[00:00] Hi everybody and welcome back to Briefing Room. I'm John Kuryaku. We talk a lot on this show about the USIsraeli war against Iran and about Israel's genocide in Gaza, but most Americans don't know that in just eight short weeks on October 27th, Israel will hold national elections. And as with many Israeli elections, it is utterly impossible to predict who's going to win. What we are confident about is that
[00:31] no party, including Benjamin Netanyahu's Likood, is going to win a majority. That's the nature of Israeli elections. There are so many political parties, there are so many candidates, there are so many parochial issues that you and I don't care about that the electorate is deeply divided. Unlike the United States, Israel doesn't have two dominant political parties. presidential elections or a winner take all system. Instead, it has a parliamentary system
[01:03] with so many different parties representing different political, religious, and cultural constituencies. Governments are built through coalitions. There alliances shift regularly, routinely, and politicians often make headlines, but it's not clear then what party they belong to or their connection to the broader political landscape. The bottom line is that Israeli elections are very complicated. So allow me to try to simplify it.
[01:36] Israel has this enormous number of parties. Each party submits a ranked list of up to 120 candidates. And the proportion, the percentage that each party receives determines how many seats it gets in the parliament, which in Israel is called the Knesset. For example, if a party wins 10% of the vote, it will receive 12 of the Knesset's 120 seats. And the first 12 people on its list, its ranked list,
[02:08] will become members of the Knesset or MK's. Any Israeli citizen who is at least 18 years old can vote and citizens who are 21 years old can run for the Knesset. Of course, that means almost no Arabs, whether they're Christians or Muslims, can vote. Sure, there's this small handful that can, but they are almost always ill irrelevant in the elections. And it's highly highly unusual for the tiny Arab
[02:40] parties to participate in an Israeli government coalition. In order to be elected to the Knesset at all, a party must receive 3.25% 3 and a4% of the national vote, which translate to a minimum of four seats. Receive less than that and you get no seats at all. So small, usually extremist parties frequently merge with one another to then improve their chances of getting
[03:11] 3.25% and achieving representation. But here's where things get messy in a number of ways. Let's look at the current Knesset. Benjamin Netanyahu's Liquid Party has 32 seats, nowhere near the necessary 61 seat majority that any government needs to function. Naftali Bennett's Together Party has 24 seats. That's followed by the Shas party with 11 seats, the Blue and White party with eight seats, seven seats each for
[03:42] the religious Zionist party and the United Jewish Torah Party. Six seats each for the extremist Itma Yehudit Party of Idomar Bengavir and Avdor Lieberman's Israel Betenu party. Five seats each for the Arab Ram party and the joint list party. four seats each for the Democrats and the New Hope parties and one seat for the Gnome party which dropped out of an earlier coalition. It was one of the four. It took the one
[04:13] with it. The other party has three. So, how does Benjamin Netanyahu keep on winning? Easily. He forms coalitions with parties that are more and more right-wing extremist and anti-Arab. That's why two of the most senior cabinet ministers in the current government have been convicted of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate crimes, felonies.
[04:43] That's why the death penalty has just been approved by the Knesset, but only for Palestinians. Jews cannot be executed. That's another story. We can talk about it on another day. Another truth is that Netanyahu is an absolutely gifted politician. He's strong. He's tough. He's ruthless. He's conniving. And he is perfectly happy to stab in the back any other politician or political
[05:16] party that turns on him. And with a massive influx of former Soviet Jews to Israel beginning in the early 1990s, the entire Israeli electorate has moved further and further to the right. Back in the mid 1960s, a new party called the Labor Party was formed through a union of left-wing parties called Mapai, auda and Rafi, as well as several small Arab
[05:46] parties. Labor and its predecessor parties had won every Israeli election since independence in 1948. Labor was briefly knocked out of power in the mid 1970s, but came back again and governed until the 1990s. You might remember names like Golden Mayer, Yitsak Rabbine, Shiman Perez, and Ahud Barack. They were all Labor Party prime ministers. Well, those days are over.
[06:18] As I said, the Israeli electorate has moved so far to the extreme right, mostly because of immigration from the former Soviet Union and specifically from Ukraine and Russia and the movement of American Jews to the occupied territories as settlers that the Labor Party found itself with only four seats after the 2022 elections and the party dissolved in 2024 and it no longer exists.
[06:49] So, what do the latest polls tell us about Israeli elections in a time of war? In a time where Americans are turning away from Israel in unprecedented fashion because of the country's ongoing genocide in Palestine. Well, the polls show that Likood is still the most popular block. Liquid, of course, as I said, is Benjamin Netanyahu's party. It's the most popular block with the latest poll numbers showing Netanyahu's party winning
[07:19] between 20 and 32 seats. That's huge. The extreme violent anti-Arab parties are looking to double their presence in the next Knesset and they could win as many as 12 seats up from the current six seats. There is no Labor party anymore. And the anti-Netanyahu center or center right is in chaos. Listen, a lot can change between now and
[07:50] the end of October. But don't bet money on it. High prices are here to stay. Gas, groceries, insurance. If you're a homeowner, you've probably thought, "Should I refinance to pay off this credit card debt?" And then you secondguess yourself because of that low mortgage rate that you currently have. But listen, that low rate, it's not saving you if you're drowning in credit card interest at 25% or more. That's the math no one wants to face. But it's costing you thousands. And it happens
[08:23] kind of incrementally where it's a $100 or a couple of hundred a month that adds up over the course of a year. And when you have multiple cards on which you're paying, you're keeping yourself drowning in debt. Here's the truth. If you're only making minimum payments, that debt will follow you for years. That's why people are calling American Financing because they are saving customers an average of $800 a month by using their equity to finally
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[09:26] Or go to americanfinancing.net/briefingroom. You won't regret it. There is a strange thing that is becoming a major campaign issue here in the United States as we head into the 2026 midterm elections in November. Yes, people are concerned, as they should be, about affordability, about inflation, about food prices, about Gaza, about the war with Iran. But in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania,
[09:59] Virginia, and even Texas, Michigan, they are very concerned about data centers. I live in Arlington, Virginia. As I've said many times, I live just one mile from the White House. It's an urban area or semi-urban at least. But just 10 miles west of me is Lowden County, Virginia, the home of Washington Dulles International Airport. Lowden is
[10:29] frequently ranked as one of the three wealthiest counties in America and often it's at number one. Well, it's also home to more data centers than any other locality in America, and its residents hate that. What are data centers used for anyway? Data centers are secure buildings or rooms that house rows and rows and rows
[11:00] of computer servers, data storage drives, and networking gear. They store, they process, and they move the digital information behind everyday tools like websites, email, streaming shows, online banking, artificial intelligence, essentially everything you do on the internet. Now, if you haven't been to Lowden County, Virginia, if you haven't flown into Dulles airport and flown over these things, every single one of them is bigger than
[11:30] a football field. in some cases much bigger than a football field. And in Lowden County, right around the airport, there are dozens of these things. You can drive for miles and see nothing but these enormous steel buildings that have no windows, use massive amounts of electricity and water to keep the the gear cool.
[12:01] And they don't employ anybody. Oh, and by the way, they have huge barbed wire fences around all of them. Well, they're responsible for hosting remote software and files so users can access them from anywhere in the world. They save massive volumes of corporate files, user photos, and database records securely. They keep business tools, online stores, and websites running 24 hours a day. As I said, they essentially are the
[12:32] internet. They host and they run heavy AI models that require high power computer chips and they power cellular networks, text messaging, and emergency dispatch systems. We need all of those things, right? But the problem is that they consume massive amounts of electricity and water. They drive up local utility bills. They generate constant noise and
[13:04] air pollution. And they occupy large areas of land while offering very, very few permanent local jobs. Hypers scale facilities built for AI, like those right here in Virginia, require immense amounts of power, which then constrain local grids and raise electric rates for everyday residents. And cooling these things, thousands of hotrunning computer
[13:35] servers, requires millions and millions of gallons of water, threatening local supplies, especially in areas prone to drought. Surging power demands sometimes force utilities to keep dirty coal or or gas plants running longer. Or it forces localities to build new onsite gas turbines and diesel backup generators. And politicians in their infinite wisdom
[14:05] frequently pass the utilities costs on to the local consumers rather than to have the data center owners pay for the electricity that they use. How's that fair? What politicians voted for that? Because we should throw them out. Furthermore, large cooling fans and heavy industrial equipment create a continuous lowfrequency hum that can disrupt nearby neighborhoods 24 hours a day, all day,
[14:37] all night. As I said, these massive windowless warehouses replace open green spaces. They replace farmland. They disrupt natural habitats. Years of truck traffic, heavy truck traffic and intense building activity then degrade local roads and infrastructure. Nationally, voters hate data centers. Fully 56% of Americans, according to the
[15:08] most recent polls, oppose the construction of new data centers and distrust the federal government's ability to regulate them. But the revolt against data centers and the politicians who support them is happening most clearly in the states of Ohio and Michigan. Polls in Ohio show that this reliably red Republican state could very well elect a Democratic governor, a Democratic senator, and a majority of Democratic congresspersons
[15:40] because Ohioans are almost universally opposed to data centers that have taken up farmland, sucked up all the water necessary to cool them, increased electricity prices, and left voters shopping at Dollar general, which are on every street corner practically, and wondering how in the world they're going to pay their rent. Well, if you've got a Republican governor, two Republican senators, almost all Republican congressmen, and your state legislature
[16:12] is controlled in both the House and the Senate by Republicans. This is kind of a Republican issue. [snorts] In the extremely close Michigan Senate race between Republican former Congressman Mike Rogers and Democrat Dr. Abdul sayed, a leaked Republican National Committee memo recently recommended that the Republicans just simply stop talking about data centers. Republican Rogers last week said that he would support a
[16:42] 1year moratorum on new data centers in the state. That's after he supported construction of all of the existing data centers there. Mike Rogers has said a couple of other things this week. He asked Apac not to support him publicly. Apac sunk $30 million into defeating Abdul Sed. Now they want to spend another $30 million supporting Mike Rogers. And Mike Rogers said, "Oh,
[17:12] please don't come in here. I'm going to try to beat this this socialist Muslim and you may make people angry. Well, it's not just that Apac is involved in the Michigan Senate race up to its up to its chin. It's that Mike Rogers was number one the author of the Patriot Act which is being used against us every day. And he supports the construction the continued construction of data centers. This is going to come to a head like a
[17:43] pimple and somebody's going to have to squeeze it. What if the way money works is about to change? Not someday, not hypothetically, but right now. China and the United States are both making moves that suggest we could be heading towards something that the world hasn't seen in more than 50 years. A return to goldbacked money or something very close to it. China is shutting down paper gold trading at four of its biggest banks all in the same day. And they're building a
[18:15] new system that settles in physical gold instead. On our side, the government is sitting on more than 8,000 tons of gold, still valued at $42 an ounce on the books. Legislation to fix that is already pending before Congress. If both superpowers start anchoring their currencies to gold, what happens to the price? And more importantly, what happens to every dollar in your retirement that isn't backed by anything at all? That's the question of free
[18:46] report from American Alternative Assets Answers. It's called the day money changes forever. And if you have an IRA or a 401k, you need to read it right now. Get your free copy at johnlovesgold.com. That's johnlovesgold.com or call 888 G053. Finally, folks, many of you know that I have been traveling a lot lately. I just
[19:17] got back to the US 2 days ago after 3 weeks in Vietnam, Greece, and Egypt. And that was after spending two weeks in Cyprus, Greece, Sweden, and Norway. I love to travel. I love it more than pretty much anything else in the world. I've been to 75 countries, and I'm constantly looking to add more to my list. I'll tell you something that I did a couple of years ago in 2022. In 2022, I had to go to Israel to cover the 2022 Knesset elections.
[19:50] And um my I I booked my travel like I always do. Well, there there are direct flights from Washington to Tel Aviv or you can go through a dozen different European countries if you don't mind transiting. I elected to book my trip through um Abijan Ivory Coast with a connection in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. My boss came to me with this puzzled look and he said, "Did you book your trip through
[20:20] the Ivory Coast and Ethiopia?" And I said, "Yeah." He goes, "Why?" I said, "Because it's a 24-hour layover in the Ivory Coast, and I've never been to the Ivory Coast. I want to check it out. I heard it used to be called the Paris of Africa." He said, "Are you nuts?" He said, "Have you ever been to the Addis Ababa airport in Ethiopia?" I said, "Yeah, it's terrible, but I'm only in Ethiopia for 4 hours. I could go on the surface of the moon for four hours. No big deal, but I
[20:51] want to see the Ivory Coast." And he's like, "Okay, knock yourself out." So, I went to the Ivory Coast. It was lovely. The food is delicious. People were wonderful. It was clean by African standards. I just, you know, didn't drink the water. But I got to see the Ivory Coast and not another country. And then on the way back I flew directly from Tel Aviv to Washington. So everybody was happy. Well, one question that I frequently get uh from people is whether I have ever feared for my safety in these 75
[21:25] countries. The short answer is no. To tell you the truth, and this may sound kind of silly. But most of the time, I am so busy working in the old days, like doing spy stuff that I I just didn't have time to fear for my safety. My mom asked me one time when I got back from Pakistan, "Were you afraid, honey?" And I said, "No." And she's like, "Really?" And I said,
[21:55] "No, I was so busy that I wasn't really thinking about anybody, you know, meaning me harm." And then I thought about it and I thought, "No, I had a 9 mm on my waist and a 38 on my ankle." And I said, "No, they should have been afraid of me, not me, of them." But you know what? It got me to thinking about ranking uh some of those countries, at least the the ones I've been to recently, and talking about the the dangers that I faced that diplomats face now or that the average tourist maybe
[22:25] should just stay away from. I haven't been to all of these countries in the last year, but I've certainly been to to all of them. But let's do the the obvious ones first. We used a uh we used a chart uh several several episodes ago to talk about members of Congress who I thought would or would not be good spies. So using that same chart, it starts with S. I don't remember what S is, but it's like above A
[22:56] or maybe like sounding like an old-timer, I should say the kids, the kids today are using S. Okay, S is better than A. So, let's do the obvious ones first. Afghanistan. Afghanistan's an F. Uh, the Afghans defeated the British army. They defeated the Soviet army. They defeated the American army. And I always used to say too, like
[23:28] people say, "Well, don't you feel bad for Afghan women? The plight of Afghan women?" No, I don't actually. And I'll tell you why. because I've met hundreds of Afghan women. The Taliban did not fall onto Earth from the moon. These are the husbands, the fathers, the sons, the brothers of Afghan women. They had 20 years to check out what it was that we were offering them. They chose the Taliban. So, it's not up to John to decide how
[23:59] the Afghans should run their lives. They chose the Taliban. God bless. It's all up to you. But you can be executed in Afghanistan for playing music or dancing or telling a kind of riyal joke. Uh you're never safe and the farther you get out of Kbble, you're even less safe still. So Afghanistan's an F. Pakistan.
[24:31] I've said many times I freaking love Pakistan. The food is absolutely incredible. I find Pakistanis to be very warm and friendly. The countryside is absolutely stunning. On those very very few and rare times when I would have a day off, I would drive up into the foothills of the Himalaya mountains, you know, that
[25:02] are snowcapped 365 days a year. I saw the four corners of Pakistan from north to south and west to east. And I really like the place, but it is still one of the mo most dangerous places in the world. Especially if you're an American, I'm going to have to give it a D because if you're in a place like Islamabad, no problem. If you're in Lahore, probably no problem. If you're
[25:34] in Karachi, I'd say you got a problem. If you're in Pashaw or Queta, I would say run into your hotel and hide under the bed. And it just gets worse than that in some of these other places. Somalia. I went to Somalia in 2011. I actually drove there from uh Djibouti with the American ambassador to Djibouti, the American defense attaches and the regional security officer, the
[26:06] RSO, who's the head of security in uh in the American embassy in Djibouti. We drove from Djibouti to Somaliand, which is not a country. It's a state in Somalia, but it is now recognized as an independent country only by Israel. And in exchange, the Somali land leaders uh gave Israel an air base that it can use to bomb Yemen. Keeping in mind then that Somali land is a part of Somalia.
[26:38] I'm going to give that actually a I'm gonna I'm gonna give it an F. I almost gave it a D for a second, but I'll tell you why I'm giving it F. Because piracy is rearing its ugly head again in the Indian Ocean in the Gulf of Aiden. And um Somalia is a failed state. It has no central government. It's chaos. Shabbab is still active there, which is an offshoot of al-Qaeda. ISIS is active
[27:08] there. Um, it's one of the most dangerous places on the planet. Which then brings me to another of one of the most dangerous places on the planet, Yemen. I've said many times that I've been to Yemen five times over the years. The first time I went, there were two Yemens. There was the Yemen Arab Republic, also called North Yemen, and then there was the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, also called South
[27:39] Yemen, which was a Soviet satellite state. They merged in 1990. People were literally dancing in the streets. That lasted a minute and a half. And then they realized, uh, we're not really seeing any of these economic opportunities everybody promised us. That was the second time I went. The third time I went, they're launching Scud missiles at each other between Sana and Aiden. The fourth time I went, they're they're actively engaged in a civil war. And the fifth time I went,
[28:13] al-Qaeda controlled most of the country. And the part of northwestern Yemen that they didn't control, the Houthis controlled. The Saudis were bombing, the Amiradis were bombing, the Americans were bombing, al-Qaeda's bombing, ISIS is bombing, the Houthis are bombing. So Yemen gets an F. I would actually rather go to Afghanistan or Somalia today than to go to Yemen. There is no safe place inside Yemen.
[28:44] Syria. This is actually a tough one. I've been to Syria a number of times. It's one of the three most beautiful places I've ever been anywhere in the world. And if you're a student of history or a student of religion, there is almost no place on earth like Syria. You go to Damascus and the things that you're looking at are mentioned in the Bible. When they talk about the gates of Damascus,
[29:17] your taxis driving through the gates of Damascus, your hotel is literally across the street from St. Anonyas's house where he lowered St. Paul in a basket to escape the Romans. The spot on the road to Damascus where where God struck Saul blind and he became Paul and God said, "Saul, why do you persecute me?" that's in downtown Damascus now. So, you're looking at all these things that you've probably read
[29:48] about as a kid or studied in college and it's right there laid out in front of you. It's incredible. I'm going to give Syria, this is going to sound maybe nuts and a little optimistic, but I'm going to give Syria a C. And the reason I'm going to give it give it a C is that for the most part, let me stress that for the most part, the violence is over. There is still something of a small ISIS
[30:18] presence. The ISIS presence is waging war against the Drews and against the Christians, and the central government is doing nothing to protect them. That's bad. More importantly, the Turks had set up a a military base in northern Syria near the border about 20 miles inside the border on the Syria side. The Israelis bombed it last week and blew it to smitherines.
[30:50] Not because it was any threat to Israel, but the Israelis are trying to provoke the Turks. Now, besides that, the economy is starting to grow by leaps and bounds because both the US and really the rest of the international community have lifted sanctions against Syria. And so, finally, after decades, the country is free to begin trading. So, good things are starting to happen
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[32:24] security today at preparewithjkr.com. Again, that is preparewithjkr.com. How about Iraq? I'm going to give Iraq an F only because the US has been gone for what four years now, 5 years after having been there for about 20 just
[32:55] about the same length of time that the US was in Afghanistan. The central government really basically runs Baghdad. We used to say that Hamid Carzai, the president of Afghanistan, was really just the mayor of Kabell. Well, that's kind of how Iraq is. The Kurdish areas are autonomous. You want to go to Iraq, go to Kurdistan. Safe, awesome people, great food. You're free to come and go, explore, go hiking,
[33:25] whatever. The rest of Iraq, stay out of it. You'll go missing and nobody will ever figure out what happened to you. And that's because of what we did to that country. Okay. And how about from my recent travels? I I spent a week last week in Egypt. Um, in terms of safety, Egypt is really a very, very safe place.
[33:57] I'm going to give Egypt an A. Um, Egyptian people are beautiful people. They're friendly and they're kind and they're helpful. They're poor and so everybody's got his hand out. And you better have a lot of small bills because you're going to be tipping 20 different people a day. It's not unusual, and I'm not making this up. This is honest to God what happened. It's not unusual for somebody to come up to you and say, "Where are you from?" You say, "I'm from the US." They say, "Beautiful day today." And you say,
[34:27] "Yeah, it is a beautiful day. It's going to be sunny all day. The guy says, "Yeah, yeah, it's going to be sunny all day." The guy says, "Give me baksh. Give me a tip." You say, "For what?" The guy says, "I just gave you the weather report." And then you got to give them the equivalent of a buck or two bucks. That will happen 20 times a day. So, like I say, people are poor. Traffic is of epic proportions, but it's safe.
[34:59] Don't drink the water. Greece, my favorite place on the planet. I got to give Greece an A, not an S. And I'll tell you why. And I'm going to take a lot of guff for this, but Greece has a problem with illegal immigration. And it's the fault for the most part of the Turks. The Turks take it's something
[35:30] like I I know I'm going to get this wrong. It's like a billion and a half or 15 billion. I I remember those numbers, but anyway, it's billions of euros from the European Union to keep illegal immigrants settled in Turkey so that they can be divided up into smaller groups and sent around the European Union for uh resettlement. So the the Turks take the money and then in the cover of darkness, in the dead of night, they put these poor people on boats and send them to Greece. Why? To crash the
[36:02] Greek economy. It's a covert action operation that the Turkish government has been doing for years. Not cool at all. Well, these people get off the boats and they literally just walk ashore and sort of blend into the society, but they have no money. They have no job. They have no home. They have no medical care. And in order to support themselves and their families, they're forced to commit crimes.
[36:33] That's why Greece is an A and not an S. >> [snorts] >> There are some petty crimes, pickpocketing, theft, stuff like that, especially in Athens and the and the tourist islands, and they are very, very rarely committed by Greeks. How about Cypress? I spent a glorious like 10 days in Cypress in May. I got to give Cypress, I'm going to put Cypress as an S. Cypress is one of the safest places on
[37:07] the planet. Now, of course, the northern 35% of Cyprus is occupied by the Turkish military, and the Turkish government has sent hundreds of thousands of Turks to settle Cyprus. Just like American Jews are stealing Palestinian land, Turks are stealing Criate land. and settling there. That's not necessarily to say anything about
[37:39] crime, street crime. Just like in Greece, just like in many countries of the world, there are problems with corruption. But in terms of crime, crime, street crime, it's practically unheard of in Cyprus. Like it wouldn't even dawn on you that you should be worried walking around Nicicoia at night or Larna or Lima Soul or anywhere. There just isn't any crime.
[38:10] How about the UK? You know, honestly, London is one of my favorite places on the planet. I spent the happiest year of my life in London when I was 20 years old and living with my girlfriend and studying at the University of London. I knew even when I was 20, life was never going to be as good as it was then. And unfortunately, I was right. But anyway, the UK is a glorious place, but it's got problems and it's got crime. And so,
[38:42] I'm going to put the UK as a B. If I could, I'd actually put it as a B minus. But there are problems and many of those problems stem from from a sluggish economy that is not growing fast enough to provide enough or adequate opportunity economic opportunity for the population. And you know the class system doesn't help at all either. And in addition to
[39:14] that, it's this problem of of immigration, too. I I think immigration is great. Immigration is what makes America great. One of the things that makes America great. But you have to be able to absorb immigrants, to provide for immigrants until they get on their feet. And then the immigrants have to be willing to, you know, be become a contributing factor in society. You can't just set up these these little
[39:46] circles that are cut off from the rest of society and expect everything's going to be okay. You got to become British. You got to become American. You got to become Greek, right? That's how we get along. Four places that I was in recently, Sweden. You know, it's funny. I I've been seeing videos on um on realels and on Tik Tok lately that purport to be Muslim immigrants rioting in Stockholm.
[40:18] No, they're taken completely out of context. Stockholm is at an S. Sweden is at an S because it is one of the safest places on the planet. Yes, they have immigration. God bless them. and they've done it right. My ex-wife and I used to have an OPAIR. We we had OPAIRs every year and most of them would come from Europe. Some came from Asia, but um we had one who was who was a
[40:49] Syrian Christian immigrant to Sweden. And when she turned 18 years old, she became an Opair and she came and lived with us. She was magnificent. Maggie, shout out to Maggie. God bless you, Maggie. Maggie went back to Stockholm, went to the police academy and became a police officer. She speaks fluent English. Her English is as good as mine. She speaks fluent Swedish, of course, because she adapted to the culture. And she speaks fluent Arabic. And as a
[41:21] police officer, she has found wonderful success working in immigrant neighborhoods and helping them to become productive members of Swedish society. That's why Sweden is at S because the Swedes do it right. Norway is also at an S. If there was something above S, that's where I would put Norway. Norway is one of the most physically stunning places I've ever been. People talk about the fjords.
[41:52] They're not exaggerating. The fjords are incredible. They're stunning. The weather is not great, but the people are lovely, beautiful, wonderful people. The food is awesome. Especially if you like fish. I like fish very much cuz expect to eat it every single day. Or reindeer. I eat a lot of reindeer, too. Anyway, there is no such thing as crime in Norway. There just isn't. It's absolutely wonderful.
[42:23] Everybody just seems to get along. Everybody's doing fine. It's not as big or robust an economy as what you see in Sweden. Sweden has kind of a cooler coffee culture, too. But in terms of safety, can't beat it. Iceland. I went to Iceland 12 times last year. 12 times. Four of those times I never saw the sun. Four of those times the sun never went down. It's enough to make you
[42:53] want to blow your brains out. Let me tell you, the whole country has a population of 320,000 people. It does not have a military. There is no military. It's a member of NATO, which always struck me as kind of funny because, you know, just because there's like a listening station there. The US uses the uh the air base. There are Navy ships that pull into port, but there is no such thing as crime. On one of my 12 trips there last year, I was out. You lose, you lose sense of
[43:24] what time it is because it's like 24 hours a day, the sun is out. So, I'm out at like midnight. It looks like it's six o'clock in the afternoon and I see two police cars with the lights on and four cops standing and uh I was like, "Wow, crime and Reikuic. What the heck is going on?" So, I wander over there slowly just to see if I can overhear what they're talking about. What it was was two guys in a bar um got
[43:59] into an argument and one called the other one a wanker, a dick. And rather than to see this this thing spiral out of control, the bartender called the cops. That was it. That was the whole kuruffle. There is no crime in Iceland. Iceland goes to S. And finally, Romania. I like Romania very much. Um, it has a
[44:31] fantastic history. It has a fantastic modern history. Nikolai and Elena Chowescu, you know, the the communist dictator and his wife who were sumearily executed upon the fall of communism there. It has a fascinating Ottoman history, a medieval history, even an ancient history. It's an Orthodox Christian country. So, the cathedrals are magnificent. And it just this year
[45:02] opened the largest Orthodox church on the planet. It also has Transylvania, which is very beautiful and very heavily forested. It's a great place, but it's got crime. I was out in Bucharest one night with a buddy of mine. We went to a concert at the uh at the Bucharest Symphony Hall and then we went out for beers afterwards. And as we were walking through this park on our way back to our hotel, one guy, a Romanian guy walked up
[45:36] to us and said, "Hey, do you want to change some money?" And I said, "No." And then another guy came out of the bushes and he he holds this badge. He says, "Police, I need to talk to you. Uh, illegal money laundering." I said, "Go yourself." And I kept walking. And the guy thought better of it and just walked away. This was a well-known scam. And I had been warned that this was a scam. And then um the next day I ran into somebody at the hotel who said, "Hey, listen. There's
[46:07] this scam you should know about." And he described this. I said, "No, no, no." I went through it last night. I told the guy to go himself and he walked away. So, this kind of petty petty crime takes place. Uh there are a lot of, you know, there there there's a homeless problem in Bucharest. There are a lot of poor people. There are a lot of uh of um what's the word we're using now? Unhoused people. There's a large Roma community that has its own scams going. So, I think I'm gonna have to
[46:39] give Romania a C. Yeah, I think it belongs at C. At letter C, no pun intended. Been to a lot more countries than that. We can talk about more of those later, but in the meantime, I'm going to wrap it up there. So, folks, thank you so very much for joining us for another episode of the briefing room. I would like to thank our producers, John Ball and Victoria von Perz. Please keep your
[47:09] comments coming. We're going to read, we do read all of them. We're going to do more Q&As's next week. Please tell your friends and your family about us. And continue to like, to share, to subscribe, and to review. We are only able to keep this going because of you. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I'm John Kuryaku. We'll see you next time.