American Women Suck

Hint: It doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. Let’s be honest: even when you love fitness (like I do), you’re going to get bored sometimes. You’ll wake up and feel meh about your workout. You’ll go through the motions. You’ll wonder if something’s wrong with you — or if you just need to switch it all up completely. I get it. I’ve been there too. But here’s what I’ve learned after a decade of training, competing, and showing up no matter what: Boredom isn’t a red flag. It’s part of the process. Why Boredom Happens — Even When You Love Training Most people start working out because they want change. They’re excited. Motivated. They’re chasing a goal, a version of themselves they haven’t met yet. But as the months go by, that newness wears off. You’ve hit your first milestones. The gains are slower. The workouts start to feel familiar. Maybe even repetitive. That’s normal. The truth is, fitness isn’t always thrilling. Even the most elite athletes have days where training feels flat. What separates those who keep going? They learn how to work with the boredom — instead of constantly trying to escape it. So What Can You Do? If you’re in a rut, here are a few ways to re-energize your workouts — without throwing away everything you’ve built: 1. Train for a Skill, Not Just a Burn Sometimes we get stuck in output mode: burn calories, hit reps, sweat hard. But skill-based training can wake up your brain and body. Try: Handstands Pull-up progressions Jump rope variations Pistol squats or balance drills Give yourself permission to suck at something new. 2. Change the Format, Not the Content You don’t need all-new exercises — just a different container. If you normally do timed intervals, try reps. If you always do circuits, try EMOMs or ladders. If you usually follow strict structure, give yourself a freestyle “movement jam” day. Tiny changes = fresh focus. 3. Cycle Your Intensity You don’t have to go hard every day. In fact, you shouldn’t. Try alternating: Hard days (HIIT, sprints, plyometrics) Skill days (lower heart rate, focus on control) Recovery days (walks, mobility, low-impact strength) You’ll feel fresher — and more motivated — when your nervous system isn’t constantly fried. 4. Add Play or Challenge Movement doesn’t have to be so serious. Set a fun mini-challenge for the week. Try a new sport. Train outside. Race yourself on a benchmark workout. Create a silly goal that makes you smile — like holding a plank during commercial breaks. Play keeps you coming back. Final Thought: Don’t Panic. Keep Going. If you’re feeling bored, it doesn’t mean you’re off track. It just means you’ve been at this a while. And that’s a good thing. The real power of fitness isn’t found in the early “honeymoon” phase. It’s found in the seasons when you keep showing up, even when it’s not thrilling. Even when it’s just… solid. That’s how you build something that lasts. The post What to Do When You’re Bored with Your Workouts appeared first on 12 Minute Athlete. View the full article

You don’t stop a nuclear program by deliberately targeting families. You just abandon the idea that anything is off-limits. The recent revelation that Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Sadati-Armaki was killed along with his entire family – his wife, two daughters, and son – in an Israeli airstrike should stop even hardened strategists in their tracks. This wasn’t just a precision strike. It was an execution of a household. Sadati-Armaki was not a senior official. He was a mid-level scientist—an engineer working within Iran’s nuclear framework. That role may have made him a target in the logic of modern conflict. But nothing, not even that logic, can justify killing his children in their own home. This wasn’t an isolated incident. On June 13, at least five other nuclear scientists were killed in Israeli strikes across Tehran: Fereydoon Abbasi, Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, Abdolhamid Minouchehr, Ahmadreza Zolfaghari Daryani, and Seyed Amir Hossein Feghhi. Their credentials tied them to Iran’s nuclear program. All had played some role, technical or administrative, in Iran’s nuclear development. None were combatants. Most were academics. Some had already retired from state positions. Crucially, they weren’t alone. In multiple reported cases, family members died alongside them. Wives. Daughters. The daughter of a senior official. Read more Israel’s war on Iran is not about nuclear weapons These were not errant missiles landing in crowded urban spaces. These were targeted strikes on homes, in residential areas, at night, when families were together. This isn’t the fog of war. It is its deliberate weaponization. The children didn’t make enrichment policy. The spouses didn’t oversee uranium labs. But they died because of proximity—because they were related to someone deemed dangerous. To call this “collateral damage” is cowardice. When decision-makers approve a strike on a home, knowing who sleeps inside, the outcome is no longer an accident. It is a choice. Some argue that in an asymmetrical war, deterrence must be personal. But this is not deterrence—it’s liquidation. It suggests that no civilian life adjacent to state infrastructure is worth preserving. It sends the message that not even scientists’ families will be spared, as if moral limits are luxuries we can no longer afford. This is not a defense of Iran’s nuclear posture. It is a defense of the basic principle that families—children—cannot be combatants. If we abandon that line, we are not winning anything. We are declaring that fear is stronger than law, that vengeance is smarter than diplomacy. Killing scientists’ families doesn’t dismantle programs. It doesn’t prevent future threats. It only makes peace more remote and retaliation more likely. What we normalize now, others will imitate later. READ MORE: Deterrence or death: Israel is making the case for a nuclear-armed Iran This is not strength. It is strategic and moral collapse. And if this is where warfare is headed, then everyone—regardless of nationality—should be deeply, urgently afraid. View the full article

Facts and numbers make his Russia-Hitler comparisons laughably hypocritical Anniversaries can be opportunities. For better or worse. In the case of the recent anniversary of Nazi Germany’s massive attack on the Soviet Union of 22 June 1941 – code-named Operation Barbarossa by the Germans – Ukraine’s beyond best-by-date president Vladimir Zelensky went for the worst. Using his own Telegram channel, Zelensky shared his bizarre view of why that anniversary mattered. In short, because it can serve in the information war against Russia. “Eighty years ago,” the Kiev regime leader wrote, “the world overcame Nazism and swore ‘Never again.’ But today Russia is repeating the crimes of the Nazis […] Now Ukrainians are fighting against rashism [a pejorative term fusing the words “Russia” and “fascism”] with the same courage with which our ancestors defeated Nazism…” Where to begin? Why not with the obvious: IF Russia were following Nazi examples, then much of Ukraine would now look like, for instance, Gaza. And while every death is a tragedy, the numbers of Ukrainian civilians killed in the Ukraine War would be of an entirely different order of magnitude. This is not a matter of opinion. It’s a fact that can be quantified and proven: As of the end of May, the UN counted about 13,279 Ukrainian civilians killed, since the beginning of the large-scale fighting in February 2022. It is true that the UN also warns that these are conservative, minimum figures. Read more Kiev sends the living to die, but won’t accept its dead Yet consider some figures for Gaza under Israeli genocidal assault since October 2023. As of early June, the enclave’s health ministry – generally acknowledged as reliable and also conservative with its numbers, notwithstanding Israeli and Western propaganda – has counted over 55,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza alone (Israel’s victims in the West bank and elsewhere should, of course, not be forgotten.) The Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between resistance fighters and civilians, but there is a virtual expert consensus that the share of the latter is unusually high, as you would expect during a genocide. A peer-reviewed study in the prestigious and unbiased medical journal The Lancet, for instance, has estimated that 59.1% of deaths between October 2023 and June 2024 were women, children, and the elderly. Other equally reputable organizations have even estimated around 90% of civilian casualties in Gaza. Keep in mind that the above is deliberately restricted to minimum estimates. As The Lancet has also shown, the real death toll in Gaza is likely to be far higher. Let’s also not even dwell here on “details,” such as that Gaza now has the highest concentration of child amputees in the world. For even the bare figures cited suffice to gain a sense of proportion and perspective: Gaza, before the Israeli mass murder attack had a total population of between 2.2 and 2.4 million. Ukraine’s total population on the eve of the large-scale escalation of February 2022 was just over 41 million, according to Ukrainian official sources. Read more Truce or trap? Ukraine makes sure peace talks go nowhere And now compare the numbers of civilian casualties and the total populations. It is obvious: If Vladimir Zelensky is looking for a state that uses methods – if that is the word – of Nazi warfare, then that would be Israel, not Russia. But he cannot say that because Israel is aligned with the US and the West, just like his own regime. Figures can help expose blatant lies, especially when they are as stunningly unambiguous as in this case. But the quantitative isn’t everything, obviously. What about what social scientists and historians – such as me – call the qualitative dimension? In other words, what about what makes people tick? In that regard, the West’s proxy war against Russia and via Ukraine has seen one of the most successful operations of political whitewashing in recent memory. Before Kiev, first under Zelensky’s predecessor Petro Poroshenko and then under Zelensky himself, turned Ukraine into a Western tool and battering ram against Russia, at least some Western experts and even mainstream media were well aware that Ukraine had a rapidly growing, increasingly powerful, and extremely subversive (domestically and internationally) far-right movement. As of 2014, even the BBC was still admitting that Ukrainian media and politicians were deliberately “underplaying” the potency and significance of their far-right. But then, as if on command, Western mainstream media united to belittle this malevolent force, pretending that it was either hardly there (and any impressions to the contrary were, of course, “Russian disinformation”), really harmless (a handful of misunderstood “patriots” with a few tattoos that look Nazi but are really just Tolkien), or on the mend, undergoing a steady and, of course, totally honest conversion to mainstream politics. Read more Ukraine’s shame: Why Kiev refuses to take back its dead and wounded What happened in reality was that instead of adjusting to the Western “value” mainstream or Center – wherever that supposedly might be – the Ukrainian far right succeeded in making that mainstream adjust to its will. Probably because real-existing Western “values” have a genuine affinity to fascism anyhow. Now with the West’s war going badly, as even Western media have to recognize, even French paper of record Le Monde – as russophobic and rarara-proxy war as its worst peers in the US – has noticed that far-right, indeed strictly Neo-Nazi tendencies – polite expression – are alive and kicking in key units of Ukraine’s armed forces. Dear colleagues from France: Congratulations! And you should see the politics. Since the West and Ukraine are losing the war, expect more of such shocked re-discoveries of what every objective observers has known for a long time: In the Ukraine War, the home of men and women who genuinely enjoy displaying Nazi symbols – from the swastika to the Wolfsangel to the sun wheel – is in Ukraine. That does not mean that the majority of Ukrainians side with them. But their regime and its controlled media do. The same regime and media droning on about Russia and Nazis. As they – rightly – say about Israel, so about the Zelensky regime: Every accusation is a confession. View the full article

Words like “net zero,” “decarbonization,” and “climate justice” sound pure and benevolent, yet behind them stands an apparatus of control Western Europe’s new green regime reorders the continent through policies of territorial cleansing and restriction, replacing the lifeways of rooted peoples with a managed wilderness shaped by remote technocrats and mandated compliance. What arrives with the language of environmental deliverance advances as a mechanism of control, engineered to dissolve ancestral bonds. In the soft light of the northern dawn, when the fog rests over fields once furrowed by hands and prayers, a quiet force spreads, cloaked in green, speaking in the language of “sustainability,” offered with the glow of planetary care. Across Europe, policymakers, consultants, and unelected “visionaries” enforce a grand design of regulation and restraint. The new dogma wears the trappings of salvation. It promises healing, stability, and ecological redemption. Yet beneath the surface lies a different pattern: one of compression, centralization, and engineered transformation. This green wave comes through offices aglow with LED light and carbon dashboards, distant from the oak groves and shepherd chants that once shaped Europe through destiny and devotion. Traditional Europe lived through the pulse of the land, its customs drawn from meadows, its laws mirrored in trees, its faith carried by the wind over tilled soil and cathedral towers. The terms arrive prepackaged: “rewilding,” “net zero,” “decarbonization,” and “climate justice.” These sound pure, ringing with the cadence of science and morality. Their syllables shimmer with precision, yet behind their clarity stands an apparatus of control, drawn from abstract algorithms rather than ancestral experience. They conceal a deeper impulse: to dissolve density, to steer the population from the scattered villages of memory into the smart cities of control. The forest returns, yet the shepherd departs. The wolves are celebrated, while the farmer disappears from policy. Across the hills of France, the valleys of Italy, and the plains of Germany, the primordial cadence falls silent. Where once rose smoke from chimneys, now rise sensors tracking deer. Where once stood barns, now appear habitats for reintroduced apex predators. Rural life, the fundament of Europe’s civilizational ascent, receives accolades in speeches, even as its arteries are quietly severed. The continent reshapes itself according to new models, conceived in simulation and consecrated in policy. Entire regions are earmarked for rewilding, which means exclusion, which means transformation through absence. The human imprint recedes, and in its place rises a curated silence: measured, observed, and sanctified by distance. The bond between man and land, established over centuries of cultivation, ritual, and kinship, gives way to managed wilderness. Yet this wilderness unfolds without its own rhythm, shaped and maintained through remote observation and coded intention. It remains indexed and administered. Every creature bears a tracking chip. Every tree falls under statistical oversight. Drones scan the canopies. Bureaucrats speak of ecosystems the way accountants speak of balance sheets. The sacred space, once alive with sacrifice and harvest, turns into a green exhibit in the managerial museum of Europe. Read more It’s 2025, but Africans are still in chains. Why? The aesthetic of this transformation appeals to the tired soul. It soothes through smoothness. It promises purpose through compliance. Children plant trees in asphalt courtyards. Urban rooftops grow lettuce in sterile trays. A continent begins to believe that its salvation lies in subtraction. Strip the carbon. Strip the industry. Strip the traditions, the redundancies, the excesses. What remains is framed as harmony. Yet harmony without heroism becomes stillness. Stillness, when imposed, becomes silence. Europe’s past rose through motion, through sacred striving, through sacred conflict, through the tension between man and mountain. Now, in this new green order, motion flows only where permitted, and striving surrenders to “stability.” Among those who carry memory – the shepherd, the blacksmith, the hunter, the midwife – a different vision grows. These are not relics of a dying world. They are seeds of the world to come, emerging from the deep soil of memory and form. Their force flows through reverence, drawn from the old ways and aimed towards creation. With hands open to innovation and hearts anchored in continuity, they shape change as inheritance rather than rupture. They seek continuity through transformation: a rooted futurism. The soil speaks to them as kin, rich with memory and promise. The forest reveals itself as dwelling and companion, alive with presence and bound in shared calling. The river speaks as guide and witness, flowing through generations with the clarity of purpose and the grace of return. Their dream aligns spirit with structure and myth with machine. A modern Europe, strong in technology and rich in spirit, can rise from this convergence, from drone-guided agriculture rooted in ancestral cycles, from solar-powered cathedrals, from cities shaped by tribe and territory rather than algorithm. A new cultural-political synthesis begins to shimmer at the horizon: a Europe that does not apologize for its existence, that does not dilute its soul in the name of abstraction. This Europe sees no contradiction between wildness and order, between ecology and identity. The task ahead affirms the weight of memory, welcomes the challenge of tomorrow, and calls for the creation of something worthy: a sovereign Europe, sovereign in its landscapes, in its symbols, in its will. The green order, when guided by myth and martial clarity, becomes a chariot of ascent rather than an instrument of decline. This chariot waits for archeofuturist hands to seize the reins. Europe faces the spiral once again. The question begins with data and temperature, then moves toward destiny, where Europe takes form through choice and vision. Shall the continent become a tranquil reserve, watched over by regulators and predators, or shall it rise as a living organism, composed of people, memory, sacrifice, and sacred continuity? A new green is possible, one that does not obliterate the past, one that does not silence the song of the soil, one that does not flatten the face of the continent. This green shall sing through the voice of those who plow and those who build, those who fight and those who remember. It waits in the wind, in the fire, in the stone. The awakening begins with vision, and the vision already stirs in the veins of the land. View the full article

In this world we are all subjected to various ways of life. When we select an option, we cannot convince people to make changes. All we can do is to present options and explain how the choice we made worked for us. So, veganism denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as possible and practical, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose. It also promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals, and the environment. The word “vegan” is newer and more challenging than “vegetarian”. “Vegan” includes every sentient being in its circle of concern and addresses all forms of unnecessary cruelty from an essentially ethical perspective. With a motivation of compassion rather than health or purity, “vegan” points to an ancient idea that has been articulated for many centuries, especially in the world’s spiritual traditions. “Vegan” will hopefully indicate a mentality of expansive inclusiveness and is able to embrace science and virtually all religions because it is a manifestation of the yearning for universal peace, justice, wisdom and freedom. The contemporary vegan movement is founded on loving-kindness and mindfulness of our effects on others. It is revolutionary because it transcends and renounces the violent core of the “herding culture” in which we live. In some cases, it is founded on individuals living their truth of interconnectedness and thereby minimizing the suffering we impose on animals, humans and bio-systems; it will also take us away from the slavery of becoming mere commodities. “Veganism” also signifies the birth of a new consciousness, the resurrection of intelligence and compassion, and the basic rejection of cruelty and domination. It also gives us hope for the future of our species because it addresses the cause rather than being concerned merely with effects. From this new consciousness we feel we can accomplish virtually anything. It represents the fundamental, positive, personal, and cultural transformation that we yearn for, and it requires that we change something basic – our eating habits. It’s funny how we want transformation without having to change! Yet, the fundamental transformation called for today requires the most fundamental change – a change in our relationship to food and to animals, which will cause a change in our behavior. To some, becoming vegan looks like a superficial step. Can something so simple really change us? We believe it does. Given the power of childhood programming and our culture’s insensitivity to violence against animals, authentically becoming a committed vegan can only be the result of a genuine spiritual breakthrough. In the Vedic culture, the cow was considered to be one of the “mothers of mankind”. Today, the cow is viewed in terms of dollars and cents relegating our net worth to be measured in dollars as cows are sold by the pound. The suppression of awareness required by our universal practice of making a commodity out of life, enslaving, and killing animals for food generates the built-in mental disorder of denial that drives us toward the destruction, not only of ourselves, but of other living creatures and systems of this earth. This practice of exploiting and brutalizing animals for food has come to be regarded as normal, natural and unavoidable and it has become invisible. Eating animals is thus an unrecognized foundation of consumerism, the pseudo-religion of our modern world. Because our greatest desensitization involves eating, we inevitably become desensitized consumers devoid of compassion and caring little of how what is on our plate got there. If you really believe any living being facing death would actually feel like saying, “kill me, kill me, please kill me”, you have got to be kidding. The stark reality is that when any animal is faced with death their adrenalin flows like crazy and their fear hormones proliferates their body and stays there until you eat it. And you wonder why most people are angry and hostile. There are some Interesting parallels between what we ingest and the consistent transformation of the flu virus. With the latest dietary guidelines calling for three servings of low-fat or non-fat dairy a day, the average family with two kids now consumes more than 85 gallons of milk a year. What the government does not tell you, nor enforces the removal of, is that most liquid fat is filled with carcinogens and antibodies. Cows digest dioxins, an industrial by-product and a known carcinogen, when they eat contaminated grass. Milk that is conventionally produced often comes from cows that are raised under disturbing farm conditions in that they may graze on pastures that have been treated with pesticides, herbicides and sludge. When the cattle are not let outside, they feed on dried grass and hay, which may be GMO, and fish meal, which may contain PCBs and mercury. Cows in conventional farms are often given antibiotics, even when they are healthy, to prevent them from getting sick. In some factory farms, thousands of cows are crammed inside barns to allow easy access for milking. Their milk production can be forced beyond normal capacity through Bayer/Monsanto’s synthetic growth hormones called rBST. Studies show that these cows are more susceptible to diseases because their natural life cycle is being distorted. So, when you eat something that comes from a plant or an animal that has been tampered with by the “superior” intelligence of humans, that item you consumed becomes a part of you on a molecular level. If cows ingest hormones, antibiotics, antibodies and carcinogens, and you eat or drink anything from that cow, you are ingesting those same antibiotics, antibodies and carcinogens. Time after time we self-medicate ourselves and in many instances, over-medicate. Rather than let your immune system do its job, you do it and pop a pill. There are times when external medication is possibly needed, like when you experience an allergic reaction to something that puts your immune system into overdrive and you need a histamine blocker to keep your immune system from causing you harm. The flu virus is not one of those incidents. Each year millions of people line up like good little lemmings to take their flu shots. The shot you take is actually a strand or strands of either dead or weakened flu viruses. With this in mind, your immune system sends out antibodies in response, and the belief is that that will keep you safe from the flu until next year. But, we’ve been filling our bodies with antibiotics through our food. And, although the milk supply is tested before it reaches consumers to make sure it doesn’t contain antibiotics, the overuse of these medications might contribute to the rise of drug-resistant bacteria, making some disease more difficult to treat. This is one of the main reasons that the flu virus mutates year after year. It certainly appears that the flu virus is more intelligent than humans. We keep trying to vaccinate and ward off all these viruses and bacteria, but this forces them to mutate over and over. Look at it mathematically: if you have a virus you treat it with antibiotics to kill it, which is similar to a vaccine, except the antibiotic does the actual work of your immune system. In the process, some of the virus may not be eradicated and those antibodies have now formed the virus to mutate. Next time around you might have some of the original virus and the mutated form to try and kill. So, what do we do? We create another medication or vaccine against the two, and in turn, the second mutates again and maybe even the original strand creates yet another new strand giving you three or more. What a lose lose situation! What then can you do to stay healthy during flu season? For one thing, never ever touch your hands to your face, especially your mouth. Think about what you could transmit from what you touch: handles, doorknobs, faucets, other hands, and even worse, money, which is probably the dirtiest of the dirty. Next, you might want to consider eating to build your immune system: A vegan diet centered around organically produced vegetables, fruits, grains and seeds will hopefully give you optimum nutrition. What about fish, you ask? What about mercury, PCBs, and toxic waste, I ask? Wage a war against your tongue and allow your intelligence to prevail. And above all, if man made it, don’t eat it. Nutritional supplements are beneficial as well. If I had to choose one, it would be organic sulfur crystals. Why? Because viruses cannot survive in an oxygenated environment, which is what the sulfur crystals release to permeate the cells and restore them to their natural healthy condition. Even if someone had a stroke the crystals will bring the brain back to normal. For more info on the crystals go to www.healthtalkhawaii.com/Products. Be aware of changes in the weather and dress accordingly to keep your body heat secure. It might be good to drink plenty of unfluoridated water and fresh juices, power the anti-oxidants, never stop exercising and get good rest and sleep. Also, as a parting word, Dr. Russell Blaylock, a prominent neurologist, has said that when a senior takes a flu shot for five straight years, Alzheimer’s is right around the corner So, if the food had a face or a mother, leave it alone! Aloha! Sources; www.vegansociety.com www.healthline.com The post Is there a diet that promotes good health? appeared first on NaturalNewsBlogs. View the full article

Making healthy eating choices doesn’t have to be complicated and sometimes we learn quite a bit along the way. Baking and grilling are healthier cooking methods versus frying (in most cases), but is it possible that between the two, that either baking or grilling is “healthier”?? To explore this question, chicken can be discussed as the food to be baked or grilled. A basic piece of chicken is about 3.5 ounces (100 grams). When it is skinless and boneless, it contains about 110-120 calories and about 20 grams of protein and no carbohydrates and minimal fat (if any around 3 grams). BAKING Most baking is done in an oven using dry heat to cook the food. It is called indirect cooking because no flame makes contact with the food. Steam and dry heat in the oven do the cooking. Chicken is typically baked at 350°F but can vary if it is in a covered versus uncovered pan or how high it is placed on the oven rack. If the chicken is baked at too high a temperature, nutrients can be compromised. Some vitamins are heat-sensitive, which include Vitamin B1, Vitamin C, and Pantothenic Acid (type of B vitamin). GRILLING When food is grilled, it usually cooks faster because direct heat is used. An open flame is used. Moisture and fat can melt away and at the same time those same water-soluble vitamins (Vitamin B1, Vitamin C, and Pantothenic Acid) can be dissolved and lost. The taste might be drier/smokier than baked chicken. RESULT The difference between baked and grilled chicken in terms of which is “healthier”, is marginal. The National Cancer Institute (NIH) has determined that cooking at high temperatures on an open flame can produce carcinogens. This does not hold true for baking. If the concern is weight loss or diet related for choosing to bake or grill, then there would not be a difference. If worried about possible cancer-causing agents, then baking would be safer. In the end, both are better than frying, but the tell winner would have to baking as the overall “healthier” version of chicken for us to consume. (PDF) “It’s Important but, on What Level?”: Healthy Cooking Meanings and Barriers to Healthy Eating among University Students Meat and Human Health—Current Knowledge and Research Gaps – PMC Effects of grilling procedures on levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in grilled meats – ScienceDirect Effect of Baking Temperature and Time on Advanced Glycation End Products and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Beef – ScienceDirect The post Baked vs Grilled – Which meat preparation is healthier?? appeared first on NaturalNewsBlogs. View the full article

Boils under the skin are an infection that can be painful and tender. They are filled with pus and are the result of a hair follicle being inflamed. Boils are called “furuncles” and first appear as a bump. It might look a little red or purple, but they will soon grow, and more pus will fill the area. Common areas boils are found are on the face, thighs, buttocks, armpits, and neck. When there is a cluster of boils in one of these areas it is called a carbuncle. In most cases, they can be alleviated with at home care, but sometimes infections take a turn and become worse. They’re not to be pinched or squeezed, but some people make this mistake initially not knowing what they have or what to do. A boil can get as big as up to 2 inches or more. The area gets swollen and the pus becomes visible. Then a tip forms at the tip of the bump that eventually will “pop”/rupture and pus will release from it. A boil is caused by the bacterium called Staphylococcus aureus. The bacterium likes to dwell in the nose and enter through hair follicles or any small entry such as a mosquito bite. This means that anyone can develop a boil no matter how healthy their lifestyle might be. However, some people are at higher risk such as those who have diabetes because they’re unable to fight infections as well as non-diabetics. People with acne and eczema are also at risk because of the tiny entries the bacterium could enter through. Coming into contact with a person who has a staph infection can also put someone at higher risk to get a boil. Boils are a good example of why we should keep wounds covered. They also remind us not to share razors and personal items like sheets. Staph infections do spread through objects so always wash shared items. Simple hand washing is the greatest defense towards germs spreading. Using a warm compress is the first measure for treatment. Pressure can be applied but not to intentionally rupture it. Again, DO NOT pinch or squeeze the boil. If the boil is not healing after about 2 weeks, then seeking medical attention is recommended. Natural ways to help suppress the boil are to use a warm compress, apply tea tree oil and/or castor oil, and to use turmeric which helps with inflammation. Other signs the boil might be more serious would be if it causes a fever or continues to get bigger. Our skin is out protective layer that can be vulnerable to many conditions. Our immunity and lifestyle are determinates of how our skin can respond and react to what or who it encounters. When protection is threatened, pay attention to your skin and treat any possible signs of damage or illness appropriately and safely. Interventions for bacterial folliculitis and boils (furuncles and carbuncles) – PMC What are the benefits and risks of different treatments for bacterial folliculitis and boils (inflammation of the skin around hairs)? | Cochrane Overview: Boils and carbuncles – InformedHealth.org – NCBI Bookshelf (PDF) Review on Ulcers, Boils with their Bacterial and Fungal Causes The post Boils – Inflamed hair follicles appeared first on NaturalNewsBlogs. View the full article

Brussels has rallied behind Israel, asking Iran to please stop bleeding on the carpet Israel flew over to Iran with fighter jets and has since gone totally ballistic – literally and figuratively. So what does the European Union’s insane clown posse have to say about it? Get yourself some popcorn. The Eurojokers are doing their best stand-up comedy again without even realizing it. First up: French President Emmanuel Macron, who took to social media to declare that “peace and security for all in the region must remain our guiding principle.” Aww, how sweet. Calling for peace while holding your buddy’s coat as he storms into the bar to punch someone in the face. So after Israel unilaterally launched its hundred-target missile tantrum across Tehran – complete with residential hits and assassinations – maybe some strong words against that kind of thing are in order? “France has repeatedly condemned Iran’s ongoing nuclear program and has taken all appropriate diplomatic measures in response. In this context, France reaffirms Israel’s right to defend itself and ensure its security,” Macron posted as the conflict kicked off. Classic French parenting: Ignore the kid setting the house on fire and scold the one who looked at him funny. Next up, Germany. Surely the new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, can inject some sober logic into the conversation about who just broke the fragile regional peace everyone’s pretending to care about. “Iran has subsequently threatened to accelerate uranium enrichment again. This nuclear program violates the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and poses a serious threat to the entire region, especially to the State of Israel. We reaffirm that Israel has the right to defend its existence and the security of its citizens. We call on both sides to refrain from steps that could lead to further escalation and destabilize the entire region,” Merz wrote. Oh, so now that Israel has attacked Iran, it’s time for restraint? Not before. Not during. After. Like a guy who throws the first punch in a bar fight and then shouts, “Hey! Let’s all calm down!” Read more Israel’s war on Iran is not about nuclear weapons Both Macron and Merz say that Iran brought this on itself by enriching uranium. That’s like this: you’ve got a neighbor who lifts weights in his home gym. You see him through the window with a squat rack, bench press, treadmill – getting jacked. And you’re like, “Wow, he’s getting so ripped I’m afraid he might beat me up someday. So I better go over there now and beat him up while I still can.” That’s basically what Israel did with its “preemptive” strike. And Macron and Merz are cheering it on like, “Totally! That guy was getting too buff. Definitely deserved a missile to the face.” Then Merz added from the G7 summit in Canada: “This is the dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us. We are also victims of this regime.” Oh, sorry – didn’t realize the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had hired Israel as a global bouncer. And remind us, Friedrich: where exactly did Iran touch Germany on the map? Because Europe is far more likely to be “victimized” by waves of immigration facilitated by its own lax policies, and sparked by its own support for regime change wars – like this one is shaping up to be – than by any distant centrifuge. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the EU’s de facto queen, is now cosplaying as global playground monitor, sending all the boys to their corners. “Europe urges all parties to exercise maximum restraint, de-escalate immediately and refrain from retaliation. A diplomatic resolution is now more urgent than ever, for the sake of the region’s stability and global security,” she wrote. Maximum restraint? That’s rich – especially coming from someone who’s usually all about blowing €800 billion on weapons in bulk like a redneck doomsday cult stocking up for when Russian tanks finally roll up to the McDonald’s drive thru in Warsaw – five years from now, around 2030, she and the rest of the Eurojokers keep saying. Read more Trump says ‘chill,’ Bibi goes full thrill. So, who’s in charge of the Middle East? “Of course I think a negotiated solution is, in the long term, the best solution,” she later said. Sure – as long as peace doesn’t get in the way of endless proxy war in Ukraine, right? So, is anyone in Europe offering a perspective that doesn’t sound like a hostage video scripted by Netanyahu’s PR team? Not really. The Wall Street Journal summed it up bluntly: “Europe backs Israel against Iran despite anger over Gaza.” For actual dissent, you have to look just outside the EU. “Israel’s attacks on our neighbor Iran are a clear provocation that disregards international law. These attacks, which come at a time when negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program are intensifying and international pressure is increasing against inhumane actions targeting Gaza, demonstrate Israel’s rule-breaking mentality. The Netanyahu administration is trying to drag our region and the entire world into disaster with its reckless, aggressive and lawless actions,” wrote Turkish President Recep Erdogan from right next door to the EU clown tent. Türkiye has been waiting to join the EU since 1999 – like an Amazon package left on the doorstep, permanently. Gee, wonder why. You’d think that when things get this hot, Europe might welcome some diverse opinions – if only to avoid sounding like a chorus line of brain-dead sock puppets mouthing press releases from the Israeli defense ministry. View the full article

It is, and has always been, about regime change and breaking the Axis of Resistance The claim that has been adopted by the United States, Israel and its European partners, that the attack on Iran was a “pre-emptive” attempt to stop Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, is demonstrably false. It holds about as much weight as the allegations against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in 2003 and this war of aggression is just as illegal. For the best part of four decades, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been claiming that Iran is on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon. Yet, every single attempt to strike a deal which would bring more monitoring and restrictions to Iran’s nuclear program has been systematically dismantled by Israel and its powerful lobbying groups in Western capitals. In order to properly assess Israel’s attack on Iran, we have to establish the facts in this case. The Israeli leadership claim to have launched a pre-emptive strike, but have presented no evidence to support their allegations that Iran was on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon. Simply stating this does not serve as proof, it is a claim, similar to how the US told the world Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Back in March, the US Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard testified before a Senate Intelligence Committee that the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” On top of this, Iran was actively participating in indirect negotiations with the US to reach a new version of the 2015 Nuclear Deal. Donald Trump announced Washington would unilaterally withdraw from the agreement in 2018, instead pursuing a “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign at the behest of Israel. Read more Trump says ‘chill,’ Bibi goes full thrill. So, who’s in charge of the Middle East? Despite the claims of Netanyahu and Trump that Iran was violating the Nuclear Deal, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a report which stated Iran was in full compliance with the deal at the time. If you trace back every conversation with neo-conservatives, Israeli war hawks and Washington-based think tanks, their opposition to the Obama-era Nuclear Deal always ends up spiraling into the issues of Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for regional non-State actors. Israeli officials frequently make claims about Iran producing a nuclear weapon in “years”, “months” or even “weeks,” this has become almost second nature. Yet their main issue has always been with Iran’s support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, who strive for the creation of a Palestinian State. Proof of this all is simple. Israel, by itself, cannot destroy Iran’s vast nuclear program. It is not clear the US can destroy it either, even if it enters the war. An example of the US’ ineffectiveness at penetrating Iranian-style bunkers, built into mountainous ranges, as many of Iran’s nuclear facilities are, was demonstrated through the American failure to destroy missile storage bases in Yemen with its bunker-buster munitions, which were dropped from B-2 bombers. Almost immediately after launching his war on Iran, Netanyahu sent out a message in English to the Iranian people, urging them to overthrow their government in an attempt to trigger civil unrest. The Israeli prime minister has since all but announced that regime change is his true intention, claiming that the operation “may lead” to regime change. Israel’s own intelligence community and military elites have also expressed their view that their air force alone is not capable of destroying the Iranian nuclear program. So why then launch this war, if it is not possible to achieve the supposed reason it was “pre-emptively” launched? Read more MAGA’s Civil War: Who dares to take on the Israel lobby? There are two possible explanations: The first is that the Israeli prime minister has launched this assault on Iran as a final showdown in his “seven front war,” with which he hopes to conclude the regional conflict through a deadly exchange that will ultimately inflict damage on both sides. In this scenario, the desired outcome would be to conclude the war with the claim that Netanyahu has succeeded at destroying or has significantly degraded Iran’s nuclear program. He would also throw in claims, like we already see him making, that huge amounts of Iranian missiles and drones were eliminated. This would also make the opening Israeli strike, which killed senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders and nuclear scientists, make sense. It would all be the perfect blend of propaganda to sell a victory narrative. On the other hand, the assumption would be that Tehran would also claim victory. Then both sides are able to show the results to their people and tensions cool down for a while. If you are to read what the Washington-based think-tanks are saying about this, most notably The Heritage Foundation, they speak about the ability to contain the war. The second explanation, which could be an added bonus that the Israelis and US are hoping could come as a result of their efforts, is that this is a full-scale regime change war that is designed to rope in the US. Israel’s military prestige was greatly damaged in the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, and since that time there has been no victory achieved over any enemy. Hamas is still operating in Gaza and is said to have just as many fighters as when the war began, Hezbollah was dealt significant blows but is still very much alive, while Yemen’s Ansarallah has only increased its strength. This is an all round stunning defeat of the Israeli military and an embarrassment to the US. Read more The end of Israeli exceptionalism As is well known, Iran is the regional power that backs all of what is called the Axis of Resistance. Without it, groups like Hezbollah and Hamas would be significantly degraded. Evidently, armed resistance to Israeli occupation will never end as long as occupied people exist and live under oppressive rule, but destroying Iran would be devastating for the regional alliance against Israel. The big question however, is whether regime change is even possible. There is a serious question mark here and it seems much more likely that this will end up on a slippery slope to nuclear war instead. What makes the Israeli-US claim that this war is somehow pre-emptive, for which there is no proof at all, all the more ridiculous of a notion, is that if anything, Iran may now actually rush to acquire a nuclear weapon for defensive purposes. If they can’t even trust the Israelis not to bomb them with US backing, while negotiations were supposed to be happening, then how can a deal ever be negotiated? Even in the event that the US joins and deals a major blow to the Iranian nuclear program, it doesn’t mean that Iran will simply abandon the program altogether. Instead, Tehran could simply end up rebuilding and acquiring the bomb years later. Another outcome of this war could end up being Israeli regime change, which also appears as if it could now be on the table. View the full article

Moscow sees an opportunity in thawing India-China ties, but distrust, trade imbalances, and Western pressure complicate a RIC comeback India is still in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor, in which it watched as China actively supported Pakistan with hardware, intelligence and command and control, and global narrative building. China and India have had military showdowns on their borders every few years. The US-led NATO bloc is openly supporting Ukraine against Russia. As an adversary of the Americans, China has been tacitly backing Russia, while India, in its desire not to antagonize the US, has chosen a neutral stance on the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Russia is not exactly enthused about this. China, and to a lesser extent Russia, are not happy with India becoming active in the Quad, a visibly anti-China grouping of India, the US, Japan, and Australia. Much to India’s chagrin, Russia continues to engage with Pakistan, which it considers geographically important to safeguard its interests in Central Asia, but also to remind India to not get too close with the US. With India already the fourth-largest economy and among the fastest growing, both Russia and China have an interest in continuing to engage with it. If Russia can woo India away from the West, then Russia-India-China (RIC) can become an important bloc. The combined GDP – adjusted for purchasing power parity – of China (19.6%), India (8.23%), and Russia (3.48%) currently amounts to 31.31%. The economic influence of BRICS nations exceeds that of the G7. In 2025, RIC accounted for 37% of the global population. RIC is among the top 2025 global defense spenders after the US ($895 billion), with China ($266 billion), Russia ($126 billion), and India ($77 billion). In 2025, NATO member states spent $1.5 trillion on defense, which was 55% of global military expenditure. NATO is practically opposing only one country, Russia. Against this backdrop, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reaffirmed in May Moscow’s strong interest in reviving the Russia-India-China trilateral dialogue, citing improved India-China border ties. Russia accuses the West of trying to promote friction between India and China. The RIC formation RIC is an informal trilateral strategic grouping, originally conceptualized by Russia in the late 1990s as a counterbalance to Western dominance. It was the brainchild of former Russian Prime Minister Evgeny Primakov. Over the years, it has facilitated over 20 ministerial-level meetings, fostering cooperation in foreign policy, economics, & security among the three nations. Read more Say goodbye to cheap oil – and thank Israel and Iran while you’re at it The grouping comprises the three largest Eurasian countries, which occupy over 19% of the global landmass. All three are nuclear powers & Russia and China are permanent members of the UN Security Council. All three countries are also members of BRICS, the G20, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. RIC opposes unilateralism and supports the idea of a multipolar global governance model. It offers an alternative perspective on global issues, advocating for equity and reforms in global institutions. The grouping supports Eurasian integration through projects such as the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) and the Eurasian Economic Union. For India, the RIC format presents both opportunities and challenges. As India prioritizes strategic autonomy, it must balance opportunities in RIC and avoid being locked into any single camp, whether Western or non-Western. The grouping faced a major setback and became dormant after the 2020 Galwan Valley clashes between India and China. The ongoing border disputes and lack of trust between India and China remain a challenge. India’s growing ties with the West and its role in the Quad also complicate engagement with the RIC grouping. Russia’s growing closeness with China, especially in the wake of the Ukraine conflict, might also raise concerns in India about the impartiality of the RIC platform. Moscow has been reaching out to Beijing and New Delhi to ease the situation on the border. A thaw took place when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of the 16th BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia in October 2024. There have been 18 meetings of RIC foreign ministers. The last in-person meeting was held in Osaka on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in 2019. It was just the third such meeting in 12 years. The last ministerial-level RIC meeting was held online in November 2021. In Osaka, the three leaders spoke on the international situation, both the challenges on the economic side and of peace and stability. They stressed the need to strengthen the international system led by the UN. They also stressed the need to promote a multipolar world, a world in which there are many centers of influence and stability. Terrorism as a global scourge was discussed. To promote trilateral cooperation, more specific areas needed to be evolved. Challenges and advantages for strengthening RIC India has become a key partner of the US in its Indo-Pacific Strategy, in an effort to address China’s rising power. But the recent trade and tariff war may cast a negative shadow on the broader US-India strategic ties. It is no coincidence that the idea to push the RIC format has come amid these difficulties between the US and India. Read more As India and Pakistan eye each other, this superpower eyes the whole map Speaking at a security conference in Perm on May 29, Lavrov declared that “the time has come” to bring back the RIC mechanism, citing signs of deescalation in India-China border tensions. While trying to push multilateralism, each country has to defend their national interests. Undoubtedly, Russia has a strong and genuine interest in strengthening RIC. But will strengthening it help New Delhi manage American tariffs? India’s balance of payments with both RIC partners is also very unfavorable. If RIC becomes an anti-US group, it will not be good for China either, as its economy largely depends on trade with the West. Can the scope of RIC be expanded, with foreign policy, economic, trade, and financial agencies of the three countries working more closely together, with greater give-and-take on minerals, rare-earths, microchips, and other technologies? The growing Sino-Indian rivalry is expected to limit the range of issues in which members will be able to find consensus. Are RIC members ready for substantial military exercises between them without significant distrust? The answer is no. India wants Russia to join the Indo-Pacific initiative to signal that it’s not just a US-centric plan. India’s focus on economic links with the Russian Far East and activation of a Chennai-Vladivostok maritime corridor may help persuade Russia that its interests in the Pacific are compatible with India’s interest in diluting Chinese dominance in the Indo-Pacific; this also accords with Putin’s concept of a Greater Eurasia. Some analysts believe that by imposing harsh tariffs, the US is pushing New Delhi into Beijing’s lap. Would RIC tend towards becoming an anti-American alliance? As India prioritizes strategic autonomy, it would prefer to balance opportunities in RIC and avoid being locked into any single camp. The RIC countries, with important influence at international and regional levels and emerging market economies, need to further strengthen practical coordination on global and regional issues in the spirit of openness, solidarity, mutual understanding, and trust. Notwithstanding the bilateral asymmetries, India and China have no choice but to engage bilaterally and multilaterally on a range of issues, even while firmly protecting their own interests. China, India’s leading trade partner, has a significant role indeed in driving the Indian economy and creating high-quality manufacturing jobs, which is of course a sensitive political issue. Chinese analysts have taken note of a recent shift in the Indian policy to attract more Chinese investment. Read more This gathering showed why global power is shifting to the South The Chinese economy is heavily dependent on the American market. Some understanding on trade between the US and China will emerge sooner rather than later. This will also have dynamics for RIC – and with America’s global standing dipping a little, there could be a shift in the years ahead. Russia’s call to revive the RIC format reflects its strategic intent to bolster regional cooperation and counterbalance Western influence. It is in Russia’s interests to be a facilitator in India-China relations. Lavrov has flagged this issue now, before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s scheduled visit to India this year. Lavrov believes that a strengthened RIC will give India greater leverage to resist Western pressure and maintain strategic autonomy. Partnering with the two most populous countries gives Russia strength. The success of this trilateral initiative will depend on the political will of all three nations to navigate complex geopolitical dynamics and prioritize mutual interests. Perhaps the time has come for Primakov’s idea that the RIC triangle should become the symbol of the multipolar world and its core. There are contradictions in the RIC format that the US will continue to exploit. But the same is true for many other groupings. For RIC to succeed, India is a key player, and its sensitivities about China have to be assuaged. China has to pull back on its support for Pakistan and stop using Pakistan’s aerospace, nuclear, and missile build-up as leverage against India. Taking part in RIC will be an opportunity for India to showcase its strategic autonomy to a global audience and send a message to Washington, which has repeatedly expressed its displeasure over India’s close ties with Russia. View the full article

Behind the rhetoric, Israel’s offensive has revealed just how little control the US now wields If the Academy handed out Oscars for political theater, Donald Trump would be a shoo-in for the 2025 award for Worst Performance in a Leading Role. His latest remarks are less about statesmanship and more about saving face as global events spin far beyond the grasp of American diplomacy. And the harder he tries to project himself as a dealmaker pulling strings behind the scenes, the clearer it becomes: Western dominance is cracking, and Washington is reacting more on impulse than strategy. The latest flashpoint – the 2025 escalation between Israel and Iran – has exposed the crumbling illusion of American leadership. Despite Trump’s claim that he “convinced” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to strike Iran, the facts tell a different story. Netanyahu brushed off the advice and launched a sweeping assault on Iranian targets – not just military, but symbolic. In one bold move, he derailed already fragile nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran, revealing exactly who sets the agenda in the region now. Faced with this reality, US leaders had two choices: admit their influence over Israel had faded, or publicly support the strikes and cling to the image of leadership – even if it meant further undermining their credibility as a neutral arbiter. Unsurprisingly, they chose the latter. Backing Israel at the expense of diplomacy with Iran has become business as usual. Washington isn’t conducting the symphony anymore; it’s trying to stay in rhythm while the conductor’s baton is in someone else’s hand. So when Trump talks about having “leverage” over Israel, it sounds more like community theater than statesmanship. Even he doesn’t seem to believe the part he’s playing. In 2025, once again, the United States isn’t leading the charge – it’s being dragged along. And the more American leaders insist everything’s fine, the more obvious it becomes: the age of Western supremacy is fading out, in a blaze of theatrical flair that rivals Trump’s own off-script improvisations. Read more MAGA’s Civil War: Who dares to take on the Israel lobby? What did Trump actually say? A close look at Trump’s statements – and those from his administration – in the wake of Israel’s strike on Iran reveals a political paradox: while the US officially opposed escalation, it did nothing to stop it. Why? Because the political cost at home was too high. In an election year, Trump couldn’t risk a fight with one of the GOP’s most reliable bases: pro-Israel voters and the powerful lobbying machine behind them. Trump tried to play it both ways. On one hand, he said, “It wasn’t a surprise to me,” and claimed he neither endorsed nor blocked the strike. But just days earlier, he boasted: “I talked to Bibi. He promised not to do anything drastic. We held him back.” That’s a crucial detail. At least on the surface, the Trump White House wanted to avoid escalation. But once the missiles flew, Trump pivoted hard: “Israel has the right to defend itself.” “The US wasn’t involved in the operation.” “But if Iran hits us, we’ll hit back harder than ever.” This about-face reveals just how little influence Washington had. Netanyahu played the hand he wanted – defying US interests, derailing diplomacy, and still compelling American support. Warnings from Washington didn’t even register. Caught flat-footed, Trump scrambled to regain control with vague reassurances: “Iran might still get a second chance.” “We’re open to talks.” “Iranian officials are calling me. They want to talk.” These weren’t policy statements. They were PR – a bid to dodge blame for a failed containment strategy. His line that “I gave Iran a chance, but they didn’t take it” is less a fact and more a way to recast himself as the peacemaker – the guy who ended tensions between India and Pakistan and now promises to “make the Middle East great again.” Read more Fyodor Lukyanov: Here’s how the West made Israel-Iran war possible Is this genuine diplomacy? Or a carefully crafted performance aimed at domestic audiences – and international ones, too? Trump even welcomed Vladimir Putin as a potential mediator: “He’s ready. He called me. We had a long talk.” By doing so, he tried to recast the situation from an American failure to a global problem that needs collective resolution – conveniently shifting the spotlight away from US accountability. And while Trump played diplomat, Axios reported that Israel had actively lobbied for US participation in the strikes, and the Wall Street Journal revealed that Trump had promised Netanyahu he wouldn’t stand in the way. All signs point to this: any restraint Washington projected was a smokescreen for its inability – or unwillingness – to rein in its closest Middle Eastern ally. In the end, Israel got what it wanted. The US got sidelined. And Iran got a loud-and-clear message: America isn’t calling the shots. Netanyahu exploited the weaknesses baked into the US political system – proving once again that alliances don’t equal parity. And while Trump talks of giving Iran another chance, the truth is this: Washington is now playing by rules written in Jerusalem. What Comes Next? The current Israel-Iran confrontation has sparked alarm worldwide. But while tensions are high and missiles have flown, the chances of full-scale war still appear slim. Tehran, despite its fiery rhetoric, has shown restraint. It seems to be holding out for a return to diplomacy – and possibly a new round of talks with Washington. The US, too, is in no mood for another drawn-out Middle East war. With its strategic focus shifting elsewhere and voters tired of endless foreign entanglements, Washington is eager to avoid getting pulled into something deeper. A slow, uneasy de-escalation looks like the most plausible outcome – the only question is how long that will take. Read more ‘If Iran falls, we all lose’: Why Tehran’s allies see this war as civilizational Make no mistake: Israel’s strikes inflicted heavy damage – particularly on the IRGC’s infrastructure and the supply networks for Iran-backed forces in Syria and Lebanon. But Iran’s retaliation – a massive drone and missile barrage on Israeli territory – was a shock to the Israeli public. It caused serious destruction and considerable casualties, raising questions about Netanyahu’s gamble. Inside Iran, the regime faces mounting economic pressure and growing public frustration. Yet there are no signs of collapse. The leadership remains intact, held together by tight control and elite loyalty. A new deal with the US could offer much-needed economic relief, giving leverage to more pragmatic voices in Tehran that favor engagement over confrontation. As for Israel, the longer-term political fallout is still unclear. Netanyahu may have boosted his image as a tough, decisive leader – but if talks between Washington and Tehran resume and produce even a temporary agreement, Israel could find itself isolated. Netanyahu’s open friction with the Biden administration over Gaza and Iran may come back to haunt him. If diplomacy moves forward without Israel, it could leave him out in the cold – and facing heat from both domestic critics and international partners. Meanwhile, regional powers like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar are stepping up. They’ve launched a flurry of diplomatic efforts – including quiet lobbying in Washington – to further rein in Israeli escalation. These countries have no interest in another war. They’re worried that if things spiral, US bases and assets across the region – from Iraq to the Gulf – could become targets. That would bring serious security risks and economic disruption, just as these nations are trying to push forward with growth and reform. Their message is clear: further chaos in the Middle East is not an option. These states are now emerging as key voices for de-escalation – working to steer the crisis back to the negotiating table. Final thought Despite the intensity of the current standoff, the likeliest path forward remains a tense but managed de-escalation. Neither Iran nor the US wants a war. Israel, meanwhile, is walking a tightrope – trying to look strong while navigating a shrinking space for unilateral action. That leaves a narrow window for diplomacy. The real question is: when will the politics – in all three capitals – catch up with the need for a deal? View the full article

There was a time in my life when all I wanted to talk about was fitness. I was obsessed. I read every book and study I could get my hands on. I tracked my workouts, filmed my progress, and poured my energy into building a brand around movement. I wanted to be a “fitness person” — not just for myself, but because I thought that if I could prove I was disciplined and inspiring enough, maybe I’d finally feel worthy. Fitness gave me structure when everything else in my life felt messy. It helped me survive. And I’ll always be grateful for that. But lately, I’ve noticed something strange: I don’t feel the same urge to talk about it all the time. Don’t get me wrong — I still move every single day. I train hard, compete in jiu-jitsu-jitsu, push myself. Fitness is still one of the deepest sources of aliveness in my life. But it’s no longer something I need to post about constantly, or wrap my identity around. It just is. And for a while, that confused me. Was I losing my passion for it? Was something wrong? I don’t think so. I think something finally clicked. In the beginning, wanting to get fit is often about becoming someone new. You start because something in you wants to change. Maybe it’s how you feel in your body. Maybe it’s your confidence, your energy, your sense of direction. You chase goals. You set milestones. You prove to yourself (and sometimes, if you’re honest, to others) that you’re serious. And that’s a necessary part of the process. Transformation is powerful. But if you stick with it — through the plateaus, the injuries, the boredom, the real-life stuff — something subtle starts to happen. You stop needing fitness to prove anything. You stop needing it to be exciting all the time. It becomes part of you. Not a project. Not a performance. A practice. There’s a quiet kind of power in that place. When fitness becomes integrated — when it’s woven into your days like brushing your teeth or feeding your dog — it stops being something you have to hype yourself up for. You just do it. You move because it’s how you process emotions. Because it keeps you sane. Because it helps you show up for your life. And sure, some days you’ll still train for something big. You’ll chase a new skill or sign up for a challenge. That kind of goal-setting can be really fun and motivating. But the deeper goal? The real long-term aim? It’s this. It’s living a life where fitness supports who you are — not defines you. Where it doesn’t have to be the headline of your identity, because it’s already embedded in your way of being. So if you’re still in the early stages of your journey — still finding your rhythm, still discovering what works for you — don’t rush this part. It’s beautiful. Let yourself obsess a little. Let it light you up. And if you’re in a season where things feel quieter, steadier, maybe even a little boring? That’s not failure. That’s maturity. Fitness isn’t meant to be a forever transformation montage. It’s a relationship. One that will evolve with you over time. Right now, I’m in a phase where I don’t need to shout about it. I just do it. I show up. I train. I rest. I move because it’s who I am. And honestly, I think that’s the point. The post When Fitness Becomes Who You Are appeared first on 12 Minute Athlete. View the full article

Prominent conservative figures are calling on Donald Trump to stay out of the Israel-Iran war, but is it the rebellion it seems to be? Steve Bannon – stubborn, irrepressible, and very smart right/far-right public intellectual and once ally, chief strategist, and bestie of US President Donald Trump – is back in the news. And in a way that speaks to much more than the ups and downs, ins and outs of US elite careers. Because the hill he is fighting on this time is resistance to the US waging another all-around devastating war in the Middle East in the service of Israel and its powerful lobby in America. Bannon, make no mistake, is not taking a de facto – if still all too limited – stand against Israel because of its apartheid, genocide, and wars of aggression. He ought to, obviously, especially as a man flaunting his Christian belief. (From one sort-of-Roman-Catholic to another, Steve: Our Lord Jesus Christ really didn’t like the child killers, and I am pretty sure he would have found the lingerie-camouflage cross-dressers with machine guns rather off-putting, too.) But then, if Bannon were to advance principled moral objections here, he would not be Steve Bannon, a very conservative American, who will probably never shake off deeply ingrained mental habits of cynicism and supremacism. Indeed, he has made sure to stress that he remains a “big supporter” and “defender of Israel.” Yet, from Trump’s perspective – and that of the Israeli influence agents surrounding him – Bannon’s line of attack is, given American political culture, more politically dangerous than a genuinely moral stance. Because Bannon is positioning American national interest against following Israel’s lead. Declaring that Israel pursues an “Israel First” policy – you bet: about as egotistically as Berlin’s “Germany First” trip between 1933 and 1945 – Bannon has dared state the obvious: Israel’s interests are not identical with those of the US, and therefore, a genuine “America First” policy must not obey Israel. Read more Former Trump aide calls for ‘America first’ over Israel Hence, stay out of the war against Iran. Or to be precise, get out of it. Especially since, as Bannon argues not implausibly, with the ongoing Ukraine War, the Gaza Genocide (which he of course fails to name as such), and now the Israeli assault on Iran, we are not really drifting toward World War III but already in its early stages. And, let’s face it, if there’s a World War III Bannon would support, that would be the one targeting China. One more reason why he believes the US should decrease – not increase – its engagement in the Middle East (and Europe, too): so that it can better “pivot to Asia.” Whether you agree with Bannon on China (I don’t) and World War III or believe that we are “merely” teetering on the threshold to a third global conflagration, Bannon is, of course, right that Washington must, in its own national interest, finally stop obeying Israel. In terms of domestic politics in the US, Bannon’s sally signals, as he himself argues and the Financial Times recognizes, a lethally dangerous split among Trump’s domestically indispensable MAGA base. For Bannon, the whole Trump agenda, as he sees it, of ending “forever wars,” mass deportations, and recasting global trade to benefit the US and its manufacturing sector in particular, is in danger if the wars do not, in fact, finally end. The trigger for this perfect storm brewing inside MAGA is the perfect mess Trump and his team have made over the attack on Iran: Despite their clumsy mixed messaging – really, contradictory lying and boasting – Israel’s unprovoked war of aggression against Iran can, obviously, only be waged because of massive American support. Despite initial implausible denials, by now Trump has gone so far as to utter what is, in effect, a bizarre and criminal threat against the 9-million city of Tehran. In reality, this has always, from before it even started, been a combined US-Israeli attack, and it makes no difference to this fact that Israel always wants even more, including – as Axios, a network with remarkably easy access to Israeli sources, has reported – open US help in attacking the key Iranian nuclear installations at Fordow. Never mind, by the way, that deliberately striking a nuclear facility is as criminal as it gets. It constitutes a clear breach of the Geneva Conventions, as the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei has recently had to publicly school German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul about. The latter is clearly just as ignorant of his job’s basics as his legendarily inept predecessor Annalena Baerbock used to be. Yet, as Bannon’s intervention shows, the key role the US plays in the assault on Iran has caused noteworthy ripple effects inside America and in particular inside the movement now known as MAGA. Originally the abbreviation was an extremely successful 2016 Trump campaign slogan – inspired by a forerunner used by Ronald Reagan in 1980 – meaning ‘Make America Great Again’. But as a movement, MAGA has a much longer history. Its influences and ancestors include, for instance, nativism, isolationism, the original America First, and the more recent Tea Party. That’s why it is important to understand that MAGA overlaps with but is not identical with Trumpism, as often assumed. In reality, MAGA is part of an older, powerful tradition that Trump has tapped into with great success. But he is not guaranteed to always be in control of it, as the term ‘Trumpism’ may misleadingly imply. Read more Deterrence or death: Israel is making the case for a nuclear-armed Iran Take for instance the perhaps greatest cleavage running through contemporary Trumpism 2.0: that between a right-wing populist orientation still aiming at, for want of better terms, ordinary Americans, and a techno-elitist wing busy with fantasies of openly establishing an AI-based rule of the richest. Things clearly remain volatile. For wasn’t it only yesterday that the would-be tech lords, represented by former “first buddy” Elon Musk, seemed to have defeated the populist tribunes of the Steve Bannon type? And yet, now Musk, the “man-child” is out (if not necessarily forever) and Bannon, the old battle axe, is making headlines again. Warning of the “fog of war” – read that as code either for just ordinary information unreliability or for deliberate Israeli and Western disinformation – and “unintended consequences,” Bannon has been explicit: The US must not be “sucked into another major war on the Eurasian land mass, particularly the Middle East.” And yet, he added, America is already an “active combatant” by providing air defense to Israel. For Bannon, at least in his current iteration, none of this is new. As he has also recently charged, the fundamental reason why American troops are in Iraq and thus in harm’s way is that the US government and its media, including both Republicans and Democrats, have “lied to us,” i.e., the American people, for decades. It has not been, as Bannon stressed, simply incompetence or mistakes, but the “bald-faced lies” and “spin of the neocons.” That is of course a reference to the fact that the US and its Western accomplices started their 2003 unprovoked war of aggression against Iraq with a massive, Gleiwitz-level deception by deliberately trying to deceive the world about non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. And that, according to Bannon, was along with the financial crisis of 2008 the original sin that triggered “this movement,” clearly here meaning what we now know as MAGA. Bannon’s history may be a little off as far as facts are concerned. The roots of contemporary American right-wing populism include a tradition of isolationism, but they are certainly not identical with a revolt against the Iraq War, insane and criminal as the latter was. Read more Iran warns foreign weapons deliveries to Israel are ‘legitimate target’: Live Updates But veracity and accuracy aren’t the point here. Instead what matters is how precisely Bannon is trying to rewrite history, namely by claiming opposition to neocon “forever wars,” specifically in the Middle East (transparent code for on behalf of Israel) as not only a core value of MAGA, but as a key element of its origin story. As for Israel’s assault on Iran, Bannon was scathing. Rhetorically exploiting the silly pretense that Israel was “going it alone” when starting the attack – which Bannon is certainly intelligent and realistic enough to know is nonsense – he called on Israel to stick to doing just that. Yet instead, he scoffed, the “going-it-alone lasted six hours” and Israel is doing everything it can to drag Americans ever deeper into another massive war. Importantly, Bannon is not alone. As he pointed out, conservative media heavyweight Tucker Carlson has made the same point. In fact, Carlson has been even more explicit. Using his X account with over 16 million followers to claim that the key divide of US politics is between “those who casually encourage violence, and those who seek to prevent it – between warmongers and peacemakers,” Carlson started naming “the warmongers,” including “anyone who’s calling Donald Trump today to demand air strikes and other direct US military involvement in a war with Iran,” such as “Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rupert Murdoch, Ike Perlmutter and Miriam Adelson.” Carlson added that “at some point they will all have to answer for this, but you should know their names now.” And what names they are: Of the five, three, i.e., 60 percent – Levin, Perlmutter, and Adelson – are as most Americans would know or guess, Jewish. Murdoch and Hannity, in the minority, are not. But all of the five are staunch Zionists, Hannity having been acknowledged by the Jerusalem Post as one of “10 Pro-Israeli Christians,” i.e. a Christian Zionist. And that was in October 2024, a full year into Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinians. Mark Levin, an influential and extremely rightwing media personality, got his “Friends of Zion Museum ‘Defender Award’ for his steadfast support of the State of Israel and the Jewish people” in 2018. Read more From the blast zone: Russian expert on Iran’s calm – and its next moves Murdoch, the Western publishing oligarch with massive political influence, used a rambling – but who’s going to edit him, right? – 2009 Jerusalem Post article to admit he feels very flattered by frequently being misidentified as Jewish and to explain that the “free world” – old-timers’ speak for “rules-based value West” – must support Israel to the hilt. According to Wikipedia, Ike Perlmutter is “an Israeli-American billionaire businessman and financier” – although ironically enough born in Mandate Palestine – who “through a variety of sometimes unorthodox business deals” has been “an influential investor in a number of corporations.” He also used to run Marvel Entertainment. Yes, that Marvel, the superhero story company now absorbed by Disney and perhaps the single most effective vehicle of contemporary US propaganda. And multi-billionaire Miriam Adelson is of course not only the widow of Sheldon Adelson, the “casino mogul” and arch Zionist, but also a fanatical Zionist in her own right. Both Adelsons have been among Donald Trump’s most generous supporters. During his 2016 presidential campaign they were already among his “top donors.” In 2020 – when he lost – they made the single biggest individual contribution, a whopping $75 million. In 2024, Miriam Adelson dialed it up to eleven with $106 million. Only Elon Musk ($276 million) and rich heir extraordinaire Timothy Mellon ($150 million) gave even more. And then there is the influential MAGA icon and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. In a long post on X, she fired a broadside against any further US involvement in wars abroad: “We are $36+ TRILLION in debt and have mountains of our own problems. We have giant planks sticking out of our own eyes while we complain about splinters in other’s eyes. Every country involved and all over the world can be happy, successful, and rich if we all work together and seek peace and prosperity.” MTG, as she is often called, has also preemptively and rightly rejected any accusation of “antisemitism” and even of isolationism: “Taking this position is NOT antisemitic. It’s rational, sane, and loving toward all people. Taking this position of peace and prosperity for all is not isolationism, it leads to GREAT trade deals and GREAT economies that help ALL PEOPLE.” Read more US aerial tankers headed to Middle East – media Worst of all, from Trump’s and Israel’s perspective, she has in effect reminded her 4.8 million followers, as well as many others who will read about her post in the traditional media, of Trump’s own campaign promise to end and not start wars, because no more wars is “what many Americans voted for in 2024.” Clearly, there are influential representatives of MAGA who are not only willing to openly challenge the perversely self-damaging hold that Washington allows Israel to have over its foreign policy, but are also beginning to be explicit about the fact that Israel’s lobby in the US – whether Jewish or not – is putting another country first, at enormous cost to Americans. Unfortunately, there are reasons to fear that this right-wing criticism of ‘Israel First’ will not prevail. Trump may very well be so beholden to and afraid of the Israel lobby that he will make the single worst mistake of his life and get even deeper into the war against Iran. But then the question is: What will happen next? There is a brave left-wing opposition to Israel in America – full disclosure: my sort of people – and there also is clear polling evidence that Israel’s grip on American society as a whole is finally slipping, especially among the young. Now add a right-wing, MAGA-based opposition and another great US fiasco in the Middle East backfiring on America’s home front. Israel may get its wish once again, but in the not-so-long run it should be very careful what it wishes for. And that, as grim as the news is, is a tiny speck of hope on a very dark horizon. View the full article

Tehran will continue to be sanctioned, pummeled, and subjected to targeted assassinations until strategic deterrence is attained Just hours after Israel launched its strikes on Iran in the early hours of Friday, June 13, US President Donald J. Trump declared that it was “not too late” for Tehran to return to the negotiating table over its nuclear program. The level of delusion displayed by the joint aggressors here is simply staggering. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu justified the bombs being rained on Iranian cities as a means to bring “freedom.” The US-Israeli axis sees no contradiction in reducing a sovereign nation to rubble while draping its aggression in humanitarian rhetoric. The strike came even as Washington and Tehran were engaged in protracted negotiations over the thorny nuclear issue. This is not diplomacy; this is coercion cloaked in diplomatic theater. Worse, it will go down as a day of infamy in international relations: a moment when negotiation was used not to resolve conflict, but to disguise premeditated violence. Regime change blowback What did Israel and the United States hope to achieve through this betrayal? Regime change? The total submission of a sovereign nation to a militarized settler state forged in 1948? Are we now expected to believe that post-regime change, Tehran will suddenly embrace Tel Aviv – as some delusional pro-Israel ideologues like to fantasize? Incredibly, Israel now casts itself as the victim. Russia’s deputy UN envoy Dmitry Polyansky brusquely described Israel’s claims that it was only acting in “self-defense” as “very perverted logic.” But such perversion runs deep in the policies and pathologies of the Israeli state. Read more ‘Perverted logic’ to call Israeli attack on Iran self-defense – Russian diplomat As key Iranian infrastructure is bombed to ruins, and as Netanyahu urges Iranians to overthrow what he calls “an evil and oppressive regime,” many Iranians are calling, ironically and defiantly, for their government to acquire nuclear weapons as the only credible deterrent against the endless cycle of sanctions, sabotage, targeted killings, and military strikes unleashed by the US-Israeli axis. Under such circumstances, can Tehran be blamed for cultivating and arming proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas in an effort to contain Israel? Just look at what Israel did to its neighbours before these groups existed. What makes Netanyahu believe that any post-Ayatollah government would be more pliant? If anything, it might be more resolute in seeking the ultimate deterrence. After all, Iran has been the target of unrelenting foreign aggression since the 1953 CIA-MI6 coup against nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. And let us not forget that during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, the Islamic Republic was bombarded with chemical weapons, supplied or sanctioned by Western powers. Washington had no qualms back then, when Saddam was “our man.” That was, until Israel orchestrated a back-channel arms pipeline that would become the infamous Iran-Contra affair. A matter of honor Can any self-respecting nation endure the constant humiliation meted out by its adversaries? That model of submission may succeed in parts of the Arab world, or in post-colonial client states across the Global South, but the Persians are apparently made of sterner stuff. Only time will tell. A civilization that traces its lineage to Cyrus and Avicenna has a moral and historical obligation to protect itself from existential threats. And if doing so requires the ultimate form of deterrence, then so be it – even if that means defying a so-called “international community” that has allowed Israel to quietly amass nuclear weapons and lay waste to its neighbors with impunity for nearly 80 years. Israel, for its part, has warned the world time and again of the consequences of ignoring its self-declared prerogatives. As Netanyahu declared last year: “If Israel falls, the whole world falls.” What exactly did he mean by that? Perhaps he was alluding to the Samson Option – a Sword of Damocles that Israel has long wielded over the world’s head. It has been described as a nuclear-armed ultimatum: protect Israel at all costs, or face global ruin. Read more Iran warns foreign weapons deliveries to Israel are ‘legitimate target’: Live Updates The ‘Samson Option’ The Samson Option refers to Israel’s alleged military doctrine of massive nuclear retaliation in the face of an existential threat. Named after the biblical figure who brought down a Philistine temple, killing himself along with his enemies, the doctrine reflects a last-resort strategy. If Israel faces annihilation, it will reportedly unleash its full nuclear arsenal, possibly as many as 400 warheads, against its adversaries, regardless of collateral damage or global fallout. But is the Samson Option truly limited to nuclear counterstrikes? Former Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett once warned that if Israel were ever pushed to the brink, critical global systems, including life-sustaining medical devices like pacemakers, could cease to function. That may sound far-fetched, until you consider that Israel’s cybersecurity and cyber-strategic sectors have become a strategic pillar of its economy. Navigation apps like Waze, maritime tracking systems, and aerospace logistics pipelines are embedded with “secure” Israeli codes. Now imagine a hidden fail-safe buried in legacy software across the globe, programmed to unleash cascading failures across nuclear plants, air traffic control systems, financial markets, and emergency infrastructure when the Samson Option is unleashed? Think of the recent Stuxnet and Lebanese pager affairs as harbingers. One keystroke, one kill-switch, and the lights go out everywhere! As a researcher in systemic global risks, I find it increasingly naive to assume that the Samson Option is limited to a conventional nuclear doctrine. The real Samson Option may be about collapsing the global system itself – a scorched-earth deterrent against isolation or defeat. A case for a nuclear Iran Kenneth Waltz, one of the most influential realist thinkers in international relations, argued in a controversial 2012 Foreign Affairs article titled “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb” that a nuclear-armed Iran might actually stabilize the Middle East, rather than destabilize it. Waltz’s theory is rooted in neorealism (or structural realism), which sees the international system as anarchic, and posits that states act primarily to ensure their own survival. From this perspective, nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrent, and their spread, under specific conditions, can actually lead to greater stability. Consider North Korea: since developing nuclear weapons and delivery systems, its behavior has arguably become more calculated and status-quo-oriented. It also encouraged Trump to extend an olive branch to Kim Jong-un. Read more Pakistan calls for Muslim states to unite against Israel Israel remains the sole nuclear power in the Middle East, a monopoly fostering strategic imbalance and absolute impunity. The emergence of a rival nuclear-armed state, even with minimal second-strike capability, would force belligerent sides to act with greater caution. Conflicts would likely be reduced to face-saving precision strikes, as seen with nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. Despite hosting radical militant groups, Pakistan has behaved as a rational actor within the nuclear matrix. Similarly, a nuclear Iran could reduce its reliance on asymmetric proxy strategies – such as its support for Hamas or Hezbollah – because its security would primarily rest on deterrence. Some critics however warn that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia may rapidly follow suit. A moot point, except that Riyadh bankrolled Islamabad’s nuclear weapons program under America’s watch during the 1980s Soviet-Afghan War which featured beloved “anti-Soviet warriors” like Osama bin Laden! There are also persistent reports which suggest that some Pakistani nuclear assets may already be stationed in Saudi Arabia, under the command of senior Pakistani officers. In the event of a regional nuclear escalation, Riyadh can simply request transfer at will. Historical precedents also do not support alarmist non-proliferation fears. When North Korea acquired nuclear weapons, neither South Korea nor Japan followed suit. Deterrence, once established, tends to cool ambitions, especially when the cost of escalation becomes too high. What if Iran is destroyed? So, what happens if Israel prevails in the current high-stakes military standoff, and a “friendly” government is installed in Tehran? This could come about in any number of ways, as Israel alone will not be able to bomb Iran into submission. From a game theory perspective, a series of false flag events can be pinned on “Iranian sleeper cells.” Furthermore, Netanyahu keeps insisting that Iran is plotting to assassinate Trump – a charge unsubstantiated by any US intelligence findings. If a “presidential transition” occurs overnight, Vice President J.D. Vance may commit US forces directly to Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Iran. Read more Iran preparing to ‘shut down Israel’s war machine’ – RT source But let’s game out another scenario: If the current conflict escalates and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is destroyed – whether by design or by accident – Iran will almost certainly be blamed for the loss of Islam’s third holiest site. Such an event would enrage the Sunni Muslim world, redirecting its fury toward Shia Iran, and potentially paving the way for Israel to construct its long-anticipated Third Temple. Notably, in the early 1980s, Israeli extremists plotted to blow up the Dome of the Rock and the adjacent Al-Aqsa Mosque to effect this very outcome. Should such scenarios unfold, it could mark the disintegration of the Middle East as we know it. Netanyahu has previously hinted that after Iran, nuclear-armed “militant Islamic regimes” like Pakistan could be next in Israel’s crosshairs. This warning is not without its irony. For decades, Pakistan’s deep state has maintained covert ties with Israel – dating back to Mossad-ISI collaboration in arming the Mujahideen during the 1980s Soviet-Afghan war. Israel has long been aware of Pakistan’s “pan-Islamic” nuclear ambitions but likely opted for strategic silence until all the Middle Eastern chips were in place. What the wider Muslim world fails to grasp is this: alliances with unprincipled powers are always transactional. When the geopolitical bill comes due, it may cost far more than anyone is willing to pay. The Zionist dream Since its founding in 1948, several Israeli leaders have consistently expressed a vision of “Greater Israel” stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates – encompassing parts of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and the Gulf. Iran however remained the perennial spoiler to this geopolitical dream. In fact, it was none other than Supreme Allied Commander Europe (NATO), General Wesley Clark, who famously revealed that Iran was the last in a list of seven Middle Eastern countries slated for regime change after 9/11. The current conflict is not about Iranian nukes per se; it is about Israel’s territorial ambitions and the fulfilment of ancient apocalyptic messianic fantasies. Zionist ideologues like Avi Lipkin had even floated the idea of “purifying Mecca, Medina, and Mt. Sinai” – rhetoric that signals theological as much as territorial ambitions. Once Israel secures strategic depth in the Middle East, it may soon challenge major powers beyond the region. But first, Iran must be subdued! View the full article

As geopolitical rifts deepen, the group struggles to find common ground on Ukraine, Gaza, trade, and the climate – raising doubts about its role The G7 meeting in Canada is likely to put the internal cohesion of the group, which includes the leading Western economies plus Japan, to a severe test. Trump’s America rarely sees eye to eye with the six other countries regarding most issues on the agenda. As it stands, the relevant weight of this group in providing stability to the global financial system was affected by the 2008 financial crisis, which led to the creation of the G20. This group of Western powers (with Japan co-opted) that had traditionally dominated the global economic and financial system realised that they could no longer do so on their own, as other economies had emerged whose cooperation to maintain the existing system had become necessary. The goal still was to maintain the global pre-eminence of the G7 by incorporating the emerging economies into the existing globalised system fostered by them. However, with the geopolitical rivalry with Russia (expelled in 2014 from what had become the G8) becoming intense after its military operation in Ukraine, and China declared as the principal long-term adversary of the US, this goal of preserving the hegemony of the West as much as possible by broadening the base of cooperation through the co-option of select non-Western countries is no longer realistic. Read more Israel doesn’t go rogue – it goes with the Pentagon’s green light Russia and China have become close strategic partners, their bilateral trade has expanded, and they are trading in their own currencies. The BRICS group has expanded, with members wanting to gain more economic and financial autonomy through development banks, trading more in their own currencies where possible, pressing for reforms of international political and financial institutions, and backing multipolarity in order to have a greater say in global governance. With his transactional approach towards friends and partners and giving primacy to trade over geopolitics, Trump has delivered a strong blow to internal unity within the G7. He is using trade as a weapon against all countries, including America’s G7 partners, on whom he has imposed tariffs. He has upended the global trade order by grossly violating the provisions of the World Trade Organization (WTO). He is reversing globalisation. He sees the creation of the EU as an anti-American move. (The EU participates in the G7 summits). His views on European security have caused tremors in transatlantic alliance. His approach to Russia and the Ukraine conflict have flustered Europe. His administration has commented freely on internal European affairs, including the state of democracy in Europe. Trump’s anti-woke agenda challenges the liberal excesses of European society. All this has led many European leaders to talk about a divorce between the US and Europe. The approaching G7 summit is meeting under the shadow of these developments. When the G7 last met in Canada in 2018 during Trump’s first term as president, no joint communiqué could be issued, as Trump refused to be a party to it. The reason – his infamous spat with then-Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau over aluminium and steel tariffs. Read more The Russians’ new enemy #1 is not the US. And we’ve been there before Since then, the bad blood between the US and Canada has worsened, with Trump treating Canada contemptuously by questioning its sovereignty and tauntingly inviting it to become America’s 51st state for survival. The new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has pushed back vigorously to maintain Canada’s dignity and threatened reprisals on tariffs and other issues. This may not help in dealing with Trump. At the last G7 summit in Italy, the communiqué featured 18 forceful paragraphs on Ukraine – an indicator of the bloc’s united stance at the time. However, it’s hard to envision such consensus at the upcoming summit. Europe remains committed to arming and financing Vladimir Zelensky, who is expected to attend, signaling continued support for prolonging the conflict. It will be interesting to see the language on Ukraine in the final document. Italy’s summit document also included 10 paragraphs on Gaza. Yet with starkly divergent views between Trump and the Europeans – on Gaza, Palestinian demands, and the two-state solution – reaching an agreed language would be most difficult. On climate change and environmental issues, which received 27 paragraphs in the 2024 communiqué, as well as on the clean energy transition and matters relating to Africa, which also featured prominetly in the Italian document, it is difficult to envision a unified language emerging. The text in Italy spoke of the G7 countries all remaining committed to “the rules-based, free and fair, equitable, and transparent multilateral trading system,” with the WTO at its core, besides “having a fully and well-functioning dispute settlement system accessible to all Members by the end of 2024.” This is a proposition that the Trump administration defines very differently and unilaterally. The discourse on resilient supply chains has also changed under Trump’s on-shoring manufacturing and MAGA agenda. Read more Redefining history: Why the fate of the Russia-Ukraine war could be shaped in Türkiye In Italy, the G7 also “recognised the need” to strengthen the global health architecture with the World Health Organization (WHO) “at its core.” Trump, however, has walked out of the WHO. There are issues on which the G7 could still find consensual language such as as on AI, maintaining financial stability, a more stable and fairer international tax system fit for the 21st century, migration, confronting non-market policies and practices that undermine the level playing field and the G7’s economic security, strengthening coordination to address global overcapacity challenges, and fostering resilient and reliable global semiconductor supply chains. On the Indo-Pacific, China, Haiti, Libya, Sudan, Venezuela and Belarus countering terrorism, violent extremism and transnational organised crime, as well as pursuing nonproliferation, etc., acceptable language can also be be found. Iran has emerged as an issue of pressing concern following Israel’s attack on the country and Iranian retaliation. It is of utmost importance that this conflict is contained and prevented from degenerating into a wider regional conflict. The usual calls for de-escalation and ceasefire won't be enough. Some concrete steps to pressure Israel to end the conflict would be required. The G7, however, is unlikely to put pressure on Israel as the focus will be on the unacceptability of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The Europeans will be opposed to any form of Russian involvement in mediation which figured in the Putin-Trump conversation. Read more From ceasefire to misfire: Trump’s claims stir concerns in India It appears that the Canadian hosts, along with five other members – Europeans and Japan – have come to terms with the likelihood that issuing a joint communiqué may not be feasible. Canada is considering releasing a Chairman’s Summary, which would signal that even without US support, six of the seven members remain aligned on a shared agenda. The implications of this lack of consensus – how it might weaken the G7’s voice in global affairs and diminish its relevance – are likely to become a subject of debate and reflection. The relevance of the grouping is also often questioned in the Global South. For many in this part of the world, the G7 appears increasingly out of touch. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be attending the summit as an invitee, as has been the case with G7 summits in the last few years. Given the serious tensions in India-Canada relations over the activities of Canadian Sikh extremists seeking to promote separatism in India and issuing physical threats against Modi and Indian diplomats, an invitation to India to attend the summit was fraught with problems on both sides. With the ouster of Trudeau, who had burnt his boats with India, and Michael Carney replacing him, an effort on Canada’s part to rebuild ties became feasible. This is despite opposition faced by Carney from local extremists who threatened large scale demonstrations against Modi. India, for its part, is ready to restore ties on the condition that anti-Indian forces in Canada are curbed. Modi’s visit will test the ground. Modi will be meeting the G7 leaders separately. A meeting with Trump would be of particular importance, as lately the US leader has made statements that have caused concerns in New Delhi about the depth of his commitment to a strong strategic partnership with India. View the full article

Washington, the world’s greatest bully, has enabled the attack on Iran by writing a blank check to the aggressor Having been carrying out its ongoing genocide of the Palestinians for almost two years, wrecking Lebanon and Syria, repeatedly assaulting Iran and Yemen, and using subversion of Western political, economic, intellectual, and media elites to stifle its opponents wherever they speak up, Israel has now launched its most serious effort yet to either cripple or destroy Iran, its last remaining opponent with the potential to do it serious harm. As Russia for one has stated, Israel’s massive attack on Iran is unambiguously criminal. It violates the UN Charter and international law in general. In particular, it does not fulfill the narrow – and rightly so – legal criteria for a justifiable defensive preemptive strike. Israel’s shameless attempts to deploy this phrase to shield its actions are pure information warfare. They are insultingly brazen – propaganda that can “work” only on the willingly obtuse – and as absurd as the repulsive Israeli habit of trying to pass off genocide, including by starvation, as self-defense. Incidentally, against this background, it comes as no real surprise that Israeli tactics against Iran have included the same perfidious – as in literally, technically criminal under the law of armed conflict – method recently deployed by Ukraine’s Zelensky regime (and its Western helpers): Israel as well used sneak drone attacks from inside its opponent’s territory. In reality, if any state did have a good case for claiming the right to a preemptive strike in this case, it would have been Iran. Because the core criterion for a military strike to be considered preemptive is that it must disrupt an imminent enemy attack. With Israel and its US symbiont recently not having let a day go by without threatening Iran with pretty much the assault that has now happened, Tehran would have had excellent evidence to show just that: That an Israeli – and thus Western – attack was imminent. Read more Iran warns foreign weapons deliveries to Israel are ‘legitimate target’: Live Updates Yet, especially after more than a year and a half of a live-streamed Zionist colonial genocide carried out, in effect, by Israel and the West together, we know that international law counts for very little in the hellish “rules-based” world the “value”-concerned West has made. Hence, the key question is not if Israel could possibly have a right to act as it does. That’s a no-brainer: absolutely not. But unfortunately, that does not help its victims. Israel is impunity embodied. Among all the monstrous states that modern history has witnessed commit horrific crimes, none has been getting away with murder (mass murder, really) like Israel; except perhaps the US, of course. Indeed, as the Israeli dissident and genocide expert Raz Segal has recently explained, the sense that they are above the law is a key factor in how so many Israelis function – and often enjoy themselves – as merciless mass murderers. That’s why the real question, the one that is relevant in the world as it really is, is why Israel can do what it is doing. And there the short, one-word answer is of course: America. Other states of the West (as well as the EU monster association) and the Middle East are also complicit in Israel’s atrocities. But in terms of power, it is Washington that is decisive. Israel can commit its endless crimes and never face consequences only because of US support. Just try to imagine a state as territorially and demographically tiny and geopolitically precarious as Israel displaying so much aggression but without American backing. Exactly – there’s nothing to imagine because it would long be gone. Read more Unprecedented escalation between Israel and Iran: What we know so far Yet in the case of Israel’s latest outrage, Washington is claiming that it did not participate in it, sort of. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wants us to believe that Israel’s assault was “unilateral” and the US was “not involved.” Is there anyone left naïve enough to not understand two simple facts? Namely, Washington lies easily and without hesitation, and the US-Israel symbiosis is so firm and pervasive that an Israeli strike against Iran, especially of this magnitude, without American connivance and input is inconceivable. But let’s set aside the obvious big fat lie. That’s just the US being its bad old US self. What’s more interesting is that, even on its own mendacious terms, the official American position simply makes no sense. Washington implausibly claims that it played no role in Israel’s criminal attack on Iran. US mainstream media and establishment mouthpieces, such as Bloomberg and the Washington Post, go so far as to pretend that President Donald Trump’s officially still ongoing negotiations with Iran may have been disturbed by Israel’s oh-so-independent strike. They still uncritically quote Trump as voicing opposition to an Israeli attack as recently as the day just before the Israeli assault. For Bloomberg, that means that Israel struck “in apparent defiance” of Trump. Really? The old the-leader-didn’t-know defense? That’s funny because by now Trump himself has admitted that he knew about the attack, perversely blamed Iran and not Israel, and called on Tehran to – in essence – surrender before Israel hits it so hard that nothing would be left of Iran. And all this while Israel has already threatened another two weeks of “operations” or even more, namely as long “as it takes.” Trump, consequently, has not only sided unambiguously with the aggressor Israel, but has also signaled that he is fine with his Israeli friends battering Iran as long as they like, including to the point of extermination. That is, Washington’s absurdly incredible official story is first, Israel massively defied America’s declared policy; second, the US does not really mind; and third, quite to the contrary, Washington just loves being made a fool of in front of the world, as long as it’s done by Israel. Read more ‘Perverted logic’ to call Israeli attack on Iran self-defense – Russian diplomat It loves it so much, in fact, that the American response is to immediately side with Israel without limits, writing out a blank check for its “defiant” friends to do whatever they want, because as Trump has assured those who have just “apparently defied” him, not only can they hammer away at Iran to their heart’s content, but in addition, the US will also always defend them against Iran in case the latter should try to strike back. Even Washington’s lies are revealing. In this case the lie of not being involved casts a sharp light on just how uninhibited the US elite is by now in publicly subordinating everything, including of course the interests of ordinary Americans, to Israel and its American lobby. The truth is, of course, that the US is deeply involved in the war of aggression against Iran. After Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, the undead neocons are finally getting to the last – for now – victim on their old murder board. The lie is that the US pretends not to be involved. And the ultimate, unintentional reveal of the whole affair is that Washington’s elites think a lie implying that they are absolutely obedient to Israel, even when directly “defied” by it, is a good-enough story. For absolute, craven submission to Israel is now considered perfectly normal. And that, actually, is a fundamental truth about America as it now really is. View the full article

There’s a coordinated silencing of victims across religious and political hierarchies There are crimes so profound that words fail to capture them. Last week, several survivors testified to the Israeli Knesset about just such a horror. The story broke with an investigative report published by Israel Hayom, which unearthed a long-standing pattern of ritual sexual abuse, psychological manipulation, and spiritual desecration occurring not on the margins of society but from within its most sacred institutions. Survivors speak of torment that begins in early childhood and lasts decades, often committed under the guise of religious observance. It is not just a crime of the flesh. It is a theft of the soul. Israeli children, some as young as infants, were subjected to methodical abuse masked in religious ritual. Survivors describe ceremonies invoking biblically-vilified deities, conducted by members of observant Jewish communities. As a survivor named Noga (all of the victims’ names are changed in the report) recalled: “The gods I remember are Baal Peor and Ashtoreth... our lord Peor and our lady Ashtoreth.” (Note: All these deities are categorically condemned in the Bible). The culprits are not fringe radicals. These are individuals who keep kosher, celebrate the Sabbath, and adhere to the minutiae of Jewish law even as they engage in acts so depraved that they defy comprehension. Here is snippet from a survivor’s testimonies: “I remember a pentagram on the floor, usually in red. When the ceremony was in the forest, the pentagram was marked with a hoe and surrounded by lit candles in a circle. The rabbi would bless…they would repetitively read Psalms, like ‘A Psalm of David, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.’ They told me ‘you are special, you are chosen’ and they would insert... I remember a palm branch, Hanukkah candles, a shofar.” Some of these perpetrators are qualified to blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah — a high privilege among observant Jews. Family members, most of whom may have once been victims themselves, are often the ones who hand over their little ones to these monsters. Several rabbis’ names appeared repeatedly in survivor testimonies. Multiple complaints filed at different police stations across Israel were quickly nipped in the bud. Prosecutions leading to imprisonments are rare. Much like anywhere else on this planet. Have any elite members of the Jeffrey Epstein pedophile network – itself rumored to be a Mossad operation – been charged in any court of law? Have the victims been asked to identify the perpetrators of these wicked deeds during the trial of Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell? Read more FBI on ‘frenzied mission’ to redact Epstein files – CNN A twisted safari for the elites Ritual child sexual abuse is a twisted safari sport of sorts for the elite. It combines satanic predilections with congenital moral turpitude. It also serves as a rites de passage for entry into a very select club of global movers and shakers whose inclusivity is dependent on mutual blackmailability. They are motivated by self-preservation and the accumulation of wealth and power foremost even as they dish out copious servings of faux nationalism. According to the Jerusalem Post, which followed up on the Hayom report, “doctors, educators, police officers, and past and present members of the Knesset were involved in these abuses.” With prominent members of the public engaging in such activities, do not expect justice to be served. Instead, expect international coordination of the most depraved kind, with the United Nations reporting an alarming rise in child trafficking worldwide. What are those entrusted to guard our borders doing? While the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency comes down hard on undocumented immigrants, the dismantling of major child trafficking networks has been sporadic at best. Evidence – even if it amounts to thousands of files – will be swiftly buried or distorted. This was the case when US Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel contradicted each other over the Epstein tapes. Elon Musk, on his part, alleged that President Donald Trump himself was “in the Epstein files.” Musk conveniently deleted the damning tweet a few days later. One cannot just open a Pandora’s Box involving the most powerful men on earth and expect things to die down. Read more Musk makes Epstein files claim about Trump MK-Ultra redux? According to Rabbi Dr. Udi Furman, “ritual abuse occurs when a religious, political, or spiritual authority uses their position of power to manipulate victims’ belief systems and thereby control them.” But where does that control lead to? One only has to look up MK-Ultra. MK-Ultra was a covert CIA program (1953–1973) designed to develop methods of mind control, interrogation resistance, and behavioral manipulation. Children were used in specific subprograms (e.g. Project Monarch, a rumored offshoot of MK-Ultra), often selected from vulnerable populations or foster systems. Sexual abuse, torture, and ritualistic elements were employed not merely for sadism, but for a purpose: to shatter the psyche of the child into dissociated identity fragments (commonly known now as Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly Multiple Personality Disorder). These fractured parts could allegedly be programmed with distinct “roles” (e.g. messenger, spy, seductress, pimp) for use in espionage, blackmail, or other covert operations. This is how the Ghislaine Maxwells of this world are forged. The core idea was that through trauma-induced dissociation, an abuser could gain unprecedented access to the mind – sealing off traumatic memories, while implanting new behaviors or triggers without conscious awareness. Some survivors claim this created a form of “programmable human.” Twofold crime The goals of ritual child sex abuse are twofold: to violate the body and to distort the spiritual framework of victims. Children are indoctrinated into believing their suffering serves a divine purpose, replete with scriptural justifications. Read more Vatican sex abuse board calls for victim compensation This is spiritual abuse in its most sophisticated and perverse form. In Israel, the perpetrators manipulate foundational concepts in the Torah to legitimize unspeakable acts. As Noga puts it: “To achieve the great correction, one must suffer, because suffering purifies and advances redemption.” In a macabre parody of mysticism, victims are told they are instruments in a holy mission. Sexual exploitation is reframed as divine service. Trauma becomes theology. Just what happens when child sexual abuse is perpetrated under religious pretexts? The victims end up hating God. It is hard to overstate the gravity of this spiritual wound. Just as sexual abuse damages trust in people, spiritual injury robs a child of faith. This is why Jesus Christ – the divine embodiment of salvation and forgiveness itself – decreed that it is better for monsters who perpetrate such acts to be drowned by having a millstone hung around their necks (Matthew 18:6). One can heal a broken limb. One cannot easily heal a soul that has been taught to interpret rape as redemption. This is also about calculated spiritual inversion. Good is called evil; suffering is called sanctity and Satan is celebrated instead of God. Sacred symbols are used to consecrate violence. Some of the ceremonies uncovered by Hayom included cross-dressing, incest, and group sexual acts within family units – all under the banner of spiritual transcendence. They blur boundaries between good and evil, between sexuality and love, and family. Legal loopholes and enduring travesties Israeli legal frameworks do address sexual abuse and human trafficking, but they are ill-equipped to prosecute spiritual abuse wrapped under religious performance. This is ostensibly the reason why survivor testimonies have not led to arrests. Read more ‘Woke’ UK archbishop protected pedophile priest – media In truth, this is part of a well-worn pattern: the same silence that once cloaked clerical abuse across every major religion now shields elite institutions, where power exists to protect itself. Israel is arguably a global epicenter for child sexual abuse and trafficking, and has even provided sanctuary to a number of high-profile pedophiles. Within religious communities, there is a deep impulse to preserve the illusion of sanctity at the expense of truth and justice. As Orit Sulitzeanu, head of Israel’s Association of Rape Crisis Centers, observed: “The conspiracy of silence within religious society often prevents exposure of severe exploitation and abuse cases.” Over time, these debauched collusions and derelictions of justice lead to terminal moral decay. Ever wondered why some Israeli soldiers commit acts that defy all norms of human decency, including war crimes that are perpetrated with chilling ease? They are the products of a society where the brutalization of children is disturbingly normalized. As adults, they project the trauma and violations they once endured onto the defenseless. The abused become the abusers. And so, the cycle of violence renews itself – again and again. View the full article

Berlin has been diligently poking the bear, and it has taken note They probably won’t but Germans should pay close attention to a recent news item out of Russia: The Levada polling institute – long internationally acknowledged as serious and dependable – has published the result of a recent survey. It shows that Germany is now considered peak hostile by ordinary Russians: 55% of them name Germany as the country most unfriendly toward Russia. Five years ago, that figure stood at 40%. That was no small number either, but two things stand out now: First, the rapid increase in Germany’s un-favorability rating and, second, the fact that Berlin has managed to take over the top position in this dismal ranking: For 20 years it was securely held by the US, which still came in at a whopping 76% as recently as last year. But now, clearly responding to Trump’s new, comparatively more rational course toward Moscow, “only” 40% of Russians see the US as the most unfriendly state. To paraphrase an old Soviet motto: Berlin has caught up with and overtaken America. Many Germans, especially in the political, mainstream media, and conformist ’expert’ elites will either completely ignore or dismiss this shift. Others will even be foolish enough to feel pleased: What better evidence that the new German bellicism has left an impression? For a historian – or really anyone with a memory – the Levada finding should be alarming. To see why, we need a broader context. The thing about Germany is that, sooner or later, the question of war or peace – at least in Europe or even the world – depends on it, whatever usually unoriginal ideas its elites get worked up about at any given time. Read more Russians name new top enemy to replace US – survey Maybe that special combustibility is due to a deep mismatch between Germany’s resources and location, on one side, and its geopolitical environment, on the other, as Henry Kissinger used to quip. Perhaps the explanation is less forgiving and has to do with a failing political culture shaped by persistent habits of shortsightedness and misguided ambitions. In any case, in about 1945, after the second global war caused by Berlin in much less than half a century, everyone who mattered – not the Germans anymore at that point – seemed to understand that one large Germany can be, let’s say, awkward for the rest of the world. Two seemed about right, especially when both were under firm control, from Washington and Moscow, respectively. The other thing generally accepted was that the old enmity between Germany and France had to be buried. A third crucial issue, however, was not only left unresolved but instead weaponized for Cold War purposes: if Germans had to finally play nice with the French and other West Europeans in general, the US needed its Germany to stay nasty toward the Russians, that is, at the time, the Soviets. In effect, West Germany was re-trained to come to heel toward the West but keep barring its teeth toward the East. The polite term for this act of national house-training in Western “values,” “civilization,” and, last but not least, geopolitical hierarchies is “the long way West.” Fortunately, from the 1970s and through the unexpected yet quietly earthshaking advent of German unification (de facto West Germany annexing East Germany with Soviet, i.e., Russian permission), the deterrent logic of the Cold War and a fundamentally wise “Ostpolitik” mitigated that teeth-baring a little. But now that policy has not merely been abandoned but anesthetized. Read more Germany planning major bunker expansion Today, even wanting to talk to “the Russians” to convey anything other than ultimatums is smeared as “appeasement.” Former representatives of normal engagement are either forced into humiliating public recantations (for instance, President – no less – Frank-Walter Steinmeier) or ostracized (the once tone-setting journalist Gabriele Krone-Schmalz, for example). The worst sin in the new old German catechism is to even try to “understand” Russia, literally: A “Russlandversteher” is a heretic almost worthy of the stake now. Such heretics are clearly in the way of a new course – taken by all mainstream parties – that starts from the assumption that Germany and Russia must always be enemies, as current Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul recently stated in an unguarded and therefore honest moment. Consequently, the only policy that seems to be left to such hidebound minds is to build up the military and massively increase armament spending. That such spending has already been practiced and has a miserable record of inefficiency in Europe, as even the Financial Times admits, does not matter to them. Neither will it, of course, to the arms industry and its shareholders. And perish the thought that Germans could be smart enough to do both: (sensibly) modernize their military and, at the same time, engage in genuine talks and compromise – as well as renewed, mutually beneficial commerce, too – with Russia. That pattern – not dumb “appeasement” – after all, was the real signature style of the cheaply maligned “Ostpolitik.” But it seems that this ability to walk and chew gum, as Berlin’s former American idol Joe Biden would have said, has been lost, or, perhaps, willfully abandoned. With the urge to splurge on weapons comes a clearly coordinated propaganda campaign as not seen since the early 1980s (at best): German politicians, generals, mainstream media, and conformist “experts” have been unleashing a torrent, a veritable “Trommelfeuer” of war hysteria on the German public. Professors of ancient history – noticing unintentional irony has never been a German forte – are explaining again that parents must be ready to sacrifice their offspring in war. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, and so on… As if the First World War had never been lost. Read more Germany should expel all Russian diplomats – senior MP The German military’s top general can’t quite make up his mind if Russia will attack in a few years or maybe tomorrow. And one TV talk show and documentary after the other is dedicated to the need for “war proficiency” (in the original German “Kriegstüchtigkeit,” a term with an untranslatably traditional ring to it, in a bad way). Finally, we have Friedrich Merz, a German chancellor with a flimsy mandate who clearly believes that it is his historic task to be even more bellicose than the Americans and take over their role in NATO Europe if necessary. The irony of a vassal government finally finding a spine just to be even more ideologically immobile than even its changing hegemon is not new in recent German history. That is, after all, how Erich Honecker, the last (relevant) leader of the former East Germany, chose to go out: by demonstratively snubbing Moscow’s thaw with the West. In a similar spirit, Merz insists on continuing the proxy war in Ukraine and makes a point of not wanting the Nord Stream pipelines repaired, even while Russian and US investors (close to Trump, as it happens) are talking about precisely that. Merz has just been to see Trump in Washington. And mainstream media reporting on their encounter is unintentionally revealing of just how little he has achieved. In essence, the German chancellor is being praised for not having been brutally humiliated by Trump. Indeed, Merz was spared the fate of Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine – and that is the best that can be said. Let’s set aside that, actually, Trump did haze his guest, if comparatively mildly, teasing him about Germany’s not-so-great experience of D-Day 1944 and offering condescending congratulations on his English. It was the kind of affability that Trump the former reality show host would have displayed toward an “apprentice” currently in favor. Read more Western Europe has lost the plot – but still plays with fire What is more substantial is that Merz was not given one inch on any topic he cares about: Regarding NATO, US-European trade, and the Ukraine War, the German chancellor got precisely nothing. On the contrary, Trump has already made sure to signal how absolutely unimpressed he is by whatever Merz may have had to say, when not modestly silent: On Ukraine, Trump has publicly conceded that Kiev’s recent sneak drone attack gives Russia the right to massively retaliate. On trade, Trump has increased the pressure again with steel and aluminum tariffs that will hit the EU and Germany hard. What a world Germany has made for itself: It has the US, a hegemon and “ally” that first either blows up or is involved in blowing up its vital-infrastructure pipelines and then gets ready to take over and repair the ruins to have even more power over Berlin. With Zelensky’s Ukraine, it has a very expensive, very corrupt client that even the Germans now admit was involved in the same terrorist attack on Nord Stream. Germany’s economy, meanwhile, would greatly benefit from re-establishing a reasonable relationship with Russia. But Berlin’s only strategy regarding Moscow is prolonged confrontation, an extremely costly armament program, and war hysteria so intense it makes it look as if German elites are not-so-secretly longing for yet another devastating clash with Russia. And by now, Russians have taken notice, not only within the elite but the general population. Good luck, Berlin: You’ve poked the bear long enough to get his attention. Again. View the full article

Flag-burning liberals find out, once again, that crime doesn’t pay The epic battle between illegal immigrants and law enforcement has proven beyond a doubt that the Biden administration committed a grave mistake when it opened up America’s borders to a free for all. Perhaps if the anti-ICE protesters in Los Angeles were seen waving the American flag as they struggled against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) patrols, they would have had a moral leg to stand on. Their major PR flaw was that they left ‘Old Glory’ at home. Missing the irony, they chose to hoist the Mexican flag above the smoldering LA landscape, showing support for the country they escaped from. There were even surreal incidents of the American flag being burned. That’s where things took a terrible turn for the Democrats as the Republicans seized the moral high ground. “Insurrectionists carrying foreign flags are attacking immigration enforcement officers, while one half of America’s political leadership has decided that border enforcement is evil,” Vice President J.D. Vance said in a statement on the weekend. “Simple message to illegal aliens: leave now. You broke our laws to get here and you will be deported,” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) wrote on X. Fox News late-night host Greg Gutfeld perhaps summed up the insanity best when he wrote on X, “Trying to find a country to establish a sanctuary city where I can burn shit while waving my native country’s flag, while violently demanding they don’t send me back to the native country of the flag I am waving. Is there a country I can terrorize, then demand sympathy when they want me to leave?” The fireworks began on the morning of June 6 in Paramount, California when a Trump-authorized immigration raid was conducted within the Los Angeles Fashion District; two other raids occurred at a clothing wholesaler and a Home Depot. Protests erupted after over 100 people were arrested at the three locations. By nightfall, the Los Angeles police had authorized the use of less lethal munitions as the city was placed on tactical alert. Read more California governor pushes back against ‘federal takeover’ (VIDEOS) As the violence spiraled out of control and the Los Angeles police chief admitted that his forces were “overwhelmed,” Trump moved to nationalize the National Guard. This marked the first time a president had deployed a National Guard force without approval from a state’s governor since the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965. He also outlawed the use of masks at the protests – “why do they need them?” – as 500 Marines were placed on standby. Predictably, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who accused Washington of overseeing a “manufactured crisis,” went on to defend the illegal immigrants, calling Trump’s federalization of the National Guard “purposefully inflammatory.” LA Mayor Karen Bass was of the same opinion when it came to Trump’s harsh crackdown on illegals. “These tactics sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city,” she said Friday. “We will not stand for this.” Trump was having none of it. In a post on Truth Social on Monday, the US leader demanded apologies from the California governor and Los Angeles mayor: “Governor Gavin Newscum and ‘Mayor’ Bass should apologize to the people of Los Angeles for the absolutely horrible job that they have done, and this now includes the ongoing L.A. riots. These are not protesters, they are troublemakers and insurrectionists.” Trump is right, Newsom and Bass are clearly in the wrong, and this grand failure will undoubtedly play into the Republican Party’s political fortunes if things continue the way they are. It’s no secret that Democrats are fleeing California in droves, sick and tired of failed policies that have placed them and their families in a constant state of danger. Let’s face it, once the political fallout reaches the Democratic voters’ neighborhoods, it’s game over. Read more Trump orders feds to ‘liberate Los Angeles’ (VIDEOS) Although few voters on the left would admit it, thousands of erstwhile Biden supporters are coming around to the conclusion that many of the new arrivals are simply criminals and cold-blooded killers who should never have been granted entry into ‘sanctuary cities’ in the first place. Instead of keeping the asylum seekers on the Mexican side of the border, as the Trump administration had achieved, the Biden administration allowed millions of illegals into the country, where it has become almost impossible to track each individual case as initially intended. Now, every murder committed at the hands of an illegal immigrant will be additional ammunition for the Republican ticket. Incidentally, the mayhem that quickly ensued in Los Angeles brings to mind the violence that overwhelmed four blocks of Seattle, Washington during the “summer of love” 2020 at the ‘Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone’ (CHAZ). Here, Antifa insurgents thought they could find peace and harmony in a state of anarchy – without order, without restraint, without any government oversight. After several days of living in this world of youthful delusion, after the predictable violence and killings began to occur as night fell, many of the rebels quickly gave up their doomed experiment and called the police for protection. Yet even to this day, there are millions of liberals who have come to associate law and order with outright tyranny, and those who would protect life and liberty with villainy. In their world, the members of law enforcement - while admitting to the inevitable bad apples in the ranks - have come to represent the worst form of oppression. At the same time, they willfully place an inordinate amount of trust and faith in the intentions of complete strangers who suddenly showed up on America’s doorstep without invitation (many of whom are genuinely worthy of care and compassion). Thus, the Democratic leadership has relinquished their primary responsibilities to the American people – their political constituents – who it is their absolute duty to defend. How long will the Democrats continue to take the side of chaos and lawlessness over law enforcement? View the full article

Clearly, controlling the narrative is more important for Ukraine than the dignity of its fallen – or the well-being of those still alive It is sad, but peace remains elusive in the war between, on one side, Ukraine and – through Ukraine – the West and, on the other, Russia. Recently, the US has at least admitted that Moscow has plausible and important interests at stake and that the West has been using Ukraine to fight a proxy war against Russia. While very late and still incomplete, such truthfulness could help fashion the kind of realistic compromise needed to end this war. Yet Washington’s European vassals have chosen this moment to discover their usually terminally atrophied capacity for talking back to the US: They clearly want the war to continue, even though that means Ukraine – about which they pretend to care – will lose even more people and territory. Against this backdrop, it was no wonder that the latest round of the renewed Istanbul talks between Russia and Ukraine produced no breakthrough, little progress, and only very modest concrete results. Also, on the eve of the talks, the Zelensky regime launched terror attacks on civilian trains in western Russia and a series of sneak drone strikes throughout the country that – in the most generous reading – involved the war crime of perfidy: That, obviously, did not help find a way forward either. Indeed, by now it is clear that Kiev’s sneak drone attacks in particular have only further undermined the Zelensky regime’s already fragile standing in Washington: US President Donald Trump has been explicit that he accepts Russia’s right to massively retaliate, or, in the original Trumpese, “bomb the hell” out of Ukraine. Read more Ukraine fails to accept remains of fallen troops – Russia Luckily for Ukraine, Moscow is generally more restrained than America would be in a similar situation, and it should stay so. Yet the fact remains, Kiev’s sneak drones have made no substantial military difference in its favor, but they have done significant political damage – to Kiev, that is. Regarding the Istanbul talks, it is likely that these assaults were meant to torpedo them. Yet Moscow did not fall for that rather transparent play. Its delegation turned up; so the Ukrainian one had to do the same. In addition, Russia ended this round of the negotiations with several good-will gestures, including an agreement to exchange POWs who are particularly young or in bad health and the offer to hand over the frozen (a common practice in war) bodies of 6,000 fallen Ukrainians. Both initiatives have run into trouble. To be precise, both are being impeded by the Ukrainian leadership. The POW swap has been delayed, and Ukrainian officials have failed to show up at the border to receive the first 1,212 of their deceased soldiers. Regarding both, Kiev has blamed Russia. Yet, remarkably, the Ukrainian statements, in reality, prove that it is indeed Kiev that is – at the very least – slowing these processes down. For what Ukrainian officials are really accusing Russia of is moving faster. The reasons for this obstructionism are unclear. The Ukrainian authorities have not shared them with the public. But there are some plausible guesses. One very likely reason why Kiev is reluctant to accept the 6,000 bodies of its own fallen soldiers is that the “preponderant majority” of them, according to a Ukrainian member of parliament, were killed specifically during Ukraine’s insane and predictably catastrophic incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. Started on August 6 of last year, the operation was initially hyped by Ukrainian propagandists and their accomplices and useful idiots in the West. Read more Ukraine halts prisoner swap – Russian MOD For the clear-eyed, it was obvious from the beginning that this was a mass kamikaze mission, wasting Ukrainian lives for no military or political advantage. Was the Zelensky regime trying to create a territorial “bargaining chip”? Or once more “shift the narrative,” as if wars are won by rewriting a movie script? Influence last year’s US elections? Prepare for a possible victory by then presidential candidate Donald Trump? All of the above? We don’t know. What we do know is that nothing Kiev may have fantasized about has worked. Indeed, by now the Kursk fiasco has only made Kiev’s situation worse. Russia has retaken the territory in Kursk Region that Ukraine had seized and is advancing on the Ukrainian side of the border, taking settlements at an accelerating pace and getting close to the major regional city of Sumy. Clearly, those fallen during that particular suicide mission are evidence of Kiev’s recklessness, hypocrisy, and incompetence. No wonder they seem to be less than welcome at home. A second reason for Kiev’s reluctance may be even more sordid. There is speculation, for instance on social media, that it is financial. More importantly, a Russian diplomat, Sergei Ordzhonikidze, has made the same claim on the Telegram channel of the Izvestiia newspaper. For according to Ukrainian legislation, the families of the fallen soldiers are entitled to substantial compensation. Painful as it may be to acknowledge it, the Zelensky regime is not incapable of such a massive lack of piety. Whatever the precise reasons for Kiev’s odd refusal to take back its prisoners and dead, they are certain to be base. This may jar with the West’s well-organized and stubbornly delusional Zelensky fan club. But the best they could do for “ordinary” Ukrainians is to put pressure on their worn-out idol to accept the prisoners and the fallen. And, of course to finally end the war. View the full article

Accepting the 6,000 bodies Moscow is returning would mean paying out compensations, leaving less money to send new recruits to the slaughter As refrigerated trucks sit idling on the Russian side of the border, carrying the bodies of over a thousand Ukrainian soldiers – the first batch of the 6,000 Russia has offered to return – Kiev remains silent. No Ukrainian officials have shown up. No representatives have been dispatched to accept the remains. No families have been informed of the long-awaited closure. This delay, coming after a prisoner exchange and body repatriation was formally agreed upon in Istanbul, is not a bureaucratic hiccup or a logistical oversight. It is an act of calculated evasion. Stalling the dead While Moscow fulfills its end of the agreement – a humanitarian gesture amid a brutal war – Kiev dithers. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky claims that only 15% of the bodies have been identified and even casts doubt on whether all of them are Ukrainian soldiers at all. These comments, rather than signaling caution, reek of an attempt to stall, distract, and deflect from a far more uncomfortable reality: Ukraine cannot afford to acknowledge its war dead. And worse – it appears it no longer wants to. As Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s chief negotiator, bluntly stated: “Ukraine has unexpectedly postponed the transfer of the bodies of its deceased soldiers, and not a single representative showed up to accept them. The trucks are waiting at the agreed location. We are ready. Kiev is not.” Read more Ukraine fails to accept remains of fallen troops – Russia Money over morality Under Ukrainian law, each family of a soldier killed in action is entitled to 15 million Ukrainian hryvnias (~$360,000). Accepting all 6,000 bodies would trigger 90 billion UAH in mandatory payouts – nearly 10% of the nation’s entire 2025 defense budget. This budget is already facing a 200-billion-UAH deficit. The incentives are obvious. The consequences are shameful. Acknowledging the dead means acknowledging the debt owed to their families. But by dragging its feet, questioning identities, and introducing delays, the Ukrainian state appears to be doing everything in its power to avoid honoring its obligations. Not just the dead – the living, too But Kiev’s betrayal doesn’t end with the dead. In Istanbul, both sides also agreed to exchange 1,200 prisoners of war, prioritizing the heavily wounded and severely ill. It was, on paper, a step toward alleviating unnecessary suffering – something even war should pause for. Yet that exchange has also been derailed – not by Moscow. According to Russian officials, Ukraine has failed to follow through on the agreed timeline. No coherent reason has been given. Read more Ukraine halts prisoner swap – Russian MOD It’s hard not to draw a grim parallel: just as Kiev has financial incentives to avoid returning and compensating the dead, it may also have reasons to avoid repatriating its living. Caring for disabled, traumatized, and grievously ill POWs would divert funds and medical capacity from the war effort. And in the cold calculus of war, perhaps Kiev has decided that these men – broken, suffering, no longer combat-effective – are no longer worth the cost. The cost of cowardice This is more than a fiscal decision. It is a betrayal of the fallen. A betrayal of the captured. A betrayal of every family that has waited for closure, and every soldier still clinging to hope. What is that money being saved for? To send more young men to the front, only to vanish without closure? To finance another wave of deaths, while yesterday’s heroes lie forgotten in refrigerated trucks and prison cells? Even at the height of war, there are lines that should not be crossed. Refusing to bring your own fallen home is one of them. Refusing to bring your living wounded home is another. Kiev must do the right thing – not the cheap thing. Accept the bodies. Free the prisoners. Pay the families. Care for the broken. Anything less is a national disgrace. View the full article

When the most powerful and the most wealthy man on Earth fight, what does it say about their country? Two very rich and very powerful and very big American egos have had a very public and very loud cat fight. US President Donald Trump, arguably the single most powerful politician in the world, and his now former “buddy-in-chief” Elon Musk, certifiably the single richest oligarch on (for now) this planet, have “torched” (Wall Street Journal) their occasionally exuberant bromance of almost a year in a “stunning” (Bloomberg) and “spectacular” (New York Times) finale of fiery mutual recrimination. Say what you will about oligarchic techno-capitalism, but it can be entertaining. Using their own social media platforms, Musk and Trump have gone after each other with brutal reputational attacks, griping of the “You owe me!” – “No, you me!” variant, and high-value threats to do each other economic and political damage. The key trigger for the blow-up was what Trump calls his “Big Beautiful Bill,” which is currently making its way through Congress. For, Musk – despite his lucrative government contracts a deficit hawk, whose own DOGE cost-cutting effort has just frustratingly failed – the same tax bill is a “disgusting abomination.” Musk claims that he is greatly concerned over America’s exploding and unsustainable national debt. Since Trump’s Republican majority in the Senate is small, Musk’s open support for the bill’s vocal opponents there is a real political embarrassment for the White House at least, if not even a serious threat. US sovereign debt, moreover, is a real and very serious problem with dire economic and geopolitical implications; and estimates put the costs of Trump’s bill at 3.3 trillion additional debt over the next ten years: Musk has a factual point. Read more Trump and Musk go from hugs to insults Yet there also is the fact that Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill foresees cutting subsidies for buying Musk’s Tesla cars (among other EVs), amounting to an estimated loss of $1.2 billion for Tesla. It can be complicated in that place between conservative ideology, pure and simple, and the unrelenting will to milk the public for yourself and your shareholders. Musk also “revealed” – if that is the word – that Donald Trump features on the client list of the sinister financier, pedophile, mass sex criminal, and most likely intelligence-connected elite blackmailer Jeffrey Epstein, who conveniently committed suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019. To make it count, Musk, as if returning to his former Centrist political self, suggested impeaching Trump and founding a new party to contest the great blusterer’s grip on “the 80% in the middle.” Liberal Tesla drivers: Maybe you can love your car again. Even if the share prices of its manufacturer are tanking. Trump shot back by warning Musk that his “billions” in government contracts could melt away like the snows of yesteryear, which made Musk threaten to stop carrying US astronauts into orbit, that is, in effect – since the volatile oligarch is America’s de facto monopolist – shut down space for the US. That, according to the Washington Post, constituted a “serious threat to NASA and Pentagon programs.” Slow claps, Washington, for letting “the Market” handle national security. All in all, quite a reality show: noisy, no holds barred, and pretty indecorous. A dignified display of manly self-control and mature gravity at the empire’s top this was not. But, then again, it’s the US late-imperial “elite,” so the bar of the truly sensational is really high – or low, depending on how you look at it. The whole battle-not-so-royal may or may not blow over. Both Trump and Musk clearly have much to lose from a prolonged war against each other, financially and politically, and both are not only card-carrying egomaniacs but also ruthless, selfish pragmatists. There are already signals that Musk, for one, may want to wind down the confrontation again: he has relented regarding the astronauts and made some semi-conciliatory noises. Read more Pork-filled disgusting abomination – Musk on Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ Between the president’s growing reputation for “TACO” (Trump always chickens out) and Musk’s proven ability to knuckle under when the price is right (in Brazil and toward Israel-while-committing-genocide, for instance), the two would-be alpha males might still find a way to share. Yet things will never be as before. For one thing, by losing their cool, Musk and Trump have ended up showing each other three things that neither of them will forget: Just how volatile they both are (I know: surprise, surprise…); that Elon is no sacrosanct exception for Donald and Donald isn’t one for Elon either: everyone can always end up on the menu; and, finally, that both can think quickly – really as if they had been doing so for quite a while already – of the nastiest way to hurt the other. If Musk and Trump do make up, think of it as a movie star marriage sticking together after both spouses have badly, publicly cheated and also tried to ruin each other, financially, career-wise, and reputationally. And now let’s take a step back. For, ultimately, the Big Bro Bust-Up is most interesting if we look at it as if we were historians a few hundred years from now in the future: What does this quarrel tell us more generally about America at this stage? Read more Trump ‘very disappointed’ with Musk First of all, it simply confirms what we all know already: The US is not a democracy by any stretch of the (reasonable) imagination but an oligarchy and plutocracy. Votes count much less than money because money produces the votes. Musk has been commendably explicit about his belief that it was his massive financial support that made Trump win; and one of Trump’s worries in the whole rumble is that Musk might not only withdraw future funds from his camp – already promised but not yet paid out – but also invest them elsewhere. Second, as of now at least, the American oligarchy/plutocracy is not under pressure “from below.” Objectively – to use a term long beloved by Marxists – Americans have every reason to rebel and shake off both Trump and Musk and then some. But, sadly, tension and conflict are generated inside the elite, not by “the masses.” And third, the US elite is and remains absolutely, ruthlessly amoral and immoral, indeed quite evil: Here is a major falling out between the biggest oligarch and the president, and it’s about taxes, the deficit, profits, ego, and personal advantages. Not about, for instance, the fact that the US has, according to Israel, by now delivered 90,000 tons of arms and ammunitions to the Israeli apartheid state while the latter has been committing the Gaza genocide. Indeed, Musk has never withdrawn his support for Israel, while Trump has reached the same level of complicit depravity as his predecessor Joe Biden. America: The world sees your priorities. And it won’t forget. View the full article

Bloodthirsty American politicians like Lindsey Graham are eager to drag the war on forever, so they do everything to scupper negotiations The picture of Lindsey Graham, US Senator for South Carolina, and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, grinning into a camera in Brussels on June 2, is worth a thousand words. Graham is one of the most extreme hardcore warmongers in Washington DC, and the competition is pretty stiff. Ever since he first became a member of the US Congress over 30 years ago – once in, American politicians are rarely voted out – he has devoted his career to arguing vehemently for war. His remarks are often not just belligerent but also sadistic, such as when he recently posted that he hoped ‘Greta could swim’, meaning that he hoped her Gaza aid ship would be torpedoed. Joking about an attack on a civilian aid ship carrying a young female civilian activist is sick – and typical of Graham. Like his old friend, the late Senator John McCain, Lindsey Graham is obsessed with the idea of war with Russia. He has been pushing for this since at least 2014. In 2016 he told Ukrainian soldiers, “Your fight is our fight.” Graham’s presence in Brussels is therefore significant. Ever since von der Leyen’s appointment in 2019, she has pushed herself forward as the principal public face of the Brussels institutions. Six years ago, she said she wanted to make the European Commission into a ‘geopolitical’ body – even though it has no role in foreign or military policy. Since then, she has done little else than parade on the international stage. She is among the most hawkish and anti-Russian European figures, absurdly claiming, like French Foreign Minister Bruno Lemaire, that EU sanctions have brought the Russian economy to its knees. Read more Kremlin confirms Putin warning after Ukrainian drone strikes The Graham-von der Leyen alliance is therefore a natural one – against Donald Trump. European politicians are often quite explicit in their view that Trump is now the enemy. The same goes for Lindsey Graham. In Kiev last week, Graham explicitly challenged Trump’s authority to decide US foreign policy. He lambasted the very notion of negotiations with Russia – just as Zelensky did to Vance in the Oval office in February – and said that the president of the US is not the boss. “In America, you have more than one person at the card table. We have three branches of government,” – meaning that the Senate would soon impose its own sanctions on Russia, whatever the executive does. Graham’s budget bill from February is intended to spend even more money on the US military – as if that were possible – which means that he is marshalling the US deep state to fight back after initially reeling from the re-election of Trump. Meanwhile, the Europeans’ determination to continue the war is existential. Their Russophobia, which goes back at least to the 2012 Russian presidential election, when Putin came back into the Kremlin, is extreme because their “Europe” is defined by its hostility to Russia. Russia is “the other Europe” which the EU does not want to be and which it defines itself against. Von der Leyen and others want to use the war against Russia to federalise Europe and create a single state. Meanwhile, Trump’s Russia policy is based on sidelining Europe. When he first announced talks with the Russians, EU leaders demanded a seat at the table. They failed. US-Russia talks took place outside Europe – in Riyadh – while the Russia-Ukraine talks the EU vehemently opposed are taking place without the EU, in Istanbul. Let us not forget how furiously EU leaders opposed talking to Russia. When Viktor Orban travelled to Kiev and Moscow last July, Ursula von der Leyen denounced Orban’s “appeasement”. The EU’s then chief diplomat said in an official statement that the EU “excludes official contacts between the EU and President Putin.” The French foreign minister said in February that if Sergey Lavrov telephoned him he would not answer the call. Now these very same people claim they want to “force” the Russians to come and talk! Read more Kiev regime ‘not interested in peace,’ turning to terror and suffering battlefield losses – Key points from Putin’s speech EU policy on Russia is now in ruins. That is why, like Graham, they are determined to stop Trump. Their attempts have been ever more desperate and ridiculous. On May 12, Kaja Kallas and other EU leaders said Russia “must agree” to a ceasefire before any talks. Three days later, those talks started anyway. Britain also tried to scupper them by saying it was “unacceptable” for Russia to demand recognition of the “annexed” regions, which is odd considering Britain is not a participant. European credibility is therefore at zero. In March, the British prime minister had said that the plans to send British and French troops to Ukraine had entered “the operational phase.” They were ready, he claimed, to protect Ukraine’s security by directly entering the war zone. By April, these plans had been dropped. On May 10, European leaders threatened Russia with “massive sanctions” if it did not agree to a ceasefire immediately. Russia did not agree to a ceasefire and yet there have been no more “massive sanctions.” A 17th package of sanctions was indeed announced on May 14, but it was so weak that Hungary and Slovakia, who oppose the EU’s overall policy, let it pass. In any case, the 17th package clearly had nothing to do with the ultimatum because such sanctions take a long time to prepare. Instead, that is what Lindsey Graham was in Brussels to discuss. The EU and the UK have thus sidelined themselves with their meaningless braggadocio. They cannot operate without the Americans. But which Americans? The claim that the White House did not know about the recent Ukrainian drone attack on Russian airfields might well be true: the US deep state, embodied by people like Graham, is clearly trying to undermine the executive. Both Lindsey Graham and former CIA director Mike Pompeo were in Ukraine just days before the attack. Read more EU unlikely to meet demand from US senators on Russia sanctions – media The political goal of the drone attack was obviously to scupper the talks scheduled for the following day in Istanbul, or to provoke Russia into a massive response and drag the US into the war. Even if the attack does not succeed in these goals, it clearly sets the tone for the future Ukrainian insurgency which, American and European officials hope, will turn that country into an 'Afghanistan' for Russia. The US deep state is in for the long game. So are the Europeans. On May 9, 'Europe Day', European leaders confirmed their intention to set up a Special Tribunal for the crime of aggression, to prosecute Russia for invading in February 2022. Western European states are already the primary financers of the International Criminal Court, whose prosecutor is British. The ICC indicted Russian leaders, including Putin, in 2023 and 2024, on various very surprising charges. (Ursula von der Leyen continued to lie about “20,000 abducted children,” the day after the Ukrainians gave the Russians a list of 339 missing children.) Now the Europeans intend to open a new front in their 'lawfare' against Russia. Such a Special Tribunal, if it comes into existence, will tear the heart out of any peace agreement – just as Ukraine’s acceptance of the jurisdiction of the ICC in 2014 and 2015 rendered the Minsk agreement of February 2015 null and void. With one side of its mouth, Ukraine asked the ICC to prosecute Russian officials and Donbass “terrorists”; with the other side, it agreed at Minsk that the Donbass insurgency was an internal Ukrainian problem and ruled out any prosecution or punishment (Article 5 of the February 2015 Minsk agreement). It is not possible to agree a peace agreement with a country and at the same time to set up a Special Tribunal whose sole purpose is to criminalize it. So the creation of this Tribunal, which will presumably remain in existence for over a decade like the ad hoc tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, is nothing but a Euro-American institutional time bomb designed to blow up in the future any agreement which the two sides might reach in the short term. The future of “Europe” depends on that. View the full article

Beijing’s close ties with Islamabad give it a level of influence over dealings with Delhi The recent terrorist attack in India’s Pahalgam on April 22, 2025, which originated in Pakistan and resulted in the death of 26, mostly Hindu, civilians, has triggered another wave of heightened tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad. While public discourse has focused on terrorism and hostilities between the two nuclear-powered nations, a deeper analysis reveals the unmistakable imprint of another key actor ­– China’s strategic calculus in the region. The relationship between Islamabad and New Delhi has evolved significantly in recent decades. Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar travelled to Beijing days after the military standoff with Delhi and met his counterpart Wang Yi. The Chinese Foreign Minister called Pakistan an ”iron-clad friend” and ”all-weather strategic partner.” China is pursuing a strategy that aligns with its regional interests — including economic engagement, defense cooperation, and influence-building. This strategy, logically, includes efforts to slow down India’s rise. Pahalgam incident thus cannot be seen an isolated terrorist attack, but as a signal within a larger geostrategic landscape that is shaping Asia’s future. Strategic Timing The flareup in South Asia has come at a time of major geopolitical developments. With the mass shift of Western companies like Apple away from China to India, India is poised to become the next big manufacturing hub. Read more How Moscow’s legendary S-400 missiles helped India outgun Pakistan As global businesses explore alternatives to rising operational costs and geopolitical uncertainties in China, India is increasingly seen as a competitive option. Additionally, the proposed US tariffs may add pressure to China’s manufacturing sector, which is already adapting to evolving global supply chains. For the strongman leader, Xi Jinping, sustaining economic growth and employment remains a top priority. Any escalation involving India could introduce uncertainty that might affect investor sentiment and infrastructure momentum. Regional instability could redirect global attention away from India’s growth narrative toward internal and border-related concerns. China’s close political, economic and defence ties with Pakistan ­– an economically vulnerable partner ­– gives Beijing a certain level of influence on the way Islamabad deals with India. New Delhi was compelled to act militarily, risking escalation and economic fallout. To India’s credit, it managed to negotiate a ceasefire after achieving its key objectives of affecting 11 Pakistani air bases and nine terrorist camps and other strategic terrorist infrastructures against the popular sentiment against de-escalation. Economic factor Pakistan has been struggling with near to bankruptcy. Its foreign exchange reserves have fallen to $4.3bn, its lowest levels since February 2014. Despite a $2.4 billion bailout from the IMF – approved on May 9, when Islamabad and New Delhi were firing missiles at each other ­– the Pakistani economy is still in tatters. China’s offer of financial and military aid to Islamabad at such times comes in more than handy. Read more From ceasefire to misfire: Trump’s claims stir concerns in India China’s support for Pakistan is not circumstantial. It is also institutional and deeply entrenched. Between 2014 to 2024, China sold over $9 billion worth of advanced weaponry to Pakistan, accounting for around 80% of imported weapons, including J-10CE fighter jets, Wing Loong drones, LY-80 air defence systems, and naval assets. The operational use of these systems in the recent conflict, including Pakistani claims of downing Rafales using Chinese PL-15 missiles, has allowed Beijing to showcase its weapons systems in live combat. Beyond India, China’s motivation also ties into its long-term strategic objectives in the Persian Gulf. Pakistan provides China access to the Arabian Sea via Gwadar port, a linchpin in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and part of the broader Belt and Road Initiative. This maritime access offers China two significant advantages: a strategic military presence near key Middle Eastern shipping lanes and an alternative route for oil imports in case of a US-China maritime standoff in the South China Sea. Military-Industrial Complex benefits China’s defence industry is another big beneficiary of the escalation. Claims by the Pakistan Air Force that Chinese-made jets outmanoeuvred India’s French-built Rafales, regardless of their authenticity, have created a nationalist fervour in Chinese social media and boosted investor confidence. Stocks in Chinese defence manufacturers surged as hashtags like “J-10 shot down Indian warplanes” trended online, and praise for the PL-15 missile system flooded Weibo. Read more Truce or trap? India’s calculated calm with Pakistan Indeed, Beijing wants to use this as an inflexion point for its arms export ambitions. With Western suppliers often constrained by political alignments or human rights concerns, China’s relatively unrestricted military exports offer an attractive alternative, especially in conflict-prone or authoritarian regimes across Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia. A perceived successful battlefield performance strengthens China’s pitch as a reliable arms supplier. From shaping regional dynamics to advancing its defense exports and maintaining strategic interests in West Asia, China may perceive certain advantages in the current situation in the region. While the Pahalgam attack was carried out by terrorist actors, it may also reflect broader regional undercurrents in which multiple stakeholders play complex and calculated roles. Through India-Pakistan rivalry, China is executing a proxy strategy that would halt India’s rise, safeguard its own economic interests and bolster its defence exports and regional clout. Beijing has much to gain and little to lose from this rivalry — as long as it stays just below the threshold of full-scale war. View the full article

Libya is no longer just a post-Arab Spring tragedy, but a credibility test for multilateral diplomacy Libya has endured a collapse unmatched in modern North Africa since the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1973 in March 2011 – endorsing international intervention during the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi. Fourteen years on, the country remains fractured, chaotic, and stuck in an open-ended ‘transitional period’ that never seems to end. NATO’s seven-month, round-the-clock bombardment of the country, under the pretext of protecting civilians, left Libya in tatters. So far, the UN has dispatched ten special envoys, passed 44 resolutions, convened multiple peace conferences, and spent hundreds of millions of dollars. All UNSC resolutions adopted under the UN Charter’s Chapter VII, which makes them binding to member states, have not, however, been implemented effectively on the ground. Libya remains a cautionary tale: Two rival governments, a patchwork of militias, foreign interference at every level, and no real path to a functioning, unified state. Despite repeated pledges to guide the country toward elections for a parliament, president, and unified government, every major initiative has failed since the last elections in 2014. The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) now stands accused of not resolving the crisis – but managing it instead. Critics argue that the mission has become a diplomatic holding pattern, one that accommodates obstructionists instead of sidelining them. Tripoli on fire again Nothing illustrates the UN’s ongoing failure better as the recent eruption of violence in Tripoli. On May 12, two powerful government-loyal militias clashed in a two-day battle that left over 100 civilian casualties and at least eight deaths. Burned-out cars and rubble littered the streets of the capital. It was triggered by the assassination of Abdel Ghani al-Kikli, known as ‘Gheniwa’, at the hands of the rival 444 Brigade. Gheniwa, who led the Stability Support Apparatus (SSA), was ambushed during what was supposed to be a mediation meeting. Read more It’s 2025, but Africans are still in chains. Why? Both the SSA and 444 Brigade were created by former Prime Minister Fayez el-Sarraj by separate decrees. The SSA’s tasks included protecting government buildings, providing personal protection to government officials, and controlling public discontent. The 444 Brigade was intended to be more of a disciplined combat-army unit headed by Colonel Mahmoud Hamza – a professional military officer. It originated as a small unit within a larger militia known as the Special Deterrence Force. Gheniwa, however, was more than just a militia commander: He had practically been running a parallel state, extending his influence across Libya’s security apparatus, central bank, foreign ministry, and southern Tripoli’s governance. The UN condemned the fighting, as it always does, and called for calm, but had little else to offer. The mayhem underscored what many Libyans already knew: Tripoli is not safer without Gheniwa and the state does not control the armed militias. This has been the case since NATO’s 2011 intervention which, effectively, paralyzed the Libyan state, and now the UN has lost its grip on the peace process. Ten envoys, zero breakthroughs From Abdel Elah al-Khatib in 2011 to Abdoulaye Bathily in 2024, every UN envoy has exited the Libyan stage with their mission unfulfilled. Some made bold moves. Bernardino Leon brokered the 2015 Skhirat Agreement, which became a de facto constitution in a country that still does not have one. The agreement is the official UN-sanctioned frame of reference for every political effort the UNSMIL attempts. Ghassan Salame, who took over five years after Leon, led the 2020 Berlin Process, further strengthening Leon’s work and delivering the road map that led to the formation of the current Government of National Unity (GNU) still in office today. But each road map eventually hit a dead end: Local actors resisted compromise, foreign players pushed their own agendas, and the interim authorities hoarded power. Bathily, a Senegalese diplomat, abruptly resigned in April 2024 after a proposal by the High Steering Committee to agree on a road map for the country was rejected by almost all rival groups and political entities in the country, including the House of Representatives in Tobruk and the High State Council (HSC) in Tripoli. His resignation letter was scathing, citing “a lack of political will and good faith” among Libyan leaders and warning that foreign interference had turned Libya into a “playground for fierce rivalry among regional and international actors.” His exit left the UN with a credibility problem. Who will gather all actors in one room? Now the UN is turning to Ghanaian diplomat Hannah Tetteh – the former head of the UN Office to the African Union – in what some see as a pivot toward African-led legitimacy. Critics of past efforts have long argued that Libya’s future should not be steered solely by European or Gulf powers. Tetteh faces daunting odds. Before her appointment, acting UN envoy Stephanie Koury laid some groundwork by establishing a 20-member Libyan Advisory Committee. On May 20, the committee delivered a report outlining four possible political paths: 1) hold both legislative and presidential elections, then proceed to a constitutional referendum; 2) begin with legislative elections, followed by a referendum to adopt a permanent constitution, then presidential elections; 3) reverse the process: Adopt a constitution first, then hold elections; 4) reset entirely, launching a new national dialogue and road map through consensus. Read more Gaddafi warned them. Now the EU is living out his grim prophecy Any of these tracks requires buy-in from what Libyan observers call ‘the Five Devils’ – the key domestic spoilers: Aguila Saleh, speaker of the House of Representatives in Tobruk; Khaled al-Mishri, the head of the HSC in Tripoli; Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and his forces in the east; Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah and the Government of National Unity; the three-member Presidential Council in Tripoli. Bathily tried to convene these actors in one room. It never happened. And that failure, more than any policy misstep, sealed his fate. The international community often calls these actors ‘stakeholders’. In truth, they are gatekeepers of chaos. Elections threaten their entrenched power and access to state wealth. The longer the delay, the more they benefit. Many of these factions now function as proxies for foreign powers. Egypt, Turkey, France, Russia, the US, and to a lesser extent, Qatar, all back different sides. Their interests rarely align with the democratic aspirations of ordinary Libyans. Domestic leaders, meanwhile, speak the language of peace in public while obstructing it behind closed doors. Dbeibah’s GNU has publicly welcomed elections – while allegedly using state funds to sponsor rallies, suppress dissent, fund nominally allied militias, and sabotage electoral logistics. Last month, the Tobruk based parliament invited 14 men to present their manifestos to become the new prime minister of the unified government in Libya. But the chamber appears hesitant, fearing that the new government will not be recognized by the UN, as it will not be able to peacefully dislodge Dbeibah’s GNU from the center of power in the capital, Tripoli. This scenario is likely to lead to violence in Tripoli and perhaps other parts of the divided country. The UNSMIL has not commented on the parliamentary discussions yet, but behind the scenes, it does not support this step, fearing the consequences and potential destabilizing effects. From mediator to manager Critics argue that the UN mission has shifted from seeking resolution to managing stagnation. The mantra of a ‘Libyan-led solution’ has become, in effect, an excuse for inaction. By refusing to confront spoilers head-on, the mission risks legitimizing the very elites blocking progress. One Libyan analyst, speaking anonymously, described the UNSMIL as “a concierge service for the crisis” – hosting endless forums and communiques, while average citizens endure poverty, sky-high cost of living, inflation, and collapsing services. Basic institutions – a unified military, functioning judiciary, and national budget – remain aspirational. And then, like clockwork, violence erupts in Tripoli. A test for the UN Read more Brutally murdered 13 years ago, this leader is only growing more beloved If Tetteh’s mission stalls like the rest, what is the UN’s plan B? There is no formal fallback, but diplomats are quietly discussing three controversial options: Chapter VII-style international trusteeship – effectively returning Libya to partial international oversight. In reality, this option means placing the country, indefinitely, under UN trusteeship, with some kind of general governor appointed by it – practically ending the independence and sovereignty of Libya. Aggressive sanctions on spoilers: Asset freezes, travel bans, and naming-and-shaming campaigns. The UNSC, through the sanctions committee, knows the obstructers, both state and non-state actors, but never really empowered its resolutions to implement any effective punitive measures against them. A Bosnia-style power-sharing arrangement modeled on the Dayton Accords, which divided up the country into little quarreling cantons under a weak three-member presidency that hardly agrees on anything. This would entrench divisions but create a framework for gradual state-building. The Bosnia option remains deeply divisive. But as one Tripoli-based European diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity put it, “Better a bad peace than no state at all.” Libya is no longer just a post-Arab Spring tragedy – it is a credibility test for multilateral diplomacy. Fourteen years of broken deadlines, shelved blueprints, and failed elections have disillusioned not only Libyans but the international community. Hannah Tetteh’s task is to do what nine others could not: Disrupt elite collusion, overcome foreign manipulation, and make elections more than just lines in a Geneva communique. Her success or failure will shape not just Libya’s future – but the legacy of the UN’s longest-running post-conflict mission since Iraq. View the full article