Enslave
Profiteer
Rule
Don’t go there!
Perhaps ironically, one of the most famous 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse paintings is by a Russian:
- Pestilence (on a White Horse -> COVID !?)
- War (on a Red Horse -> PUTIN !?)
- Famine (on a Black Horse -> HYPERINFLATION !?)
- Death (on a Pale Horse -> TOO LATE !?)
- Meduza
- DW
- Ahead
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, claims that Ukraine launched drones at President Vladimir Putin’s residence in Valdai, in Russia’s Novgorod region. Lavrov offered no evidence to support this claim, and there is currently no independent confirmation that the incident actually occurred.
A Moscow court has sentenced Ekaterina Kirsanova, a 45-year-old former vocal instructor, to 13 years in prison for violent sexual acts against a minor under 14. The Moscow division of Russia’s Investigative Committee said in an official Telegram post that the verdict was delivered on December 19, though media reports appeared only a week later. One of the first to disclose the verdict was Baza, a Telegram channel with close ties to law enforcement.
On December 28, Russian occupation authorities held a reopening ceremony for the Mariupol Drama Theater, a landmark cultural institution in the occupied Ukrainian city that was destroyed by a Russian airstrike in the spring of 2022. Attendees included Denis Pushilin, head of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic”; St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov; and Russian presidential envoy Igor Rudenya. Russian state media framed the reconstruction as preserving the building’s historic façade while redesigning the rest to meet “modern standards.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said without evidence on Monday that Ukrainian drones had carried out an attack on Vladimir Putin’s Valdai residence in Russia’s Novgorod region.
U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday for the two leaders’ fourth meeting since Trump returned to office.
2025.12.26
The BRICS countries are moving away from the US dollar as the currency that settles international transactions, and gold is an integral part of the new settlement mechanism.
The Unit
On Oct. 31, 2025, researchers launched a pilot to test a gold-anchored settlement “Unit” inside the 10-member BRICS+ bloc of countries, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates.
Continue reading BRICS launch gold-backed currency – Richard Mills at Ahead of the Herd.
2025.12.23
The incentive price for copper is the minimum market price needed for mining companies to justify investing in new, large-scale mining projects or to significantly expand existing production. It represents the cost threshold required for a project to be economically viable, ensuring a specific return on investment.
Many analysts place the current incentive price for new project ranging from $11,000/ton ($5.50/lb) up to $13,000/ton ($6.50/lb).
The primary factors driving copper price incentives are a significant surge in demand driven by global electrification, the energy transition and the rapid growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
By Wolf Richter – Wolf Street
The share of USD-denominated assets held by other central banks dropped to 56.9% of total foreign exchange reserves in Q3, the lowest since 1994, from 57.1% in Q2 and 58.5% in Q1, according to the IMF’s new data on Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves.
USD-denominated foreign exchange reserves include US Treasury securities, US mortgage-backed securities (MBS), US agency securities, US corporate bonds, and other USD-denominated assets held by central banks other than the Fed.
By Adrian Villellas – Earth.com
About 9,000 years ago, part of Antarctica’s eastern ice sheet collapsed astonishingly fast, driven by warmer ocean water. The study focuses on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, a vast body of land ice in East Antarctica.
Altogether, Antarctica’s ice holds enough water to raise sea levels by about 190 feet if it melted. Fresh evidence from seafloor sediments near Japan’s Syowa Station now links that ancient collapse to warm deep ocean currents.
By Shelly Fan – singularity hub
With just a single injection, a new treatment transforms immune cells in cancer patients into efficient tumor-killing machines. Now equipped with homing beacons, the cells rapidly track down and destroy their cancerous foes.
The shot is based on CAR T cell therapy, a breakthrough that uses genetic engineering to supercharge cancer-fighting T cells. Since its first FDA approval in 2017, CAR T has vanquished some deadly cancer cases with a one-and-done treatment.
2EMMA Featured Stories
Mandela’s Kiss Endures
The 2024 Global Elections Super-Cycle
Stay tuned for continuous updates on elections around the world. Click on a country for the latest elections data and analysis.
- Number of national elections to be held in 2024 18 of 68
- Overall turnout (based on registered voters) 63%
- Total number of ballots cast in 18 elections 467,094,737
Pulled conclusions from pooled data compilations
Using some of the world’s largest companies by market cap & some of the most quoted indices + two most sung alternatives: data for this millennia where available
- At 134x, Apple is the absolute stock price growth winner; with Amazon at 45x and Google at 32x
- Despite the lack of interest or dividends, gold at 6.6x looks good compared to any other stock or index!
- Barrick Gold on the other hand seems to be poorly correlated to anything including the gold metal itself!?
- But Barrick is the only stock producing negative correlations with most of the indices including a relatively high -0.77 with the Euronext100 index
- If one wast trying to get something totally uncorrelated on purpose- it would be hard to beat: gold and the Euronext100 index at -0.03; or Barrick and the Hang Seng index at 0.04; or gold and Merck at 0.16; or BTC and the FTSE index at 0.19
- Correlation against a basket of indices & alternatives is best in Disney and Google (0.81-0.82), albeit at different growth multiples
- If an average historical P/E is somewhere in the 20x range, then the current S&P quoted average which is in high 30s is as warned high, BUT: only Amazon and Visa seem to be widely out of range (justified by growth in online transactions?), with many below current & historical averages
- In the current world of no interest & no inflation, maybe the higher P/E averages are justified..? For how long, that is a different question…
2EMMA Hall of Fame
Ivan
Ivan
