rank of Ambassador. Since the beginning of my second term, Tammy has been serving with distinction as spokesperson of the State Department where she did a fantastic job. Tammy Bruce will represent our country brilliantly at the United Nations. Congratulations, Tammy. Yeah, and so they actually, they actually included the video in this article. Let me see if what video they include here. I'm just curious.
04:43
The President has just written on Truth Social that Mike Waltz is going to become the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Well, there you go. Fabulous. And in addition to that, he says that in the interim Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as National Security Advisor while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department. Do you know how long he's going to be serving in both roles? It is clear that I just heard this from you. I had, I, this is the magic. Well, I, I have some insights as to the potential of certain things that might happen. But when the president, and this of course is all presidential decisions. Right, right. So I'm with the State Department.
05:28
I, it is as I think would be clear to all of you don't want to get ahead of your skis in drawing conclusions or speculating about what may occur and you can have a general sense of what's possible and then you see that manifest usually. But I think the one thing I certainly that I've learned is that things don't happen until the President says they're going to happen. So the fact that is, which was obviously truth Social. Yeah. So that is the miracle of modern technology and the social media. So that is an exciting moment here.
06:08
I think that as I know Secretary Rubio, this is a man who is, I think you all know, has worn several hats from day one in managing the nature of what's happened here at the State Department, at usaid and perfect assessments about who would implement his agenda. And in this case, he's chosen certainly the secretary and Mr. Waltz to facilitate his agenda moving forward. Not, not entirely surprising, I have to say. And good news for the American people. Some insights that this might happen. Could you just. Well, I think no, I can't. But thanks for asking. You do have knowing the secretary. Sure. And knowing this building. How do you see this working and what advantages do you see with Secretary Rubio's experience in this new role? Well, and also his experience certainly in the Senate for so long.
07:07
He knows everyone in the city and we've seen the secretary operate in with.
07:14
All right, that's enough of that. I just wanted to see if she said anything about the UN Or Mike Waltz. So interesting dynamic here. You know, in that clip she is revealing that she had no idea Mike Waltz was being sent to the UN this is news to me. I'm just hearing this for the first time. I don't blame her for saying that she wasn't going to provide any insight into like the decision making here. But that's, it's not for something, that's not something you would put out to the press regardless. But the fact that she has been sent off to the Atlanta Misfit Toys is interesting because Mike Waltz is still to this point. This was back in. When did that happen again? I want to say it was April, maybe May says Trump's nominee for weights being confirmed by the Senate.
08:08
Yeah, it doesn't say. But the fact that Mike Waltz after like whatever it's been two months, three months since he's been, since he was appointed, still has not been confirmed by the Senate. So he's like in limbo. I mean, I assume he's not, hasn't taken a job somewhere else, you know, while he, while he's waiting to become the UN Ambassador, she's not going to go become the deputy ambassador. It's very clear that Mike Waltz was fired. I mean I, I'm sure most people it's going totally go under the RAdar that Tammy Bruce was just fired. But that's exactly what happened is she was just fired and she was fired because of the insulting comments she made towards the Saudis two weeks ago during the two state confab. Total misstep by her. No reason for it. Rubio pro.
08:54
I would imagine Rubio probably something was said to Rubio as well. Although I said at the time, I said Bruce should resign, Rubio should not. It's not enough, I think to warrant Rubio resigning, but I think that Bruce should 100% resign because she came out with that statement that was just so vicious and then she was humiliated because the Arabs came out and demanded that Hamas surrender, which she had just finished saying that they were supporting Hamas. So way to go Tammy. That was just terrible analysis on your part. But whatever. Wish you the best.
09:31
And on that point we'll start here with this with the story where we finished up Balance Daily Italian PM agrees with Palestinian authorities Abbas over no Future for Hamas in Gaza Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Maloney and Palestinian Prime President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to a phone call on Tuesday that Hamas must release all Israeli hostages and accepted that it has no future in governing the coastal enclave of Gaza. Maloney expressed concern over the Israeli decision last week to occupy Gaza, describing the humanitarian situation there as unjustified and unacceptable and calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities. She highlighted Italy's commitment to humanitarian aid such as the Food for Gaza initiative airdrops and the evacuation of more than 150 Palestinian children needing treatment, the Wafa news agency reported.
10:20
She added that Italy is ready to assist in stabilizing and reconstructing Gaza and highlighted the importance of a political process for a just lasting peace in the Middle east through a two state solution. The two leaders agreed to meet in New York City on the sidelines of the UN Generals assembly in September, a highly anticipated occasion where several countries have pledged to recognize the state of Palestine, including France and Canada. Yeah, so this is notable in my opinion. I like to, when I'm running through, I'm sifting through the headlines, I'm sifting through the news cycle. There's a lot of trash in the news cycle. There's a lot of just, there's a lot of regurgitation like the same news story kind of being told over and over again with different headlines, slightly different takes, but kind of the same story over and over again.
11:09
There's also a lot of just like nonsense, misinformation, disinformation, bad reporting, bad analysis. But there's also like moments where 2 meter 2 speakers will, or, I'm sorry, two leaders will speak to one another or make some kind of a gesture together that I take as symbolic, I take as significant. And I like to take those moments and kind of just put them in my back pocket. Like put them in, take them off the assembly, this assembly line and put them in my little bag because I think it means something. And this would be one of those moments. Mahmoud Abbas, I think I, I've thoroughly made the case to this audience that I think him and Trump are dear friends. I think Trump supports Mahmoud Abbas.
11:55
He made a promise to him on camera May 3, 2017, that he was going to make sure that Abbas was the president that liberated Palestine and informed the official the formally created the Palestinian state, which requires the complicity of all of your neighbors, as international law says that in order to codify your borders, every country sharing those borders with you has to agree and recognize your sovereignty. And of course, Israel has not recognized Palestine. Palestine did it did recognize Israel in 1993. Mahmoud Abbas recognized Israel in 1993 when he signed the Oslo Accords at the Clinton White House. And it has not been reciprocated yet. Of course, Georgia Maloney, our girl, she is definitely our girl. I think in Europe, in Western Europe, I think you can make the argument that Victor Orban is our guy in the East.
12:54
I mean, Putin is definitely our guy in the Far east of Europe, along with Lukashenko, Victor Orban, Robert Fitzo, Giorgio Maloney, Nigel Farage. And then it would appear that Macron and Keir Starmer have at least capitulated the Trump. It seems like they have capitulated. Mark Rute, you know, for all the bad things I have to say about NATO and the fact that I don't think NATO should exist at all, Mark Rute, I think has certainly acted like a whipped dog whenever he's around Trump. So, yeah, that's this is a story that I just wanted to glance at because it's in the same outlet Arab News Saudi Prince wins Prestigious British International Sword at Sandhurst. The Prince received the honor during the Sovereign's parade on Aug. 8, recognizing him as the top performing international cadet among a cohort from across the globe.
13:55
Brigadier Ben Wilde, this stellar achievement by Prince Saud highlights the value of what Sandhurst offers some of the finest military leadership training to be found anywhere in the world. Prince Saud bin Mohammed bin Abdullah, Turkey, has made history as the first Saudi officer cadet to be awarded the prestigious International Sword at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. The prince received the honor during their Sovereign's parade on Aug. 8, recognizing him as the top performing international cadet among a cohort from across the globe. The award celebrates exceptional leadership, discipline and military excellence. Brigadier Ben Wild, I assume that means Brigadier General Ben Wilde, the British defense attache to Saudi Arabia, told Arab News, quote, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a long history with the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and a deep defense relationship that stretches back to the Second World War.
14:51
The stellar achievement by officer cadet Prince Saud highlights the value of what Sandhurst offers. Some of the finest military leadership training to be found anywhere in the world. It is hoped that the relationship with Sandhurst will go from strength to strength in the future as the kingdom's military forces evolve to meet the challenges of the future. Says Wild said that what set Prince Saad apart was his immense physical and mental resilience. He led by example during the most demanding physical challenges, even inspiring those observing Ramadan to maintain rigorous training throughout the holy month. He is a superb communicator and military planner, achieving one of the highest scores on the entire course in the challenging military planning examination. On the field, he excelled in leading infantry tactical operations, demonstrating calm under pressure, strategic acumen, and the ability to inspire his team during realistic combat exercises.
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Beyond his operational skills, he served as an outstanding representative for his country, volunteering to lead aid Al Fatir celebrations and fostering an understanding of Islamic culture within a diverse environment. Selfless, professional, humble and gracious, he proved himself a natural leader and role model for all cadets in the commissioning course. Yeah, I mean, there's. I'm. By camera later, look at this. I mean, some Matt, Eric and a few others might look at this and say that, you know, this is a. This Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst is historically a place where bad guys are groomed, so to speak, for lack of a better word. But that doesn't necessarily mean that every person that comes out of there is a servant of the regime or a servant of the City of London. Obviously this guy is going to have loyalties to the Kingdom. I want to.
16:40
This is actually an interesting development because I think the other way to look at this is that Saudi Arabia. One thing that Saudi Arabia has never really had is like a really strong military leader. Not since the founder of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Abdulabziz. And, Or I'm sorry, Ibn Abdul ABZ is. Because it's like he's relate. He's descended from. Doesn't matter. But I want to figure out who this guy's father is. I want to see how he's related. Just give me, just indulge me for a second. Let me, let me figure this out. His father is. So he is a son of salmon. So he is actually. And his mother is Fada. I, I think fada might be MBS's. Let me see. Yes. So this is MBS's full brother. Okay, that's What I thought this guy is MBS's full brother. That's very encouraging.
17:40
So that makes this a very encouraging development. So MBS's full brother, what is the first Saudi national to receive this sword, this award and what this means? I mean, if you consider that, I think all of the Salmon children, even the half brothers, they all seem like good people. They all seem like decent people. I haven't really found anything to indicate that any of them have been in, you know, tied up in the kind of operations that some of their relatives have been caught up in. And really what Saudi Arabia needs is a good military leader. So because I know that what MBS has planned is he wants to build a strong Saudi military, not because he wants to warmonger or anything like that, but he wants sovereignty.
18:31
And part of sovereignty means that you can project strength and you can have peace through strength and not be dependent on the United States military to basically occupy your country and act as your military force for you. So I think this is actually, now that I know for a fact that this is MBS's full brother, not his half brother. That's very encouraging. I think this is actually a good development and Saudi Arabia needs somebody like this. So he'll probably come back and get plugged into the Saudi military and we'll see what happens with him. Young guy, but a future leader of Saudi Arabia, so good for them. Let's go to, let's check back in on Azerbaijan. So last Friday, Trump announced a peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia, a subject that we've been discussing on this show.
19:24
We've been discussing it really on Breaking History a lot. A very interesting situation, an interesting dynamic. And this headline is Iran Objects to US Plan for Armenia Azerbaijan Transit Route. Washington's corridor policy proposal is a ploy to isolate the country as well as Russia and weaken the influence of both in the region. Iran has condemned a US Plan to establish and control a transit route through Armenia or I'm sorry, through. Yeah, through Armenia, warning that it poses a. A threat to regional stability and would undermine Tehran's security interests. On Friday, Armenian Prime Minister Nicole Pashishnian, Azerbaijani President Elam Aliyev and U. S. President Donald Trump signed an agreement in Washington to open the Zangazur transport corridor.
20:17
The route links mainland Azerbaijan to its enclave of Nikshi Nikki Chevon through a narrow strip of land in the southern Armenian in southern Armenia along the border with Iran. Under the agreement, the US will manage the corridor under Armenian sovereignty. Via a 99 year land lease, subletting it to a consortium for construction and operations. While Tehran said it welcomes peace agreements between Yerevan and Baku, those are the two capitals of those two countries. It vehemently opposes placing the corridor under US control. Iranian officials argue that it would cut Iran off from Armenia and destabilize the South Caucus Caucasus by allowing a foreign military and commercial presence.
21:00
Ali Akbar Velayati, senior advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the project a geopolitical scheme by the US and Israel to weaken the Islamic Republic, sever its connection with the Caucasus and impose a land blockade on both Iran and Russia. He claimed it was part of a wider NATO backed strategy supported by Pan Turkic movements to shift the western focus from Ukraine to the Caucasus. The Caucasus is one of the, quote, the Caucasus is one of the most strategic geographical points in the world and this corridor will not be a transit route in Trump's possession, but a graveyard for his mercenaries, volatile Vala Yati said, adding that Russia is also strategically against this project. Moscow has said it welcomes efforts to achieve stability and prosperity in the south caucuses and to normalize relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
21:55
Foreign Minister Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakarova stressed that the best solutions are those developed by the countries in the region and their immediate neighbors, specifically Russia, Iran and Turkey. She noted that trilateral agreements signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia after the 2020 Nagorno Karabakh War remain in force and relevant and that Armenia's border with Iran continues to be guarded by Russian border forces under a 1992 treaty. Yeah, so this is very interesting. I mean obviously Iran is expressing an opinion that I have also expressed where I think that Azerbaijan and Armenia, like this conflict is being used as a excuse basically to merge the Ukraine and Israel wars. They seem to recognize that as well.
22:42
And from their perspective, you know, in the, in the sphere of public optics like devolution and Q and all the things that we have studied aside speculation on the future, aside the future of the intelligence agencies and the sovereignty of the American people, this would be a concerning development, you know, 10 years ago, like under Obama or even under Biden, because they're right that a 99 year land lease could easily be used by the CIA, by Langley, by the State Department to send mercenaries over there to basically launch destabilizing operations or just regime change operations in any of the surrounding countries. And again, if we go to, let me see, I think I have this Pulled up. Yeah. So here's the map. Let's actually throw this in the mind map. So here's the map. All right. So they're talking about, if you can.
23:51
See, there's this. You see our Armenia, like gets really skinny down here in the south. This random little blob of land that has no name attached to it is actually part of Azerbaijan. It's physically disconnected from the main part of Azerbaijan. And so the idea is that this corridor is going to run at the southern border of Armenia and it's going to connect the two parts of Azerbaijan so that Azerbaijani people can move back and forth safely. As they point out there have been Russian troops stationed there since 1992. Peacekeeping troops, like additional peacekeeping troops I believe were deployed in 2020 when a, like a conf. Another armed conflict broke out there. I had Joaquin Flores on here a few weeks ago. He was on Breaking History as well.
24:40
He explained to us how after those peacekeeping troops were deployed by Putin in 2020, Pashishnian, who's the Armenian president, told Aliyev to attack Armenia after those troops were in place. And then Armenia, like wouldn't defend, which would force Russia to step in and defend. All that's very interesting. I mean, all like assuming that everything that Joaquin told us, and I have no reason to believe that it's not accurate is accurate. That's all fascinating, you know, but frankly, if the American government does return to, under the control, the earnest control of the American people, then this could be a long term good move. A 99 year land lease. 99 years is a long time. So again, from the perspective of Iran, 50 years from now, things could be very different.
25:34
Even if we do enter the golden age tomorrow, 50 years from now, are we still in the golden age or has the deep state returned? I understand why they're skeptical. I, I don't blame them for being skeptical. The other thing I wanted to point out though, from this story is the idea of using a land lease that is exactly what I speculated would be used maybe in like a mineral deal, like these mineral rights deals that have been mentioned with Ukraine, with the drc, the Democratic Republic of Congo, a number of other places. You know, how do you like, how do those mineral rights work if they're under the control of the national go like of the U.S. government? Is it like a land lease situation? And that just speaks to Donald Trump's real estate acumen.
26:20
That is definitely something a real estate developer would come up with a 99 year land lease, which is like, that's like the typical deal that's given to a gas station. Like if you want to make a, if you want to turn a corner lot, a corner commercial lot at like an intersection into a gas station, maybe it's functioned as a, a Rite Aid or a CVS or whatever and you want to turn it into a gas station, you have to sign a special like 99 year lease, 100 year lease that basically says that for the next 100 years this land is going to operate as a gas station. Because it requires you to. I think you have to, I'm pretty sure you have to change the zoning, but you also have to excavate a bunch of dirt, put giant oil tanks in the ground.
27:04
You know, causes all sorts of issues for anybody who wanted to come in and use it as something else. You can't just build a building on top of those oil tanks. You have to then excavate and remove the oil tanks. So, you know, a 99 year land lease is pretty typical for like a gas station because again, like you drive around your local city, your local town, a lot of the buildings that you see, even the buildings that are like, you know, chains, are not necessarily owned by those businesses. A lot of the times the real estate is actually owned by somebody else and the owner of that business who built the building is just leasing the land. I know several people, I've been involved in those deals.
27:44
I have friends who own businesses where their 20,000 square foot facility is on land that they don't actually don't own, they just lease the land. So anyway, it all has to do with structuring the deal. You know, sometimes the owners of the land don't want to sell the land, they want to maintain ownership of it. They want to collect rent. So they end up collecting rent every month from the person. Leasing sometimes can benefit the business owner because if they don't have to go out and plop a bunch of money down, a bunch of cash down, or a loan down to buy the land, they just have to agree to pay a certain amount every month in perpetuity, you know, in perpetuity for 99 years, that can just be part of their operating budget.
28:29
So it saves them a lot of cash on hand, you know, capital at the startup. So there are reasons that you do it this way now that's different from probably what's happening here, but that just go, there's a lot of like finessing that you can do when you put deals together. And I think this is what Trump loves to do. He loves to put deals together. He loves to structure a deal in a way where everyone walks away feeling like they won or feeling like they got what they wanted out of the deal. That's a great deal. That's a deal that has been put together very well. And Trump has talked about that in his books. He talks about how if somebody walks away from the deal feeling like they got screwed, then you didn't put a very good deal together.
29:10
And that person, it's going to be hard to come back in the future and do another deal with that person. You know, you've pretty much, you've shot yourself in the foot because maybe you won this deal, but there's 10 more deals to be done with this person. And now you're not going to get any of those opportunities, you know, especially in a place like New York City where he was operating, where you had a lot of the same players, you know, buying and selling high rise buildings. So interesting dynamics here. I am really fascinated by that stuff and I like to track it. So. All right, let's go to, I think let's go to Russia because we spent Friday talking about Israel. So I think we'll probably steer clear of Israel today unless there's something I noticed that comes up.
30:04
But we're going to go to Russia. Russia reveals expectations for Putin Trump summit Obviously, the really big news is this meeting that's going to be happening in Alaska this Friday. Oh, whoops. I'm sorry, I'm not sharing my screen. Boom, there we go. Very, very big news. August 15th meeting in Alaska. Let me just check on the chat, make sure that I haven't done it, I haven't done something wrong. Nope, I don't see any fires to put up yet. So we will keep plowing forward. The Alaska meeting could boost efforts to restore ties with the US Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said. Russia sees the upcoming Alaska summit between President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump as a chance to mend strained relations and tackle long running disputes, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said.
31:06
In an interview with Isvestia on Tuesday, Rabkov said the much anticipated meeting is the in the largest US state set for August 15 would not only focus, would focus not only on settling the Ukraine conflict, but also on bilateral ties that sank to an all time low during the administration of former U.S. president Joe Biden. Quote, we hope that the forthcoming high level meeting will give an impulse to the normalization of bilateral relations which will allow us to move forward on several issues, he said, confirming that restoring air links could be one of the items discussed. Direct passenger flights between Russia and the US were suspended in 2022 after Washington imposed sweeping sanctions over the Ukraine conflict, Ryabkov said. Added that it is clear that the leaders will focus on other topics, referring to the Ukraine conflict.
31:57
On Monday, Trump said the summit, which he described as a feel out meeting, would explore a potential deal involving the swapping of territory between Russia and Ukraine as part of a settlement. However, no official acknowledgment that at this stage there is an in a there is no observable progress regarding the return of Russian diplomatic property to the US he was referring to several compounds, including Russia's San Francisco consulate, which were closed by US authorities in 2016 2017. At the same time, Washington said the closures, as well as expulsions of dozens of Russian diplomats were in response to alleged election interference. Recent files declassified by US Director of a National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard have substantially undermined that claim. Moscow has accused the US of the expropriation of property protected by diplomatic immunity.
32:50
Following Trump's inauguration in January, Moscow appointed Alexander Darchief as its new ambassador to Washington. In June, he met with the US President, telling him that he would do everything to restore Russian American relations and bring them back to normality in common sense. Excuse me. He added that Russia and the US are destined to have a non confrontational peaceful existence. A lot of signal there. There's a lot of signal. Let's start. The fact that this is a full circle moment. Friday represents a full circle moment. The fact that it's happening during GART is fantastic. Big shout out to the Trump team for making that happen. But remember, this all goes back to before Trump was even elected president in 2016. The accusations of Russia interfering in the election because they wanted Trump in.
33:45
We now know that actually Putin saw Hillary Clinton as much more pliable and easier to control than Trump. Doesn't mean that he likes her more than Trump or wanted her in president as president more than Trump. It just means that he had leverage over her where he didn't really have any leverage over Trump. And you know there's a reason that the deep state didn't want Trump and Putin to best friends right out the gate because if they had been, the world would probably look like a very different place than it does right now. But you know, the dark night of the soul like this. Maybe all these hardships we've endured will make us better, stronger and free from a lot of these sociopaths who slither around in the shadows. Let's see.
34:29
I want I wanted to look at Zelensky, but then also yeah, I wanted to look at Zelensky, but I also wanted to look at Ukraine, just Ukraine in general. The reason I was hesitating is because there's this story Jailed Russian Armenian tycoons family files 500 million dollar lawsuit against Yerevan, which is the capital of Armenia Samvel Cara Petions relatives are demanding that the government provide compensation for losses linked to the nationalization of his company. The family of a jailed Russian Armenian tycoon has reportedly launched a 500 million dollar case against the government of Armenia led by Prime Minister Nicole Pashishian over the nationalization of his company Samville. Cara Carapetian was arrested in June after the allegedly calling for the seizure of power while publicly supporting the Armenian Apostolic Church in an ongoing confrontation with Pashan.
35:34
Following Carapan's arrest, the prime minister announced that it is time to nationalize Carapitian's firm, Electric Grids of Armenia, and called for swift action. The Armenian Parliament later passed legislation enabling the state to confiscate the company. The nation's utility services regulator opened a case against Electric Grids of Armenia in mid July and temporarily put a senior member of Peshnishian's civil Contract party in charge of the company. The family wants Yerevan to provide compensation for both existing and expected future damage, task reported, citing sources close to Carapetian earlier. The businessman's relatives also filed a lawsuit with the Arbitration Institute, the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, a tribunal that specializes in commercial and investor state disputes. Invoking a 1995 bilateral investment treaty between Armenia and Cyprus in late July, the tribunal ruled that Yavon must refrain from taking any further steps to seize the electric utility company.
36:39
The decision is binding on the Armenian government. The businessman himself has remained in custody since June 18 following a court decision that placed him under arrest for two months as a probe against him is ongoing. Carapetian is one of several high profile figures to have been targeted in Yavon's recent crackdown on the opposition. Archbishop Bagrat Gan, the head of the Shirak Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Bishop Mikhail Aan have also been detained. The arrest came in response to mass protests led by the church and its supporters. The demonstrators accused Pashishin of betraying Armenia's national interests by handing over several border villages to Azerbaijan. Moscow has said that it is closely Monitoring the developments, particularly those concerning Carapetian, who holds Russian citizenship.
37:31
It's interesting because, you know, the idea that Pashishin is betraying Armenia, the Armenian national interest by handing over border villages to Azerbaijan aligns with the assertions made by our friend Joaquim Flores who said that Pashishnian and Aliyev, the Armenian prime minister is like they're working together. Like even though the, on the surface, Armenian, Azerbaijan are enemies and long time enemies, the leaders are actually have their hands in each other's pockets, you know, playing grab ass. So that's interesting, very interesting. But it supports that. I mean if he's actually given this nemesis country, you know, this arch rival country villages. Okay, so let's pivot to Ukraine. Putin thanks Kim Jong Un for support in Ukraine. I mean this is the big headline on RT and actually the headline just changed. So now we're gonna go there next.
38:45
Putin thanks Kim Jong Un for support in Ukraine conflict. The Russian president has praised his North Korean counterpart during a phone call between the two leaders. I swear we've seen this is from today, but we, I've seen This story published 15 times in the past two months. It's like every week there's another story where Putin is like, I love Kim Jong Un so much. He is like a brother to me. That's, it's pretty crazy how hard they're hammering this narrative. Russian President Vladimir Putin has thanked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for backing Moscow in the Ukraine conflict. The Kremlin has said in the phone call between the two on Tuesday, Putin praised Kim for Pyongyang's assistance in the liberation of Russia's Kursk region, which Ukrainian forces seized last August.
39:27
The two leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening cooperation under the countries strategic partnership Agreement and agreed to maintain direct contacts. Putin highly appreciated the Pyongyang's support in repelling Kiev's incursion and the courage, heroism and selflessness shown by the North Korean soldiers. The press release reads. Pyongyang's mission in the Kursk region was launched in connection with a bilateral Treaty signed in June 2024, which includes mutual defense clauses. Close ties between Russia and North Korea, which date back to the Soviet era, have been given a new impetus since the start of the Ukraine conflict, with Pyongyang expressing firm support for Moscow's effort to defend its national interests, particularly when it comes to NATO expansion.
40:10
Pyongyang has described Kiev's troops which had entered Kursk region as neo Nazi forces and said it took part in the Russian operation in order to help thwart an adventurous political and military attempt of the Western forces and Ukrainian authorities to turn the tide in the broader conflict, according to the Kremlin. Putin has also briefed him ahead of the much anticipated talks with US President Donald Trump scheduled for August 15, with the Ukraine conflict expected to be top of the agenda. Now, this is interesting, very interesting, because again, the headline here is talking about K, which again, Kirst, happened months ago. Like Kim Jong Un helped Putin liberate Kirk months ago. Okay. I don't think that's actually what this phone call was about. This phone call was obviously about Alaska and about the meeting on Friday. And here's why. Let me. There's two things that.
41:03
There's two things that I think are important here. One, very recently, I think last year. I'll go find the article. The US Added a million square kilometers to the continental shelf, the ocean around Alaska. You see the purple? So the blue is what we already had and the purple is what we added. And basically, I believe international law says that 200 miles out from your coastline is your, your water rights. Basically, that's considered your sovereign water territories. 200 miles in every direction. All right? And there's probably, there's, obviously there's exceptions where you have countries that are closer together than 200 miles. You, you have that in the case here between Russia and America. And that's where it probably, I would imagine, probably reverts to what's called riparian rights in real estate.
41:58
In the real estate world, riparian rights are written, which is referring to rivers. I used to be a realtor, so I had to study all this stuff 15 years ago. But the way riparian rights work is because sometimes rivers, you know, will move over time. Like erosion and stuff will eat away at the land and the rivers will kind of like move. So riparian rights move with the river. So if a river were to shift, you know, like a major flood or a mudslide happens, and in a river, a part of a river shifts over, you know, 50 yards or 100 yards, the rights like. And you have property owners on opposite sides of the river. In theory, the riparian rights extend to the middle of the waterway.
42:42
So you measure if the water, if the river is 50ft wide, you get 25ft one side, the other side gets 25ft. I imagine if you go to places like Mississippi, like the Mississippi river, which is a much wider river, it's probably more Like a certain distance out into the water. You don't get halfway across the Mississippi river, but I'm talking about rivers that are, you know, 100 yards across or less something, you know, something like that. Something that's more. The James river is really the one that comes to mind for me. But anyway, I'll pull this article up. This is from. Because that happened last year, but it actually was that one. And then. So this is interesting because this actually like happened under the Biden administration. Let's see the 2023. So see.
43:46
On December 19, 2023, the United States Department of State announced the results of its US Extended Continental Shelf project. It declared an expansion in the outer boundaries of the United States Continental Shelf in numerous regions. The US Extended Continental she partially overlaps with the ES or ECS areas of Canada, the Bahamas and Japan. And these areas, the United States and these countries will need to establish maritime boundaries in the future. And I believe, if I'm not mistaken, this is a, this was something that I think was commissioned by the Trump administration. Let's go to the PDF, the executive summary from this. Where's John Harold? I need John Harold here to read through this document for me and spit out some bullet points. But I just want to see when it was commissioned because I'm pretty sure this was probably commissioned during the Trump administration.
44:45
It says from 2014 till 2023, analysis and documentation of the US Extended Continental Shelf was led by US ESC or ECS Project Office located in Boulder, Colorado. The EC, the US ECS Project Office is staffed with experts from Department of State noaa, which is the National Ocean Something Association. I forget, I forget what the first A stands for, and the University of Colorado, and has been supported by close scientific and technological cooperation with scientists from the usgs, which is the United States Geological Survey, and the center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, noaa, a joint hydrographic center located at the University of New Hampshire. In addition to the agencies and organizations referred to previously, other members of the US esc, ecs, I'm Sorry Task Force have also made important contributions to delineating the outer limits of the US Extended Continental Shelf. I'm just curious.
45:53
It says that they're, they've been working on this since 2014, but something tells me that it probably actually got kicked into high gear under the Trump administration. You know, this stuff just drags out for years and it just becomes a giant money pit for let's invest billions of dollars into something that doesn't require, you know, 10 years to actually do, but maybe it does. I don't know. Yeah. And so here it's showing as the other map I was showing displayed. It wasn't just Alaska they were looking at. They were looking at the Pacific coast and the Atlantic coast, but also the Gulf of Mexico. So all the areas that are like this reddish purplish color they added, and these areas up here are. My understanding is that they actually have found like rare earth minerals.
46:40
Let's search for minerals and see if we can find anything. Minerals, resources. Yeah, it's probably actually not going to be in here because that probably would get a little political if they were like, oh, yeah, there's a bunch of rare earth stuff here. But let's see. I'm just curious. So this is showing, this map right here is showing the Arctic region. The map depicts the outer edge of the continental margin. White line with purple edges. The 350 nautical mile distance constraint. Orange line, the depth constraint. Yellow line of the US Russia maritime boundary. Blue line in the key geographic features of the region. NCE is Northern Chutchke Elevation inset shows point spacing of 0.5 nautical miles. All right, so it says that the. Let's, let's get our bearings here. White line with purple edges is this one right here.
47:32
And that is the outer edge of the continental margin. The, the 350 nautical mile distance constraint is this pink line right here. So that's 350 nautical miles out from the northern coast of Alaska. And then the depth constraint is the yellow line, which is this one, I think, right here. Yeah, this one right here is the depth constraint. And then what is this one? Areas enlarging right here. Why would you need to enlarge in that? I'm not getting anything more from this than from this. But that's a strange little chart. What is interesting though, is that Putin and Trump have both been talking about how important the Arctic is, that the Arctic actually has a ton of resources underneath the ice. It's a very strategic location.
48:34
I think there's been talks about like the nuclear submarines are up there all the time circling one another. There have been talks about sub bases being built up there. Here's a nice little graph. But what I want to know about is I want to know about the mineral and the minerals and the oil. But that doesn't appear to be part of this. This, that doesn't appear to be part of this. But here's what is part of this is. Let's Go to. All right, so here's from the Alaska Beacon. US Preparing to claim new ocean territory off Arctic Alaska and in central Bering Sea. The claims to extended continental shelf territory to be asserted by the US State Department include an area within the Arctic Ocean that is bigger than California and that. Yeah.
49:28
So those two purple areas that we're showing here is twice the size of California. This, and this is twice the size of California. So when you look at California right here, which is about right there, it's twice the size of California that we've added just around Alaska. It's pretty significant. And I don't think this aligns with, like, the globalist agenda. Like, I don't think the global. While the globalists would have been happy to exploit U.S. resources, U.S. tax dollars, U.S. state Department resources, to explore the ocean so that they could have the information, they weren't doing it in 2014 so that the United States could add territory to its sovereign. Its sovereign land. Unless, of course, that effort was to circumvent or prevent or subvert Putin from doing it and Russia from doing it.
50:22
Yeah, and so this article is just kind of explaining again, what, like, why this is. This is happening and some of the. Some of the factors that are. That are in. In play here. The other article that I wanted to share, though was this one. So this is a month later, US Declares expansion of its continental shelves. And then it becomes official. This is January 2024. So this is again last year, Biden. Under Biden, this happened. Okay. And then I'm sorry, the real article was this one, which is because Trump just announced something. You're kidding me. Why is this thing not coming up? Here it is. Trump administration plans for oil deep in Arctic Ocean, where US Claim has yet to be recognized. This is from May of 2025. So this is three months ago. And this is where we're getting into the.
51:48
Okay, now it's all starting to make sense. The Trump administration is eyeing the possibility of oil leasing in Arctic Ocean. In Arctic Ocean areas more than 200 miles from shore, an area where U.S. territorial rights are unclear. Information about the Trump administration's plans to add a high Arctic planning area to the federal offshore oil and gas leasing program announced two weeks ago was provided April 29.
52:11
In a formal solicitation for public comment, the U.S. bureau office Energy of Ocean Energy Management, a division of the Department of the Interior, said it will accept public comments for 45 days on its proposal to reorganize the federal offshore leasing program, including the addition of the High Arctic Area the new area proposed for inclusion in the oil and gas leasing program is part of the ocean territory to which the US Government is claiming new rights following a sea mapping program conducted over several years. The area is part of what is known as the Extended Continental shelf, which goes beyond exclusive economic zone borders that typically end at 200 nautical miles from shore. The U.S. state Department in December 2023 began the process of claiming over 200,000 square miles of Arctic sea floor in the extended continental shelf.
52:59
The area is more than twice the size of California nations. Territorial rights and extended continental shelf areas beyond the 200 nautical mile limits are limited to the seafloor and seas and subsea areas under international maritime law. They do not include any rights in the waters above, such as fishing rights. That's an important distinction. So they aren't protected private fishing waters, but you can dig down underneath and hit hit the bedrock. I think that's important. A lot of the fish, I think I'm pretty sure China was using like their fishing rights to build some of those islands. You know, the islands that you hear about that they were building the artificial islands and then they put like runways on the islands and call it an air base. I'm pretty sure they were using their fishing like their fishing rights to do that.
53:50
If I if I recall, if I'm remembering that correctly, says Oil potential and industry interest also unclear Mark Myers, a geologist and former director of the U.S. geological Survey, said there is some indication of oil and gas potential in the High Arctic region designated for possible inclusion in the BOEM program. He pointed to the Circum Arctic Resource appraisal released in 2008 by the USGS. The study used data collected from by cross crews working on two icebreakers, the US Coast Guards Healy and the Canadian coast guards Lewis S. St. Laurent. But that information too is preliminary, Myers said.
54:26
It's possible that some of the southern area would have oil and gas potential based on the KARA study, but a more robust technical evaluation of the area for oil and gas potential would be something that would need, that would be important for the federal government to do, said Myers, who also served previously as commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources and director of the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas.
54:49
But you know, the point is that it's exciting and a really good sign that we are looking at the commercial viability of gas and oil projects in the ocean as opposed to water turbine energy projects, wind turbine energy projects, you know, kind of these useless projects that became really popular, quote unquote popular or prevalent under Obama, but really were just like money laundering schemes to give money to billionaires who basically would build some prototypes, put them in the water, they'd fall apart, and then. And then the company would file for bankruptcy after all the money was spent. Yeah, I mean, that happened with a lot of those, like green energy programs that Obama put in, is that all the companies ended up going bankrupt. Nobody was held accountable. They, the money was all spent. You know, that should all be adjudicated.
55:41
But while we're on Alaska, let's just. I think this is an interesting article here. Where, where in Alaska will Trump and Putin meet? History offers clues. The U.S. presidents have twice before met world leaders in Alaska airports. That's interesting. Here's a picture of Nixon meeting with Emperor Hiro Hero Hito of Japan on September 26, 1971 in Anchorage at the home of General Robert George Ruig, commander in chief of the Alaskan Command at L Element. El Minf. El Minfdorf. Wait. El Minf. Door. Elmendorf. Elmendorf. Elmendorf. Why is it so hard for me to say that? Elmendorf. Okay, I'm sorry. That was just me being an idiot. Air Force Base. It was the first ever meeting of a US President in a Japanese monarch. Interesting, says U. S President Donald Trump and Russian President Putin are set to meet in Alaska on Friday.
56:41
The announcement immediately raises questions, many questions for Alaskans, chief among them where the White House has yet to release any specifics on where the two leaders will convene, how long the meeting will last, or any other relevant logistics. Officials in Alaska are not sure either. As of Monday, three days after Trump announced the summit, neither the Alaska governor NOR the state's two U.S. senators were able to share details about their visit, their spokesperson people said. Anchorage Mayor Suzanne Le France said early Monday the city had not been involved in the discussions around a potential visit, but was willing to assist. Adding to confusion surrounding the event. In a Monday press conference, Trump said that he is, quote, going to Russia on Friday, end quote. Preparations for the meeting, however, are moving ahead in Alaska.
57:27
He did say that, by the way, and I thought that was interesting. And I wonder, it would be kind of hilarious if they ended up meeting on the Russian side of, like, the water. Like that would be kind of funny, but I do think it'll be on the. Or maybe they'll meet like on an island that is like right there on the border. It'd be kind of funny. But this does also, I think, follow a pattern of behavior from Trump, especially in the campaign, especially after like the assassination attempt, where they would wait till like two days before a rally and then they would announce where the rally was. I was working on airports at the time around the east coast, and there were some rallies held at airports.
58:08
And so I was speaking to the people who were responsible for like, planning from the airport side, who were responsible for planning, like these rallies. And they were telling me how like much of a, like a cluster, it was like how it was a scramble because they were, they got like two days of notice that they were gonna have to repurpose these airports like a hangar in the airport for a rally. But they did that for security because if you give people too much time, then they can devise plans on how they're gonna, you know, infiltrate the rally or whatever. Okay. And it says this other meeting was Ronald Reagan with Joe Pope John Paul II on May 2, 1984. And what I'm looking for is I'm looking for proposed locations.
58:52
In a sign of solidifying plans, the Federal Aviation Administration published a notice Monday closing miles of airspace around Anchorage on Friday because of VIP travel around the city. Shannon McCarthy, spokeswoman, spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, said that there are several temporary flight restrictions scheduled for this Friday. There could also be traffic delays across the municipality, McCarthy said, adding that the department will have more information on which roads will be affected in the coming days. Because we have so many VIPs moving, we anticipate that they could be arriving at different airports. If history is any precedent, it's possible the two leaders may meet within an airport, such as Ted Stevens, Anchorage International Airport. President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II met in Fairbanks International Airport in May 1994. Or, I'm sorry, 1984.
59:44
After greeting an audience assembled at the airport, Reagan and the Pope conversed privately in a converted terminal lounge during the pontiff's two hour stop in Alaska, the Daily News reported at the time. In September 1971, Nixon met with Emperor the Emperor of Japan at Elmendorf, crushed at that time Air Force base in Anchorage, 5,000 spectators packed a hangar to watch Nixon welcome the emperor who stop at Anchorage on his way to Europe. Lasted two hours. And then here's Joe Biden meeting with military members and their families at the Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson on September 11, 2023. Here's Alaska Governor Bill Walker and President Xi Jinping in Anchorage. And here's Obama being a dumbass in the Snow City Cafe in Anchorage. Okay, okay, so we'll See? We'll see. I want to go back to Ukraine now. Well, wait. One other thing.
01:00:49
I gotta give a shout to Matt. Eric. High speed rail project between Russia and America, because Matt's been talking about this for as long as I've known him for a year and a half to going on two years. Actually, it is two years now. It'll be two years in September that him and I have been doing the show together. But this is so. Look at this. This is from yesterday. Proposal for a Bering Strait Peace Tunnel A bridge for a new era of international cooperation Reports of a possible meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump in Alaska have sparked Russia renewed discussion about the long envisioned Bering Strait tunnel, a project seen by many as a potential symbol of peace building and cooperation.
01:01:41
Supporters argue that such an intercontinental link between Russia and the United States could serve as both a practical transport route and a gesture towards improved relations. In a time of renewed calls for stability and constructive engagement, few projects match with symbolic and practical potential of the proposed Bering Strait Peace Tunnel. This rail and infrastructure link connecting Russia and in Alaska and Russia's Chotka region would unite the American and Eurasian continents. According to proponents, it has the potential to mark the beginning of a new era of dialogue and collaboration between the United States, Russia and other nations, offering a channel for improved communication and cooperation. The idea of linking Eurasia in North America across the Bering Strait dates back to the late 19th century.
01:02:33
In 1890, William Gelpin, the first territorial governor of Colorado, proposed an intercontinental railway with a tunnel under the Bering Strait as part of a global transportation network. Canada also explored northern rail expansion concepts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as routes toward Dawson City, which could have been integrated into a wider transcontinental system. The Russian czar, Nicholas II gave provisional approval in 1905 for an ex for exploration of a rail tunnel. But by 1907, amid political instability after the 1905 revolution and fears of American encroachment, his government withdrew support. In 1906, a consortium of Russian, American and French interests announced an ambitious project reported in the New York Times, but archival evidence suggests it remained a preliminary concept.
01:03:24
At the 1945 Potsdam Conference, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin proposed to US President Harry Truman that they link their rail networks through a bridge or tunnel. But Truman declined. Amid Cold War tensions In the mid 20th century, re in the mid 20th century, engineer Tung Yin Lin promoted the idea of an intercontinental peace bridge. Joseph Strauss, chief engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge Also publicly discussed the potential of a bearing link. In 1981, Dr. Soon Myung Moon announced his vision for a peace tunnel. An 85 kilometer link under the Bering Strait. Estimated that US$200 billion at the time as part of a global peace highway. He reiterated this vision during the 2005 inauguration of the Universal Peace Federation, an inaugural tour through 100 nations. His advocacy was one of the several factors that revived interest in the. In the idea.
01:04:16
The international Bering strait Regional Group IBSRG and its successor, IBSRG. Man, that's a mouthful. Have since provided a multilateral platform for engineers, economic economists, policy makers, and peace advocates to explore feasibility. Yeah, and it just goes on to kind of give a little bit more background. Don't need to read through the whole thing. I was hoping to get a map of it. Let's see. See if either one of these gives us a map. I mean, can y' all just commission someone? Can you commission anybody just to draw a line on a map? Can anybody draw a line in a map? There we go. Look. Look at these lines. Look at that. We got a line on the map right through the middle of Alaska, straight down through Canada into what looks like deadwood. Is that deadwood? No, it's Colorado. That's Colorado. I'm sorry.
01:05:19
Then it goes right through Colorado, through Mexico, through Panama, and all the way down to Argentina and Chile. Okay, cool. That's cool. Well, man. And like, Matt's been talking about this forever. It wouldn't surprise me if the reason that. The reason I went through all that is Putin called Kim Jong Un maybe to talk about this, because Matt was suggesting that the. That the rail line was going to go to Korea, like, South Korea. Like, that was the target. And that would make a lot of sense, like, from the American side, because they're one of our biggest trade partners. So for us to build, but in order to get to South Korea, you got to go through where? North Korea. So, Kim Jong Un, your water park might get some visitors here pretty soon.
01:06:09
Brad, Nabi, living in Alaska could get there a lot quicker than I could. Let's see. All right, let's take a quick break. It's Mads. We'll be back here in a minute. This is Geopolitics with ghosts.
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01:09:03
Sam? Everybody here? Inside?
01:10:21
All right, we are back. Geopolitics with ghosts. I feel like I'm getting this producer thing down pretty well. I feel like I'm. I mean, there's nowhere to go but up. I mean, I'll give you that, but I don't know, I mean, killing myself right now, who knows, maybe I'll just give up the whole like, geopolitical, like, analysis bit and I'll just become like a producer. You think? I think I'm good enough to do that yet. I don't know, maybe a few more episodes without any technical issues. How about this? Let's get through this episode without any technical issues before we start talking about a career in this. All right. How's the chat doing? Looks like everyone's pumped up for the Bering Straight Peace Tunnel. I think people are very excited for a high speed railroad going into Russia, into Korea.
01:11:16
I mean, I would go visit Kim Jong Un. I would do a guard. If we could get on a train and go like, we could just do the. The whole guard could be on the train and we could just go like the whole conference could be on the train. And at the end of the conference, we're in North Korea and we go to the water park with Kim Jong Un. That would be. That would be worth the price of admission for sure. Jungle Rumble made a good point. I wonder what, which Boring company will get the contract to drill the new tunnel. That's a good point. Man. It's awfully. Isn't it. Isn't it convenient that Elon Musk has this boring company? Yeah. There are no coincidences. I would agree with that. All right.
01:11:54
And then there is actually another element of this that Chris Paul had brought to my attention yesterday. And that is this should have done this before the commercial. That's my. My mistake. So we have a clean break away from. Away from Alaska. But it's. This is from TWZ outlet. Outlet called twz. Howard Altman is the author. August 8th says unprecedented Chinese icebreaker deployment off Alaska being monitored by the US and somebody else in the chat made a good point. This. This must be why Trump is so obsessed with the icebreakers. Remember when he said he's like, we don't have any icebreakers. We have to leave. We have to borrow Canada's icebreakers all the time. Like, we need our own icebreakers. This is probably what he's talking about. And it says Chinese.
01:12:53
China's increase, increasing presence near Alaska comes as the US Is scrambling to field more icebreakers. The U. S. Military and Coast Guard are monitoring the. In the simultaneous appearance of five Chinese icebreaker vessel, icebreaking vessels in region near Alaska. That unprecedented precedented presence represents two and a half times the number of icebreakers currently capable of being operated in the entire Arctic region by the US Coast Guard. So wait. If it's two and a half times the capacity of the US and it's five, what's five divided by two and a half? It's like one icebreaker. So do we have, like one or. We have two icebreakers. We have two icebreakers. Plans are currently underway to build dozens more. It says another is scheduled to be commissioned on Sunday. So a third one. We're gonna have a third icebreaker launched on Sunday. That's exciting.
01:13:44
It's very exciting. I wonder if. Is Putin gonna break. Break the champagne bottle? Coast Guard to commission Coast Guard cutter Storis and Junot. Juno. Juno. Yeah. Am I saying that right? I think it's a. I think it's an Eskimo word, as you know. I have to ask Brad and Abby, since they're Eskimos, if I'm saying that word right. Yeah. And then here's a. Here's a story says Allied Pact aims to close yawning icebreaker gap with adversaries the U.S. canada and Finland have a new plan to boost production of icebreakers critical in the increasingly important Arctic region. And this is from July of 2024. But back to this article. The Chinese icebreakers, which include a number of research focused types, are being monitored by North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD and U.S. northern Command NORTHCOM.
01:14:35
As a Northcom spokesperson told the war zone Thursday evening, the presence of that must be what this outlet is. TWZ is the war zone. The presence of so many Chinese icebreaking ships near Alaska was first reported by the G Captain Maritime news website. Pull that. Well, we'll just keep that one in the back pocket. Although the quote, although the vessels are operating international waters and not considered a homeland defense threat, their numbers represent an increase from years past. The spokesperson said NORAD and U.S. nORTHCOM will continue to monitor the ship's progress while operating in the region. NORAD is responsible for the identification and warning of maritime tracks of interest and works closely with Canada and interagency partners to do so.
01:15:19
The Coast Guard, quote, detected and responded to two Chinese research vessels operating in the U. S. Arctic and is currently monitoring a total of five similar vessels in or near the US Arctic. It just goes on to give their names. But the joke that Chris Paul made when he shows this, he's like, it looks like Xi is providing, he's providing our icebreakers for our meeting with Putin. And I think that might be accurate. If it's not, at least it's a funny. I kind of think it's maybe it's Putin just having a little bit of fomo. Like, he's like, he just, he wants to remind Trump and Putin that he's still around. Like, feel free to pick up the phone and call me, guys. Wish me happy birthday. Which Putin did do, by the way. Putin called Trump, Angie.
01:16:03
And I think they have like the same birthday or their birthdays are similar because I remember that story being reported together where Putin called G and said Happy birthday. Called Trump and said happy birthday. But that was like in the middle of some. What was that really big event that happened? It was, I think it was when were bombing Iran. We were like bombing Iran and Trump was like, I want to start off the press conference by letting everyone know that Putin called me and wish me a happy birthday. Yeah. Because that was the middle of June. That Trump's birthday, I think is the middle of June. And that was June 13th is when Israel attacked. It's when Israel attacked Iran. Hold one second. Got my wife calling. All right, anyway, we'll pivot away from Alaska now.
01:16:51
We spend a lot of time in Alaska. Let's go to you back to Ukraine. Sorry, hold one second. Just doing some housekeeping. Some housekeeping meaning happy wife, happy life. Right guys? All right, this is from today. Zelinsky softens stance on land concessions Telegraph from a telegraph Ukraine could agree to give up claims to Russian territory in exchange for a path to NATO, sources have told the newspaper. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zielinski could agree to concede land to Russia and the freezing of the current front lines as part of the potential conflict settlement, the Daily Telegraph reported on Monday, citing sources. Zelensky has in public at least refused to accept Ukraine's territorial losses or relinquish claims to Russian territory.
01:17:48
A deal reportedly under consideration could see Ukraine cease attempts to take control of Russia's Lugansk People's Republic, Donetsk People's Republic and Crimea and retain control of part of the parts of Russia's Zipporazai and Kirson regions it already occupies. These regions overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in referendums in 2014 and in 2022. Ukraine remains strongly opposed to any settlement in which it gives up more the land than what is currently controlled by Russian forces, the report claims. In exchange, however, Ukraine would demand robust security guarantees, including weapons deliveries from the west and a clear path to NATO membership, according to the report. Not going to happen. Sorry guys, that's my own color commentary. You're not joining NATO, so just get over it.
01:18:48
The apparent softening of Zelensky stance comes ahead of the highly anticipated summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US Counterpart Donald Trump. On Friday, an unnamed Western official told the British daily that the plan can only be related to the current positions held by the militaries, adding that the weekend saw some frantic diplomacy between Kiev and its Western backers. The report also claims that the EU had decided to support Ukraine's vision for peace in an effort to boost its diplomatic position in dealing with both Trump and Russia. On Monday, Trump said that he and Putin would discuss a potential deal that would involve a land swap between Russia and Ukraine, noting that it would be to the betterment of both. Apart from the aforementioned territory, Moscow also controls currently controls Swast land in Kharkov Sumi and Dnipro Dipney Dnipropetrovsk regions.
01:19:42
I think I said that actually with the right accent. Just gonna go with that. But Zelensky has publicly rejected any territorial concessions to Russia. Moscow has insisted that any peace deal must involve Ukraine's withdrawal from Donbass, Zaporizai region and Kirsten region, Kiev's commitment to stay out of NATO as well as any as the country's demilitarization and de. Nazification. Gotta get rid of the Nazis. Okay, that, yeah, I mean, that's. None of. That's really news, but this might be news. This is just got posted, just got published. Ukraine plotting. Ukraine plotting new provocation to sabotage Putin. Trump meeting mod. This would be very much on brand with like the Zelensky character archetype. Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are set to meet in Alaska on Friday.
01:20:46
Ukraine is preparing a new provocation to disrupt negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, a group of foreign journalists has already been taken to the city of Chongyov in Kharkov region in order to prepare a series of reports about residents of the city in the frontline zone. The ministry said the Ukrainian army is plotting a provocative strike using UAVs and missiles one of Chukiov's densely populated residential areas or a hospital, which will be immediately recorded by the Western journalists brought in. Well, look, give me a second to process this. A group of foreign journalists has already been taken into the city of Chongyov. Let's find out where the city is. Let's, let's look at some maps. I need visuals. I need maps. That's an interesting little.
01:21:44
Check out the, check out the flag of this region. That is definitely an Islamic flag. But which makes sense though, because Ukraine is traditionally a Turkic, a like trans Turkic region. I mean, it was originally, it was the Scythians back in the ancient times, like the ancient Greeks, ancient Rome. The, the Scythians were kind of like a European nomadic, you know, Aryan nomadic civilization. Rode everyone horseback. They're like the, the group of people in Game of Thrones that ride everyone on the horses. The name escapes me. That's like what they're based on. The Scythians basically, you know, carry around ute. So there's like those tents that you roll up and you put in your backpack. And then they were kind of replaced by the Bulgers and the, in the roofs. You know, the Russians, the Bulgers, the Kazarians.
01:22:51
And then ultimately after the Kazarians, the Huns came in. The Huns came in. But actually the Golden Horde, the Mongolians, I'm sorry, not the Huns did come in there, but then the Mongolians come in there. And the Mongolians, of course, bring like the Turkic, the Kazarians, the Mongolians The Huns to an extent bring in the Turkic, Central Asian culture and ethnicity. They didn't necessarily bring in the Muslim culture. The Muslim culture, of course, comes from the Middle East. But anyway, I'm ranting at this point. Let's go back. I want to see where this map is. So show me a map. All right, so we are. There's Kharkiv. And Kharkiv, if I'm not mistaken, I think Kharkiv is where. I mean, that video that went viral back in like 2022 of that Russian soldier who talked about finding those.
01:24:08
Like, basically he was describing an adrenochrome farm where they found like kids just chained up and like body parts everywhere. And he was like, he looked like he had people. Like, he looked like he was never going to sleep again after what he saw. But he basically described like a scene from a horror movie. And it sounded like they were trafficking the kids and doing some pretty evil stuff to them. But it was Kharkiv where that facility allegedly was located. And so now we are at this little village outside of Kharkiv. Okay, so they're saying they're going to do a strike on Charkuv or Chukiv in order to prepare a series of reports about residents in the city.
01:24:52
On the front line of the zone, the Ukrainian army is plotting a provocative strike using UAVs and missiles as one of Chukiav's densely populated residential areas or a hospital, which will be immediately recorded by the Western journalists brought in as a result of the Kiev regime's provocation. All responsibility for the strike and the civilian casualties will be placed on Russia's armed forces. Provocations are also possible in other settlements controlled by Ukraine. A statement published on Tuesday said. In April 2022, Ukrainian forces claimed to have found the bodies of hundreds of people in the Kiev suburb of Bucha shortly after Russian troops left the area as part of a goodwill gesture by Moscow amid peace talks with Kiev. Ukraine immediately blamed the deaths on Russia and subsequently used the incident as one of the main reasons for its withdrawal from the peace negotiations.
01:25:41
Moscow had has reportedly said the so called massacre was a false flag operation intended to tarnish its image and derail the diplomatic process. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said he appealed to the UN Security Secretary General Antonio Guitar three times to provide the lists of bodies found in Bucha, but there is just silence in response. Interesting. The Russian Foreign Ministry has also accused Ukrainian forces of executing civilians in a Donbass Town as part of a false flag operation designed to wrongly frame Moscow for war crimes. According to the ministry, witnesses claim that mercenaries, including alleged Polish nationals, carried out dozens of killings in Solidova in Russia's Donetsk People's Republic, before retreating in the face of advancing Russian troops in late October. All right, well, let's just keep an eye on. Let's keep an eye on Chunk. Chunk of.
01:26:36
And if all of a sudden like a hospital blows up there, we'll know that it was actually the CIA who did it and not. And not Putin. I kind of want to look at that. I'm gonna look at that in a minute, but. All right. Seems like, huh. All right. This is a good one. Top US And Russian diplomats talk by phone ahead of Alaska summit. President Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are set to meet in the US State on Friday. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has held a phone conversation with his American counterpart Marco Rubio, just days ahead of a meeting between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. Moscow said on Tuesday the two top diplomats discussed certain aspects of the upcoming summit and confirmed that both sides want a successful outcome. A statement by the Russian ministry said.
01:27:41
Moscow did not provide any further details about the call. The State Department has not commented so far. The much awaited meeting between the Russian and American leaders is scheduled to take place on August 15th. Trump and Putin are expected to discuss the possible settlement of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev and a range of bilateral issues in person for the first time since the US President took office in January. Russia sees the event as a chance to mend strain relations and tackle long running disputes. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryopkov said earlier on Tuesday, Moscow hopes he will give an impulse to the normalization of bilateral relations and help the two nations move forward on several issues. He said. Trump has described the Alaska summit as a feel out meeting. Yeah, we've already read all that. That. Okay. Re.
01:28:27
By the way, Riobkov, indulge me for a minute. I want to see if R is Rob Cough. The guy from Rob Cough, I think is. I'm looking for my. Where's my Africa map? If he's the deputy Foreign minister, he might be a different deputy foreign minister, but I want to see. Is he the guy that went down and negotiated it was meeting right here. No, that was Deputy Foreign Minister Eunice Beck Yukonov. Okay, so different deputy foreign minister going to Africa. That's fine. Just wanted to know. Just curious. Let's get back to. I think. I think that was. Yeah, we hit. We hit the. The meat of that story. Okay, so now we can. We can kind of pivot. We'll pivot across Asia now. Hit a few Asian hit a few Asian stories, maybe one Middle east story, one or two Middle east stories.
01:29:31
And then I like doing Africa story. I haven't done any Africa in a while. Oh, you know what we're gonna do? I do have a Maduro story that we didn't get to on Badlands Daily. India and China are set to resume direct flights from According to Bloomberg, announcement is likely the Shanghai Cooperation Organization announcement is likely during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin this month, the news agency has said. India and China are preparing to resume direct passenger flights as soon as next month, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with ongoing negotiations. New Delhi has asked airlines such as Air India and Indigo to be ready to begin flights in China at short notice with a formal announcement like we do during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in China on August 31, the news agency said.
01:30:19
India, Indian and Chinese carriers previously operated direct flights between key cities before they were suspended during the outbreak of the COVID 19 pandemic in 2020. The resumption of direct flights is seen as the latest sign of a thaw between the Asian neighbors, whose relations were strained because of a deadly clash in the Himalayas in 2020. Efforts to normalize ties between began in October 2024 after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan. Both leaders approved an agreement to disengage from areas of tension and a commitment to work towards restoring relations. Following multiple rounds of military and diplomatic talks, proposals to ease trade and investments restrictions between India and China have gained momentum. Beijing has long requested the resumption of direct flights between mainland China and India.
01:31:13
Last month, New Delhi restarted issuing tourist visas to Chinese citizens after a five year pause. In June, a group of Indians crossed over into Tibet for the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, one of the holiest pilgrimages in Hinduism for the first time since 2020. China has also eased curbs on shipments. China has also eased curbs on shipments of urea to India, which is the world's top importer of the crop nutrient, another Bloomberg report said. The warming of ties between New Delhi and Beijing comes as India's relations with the US Face challenges as after President Donald Trump shortly sharply raised tariffs on Indian goods over the Asian country's imports of Russian oil in July, top officials from Beijing, Moscow and New Delhi expressed interest in reviving a trilateral IRC format, which stands for Russia, India, China, irc. Rick. All right, Rick. All right, Ricky.
01:32:21
Well, that is interesting. That also makes me think about, let me see. That makes me think about. So India and China, like India and China restoring relations as it says they were. It looked, it looked like they were headed towards kinetic war. After that conflict in the Himalayas in 2020, I think there were a few other like little skirmishes that happened, I want to say, in 2021, 2022. I, I just remember, I remember Steve Bannon specifically in 2022 talking about the conflict between India and China and how India was going to be a two front war. Kind of like Europe was during, like Germany was during World War II. We're fighting Pakistan in the west and fighting China in the east. Yeah, that's interesting. Okay. Very, very interesting. Let's go to, let's go to the Saudi Foreign Ministry.
01:33:28
We'll go ahead and just get into the Middle east and then we'll go to, from there we can go to. Why, why is my settings on here? My settings on here change. I like the black background X, but that's fine. And then we'll go to Africa after the Middle East. I'm sorry, Maduro. After the Middle east and then Africa and the Saudi Foreign Ministry. I really just want to see what they're up to. So what I like to do, just people who've watched me know this, I like to go through this feed specifically and just see what they're doing. Who are they meeting with, who are the people that are coming that they're calling, who's coming to visit them in Riyadh. They've, it's basically just been like a revolving door of diplomats for the past five years.
01:34:20
But well, since 2023, I mean since I have been tracking it on X for the past two years. But I guess actually no, 2022. Right. It wasn't 2022. When wasn't that when we got back on X? I can't remember. It doesn't matter. But I bet you we're going to see some interesting names come up here. So let's go back. Let's, let's look back the past couple days. This is just a good like exercise to do because I do think that the Saudis, there's a lot of signal in what the Saudis are doing. I think that they are diplomats that are running around kind of putting out fires and bringing people together, using their money and their clout to Entice people and create new incentive structures so people don't feel like they have to beholden to the. The unipolar regime, the unipolar hegemony.
01:35:11
So, so today's the 12th, so let's go back to. We'll start here. Singapore, August 9th. MBS and his father wishing the President of Singapore congratulations on their national day of independence. After that, we have the Foreign Ministry expressing the condolence, sincere condolences to the Republic of Lebanon over the death and injury of several Lebanese army personnel while on their duties in several in southern Lebanon. It doesn't call out the IDF here, but my guess is that they were attacked. They were killed by the idf. That would be my guess. Vice Minister of Foreign affairs meeting with Vice Minister of Foreign affairs from where? Ms. Allison Dilworth. Who's Allison Dilworth? Well, Allison Dilworth doesn't have an X account, otherwise they would have tagged her. She is from the US Embassy and consulates in Saudi Arabia. Okay, so she's, she works, she's one of ours.
01:36:21
She works for the US I don't know her background, but okay, fair enough. Not going to judge anybody if I don't. Haven't had a chance to dig on them. All right, and then, so then that takes. Now we're in August 10th. Feisa Ben Farhan calls. He holds a call with the British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy. Okay, so that's a little bit of signal there. Britain and France obviously have been coming out in pretty strong support of Palestine lately. Oh, here's MBS welcoming the king of Jordan, the Hashemite king of Jordan, Abdullah arriving in Neom. I believe Neom is where they were hosting. Was it the Arab League? No, the Arab League's not. No, it's not the Arab League. I think it's just. It looks like it's. Looks like it's the Hashemite king and his son. Here's the crown prince.
01:37:17
So that's the crown prince of Jordan talking mbs young guy, probably about the age of mbs. Next one is Saudi Arabia welcoming the Australian announced Australia's announcement of its intention to recognize the state of Palestine and then New Zealand's consideration. Announcement that they're going to consider announcing recognizing the state of Palestine. It's, it's an engagement to be engaged. Right. They're. They're announcing that they're going to think about very strongly maybe recognizing the state of Palestine. But Australia says they will recognize the state of Palestine at the UN meeting, I believe, September 3rd, which is in like three weeks, not that far away. Then you get the Deputy Minister of Political affairs meeting with a German ambassador, Michael Kinsgrab. It's worth noting that Germany just announced that it's going to launch an embargo against Israel.
01:38:16
It's no longer going to ship any weapons to Israel, which is pretty significant when you consider that Germany is the leader of the European economy. Without Germany, Europe wouldn't have an economy aside from like tourism. They basically would just be Disney World. Without Germany, like all they would have is effectively tourism. They'd have some, you know, wine and cheese exports from France, some leather exports and fashion exports from Italy. But yeah, I mean, without Germany, they wouldn't have any manufacturing whatsoever. Oh, here's a very notable one. This is from yesterday. MBS receiving a phone call from State of Palestine. The President of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas. You can guess what they were talking about. Then you have the Vice Minister of Foreign affairs receiving the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Somalia. That is pretty notable because Somalia is right next to Yemen.
01:39:17
You know, Yemen and Somalia together kind of control the. What's that? I mean, Somalia is the horn of Africa, so together they kind of control. I'll show you. It's not Hormu, that's on the Iranian side, but it's the Gulf of Aden. There it is. So here's Somalia, here's Yemen. So look, I mean that whole entire coastline is the Gulf of Aden. And the Gulf of Aden is where all these issues have been happening. All these, you know, like the Houthis attacking these ships. A lot of that is happening in either the Gulf of Aden or in the Red Sea over here, but mostly like right here around the Dilac archipelago. This archipelago. Look at all these islands. Let's see if we can pull up an actual look at these islands.
01:40:05
There's like all these uninhabited, tiny little islands in the dialect archipelago, which is technically a part of Eritrea. Eritrea's president, by the way, is probably the most base leader in the world and he's been president for like 30 years. Super based, won't allow like any outside money, influence, whatever. However, these islands, I'm pretty sure like every intelligence agency in the world has like a base in these islands, including like Mossad, including I think Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas. Like surely the Houthis probably are somewhere in here. MI6, CIA, the IRGC, Iran, like all of them have bases on these little islands and who knows what the hell they're doing there. But shifty stuff probably happening in those islands. All right, I'm getting off track here. Let's get back to the, let's go back to the exercise. We have. So that was Somalia.
01:41:03
And then you have them greeting the ambassador of North Macedonia. Okay, so the Balkans. Then you have, oh, look at that, a phone call from Zielinski. I wonder what he's probably asking for money, probably, you know, because mom and dad cut off his allowance. So now he's calling up the piggyback, he's calling up the big stack, mbs, asking if he can borrow a few chips so he can keep playing at the high rollers table. Discuss the latest developments of the Ukrainian crisis. His Royal Highness the Crown Prince reaffirmed the kingdom support for all efforts to resolve the crisis and achieve peace. Then you have, deputy Foreign Minister for protocol affairs received the credentials of the ambassador of Australia as well as the ambassador to the Republic of Chile. You also have the Iraqi ambassador to Saudi Arabia, which is a woman. That's pretty notable.
01:42:02
So the ambassador from Iraq to Saudi Arabia is a woman. That seems pretty notable for the Middle east that between, not only between two countries but one of the countries being Saudi Arabia. You know, you're sending a woman. It's a sign of the times that are changing. It's positive sign. And then finally you have the ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Farouk, who is from Pakistan. So you got Farooq from Pakistan rounding it out. All right, well, never mind. There's a few more. No, look, we got a few more. A phone call to Faisal Bin Farhan from Marco Rubio. Do you think Marco Rubio was calling up Faisal Ben Farhan to grovel and apologize for what Tammy Bruce said:2 weeks ago? Because that's what I, that's the first thing I would expect.
01:42:53
If I'm Faisal Ben Farhan, I'm like, hey, do you want to apologize for making an ass out of yourself for Tammy Bruce making an ass out of the State Department two weeks ago? Yeah. Oh, look at this. Then you, then they received the ambassador from Russia. So you got Russia, you got Sergi Kozlov. So Russia. Then you have Spain. So look at that. I mean, I just went through two days or three days of like social media posts which aren't telling you anything. They're just saying, hey, these two people are talking. And we got what? We got Marco Rubio, we got Zelensky, we got Russia, we have Pakistan, Iraq, Palestine. What's the other one? Not Palestine, but Jordan. And by the way, it's like if you're wondering, well, don't these guys, like, talk every day? They're neighbors. No, they don't.
01:44:04
Like, it's actually pretty rare to see, you know, Mahmoud Abbas's face pop up. Speaking to mbs, that doesn't happen every day. I bet you there's only a handful of times that they've posted this image right here. So anyway, it just goes to show, if you just track this kind of stuff, you can pick up, like, you can infer a lot from these kind of conversations. People are talking and they're talking and it's not being reported because nothing of substance is being reported. That doesn't mean the conversations aren't happening. And the Saudis are at the center of all this stuff and the people who are talking to them then turn around and are a part of these major announcements that have geopolitical impacts. And the Saudis continually are at the heart of it.
01:44:46
Australia, Australia coming out and saying, oh, yeah, we're going to recognize Palestine. That's a big deal. They're, they're part of Five Eyes. All right, so let's, we're running short on time. So I wanted to hit Maduro. Let's do Maduro. And I have that pulled up from Badlands media and the headline is DOJ doubles reward from Maduro to $50 million in escalated crackdown on Narco Terrorism says. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday announced that the US Justice Department and State Department are offering an unprecedented $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, accusing him of collaborating with terrorist. Terrorist organizations and drug cartels to flood the US with deadly narcotics. Quote, maduro uses foreign terrorist organizations like Trend Aragua, the Sonola Cartel and the cartel the Suns to bring deadly drugs and violence into our country.
01:45:51
Bondi said in a video statement. The DEA seized 30 tons of cocaine tied to Maduro in his network, with nearly 7 tons directly linked to Maduro himself. According to Bondi, the cocaine trade she noted as the primary funding source for cartel operations in Venezuela and Mexico. That's funny because I thought the cocaine operations were. The cocaine trade were the primary funding source for the CIA and the State Department. That, that's. I was under that impression, but maybe it's the cartels. Wait, the cartels make money off of cocaine? I had no idea. That's groundbreaking information. Many of the seized narcotics are laced with fentanyl, contributing to widespread overdose deaths across the U.S. in addition to drug seizures, the Department of Justice has confiscated more than $700 million in Maduro linked assets, including two private jets and nine vehicles.
01:46:41
Yet Maduro's reign of terror continues, Bondi said, calling him one of the world's most largest narcotics traffickers and direct threat to national security. I was under the impression that the CIA was the world's largest narcotics trafficker, but again, I might have my facts mixed up. Get back to me on that. Bondi. She confirmed the reward for Maduro's capture has been doubled, emphasizing that under President Trump's leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and will be held accountable for his despicable crimes. Maduro, by the way, is definitely in the club. He is part of the sovereign alliance. So I don't really put a lot of stock into announcements like this. However, however we are going to talk about. Thank you for reminding me. Pam Bondi, Shine bomb. Let's talk about Shine bomb. Come on, Shine bomb. Where you at? Why won't this page load?
01:47:56
Because the story is that the US Military wants to do operations against the cartels across the border and Claudia Scheinbaum, the Jewish president of Mexico, and I only say that because it's very notable that a Jewish woman was elected president after like 50 of her. Her opponents like all ended up dead, like died somehow. Like I don't know how many it was. It may have been like 25 opponents, like all died. Dozens of opponents all die, like in the lead up to the election. I think, I think a lot of those opponents weren't directly running against her. I think they were just like lower level candidates. But still it's, they were all like the opposition party. They weren't part of her party. In a country with the highest per capita of Catholics in the entire world, that's Mexico, highest per capita.
01:48:50
What are the odds U. S Army will never set foot in Mexico territory, vows. Claudia Sheinbaum, President hits back at reports that Washington could strike drug cartels in its southern neighbor. President Claudia Sheinbaum on Monday this is from the Financial Times in London rejected the prospect of US Military intervention in her country, insisting Mexico's independence was not at risk. Her comments come after reports last week that President Donald Trump had signed a secretive directive ordering the US Military to target Latin American cartels, including several that send drugs across the border from Mexico. Quote, we will never put our sovereignty at risk. We will never put Mexico's independence at risk. Mexico is a free, sovereign, independent country.
01:49:30
She said the prospect of Washington taking military intervention against the cartels has hung over the bilateral relationship after Trump declared eight of them terrorist organizations in his first weeks in office. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week, we cannot continue to just treat these guys as local street gangs. They have weaponry that looks like what terrorists, in some cases armies have. It allows us to now target what they're operating and to use other elements of American power, intelligence agencies, the Defense, the Department of Defense. That's a great point.
01:50:01
Because what like once you designate these organizations as terrorist organizations, you can then utilize the really draconian, heavy handed legal instruments that were put in place, for lack of a better word, by the Bush administration, by the Obama administration, maybe even by the Clinton administration, but definitely by the Bush administration after the Patriot Act. I'm thinking like of the executive order. I'm thinking primarily of the Military commissions Act of 2006, which says that if you aid and abed terrorists in any capacity, even if you are totally white collar, yourself are a terrorist and you go straight to Guantanamo Bay. Okay, so it says the US And Mexico have been engaged in tense negotiations over trade, security and migration since Trump retook office.
01:50:55
Sheinbaum's government has obtained better trade terms than most countries, with the vast majority of its exports passing tariff free under the US Mexico, Canada trade deal usmca. However, Washington's pressure over drug cartels and military involvement has escalated in recent months with Trump saying Sheinbaum was a lovely woman, very lovely, the loveliest, but is also so afraid of the cartels she can't even think straight. That is hilarious. However, Washington's pressure over drug cartels and military involvement has escalated in recent months with Trump saying Sean bomb was. I'm sorry, I just read that. Earlier this year, Mexico's president rejected Trump's offer for U. S. Military assistance in tackling the groups. And her stance in the face of Washington's threats has pushed her approval ratings to above 70%. However, her comments were focused on an intervention by soldiers on the ground.
01:51:44
While Mexican security analysts are more concerned about the possibility of drone strikes, Sheinbaum said on Monday. We collaborate, we coordinate on security matters and others, but we never subordinate ourselves and we will never, ever allow the US army or any other institution of the US to set foot and Mexican territory, ever. Mexico's economy is deeply integrated with the U.S. which is this, which is its number one trading partner with, but with the two countries. But the two countries have a fraught history that included the US taking about half the nation's territory in a 19th century war. That was Teddy Roosevelt, right? I think that was Teddy Roosevelt. The Rough Riders, or was that Cuba? That might have been Cuba. Fact check me on that chat.
01:52:30
Shine Bomb has stepped up security cooperation and taken a tougher approach to the drug cartels than her mentor and predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Abredor, but is under increasing pressure to investigate whether there are links between the groups and officials from her own party. Yeah, so now it's kind of starting to come into focus why this woman was installed and I believe she was installed, of course. Why was she installed though? Like against all odds, this woman like rose up and pretty nefarious background if you know and if you understand her background. She has a questionable back. I won't say nefarious, I'll say questionable background. An eyebrow raising background, her parents and whatnot. You know, one hand, what do you expect the president of a narco state to say in the face of this kind of rhetoric?
01:53:22
Like, is she going to come out and say, oh yeah, like come on in, like come after the cartels. That would lead to her being assassinated pretty quickly. I would assume so. She has to like, let's assume she is actually helping Donald Trump and she's a white hat and she's playing a role, you know, trumpamania, like that kind of thing maybe. Very possible. I remain open to that. I would expect her to still come out and say there's no way we're ever going to let the US military come in here and go after the cartels because again, like that's going to show your hand a little too much to the cartels. I do like the idea of the drone strikes against the cartels as much as I oppose that kind of stuff in like random countries around the world, like the Middle East.
01:54:07
Mexico represents a much more clear and present danger on the home front being that we share a border with it and there's a lot of demonstrable proof that it is involved in trafficking operations. Not just drug trafficking, but weapons trafficking, child trafficking, human trafficking, all that. I mean we all became pretty familiar with that over the past two years, especially during the run up to the election. So am I okay with like US Drones, like the moral question, I mean there's the legal question and the moral question of US drones taking out cartel like cartel guys on the Mexican side who ultimately are trying to flood fentanyl into our country and traffic kids and all that? Absolutely. I'm okay with that because I view them as a, a enemy Combatant. Just like, you know, we would. We would say in isis, like.
01:55:04
Like if ISIS was in Mexico in a building, like, planning operations against the United States, a drone strike against that building would be pretty well warranted, I would think, if you could absolutely, beyond all reasonable doubt, prove, like, who was in the building and what they were up to. Yeah, I mean, it's. I kind of view it as one in the same State Department might have something to say about it. The CIA might have something to say about it because you're. You're going after their guys and, I mean, are you going to need to. It might start a little bit of some. Some bad feelings in the State Department, but I'm just throwing a lot of jokes out there because the CIA loves to traffic cocaine and is, like, the world's number one cocaine trafficker.
01:55:46
But of course we're going to blame it on Maduro and Shine Bomb because they're Hispanic. But, you know, it is what it is. I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of Hispanics in the CIA, too. How's the chat doing? I haven't checked in on y' all in a while. This has kind of been talking to myself. I think we need to hit the rants. We'll save Africa for. We'll save Africa for. We'll make. When I get back from Gart. There'll be no show on Friday. We're not going to do a show on Friday. We are going to do a show tomorrow breaking history, not a geopolitics show. I am, however, going to be on filling in for Cancon tomorrow morning on Badlands Daily. So you'll get another helping of Geopolitics with Ghost in a condensed, abbreviated form tomorrow morning. Let's hit the rants. Yeah, Alan.
01:56:47
Alan is laughing in the chat and saying she's owned by the cartels. Yeah, I mean, I think ostensibly she is, but again, very useful narrative vehicle to explain to the public. Look at the Mexican president is owned by the cartels, but it wouldn't surprise me if she was actually installed to prevent this from happening, to prevent cooperation in shutting down the cartels. Because if you consider the fact that all these operations around the world. I've been reading about different trafficking operations being shut down, child trafficking and drug trafficking, you know, the intelligence agencies are losing all their. Their revenue streams. And so you got to think that, like, the major Mexican cartels are probably, like, at the core of, like, the revenue for the people who benefit from that stuff. And, like, and I'm talking about people in The US Government.
01:57:36
So, you know, reinforcing, like the bulk or the bulwark of that. Of that infrastructure in those revenue streams is critical. Mission critical. All right. The walrus, $5. Good morning, Gordon. Good morning, Walrus. Good afternoon. And let's see if we got any boosts. Appreciate you being here. Hit the thumbs up, guys. Share the. Share the show. Spread the word. Let's. Let's. Let's spread this cult as far as we can take it. All right, Media Matters, you're watching right now and you probably aren't because you. I think you probably watch John and Ash more than you watch me. But if you are watching, welcome to the cult of geopolitics. Let's go to BadlandsMedia TV, BalanceMedia TV events. Get your virtual ticket for Gart. Gart's gonna be a lot of fun. Really looking forward to this one. Let's see, we got at $50. Thank you.
01:58:47
And I think I may have read this on Friday at. But I'm gonna read it again because it's $50. And I really appreciate your generous support says Ghost. Please check out Tucker's second interview with Tony Aguilar. Riveting and shameful. How the Palestinians are suffering. Please dig on it. Thanks. I have had a chance to watch the second interview yet, but I am going to do that and I will follow up next week when we come back from Gart. I will follow up with my findings from that interview. But thanks again for the inter. For the rants. Halo, Daisy. I read that the other day. But yes, looking forward to speaking more to Gary or Greg rather, next week. Armor up 27. Thank you, Ghost, for the diligent work you do in your manner of presentation, helping connect the dots with fluidity. Fluid, fluid.
01:59:37
Fluidity and understanding. Sorry, sometimes my enunciation is just not there. I think that's everything. Yep. That should. That should about do it. That should about do it. Oh, Keith o'. Higgins. Keith o' Higgins coming in at the. At the bell. Slipping in. Hey, Ghost, you neglected to mention the Chinese influence in Azerbaijan, the Belt and Road Projects. Also, if Shine Bomb is a white hat, can she wear it after Labor Day? It's a great question, Keith. Okay, I don't. You know, I don't follow the Labor Day rules because I will put on. I'll put on like, white before. After Labor Day or before. Before Memorial Day. My wife will yell at me for it. But some rules are just meant to be broken. Sylvia in. In California says Ghost. Cult. Yes. We are starting a cult, guys. And the cult of geopolitics.
02:00:31
Because geopolitics can be fun and we can learn enough about it where these people can't control us with their lives. Cesu's asked if I was trying to share my screen. I'm not trying to share my screen. I was just reading rants. But we're good. So I will see you all tomorrow morning on Balance Daily and tomorrow afternoon on Breaking History, but then in gart. Hoping to see a lot of you there. And y' all have a great day. Hit the thumbs up. We are gonna get out of here. Oh, yeah. I never really gave any commentary on the music selection, but, you know, this song kind of invokes celebration, people gathering, weddings, that sort of thing.
02:01:18
I don't think, I don't think there's a wedding this time, but there was a wedding at some past guards so, you know, we will go out on this one. Have a good day. Week night. See you next week.
02:01:49
Natural delight? Every border was dancing in the moonlight? Everybody here is out of sight? They don't bark and they don't bite? They keep things loose? They keep things alive? Every border was dancing? Dancing in the moonlight? Dancing in the moonlight? Everybody feeling warm and riding? Such a fine natural sight? Everybody dancing in the moonlight? We like our phone and we never fight? You can't dance and stay up tight? It's supernatural delight.
02:02:44
Thank you so much for joining us. And don't forget to hit the thumbs up on this video. And a special thank you to all of our advertising partners. Please remember to shift your dollars to support those businesses that support Badlands Media sa.
