Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Fall of Nations

In July 2020 Putin launched a big new unit at Moscow's only oil refinery. He gave the start command himself, by video link. The cost was 98 billion rubles, which was roughly 1.4 billion dollars at the time. That figure comes from TASS's headline. He said the new unit would let the refinery supply the capital region's petrol stations and airports steadily and without interruption.

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Russians Just REBELLED Against Putin → They Refuse to Die for His INSANE War

Putin’s Army Ran Out of IDIOTS Willing to Die for Money

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For twenty years, China appeared to have discovered a formula the rest of the world couldn't match.

Entire cities seemed to rise almost overnight. China built the world's largest high-speed rail network, became the factory floor of the planet, dominated industries from steel to solar panels, and eventually began challenging the West in electric vehicles, batteries, robotics and artificial intelligence.

The numbers seemed to confirm the story.

But by 2026, something strange is happening.

On September 15, China released its latest economic data. Industrial production was still growing by 5.2%. High-tech manufacturing was growing by 16.7%. Exports were booming.

Yet Chinese consumers were barely spending more than they had a year earlier. Retail sales in August increased just 0.4%. Fixed-asset investment had fallen 7.2% in the first eight months of the year. Private investment was down 10.1%. And investment in real estate — the sector that once powered an enormous part of China's expansion — had collapsed almost 20%.

This video investigates the uncomfortable possibility behind those numbers:

China's economic miracle was real — but the image it created may have hidden how fragile the system underneath it had become.

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North Korea is disappearing — not from war, not from revolt, but from a demographic collapse Kim Jong Un cannot command away. He has already cried on camera and begged women to have more children. They are refusing. After the 1990s famine, North Korean women became the real economy. A child now means losing the market stall that keeps a family alive. Fertility has fallen below replacement. More people die than are born. The army is shrinking. Recruits are shorter. Elite units farm their own parade grounds. The nuclear program is hunting teenagers because the trained generation is running out. South Korea, Japan, and China can offset aging with robots and money. North Korea cannot. The most controlled country on Earth is being erased from the inside — and even a nuclear dictator cannot reverse the math.

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India's superpower dream is collapsing, and the cracks are impossible to ignore. Behind the headlines of growth and surging markets lies a broken engine: 12 million enter the workforce annually with no jobs, industrialization was skipped, and the system is designed to fail the many. This isn't a glitch; it's the foundation. Will India fulfill its world-shaping potential, or become history's most brutal cautionary tale?

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China's customs numbers don't add up with Malaysia's oil production, hinting at a vast, hidden network. Discover how China built a secret oil supply chain, bypassing sanctions to feed its industrial giants and hoard a massive reserve. But when global oil markets went haywire, this clever system faced its ultimate test. Did China's grand strategy pay off, or did its secret lifeline become a costly trap?

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