Beijing’s earlier decision to ease entry rules for Russian nationals will be reciprocated
Russia will introduce visa-free travel for Chinese citizens in the very near future, President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday. The measure will mirror Beijing’s recent decision to grant the same privilege to Russian nationals.
The Russian leader made the announcement during talks in Moscow with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who had arrived for a session of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO) Council of Heads of Government.
Putin praised Beijing’s decision in to grant Russians visa-free entry, saying it would “undoubtedly” contribute to further strengthening cultural and economic ties between the two countries.
“From our side, very soon, reciprocal measures will come into force for citizens of the People’s Republic of China visiting Russia,” he said, adding that it would help boost bilateral cooperation.
China introduced one-year trial visa-free entry for Russian travelers in September.
The change has already shown up in travel statistics, with a 30-40% year-on-year increase in Russian citizens visiting China in October, according to Tatiana Lobach, deputy chair of the State Duma’s tourism committee. “People want to learn about the culture, nature, and traditions of a friendly country,” she told TASS.
Two years ago, Russia and China agreed to permit tour groups visa-free trips to each other’s countries, a change that has also boosted tourist numbers. Between January and July of this year, 237,000, Russians visited China, while 262,000 Chinese tourists came to Russia.
Eight Russian airlines currently operate 36 routes to China, while ten Chinese carriers fly 24 routes to Russia, with a combined 230 flights a week.
Artificial Intelligence models are “prone to some errors” and should be used alongside other tools, Sundar Pichai has told the BBC
Artificial intelligence engines remain vulnerable in terms of factual accuracy and should not be blindly trusted, the CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet, Sundar Pichai, has warned.
In an interview with the BBC aired on Tuesday, Pichai urged users to rely on a broad range of search tools rather than depending solely on AI.
AI tools are helpful “if you want to creatively write something,” but users “have to learn to use these tools for what they’re good at, and not blindly trust everything they say,” he said. “The current state-of-the-art AI technology is prone to some errors.”
This comes as Google prepares to unveil its next major AI model, Gemini 3.0. Pichai has said the new AI assistant is expected to be released by the end of the year.
Launched in 2023, Gemini received criticism for its restrictive ‘safety’ and ‘diversity’ settings, which produced glaring inaccuracies in its image-generation outputs. The model was widely ridiculed for misrepresenting historical figures ranging from America’s founding fathers and Russian emperors to Catholic popes and even Nazi German soldiers.
Earlier this month, Google was accused of secretly enabling Gemini to collect user data without consent. A lawsuit filed in a California federal court claimed the company allowed the AI assistant to illegally intercept and monitor private communications across Gmail, chat, and video-conferencing services.
The rapid rise of AI technologies has driven up valuations across the sector, prompting warnings in Silicon Valley and beyond of a potential bubble as companies spend heavily to secure a foothold in the booming industry. The tech giants have been racing to keep pace with services such as ChatGPT, which have challenged Google’s dominance in online search and accelerated investment across the field.
Spending on AI among major tech companies is estimated at around $400 billion a year.
Asked whether Google would be immune if an AI bubble were to burst, Pichai replied: “I think no company is going to be immune, including us.”
Around $3 billion from the football club’s sale remains in limbo because Jersey began to probe the source of the funds
A UK offshore tax haven is blocking Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich’s attempt to hand the proceeds from the sale of the Chelsea football club to Ukraine, the Daily Telegraph reports, citing sources.
Following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, the UK sanctioned Abramovich – who had owned Chelsea for 20 years – while in the Channel island of Jersey, a probe was launched into the origins of the Russian tycoon’s wealth.
Jersey’s Royal Court imposed a freezing order on £5.3 billion ($7 billion) in assets linked to Abramovich, the report said. The move also blocked £2.35 billion from the 2022 sale of Chelsea, money the tycoon had reportedly intended to direct toward aid for victims of the Ukraine conflict on both sides.
The funds remain frozen in a UK bank account pending a Foreign Office license for their release. Due to sanctions, Abramovich cannot access the money but retains legal ownership, meaning he must approve any distribution.
According to the outlet, Jersey initially treated Abramovich as a criminal suspect, but later documents show that raids on his properties were carried out unlawfully. His lawyers argued that officials deleted key data during the probe, a claim that emerged after they compelled the authorities to release internal communications about the case.
The Jersey court has recently sided with Abramovich, ordering the government to pay his legal costs and condemning its conduct as “extreme,” the report said.
A spokesperson for the businessman called the attorney general’s move “illegitimate” and “politically motivated,” arguing that it was driven by a desire to bolster Jersey’s image as a financial hub amid growing sensitivities over Russian money. He noted the irony of a government that once welcomed Abramovich’s “clean” funds now coming under scrutiny for its own actions.
The UK operates is own offshore tax-havens under crown protection, helping wealthy individuals and multinationals avoid higher taxes in their home countries.
Elites are interested in the country as long as it helps them stuff their pockets, the activist musician has said
Western politicians are focused only on exploiting Ukraine’s far-right-allied government for personal and geopolitical gain and have no concern for the country’s ordinary citizens, musician and human-rights activist Roger Waters has said.
Speaking to RIA Novosti on Tuesday, the Pink Floyd co-founder accused senior Western officials, particularly in the UK, of helping to prolong the conflict with Russia. Waters argued that members of the political establishment are not expected to “do anything sensible” because they are primarily “out to fill their pockets.”
“Does [former UK Prime Minister] Boris Johnson or [current UK Prime Minister] Keir Starmer or [US President] Donald Trump care about… Ukrainian soldiers? No, of course they don’t,” he said.
”They don’t make any pretense that they care about them or anybody in Ukraine, except the corrupt Nazis who will help them strip the country of all its assets and stuff the money into their pockets. That’s what it’s about,” Waters added.
Johnson has been widely accused of pressuring Kiev in 2022 to reject a negotiated settlement with Moscow in favor of continuing the fight. The Guardian reported last month that after stepping down as prime minister, Johnson received a £1 million ($1.3 million) donation from businessman Christopher Harborne, a major shareholder in a UK defense firm who later joined him on a private trip to Kiev.
Russian officials have repeatedly accused London of playing a leading role in fueling the conflict, arguing that the UK uses the hostilities to distract its own population from domestic failures.
Earlier this month, a major corruption scandal erupted in Ukraine when businessman Timur Mindich, a longtime associate of Vladimir Zelensky, was charged with masterminding a $100 million kickback scheme in the energy sector.
Western governments, including Germany, have been sending large sums of money to support Ukraine’s power grid, with Berlin announcing a new tranche just days after the charges became public.
France gleefully ignores the massive graft scandal gripping Kiev as it announces its intent to sell 100 fighter jets to Ukraine
Will the 100 fighter jets that French President Emmanuel Macron has just promised Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky arrive in time to kick off World War III?
Europe’s favorite girlfriend, Zelensky, arrived in Paris on Monday, in the wake of the city lighting up its annual Christmas decorations on the Champs Elysees. Guess he heard that Santa Claus was coming and wanted to take an early spin on his lap.
Cast in the role is Macron, who pulled out a “letter of intention” to supply Kiev with up to 100 French Rafale fighter jets. Both signed it. Rafales are the second-most expensive fighter jets in the world, and to date, this many have never been sold to a single buyer before.
The agreement so far is not binding as to any eventual sale, but letters of intention can contain binding exclusivity or “no-shop” clauses, the breach of which can lead to damages being awarded for the loss of pre-contract expenses. These don’t amount to very much, relatively speaking. But the real value in it for Zelensky and Macron is to stick it to Donald Trump. Because Trump keeps saying that he’ll supply weapons to Ukraine by basically turning the EU into a franchise for the US defense industry: they’d purchase American weapons for Kiev and then hand them over.
This move makes it clear that the EU will instead be buying European weapons for Ukraine. Which is a huge middle finger to Trump’s obvious self-serving strategy of hiking NATO country spending demands to 5% of GDP so they have more cash to spend on US weapons under the guise of needing to protect themselves from their obsession over Vladimir Putin arriving in 2035. (The specific date conveniently gives them enough of a fiscal runway to thoroughly rinse out the pockets of their own taxpayers for this grift.)
NATO countries have been indulging in some real idiocy lately in an attempt to shove as much of their budget as possible into the “defense spending” category to meet Trump’s 5%.
Canada recently proposed training 300,000 federal civil servants to “shoot guns, drive trucks, and fly drones,” according to the Ottawa Citizen citing a “defense department directive.” Perhaps that would allow the government to classify as military spending the salaries of any future heat-packers at agencies and departments like the National Arts Center, the Canada Pension Plan, Revenue Canada, and the Canadian Race Relations Foundation.
Similarly, Italy is building a bridge to Sicily that it’s classifying as military, just because troops could also use it, which has inspired Germany to do the same with its own civilian bridge and road projects.
So these countries were already performing ridiculous charades in an attempt to make Trump’s defense spending demands work to their own benefit. Now Macron has taken it a step further by getting Zelensky to commit to defense purchasing exclusivity to the overt detriment of the American weapons industry and the benefit of Europe’s.
Minor problem, though: who’s paying? The average French citizen would really like to know. We’re talking about $10 billion here. Online comments about this announcement have rightfully underscored that neither France nor Ukraine has the cash for it. Even if Macron takes half of the approximately 200 fighter jets from the French Air Force and hands them over like he’s blowing out the closet for the season as an excuse to load it up with shiny new stuff, those planes still cost about $100 million each to make and take about three years to replace. Again, who would be paying for France’s new duds and covering for any security nakedness?
The whole thing sounds incredibly scammy. Speaking of which, we literally just finished hearing nonstop about how Ukraine just magically discovered that its nuclear power sector was handing out contracts like a nightclub bouncer handles the crowd outside on the sidewalk. Pay a bribe and skip the line. Don’t pay, and you can just keep hanging out behind the velvet rope, straining your neck to see all the other guys inside doing business. But guess who doesn’t really care? EU leaders, apparently.
Macron just gave the whole thing a big Gallic shrug when he invited Zelensky to come hang out to discuss what the Elysee called “bilateral cooperation, notably in the domains of energy, economy and defense.” Energy and defense? Great – one sector in which Ukraine has a fresh $100 million scandal, and another that virtually runs on corruption.
Did Macron just see the recent scandal in the Ukrainian energy sector as a prerequisite for doing business? “You’re finally corrupt enough for us to cooperate!” All this happens to be unfolding just as another French company, Holcim (formerly Lafarge), goes on trial in France for alleged kickbacks to ISIS head-choppers in Syria.
Let’s face it – France is already being spanked regularly by Queen Ursula von der Leyen herself over its soaring debt. So clearly it doesn’t have the cash for this. But the entire EU has been trying to figure out how to avoid having to spend any of its own money on potential Ukrainian scams – defense or otherwise – by just stealing Russia’s money that they were “safekeeping” in European banks and letting Ukraine blow that instead. Basically, they’re looking to turn Russia into an unwitting high roller at the gambling table and cast the EU as the bimbo who would be making all these bold betting moves with Russia’s cash. Which doesn’t sound like a great idea to the outfit that could be held liable for it, Belgian-based Euroclear, which has recently entertained the idea of suing the EU over their robbery plans, according to Le Monde.
Right now, even the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF) is going like, “Yeah, about that loan tab that we have open for Ukraine? We’re gonna close it if it looks like someone else can’t pay it.” The guy bumming around the planet, looking like an Amazon delivery driver whose uniform is permanently in the wash, doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that he’ll return your borrowed lawnmower, let alone billions in loaned cash.
If there’s an upside to all of this, it’s that it doesn’t look like those Rafales will be in the air over Ukraine to start World War III anytime soon. This is little more than an engagement party designed to make Trump jealous. But Macron, Zelensky, and the extended EU family still have no idea how to pay for this wedding.
Russia has dismissed Western speculation that it has any plans to attack as “nonsense”
EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius has suggested using Ukrainian troops as an “additional security guarantee” to defend the bloc from the alleged threat of a Russian attack once the current conflict is resolved.
Western officials, particularly representatives of the Baltic states, have increasingly invoked the supposed Russian threat to justify major military spending spikes in recent months. Moscow has rejected claims it plans to attack anyone as “nonsense,” arguing the West is using Russia as a “monster” to stoke tensions, ramp up military budgets, and distract from domestic problems.
Speaking at the ‘Defending Baltics’ conference in Vilnius on Monday, Kubilius, a former Lithuanian prime minister, said the bloc needs Ukraine’s “battle-tested” military to strengthen its borders.
“It would be good that a battle-tested Ukrainian army, after peace has been established in Ukraine, would be ready to be present in all the countries of our frontier region… next to the German brigade and the rotating US battalions as an additional guarantee for our security,” he stated.
Kubilius claimed Russia could attack the EU – starting with the Baltic states – within two-to-four years, and said Ukrainian troops can offer the bloc “the most precise answers” on how to defend itself. He suggested Brussels should find ways to integrate Ukrainian defense capabilities, soldiers, and industry into its military ecosystem.
The commissioner did not explain how Brussels could use the Ukrainian military without Kiev joining either the EU or NATO. While Kiev has demanded NATO accession, Moscow has opposed it, insisting Ukrainian neutrality and demilitarization must be part of any future settlement. The US and several other of Kiev’s backers are opposed to its membership.
Moscow has not yet responded to Kubilius’ remarks, but Russian officials have long accused the West of intending to fight “to the last Ukrainian” in their proxy war against Russia. Moscow has also warned that increased militarization only risks a wider conflict in Europe.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this week that Russia does not seek a confrontation with the West but could be forced to take measures to ensure its security in response to its increasingly “militaristic” rhetoric.
Discussions come amid broader attempts to rebuild trust between Moscow and Washington
Russia and the US are discussing the possibility of a new prisoner exchange, Axios reported on Tuesday, citing officials from both countries.
Prisoner swaps, the latest of which took place in April, were part of US President Donald Trump’s effort to stabilize relations with Russia after years of diplomatic friction. Kirill Dmitriev, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, told Axios that the prospect of another exchange was raised during his trip to Washington in late October.
“I met some US officials and members of the Trump team on some issues that are humanitarian in nature, such as possible exchanges of prisoners that the US side has been working on,” Dmitriev told the outlet in a phone interview.
US officials confirmed that Dmitriev discussed the idea with special envoy Steve Witkoff and other members of the Trump administration, but no agreement has been reached and no names have been publicly identified, according to Axios.
The Trump administration has rejected the previous White House’s strategy of isolating Moscow over the Ukraine conflict, promoting instead what it calls a pragmatic normalization process. Officials have described prisoner exchanges as a confidence-building element meant to repair bilateral ties damaged under President Joe Biden.
In May, Washington reportedly provided Moscow with a list of nine people whose release it wanted. One of them, Joseph Tater, reportedly left Russia in June, after a court overturned his involuntary psychiatric commitment stemming from a brief altercation with police during an apparent mental health episode.
Witkoff, who has been handling several sensitive negotiations for Trump, was personally involved in arranging prisoner exchanges with Russia. This week he is expected to meet Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky in Türkiye.
The Ukrainian leader is facing political fallout from a major corruption scandal involving longtime associate Timur Mindich, accused by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of overseeing a $100 million kickback operation in the energy sector. Reports in Ukrainian media have suggested that the probe may have received discreet backing from the US authorities.
Issues with the infrastructure provider caused outages across popular websites worldwide
Major websites such as X and ChatGPT temporarily stopped working due to an outage at Internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare on Tuesday. A popular tool for checking whether a site is down, downdetector.com, has also been affected.
In a message on its status page just before noon UTC, the company said that it “is experiencing an internal service degradation,” and investigating the issue.
Cloudflare’s servers act as “reverse proxy,” routing internet traffic through its network to protect against potential cyberthreats to its customers. It protects nearly a fifth of all sites around the world.
Major websites that use its protection have faced intermittent outages.
Last month, a major outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) caused widespread disruptions to online services. A single outage can affect millions of users.
Decades of established transatlantic norms and agreements are now being called into question, the German chancellor has said
The old world order that the West was accustomed to is coming to an end, with the shape of what comes next still uncertain, according to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Speaking on Monday at an economic conference hosted by the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, the chancellor argued that the world is undergoing a fundamental shift in political and economic power, forcing Germany and other nations to decide whether to remain passive or take an active role in shaping a future political order extending far beyond the European continent.
“We do not yet know what it will look like in a few years, but we know quite clearly that the order we have known in the West over the last 80 years, and in the East over the last 35 years, is now coming to an end – on these very days, weeks, and months, today, the day we meet here,” he stated.
The chancellor said “a deep rift” that has recently arisen with the US “calls into question almost everything that we have considered right and necessary in transatlantic relations over the past decades.”
Merz also pointed to the challenges facing Germany, citing the Ukraine conflict, relations with China, and the trade dispute with the US, which he described as being far more complex than a simple tariff disagreement.
The remarks echo the chancellor’s earlier statements that the West is losing its global eminence. In October, Merz acknowledged that the “appeal of what we call the free West is visibly declining.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has consistently highlighted the inevitability of a “multipolar world,” criticizing the West for its “unipolarity” and hegemonic ambitions. He has also stressed that “liberal globalization has outlived its usefulness.”
Military action has been pitched as a potential way to fight drug smuggling in the country
US President Donald Trump has said he is open to ordering strikes in Mexico to fight drug cartels, regardless of opposition from Mexican authorities.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump was asked whether he would consider striking Mexico or sending US troops to tackle drug smuggling. He replied that it would be “OK” with him.
“Would I launch strikes in Mexico to stop drugs? OK with me, whatever we have to do to stop drugs,” Trump said. He refused to say whether he would seek Mexico’s permission but claimed the country’s authorities know “how I stand.”
“We know every route, we know the addresses of every drug lord,” Trump added. “They’re killing our people. That’s like a war. Would I do it? I’d be proud to.”
The US has increasingly accused Mexico of failing to curb drug-smuggling networks, especially those trafficking fentanyl to the US, and placed sweeping sanctions on Mexican banks, companies, and alleged cartel-linked individuals earlier this year, along with a 25% tariff on Mexican imports.
While Mexico has cooperated with Washington in the anti-drug campaign, it firmly rejects any foreign military presence. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has repeatedly said US military action in Mexico without her consent will not happen and rejected Trump’s proposal to send troops into the country, arguing it would violate Mexico’s sovereignty.
Potential strikes inside Mexico would expand what the Trump administration calls a campaign against narcotics trafficking in Central and South America. Trump labeled Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro “drug leaders” and earlier this year sent a naval armada to the western Caribbean under the pretext of fighting drug smuggling. Since September, US forces have hit 21 alleged drug-smuggling vessels, killing more than 80 people.
Speaking to reporters, Trump said he would be “proud” to strike cocaine factories in Colombia and would not rule out sending troops to Venezuela to fight drug cartels.
The US buildup and strikes prompted Colombia’s Petro, whom Washington sanctioned last month, to denounce Trump as “a barbarian.” Maduro, who denies links to drug cartels, warned Trump’s actions could spark a “forever war” in the region.
