Category: zerohedge

From the heart of early civilization to modern hydroelectric power, the world’s great rivers have long shaped economies and cultures.

Today’s infographic, via Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao, sizes up the 15 longest rivers on Earth, showing how far—and through how many countries—each system flows.

The data for this visualization comes from Encyclopedia Britannica, which lists river lengths in both miles and kilometers.

The Nile vs. the Amazon: A Fluid Rivalry

For decades the Nile, stretching 4,132 miles (6,650 km) from the Ugandan highlands to Egypt’s Mediterranean delta, has worn the crown of “world’s longest river.”

Yet recent Brazilian and Peruvian surveys give the Amazon—as measured from its remote Apurímac headwaters—an even longer reach of up to 4,345 miles.

The discrepancy stems from dense rainforest terrain and seasonal channel changes that make precise mapping difficult.

Regardless of which river tops the list, both dwarf their peers in cultural significance, and ecological diversity.

ℹ️ Related: The Amazon rainforest was named after the river. See how the forest plays a critical role in global food supply.

One-Country Rivers

Five rivers in the top 15 run exclusively within one nation: China’s Yangtze and Huang He, the U.S.’ Mississippi, and Russia’s Lena and Volga.

Confined courses can simplify water-management policy, but they also concentrate environmental risk inside a single jurisdiction.

ℹ️ The Mississippi’s drainage basin includes two Canadian provinces, which means rainwater falling in some Canadian areas eventually makes its way into the Mississippi through tributaries.

Asia Has Half of the World’s Longest Rivers

Asia dominates the leaderboard with seven entries, underscoring the continent’s vast landmass and high mountain sources.

South America contributes two mega-rivers, the Amazon and the Paraná, both critical to regional trade corridors.

Africa’s Nile and Niger highlight the continent’s north-south hydrologic contrasts, while Europe’s sole representative, the Volga, plays an outsized role as Russia’s historic “national highway.”

Notably absent are Australia and Antarctica, whose shorter, intermittent waterways fall far below the 2,000-mile threshold.

ℹ️ Related: Take a look at the entire world through only rivers in these startling maps.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out The Wettest and Driest Countries on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Via Remix News,

Ukrainians are in an increasingly difficult situation in the city of Pokrovsk.

A recent video shows Russians capturing several Ukrainian drone operators who were stranded in the eastern part of the city. 

The footage also shows the moment when one of the Ukrainian soldiers raises his hands and surrenders. 

There is an ongoing debate surrounding who controls Pokrovsk, a strategic logistics hub for the Ukrainian army. The Ukrainian side claims there are only a few Russian units, which its special forces are already working to eliminate, according to Magyar Nemzet. Russia says it has near-total control of the city.

Moscow claims Russian troops are also actively advancing in Kupyansk, according to information from the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

Russian troops are currently advancing on the right bank of the Oskol River, where about 130 buildings remain to be captured. In the western part of Kupyansk, the troops have advanced along three streets and captured 16 buildings. In just 24 hours, they have managed to take control of 25 buildings. 

The Ukrainians are trying to retake the city, but their supply routes are now controlled by the Russians. The Russian Defense Ministry has said that Zelensky “has completely lost touch with reality.”

Meanwhile, Putin has ordered the Russians to mobilize, signing a law on Nov. 4 requiring citizens to be called up for military service throughout the calendar year. 

Active reservists in Russia will now be able to participate in special training, and reservists will also be able to be deployed in occupied territory. Previously, officials in Moscow stated that reservists are only protecting the infrastructure of their own region. 

Read more here…

Wine remains one of the world’s most consumed alcoholic beverages, with billions of liters enjoyed globally each year.

Despite shifting drinking habits and growing competition from other beverages, wine consumption continues to thrive—especially across Europe and North America.

This visualization, via Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte, highlights the top wine-consuming countries in 2024, based on data from the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV).

Europe Dominates Global Wine Drinking in 2024

According to the OIV, global wine consumption totaled roughly 21.5 billion liters in 2024, with just 10 countries accounting for more than 70% of that total.

The data table below shows the top countries that drank the most wine in 2024 by billions of liters.

The United States tops the list at 3.33 billion liters, followed by France (2.30 billion), and Italy (2.23 billion).

Germany and the UK round out the top five, with 1.78 billion and 1.26 billion liters respectively.

Seven of the world’s ten biggest wine-drinking nations are in Europe, reflecting the continent’s significant wine production and deep historical ties to viticulture.

Wine Consumption by Countries Outside Europe

Outside of Europe and North America, other significant wine-drinking countries are again relatively large wine producers like Argentina (770 million liters) and Australia (530 million liters), which rank eighth and 11th respectively.

China is also a significant non-European consumer as the 10th largest wine-drinking nation at 550 million liters.

Despite ranking among the top 10, China’s wine consumption fell by 19.3% year-over-year in 2024, continuing the country’s declining consumption since 2019, when it consumed 1.95 billion liters.

China’s decline is largely due to a supply shock hangover from its tariff clash with Australia (China’s largest wine supplier) where tariffs reached up to 218.4% and were lifted in late March of 2024.

To learn more about global consumption of alcoholic beverages, check out this graphic which shows which alcoholic drinks are preferred around the world.

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

For the German Chancellor, one summit follows another. After the steel summit, Friedrich Merz now heads to COP30 in Brazil, the gathering of the climate club. There, participants attempt to cover the visible cracks in their construct with the familiar climate panic.

The steel summit at the Federal Chancellery was still echoing in the media when the Chancellor was already on a plane—en route to Belém, Brazil. COP30 is taking place these days under the leadership of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Representatives from over 70 nations have been celebrating this annual pinnacle of the global climate circus since 1995, giving it the veneer of supranational consensus. Of course, they travel by the thousands—by plane, how else—and with maximum emissions.

No one voluntarily skips the annual climate gala. A few tons of CO₂ really don’t matter anymore. After all, as insiders know, the planet is already burning, and the struggle for a habitable Earth is, in essence, already lost.

Indulgence Trade and Business

Yet, the grand figures of the climate industry wink and suggest there might still be hope for Earth. From Ursula von der Leyen to Lisa Neubauer and even the Chinese delegation, it is understood that massive investments in the green art economy might just pull the iron out of the fire.

As in spiritual circles, a little indulgence here, a CO₂ tax hike there, and magically the global temperature falls to acceptable levels—the climate god appeased.

Friedrich Merz undertakes the 9,000-kilometer journey from Berlin to Belém to assure his fellow indulgence merchants of continued German taxpayer support.

Redistributing the Wealth

The club plans to invest €1.3 trillion annually in climate measures for developing and emerging countries. Germany, as one of the supposedly strongest economies, must naturally participate. With the United States leaving the alliance, showing presence is crucial.

Merz had to travel, regardless of domestic issues. Cynically, his speaking slot was exactly three minutes. Three minutes for the envoy of the club’s hardline faithful—almost heretical considering Germany’s financial contributions.

Before the final boat ride on the Amazon, the Chancellor will lecture on industrial transformation and the energy transition—topics few have mastered as thoroughly as Germany’s top representative.

A Sad Comedy

At least in Brazil, Merz can proudly claim that Germany may meet its climate targets. Massive deindustrialization makes this possible. While UN chief António Guterres demanded radical action at the start of the event, warning in his usual panic that the 1.5° target has already been missed, the Chancellor performs his sad comedy.

Around 300,000 industrial jobs have been lost in Germany in recent years due to soaring energy prices and overreaching climate regulation. The country struggles economically and risks becoming a European Rust Belt under the climate timelines dictated by figures like Guterres.

Self-referential events like COP30, which knowingly ignore the economic fallout of hardline climate policies, distort reality, making it hard for the public to connect climate politics with economic decline.

Deep Cracks in the Construct

Since the peak of the climate movement in 2009, when US President Barack Obama legally declared CO₂ the most dangerous of all climate gases, the construct has shown deep cracks.

The Trump administration repealed this rule, and the US will fully exit the climate club on January 1, 2026, delivering a blow to the movement. Massive capital shifts follow: away from green funds, toward sectors that generate real market returns.

In the US, money flows back to nuclear and conventional energy. Renewables must now compete, as in a real market economy. True progress through free markets.

The climate movement still fails to grasp that technological progress toward cleaner, efficient, and sustainable production was driven not by the state but by market forces—materialized through price mechanisms, not socialist central planning.

China and India

The anachronism of Germany’s industrial retreat is stark where new capacity emerges—in India and China. Both ignore the rules of the Europe-dominated climate club.

India barely acknowledges them, while China plays an intelligent, though ethically questionable, game with Western climate zealots. Through a network of government-funded NGOs, Beijing has long helped anchor the European climate regime politically and in the media, while massively scaling export-oriented production like solar panels, following different domestic paths.

This year alone, China will bring 80 GW of new coal capacity online, invest in nuclear, and, where market-viable, in renewables—pragmatically and unideologically, the Chinese way.

The Taxpayer Cash Cow

From the EU perspective, COP30 must be seen for what it is: a media spectacle designed solely to keep the European climate subsidy machine running at full throttle.

The EU Commission plans around €750 billion for climate subsidies from 2028 to 2034, on top of national subsidies and aid. A massive business, with “partners” of the climate movement holding out their hands for European tax funds through development aid and countless climate funds.

Merz himself knows this game is flawed. Before the summit, he repeatedly stressed that climate protection is central, but must be pursued while safeguarding economic competitiveness and technological openness.

Yet, experience from the first half-year of the Merz government shows that the Chancellor will not challenge Brussels’ destructive climate policies. The combustion engine ban remains; the senseless heating law continues, costing German households billions. The mantra: stay the course, with industrial electricity prices and other subsidies, straight into economic decline.

* * *

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, born in 1978 in Neuss/ Germany, is a graduate economist. For over 25 years, he has worked as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination

Authored by Kevin Finn via AmericanThinker.com,

Like many conservatives, I spend a sizable amount of time perusing news and opinion sites. While it’s long been true that “if it bleeds, it leads,” the stories have become much more disturbing of late. People of faith know that we “do not wrestle against flesh and blood,” and that there have always been evil people among us. However, it’s become much more overt since the election of Barry Soetoro, a.k.a. Barack Hussein Obama.

Image created using AI.

Today, we see many examples of Leftists supporting Evil at the expense of Good. Many of our public schools promote degeneracy over virtue and ignorance over intelligence. Even some parents, who we expect would want to protect their children, sometimes support mutilating them over keeping them whole.

It’s been said that if a liberal from the 1960s were brought forward to today, he’d be considered a conservative. And if a liberal from today were transported back to the 1960s, he’d be considered a dangerous lunatic.

No argument there.

Many television shows from the early days of the medium still air today. I sometimes wonder what those characters (if they were real) would say if they could read today’s headlines or listen to the likes of Rachel Maddow. It turns out, however, that we just caught a glimpse of how they might react.

An interview with a 100-year-old WWII veteran from the U.K. named Alec Penstone stirred emotions recently, as he expressed his disillusionment with modern Britain. During his appearance on “Good Morning Britain, Penstone poignantly reflected on his service in the Royal Navy during the D-Day invasion, lamenting that the freedoms for which he and his compatriots fought are no longer evident in his country.

‘What we fought for was our freedom, even now [the country] is worse than it was when I fought for it,’ says 100-year-old World War II Veteran Alec Penstone. pic.twitter.com/M9HSsS5sIW

— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) November 7, 2025

Similarly, one wonders how King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella would react if they could witness the rising numbers of Muslims in Spain after the Spanish spent so much blood and treasure to expel them during the Reconquista. And what would Thomas Jefferson have to say if, after battling the Barbary Coast pirates, he saw Dearborn, Michigan, and now New York City, bending the knee to Islam (and Socialism/Communism)?

Penstone’s comments struck a chord as he recalled the sacrifices made by countless servicemen. “I can see in my mind’s eye, rows and rows of white stones, of all the hundreds of my friends…for what?” he asked, revealing a deep sense of regret about the direction his country has taken. He harshly criticized the current state of affairs, asserting, “The sacrifice wasn’t worth the result that it is now.” His statement reflects a broader concern among veterans who witness significant changes in societal values and governance.

Penstone’s sentiments resonate amid growing frustrations over issues such as immigration and free speech. Many commentators noted that Britain has faced dramatic cultural shifts, prompting concerns about political correctness and the restrictions on personal liberties. The veteran contrasted the freedoms he fought to protect with what he perceives as an increasingly constrained environment, comparing modern Britain unfavorably to the country he defended.

The backlash against certain expressions, a backlash enforced with hate speech laws in the UK, has contributed to an atmosphere where individuals find their voices being stifled. This ongoing cultural upheaval has led to serious debates about whether the sacrifices made during WWII are being honored or undermined today.

The exchange between Penstone and the show’s anchors highlights a generational divide rooted in how people perceive freedom and the responsibilities that come with it. One of the anchors expressed gratitude for Penstone’s bravery and emphasized the obligation of subsequent generations to uphold the values for which he fought. Yet, Penstone’s dismay suggests a disconnect: despite gratitude, many feel that the essence of freedom and personal responsibility is waning.

The crux of his emotional plea is a stark challenge to contemporary society: Are we living up to the sacrifices of those who came before us? Penstone’s remarks have gone viral, inviting widespread discussion on social media platforms and prompting citizens to critically evaluate their country’s path.

Alec Penstone’s reflections serve as a reminder of the sacrifices made by all our veterans. As he confronts the challenges of modern Britain, his heartfelt words call for a reassessment of values—challenging not only the current populace but also those in power to restore the freedoms that should define and protect Western societies today.

When you think of the world’s most iconic and recognizable flags, what comes to mind?

This visual, via Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins, shows results from FlagWhiz.com, a game that allows users to guess the correct country that corresponds to a given flag based on four multiple-choice options. Data is based on 511,581 guesses made from players all over the world.

The Most Recognizable Flags

The following flags were identified correctly over 97.9% of the time:

Many of these flags are unique and are from high profile countries, like Germany, Japan, or India.

The U.S. flag was still extremely identifiable, but lagged just a little bit behind these other countries in quiz results. Reasons for this are unclear, but it could be because Liberia, Malaysia, Uruguay, and even Chile have similar patterns with stars and stripes on their flags.

The Least Recognizable Flags

The following flags were identified correctly less than 67% of the time.

Countries here are typically smaller and are located in the Global South, from Africa, Oceania, or the Caribbean.

Some have more complicated designs, which make them harder to identify. Many of these are nations that only recently became independent in the 20th century— and many also tend to use Pan-African colors of red, yellow, and green.

Which flags are registered the most by marine vessels? See the breakdown in this infographic.

America has one of the world’s largest prison populations, with an estimated 1.7 million people in confinement.

Going further, America’s incarceration rate is the fourth-highest in the world. Despite being a developed economy, its prison population is more than double that of Russia, India, and Brazil combined.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows the countries with the most prisoners, based on data from the Prison Policy Initiative.

Breaking Down Countries by Prison Population

Below, we show the countries with the highest estimated prison population, with figures extrapolated from their most recent incarceration rates.

With nearly two million prisoners, China ranks first globally.

In China, many inmates are political prisoners, including Uyghur ethnic minorities. Since 2017, hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs have been detained, along with their communities being subject to surveillance and forced labor.

America follows next, with incarceration rates of 614 per 100,000 people—more than three times higher than in China. This figure jumps significantly in southern states, with Louisiana’s standing at 1,067 per 100,000 people—second only to El Salvador in the world if it were considered a nation.

Ranking third is Brazil, with an estimated 664,000 inmates. The country’s prisons are notoriously overcrowded—some facilities in Rio de Janeiro operate at nearly 190% capacity. Russia also stands among the top five, with roughly 356,000 inmates, a country known for its highly corrupt justice system.

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on the cost per prisoner by U.S. state.

Authored by Eric Mathemeier via CampusReform.org,

Chinese companies preparing students for the American Law School Admission Test (LSAT) have gained unauthorized access to U.S.-based LSAT preparation companies and stolen information, according to the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC), the organization that administers the American LSAT.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, LSAC began permitting remote LSAT administration. In China, that shift fueled a lucrative market of firms exploiting loopholes in LSAC’s online security—enabling hired test-takers, armed with fake identification, to impersonate students and complete the exam from abroad.

LSAC announced in August that it had suspended online testing from mainland China. The suspension came amid concerns that Chinese actors compromised and penetrated remote testing systems and services.

New reports, including one by Dave Killoran, the CEO of PowerScore, an American LSAT prep company, reveal just how these Chinese companies are scamming the LSAT. 

Killoran said that a Chinese whistleblower, told him last May that he had access to what appeared to be stolen LSAT questions. The whistleblower was frustrated how easy it was to gain access to cheat materials. 

Killoran told The Washington Free Beacon that screenshots of the test questions are “compiled into PDFs and sold to students who can’t pay the high fees for a proxy test taker.”

Chinese companies have been charging up to $8,000 for the stolen information. These firms advertise “guaranteed results” through encrypted social media channels and claim to have access to upcoming LSAT questions weeks before the exam.

Actors reportedly stole this information through a variety of means, one of the most prominent being hiding high-definition cameras to photograph in-person and remote exam questions.

This is not the first time that Chinese influence has penetrated American higher education. The Hudson Institute conducted a report on Harvard University published in June, that highlighted how Harvard was training Chinese government officials.

The report said that Harvard provided training to Chinese state officials linked to the repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang—potentially breaching U.S. sanctions laws.

The Hudson Institute said of its report that it “barely scratches the surface of the Chinese Communist Party’s infiltration of Harvard and US higher education broadly.”

Americans for Public Trust released a report earlier this year detailing how China and other foreign governments have funneled billions of dollars into U.S. colleges and universities.

According to the findings, New York University has received nearly $350 million in Chinese funding, making it the largest known recipient of such contributions over the past several decades.

Nearly four months after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced sweeping reforms aimed at achieving “drone domain dominance” by 2027, including a Pentagon-wide procurement overhaul led by the DOGE, Reuters reports that the U.S. Army is preparing to acquire at least one million drones over the next few years, marking one of the largest drone procurement cycles in the military service’s history. 

Learning from the modern battlefield in Ukraine, the Army plans a massive ramp-up in drones: purchasing at least a million drones over the next 2-3 years, with potential purchases of half a million or more per year thereafter.

This is a significant jump from today’s 50,000 drones per year procurement cycle, and comes as Russia and China have ramped up production of their own. 

U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll told Reuters that this new drone acquisition plan is a “big lift. But it is a lift we’re very capable of doing.” 

Here’s more from the report:

He spoke by phone during a visit to Picatinny Arsenal, where he described learning about experimentation with “net rounds,” defenses that capture a drone in nets, as well as new explosives and electromagnetic tools synched into weapon systems.

Driscoll and Picatinny’s top commander, Major General John Reim, spoke to Reuters about how the United States was taking lessons from Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has been characterized by drone deployments on an unprecedented scale.

Tiny, inexpensive drones have proven to be one of the most potent weapons in the Russia-Ukraine war, where conventional warplanes are relatively rare because of a dense concentration of anti-aircraft systems near front lines.

Ukraine and Russia each produce roughly 4 million drones a year, but China is probably able to produce more than double that number, Driscoll said.

Driscoll said his priority is getting the United States into a position where it can produce enough drones for any future war, stimulating domestic production of everything from brushless motors and sensors to batteries and circuit boards.

. . . 

“We expect to purchase at least a million drones within the next two to three years,” Driscoll said.

President Trump’s June executive order to “unleash American drone dominance” calls for scaling up domestic production. However, the challenge lies in the fact that supply chains for critical components, such as brushless motors, sensors, batteries, and chips, remain concentrated in China and other Southeast Asian countries.

“Drones are the future of warfare and America will come from behind to lead the way,” Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire stated over the summer on X. 

Maguire is right. Listen to Erik Prince’s conversations from earlier this year about the future of warfighting, small drones equipped with shaped charges are beginning to eliminate the need for snipers on the battlefield. The operational range is shifting from 1,000 yards with a scoped battle rifle to several miles with a drone controller.

As we noted last month, the Pentagon’s DOGE unit is overseeing the complete overhaul of America’s lagging drone program. 

Drone stocks, including Red Cat, AeroVironment, and Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, have soared since Trump’s early June EO on drones.

In the private markets, Palmer Luckey’s Anduril Industries has drawn significant attention for its cutting-edge drone technology. 

Touchdown. pic.twitter.com/Agv5LuGJDd

— Anduril Industries (@anduriltech) November 6, 2025

The #XPRIZEWildfire team recently visited @AndurilTech during semifinals testing. The prize operations team got a look at Anduril’s HQ and saw a demonstration of their integrated system. Their solution worked autonomously and delivered suppression materials in multiple demos. pic.twitter.com/IzQFvWLmpL

— XPRIZE (@xprize) November 7, 2025

And next comes humanoid robots.  

By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

“When @NYGovCuomo refuses to tax the rich, he’s refusing to let workers enjoy the wealth they created,” wrote Zohran Mamdani in the lead up to his election.

“When he says low taxes foster a ‘business-friendly environment,’ he means an environment where it’s easy for bosses to steal from workers,” continued the candidate.

“Taxation isn’t theft. Capitalism is.”

It’s a rather extraordinary statement. Particularly so for the Mayor of New York, which for a century has been capitalism’s capital city.

Mamdani’s quote falls comfortably within the Karl Marx genre, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” Or George Orwell’s, “Four legs good, two legs bad.”

Mamdani won the youth vote by the kind of electoral margin that would’ve made Saddam Hussein blush. And when an ideologue says capitalism is theft, you should (1) believe that he means what he says, and (2) expect it to take years of economic hardship for his constituency to come to their senses.

Argentina’s chronic decline started sometime after Peron came to power in the 1940s. Milei chain sawed his way to economic sanity 80 years later.

Anyhow, 1500 miles southwest of New York City, in Austin Texas, 75% of Tesla shareholders voted to award Elon a $1 trillion incentive package. It is contingent on a variety of milestones being met, the most ambitious of which is a 6x rise in Tesla market capitalization to $8.5 trillion.

It was an Ayn Randian sort of result, and sure to attract more NYC refugees to the Lone Star state.

Progressives naturally erupted. Which kicked off a furious but healthy philosophical exchange on X about the makers in society versus the takers.

And whether we should think of economic spoils as a fixed pool to be divided by politicians, or something to be inexorably expanded by free market capitalism.

It is a debate Orwell hoped to settle in Animal Farm’s final chapter, when the pigs replaced their seven idealistic founding principles with one simple line, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”