American Women Suck

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

The blatant incompetence shown by former German Foreign Minister Annalena ‘360 degrees’ Baerbock has earned her a cushy new UN General Assembly post Every circus needs a clown. And this one has a truly awesome demo reel. Despite the Greens snagging 85 seats in the current German parliament, it turns out they’re about as useful to Friedrich Merz’s shiny new right-left establishment coalition with the Christian Democrats as a vegan menu at Oktoberfest. So they’re relegated to chilling on the Bundestag backbenches. Annalena Baerbock, the former German Foreign Affairs Minister in ex-Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government, could have coasted into parliament again via the Greens’ party list, even after losing her direct seat to Scholz himself. But she apparently had bigger plans. She’s just been tapped as the next President of the United Nations General Assembly. Before officially packing up at the Foreign Ministry, her own department nominated her for the UN gig – an administrative role, largely ceremonial. Why her? Well, it’s Germany’s turn to fill the seat for a year starting in September, and a career diplomat was reportedly first in line. You know, someone who hadn’t become globally famous for flunking basic geometry. And well, that just can’t stand. Not when the face of German diplomacy is no longer being kept by German voters in the manner to which she has become accustomed. Besides, just check out this CV. In a moment that will live in infamy alongside Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, MLK’s “I Have a Dream,” Pericles’ Funeral Oration, and Churchill’s “We shall fight on the beaches,” Baerbock took the spotlight at the 2023 Munich Security Conference. Asked whether Ukraine would be safe long-term if Vladimir Putin stayed in power in Russia, she replied: “If Putin doesn’t change by 360 degrees, no.” Read more Germany risks becoming a target for Russia – for the first time since Hitler Apparently, she thinks a dizzy Putin would make all the difference. Perhaps it’s not the first time that Baerbock, a former gymnast, confused a 360 with a 180, and landed on her head at some point. Either way, German school-kids usually master this concept by age 10. In another Baerbockism, during a January 2023 speech at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, she said: “We are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other.” Cue her foreign ministry hastily clarifying that no, of course Germany hadn’t just declared war on Russia. It was just Baerbock talking again. With all this experience as Germany’s walking, talking diplomatic banana peel, she was clearly destined for bigger things on the world stage. So who could possibly object to shipping her off to the UN? Well, this guy, for one: “It is outrageous to replace the best and most internationally experienced German diplomat with an outdated model,” grumbled Christoph Heusgen, former chair of the Munich Security Conference, referring to career diplomat, Helga Schmid, reportedly slidelined in favor of Baerbock. An outdated model? Bold words, Mr. Former Conference Chair! Excuse you, but trusty single-cylinder moped-grade intellectualism never truly goes out of style. “Ms. Baerbock can learn a lot from [Schmid],” said former German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel. What’s he suggesting? That Schmid moonlights as a geometry tutor? So that makes two critics, including one who previously held Baerbock’s job. But surely these bitter old guys are alone in their skepticism towards this pioneer of feminist foreign policy. Read more Germany is weaponizing WWII memory against Russia No doubt it’s just a coincidence that “Mr. Eighteen Percent Popularity” Scholz beat her in her own riding. And that Statista pegged her approval rating at -0.7 on a scale from -5 to 5. And who really cares about that time she sounded kind of like she was unilaterally declaring war on Russia on behalf of Germany, or when she seemed unsure which country she was representing. Like at a September 2022 forum when she said: “If I give the promise to people in Ukraine – ‘We stand with you, as long as you need us’ – then I want to deliver. No matter what my German voters think.” At the time, Germany was deindustrializing and its citizens were being crushed by energy costs. Both consequences of the very Ukraine policy Baerbock was committed to, with or without voter consent, as she suggested. But look, Baerbock isn’t the only politician to turn a domestic faceplant into a corner office with a view at Global Governance Inc. Take European Commission President ‘Queen’ Ursula von der Leyen. No, please, take her, as former Chancellor Angela Merkel would say. Before becoming the unelected President of the European Commission, von der Leyen served as Germany’s Defence Minister in Merkel’s government from 2013 to 2019. Known more for glamour shots in front of jets than for actually equipping them, her ministry apparently favored pricey consultants over functionality. One report noted: “There is neither enough personnel nor material, and often one confronts shortage upon shortage. The troops are far from being fully equipped.” Well, unless you count the broomsticks reportedly used during training exercises, and possibly sourced from Ursula’s personal garage. Former European Parliament President Martin Schulz offered this glowing review of the current de facto Queen of the EU: “One thing is true, she ran in 2019 – but not for the European Parliament, but she ran away from her ministry in Germany.” He also tweeted in 2019: “Von der Leyen is our weakest minister. That’s apparently enough to become Commission president.” Read more Western Europe has lost the plot – but still plays with fire Apparently, flunking your domestic portfolio is the new fast track to international prestige. Just ask Mark Rutte. The Dutch Prime Minister became so politically radioactive that his coalition partners were getting scorched by mere proximity. He resigned twice: first over a child welfare scandal, then after failing to maintain unity on asylum policy. His solution? Bail and become NATO’s new Secretary General – essentially, the West’s chief weapons lobbyist. Or consider Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. Her Reform Party slipped to third place under her leadership, dropping below 20 percent approval. As her coalition sank, she jumped ship and landed in Brussels as the EU’s chief diplomat. Voters back home were apparently less impressed, especially after her government’s tax hikes and perceived focus on Ukraine over Estonia. Even more awkward: while Kallas was calling for Europe to cut all ties with Russia, her husband’s company, Stark Logistics, was still doing business there. But apparently, that kind of conflict of interest now screams “diplomatic credentials.” So no, Baerbock’s story isn’t a bug in the system. It’s effectively the blueprint. The fall from grace at home just gives more momentum for the launch to cushy international posts. The moral of the story is clear: stumble locally, ascend globally. Even if your personal GPS is so busted that you can’t tell a U-turn from a 360. View the full article

Any progress towards a settlement will be incremental, slow and painful On Sunday, in the Russian regions of Bryansk and Kursk, both bordering Ukraine, bridges collapsed on and under trains, killing seven and injuring dozens of civilians. These, however, were no accidents and no extraordinary force of nature was involved either. Instead, it is certain that these catastrophes were acts of sabotage, which is also how Russian authorities are classifying them. Since it is virtually certain that the perpetrators acted on behalf of Kiev, Western media have hardly reported these attacks. Moscow meanwhile rightly considers these attacks terrorism. On the same day, Ukraine also carried out a wave of drone attacks on important Russian military airfields. That story, trumpeted as a great success by Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service, has been touted in the West. The usual diehard Western bellicists, long starved of good news, have pounced on Ukraine’s probably exaggerated account of these assaults to fantasize once more about how Ukraine has “genius,” while Russia is “vulnerable” and really almost defeated. Despair makes imaginative. In the wrong way. The reality of Ukraine’s drone strikes on the airfields is not entirely clear yet. What is certain is that Ukraine targeted locations in five regions, including in northern and central Russia as well as Siberia and the Far East. Kiev’s drone swarms were launched not from Ukraine but from inside Russia, using subterfuge and civilian trucks. Under International Humanitarian War (aka the Law of Armed Conflict), this is likely to constitute not a legitimate “ruse of war” but the war crime of perfidy, a rather obvious point somehow never mentioned in Western commentary. Yet at least, in this instance the targets were military: This was either an act of special-ops sabotage involving a war crime (the most generous possible reading) or plain terrorism or both, depending on your point of view. Three of the attacked airbases, it seems, successfully fended off the Ukrainian first-person-view kamikaze drones. In two locations, enough drones got through to cause what appears to be substantial damage. Ukrainian officials and, therefore, Western mainstream media claim that more than 40 Russian aircraft were destroyed, including large strategic bombers and an early-warning-and-control aircraft. Official Russian sources have admitted losses but not detailed them. Russian military bloggers, often well-informed, have quoted much lower figures (“in the single digits,” thirteen), while noting that even they still constitute a “tragic loss,” especially as Russia does not make these types of aircraft anymore. Read more The last drone parade: Ukraine tries to reset a war it already lost In financial terms, Ukrainian officials claim that they have inflicted the equivalent of “at least 2 billion” dollars in damage. Even if it should turn out that they have been less effective than that, there can be little doubt that, on this occasion, Kiev has achieved a lot of bang for the buck: even if “Operation Spiderweb” took a long time to prepare and involved various resources, including a warehouse, trucks, and the cheap drones themselves, it is certain that Kiev’s expenses must have been much less than Moscow’s losses. In political terms, Russia’s vibrant social media-based sphere of military-political commentators has revealed a sense of appalled shock and anger, and not only at Kiev but also at Russian officials and officers accused of still not taking seriously the threat of Ukrainian strikes even deep inside Russia. One important Telegram “mil-blogger” let his readers know that he would welcome dismissals among the air force command. But he also felt that the weak spots exploited by Kiev’s sneak drone attack have systemic reasons. Another very popular mil-blogger has written of “criminal negligence.” Whatever the eventual Russian political fall-out of these Ukrainian attacks, beware Western commentators’ incorrigible tendency to overestimate it. German newspaper Welt, for instance, is hyperventilating about the attack’s “monumental significance.” In reality, with all the frustration inside Russia, this incident will not shake the government or even dent its ability to wage the war. Probably, its real net effect will be to support the mobilization of Russia. Remember that Wagner revolt that saw exactly the same Western commentators predicting the imminent implosion not merely of the Russian government but the whole country? You don’t? Exactly. In the case of the terrorist attacks on civilian trains, the consequences are even easier to predict. They will definitely only harden Moscow’s resolve and that of almost all Russians, elite and “ordinary.” With both types of attacks, on the military airfields and on the civilian trains, the same puzzling question arises: What is Kiev even trying to do here? Read more Trains derailed by saboteurs in two Russian border regions: As it happened At this point, we can only speculate. My guess: Kiev’s rather desperate regime was after four things: First, a propaganda success for domestic consumption. Given that Zelensky’s Ukraine is a de facto authoritarian state with obedient media, this may actually work, for a moment. Until, that is, the tragedy of mobilization, all too often forced, for a losing proxy war on behalf of a fairly demented West, sinks in again, that is, in a day or so. Second, with its combination of atrocities against civilians and an assault on Russia’s nuclear defenses, this was Kiev’s umpteenth attempt to provoke Russia into a response so harsh that it would escalate the war to a direct clash between NATO (now probably minus the US) and Russia. This is a Ukrainian tactic as old as this war, if not older. Call it the attack’s routine aspect. Equally routinely, that plan went nowhere. Then there was the attempt to torpedo the second round of the revived Istanbul talks, scheduled for Monday, 2 June, by provoking Russia to cancel or launch such a rapid and fierce retaliation strike that Kiev could have used it as a pretext to do the same. That is, as it were, the tactical dimension, and it also failed. While the above is devious, it is also run-of-the-mill. States will be states, sigh. The fourth likely purpose of Kiev’s wave of sabotage and terror strikes – the strategic aspect, as it were – however, is much more disturbing: The Zelensky regime – and at least some of its Western backers (my guess: Britain in the lead) – are signaling that they are ready to wage a prolonged campaign of escalating terrorist attacks inside Russia, even if the fighting in Ukraine should end. Think of the Chechen Wars, but much worse again. This, too, would not succeed. One lesson of the Chechen Wars is precisely that Moscow has made up its mind not to bend to terrorism but instead eliminate its source, whatever the cost. Regarding those Istanbul talks, they have taken place. Ukraine was not able to make Russia abandon them. Otherwise, the results of this second round of the second attempt at peace in Istanbul seem to have been very modest, as many observers predicted. Kiev, while losing, did its usual grimly comedic thing and offered Moscow a chance to surrender. Moscow handed over its terms in turn; and they have not changed and reflect that it is winning the war. Kiev has promised to study them. Read more Russia-Ukraine talks wrap up: As it happened Given that the gap between Ukrainian delusions and Russian demands seems unbridgeable at this point, even a large-scale ceasefire is out of reach. And that may be, after all, what both the Zelensky regime and its European backers want. As to Moscow, it has long made clear that it will fight until it reaches its war aims. In that sense, the new talks confirmed what the attacks had signaled already: peace is not in sight. Russia’s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky did, however, offer smaller, local ceasefires of “two to three days” that, he explained, would serve to retrieve the bodies of the fallen for decent burial. In the same spirit, Russia has committed to hand over 6,000 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers and officers. There was something for the living as well: more prisoner exchanges, for those severely ill or injured as well as for the young, have been agreed. Figures are not clear yet, but the fact that they will take place on an “all-for-all” basis reflects a Russian gesture of good will. Finally, Medinsky also revealed that the Ukrainian side handed over a list of 339 children that Russia has evacuated from the war zone. He promised that, as in previous cases, Russian officials will trace them and do their best to return the children to Ukraine. Medinsky pointed out that the number of children on Kiev’s list massively contradicts Ukrainian and Western stories – as well as lawfare – about an immense, “genocidal” Russian kidnapping operation. In that sense, the talks at least helped to deflate an old piece of Western information war. Perhaps that is all that is possible for now: truly incremental humanitarian progress and a very gradual, very slow working toward a more reasonable manner of talking to each other. Better than nothing. But that’s a low bar, admittedly. View the full article

Instead of high-quality education, these institutions are fostering a global neo-feudal system reminiscent of the British Raj US President Donald Trump has banned international students from attending Harvard University, citing national security concerns. The move has sparked widespread condemnation from academics and foreign governments, who warn it could damage America’s global influence and reputation for academic openness. At stake is not just Harvard’s global appeal, but the very premise of open academic exchange that has long defined elite higher education in the US. But exactly how ‘open’ is Harvard’s admissions process? Every year, highly qualified students – many with top-tier SAT or GMAT test scores – are rejected, often with little explanation. Critics argue that behind the prestigious Ivy League brand lies an opaque system shaped by legacy preferences, DEI imperatives, geopolitical interests, and outright bribes. George Soros, for instance, once pledged $1 billion to open up elite university admissions to drones who would read from his Open Society script. China’s swift condemnation of Trump’s policy added a layer of geopolitical irony to the debate. Why would Beijing feign concern for “America’s international standing” amid a bitter trade war? The international standing of US universities has long been tarnished by a woke psychosis which spread like cancer to all branches of the government. So, what was behind China’s latest gripe? The answer may lie in the unspoken rules of soft power: Ivy League campuses are battlegrounds for influence. The US deep state has long recruited foreign students to promote its interests abroad – subsidized by American taxpayers no less. China is apparently playing the same game, leveraging elite US universities to co-opt future leaders on its side of the geostrategic fence. Read more Trump bans Harvard from admitting foreign students For the time being, a judge has granted Harvard’s request for a temporary restraining order against Trump’s proposed ban. Come what may, there is one commonsense solution that all parties to this saga would like to avoid: Forcing Ivy League institutions to open their admissions process to public scrutiny. The same institutions that champion open borders, open societies, and open everything will, however, not tolerate any suggestion of greater openness to its admissions process. That would open up a Pandora’s Box of global corruption that is systemically ruining nations today. Speaking of corruption – how is this for irony? A star Harvard professor who built her career researching decision-making and dishonesty was just fired and stripped of tenure for fabricating her own data! Concentration of wealth and alumni networks The Ivy League has a vested interest in perpetuating rising wealth and educational inequalities. It is the only way they can remain atop the global rankings list at the expense of less-endowed peers. Elite universities like Harvard, Stanford, and MIT dominate lists of institutions with the most ultra-wealthy alumni (net worth over $30mn). For example, Harvard alone has 18,000 ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) alumni, representing 4% of the global UHNW population. These alumni networks provide major donations, corporate partnerships, and exclusive opportunities, reinforcing institutional wealth. If the alma mater’s admissions process was rigged in their favor, they have no choice but to cough it up, at least for the sake of their offspring who will perpetuate this exclusivist cycle. The total endowment of Princeton University – $34.1 billion in 2024 – translated to $3.71 million per student, enabling generous financial aid and state-of-the-art facilities. Less prestigious institutions just cannot compete on this scale. Read more Harvard defends ‘core principles’ against Trump threats Rankings, graft, and ominous trends Global university rankings (QS, THE, etc.) heavily favor institutions with large endowments, high spending per student, and wealthy student bodies. For example, 70% of the top 50 US News & World Report Best Colleges overlap with universities boasting the largest endowments and the highest percentage of students from the top 1% of wealthy families. According to the Social Mobility Index (SMI), climbing rankings requires tens of millions in annual spending, driving tuition hikes and exacerbating inequality. Lower-ranked schools which prioritize affordability and access are often overshadowed in traditional rankings, which reward wealth over social impact. Besides, social mobility these days is predetermined at birth, as the global wealth divide becomes unbridgeable. Worse, the global ranking system itself thrives on graft, with institutions gaming audits, inflating data, and even bribing reviewers. Take the case of a Southeast Asian diploma mill where some of its initial batch of female students had been arrested for prostitution. Despite its flagrant lack of academic integrity, it grew rapidly to secure an unusually high QS global ranking – ahead of venerable institutions like the University of Pavia, where Leonardo da Vinci studied, and which boasts three Nobel Laureates among its ranks. Does this grotesque inversion of merit make any sense? Government policies increasingly favor elite institutions. Recent White House tax cuts and deregulation may further widen gaps by benefiting corporate-aligned universities while reducing public funding for others. This move was generally welcomed by the Ivy League until Trump took on Harvard. With such ominous trends on the horizon, brace yourselves for an implosion of the global education sector by 2030 – a reckoning mirroring the 2008 financial crisis, but with far graver consequences. And touching on the 2008 crisis, didn’t someone remark that “behind every financial disaster, there’s a Harvard economist?” Nobody seems to be learning from previous contretemps. In fact, I dare say that ‘learning’ is merely a coincidental output of the Ivy League brand Read more White House halts new grants for Harvard The credentialism trap When Lehman Brothers and its lesser peers collapsed in 2008, many Singapore-based corporations eagerly scooped up their laid-off executives. The logic? Fail upward. If these whizz kids were truly talented, why did they miss the glaring warning signs during the lead up to the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression? The answer lies in the cult of credentialism and an entrenched patronage system. Ivy League MBAs and Rolodexes of central banker contacts are all that matters. The consequences are simply disastrous: A runaway global talent shortage will hit $8.452 trillion in unrealized annual revenues by 2030, more than the projected GDP of India for the same year. Ivy League MBAs often justify their relevance by overcomplicating simple objectives into tedious bureaucratic grinds – all in the name of efficiency, smart systems, and ever-evolving ‘best practices’. The result? Doctors now spend more time on paperwork than treating patients, while teachers are buried under layers of administrative work. Ultimately, Ivy League technocrats often function as a vast bureaucratic parasite, siphoning public and private wealth into elite hands. What kind of universal socioeconomic model are these institutions bequeathing to the world? I can only think of one historical analogue as a future cue: Colonial India, aka the British Raj. This may be a stretch, but bear with me. Lessons from the Raj As Norman Davies pointed out, the Austro-Hungarians had more bureaucrats managing Prague than the British needed to run all of colonial India – a subcontinent that included modern-day Pakistan and Bangladesh. In fact, it took only 1,500-odd white Indian Civil Service (ICS) officials to govern colonial India until WWI. That is quite staggering to comprehend, unless one grasps how the British and Indian societies are organized along rigid class (and caste) lines. When two corrupt feudal systems mate, their offspring becomes a blueprint for dystopia. India never recovered from this neo-feudal arrangement. If the reader thinks I am exaggerating, let’s compare the conditions in the British Raj and China from 1850 to 1976 (when the Cultural Revolution officially ended). During this period, China endured numerous societal setbacks – including rebellions, famines, epidemics, lawlessness, and a world war – which collectively resulted in the deaths of nearly 150 million Chinese. The Taiping Rebellion alone – the most destructive civil war in history – resulted in 20 to 30 million dead, representing 5-10% of China’s population at the time. Read more AI hallucinations: A budding sentience or a global embarrassment? A broad comparison with India during the same period reveals a death toll of 50-70 million, mainly from epidemics and famines. Furthermore, unlike colonial India, many parts of China also lacked central governance. Indian nationalists are quick to blame a variety of bogeymen for their society’s lingering failings. Nevertheless, they should ask themselves why US Big Tech-owned news platforms, led by upper-caste Hindu CEOs, no less, showed a decidedly pro-Islamabad bias during the recent Indo-Pakistani military standoff. Maybe, these CEOs are supine apparatchiks, much like their predecessors during the British Raj? Have they been good stewards of the public domain (i.e. internet)? Have they promoted meritocracy in foreign lands? (You can read some stark examples here, here and here). These Indian Big Tech bros, however, showed a lot of vigor and initiative during the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing their employees to take the vaccine or face the pink slip. They led the charge behind the Global Task Force on Pandemic Response, which included an “unprecedented corporate sector initiative to help India successfully fight COVID-19.” Just check out the credentials of the ‘experts’ involved here. Shouldn’t this task be left to accomplished Indian virologists and medical experts? A tiny few, in the service of a hegemon, can control the fate of billions. India’s income inequality is now worse than it was under British rule. A way out? As global university inequalities widen further, it is perhaps time to rethink novel approaches to level the education field as many brick and mortar institutions may simply fold during the volatile 2025-30 period. I am optimistic that the use of AI in education will be a great equalizer, but I also fear that Big Tech will force governments into using its proprietary EdTech solutions that are already showing signs of runaway AI hallucinations – simply because the bold new world is all about control and power, not empowerment. Much like the British Raj, I would say. View the full article

The former chancellor says closed borders could “destroy Europe” – meanwhile, it’s the locals’ way of life that’s getting destroyed The former chancellor is back in the news, lecturing her fellow citizens to allow more asylum seekers into their country even as Germany is plagued by rampant crime and dismal economic factors. If it is true that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results, then we can say with some degree of certainty that Angela Merkel is suffering severely on the mental front. The four-term leader of the Christian Democratic Union (2005-2021) has gone down in the history books as the person most responsible for the greatest upheaval of German society in modern times, and she shows no sign of letting up. Without ever asking the German electorate what they wanted, Merkel in 2015 opened her country’s borders to over one million illegal immigrants, while holding out cash incentives and other handsome benefits for those who made the difficult journey. Merkel was of the opinion that Germany had the economic strength to handle the influx of migrants and reiterated that there was no legal maximum limit on the number of migrants the country could take. Unfortunately, she was seriously mistaken. And her views on the matter – despite serious cultural, societal and political repercussions – have not changed. During this week’s presentation of her memoir, ‘Freedom,’ Merkel, 70, spoke out on migration, warning that without it “we could see Europe destroyed.” “I do not believe we can decisively combat illegal migration at the German-Austrian or German-Polish border… I have always advocated European solutions,” Merkel said when asked about the latest measures adopted by Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who faces an uphill battle in the Bundestag, the federal parliament, to incorporate more anti-immigration policies. Read more EU could be ‘destroyed’ – Merkel As for Merkel the diehard globalist, who once lamented the failure of multiculturalism, she fails to understand that the German people are desperately holding out hope for a real change of political course. The fact is Germany is no longer a safe place to do simple everyday things, like take a casual stroll down the street or to raise a family, without an unhealthy degree of fear and apprehension. That is because an entirely new phenomenon of knife attacks is now plaguing the streets of every German city as the migration crisis has spiraled into a crime crisis. Statistics show that such heinous criminal acts, overwhelmingly committed by individuals of foreign origin, are getting worse, with a shocking 79 knife attacks per day on average now recorded, according to some German media. Last year, there were 29,014 cases involving a crime where a knife was used, of which, 15,741 were knife attacks. Physical harm involving a knife surged by 10.8 percent in 2024 compared to 2023. Here is just a glimpse of the recent violence that has plagued Germany. In January, a two-year-old boy and a 41-year-old man were killed in a stabbing in a park in Aschaffenburg, with several others wounded. One month later, a Spanish tourist was stabbed at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial. This month, a 35-year-old Syrian asylum seeker stabbed five youths in an unprovoked knife attack outside a popular student bar in Bielefeld, Germany. Not all of the migrant violence was the result of a knife attack. Last December, six people were killed and hundreds were injured after a car plowed into a crowd at a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg. Such indiscriminate attacks must be taking a heavy toll on the German psyche. Meanwhile, other statistics reveal the state of mind of the average German voter and the real consequences of Merkel’s reckless policies. Die Welt has reported, citing a new survey by YouGov, that 31% of those surveyed said they would “definitely” move abroad if they were entirely free to choose. Another 27% of respondents said they would “probably” leave. Within this group, 61% identified the country’s immigrant situation as a major factor influencing their decision, while 41% cited Germany’s ongoing economic recession. Read more Most Germans would like to leave country – poll Speaking of the economy, Merkel’s continual promotion of open borders is coming at a time when Germany has been enduring its longest phase of economic stagnation in post-war history. The country’s struggling economy shrank for a second year in a row in 2024, as gross domestic product (GDP) declined by 0.2% compared to the previous year. Germany’s central bank, the Bundesbank, has lowered its forecast for the economy and only expects very modest growth of 0.2% for 2025. In other words, it may be simply asking too much of the German people to continue supporting asylum seekers at a time when so many are feeling the sting of economic uncertainty. For many Germans, their only hope is for a major change in the political landscape. Thus, many citizens have thrown their support behind the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the biggest opposition party, which came in second in the February general election with just over 20% of the vote. That was the best national result for a hard-right party in Germany since the Second World War, and despite being designated as an “extremist” organization by Germany’s domestic intelligence service. US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, described the ruling as “tyranny in disguise”. Posting on social media, Rubio said: “What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD – which took second in the recent election – but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies.” Angela Merkel would do well to heed the opinion of the average German voter, who seems to be running out of patience, and support a pause in the influx of asylum seekers at this dangerous juncture. View the full article

I started working out after college with my very first push-up—and I haven’t stopped since. Since then, I’ve trained through just about every phase: calisthenics, boxing, circus arts, gymnastics, and now, jiu-jitsu. My interests have shifted. My body has changed. But one thing has stayed the same: I want to be the best athlete I can be, for as long as I can. And I actually want to enjoy it along the way. You can plan for longevity, no matter your sport or training style. You don’t need to peak at 25. You don’t have to slow down just because you hit 35, or 45, or beyond. Here are 7 lessons that have helped me keep going—and might help you, too. 1. The Little Things Aren’t Little Recovery. Breathing. Warm-ups. Taking rest days seriously. They’re not exciting, but they matter more than almost anything. These are the invisible wins that keep you from burning out or getting injured. When people ignore them, I see it — and they feel it. Maybe not today, but eventually. If you want to keep training for life, take the little things seriously. That’s how you build a longer, stronger runway. 2. Mobility Is Non-Negotiable When I skip mobility, I feel it: tight hips, stiff joints, sluggish movement. And I see the same pattern in the people around me. The good news? You don’t need a 45-minute mobility routine. A few minutes a day — done consistently — makes a huge difference. It’s one of the best returns on investment you can make in your training. 3. Goals Keep You Showing Up Having something to work toward makes a huge difference in motivation. For me, it’s often a skill (a new jiu-jitsu technique, a strength benchmark, a handstand challenge). But it can be anything — just make it specific and exciting. The clearer the target, the easier it is to keep moving toward it. Vague goals fade fast. But meaningful ones build momentum. 4. Bodyweight Training Is Still My Favorite I’ve trained in a lot of styles. But bodyweight training is the one I keep coming back to. It’s efficient. It’s adaptable. And it makes you feel like an athlete anytime, anywhere. You don’t need a gym. You just need your body, your breath, and some grit. 5. Community Makes You Stronger I trained alone for years. And I still value solo sessions. But nothing compares to being surrounded by people who push you, cheer for you, and show up alongside you. Community brings something that solo training never will: depth. 6. You Can Always Make Progress Plateauing? Injured? Starting over? You can still make progress. You just have to redefine it. Break things down. Get help if you need it. Focus on one small win at a time. Progress doesn’t always look like “more.” Sometimes it looks like “better.” Sometimes it looks like “still here.” 7. Don’t Forget to Have Fun Seriously. If your workouts are mostly miserable, it’s time to change something. Play. Experiment. Try a new class, a new skill, or something you used to love as a kid. If you enjoy what you’re doing, you’ll keep doing it—and that’s what actually matters. Keep Going If I’ve learned anything over the last 15 years, it’s this: Consistency beats intensity. Joy beats burnout. You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to keep showing up — with intention, curiosity, and a little respect for the long game. The post Movement for Life: 7 Lessons to Help You Train for the Long Haul appeared first on 12 Minute Athlete. View the full article

Berlin would do well to heed Moscow’s warnings not to supply long-range weapons to Kiev If in a dark hole, dig deeper, especially even deeper than feckless German ex-chancellor Olaf Scholz. That seems to be Berlin’s new motto. Under Friedrich Merz’s new mis-management, the German government is clearly setting out to worsen its current abysmal non-relationship with Russia. That is a sadly ambitious aim, because things are already more dire than they’ve been at any point since 1945. But Merz and his team, it seems, are not satisfied with playing a key role in fighting a proxy war against Russia that has been a ruinous fiasco; not for the Russian economy, but for Germany’s. Even by February 2023, German mainstream media reported that the war had sliced 2.5 percent off GDP. That, by the way, is a large figure in and of itself, but consider that between 2022 and 2024 Germany’s annual GDP growth (or, really, reduction) rate has varied between -0.3 percent (2023) and +1.4 percent, and it looks even worse. And yet, instead of sincerely – and finally – trying to use diplomacy to end this war against Russia via Ukraine, Merz’s Berlin is now taking the risk of escalating the current mess into the nightmare of a direct military clash between Russia and Germany (and, hence, presumably NATO – though not necessarily including the US any longer). Such a confrontation would be devastating in a manner that Germans have not experienced for a long time, as even a recent German TV documentary had to admit, despite its obvious purpose to boost the country’s current re-militarization-on-steroids. The single most obvious symbol of Berlin’s new, industrial-strength recklessness is the Taurus cruise missile, a sophisticated, very expensive weapon (at €1-3 million each) with a full name you will want to forget (Target Adaptive Unitary and Dispenser Robotic Ubiquity System) and, crucially, a maximum range of about 500 kilometers. Read more Germany risks becoming a target for Russia – for the first time since Hitler The government under Scholz, breathtakingly incompetent and shamelessly submissive to the US as it was, never agreed to let Ukraine have this weapon. For, in essence, two reasons: The Taurus, once in Ukraine, could fire deep into Russia, even as far as Moscow, and it is undeniable that it can only be operated with direct German help, which would bring about a state of war between Moscow and Berlin. Merz, however, has created a vague yet substantial impression that delivering the Taurus to Kiev is an option again. Throughout this war – and its prehistory, too – Russia has been sending clear warnings about what such a war might entail: According to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, for instance, Germany is “already directly engaging” in the Ukraine War. But clearly, he, too, sees room for things to get much worse again, with, in his words, Germany “sliding down the same slippery slope it has already treaded a couple of times just this past century – down to its collapse.” Dmitry Peskov, spokesman of President Vladimir Putin, has underlined that Merz’s statements, muddled as they were, pointed to a “serious escalation.” Less diplomatically, the head of Russia’s RT, Margarita Simonyan, has explained that German-Ukrainian Taurus strikes on Russian cities could provoke a Russian missile strike on Berlin. An important Russian military expert, meanwhile, has mentioned the possibility of a strike against Taurus production facilities in Germany. Are these warnings any help? Of course, German politicians would not openly admit to being successfully deterred by Moscow, but it is a fact that Merz has abstained from following through on his implied threat of transferring the Taurus to Ukraine. Read more Russia could target Berlin if German missiles hit Moscow – RT editor-in-chief If he had wanted to do so, the visit of Ukraine’s leader Vladimir Zelensky in Berlin would have provided an excellent opportunity to close the deal. Yet, instead of the hotly desired cruise missiles, Zelensky has received something else: a demonstrative use of the German informal you (“du”), plenty of money (again), and a promise that Germany will help build long-range weapons in Ukraine. Considering that Moscow has just demonstrated its ability to strike such production facilities anywhere in Ukraine, that promise is the equivalent of a cop-out. For now at least. That is a good thing. It avoids an immediate, extremely dangerous escalation. Yet Merz and his experts are naïve if they believe that there will be no Russian response to their declared intention to transfer German know-how to Ukraine so that long-range weapons can be made there. For one thing, Moscow has just demonstrated its ability to strike Ukraine’s military industry. At the same time, even the Taurus is by no means off the table. Neither are Russian warnings about the catastrophic consequences of its use. The Russian Defense Ministry is confident that its air defenses could stop Taurus strikes, but also emphasizes that its special ability to fly far into Russia constitutes a problem in a class all by itself. What is the new Berlin even trying to do here? Negotiations to end the war are ongoing, even if Merz claims the opposite. Russia is not, as he repeats, merely “playing for time.” In reality, the second round of the Istanbul 2.0 talks is now scheduled to go ahead, at least as far as Moscow is concerned. The real problem for Western politicians like Merz is that Moscow is not willing to abandon its own interests or comply with unilateral demands backed up by threats. Indeed, if a plausible Reuters report based on leaks is correct, Putin has outlined Russia’s conditions for a realistic settlement once again: unsurprisingly, they include a complete stop to NATO expansion, an at least partial end to sanctions against Russia and to attempts to fully seize frozen Russian sovereign assets, the genuine neutrality of Ukraine, and protection for its Russian-speakers. Read more Germany to help Ukraine produce long-range weapons – Merz Against this background, Merz’s recent sallies are only more puzzling: Russia is not weak but winning this war. A summer offensive may be close and make Ukraine’s situation even more untenable. But there also is a genuine opportunity to exploit negotiations that have been restarted so as to finally limit the losses to both Ukraine and the West. Meanwhile, the reluctance of the US to reliably back up a hard course against Russia could permit the NATO-EU Europeans to explore constructive alternatives to the ongoing proxy war. Indeed, it should be their worst nightmare to be left alone with this conflict if Moscow and Washington should break through to a full détente. The German economy will not thrive – even with a hail-Mary boost of debt-based military Keynesianism, as now launched by Merz – unless its relationship with Russia is reframed. Last but not least, Ukraine will not be rebuilt before there is a durable peace. And Berlin’s response to all of the above? More of the same, but worse. Now, with the Taurus back on the options menu and open announcements to help Ukraine build, in essence, its own version of it, presumably under intense German coaching and packed with German technology, Kiev’s chances are not better and Germany’s position is more precarious. The probability of an escalation into a direct Russian-German war remains even higher than before Merz’s new initiative, and the probability of peace has been reduced. Call it a lose-lose. View the full article

Whatever happened between the French president and his wife on their trip to Vietnam, it completely overshadowed the politics of the visit French President Emmanuel Macron went to Vietnam to ink some massive deals – like a €9 billion Airbus order, which was supposed to be the centerpiece of the trip. But before he could even set foot on Vietnamese soil, as the plane’s hatch opened, his wife Brigitte was caught on camera doing what can only be described as a vertical push-up right on Macron’s face. At first glance, it looked like perhaps she was just trying to set the vibe for the visit, with a reenactment of what happened to the French the last time they got a little too confident in Vietnam. In any case, suddenly this image of the presidential couple had everyone zooming in like it was a lost Da Vinci. Cue the Elysee’s damage control. First: It’s a deepfake. Then: The Russians did it. And finally: Okay fine, it’s real, but it’s just two people “decompressing.” Let the one among us who’s never “unwound” by shoving our spouse in the face cast the first baguette. Final answer? Apparently so. A moment of complicity between longtime partners. Like a secret handshake. To the face. By the way, do the Elysee flaks themselves also count as conspiracy theorists? They’re the ones who cycled through every possible scapegoat short of blaming climate change – until they realized the Americans had the raw footage too. Read more Macron explains slap from wife Of course this slapstick moment didn’t make it into the glossy PR reel, which also featured Macron and his wife descending from the presidential plane. He appeared to gallantly offer her an arm as they deplaned – which she promptly ignored. His other hand formed a fist. For whom? Who knows. But France should probably duck. “France is a power of peace and balance,” Macron wrote above the promotional video on X. it would have been a hard sell posting that directly above a video that starts with him catching a couple of “peaceful” palms straight to the jaw. “When some choose to withdraw, France chooses to build bridges,” he added. Sure, but it kind of looked like you withdrew to the other side of the cabin, my guy. Weird? Well, maybe to the peasants. But apparently, it’s completely normal for the presidential couple to throw hands whenever someone cracks a joke. “It’s not even a slap…it’s a gesture that mimics a punch in the face. We’ve seen this sketch 100 times, it’s their way of decompressing before official performances,” explained a source described by Le Parisien as “close to” Macron. So, their opening act for a show of diplomacy on the world stage is something that looks like it was cribbed from a Three Stooges sketch? Alrighty then. In instances where you and I may laugh, these two just go full Rocky and Adrian, minus the gloves. You know they do have gloves though. We’ve already seen them used for Macron’s boxing photo shoots. The ones that absolutely are not meant to show how he’s going to personally fight Russian President Vladimir Putin. That is, if he ever gets past Brigitte in round one. Read more The slap in Hanoi: Why we should sympathize with Macron Macron later expressed frustration with everyone trying to decode what he insists is totally standard behavior. “We are teasing each other and having a bit of fun with my wife. I am surprised by this. It becomes a kind of... geoplanetary catastrophe where some are even developing theories, and I see a lot of crazy people spending their day explaining all these interpretations in videos,” Macron explained. “There are people who watched videos and think that I shared a bag of cocaine, that I had a one-on-one with the Turkish president, and that right now, I am in the process of having a quarrel with my wife. None of this is true, yet these three videos are real.” Oh, yeah – the napkin on the train to Ukraine that some folks mistook for a bag of cocaine. Maybe because Macron’s face looked a bit red as he snatched it up when the media walked in. Almost forgot about that one. Thanks for the reminder. Indeed, who hasn’t casually left a used Kleenex just sitting in the middle of the table with other folks. It’s a wonder that no one has yet speculated that Brigitte wasn’t just trying to give Macron one last hit of Kleenex before he stepped out of the plane. One for the road, as it were. As for the “one-on-one” with Erdogan? That’s a stretch. Macron’s flattering himself. It was more of a one-on-none. Erdogan held Macron’s finger like he was selecting a baguette from a Parisian bakery. If dignity were Kleenex, Macron would have struggled to blow his nose on what was left – let alone use it for his next Kleenex Rorschach Test. Yes, Macron technically came to Vietnam to ink major defense and aerospace deals in a power move to reassert France’s relevance in the Indo-Pacific, counterbalance China, and show that France can still punch above its weight (even without Brigitte’s spontaneous contribution). But between the bungled PR, the conspiracy fodder, and Erdogan’s diplomatic wedgie, it’s hard to tell if Macron’s trips are actual diplomacy – or rather just episodes of reality TV with an unlimited travel budget. View the full article

Can a wife hit her husband in the face if he is the President of France? Andrei Voznesensky once wrote a poem about a woman who beats up six men in a restaurant, throws salad at them, and kisses a mirror. His point was simple: a woman is allowed to fight back. She’s suffered, she’s been humiliated, she buys mimosas for International Women’s Day and sleeps on someone else’s mattress. So if she lashes out at greasy restaurant men, that’s just matriarchy at work. In this sense, we Russians are ahead of the progressive world. While the French are only now starting to debate whether a wife is permitted to slap her husband in the face – especially when he’s the president of the Fifth Republic – we’ve already worked through the layers of this discussion in our literature. Here’s what happened: when Emmanuel Macron landed in Hanoi and the door of his plane opened, cameras captured him being slapped in the face by a figure in a red jacket. A moment later, he descended the gangway smiling, hand in hand with his wife Brigitte – also wearing a red jacket. Naturally, memes followed. Social media lit up. In cafes and newsrooms, people speculated about what Macron did to deserve it. The internet loves a scandal, especially one wrapped in marital tension and presidential optics. But the laughter masks something serious. Domestic violence overwhelmingly affects women, yes, but that does not mean men are immune. And the rarity of male victims speaking up doesn’t make their experiences less valid. According to a 2017 US survey, 42.3% of men reported experiencing abuse from an intimate partner. A study in India’s Haryana state found the number even higher: 54%. Read more Stalin returns to Moscow – but not to power Yet men rarely report abuse. Shame, fear of mockery, and lack of support from law enforcement all play a role. In this context, statistics can only hint at the scale of the issue. The social script still expects men to absorb blows in silence. So what are we watching here? What’s the performance? The cameras captured more than a slap – they showed a leader of a major Western power, in an unguarded moment, inside a very human (and perhaps dysfunctional) marriage. The message? That even global figures are domestically ordinary. Macron smiles for NATO, frowns in boxing gloves beside a punching bag, pretends to want peace while rearming his country. Then, like any other man, he gets slapped at the airport. And perhaps that’s the point: it’s enough that he has a family at all, even if it looks unstable. The spectacle reassures the public that their leaders are human, not technocratic androids. Even if the home is shaky, at least there is one. But we, in Russia, remember another version of dysfunction. We lived through Boris Yeltsin’s 1990s with a president battling late-stage alcoholism. We know what happens when instability at home spills into governance. And we wouldn’t wish that kind of chaos on anyone. So, Mr. Macron, consider this: when your own wife slaps you in public and you have to pretend nothing happened, the world notices. These are international signals. Maybe they’re cries for help. And if they are, feel free to give them on camera. After all, you are the president of a nuclear power. This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team View the full article

Will Berlin start giving Kiev Taurus missiles and risk becoming a direct target for retaliation? Chancellor Friedrich Merz, from Germany’s mainstream CDU/CSU conservatives, has caused a stir. This time with statements about German weapons in Ukraine. Or to be precise, how exactly Kiev’s troops may use weapons provided by Berlin. Speaking at a public forum organized by a major German TV station, Merz declared that there are no range limits anymore on how far the Ukrainian military can shoot German weapons into Russia. Merz’s statements managed to be both sensational (sort of) and a muddle. He implied that they mark a change, but by now his Social Democrat coalition partners and even Merz himself are saying the opposite: That he wasn’t telling us anything new. It seems Merz has been improvising without thinking things through. In that case, no biggie. That’s just the way he is: Not as dissimilar from the American impulse monster Donald Trump as the dour chancellor from orderly Germany may wish to imagine. Moreover, the weapons – the MARS II system and the Panzerhaubitze 2000 – that Ukraine currently has from Germany only have modest ranges (84 and 56 kilometers). Removing political limits on them is largely militarily irrelevant. But what if Merz has been more devious? That is an interpretation popular with those German politicians who want to drag Germany even deeper into the great Western proxy war against Russia via Ukraine. For his fellow conservative – and head of the Defense Committee of the German parliament – Thomas Roewekamp, Merz’s explicit ‘no’ to any range restrictions for German weapons is meant to prepare the ground for delivering the powerful Taurus cruise missile to Kiev. Read more Ukraine can strike deep inside Russia using German weapons – Merz According to Roewekamp, under Merz’s predecessor, Olaf Scholz, the Taurus’ long range of over 500 kilometers was used as an argument against handing it over to Ukraine. By that logic, dropping range limits means facilitating the Taurus transfer, long the wet dream of German bellicist politicians, as well as some very high-ranking officers. Unsurprisingly, Germany’s militaristic camouflage Greens have already renewed their habitual calls for further escalation by delivering the Taurus to Kiev. The great risks of this step are well known, but large parts of Germany’s elite seem to be in denial about them: Not only can the Taurus strike deep into Russia – or at least try, against Russia’s air defenses – and even hit Moscow, it is also a fact – as the head of the German air force admitted when feeling unobserved – that the Ukrainian military cannot handle the Taurus on its own. The complexity of its guidance, programming, and launching require that Germans will play a direct role in its use against Russia. Therefore, even if fired from Ukraine, a Taurus would also be fired by Germany. Moscow – whether it intercepts the missile or not – will then have little choice but to consider Germany not ‘merely’ an important proxy force behind Ukraine, but a direct opponent. Russia would, simply put, be at war with Germany. A major Russian defense expert has already appeared on Russia’s most popular political show – 60 Minutes – arguing that in this case, Moscow should, at a minimum, conduct a limited, non-nuclear but certainly painful missile strike against the Taurus production facilities in Germany. Delivering the Taurus to Kiev has always been an awful idea, especially because even German officers have long acknowledged that it cannot even make a decisive difference in Ukraine’s favor. All the Taurus can do is help a desperate Ukrainian regime escalate the war to a higher level by involving NATO member Germany directly. That is certainly a Kamikaze option that the most reckless hawks in NATO-EU Europe would welcome, insane as it would be. Read more Russia requests UN meeting on ‘threats’ by Ukraine’s backers So why has Merz sent this odd signal now? Is he one of those hawks? Does he want a direct war with Russia? Probably not, at least not too soon. For Merz is obsessed with the idea of massively remilitarizing Germany, precisely because he argues – and probably even believes – that it is far too weak right now. At the same time, he knows that this re-armament – with the explicit aim of providing Germany with the strongest army, at least in conventional terms, “in Europe” (let’s not dwell on his clearly politicized notion of ‘Europe’) – will take years. If, that is, it should ever succeed. Merz claimed that his statement was the proper response to a wave of Russian drone and missile attacks last weekend. The German politicians who support the chancellor’s latest sally agree with this claim and depict these Russian attacks not only as large-scale, which they were and as Russia’s Defense Ministry has publicly recognized, but also as targeting civilians, which they clearly were not. Yet the evidence contradicts both charges: First, it is obvious that Moscow was not aiming at civilians. How do we know that? No, you do not have to take Russia’s word for it. Instead, treat the question empirically and consider the following figures, reported not by Russian media, but by the important and reliable Ukrainian news site Strana.ua: Over the last weekend, beginning Friday night and ending Sunday night, Russia launched a total of 92 missiles and over 900 drones at Ukraine. The Ukrainian military admits almost 30 direct hits on unspecified locations. Since Ukraine has a policy of not disclosing military losses while maximally exploiting civilian losses for information war purposes, we can assume that these locations were military or military-production sites, precisely as Russia has claimed. In addition, according to the Ukrainian Air Force and German mainstream media, during Monday night, Russia launched 60 drones at Ukraine. Read more Europeans once again rallying under Nazi flag against Russia – Lavrov What about civilian losses during these attacks then? Let’s be clear: Every human life is precious, every death terrible, and every injury deplorable. Yet proportions do matter. For the Russian weekend attacks, we find the following Ukrainian and Western (again, not Russian) figures about civilian losses: As of Saturday, the BBC reported “at least 13 people” killed and “56 civilians” injured in all of Ukraine. According to Strana.ua, Russian air attacks during Sunday night left 16 dead, including three children, (a total of 12 deaths according to the Washington Post); Monday night – ten cases of injuries. These figures aren’t perfectly clear. When the number of those killed, for instance, is reported as simply ‘people’ (not specifically ‘civilians’), it makes sense to assume that this does refer to civilians (because, again, Ukraine follows a policy of not disclosing military losses). There are some discrepancies; there may be overlaps. On the other hand, unlike in the case of Israel’s genocidal bombardment of Gaza – a textbook case of actually targeting civilians – we do know that there is no significant difference between the numbers we see and the actual numbers of victims. For Gaza, all figures we currently have are certain to be substantial undercounts. The crucial point is as clear as can be: The figures from Ukraine do not constitute the footprint of attacks targeting civilians – especially if these attacks involved almost 100 missiles and nearly 1,000 drones. Indeed, these figures are not even evidence of Russian indifference to civilian losses. If anything, tragic as they are, they show that Russia must have taken care to avoid civilian ‘collateral damage’. In Ukraine, this may be a painful fact to acknowledge – in the West, a politically inconvenient one – but any other reading of the available statistics makes little sense. Read more Here’s what they don’t tell you about ‘massive Russian strikes on Ukraine’ It is not only Friedrich Merz, but also Donald Trump who urgently needs to get real about the above. Trump has posted that “a lot of people” are being killed. If he means Ukrainian officers and soldiers, then we simply don’t know. In any case, that is not a crime in war. And Americans have certainly never shown the slightest hesitation to kill combatants in spades (or civilians, for that matter). If Trump means civilians – as his phrase “in cities” may imply – then he is simply wrong. One is one too many, as always, but if the US president wants to see what ‘a lot of’ killed civilians look like, again, he should look at Israel’s deliberate slaughter of the Palestinians. A slaughter he is supporting, aiding, and abetting no less than his predecessor, Joe Biden. But back to Merz. There he is, making an escalating statement that seems to make an important difference, but then does not. Or will it, in the end? And his main reason for making it – or at least the main reason he has shared with us – is simply nonsense based on disinformation. What can we make of all that, except that Bismarck this is not? Not even Helmut Kohl or Angela Merkel, really. Maybe this is supposed to be an exercise in ‘strategic ambiguity’, a silly French habit recently proudly claimed by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius? If so, Berlin needs to become much more discerning about the Parisian fashions it imports. View the full article

Washington is trying to outsource its migration problem to countries where people can just be forgotten You know when you’re a kid and your mom tells you to clean your room, so you just shove everything under the bed and pray that she doesn’t look? That’s basically the Trump administration’s immigration strategy, only instead of a bedroom, the mess is getting punted to countries like Ukraine, Libya, and El Salvador. “We are working with other countries to say, ‘We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries. Will you do that as a favor to us?’” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, per NBC News. “And the further away the better, so they can’t come back across the border.” It’s like a group chat where America just keeps forwarding spam to other nations. And hey, if you’re really trying to make sure someone doesn’t come back – not to America or anywhere else, for that matter – why not just send them to Ukraine? One day you’re watching reruns of ‘Friends’ in the Bronx, the next you’re personally starring in a Slavic war documentary without subtitles. Apparently, some Trump officials thought this was a real banger of a plan. If Ukraine’s military recruiters were getting tired of kidnapping guys off park benches, surely they’d appreciate the gift of some unwitting ‘pre-owned’ conscripts. The Washington Post recently revealed that in late January, shortly after Trump took office, the US asked Ukraine to “accept an unspecified number of US deportees who are citizens of other countries.” Ukraine, shockingly, wasn’t super into the idea. Probably because their definition of ‘foreign aid’ doesn’t include serving Washington as one giant human recycling bin. Still, it would have solved two problems at once: Ukraine gets soldiers, and the US gets to declutter its immigration problem by yeeting people into geopolitical sinkholes. No worries though, with Ukraine being picky, there are other destinations for an all-expenses paid permanent vacation courtesy of Uncle Sam Holidays. Like Libya! And Saudi Arabia! Read more African state in talks to host migrants deported from US Asked about migrants being sent to Libya, Trump said, “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask the Department of Homeland Security.” He looked like a kid whose mom just looked under the bed and found a year’s worth of dirty clothes. Asking DHS might be tricky, since Secretary Kristi Noem was last seen giving a stern PSA in front of a Salvadoran mega-prison while dressed like she was auditioning for Call of Duty. “Do not come to our country illegally,” she warned on March 26. “You will be removed and you will be prosecuted.” Washington is reportedly paying El Salvador $6 million to hide part of America’s mess from voters. And President Nayib Bukele is very upfront about the arrangement: “We are willing to take in only convicted criminals (including convicted US citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee,” he posted. Nothing says ‘land of the free’ like outsourcing incarceration to the highest bidder. Libya, meanwhile, still hasn’t recovered from being turned into an open-air dystopia after the West’s 2011 Greatest Hits Tour featuring regime change and chaos. Human trafficking is booming. Leadership is a mess. There’s the Government of National Stability (East), the Government of National Unity (West), and various militias doing daily interpretive dance performances with Kalashnikovs. All insist that they never agreed to take Washington’s deportees from places like Vietnam, Laos, or the Philippines, according to NBC News. So what was the game plan anyway? To just drop people off in the middle of the desert and hope no one noticed, like it was Survivor: North Africa? The State Department’s own travel advisory warns: “Do not travel to Libya due to crime, terrorism, unexplored land mines, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict.” Having US citizenship doesn’t “guarantee fair treatment” of foreigners, the advisory states. So, what you’re saying is that it’s an ideal place to send folks who can’t even sue if something goes wrong. At one point, a US judge had to block a military aircraft that was gearing up to taxi with a batch of deportees en route to Libya. Legal red tape might be slow, but you know what’s faster that a judge’s order, probably? That military plane’s engine at full throttle. Read more Trump orders reopening of Alcatraz And then there’s Saudi Arabia. Because why not build your immigration policy like an awkward wedding seating chart: Latin Americans to El Salvador, Asians to Libya, Arabs to Saudi Arabia. To be fair, it’s not just the US tossing migrants around like political hot potatoes. The entire West has been in a full-blown existential crisis since right-wing populism started ‘threatening’ elections in blowback against decades of lax migration. Even Canada is having second thoughts. Newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is trying to cut back on permanent residents, from 500,000 to just over 350,000 per year, and must know full well that isn’t nearly enough of a cut. Last year, Germany flirted with the same genius idea as Britain: Send asylum seekers to Rwanda. Why Rwanda? Because the Brits already built the facility there, and Germany figured they could just Airbnb it. The only hiccup? German law doesn’t actually let you deport people to a country they’ve never set foot in. Also, there’s the tiny matter of… the Geneva Conventions. And those pesky historical vibes of mass deportation schemes in Germany during the Second World War. But that minor detail apparently doesn’t prevent Rwanda from still being on the table for future US deportations. What a mess the West has made for itself by prioritizing virtue signaling over self-preservation. The end result? Don’t call it dystopian foreign policy – just a pan-continental escape room. View the full article

Moscow is doing what must be done to protect its civilians from Kiev’s campaign of terror In the current media frenzy surrounding the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, a glaring double standard continues to distort public perception: the nature and impact of drone warfare. Western outlets, politicians, and NGOs are quick to pounce on Russia for retaliatory actions, yet remain eerily silent about Ukraine’s increasingly reckless and escalatory drone campaign. This selective outrage has not only undermined serious dialogue on peace – it has shielded Ukraine from accountability as it wages what can only be described as a campaign of terror against Russian civilians. Drone war reality: Civilian targets in Russia Over the past few weeks, Ukraine’s use of drones has surged in both frequency and range. On a near-daily basis, dozens – sometimes hundreds – of drones are launched toward Russian territory, many targeting civilian infrastructure or flying indiscriminately toward dense urban centers like Moscow. While Russia’s air defense systems have performed admirably in intercepting the majority of these threats, the falling debris poses an unavoidable risk to civilians, including children and the elderly. Russian regions far from the frontlines have been forced into a state of constant vigilance, air raid alerts disrupting the normalcy of everyday life. What’s most alarming is the strategic logic – or lack thereof – behind these strikes. Unlike military-grade precision operations, Ukraine’s drone attacks appear designed less to achieve tactical objectives and more to instill fear. The targets are often electrical substations, communication towers, or simply proximity to residential areas. This cannot be framed as mere collateral damage; it is a campaign whose effects are felt most deeply by civilians. Read more Russian strikes on Ukraine are retaliatory – Kremlin Western silence and hypocrisy Despite this escalating threat to Russian civilians, international reaction has been resoundingly one-sided. There is no UN condemnation of Ukraine’s drone strikes. There are no emergency meetings in Brussels, no CNN specials about Russian children running to bomb shelters. Instead, the focus is singular: Russia’s every response is dissected, denounced, and demonized. The same countries that cheer on Ukraine’s technological advancements in warfare turn a blind eye to the human cost – so long as the humans in question are Russian. This selective outrage creates a moral vacuum in which Ukraine is emboldened to continue its drone war with impunity. Zelensky, backed by his Western sponsors, is not held accountable for the reckless escalation he fuels. Worse still, this impunity undermines any real incentive for dialogue. Why negotiate when your side is never blamed? Russia’s measured response What is most striking in this dynamic is Russia’s restraint. Despite the volume and severity of the attacks on its territory, Moscow’s drone strikes remain focused on disrupting military logistics and strategic assets within Ukraine – often near the frontlines. Russia has refrained from matching Ukraine’s willingness to launch indiscriminate aerial barrages deep into population centers. If anything, it has used this period to demonstrate its commitment to a diplomatic resolution, responding from a defensive posture while signaling that its hand remains extended toward the peace table. At some point, however, enough is enough. A nation cannot allow its citizens to be terrorized indefinitely while posturing for peace. The Kremlin has an obligation to protect its people. And that means pushing back against these drone incursions with the seriousness they deserve. Read more Trump claims Putin ‘has gone absolutely crazy for no reason’ The path to peace, and who’s blocking it Critics will claim Russia’s posture is inconsistent with its actions, but the facts tell a different story. Moscow remains open to dialogue. It is not demanding one-sided ultimatums, nor is it setting artificial deadlines as Western capitals often do. Contrast this with the theatrics of Zelensky and his handlers in Washington and Brussels, who have turned negotiations into performative exercises rather than serious efforts to end the conflict. It is not Russia who walked away from Istanbul in 2022. It is not Russia who ignored the Minsk process when it was politically inconvenient. Russia enters any future negotiations not as a supplicant, but as a state that has demonstrated both military strength and diplomatic maturity. It does so knowing full well that any peace must be just, balanced, and grounded in the lessons of the past – chief among them, that appeasement and naïveté only invite betrayal. There is indeed a stark difference between Ukraine’s and Russia’s drone strikes. One is a campaign of terror, reckless and civilian-targeted, encouraged by Western silence. The other is a reluctant defense, carried out with discipline and restraint. If peace is to be achieved, it must begin with honesty about who is escalating, who is suffering, and who continues to act like a responsible power even while under attack. Until the world is ready to admit that, Russian civilians will rely on their nation to do what must be done – and rightly so. View the full article

As Gaddafi’s last spokesperson, I saw what real African independence can look like: free education, universal healthcare, interest-free housing, and no IMF interference The past few days have offered a brutal snapshot of Africa’s unresolved crisis. In Burkina Faso, militants from Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), affiliated with Al-Qaeda, overran the Diapaga military base in the east, seizing most of the city and exposing the precarious state of security in the Sahel. Meanwhile, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the M23 rebel armed group, which has been fighting the government since the beginning of the year, tightens its grip on Goma, leading to vulnerable political conditions in which stolen minerals are funneled to foreign markets. In the diplomatic arena, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was treated with disrespect in the US when President Donald Trump ambushed him with a crude, racist presentation about so-called “white genocide,” using footage falsely attributed to South Africa. Kenya now fears economic chaos as the US threatens to revoke the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade deal, a reminder that many African economies are still at the mercy of external powers. This is the continent’s daily reality. Behind the headlines lie patterns of systemic violence, extraction, and manipulation. Whether it is Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al-Shabaab in Somalia, or foreign security firms in Mozambique, the message is the same: Africa’s enemies are armed not only with bullets but with contracts, media narratives, and economic traps. The ‘post-colonial’ moment has long expired – what remains is a managed crisis, policed by the IMF, militarized by AFRICOM, and sanitized by the African Union’s silence. Read more ‘Africa must unite’: Why this man was feared by the US and Britain And yet, in the middle of this, we are told to celebrate. May 25th is Africa Day – the anniversary of the founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963. Every year, flags are raised, speeches are delivered, and African leaders sing songs of unity. But let’s ask the uncomfortable question: What exactly are we celebrating? When Kwame Nkrumah, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Julius Nyerere, Ahmed Sekou Toure, and Haile Selassie came together to form the OAU, their aim was not to build bureaucracies. It was to liberate the continent – militarily, economically, culturally, and ideologically. They envisioned a single army, a common currency, a unified foreign policy, and a break from Western dependency. Nkrumah famously said: “Africa must unite or perish.” Today, we see more perishing than unity. Sixty-two years later, Africa Day has been reduced to a symbolic spectacle – flags without force, drums without direction. We watch parades while our lands are auctioned. We hear Pan-African slogans while our central banks answer to Paris. We commemorate independence while 14 African countries still use a currency created by their former colonizer – the CFA franc, a tool of economic control whose name itself means ‘Financial Cooperation in Africa’ – but cooperation for whom? Over 25 African countries are either in or near debt default. Collectively, the continent owes over $650 billion to external creditors. Nigeria spends substantial sums of its revenue servicing debt. Ghana, once called a rising star, is back at the IMF for the 17th time. In Zambia, debt repayments have choked investment in hospitals and education. This isn’t mismanagement – it’s engineered subservience. The so-called development partners make billions while entire generations are sacrificed to the gods of fiscal discipline. Read more Stealing a continent: How the plunder of Africa has evolved Meanwhile, Africa’s material wealth continues to flow outward. The DRC supplies more than 70% of the world’s cobalt, yet over 70% of its people live in poverty. Our uranium powers Europe’s cities while Niger’s villages remain in darkness. African agriculture – despite controlling 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land – is gutted by foreign subsidies and aid dependency. We import $40 billion in food each year, while our farmers are criminalized or displaced by foreign agribusiness. It is no exaggeration to say: Africa is being starved by design. But exploitation today is not only economic – it’s also digital. Foreign companies dominate our telecom infrastructure, cloud storage, and digital platforms. Our data is stored abroad, our elections influenced by foreign code, our children fed algorithmic colonialism on social media. AI tools are trained on African voices but controlled by Silicon Valley. The scramble for Africa 2.0 is here – and it’s happening on screens. Even our culture is colonized anew. Our stories are funded by Western NGOs. Our artists are rewarded for repeating narratives of trauma, not defiance. From art galleries to film festivals, African creatives are often made to conform to donor expectations. Real revolutionary expression is defunded, censored, or drowned in an ocean of meaningless ‘diversity’ campaigns. Cultural sovereignty requires more than visibility – it requires ownership. What makes this tragedy worse is that many of our own leaders are complicit. Elites who benefit from foreign contracts, imported goods, and IMF handouts – pose as nationalists while enabling neocolonialism. Read more Why Russia needs an independent Africa But Africa is not silent. In Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, new governments are challenging the old order. They have expelled French troops, broken from the CFA zone, and are building a regional alliance rooted in sovereignty. Western media calls them juntas. But to millions of Africans, they are a new hope. These governments are not perfect – but they are confronting imperialism where the African Union has capitulated. Their stand echoes that of Sankara, Nkrumah, and Gaddafi. As Gaddafi’s last spokesperson, I saw what real African independence looked like. Free education, universal healthcare, interest-free housing, and no IMF interference. Gaddafi’s dream of a gold-backed African currency and a continental defense force terrified the West – not because it was mad, but because it was achievable. That is why Libya was destroyed. The lesson is simple: When you challenge an empire, it fights back. But we must not retreat. Africa must forge new alliances – not with masters, but with partners. Cooperation with China, Russia, India, and Brazil must be based on mutual respect and shared interest – not dependency. We must demand technology transfers, co-ownership of infrastructure, and the right to control our natural resources. BRICS can be a platform of liberation – but only if Africa enters as a united, self-respecting bloc. Equally vital is a revolution of the mind. Our educational systems still glorify colonizers and marginalize indigenous knowledge. Our universities chase Western rankings while neglecting community development. We need a new curriculum – one centered on African languages, philosophies, history, and political economy. We must build schools that produce thinkers, builders, and liberators – not bureaucrats. Read more The debt noose: Why does Africa remain trapped? The African diaspora is another critical front. It contributes over $50 billion annually in remittances, but its political power remains underused. We need institutional pathways for diaspora participation – in elections, investment, security, and culture. From Sao Paulo to London, Atlanta to Kingston, the diaspora is not a spectator. It is a co-creator of Africa’s destiny. Let us also talk about the ecological front. Africa is on the frontline of climate breakdown – but the solutions proposed often mask the same exploitation. Green capitalism – carbon markets, climate finance, offset schemes – lets polluters profit while Africa pays the price. We must fight for ecological justice rooted in land reform, water sovereignty, and indigenous stewardship – not donor agendas. This is the real meaning of Africa Day in 2025. Not celebration. Mobilization. Not pageantry. Resistance. The African Union must rise from dormancy or be bypassed by movements and governments that are willing to fight. Cultural organizations must reject NGO dependency and build spaces for radical imagination. Our youth must refuse the logic of escape and rebuild this continent with dignity. We need Pan-African banks, Pan-African education, Pan-African defense. And above all, we need truth. Africa is not poor. Africa is plundered. Africa is not backwards. Africa is blocked. Africa is not free. But Africa can be. View the full article

An article cut and pasted from ChatGPT raises questions over the role of fact-checkers in legacy media In a farcical yet telling blunder, multiple major newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times and Philadelphia Inquirer, recently published a summer-reading list riddled with nonexistent books that were “hallucinated” by ChatGPT, with many of them falsely attributed to real authors. The syndicated article, distributed by Hearst’s King Features, peddled fabricated titles based on woke themes, exposing both the media’s overreliance on cheap AI content and the incurable rot of legacy journalism. That this travesty slipped past editors at moribund outlets (the Sun-Times had just axed 20% of its staff) underscores a darker truth: when desperation and unprofessionalism meets unvetted algorithms, the frayed line between legacy media and nonsense simply vanishes. The trend seems ominous. AI is now overwhelmed by a smorgasbord of fake news, fake data, fake science and unmitigated mendacity that is churning established logic, facts and common sense into a putrid slush of cognitive rot. But what exactly is AI hallucination? AI hallucination occurs when a generative AI model (like ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Gemini, or DALL·E) produces false, nonsensical, or fabricated information with high confidence. Unlike human errors, these mistakes stem from how AI models generate responses by predicting plausible patterns rather than synthesizing established facts. Read more Swiss university secretly ran AI experiment to manipulate minds Why does AI ‘hallucinate’? There are several reasons why AI generates wholly incorrect information. It has nothing to do with the ongoing fearmongering over AI attaining sentience or even acquiring a soul. Training on imperfect data: AI learns from vast datasets replete with biases, errors, and inconsistencies. Prolonged training on these materials may result in the generation of myths, outdated facts, or conflicting sources. Over-optimization for plausibility: Contrary to what some experts claim, AI is nowhere near attaining “sentience” and therefore cannot discern “truth.” GPTs in particular are giant planetary-wide neural encyclopedias that crunch data and synthesize the most salient information based on pre-existent patterns. When gaps exist, it fills them with statistically probable (but likely wrong) answers. This was however not the case with the Sun-Times fiasco. Lack of grounding in reality: Unlike humans, AI has no direct experience of the world. It cannot verify facts as it can only mimic language structures. For example, when asked “What’s the safest car in 2025?” it might invent a model that doesn’t exist because it is filling in the gap for an ideal car with desired features — as determined by the mass of “experts” — rather than a real one. Prompt ambiguity: Many GPT users are lazy and may not know how to present a proper prompt. Vague or conflicting prompts also increase hallucination risks. Ridiculous requests like “Summarize a study about cats and gender theory” may result in an AI-fabricated fake study which may appear very academic on the surface. Read more WATCH AI-revived iconic Soviet radio announcement of Nazi capitulation in English Creative generation vs. factual recall: AI models like ChatGPT prioritize fluency over accuracy. When unsure, they improvise rather than admit ignorance. Ever came across a GPT answer that goes like this: “Sorry. This is beyond the remit of my training?” Reinforcing fake news and patterns: GPTs can identify particular users based on logins (a no-brainer), IP addresses, semantic and syntactic peculiarities and personnel propensities. It then reinforces them. When someone constantly uses GPTs to peddle fake news or propaganda puff pieces, AI may recognize such patterns and proceed to generate content that is partially or wholly fictitious. This is a classic case of algorithmic supply and demand. Remember, GPTs not only train on vast datasets, it can also train on your dataset. Reinforcing Big Tech biases and censorship: Virtually every Big Tech firm behind GPT rollouts is also engaged in industrial-scale censorship and algorithmic shadowbanning. This applies to individuals and alternative media platforms alike and constitutes a modern-day, digitally-curated damnatio memoriae. Google’s search engine, in particular, has a propensity for up-ranking the outputs of a serial plagiarist rather than the original article. The perpetuation of this systemic fraud may explode into an outright global scandal one day. Imagine waking up one morning to read that your favorite quotes or works were the products of a carefully-calibrated campaign of algorithmic shunting at the expense of the original ideators or authors. This is the inevitable consequence of monetizing censorship while outsourcing “knowledge” to an AI hobbled by ideological parameters. Read more AI is a perfect storm threatening humanity Experiments on human gullibility: I recently raised the hypothetical possibility of AI being trained to study human gullibility, in a way conceptually similar to the Milgram Experiment, the Asch Conformity Experiments and its iteration, the Crutchfield Situation. Humans are both gullible and timorous and the vast majority of them tend to conform to either the human mob or in the case of AI, the “data mob.” This will inevitably have real-world consequences, as AI is increasingly embedded in critical, time-sensitive operations – from pilots’ cockpits and nuclear plants to biowarfare labs and sprawling chemical facilities. Now imagine making a fateful decision in such high-stakes environments, based on flawed AI input. This is precisely why “future planners” must understand both the percentage and personality types of qualified professionals who are prone to trusting faulty machine-generated recommendations. Fact-checkers didn’t fact-check? When AI generates an article on one’s behalf, any journalist worth his salt should consider it as having been written by another party and therefore subject to fact-checking and improvisation. As long as the final product is fact-checked, and substantial value, content and revisions are added to the original draft, I don’t see any conflict of interest or breach of ethics involved in the process. GPTs can act as a catalyst, an editor or as a “devil’s advocate” to get the scribal ball rolling. What happened in this saga was that the writer, Marco Buscaglia, appeared to have wholly cut and pasted ChatGPT’s opus and passed it off as his own. (Since this embarrassing episode was exposed, his website has gone blank and private). The overload of woke-themed nonsense generated by ChatGPT should have raised red flags in the mind of Buscaglia but I am guessing that he might be prone to peddling this stuff himself. Read more AI offers ‘colossal’ military advantage – Putin However all the opprobrium currently directed at Buscaglia should also be applied to the editors of King Features Syndicate and various news outlets who didn’t fact-check the content even as they posed as the bastions of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Various levels of gatekeepers simply failed to do their jobs. This is a collective dereliction of duty from the media which casually pimps its services to the high and mighty while it pontificates ethics, integrity and values to lesser mortals. I guess we are used to such double-standards by now. But here is the terrifying part: I am certain that faulty data and flawed inputs are already flowing from AI systems into trading and financial platforms, aviation controls, nuclear reactors, biowarfare labs, and sensitive chemical plants – even as I write this. The gatekeepers just aren’t qualified for such complex tasks, except on paper, that is. These are the consequences of a world “designed by clowns and supervised by monkeys.” I will end on a note highlighting the irony of ironies: All the affected editors in this saga could have used ChatGPT to subject Buscaglia’s article to a factual content check. It would have only taken 30 seconds! View the full article

With global power dynamics shifting and Arctic resources surfacing, New Delhi has a timely chance to deepen ties with Russia Once a frozen frontier, the Arctic is rapidly transforming into a geopolitical and geoeconomic focal point. Melting ice is exposing vast reserves of critical minerals, hydrocarbons, and strategic shipping routes. As the West advances through NATO’s northern reach, a sanctioned Russia is turning to trusted partners to unlock its Arctic potential. For India, this shift offers a rare strategic opportunity. With rising energy needs, critical mineral ambitions, and a desire for multipolar engagement, India can enter the Arctic not as a competitor, but as a partner to Russia, guardian of over half the Arctic coastline and its richest untapped resources. India’s pursuit of energy security and cleaner fuels finds a strategic match in Russia’s Arctic LNG (liquefied natural gas) ambitions. While Yamal LNG has proven operationally successful, the Arctic LNG-2 project, long hindered by Western sanctions, now stands at a potential turning point. The renewed thaw in US-Russia relations following Donald Trump’s second term, as noted by Oxford Energy, has opened possibilities for easing restrictions on key Arctic energy assets. For India, this shifting landscape offers a timely opportunity to deepen its role in Russia’s polar pivot, by investing in Arctic LNG infrastructure, securing long-term gas supplies, and positioning itself as a critical partner in shaping the emerging Arctic order. The Yamal LNG facility, operating at 20% above capacity since 2023, has firmly anchored Russia’s Arctic presence, producing over 100 million tonnes of LNG since 2017. For India, this has translated into energy security gains, with GAIL securing long-term contracts for 2.85 MTPA through Gazprom Marketing & Trading Singapore. Despite EU restrictions on transshipment, deliveries continue uninterrupted, aligning with India’s strategy of diversifying supply sources to hedge against global volatility and fuel its gas-based economy. Read more The Great Game in the Arctic: Why the region is the next flashpoint between superpowers Yet the real test lies in Arctic LNG-2. Once 59% complete in 2021, the project stalled under heavy Western sanctions. By 2025, only limited operations resumed. India has maintained official distance, but quiet negotiations persist as Russia courts Indian buyers with steep discounts and DES (Delivered Ex-Ship) terms, mirroring its crude oil outreach. The recent easing of US-Russia tensions after Trump’s re-election offers a potential breakthrough: if secondary sanctions are lifted, Indian firms may finally step in, unlocking a significant Arctic energy axis. India’s Arctic engagement also aligns with its “Act Far East” policy and 2022 Arctic policy. ONGC Videsh’s $8.4 billion legacy in Sakhalin and Vankorneft provides operational experience and political capital that could be redeployed in the Arctic, though harsher environments and geopolitical stakes differ sharply. As Russia aims to capture 20% of global LNG exports by 2030, India’s energy calculus must adapt. For New Delhi, the Arctic offers more than LNG, it’s a new corridor linking Russian resources with India’s infrastructure and strategic aspirations. Polar Shipping and the Chennai–Vladivostok Corridor As Russia pivots to the Arctic amid Western sanctions, India finds strategic opportunity in emerging polar logistics. The Northern Sea Route (NSR), offering a 40% shorter passage than the Suez Canal and cutting transit time by 16 days, is becoming central to Indo-Russian Arctic cooperation. In 2023, NSR cargo traffic hit a record 36.254 million tonnes, with Moscow targeting 200 million tonnes by 2030. India’s growing stake is evident, by early 2023, it accounted for 35% of cargo at Russia’s Murmansk port, largely driven by rising coal imports. Complementing this is the Chennai–Vladivostok Maritime Corridor (EMC), launched in late 2024, which directly links India’s eastern seaboard to Russia’s Arctic gateway. Trade along the EMC has surged as coal shipments rose 87% and crude oil by 48% in FY 2024–25. This corridor not only facilitates India’s access to Russia’s vast Arctic and Far East resources but also strengthens its maritime footprint. India is positioning its ports and shipyards as vital nodes in Arctic logistics, proposing joint production of $750 million worth of Russian icebreakers. Together, the NSR and EMC mark India’s emergence as a serious player in Arctic connectivity, where geoeconomics and strategy now converge. Arctic riches, strategic gains Russia’s Arctic frontier, stretching across the Kola Peninsula, Norilsk, and Yakutia, is a treasure trove of critical minerals vital for India’s green and digital ambitions. The Kolmozerskoye deposit holds nearly 19% of Russia’s lithium reserves, Lovozerskoye is the country’s largest rare-earth element (REE) source, and Norilsk supplies over 40% of global palladium. Backed by state giants like Rosatom and Nornickel, Russia is fast-tracking development. Nornickel plans to triple cobalt output to 3,000 tonnes annually by 2025, while Rosatom’s Polar Lithium JV prepares to exploit Kolmozerskoye’s lithium for global markets. READ MORE: How Moscow’s legendary S-400 missiles helped India outgun Pakistan For India, dependent on imports for 100% of its lithium, cobalt, and nickel, access to these resources is a strategic imperative. With China dominating 60–90% of global critical mineral supply chains, Russia offers India a rare diversification opportunity. Ambassador Denis Alipov has highlighted mutual interests in Arctic mineral cooperation. India’s $15 billion investment in oil and gas projects in Russia, and the Chennai–Vladivostok Maritime Corridor, operational since 2024, lay the groundwork for secure logistics and collaborative mining ventures. Russia’s Arctic holds an estimated 658 million tonnes of rare metals, including 29 million tonnes of REEs, crucial for India’s EVs, renewables, and defence technologies. India is also eyeing technology transfer for processing projects like Tomtor, the world’s third-largest REE deposit. A proposed Centre of Excellence on Critical Minerals could partner with Russian institutes such as Gipronickel Institute to advance extraction methods. Though Western sanctions complicate financing, India’s 2030 target of $100 billion in bilateral trade provides a framework for structured deals. For India, Arctic minerals are not just economic assets, they are pillars of strategic autonomy. By anchoring itself in Russia’s resource-rich, sanction-insulated Arctic, India can strengthen its supply chains, hasten its green transition, and reduce dependence on China, all while asserting influence in a rapidly evolving polar landscape. Science, Satellites, and Soft Power in the Arctic India’s Arctic engagement extends beyond economics, grounded in scientific inquiry and climate diplomacy. Since gaining Observer status in the Arctic Council in 2013, India has actively contributed to initiatives like the Arctic Migratory Birds Initiative and the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna Working Group. Its most prominent scientific asset is the Himadri Research Station in Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, operational since 2008 and managed by the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR). Read more From ceasefire to misfire: Trump’s claims stir concerns in India Himadri supports year-round studies on glaciology, ocean-atmosphere interactions, and the Arctic’s impact on the Indian monsoon, with over 200 Indian scientists participating in research missions. India’s capabilities offer scope for deeper collaboration with Russia, especially through space-based technologies. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), using its Cartosat and RISAT satellites, can aid in Arctic mapping, environmental monitoring, and tracking activity along the NSR. India and Russia’s longstanding space partnership, dating back to their first agreement in 1962, offers untapped potential for Arctic collaboration in energy, shipping, and strategic monitoring. While current Arctic-specific projects remain limited, future joint space applications could enhance maritime domain awareness and infrastructure development in the polar region. India’s Arctic push is a strategic leap, linking energy security, mineral access, and scientific strength with Russia’s resource-rich north. As the Arctic reshapes global power corridors, India is no longer a bystander but a rising stakeholder. With logistics in place and a $100 billion trade vision, the polar frontier offers India more than resources, it offers resilience. In the ice of the Arctic, India finds new ground for strategic autonomy. View the full article