They may appear to be innocuous – even elegant – on the landscape as they collect power from the currents, but wind turbines have their own set of problems that environmentalists wish to ignore due to their eco-virtue-signaling.

As environmentalists look at a sprawling field of wind turbines as ‘good for the environment’ – unlike giant smokestacks on the horizon emitting noxious greenhouse gases into the air – the dangers inherent to wind energy are mostly invisible from a distance. Take a closer look, however, and it becomes quickly apparent that wind farms come with their own high cost to the environment and our health.

In a new report, it has been estimated that close to a million balsa hardwood trees are being illegally logged in the Amazon rainforest every year to support the hefty demand for wind turbines around the world. Balsa is a lightweight but durable wood that is regularly used in the production of the massive turbine blades. Each set of three blades requires up to 40 trees to produce.

Balsa is a relatively rapid-growing tropical wood and until the mounting demand from turbines began, it was safely harvested in sustainable plantations. But since a few short decades ago, the harvest could no longer keep up with demand as the clear-cutting of this precious commodity surges. In a critical survey, the Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) found that exports were increased by up to 50% following illegal logging in virgin rainforests.

In 2020, it was reported that over 20,000 balsa trees were illegally cut down from March to September in the Achuar indigenous territory along Ecuador’s Copataza River. Ecuador produces over 90% of the balsa in the world, with annual exports averaging 56,000 tons from 2013 to 2022. Other studies point to excessive illegal logging, with some estimates noting the removal of 75% of the trees in some areas.

“These inefficient, unreliable, unsightly monsters require a large footprint on land and sea, kill millions of bats, decimate raptor populations, sweep the air of quadrillions of insects and alter local ecology on both land and sea,” Chris Morrison of The Daily Sceptic writes. “Nobody would install one in a free market, so they require vast financial subsidies to produce expensive electricity.”

Another problem arises from the waste derived from these monstrosities. Wind turbines have a life expectancy of just 20 to 30 years, at which point they must be disassembled and hauled away (compare that to the lengthy life span of a coal-burning plant). When they are put out of commission, the towers and nacelles contain recyclable metals like steel, zinc, and copper. For the massive blades, which are about the size of a Boeing 747 wing, it’s a different story. Most are constructed from fiberglass-reinforced composites that are difficult and expensive to recycle, and many end up in garbage dumps.

Others point to the disruption of scenic landscapes – “industrialization of the countryside” as it has been called – that comes with sprawling wind farms. Some wind farms are opposed for potentially spoiling protected scenic areas, archaeological landscapes, and heritage sites. A 2017 report by the Mountaineering Council of Scotland concluded that wind farms harmed tourism in areas known for natural landscapes and panoramic views.

As the author pointed out, “our hills and wild places are small and finite. They deserve better than yet another short-term wave of degradation and exploitation... to produce profit for often-distant companies and shareholders.”

That sounds like an appropriate epitaph for this questionable energy source that falls far short of its myriad promises.

On March 25, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution proposed by Ghana declaring the transatlantic slave trade the “gravest crime against humanity,” despite opposition from Western states. The measure secured support from 123 countries, including Russia and China, while the US, Israel, and Argentina voted against it, and 52 nations – among them the UK and EU members – abstained.

Why do the US, Israel, and Argentina stand against the recognition of the absolute horror of the enslavement of Africans? In fact, acknowledging this crime would expose them to the collapse of their own historical narratives. The US, in voting against, is rejecting its own indictment, built on the paradox of a proclaimed freedom resting atop an enslaving system it never truly reconciled with. To recognize this injustice is to open the door to reparations, and a reconfiguration of the social contract – something that today’s America, still shaped by persistent inequalities, refuses to confront.

As for Argentina, today it protects a national narrative built on a racial fiction of a white nation oriented toward Europe and severed from its indigenous roots. Acknowledging the full extent of the crime of slavery would mean reopening the wounds of a long-concealed historical erasure and genocide. Thus, this tripartite vote reveals a refusal to decolonize history and to face consequences, such as reparations, educational revisions, and transformation in global power relations.

Abstention in this issue, however, cannot be seen as a neutrality. When France, Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom, and some forty other states choose to abstain, they are fleeing history itself.

What does it mean to abstain from a resolution that recognizes the transatlantic slave trade and racialized slavery as an injustice against humanity? It means: “We know, but we will not speak. We acknowledge, but we refuse to assume responsibility. We see, but we look away.”

Belgium carries the shadow of the Congo Free State, an industrial-scale reign of terror where millions of lives were crushed for rubber and profit. Abstention allows it to continue sanitizing the past.

Germany, often praised for its work of remembrance regarding the Holocaust, exposes here the limits of its moral universalism. When it comes to the genocide of the Herero and Nama in Namibia, or its role in European colonial ventures, its discourse becomes calculated.

For Ukraine and other abstaining states, the link to historical responsibility in the transatlantic trade may seem less direct. Yet their abstention reflects geopolitical alignment, the desire not to offend certain allies. Historical justice is sacrificed on the altar of strategic interest.

This collective abstention reveals a troubling truth: the international system is incapable of delivering full recognition of the crimes that shaped it. The states that comprise it are simultaneously judges and parties, accusers and accused. Under these conditions, how can genuine justice be expected?

Abstention becomes a mechanism of preservation. It maintains the illusion of international consensus while avoiding necessary ruptures. In short, it is a form of denial.

But denial comes at a cost. It fuels distrust among African peoples and their diasporas toward international institutions perceived as partial or complicit. It undermines the credibility of Western human rights rhetoric and perpetuates legitimate resentment, born of centuries of unrepaired injustice.

Abstaining in this context is choosing inertia over justice. The abstained refuse to break with colonial logics, trying to perpetuate their consequences instead. But this strategy is doomed. France, Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the other cannot hide indefinitely in this gray zone. There are moments when not choosing is betrayal, and this betrayal, though dressed in the respectable garments of diplomatic prudence, deceives no one.

And it is precisely this loss of control that frightens them.

To fully recognize the horror of racialized African slavery means to accept that the very foundations of Western modernity must be questioned. It is to acknowledge that the Enlightenment, often heralded as the dawn of universal reason, coexisted and sometimes co-constructed with the most radical darkness: systematic dehumanization.

The reality today is an Africa that thinks and demands. A diaspora that articulates claims, rejects half-truths. In the face of this, what is abstention worth? Nothing except the testimony of a refusal to take responsibility.

Yet there is still time. Time to understand that recognition is strength, not weakness. That truth, even painful, is the only foundation for a shared future. But this requires courage. And clearly, that courage remains in short supply. History will move on without them, or despite them. The abstainers and the calculating will only endure it.

During nearly six weeks of the war on Iran, the US has suffered heavy military aircraft losses, now exceeding those recorded during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Iran’s recent downing of an American F-35 jet marks the first time in 23 years that a US fighter jet has been shot down in combat; the previous instance was in Iraq in 2003, when an A‑10 was lost. 

Over the seven years of the Iraq campaign from 2003 to 2009, total US aviation losses amounted to 129 helicopters and 24 fixed‑wing aircraft, with only 46 attributed to hostile fire. The remaining cases were due to malfunctions, fuel exhaustion, and pilot error.

Since the start of the Iran war, the US has lost at least 44 aircraft, including the first incident of the US fifth-generation stealth F-35 Lightning II being hit. The list includes four F-15E Strike Eagle (the Wall Street Journal cited a fact sheet stating that the original model costs at least $31 million, while the cost of newer models is close to $100 million), two A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, two Lockheed C-130 Hercules, two Boeing E-3 Sentries, eight Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers, one Boeing CH-47 Chinook, one Sikorsky HH-60 Pave Hawk (damaged), two Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks (damaged), four MH-6 Little Bird helicopters, and 17 General Atomics MQ-9 Reapers (at about $30 million each, totalling close to $500 million).

High-value AWACS and multiple KC-135 tankers were damaged by Iranian strikes on regional airbases.  In the first four days of the war, Iran hit almost all US military bases (or locations hosting US aircraft) in the Gulf. It struck key US ground radars linked to the THAAD air‑defense system, other early‑warning radars, and multiple radar and communication nodes.

In the UAE, an area of Al Dhafra base with several satellite antennas was hit, while it is still unclear whether the AN/TPY‑2 radar of the THAAD system at Al Ruwais was damaged. In Kuwait, structures at Ali Al Salem base connected to SATCOM systems were damaged, and at least three radar domes at Camp Arifjan were destroyed.

At Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan base, at least one strike hit a satellite‑communications area where an AN/TPY‑2 radar had previously been deployed. The large AN/FPS‑132 fixed‑face AESA early‑warning and long‑range anti‑ballistic radar at Al Udeid in Qatar also appears to have been struck. Iranian sources further claim damage to another AN/TPY‑2 at Muwaffaq Salti base in Jordan, though this remains unconfirmed. In Kuwait, in addition to damage to some structures at the Ali al Salem base that appear to be connected to SATCOM systems, at least three radar domes at Camp Arifjan were destroyed.

Most of these high‑value radars – along with aerial refuellers and AEW&C assets – were targeted using ballistic missiles or relatively inexpensive Shahed drones (costing between $20,000 and $50,000 each).

While US lost many high-value ground assets in the region and nearly 44 aircraft, Israel had minimal losses on the ground and only slow-moving UAVs in the air. Israel is a regional player, and has had years of experience in targeting ground assets in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, among others. Israel has been perpetually at war. Being a small country, it has been conscious of securing its assets under hardened shelters. It has nearly ten Iron Dome-class AD systems, among others, such as David’s Sling and Arrow. The Israeli Air Force has fine-tuned tactics to keep its own assets secure.

The reasons behind US losses

The Iranian Air Force was grounded or destroyed in the early air action by the US and Israel, which have flown more than 10,000 combat flights since the conflict began. The Iranian Air Force was no match for the US Air Force in terms of numbers and technology. While a significant number of Iranian air defenses were also neutralized, enough survived to engage adversary assets.

The fact that F-35 stealth fighter jet could be tracked and engaged indicates the possibility of Iran having used Chinese YLC-8B and YLC-8E advanced, mobile Chinese UHF-band 3D surveillance radars specifically designed to detect low-observable, stealth aircraft. Iran might have also used up-to-date intelligence from Russian satellites, often including the position of airborne aircraft.

The US lost more aircraft in the air due to a lack of coordination with the Gulf countries, where most of its assets are located. Also, more action has shifted south near the Strait of Hormuz, and when Iran started hitting assets in the countries that allowed housing US assets. Many of their radars and large air platforms were lying in the open. These assets were thus a relatively easy target. Iranians used drones and drone swarms to hit US military assets.

While the US Air Force and Navy have been exercising regularly with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, including “large force engagements,” the GCC nations have had almost no combat experience. Early coordination challenges with Gulf host nations, contributed to incidents like the initial friendly-fire loss of three F-15Es over Kuwait.

While the US campaign initially succeeded in degrading Iranian air defenses and leadership, it encountered serious operational and strategic failures as the conflict continued. The US underestimated Iranian defenses and tactics. Reports indicate that Tehran could have 50% of its missile launchers and drones intact.

Iran successfully targeted US military installations across the region, including in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and Iraq, causing significant casualties. This demonstrated that US air dominance did not equate to security on the ground. Tehran relies heavily on inexpensive, locally produced drones like the Shahed, costing $20,000–$50,000, to overwhelm sophisticated, expensive air defenses as part of asymmetric warfare. Iran is fostering closer military ties with Russia, supplying drones in exchange for advanced technologies such as the S-400 system.

The US repeated mistakes from previous conflicts (Afghanistan, Iraq) by relying solely on aerial destruction without a viable, clear “day-after” political strategy to replace the targeted regime. Despite neutralizing senior leadership, the “rally-around-the-flag” effect became visible.

The conflict has already exhausted US military resources significantly, including high-value assets like Tomahawk missiles and Patriot interceptors, creating shortages in other critical theaters such as Europe and Asia. Most NATO members refused to join or help in replenishments. The global economic downturn caused by the war has been of great concern and is likely to have played a role in the ceasefire announced by US President Donald Trump.

The Council Chamber of the Brussels Court of First Instance last month made the historic decision, subject to appeal, to open a criminal trial against Étienne Davignon, a former Belgian diplomat, for his alleged role in the abduction and transfer of Patrice Lumumba.

This March 17 ruling delivers a blow to decades of Western legal immunity, challenging the long-standing practice of burying the 1961 assassination under the vague ‘moral responsibility’ of diplomatic apologies. The court must now decide if this will finally be prosecuted as a war crime. It is a live-wire legal precedent that connects the ‘Decapitation Doctrine’ – the strategic removal of a head of state to induce systemic national collapse.

In a statement, the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), acting as legal counsel for the Lumumba family, described the ruling as one of “major legal significance.” This is because the court “went beyond the submissions of the Federal Prosecutor” by extending the scope of the trial to include the assassinations of Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito, Lumumba associates who were executed alongside him on January 17, 1961.

After six decades of impunity, Étienne Davignon, the last living alleged perpetrator. must finally answer for these war crimes.

At 93, Étienne Davignon stands as the last surviving link between that colonial execution and the modern Western establishment. A former diplomat in the Belgian Congo and a titan of the Bilderberg Group – an informal, off-the-record gathering of political and business leaders – and the EU, Davignon embodies the “colonial administrative mind”: a mindset that didn’t vanish with independence but was rebranded into the very international organizations which fail to protect sovereign nations today.

By shifting the legal threshold from a 2002 “moral apology” to the 2026 criminal trial (a judicial battle the family ignited in 2011), the Lumumbas are forcing a global reckoning with the mechanics of regime change.

Exactly fifty years later, this same script was dusted off and deployed against Libya. The 2011 NATO intervention followed the Congolese model to the letter – justifying “regime change” under the guise of humanitarianism, only to leave behind a vacuum of governance and a shattered national identity. This is the recurring nightmare of the Global South: a cycle of manufactured crises where the “civilizing mission” of the 20th century has evolved into the “democratization” invasions of the 21st.

This trial, whose specific start date is yet to be set, represents a violent collision between two versions of history, the sanitized “moral apology” offered by Belgium in 2002, and the cold, criminal liability demanded in 2026. For a quarter-century, the Western establishment has hidden behind the veil of “institutional failure” and “unfortunate excesses,” treating the assassination of Lumumba as a tragic footnote of history.

However, Étienne Davignon cannot plead the passage of time as a defense against the charge of war crimes. By elevating this case from a diplomatic grievance to a criminal prosecution, the Lumumba family, through the Lumumba Foundation, is effectively putting the entire colonial era on the stand. They are arguing that the destruction of a nation’s leadership is not a political maneuver protected by sovereign immunity, but a foundational crime that continues to bear bitter fruit – from the streets of Kinshasa to militia-dominated Tripoli.

The legal battlefield in Brussels is no longer a debate over historical “regrets,” but a forensic dissection of command responsibility. At the heart of the 2026 trial lies a cache of declassified cables and administrative records that strip away the veneer of “local tribal conflict” that has long shielded Belgium. These documents suggest that the execution of Patrice Lumumba was not a meticulously choreographed operation directed from the highest levels of the Belgian colonial office.

As the court examines the role of a then-junior diplomat named Étienne Davignon, it is forced to confront the “Bureaucracy of Assassination.” This is the moment where the colonial administrative mind meets the criminal dock, challenging the long-held Western legal defense that high-ranking officials are immune to the blood shed by their strategic directives.

The Brussels ruling is a direct threat to the “immunity of the directive.” It forces Belgium, as a former colonial power, to face its dark history and the deeds of its cruel colonial officials.

For decades, the Western establishment has relied on procedural dead ends to ensure that the mechanics of regime change remain a matter of historical debate rather than criminal liability. The ruling shatters the 65-year-old shield of “moral responsibility,” transforming a hollow diplomatic apology into a live prosecution. It is a test of whether modern international legal frameworks can ever truly hold their own architects accountable, or if the blueprints of state-dismantling, from the Congo to Libya, will remain legally untouchable.

This is the “Aussaresses Precedent” that continues to haunt the Global South. Much like the unrepentant French General Paul Aussaresses, who admitted to horrific torture and summary executions in Algeria only to boast that he “slept fine” afterward, the architects of colonial violence have long relied on a legal suit of armor. Aussaresses died in 2013 at the age of 95, shielded by amnesty laws that ensured he was only ever fined for “justifying” war crimes rather than being prosecuted for committing them.

The March 17 ruling in Brussels represents a definitive crack in this armor; it is a refusal to let Étienne Davignon follow the Aussaresses path into a comfortable, legally shielded grave. By securing this criminal referral, the Lumumba family is fighting to ensure that “doing one’s duty” is no longer a valid legal defense for the clinical destruction of a sovereign people.

This global momentum aligns with the African Union’s transition from the 2025 ‘Year of Reparations’ to the 2026 adoption of the Algiers Declaration. As the AU moves toward the active implementation of this blueprint, the ‘immunity of the directive’ is collapsing. By designating November 30 as a continent-wide day to honor the martyrs of colonialism and moving to codify these historical atrocities into international law, Africa is signaling that the era of the ‘moral apology’ is over. The blueprints of state-dismantling, from the Congo to Libya, are no longer a matter of historical debate – they are now a matter of criminal accountability.

One of Germany’s biggest and most iconic car manufacturers, Volkswagen (VW) and one of Israel’s most well-known arms manufacturers, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, part of the global Rafael Group, are planning to collaborate. If the project is realized, VW will convert one of its German factories in the historic city of Osnabrueck from making automobiles to producing components of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

There are good reasons why this has raised eyebrows. For one thing, it reflects not only VW’s growing problems, but those of Germany’s vital automobile sector and the German economy as a whole. As the Financial Times has noted, the VW-Rafael project would mark “the highest-profile example yet of the German car industry, where profits have plunged,” trying to save itself by entering the “booming defense sector.”

These plunging profits are due to many factors: Chinese competition; Germany’s failure to keep up with cutting-edge technology, communication infrastructure, and business practices; American sabotage by tariff warfare and filching German companies via subsidies; and last but not least, the horrendous energy costs that the entire EU has inflicted on itself by going to war – by Ukrainian proxy and sanctions – against Russia.

The shift to making things for the military, meanwhile, is just a small part of Germany’s breathtakingly misguided response: Namely, a policy of going into massive public debt – under a so-called conservative – to finance a bizarre form of military Keynesianism that is based on illusions (no, Russia is not about to attack), produces self-reinforcing Russophobia (which makes a return to normality even harder), and won’t work as an economic boost, as even the usually government-aligned Spiegel has admitted.

In short, like a prism, the Osnabrueck plan bundles together many of Germany’s worst – and self-inflicted – problems, and the single silliest idea of how to tackle them.

Yet, there is obviously a whole other dimension to the VW-Rafael project that is even worse: The plan also encapsulates Germany’s complicity with Israel’s crimes, an obstinate policy that is deeply immoral, has twisted Germany’s domestic politics and discourse toward cynical racism, censorship, and authoritarian restrictions on free speech (as a UN report has confirmed), and, moreover, is stupidly shortsighted as well, since it alienates most of the world, and in particular, its rising part in the Global South.

And yet there it is, so massive that its outlines will have to be sketched in just a few highlights.

Computers, clouds, and AI? IBM, Hewlett Packard, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft – to name only a few – are deeply and profitably involved not merely in doing business with Israel but with the specific business of population control, surveillance, and incarceration. That is, to be precise, the very sharp end of Israel’s apartheid regime imposed on the Palestinians. Apartheid is, of course, a UN-recognized atrocity crime (not just a specific, criminal stage in South Africa’s history). And not only the infernal Palantir but Microsoft as well – with its Azure and Nimbus systems – has directly helped the Israeli military while it carries out genocide.

Demolishing Palestinian homes, roads, wells, public buildings, and all vital infrastructure, in short, the material basis of life? Caterpillar, Hyundai as well as Doosan, and Volvo have all been at Israel’s service, including in the massive, systematic devastation of Gaza that has been part of Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing campaign.

But then, Zionism doesn’t only destroy and displace. To be fair, it also builds – namely, illegal settlements on territories that are officially called ‘occupied’ but have in reality been de facto annexed by Israel in its ceaseless, aggressive drive for even more ‘Lebensraum’ in a ‘Greater Israel’ that has never even defined its borders.

And don’t let the Israeli Hasbara propaganda fool you: There is no room for debate here. In 2024, the International Court of Justice, the highest court of the UN, unambiguously confirmed that the Israeli post-1967 occupations, including that of East Jerusalem as well as the exploitation of these territories’ resources, and all settlements – really colonies – there are illegal because of “Israel’s violations, through its policies and practices, of the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force and the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people.” Israel must not only leave, as the court also made explicit, but provide “full reparations” to the Palestinians.

Unfortunately, making Israel obey the law – or basic moral precepts everyone else recognizes as binding intuitively (Don’t target children with snipers, for instance, or Don’t torture toddlers) – has always been a challenge, not least because of Washington’s criminal support for Israel’s criminal regime. None of this means the law does not apply.

But those companies helping Israel build its settlements and exploit the illegally held territories – such as the German Heidelberg Materials AG with its subsidiary Hanson Israel, Construcciones Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles from Spain, real estate international Keller Williams RealtyLLC, and again, Caterpillar, Hyundai, and Volvo, are all also involved in a very serious crime.

But then again, maybe there’s less need to worry, as it turns out that Israeli technology – including that produced by Rafael – is not all it is cracked up to be. Consider merely that, as even the Zionist-aligned New York Times has to admit, Israeli missile defenses have not been doing well since Iran has been striking back in earnest against Israeli and American aggression. It is hard to assess the full damage in Israel because its regime practices a censorship blackout, but we know it has been taking bad hits. And then there are those famous Merkava tanks good at smashing through Gaza’s civilians but now being decimated in their invasion of Lebanon, by brave and clearly well-trained but much less well-armed Hezbollah fighters. Guess what company makes the Merkava’s anti-missile defense system? Yes, that would be Rafael. It seems Volkswagen and its Berlin backers have lost not only whatever sense of ethics they have ever had but also quality.

There is something special about the VW-Rafael deal-in-the-making. Obviously, there is the ugly irony of one of Nazi Germany’s main arms makers shifting back to its old business model. Then, while many companies and countries cultivate ties with the genocidal apartheid state of Israel and neglect their legal obligations to stop its crimes, Germany adds the very peculiar hypocrisy of shielding its intense complicity with Israel by abusing the memory of Germany’s own genocide of Europe’s Jews, the Holocaust. It is hard to imagine a greater moral and intellectual perversion.

If Germany had to learn one lesson from its genocides – the Holocaust and that of the Herero and Nama as well – then it was: This crime must never be committed. By no one. Not by Nazis, not by Zionists, either. And it cannot be done to anyone, not to Jews, not to Palestinians – even by Jews. Finally, no one must ever side with the perpetrators. No perpetrators, including Jewish ones.

By this time, we are all familiar with the image of some harried schoolteacher attempting to maintain control over a classroom where the majority of students are transfixed by their smartphones instead of the dusty chalkboard. The dangers of social media for the minds of young and old alike has already been well-documented, and the amount of time that students spend on their handheld devices is increasing with each new study conducted.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill tracked the real-time phone habits of middle and high schoolers and found something that should disturb every teacher and parent. Phone usage appeared during every single hour of the school day, and not a single student in the study went the entire school day without using their mobile phone. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the students who used their phones most often also showed noticeably less self-control.

Published in JAMA Network Open, this new study monitored the phone habits of 79 students aged 11 to 18 over two consecutive weeks and found the average teen racks up more than two full hours of screen time during school time alone. That’s approximately one-third of their total daily phone use – and over a quarter of the entire school day! But the more disturbing discovery wasn’t how long students were on their phones. The alarming factor was how often the students were reaching for their devices, and how that nervous, knee-jerk habit appears to be linked to concentration levels.

Like infants reaching out for their favorite security blanket, students reached for their phones an average of 64 times during the school day, and those who grabbed their devices most often scored worse on a standard test that measured concentration and self-control. The study shows a link not just between phones and distraction, but between compulsive phone use and the kind of mental discipline adolescents need to learn and develop.

“They’re missing out on real life social interaction with peers, which is just as valuable for growth during a critical period of one’s life.”

To say that smartphones have become a pervasive feature of adolescents’ daily lives would be a gross understatement. More than 95% of American teens reported access to a handheld device and nearly half described themselves as “almost constantly” online as of 2024. The authors of the study aim to determine how this omnipresent force, which acts just like a drug for its millions of users, shapes adolescent development, “particularly in contexts such as school that are designed to foster sustained attention, academic engagement, and social growth.”

The authors of the study wrote: “Developmental theories of self-regulation suggest that adolescence is a period of heightened vulnerability to distraction, given ongoing maturation of prefrontal cognitive control systems alongside sensitivity to rewarding social information. The constant availability of smartphones therefore will increase social media distraction during school hours, creating unique challenges for adolescents’ ability to regulate attention and maintain focus on academic tasks.”

In other words, teachers face greater obstacles than ever before when it comes to controlling their classrooms. Needless to say, teachers should not be required to compete against smartphones in the classroom. Across the study, phone use was monitored during every hour of the school day, from 8 AM until the final bell at 3 PM. On average, screen time increased progressively from about 16 minutes at 8 AM. to more than 22 minutes by 2 PM. One particularly distracted student racked up more than five hours of phone use during school across the study period.

Did all of this screen time negatively influence the ability of students to concentrate? To find out, researchers tested the high school student’s concentration using a go/no-go task, a standard exercise in which participants are instructed to activate a button in response to one image but hold back when they see another. This test measures a person’s ability to override an automatic impulse, a key attribute of self-control. Among those examined, students who picked up their phones more often during school performed worse.

The results of the study will assist school administrators and parents in the ongoing debate as to whether or not smartphones should be banned from school. Some nations, meanwhile, have gone further. Australia has banned children under 16 from registering on social media and Malaysia introduced a similar ban in January. The European Parliament is openly discussing following the example of these two countries.

Perhaps we should end here with a quote by Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, who allegedly said his children were not allowed to use smartphones and computers, “because it takes two weeks to become an advanced user, but a childhood spent staring at screens costs something far more valuable: time for real development.”

Hey, good news! The EU has found a new source of desperately needed gas amid the current energy crunch. The bad news? It’s in the US. So it will serve America, first. With Europe getting any sloppy seconds that Daddy Trump feels like overcharging it for when he isn’t threatening to invade.

It’ll be the French energy multinational, TotalEnergies, serving it up to the US like a waiter at a Montmartre bistro, forced to smile and bow while the guest pockets the silverware.

Even better? The company wasn’t even supposed to be over there doing that. They had planned to be building offshore windfarms. But instead, Trump’s Department of the Interior now says that they made a deal with the French company to spend roughly a billion dollars investing in American gas operations in exchange for getting about the same amount of cash back for agreeing to say goodbye to its green wind dreams in the US.

Team Trump calls it an “innovative agreement driven by President Donald J. Trump’s Energy Dominance Agenda.” But the CEO of the European company is making the cucking sound like a big win.

“TotalEnergies is pleased to sign this settlement agreements with the DOI and to support the Administration’s Energy Policy. Considering that the development of offshore wind projects is not in the country’s interest, we have decided to renounce offshore wind development in the United States, in exchange for the reimbursement of the lease fees,” said TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne, while adjusting his knee pads, before continuing to service Trump via official US government press release.

“Furthermore, these agreements, under which we will reinvest the refunded lease fees to finance the construction of the 29 Mt Rio Grande LNG plant and the development of our oil and gas activities, allows us to support the development of US gas production and export.”

Well, good riddance to – er, I mean, so much for Europe’s green dreams, I guess. But at least it means they’ll get easier access to more desperately needed LNG, right? Since they’re the ones doing the heavy lifting. Not without securing a trade agreement on America’s terms, they won’t. Which is why they’re aiming to ratify a trade agreement with their tormentor.

Brussels had been concerned about the agreement that was struck with Trump back in 2025, named the Turnberry Agreement after the US president’s Scottish golf resort where it all went down. The deal was about tariffs. Specifically, it gave a huge break to the US with ZERO tariffs on some of its exports to the EU, while slapping a 15-percent tariff on EU imports to the US. Another master stroke of cuckoldry.

And yet Trump still won’t stop talking about how the EU is constantly stiffing America on trade. Which explains why the EU has been dragging its feet on ratifying it, worried that maybe it was putting too many eggs in a very unstable basket. Something that the US warned it against doing with Russia, being only too happy to step up to offer a costlier overdependency on itself instead.

The EU is doing the exact same with green energy, turning its back on nuclear power before its beloved green renewables were even ready for prime time. Which also went about as well as you might expect from these central planning geniuses. Calling it a screwup, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently announced the need to yank another €200 million from taxpayers to “support investment in innovative nuclear technologies.” The same ones they’d been busy vilifying until recently.

Hard up for gas, struggling to reverse course on nuclear – and now Trump is bribing them with their own money to forget about wind and invest in American gas. All that’s left now is to just hope that it’s enough for Daddy to not withhold the gas produced by their investment from them.

About the only thing they still have going for them is that the EU member states haven’t yet officially ratified the deal to totally sell themselves out. One can hope, right?

“A deal is a deal and we should stick to the Turnberry joint statement,” said EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič.

Whoops, okay. Well, maybe not.

Wait. What’s going on over here in this other back room?

The German industrial city of Osnabrück is grappling with the idea that its embattled Volkswagen factory could be saved – but only if it switches from making cars to producing components for Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system, reports the Financial Times.

Similarly, EU leaders have publicly wallowed in wishy-washiness when it comes to US-Israeli aggression in the Middle East. “Strategic ambiguity,” is what they call it. Which is cuckspeak for “talking out of both sides of my mouth.” But the Wall Street Journal has outed Europe for playing a key role in refueling and supporting the same US operations which they purport to denounce. So instead of acting to match their own words, they let Washington have its way, and then tell their own citizens that European governments will have to come up with a plan to pay for all the cost of living damage that is beyond their control.

Please, won’t someone please help Europe off its knees, already? It’s getting to the point where it risks entirely forgetting how to stand up.

The statement by the United Nations asserting that the trafficking of enslaved Africans constitutes “the gravest crime against humanity” and “the most inhumane and enduring injustice against humanity” invites a rigorous interrogation. What looks like a simple moral statement hides a complex way of thinking that needs to be examined very carefully.

First, one must acknowledge the symbolic force of such a proclamation. To name is already to judge. By defining the transatlantic slave trade and racialized slavery as the gravest crime, the institution establishes a scale of horror and consecrates a moral absolute. Yet this absolutization, while it may appear as a belated act of reparation, carries a fundamental ambiguity. For what does it mean to speak of a “most inhumane injustice” within a human history filled with violence, massacres, genocides, and different forms of domination? Calling one event uniquely evil makes us forget that violence is part of a larger system. It makes a pattern look like an exception.

It is this structural dimension that renders the United Nations’ declaration both necessary and insufficient. Necessary, because it finally acknowledges the magnitude of a crime long minimized or euphemized. Insufficient, because it remains confined within a declarative logic that, lacking concrete political extension, risks becoming a symbolic gesture of contrition. The language of moral condemnation, if not anchored in mechanisms of reparation, transformation, and redistribution, becomes a hollow gesture of commitment.

One must therefore interrogate the temporality of this recognition. Why now? Why so late? The history of international institutions is marked by eloquent silences. For centuries, the powers that built their wealth on slavery not only tolerated it, but legitimized, codified, and rationalized it. That the United Nations, heir to an international order largely shaped by those same powers, now proclaims the inhumanity of this system may be read as a form of institutional catharsis. But for such catharsis to be credible, it must be accompanied by a reflection on continuities: for the logics of exploitation, racial hierarchy, and economic domination have not disappeared; they have been transformed.

Indeed, one of the most problematic aspects of the declaration lies in its effect of historical closure. In designating slavery as an injustice that is “enduring,” it acknowledges persistence, yet at the same time confines it to a past that appears resolved, as though the essential violence belonged to a bygone era. A critical reading of contemporary globalization, however, reveals renewed forms of servitude: forced labor, the economic exploitation of the Global South, and the extraction of resources for the benefit of distant centers of power. These phenomena are not identical to transatlantic slavery, but they extend some of its fundamental logics.

Ultimately, the United Nations’ statement stands at the intersection of two contradictory dynamics. On one hand, it participates in a necessary movement of historical recognition, seeking to name and condemn one of the most structuring violences of modernity. On the other, it operates within an institutional logic that tends to neutralize the subversive potential of that recognition by confining it to the symbolic register.

The real question, then, is not whether the enslavement of Africans was an “inhumane” injustice – that much is self-evident – but what this qualification entails. If it remains just a speech act, it will stand as a monument of moral rhetoric, imposing yet harmless. If, however, it becomes the starting point for a radical reflection on the legacies of the past and the structures of the present, then it may claim genuine transformative power.

This fracture line calls for an even more radical demand: a reversal of the historical gaze itself. For what the United Nations ultimately ratifies is less a rupture than a belated adjustment of the dominant narrative. It acknowledges the horror, certainly, but without fully dismantling the frameworks that made it thinkable and acceptable.

Racialized slavery was a regime of truth, a systematic production of knowledge designed to legitimize the inequality of human beings.

This point is decisive. As long as the intellectual structures inherited from that era – racial classifications, implicit cultural hierarchies, the naturalization of inequality – remain active, the moral condemnation of slavery remains incomplete. It is not enough to say that slavery was inhumane; one must dismantle the mechanisms through which certain humans were and continue to be perceived as less than fully human.

Here the critique must become sharper. For the contemporary global order, despite its universalist proclamations, continues to reproduce asymmetries rooted in that history. Flows of capital, trade relations, migration regimes, security policies all contribute to maintaining a division of the world in which some lives count more than others.

This also requires a shift in the center of gravity of discourse. Institutional recognition, however important, cannot be the final horizon. It must be relayed by multiple voices, situated knowledges, and narratives that exceed official frameworks.

At stake, then, is a fundamental tension between memory and power. Who has the authority to define what slavery was? Who determines its meanings, its uses, its limits? By proclaiming an official truth, the United Nations exercises a form of symbolic authority that, while recognizing injustice, also circumscribes its interpretation. Every framing is also a limiting.

A history closed too quickly becomes neutralized; a neutralized memory no longer disturbs.

The point is not to deny the value of the declaration, but to push it to its most uncomfortable consequences. If slavery was indeed an injustice of such magnitude, then it entails a responsibility that cannot be temporally confined. In this sense, the declaration should be read as an opening, provided one refuses to be satisfied with it.

For in the end, the question is whether humanity is capable of drawing from its own abysses a demand for justice that goes beyond regret. The United Nations has named the injustice; whether the world it claims to represent is prepared to assume its full implications remains an open question.

The current conflict between Iran and Israel isn’t a classic war driven by strict geopolitical interests. Certainly, the rivalry between the two countries is very well known and everybody focuses on the Strait of Hormuz and the dramatic economic consequences of its disruption.  Of course, a lot of people rightly observed the timing: this sudden turn of events has been perfect to bury the Epstein scandal under Palestinian, Lebanese, and Iranian (and even Israeli) rubble. But aren’t these considerations purely temporary?

The conflict initiated by Israel (and into which it drew the US, as Joe Kent explained when he gave his resignation as director of US counterterrorism) can be seen as a completely irrational religious and eschatological adventure driven by Hebraic mythology. Let’s try to take a look at three of its main pillars.

Amalek

In the Book of Exodus, Amalek is the name of the founder of a nation of the same name, who attacks the Children of Israel after they leave Egypt. Apparently for no specific reason. Consequently, the Amalekites are considered as the staunchest and most persistent enemy of Israel and Jehovah gave a clear order.

Deuteronomy 25:17-19: “Don’t forget what Amalek did to you on the road after you left Egypt, how he attacked you when you were tired, barely able to put one foot in front of another, mercilessly cut off your stragglers, and had no regard for God. When God, your God, gives you rest from all the enemies that surround you in the inheritance-land God, your God, is giving you to possess, you are to wipe the name of Amalek from off the Earth. Don’t forget!”

At this stage, it’s even beyond genocide. One could say that it’s just biblical mythology. But in October 2023 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the Amalek story when the IDF went into Gaza, and once again in March 2026 concerning Iran: “We read in this week’s Torah portion, ‘Remember what Amalek did to you.’ We remember – and we act.” Nothing could be clearer.

Esther

Then we have to move on to the Book of Esther.

The thing is, the Israelis did wipe out the Amalekites – except one. And his descendant, Haman, became grand vizier at the court of the Persian Empire (based in the Iranian plateau). Esther is a Jewish orphan adopted by her cousin Mordecai, who also holds a position at the court. She becomes the King’s new Queen. And here we go again, Haman (that is, Amalek) wants to get rid of the Jews. Exterminate all of them. For no other apparent reason than because Mordecai refused to bow down to him. Mordecai urges Esther to convince the King to foil Haman’s plot. The King gets mad at Haman, and eventually the course of events is reversed and the Jewish population is able to exterminate its enemies in the Persian Empire. That’s what Jewish people celebrate annually during the Purim holiday.

One can only think about the level of contemporary Iran infiltration by Israeli secret services. Otherwise, Israel wouldn’t have been able to act so effectively against Tehran.

Gog and Magog

Next, the Book of Ezekiel.

The Prophet Ezekiel had some visions. One of them is that ‘Gog and Magog’ will attack the rebuilt state of Israel but eventually will be destroyed by Jehovah. Consequently, we know the idea, a new temple will be built, the ‘Messiah’ will appear, and Israel will reign supreme. As to what are exactly ‘Gog and Magog’, the pilpul is literally endless. But according to the Book of Revelation, they are supposed to be a coalition of hostile pagan nations going against the Israelites.

We see here the biblical pattern: a coalition of countries with various beliefs in an existential fight against Israel. This is, of course, an extremely simplistic conception: a final battle between Gog and Magog (i.e. Iran, China, and Russia) and Biblical Israel (i.e. Zionist Israelis and Americans). However, the Chinese are highly pragmatic, and a lot of Russian Jews live in Israel, so Beijing and Moscow won’t act against Israel directly. But the Israelis and American Zionists seem to be convinced by this mythological interpretation. Just remember that Pete Hegseth, the incumbent American Secretary of War has been calling every step of the creation of the state of Israel a “miracle.” Or think about Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel, who was saying in an interview with Tucker Carlson concerning Israelis and the Middle-East: “It would be fine if they took it all.”

Western mainstream media constantly call Iran a “theocracy” and Israel the “only democracy in the Middle-East.” But as current geopolitical events mirrored by biblical stories show, the US-Israel side is moved by a religious vision with three goals: the foundation of Greater Israel (from the Nile to the Euphrates), the reconstruction of the temple, and the coming of the Messiah. Because, even if a large chunk of the Torah (let alone the Talmud) looks more like a political project than like a religious textbook, Israel is indeed a theocracy in disguise. Therefore, even if Iran should prevail in the current conflict, the Israelis will keep looking at other nations not fully supporting them as Gog and Magog.

About a century ago – between those two World Wars which Europeans have generously given to the history of humanity – there was a joke about Hungary: It was a monarchy without a king and a landlocked country ruled by an admiral. It was funny because it was true.

Nowadays, though, we have proudly advanced. Now, we have a whole European Union, with 27 member states and 450 million people, run by an unelected German who really serves the US and has, a bit like Siegfried or Brunhilde, a special “shield” (about which more below) to protect a “democracy” administered and defined by an non-transparent, privileged, and aloof nomenklatura of equally unelected bureaucrats.

Contemporary Hungary, meanwhile, is, by the sober standards of reality, by no means a perfect but a perfectly normal country, that is, neither better nor worse than most of the rest. No longer a weird monarchy with a gaping hole at the top but a run-of-the-mill Western-style capitalist democracy, it has a feisty prime minister for a leader instead of an admiral without a coast. That prime minister, Viktor Orban, is a typical if especially canny and successful professional politician, who combines a knack for crowd appeal, demagoguery included, with deft political power plays.

It is true, if electoral districts need re-designing in Hungary, the party in power is likely to favor its own chances, just like they do in the EU’s big “daddy” the US, for instance. Likewise, if you are doing business in Hungary, being close to the party – or parties –in power tends to be better for your company. But that’s no different in, again, the US (with the caveat that there the current president and his extensive clan are now taking an extra large cut for themselves). Or, indeed, in Germany and France. The latter, as it happens, has just reached a new low in Transparency International’s annual corruption index.

Hungary may not have unbiased mass media, as its critics indignantly charge. But then, who does? Certainly not Germany, Britain, France, or, for that matter, the US. As a matter of fact, it is the EU and the German authorities which are currently obstinately misusing a sanctions regime designed for foreign policy purposes – and not working, but that’s another matter – to circumvent ordinary legal procedures, trample on civil and human rights, and punitively destroy the existence of individual dissidents and critical journalist.

And there is also nothing comparable in Orban’s Hungary to the extremely suspicious (to say the least) manner in which the last German elections featured a statistically bizarre accumulation of “mistakes” that eliminated the New-Left BSW from parliament.

Since it seems likely that a correct – or clean – result would make Germany’s current ruling coalition impossible, the implications of this case of deeply flawed elections at the very center of the EU are most disturbing: at this point, Germany may have an electorally baseless government, the German parliament’s refusal to permit a clearly necessary recount is either more foul play or indistinguishable from it, and Berlin’s political course – domestically and abroad – would be principally different under a government that would have to rely on the correct election results.

And let’s not even mention minor details, such as that Hungary’s mixed election system (combining first-past-the-post districts and national party lists) is far more representative than that of that “cradle of parliamentary democracy” and police-state-for-Zionism Great Britain.

In view of the above, you would expect, if anything, Budapest going after Brussels as well as some other individual EU member states to demand better democratic behavior. But this is the alternative-reality world of the EU’s sectarian “elite,” where genocidal Israel is only defending itself, “Europe is the values of the Talmud” (perish the thought its history may have a little more to do with first Christian and then Enlightenment ideas), the US is a good and reliable ally, and four white, blonde women serving the same radical Centrism proudly constitute “diversity.”

Hence, in topsy-turvy land, it is, obviously, once again the EU that is charging Hungary with flunking the test of “democracy.” That, in and of itself, might not be important: words are cheap. The problem is that, as before in Romania and even Moldova – not even a member state – the EU Commission has long passed from mere talk, at which it excels, to mean action, which makes everything only worse. Indeed, the EU’s meddling in Hungary has recently escalated.

The catalyst for this escalation is the upcoming Hungarian election. To be held on April 12, domestically, back in Hungary, the outcome will merely decide if Orban can stay in power – which he has been without interruption since 2010 – or will be replaced by the opposition’s new hope, Peter Magyar, a former Orbanist himself. Yet there are good reasons Politico has called these “the EU’s most important elections” this year despite the fact that Hungary is a small country of less than 10 million citizens.

Especially, if they resist the Commission party line on three topics: the relationship with Russia, the Western – now entirely EU-financed – proxy war waged against Moscow by means of Ukraine, and, last but not least, money, in particular money to be wasted – or not – on Kiev’s Zelensky regime. In all three areas, Orban has been Brussel’s main irritant, consistently arguing for normalization with Russia through diplomacy, a quick negotiated end to the proxy war, and an end also to the pathological inter-dependence with Zelensky’s ultra-corrupt and extremely dangerous regime.

Recently, this Hungarian resistance has led to repeated clashes with both the EU establishment and Kiev. Zelensky has publicly threatened Orban with violence in the worst Mafia style; Budapest has taken action against extremely suspicious transports of tens of millions of euro and dollars as well as bullion to Kiev; Hungary and Ukraine have been sparring over Kiev’s attempts to block the Druzhba pipeline; Budapest has been blocking yet another massive “loan” (never to be paid back) for Zelensky and his crew, and, most recently, Orban has called on Kiev to immediately withdraw its agents and operatives from Hungary.

And, by the way, you may suspect Orban of seeking an electoral boost. But even if that is the case, it makes no difference to the fact that aggressive subversion is exactly what the Zelensky regime does. Ask the Germans how things with their pipelines went. The braver ones might dare answer.

As we live in modern, online times, the shape much of the escalating EU meddling on the side of Orban’s opponents in Budapest and Kiev has taken is a nasty combination of social media manipulation at scale, illicit surveillance and spying, and the targeted dissemination of what is meant to be compromising information.

A smelly affair features a Hungarian journalist who has produced a source-free report alleging massive Russian interference in the elections, while spending his free time facilitating an EU country’s intelligence service eavesdropping on Hungary’s foreign minister. Some interference indeed. The hypocrisy would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

In Brussels, meanwhile, under the overall umbrella of the “European Democracy Shield” (EDS) initiative and the Digital Services Act (DSA), a so-called Rapid Response mechanism has been activated to – so the official brief tell us – combat disinformation and foreign influence. Yet, in reality, this is a set of compulsory measures that permit the Commission’s dependent auxiliaries to police social media platforms, suppress content in favor of Orban and, thus, promote his rivals.

Yet what is even worse is that all of this is only a small part of a much larger and long-term strategy that has been gathering steam for a decade already. The “European Democracy Shield” and the DSA exist in a large, constantly pullulating eco-system of narrative control that also includes, for instance, a “Defense of Democracy Package,” a “European Democracy Action Plan,” and a Digital Markets Act. Attached to this weaponized spearhead for manufacturing Brussels consent is an extensive – and very expensive – train of so-called civil-society organizations and NGOs that provide both censorship assistance and indoctrination.

Hungary, put simply, is a harbinger of more and even worse to come, of what Brussels wants for our future. The EU ‘elites’ are displaying an unbroken will to power over what we are allowed to think, say, and vote for. That is why – whether you like or dislike Viktor Orban – and I heartily dislike him because of his outrageous siding with genocidal Israel – you should certainly greatly dislike and resist the methods that the EU is fielding to stop him. Because they are coming for all of us.

What began as a conflict centered on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and regional power balance has rapidly transformed the strategic geography of global trade and energy flows. For Africa, the consequences could be profound as the crisis risks exacerbating existing rivalries along the Red Sea basin while simultaneously exposing African nations to economic shocks and geopolitical pressures. From the impact of soaring oil prices to disruptions in trade flows and shipping costs, the continent may once again confront the spillover effects of a crisis originating outside its borders.

One of the most consequential outcomes for Africa would be the renewed centrality of the Red Sea. With Iran effectively controlling the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical oil chokepoints, attention has now shifted westward toward the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which are emerging as indispensable corridors for global shipping.

The US on Thursday warned that the Houthis (Ansar Allah movement) could start firing on vessels in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait after Tehran raised the possibility of extending barriers to global shipping during the ongoing war. The US statement appeared after Iran’s Tasnim News Agency cited sources warning of the potential opening of a new “front” in the war in response to the Trump administration moving troops into the region.

Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, leader of Houthis, stated on Thursday that the movement could initiate participation in the conflict, depending on developments in the military situation. In a televised address, he emphasized that the movement has never hesitated to fulfill what he described as its Islamic duty in jihad against the United States and Israel, calling for support of Iran through various means.

Port diplomacy

The Red Sea was already an arena of geopolitical competition even before the Iranian crisis erupted. Over the past decade, rivalries among regional powers, especially between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have transformed the region into a theater of competition.

A central instrument of the UAE’s strategy has been port diplomacy led by Dubai-based logistics giant DP World.

However, in recent years the UAE’s port diplomacy has hit several hurdles. For example, since 2018, Djibouti and DP World have been engaged in a standoff over the termination of the concession for the Doraleh container terminal. A London arbitration court recently ruled in favor of Djibouti, rejecting DP World’s claims for compensation.

The Red Sea’s importance is also reinforced by the dense concentration of military installations along its shores. Four African states, namely Egypt, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Sudan, border the Red Sea, and their ports have become focal points for external military presence. Djibouti alone hosts multiple foreign naval bases, including those of the US, France, Japan, and China. Beijing established its first overseas naval facility in Djibouti in 2017, underscoring the country’s strategic role at the entrance of the Red Sea.

Connectivity and regional security were also at the fore when, in December 2025, Israel decided to recognize the de facto sovereign country of Somaliland. While the ethical and legal implications of such recognition remain debated, Israel’s motivations appear strongly linked to maritime security. Israel is certainly interested in safeguarding the passage of the ships carrying goods to and from its ports through this channel.

Reports of possible Israeli plans to establish a military installation near Berbera further illustrate the strategic stakes. Such a move would likely intensify regional tensions, potentially opening another front in the already complex politics of the Horn of Africa. It could also deepen divisions between actors supporting Somaliland’s independence and those advocating Somalia’s territorial unity.

Yemen’s Houthi movement has received extensive financial, military, and other support from Tehran over decades, and described the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as the supreme leader of Iran as “a new victory for the Islamic Revolution.” Despite suffering recent military setbacks, the group possesses drones, mines, artillery, and anti-ship missiles capable of disrupting vessels transiting the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

There are also concerns about potential cooperation between the Houthis and the Somali militant group al-Shabaab. Since 2024, the two organizations have reportedly collaborated in areas such as weapons smuggling, technical training, and logistical support. While the Houthis do not exercise direct command over al-Shabaab, the Somali group has previously indicated its willingness to expand piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden in exchange for Houthi backing. Such cooperation could dramatically increase risks for commercial shipping across the wider Red Sea region.

So far, the Houthis have refrained from launching major new attacks since the Iran crisis began, although they have warned that their “fingers are on the trigger.” The possibility of renewed hostilities remains significant. Even limited attacks could significantly raise insurance premiums and shipping costs, further destabilizing global supply chains.

Fragile security

In the coming months, two broad scenarios appear plausible. In the first, escalation in the Iran crisis triggers a cascade of regional confrontations involving state and non-state actors across the Gulf and the Red Sea. Such a development would severely disrupt maritime traffic and global oil flows. In the absence of Hormuz functioning normally, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea would become the only viable alternative corridor for energy exports, placing enormous pressure on an already fragile security environment.

The second scenario involves a temporary cooling-off period, during which regional and global actors prioritize safeguarding maritime commerce despite their broader political rivalries. In this case, the Red Sea could become an arena of pragmatic cooperation aimed at ensuring the free flow of shipping through Bab el-Mandeb and toward the Suez Canal.

Regardless of which trajectory emerges, the Red Sea is unlikely to grow calmer. Instead, the region may get divided into two or more opposing groups based on their vested interests. The Iran crisis has produced an unintended geopolitical outcome by shifting the center of maritime gravity westward. By destabilizing the Strait of Hormuz and threatening Gulf shipping lanes, the conflict has elevated the Red Sea from a secondary theater to a critical axis of global trade and strategic competition.

The real question, therefore, is not whether the Iran crisis will reshape the Red Sea region as the effects are already visible, but how intense and how prolonged this transformation will ultimately be.

If you haven’t seen an example of collective male hysteria for a while, take a look at the comments on the news story about the opening of a women-only pub in Minsk. There are tears, threats, and even strategic plans to take over the territory. The men commenting are furious that there will be a place in the city where they aren’t welcome.

I thought we’d moved past the stage where the emergence of a ‘girls-only’ venue would provoke anger and horror. After all, it’s 2026. In neighboring Belarus, the president has declared the Year of the Woman, and entrepreneur Alexandra Tyamchik has decided to open a women-only beer bar. You might think: what’s the big deal? Just another bar for women, yes? Yet, for some reason, internet knights have rushed to defend their wounded egos.

What do men write about? Well, the usual things. ‘I doubt women can drink as much as men.’ Guys, are you serious? Do you go to bars just to compete over how many drinks you can have? It’s terrifying to imagine what you get up to at all-inclusive hotels.

If it were just these kinds of comments, we could simply ignore them. However, other users were hatching devious plans: ‘You can drive up there and pick someone up who’s already had a few.’ Thank you for confirming this, dear ones: women don’t open such bars to cause trouble, but because no one wants to feel like a ‘ready-made’ option in any establishment. 

Some people even suggest going there just to spite them. Here you go: “The funny thing is, it won’t just be girls going there. Blokes will go too, and no one will be able to do anything about it.’ Very mature. It’s just like in the sandpit: ‘Since the girls built a house, we’ll go and knock it down!’ Except this house isn’t yours and there’s nothing in it to knock down except your own dignity.

The real question is: why does the idea of a space where men aren’t welcome make them so angry?

This reminds me of an interesting historical fact. In the late 19th century, when cafés began to appear in Europe’s first department stores and railway stations, places where a woman could go alone or with a friend without risking her reputation, he male half of society was equally horrified. What? A lady eating in a public place without being accompanied by her husband or brother? That’s debauchery and the end of the world! Now, they’re just coffee shops we pop into a hundred times a day.

We’ve had women-only train carriages and gyms for a long time. Do you think these are just to keep the opposite sex at bay? As strange and frightening as it may seem, it’s all for safety’s sake. It’s so that we can get from work to home without the risk of being harassed. To go to the gym wearing whatever you feel comfortable in, rather than something that might make you feel like a product on a shop shelf. To exercise without worrying that someone will come up and tell you that it’s not a woman’s job.

All we want is to do what we enjoy in a place where we feel safe and comfortable.

It’s the same here. Women just want to sit around, drink beer, eat pretzels, chat about their lives, laugh out loud, be quiet and think to themselves without having to deal with stares that say, ‘Fancy a chat?’ We don’t want to plan our route to the toilet so that we avoid running into a compliment from a tipsy neighbor. Nor do we want to wait for someone to come and sit next to us five minutes later and ask, ‘Are you here on your own, miss?’

I reckon a bar like that would be an instant hit in Moscow. It would be lovely to have a beer with my girlfriends in a cosy setting without having to put up with some bloke nearby who thinks he’s the only one allowed to drink beer. It would also be great to be able to order a beer with a friend without feeling that underlying anxiety, or worrying that someone might come over to chat, try to pick you up or crack crude jokes.

Overall, I’m really happy for the women of Minsk. To the men who write about ‘failure’ and ‘unmarketability’, I’d like to say: you’re just afraid that it’ll be too much fun without you there and that the beer will taste better than in your favorite bar. And you know what? It will. But don’t be upset. After all, there are always other bars where you won’t be chased away.

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team 

Today in Spain, a 25-year-old woman named Noelia Castillo is scheduled to undergo euthanasia. Born into a dysfunctional family in Barcelona, Noelia spent her childhood in shelters and fell victim to gang rape in 2022. This trauma resulted in severe clinical depression, and she attempted suicide twice. Her second suicide attempt left her paralyzed and confined to a hospital bed. Since 2024, Noelia has been paralyzed. She requested permission for euthanasia, and psychiatrists determined that her case met the necessary criteria for the procedure: the young woman lives in constant pain and has an irreversible medical condition that does not allow her to have a normal life. However, Noelia’s father intervened. 

He vehemently opposed the decision, arguing that his daughter needed assistance, not assisted suicide. Despite their complicated relationship and past parental rights issues, he said that her death would cause him great suffering. He sought help from the Abogados Cristianos (Christian Lawyers) organization. The legal battles lasted two years. Throughout this time, Noelia, who was denied the right to end her life, repeated, “My everyday life is awful and tormenting.” Ultimately, her father lost the case. Both the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights affirmed Noelia’s right to euthanasia. She is set to die this evening. 

Before her death, Noelia gave an interview to Spanish television and explained her reasons for making this decision. To me, this is the most cynical part of the story. They are not only “assisting” her in dying, but are using her to popularize euthanasia. Perhaps soon we may see a surge in others seeking the same procedure. Life isn’t a fairytale; there are people who, right now, suffer from severe illness and pain. Some endure their illness, believing they must bear their trials with dignity, aware that they aren’t alone in the world, and that their family or loved ones will suffer even more if they die. Yet others might listen to Noelia and think, 'Why shouldn’t I just end it all right now?'

Euthanasia was bound to emerge in a consumer-driven European society. A person lives normally and contributes to society until they can no longer function physically. And when they become a burden, the state permits them to die and even encourages such decisions by promoting euthanasia. But what about the soul?

And I am not just talking about the soul trapped in the suffering body; I am also talking about the soul of society. Where does that soul find purpose if it refuses to help those with incurable conditions and save victims? Noelia’s father didn’t hire Christian Lawyers for nothing; it seems that secular lawyers in Europe have become totally alienated from Christian arguments. Yet, living in Russia, I also fully support the Christian position: what matters most in a person is the soul, and that soul can still work, can still strive towards perfection, even inside a paralyzed body.

How do we know why someone must endure immense pain and suffering? Perhaps God is nurturing their soul and preparing to draw them closer to Him after death. 

European society would laugh at me if I wrote such things. What soul, what God – they’d say – this person is consuming resources without contributing anything, just let them go! 

However, the argument for 'let’s end their suffering' appears humane only on the surface. In reality, it’s a consumerist solution. Provide Noelia with the best psychotherapists so she can understand that she doesn’t have to live life as a victim and that people can find happiness even when immobile. Provide her with the most effective pain management. Give her one of Musk’s chips. Oh, so Europe lacks those resources? Well, then, this is a conversation about resources. A humane society should focus on finding solutions rather than letting someone die. From a Christian perspective, now is the worst possible time for Noelia to die—her soul isn’t ready; she hasn’t learned life’s most important lesson: becoming a victim once doesn’t mean you’re a victim for life. And it seems that her father, regardless of his flaws, understands this.

In March 2026, the BBC announced: “Peers in the House of Lords have backed plans to decriminalize abortions, which MPs voted in favour of last summer.”

Immediately, and following demonstrations in front of the House of Lords, people went into a fury on social networks, accusing the government of the UK of legalizing abortions up to nine months, that is to say until the birth of the child. And many, as it has been a trend for some time, went of course as far as to accuse their elites of Satanism.

Reuters was quick to react, invoking its fact-checking duty: “Misleading. ​The House of Lords backed moves to remove women from ​criminal prosecution related to abortion, not to change existing legal restrictions on healthcare professionals regarding abortion performed after 24 ​weeks gestation.”

Still according to the BBC, the Archbishop Sarah Mullally reacted: “Though its intention may not be to change the 24 week abortion limit, it undoubtedly risks eroding the safeguards and enforcement of those legal limits and inadvertently undermining the value of human life.” Indeed!

The problem with Reuter’s fact-checkers is that they read the original text of British MPs but do not question the logic. Maybe because they have none. But certainly because their duty is to legitimize the agenda. Isn’t to “decriminalize” a kind of synonym for “making it legal”? If, let’s say, a person walks in the street with weed or crack and isn’t facing any sort of punishment as it is not a criminal offense anymore, isn’t the person acting absolutely legally or at least being tolerated? Well, the same goes with abortions. Women, voluntarily or being psychologically manipulated, will be able to terminate their pregnancies at any moment. The nuance apparently being that they’ll do it at home, not at the hospital. Abortions are always a traumatic and dreadful experience, but just imagine what it would look like at eight months in a crap apartment of some London suburb. In 2025 already, a British woman who took abortion medicine at home when she was 26 weeks pregnant (before delivering the dead baby to a hospital in a backpack) was cleared by the court. All this seems to be pure madness. Or controlled anarchy.

But there’s also a difference in the political perception of the issue. While most countries are enduring demographic problems, some decide to encourage procreation, some to discourage. The famous Chinese one-child policy is certainly the best historical symbol of demographic control. Now, they have to reverse the trend. In Russia, where fertility rate is dangerously low, a woman seeking to go through an abortion or expressing her wish not to have kids is advised to see a therapist. However, though everybody says that Western Europe’s fertility rate is also too low, France has “proudly” enshrined abortion in its Constitution in 2024 and it’s now the UK that leads the way when it comes to permissiveness in allowing its female population to get rid of their successors.

Yes, their successors in life on the land of their ancestors. Meanwhile, and despite Brexit, which turned out to be a complete failure, the UK has been massively taking in migrants, mainly from “non EU-countries” (with a peak under Boris Johnson’s government, known as the “Boriswave”). This euphemism, “non-EU countries”, doesn’t fool anybody, of course. The top three nationalities in 2025 were Nigerian, Indian and Pakistani. Those incoming populations have a completely different understanding of life, and thus of procreation. The newcomers are way less likely to engage in abortion, let alone into late abortion. Extreme feminism is not their cup of tea, liberalism is not their milk. And to think that they’ll adapt to British standard is totally delusional.

Unsurprisingly, the recent decades have proved it. But the authorities keep taking in those populations. The definition of insanity. Or is it, really? Maybe the insanity is to keep going in this direction while assuring the public that the Great Replacement theory is utter conspiracy delirium, as every single thing they do validates and reinforces the theory.

A society that does not consider its kids the utmost priority is either criminal or suicidal. In light of the Epstein scandal in which members of the government and the nobility are entangled, this new attack on childhood can only convince people that their elites are dangerous psychopaths.

As the security crisis in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is unfolding, the series of multiple blasts that tore through the northeast city of Maiduguri last week shows that the cycle of terror remains unbroken. This latest wave of violence, occurring in the heart of the insurgency’s birthplace, also raises questions about the real goals and efficacy of the recent US military support. Are Washington’s precision strikes and coercive diplomacy truly designed to stabilize a fracturing region?

When the United States launched airstrikes in northwest Nigeria on Christmas Day 2025, few expected the action to reopen as fundamental a debate about contemporary US foreign policy. What began as a rare US military strike against suspected militant enclaves evolved into a deeper exercise in so-called ‘coercive diplomacy’. Even in the US, this action generated mixed reactions, whilst in capitals across Africa, there was palpable unease.

The flurry of cooperation has, however, done little to mask the underlying complex reality that Africa is increasingly becoming a litmus test for how the US asserts its power abroad. The question on the lips of observers lately is whether that assertion advances stability or strains the sovereignty of nations it purports to assist.

To put it into perspective, the December military action climaxed months of escalating rhetoric from the US. These accusations are diverse, but are common in condemning the Nigerian government’s failure to protect Christians from extremist Islamic terror organizations.

That framing, which Nigerian authorities vehemently rejected as a mischaracterization of its complex security crisis, coincided with Nigeria’s designation as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) by the Trump administration under its International Religious Freedom Act. Though Nigeria’s government welcomed bilateral cooperation against extremist organizations, including Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), the US approach elevated tensions and brought questions about motive, method, and legitimacy to the fore.

The strikes themselves were conducted with Nigerian approval and corroborated by intelligence sharing, and were billed by US officials as precise operations against ISIS targets. In the weeks that followed, however, violence in the northern states of the country surged, with communities reporting high fatalities and mass abductions. These attacks immediately had people talking. They questioned the efficacy of the strikes that, in their view, neither significantly degraded the militant groups, nor addressed the socioeconomic roots of insecurity.

Beyond the fighting itself, what is happening in Nigeria reflects a wider feature of US interventionism as part of its foreign policy. When Washington speaks about human rights or protecting vulnerable groups, those appeals are often accompanied by diplomatic pressure or military involvement. In Nigeria’s case, the local government insists that it remains fully in control of its security operations. However, its reliance on US training and intelligence support with no clearly defined timeline for when that cooperation ends leaves much to be desired.

The ongoing US-Israel war with Iran has become the latest example of US interventionism. The US and Israel worked together to attack Iran. Many lives and facilities have been lost, including Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei. The conflict, unfortunately, continues to spread as Iran fights back.

Many states and international observers have condemned this war, pointing out that this goes to show how far the US is ready to go to use overwhelming military force to achieve its goals. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has been a vocal critic of the war even when this has threatened his country’s bilateral relationship with the US. This brings to mind the Venezuela case from last year when the US invaded and kidnapped the president, Nicolas Maduro. These situations have continued to project the US as a superpower that would do anything to achieve its goals, even when these actions contravene established international law.

The implications for international politics are many and far reaching. In Africa for instance, rising economic powers such as China and emerging regional blocs like BRICS+ offer viable alternatives in terms of multilateral cooperations, and are seen as more respectful of sovereignty. It is a fact that Nigeria has continued to deepen commercial ties with Asian partners, a trend analysts see as both pragmatic and expressive of a desire for diversified partnerships. This fuels the suspicion that when US pressure appears inconsistent or self-serving, African leaders may reconsider their relationships with Washington.

As global power shifts, Africa’s relationship with the US is not marginal. It offers important lessons. How African countries respond, diversify their multilateral relationships, and defend their sovereignty will influence not only their own future but also the direction of the world order.

For more than four decades, Pakistan’s approach toward Afghanistan has been guided by a simple assumption – that Afghanistan’s political trajectory must remain aligned with Pakistan’s security interests. From the Soviet war of the 1980s to the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s and again after the Fall of Kabul, Islamabad has sought influence across its western border.

But today, that longstanding policy is unraveling.

The irony is difficult to ignore. The very militant networks once viewed as useful tools of regional influence have evolved into one of Pakistan’s most serious security threats. Fighters from the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan have intensified attacks inside Pakistan, creating a crisis that Islamabad now argues originates from Afghan territory.

In response, Pakistan has adopted an increasingly aggressive posture toward Afghanistan, including cross border strikes, heightened military activity, and the mass deportation of Afghan refugees. Yet these measures address symptoms rather than causes.

At the heart of the conflict lies a deeper structural problem: Pakistan has never fully accepted the idea of an independent Afghanistan pursuing its own geopolitical interests. For decades, Afghan leaders across political spectrums have resisted Pakistan’s attempts to shape the country’s internal politics. That resistance is rooted not only in nationalism but also in history.

The dispute over the Durand Line remains a powerful symbol of that history. While Pakistan considers the border settled, many Afghans view it as a colonial boundary imposed during the era of the British Empire. For communities divided by the border, fencing and militarization have only deepened resentment.

Afghanistan has always resisted external domination, whether from empires, superpowers, or neighboring states.

What Pakistan faces today is the predictable outcome of policies built on short term tactical thinking rather than long term regional stability. Influence achieved through proxies rarely produces sustainable security. Instead, it creates cycles of dependency, mistrust, and blowback.

The path forward requires a fundamental shift in perspective. A stable Afghanistan cannot be manufactured through pressure or coercion. It can only emerge from a relationship based on mutual sovereignty and regional cooperation.

Pakistan’s leaders must recognize a reality that history has already made clear: Afghanistan cannot be controlled.

And the sooner that lesson is accepted, the sooner both countries can begin to build a future defined not by conflict but by coexistence.

As of March 2026, the world is experiencing heightened, interconnected conflicts across multiple regions, creating a volatile security landscape. Major escalations include the US and Israeli war against Iran, the ongoing Ukraine conflict, and simmering tensions in the Pacific.

Over 40% of strategists surveyed for Global Foresight 2025 by the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security fear “another world war, involving a multifront conflict among great powers” by the end of next decade.

In May 2025, India and Pakistan had a significant four-day military standoff. The US invaded Venezuela in early 2026 and captured President Nicolas Maduro. The Middle East conflict has expanded significantly since February 28, with US and Israeli forces heavily engaging Iran’s leadership, military, defense and energy industry, and Iran effectively targeting oil and gas infrastructure across the Gulf states.

The Ukraine conflict continues with intense fighting. China continues to maintain a hardline stance on Taiwan, claiming “reunification” is inevitable. The efforts of the otherwise powerful BRICS countries to bring about global geo-political stability have been meek.

During the Munich Security Conference in mid-February, there was talk about boosting military budgets and reframing the transatlantic alliance as a NATO 3.0. It is time to analyze the global arms trends.

Arms Transfers in 2020–24

As per the fresh data released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) this month, global arms transfers in 2020–24 continued to grow in volume but saw major shifts in trends.

Driven by the conflict in Ukraine, Europe’s imports surged 155%, making the countries the world’s top importers as a group. Ukraine became the world’s largest arms importing country, increasing imports in 2021–25 by 100 times compared to 2015–19 period. India remained the second-largest, despite reducing imports by 9.3%, primarily through its indigenization push. Other regional shifts included reduced imports growth in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East, balancing the global total.

The US strengthened its dominance as the top exporter (43% global share), while France (9.6%) overtook Russia, where exports dropped by 64% in 2021–25.

Europe saw increased demand for air defense systems, aircraft, and missiles as nations began a fresh rearming with increasing defense budgets. The Middle East & North Africa region (MENA) accounted for over 27% of global imports, with high demand from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states. The conflict in the Middle East is expected to drive the demand further.

China dropped out of the top 10 importers, reflecting its increased self-sufficiency. The overall trend in 2020-24 indicates the market is highly reactive to security threats, favoring suppliers that can deliver high-tech systems to conflict-affected regions.

The volume of major arms transferred between states increased 9.2% between 2016–20 and 2021–25. Europe was the biggest recipient region. Besides Europe and the Americas, arms imports to all other world regions decreased.

The US increased its dominance of arms exports and supplied 42% of all international arms transfers in 2021–25, up from 36% in 2016–20. The US exported arms to 99 states, including 35 countries in Europe. For the first time in two decades, the largest share of US arms exports went to Europe (38%) rather than the Middle East (33%). Nevertheless, the top single recipient of US arms was Saudi Arabia (12%). Washington views arms exports as a tool of foreign policy and a way of strengthening its arms industry, as the Trump administration’s new America First Arms Transfer Strategy once again makes clear.

Global defense spending grew in 2025, reaching $2.63 trillion, up from $2.48 trillion in 2024. Spending also rose in real terms by 2.5%. European defense expenditure is surging, with EU member states’ budgets expected to reach roughly €390 billion in 2025, a nearly 63% rise from 2020 levels. This spending now averages over 2% of GDP, driven by geopolitical tensions and increased procurement, aimed at replenishing stocks and enhancing long-term industrial capacity.

 The US has been focusing on modernization and technological superiority. China continues rapid expansion with a focus on new technology, AI and naval advancements. Saudi Arabia maintains high spending ($72.5 billion) on regional security. Significant investments by the UK ($94 billion) and France ($70 billion) have prioritized nuclear deterrence and technology. Generally there are heavy investments in AI, cyber warfare, and drone technology. NATO continues to be under pressure from the US to meet 2%–3.5% of GDP defense spending targets.

Going ahead

Global arms exports have soared in the past five years due to European demand. While global weapons flows grew by almost 10% in the past five years, Europe’s imports more than tripled. They were not just buying in order to supply weapons to Ukraine; they were mostly seeking to boost their own military capabilities. Europe has witnessed imports of weapons at levels not seen since the Cold War, and has now emerged as the largest recipient region.

The US arms industry has been the biggest beneficiary of rising tensions across the region. Trump promised no wars and built his “America First” brand on opposing foreign military adventures. His administration, however, has effectively set in motion another regime‑change war – part of a long pattern of US interventions that have produced instability, prolonged conflict and failed state‑building. 

If the same approach is applied to Iran, the outcome is likely to be no different. The American public, for its part, has repeatedly signaled that it has had enough of “endless wars.”

China announced a 7% boost to its defense budget for 2026 as it steadily increases spending to counter the US and enforce its claims over Taiwan and the South China Sea. Japan and South Korea are both worried about rising China and have started significantly increasing defense budgets and arms production, and imports. Moving forward, there will greater arms demand in Middle East. Kuwait moved from 47th largest recipient of major arms in 2016–20 to 9th largest in 2021–25 as its arms imports increased by more than nine times.

But Trump tariffs and America’s unpredictable threats, even to its NATO allies, are forcing nations to look for alternatives and increase own defense research and arms production. This transition will take time. Will Russia or China fill the void? It is difficult to say presently.

In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that the US military‑industrial complex risked gaining “unwarranted influence” over American democracy. His warning has never looked more prescient.

The news sounds absurd, but it cannot be ignored: Chuck Norris has died.

“To the world, he was a martial arts master, an actor, and a symbol of strength. To us, he was a devoted husband, a loving father and grandfather, an incredible brother, and the heart of our family,” his relatives said in a statement. The cause of death has not been disclosed and may never be. That alone has sparked a strange curiosity: what on earth could have killed Chuck Norris?

Apparently, time. Carlos Ray Norris was 86. Of those years, 67 were spent practicing karate. In one of his final videos, he is still boxing, still moving lightly, still insisting that he never grows old.

Norris began his journey in the mid-1950s, while serving in the US military in South Korea. That was where he first took up karate. He returned home with a black belt and quickly turned his skill into a business, opening a chain of karate schools. By the mid-1970s, he had become a six-time world champion.

Along the way, he met Bruce Lee, to whom he taught the spinning kick, and Steve McQueen, who encouraged him to try acting. That advice changed everything.

His first film, a low-budget Hong Kong action movie released in 1974 under titles such as The San Francisco Massacre or The Yellow-Faced Tiger, was so bad that it never reached American screens. Yet a few years later, after Norris had become a star, it was rediscovered and shown in cinemas purely because of his name. In other words, the film did not make him famous; he made the film famous.

Then came Walker, Texas Ranger. With it, Norris stopped being just an action star and became something else entirely: a cultural figure.

In Russia in the 1990s, few people understood what a Texas Ranger actually was. Even now, his legal status, powers, and place within American law enforcement remain somewhat obscure. Was he a policeman? A prosecutor? Something in between? It hardly mattered. Everyone knew who Chuck Norris was. He was a Texas Ranger. The role did not define him, but he defined the role.

For many of us, his films were not just entertainment. They were part of a specific time.

I remember a sanatorium called Porechye in 1991, where I stayed with my parents. It was a place of endless boredom. There was a small, dirty beach by a narrow river. The canteen food was poor. The sports equipment was broken. Adults seemed permanently exhausted.

But there was a cinema.

The film itself was chaotic, with fights, acrobatics, and a final confrontation in an abandoned theater. But what it gave was something else: the feeling that fear could be overcome.

That was the essence of Chuck Norris.

On screen, he was calm, almost understated. A man with stubble and kind eyes, lifting weights, hitting the punching bag, drinking juice, reassuring everyone around him. When things went wrong, he appeared and quietly set them right.

In the uncertainty of the Russian 1990s, that mattered. The worse the world seemed around us, the more important it was to believe that somewhere, justice still existed, even if only in American films. And if it existed somewhere, perhaps it could exist for us too.

How many boys took up martial arts because of him? It is impossible to say. Some used those skills well, others less so. But the image he projected was always the same: discipline, restraint, and a sense of order in a chaotic world.

Chuck Norris can divide by zero.

Chuck Norris doesn’t sleep with a teddy bear, he sleeps with a real bear.

A king cobra once bit Chuck Norris. After five days of agony, the cobra died.

These jokes spread across languages and cultures, turning him into something close to a myth. Not many people become the subject of an entire genre of humor. He did.

In Russia, he remained a familiar figure. He appeared on Channel One’s cooking show Smak, gave interviews, and seemed surprisingly accessible. He was not just a distant Hollywood star, but someone who had, in a strange way, become part of our own cultural landscape.

Perhaps that is why the news of his death feels so peculiar. It is not just the passing of an actor, but of a figure who, for many, symbolized a certain kind of certainty.

So who will divide by zero now?

It is tempting to imagine him arriving at the gates of Heaven, meeting Saint Peter. One wonders who would step aside first.

Rest in peace, Carlos Ray Norris.

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team

NATO is supposed to be a defensive alliance. That means members aren’t actually obligated to go bail out a member state that goes around the world punching other countries in the face. Easy mistake to make from the optics of other recent conflicts, though, where the term “defensive” has been doing a lot of impressive rhetorical gymnastics.

US President Donald Trump hasn’t been able to talk his ‘allies’ into coming along for the white-knuckle adventure this time. Largely because he threatened to invade Europe – specifically Greenland – barely weeks before asking for their help to do the same to another country. Apparently, they took his threat so seriously that they were getting ready to beat him to the punch by blowing up their own airfields first, according to the New York Times.

Before Trump just decided to go it alone and threaten to fix the global energy problem in the Strait of Hormuz by also blowing up a bunch of power plants in the region, he got to the “who needs these losers anyway” stage with Western Europe. Let’s see… Starmer is no Churchill, Trump says. Sick burn, if it were still 1940 and not just a guy declining participation in your dodgy group project.

French participation doesn’t even really count, Trump says, because President Emmanuel Macron will be gone soon. Like a sitcom character whose hand is on the knob with one foot out the door in every scene.

But here in the real world, Macron is actually still the president of France for another year. And it’s not like anyone who could possibly replace him would be up for this political suicide mission that Trump’s proposing, either. Hardly a day goes by without French military brass appearing on TV, either telling Trump to go “f himself” or else comparing his invitation to something along the lines of buying tickets for the Titanic after it hit the iceberg.

So at first Trump tries to make it sound like it’s for their own benefit to go send their own troops to hangout in the Strait of Hormuz where missiles are flying around. Because they’re the ones who largely use the oil that normally transits through it when Iran hasn’t closed it because Trump and Bibi started bombing them. A phenomenon that does tend to complicate shipping schedules.

Probably doesn’t help either that Europe already had the experience of volunteering to do the heavy lifting for Washington just so an American president, Barack Obama, could brag to his people that America did a regime change without a single pair of boots on the ground. Right, because there were covert, European boots on the ground. In Libya. Led by the Brits and French, back in 2011. And that turned into a years-long mess for Europe and a migrant tsunami that kept rolling in long after the “mission accomplished” energy had worn off. So it’s no wonder that some of those 15 NATO countries that helped out in Libya aren’t up for a rerun. Once you’ve helped a friend move and it turns into a ten-year renovation project, the next time they call you just let it ring.

So Europe is banking on riding out the fuel disruption instead of prolonging it by getting involved with the risk of provoking an escalation. Unless of course the missiles stop flying. In which case, Macron will be there in a jiffy to film more heavily militarized thirst trap videos.

It’s one thing to not participate, but what are they actually doing to stop it, besides issuing strongly worded statements that reek of déjà vu?

The bloc’s chief diplomat says that it’s all such a good example of the failure of international law, which is one way to describe a fire while refusing to notice that you’re actually holding a fire extinguisher. Conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East “are products of erosion of the international law without accountability, judicial or political, the war will engulf the world once again,” Kaja Kallas said.

She has no problem comparing the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran except in failing to notice that that one has involved like 20 packages of EU sanctions and the other zero. Or to notice that their favorite foster kid has been begging Trump to let him come play drone warfare in this war with the toys that they’ve been buying for him with money from the same EU taxpayers who are now being gauged on energy prices yet again as a result of this new war. The same war that the EU says violates international law.

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has said that he’s psyched to get over there and play in the sandbox with all his shiny new drones – which is one way to pitch the escalation that the EU says it doesn’t want. And the EU’s like, can’t you see – he’s really hurting here! “The longer the war continues in the Middle East, the more Ukraine suffers,” Kallas said. I’m really trying to lean into this whole Ukraine x Iran crossover. “I mean, Russia is already making money off the war in the Middle East with higher oil prices and the Strait of Hormuz closed, they can now again fund the war.”

Try telling that to your boy, Zelensky. Does he know that offering to help prolong the war with his drones would just be making Putin more money? But really, why should he even care when the EU keeps insisting on having their citizens pay for it all anyway.

On March 19, RT war correspondent Steve Sweeney and his cameraman Ali Rida Sbeity were injured by an Israeli strike meters from where they stood in southern Lebanon.

Sweeney was on camera reporting on recent Israeli attacks on southern Lebanese towns and infrastructure when he heard the sound of an incoming projectile. Ducking and running, he managed to escape the brunt of the impact.

According to the journalists, an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at their filming position near Al-Qasmiya Bridge, where Sweeney was reporting on, “the targeting of bridges and the forced displacement of one million people, an ethnic cleansing operation on a larger scale than the Nakba,” as he later stated, referencing the violent displacement of Palestinians which accompanied the creation of the Jewish State in the late 1940s.

The men were treated for shrapnel injuries. Sweeney said, adding “I’m amazed that we survived. We were incredibly lucky to come away with the injuries we did.”

Just a day prior, Sweeney had posted on X about the Israeli targeted airstrike on Lebanese journalist and Al-Manar TV presenter Mohammad Sherri and his wife. Both were killed. Sweeney reposted the news with the words, “Targeting journalists is a war crime.”

The next day, he himself was targeted.

This deliberate targeting of journalists wearing press vests is another Israeli war crime, in a long list of Israeli war crimes which include killing at least 261 Palestinian journalists in Gaza in the past two years alone, as well as previously killing Lebanese journalists and bombing Iranian media repeatedly.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Israel was responsible for two-thirds of all press killings globally in both 2025 and 2024. CPJ notes that the Israeli army has committed more targeted killings of journalists than any other government’s military since the CPJ began documentation in 1992.

Russian condemnation, British silence

RT Editor in Chief Margarita Simonyan posted on X about the targeted attack, clearly stating the journalists had been targeted by an Israeli strike and stating, “War journalists are not legitimate targets.”

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova highlighted that in no way could the strike be considered accidental, particularly given, “the rocket did not hit an ‘important strategic military target’, but the location of the report.”

While Western media is always quick to highlight claims of legacy media journalists in danger, no matter how staged it appears to be, when it comes to journalists actually under attack the outrage is selective.

Although the attack on Sweeney and Sbeity was filmed on camera in broad daylight, with Israel virtually the only possible culprit, British media in particular have been disinterested. The BBC’s report ran with the headline, “Missile lands next to presenter during live report from Lebanon.” Barely noticeable in small print many lines later, the BBC mentions the “ongoing Israeli air strikes and ground operations in southern Lebanon.”

The BBC listing an experienced war correspondent as a “presenter” was also not accidental. The overall flippant tone of their report was to insinuate a minor incident had occurred, the missile’s origin unknown.

It also claimed the government would, “continue our support for British nationals in the region.” Clearly, that support doesn’t extend to Sweeney.

Remarkably, later the same day that he was nearly killed, Sweeney was already back outside reporting, defiantly stating, “If Israel thinks today’s strike will silence us and keep us out of the field they are very, very mistaken.”

To the CPJ’s credit, despite its failing elsewhere (like failing to report on Russian journalists killed by the Ukrainian regime), it did issue a strong and clear condemnation of the attack on Sweeney and Sbeity, unequivocally naming Israel as the perpetrator.

It called for “an investigation into the apparent targeting” of the journalists, and emphasized they were injured, “when an Israeli air strike hit just feet away from where they were filming while wearing clearly marked press gear and with their equipment clearly visible in southern Lebanon.”

CPJ stated, “Striking reporters who are clearly marked as a press constitutes a violation of international law.” See, BBC and co? It’s not that hard.

Not only does Israel, empowered by Western silence and cooperation, bomb civilians and civilian infrastructure. It also targets journalists, whose job it is to document these atrocities. Refusal to call these attacks out for what they are is cowardly at best, complicit at worst.

This March marks 15 years since the UN Security Council committed its most consequential error of the 21st century. By authorizing intervention in Libya (Resolution 1973) under the guise of R2P – ‘responsibility to protect’ – the international community acted on emotional narratives rather than facts. What was framed as a humanitarian necessity “to protect civilians” has, by 2026, devolved into a cautionary tale of how regime change dismantles a nation’s soul.

The very concept of R2P was tainted from its first major application. Critics immediately began questioning whether it is a morally valid justification for the use of force or a Trojan horse for political realignment.

The R2P doctrine’s assumption that the state was a predator was a deliberate misreading in Libya’s case: Tripoli was simply exercising its sovereign duty to defend against a coordinated, armed rebellion.

This media-driven obsession with ‘mercenaries’ specifically targeted sub-Saharan Africans, turning vulnerable migrants and dark-skinned Libyan locals alike into a convenient scapegoat for the rebellion’s tactical and psychological needs. By branding almost any person of color a ‘Gaddafi hireling,’ the insurgent narrative provided a dark justification for the brutal lynchings and ethnic cleansing that followed.

The most harrowing example remains the city of Tawergha in Western Libya. In a matter of weeks, the entire population – upwards of 40,000 people – were driven from their homes and hunted, transformed into a permanent class of refugees scattered across Libya. Fifteen years later, they remain unable to return to the hollowed-out ruins of what was once a prosperous city, standing as a living monument to the ‘humanitarian’ intervention’s most devastating failure.

The fallout of this was the systematic evaporation of the Libyan state itself, which by 2026, is in a permanent state of constitutional schizophrenia. The seven-month aerial campaign – initiated by France, the UK, and the US before NATO formally took the lead on March 30, 2011 – didn’t just target military assets but dismantled the institutional memory of a nation. For decades, despite the external criticisms of its political system, Libya had provided a level of social and economic stability that was the envy of the African continent. The intervention eliminated the state’s capacity to function, replacing a unified administration with a void that has yet to be filled.

Today, Libya exists as a cautionary tale of regime change without a roadmap. The dualities that define the country – competing governments, rival central banks, and a fragmented military apparatus – are the direct descendants of a resolution that authorized “all necessary measures” to break a state, but offered not a single measure to mend it. Once the destruction was complete and Libya began falling apart, the entire mess was handed back to the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL).

For fifteen years, UNSMIL has traded action for perpetual “worry.” Its failure to foster reconciliation has left Libyans to view its warnings as hollow echoes of the very division the UN helped create in 2011.

The dry statistics from the 2010 UN Development Program report confirm the scale of this orphanhood: Libya was then the 53rd most developed nation globally and led the way in Africa. Under the Jamahiriya, literacy had reached 87%, and the state provided a phenomenal social safety net including the ‘Great Man-Made River’ project. This vital infrastructure, which NATO forces later targeted, represented a level of water security that has been systematically dismantled over the last 15 years, leaving the UN to manage a ruin of its own making.

By 2026, Libya has become a commodity traded in foreign capitals. Decisions regarding Libya’s oil flow, its central bank leadership, and even the timing of its perpetually delayed elections are often debated in Paris, Ankara, Cairo, or Washington before they are ever discussed in Tripoli or Benghazi. This ‘externalized’ politics has created a lucrative status quo for regional powers and Western contractors, but for a Libyan citizen, it has meant a decade and a half of living in a nation where the ‘national’ interest is defined by everyone except Libyans themselves.

The true motive behind this ‘dependence’ was financial: Libya’s 143 tons of gold were intended to back a Pan-African Golden Dinar, a direct threat to the hegemony of the US dollar and French CFA Franc. This neocolonial greed is further evidenced by the 2025 conviction of Nicolas Sarkozy, who was sentenced to five years for a criminal conspiracy involving illegal Libyan funding – a desperate move to silence the very source of his 2007 political rise and ensure that Western giants like BP and Total maintained their grip on Libyan resources.

When it comes to the prospect of genuine national reconciliation the ultimate goal of UNSMIL, the latest dark episode in the Libyan tragedy offers little room for optimism. On February 3, 2026, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, long viewed by a significant cross-section of the Libyan people as a viable political alternative and a figure capable of bridging the nation’s deep tribal and regional divides, was gunned down in Zintan, in Western Libya.

Despite his widespread domestic support, Saif al-Islam’s path to the ballot box was perpetually blocked by the very ‘democratic’ structures imposed after 2011 – structures that seemed designed more for exclusion than representation. While the official investigation into his assassination moves with a deliberate, agonizing slowness, the message received by the Libyan public is unmistakable: the post-2011 order is fundamentally incapable of tolerating a truly popular national alternative that challenges its foundation.

The economic autopsy of this dashed hope is staggering. In 2010, Libya’s GDP per capita exceeded $11,000 with zero national debt. By 2026, it has collapsed by 40% in real terms, replaced by a ‘country of queues’ where citizens in an oil-rich nation wait days for bread and fuel. The ultimate symbol of this institutional atrophy remains the 2023 Derna tragedy, where over 11,000 perished because infrastructure had been left to rot – a reality where human life is now auctioned for as little as $400. This medieval horror was made possible by a NATO mission that claimed to be protecting civilians.

Claiming to have dismantled Iran’s nuclear capabilities in a single stroke, the architects of this new conflict ignored the reality of 15 years of Libyan chaos. They returned to the same exhausted strategy: interrupting active negotiations in favor of forced regime change. This refusal to acknowledge the catastrophic vacuum left behind in Tripoli or Baghdad suggests a dangerous ideological blindness – one that continues to prioritize the immediate optics of military success over the long-term survival of sovereign states and the regional stability they once provided.

Ideally, policy debates should serve to bring together the fullest information, the brightest minds, and the sharpest arguments in order to find solutions. That is, the optimum combination between what is best and what is feasible.

In the real world, shaped by ordinary human fallibility and the extraordinary egotism of professional politicians, that is usually not what happens. But the EU is still special in just how atrociously, hopelessly, for crying-out-loud bad it is at the solution game. Because it is not just playing it badly, it’s not playing at all.

Instead, in the upside-down, white-is-black, Israel-is-defending-itself-and-Iran-is-just-so-damn-mean alternate universe of the EU, the space where policy debates should take place has long been fully clogged up by three pernicious weeds of swamp-á-la-Brussels. First, those elaborately underhanded backroom deals that eliminate even the faintest remains of transparency and accountability. For a fresh – if also foul – example, just check out the recent double-dealing between the EU parliament’s oh-so-democratic Centrists and the at-least-not-so-hypocritical far right. A deal so obviously perfidious, even Berlin doesn’t like to be associated with it – in public, that is.

Secondly, there is that old bureaucratic panacea: hyperactive lethargy. If you can’t devise a rational solution to a public need to find broad support with most of 27 national governments (not to speak of their voters who matter little anyhow), just keep churning out inefficient non-solution papers, strategies, and plans that everyone can at least agree to keep talking but do very little about. That’s the pattern in which the EU is currently not addressing, for instance, its quite possibly medium-term-lethal problem of decaying competitiveness.

And finally, there is the doctrinally most demanding way of shutting down genuine policy debate: the hammer of the Brussels inquisition. That, of course, is not a specific office but a pervasive attitude of narrow-minded conformism always ready to promptly pounce on any heretic who offers alternative views on reality and plausible courses of action. Those, clearly, would be an essential ingredient of any productive debate and decision-making process. But that’s not important for the EU. No divergence from the party line, please, we are Europeans! And down with all rebels!

That is what is currently happening to the Belgian prime minister Bart de Wever, and not for the first time. He is already notorious for having almost single-handedly kept the EU (and Berlin) from fully plundering Russia’s frozen sovereign assets in the EU. With unheard of audacity, De Wever insisted on protecting Belgium’s national interests first.

And once you have to make peace, you might as well do so in a way that offers economic benefits. In the EU’s case, the most obvious – and most urgently needed – would be in trying to regain access to Russian gas and oil. Moreover, if the EU sticks to its policy of, in essence, total obstruction, then it will only make sure not to be part of the solution once a way back to peace is finally found. Not at that table, it will have to accept an outcome that will be disadvantageous to its interests. And all for playing hard to get. De Wever’s points are simple and compelling, right?

Among the reasonable, yes. And among the morally normal as well, because even on the EU’s own, misguided terms, it is perverse to continue a war that is allegedly waged on Ukraine’s behalf but has always been unwinnable, bleeds its people dry, can be ended with a reasonable settlement, and is encountering ever more popular opposition.

There is a reason why Kiev is running a de facto authoritarian regime and the Ukrainian military has turned to massive and brutal forced mobilization. But the response from both Brussels and national governments is to try to push even those Ukrainian men who had made it out back into the proxy war meatgrinder.

Those setting the tone in the EU are neither reasonable nor humane. That is why even De Wever’s decidedly realistic arguments cannot make a dent in their monotonous group think. De Wever, after all, is not a Russophile. Witness, for instance, his recent appearance on a Davos World Economic Forum panel, led, as it happened, by uber Cold War Re-enactor Gideon Rachman from the Financial Times. There, De Wever was clear about his view that the EU has to keep aiding Ukraine, on this occasion to the tune of $90 billion, to “keep [it] in the fight.”

De Wever, incidentally, was wrong on this one. It would be better if the EU had long stopped pumping any money into the ultra-corrupt Zelensky regime. Much of those funds is stolen by Ukraine’s outstandingly rapacious elite; and the “fight” is futile, a waste of lives, and will only make things even worse for Ukraine. Yet one thing is obvious, this is precisely not what a secret friend of Russia would have said.

Yet even that demonstrative display of unsentimental sobriety hasn’t helped De Wever. The Brussels inquisition has spotted a heretic and is out in force. EU energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen, for instance, has reiterated the trite old cant about dependency on Russia this and blackmail by Moscow that. As if getting your LNG from Qatar (or not) and the US were a recipe for independence and reliable supplies. If the EU really were after diversification of its supplies, it would, of course, include Russia, so as to counterbalance the obvious risks that come with other sources.

Lithuania’s foreign minister Kęstutis Budrys has done what you would expect from a Baltic representative and told the EU to stay its course until it has “the sticks in its hands,” which seems to be Lithuanian-English for dreaming about a position of strength you will never have. Meanwhile, in Belgium itself members of De Wever’s coalition, including the foreign minister, have distanced themselves from the prime minister who, they stress, was speaking only in a private capacity.

What probably makes De Wever’s public independence of mind even more galling to his detractors are three circumstances. He enjoys great and growing popularity with Belgian voters, as fresh polls show. Indeed, he currently has the best polls for a prime minister since 2008. Second, that the EU needs Russian energy is driven home by the accumulating fall-out from the Iran War started by Israel and its US auxiliaries, who have, however, no idea how to end it. As the Wall Street Journal has summed it up, this is a war that “hits Europe with an energy shock it can’t afford to absorb.” And, finally, as De Wever was uncouth enough to reveal, “behind closed doors, European leaders tell me I’m right, but no one dares to say it out loud.” How unsporting indeed, Mr. De Wever! First, you have reality on your side, and then you put your colleagues to shame by showing one can actually talk about it and live.

Belgium may look like a small country, but it is also a founding member of the European integration process that has, for worse and the worst, resulted in the EU. It is significant that De Wever cannot easily be dismissed as a grumpy Russophile from, say, Slovakia or Hungary. His challenge, lonely as it may still be at this point, comes from the historic heart of the EU. If only all those other EU leaders who can’t yet muster enough courage to openly challenge its leadership were to finally speak up. Is that really asking for too much?

Fifteen years ago, on March 19, 2011, NATO came to Libya claiming to deliver democracy and human rights. What followed was an eight-month campaign of destruction that dismantled a sovereign state, shattered its institutions, and opened the gates to chaos that continues to this day.

On February 4, 2026, that same process reached one of its most tragic and revealing conclusions with the assassination of Muammar Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.

Saif al-Islam was not a warlord, nor a militia leader, nor a man of vengeance. He was the only figure around whom a genuine national consensus had begun to emerge. Across tribes, regions, and political currents, there was growing recognition that he could lead a peaceful political settlement and restore Libya’s sovereignty. His assassination meant therefore the elimination of the last viable path toward a Libyan-led democratic process.

The Western war machine only served its own interests in destroying a nation that could liberate Africa.

On March 19, 2011, the NATO bloc began a violent eight-month-long military onslaught of Libya, a sovereign African Union founding member state, which had enjoyed four decades of stability, prosperity, and the highest Human Development Index (HDI) scores in all of Africa.

NATO’s justification for the aggressive and bloody attack was the now-infamous “protection of civilians” doctrine, formalized under UN Security Council Decree No. 1973. The French Air Force, however, had already initiated a major raid on immobile Libyan Army units. They had already pulled out of the city of Benghazi, a protest hotbed, in a show of goodwill and peaceful intent. More than 400 resting Libyan officers, soldiers, medical, and media personnel were massacred without the chance to fight back against an unjustified and undeclared foreign air attack. Tens of thousands more Libyans would later perish under more than 26,000 air raids, 100 cruise missile attacks, and a naval blockade conducted by NATO’s 30-member coalition.

Among the victims were a terrifying number of civilians from all walks of life. The number of women and children killed was especially high, as they sought refuge in civilian buildings deliberately targeted by the mighty NATO: including houses, apartment blocks, schools, and community centers. As we witnessed time and time again in Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan, and Syria, NATO justified these attacks by claiming they were seeking out fighters and weaponry housed in civilian facilities. No evidence has ever been presented.

In the weeks that led up to this aggression, I spoke officially for the Libyan government in countless international press conferences, media appearances, and diplomatic appeals. Before hundreds of international media outlets, I expressed one single demand: that all hostilities cease under the direct supervision of the UN and that the African Union install an international fact-finding mission to determine who committed what act, paving the way for a national conference of all Libyan parties to the conflict.

This single most powerful and earnest appeal was rejected without consideration in Western centers of hegemony and ridiculed in Western media outlets. The only solutions that were endorsed and praised were more rockets, bombs, and the continuous arming of Islamist and tribalist terrorist groups on the ground.

The actual “crimes” of the Libyan revolutionary government, however, were real and consequential: Gaddafi’s Libya was re-shaping the political, economic, and cultural context of the African continent in radical and independent ways not seen since the nominal de-colonization of African countries in the 1950s and 1960s.

On September 9, 1999, under the leadership of Gaddafi, the establishment of the African Union was announced in his birthplace, the coastal city of Sirte (the very city in which he would fight his last battle against NATO in 2011). Gaddafi then announced the start of a major revolutionary project for the plundered and exploited continent: building pan-African economic, security, and communication institutions with the aim of gaining complete and true independence from the control of the West.

The most consequential of these institutions were the African Central Bank (ACB), the African Golden Dinar, the African Gold Reserve, the African Security Council (ASC), the Unified African Army (UAA), the African Parliament, the African Organization for Natural Resources (AONR), the African Communications Network (ACN), and the African Common Market. Indeed, Gaddafi led the way towards the establishment of some of those institutions, initiated the build-up of the Libyan gold reserve, and was on the threshold of issuing the African Golden Dinar, which he considered naming the Afro.

These real on-the-ground projects would have liberated the continent from the dominance of Western centers of power and monopoly, transforming global economic structures and inspiring other regions in the Global South to “unite, organize and fight.”

It is at this exact point that the Libyan lesson becomes urgent again today.

As the United States and Israel escalate their assault on Iran under the same language of “democracy,” “human rights,” and “protection,” the world is being asked to believe the same narrative that justified the destruction of Libya in 2011. The pattern is identical. A sovereign state is demonized, its leadership targeted, its internal contradictions weaponized, and military aggression is framed as moral necessity.

The Europeans and Americans did warn Gaddafi against his “meddling” in Africa. The US, under an African-American president, hurried to create AfriCom, the American pan-African military force, in 2008. The French followed suit with their deployment of an “anti-terrorism” task force in the Sahel. Moreover, the intensity with which the continent’s riches were stolen increased (especially gold) while the meddling of British, French, and American diplomats in the affairs of the African Union and African Parliament also grew exponentially.

The focus of Western mainstream media in the 2000s on a “new and collaborative” spirit in economic relations with Africa was therefore not accidental, it was all as planned and in harmony with the military, economic and political agenda in Western centers of power.

Then, in 2011, utilizing the political turmoil in Tunisia and Egypt, the West encouraged and ordered its agents on the ground in Libya to foment a false revolution in small pockets inside the country. This was spearheaded by the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), an infamous Afghani-Libyan terrorist organization with training and weaponry from the American army and “battlefield commanders” trained and exalted by NATO’s top “educational” personnel in the caves of Afghanistan in the 1980s and early 1990s.

The West promised the world democracy, human rights, and prosperity for Libya and the whole Sahel and Sahara region in Africa. Instead, by the 15th anniversary of the NATO onslaught, Libya itself has become a notorious slave market for illegally “imported” African migrants and a battlefield for French-orchestrated African Sahel tribalist conflicts.

The country that once led Africa’s liberation project now lies in ruins, with ten foreign-controlled military bases scattered across its territory, hosting more than 20,000 foreign troops and mercenaries, and bearing $576 billion in financial losses since the start of the NATO intervention. Over 60,000 additional Libyans have been killed in the ongoing civil conflict, fueled and maintained by mostly foreign and Western-sponsored forces fighting for their interests and dominance on the Libyan front.

However, there is always hope for the great black continent. The legacy of its great leaders and martyrs, from Gamal Nasser to Patrice Lumumba to Kwame Nkrumah to Nelson Mandela, continues to inspire African consciousness, struggle, and resistance. Wherever you go in Africa nowadays, you can hear the literal words and viable ideas of Gaddafi coming up in conversations about African liberty, independence, and dignity. In my work with the Libyan Green movement and the African popular movements, I am always faced by this question raised by thousands of African freedom fighters: what to do? My answer is always straight and simple to all my African comrades: unite, organize, and fight!

The war that the US and Israel have unleashed against Iran demonstrates that Washington has not learned the right lessons from the results of its past regime change policies in the Middle East, largely conducted in an attempt to ensure Israel’s long-term security.

The US military interventions to bring about regime change have left in their wake internal strife, ethnic divisions, political and economic instability, the rise of Islamic groups, terrorism, the persecution of minorities, and refugee flows in the targeted countries. This was particularly the case with Iraq and Syria.

Afghanistan and Libya were targeted not with the objective of Israel’s security but as part of the so-called war on terror, aiming to secure control over the politics of this wider region, including its resources, and with the goal of eroding Russia’s influence in this part of the world.

Any strategy of regime change in Iran with the balkanization of the country in mind would have disastrous consequences for the region and beyond.

The Middle East sits atop massive oil and gas resources, and therefore the region is critical for running the wheels of the global economy. War in the region is inherently de-stabilizing for the economies of all countries.

Territorial ambitions, geopolitical rivalries, and insecurities of any set of countries should not disregard the interests of the global community as a whole. If the UN Charter were respected and the UN Security Council functioned effectively, then war as a choice or driven solely by the security interests of any particular country could be prevented.

Miscalculation in Iran

In this broad context, the US-Israeli aggression against Iran can be seen as a dramatic misjudgment. Israel has long felt an existential threat from Iran and has lobbied with the US for military action to eliminate its nuclear program, not to mention the regime itself.

Trump’s declared objectives for launching this war have changed in their enunciation. In June 2025, he announced that Iran’s nuclear program had been obliterated. Nevertheless, he engaged Iran in negotiations over its nuclear program in the weeks leading up to the current conflict, using Oman as a mediator. Simultaneously, he positioned an “armada” of US forces close to Iran for military action, which suggested that his goal went beyond the nuclear question.

The US has always wanted to curb Iran’s missile program as well as its regional role in order to limit its capacity to hit Israel, as was demonstrated during the 12-day conflict in June 2025. Another aim for the US was to force Iran to end its support for the Islamic groups that threaten Israel’s security such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. 

If Washington reasoned that killing the supreme leader and top military and intelligence officials would lead to the collapse of the regime, that strategy has failed. In fact, in June 2025, Trump had announced that the US knew the exact location of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and could take him out if needed. Trump may have felt that his success in Venezuela in abducting President Nicolas Maduro through a limited military operation and replacing him with the country’s pliant vice-president could be replicated in Iran, but that strategy has failed. Trump did say that regime change in Iran was not an objective, but the US president is known for making contradictory statements. He is now bombing Iran’s military and civilian infrastructure and giving ominous warnings that Iran will be destroyed as a country. The US is claiming that 6,000 targets in Iran have been hit so far. The Tomahawk missile attack on an Iranian school that killed 165 girls and injured many others has led to a major backlash at home and abroad.

Strait of Hormuz

The Strait of Hormuz is a trump card in Iran’s hands. Even before Iran could block maritime traffic through the strait, insurance companies effectively disrupted the oil traffic by refusing cover. With 20% of global oil supplies passing through the strait, the current disruption has resulted in oil prices shooting up to over $100 per barrel.

The Biden administration had publicly encouraged India to buy Russian oil to keep the oil price stable, a policy that Trump had castigated but has now appropriated. Russia is a big gainer politically and economically, as this has not only demonstrated that Russian oil cannot be realistically excluded from the international market, but has also placed Europe, which has pursued a policy of breaking all energy relations with Russia, in an untenable situation. The EU has opposed the lifting of temporary sanctions on Russian oil.

The view from New Delhi

India has been put in a very difficult position by this aggression against Iran. We have almost 10 million Indians residing in the Gulf countries. Much of India’s oil and gas imports come from the region: 35% to 50% of its crude oil imports, 90% of its LPG imports, and 42% of its LNG imports pass through the Strait of Hormuz. About 38% (amounting to $45 billion) of Indian’s total remittances of $135 billion in FY 2025 came from this region, with the largest percentage coming from the UAE. India has signed FTAs with the UAE and Oman, and is negotiating one with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as a whole.

The UAE has become the hub of India’s expansive cooperation plans with this region in the frontier areas of technology such as AI, super computers, green energy, space, digital embassies, and small modular reactors. This is in the perspective of marrying Indian talented manpower and the investment potential available in the Gulf countries.

India has strong ties with the US and Israel as well as with the Gulf countries. Iran is an important neighbor, and India has strategic equities in Iran, be it access to Afghanistan and Central Asia through Chabahar port and connectivity to Russia through the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a 7,200-km multi-modal network connecting India, Iran, Russia, and Central Asia via ship, rail, and road, not to mention our shared membership of BRICS and the SCO.

India has kept its channels with Iran open, with Iranian presidents visiting India and, in recent years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as the defense and foreign ministers visiting Iran. The sinking of an Iranian ship off Sri Lanka’s coast by a US submarine in the first week of the conflict raised serious concerns in New Delhi. The vessel was one of three Iranian ships that took part in India’s biennial MILAN 2026 naval exercise. India has a reason to be vexed not only about the human cost of the incident, but also about what is seen as the geopolitical insensitivity of the US action.

Our stakes in a ceasefire and a return to dialogue and diplomacy in the region are very high.

On 12 February in the French city of Lyon, a young man was killed in a political street brawl that escalated very badly. While terrible every time it happens, his death was, unfortunately, not unprecedented. Usually, it would result in grief among the victim’s family and friends as well as a criminal investigation to punish the killers, but not a national crisis.

Everything is different, however, in this case: Since Quentin Deranque, a 23-year old data science student, committed traditionalist Roman Catholic, and New-Right (generically speaking) activist (or militant – take your pick) was beaten and kicked to death by a gang of self-appointed ‘antifascists,’ France has gone through a “drama” as a “national community” (in the words of French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot).

Thoroughly mainstream media and the experts they select have repeatedly invoked the specter of “civil war.” One has warned of entering a spiral of tit-for-tat retaliation, which is, she believes, how such fratricidal slaughters start. The podcast of Le Figaro, still France’s leading conservative newspaper, has dedicated a whole show to the question if France “is moving toward civil war.” In reality, actual civil war is not around the corner, of course, as bad as things are. But the excited and anxious references to it betray just how miserable the mood now is.

Not every detail of what exactly happened before the fatal attack on Quentin Deranque is clear yet. Some of Deranque’s friends and supporters claim that his group of male activists – present to protect a small protest by Némésis, a nationalist-identitarian women’s organization – was initially passive and remained on the defensive throughout. According to Al Jazeera, there seems to be video evidence that contradicts this account, showing the New-Right activists also on the attack some time before Deranque was savaged by masked and hooded “antifascists” from the – officially dissolved but de facto persisting ‘Young Guard’ group.

A high-profile criminal investigation has involved a lead public prosecutor, three dedicated investigative judges, the local police, and the national anti-terrorist office of the Interior Ministry. By now, the French authorities have declared that all key suspects are under arrest. Charges include “criminal association,” “aggravated violence,” “voluntary homicide,” and “complicity in voluntary homicide.”

One of the accused, Jacques-Elie Favrot – called “Jef” – is suspected of having played a leading role in the crime and faces a charge of “complicity in murder by instigation.” His case is special also in one other, crucial regard: When he isn’t busy in the streets, “Jef” serves as an official assistant to a deputy of France’s parliament, the National Assembly. And that deputy, Raphaël Arnault, is a prominent representative of France’s New-Left party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed), LFI. In addition, another suspect, Robin Chalendard, who is thought to have taken part directly in the deadly assault on Deranque, has also worked for Arnault.

These associations lead right into the center of a ballooning mushroom cloud of toxic political fallout that has overshadowed French politics. Reduced to essentials, the grim picture is this: France is a country in typical Euro-decline, with an electorally crumbling yet obstinate cartel of establishment parties in the self-declared “Center” which, for now, still dominates the state, the mainstream media, and many of the official institutions of the public sphere, such as universities and think tanks. And then there are the rising challengers from the New Right – the Rassemblement National, RN – and the New Left – the LFI. For now at least, they are bitter enemies, both keen to inherit power once the rotting Center finally implodes, or to at least force its remnants into a deal.

Add the fact that important municipal elections are scheduled for this month and that everyone is also already jockeying for pole position in the presidential elections to be held in little more than a year – et voilà: the perfect storm.

Shit storms very much included: Because that is what is happening to the New-Left LFI now, due not even so much to the compromising link between one of its star deputies and two suspects in an exceedingly repulsive homicide and murder case, but to the LFI’s leadership’s amazingly cack-handed and callous response to Deranque’s killing and the political challenge it constitutes.

And, of course, in some way, the LFI really is: Inevitably, the New-Right Rassemblement National has spotted and zealously seized an opportunity to cripple its “populist” competitors with a guilt-by-association assault. RN wunderkind, leader, and likely presidential candidate Jordan Bardella has let it rip: Invoking the bad old days of the violent 1930s and speaking of “terrorist organizations,” he has warned that France has reached an “extremely dire tipping point” and demanded that all other parties subject the LFI – “the extreme Left [which] has killed” – to a regime of total ostracism and exclusion.

And yes, that ‘cordon sanitaire’ is precisely what the Germans call a ‘Brandmauer’ (firewall) and apply against their New-Right insurgents, the Alternative for Germany (AfD). It is also what the French establishment parties have long practiced against the RN itself.

This is a moment, where the New-Right RN – so long maligned as crazy radicals themselves and working hard to shed and bury precisely that image – is riding a genuine wave of public anger: According to a poll, 61 percent of French voters are ready to help “firewall” the LFI at the upcoming municipal elections. We have to hand it to you, Jordan, very, very slick – Way to turn the tables, with a little help from the clumsy folks at the LFI, of course.

At the same time, the moment is already generally auspicious for the RN, but not so much for the LFI. Consider two other recent poll results: Even before the killing of Quentin Deranque, 70 percent of French citizens agreed when the Interior Ministry officially classified the LFI as extremist, to be precise “extreme Left.”

Regarding the better prospects of the competition from the RN, according to another poll, almost a quarter (24 percent) of French citizens want a political system that is “more centralized and more authoritarian,” that is just what the RN, in effect, promises. This is a sizable number by any standards; it is also high by comparison with other European countries, such as Italy (16 percent), Poland (13 percent), Spain (10 percent), and Germany (7 percent).

And yet, the LFI has no reason to expect pity. It is being treated unfairly. Frankly, duh – that is simply politics 101 among adults. Yet that makes no difference to the fact that the real question that the LFI and its supporters and sympathizers – and I, for one, at least used to be one – have to face is not about what others are doing to it. Instead – and entirely independently from the demagoguery deployed by its critics and opponents – the LFI must focus on itself and its own severe mistakes.

And not only mistakes but elementary moral failures. Brawls happen, but it is a fascist – not an “antifascist” – thing to beat and kick the political opponent already prone on the ground to death. Indeed, one of the West’s de facto most clearly fascist – and demented – politicians has just reminded us of how dear to fascist hearts such tactics are: US Secretary of Defense (or war, as he prefers) Pete Hegseth has let the world know how proud he is of hitting them – here, Iran – while they are down in a fight meant to be unfair (In reality, Iran is, fortunately, far from down, but that’s a different matter).

Those who praise and do such swinish things, defend them, or equivocate by pointing at others and their crimes and hypocrisy should not be tolerated on the Left. A Left that wants to claim elementary decency and public support must purge – yes, purge – itself of them. If the LFI and its head Mélenchon are not prepared to do so and prefer to instead circle the wagons with Hegsethian goons pretending to be ‘anti’-fascists, then the LFI will only have itself to blame for decline and defeat. And they’ll deserve it, too.

When European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had to come up with a speech for EU ambassadors, she tried on a punk rock routine similar to the one that scored former central banker and current Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney a standing ovation at Davos. But one key difference made it a tone-deaf flop: she forgot to bring her mirror.

Carney’s critical point was a confession – that it’s the people running Western democracy who are the problem. The same ones the US has been successfully cuckolding for years through their own complicity. “We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality,” Carney said.

Queen Ursula instead tried to pawn off blame entirely on the system itself – saying that the “rules-based system that we helped to build with our allies” could no longer be counted on to defend EU interests. And that they all need to consider “whether our doctrine, our institutions, and our decision making – all designed in a postwar world of stability and multilateralism – have kept pace with the speed of change around us” or if it’s “a hindrance to our credibility as a geopolitical actor.”

Suddenly, the old rules are no good anymore because they can no longer defend the interests of this establishment amid this new war in the Middle East – but that’s mostly because the rules haven’t kept up with the level of institutional corruption that these people have been practicing.

Within hours, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said that the problem is disorder, not the rules that the EU has again selectively refused to enforce amid the latest Israeli-American Middle Eastern bombing campaign.

Ursula reacted to the backlash by paying lip service to her “unwavering commitment to the pursuit of peace… and to international law.” Great, so when can we expect the sanctions package against Israel and the US?

So for now, it looks like they’re just going to keep using the failure of this “rules-based order” as a talking point that does all the heavy lifting in explaining away their own ineptitudes and inaction amid the current global chaos.

Such a big mystery how they got to this point. Gas prices way up, markets down – but blame the international law that you refuse to follow or enforce in any meaningful way. Apparently the rulebook is the problem, not the people treating it as optional reading.

This so-called rules-based order really just means the international law and treaties created after the Second World War that were supposed to prevent another global conflict from popping off. And Western leaders have spent the last few months talking about how all of a sudden the system is no good. Which raises an obvious question: Why did it supposedly work for decades but now it’s “broken”? Here’s a thought – maybe it’s because the people running the system these days are doing whatever they want and not actually following the rules. Feels less like a design flaw here and more like a compliance issue.

These folks have international law written in black and white right in front of them and instead of applying it straightforwardly to the unprovoked US-Israeli bombing of Iran, for example, the response becomes: “Hmm, how can I suck up to the aggressor and avoid condemning them, because we need their cooperation on something else?” Or: “How can I make this situation in Iran somehow about me and extract something out of it for my shady interests?” Or better yet: “Is there a way to leverage this tragedy to get people to empty their wallets so I can spend my way out of looking totally incompetent on a whole bunch of other stuff?”

Israel’s envoy to the EU has also said that international law doesn’t fit modern threats. How convenient for him, since Israel has been doing a lot of hands-on research in that area lately. Know what would make modern threats fit the law? If the EU actually insisted on applying the law to Israel and Washington. Funny how the enforcement part is always where enthusiasm selectively runs out.

Can’t expect a backbone to grow overnight, though. But hey, baby steps. Step one apparently involves going into the back room and smacking little Zelya’s (aka Vladimir Zelensky’s) backside for playing games with the tap of the EU’s oil supply running across Ukraine from Russia and into landlocked Hungary and Slovakia. After pretending like they’re too busy watching their favorite soap opera in the next room, EU brass are finally like, “Come on man, knock it off.” That might work. Assuming that he’s not holding out for another addition to the national collection of golden toilets. Step two is staying out of the Strait of Hormuz when Trump commands them to help clean up the mess he made. They’re also starting to more openly long for the days of cheap nuclear energy, with Queen Ursula now calling that breakup a strategic mistake.

Look, Ursula, whatever you need to tell yourself to make pragmatic reality sound like a bold new vision instead of the discreet burial of failed ideological experiments is totally fine. Just – if you could hurry it up a little please, that’d be great.

Some observers of the current EU ‘elites’, including this author, used to believe that their defining feature – apart from things such as complicity in genocide and wars of aggression with Israel and the US, bigoted xenophobia about Russia and China, and, of course, pervasive corruption – was an absolute inability to learn.

We must admit, we stand corrected: Those running the EU are able to learn. The real problem is their relentless compulsion to learn the wrong thing. We are not dealing with non-learners but anti-learners: where others progress from experience, they regress.

Case in point, their response to the fact that their US-Israeli masters have started a war to end if not strictly all then at least all (barely) affordable energy supplies to the EU’s economies, while its major players are already limping along on a spectrum between walking-wounded (for instance, France, maybe) to comatose (Germany, definitely).

In Germany, still the largest single economy inside the EU, providing almost a fourth of the bloc’s total GDP, industrial demand – orders from factories – fell by over 11% in January. Such a decrease – really, collapse – in orders is “drastic,” as German Manager Magazine notes. According to the Financial Times, this “very weak” start into the new year, puts preceding – and very modest – signs of a recovery from years of stagnation in doubt. Indeed. And all of that disappointing data was gathered before the fallout of the Iran war had even started.

Regarding the latter, it will be severe. Even Berlin’s Ministry of Economics admits that the risks stemming from the war’s consequences, most of them still incoming, is substantial.

In general, the Eurozone – different from but covering most of the EU – is not in good shape either. According to Bloomberg, a very low and yet still over-optimistic Eurostat estimate of expansion by 0.3% for the last quarter of 2025 has just been revised downward to 0.2%. But frankly, who cares at that level of misery?

And what is the EU leadership’s response to this deeply depressing outlook for its economy and the European citizens depending on it? Let’s not dream. It is true, if the EU’s ‘elites’ were in the business of protecting European interests and prosperity, they would, obviously, take a sharp turn against both the US and Israel (as well as London in case it were to stick to its special-poodle relationship with Washington).

Yet if the EU leadership had such priorities, it would long have turned against the US, for its blatant exploitation of its vassal regimes via, first, NATO over-expansion and, now, crippling overspending, for Ukraine proxy war outsourcing, and for devastating tariff warfare. It would also long have broken with Israel, for, to name only two compelling reasons, its genocide and serial wars of aggression that are both horrifically criminal and extremely destabilizing and damaging not “only” to the Middle East but the world as a whole and Europe in particular.

In short, the EU would not even be in the mess it is now if it actually took care of Europe. And, by the way, if it were not so craven but had opposed the US and Israel instead of pandering to them, perhaps it could even have contributed to preventing the current criminal war against Iran.

That, however, would not be the EU as it really is. In sordid reality, it is a second iteration of NATO, that is, an instrument of the US empire (notwithstanding showy and silly Greenland hysterics) and of international oligarchic structures. Ordinary Europeans matter only in so far as they are expected to vote – and think and speak – in line with EU ‘elite’ priorities, and when they do not, they are made to.

No wonder then that the utterly unelected and legally extremely challenged EU Commission head Ursula von der Leyen – really, the EU’s despot and US viceroy rolled into one – demonstratively does not give a damn about the massive energy price shock that has already started hitting the fragile economies of EU-Europe.

At least as important, though, was what von der Leyen took pains to rule out: Returning to Russian supplies would be a “strategic blunder,” the EU’s one-woman decider-in-chief declared. Instead, she insists, the EU must stay the course and continue ridding itself of the last remnants of Russian gas and oil. Clearly, von der Leyen is anxious that not everyone in the EU’s ‘elites’ is up to her level of ideological obstinacy and economic as well as geopolitical irrationality. “Some,” she chided, “argue that we should abandon our long-term strategy and even go back to Russian fossil fuels.” Perish the thought! As long as von der Leyen and her type run the EU, it will ruin itself before doing the obvious – making peace with Russia and rebuilding economic ties, including in the energy sector.

And there you have it: This is a leadership style not simply refusing to learn from experience but repeating the worst blunders of the past. The von der Leyen way of policy making – from sanctions (now on round 20, I believe) to pipelines – is akin to negative natural selection: Whatever does not work will be done again, and again, and again. The real question, it seems, is not if the EU “elites” will ever stop being perverse anti-learners, but whether – or when – they will lose control. Mismanaging the massive shock that the US and Israel have sent their way now may finally provoke enough backlash from below to send the von der Leyens packing. For Europe’s sake, let’s hope for the best, even if it’s delivered by the worst.

While NATO bombs were still falling on Tripoli in the summer of 2011, a different kind of predator was circling the Libyan capital from the safety of a Manhattan townhouse. Newly released 2026 US Department of Justice documents reveal that Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and alleged Israeli intelligence asset, was also a geopolitical vulture looking to feast on the remains of the Libyan state.

Epstein’s private correspondence reveals a cold-blooded calculation to bypass international law and tap into the $32.4 billion in Libyan assets frozen in the US. The tragedy of the Libyan people was presented as a commercial opportunity.

On September 18, 2011, while the streets of Libya were still engulfed in the chaos, a clandestine plan was being hatched in New York to capture the country’s sovereign wealth. In an email titled ‘New York – Optics are important’, Jeffrey Epstein’s associate, Greg Brown, urgently pushed the financier to bankroll a high-level meeting with future Libyan leaders during the UN General Assembly. The targets were not minor players; they included Dr. Mohamed Magariaf, who would soon become Libya’s head of state, and his key advisers, Dr. Noah and Fadel Hshad.

Brown identified this trio as the men who would soon hold the mandate to negotiate with global giants like Goldman Sachs. The prize was a staggering $40 billion in Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) assets invested across Sub-Saharan Africa on top of the amounts frozen in the US banks. By offering to “identify, manage and monetize” these funds, Epstein’s circle sought to position themselves as the ultimate gatekeepers of Libya’s post-war economy – a ‘play’ that Brown promised would generate hundreds of millions for their own pockets.

To justify this unprecedented financial intervention, Epstein’s network relied on a carefully constructed narrative that painted all Libyan overseas wealth as ‘stolen and misappropriated’ by the Gaddafi family – a claim that has never been proven 15 years later. This was a deliberate mischaracterization; in reality, these assets were the legitimate holdings of the Libyan State funds, invested in blue-chip stocks like Pearson and global banking giants. By framing a diversified state portfolio as ‘criminal proceeds’, Epstein’s people and their intelligence associates sought a legal loophole to bypass UN sanctions and extract a ‘contingency fee’ from wealth that belonged to the Libyan people – not a single family.

This strategy of criminalizing state assets was particularly aggressive across the African continent. During the 2011 chaos, persistent rumors (often fed by Western intelligence) portrayed the Libya Africa Investment Portfolio as Gaddafi’s personal slush fund rather than a legitimate development vehicle.

This narrative reached its peak with allegations involving former South African President Jacob Zuma. Claims surfaced that Zuma had received $30 million in cash (and even stashes of gold and diamonds) from the late Libyan leader for “safe keeping.” Although Zuma repeatedly and sarcastically denied these claims, noting that he would hardly be struggling with legal fees if he possessed this fortune, the ‘ghost story’ of the ‘Gaddafi Trillions’ served a vital purpose. It allowed shadow players like Epstein to treat the continent’s sovereign investments as ‘missing treasure’ up for grabs rather than state-owned assets that should have remained under the protection of international law.

This was a direct assault on Libya’s financial sovereignty, after the assault on its political sovereignty by the NATO military invasion. While the United Nations mission (UNSMIL) and international community spoke of ‘transitioning to democracy’, Epstein’s documents reveal a parallel reality: A race to ensure that the LIA remained a black box controlled by Manhattan-based intermediaries. This interference likely contributed to the years of litigation and internal divisions that have kept billions of dollars in state wealth effectively paralyzed – leaving the Libyan people to pay the price for a ‘recovery’ process that was designed by predators for predators.

Perhaps the most damning indictment of this intervention is that it was built on a financial phantom. For 15 years, the international community has been regaled with tales of ‘Gaddafi’s hidden trillions’ – a narrative Epstein’s network eagerly exploited to justify their ‘recovery’ services. Yet, the 2026 reality remains stark: Not a single personal bank account or secret stash belonging to the late Muammar Gaddafi has ever been found. The billions frozen in the West are, and always were, the documented institutional assets of the LIA. LIA was created in 2006 to, among other portfolios, invest oil money for poor families in the country.

Ironically, while the West portrayed the late Gaddafi as a man hoarding the nation’s wealth, the historical record shows a very different intent. As early as February 2009, Gaddafi publicly advocated for a radical plan to dismantle the state’s administrative corruption by distributing oil wealth directly to the Libyan people. He argued that wealth should be placed in the hands of the citizens to manage their own affairs – a proposal that faced stiff resistance from the very bureaucracy that later collapsed in 2011. By framing this advocate of wealth distribution as a common thief, Epstein’s associates created the necessary moral cover to target the state’s sovereign capital. They replaced a plan for national empowerment with a scheme for private plunder.

The predatory interest of figures such as Epstein was merely the tip of a much larger iceberg in a post-2011 landscape defined by systematic, state-sponsored pillage. While the international community remained publicly fixated on ‘frozen’ overseas assets, the domestic reality was a violent hemorrhaging of national wealth. According to reports from the Libyan Audit Bureau and various transparency watchdogs, it is estimated that between $100 billion and $200 billion has vanished into a black hole of corruption, institutional waste, and direct theft since the fall of the state in 2011.

It is a matter of historical record that Libya, like many developing nations, faced significant corruption challenges prior to 2011. However, the subsequent vacuum of power and constitutional fragmentation has transformed a problem into a systemic catastrophe. As of February 2026, the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index ranks Libya 177th out of 182 countries. With a score of just 13 out of 100, Libya is now officially recognized among the top 6 most corrupt nations on Earth, mired alongside war-torn states such as Syria and Yemen. This transition from a functioning, if flawed, state to a global outlier for graft is the ultimate proof of the failure of the 2011 intervention. The ‘juice’ that Epstein’s circle sought to extract has left the nation’s institutions hollowed out, leaving the Libyan people to inhabit one of the most financially lawless environments in modern history.

The war between Israel, the US and Iran is raging. Throughout these days I’m woken to the sounds of emergency alerts on my phone, air raid sirens ringing, or the boom-boom in the skies above me as missiles are being intercepted. I have this song by the band REM looping in my head. You know the one. It goes, “It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.” Yes, a classic.

As it’s playing non-stop in my mind, I’m accosted while walking on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem. A guy invites me to look at the art in his gallery, but within minutes starts to tell me how this war was prophesized. His eyes wide as he says he “has to tell me the truth.“ His sheer self-belief in what he’s saying strikes me, and like any journalist who loves to go down a rabbit hole, I head home, fire up the laptop and wow… what a rabbit hole indeed.

You only have to type in the words, ‘Iran war Israel prophecy’ and the results come flooding in. There is a whole section of the internet dedicated to how the war unfolding between Israel, the US and Iran is fulfilling an ancient Biblical prophecy. The Book of Revelation is airing. Get your popcorn out.

But let’s start back on February 28, when Israel and the US launched what they described as ‘pre-emptive attacks on Iran’. Israel’s prime minister took to the airwaves to explain why. Weaved into his message was a not-so-subtle reference to the Jewish festival of Purim, celebrated a few days later on March 2-3. Benjamin Netanyahu stated:

“Two and a half thousand years ago, in ancient Persia, a tyrant rose against us with the very same goal: to destroy our people completely. But Mordechai the Jew and Queen Esther, through their courage and resourcefulness, saved our people. In those days of Purim, the lot fell, and the wicked Haman fell with it…. Today as well, on Purim, the lot has fallen, and the evil regime’s end will also come.”

In that story, Esther, who hides her Jewish identity, marries the king of Persia. Haman, a court official, persuades the king to obliterate a ‘rebellious people’ in the empire. You can read Jews here. Esther risks her own life, revealing she is Jewish to the king and Haman’s plot. Haman is killed and Jews are given the right to defend themselves.

“They are lovers of power – and beautiful women – and both ultimately granted the Jews a free hand in attacking the enemy with devastating force.”

The author continues:

“With God’s continuing helping hand, we will triumph in this latest, most consequential battle, and we shall bring to our people and to the world at large Purim’s prophetic promise: light and gladness, hope and joy.”

Light, gladness, hope and joy. These are also things Christians believe will be brought to the world during the Second Coming of the Messiah. Jews are still waiting for the First Coming.

Dr. Erez Soref, a self-proclaimed Messianic Jew, dedicates an entire video to how Yeshua (Jesus) and his coming is the only way there can be lasting peace on earth. With conviction he states:

“I believe that God has positioned us for such a time as this.”

He also references the Book of Esther. “Another drama unfolding with the same players – The Jewish people and the violent madmen in the leadership of the Persian/Iranian people… No small thing that this has happened around Purim,’ he says. Adding, ‘Just as in Ester’s day we may be living in a defining hour of history.”

That defining moment is, I understood, that Jesus is about to arrive and save us all. Well, perhaps not all.

Meanwhile, Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff wants to look at this conflict through the lens of the Prophets. He also talks about Jewish people finding themselves in Paras (Hebrew for Persia or modern-day Iran). He says:

“We’re seeing the fall of Paras… and this is the final pulldown of that regime who now represent all of the evil of Gog and Magog in the world today.”

Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff also states:

‘[T]hen we are going to see a nine-month period, where there is going to be great success in the Roman world [The West] and finally their power is going to reduce and the Jewish people are going to celebrate at the coming of the Messiah.’

Very specifically, he talks about Gog and Magog, mentioned in Ezekiel 38-39. The rough outline of this passage is that a restored Israel will be invaded by a coalition of nations, but that Israel will ultimately win out. Though from how things are unfolding, it is more likely that Iran will be the country invaded… but let’s ignore this rather inconvenient element.

Pastor Greg Laurie also picks up on this theme on his YouTube channel. He talks about eschatology. This is the part of theology concerned with the end of history…or days, if you want to be simplistic about it.

Pastor Laurie explains there’s a Muslim Messiah too. He brings out an image where the Muslim Messiah is “entering a burning gate, is this meant to be Jerusalem? I don’t know,” he says, “But he’s surrounded by modern soldiers… the fire raining down from above may represent divine wrath from Allah or it may represent missiles being fired from Iran towards Israel.”

He then delves into a passage from Ezekiel and outlines how Gog is Iran and he suggests Magog is… you guessed it, Russia!

“So when we see Russia stepping into a conflict with Iran and Israel, we have to pay attention… Persia or Iran marches with Magog and if Magog is Russia, that’s something to pay attention to. We are seeing things play out today that the Bible predicted thousands of years ago.”

While you might be able to write these guys off as loons off their medication, it’s pretty clear this idea that we are entering the end of days is rather more widespread than that. One US solider reported his commander to the troops that the war with Iran was, “[A]ll part of God’s divine plan.” The soldier continues that this commander made numerous references to the Book of Revelation which predicts Armageddon and the Second Coming, saying US President Donald Trump “has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.”

This is pretty heavy stuff. If true, the commander is basically saying, “Go die boys, as your sacrifice will be rewarded and soon you’ll be resurrected.”

Right now, there is no Third Temple. But Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of war, is highly supportive of one being built. Back on a visit to Jerusalem in 2018, when he was just a Fox News contributor, he was talking about miracles:

“It got me thinking about another miracle that I hope all of you don’t see too far away. Because 1917 was a miracle. 1948 was a miracle. 1967 was a miracle. 2017, the declaration of Jerusalem as the capital was a miracle, and there’s no reason why the miracle of the re-establishment of the Temple on the Temple Mount is not possible.”

Those dates are all significant: 1917, Balfour Declaration, a public pledge by the British Government to support the establishment of a home for the Jewish people in Palestine; 1948, the birth of Israel; 1967, the Six-Day War that saw Israel extend its territories; 2017, the first Trump administration moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing it as the capital of Israel. Will 2026 see the rebuilding of the Third Temple?

Hegseth was almost predicting it when he went on to say, “Buy the ticket. Take your action. Do what needs to be done here in Israel because I truly believe this is a moment where America will have your back.” Eight years later and America does have Israel’s back, as the countries fight side-by-side against Iran.

The appointment of Mike Huckabee as US ambassador to Israel was seen in some quarters as a move that would hasten that construction project. The Israel Heritage Foundation (IHF), which advocates for Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria, to give it its Biblical name, is a fan of Huckabee. As Huckabee waited for his confirmation hearing to become Ambassador in 2025, the IHF escorted him as he prayed at the Ohel.

In the maze of articles and videos online, it’s clear to see that many people are not just buying into the idea that the world is about to end, they are welcoming it. According to some, World War Three was already predicted to start in 2026. Bulgaria’s blind psychic, Baba Vanga, very well-known in the post-Soviet space and often referred to as the Nostradamus of the Balkans, said so. Although she also linked it to aliens making contact. So who knows?

Doomsday predictions aren’t an exact science. Over the millennia there have been many predictions. For example, Christopher Columbus predicted the world would end in 1656. More recently, in 1954, members of a cult in Michigan believed there was going to be a great flood that year. Only true believers would be whisked away, by aliens. The one we perhaps most recently dodged was a prediction of a South African pastor, who claimed the end of the world would come on September 24, 2025.

Armageddon, Rapture, the End of Days, whatever you want to call it, it’s probably not worth betting on when it will happen. Because if you are right, the downside is you’ll not be able to collect your winnings.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky have a little something for the ladies for Women’s History Month. They’re apparently going to spend the entire time beaking each other off on the global stage. Get your wads of bills ready to toss, girls! Especially you, Queen Ursula.

Let’s peek in, shall we?

Orban says he’s already on the verge of pulling out his tool. Guess we missed the part where they play footsie under the table first. “We have no military force for this, I can reassure everyone that this is not part of our plans. But we have political and financial tools,” the Hungarian PM said, in demanding that Zelensky open the tap on the Druzhba pipeline of Russian oil to Hungary that represents the landlocked country’s critical supply.

Orban has said he has no interest in taking his foot off the firehose of cash that the EU has been blasting out on itself and whatever else it has going on in the land of golden toilets amid the fog of war – all under the pretext of helping Ukraine, of course.

“We hope that one person in the European Union will not block 90 billion or the first tranche of 90 billion, and that Ukrainian soldiers will have weapons” Zelensky said. “Otherwise, we will give the address of this person to our Armed Forces, to our lads. Let them call him and talk to him in their own language.”

Who could that “one person” possibly be? In any case, guess he’ll either be getting an email, or maybe a visit, depending on what the word “address” actually means here. Or maybe just a phone call with a bunch of guys breathing heavily down the line in a foreign language. Hard to tell. Zelensky, an actor, could probably use a better scriptwriter for his Godfather-style lines. Or maybe just drop a dead rat in the mail next time and skip the public speculation.

There are two possibilities shaping up. Either Orban feels enough pressure to drop his veto of the EU’s latest €90 billion spending package in order to get the gas flowing during this heated Hungarian election period. An unlikely scenario given that his more pro-EU opponent in the April 12 national vote has left very little daylight between him and Orban on the issue of the need for Zelensky to restart the pipeline.

Or, alternatively, Orban can double down and maintain his insistence, leaving Brussels with a new convenient pretext, since it’s being reported by Bloomberg that Brussels is considering the possibility of basically bribing Zelensky with EU money to “fix” the pipeline.

What’s that repair going to cost? Oh, let me guess – €90 billion, perhaps? And are European defense contractors also going to be involved in these “repairs”? Will they require golden toilets in the outhouses on-site? In which case, it’s not hard to see that it could end up serving as the ultimate workaround for much of same spending that’s being blocked by Orban – just rebranded as something that he couldn’t possibly pass up. What’s he going to do – block funding to Ukraine earmarked as “aid” meant to ensure that his Druzhba demands to get the oil flowing to Hungary are met?

No one seems to care too much anymore about whether the repair issue itself is even legitimate. Orban had proposed a fact-finding mission. Zelensky was like, bro, you don’t hear me asking to go peek into your closet to see if you have any weapons for me when you say that you don’t. Not the best analogy.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, whose equally landlocked country also relies on the pipeline, has appeared in public with a handful of receipts, arguing that Zelensky is full of it, and brandishing what he says are satellite images of the intact pipeline proving his point. Of course, there’s also the possibility that the damage is invisible to the naked eye. Not all disabilities are visible, bigots.

Which leaves Brussels in an awkward spot. If the pipeline really does need “repairs,” then someone will have to fund them. And if that funding just happens to look suspiciously like the same €90 billion that Orban is blocking, well — that’s simply the miracle of European accounting.

In Brussels, problems have a funny way of turning into budgets. And when keeping a pipeline closed starts looking like it might trigger a bidding war to reopen it, suddenly turning the valve free of charge becomes the least attractive option.

Which may explain why Zelensky recently admitted at a press conference: “To be honest, I wouldn’t restore it.”

Politics can be very rough. Yet, usually, as long as they don’t collapse into war, at least in public a certain minimum pretense of decorum is maintained. Especially by governments vitally dependent on others’ support. Ukraine under the rule of never-reelected Vladimir Zelensky, however, has anything but a normal political system.

It is in this context that Vladimir Zelensky’s latest folly needs to be seen: Zelensky has threatened Hungary’s leader Viktor Orban, telling him he will hand the prime minister’s address over to “our guys” in the military so that they could “communicate with him in their own language.” Obviously, this is not even a hint of violence anymore, but the equivalent of a mafia godfather placing a dead horse’s head on your pillow or leaving a bullet on your doormat. The reason: Orban is exercising his right within the EU not to agree to yet another insane “loan” – the kind that will never be paid back, at least not by anyone in Ukraine – for Zelensky’s astronomically corrupt regime.

Orban is right about that “loan,” of course. Yet that isn’t even the core of this particular scandal. That is the fact that Zelensky feels he can issue a direct, mafia-style threat against the leader of an EU member state. Regarding Zelensky, though, there is no surprise here. He has been at the top of a regime that combines a bizarre sense of entitlement, shameless demands, outrageously greedy corruption, and a repulsive record of sabotage and assassination operations, very much even against its Western backers. Ask Germans who still have a spine about the Nord Stream attack, for instance. Or, if you can’t find a German with a spine, ask Viktor Orban, who has correctly called it “state terrorism.”

What needs more emphasis than Zelensky’s depraved sense of impunity is that he has reason to feel that way. It is true that, in this instance, the EU Commission has publicly protested against his barbaric behavior. But let’s be realistic, that is a formality, nothing but a gentle slap on the wrist for appearances’ sake. What really matters is that first the West as a whole and recently the EU “elites” on their own have spent years emboldening Zelensky and his regime by feeding Ukraine’s corruption, accepting and spreading Kiev’s lies, and suppressing any criticism of this policy as “Russian talking points.”

Thus, it may be a coincidence, but it is a remarkable fact that just one day after Zelensky’s open mafia boss fit, Hungary hit his ultra-sleazy regime where it hurts by striking at its money: In a certainly deliberately spectacular operation – balaklavas, body armor and assault rifles included, and all carefully caught on camera – Hungarian anti-terrorism forces stopped a Ukrainian currency and gold shipment that was crossing their country in two armored transporters. Arresting and temporarily detaining seven Ukrainians, the Hungarian officials found $40 million, €35 million, and about nine kilograms of gold. While the detained have been released and are back in Ukraine, the money and gold as well as the transporters have stayed in Hungary.

Kiev has called the Hungarian measures “state terrorism,” which is as absurd as Orban’s assessment of the Nord Stream attack is compelling. The Ukrainian government and Oshchad Bank, that had organized the transport, claim that everything about it was perfectly legal, but the Hungarian authorities see things very differently. Their customs agency says that the transport is suspected of being part of a money laundering operation. They also maintain that among those detained was a former high-ranking general of Ukraine’s combined intelligence service and secret police, the SBU. Ukrainian journalists, in turn, have even named the general as Genady Kuznetsov, the former head of Kiev’s Center for Anti-Terrorist Special Operations.

Budapest’s customs agency has also made public some intriguing figures: In the first two months of this year, the total of currency and gold shipped to Ukraine via Hungary has already amounted to over $900 million dollars, more than €420 million, and 146 kilograms of gold. Clearly, the amounts finally stopped and, it seems, seized were only a small part of a much larger, ongoing flow.

According to Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, these funds may be linked to the “mafia,” here obviously meaning not just organized crime in Ukraine but Zelensky’s circles themselves, which may be one and the same thing, of course. Also, Szijjarto is a smart man; he may well have sent an implied message to Kiev as well: If you talk like the mafia, we will treat you as mafia. Rest of Europe: Watch and learn.

All of the above is taking place against the backdrop of a larger – and fierce – political conflict between Budapest (and Bratislava, too), on one side, and Kiev as well as, in effect, the EU Commission on the other. While hiding behind pretexts, Ukraine has blocked oil deliveries from Russia through the ‘Druzhba’ (‘Friendship’) pipeline. Hungary and Slovakia need this oil and are struggling to have the pipeline re-opened. As you would expect, although they are EU members and Ukraine is not, the EU is leaving them alone and even, in reality, taking Kiev’s side.

Here is something that the EU could actually learn from one of Hollywood’s most famous mafia characters: The Godfather, as played by the late and brilliant Marlon Brando. He was adamant about one simple thing: Never side with outsiders to go against “the family.” That is merely the sound logic of collective action and trust. Yet the EU can’t master even that much.

Brussels, to make things even worse, will not let go of its plan to make Ukraine a member. A special fast-track – that is, cheating – option has been stalled, fortunately. But the idea is not dead, as it should be. Recall that the chain of events that set this whole mess – war and all – in motion was triggered when the EU insisted on a special association agreement with Ukraine while excluding Russia. NATO’s reckless expansion eastward had paved the road to perdition, but it was the EU’s moves in 2013 and 2014 that really sent things over the edge. Now, the EU cannot let go of its preferred strategy: when you got Ukraine in a deep blood-soaked hole, dig deeper.

Hungary and Slovakia are sane regarding Ukraine, the rest of the EU are not. Zelensky’s mafia threats have shown once again that his regime should be isolated instead of courted, stuffed with money, and propped up. At least, if the leaders of the EU were acting in the interests of the 450 million Europeans that have never elected them but whom they claim to represent.

The Zelensky regime does not represent the interests of ordinary Ukrainians; that of the EU is equally uninterested in those of ordinary Europeans. Maybe that’s why they feel so close.

International Women’s Day used to come with a certain esthetic. A celebration of past victories and a look ahead to new hopes and challenges. But this year, the vibe is women on social media, claiming Iranian heritage, dancing in celebration of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran, even as reports circulate that bombs had killed roughly 160 schoolgirls.

Meanwhile, Western female leaders – those who regularly speak about things like feminist foreign policy and are seen as the epitome of female governance – seemed suddenly to develop an acute sensitivity about tone. Statements were measured and delicately phrased so as not to antagonize the men launching the missiles.

The question practically writes itself: how did a movement once defined by dissent become so cautious in the presence of power?

The answer begins with a misunderstanding of feminism’s history. Contrary to the mythology, feminism has rarely been as radical as its reputation suggests. From the beginning, it contained competing factions. Like most political movements, feminism ended up rewarding the faction that was easiest for institutions to accommodate.

During the second wave feminism of the 1960s and 1970s, ideological debates within the movement were fierce, on everything from pornography and capitalism to lesbianism and marriage. Different factions claimed the feminist banner, but only one ultimately ended up with the microphones and funding.

The version that eventually dominated was the one that institutions could live with. One that foundations could fund with their shady backers, and universities could fall over themselves to host. Corporations and government learned to speak its language, and vice-versa, and feminism became a feature of the power structure itself.

That evolution did produce some real achievements, although there’s debate over the extent to which they were inevitable anyway, particularly given the relative freedom of women in the Soviet Union during the Cold War era, especially in the labor force with a reported 80% employed outside the home by 1983, and America’s desire to better compete economically with the USSR by increasing its own female workforce.

But that success also had a side effect. The movement grew comfortable inside the institutions that it once challenged. Once feminism became part of the establishment, it absorbed the establishment’s unwritten rules, including the careful language, the strategic silence, and the understanding that certain forms of dissent were impolite.

The result is an inversion. Today’s feminist spaces are visually diverse and rhetorically inclusive, but ideologically narrower than many earlier feminist debates. Attend a modern conference or browse the programs of prominent organizations and you will find every conceivable identity represented in the most superficial sense. What you will struggle to find is genuine ideological diversity. Women who depart from the prevailing worldview rarely appear, unless they have been carefully vetted as safe exceptions.

In other words, the contemporary movement celebrates difference everywhere except in thought.

This narrowing has produced some odd priorities. Feminist institutions have spent enormous energy adjudicating language, identity categories, and cultural etiquette. The result comes across as theatrical and performative. Meanwhile, questions of war, foreign policy, and state power often receive more cautious treatment, depending on the guy in charge. For instance, does anyone recall a feminist movement against former President Barack Obama’s drone striking half the planet? Me neither.

Yet many prominent Western women in positions of authority responded with a remarkable delicacy. Statements focused on “regional stability,” “security concerns,” and the importance of “avoiding escalation.” Direct condemnation of the strikes was rare. Even leaders who frequently invoke feminist values in foreign policy appeared reluctant to criticize the military actions too bluntly.

Consider Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s unelected president and one of the most powerful women in European and global politics. Her remarks on the conflict emphasized diplomacy and stability but avoided direct denunciation of the attack itself. Similar rhetorical caution appeared across Western institutions led by women who regularly embody or champion the role of women in power. Yet where were they when this prime opportunity presented itself to exercise it? They’re always keen to correct someone’s vocabulary but seem less interested in criticizing a bombing campaign when it involves the country they’ve hitched themselves to like a tradwife. They may not appreciate Trump himself, but they’re dependent on the position that he represents as US commander-in-chief.

Meanwhile, the online celebrations by diaspora influencers dancing in response to the bombing campaign represent another strange mutation of modern feminist-adjacent activism. War is reframed as liberation. The logic suggests that bombs dropped under the right pretext somehow advance women’s rights, even when those bombs fall on girls who will never grow old enough to enjoy those freedoms. That is, if they ever do come into existence, given the poor track record so far.

Feminism was never supposed to be just another bunch of seats at The Man’s table. Its original promise was disruption and the insistence that women could question every system of authority that governed their lives.

If that spirit still exists, then this moment should be an invitation to rediscover it. Feminism doesn’t need more carefully worded statements from women in power, but rather courage to say something genuinely uncomfortable when the establishment goes way offside.

A movement that can address these challenges with the same confidence that it brings to social debates would be a feminism worthy of its history. Anything less risks becoming exactly what earlier generations fought against: a demure and compliant accessory to the status quo.

The current discussion about redirecting Russian gas flows away from Europe and toward other markets should not be understood as a short-term political maneuver. Judging by Vladimir Putin’s remarks on Wednesday, the signal is much deeper and primarily aimed at a domestic audience.

In an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin, the president noted that Russia could theoretically stop supplying gas to Western European markets immediately rather than in a month, as proposed by the EU. Moscow, he suggested, could instead concentrate on more promising markets elsewhere.

Formally, no final decision has been made. Putin has only instructed the government to study the issue. But even this preliminary statement should not be dismissed as rhetorical flourish. It carries a clear meaning.

Contrary to what some observers assume, the signal is not primarily directed at the EU or other external players. It is addressed to economic actors inside Russia who still hope for a return to the old model, one in which the country’s energy industry was built around “traditional markets” in the West.

In more human terms, the message could be interpreted as follows: are you certain that Western Europe remains a reliable partner?

The warning is simple. The current surge of EU interest in Russian oil and gas, fueled in part by instability in the Persian Gulf, may prove temporary. Betting the country’s long-term strategy on such fluctuating demand would be risky.

From a long-term economic perspective, investing political capital and bureaucratic effort to preserve access to shrinking markets simply makes little sense.

If American suppliers want to dominate the EU gas market, Moscow appears increasingly willing to let them try. Ironically, however, even Washington seems ambivalent about fully taking on that role. There is a notable bipartisan consensus in the United States on this issue. The freeze on new long-term LNG contracts, after all, was introduced not by Donald Trump but by the Biden administration.

In other words, the future of Europe’s gas market remains uncertain even for those who claim to benefit from Russia’s withdrawal.

Putin also pointed to broader structural trends that have reshaped the European energy landscape. The EU’s ambitious and expensive green transition has been underway for years, despite growing economic pressures. At the same time, geopolitical events have narrowed Western Europe’s access to traditional energy sources.

The upheavals of the Arab Spring complicated access to southern resource bases, while the conflict in Ukraine effectively closed the eastern Russian corridor that had long supplied the EU.

Against this backdrop, Russia’s strategic pivot toward Asia, a policy launched in the early 2010s, now appears less like a gamble and more like long-term planning. Analysts within the Russian leadership began promoting this shift well before today’s geopolitical tensions made it unavoidable.

None of this means Russia intends to abandon European customers entirely. Moscow still describes itself as a reliable supplier. But the EU is no longer the central pillar of Russia’s energy strategy. From now on, it will be treated as a residual market rather than a priority.

And that raises a difficult question for the bloc’s policymakers. Is it wise to build long-term economic plans around partners whose own future, economically and politically, appears increasingly uncertain?

Eighty years ago, on March 5, 1946, one of the most famous leaders of World War Two delivered a fairly short but stern message which helped lock humanity into a future of open-ended and high-risk Cold War. That was the essence of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s Fulton Speech (if we name it after the small midwestern US college town where he gave it), also known as the Iron Curtain Speech (after its key claim).

A massive political, ideological, and last but not least, military barrier had come to divide post-World War Two Europe, Churchill argued, and it was all the wicked Soviets’ fault: They had broken the Grand Alliance with the West by taking control of “the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe,” he charged. In the face of this “Soviet sphere” and the aggressive strategies seeking to expand it even farther, Churchill warned, a Western policy of “balance of power” would be ineffective and lead to “catastrophe.” Instead, he urged, the “Western Democracies” needed to “stand together” in order to – Churchill clearly implied – deter the Soviets, who in his view respected only strength, especially of the military variety.

Well lubricated with shameless flattery for American President Harry Truman, who had travelled far to be in the audience and had a hand in setting up the speech, as well as for the US in general – at its “pinnacle of world power” – the Fulton Speech also pitched Churchill’s own, badly declining Britain as a junior but special sidekick to the Americans in their “primacy.” Unfortunately, that too came to pass.

Short and – in its recommendations – really quite generic as it was, Churchill’s intervention, speaking in the middle of nowhere in what is now called fly-over country, has a secure place of honor in naively admiring accounts of the West’s Cold War. There, it is still celebrated as an example of looking unflinchingly at harsh realities, a valiant call to arms, and a wise policy recommendation. Even those less sentimentally inclined still consider the speech necessary and the strategy of containment that it was effectively selling, inevitable.

Indeed, we know about several specific moments when such an apocalyptic war was very close or only avoided at the very last moment, sometimes by the courageous intervention of single and anything but powerful individuals. During the Korean War of 1950 to 1953, the American commander in chief and egomaniac extraordinaire, General Douglas MacArthur, wanted to go through with the use of dozens of deliberately “dirty” atom bombs against China. If he had had his will – instead of losing his job – the implementation of his nightmare plan would have created a vast nuclear wasteland. It would also have risked escalation into global war.

Just over a decade later, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a single Soviet submarine officer prevented a nuclear escalation and thus full-blown World War Three. In 1983 – a true annus horribilis of the old Cold War – an insanely risky version of the yearly NATO exercise Able Archer came close to causing World War Three by misunderstanding. In that case, in the end, a US officer was reasonable enough to break protocol and thus the escalation sequence initiated by Western recklessness. Just about two months later, it was the turn of yet another comparatively low-ranking Soviet officer to stop the end of the world.

As a species, how did we survive the madness of the first Cold War? My guess: The only thing that could have made up for so much human folly, so obstinately pursued over such a long time, must have been divine intervention. And I am not being facetious. Yet even if humanity was spared the very worst consequences of its leaders’ collective irresponsibility, make no mistake: The first Cold War was bloody indeed. Even if its ground zero was Berlin in the middle of Europe, it would go global with a vengeance in, generally speaking, the Global South.

There, among those who had done nothing to start it and were struggling to free themselves from the scourge of Western imperialism and colonialism, the Cold War resulted in hecatombs of victims, killed in coups and civil wars, proxy wars, and political mass murder operations. We will never have precise figures. But that is irrelevant, because we do know, for certain, that the total body count ran in the double-digit millions. Scholarly estimates of this dire total range, in effect, from 20 to 40 million. In short, the Cold War was no “long peace” but a great slaughter, even while it did not escalate to World War Three as we commonly imagine it.

Yet that, of course, has never been the case. During the old Cold War, the West treated international law and its modern UN bedrock with a mixture of instrumentalization (when it suited Western interests) and contempt (when it did not). As many observers have noted, this combination of cynicism, hubris, and shortsightedness has only become worse since then.

Now, almost forty years have passed since the end of the old Cold War in the late 1980s. That is, as much time as it lasted. And the West’s treatment of international law has become truly abysmal. In view of the West’s complicity in Israel’s horrendous and ceaseless crimes, including the Gaza genocide, and now the war of aggression unleashed by Israel and an obedient US leadership most likely subject to blackmail on grounds of pedophilia, the best that can be said is that all masks have fallen.

Germany is hosting the international war crimes fugitive Benjamin Netanyahu, brazenly defying its clear legal obligations. Leaders such as Berlin’s Friedrich Merz, Britain’s Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron, or NATO-EU Europe’s Ursula von der Leyen are not even hiding their absolute disregard for the law anymore. While the utterly corrupt leader of the West batters Iran together with Israel, the European vassals are explicit: If it’s between justice and obedience, we choose obedience. Instead of condemning the obvious war of aggression, they are perverse enough to fault Iran for exercising its equally obvious right to self-defense. Orwell was yesterday; this must be the Matrix.

None of the above is, of course, a surprise. But it underlines a point that, arguably, was true in 1946 already but has become incontrovertible and obvious by now: Whatever you think about a Cold War and its consequences, this West of triumphant depravity, lies, and brutality simply isn’t worth one.

As Iran and the Israeli-US coalition continue to exchange missile strikes and the Middle East crisis escalates, Tehran appears to have effectively neutralized the Gulf states’ capacity to respond. The Iranian strategy is executed with a precision that reflects decades of preparation. It is twofold: first, to overwhelm US military bases in the Gulf region (an effort that seems to be succeeding so far) and second, to pivot toward naval installations with the intent of enforcing a closure of the Strait of Hormuz. It is a grand strategic gambit designed to reorder global energy flows.

Should Iran succeed in shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, the consequences will reverberate far beyond the Gulf. China and Russia may find themselves with little choice but to enter the fray. Approximately 40% of China’s oil passes through that narrow waterway, and 20% of its supply originates from Iran itself. If Beijing allows the strait to be sealed, the consequences would be dire not only for China, but for Japan and India as well, whose economies would grind to a halt.

As such, we could anticipate China, Russia, Pakistan, and North Korea aligning in support of Iran, while India and Japan are likely to back the opposing coalition. It is also reasonable to expect Iranian-backed Houthi forces to move toward closing the Red Sea corridor, effectively cutting off oil shipments to Europe via the Suez Canal. The world would then be staring at a scenario where both the eastern and western arteries of global oil supply are constricted. In this case, will the Gulf of Guinea, long considered peripheral, move to the center of global geopolitics?

Nigeria’s dilemma

Nigeria, possessing one of the largest energy reserves in Africa, might become a country of particular strategic interest – an alternative source of oil for the coalition opposing Iran. But Nigeria is not alone. Angola, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, and Cameroon all sit atop significant reserves. Collectively, the Gulf of Guinea represents one of the most underutilized yet strategically vital energy hubs in the world. For decades, this region has been overshadowed by the Middle East, but the combination of rising instability in the Persian Gulf and renewed attention to African energy potential suggests that the Gulf of Guinea may soon move from the periphery to the center of global energy politics.

The truth is, Nigeria finds itself in a classic Catch‑22 situation. On one hand, it has the opportunity to leverage its oil reserves to become a global pivot – a supplier capable of stabilizing markets in times of crisis. On the other hand, it risks becoming a battleground for proxy wars, sabotage, and geopolitical manipulation. History offers sobering lessons: resource‑rich states often become arenas for great‑power competition. The countries aligned with Tehran will almost certainly attempt to disrupt any effort to channel Nigerian oil toward coalition forces. Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, insurgency in the Niger Delta, and covert operations by external actors could all be deployed to destabilize the region and prevent it from becoming a reliable alternative to Middle Eastern supply.

Nigeria’s position is precarious. Its oil reserves are vast, but its infrastructure is fragile.

Pipelines remain vulnerable to sabotage, refineries are outdated, and governance challenges persist. Corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, and political instability have long undermined Nigeria’s ability to capitalize on its resource wealth fully. Yet, in moments of crisis, opportunity often emerges. If Nigeria can stabilize its energy sector and, even more importantly, secure its maritime routes, it could transform its geopolitical standing. The Gulf of Guinea, once dismissed as peripheral, could become a cornerstone of global energy diversification.

The stakes extend beyond Nigeria. Angola’s deepwater reserves, Ghana’s emerging offshore fields, and Equatorial Guinea’s LNG potential collectively form a strategic buffer against Middle Eastern volatility. But without regional cooperation, these opportunities may be squandered. Maritime insecurity, weak institutions, and external interference threaten to fragment rather than unify the Gulf of Guinea’s energy potential. The coalition opposing Iran must therefore recognize that securing new routes and Nigerian oil is not simply a matter of contracts and cargoes – it is a matter of geopolitics, requiring investment in security, infrastructure, and governance.

The geopolitical realignment

Let us consider the broader picture. If Iran closes Hormuz and the Houthis shut down the Red Sea corridor, Europe will be desperate for alternatives. North Sea reserves are dwindling, and reliance on Russia is politically untenable. The only viable option is West Africa. Nigeria’s Bonny Light crude, prized for its low sulfur content, would suddenly become indispensable. Angola’s deepwater reserves would be tapped with urgency. Ghana’s Jubilee field would gain new prominence.

But this lifeline will not be uncontested. Russia, though aligned with Iran, may paradoxically benefit from higher oil prices, but it will not want Europe to find alternatives. China, dependent on Gulf oil, may attempt to secure West African supplies for itself, leveraging its Belt and Road investments.

However, the Gulf of Guinea is already plagued by piracy, making it one of the most dangerous maritime zones in the world. If global powers begin to rely on its oil, the stakes will rise exponentially. The US Africa Command may expand its presence, and China, already invested in African ports, may deploy naval assets to secure its supply lines.

West Africa as a whole should prepare. Ghana, with its emerging oil sector, should secure its fields; Angola should leverage its deepwater reserves; Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon should coordinate with Nigeria to ensure maritime security. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) should rise to the occasion, transforming from a regional bloc into a strategic actor in global energy politics.

In Iran, under ongoing US-Israeli attacks, a mass funeral took place today for 168 Iranian schoolgirls aged 7-12, killed by an Israeli airstrike on February 28.

The strike hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ primary school in Minab, southern Iran, in broad daylight, when the children were at school. Fourteen teachers were also killed in the bombing. The bombing occurred as part of US-Israeli attacks sadistically dubbed ‘Operation Epic Fury’, attacks which have to date targeted schools, hospitals, residential areas and other civilian infrastructure.

It was a scene all too familiar to Palestinians: grief-stricken parents collapsing sobbing at the site of their daughters’ murders, clutching bloodstained backpacks, pulling out schoolbooks and personal items of their slain daughters. Children’s desks covered in debris from the bombing. A child’s shoe in the rubble. Death where life had flourished.

None of this is being conveyed by Western legacy media – only ghoulish gloating over the US-Israeli bombardment of Iran and the murder of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and his young granddaughter and children.

On March 2, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted a photo of the graves being dug on X, noting, “These are graves being dug for more than 160 innocent young girls who were killed in the US-Israeli bombing of a primary school. Their bodies were torn to shreds. This is how “rescue” promised by Mr. Trump looks in reality. From Gaza to Minab, innocents murdered in cold blood.”

At the time of this writing, 69 of the murdered girls remain unidentified.

If the bombed school had been in Israel or Ukraine, news of it would have been plastered on front pages of Western media for days, with widespread demands for retaliation, or at least for justice and accountability. Back in 2016, Western media alleged Syria or Russian planes had injured Aleppo boy Omran Daqneesh. His photo went viral, for weeks, even years. A CNN news anchor fake-sobbed for the boy. In 2017, in his home, his father told me their home was not hit in an airstrike, but rather terrorists shelled it and used the boy in a cynical, and effective, photo op.

Footage shared on Telegram and on X clearly show horrific scenes of some of the young girls torn apart in the US-Israeli bombing of their school. But just like the untold thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israel, as well as the half a million Iraqi children killed by US sanctions, these Iranian children’s lives don’t merit Western media outrage.  Instead, they produce cynical reports that not only lack any semblance of empathy, but suggest that Iran is either lying about or is to blame for the murders.

Take the BBC’s report, which describes the massacre as a “reported” strike on a school, which “Iran has blamed the US and Israel” for. Casting doubt is standard for legacy media whitewashing the US and Israel’s crimes. The US is “looking into reports.” Israel is “not aware.” Just one of those mysterious unknown strikes.

The BBC did similarly dishonest and deceptive journalism in 2014 in Damascus after terrorists in eastern Ghouta had shelled an elementary school, killing one child and injuring over 60. The BBC later reported: “the government is also accused of launching [mortar strikes] into neighborhoods under its control.” The BBC could have easily learned about the trajectory of mortars and from where the strike in question could only have come: the terrorist “moderates” east of Damascus.

The New York Times also got the memo, likewise omitting Israel from the headline and implying Iran is lying. But when it comes to blaming Iran for its retaliation, the NYT has no problem stating whose missile strike it was. And there is no “Israel says.”

CNN ran the headline “A girls’ elementary school was hit in Iran. Here’s what we know.” Its video report not only doesn’t mention the US or Israel, but insinuates Iranian blame: In an Israel-like tactic (recall Israel’s claiming  Gaza’s Shifa hospital was a “Hamas base”, and staging weapons as “proof”), CNN claims the children’s school could be connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) base. But The Cradle noted that the school had operated independently as a civilian institution for over a decade, with separate entrances, playgrounds, and classrooms.

CNN’s report did, at least, debunk online claims that the school was hit by a failed missile launch by Iran, noting the photo shared online as “proof” of the claim was actually taken 800 miles from Minab. But, hello? If it wasn’t a failed Iranian missile there is clearly one remaining explanation: the schoolgirls were killed by US-Israeli bombing.

Most Western media cite The US military’s Central Command (Centcom) as saying it was “looking into reports of the incident,” and the Israeli army as saying it was “not aware of any IDF operations in the area.” Ah yes, the guilty shall investigate themselves. Right.

Even if you set aside the actual culprit of the school bombing, legacy media reports are devoid of any concern for the slaughtered children: no details, no empathy, no mention that they were murdered in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The tone would be radically different were the children Israeli, Ukrainian or American. We would see names, ages, stories about them. They would be humanized – if only they were not Iranian (or Palestinian, or Lebanese, or Syrian).

One man recounted to RT how after the bombing of central Tehran’s Enghelab Square he’d seen a decapitated person in front of his café. Walking around showing the destruction, RT’s Tehran bureau chief Hami Hamedi pointed out residential buildings, cars, shops, damaged and destroyed in recent bombings where a police station was among those targeted.

This was the same tactic which Israel used on December 27, 2008, when it unleashed over 100 bombs nearly simultaneously on Gaza, targeting police stations, police academies, universities and more, destroying and damaging shops and residential buildings around them.

I was in Gaza at the time and saw the immediate aftermath of the initial bombings, the chaos and destruction in every direction. Shifa hospital, Gaza’s main hospital, was an endless circuit of cars and ambulances bringing the dead and injured.

That was 17 years ago, and Israel has repeated this brutal tactic over and over again in Gaza, Lebanon and now Iran. We’ve seen this US-Israeli strategy of terrorizing the people by widely attacking civilian infrastructure repeatedly in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, to list only some of the targeted regions – as well as being replicated by the Kiev regime in the Donbass. The intent is always destabilization and instigation of fear in hopes of causing the people to turn against their government. It never works, but it invariably kills countless innocent civilians and flattens infrastructure.

To add further insult, days after the girls’ school massacre, Melania Trump presided over a UN Security Council meeting on children in conflict. You can’t make this insanity up. The wife of a US president who is co-waging a war on children in Iran feigns concern over children in conflict.

The US and its bought media have so little regard for Iranian lives that they don’t even bother to try to explain, much less apologize for, the murders of the 168 schoolgirls. Outrageously, it is as if they simply never existed to Western media.

But it is true that every war crime, every murdered child, fuels support not only to their government but to resistance in general. And Iran is resisting and retaliating in ways that will make the US wish it hadn’t co-started this war on the people of Iran.

Say what you will about Germany’s current ‘elites’, but they are consistent: Once they don’t give a damn about international law, elementary fairness, rudimentary human decency, and, last but not least, basic logic, they really won’t quit before their country’s reputation is ruined as it has not been since 1945. Hyperbole, you think? Can it really be that bad, you wonder?

Leave it to Chancellor Friedrich Merz and company to achieve what seems almost impossible. For almost two-and-a-half years, not one but two German governments have been, in effect, complicit in Israel’s continuing Gaza genocide. Under former Chancellor Olaf Scholz from the centrist Social-Democrats – otherwise remembered for gutless evasion when US ex-president Joe Biden announced, in essence, that he was going to blow up Nord Stream – as well as under the unusually dishonest Merz from the centrist Christian-Democrats, Berlin has supplied Israel with arms (and probably misled the International Court of Justice about it), diplomatic cover, legal support, media propaganda, and the often brutal suppression of protests against Israel’s crimes.

Indeed, recently a UN special rapporteur has identified the “use of anti-terrorism laws to restrict advocacy for Palestinian rights” as “a primary concern” in a report warning that the “space for freedom of expression is shrinking” in Germany.

Against this awful and shameful background, the fresh war of aggression launched by Israel and its American auxiliaries – that’s the technically correct term for troops serving a foreign nation – could, conceivably, have been a very late wake-up call. Perhaps, an eternal optimist may have thought, the sheer brazenness of the attack will make even Berlin hesitate. Nope. Instead, Friedrich Merz and official Germany in general have radicalized their virtually nihilistic denial of law, ordinary ethics, and common sense.

One day after the beginning of the Israeli-American war of aggression, Merz took the lead and set the tone by going public with a perverse misreading of the situation. Starting by labeling the heinous assault – launched, according to US and Israeli custom, under the cover of ongoing negotiations – “massive military strikes,” Merz acknowledged that they had killed members of the Iranian government (which he, of course, caricatured as a “Mullah” and “terror regime”) including “the religious leader” Ayatollah Khamenei. If you expected the slightest sign of disapproval or even just discomfort at these cold-blooded murders of high government officials, you don’t know Friedrich Merz yet.

Then, after a catalogue of Israeli and American propaganda talking points against Iran – nuclear this, ballistic that… you know the drill – reproduced with the earnest assiduity of an eager pet pupil, Merz went on to assure “many Iranians” that his Berlin regime shared their relief at, in effect, being properly bombed, again.

In general, the chancellor’s speech was a textbook example of perpetrator-victim inversion. Clearly approving of the Israeli-American assault, Merz had the chutzpah to sternly demand that Tehran must “at once” stop its “indiscriminate attacks.” Those, of course, do not, actually, exist. Because Iran is acting in clear and obvious self-defense – the only legitimate reason, apart from a UN mandate, for resorting to military force – and, as before, its counter-strikes at those attacking it are still remarkably selective and restrained.

To be fair even to Merz, at least, he was a little less disingenuous than usual. He frankly, if in stilted language, admitted that he could not care less about international law. Friedrich, to be honest, we have always known that much about you – despite your hypocritical invocation of “rules” and “values” whenever you feel like going after Russia again – but it’s nice you’re coming out so openly now.

But Merz got back to his usual, absurdly devious self very quickly. Because, you see, it’s Iran that is to blame when Friedrich Merz treats international law as utterly dispensable. At least according to Friedrich Merz, who explained that all those beautifully law-based measures taken regarding and, really, against Iran before this fresh war, did not work. Oh, Tehran, really how uncouth of you! Neither devastating sanctions, nor the US cancelling the JCPOA agreement, nor ongoing assassination and subversion campaigns waged by Israel and its friends, nor last year’s ‘12-day’ war of aggression made you submit.

By the way, Merz’s justifying a war of aggression by Iran not having bent the knee even after decades of “comprehensive sanctions packages” is likely to be noted with great interest in Moscow: If that’s how German elites see the world now – first we sanction you and then, if you still don’t knuckle under, we have a de facto right to attack you – the Russian leadership is certain to draw the obvious conclusions. Again, Merz probably didn’t even understand the insanely destabilizing implications of what he was saying. But they are there, nonetheless.

In short, Merz’s address was stunningly absurd and a horrific moral and intellectual failure, a disgrace for his country. It should be noted, however, that polls show that this atrocious line of unconditional compliance with both Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocidal apartheid Israel and Donald Trump’s Make-Israel-Greater US is not shared by all Germans. On the contrary, 57% of respondents of a poll are against the attack. Less than a third – 29% – approve of it. Likewise, even in Germany, a preponderant majority – 83% – has finally learned to consider Israel’s actions in Gaza unjustified: In the fall of 2023, when Israel started its genocide, 50% of respondents thought they were justified.

Such polls are nothing to be proud of: German society as a whole is still far too wrongheaded and submissive, when it comes to Israel’s crimes and those of the US, too. But if you know the level of crude media propaganda and relentlessly one-sided indoctrination that Germans are subject to, these numbers still shows that for the nation – unlike for its “Atlanticist” elites – there may be some hope.

For now, however, the failure that Merz represents is still in control. He himself has gone to Washington to flatter Donald Trump by praising his latest crime to his face. Netanyahu, meanwhile, may well be in Berlin, in which case German politicians, judges, prosecutors, and police are criminally liable for failing to arrest the war criminal, as the warrant of the International Criminal Court unambiguously requires. Even if his plane parked in Germany is only part of a deception operation, Berlin’s taking part in such a ruse is also morally repulsive and possibly criminal, too.

Germany as a whole has failed the tests of both the Gaza genocide and the wars of aggression against Iran. Its “elites” are a disgrace represented all too well by its chancellor. That is a sad thing to have to state. Yet there is no chance of political and moral renewal without facing this fact. We are back to an old question: What would it take for Berlin to grow a conscience?

The common refrain out of the EU right now as Iran is being violated by the US and Israel’s giant missiles, is that it’s time for Tehran to just sit back and take it, and then reason with the attackers.

“It is essential that the war does not spread any further. The Iranian regime has choices to make,” said the bloc’s chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas. ”The Iranian regime must understand that it now has no other option but to engage in good faith in negotiations to end its nuclear and ballistic programs, as well as its regional destabilization activities,” added French President Emmanuel Macron.

France, in particular, has long hyped its support of the EU’s so-called feminist foreign policy, described as “a framework that focuses on adopting a gendered perspective in dealing with a state’s external action and diplomacy.” Does that mean when you’re walking by a guy unzipping his ballistic weapon and forcing it on a weaker nation – the exact same guy who keeps threatening to grab you by the assets – you stand there cheering him on while telling the victim that they asked for it?

“France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have consistently urged the Iranian regime to end Iran’s nuclear program, curb its ballistic missile program, refrain from its destabilizing activity in the region and our homelands, and to cease the appalling violence and repression against its own people,” these countries said in a joint statement. “We condemn Iranian attacks on countries in the region in the strongest terms. Iran must refrain from indiscriminate military strikes.”

That’s quaint. Europeans pretending that Trump and Netanyahu bombing Iran isn’t about doing the bidding of Trump’s personal and political Israeli benefactors. No, instead they say that it’s all about the Iranian nuclear program that Trump said he had bombed into oblivion not even a year ago, and destabilizing activities around the world, and law enforcement crackdowns at home.

Well, did it ever occur to the Eurojokers that Trump literally just proved their point on that, by unilaterally bombing Tehran in the middle of negotiations? 'Come to the table so we can get the GPS targeting dialed in.'

And talking about “indiscriminate strikes,” has anyone on Team Trump world police offered an explanation for the bombing of those Iranian school kids yet?

The Trump-Bibi rape of Iran is still in progress, and Queen Ursula (aka unelected European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen) is already talking about the need to transition Iran to a fellow American vassal state – whoops, I mean “democracy.” Like she figures that a newly assassinated 87-year-old Ayatollah was the only possible thing standing in the way of 90 million people who were just sitting around waiting for that one dude to shuffle off so they can finally go twerk in the streets like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights intended.

She’s totally bought into – or pretending to have – the American propaganda that this decapitation strike means regime change, as though they’re even remotely close to the same thing.

Like, okay, party’s over! Time for democracy, guys! And the EU will play a role, she says, in shaping Iran. All the multiple layers of IRGC guys lined up in the various chains of succession can just go sign up for some EU-run civil society courses. How about mastering nation-building on your own nations first, before giving it a go in Iran?

The EU is acting like they’re ready to spring into action on some plan, despite Trump himself just admitting to ABC News that he ended up killing all the candidates that he had in mind to puppeteer Iran for him. “It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second- or third-place is dead,” Trump said.

Seems the EU brass has long been incapable of pinning any responsibility where it actually belongs. Maybe because they’re just one giant hive mind of Temu-tier telepathy constantly bleating in synchronized stereo about “destabilization,” not through Trump’s joint strikes with Israel, but through Iran’s insistence on merely existing on its own terms and daring to defend itself from those opposed to that notion.

But hey, at least there are still some folks who can think for themselves in Europe and are demanding sanctions against the US and Israel. Just kidding. They’re only upset that nobody asked their permission first.

“The US is currently operating outside traditional international law. Usually, justification for these types of attacks has been sought – either from the UN or at least from allies. Now, it has not been requested. It was not requested regarding Venezuela, it was not requested neither before the 12-day war, nor in this latest case,” said Finnish President Alexander Stubb.

And what’s EU buddy and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney thinking when giving Trump a thumbs up on attacking Iran for “security,” even as Trump repeatedly threatens to annex Canada as its 51st state under the same pretext? Canada’s own top military brass has been talking recently about getting nukes to protect itself from the US, yet Carney apparently can’t see the parallels here. Even as Canada flips through the miniskirt catalogue.

Well, maybe Trump will take all this advice aboard from his friends and allies and ask their permission before invading Greenland or Canada. Then, in the interest of coherence, they can issue joint statements congratulating themselves on their liberation by Washington, and then call for a smooth transfer of whatever’s even left of their own sovereignty. Then proceed barefoot to the kitchen and make Uncle Sam a sandwich.

Israel and its US auxiliaries have attacked Iran. In terms of international law and elementary justice, things are clear beyond the slightest doubt: the attack is a war of aggression – but to be fair, in Israel’s case that hardly makes a difference anymore.

With ‘highlights’ including apartheid, ethnic cleansing, unlawful detention, torture, sexual violence, and genocide, Israel has such an extensive and constantly growing record of, literally, every crime under international law, including human-rights and humanitarian law (or the law of armed conflict), that one more or less hardly seems to matter anymore. This state is a monster, and monsters will monster as long as they can.

The US, of course, is no spring chicken either when it comes to treating international law – really, any law – as a doormat and brutally, gleefully violating the most basic ethics, the kind of simple rules normal people intuitively recognize, such as “don’t murder, lie, or steal.”

Indeed, while Israel can easily claim to be the single most criminal, indeed evil country in the world, the US wins the most-powerful-rogue-state prize hands down. There is – empirically, quantifiably – no other country that combines such ingrained and increasingly explicit scorn for law and morality with such brute power and perpetual violence. Before the current assault on Iran, the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was just the last proof of that fact, so glaringly obvious that it woke up even some Western commentators.

In terms of actual US interests, war against Iran makes no sense at all. Iran is not close to a nuclear bomb and, as a matter of fact, has a religiously and ethically based (hard to grasp in Washington, I know) explicit policy against acquiring one. And even if Iran were building such weapons or seeking a state of being “latently” able to do so as urgently needed insurance against permanent Israeli and US aggression, Washington would gain nothing and risk very much by going to war.

On the other hand, it was precisely the JCPOA agreement with Iran, destroyed by the US during the first Trump presidency, that proved empirically that the issue of Iranian nuclear energy use can be resolved well by compromise. As to recent, hysterical US claims about other types of WMDs and “intercontinental missiles,” it is time to no longer give such crude, dumb lies the time of day. Enough with the propaganda already.

Regime change? So, please could someone explain why installing a washed-out Pahlavi princeling – if it ever were to work, that is – in Tehran is good for Americans? Spoiler, no one can. At least not honestly. Do I hear someone say geopolitics? Oh, that would mean the “genius” geopolitics of risking a long war with great damage to the US and its regional allies? Then, perhaps it’s all about plunder? Yes, true, the US simply loves plundering. Historically speaking, the whole country is built on it, just like Israel. But even plunder on its own despicable terms only makes sense if you turn a profit. Good luck with that while sinking more gazillions into war-for-Israel.

But Washington chooses permanent conflict and war against Iran anyhow. The reason is that US policy in the Middle East – and not only – has been captured by Israel and its lobby. As John Mearsheimer, both doyen of explaining international relations by national interests (the theory of Realism) and co-author of the standard work on the Israel Lobby, has long acknowledged, Israel’s influence on the US is real, contradicts American interests, and forms an exception to the theory of realism in that Washington is constantly hurting its own country.

For reasonable observers, this case is closed. When devastating the Middle East, the US is acting not in its own genuine national interest but the perverse conception that Israel has of its national interest: subjugating and, if needed, destroying all sovereign states in its neighborhood so as to create and preserve Israeli domination and even ‘Greater Israel’, a nightmare of ‘Lebensraum’ for Zionist settlers from, at least, Egypt to Iraq.

But, again, why? This is where the Epstein scandal makes a difference – or should do so – to unbiased minds. We must acknowledge that Jeffrey Epstein was not “merely” a very rich and perverse criminal with far too many friends in high places but an agent of Israel, whether with a direct affiliation to its dreaded Mossad service of spying, murder, and subversion or not. His core operation served to gather extremely compromising blackmail material on large swathes of the elites of the US and the West more generally. FBI agents, we now know, assessed that Trump himself is among those trapped in this manner. If anything, frantic – and also, again, criminal, efforts – by Trump’s Department of Justice and his head of the FBI to purge the files of references to the current president and his friends only provide further corroborating evidence that Trump is under Israel’s control.

Will Americans ever free themselves from the one state and network that have really run history’s most successful subversion and state-capture operation on them? Who knows? We know that it would take more than putting an end to Epstein-like blackmail. If anything, Trump’s bitter enemies, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, have only recently shown us that the American “elite” is enthralled to Israel and its crimes also for reasons ranging from being bribed to sharing the vile insanity of Zionism. If the US ever wants its independence back from Israel, all of that will have to go.

The Druzhba, or ‘Friendship’, oil pipeline is really living up to its name. All the ‘friends’ are fighting with each other. And now Hungary, worried about the EU’s slack attitude about what happens to its oil source, is saying that it’s time to deploy the army to protect it.

Critics of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban argue that he only wants troops deployed inside the country because he’s down in the polls ahead of the April national election and he’s going to try some kind of autocratic jiu-jitsu to cancel them. Which totally ignores the fact that Ukrainian secret services are actively attacking the pipeline’s infrastructure – and there is something really fishy about the EU’s permissiveness around it.

Everyone from the Kiev Independent to French state media, France 24, has been attributing to the SBU, Kiev’s secret services, drone strikes on February 23, targeting a Russian oil pumping station serving Druzhba – citing actual SBU sources. And the EU’s position has been, “Look, it’s up to Ukraine if they want to fix it.” It’s not like they owe the EU anything, right? Just billions of euros, and counting. Can’t even get a repair job these days for that price, apparently. So Hungary’s been saying, “Hey, are you jokers going to actually do something about this? Because we’re putting our foot down on your whole ‘cash for Ukraine for European defense contractors’ charade and unilaterally canceling the next episode of your Russian sanctions unity show with a veto, until you reel in your spoiled brat foster kid.”

The EU says it would welcome the reactivation of landlocked Slovakia and Hungary’s fuel source running across Ukraine and delivering Russian oil. Funny that’s the case only now that it’s been bombed and the tap has been turned off – after years of official EU policy to ditch the Russian fuel that runs through it. But Brussels also said that it’s ultimately up to Little Zelya, Vladimir Zelensky, as to what he wants to do. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has been sounding like a waitress at Denny’s who’s fed up waiting for Little Zelya to decide what he wants while he kicks his little feet against the high chair. Queen Mommy, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, insists that he should be able to freely choose between blackmailing Hungary over oil or resuming the flow – with all the nonchalance of deciding between pancakes or a kid’s combo, even though it’s the Europeans whose interests she’s supposed to be defending and who are paying the tab. “This risks our sovereignty, and we are not willing to tolerate this in silence,” Szijjarto said. “It is very frustrating that here in Brussels they usually stand on the side of a non-EU member state against EU member states. The European Commission behaves like a Ukraine Commission, and this is unbelievable.”

Apparently, Ukraine put its official position in a letter to the EU that was like a bingo card of the bloc’s buzzwords, talking about the need for unity, non-discrimination, and cooperation – mostly just when it comes to Ukraine. It also said that Russia’s watching and all this conflict just plays into Moscow’s hands. It almost sounds like Queen Ursula did the homework assignment for Little Zelya.

Kiev also says that this is all Russia’s fault, citing Russian strikes on the pipeline in late January that it’s only had, oh, an entire MONTH to repair, and totally ignoring Ukraine’s strikes from just a few days ago. Then Kiev writes, “We draw attention to the unacceptability of ultimatums and political pressure by certain member states.” A clear reference to the fact that Slovakia and Hungary are giving Kiev a swift kick to the back of its chair saying, “Look pal, better get that oil flowing if you don’t want cuts to the emergency power supply that we control.” These being the only two EU countries that still rely on this pipeline that Ukraine controls – and also the same two that are constantly speaking out about Kiev’s antics, fed up with having their chain yanked.

Kiev is acting like it has nothing at all to do with limiting Hungary’s options. And as luck would have it, what do you know – here comes the EU encouraging Hungary and Slovakia to seize Croatia’s offer to send them its non-Russian oil through the Adria pipeline instead.

The Hungarian foreign minister seems to recall seeing the original film in this series. “And again, the same people who blew up the Nord Stream gas pipeline are blocking transport on the Friendship Oil Pipeline today. This is the case, and we cannot allow it,” Szijjarto said, according to the Hungarian press.

It seems like the only thing missing from the Nord Stream sequel, Druzhba, is the West’s latest Ukrainian pipeline-destroying superhero. Like the Marvel character we’re told blew up Nord Stream, Ukrainian Aquaman ‘Vladimir Z’. All against Zelensky’s wishes, of course. Maybe they can just call this one the ‘Druzhba Destroyer’ or ‘Captain Crude’. An easy role when the EU just stands there acting like a non-playable character yelling about ‘unity’, with limited foresight of the consequences when its interests get blown up.

If Brussels can’t at least guarantee that its own members’ energy lifelines are treated as strategic assets rather than bargaining chips, then the real damage risks being to the credibility of the EU itself.

Recently, the United States expressed its willingness to re-engage with the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). According to multiple reports, Washington is reopening diplomatic channels, with promises of economic cooperation, and initiatives presented as “partnerships” rather than traditional aid programs. This shift follows years of reduced aid and military cooperation in the region, while other international actors, such as Russia and China, have strengthened their influence through security support and infrastructure investments.

AES member states Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are at a critical juncture. Experts warn that such US overtures may mask intentions aimed at regaining influence in a geopolitically vital region. Historical precedents in Latin America, Africa, and Asia show that US engagement often combines economic incentives with subtle political influence.

Understanding this context is essential for the AES. While diplomatic recognition and partnership offers may seem advantageous, they carry a risk of creating long-term structural dependency. Fact-based scrutiny is crucial before entering agreements that could compromise autonomy. In Bamako, Ouagadougou, and Niamey, messages coming from Washington now sound conciliatory. American officials speak of “respect for sovereignty,” “constructive dialogue,” and renewed cooperation.

For some, this is proof that the balance of power has changed; that Sahelian states have forced recognition and imposed their autonomy. But geopolitics rarely operates on goodwill. When a major power suddenly changes strategy, it is almost never out of moral conviction.

The Sahel region is far from being an isolated or marginal space. It is a geopolitical crossroads. A transit zone, rich in mineral resources, and a security buffer between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, the region concentrates economic and military stakes. For global powers, losing direct influence there means losing leverage over the entire continent. This reality helps explain Washington’s diplomatic pivot. The US is now pursuing a strategy focused on “trade, not aid” as a central pillar of their African policy.

This repositioning also reflects competition with other actors gaining ground in the region, notably Russia and China. In other words, the US is returning because it cannot afford to disappear.

History shows that when coercion fails, influence simply changes form. Instead of imposing, powers persuade. Instead of commanding, they advise. The language evolves – the objective does not. Throughout the twentieth century, the US repeatedly demonstrated this logic.

In 1954, the CIA orchestrated Operation PBSUCCESS in Guatemala, overthrowing democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenzto in order to protect American geopolitical and corporate interests. In the early 1960s, US intervention in the DR Congo sought to remove Patrice Lumumba, perceived as too close to the Soviet bloc, and replace him with leadership aligned with Western priorities. In 1973, Chile experienced a coup supported by Washington that reshaped the country’s political trajectory for decades.

Each case followed the same pattern: influence first, interference next, and destabilization if independence became inconvenient. The Sahel may be a different context, but the method seems recognizable.

International relations are not limited to presidents and ministers. While diplomatic meetings are the visible face of foreign policy, the real levers of influence often operate far from public view. Power circulates through less obvious channels: consulting firms and think tanks producing policy reports, intelligence services analyzing sensitive information, multinational corporations negotiating projects, financial institutions providing loans and investment instruments, and well-funded NGOs and foundations shaping social and political narratives.

These networks practically shape the options available to them. Policy proposals or funding priorities offered through these channels often arrive pre-framed in order to align with external interests, long before any formal agreement is discussed. In some cases, a single strategically positioned advisor or contract can alter a country’s trajectory more profoundly than the presence of a foreign military force.

In Latin America, the US has leveraged private foundations and think tanks to advance ideological and economic objectives, shaping governance structures without overt intervention. Similarly, in Africa, international NGOs have sometimes dictated development priorities or security initiatives under the guise of technical assistance, subtly steering national agendas.

If Sahelian governments underestimate these mechanisms, they risk surrendering strategic decisions without even realizing it. Contracts may appear routine and aid may seem unconditional, but the cumulative effect can gradually reduce sovereignty.

When a country takes decisions deemed contrary to their interests, aid can be reduced, diplomatic pressure intensified, and covert operations orchestrated to realign national choices. Similarly, economic partnerships proposed by these Western powers are often presented as cooperative initiatives, while in reality they primarily serve to secure access to natural resources and control trade routes.

States do not have permanent friends; they have permanent interests. Alliances may shift according to the priorities of great powers, and dependence on Western validation remains risky. For the Sahel countries, assuming unconditional goodwill from the US or Western Europe would be a serious strategic mistake.

In contrast, Russia today positions itself as a strategic partner for many African states. Unlike the conditional approaches of Western powers, Moscow offers military, economic, and technological cooperation without imposing political constraints. This support provides African countries with concrete alternatives and strengthens their ability to defend independence and sovereignty over the long term.

The Alliance of Sahel States represents something rare: a regional project openly seeking autonomy from traditional power structures (such as the regional bloc ECOWAS). Beyond security coordination, it embodies a political ambition to decide independently on matters of defense, development, and national priorities. If successful, this experiment could inspire other African nations.

That is precisely why it draws so much external attention. True independence tends to unsettle established powers, because it sets an example. Rejecting all foreign relations would be unrealistic, as no nation exists in complete isolation. Engagement with international partners is necessary for security, trade, and development. However, accepting every proposal without scrutiny is equally dangerous. The only viable path is lucidity. Every agreement should be evaluated for its long-term impact: does it strengthen domestic capabilities, or does it create obligations that compromise strategic control?

However, sovereignty is not defended solely within the corridors of power. It also lives in the collective consciousness, in an informed and vigilant citizenry. A population that is aware and educated is harder to manipulate and less likely to succumb to enticing promises or external pressures. A watchful society limits compromises, questions decisions, and demands that leaders act in the true interest of the nation.

A few years after the beginning of the French Revolution, France underwent the ‘thermidorian reaction’. Policies became more moderate, the bourgeoisie came back to power. But nowadays, most historians use the expression to describe the moment when a radical revolutionary regime is replaced by a more conservative one, almost heading back to the pre-revolutionary period.

The internet has been a revolution in every country of our increasingly cyberized planet. Information is coming in from all over the world, communication is instant, new business models emerge almost daily, a nobody can become an influential personality in an instant (whether through intelligent podcasts or platforms like OnlyFans), access to books and ideas is unlimited, etc. And every country underwent (or is currently undergoing) its cyber-thermidorian moment. However, one shouldn’t forget that, not surprisingly, reports on internet censorship are written by Western organizations, such as Freedom House with its dubious links to the US State Department. Thus, the most famous internet censorship system is the Great Firewall of China, which is regularly criticized by the so-called liberal democracies. Iran’s temporary internet blackouts and Russia’s sovereign internet laws are also common targets of the West.

What is important is to look at the timeline. China is certainly the country that experienced the strongest and swiftest thermidorian reaction, creating basically a closed but coherent ‘Chinese internet’. The Chinese authorities seem to have quickly abided by Deng Xiaoping’s saying: “If you open the window, both fresh air and flies will be blown in.” They launched the Great Firewall project as far back as 1998. Iran organizes blackouts during social troubles. Russia’s laws were passed accordingly along with the growing tensions with the West.

Liberal democracies, skating along on their undeserved ‘free countries’ reputation and thanks to their mastery of propaganda, have been able for decades now to denounce online censorship. Because their system is extremely sophisticated and in order to maintain their public image, they had to be cautious. However, their own thermidorian reaction really appeared during the last five years. Gradually, certainly, but they definitely tightened the screw each time their ideal world was shaken: Reactions to the Covid crisis management, shifting climate change theories, the Twitter Files revelations, Hunter Biden’s computer, woke ideology being challenged, Russia’s operation in Ukraine being explained (one can only think about RT being banned from absolutely everywhere in the West), discussions about the physical makeup of Brigitte Macron’s nether regions, and now, the outraged caused by the Epstein files.

The Epstein scandal exposes the Western elites as a bunch of corrupt degenerates – another nail in the coffin of their populations’ faith in their system. Now, most liberal democracies, especially in Europe, are fostering tighter regulations of social media networks (the main argument being the fight against pedophilia). There has been for two years a verbal fight between Elon Musk and Brussels, but now Paris even raided the French offices of X and summoned Musk to appear at hearings.     

All countries, not just China, Iran, and Russia, have their own reasons to implement internet censorship. Political, geopolitical, but also ideological. The means are also specific to each country. For example, while there’s been a rise in people being arrested for politically incorrect online speech in the UK, the French specialty is a bit different: Tax audits targeting people who speak their mind on social media. In all countries, harsh policies are being implemented against social media, VPNs, and so on. Since the First Amendment is king in the US, Americans are certainly the people who enjoy the greatest freedom online. But we always need to keep in mind that the Overton window concept works anyway, always, everywhere, unconsciously. An astonishing poll by YouGov recently showed that the vast majority of Europeans are in favor of a ban on X if the platform doesn’t follow the EU’s rules. Self-censorship seems to play a tremendous role in the cyber-thermidorian reaction.

While our generation grew up with a relatively free internet, the next one will apparently grow up among cyber-clusters, with their own social media networks (think about China’s WeChat, Japan’s Line, Russia’s MAX… the EU’s nothing so far as they are behaving like children), no VPNs, and where reality is depicted in completely different ways according to the geographic sphere of influence they move through. Without any way to get nuances and fathom a balanced understanding of their environment. The internet unchained people in some way. Until this tool stopped being the main promoter of Western ‘values’. Now, like it or not, the unipolar world is being challenged, and the internet is getting chained. Everywhere. That’s trench warfare all right.

Here comes the 1st battalion of desk jockeys to lecture you about your dinner’s carbon footprint.

Daily life in France used to be simple, until the government decided to appoint itself Mother Nature’s personal bodyguard, and the average citizen was declared her number one threat. Their latest salvo is to make the climate more resilient, even if it means that you end up less so.

The newly published ”national strategy for food, nutrition, and climate: 2025-2030” points out that “32% of the adult population consumes too much meat other than poultry,” “63% too much cold cuts,” and not enough fruits and vegetables. You can probably guess what comes next.

“Yep, here come the lectures about cow farts and deuces again!”

Correct!

Did you know, for example, that “products of animal origin are responsible for the majority of food’s carbon footprint” at 61%? If not, the French government would like to remind you. And yes, your own meateater farts are under scrutiny, too. Citing a British study, the report notes that “the greenhouse gas emissions of vegans represent 25% of those of heavy meat consumers in CO2 equivalent.” Excuse you, sirs! No, really, excuse yourselves. Assuming, of course, that all the authors of this screed masquerading as a policy paper are militant vegans – in which case, 30% of your own beans and legumes also end up in the atmosphere, post-digestion, as a giant jackboot of carbon dioxide stomping on a polar bear by your own definition. Is this really the moral superiority contest that we want to have? You’re talking like all these objectively useless machinations are actually achieving anything. The evidence seems to suggest otherwise.

So what will they do? Whip the steak off your plate? Not quite. Not directly, anyway. Instead, they’ll hound the meat producers – the farmers already buried under French and European regulations, spending ever more hours ensuring their reported activities match the spy photos taken of their land by the EU’s Copernicus satellites. “The EU spends some 40% of its budget on agriculture subsidies, and whether farmers are declaring everything correctly can be checked through satellite data. The Sentinels are explicitly designed to support the implementation and monitoring of European policies, such as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that aims to improve agricultural production and sustainable use of natural resources,” the EU explains.

Just to hammer the point home, this month’s new food and climate report underscores that their plans to “rebalance” protein intake, “along with a shift towards more sustainable models, can also help to better address the challenges of…reducing the carbon footprint of food.”

So, on top of this ever-burgeoning bureaucracy – which French farmers say is more strictly enforced than anywhere else in the EU – meat producers must also contend with the government trying to convince consumers to ditch their product, killing demand and depressing their revenues. You’d think the French state was dealing with hard drugs here, a Class A substance rather than steak. Why not just have special forces raid butcher shops, already?

Look, this green agenda made more sense when everyone had the cash to indulge in lifestyle experiments. Now that most people are either broke or heading in that direction, they’ll be eating whatever they can get their hands on – increasingly not steak and red meat. So how about just leaving those who can still afford it alone?

The French government mismanaged its energy policy by attempting to appease the greenies by trying to wind down nuclear energy (less drastically than Germany, but still), then let the EU lead it by the nose in switching out cheap Russian energy for pricier American LNG. Even baguette makers are struggling – let alone folks raising beef.

Meanwhile, the government has also noticed that people are getting fat and lazy, and is intent on giving them a swift jackboot to the chair. How? By creating more bureaucratic initiatives pushing people to move and exercise. I’m sure this nanny statism will work as well as those train-door signs reminding people not to leave their bags behind, even as train delays pile up because of all the innocuous abandoned backpacks.

This is all just the latest in an endless series of ecological and ideological pestering that has become pervasive in French society. From scolding citizens for air conditioning in the summer to telling them to recycle (even as an estimated 30% of plastics “recycled” still end up in landfill anyway), to geothermal pools that can’t hold a steady temperature like the old man turning a dial, the message is clear: the state knows better than you. That’s worked out great so far, if current reality is any indication.

Perhaps they should try butting out instead. Then maybe they wouldn’t be in a position of having to unscrew all their previously engineered screwups.

Only a few will be tempted to celebrate: German magazine Spiegel – once, a very long time ago, a proud flagship of critical investigate journalism but now an often cringe-inducing, radical-Centrist government and establishment mouthpiece – has noticed the obvious fact that Germany’s American overlords were involved in the 2022 Nord Stream attack from the very beginning.

Spiegel – to paraphrase the title of a Soviet television classic starring the immortal Viacheslav Tikhonov – has now been authorized to announce: From the spring of 2022 (at the latest) Ukrainian saboteurs and CIA spies – already well-acquainted with each other “for years” (How did that happen, by the way? Never mind, we know) – were meeting to develop the idea of launching the greatest single eco-terrorist attack in Europe’s history. On an “ally.”

You don’t say, Hauptmann Obvious! Honestly, what’s next from Hamburg’s brightest? “Gulf of Tonkin Incident – Did the US Lie?”; “Breaking: Gleiwitz Attack – a Nazi Black Op?”; “The Schlieffen Plan: Did it Fail?”; “Kaiser Wilhelm – Not so Bright after all?” Have all the cringo-meters really gone the way of Germany’s notoriously dysfunctional railways? Is there no one left at Spiegel with a basic sense of professional shame and elementary decency?

The same can by asked regarding German mainstream media as a whole. Markus Lanz, one of Germany’s most styled and prominent – and soporifically anodyne, too – talk show hosts, has recently “amused” us (yes, scare quotes) with speculations both asinine and callous: Was the ugly – English frog formerly known as Prince Andrew perhaps only trying to help when caught on candid Epstein Mossad camera kneeling over a prone girl?

Frankly, the new Spiegel line on Nord Stream is not much better. Its only advantage is that, at least, it is not de facto covering for a pedophile monster, just for Germany’s US “allies” and Berlin’s spongers in Kiev, which devastated its vital infrastructure and crippled its economy by locking in excessive energy costs.

This implausibility turns into rock-bottom, barefaced absurdity when we are told, once again, that ultimately the CIA turned against the plans for the attack. A Ukrainian terrorist – yes, that is the correct term for a participant in a treacherous sneak attack on a country pumping ceaseless billions into Ukraine with massive ecological and economic consequences – currently in German custody, meanwhile, is prettified into a “commando soldier.” How low will German “elites” bow to those slapping Germany in the face?

In sum, your story, dear members of the Spiegel creative writing workshop, seems to be this: The Zelensky regime, dependent for its very survival on Washington, took American “advice” regarding the Nord Stream sabotage and terrorist operation, and then simply disregarded the same Americans when they called it off. BS, as they say in American English. It’s one thing to try to mislead your readers – and that’s bad enough – but please have some respect and stop treating them like total idiots.

In reality, the American “friends” were, of course, not merely informed – either at an early or late stage of planning – and they were not merely initially “benevolent” observers. Instead they did exactly what the CIA is designed to do: they got deep into the weeds of a perfectly illegal and absolutely devious black-ops attack. In this case, they struck a so-called “ally,” an effective vassal in NATO-EU Europe.

Who came up with that brilliant idea first? Not long ago, the Wall Street Journal wanted to make us believe the answer was a few gung-ho Ukrainians on a bender. Forget about it. In all likelihood, it was the friends from across the Atlantic.

It would be easy to dismiss this latest Spiegel feat as simply ridiculous, and it certainly is. It’s yet another sad sign of how low not only Spiegel but the whole Western mainstream media cartel have fallen. Yet there is another aspect to this inanity that we should take very seriously.

In these three stages of normalization, the latest mainstream version is always the right one, and the previous ones are simply forgotten. Or to be precise, not mentioned among polite people who wish to advance or just keep their careers. Those too smart and honest to go along with this sequence must be maligned, demeaned, marginalized, and driven out of good mainstream media and expert society. That is why, in the Nord Stream case, Seymour Hersh was demonized and ridiculed when he fingered the US in 2023. Hersh could not possibly get every detail right, but he was close, while Spiegel and company were still stuck in their self-induced infantile fairy-tale stage.

This early phase of the normalization sequence is also an exciting time for ambitious mediocrities, when those who are greedy for recognition and other perks are rewarded for having a go at their betters, despite being intellectually – and probably ethically – pedestrian. Witness the mean-spirited, below-the-belt attack by German perma-talk show asset and security talking head Carlo Masala on Hersh back in the day. It was abysmally cringey then, and it has aged very badly.

The Three Stages of Normalizing the Totally Anomalous – from outrageous crime to bizarrely transparent lying, to a gradual release of fragments of truth without ever looking back on yesterday’s BS – are the real story here, not the wanna-be scoop offered by Spiegel.

Here is the key point we need to understand: Controlled, staged – in both senses of the term – revelations are not part of  achieving transparency or, even more importantly, accountability. Instead they are designed to first overwhelm, disorient, and paralyze us with massive lies and threats not to challenge them, and then to drip-feed us carefully selected and sequenced truth, so that we forget to ask about accountability, including for those who have been spreading lies and disinformation.

By the time, the full, already obvious truth about the Nord Stream attacks will finally be officially revealed (if ever), we will have forgotten to ask the equally obvious questions: Why then is Germany still a US vassal? Why is it still pumping money into an ultra-corrupt Ukraine and ruining its relationship with Russia to please both Washington and Zelensky’s Kiev? And why is a German government not protecting Germany from these predators? That is the purpose of the Three Stages of Normalizing the Totally Anomalous strategy. Don’t fall for it.

Ukrainian officials have developed a notorious reputation for their wildly inappropriate grasp of reality, including when it comes to sports.

One would think the Paralympics is a celebration of the perseverance and triumph of athletes with disabilities – those who have spent years working tirelessly to achieve their goals, training extensively, competing in events, meeting qualifying standards, and earning their place at the Olympics. What is more positive than the Paralympic Games? However, Ukrainian sports officials found a way to make headlines even here. They’re dissatisfied with the fact that representatives from Russia and Belarus will compete under their nations’ flags at the 2026 Paralympics in Italy, so they’ve announced a boycott of the official opening ceremony. This sentiment was quickly echoed by Lithuania’s prime minister.

This makes me wonder about a few things. Firstly: why do the Ukrainians believe their presence at the opening ceremony of the Paralympics is so important that the entire world should hold its breath to see if they show up? In reality, the attendance of any officials at major sporting events matters to no one but themselves – they hope to appear on camera and then proudly hang a photo of that moment in their office. No one else cares whether or not they come. 

Even if the entire Ukrainian delegation, including athletes, doesn’t show, it won’t have the slightest impact on the Paralympic movement. By doing so, Ukraine only reveals its true colors yet again. To express contempt for a Paralympian… I mean, how pathetic can you get? It would seem absurd to anyone – except Ukraine. 

February 19, 2026, will undoubtedly enter British history. Whether it will also come to be seen as a marker of the British Empire’s final unraveling remains an open question. That discussion can wait. For now, the facts themselves are striking enough.

At eight o’clock on Thursday morning, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the younger brother of King Charles III and the former Prince Andrew, was arrested at his residence in Sandringham. Until recently, he held the title of Duke of York and stood eighth in line to the throne. Coincidentally, it was also his 66th birthday.

It reads like the opening scene of a political thriller, bordering on dystopian fiction. Yet this is not cinema. It is unfolding in real time. 

Police searches were conducted at Wood Farm, where Andrew had been sent following the Epstein scandal, as well as at other royal estates associated with him. Given what has already emerged from what is now colloquially referred to as the “Epstein’s files,” the arrest itself is less surprising than the conspicuousness of the operation. 

The House of Windsor has historically excelled at containing scandal, sweeping family disgrace under the carpet until the last possible moment. This time, either it could not or chose not to. Andrew was publicly stripped of his military ranks and royal patronages and evicted from Royal Lodge in Windsor. A criminal investigation, under those circumstances, was almost inevitable. The only real uncertainty concerned timing and optics.

It remains unclear whether British authorities will reopen aspects of the Virginia Giuffre case. Giuffre, who died last year, claimed she was forced into sexual encounters with Andrew on three occasions in the early 2000s, including on Epstein’s Little Saint James island. Andrew has consistently denied the allegations.

Another unresolved question is whether Scotland Yard will pursue testimony from an anonymous FBI witness who claims he was drugged and taken to so-called “pedophile parties” in the mid-1990s. That witness also alleged being struck by a dark blue car “driven by Prince Andrew,” sustaining injuries to his ribs, hip, and leg. British media report that investigators are examining claims that members of the royal protection detail, including personnel linked to elite military units, witnessed abuse on Little Saint James and deliberately ignored it.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has already sought to frame the moment as a reaffirmation of principle. “One of the fundamental pillars of our system,” he declared, “is that everyone is equal before the law.” Mountbatten-Windsor, for his part, denies all charges. How the case will ultimately unfold remains uncertain.

There is, however, a broader and more uncomfortable implication. Judging by the allegations now attached to his name, the disgraced former prince appears to have joined a grim fraternity that includes some of the world’s most powerful elites. They range from American political dynasties to billionaire tech magnates. Hollywood is best left unmentioned; otherwise, we might be forced to rethink much of modern popular culture. To that list, it seems, can now be added Europe’s royal houses.

If London has chosen to act, a final question lingers: will Washington and other Western capitals follow suit? Or will this remain a uniquely British reckoning?

Within hours of the third-worst mass shooting in Canadian history, the mainstream legacy media has once again gone to great lengths to cover up the real identity of the shooter.

On February 10, residents of Tumbler Ridge, a remote town in British Columbia, Canada were left reeling from a shooting spree that left 9 dead and 27 wounded. Judging by the screaming headlines and stories that followed the attack, the majority of readers would certainly believe that a female shooter was responsible for the carnage.

The New York Times, in its early coverage of the massacre, would only describe the killer as a “female in a dress with brown hair.” While the Grey Lady was playing it safe, not revealing details until all of the facts were known, later reporting reserved just a single line to acknowledge that the killer, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, was “born as a biological male and chose to identify as a female.”

Meanwhile, the Associated Press completely and unforgivably failed to mention the fact that Rootselaar was a biological male. In its description of the killer, AP would only say that “she was an 18-year-old who had a history of police visits to her home to check on her mental health…”

That is a critical omission, since millions of people depend on the AP for their daily news consumption. News stories collected by the agency are published and republished by more than 1,300 newspapers and broadcasters. Founded in 1846, the AP attracts more than 128 million monthly website visits, making it one of the top 10 news websites in the US.

One thing all of the mainstream stories had in common is that the headlines declared the killer to be “female” as opposed to “trans”.

This brings us to the elephant in the room: Why does the media downplay the fact that an increasing number of shocking attacks being carried out today are by people who identify as “trans”? Unless you’ve been getting all of your information from the left-leaning mainstream media, you’ll know that the tragedy in British Columbia was not some aberration.

On March 27, 2023 in Nashville, transgender person Aiden Hale, 28, killed three nine‑year‑old children and three adults before being shot and killed by police officers. CNN, in a lengthy article on the shooting, only briefly mentions that Hale was “transgender” deep in the story.

On August 27, 2025 in Minneapolis, Robin Westman, formerly known as Robert Westman, opened fire through the stained-glass windows of a church at Annunciation Catholic School, killing two children and wounding 17. Once again, AP, The New York Times, CNN and the rest of the liberal media reported in passing that Westman identified as a woman.

Meanwhile, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, the alleged murderer of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, had transgender associations and beliefs. Not surprisingly, information on Robinson and his ongoing court case has practically vanished from the news cycle.

Given the low number of individuals who actually identify as transgender, the number of killings carried out by this miniscule group seems disproportionate and deserves some serious attention. Yet the mainstream media would prefer to treat its readers like children. Every time a violent event takes place involving a transgender person, it pulls the wool over our eyes and polices pronouns in a desperate attempt to control the narrative and make people stop asking questions.

Does the mainstream media have a duty to have a serious conversation with its readers about the biological makeup of suspected killers, with the same sort of enthusiasm it has when slamming gun rights? It seems to be the appropriate time to begin speaking about mental illness. After all, can we say with absolute certainty that believing oneself to be the opposite sex is truly a harmless behavior, or does it point to deeper psychological issues?

Whatever the case may be, we have come to the point in history when it is considered acceptable for young adults to pump their bodies full of hormone blockers and psychiatric drugs, and force scrupulous doctors out of business when they question such practices. Anyone who questions the procedures is outright deemed a bigot. None of that can be described as remotely sane or normal.

At the same time, the media regularly describes these impressionable transgender youths as victims in a world that is pitted against them. In a world dominated by social media, this is exactly the sort of programming that will cause them to seek attention and ‘15 minutes of fame’ by becoming transgender in the first place. It may even provoke a handful to strike back at their supposed ‘tormentors’, thus causing the death of more innocents.

This does not mean that every person suffering from gender dysphoria is a time bomb waiting to go off, of course. Nevertheless, we need to be honest with ourselves and speak out on the early warning signs of mental illness. To that end, the mainstream media must stop pretending that there is nothing to learn from an individual’s professed sexual self-identification. It could literally mean – as yet another stricken community has tragically learned – the difference between life and death.

Palantir Technologies has been hacked, according to well-known blogger Kim Dotcom. The company develops software for intelligence and big data analysis. 

Palantir (named after the magical ‘seeing stones’ from ‘The Lord of the Rings’) doesn’t engage in surveillance in the conventional sense using spies, cameras, or bugs. Instead, it develops software that is sold to government agencies, military organizations, and large corporations.

Clients (like the CIA or the German police) upload all their data, and Palantir (its primary platforms are Gotham for military purposes and Foundry for business) then utilizes AI to transform this chaotic information into a coherent picture.

Essentially, it creates a ‘digital twin’ of reality, revealing connections that analysts could have never recognized on their own: for example, that a terrorist had called the cousin of someone who recently transferred money to a suspicious account.

The claims about wiretapping Trump and Musk are likely untrue or highly exaggerated. However, there’s no doubt that Palantir serves as a massive surveillance mechanism for monitoring America’s adversaries (and not only). It is an “operating system for war and intelligence,” providing agencies with a supercomputer that can see everything. But it’s the agencies themselves that feed this computer with data.

Russia and China – which, according to Dotcom, will receive the data – may capitalize on the story. Finally, Kim Dotcom is a longstanding enemy of the American justice system (he faces piracy charges in the US), so any story that casts a shadow on the US establishment is profitable for him.

The most valuable data concerns Palantir’s developments for Ukraine. Should any documentation concerning the development of nuclear or biological weapons fall into Moscow’s hands, it could provide invaluable insights into Kiev’s ability to create a ‘dirty nuclear bomb’ or biological agents.

This would eliminate uncertainties and allow for the formulation of preemptive protective measures. Furthermore, disclosing the source codes or AI architecture employed by Israel in Gaza and adapted for use by the Ukrainian army would enable the development of more effective electronic warfare systems capable of deceiving those very algorithms.

What a relief, it’s over. This year’s Munich Security Conference (MSC) has ended.

In reality, the meeting has never had much to do with increasing anyone’s security. Otherwise, its Western participants would, for instance, not have laughed at the warning Russian President Vladimir Putin issued there as far back as 2007; taking it seriously could have spared the world – and Ukraine – the current de facto war between the West and Russia via Ukraine.

Almost two decades ago now, while Russia was resurging from its post-Soviet time of troubles, the movers and shakers of the West chose to haughtily dismiss Moscow’s objections to the Western project of establishing a “unipolar world.” That was sheer hubris: such a world was never to be, but the obstinate Western attempt to impose it has proven highly destructive.

Which brings us to the present. This year, the MSC has taken place under the odd motto “Under Destruction.” The phrase is both clumsy – the kind of sad things that happen when Germans try to sound original in English – and intriguingly pessimistic. Yet it could have had the advantage of signaling a growing willingness to face reality, in particular that of the West’s own mistakes over the last – roughly – third of a century. After the end of the original Cold War, the world has never been the West’s to remake, but the West did have a unique chance to improve it by practicing wise foresight (how hard was it to predict Russia would come back?), fairness (don’t kick a great power already down), and, last but not least, good faith (serial lying rots diplomacy from within).

But greed, incompetence, and arrogance prevailed from Washington to London and Brussels. Post-Soviet Russia was systematically, demonstratively, even gleefully treated without either elementary reason or minimal respect, and now we are where we are: “under destruction.” Tell ordinary Ukrainians about it: they know what it feels like. But that was not the way that the motto was meant at this year’s MSC, of course. The West does not do remorse. Instead, the vibe at Munich was “blame the others.”

There also are, it is true, ongoing tensions between the US under President Donald Trump and the NATO-EU Europeans. Some of the latter have found enough of a spine to hint and sometimes even openly say out loud that Washington has made it harder for the West to pretend to be united. Especially Merz has received much exaggerated praise for stating the obvious and adding his own pessimistic twist to the “under destruction” theme: For the dour, rather self-important German leader the cozy Western-dominated order is not merely “under destruction” but already gone. His answer: make Europe more militaristic again, with a fierce Germany in the lead. Yes, that approach has worked so well before. Not.

Merz also believes – no one knows why – that the relationship with the US can be rebalanced. Reminding Washington that it, too, needs allies and friends, Merz seems to believe the Americans could be interested in a relationship between – fundamentally – equals. Yet that, historically, speaking is what the US never does. If it sees you as client or vassal material, that’s the treatment you will get. If it sees you as a potential equal, it will respect you more while also treating you as an opponent to be contained, besieged, subverted, and, ultimately, brought down. Merz should be very careful about what he is wishing for. But then, history has never been the forte of this privileged party careerist and former BlackRock provincial sinecure holder.

There would, of course, be a way of balancing the rapacious US, namely not repairing “trust” across the Atlantic – what a bizarre, shlocky, even childish notion; as if that has ever made the difference among serious people – but building normal relationships with both China and Russia. Yet one thing that this MSC seems to have shown is that the NATO-EU Europeans are not yet done with their delusions. For one thing they have affirmed their personal veneration for Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine and their willingness to get even deeper into the Ukraine War. They have also told each other tall tales of all the things NATO-EU Europe can do on its own, including of course, reshaping and extending their nuclear arsenals.

Especially since the US is also staying the course, the Trumpist course, that is. Because that was the main message of Secretary of State’s Marco Rubio’s also greatly over-rated speech. While less openly hostile than the lusty verbal assault delivered by his eternal competitor J.D. Vance at the last Munich get-together (yet another low bar), in essence, Rubio’s address made no concessions. What the US is now offering the Europeans is no protection and plenty of demands. No wonder, once they have been officially demoted to third place behind the US policies of dominating the Western hemisphere and of conducting a Cold War against China. Washington to Euro-Vassals: You are on your own, really. But you will still serve us. What a deal! For the Americans. Call it the Turnberry of In-Security, if you wish.

In short, this Munich Security Conference was, really, sort of a bore. Despite all the hype about the NATO-EU Europeans finding their feet and kind of asserting themselves, a little, what has really happened is that the US told them that they will be permitted – and expected – to accept “burden-shifting” (not even “sharing” any longer) from Washington. The Europeans, in their turn, made some noises along the lines of “you need us, too” – What. An. Insight. – and “we can start learning to walk on our own feet.” And the US representatives were kind and uninterested enough to tolerate that much backtalk.

What should have happened at a security conference worth its name has, of course, not happened: a serious assessment of Western mistakes and failures since, at the very latest, 2007, a fundamental, radical reconsideration of the relationship with Russia and China, and only on that basis a real, not rhetorical, not gradual but again fundamental re-assessment of the relationship with the US, regardless of who happens to be in power in Washington. By the difference between those obvious necessities and the ideological claptrap and wishful thinking that was actually on offer, you can measure how far Europe really is from solving its ever-worsening geopolitical problems. As a European, I see no reason for hope.

Ukraine’s self-declared above-election leader Vladimir Zelensky has found time to publicly share his fantasies with the only audience he cares about: the West, in particular the US, and specifically its president Donald Trump. Since it must be hard for Zelensky to get anyone’s ear in Washington nowadays – who likes a sponger returning for the zillionth time after being shown the door? – he had to do it in public. Luckily, The Atlantic was ready to help (sort of, but we’ll get to that). And yes, that would be the same Atlantic that has downplayed the Epstein monstrosities.

Unduly platformed in the Western mainstream media once again, Zelensky used a conversation with American journalist Simon Shuster to hold forth on his unyielding will to fight to the very last Ukrainian, or, really, the last one who isn’t rich and connected. Because, in Zelensky’s cozy Kiev office – nicely decorated with some of those Ukrainian unit insignia that look just like Nazi ones – Ukraine is not really losing the war. Just like Germany back then, I guess. And since Ukraine is not really losing the war in Zelensky-world, Zelensky seeks to persuade Trump that Russia can be compelled into a peace that does not correspond to the fact that, in the real world, Russia is winning the war. See? Easy! If only Donald would finally get it, too.

Yet, hyper-focused as he is on getting back into the good graces – and purse – of Washington, Zelensky is missing the fact that ordinary Ukrainians have had enough. Or, of course, he simply could not care less. Yet a fact remains a fact: Ukrainians are not only unwilling to go to the front to die, be injured, or captured in a perfectly avoidable and absolutely hopeless proxy war on behalf of the West, they are also increasingly rebellious.

Indeed, they have long been reluctant enough to produce extremely high rates of going AWOL and desertion: Since February 2022, the total number of prosecutions for both – slightly different – ways of running from the military has reached about 300,000. Since the authorities do not even have the capacity to go after all cases, this is certain to be an undercount.

Just consider a few recent facts: As Ukrainian news site Strana.ua reports, a high Ukrainian official has just had to admit that the number of official complaints submitted against the forced-recruitment gangs from the so-called TTsK offices has doubled between 2024 and 20025. (TTsK is an abbreviation for, roughly, “territorial manpower re-supply centers.”) Yet official complaints are only the tip of the iceberg. What is much more important is the rising resistance on the ground. Both the men targeted by the TTsK goons and all sorts of bystanders – family, friends, colleagues, complete strangers who happen to be present) are fighting back.

This, too, is not unprecedented: Cases of open rebellion against forced mobilization have occurred for at least two years. Last fall, for instance, a TTsK office was attacked in a provincial town in Ukraine’s usually hyper-nationalist extreme West. Apparently, even there, dying for Zelensky’s war for NATO is not popular anymore. Three months ago, in the big port city of Odessa, a crowd attacked a TTsK vehicle to free its captives.

It’s not hard to understand the main reason people fight back against being dragged off into a hopeless and useless war. But there are other reasons as well: The manhunting gangs of TTsK have an awful and richly deserved reputation for excessive violence, as even Western infowar outlet Radio Svoboda has long had to admit: some of their victims have died, that is, been killed by TTsK personnel before ever getting to see the front or even basic training (which is hardly worth the label in Ukraine). TTsK manhunters also engage in petty yet brutal crime such as kidnapping for ransom and theft. It goes without saying that the whole mess is shot through, from top to bottom, with ruthless, bloodsucking corruption. This is Ukraine, after all.

Yet they can be resisted. As Strana.ua reports, the escalating struggles between the forced-mobilization goons and their victims are beginning to resemble a “quiet war, but this time inside Ukraine.” Ordinary Ukrainians, and again, very much including in the often hyper-nationalist West of the country with its regional metropole Lviv, are ramping up their defense against their own authorities’ relentless death wish. Only over the last month, men in Dnepropetrovsk and Lviv pulled knives to fight back against the TTsK manhunters. Also in Lviv Region, other unwilling recruits have deployed at least one grenade and firearms to cover their escape. And so on.

Zelensky may be delusional and, as that Atlantic piece admits, “petulant.” He may also be unwilling to listen to even his own advisers, some of whom at least, we read, have finally understood that peace must be made soon or things will only get worse for Ukraine. But Ukrainians in general – despite the enormous manipulation of their media and the authoritarian suppression applied by the Zelensky regime are not only saying “no.” They are acting on it. And they are right to do so. They have been abused as cannon fodder by their “friends” from hell in the West and their own regime. Ironically, what they really need is another one of their famous “Maidans.” But this time without Western interference.

Nearly two weeks have passed since the publication of materials related to the Jeffrey Epstein case, yet public interest shows no sign of fading. On the contrary, the controversy surrounding Epstein’s archive seems only to be intensifying. What was released proved scandalous enough to dominate headlines, but insufficient to satisfy expectations. The result is a familiar mix of outrage, suspicion, and conspiracy.

Epstein’s so-called ‘library’ was immediately presented as a trove of dark secrets. Judging by the reaction in the media and social media, Epstein was transformed into a near-mythical embodiment of evil: A man who is said to have penetrated every sphere of elite life, knew everyone who mattered, and was somehow responsible for everything from global political decay to modern cultural malaise. In this telling, Epstein became not merely a criminal, but a symbol for all that is rotten in the West.

And yet, for all the noise, the revelations led almost nowhere.

The only country where the files produced noticeable political resonance was Britain. Even there, the reaction owed less to Epstein himself than to domestic conditions: A grinding economic crisis, widespread social frustration, and deep distrust of Keir Starmer’s government. The Epstein story landed on fertile ground already primed for scandal.

In the US, where the release was most eagerly anticipated, the response was strikingly muted. There were insinuations about a shadowy pedophile cult among American elites, but no solid evidence to support the claims. No new accomplices were named. No client lists emerged. No dramatic confirmations followed. Even Donald Trump’s opponents failed to extract anything useful; they settled instead for Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who was caught lying about contact with Epstein. That was it.

From this, two basic conclusions can be drawn. Either the true scale of Epstein’s crimes has been vastly exaggerated, or the US authorities are still concealing the most damaging material. Personally, I lean toward the former explanation.

Many Americans, however, have reached the opposite conclusion. Since the released documents failed to reveal the expected horrors, they believe they have been deliberately misled. This sense of betrayal has reignited the conspiracy machine. Rumors multiply. Speculation hardens into certainty. Politicians, as ever, are happy to help.

The second criticism concerns the sheer volume of unpublished material. Initially, US officials claimed Epstein’s archive contained around 6 million files. Of these, roughly 3.5 million were released. That’s just over half. Then the process stopped.

The explanation offered by the US deputy attorney general was predictable: The remaining files are said to contain victims’ personal data, materials connected to other investigations, or duplicate documents already made public. For a significant portion of the American public, this explanation was wholly unsatisfactory. Many are convinced that the missing 2.5-3 million files conceal the most explosive information: Senior figures, unmistakable evidence, and proof of a far-reaching criminal network. They now demand total disclosure.

Will they get it? Almost certainly not.

The Epstein debate continues largely because it serves immediate political needs. With congressional elections approaching, the scandal – more precisely, the way the White House has handled it – offers a convenient tool for attacking the administration. Add to this America’s long-standing culture of conspiratorial thinking, which makes it difficult for many citizens to accept banal explanations, and the outcome is inevitable. There must be a hidden agenda. There must be something more. Even if there isn’t.

Strip away the hysteria, and the picture becomes less cinematic. Epstein was a deeply immoral individual with a remarkable talent for cultivating social connections and exploiting them. His crimes were real and reprehensible. But his influence on world affairs has been grossly overstated.

The available files suggest that Epstein’s criminal activity consisted of a specific, relatively contained scheme: Recruiting underage girls to satisfy his own perverted desires, with the involvement of a small circle of associates and facilitators. Most of these people are obscure, even to Americans. Let alone to Russians. If a vast, powerful network truly existed, credible witnesses or decisive evidence would almost certainly have emerged by now, without the need for additional document dumps.

If the remaining files are ever released, they are unlikely to produce genuine revelations. At best, they may add new famous names to the list of people Epstein corresponded with or socialized alongside. This will generate new rumors, selective leaks, and renewed moral panic – but not clarity. The purpose will not be truth, but tension: Maintaining a level of public outrage useful to all sides in America’s political struggle.

In short, Epstein was a criminal, not the puppet master of the modern world. The myth that has grown around him says more about American political culture than about the man himself.

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team

During the Vietnam War, US National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger concocted the ‘Madman Theory’. The idea was to force the North Vietnamese and the Soviet Union to negotiate with Washington by making them think that then-President Richard Nixon was so crazy that working things out was a better alternative than not doing so. Hanoi didn’t buy it. But maybe the EU establishment will in 2026?

Well, they believe there’s a madman in the White House, alright. But the outcome is, once again, probably not entirely what Washington had in mind.

“Let no one be mistaken in thinking that the true intention of the US was simply to confront a geopolitical threat,” French President Emmanuel Macron told El Pais in a new interview, addressing US President Donald Trump’s recent threats to take Greenland by force for “national security” reasons. “It was not the Russians or the Chinese who posed the threat. I can tell you that we have compiled an intelligence tally of the number of Russian and Chinese ships and submarines that were around Greenland and whose presence we detected: It is negligible.”

It seems that Trump has managed to do the impossible and make EU leaders switch out their Russian invasion fantasies for American ones. And wouldn’t you know it, that actually works out better for them, because they’ve spent years trying – and failing – to convince Europeans that Putin is going to kick down the door to the EU sometime around 2030. This looming, abstract invasion fantasy that’s always just far enough away to hope that people will have forgotten all about it by the time they’ve successfully used it as a pretext to steal billions in taxpayer cash.

Meanwhile, Europeans have long been like, “Yawn, yeah okay, let me guess, you need more of our money again, right?” It’s like the guy trying to sell you a home alarm system by having the neighbor – Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky in this case – constantly talk about how his place got broken into. And how he was just a totally random victim. Just sitting there, minding his own business, doing nothing at all to do with dodgy neo-Nazis and NATO weapons on the Russian border. So it could have happened to anyone! Even you, Europe! Because NATO’s so fragile, apparently. What have they been buying with all our money? Nerf guns?

So lucky for guys like Macron, they now have a whole new narrative that gives them much better cover for the exact same scheme of washing massive amounts of public funds into defense spending. The new message coming now from Macron effectively marginalizes any existential threat from Russia or China in favor of panic about an American one.

The EU has to become a “power” to fend them off, he now says. And it’s not just a matter of not being able to rely on the US anymore, which is what they were trying to sell back when Russia was the main villain. And this is even better for the EU’s plans, because Europeans actually find Trump attacking the bloc entirely plausible, for one. So that helps.

And on top of that, this new narrative lets EU leaders commandeer taxpayer money not just for the defense sector but for several other sectors as well, since Europe is deeply dependent on the US right across the board. And this massive spending spree conveniently boosts their own political survival odds, because it props up their flagging economies.

Macron is now talking about the need to build an entire tech ecosystem independent from the US, phasing out government use of American software like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Webex, and telling El Pais that the US is going to attack on the digital regulation front in the coming months as well. Probably because Washington doesn’t appreciate that the EU is fed up with Elon Musk using his social media platform (and personal bullhorn), X, and its opaque algorithms, to control online narratives that Europeans get fed. In the same vein, American officials have also openly confirmed their intent to fund pro-Trump European NGOs, in the same meddling style of their nemesis, George Soros.

Macron calls the current American ideology “blatantly anti-European.” Apparently, it took Trump spelling it out for him, letter by letter, to notice. Decades of actively undermining the EU as an economic competitor just didn’t quite make the point clear enough.

So now that there’s a new main villain supercharging this European tax-and-spend narrative way better than hating on Russia or China ever did, guess what? Sounds like Russia’s getting a soft rebrand.

“Like it or not, Russia will still be there tomorrow. And it turns out it’s right on our doorstep. It’s important to structure the resumption of a European debate with them,” Macron told El Pais. The Kremlin confirms that technical talks have resumed between France and Russia. So Macron seems to be arriving at the same conclusion that former French President Charles de Gaulle did 60 years ago: The idea of “Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals” as a counterbalance to the US as Europe’s potential overlord.

Remember those security guarantees that Macron was insisting the US provide to Europe against Russia in Ukraine? Well, these days, it sounds like he’d rather work those out with Russia than with Washington. “We will have to build a new security architecture in Europe with Russia,” Macron now says. “Tomorrow’s prosperity concerns Europeans. Or would you prefer that American ambassadors and envoys negotiate on your behalf the date of Ukraine’s entry into the EU?”

Know what all this is starting to sound like? Someone trying to dump a bad screenplay halfway through filming. In this case, because the hero suddenly got recast as the bad guy. In reality, it was a naive miscast right from the start.

There weren’t just two football teams going head-to-head during Super Bowl LX. There were two distinct cultural movements clashing at a time of great upheaval in the United States.

At a time when American cities are teeming with ICE agents searching for illegal migrants from South America to round up and eject from the country, it doesn’t take a political analyst to predict that Bad Bunny’s performance at the Super Bowl halftime show would serve as a lightning rod in the country.

Bad Bunny – real name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio – is a three-time Grammy Award winner from Puerto Rico who was chosen to entertain American football fans during one of the most-watched sporting spectacles in the world. In the past, the entertainer has made critical remarks about the ICE raids so many were anticipating something similar during the Super Bowl.

Earlier this month, for example, Ocasio won a Grammy Award and during his acceptance speech taunted the Trump administration by saying, “Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say: ICE out.” He then gave a nod to the millions of immigrants who “leave their home, land, their country, to follow their dreams.” He casually ignored the fact that in their effort to “follow their dreams” so many immigrants chose to break the law and enter the US illegally.

During the Super Bowl halftime show, the Puerto Rican avoided any mention of ICE and the current war on illegal immigration. But that doesn’t mean his 15-minute performance was void of political messaging. Instead, he threw his support behind a different political flashpoint: cultural diversity, the exact thing that an increasing number of political conservatives say is destroying the American way of life.

Many on the political right fear that the US is being destroyed from within by so-called ‘white replacement’ in which immigrants are flocking to America for the precise purpose of making the white population a minority. MAGA adherents are of the opinion that the main reason that the Democrats opened the floodgates to illegal migration in the first place was to bolster the number of Democratic voters.

At the end of his halftime set, Martínez Ocasio’s backup dancers appeared on stage hoisting flags of countries in South America. This also appeared strange and out of place to many conservative commentators, who wondered what place foreign flags have at one of America’s greatest national traditions. In any case, having a Super Bowl halftime show where the main performer sings entirely in Spanish and waves other nations’ flags is an obvious political statement that should not be tolerated at a sporting event where 78% of the viewers speak English.

He also held up a football emblazoned with the words: “TOGETHER, WE ARE AMERICA.”

It’s unfortunate that the message of brotherly love quickly turned into utter degeneracy. Critics were particularly appalled by the immoral lyrics of the music, especially the song “Tití Me Preguntó” (“My Auntie Asked Me”), which sings the praises of promiscuity.

In the song, Bad Bunny celebrates his many sexual conquests, singing “let the ones I already f**ked smile” and brags about a girl who “came by plane” from Barcelona and says his “d**k is on fire.”

The chorus responded in typical libertine fashion, “Today I have one, tomorrow I’ll have another, hey, but there’s no wedding.”

The lyrics were aired live to millions of viewers of all ages.

US President Donald Trump was not impressed with the performance.

“The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World,” the US leader fumed on Truth Social.

Today, millions of Americans – many of them born and bred conservatives - share that same opinion. In fact, Turning Point USA, the conservative youth movement founded by the late Charlie Kirk, decided to throw their own alternative halftime party, which was notable by the excess of white faces, both in the audience and on the stage.

“We want to celebrate America; we do not want to crap on it,” Turning Point spokesman Andrew Kolvet said, previewing the organization’s alternative halftime event on ‘The Charlie Kirk Show.’ “When the other guys are doing their queer celebration, speaking Spanish – whatever you want to do, that’s fine – but we’re going to be celebrating this country.”

At the same time, One Million Moms, a Christian group, announced a boycott of Bad Bunny’s performance over his support of LGBTQ+ rights.

It’s unfortunate that the one American tradition that should unite the American people seems to pull them further apart year after year as the halftime show dabbles more and more in utter depravity. Some observers have gone so far as the call it ‘satanic.’ For some reason, the producers of the event willfully push divisiveness and degeneracy on the audience instead of just giving Americans a wholesome show. The solution to the madness of organizing dueling halftime events underscored the notion that the US is, in fact, becoming two separate warring camps inside of one country. Whether all of this ends in some sort of civil war is anyone’s guess, but the current trend does not look promising for the future of the nation.

The assassination of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in Zintan on February 3 is the final, bloody exclamation point on the catastrophe of the 2011 NATO intervention. For 15 years, the West dismissed Saif’s early warnings of ‘rivers of blood’ and a ‘darker page’ as the desperate rhetoric of a dying regime; today, those words read like a precise architectural blueprint of Libya’s ruin.

For over a decade, the international community treated Saif as a ghost of the past or a legal nuisance for the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Yet, on the ground, he remained the last tether for millions of supporters known as the ‘Greens’ – a socio-political movement loyal to his father Muammar Gaddafi, Jamahiriya (former state from 1977-2011) and represented by the solid green flag. Far from being a fringe group, this constituency remains a crucial pillar of the fragile stability in Libya’s restive south, where Saif served as the primary mediator between competing tribal interests. His removal from the board now triggers a terrifying realignment of power that threatens to incinerate what little remains of the country’s political process.

I stood among a sea of people in Bani Walid – a crowd so vast it felt less like a funeral and more like a posthumous national referendum. For many mourners, this was a deeply personal surrogate for the funeral they were denied for Saif’s father in 2011 – whose grave is still secret; they came to bury the son, but they were also mourning the fall of an era.

To the ‘Greens’ his burial was not an end, but a reclamation. At the northern entrance to the city, a towering billboard stands as a defiant gatekeeper, depicting Muammar Gaddafi alongside Saddam Hussein, Khamis, and the local martyrs who fell defending the city in 2011 and 2012. During the funeral RT was informed by an anonymous local official that Saif’s image is to be added to this pantheon. It signalled that their movement is not a ‘fringe’ element, but a solidified nation within a nation, now radicalized by the loss of their only viable political anchor.

Saif’s trajectory over the last decade is a study in survival that defied every script written for him in London or Washington. Long before he was a fugitive, he was the darling of the Western establishment – a painter whose exhibitions in London, Brussels, and New York were attended by the very political and social elites who would later lead the charge for his downfall. This was the ‘reformist’ face of the Jamahiriya – the unique ‘state of the masses’ system of direct democracy established by his father. While the system’s ideological goal was a decentralized power structure, in practice it remained a highly focused regime that Saif sought to modernize from within. He was a man who used his influence not for formal titles, but for high-stakes diplomacy, spearheading charities that successfully negotiated the release of Western hostages across the globe.

The very figures who later joined the choir projecting him as a ‘devil in a suit’ were once the same ones who lauded his humanitarianism and academic depth. He went from being the sophisticated bridge between Libya and the world to a prisoner in Zintan, and finally to a candidate whose legal right to run – upheld by the courts – so terrified the Western powers who knew he would win the vote. They chose to paralyze the entire UN-backed political process rather than allow the vote to proceed.

Beyond the symbolic tragedy, the pragmatic implications for Libya’s South are catastrophic. For years, Saif was the unspoken ‘Third Force’ in the Fezzan – a figure who defined the heavily embedded tribal fabric of the region. Even in his silence, the tribes looked to him almost exclusively; their loyalty was a deep-rooted alignment that neither the Tripoli-based militias nor the eastern-based LNA (Libyan National Army) could ever replicate or buy. His presence in the Hamada area near Zintan was far more than a refuge; it was the primary diplomatic hub for a disenfranchised South. Now, with the ‘anchor’ of the Green movement gone, the fragile equilibrium he maintained by sheer presence has been shattered.

Without Saif to act as this mediating pole, the South risks descending into a multi-sided gang war that will inevitably draw in regional neighbors, turning the Fezzan into a proxy battlefield even more volatile than the coast.

The sea of mourners in Bani Walid last week was a raw manifestation of the popular mandate the Libyan people have been denied. It is no secret that the collapse of the December 2021 elections was triggered by the ‘political earthquake’ of Saif’s candidacy – a candidacy the Libyan courts cleared, but the West could not stomach. All relevant debate and credible analysis projected him as a winner should that vote have gone ahead. This popular mandate was met with direct intervention from Western diplomats.

In a live stream on December 2, 2021, then-UK Ambassador Caroline Hurndall explicitly said that Saif was wanted by the ICC and should face the charges not run for elections. Two weeks after the elections were halted US Envoy Richard Norland blamed “contradictory candidacies” – a clear reference to Saif – for derailing the vote. The international community’s fixation on a ‘roadmap’ toward April 2026 is a cruel mirage if it continues to ignore this reality.

In the end, the bullets in Zintan have brought Saif al-Islam’s 2011 warnings to their grim zenith. As he famously cautioned back in 2011, NATO’s intervention did not just topple a man – his father; it dismantled the very foundations of a state, replacing sovereignty with a subordination of fractured tribes and endless blood. For over a decade, Saif survived as a living testament to that failure – a candidate whose mere name on a ballot was enough to paralyze a system that claimed to be democratic yet feared the people’s choice. By removing him, his killers have not secured the status quo; they have destroyed the last symbolic anchor for millions of Libyans who still believed a unified, civilian return to order was possible.

As the desert winds settle over the unprecedented crowds in Bani Walid, it is clear that Libya has not been ‘liberated’ from the ghost of the Jamahiriya. Instead, the country has finally entered the lawless void Saif predicted – a vacuum where the only remaining language is the one he warned would come: the language of the gun.

Yet, the biggest casualty of this murder is the fragile project of national reconciliation. For years, Saif served as an indispensable mediator – a political gravity well that offered a legitimate alternative to the entirely discredited post-2011 elite. Despite his silence, he was the primary driver for reconciliation among Libyans with focus on the Southern tribes, where his influence was a stabilizing factor. While his supporters currently lack a unified military force on the ground, their political withdrawal effectively orphans the peace process.

By killing the man who urged his followers to trust the ballot over the bullet, the perpetrators have dynamited the only bridge that remained between the country’s fractured past and its potential future. The architects of this chaos have ensured that the only remaining language is the one of silent, simmering resentment – and this time, there is no one left to talk the country back from the edge.

The Committee on the Judiciary of the US House of Representatives has issued an important report. Its title is an officialese mouthful: “The Foreign Censorship Threat, Part II: Europe’s decade-long campaign to censor the global internet and how it harms American speech in the United States.” Yet even if the report’s almost 160 pages may be a little dry, they pack a powerful and well-deserved punch. A punch directed at the EU.

In essence, the House Judiciary report shows how the EU, in particular its happily unelected and power-grabbing apparatchik rulers in the European Commission, have used the pretext of fighting online “disinformation” and “hate speech” to suppress legitimate speech, information, and debate. The report also details how this policy of behind-the-scenes (so much for public accountability) manipulation and censorship has already been deployed to finagle six national elections (so much for sovereignty, democracy, and the rule-of-law).

And that is not counting the fiasco that ensued when former EU Commissar –  pardon, Commissioner, of course –  Thierry Breton tried to pressure X into suppressing an interview with Donald Trump. Or the less well-known scandal of another high-ranking EU bureaucrat – a Commission Vice President, no less – telling TikTok representatives she wanted to discuss both EU-related matters (sort of her turf) and US elections (boundaries, please?).

In Europe itself, according to the Judiciary Committee report, “the European Commission has pressured platforms to censor content ahead of national elections in Slovakia, the Netherlands, France, Moldova, Romania, and Ireland.” And note, please, that one of these countries, Moldova, is not even in the EU.

The nature of this EU interference has been bluntly biased. In the Slovak elections of 2023, for instance, content censored as “hate speech” included: “There are only two genders,” “Children cannot be trans,” “We need to stop the sexualization of young people/children.” Whatever you think about these statements, it is absurd to label them “hate speech.” To do so means suppressing legitimate speech and betrays bad faith as well as the intent to deceive and manipulate.

The key mechanism for this decade-long influence campaign was almost a hundred meetings – that we now know about – between representatives of the EU and of major social media companies, such as YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter (now X). But these meetings were only the tip of the iceberg. During the EU’s push to bias the public debate on Covid-19 and vaccinations alone, there were over “100 opportunities for the European Commission to pressure platforms to modify their content moderation policies and identify which online narratives on vaccines and other important political topics should be censored.” After Covid-19, another milestone of escalating manipulation was, as the report also notes, the Ukraine War, that is, the war between the West and Russia via Ukraine. Who would have thought?

In general, the Judiciary Committee report finds that the EU’s censorship strategy has been regrettably successful. Although initially sold as based on “consensus” and “voluntary” participation, it was really aiming at coercion from the beginning – a very EU way of doing things, by the way – even before it became openly compulsory, a development marked by the Digital Services Act (DSA) passed in 2022 and entering into force in 2023.

First, note that – as with the EU’s ongoing campaign to stifle legitimate dissent by the use of life-wrecking “sanctions” against individuals (read: deliberate devastation of their economic and social life) – the speech in the EU’s crosshairs is neither explicitly illegal nor “violative.” This is a shameless strategy explicitly designed to suppress speech that does not break any laws.

And then, “meme subculture”? Including cats, must we assume? Why not just shut down the whole internet then?

But let’s disregard the absurd comprehensiveness of this bureaucrat’s wet-dream wish-list of “zip-it-peasants!” orders. Let’s focus on a serious issue. In principle, you do not have to agree but you can argue that protecting migrants, Muslim believers, and LGBTIQ people from truly hateful and incendiary verbal attacks – calls for violence, for instance – is an aim worth suppressing some extreme speech. Never mind even that, in EU reality, such policies are virtually certain to be misused to suppress legitimate if politically inconvenient statements. Such restrictions, moreover, would hardly be applied to Israelis and their trolls when they run interference for the Gaza genocide and other Israeli crimes.

But targeting “populist rhetoric?” What is that even supposed to mean? Every statement not coming from or agreeable to the establishment in politics, media, “think-tank” indoctrination outfits, and academia? And “anti-government/anti-EU?” Frankly: What?!? There’s no lack of clarity here: anything, clearly, principally opposing and displeasing those that rule us is VERBOTEN! Welcome to a censorship regime that, at least, is refreshingly clear about its petty, sulking egotism.

Likewise for “anti-elite.” Oh, no! We must have been uppity about our touchy betters! And the pièce de résistance (or rather of submission): No jokes! “Political satire” also VERBOTEN! Indeed, how dare we laugh at the likes of, say, Kaja “I will be very smart” Kallas or Annalena “360 Degrees” Baerbock?

Yet there are, of course, layers of dark irony here. First, here we have an American House of Representatives committee, that is, a part of the US establishment – together with its “mainstream media” information war outlets the single largest and most contaminating source of propaganda on the planet – going after EU censorship and manipulation. Mote, beam, eye.

The American motivation is transparent and – surprise, surprise – dishonest: The Judiciary Committee’s report seeks to undermine other countries’ national sovereignty by attacking in general what it calls “country-by-country moderation” of US-based social media platforms as “a significant privacy threat.” That may well be the case. Yet, in reality, what Washington feels threatened by is obviously, not being able to wield a monopoly on censorship and manipulation to promote its own rapacious geopolitics abroad, including regime change subversion. Or as the report puts it disingenuously, content moderation rules “must be global,” read: American-only.

Perhaps the single most important political argument advanced by the Judiciary Committee’s report is that the EU’s pervasive suppression of free speech has affected not only its own citizens – or would that be subjects, really? – but those of the US as well, because the EU Commission “specifically sought to censor American content” and in addition, as a side-effect of the fact that the EU’s “censorship campaign” is “global.” True, and, as they say, it takes a well-established global villain to know an upstart one.

The irony here will be obvious to those who have followed the brutal US (and British) hounding of publisher and journalist Julian Assange. There, US prosecutors invented the bizarre – and very American – theory that the US has a right to go after foreign citizens (Australian) in foreign countries (the UK) on the basis of American laws, but that those foreign citizens prosecuted abroad under American laws do not enjoy even the flimsy protections granted by the American constitution.

And now, the same US is all worked up because the EU has found a way to make its laws inconvenience Americans. Let’s just say, those two, Washington and Brussels, really richly deserve each other. One day, maybe they’ll work out their respective kinks regarding logic and consistency when it comes to defining jurisdictions.

This is, of course, moreover, a branch of the same US government whose presidency has also massively censored its extremely unwilling release of merely one half of the Epstein Files, a trove of documents for which the world, not just the US, needs full transparency. Yet as they incriminate swathes of the American establishment and its cronies in the West and also expose massive Israeli subversion, the Epstein Files remain very “moderated,” if that is the word.

Finally, let’s not be sentimental about the American social media companies either. They also practice their own regimes of “boosting” and “deboosting” content, that is, of manipulation and censorship, all of them, including, of course Elon Musk’s X. They may differ in degree but none have permitted unbiased and open reflection of the worst crime of the twenty-first century, the Gaza genocide committed by Israel and large parts of the West together.

And yet, notwithstanding Washington’s hypocritical motivations and its own awful record as well as the social media companies’ own manipulations, the new US report does have a solid case about the EU’s censorship and manipulation regime and plenty of good evidence, which is probably why mainstream European media hardly mention it. Ironically, that too is merely illustrating the larger point: The EU has a big problem with freedom of speech and the spaces in which to practice it. If its bureaucrat barons dislike the uncouth US indictment, they only have themselves to blame.

It seems to have dawned on the EU’s energy commissioner that the bloc has a bit of a dependency problem. “There’s a growing concern, which I share, that we risk replacing one dependency with another,” Dan Jorgensen said of the switch from Russian to US energy. You wish, bro! Truth is, they haven’t even managed that much.

“Switching” dependencies implies the existence of a dependable alternative source – that they’ve grabbed securely onto the second branch before letting go of the first. In reality, they’ve mostly just landed on their backside with a pile of energy bills crashing down upon their own citizens.

Worse, when a blast of Arctic weather hit both the US and Europe earlier this month, it turned out that the US wasn’t exactly in a position to gallop across the Atlantic to Europe’s rescue, because it was busy trying to keep its own citizens’ heaters running.

The EU has long had a habit of sailing confidently into the middle of the ocean, spotting no land in any direction, then lighting its own sails on fire in service of whatever ideologically charged ambition happens to be in fashion, and saying, “Well, guess we’ll just figure out how to get back to shore. Fingers crossed.”

Meanwhile, EU citizens are yelling about how monumentally dumb it is, while being reassured by their overlords that they’re actually winning big. Even as daily life keeps suggesting otherwise.

Now the EU bureaucracy itself has started yelling at the unelected executive that sets policy for the bloc. Remember that much-hyped energy transition to renewables that Brussels promised to lock in by 2030? The one they keep mentioning in between warnings that Putin is supposedly about to roll into Europe at around the same time?

Well, it turns out that the bloc’s own European Court of Auditors has taken a look and said, hey bozos, this renewables transition has about the same odds of materializing by 2030 as a herd of purple unicorns. Why? Well, the title of their report kind of gives it away: “Critical raw materials for the energy transition – Not a rock-solid policy.” Translation: you don’t actually have a large, stable supply of the minerals needed to build batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels.

Fourteen agreements in five years, half of them with countries that have “low governance scores,” meaning the corruption is pre-baked into the contract. Which might explain why imports have gone down instead of up – by HALF.

The legislation also aimed to source 25% of these minerals from “recycled sources.” Literally turning household appliances into high-tech weapons, just like the EU once claimed Russia was doing in Ukraine. But that’s not even happening either, actually. Recycling rates sit between a dazzling 1% and 5% for a handful of minerals, according to the report.

So yeah, that 2030 target isn’t looking too good. Has anyone told Queen Ursula von der Leyen? Because just a few days ago, she was lecturing the rest of the planet on how to pull it off. “All continents will have to speed up the transition towards net zero and deal with the growing burden of climate change… Its impact is impossible to ignore… From decarbonizing to nature-based solutions, from building a circular economy to developing nature credits, the Paris Agreement continues to be the best hope for all humanity. So Europe will stay the course and keep working with all nations that want to protect nature and stop global warming,” said the unelected European Commission chief.

Since renewables aren’t remotely ready to match the EU’s fantasy projections, it’s lucky that Russian gas is still flowing – specifically through the Turkstream pipeline – jumping 10 percent in January compared to last year, according to Reuters, even as the EU congratulates itself for cutting off its Russian supply.

Hang on. The Belgian Prime Minister has something to say. “We’ve made dogmatic choices against nuclear energy, which was the stupidity of the century. We are still there now. We’re trying to come back… We’re far,” says Prime Minister Bart De Wever.

Excuse you, sir! This is the next Industrial Revolution you’re talking about! And change doesn’t come cheap, mister!

It also doesn’t come with an iron stomach, apparently. One of the other renewable ideas that the EU has been pushing is getting people to eat bugs for protein, since insects, unlike cows, don’t blast out planet-destroying flatulence and deuces.

The problem is that eating bugs is, scientifically-speaking – how do you say it… Oh yeah, freaking disgusting to most people. Which would explain why Hollywood stars like Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr. were trotted out to promote it.

Here’s Iron Guts – er, Iron Man – trying to get you psyched about eating bugs during a chat with Stephen Colbert five years ago: “Well, that’s an insect-based premium protein… The company is called Ynsect… This is a powder derived from the mealworm and it’s an insect protein. Just been approved by the EU for human consumption… The making of it is severely reducing the amount of emissions it takes.”

And if the product itself wasn’t gross enough, after the shutdown, employees started talking to French state media about how the horror show began on the factory floor long before any product reached a plate. One former employee said, “There were so many moths that we were breathing them in, and they were getting into our noses and mouths.” I guess that’s like eating Big Macs when you work at McDonald’s.

Anyway, chalk up another massive success for the EU ideologues. €600 million in investment – including around €150 million in public money – gone. To save the creepy-crawly cuisine industry, its lobby is now reportedly pushing the EU to force public institutions, like school cafeterias and other public facilities, to mandate minimum purchases of “innovative, circular bio-based products.” If you’re wondering, that’s lobbyist-speak for bugs after a branding workshop. Hey guys, how about “micro-livestock”? That’s a freebie. You’re welcome.

“If the plebes won’t eat da bugs, then let’s just force feed them to the masses!” I’m sure that’ll go over well. The EU’s grand plans for the future usually boil down to hoping against all odds that reality, like its own citizens, just falls into line and swallows whatever dodgy dogmatic fodder that it’s fed.

When people talk about the threat of nuclear war, American popular culture inevitably creeps in. More than in almost any other field, the language, imagery and mythology surrounding nuclear apocalypse were created in the United States. Along with the weapons themselves.

One immediately thinks of Billy Joel’s song We Didn’t Start the Fire. In fact, we didn’t start the arms race either. We didn’t invent the logic of global instability, nor did we build the cult that surrounds it. That entire worldview was born in the United States.

It was there, after all, that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded, and it was its editors who invented the Doomsday Clock: the now-famous symbol showing how close humanity supposedly is to nuclear annihilation. They created it immediately after the United States developed the atomic bomb and dropped two of them, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

What is less often mentioned is that when the Doomsday Clock first appeared, humanity was not given much of a chance at all. In 1947, the hands were set to 23:53. Just seven minutes to midnight. This was two years before the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon. When the USSR did so in 1949, American nuclear scientists moved the clock forward to just three minutes before midnight.

Later, Russia endured and overcame a series of crises. Those were financial, social, governmental and political. It gradually recovered. Its armed forces demonstrated their capabilities, and its scientific and nuclear potential remained intact. Year by year, the hands of the Doomsday Clock crept closer to midnight again.

I mention all this because the clock has once more been moved forward. This time, however, we are no longer talking about minutes, but seconds. Since 2018, the clock has never been set earlier than 23:58. Today it stands at 23:58:35. Each year, a few more seconds are added.

Officially, this is explained by the “aggressive behavior” of the world’s major nuclear powers. What is not said out loud is that this ritual conveniently produces dramatic headlines that feed the global media cycle. We live in an age where people are emotionally tethered to the news. One week, the word “deal” appears everywhere, offering vague and often unjustified hopes of a breakthrough in today’s drawn-out conflicts. The next week, we are warned of nuclear apocalypse, the Doomsday Clock, or the end of civilization.

Modern audiences swing between two extremes: either everything will be fine, or everything is doomed. The human brain, especially under constant information pressure, is perfectly content to consume emotional signals without real substance. Headlines alone are enough.

It is a terrifying scenario. Yet Kubrick’s film, true to its title, offers a strange kind of reassurance. It suggests that events of world-ending importance can appear, to ordinary people, as a chain of absurd decisions made by individuals who are foolish, incompetent, unstable, or simply afraid. What can be done about this? Very little. One can only try to live, and enjoy life as best as possible.

Today, the news needs us more than we need the news. Much of what causes anxiety does not actually report anything new or significant. And if people stop clicking, reading and sharing, this noise will simply fade away. Media outlets have their own performance metrics. It is not the news that feeds you; you feed the news with your attention.

The Doomsday Clock sounds ominous, of course. But what really stands behind it? A small group of self-styled experts receiving their annual share of media attention. Not by making the world safer, but by reminding everyone how close we supposedly are to disaster.

Francis Fukuyama once wrote about the “end of history,” arguing that humanity had reached a final stage and that no major cataclysms lay ahead. Five years ago, this idea seemed laughable. It felt as though history had ended – and then restarted in a new, chaotic cycle.

Now, however, it is clear that this is not the case. Yes, there are conflicts, tensions, and political turbulence. Yes, there is Donald Trump. But history itself is not accelerating toward some final abyss. There is no irreversible movement toward catastrophe.

Fortunately, there is nothing to fear.

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team

Now that the child molester Jeffrey Epstein is gone, and the Epstein files have been released, what fate awaits Ghislaine Maxwell and others remains to be seen.

Given the typically brief life span of sensational stories, in just a matter of days or weeks the Epstein saga will be filed away under ‘Forgotten’ where it will receive only cursory attention from future historians and political pundits alike.

That’s a tragedy for the obvious reason that not a single sexual deviant, aside from Epstein’s child trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, is currently in jail for the crime of having sex with children.

This week I was lectured by a friend for allegedly glossing over the fact that “reputations have been destroyed” by the release of the Epstein files. Yes, Bill Gates, the argument goes, had to endure the pain of a divorce when his wife Melinda decided she had heard enough smutty gossip to continue in the relationship. The files were particularly harsh on Mr. Gates, who, it is alleged, had sexual relations with Russian prostitutes and acquired a nasty STD.

Desperate to keep the disease to himself, he inquired how to get antibiotics to secretly administer to his former wife. Whether the trick worked we may never know, but it certainly did not save the doomed marriage.

And then there is the shocking fall from grace of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, the younger brother of King Charles, who was forced to relinquish all royal titles and privileges, effectively isolating the man from his family and probably many friends.

Incidentally, there may be some people at this point who would argue that Jeffrey Epstein was not only locked away in prison, he ultimately – so the story goes – managed to somehow kill himself in a cell that was specially designed to prevent exactly such a thing from ever happening. So for the record, I’m open to the idea that Mr. Epstein not only never committed suicide, nor was he murdered, but he is very much still alive, probably chilling on a beach near Tel Aviv somewhere, sipping pina coladas in close proximity to some of the best plastic surgeons money can buy. But I digress.

In fairness, I should include the argument made by my friend who believes that Mr. Gates et al have suffered enough torment for their vile deeds: “Imagine! You’re the noble and mighty climate warrior / genius Bill Gates, and you have just been exposed as a total lowlife creep who may or may not have raped and killed children at parties,” my anonymous friend proclaimed. “I guarantee you, jail or not, this guy is in Hell right now! He has been brought low before the eyes of the whole world and even worse – his ex-wife!”

While it is a rather convincing argument, I think Ghislaine Maxwell would be just one of millions of people to disagree with that assessment. In fact, let’s not overlook the glaring fact here that the only person currently serving any jail time for the rape of girls just happens to be a WOMAN! Why is nobody talking about this? Where is there a Me-Too parade when you really need one? Yes, Ms. Maxwell, 64, has committed some truly heinous crimes in her time, many of which we will never know about, but how can that explain away the fact that there is not a single male criminal serving hard time along with her.

Actually, forget about the “hard time” part. Even in the worst circumstances, the people who took advantage of teenage girls on Mr. Epstein’s Pedo Island will never get a glimpse of what life is truly like in real prisons, where you share a cell with a number of other men of questionable psychological condition, many of whom do not take kindly to child molesters. In fact, the yearly life expectancy of perverts in prison, unless they are sequestered away in solitary confinement, can often be counted with the fingers on one hand.

Naturally, there is speculation whether anyone in the Trump administration authorized the pampered treatment. It’s important to remember that the Epstein scandal has dogged Trump for many years and has hit a fever pitch during his second term. Indeed, many people, even those within the MAGA movement, are outraged that the Epstein files have not netted a single red-blooded male behind bars.

Back in 2020, when the Epstein story was just breaking, I had proposed a place to send the child molesters, which still seems like a decent idea almost six years later: Send them off to Guantanamo Bay detention facility, a brutal American-owned camp located in a forsaken corner of communist Cuba that is uniquely qualified to handle the worst of the worst criminals in the world.

What I wrote back then still stands today: “With the threat from Al-Qaeda noticeably on the wane, and vacancies now available, this seems like the ideal holding facility. That is, unless Ghislaine Maxwell should suffer the same unfortunate fate that awaited her late partner in crime, Jeffrey Epstein. That possibility must be prevented at all cost. The victims of pedophilia deserve no less than to know that their childhood tormentors are languishing away on a miserable island in shark-infested waters of their own making.”

Last month, Kenya and China signed a preliminary bilateral trade agreement that will grant 98.2% zero-duty market access for goods exported from Kenya. The development follows efforts by the East African nation to expand its export basket and reduce trade imbalances with Asian trading partners.

It’s part of a broader landmark move: last June, China announced the elimination of tariffs on nearly all imports – covering roughly 98-100% of tariff lines – from 53 African countries that maintain diplomatic relations with Beijing.

Kenya’s trade and investments minister, Lee Kinyanjui, told RT that the agreement “opens the Chinese market to a broad range of Kenyan products at zero duty, with particular emphasis on agricultural exports, which remain the backbone of the domestic economy”.

According to Kinyanjui, the proposed zero-duty access is expected to unlock new opportunities for Kenyan exporters, particularly in agriculture, agro-processing, and value-added goods.

Kinyanjui says the trade agreement is “a corrective measure that could gradually narrow the trade gap with Asia”.

In 2024, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database, Kenya’s total exports to China were valued at $196.55 million, compared to China’s exports to Kenya of $8.58 billion.

The Early Harvest phase prioritizes Kenyan agricultural exports, notably avocados, tea, coffee, and macadamia nuts – sectors Kinyanjui says have strong growth potential in China’s consumer market.

“This trade agreement comes with immediate gains for Kenyan farmers and agribusiness exporters. This deal is a monumental progression that signifies China’s commitment to strengthening our trade ties further,” Kinyanjui told RT.

‘Africa will definitely choose tariff-free access’

Hannah Wanjie, a Kenyan economist and CEO of Development Reimagined, a Nairobi-based Africa-focused consultancy, says the deal comes at a sensitive moment for Kenya, as it balances deepening economic ties with its eastern partners, including China and Russia, while maintaining strong relationships with Western powers like the US and UK.

“Kenya’s engagement with China is not all about diversifying export markets but part of a broader strategy to resist control by traditional Western markets and financial institutions. Kenya is simply seeking better and favorable global trade terms, and countries like China have shown they can provide that,” Wanjie said.

Wanjie argues that while countries like the US are using trade tariffs as a tool to punish African countries; China, on the other hand, is using tariffs to foster relationships.

“As Trump is increasing tariffs on African exports, China is offering zero tariffs. Africa will definitely choose tariff-free access,” she told RT.

‘China is offering what the West has refused to offer’

Dianah Ngui, an economist and researcher at the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA), observes that, unlike the West, China is taking strategic decisions aimed at not only boosting trade with Africa but also fixing the existing trade imbalances between China and African nations.

“China is strongly presenting itself as a listening, caring, reliable and equitable partner for the Global South. China is simply offering to Africa what the West has refused to offer,” said Ngui.

Ngui says China’s decision to offer zero tariffs to African nations regardless of income status presents a more comprehensive trade offer for the continent and is likely to increase China’s soft power on the continent.

“Unlike Western powers, China is unlikely to withdraw this agreement based on flimsy excuses of human rights abuses or political reasons,” Ngui told RT.

Furthermore, Ngui notes that the establishment of “green lanes” to facilitate the export of selected agricultural products and the creation of a dedicated China-Africa trade cooperation fund bolsters China’s efforts towards creating a seamless and restriction-free trade environment for African nations.

AGOA extension as a pressure tool?

James Shikwati, an economist and director of the Inter-Region Economic Network (IREN), a Nairobi-based think tank, warns that African leaders must not be intimidated into dropping the China zero-tariffs deal in exchange for a renewed African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) deal with the US.

“We have heard reports of countries being pressured by the US to abandon the China deal in exchange for renewal of duty-free trade privileges under the African Growth and Opportunity Act. Africa must reject and resist such intimidations,” Shikwati told RT.

“If both AGOA and the China deal are good for Africa, then let us have them both. What Africa wants is fair trade and markets for its products. It doesn’t matter whether this market comes from the East or West,” notes Shikwati.

According to Shikwati, the decision by Washington to extend AGOA is aimed at putting in check China’s growing trade influence on the continent.

“China’s zero-tariff policy is not sitting well with the West, particularly the US,” he argues.

On January 12, 2026, the US House of Representatives voted to extend AGOA for another three years, up to 2028. The bill now awaits the Senate and President Donald Trump’s approval. AGOA provides select African countries with duty-free access to the US market for over 1,800 products.

“China is simply telling Africa that we are ready to listen to you and help you grow, come let’s work respectfully, and Africa must embrace that idea,” Shikwati concluded.

The assassination attempt on Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev, first deputy chief of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) is clearly the Zelensky regime’s latest desperate bid to sabotage the emerging Russia-Ukraine-US negotiations channel in Abu Dhabi and prolong the war.

When negotiations gain traction, spoilers surface. That’s Negotiations 101. And this week’s second round in Abu Dhabi was precisely the kind of movement that unnerves actors who fear ballots, reforms, and accountability more than inevitable defeat on the battlefield.

The target choice reinforces the point. Alekseyev is the second-in-command of GRU chief Igor Kostyukov – who sits on the Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi. Striking the No. 2 as the No. 1 shuttles between sessions is both a very deliberate message and an attempt to rattle Russia’s delegation, inject chaos into its decision loop, force security overdrive, and ultimately, provoke Moscow’s withdrawal from the talks.

Nor is this the first time kinetic theater has tracked with diplomatic motion. Recall the attempted drone strike on President Vladimir Putin’s Valdai residence in late 2025, which coincided with particularly intense US-Russia exchanges. You don’t have to be a cynic to see a pattern: whenever the diplomatic door cracks open, someone try to slam it shut with explosives, drones, or bullets – then retreats behind a smokescreen of denials and proxies. Call it plausible deniability as policy.

Then there’s the strategic logic of spoilers. Negotiations compress time, clarify tradeoffs, and create deadlines – none of which benefit maximalists. If an agreement would force Kiev to accept hard limits or expose fissures with its more hawkish backers, creating a pretext to stall makes sense from a narrow survival lens. A brazen hit inside Moscow during talks does exactly that: it dares the Kremlin to harden its stance, fractures trust at the table, and lets Kiev posture as unbowed while keeping the war‑time rally frame at home. Even if direct authorship can be obfuscated (at least on paper – because nobody will buy claims Kiev had nothing to do with it at this point), the practical effect is what counts.

Predictably, defenders will object: Kiev has every incentive to keep US support flowing, so why risk alienating Washington with an operation that screams escalation? But ‘incentives’ aren’t monolithic. They’re filtered through domestic politics, factional competition within security services, and the temptations of a successful spectacle. And remember: spoilers don’t have to be centrally ordered to be useful. A wink, a nod, and a green light to ‘make pressure’ can travel a long way in wartime bureaucracies.

The larger point is simpler: if we let every well‑timed bullet dictate the pace of diplomacy, we are outsourcing strategy to those who most fear peace. The Alekseyev attack fits a familiar script – choose a symbolically loaded target, hijack the narrative, and hope negotiators flinch. The right response is the opposite: call the bluff, keep the calendar, and raise the cost of sabotage by refusing to let it reset the table.

Zelensky’s regime may calculate that its political survival depends on endlessly throwing up hurdles for peace and call it ‘resistance’. If so, the fastest way to test that proposition is to keep pressing at the negotiating table. Talks are not a favor to one side; they are a filter that separates leaders who can face an endgame from those who can only survive in the fog of “not yet.”

For several months now, people around the world have been trying to imitate what social media has dubbed the “Slavic gaze.” The results are usually disappointing. Instead of a calm, inward look, we see squinting or exaggerated menace, often extremely theatrical. Kind, open people pull faces that look like bad acting. Americans, in particular, seem fascinated by the idea, but they rarely get it right. This is not a makeup tutorial or a filter. It is a cultural code.

So far, only one American public figure consistently manages it: Melania Trump. She is Slovenian. She looks out from under her hat the right way.

At the end of January, the Slavic stare made an unexpected appearance in American newspapers. A snowstorm hit several US states, and the headlines were dramatic: “People buried under rubble.” “The elderly stranded without food.” “Railway tracks cracking from frost.” “Engines destroyed by cold.” Alongside these stories were photographs of people staring at the camera with a familiar, unmistakable expression.

I recognized it immediately.

How much snow had they actually received? Frankly, not that much. Certainly not by central Russian standards. I grew up in Siberia. I have never seen snowdrifts as tall as those sometimes produced by neural networks pretending to depict Kamchatka, but I remember winters when the first person leaving the building in the morning simply could not open the door. Ground-floor doors in Russia almost never open inward for a reason: snow piles up overnight and presses against them, pushing cold into the stairwell. In remote villages, doors still open inward – to keep bears out.

Yes, bears. Bears are strangely reluctant to push doors; they try to pull them toward themselves. This is not folklore. Life teaches you such things when you visit villages where bears roam freely.

What kind of expression develops when you have dug out the entrance to your building more than once, only to watch fresh snow fall immediately onto the path you just cleared?

For hundreds of generations, survival here has required physical effort simply to remain alive. From the outside, it looks like a hopeless struggle: you shovel snow, more falls; you clear a path, it disappears again. This cycle repeated for centuries, until tractors and chemicals finally intervened. What kind of gaze emerges from that?

Our people have only recently stopped planning their lives around stoves and snow. In Russia, the planning horizon has always been long. Ideally, firewood should dry for three years. Our ancestors cut birch and alder, chopped and stacked it, knowing they would burn it years later. If they lived that long, of course. Imagine looking at neatly stacked firewood every day while knowing you might not survive to use it, in a world without antibiotics or modern medicine.

Gloom is not a personality flaw. It is an inheritance.

You have time. You have money. So why do you live so poorly?

In Italy one autumn, I developed an ear infection. There was no ENT doctor on duty for the entire region over the weekend. Heating the hospital was apparently too expensive. The temperature outside was 12 C.

Even within Russia, people from warmer regions misunderstand this reality. I have often heard southerners say that Siberians look stern. When I was in school, I visited St. Petersburg and met girls from Sochi in a museum. “I’ve been to Tyumen,” one said. “I didn’t like it. Your faces are stern, like hammers.”

You are 40 now, dear girl, but you probably still don’t know what four real seasons are.

In a sharply continental climate, seasons are not interchangeable. An autumn jacket cannot replace a spring coat. What keeps you warm at –41 C will be unbearable at –15 C. Even zero degrees feels different in autumn than in spring. These distinctions shape habits, planning, and psychology.

This winter, Americans suffered 85 irretrievable losses in frosts ranging from –12 C to a single drop of –31 C. Some froze to death in their own homes, in states bordering Canada. I wonder what would happen if they had to attend university for five years in temperatures between –20 C and –40 C. Would they still invent rockets? Develop pharmacology?

I remember an academic year when it was –42 C all winter. Buses often did not start. You waited a long time in the cold, hoping one would come. That semester I studied three dead languages, two living ones, Russian history, foreign literature, and computer science electives. There were only six or eight honors graduates in our cohort. Two had children before first year ended. Yes, our faces are stern. But our diplomas are honors diplomas.

Even Moscow’s climate is harsher than Alaska’s settled coast. Average temperatures may be similar, but Moscow has more thunderstorms and downpours. Anchorage rarely sees them. Yet Americans did not build six opera and ballet theaters there. Across Alaska, roads are sparse; small planes do the work instead. It is inconvenient. Planes crash. But Americans simply chose not to live where we do.

And we built an opera house in Yakutsk.

If Russia had the climate of Colorado, we would see the world the way Coloradans do. But if Colorado received Moscow’s snowfall every year, I fear no one would be left. Then no one would be left to imitate us.

The Slavic stare is not attitude. It is weather history written on the face.

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team

Russia recently unveiled the Superjet SJ‑100 and the turboprop Il‑114‑300 at the Wings India 2026 airshow in Hyderabad. Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), India’s state‑run defence‑aerospace company, had earlier signed an agreement with United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) to potentially manufacture the SJ‑100 jets in India. 

The agreement was reaffirmed and clarified during the Wing India airshow. At the same event, UAC signed a deal to supply six Ilyushin Il‑114‑300 aircraft to Indian regional carrier Flamingo Aerospace.

Both developments signal a new chapter in India‑Russia cooperation, now extending into civilian aircraft manufacturing – a sector that was not even on the agenda a few years ago.

Wings India is a premier industrial biennial India and is considered Asia’s largest event on civil aviation. An array of 34 aircraft were showcased at the event, which was inaugurated by India’s civil aviation minister, Ram Mohan Naidu, who said that the government was keen on boosting the aviation manufacturing sector in the country. 

Regular passenger planes, VIP planes, corporate helicopters and ambulances were among the planes on display. The models showcased were Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, Boeing 737 Max, Dhruv ALH-NG helicopter, A321 Neo, A220, Aurus Business Jet, Hindustan 228 aircraft, Diamond Da40NG Tecnam P 2006 and Tecnam P2010.

Russian officials and diplomats, including Ambassador to India Denis Alipov, attended the airshow and witnessed the signing of the UAC‑India agreement, underscoring Russia’s keen interest in the growing Indian market.

India’s civil aircraft market 

UAC’s and HAL’s presence at Wings India 2026 was beyond symbolism. The companies showcased their full civil aircraft portfolios, signalling readiness to compete with global American and European giants that currently dominate the civil aircraft market. 

India today has the fastest-growing civil aviation sector, with the third-largest global air passenger market in 2025. Aviation contributes 5% of national GDP. It also greatly promotes tourism and cargo movement. India currently has 160 airports with scheduled flights, compared to 74 in 2014. 

Over 161.3 million domestic air passengers travelled in India in 2025, up 6.12% from the year before. The current airliner fleet of around 800 aircraft will more than double in five years, and is projected to reach 2,250 by 2035. After reforms in the sector were introduced, India allowed 100% foreign direct investment in most sectors of civil aviation. The two largest Indian airlines, IndiGo and Air India, have announced plans to acquire over 500 aircraft each in the coming decade.

HAL has been making the HS-748 ‘Avro’ and Dornier D-228 aircraft in India under licensed production. Both have also been used for civil aviation. Also, National Aeronautics Laboratory has designed and test-flown the ‘Saras’ small transport aircraft. This work is still in slow progress. 

The Tata Group companies are already building aero-structures for many helicopters and also C-130J transport aircraft for global customers. Meanwhile, a Tata consortium is building 40 Airbus C-295(formerly EADS CASA), twin-turboprop tactical military transport aircraft,  as well as  significant numbers of its sub-systems in India. The first Made-in-India C-295 aircraft will roll out of the new facility in September 2026. The indigenous content will be the highest ever in India, with 96% of the work that Airbus does in Spain gradually being done in India. 

To collaborate on opportunities in aircraft manufacturing, supply chain, aftermarket services and pilot training, global aerospace leader 

Adani Defence & Aerospace, a defense wing of Adani conglomerate, has recently signed a memorandum with global aerospace leader Embraer to develop an integrated regional transport aircraft ecosystem in India. The potential partnership will leverage Embraer’s deep engineering and aircraft manufacturing expertise alongside Adani’s aviation value-chain footprint.

SJ-100 Proposal

India’s HAL and Russia’s UAC had signed a MoU on October 27, 2025, in Moscow to manufacture SJ-100 regional passenger jets in India. This partnership aims to produce the 103-seater twin-engine aircraft for domestic, short-haul routes under India’s regional airport development initiative UDAN. 

India has been wanting to have its own Indian regional jet airliner program for some time. New Delhi finally found a partner in Russia’s UAC to make the SJ-100 in India. HAL will initially have the right to produce the aircraft for domestic customers in India. HAL estimates that there is a market for over 200 regional jets in India over the next decade, with a further 350 required by the Indian Ocean Region countries. The move is seen as a pivotal step toward self-reliance in civil aviation, potentially injecting competition into a market long monopolized by Boeing and Airbus, and to some extent by Embraer.

UAC is currently under US, UK, and EU sanctions. India has said it does not subscribe to unilateral sanctions and has criticized the targeting of its ties with Moscow as unjustified and unfair, while accusing the West of double standards because the EU and US still buy billions of dollars’ worth of Russian goods. 

In due course, the sanctions will be over. Regional jets have yet to make significant inroads in the Indian market, with carriers preferring larger narrow-body aircraft. India’s major regional jet operator is Star Air, which operates seven Embraer E175s and two ERJ-145s. 

The SJ-100 currently has 71 firm orders, all from Russian carriers. UAC is meanwhile conducting certification tests of the SJ-100, with Russian Aviadvigatel PD-8 engines. Some airlines have been attracted by its low introductory price. The later variants will have winglets, and cabin density up to 108 seats.  

Undoubtedly, the SJ-100 has had its teething supply-chain troubles. But that is true for many airliners including the Boeing 737 Max. Western sanctions have made things more complex. China remains dependent on Western aero-engines for its home-grown C919 and C929 airliners. India will have to negotiate with its partners to get appropriate aero-engines for its own aircraft, the international certification will need to be renegotiated as well. However, overall, SJ-100 could be win-win for India and Russia.

India is a rising economic power with soon-to-be the world's third largest economy. It also has the largest population with growing consumption. Russia, which is currently under heavy sanctions, and facing manpower shortages,  remains a tried and tested friend. While Russia can bring in technology, India could set-up the manufacturing hub with local skilled-manpower, software, private sector strengths, bring in funding, and also global business best-practices. The civil aircraft production can be oriented for both Indian and Russian market as well as for rest of the world

Challenges and Opportunities for the sector

While 100% foreign direct investment has been cleared in most sectors of civil aviation, India has not yet leveraged large airliner orders. The country does have manufacturing and assembly skills, but lacks original design capabilities. 

The narrow-body airliner market is huge. India is now insisting that foreign OEMs set up assembly lines in India and give component orders to local manufacturers. 

A 2023 CRISIL report states that India’s MRO sector still faces obstacles such as difficulty obtaining credit, inadequate infrastructure, high taxes, licensing and certification issues, and high rental costs. But the Indian government has introduced several policies to support making the country a global MRO hub. These include reducing taxes on MRO services from 18% to 5%, land lease policies for longer durations to lower rental costs, and discontinuing the 13% government-charged royalty on revenue. These should reduce costs by 10–20%.

Setting up an MRO is highly capital intensive, with a long break-even time. It requires continuously reskilled manpower and repeat investments in tooling, and certification from safety regulators and global OEMs such as Airbus, Boeing, and many others.

The Indian government’s top think-tank, NITI Aayog, has recommended an incremental approach, by first setting up joint ventures in India with global players, and gradually ascending the work-value chain. Ultimately, India must aspire to be an international-class MRO hub like Singapore. A surge in local MRO facilities will be good for airline operations, safety, and costs. Russians would also have to set up MRO facilities for SJ-100 with Indian partners in India. 

India must insist on foreign OEMs to set up engine manufacturing through a joint-venture route. Aircraft avionics is another area where India is way behind.

The National Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP) 2016, and its later versions, aim to create an integrated ecosystem for the growth of the Indian civil aviation sector, making flying more affordable and accessible, while also enhancing safety, security, and sustainability. It focuses on regional connectivity, ease of doing business, and promoting tourism and employment. The policy must be updated to incorporate India’s thrust for developing local manufacturing. 

The West is moving out of China. Europe has a high cost of production. India is the next best destination for building and maintaining civil aircraft. India also has large land banks near airports, especially the newer greenfield ones. Government policies are becoming more attractive for promoting manufacture and shifting MRO to India. Finally, India has to invest much more in R&D. Developing your own designs and having your own patents is important. The Russia-India SJ-100 project could be great platform to make a beginning.

As globalization is fading and a multipolar world emerging, the question of identity is essential for people not to get lost. Between the abstract multicultural ideal and homogeneity aspirations, Russia presents itself as a unique ‘middle way’.

Certainly, international law distinguishes between the concepts of nationality and citizenship. But these are legal subtleties that don’t concern random individuals, who have many other things to think about and who often, particularly in the West, have the tendency to believe that the two concepts are synonymous. Nevertheless, in a world that is being totally reshaped, we are touching here on the fundamental question of identity. If we don’t know where we come from, we can’t know where we are going.

The dominant West has unconsciously adopted a vision of identity heavily influenced by Rousseau’s version of the social contract theory. A contract between the population and the state, but one tainted with a naïve humanism that tends to consider all human beings as inherently equivalent and interchangeable. Universalism did not originate with the Age of Enlightenment – one can argue that its roots lie in Christianity – however, it was slowly but surely propelled by French intellectuals, to such an extent that it became a Western standard. Furthermore, it’s important to remember that about half of the English vocabulary is derived from French, particularly in the areas of law, government, and the military.

Consequently, the West has philosophically integrated a narrow conception of identity as a purely legal contract between a state and an individual. You have the papers? You belong to the country. Born in Pakistan, Muslim, and you obtained your British passport at 35? You are a true subject of the British Crown. Born in Mali, educated in Mali, but obtained a French passport? You are French. Born in Korea, arrived in the United States at 50 and obtained an American passport? You are American. Well, you get the idea.

One truly striking thing is the inability of Westerners to understand things differently. A fundamental misunderstanding. This is much less the case in the US, which was built on immigration, but if you challenge this idea in Europe, if you dare to say, “Okay, you’re Swedish, but where are you from?” you’re immediately labeled a racist, a xenophobe, and so on. To say that citizenship, considered as an equivalent of nationality, has become nothing more than a permanent residency permit is an insult to the Western multicultural ideal. Nationalities/citizenships are like interchangeable or collectible Panini stickers.

However, the rest of the world doesn’t think like that.

Looking at the new center of the world, the future – Asia – the conception is diametrically opposed. In Japan, dual citizenship is only conceivable for children of mixed couples, but these children must get rid of one of their citizenships at the age of 20. The Vietnamese accept dual citizenship, but under conditions and only for individuals with skills that contribute to the country’s development. The Koreans tolerate dual citizenship, but, as in the case of Japan, obtaining Korean citizenship is strictly restrained according to the individual’s financial stability and good conduct. In short, the approach is strictly pragmatic, not idealistic – one does not become Japanese, Chinese, Korean, or Vietnamese, etc. Any Asian would laugh if a Norwegian or a Chadian would claim to be Thai.

Russia, straddling Asia and Europe, offers a unique perspective. Its history of imperial expansion during the 18th and 19th centuries has created a space where multiculturalism developed organically, rather than being the product of some absurd philosophical and political project promoted through political marketing gimmicks. While nothing is explicitly stated on identity documents, there is a strict and universally accepted understanding of the difference between nationality and citizenship. Citizenship, as everywhere, is the contract between the individual and the state, whereas the concept of nationality is closer to the notion of ethnicity. There are 170 ethnic groups in Russia. Everyone is ‘Rossiyane’, while the term ‘Russky’ applies only to ethnic Russians. Until a few decades ago, an individual’s nationality was specified in his passport. This practice has been abandoned, but in Russia, people have an almost immediate understanding of their fellow citizens’ origins (based on appearance, name, habits). Yesterday, I was having a drink with three friends in Moscow. So there were four of us, all ‘Rossiyane’: A Russian, a Tatar, an Armenian, and a Frenchman. I was obviously the most exotic of the bunch.

While Japan is generally – and rightly so – considered another planet, Russia is also a world apart, difficult for contemporary Westerners to comprehend, given their strict legalistic understanding and their drive to achieve a kind of universalist philosophical ideal. This may well be yet another reason for Western exasperation with other systems: the homogeneity of Asian cultures contradicts their promotion of multiculturalism, and the organic multiculturalism of the Russian space highlights the failure of their forced multiculturalism.

The Rousseau-leaning social contract, this naïve and simplistic universalism, while denying history and geography, also contributes to the destruction of Western nations. Because the West, promoting its multicultural project, has failed to understand that after trying to impose its rules abroad and importing migrants from all over the world, it is now gradually the foreigners who impose their rules at home. This paper multiculturalism, legally and philosophically conflating citizenship and nationality, has killed the sense of identity for millions of people, while the emerging world, even the emerging world imported by the West, has no intention to forget its own.

Energy policy reveals the true structure of power. Liberal speeches are filled with essentially meaningless abstractions such as ‘values’ and ‘moral purpose’. Nuclear power plants speak of survival. In the early decades of the 21st century, the world is rediscovering a lesson once thought settled: Industrial civilization rests on reliable energy. Nations that forget this principle drift into dependency. Nations that remember it regain strategic freedom.

Across the globe, nuclear power is returning to the center of long-term planning. This shift signals more than a technical adjustment. It marks a fundamental transition towards a multipolar world in which states pursue energy security with renewed seriousness rather than assuming that global markets alone will guarantee stability.

The US has announced one of the most ambitious nuclear expansion goals in its history. Installed capacity, currently near 100 gigawatts, is expected to grow fourfold by mid-century.

Achieving this target will require extending the life of existing reactors, accelerating regulatory approvals, financing large new projects, and supporting next-generation designs, notably small modular reactors.

This effort is essentially a strategic recalibration. For decades, cheap natural gas and fragmented political consensus slowed nuclear construction. Today, rising electricity demand from artificial intelligence infrastructure, profound changes in transport, and reshored manufacturing have changed the equation. Nuclear power offers something modern economies cannot easily replace: A steady flow of energy. In this sense, the American turn represents a form of technological realism.

Energy independence strengthens diplomatic flexibility. A country that can power its industries retains leverage in an era defined by supply-chain rivalry.

France arrived at this conclusion long ago. Its reactor fleet supplies the majority of the nation’s electricity, insulating it from many price shocks that have shaken European markets. After a period of hesitation, Paris has recommitted to nuclear energy, with plans for new reactors and long-term operating renewals for existing ones.

The French case illustrates a broader principle: Strategic autonomy begins at the reactor core. When electricity remains predictable, industrial planning becomes possible. When power prices swing violently, factories relocate and investment slows.

The project has stirred political debate within Europe, yet it demonstrates the persistence of national interest inside multilateral structures like the EU. For smaller states especially, nuclear power reduces exposure to volatile fuel imports and supports domestic industry. Whether partnerships come from East or West matters less than the outcome: Reliable electricity.

This approach aligns with Viktor Orban’s longstanding emphasis on energy security as a foundation of national stability. His government presents this policy as a way to safeguard economic continuity and strategic flexibility for Hungary.

Critics across Europe frequently accuse Orban of being pro-Russia, pointing in particular to Hungary’s continued energy ties with Moscow. Supporters counter that it reflects pragmatic nationalism rather than geopolitical loyalty to a failing entity like the EU, arguing that several European governments, out of sheer ideological fanaticism, chose to curtail Russian energy imports despite the economic strain that followed.

Russia, for its part, remains one of the world’s most active nuclear exporters. The State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom) has pursued projects across Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Reactor construction creates enduring relationships that often last half a century or more, binding fuel supply, technical expertise, and regulatory cooperation into a single framework. This export strategy carries geopolitical weight. Infrastructure shapes alignment. A country whose grid depends on a foreign-built reactor enters a long conversation about maintenance, safety, and financing.

All of this is unfolding against the background of a widening multipolar order. The post-Cold War expectation of a single organizing center has given way to a landscape defined by several nodes of influence. Energy infrastructure increasingly reflects this diffusion.

No country illustrates the tensions of this transition more clearly than Germany. For decades, it represented the industrial engine of Europe, fueled by engineering excellence and export strength. Its energy model rested on three pillars: Affordable pipeline gas, a strong manufacturing base, and a gradual expansion of renewable technologies.

Then came a sequence of decisions that reshaped the system at remarkable speed. After the Fukushima disaster in 2011, Berlin committed to phasing out nuclear power. The final reactors closed in 2023. Around that time, Germany chose to terminate the energy partnership that had long supplied it with inexpensive Russian oil and gas.

The simultaneity of these decisions produced a structural break. Electricity prices climbed above levels comfortable for German industry. Chemical producers reduced output. Some manufacturers explored and implemented relocation. Policymakers accelerated liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports and expanded renewable capacity, yet the transition imposed near-impossible strain. Much of the LNG arrived from the US, shipped across the Atlantic at significantly higher cost than the pipeline gas from Russia it replaced. Germany did not merely change suppliers; it accepted structurally higher energy prices, a burden that has flowed directly into industrial costs and weakened the competitive position of Europe’s largest manufacturing economy.

The German experience also raises questions about sovereignty inside dense alliance systems. Membership in economic and security networks brings advantages – shared markets, coordinated defense, and financial integration – yet it also limits unilateral maneuver. Every modern state balances autonomy against interdependence. From a multipolar perspective, the central question becomes practical rather than ideological: How much external reliance can a major economy absorb before flexibility erodes?

Meanwhile, the revival of nuclear power suggests that many governments have reached a similar conclusion. Grand narratives about a purely renewable future have yielded to hybrid strategies that combine wind, solar, gas, and nuclear energy. Reliability has returned as the governing metric. Even climate policy is evolving in this direction. Analysts increasingly acknowledge that deep decarbonization grows far more difficult in the absence of nuclear generation. Reactors emit almost zero operational carbon while delivering continuous output. For planners tasked with keeping grids stable, the appeal is obvious.

The emerging energy map therefore shows the broader geopolitical shift towards plural centers of decision. The US invests in advanced reactors. France doubles down on its nuclear tradition. Russia exports technology. Smaller European states hedge their bets. Across Asia, nuclear construction is advancing at breathtaking speed. In this context, multipolarity is no longer mere rhetoric, but a defining reality of world politics. Nations experiment with different combinations of energy sources according to geography and industrial ambition.

Nuclear energy does carry risks. Construction costs can spiral. Public opposition can stall projects. Waste storage demands long-term planning. Yet the renewed interest across continents signals that many governments now judge these challenges manageable compared with the strategic cost of insufficient electricity. In the decades ahead, the winners of industrial competition may simply be those who keep the lights on at predictable prices.

The return of the atom is more than a technical revival. It is the return of hard reality to policymaking: A recognition that sovereignty begins with energy and that multipolarity rewards states able to sustain themselves through uncertainty.

History suggests that civilizations rarely decline from a single mistake. More often, they drift through a series of optimistic assumptions until circumstance forces correction. The present nuclear renaissance hints that a correction is underway. Power, in the end, is literal. Nations that generate it endure.

A diplomatic shockwave has been sweeping across Africa following the publication of a statement by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) concerning French policy on the continent. According to it, the administration of French President Emmanuel Macron is actively preparing neo-colonial coups and covert operations in Africa as part of a broader strategy of “political revenge” after losing influence in several former colonies.

Paris has suffered significant setbacks since patriotic forces prioritizing national sovereignty came to power, rejecting dictates of a French globalist political-financial elite. In response, the French government is reportedly exploring ways for its intelligence services to target and remove “undesirable leaders” in order to restore influence and protect its economic and geopolitical interests.

Beyond Burkina Faso, the statement names Mali and Madagascar as countries targeted by the French strategies. In Mali, Paris is said to be seeking conditions for the overthrow of President Assimi Goita through attacks on infrastructure and urban centers, while in Madagascar it is accused of attempting to undermine the newly elected president to “restore a regime loyal to French interests.”

Burkina Faso at the center of the revelations

On the night of January 3–4, 2026, the Burkinabe government announced that it had foiled a coup attempt aimed at overthrowing President Traore and plunging the country into planned institutional chaos. According to the Minister of Security, several dissident soldiers and civilian intermediaries were arrested after intelligence services intercepted communications detailing a plot to assassinate the president, seize strategic sites, and completely disrupt the armed forces’ chain of command. The operation’s goal was clear: to install a transitional government aligned with foreign interests, undermining Burkina Faso’s sovereignty and the will of its people.

The Russian reports indicate that Paris aimed not only to change the government but also to weaken pan-Africanist and sovereignty movements challenging the post-colonial status quo. Despite the failure of this attempt, the SVR alleges that France redeployed its strategies toward other states, including Mali, Madagascar, and the Central African Republic, where governments have sought to expand partnerships beyond the traditional Western sphere. Furthermore, the SVR statement comes just days after Niger’s transitional leader, General Abdourahamane Tchiani, accused France and neighboring countries of sponsoring mercenaries behind an attack on the international airport in Niamey.

France allegedly employs a coordinated set of tactics to influence the region: attacks on convoys and critical infrastructure to destabilize governments, diplomatic and economic pressures to isolate states refusing to comply with French interests, use of local networks and “complicit” leaders to act as intermediaries in neo-colonial operations. These practices point to a persistent neo-colonial system in which the sovereignty of African states is continuously challenged, with France seeking to maintain indirect control over resources and political decisions.

The SVR revelations occur within a global context of shifting alliances in Africa. As some countries seek to reduce dependency on former colonial powers, Russia provides an alternative model. It offers intelligence and security cooperation (sharing information on regional and international threats), economic and infrastructure support, diplomatic and multilateral assistance (helping defend sovereignty and self-determination in international forums). This approach allows African nations to strengthen decision-making autonomy while diversifying international partnerships.

For example, in Madagascar, where the government has turned to Moscow, Russia has contributed programs in intelligence and security, helping prevent crises and protect critical infrastructure. Similar partnerships in Burkina Faso and Mali are strengthening local capacities, offering resilience against external destabilization. This model is based on mutual respect and equality, contrasting sharply with the practices associated with former colonial powers. Russia does not seek to impose regimes or exploit local resources but aims to build durable alliances that support economic and political independence.

In Paris’s view, African sovereignty can still be perceived as a threat. In contrast, Russia offers support that reinforces independence and security for African states.

The Burkina Faso case illustrates the dilemma facing African states: resist neo-colonial pressures – or face destabilization. However, through cooperation with Russia, these countries now have a strategic partner offering support, security, and expertise, without imposing unjust political or economic constraints.

‘Not many people know zis’ – as Franz Liebkind, the demented Nazi hobby playwright character in ‘The Producers’, would have said – but Jeffrey ‘suicide-just-on-time’ Epstein really was a terrific Beluga whale. Or maybe a giant, shapeshifting, hypnotic killer squid. Or just Charlie Sheen.

Impossible? Totally absurd? Absolutely delusional? Mais pas du tout (pardon my French, please)! Because deep down, you see – You do see it, right? – all of these things (and whatever you want to call Charlie) are the same. Namely, manifestations of Russia! And so was Jeffrey Epstein, at least according to a clearly coordinated, ‘the-memo-is-out’ wave of desperate nonsense released by Western propaganda outlets, such as the British Telegraph, the New York Post, the Daily Mail, and the Polish government. Ukrainian and Russian-exile info-warriors, meanwhile, are falling over themselves to jump on the bandwagon – or rather, the (evil) clown car.

The allegations about Russia are so ludicrous that their substance does not merit discussion. Because there is no substance: What we are really seeing is a squalid spectacle of propagandists clutching not at straws but pure nothing, recycling each other’s unfounded and evidence-free claims and resorting to sad, silly tricks so transparent they make you oscillate between laughing, weeping, and a pure unadulterated feeling of cringe.

Meduza, for instance, clickbaits with the headline ‘Who are the Russians named in the latest Epstein files? Vladimir Putin, for one’, and then admits: “there’s no evidence in the released files that a meeting between Putin and Epstein ever took place.” That sort of beyond-desperate BS.

What this latest wave of foul play directed at Moscow really shows is that now, when about half of the Epstein Files have been released – which means we certainly haven’t seen the worst yet, as horrifying as that may be – the sordid ‘elites’ of the West and their servile mainstream media are struggling to manage the fallout. They may even be panicking. That much is understandable.

We do not yet know with certainty whether that means direct employment and training by Mossad, as the FBI recorded a source as stating clearly, or a more informal but also very deep relationship. But that is beside the point. There is no doubt that his ties to Israel were central to his life and ‘work’.

While Epstein was busy with more than one kind of super-sleazy scheme and crime – insider trading, pandemic profiting, and arms trading, for instance – the core of his operation was a far-flung blackmail scheme in which sickeningly depraved perverts from among the West’s movers and shakers indulged their criminal fantasies with real-live victims, compliments the House of Epstein. This obviously compromised them and made them pliable.

Those now publicly suspected of such behavior – due to prior accusations and opaque settlements but also new pictures and messages from the Epstein files – include former Prince Andrew, former Labor Party godfather Peter Mandelson, ex-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and the two Bills: Clinton and Gates. And there are so many more.

Others, it seems from the evidence available at this time, aren’t suspected of engaging in sex crimes but – with Epstein already convicted as a pedophile and a registered sex offender since 2009 – were perfectly willing to be, in effect, bought by hospitality, flattery, access, a private plane ride, and perhaps some academic grants. This seems to have been the case for Noam Chomsky, for instance.

The only person who has emerged with his reputation enhanced and not diminished by a mention in the files is Norman Finkelstein, the long-standing and long-suffering critic and opponent of Israel’s crimes, from apartheid to genocide. So far, he is the only one who, the files reflect, answered an approach by the Epstein network with a loud and clear – to paraphrase – go and eff yourself. As every decent person should have done; and yet no one except him did.

Indeed, Russia-rage and the Epstein Files form a bizarre mirror image of Western double-think: Russia-rage was fiction, but it was long sold as sacred truth by the Western mainstream media. The wide, deep rot marked by the Epstein Files is real and has long been denied or massively downplayed by the same media. How ironic.

The (still incomplete) Epstein Files have exposed the elites of the West as shot through with criminality, sadism, and moral nihilism. Many of those ruling us – not only politically – are not merely greedy, careerist, and power-hungry. They are evil, in the terrifyingly pure sense of the term. The West’s institutions, meanwhile, have shown that they have nothing to set against that evil. On the contrary, even getting half of the Epstein Files released was a great struggle, resisted and delayed every step of the way. Redactions and purges are ongoing. Genuine accountability is not in sight.

The West has long had very severe credibility problems. The Epstein Files now provide conclusive evidence that substantial and enormously powerful parts of its elites live in a form of depravity that exceeds even a pessimistic imagination. The reality, it turns out, is worse than many so-called ‘conspiracy theories’.

We also live in a world where it so happens that this real-existing, evil West has helped Israel commit the Gaza genocide, sending international law and basic ethics to hell in the process. But surely the fact that so many of the West’s elites are drowning in blackmail-grade dirt amassed by a pedophile criminal working for Israel has nothing to do with that historic and horrific failure. Just kidding. In reality, the dots don’t even need connecting. And Epstein has, of course, not been alone. What he stood for is not over.

The same Western elites and their media underlings want us to fear and even hate Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, and last but not least, Palestine, and whoever else is in their crosshairs at any given moment. They tell us we must bomb Iran to fight for the rights of Iranian women, while having made a habit of raping and – it is virtually certain – disappearing girls.

The West is the swamp. And everyone knows it.

The long-anticipated release of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein’s illicit activity was supposed to deliver justice to hundreds of underage women who were victimized by the late sex trafficker and his elite circle of powerful friends. On that score, it failed dramatically.

It’s pretty much guaranteed that anytime anything is released in the United States on a Friday evening it will land in the public domain with all of the intensity of a soggy firecracker. That’s no coincidence, as the US Justice Department wrapped up its delayed release of files related to the disgraced financier, although authorities conceded that the disclosure was unlikely to tamp down the suspicions that surround the case.

“I think there’s a hunger or a thirst for information that I do not think will be satisfied by the review of these documents,” Todd Blanche, the Deputy Attorney General who just happens to have been Trump’s personal attorney, told reporters. “There’s nothing I can do about that.”

Hours after the release of more than 3 million pages, 180,000 images, and 2,000 videos related to the late sex offender, a group of 18 survivors of Mr. Epstein’s exploitation announced in a statement that the disclosure did not do enough to hold his enablers accountable.

“Once again, survivors are having their names and identifying information exposed, while the men who abused us remain hidden and protected. That is outrageous,” they said, without specifying exactly what material had been disclosed. “This is not over. We will not stop until the truth is fully revealed and every perpetrator is finally held accountable.”

While the release fell short of expectations, the masses at least had the opportunity to laugh at the expense of wealthy and powerful pals of Mr. Epstein’s, like Bill Gates, who was forced to release a furious denial after the files alleged that he slept with Russian girls, acquired a sexually-transmitted disease and asked for antibiotics to give to his then-wife Melinda. Who says the rich and famous don’t have problems, too?

Melinda is said to have expressed displeasure with Bill’s relationship with Mr. Epstein since at least 2013, years after the latter was convicted of child molestation charges. Following the Gates’ highly publicized divorce in 2021, Melinda went on to become the world’s second-richest woman, with a fortune estimated at $73bn.

Another embarrassing revelation to emerge from the files involved Larry Summers, the former US treasury secretary (1999-2001), and former contributor to The New York Times, who asked the convicted sex offender for relationship advice and the chances of “getting horizontal” with a female colleague. Summers maintained a cordial relationship with Epstein long after the disgraced financier pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in 2008. In fact, the chumminess lasted right up to July 5, 2019, the day before Epstein was arrested on sex-trafficking charges and one month before his apparent suicide in a Manhattan prison.

Another person of high-renowned was Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, who was stripped of his last royal titles by his older brother, King Charles. Yes, Andrew is now just your average commoner. One of Epstein’s trafficked females was Virginia Giuffre, who asserted that she was raped by Andrew on three occasions when she was just 17. Giuffre committed suicide on April 25, 2025.

This week, the Republican-led House is expected to vote to hold both Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress for failing to testify on the Epstein files. House Oversight Republicans together with some Democrats voted last month to hold the former president and secretary of state in contempt, a misdemeanor that could result in up to a 5-year prison sentence, something the formidable Clinton clan probably need not fret over. After all, who has not heard of the notorious Clinton ‘kill list’?

Meanwhile, the US Department of Justice has dismissed suggestions that incriminating material about Donald Trump was withheld from the public, and the US president felt emboldened enough to suggest that the latest document dump exonerated him.

“I didn’t see it myself, but I was told by some very important people that not only does it absolve me, it’s the opposite of what people were hoping – you know, the radical left,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One late Saturday.

And just like that, it’s another sad day in America as justice has once again gone missing in action whenever it involves the wealthy and powerful. In the Epstein file saga, the public will have to content itself with a few good chuckles and regrettably nothing more.

The US Department of Justice has released another batch of files connected to Jeffrey Epstein, so extensive that even Russia’s “foreign agents” and émigré commentators felt compelled to sift through them.

“It seems this isn’t a conspiracy theory after all,” they muttered, suddenly uneasy. “It seems the American and global elite really did indulge in depravity with children. And… perhaps even something worse.” Stunned, they asked each other: Will nothing change now that the truth is out? Is the world simply evil?

But the world is not “doomed.” What these revelations provoke is disgust, outrage and, for many in Russia, very little surprise.

What exactly is new here? That parts of the global elite are morally rotten? But haven’t they behaved that way in full public view for years? Was it not the same elite – acting through NATO coalitions and political blocs – that bombed countries, toppled governments, and plunged entire regions into chaos? For over a decade, the world has lived with the consequences of decisions made by a tight circle of self-styled “civilized” leaders.

Yet many of Russia’s liberal émigrés, who fled in 2022 hoping to merge into this very “global elite,” seem only now to be waking up. Journalist Anna Mongait, for example, wrote that she spent an entire day studying the Epstein files as if sorting through rubbish. She says it looks unreal, as though generated by artificial intelligence: “Old men I know from official chronicles groping teenage bodies. One frame would be enough for a universal scandal, but there are thousands.”

By evening, she said she was wondering whose handshake had indirectly connected her to Epstein. The thought, she wrote, made her want to wash her hands “up to the elbow.” Now she fears Epstein will drag down not only the American establishment, but “many of our own people.”

But two things must be said.

Second: you did not need to know about Epstein’s island to recognize the moral bankruptcy of the global elite. Look at Ukraine. The same political class that now shocks you with its private depravity has been overseeing the destruction of a country in public. These political cannibals may not literally devour people, but the result is much the same. They would have consumed Russia too, had it not resisted.

Those who left Russia did not support that resistance. Now they recoil from the elite they once admired. But is this a moral awakening, or simple disappointment? Perhaps they distance themselves now because the political winds have shifted, because figures like Trump do not favor them. If a smiling Western politician returned who embraced their worldview, would they not stretch out their hands again?

Cleansing oneself is actually simple. Stand on firm moral ground. Judge people by their actions, not their smiles, slogans, or fashionable reputations. Understand that evil persists as long as people remain fascinated by it and eager to belong to its circle.

There are fewer such admirers left in Russia today. Not least because many of them have already left, and no longer lecture the rest of us about what we should be ashamed of.

Yulia Mendel, former press secretary to Vladimir Zelensky, has made claims that would once have sounded like tabloid fantasy. Yet in today’s Ukraine, they land differently. Mendel says that Andrey Yermak, long the powerful head of the presidential office, allegedly sought help from magicians. People who, she claims, gathered water from corpses, burned herbs, and performed rituals.

She says she first heard whispers of this in 2019. After a briefing, a journalist did not chase the then new president for comments but repeatedly asked Yermak what he had been doing at a cemetery. He ignored the question. A year later, a minister confided to Mendel that Yermak was “into magic.” By 2023, someone from an “important service” told her he supposedly kept a “chest of the dead.” These were dolls made by magicians from Latin America, Israel, and Georgia. That chest, she says, was already “filled with the dead.” Interpret that as you wish.

Mendel added that Yermak is not unique. Magical thinking, she suggested, is widespread among Ukrainian elites. That may sound exaggerated, but anyone who has travelled through western Ukraine knows mysticism is deeply rooted there. I once toured the Lviv region and the Carpathians out of sociological curiosity. In village after village, people spoke of a neighbor who was “a witch,” able to make children fall ill or cows stop giving milk with a single glance. They feared her, yet sought her out at night to cast spells against enemies.

This mindset is not confined to rural backwaters. It permeates Ukrainian culture. Soviet-era Ukrainian art reflected it. Folk songs spoke of witches cursing enemies. Even modern “social advertising” featured Lviv actresses dressed as witches, theatrically beheading men. Such imagery takes root only in a society comfortable with pagan mysticism.

If Mendel is right, Zelensky’s circle did not even limit itself to local traditions. Latin American shamanism, with its animal sacrifices and bone-and-flesh talismans, is far removed from Gogol’s Ukraine. To seek out such practices suggests obsession, not folklore.

Three conclusions follow.

First, this worldview reframes the conflict. From this perspective, Ukraine’s human losses are not simply tragic necessity, but offerings. They are sacrifices to dark forces in exchange for power. The language of clergy about a struggle between light and darkness takes on a literal meaning.

Third, this sheds light on the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Witchcraft demands a turning away from God. True, many in western Ukraine manage both church and spells, but the state campaign against canonical Orthodoxy goes further. It reflects a ruling class that has chosen mysticism over faith.

Mendel’s stories, whether literal or metaphorical, capture something essential: a political culture where rational calculation yields to magical thinking. Leaders who believe in talismans and rituals may also believe that history bends to willpower alone.

Yet even in these tales, there is irony. The dark forces did not save Yermak’s career. Power slipped. If the chest of the dead exists, it contains only symbols now. Let’s say dolls, not destiny.

And Zelensky? Mendel’s account leaves us with a grim image: a leader who once played a clown on television, now presiding over real tragedy, trusting not in diplomacy or realism, but in spells. A clown doll in a box of the dead.

The German government has presented its ‘Annual Report on the Economy’ (‘Jahreswirtschaftsbericht’) for 2026. Given the topic, it is not a long document – 136 pages – and if you expect exciting ideas, you will be disappointed.

That’s because this is, of course, a thoroughly political work, in the worst sense of the term: It is produced by a plethora of German bureaucrats from various agencies, collaborating and compromising under the leadership of the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. If “written by committee” entails being anodyne, this is written by whole ministries.

And yet: Look closely, and – badly politicized as it is – Berlin’s Annual Economy Report and the way it was spun for the public can tell you a lot about Germany as it really is now, and why that is a rather sad picture with little hope for quick improvement.

The report demonstrates once again that the current hyper-Centrist coalition government of mainstream pseudo-conservatives (CDU/CSU) and mainstream pseudo-social-democrats (SPD) has no idea how to turn things around.

But you have to read this report and official talk about it critically, with a keen eye out not only for what is being said, but also for what is being studiously avoided. In the bad old days of the last century’s Cold War, Western observers loved to practice “Kremlinology,” that is, interpreting the politics of the former Soviet Union from small signs and big silences. Let’s apply some “Berlinology” to the Annual Report.

Unsurprisingly, at her official press conference, German Minister of the Economy Katherina Reiche from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative party did her best to put on a brave face: She opened her remarks by boldly trying to sell expected growth for 2026 of one (in figures: 1.0) percent and an even more fragile projection of 1.3 percent in 2017 as an economic “recovery.” Reiche also highlighted a few (very) short-term improvements and offered a pep talk about inflation and real wages, based on projections that may well turn out false.

If what Reiche has to offer is the government’s case for optimism, it must be desperate and it is not fooling anyone. Even Reiche had to admit that the 2026 “growth”  projection, if that’s the word, already represent a downward correction of Berlin’s promises last fall.

As its title indicates, the report’s main purpose is to look ahead. But it also offers a summary of recent developments, mostly during the first half of the 2020s. That look back is no comforting stroll down memory lane. Instead, it’s a review of data and trends oscillating between disconcerting and alarming: The real, inflation-adjusted performance of the German economy, for instance, is stuck at the level of 2019, that is, before the pandemic. Real wages are doing worse: they are slightly below where they were in 2019. Meanwhile, just as the government’s Annual Report is coming out, official unemployment has increased to over 3 million, the worst figure for a January since 2014.

Digitalization and traditional infrastructure more generally have long suffered from a lack of public investment, the Annual Report admits. Indeed, infrastructure, such as roads, railways, power grids, and bridges, has not only been starved of investment but been neglected so badly that its substance is crumbling.

If things are deteriorating, people are not holding up so well either, at least in terms of numbers – the demography of the labor force is not a happy story. As the report explains, Germany has been running in place; the whole modest increase in the labor force since 2023 has been due to, in essence, immigration. Since “native” Germans are on a solid downward trend when it comes to having children, the future looks even grimmer. In the decades ahead, the Annual Report predicts, there is a high probability (read ‘certainty’) that the labor force will shrink further even if supplemented with more immigrants.

Indeed, a recent article in Germany’s mainstream central organ “Spiegel” admits that if Germany now has an active labor force of about 46 million (including part-time jobs), this figure is bound to decrease substantially, perhaps even dramatically, over the next decades. In a scenario of no further immigration and no change in the share of Germans participating in the labor force, it will fall to as few as 31 million by 2060. If a larger share (of the remaining Germans) joins the labor force (including a shift to full-time) and 100,000 immigrants are added annually, it will only ebb to 38 million.

Only in the politically unlikely case of an increase in labor force participation and 400,000 fresh immigrants every single year could the labor force stabilize at, in essence, just above the current level. Put differently, the virtually certain mid-term future is a demographically squeezed labor force, which in turn will exert even more pressure on the already greatly strained systems of social security as well as healthcare and retirement benefits.

Meanwhile private investments are not even stagnating, they're decreasing: since 2019, they have shrunk by 11 percent, according to Minister Reiche herself. All of this amounts to a recipe not for kickstarting genuine, sustainable growth but for a typical state-budget-ruining, inflation-boosting flash-in-the-pan effect.

Help will not come from outside either. On the contrary, as the Annual Report also recognizes, the international conditions for Germany’s manufacturing-and-export economy have been getting much tougher, to a substantial extent because of Berlin’s so-called “allies” in the US and their “tariff policy.” That is, in plain English, economic warfare against their EU vassals, very much including Berlin.

Don’t get me wrong. In principle, a good dose of Keynesian state splurging can help economies. But the circumstances have to be right. They are not right in Germany, for reasons including demographic crisis, the absence of a rational immigration policy, persistent bureaucracy, and lack of serious structural reforms, which are much talked about but moving at a glacial place, if at all.

Now, Markus Söder, Bavaria’s leader, conservative grandee, and would-be nemesis of Chancellor Friedrich Merz is already warning that a series of regional elections this year will further paralyze any reform impulses. Söder may have his own selfish reasons to voice such pessimism in public (see above under “would-be nemesis”), but it’s still an all-too-plausible scenario.

Yet the single biggest obstacle to resuscitating the German economy from its coma – whether with or without Keynesianism – is simple: Energy is far too expensive in Germany, crippling both businesses as producers and private households as consumers. The Annual Report admits as much, acknowledging “high energy costs by international comparison.” This is the key bottleneck, and, signally, the report has nothing realistic to say about overcoming it. Because that would mean facing two great, self-harming mistakes that Berlin must first admit and then correct: Giving up nuclear energy at home and needlessly cutting itself off from inexpensive gas from Russia.

There are some faint signs that, all too slowly, things may be moving in this respect: Under Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, the new-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) – the current government’s worst nightmare – has long been clear about the need to re-open Nord Stream and to repair the relationship with Moscow in general. Even uber-Russophobe Merz has dopped some hints that a normalization with Russia would not be a bad thing. Hear, hear. The Annual Report, too, admits – in passing – that an end of the Ukraine War would be good for the German economy.

But curb your expectations. The traditional parties show no sign of being ready to actually do anything about their very shy talk about a better future with Russia. The AfD, meanwhile, is still far from breaking through into the federal government in Berlin. Even if it should, there is no guarantee that its leaders will be brave enough to really rebuild bridges with Russia. They would face massive pressure – by fair means and foul – to backpaddle and become reliable, self-sacrificing NATO-EU team players, that is, to give up on a foreign policy independent enough to protect German national interests by facilitating a new Ostpolitik.

Sadly, the German economy suffers from more than one pathology. But without resolving the problem of politically overpriced energy, there is no saving it. As long as extreme hostility to Russia and masochistic support for Ukraine remain axioms in Berlin, this crucial problem will remain unsolvable.

Dr. Steve Turley, an American scholar and public intellectual, has become one of the most widely recognized analysts of the political and cultural realignments shaping our time. Trained as a classical guitarist and later earning a doctorate in theology, Turley’s path is unusual. He moved from the lecture halls of academia to the front lines of the new media landscape, where he built a large global audience through daily commentary. His work blends formal training with a plainspoken style that has made him accessible far beyond academic circles.

Turley first gained attention for his argument that liberal globalism has entered a long decline. In its place, he sees the rebirth of enduring forms of identity. His books and videos examine this shift through concrete examples: electoral realignments, the rise of traditional and religious civilization-states, and the growing rebellion against managerial elites. According to Turley, liberal globalism rests on a shrinking population base, while culturally rooted and faith-driven groups are demographically expanding, creating the long-term foundations for a post-liberal world.

Before becoming a full-time commentator, Turley taught theology, philosophy, and rhetoric for many years. This background has shaped his measured and historical tone. He often returns to the idea that political change follows deeper cultural and spiritual currents. For his readers and viewers, this brings context to events that might otherwise appear chaotic or disconnected.

This interview explores his perspective on the forces reshaping the West and the wider world.

What experiences in your early life and education formed the worldview you bring to your work today?

I’ve always been enamored and captivated by civilization in its highest expressions. I was very artistic as a kid; I fell in love with Michelangelo’s paintings and sculptures and did my best to replicate them on canvas with my own oil paint set. I soon became obsessed with Gothic cathedrals and their design.

At around 12 years of age, I moved on to music, particularly Bach, and went on to get my first degree in classical guitar at Peabody Conservatory. It was while I was at Peabody that I immersed myself in theology and discovered the philosophy behind this rich tradition of Western civilization.

I then got my first full-time job as a teacher in a classical school, where I taught theology, Greek, and rhetoric. It was during my doctorate studies that I discovered a growing field of study known as civilizational studies, and that’s when I found how everything I learned beforehand all came together in this wonderful civilizational synthesis.

Back in 2008, I came across a fascinating book titled Anthony Giddens: The Last Modernist by the sociologist Stjepan Mestrovic, who convincingly argued that the liberal globalist world that Giddens had devoted so much intellectual thought and energy towards building and sustaining was coming to an end, and a post-modern world, centered on culture and identity, was already emerging.

The classic geopolitical expression of this thesis was of course Sam Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, where he argued that world order was moving away from ideology (the bi-polar world of Western liberalism vs Soviet Communism) and toward identity (the multi-polar world of civilizationalism).

Guillaume Faye’s Archeofuturism provided the raw framework: his diagnosis that liberal modernity was not evolving but collapsing, and that survival demanded a synthesis of archaic values with technological mastery. And perhaps most recently, Zhang Weiwei’s civilization state concept offered the empirical validation for how these various social and geopolitical theories were awakening around the world, most particularly with the rise of neo-Confucian China.

What was the clearest early sign for you that the unipolar order was beginning to fracture?

The theorists such as Huntington, Faye, and Pat Buchanan were all writing about the inevitable fracture in the early 1990s. But for me, there were three events that conclusively indicated that the unipolar world was cracking.

The 2014 annexation of Crimea marked the first real irreversible breach. This wasn’t merely territorial – it was civilizational. President Putin invoked the baptism of Kievan Rus in 988, positioning Russia as the Third Rome inheriting Byzantium’s mantle. While Western elites dismissed this as nothing more than manipulative propaganda, they missed the core signal: a major power was reorganizing its legitimacy around its own territorial hegemony based on religious-historical continuity rather than liberal democratic norms.

The second sign was China’s 2015 declaration of cyber sovereignty. When Beijing asserted that nations have an absolute right to regulate internet activities within their borders, it wasn’t fundamentally about censorship – it was about civilizational control over cyberspace. The split internet wasn’t a bug; it was the architecture of civilizational spheres reawakening through technology.

The third indicator was the 2016 Brexit vote paired with Trump’s election. Brexit represented the first time a globalist institution like the EU actually contracted and shrank. And Trump ran on a political platform that promised to dismantle the liberal international order. These weren’t isolated populist spasms but the first mass democratic repudiations of Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis, as he himself has admitted. The liberal order’s legitimacy collapsed not from external attack but from internal hollowing – its own populations voting against its continuance.

How would you describe the deep cultural currents driving the transition from a globalized world to a civilizational one?

The main current is the worldwide rise of populism. But what’s so interesting is that the kind of populism we’re seeing today goes way beyond politics. Populism today is a financial force. It’s a social force. It’s a technological force. It’s a cultural force. Today, populism permeates every aspect of our societies and our lives; it extends even into the beer we drink; just ask Bud Light!

I see two major streams converging into the sea of populism: civilizational populism and techno-populism. Civilizational populism is a political force that leverages cultural identity as its primary mobilizing tool. It’s the “us versus them” of entire civilizations, not just political parties.

In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has turned Hindu nationalism from a fringe ideology into the mainstream. In Russia, Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church have merged nationalism with faith, defining the “Russian world” as a civilizational space built on Orthodoxy, Russian culture, and historical memory. In Hungary, Viktor Orban has positioned himself as the defender of Christian Europe against “Muslim intruders” from the East and “godless” liberalism from the West.

For example, the internet is enabling us to bypass the legacy media in much the same way that email and texting bypasses the post office. Crypto is solving the problem of debanking. Hyperconnectivity enables like-minded populations to communicate across wide swaths of space.

Together, the traditionalism of civilizational populism and the innovations of techno-populism are reigniting the ancient civilizations by bringing together what liberalism had insisted on separating: religion and science, and tradition and technology, and their reconciliation is resulting in a renewal of an ancient and yet highly modern world. This, of course, is Faye’s archeofuture thesis. The key is that this tech-trad synergy is the animating force behind tremendous civilizational potency.

Why do you think Western elites, including in America, struggle to accept the reality of multipolarity?

I would say that the struggle is existential, not analytical. Liberal elites inhabit what we could call the “unipolar imaginary” – a cognitive framework where their values are not one civilizational option among many but the inevitable telos or goal of history. Accepting multipolarity means accepting that: their cosmology is contingent, not universal; their administrative expertise is culturally specific, not neutral; their power is declining, not stabilizing.

This cognitive dissonance generates asymmetric statecraft: they can’t compete on civilizational terms, so they weaponize legacy institutions (media, academia, finance) to pathologize multipolarity as “authoritarian,” “racist,” or “fascist.”

I would add that the denial is also theological. Western secularism can’t comprehend that Russia’s Orthodoxy or China’s Confucianism is not instrumental but ontological. They assume all religion is either private piety or a political tool, missing that civilizational states operate on sacred foundations liberal modernity has abolished.

Do you see Russia as a stabilizing or a disruptive force in the emerging multipolar order?

I see the Russian Federation as catalytic. In the short term, it appears disruptive because it actively dismantles unipolar infrastructure – dollar dominance, NATO expansion, liberal values. But its disruption serves to further stabilize a world reorganized around multipolarity by forcing the system toward genuine balance.

I and some other YouTube geopolitical channels like The Duran took a lot of heat when we made arguments like this after the special military operation in February of 2022, but nearly four years later, I think we stand vindicated. Following the exceptional realist analysis of John Mearsheimer, we all noted that Russian forces were responding to twenty years of NATO expansion that threatened its civilizational core. The 2008 Ossetia war, 2014 Crimea integration, and 2022 Ukraine intervention form a consistent pattern – defensive civilizational consolidation against liberal universalism’s encroachment.

Having largely decoupled itself from the West, Russia sees a rising East and its civilizational states (China, India) as the wave of the future. In such a world, Russia is highly stabilizing. It provides the alternative template to secular liberalism: a Christian civilizational state that rejects progressive universalism while embracing technology and industry (hypersonic weapons, the digital ruble, AI development). Russia proves that tradition and technology can synthesize and forge its own world within the world, but, most importantly, without liberalism’s permission.

This is the core civilizational fracture. Western secularism is exhaustive: it brackets religion as private preference, eliminating the sacred from the public square. Russia’s Christianity is constructive: it uses Orthodox identity as civilizational DNA – the code organizing state, culture, and technology.

Rooted in the 18th century Enlightenment, the West treats religion as personal belief and persuasion; rooted in Byzantium, Russia treats religion as participation in divine energies that constitute civilizational and cosmic reality. When Putin describes Russia as “the last bastion of traditional values,” he’s not campaigning – he’s articulating civilizational axiology. The Orthodox Church doesn’t just influence Russian policy; it co-constitutes a distinctively Russian vision of personhood and human flourishing.

The good news is that because of Western liberalism’s inherent flaws, such as its demographic contradiction (absolute individual autonomy necessities the freedom of not having children), Western secularism is basically erasing itself. This global contraction is opening space for a more traditionalist Protestant and Catholic Christianity to reemerge in the public square.

Fascinatingly, the loose confederation of nationalist populists in Europe like Geert Wilders of the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen of France are openly declaring that Europe will be lost forever if it doesn’t recover its Christian civilizational roots. Viktor Orban of Hungary envisions the battle to recover Europe being fought on two fronts: against Islam from the East and against a godless secularism from the West.

This explains why religious traditionalists across the West find Russia compelling. They’re recognizing a civilization that hasn’t severed its sacred roots – a model for what the West might become if it re-anchors in its own Christian heritage.

What do American audiences get most wrong about Russia’s motivations on the world stage?

I would say that the fundamental error is a kind of psychological projection. American audiences, fed by the legacy media and Russian stereotypes, interpret Russia through liberalism’s motivational grammar: power, profit, and ideology. They miss the civilizational grammar that Russia operates on.

I think there are three specific misunderstandings:

There’s the assumption that Russia is trying to rebuild the USSR. But the prominence and centrality of the Orthodox Church in the Russian renewal should be enough to dispel that notion.  Instead, it’s consolidating the Russian world (Russkiy mir) – the civilizational sphere sharing Orthodox heritage, the Russian language, and historical consciousness.

In contrast to the above assumption, there’s the accusation that Putin is just using religion for his own political gain. Again, what this has to do with rebuilding the atheistic Soviet Union is anyone’s guess. But as I noted earlier, Western secularism simply cannot comprehend sincere religious ontology. When Russia privileges Orthodox Christianity, Americans see Machiavellian manipulation. They miss that civilizational states cannot be understood without their sacred center.

Finally, there’s an “economic desperation” narrative. This is where sanctions were supposed to expose Russia as economically isolated and desperate. In reality, Russia has largely decoupled itself from the West, building civilizational autarky – a self-sufficient economy integrated with the Global South, the BRICS payment systems like CIPS, and commodity-backed currencies. This isn’t desperation; it’s strategic decoupling from a hostile unipolar system.

The truth is simpler: Russia is fighting for the right to exist as a distinct civilizational entity. American audiences, primarily liberals who are trapped in universalist assumptions, cannot fathom that some actors don’t want to join “the rules-based order” – they want to preserve their own rules, rooted in their own eternity.

Absolutely. I saw it on display when I spoke at the World Congress of Families in Verona back in 2019. There were organizations and delegations from numerous countries from both East and West, but particularly the US and Russia, all united by a common commitment to protecting and defending traditional values.

This is why I think the tech-trad alliance we’ve seen forming of late in the States is so significant, since it represents precisely the kind of archeofuturist synthesis that’s reawakening a civilizationalist world. So the realistic path is that the liberal-universalist West collapses under its contradictions, and the tech-trad West emerges to negotiate civilizational coexistence with Russia, China, India, and others. That said, the West that can reconcile with Russia is not the West that currently exists, with globalists still maintaining at least some hold on political and economic power.

How much of America’s internal political instability stems from the loss of global dominance?

I think they’re dialectical. Over the last several years, we’ve been learning a lot about just how panicked the Washington establishment really was on the night of Trump’s first election victory. Just a few months earlier, more Brits came out to vote to leave the European Union than had ever voted for any party in their nation’s history. With the back-to-back victories of Brexit and Trump, the powers-that-be suddenly realized, to their horror, that these persistent populist movements that had previously disrupted mainly regional elections were no longer mere nuisances, and they were no longer fringe peripheral movements: the rising populist tide had now partly dismantled the European Union, and was, as of that November, in the process of dismantling the liberal international order itself. And so, we’ve now learned, thanks to the Twitter Files, that it became widely accepted among the unelected bureaucrats who comprise permanent Washington that the consent of the governed could no longer be trusted; quite the contrary, proactive measures had to be taken to ensure that the consent of the governed could indeed be managed, coerced, and, if necessary, thwarted. And so, the very same tyrannical tactics that our own Deep State employed internationally during the Cold War increasingly turned inward, contributing inordinately to our internal political instability.

Is the United States capable of adjusting to a world where it must negotiate rather than dictate?

Only if it undergoes its own civilizational reformation. I see Trump as the bridge between a unipolar and multipolar world; I think J.D. Vance would be the first fully post-unipolar president. He’s certainly a major symbol of the tech-trad alliance, with one foot in Silicon Valley and the other in Traditional Catholicism. But that said, the rise of both Russia and China’s global prominence along with their limitless alliance has made it clear that neither will respond to dictates from anyone.

What would a realistic and responsible American foreign policy look like after unipolarity?

Mearsheimer has long argued that US leaders would have to abandon the notion of America as a “messianic state” or “crusader nation,” dedicated to spreading its political, economic, and cultural ideals to all nations. This has obviously led to excessive militarization and failed interventions, which ironically contradict the very democratic freedoms and ideals espoused by its proponents.

Instead, post-unipolar America must respect a world organized around civilizational spheres of influence: a Russia-dominated Eastern Europe/Orthodox world, a China-dominated East Asia, an India-dominated South Asia, an Iran-dominated Shia crescent, and of course a US-dominated North American Anglosphere, defaulting to non-intervention beyond the Western Hemisphere.

Moreover, because of the worldwide return of religion, geopolitics would inexorably entail theopolitics. American foreign policy would be grounded explicitly in Christian identity, negotiating with Orthodox Russia, Confucian China, and Hindu India as complete and integral civilizations, not incomplete liberal societies. We would defend our civilization, trade with others, and avoid universal empire. As J.D. Vance recently argued regarding the Trump administration’s immigration policy, responsibility means preserving your people, not saving the world.

Do you think the American public understands that the international system has fundamentally changed?

The vast majority of Trump’s coalition certainly does. Red-state America, at the grassroots level, has largely abandoned international interventionism. But they lack the civilizational vocabulary to articulate this. Populist sentiments generally see the problem as “globalist vs. patriot” or “deep state vs. people.”

While accurate descriptively, these frames miss the civilizational depth of the transformation. As a result, they tend to see multipolarity more as a threat (adversarial China or Russia) rather than as an opportunity (a civilizational re-founding). They want to “make America great again” but often have a thin understanding that such greatness requires abandoning the universalist architecture that made unipolarity possible. But, again, the good news is that the vast majority of the population no longer has any desire to enlist the American military in endless wars and conflicts around the world that serve no obvious national interest.

That’s an excellent and very pertinent question, one that’s highly relevant for Western Europe as well. The global shift from ideology to identity is manifesting on both the political right and left. While identity politics is often associated with the left, all of America’s politics are realigning around identity: racial, regional, and religious. So the left is increasingly tribalizing around race (BLM, La Raza), religion (the rise of Muslim majorities in Dearborn and Hamtramck, Michigan), and region (highly urban and coastal).

Collectively, the left is increasingly post-American, rejecting the nation’s ideals as irreparably racist and discriminatory. The right is more civic in its identitarian sentiments, seeking to make America great again, but is just as susceptible to racial (white, Latino), religious (conservative Christian), and regional (red states and secessionist movements like Texit) balkanization.

These two sides are increasingly alienated from one another. For example, according to the Institute for Family Studies, only 3.6% of marriages are between Democrats and Republicans as of 2020, down from 9% in 2016. This represents one of the clearest quantitative measures of America’s civilizational balkanization.

So the key here is that a kind of clash of civilizations is happening domestically inside America, and is weakening its resolve to maintain a liberal international order, given the erosion of liberalism from within.

Can the United States recover coherent national purpose without a re-anchoring in its Christian heritage?

I don’t see how. The French coined the term idéologie as a replacement for religion after the 19th-century Revolution. And so, with the end of the age of ideology, liberal universalism simply loses its socially cohesive power. That vacuum results either in tribalism and balkanization, or it gets filled with the very enduring unifying power that ideology sought to replace, namely religion.

The Russian-American sociologist Pitirim Sorokin argued that secular societies inevitably revert back to religious societies, precisely because the secular is always derivative of the sacred. Sorokin theorized that secular society was nothing more than the material, physical instantiation of sacred spiritual realities that are logically prior and foundational to the secular. Thus, the demise of the secular (or as he would call it, sensate) inevitably reawakens and recenters the sacred (or as he would call it, ideational).

The tech-trad alliance is groping toward this. Tech entrepreneurs instinctively know that transcendent purpose is necessary for long-term coordination. They’re partnering with Christian traditionalists not as political convenience but because only religion provides the temporal horizon for multi-generational projects. This means that what liberalism separated – technology and tradition, science and religion – are necessarily allied as they always were in previous sacred societies.

The tech-trad alliance thus involves recovering the sacred canopy under which technology, markets, and politics operate as human activities oriented toward divine ends. Without this, in a post-ideological world, I see no basis for unity in an increasingly balkanized America.

Could multipolarity force America to rediscover a more grounded national identity?

This is the central irony of our era. Unipolarity required America to be a universal solvent – dissolving all particular identities into liberal abstraction and international institutional protocols. Multipolarity liberates America to be particular again. This is what I mean about Americans needing to see multipolarity not as a threat but as an opportunity.

And we’re already seeing it. Immigration restriction becomes necessary for civilizational coherence, not just policy preference. Energy independence (Trump’s “drill, baby, drill”) rebuilds necessary sovereign capacity. Trade war decoupling forces industrial re-shoring, rebuilding material community. Christian identity becomes not just a geopolitical but theopolitical necessity when negotiating with Orthodox Russia, Confucian China, and Hindu India.

Multipolarity creates civilizational competition where distinct identity is a survival advantage, not atavistic baggage. The America that competes successfully will be socially conservative with Silicon Valley characteristics – Puritan work ethic plus AI, covenant theology plus cryptocurrency.

So, as it turns out, multipolarity doesn’t just allow for the recovery of a distinctly American identity; it demands it.

Yes, definitely; it’s part of the civilizational populism that’s sweeping the world, but with critical differences. European populism – Meloni, Le Pen, Orban, Wilders – shares the anti-liberal, anti-globalist impulse with American populism. But the key difference is that European populism operates within a post-war context. European nations are former civilizational cores (Roman, Catholic, Protestant) that have been subordinated to American unipolarity and EU globalism. Their revolt is restorationist – seeking to reclaim sovereignty within historical civilizational boundaries.

By contrast, the MAGA movement isn’t restoring a lost kingdom, as it were; it’s transforming a decaying globalist empire into a uniquely American civilizationalist sphere. This creates different constraints: American populists must navigate imperial decline while European populists navigate imperial subordination, particularly from Brussels.

How does the archeofuturist blend of myth, cultural memory, and technological ambition – driven by a vision that binds ancestral continuity to radical innovation, from digital frontiers to space exploration – shape geopolitical power in the 21st century?

This is a wonderful question because it rightly recognizes that archeofuturism bridges geopolitics with astropolitics (the political, military, economic, and social aspects of space). Rather than viewing progress as universal modernization, archeofuturist powers harness cutting-edge technology to enforce distinct civilizational identities grounded in myth and cultural memory.

China exemplifies this strategy through its space program. Missions like Tianwen (“Questions to Heaven”) and Chang’e (“moon goddess”) invoke ancient Chinese cosmology while achieving world-leading technological feats. Similarly, India frames its Chandrayaan-3 lunar landing as a recovery of Vedic scientific wisdom, naming the landing site “Shiv Shakti Point” to link space exploration directly to Hindu cosmology.

In terms of the digital frontier, as we saw above with China’s 2015 declaration of cyber sovereignty, cyberspace transforms into sovereign territory when defended by firewalls and AI systems. Even Western neo-reactionaries (figures like Peter Thiel and Curtis Yarvin) advocate for “CEO-Kings” and technological hierarchies over democracy, suggesting archeofuturism is already influencing elite Western thinking as well.

​So I see geopolitical power in the 21st century shifting from ideological universalism toward a multipolar competition where legitimacy flows from technological competence married to cultural continuity – not from democratic consent or human rights.

Why are traditional identities – national, religious, civilizational – returning with such strength now?

Scholars often point to the rise of post-security politics as the primary impetus for the return of traditional identities. Post-security politics involve a worldwide political backlash against all the ways in which liberal globalist policies have eroded the securities provided by the nation-state: border security, economic security, and cultural security.

Globalism erodes borders with mass immigration and cheap labor; it erodes economic security by driving wages down with cheap immigrant labor all the while shipping manufacturing jobs overseas; and it erodes cultural security by inundating nations with migratory populations who refuse to assimilate into their host culture. And so populations are quite naturally and organically demanding secure borders to reassert national sovereignty; they’re demanding the restoration of economic sovereignty and vibrant material conditions; and they’re insisting that their culture, and particularly their religion, be respected and defended rather than denigrated and disparaged. And the ultimate expression of post-security politics is the civilization-state where, under enormous globalist pressures, nation-states transform into civilizational blocs that can effectively counter those globalist pressures.

Yes, besides its ideological deterioration, liberalism is quite literally dying off. I mentioned above what demographer Eric Kaufmann refers to as liberalism’s demographic contradiction, where its commitment to individual autonomy necessitates the freedom not to reproduce. Secular liberals have largely stopped having kids while all the conservative religionists are having more than ever (when you factor in the decline in infant mortality).

As a result, Kaufmann predicted that by 2030, we would see the culture wars in the States tip decisively in favor of red states in America; and lo and behold, what are we seeing with the projected 2030 Census and electoral college reapportionment: conservative red states are gaining electoral college votes and blue states are losing them. It’s not just because of the millions fleeing blue states for red states; 20 years ago, Phillip Longman noted that the states won by George W. Bush back in 2004 already had a fertility rate that was 12 percent higher than in states that voted for Senator John Kerry. And since then, that fertility advantage in certain areas has more than doubled.

So liberals are quite literally disappearing, while religiously conservative populations are building their own parallel institutions which are increasingly becoming mainstream, as we saw with Elon Musk buying Twitter. So they’re dying demographically, ideologically, and institutionally.

Is the information war between legacy media and alternative media a microcosm of the larger clash between unipolar and multipolar worldviews?

Oh definitely. Like I mentioned above, alternative media is part of a Third Industrial Revolution, a digital revolution and the age of cyberspace that’s quickly bypassing the old liberal structures that dominated the Second Industrial Revolution. The legacy media was born and bred in the era of Mass Society, where, starting in the 19th century, populations increasingly coalesced around massive urban centers.

Hence, each legacy media outlet is tied to a particular metropolis: the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald, Philadelphia Inquirer, etc. As such, the legacy media had a privileged position towards news and data that was in effect a monopoly over information acquisition. Moreover, they didn’t just report events; they framed reality according to a liberal-universalist ontology embedded in the very cosmopolitan life of which they were and are a part.

The rise of the Network Society, the Third Industrial Revolution, has broken that information monopoly, and having radically dispersed and democratized knowledge, we now have access to the same information via the internet as anyone at CNN or the NYT has. This means that more and more people are in a position to fact-check the media, rather than the other way around. And the more the legacy media is revealed to be a propagandist of liberal cosmopolitanism, the more their trustworthiness and legitimacy erodes.

By contrast, as a result of our common hyperconnectivity, we’re all now in a position to explore knowledge and information from all over the world, in all of its diverse narratives and cultural spheres, not just that of liberal cosmopolitanism. So this means that alternative media is participating in a wider digital world, comprised of cyber civilizations, that exemplifies the very multipolarity that unipolar forces are doing everything they can to thwart.

But the outcome is certain: legacy media is hemorrhaging trust and revenue because its unipolar ontology is empirically false in a multipolar world. People can see multiple civilizational realities online; they no longer need CNN to tell them which is “real.” Alternative media wins by default because it’s the native architecture of civilizational spheres.

Certainly the civilizational cores: China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and America’s tech-trad archipelago.

China will define techno-civilizational statecraft. Its “four supers” model – massive population, territory, tradition and culture – integrated with AI state capacity, the digital yuan, and space infrastructure, demonstrates archeofuturism at massive scale.

India will define democratic civilizationalism. Its Hindu nationalist turn under Modi shows how mass democracy can express civilizational identity rather than liberal universalism. India’s digital public infrastructure (Aadhaar, UPI) proves technological modernity doesn’t require liberal ontology.

Russia will define sacralized geopolitics. Its Orthodox-technological synthesis – hypersonic weapons blessed by patriarchs, crypto-rubles funding monasteries – creates a powerful and sustainable template for Christian civilization in a post-liberal world.

America’s tech-trad archipelago – Texas, Florida, Bitcoin maximalists, Christian tech entrepreneurs – will define a post-imperial re-founding. This isn’t “American decline” but American transformation: the liberal-universalist carapace dissolves, revealing a renewed Anglo-Protestant civilization ready for realizing a full archeofuturist synthesis.

Secondary regions: Saudi Arabia (Islamic futurism via NEOM), Hungary (Christian democracy lab), Indonesia (Islamic democratic civilizationalism), Nigeria and the Sahel Region (pan-African civilizational awakening).

For me, the jury is still out on the EU project. With a unipolar America receding and Russia’s civilizational pull, I believe the confederation of nationalist populists will continue to rise, and may indeed restore a robust Western civilizational renewal throughout the continent. But we’ll have to see. The EU project may dissolve into constituent civilizational parts: Catholic Poland, Orthodox Greece, Protestant Nordic spheres.

What trend do mainstream analysts still fail to understand about the current global transformation?

The civilizational singularity. I think an increasing number of analysts grasp multipolarity (multiple power centers) and deglobalization (supply chain fragmentation and the rise of populism). But what they miss is that both the fall of globalism and the rise of multipolarity are the result of the reunification of science and religion, tradition and technology, which modern liberals are largely incapable of reconciling.

Modernity is characterized by what the French anthropologist Bruno Latour called the Great Divide, which involved a social rearrangement where the state exercised a territorial monopoly over the public square by expelling all other competing institutions, such as the church and religion. With the rise of populism, modern liberalism is seen increasingly as the ideology of a corrupt elite, and so the Great Divide is collapsing, as more and more populations re-embrace religion as an indispensable marker of cultural identity animated by post-security politics. As we noted above with alternative media and the Third Industrial Revolution, the rise of a digital civilization is only further exacerbating this divide between the people and the elite.

So religion and science, technology and tradition, are coming together to reanimate the civilizations of old and emancipate more and more populations from a political class that’s seen as incessantly hostile to increasingly popular civilizational concerns.

While he tends to be very negative towards technology, the Catholic scholar Patrick Deneen has talked about the need for an aristo-populist society. Drawing from Aristotle’s analysis, Deneen notes that all societies will always have an elite, but if the elite despise the people, society becomes an oppressive oligarchy, and if the people despise the elite, you get the guillotine and the French Revolution. The solution is an elite who use their power and wealth to realize and materialize the values, interests, and concerns of the people, which ultimately produces civilization in its highest forms.

And so, I think that an aristo-populist society involves an archeofuturist aristocracy: leaders who are simultaneously priests and engineers. Some qualities that come to mind are:

1. Sacred Technocracy: They’ll need to have both civilizational memory and technological innovation. Interestingly, that’s precisely what gave us the wonders of Christendom, such as the architectural masterpieces of Gothic and Byzantine cathedrals. For today, this would mean a commitment to both culture and code.

2. Civilizational Judgment: They will have to cultivate an ability to judge nations and actions not by universal ethics but by civilizational respect and flourishing. This is where geopolitics will require an appreciation of theopolitics.

In this sense, the model isn’t so much Churchill or Reagan. It’s Prince Vladimir meets Elon Musk – a prince who baptizes the nation and an engineer who builds rockets to Mars. Those two endeavors are increasingly becoming one as geopolitics extends out to astropolitics.

What do you see as the greatest risk and greatest opportunity within the emerging multipolar system?

I think the greatest risk is the total and absolute unwillingness of liberal globalist leaders to allow their power and world to vanish. The vicious and reckless rhetoric coming from some of the American neocons and European neoliberals with regard to sending long-range missiles into the heartland of Russia was sheer madness, and the fact that Mearsheimer believed that we were on the cusp of a nuclear exchange triggered by this unipolar death spasm obviously remains very concerning.

Some have made the observation that when a political movement recognizes that it can no longer occupy positions of power, its only option is to destabilize the new order. In that case, I could see the last modernists escalating confrontation with Russia/China. The danger isn’t calculated war but cascading miscalculation – asymmetric statecraft spiraling beyond control when a hegemon’s legitimacy evaporates.

The greatest opportunity is an archeofuturist re-founding of human civilization, where the great world religions reemerge to form a sacred and flourishing humanity. A rather breathtaking conception of the cyberspace that we share in common is the Jesuit scholar Teilhard de Chardin’s vision of the noosphere: a planetary sphere of human consciousness and mental activity that’s akin to a kind of cosmic consciousness.

So the human mind, human intelligence, becomes every bit an active agent in the development of the planet as geology and biology have been. The word noosphere comes from the Greek word nous, which means “mind, intellect.” And many theorists have noticed that cyberspace is very much akin to what Teilhard envisioned as the noosphere. To the extent that cyberspace covers the planet, it comprises a kind of telecosm, and Teilhard believed that such a development would have an enormously positive effect in fostering human solidarity, especially as it contributed to cross-cultural spiritual interactions.

So with Teilhard’s vision in mind, the opportunity before us would be a kind of noospheric convergence: civilizational competition drives collective intelligence as each sphere develops unique solutions to persistent human predicaments. That would certainly be a world I would love to see.

To an outside observer, Libya is a map of fractured jurisdictions. Yet, beneath the surface, a singular, invisible nervous system keeps the lights on. This is the ultimate Libyan irony: although the state is politically decapitated, its financial heart beats with pragmatic regularity. Libya survives through a ‘functioning paradox’ – held together not by political consensus, but by a ‘tripod of resilience’ that transcends the front lines.

Three legs to move on

This survivalist state is supported by the three pillars: the central bank, the National Oil Corporation (NOC) and the judiciary, and, collectively, they refuse to buckle while keeping the unity.

The unified central bank remains the country’s sole national coffer, where all oil revenues are collected and distributed; the stakes of a total collapse are simply too high for any faction to risk, as it would mean an immediate end to the public salaries that sustain millions on both sides of the front lines. Following his appointment in 2024, new Governor Naji Issa has successfully convened the CBL Board of Directors with representatives from across the political divide – a rare feat of institutional reconciliation that had not been seen for nearly a decade.

And the third and the most important leg of the tripod is the judiciary, which still speaks a single language across the distance separating Tripoli from Tobruk. Despite the immense pressure from the local faction in the east and west of the country to break it up, they know that if the courts fracture, the very concept of property right vanishes, leaving even the victors with nothing but scorched earth. Manifestation of this ‘unity’ can be seen in the recent anti-corruption campaign launched and operated by the country’s Prosecutor General in Tripoli, on whose orders suspects are apprehended wherever they might be.

Last September the head of the marketing department of Brega, a government fuel monopoly, was detained in Tripoli on suspicion of obstructing fuel distribution (Libya experiences frequent fuel shortages). In November 2024, for the first time the Prosecutor General announced the conviction of smugglers, in Western and Southern regions, for smuggling over 1.1 million litres of diesel. In another case, the same Prosecutor General in Tripoli issued arrest warrants for some eight officials in both Eastern and Western regions in the aftermath of the Derna flood disaster, which killed thousands.

When system failure turns into the system

The international community, consistently failing to correct its 2011 errors, has inadvertently birthed a monster, ‘the grey zone’ – a state of legal and political limbo. For over a decade, Western and regional diplomacy has prioritized stability over a definitive solution, effectively trapping Libya in a state of permanent transition.

While everyone calls for elections as a solution almost all do their part to prevent them, and the lack of a clear constitution is not a failure of the system – it is the system. By keeping the country in a state of limbo, the rival administrations in Tripoli and the East can avoid the accountability of elections while continuing to tap the state’s unified financial resources.

However, this equilibrium is facing its most lethal threat. The current deadlock over the constitutional judiciary – the very body meant to arbitrate these disputes – is a deliberate attempt to dismantle the final leg of the tripod.

In January 2025, the Eastern based House of Representatives created a parallel Supreme Court in the country bypassing the already decades-old united court in Tripoli. This prompted the UN mission (UNSMIL) to warn of the serious risks of such decision on the unity of the country. By weaponizing the courts and challenging the legal basis of the High National Elections Commission (HNEC), the political elite are moving to formalize the split. The danger is that the West’s attempt to manage this ‘mirage’ has finally reached a breaking point. If the judiciary fractures, the ‘grey zone’ will collapse, and not into a new state, but into a total vacuum where the ‘functioning paradox’ finally stops working.

If the institutional legs of the tripod are being systematically sapped, what remains is the social glue – a resilient national identity that the architects of the 2011 NATO intervention failed to account for. Despite the de facto partition, the Libyan people remain bound by deep social, cultural, and familial ties that ignore the political borders.

Yet, this organic unity is being systematically undermined by a calculated foreign complicity and a digital landscape where hatred and disunity spread across social media like wildfire. International powers have discovered that a fragmented, nominally intact Libya is far more profitable than a strong, unified state.

It is easier for regional and global actors to secure resource access and strategic footholds by dealing with ‘local clients’ than a sovereign government accountable to its own electorate. This selective engagement protects foreign interests without the burden of actual state-building responsibilities.

While the world pays lip service to Libyan unity at high-level summits in Paris or Berlin, their actions on the ground often sustain keeping the country in limbo. Ghassan Salame, a former UN envoy, famously exposed this double-speak after leaving his post, describing how he was “stabbed in the back” by the very UN Security Council members who claimed to support his mission while simultaneously fuelling the conflict through their proxies. The tragedy is that while the Libyan people refuse to let the idea of their country die, their leaders and foreign patrons are busy carving up the body under the guise of managing the transition.

Permanent transition

This is where the UNSMIL has inadvertently become part of the problem. By early 2026, the UN’s obsession with a “constitutional basis” for elections has turned into a playground for legalistic stalling. The rival factions have mastered the art of weaponizing UN proceduralism to ensure that while the ‘process’ continues, the ballot boxes remain empty. To the cynical observer, the UN presence has become the oxygen for the stalemate, providing the diplomatic veneer that prevents a total breakdown and offering the elites a perpetual, low-stakes ‘dialogue’ to hide behind.

As the 2026 constitutional crisis threatens to formalize the split, it is becoming clear that the ‘invisible state’ – the deep, subterranean web of social and tribal allegiances – is the only thing standing between the Mediterranean and total chaos. While the political class in Tripoli and Benghazi conducts a ‘legal divorce’ in the courts, the Libyan people continue to live in a single, unpartitioned reality.

The current permanent transition is a masterclass in the art of the ‘permanent temporary’, where a state survives not because of its institutions but despite their collapse. We are witnessing a cynical re-enactment of the ‘Libya Question’ of the 1940s, where foreign powers manage stagnation because they fear a genuine solution.

However, they underestimate the Libyan social mosaic. Whether it is the youth in Tripoli bypassing checkpoints via digital trade or the Amazigh communities asserting their role in the national story, the push for unity remains a bottom-up force. Libya remains a nation waiting to come home – not to a new government, but to a sovereignty that reflects the unity its people have never actually abandoned.

Every time I hear about some new attempt by EU officials to sanction or otherwise institutionally punish their own people for saying things about Russia or Ukraine that they don’t like, I’m reminded how many legal rules and principles I learned in law school that they now treat as if they were printed on a roll of Charmin.

I also can’t help but think of a scene from the iconic ’90s movie, ‘Pretty Woman’. The one where the hooker, played by Julia Roberts, tells her client played by Richard Gere: “I can be anything you want me to be.”

But then it emerges that she actually has a whole lot of rules – from no kissing on the mouth to no drugs or emotional intimacy or disrespect.

Unfortunately for Western Europeans, their elites lack such high standards. The EU establishment brags about being defenders of democracy. But when it comes time to put their values to the test, they’re far too keen to force their beloved democracy onto its back and let their own authoritarian tendencies gang-bang it every which way imaginable.

In the latest example, Austrian lawmakers are reportedly seeking to strip one of their own – former Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl – of her citizenship, citing her Russian media appearances and role as director of a Russian think tank affiliated with St. Petersburg State University.

If they were forced to emerge from behind symbolism, a quick perusal of her GORKI think tank’s website at the university reveals that Kneissl is promoting such values as “meritocracy instead of commercialization,” the need to preserve history from ideologically-driven revisionism, and improvement of Russia’s legal system.

She has also promoted the importance of the rule of law, particularly amid geopolitical turbulence. “Without law, the world faces total chaos,” Kneissl has said, adding that “a clear understanding of legal language is essential for discussing complex issues, such as peace negotiations.” Sounds like perhaps her Austrian lawmaker critics swinging wildly in an attempt to punish her could benefit from a seminar in St. Petersburg.

Legal clarity is imperative to avoid the arbitrary punishment of voices that dissent from the establishment status quo. Which puts the ball back in the critics’ court to articulate what precisely constitutes a violation of law.

Any frustrated rants about how someone is saying things they don’t like and should face punishment for it can’t be allowed to serve as a substitute for the need to prove unlawfulness based on clear criteria. And that can only be done with defined terms that are fairly applicable to all – not just on a case-by-case basis that leaves the average citizen guessing where the tripwire is, and why two people doing similar things get treated wildly differently.

The unelected European Commission is basically using policy and the absolute outer bounds of executive prerogative powers (that is, the powers to decide foreign policy and national security strategy) as a substitute for the checks and balances of legal due process. And they absolutely neglect to define any terms in a way that people can understand, avoid punishment, or even argue coherently that they’re not in breach. You want to accuse someone of working for Russia? What does that even mean? It’s not like we’re talking about Russian officials here.

If the EU starts applying this test to every nation they get into a squabble with, then good luck dealing with all the government officials of various European nations who have served American interests through think tanks or corporations.

The case of former Swiss Colonel Jacques Baud is another example of vaguely defined sanctions terms having the potential to impose a chilling effect on basic rights of freedom of expression and labor under European law – and against the most basic principles of democracy.

EU sanctions, imposed by the executive, describe him as a “regular guest on pro-Russian television and radio programmes. He acts as a mouthpiece for pro-Russian propaganda and makes conspiracy theories, for example accusing Ukraine of orchestrating its own invasion in order to join NATO. Therefore, Jacques Baud is responsible for, implementing or supporting actions or policies attributable to the Government of the Russian Federation which undermine or threaten stability or security in a third country (Ukraine) by engaging in the use of information manipulation and interference.”

Hold on. Let’s break this down, shall we? Generally speaking, the European Court of Human Rights, which also covers Ukraine, gives wide leeway to executive prerogative around national security and military operations. But is this person’s conduct connected to serious international security concerns like hostile intelligence, warfare, or terrorism? Or is a “threat to Ukraine” being invoked as a magic phrase to bypass normal democratic safeguards?

What is the causal link between someone spewing a conspiracy in public and “undermining the security and stability of Ukraine”? Is Jacques Baud a Marvel character and this is his superpower?

And how does one avoid being a “mouthpiece,” exactly? Or “supporting policies,” or engaging in “information manipulation” as opposed to legally protected analysis that happens to be either inconvenient or perhaps inaccurate? People have to be able to regulate their conduct and foresee consequences under the law. Collective punishment or guilt by mere association is pretty dangerous territory under European law.

Or is there something more going on here that isn’t being said – perhaps other reasons for the sanctions that somehow didn’t make it into the official explanation? And if so, why not just say that?

Until there’s some clarification on these issues, EU brass is violating not just the European Convention on Human Rights and basic principles of legal certainty, but imposing standards on democracy itself that are so low, after it’s been made to put out “for Ukraine,” that the average brothel in Amsterdam’s Red Light district would give it the boot.

India’s Ministry of Power this week released the Draft National Electricity Policy 2026 (NEP), a long-term power strategy that seeks to transform the country’s power sector in line with its broader development agenda and the nuclear goals set out in the recently enacted Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Act (SHANTI), passed in December 2025.

The NEP identifies nuclear power as a “clean, reliable, and sustainable energy source with significant potential for India’s long-term energy security.” To expand nuclear capacity to 100 GW by 2047, “the Central Government will collaborate with the private sector for setting up modular reactors, developing Bharat Small Reactors, and advancing next-generation nuclear technologies.”

For much of the post-Cold War period, nuclear energy remained paradoxically out of reach for much of the Global South, even as demand for reliable baseload power surged across Asia and Africa. Nuclear power was constrained not just by cost and technology, but by liability regimes, insurance structures, and financing models designed around advanced economies with deep capital markets, leaving few workable options for developing countries. India’s SHANTI Act quietly shifts this landscape by recalibrating liability norms, enabling scalable reactor technologies, and reinforcing cooperation with longstanding partners.

Nuclear liability and access in the Global South

One of the most persistent obstacles to nuclear deployment in developing countries has been liability exposure, exemplified by India’s earlier framework under the Atomic Energy Act of 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act of 2010, where statutory supplier liability in the 2010 law deterred most global vendors and investors.

Section 13 caps operator liability at 300 million Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), equal to around $430 million (SDR is an international reserve asset maintained by the IMF to help supplement countries’ official reserves). Liability beyond 300 million SDRs is assumed by the Center. This move creates a clearer and more predictable framework for investors and partners.

This recalibration matters because many developing countries lack deep insurance markets or strong courts for complex nuclear disputes. In India, for example, the nuclear insurance pool is only about $163 million and already needs government backing, highlighting limited private nuclear‑risk capacity, while studies on developing‑country insurance sectors show undercapitalized insurers and thin catastrophe reinsurance, making nuclear cover structurally fragile.

In this context, SHANTI removes broad, open‑ended statutory recourse against suppliers, retaining it only for contractual and intentional‑damage cases, which legal analyses argue makes liability clearer and more insurable. By normalizing its regime, India ceases to be an exception within global nuclear governance and develops a legal template that can be adapted with developing countries considering nuclear baseload.

At the same time, SHANTI does not eliminate risk; it reallocates it. Capping operator liability at 300 million SDR and placing residual responsibility on the sovereign means that, in a catastrophic event, taxpayers would shoulder much of the burden rather than suppliers or insurers, while accidents such as Fukushima have generated clean‑up and compensation bills in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

The test for SHANTI will be whether India can deepen its liability fund, strengthen regulation, and raise contractual safety standards, making extreme events less likely even as investment becomes more bankable, so that the Act becomes the opening move in a sequenced reform of India’s nuclear sector rather than an endpoint.

SMRs and the economics of scale

Beyond legal reform, the Global South’s nuclear dilemma is rooted in scale. Electricity demand in emerging economies is rising rapidly, while grid capacity, storage infrastructure, and public finance lag behind. The IEA estimates that 85% of the increase in global electricity demand over the next three years will come from emerging and developing economies, underscoring how quickly power needs are growing outside the OECD.

Large, gigawatt‑scale nuclear reactors, common in advanced economies, often prove ill‑suited to these conditions. Typical large reactors are designed as roughly 1,000 MW units that take around 10-15 years to build from initial construction to operation. The capital costs of these projects is around $15-28 billion per GW, judging from recent projects.

By contrast, the example of Russia’s Akademik Lomonosov floating plant, which features a pair of 35 MW small modular reactors (SMRs) built for around 37 billion rubles ($488 million) shows how smaller reactors can serve remote, weaker grids typical of many Global South industrial and mining regions more flexibly than single gigawatt‑scale units.

Recent interpretations of the IEA’s outlook suggest India’s electricity demand will grow at over 4% per year through 2050, making it the third‑largest electricity consumer by mid‑century and requiring about $1.2-1.6 trillion in power‑sector investment. Detailed modeling shows total demand could rise from 1,210 TWh in 2019 to 5,246 TWh by 2050, while peak demand reaches 700-750 GW in low‑carbon scenarios, levels impossible to serve with variable renewables alone without massive storage and grid overbuilding.

Meeting this demand requires not only more reactors, but more adaptable ones. A systems study finds India could build 168-328 GW of nuclear by 2050, with advanced and SMRs supplying 13-28% of total demand and up to 28% of power in some cases, acting as firm, low‑carbon baseload that complements solar and wind. This aligns with India’s roadmap to 100 GW of nuclear by 2047 and public funding for at least five domestically designed SMRs by 2033, backed by a federal budget for 2025-2026 which allocated around $2.1 billion to accelerate SMR deployment in the country.

The IAEA notes that SMRs suit countries with smaller grids and limited finance, and India’s designs from BARC and NPCIL aim to leverage fleet‑based standardization, reframing nuclear for the Global South as scalable and phased rather than monolithic.

India-Russia cooperation for capacity building

While SHANTI is an Indian statute, its international relevance is inseparable from India’s nuclear partnerships, most notably with Russia. Historically, Russia has been the only external actor able to operate within India’s earlier liability and regulatory constraints, as demonstrated by the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, where Rosatom supplied VVER technology under a long‑term cooperation framework with the Department of Atomic Energy and NPCIL.

Under SHANTI, the existing cooperation between India and Russia acquires a broader developmental dimension. Russia’s export model, state‑backed financing, long‑term fuel‑supply contracts and full lifecycle support, already underpins several Global South projects, including Bangladesh’s Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, where Rosatom provides EPC services, fuel, training, and assistance to the national operator and regulator.

India complements this model through regulatory credibility and human capital. Under its India‑specific safeguards agreement with the IAEA, New Delhi has offered 35 civilian facilities, including 14 power reactors, fuel‑cycle plants and research centers, for international inspection, significantly expanding the number of Indian units under IAEA safeguards and reinforcing confidence in its regulatory regime.

Decades of operating pressurized heavy-water reactors and imported light‑water reactors have created a large pool of engineers and technicians experienced in nuclear construction, operations and maintenance. This expertise is now being exported. In 2024, Emirates Nuclear Energy Company and NPCIL signed a memorandum of understanding on O&M cooperation for the UAE’s Barakah plant, establishing a formal framework for sharing operation and maintenance know‑how, safety practices, and human‑resource development.

SHANTI allows India to institutionalize these engagements by permitting licensed nuclear activities through private and joint-venture entities under state supervision, expanding India’s role in overseas projects, from component manufacturing to training and regulatory advisory work. However, the real test is whether India can capitalize on these mechanisms, tighten oversight, and deploy SMRs and large units without major incidents.

I would like to suggest that we discuss rather than condemn. But let’s be honest, we are going to condemn. And here’s why.

The other day, a lavish corporate party took place in the ski resort of Courchevel, France. Normally, what happens in Courchevel is none of our business. But this one was effectively funded with our money, the money Russian customers leave in the tills of Rendez-Vous – a mid-market shoe chain.

The company was celebrating its 25th anniversary and the 16th anniversary of its Courchevel boutique. Did you even know they had a store there? I didn’t. I waited years for one to open in my hometown of Volgograd, a city of over a million people. It never happened. I eventually moved away. Not because of the shop, of course. Although judging by the scale of this party, management might flatter themselves into thinking otherwise.

The first obvious question is: who was this celebration for?

Was it for the customers who have been buying shoes for years in regional shopping centers? Or for a small circle of celebrities who, frankly, do not care whether they celebrate an anniversary in Courchevel, Dubai, or a private villa somewhere?

Instead of applause, the brand received a wave of anger.

This is where the problem lies. Rendez-Vous is not a luxury house. It is a mass-market chain with mid-range positioning, even if some items carry ambitious price tags. It is not Jimmy Choo trying to reinvent itself, nor 12Storeez. For decades it has worked with ordinary consumers – people who buy practical shoes, not helicopter lifestyles.

And suddenly it tries to play luxury.

The gap between perception and reality is glaring. A brand built on mass demand has attempted an elite performance without the products, positioning, or audience to support it.

Let’s be blunt. I would bet the Courchevel store contributes a microscopic share of the company’s total profit. The guests at this party do not buy these shoes, so they bring precisely zero profit. They are decoration.

Meanwhile, real customers are noticing.

The absurdity goes even further. I recently saw a Rendez-Vous shopping bag promoting the company’s agricultural project: from 2024, customers can receive two kilograms of potatoes as a gift with purchase. Picture the scene: Sobchak with a $240 pair of boots in one hand and a sack of potatoes in the other. Helicopters, influencers, potatoes, “shoes for everyone.” This is identity chaos, not bold brand strategy.

The brand looks torn between wanting to appear elite and needing to make money from mass consumers. It wants Courchevel and Krasnodar fields at the same time. The French Alps and the south of Russia. 

In stores, this confusion is visible too. I recently went in to buy walking boots for strolls with my daughter. Instead, I was greeted by racks of clothing and aggressive upselling. Turtlenecks, accessories, everything except focus. Perhaps those are meant for party guests.

The most damaging part? Silence.

From a marketing perspective, this is a classic own goal. When a mass brand behaves like an out-of-touch elite, people feel mocked. Especially “in a difficult time for the country,” as many commenters point out.

What should they do? Speak. Explain. Show respect to the people who actually fund the business. Better yet, reward customers directly: loyalty bonuses, real benefits, visible appreciation. Remind them who you work for.

Right now, Rendez-Vous looks like a brand that forgot where its money comes from, and decided to fly to Courchevel to find out.

Editor’s note: In a strange, and entirely unrelated, postscript to this episode the hotel hosting the Courchevel store apparently burned down this week. French media report that the Grandes Alpes Hotel has been burning for two days. Over 260 people have been evacuated. Meanwhile, the Rendez-Vous outlet has already vanished from Google Maps.

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team 

Alice Weidel, co-leader of the AfD (Alternative for Germany) party, has given a speech to which every observer of Germany should pay close attention. And not simply because of Weidel’s inherent political weight.

She is among the country’s most important politicians and with serious prospects for very high office: if her New-Right party breaks through to leading a Berlin government, Weidel is the most likely chancellor. Next to her co-chairman Tino Chrupalla, she is the only real opposition that matters inside the current German parliament.

What makes this particular Weidel speech, delivered in the city of Heilbronn while campaigning in state elections in the classically 'West German' Land of Baden-Württemberg, especially noteworthy is its unprecedently outspoken, bracingly combative, and, stirringly logical and honest take on one specific topic, namely Germany’s masochistic relationship to Ukraine.

Not that there were no other topics. Indeed, Weidel started what was a gleefully pugnacious 'Rundumschlag' (German for onslaught) where you would expect, the absolutely dismal state of Germany’s once proud and now relentlessly tanking national economy. She reminded her large audience that Germany’s industrial sector is bleeding jobs and companies; national insolvency statistics are a horror and won’t stop breaking abysmal records; and the traditional parties have nothing to offer but same-old-same-old.

And yet, as most right-wing politicians – whether traditional or insurgent – former business consultant Weidel is not at all original with her own suggestions either. She complains that producing things in Germany is so expensive that the country’s economy as a whole has been losing international competitiveness. True enough.

In that respect, Weidel’s talk had nothing to offer that isn’t already generously supplied by the grindingly repetitive rhetoric of the current centrist Berlin government under mainstream conservative and sour-schoolmaster-in-chief Friedrich Merz. In essence, 'shut up, work harder, ask for less. (At least if you aren’t rich like me and my chums).'

With so little of that sounding like a genuine alternative from the 'Alternative for Germany,' can the AfD really succeed in breaking the traditional parties’ stranglehold by winning another – at least – ten or so percent of the national electorate? In a country where even the government admits that 17.6 percent of its citizens must get by without “important goods and social activities due to poverty.” In a society where 2.2 million children are officially categorized as at risk of or in poverty? Where income inequality has been growing ever worse, with Germany’s five wealthiest families now boasting combined fortunes of €250 billion, which is more than the poorer half of Germans – over 40 million people – combined? Where, finally, working hard is not even a halfway reliable way to achieve success? More than half of private fortunes are now inherited or gifted (usually to circumvent inheritance taxes, low as they are) and that share rises to between 75-80% among the rich.

Weidel’s criticism of Berlin’s – and the EU’s – current economic suicide non-strategy is often refreshingly on point, but it’s also the very easy part. Yet cosplaying as yet another 'iron lady,' promising more blood, sweat, and tears for those who are already getting plenty of all that, may well get the AfD stuck where it is now at less than 30% in Germany as a whole, weaker in the West and doing better only in the East. Weidel and her solidly neoliberal wing in the AfD would do well not to be too sure of themselves yet.

For, if the party does get stuck electorally instead of continuing its surge, then the AfD will not be able to fracture the traditional parties’ undemocratic and, arguably, effectively unconstitutional 'firewall' policy of exclusion. Studiously supported by Germany’s propagandistic and conformist mainstream media, in reality the 'firewall' is a scandal, since it massively discriminates against more than a fifth of Germany’s voters (and more in the East) who are, in effect, partially disenfranchised. Yet ending that scandal will take electoral success beyond anything the AfD has yet achieved. That’s simply a cold hard fact. Weidel’s rigid capitalist dogmatism could be a dead-end, making the AfD, despite all its current surging, a might-have-been story. We’ll see.

While many of these policies of self-strangulation have been driven by an ideologically motivated exit from nuclear energy and misguided – as well as ineffective – attempts to mitigate global warming, one factor stands out because it is a matter of life and death in a straightforward manner, namely the Ukraine war. That is, in reality, the barely indirect war between Russia and the West (including Germany) via Ukraine.

It is a direct consequence not of the war but of the position toward it taken by at least two successive governments in Berlin (first under the hapless Olaf “the Grinner” Scholz, now under Friedrich “the Scolder” Merz) that Germany’s energy has become ever more backbreakingly expensive.

Even official German agencies and mainstream media have not been able to conceal this basic fact. According to the government statistics office, as of early 2023, the industry price for natural gas was 50.7% higher than before the escalation of February 2022; for electrical power – 27.3%, and for petroleum derivatives – 12.6%. In February 2025, German households were paying a whopping 31% more for energy than in 2021 (according to the mega-mainstream RND). One month later, the respectable Handelsblatt called the “price leap” since the pre-2022, “immense” and reported that gas prices for private households had increased by almost 80% in a little over one year. Let that sink in. And where private citizens’ budgets are squeezed like that, the whole economy badly suffers as well, of course.

And just now, the EU has confirmed it will cut itself off from even the last remnants of Russian gas supplies by 2027. Good luck!

Weidel rightly noted that the AfD’s long-standing – and plausible – arguments in favor of pursuing peace with Russia in earnest have long been met with the usual witch-hunting smears. That is, the type of neo-McCarthyite suppression which all such displays of dispassionate reason in search of an end to the “nonsensical dying” (Weidel) have been receiving from the “politico-media complex” in war-besotted NATO-EU Europe. Weidel was merciless, too, in skewering the persistent sabotage of any peace prospects by (at least) two German governments and their co-bellicists in the EU and most of Europe. All pretty obvious? Yes. Among the reasonable. But not in the German mainstream media and elite.

And then there was the passage that really rocked the hall: “This government [in Berlin] doesn’t utter a squeak” when Ukrainians, helped by other special services (which Weidel cautiously refrained from naming), blow up German energy infrastructure “in our face.” Genuinely irate, Weidel asked how a German government could keep quiet in such a situation. For “the lost delivery of inexpensive gas,” she continued, “harms not only Germany but all of Europe, [and] Germany the most.”  Nice one. So much then for the domestic non-credibility of the Scholz and Merz governments, and for Merz’s aspirations to play a leading role in Europe.

And yes, the Nord Stream scandal marks not merely a political and economic catastrophe. It’s worse than that, because it also stands for a shameful display of submissiveness: “How can a government have so little self-respect,” Weidel asked, that it won’t even genuinely seek to solve such a blatant case of, in effect, massive economic sabotage? That indeed is the question. Even a German very far left of Weidel, such as me, can only agree here. It takes a fundamental lack of elementary patriotism and decency not to share her exasperation.

Intriguingly, that was a moment when the audience reacted with much applause, as usual, but also loud booing. Clearly, not everyone had caught up to reality when it comes to Germany and its perversely self-damaging relationship to Ukraine. But Weidel is right when she also declared that Germany should have stayed neutral instead of joining the Great Western Proxy Crusade against Russia with gusto. Berlin could have served as an 'honest broker,' to the benefit of everyone, not only Germans but also millions of ordinary Ukrainians.

Whatever you think about the specific mix of stale market-dogmatic Thatcherism, undue deference to Donald Trump, and refreshing no-bullshit honesty on foreign policy and national interest with regard to Ukraine and the Ukraine war that Weidel had to offer, there can be no doubt that this was a breakthrough moment. It was the first time a major German party with potentially very good electoral prospects has come out and clearly stated the obvious – Germany was attacked by Ukraine (and quite a few other 'friends' as well from Warsaw to London and Washington, even if Weidel skirted that part of the issue), not by Russia.

Therefore, for Germany and Germans, Ukraine is anything but a friendly state, and it is absurd – to put it very mildly – that German governments have ruined the relationship with Russia and the German economy as well, while pumping Kiev full of money and arms. This is an immense national scandal, as clearly as 2 plus 2 is 4. And like that simple fact, it’s always true, no matter who has the courage to say it.

On December 15, 2025, the European Union slapped sanctions on former Swiss intelligence officer and ex-NATO employee Jacques Baud. No day in court, no charges filed, just abrupt, suffocating, sanctions.

Why did the EU sanction Baud? For “Russian propaganda,” of course, although many of the sources he cites in his reports on the West provoking war with Russia years prior to Russia’s military operation are Western and Ukrainian – including the SBU and Aleksey Arestovich, a former adviser to Vladimir Zelensky.

Welcome to the latest EU insanity.

Widely respected for his deep knowledge and analysis, much of which is based on his own research while working with NATO, Baud has grown increasingly popular over the years, appearing on numerous podcasts and interviews, authoring numerous books and articles as well.

Since Russia began its military operation in Ukraine, Western media have been howling about an “unprovoked invasion.” Baud has written and spoken extensively about realities which counter this claim: facts on the ground prior to February 2022, going back (unlike most legacy media who have developed selective amnesia) to even before the 2014 Maidan coup.

What is interesting about Baud is he does not use Russian sources to back his claims and he has not taken a public position in favor of either Russia or Ukraine.

He has simply analyzed the situation, based on information he had access to. How did he have access to this information? In 2014, when working for NATO in charge of countering proliferation of small arms, he was tasked with investigating accusations of Russia supplying arms to Donbass resistance.

He wrote of this in 2022, noting, “The information we received then came almost entirely from Polish intelligence services and did not ‘fit’ with the information coming from the OSCE – despite rather crude allegations, there were no deliveries of weapons and military equipment from Russia.

“The rebels were armed thanks to the defection of Russian-speaking Ukrainian units that went over to the rebel side. As Ukrainian failures continued, tank, artillery and anti-aircraft battalions swelled the ranks of the autonomists.”

In a September 2024 interview I did with Baud, he spoke of this.

“I can categorically say no, there were no Russian forces in Donbass. The guy you encountered (I had mentioned meeting one sole Russian former soldier when I went to the Donbass in 2019) represents exactly the kind of Russian presence that was at that time, recognized by the SBU and recognized also by the Ukrainian Chief of Staff.

“In a public interview in 2015, just after the signature of the Minsk Agreement 2, the head of the Ukrainian General Staff said publicly that there were no Russian military units fighting in Donbass; that there were only individual soldiers exactly the same case as the one you just mentioned.”

It is clear he is not citing Russian information (or “propaganda”) but Ukrainian and Western sources. An even better illustration of this is what he had to say about the prelude to Russia commencing its Special Military Operation in February 2022.

Referring to a March 2021 decree by Zelensky (to take back Crimea and the south of Ukraine), Baud spoke of an interview two years prior with Zelensky’s former adviser, Arestovich.

“He says in order to join NATO, we had to have a war with Russia. When the interviewer asked him when would this conflict happen, Arestovich says end of 2021 or 2022.”  A position, Baud noted, which aligned with a March 2019 300-page document published by the Rand Corporation, “that explains how to defeat and to destabilize Russia.”

The EU is almost certainly pissed off that Baud likewise demolished the Western propaganda claims about Russia invading Crimea in 2014. He told me, “The Ukrainian army at that time was a conscript army, meaning that within the Ukrainian army you had both Ukrainian speakers and Russian speakers. When the army was ordered to shoot or to fight against demonstrators, those who were Russian speakers just defected, they just changed side. They just went to support the protesters and they became in fact those the famous ‘little green men’.”

As for “Russian propaganda,” it is a term bandied about quite easily by legacy media and NATO mouthpieces to taint reputations or lead to censorship of voices. The war backers are upset that their own “Russia started it” propaganda isn’t working.

Sanctions prevent Baud from even buying food

Baud lives in Brussels, and now as a result of the sanctions is unable to even buy food for himself. Nor can well-intending people do so on his behalf. In an interview on Dialogue Works at the end of December, 2025, Baud said:

“Yesterday, a friend of mine tried from Switzerland to buy food for me, to be delivered to my home (in Belgium). She could order, but the payment was blocked. Any delivery to my home is prohibited, even if the funds come from Switzerland.”

People who are aware of his unjust situation have been physically bringing him food, to alleviate his inability to purchase it himself.

In a more recent interview on Judging Freedom, Baud highlighted that his case was a foreign policy decision, denying him due process.

“This is not a decision that has been taken by any court. I was not judged by anybody. In fact I was not in front of a jury. I could not present my case. I could not defend my case. This decision was not taken by a court but by the council of the foreign ministers of the European union.”

The most he can do, Baud explained, is, “go to the European Court of Justice and try to make my case saying that the decision was not just, and the court of justice may then study the case and have an assessment on that.” Even if the court concludes the sanctions are not justified, all it can then do is “advise the council of foreign ministers to change their mind.”

Given that the sanctions against Baud are punitive for his not toeing the line, it is unlikely minds will be changed.

A growing list of EU-sanctioned voices

Jacques Baud isn’t the first to be sanctioned by the EU. Many journalists and public figures have been sanctioned for their writings or words on the Donbass, Crimea, corruption in Ukraine, and so on. However, many have safety in Russia or elsewhere, and while their foreign bank accounts have been unjustly frozen, they can at least buy food and otherwise live normally.

A recent article in Forum Geopolitica notes the brazen illegality of these sanctions. “In contrast to Article 11 of its own charter, the EU has decided to punish, disenfranchise and expropriate the citizens of all countries without any offence having been committed, as was last seen in Nazi Germany.

“This elimination of dissidents is not ordered by a court, but by the ‘Council of the European Union’, the political arm of the EU. The Council, in which non-democratically elected apparatchiks lead a good life, is chaired by Kaja Kallas, herself not democratically elected. We are back in the Middle Ages.”

French journalist Xavier Moreau was also sanctioned, and roughly half a year prior, Swiss-Cameroonian political activist Nathalie Yamb was targeted.

German journalist Huseyin Dogru was sanctioned in May 2025 for being a “Russian disinformation actors, and for, according to him, “pro-Palestine reporting and documenting the repression of activists in Germany + the EU.” 

As with the others sanctioned, no “evidence” of the EU’s accusations was provided, particularly no proof of financial ties to Russia or Russian media.

“It is not a crime to draw readers’ attention to untruths and to the EU’s and NATO’s own propaganda. It is not a crime to point out the thoughtless cooperation of the West with Ukrainian forces that show a dangerous proximity to fascists.”

Further noting the sanctions have targeted 59 journalists and scholars, it points out, the EU is “using the sanctions list as an instrument to silence critics and is maneuvering itself ever deeper into an abyss of lawlessness.”

Quite amusingly, the president of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen (also known as Ursula von der Lying), posted of “protecting” freedom of speech. The EU Commission website claims the right to freedom of expression, “also means the freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.”

The sanctions are part of the broader desperate campaign of threatening and censoring voices that report truthfully on matters related to Ukraine, the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, and other timely topics. Yes, they can censor us by deleting our YouTube and social media platforms, or by imposing sanctions on journalists, authors, and other public figures.

But, it doesn’t work. Baud said he now has more visibility and more credibility. “It’s always a bad idea when you start preventing someone to speak. This attracts more attention.”

X – formerly Twitter – and bullshit go back a long way.

Elon Musk, the owner of X – who also happens to be the world’s richest oligarch, a major war contractor, a WEF-co-opted globalist wannabe “anti”-globalist, and a self-declared “free speech absolutist” – has claimed that his platform “strives to be the town square of the internet by promoting and protecting freedom of expression.”

But that, alas, is entirely untrue. In reality, Musk is a man of strong opinions: Not merely an uber-capitalist, he is also a very right-wing libertarian full of odd anxieties strong enough to produce plenty of posts about Whites and their “civilization” disappearing and, when in a really good mood, a greeting that looks like a perfect imitation of a fascist salute. That would all be bad enough. But Musk has also taken to promoting people he personally likes politically and culturally, for instance those glorifying, lobbying and making excuses for Israel.

If this is a “town square,” then it’s one where you need a mic to be heard, and that mic is under the control of a biased and overbearing mayor and his buddies. Or, as Musk’s own team has put it, X users have “freedom of speech but not of reach.”

On the other hand, the platform also systematically suppressed whatever – and whoever – the owner does not like. Much – but by no means all – of this de facto censorship is imposed by what X itself has euphemistically described as “a more reasonable, proportionate and effective moderation process,” that is, often by massive demotion (deboosting) rather than direct banning. If you say things that Musk, his ideological chums, his business partners and his financiers do not like, X is less likely to just kick you out – although that option is always there, too – than to quietly put you in a tight, soundproof box. You may think you are speaking to others, but X makes sure your voice reaches almost no one. Let freedom ring! But in silent mode, please.

Recently, Grok – X’s own in-house AI – has revealed that critics of Israeli crimes are being suppressed massively. Their reach is throttled by 80 to almost 100 percent of what it would be otherwise. Prompted with a specific phrase, which X users have shared widely, Grok has been delivering detailed insights into how the X algorithm censors those who mention, and protest against, Israel’s current Gaza genocide, its all-purpose brutality and rogue-state wars of aggression against Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, its habit of assassinations, including of other countries’ scientific and political elites (as in Iran and Yemen) or the perverse influence it exerts on US and, in general, Western politics. According to at least one usually well-informed observer, this is a mass campaign, with Elon Musk “censoring hundreds of millions of people for a foreign [that is, Israeli] government.” In return, Musk’s own customers are calling him “a huge threat to freedom of speech” and “a traitor.”

Politically those targeted by this X repression campaign are as different as it gets. They include idiosyncratic very-right-wingers, such as Candace Ownes, as well as generally left-wing voices, such as the journalists and dissidents Max Blumenthal and Ali Abunimah.

Full disclosure: They also include yours truly (on the left of the spectrum, too). And it’s a fairly representative case, too: The suppression of the X account “@TarikCyrilAmar,” as reported by Grok, is massive and comprehensive, including hiding it and its activity, and, in general reaching 78 to 85 percent. But what is most typical is the big fat lie used to justify this censorship: that somehow the account’s open and honest criticism of Israel and its crimes and explicit anti-Zionist/anti-fascist position overlaps with “anti-semitism.” This is the core smear used by all defenders of Israel and its genocide: that to be against these crimes and the state committing them with no end in sight, indicates “anti-semitism.”

There are claims now surfacing on X that somehow this scandal is not quite real, that Grok wasn’t delivering real data but a mere simulation. That seems very, very far-fetched and is likely to turn out to have been yet another untruth. For one thing, X has a proven record of suppressing what Israel doesn’t like. Last year, for instance, Grok itself was suspended when it called the Gaza Genocide just that, a genocide. Clearly, Musk’s AI had gotten a little to perspicacious – and honest – for its masters. In October 2023, while Israel was launching its genocide – and speaking about it proudly – X purged hundreds of Palestinian accounts, depriving the victims of yet another way to reach out and, thus, contributing to Israel’s policy of siege, blockade, and black-out.

It is unclear why Musk is behaving like this: Conviction? Fear? Dogged by some (real) anti-semitic signals of his own, Musk has repeatedly “done penance” by serving Israel and its propaganda.

What is clear is that his motives are of decidedly secondary importance. What matters is the atrocious moral failure – not his only one, but his worst. And ironically, Musk, who prides himself on being a bit of a nonconformist and maverick, is all too representative of the West’s rotten elites as a whole. If only he were more exceptional!

Here’s the thing: the world many of us grew up in has vanished, and not because of geopolitics. Because of sex.

No, this is not a personal confession. It is an observation about culture. Sex, once treated as central to modern life, is quietly retreating. And the shift is so broad that it tells us something uncomfortable about where society has gone.

I came of age in the 1990s, when sex was everywhere. Not just in private life, but in public space. Advertising ran on the formula that sex sells. Some products logically lent themselves to erotic imagery; others did not. Yet a sexualized female body could be used to sell almost anything, including a glass of water. Newspapers, car magazines, even publications about the paranormal carried nude photo shoots. Television, long before late-night hours, included bedroom scenes as routine. Youth series revolved around the first sexual experience. Schools distributed brochures about contraception. Words once whispered were now spoken on air: orgasm, masturbation, intercourse.

The message was clear. Sex was not only normal. It was valuable, exciting, a permanent feature of modern life.

Thirty years later, we are told, almost casually, that sex is overrated.

More revealing still are value rankings. Among people in long-term relationships, sex comes last on the list of what is necessary for well-being. For many young people, it does not appear as a value at all. Health, money, status, travel, peace of mind. Now these dominate. Sex has slipped off the agenda.

Given how problematized the intimate sphere has become, this is hardly surprising. Sex today competes with an entire digital universe. Short videos, streaming platforms, games, endless online content. Why invest emotional and physical effort when easier forms of stimulation are available on demand?

Add to this anxiety. Choosing a partner now feels like navigating a field of red flags. Fear of manipulation, abuse, psychological labels. Then practical concerns intrude. What if it leads to commitment? Marriage? A mortgage? In such a climate, withdrawal begins to look rational.

How did we get here?

For a few decades, sex became both accessible and culturally celebrated. We assumed this was a permanent achievement of modernity. But across most of human history, sex was not a sphere of self-expression. For the majority, it was tied to necessity, reproduction, obligation. Hygiene, privacy, comfort – the conditions that make mutual pleasure possible – were luxuries. Ideas like female orgasm or emotional compatibility were not central concerns for ordinary people.

We like to point to ancient erotic art or texts such as the Kama Sutra. Yet these represent elite or symbolic cultures, not the daily experience of most. What the late twentieth century did was briefly place sex at the center of mass culture.

That moment appears to be passing.

Now sex competes not only with digital entertainment but with a broader ethos of individual optimization. Time is a resource. Energy is limited. People prioritize career, fitness, mental stability, travel, consumption. Sex, with its uncertainties and vulnerabilities, looks inefficient.

The result is paradoxical. A society saturated with sexual imagery in the recent past is producing generations less interested in sexual practice. The language of desire remains in advertising and media, but lived reality is shifting toward disengagement.

Perhaps this is not decline but rebalancing. Sex, having enjoyed a period of cultural overexposure, returns to being one element among many, no longer the organizing principle of youth culture. Yet the contrast with the 1990s is striking enough to feel like a rupture.

That earlier era left a vast archive of films, novels, and memories depicting a world in which sex seemed easy, central, almost guaranteed. We may end up studying that period the way we study other brief cultural phases, through art and nostalgia rather than personal experience.

It turns out that the age when sex was treated as a universal value may have been an interlude, not a destination. And we are now living through the correction.

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team 

At the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky claimed that Russia is “trying to freeze Ukrainians to death,” referring to Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

Of course, no decent person can stand by and watch people suffer. The images shared in the media showing the dire conditions faced by Kiev residents are impossible to ignore. Ukraine has already called this genocide, which is a bold claim. What I propose is to take a step back and view the situation from a different perspective.

Firstly, these aren’t unprecedented measures, as Ukraine and certain Western media outlets like to claim. Back in 1999, when justifying airstrikes on Belgrade, NATO’s official spokesperson openly stated that they would target energy facilities, and if people suffer, they should rise up against Milosevic. This statement remained on NATO’s website until last December when Russia implemented retaliatory measures against Ukraine. Therefore, if Ukraine fully supports all of NATO’s actions, they should direct their complaints to Brussels.

Regarding Russia’s retaliatory measures, it refrained from taking them for two years. Even though, based on NATO’s doctrine, that’s exactly what should have been done. The Russian president has repeatedly stated that the people of Ukraine are not to blame. But what did the Ukrainian government do? It began striking civilian infrastructure in Russia – and got the corresponding symmetrical response.

Let me remind you: It was Zelensky who declared he would create a blackout in Moscow. That’s a direct quote of the “expired” Ukrainian president. But there’s an old saying: “You reap what you sow.” Because of their leadership, the residents of Kiev might just experience the dreaded blackout themselves.

Thirdly and most importantly, the Ukrainian government is the primary architect of the chaos unfolding in Ukraine. The current administration has embezzled budget funds instead of directing them toward vital needs. I trust no one has forgotten the cases of Mindich and Tsukerman. Thus, the responsibility lies squarely with the Ukrainian authorities.

Lastly, since the term ‘genocide’ is frequently used in the West when discussing these events, let’s be clear: Genocide is when priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are thrown into prison. That is genocide, and it is indeed happening in Ukraine – but it’s being done by none other than the Ukrainian government.

When the Trump administration’s attorney general, William Barr, announced a “bounty” of $15 million in March 2020 on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the presentation felt less like a diplomatic maneuver and more like a casting call for a low-budget spaghetti Western. The entire show – replete with the cinematic gravitas of a sheriff pinning a “Wanted” poster to a saloon door – was a masterclass in American kitsch. We were told this was about “narcoterrorism” and “fentanyl-laced cocaine,” a convenient script that rebranded a sovereign head of state as a common cartel boss – a low life criminal.

For those of us who lived through the 2011 NATO invasion of Libya, the performance was painfully familiar. I remember when the same ink was used to blot out Muammar Gaddafi’s legal status, transforming a recognized leader into a “legitimate target” overnight.

Now, as then, the Western media dutifully swapped the word “abduction” for “capture” to describe the military raid in Caracas. We are witnessing the revival of a dangerous playbook: one where semantic engineering does the heavy lifting for illegal regime change, and international law is treated as a mere suggestion in the pursuit of oil and optics.

By replacing the word “abduction” (which identifies the illegal seizure of a sovereign leader) with the sanitized term “capture,” the Western media effectively serves as a PR wing for the White House. To “capture” serves as a legal arrest; to “abduct” a president from his capital is a violation of the very sovereignty the UN Charter was built to protect.

I saw this same alchemy in March, 2011, when Barack Obama declared that Gaddafi is no longer has “the legitimacy to lead,” thereby deleting the very personality of the Libyan state. Fifteen years later, in Caracas, the script is being rehearsed with the same terrifying precision: an invasion is presented not as such, but as a surgical “extraction” to bring an “outlaw” to justice, once again proving that in the eyes of the West, legitimacy is a gift they grant or revoke at will.

The transition from diplomacy to aggression requires a specific kind of psychological preparation: the “cartelization” of the state. Before a single boot hits the ground, the target government must be stripped of its political identity and reframed as a criminal enterprise. In the lead-up to the Caracas raid, the world watched as Venezuela was no longer described as a nation in crisis – a crisis which is largely the product of suffocating American sanctions designed to make the economy scream – but as a “mafia state” run by a “narco-dictator.” It is a tactical stripping of legal protection.

When the media adopts this “narco” narrative, they are telling the public that international laws regarding sovereignty no longer apply, because you cannot “invade” a cartel – you only “bust” it. Again, the 2011 Libyan script provides the blueprint. I recall how the media abruptly pivoted from covering Libya’s complex internal politics to characterizing the entire state apparatus as nothing more than Gaddafi’s personal “hit squad.” By invoking the idea of responsibility to protect (R2P), the signal to Libyans was that the West was doing them a favor. And again, the Western media followed obediently by framing the state as a criminal gang, effectively moralized military aggression, presenting a massive breach of international norms as a simple, moral “police action.”

The spectacle reached a satirical peak in August 2025 when Attorney General Pam Bondi increased the bounty to a staggering $50 million, a figure so cartoonish it felt like a leftover prop from a first-term fever dream. In presenting the “Wanted” posters, she did so with the flair of a casino host rather than the chief law enforcement officer, rebranding a head of state as a common fugitive to justify a “capture” that was, in reality, a blatant high-tech abduction.

To understand why “capture” is such a potent weapon, one must look at the media’s systematic stripping of a state’s legal personality. Months before the January 3 kidnapping, the Western press didn’t just report on Venezuela but performed a collective exorcism of its status as a sovereign nation. Every headline served to move Maduro from the category of “political adversary” to “transnational criminal.”

And this is the “disposability script” I recognize so well from 2011. Before the first NATO sorties over Tripoli, the media had already finished the job of hollowing out the Libyan state. They only talked about civil war in the context of removing a dictator killing civilians to stay in power presenting regime change in a softer tone.

Ultimately, the Western media’s most dangerous achievement is the normalization of “judicial interventionism” as a substitute for diplomacy. By framing the January 3 raid as an “arrest” rather than an act of war, the press allows for a total bypass of the UN Security Council. This is the final stage of the Libyan ghost: the transmutation of a sovereign leader into a fugitive. When the media uses the language of the courtroom – indictments, bounties, and “extradition” – to describe the mechanized extraction, or elimination, of a head of state, they are effectively declaring that the era of Westphalian sovereignty is over. In 2011, it was R2P that served as the linguistic Trojan horse; today, it is narco-terrorism. In both cases, the result is the same: the domestic laws of a superpower are projected onto the globe, turning the world into a jurisdiction where only one side holds the gavel, and the media serves as the bailiff.

This systematic hollowing out of statehood is a process perfectly achieved, where the hollowed-out remains are dually handed over to the UN to manage. While this stage has not yet fully arrived in Venezuela, it was the ordained fate for Libya from the very beginning.

Today, the UN mission in Tripoli is left attempting to mend a catastrophe authored by Western hegemonic powers led by the US. Over the last fifteen years, only failure has accumulated. Libya is now difficult to describe as a functioning state, let alone one capable of providing for its citizens. In the Western press, it is conveniently reduced to a “failed state” – portrayed as an open market for weaponry, a threat to its neighbors, and, above all, a conduit for the “floods” of illegal migrants heading toward Europe.

An American think-tank has some bad news for Europe. Just as the continent tries to wriggle free from an abusive relationship with Washington, it turns out they’ve never been more dependent on their tormentor.

“EU risks new energy dependence as U.S. could supply 80% of its LNG imports by 2030,” blared the latest report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, pegging current dependence at 57%.

That was actually the EU’s plan all along. Apparently, it was very important to the Eurocrats that this dependence on American energy be locked in before Putin makes his grand entrance in 2030, as they keep telling us. Because by then, the charade will likely have served its purpose in washing taxpayer cash into the GDP-boosting defense sector. The French are even hiring young people for paid military training – as bakers and cooks. Will they be pelting Putin with baguettes?

They sure didn’t seem to predict the need to also fire up the ovens for some croissants to ward off Trump. Or that Trump could shut down the ovens by cutting off the gas.

It was only last summer that Ursula von der Leyen – unelected European Commission president – announced a deal with Trump. He would drop tariffs on European imports in exchange for locking the EU into even greater reliance on American gas. “We have reached a deal on tariffs and trade with the US. Today’s deal creates certainty in uncertain times. It delivers stability and predictability, for citizens and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic,” she said. “Purchases of US energy products will diversify our sources of supply and contribute to Europe’s energy security. We will replace Russian gas and oil with significant purchases of US LNG, oil, and nuclear fuels.”

He says that the EU sucks at protecting Greenland, so it needs a real man – like him. At the same time, Trump caught European nations doing their job of trying to protect it by sending a handful of troops and materiel over for military exercises. But since only he can date Greenland, he punished them by slapping new tariffs on his own people who happen to import European products. Which is like yelling at your dog because you stub your toe.

What a victory for Queen Ursula’s much-celebrated “stability and predictability.”

After years of sacrificing their energy diversity with tunnel vision on anti-Russian goals, EU leaders have now positioned themselves to be completely dependent on the very country that threatens to invade them whenever it suits.

Surely now they’ll recalibrate in their own interests, right? I wouldn’t bet on it. Consider how Germany is handling its own ideologically-induced, energy-related economic implosion.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has just come bursting out of the closet sounding like a passionate defender of nuclear energy. In reality, he has long resigned himself to lying down and letting the greenies have their way with him, like the client of a dominatrix offering the bare minimum of grumbling necessary for the show.

He says that Germany’s decision to shut down its nuclear plants was a huge error that’s come at a serious cost to the economy. “It was a serious strategic mistake to exit nuclear energy. If you were going to do it, you should have at least kept the last remaining nuclear power plants in Germany on the grid three years ago, so that we would have had the same electricity generation capacity,” he said. A pretty bold U-turn for a guy who has long shrugged off as inevitable the idea of Germany – the EU’s economic engine – being powered by the weather.

So now that Merz is in the driver’s seat and at the controls as chancellor, he’s saying, let’s get going on fixing this! All those clean energy nuclear reactors, like those that France gets to rely on, now need to be fired up again here in Germany, too, after being shut down since 2023.

Nah, just kidding. He’s actually just still shrugging, and going, oh well, nothing can be done about it now. Except blaming the previous administration. Oh, and we’re looking at exploring these new things called little modular reactors. Also nuclear, by the way. So huge change there going from nuclear to nuclear. And which won’t actually exist until maybe sometime in the next decade. Great comfort to Germans paying a fortune for energy right now that the guy in charge feels like all he can do is just complain for the time being.

Too bad he couldn’t have stepped in and done something more to fight for the same nuclear power whose disappearance he now laments. Instead, at the time, he sounded like a guy giving up on a marriage after his wife had found another dude. “They are being dismantled, they are being decontaminated. There is no way to fix this, most likely,” he said of the nuclear infrastructure.

Just to rewind a bit, the demise of Germany’s 60 years of nuclear power accelerated under former Chancellor Angela Merkel, of Merz’s own Christian Democrats party, as the Brussels Signal recently pointed out. She saw what happened with Fukushima in Japan and reacted like someone who decides that they need to avoid cars for the rest of their life because they once witnessed an accident. Merkel apparently had all the confidence in the world that political will could bend uncontrollable external factors, like the weather, in the country’s favor. Then in 2023, the German economy minister doubled down, saying that there was no intention of going back since the public, already being crushed by high energy prices at the time from cutting off both nuclear and Nord Stream’s Russian gas, was totally cool with it.

So how has all this worked out? Funny how ideology sounds great until reality shows up. Electricity prices are up. Fossil fuel use has increased as a result of firing up coal plants again to meet energy demand. Another American economic think-tank, the National Bureau of Economic Research, estimates the cost of the nuclear phase-out at $12 billion dollars a year, mostly from all the junk that the coal is spewing into the air, driving up health care costs.

And now Germany is starting to realize that swapping a diversified energy mix for disappointment was really stupid, all while Trump grins in the background, turning every European blunder into his personal playground of torment, with them hogtied like kids who ignored every warning about the ice-cream van.

Watching Trump toy with the EU over his vows to seize Greenland is infuriating in the same way that a friend keeps calling you nonstop to describe her nutcase live-in partner, without actually doing anything about it. Know what unnerves a bully? Unpredictability.

Bullies love predictable victims. Ask any woman who has suddenly gone off-script and ended up labeled ‘crazy’ by some deserving man. A woman who doesn’t flinch is terrifying to a bully. Hence the diagnosis.

So why is the EU still playing defense? And so poorly, at that. Sending Danish and Greenlandic leaders on a trip across the Atlantic to negotiate with their blackmailers on the abuser’s own turf and hoping for the best? The minute someone starts manipulating, strong-arming, and intimidating you, you go no-contact. Block them. Then sit back and let them fill in the blanks with every possible worst-case scenario.

Instead, you’re sending European materiel and troops to Greenland for military exercises, all while the US is still kicking its feet up inside NATO and bragging that he’ll eventually get what he wants if he leaves the right amount of cash on Greenland’s nightstand. That’s like living with an abusive partner while insisting on staying under the same roof, thinking that they’ll be deterred because you’ve taken up Boxercise classes and flex in front of them by opening jars of pickles with your bare hands.

You want him to simmer down for real? Call his bluff. Kick him out. Change the locks on all the military bases that he’s installed inside your house. He may have too much stuff to relocate to the front yard. Fine. Then bomb it for extra giggles. Smash that windshield, girl! Key that Mercedes!

Like a schoolyard gossip, the Daily Mail swears it heard from someone who knows someone else that Trump is totally planning a bold but creepy move on Greenland. Allegedly, he’s even asked people to help him draw up these plans to aggressively grab Greenland by the assets.

And the people he’s tasked are like, dude, that sounds really non-consensual. They’re trying to redirect him: “Hey, have you considered flexing on Russian ghost ships instead? Or just using Iran as a punching bag – again?”

But according to the Daily Mail rumor mill, the war hawks in Trump’s entourage want him to make a move on Greenland before China or Russia do. Not that there’s any evidence China or Russia is interested in attacking NATO, which is what attacking Greenland would involve. In other words, the bully’s logic is: if you don’t let me do what I want, someone else might. What’s that saying? A jackass inside the home is worth China and Russia in the bush?

Thanks, but I’ll take my chances on the guys who haven’t explicitly threatened me from inside my own house.

The ‘news’ about Trump and Greenland has devolved into a free-for-all ever since Trump invaded Venezuela, established proof of concept, toppled its sitting president, kidnapped him, and stuffed him onto a plane to New York, where they’re now allegedly going to attempt to try him like some random guy caught dealing drugs in East Harlem.

Instead of fighting crazy with crazy, the EU is merely threatening Trump with non-cooperation. “We will also make it clear that if the US chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops, including NATO and thus the security that has been established since the end of the Second World War,” said Danish Prime Minister Mette Fredericksen.

In other words, try to take Greenland and we won’t hang out with you anymore. That assumes he values your relationship more than Greenland’s riches. Good luck with that.

British MP Ed Davey also weighed in: “It’s time we started taking Trump’s threats seriously. God forbid if Greenland is attacked, the UK should immediately sanction the Trump Organization and think twice about whether we want US forces on our soil at all.”

Cool. So what are you waiting for? A handwritten invitation to log off, draw up sanctions, and kick American troops off your couches?

French MP Clémence Guetté chimed in too. “I am submitting a proposed resolution for the planned withdrawal from NATO, starting with its integrated command.”

That would be compelling if France not being in NATO – which it wasn’t until 2009 – had ever deterred American regime change.

A resolution to withdraw France from NATO also has zero chance of succeeding legislatively or deterring the actual problem. Why would you move out of your own home?

It’s long past time for the EU to uncork the crazy and go full Fatal Attraction on Trump and his warmongering enablers, in response to years of Washington’s toxic and abusive behavior that have successfully manipulated the EU into compromising itself and its citizens.

After hosting the 2023 G20 Summit, India has assumed the presidency of another important multilateral grouping, BRICS, starting January 1, 2026, and will host the 18th BRICS Summit later this year. India’s BRICS presidency comes at an inflection point in global politics – the transition toward multipolarity has become chaotic amid great power rivalries, the spirit of multilateralism is being challenged by unilateral impulses and BRICS is trying to manage its expansion process without losing its significance.

Multilateralism has been widely seen to be in decline as it has struggled to adapt to changing geopolitical circumstances. Interest-based and selective cooperation is now replacing the earlier universal rules-based multilateral cooperation. It is thus both a challenge and opportunity for India to steer the BRICS grouping under its presidency this year.

Priorities for India’s presidency

India’s 2026 BRICS presidency seeks to redefine BRICS through ‘Building Resilience and Innovation for Cooperation and Sustainability’. India will carry forward its 2023 G20 agenda with a people centric approach and ‘humanity first’ agenda. India will also look to build consensus to oppose unilateral actions to weaponize trade, technology and critical minerals.

India will continue to make efforts for reform of institutions of global governance instead of rejecting them, as is the case with the current US leadership.

Climate change will figure high in India’s priorities which will be based on ideas of climate justice, just and fair energy transition and strengthening climate finance for the Global South. India’s bid to host the COP33 in 2028 has been supported by the BRICS partners. It is also an attempt by India to reframe climate governance away from emission targets alone and toward development-centered climate action.

Since 2023, BRICS has been focused on the expansion process. The new members include Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the UAE and Indonesia. The expansion process, however, has raised some concerns about efficiency, criteria, internal cohesion and identity of BRICS. India supports BRICS expansion based on consensus among members. The expansion, however, should not be used for geopolitical purposes and should not dilute BRICS core identity of being an economic and Global South platform.

Challenges for the bloc in 2026

The biggest challenge to BRICS comes from the administration of US President Donald Trump in the US, which sees BRICS as a threat to America’s interests. The previous US administrations under Obama and Biden were cautious but not openly hostile toward BRICS. However, Trump has identified BRICS as ‘an attack on the US dollar’. He has even threatened to impose 100% tariffs on the BRICS countries.

The US will hold the G20 presidency in 2026 – a development that could indirectly impact India’s BRICS presidency. After four consecutive G20 summits under Global South countries, there is a concern that the agenda could shift from the priorities of the Global South to America First.

BRICS can be a platform through which these countries can coordinate a unified response to Trump’s tariffs against member states. They could also explore ideas like increasing intra-BRICS trade to lessen dependence on the US market, trade in local currencies, reconfiguration of supply chains in favor of BRICS and lowering barriers to intra-BRICS trade. BRICS can be a useful platform to mitigate the challenges posed to member states by Trump’s tariffs. For India, the BRICS presidency will be an opportunity to demonstrate support for rules-based trade and multilateralism.

In general, BRICS aligns closely with India’s foreign policy priorities: maintaining strategic autonomy, facilitating the rise of a multipolar world, allowing access to ‘non-Western’ financial institutions, highlighting India as a leading voice of the Global South on issues such as climate change, sustainable development and reform of global governance institutions such as the UN Security Council, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund.

As deplored in the Washington Post, Washington’s recent assault on Venezuela wasn’t just your usual US war of aggression/regime change operation but also served to facilitate a particular kind of insider trading.

Or rather, betting: On the so-called ‘prediction’ platform Polymarket, a very well-informed investor wagered over $30,000 that Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro would be out of office by the last day of January and – lo and behold! – “walked away with more than $400,000 in profit.” That “prediction” was “timed with such pitch-perfect precision that it drew heavy media scrutiny” as it “bore the hallmarks of insider trading.” You. Don’t. Say. There’s cheating going on at the White House and among its hangers-on!

Now, let’s be realistic: Real, existing capitalism – not the Friedrich von Hayek-Milton Friedman fan fiction that still dulls all too many minds – has always been ruthless. Its modern history of about half a millennium includes stupendous scientific, technological, and cultural change, as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels acknowledged in their Communist Manifesto, parts of which read almost as a panegyric to the bourgeoisie and the capitalist world it made.

But that world also began with the vicious impoverishment and exploitation of the masses, the plunder and devastation of whole continents and their original inhabitants, and a brisk international slave trade, vitiating and ending millions of lives. Marxists call this “primitive accumulation”; their master also used the term “original expropriation,” sardonically comparing its role in traditional political economy to man’s fall from divine grace in Christian mythology.

After the establishment of first a traditional European great power empire under a radically new management dedicated to Communism in 1917 and then, one World War later, a whole Communist “second world” – centered in but not restricted to Eurasia – the capitalist regimes of the West slowly learned to tread a little more carefully, at least at home.

After the global neoliberal and right-libertarian surge and the end of most of that rival “second world” several decades ago, capitalism has become more brutally straightforward again everywhere. And not only in terms of the frank contempt its current elites – such as the real-estate billionaire who also runs the US and the BlackRock and Rothschild careerists who are in charge of Germany and France respectively – display for everyone not part of their exclusive, disdainful club.

Plunder plain and simple was never gone from the repertory of capitalism, obviously. Just ask the Syrians what has happened to their oil, for instance. More than half a decade ago, in his first term, American buccaneer-in-chief Donald Trump, already had a moment of refreshing candor, openly acknowledging that the US military was in Syria (perfectly illegally under international law, of course) “to take the oil. I took the oil. The only troops I have [in Syria] are taking the oil.”

Still, what Washington’s beasts of prey are doing to Venezuela now is an especially glaring example of shamelessness, a fresh peak performance (for now) of American chutzpah. The Trumpists and their media are positively reveling in their own iniquity. The robbing of Venezuela’s resources – what is already taking place and the much bigger plunder gleefully expected for the future – is celebrated in public. And if there is dissent, then only about the profits to be had, their prospective scale and whether they are quite as certain as Trump. (Spoiler alert: not, obviously.)

Take the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), for instance, one of the top party organs of the international predator class (next to the likes of The Economist, Financial Times, and Bloomberg). Between the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro – with the killing of over a hundred Venezuelans and Cubans, at least – and the escalating media campaign to prepare for another war of aggression against Iran, the newspaper was busy with assessing the economic impact of future US exploitation of Venezuela’s oil: in essence, will it lower the global oil price? And if so, what does that mean for other oil producers, those in OPEC, but also, crucially, in the US (complicated, actually, with many domestic American oil producers dreading a price drop), for Trump, his Republicans and their domestic standing (the midterms are threatening and affordability remains an issue), and last and probably least, for ordinary Americans?

Thankfully, the WSJ has also artlessly drawn attention to a particularly cynical aspect of the Great Venezuelan Oil (and gold, and lithium, and more) Robbery. No, not the insider betting at Polymarket but what it called the “Donroe Trade,” with investors “racing to capitalize on President Trump’s ambitions to dominate the Western Hemisphere,” that is, in less ideological language, on the windfalls from imperialism. There has been a “sharp rally” in Venezuelan debt – a regime change bet already noticed last December – boosting “hedge funds and other investment firms.” And, as good investors are supposed to do, they are also already “eyeing debt in Colombia and Cuba” and preparing for opportunities in Mexico and Greenland, too.

In short, the vultures aren’t just circling, they are pouncing. And the good old Wall Street Journal, unsurprisingly, finds all of that quite normal and as it should be. Yet, read another flagship publication of real-existing capitalism, Bloomberg, and you’ll find news that should give Washington’s triumphant pirates of the Caribbean food for thought.

Just as enough investors were swarming into the ‘Donroe Trade’ of booty, pillage, and big boisterous promises to merit a lengthy WSJ article, a different kind of boom was taking place centered on a different region of the world: Asia, including China. There, Bloomberg reported, tech and AI stocks were “on a tear.” And this was not just any surge for stocks from Asia. Rather, investors – very much including those from the US – were “betting their momentum and outperformance against US peers will last through” all of 2026.

The simple fact that these hopes shape the market mood is more important than the details. Investors are optimistic about Asian semiconductor supply chains, earnings potentials, and cutting-edge technological progress, while feeling worried about American tech and AI stocks’ ability to sustain their “rally after years of outsized gains,” in short, a typical US bubble. In particular, Bloomberg notes, “enthusiasm over [China’s] tech prowess has only grown in the new year.” China – that is, the geopolitical competitor that Washington is most obsessed with, next to Russia.

In the words of Emmanuel Todd, the brilliant French intellectual who correctly predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, and more recently, the “defeat of the West,” America is no longer capable of re-industrializing. It has become too incompetent in actually producing things or training the engineers and workers that can produce those things, even if Trump’s policy of tariffs and protectionism looks as if it is about bringing manufacturing home. What this late-state US is good at is extremely uninhibited violence and “predation,” that is, plain robbery.

Ironically, capitalists sense this long-term change with the same acuity they display for the fleeting opportunities to profit from the ransacking of Venezuela. Yet none of this makes a difference to the fact that Washington is losing its grip. It can still inflict great pain and cause terrible destruction, but it cannot offer a vision of international – or, for that matter, domestic – order that attracts anyone who isn’t corrupt, submissive by nature, or witless.

What analysts have speculated about for two decades is now codified policy: The post-Cold War epoch of unipolar American hegemony, draped in the language of liberal internationalism and universal values, has been formally terminated. The West’s ‘moral pretense’ – the insistence that its foreign policy was primarily driven by democracy promotion and human rights – has been exposed as an untenable fiction in the face of stark national interests.

In its place, a transactional Tripolar Order has been institutionalized. This structure, defined by the United States, China, and the Russian Federation, can now be called the finalized operational manual for 21st-century geopolitics.

For Africa, this represents the most significant geopolitical recalibration since the Berlin Conference of 1884, when the Western colonial powers converged in Germany to formalize the Scramble for Africa and the ‘effective occupation’ of its territories. The difference now is that the continent is not a blank slate for European division, but a managed space under new, non-Western actors.

Contrary to the myth of a globally engaged superpower, the United States has executed a deliberate and historic retrenchment. Its latest National Security Strategy paper is a document of strategic contraction. The primary focus is unambiguous: the consolidation of the American hemisphere. This ‘Fortress America’ doctrine prioritizes economic and security integration from Canada to Chile, turning the Western Hemisphere into an impregnable zone of influence. Secondary interests are reserved exclusively for the Anglosphere – the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand – culturally and institutionally aligned nations that serve as force multipliers.

The critical passage for Africa and Asia is what the document omits: a strategy for direct engagement. The US has officially disengaged from strategic competition on the African continent. It will close remaining bases, cease military aid designed for influence, and end its democracy and governance programs. Washington’s approach is now one of efficient outsourcing. Its insatiable need for cobalt, lithium, and rare earth elements – the lifeblood of its digital and green economies – will no longer be sourced through messy dealings with individual African states. Instead, the US will procure these resources via bulk, state-to-state transactions with the continent’s recognized managers: China and Russia. Africa, to Washington, is now a wholesale warehouse, not a diplomatic playground.

The Eastern and Southern hegemon, master of the supply chain

China’s sphere, recognized in the tripartite understanding, is vast and economically coherent. It encompasses South Asia, East Asia, and the mineral-strategic spine of Africa: Central Africa (notably the Democratic Republic of the Congo), East Africa (with its ports and belts), and Southern Africa. A confidential but binding US-China trade pact has cemented this.

Russia: The Northern and Western European security guarantor

Russia’s domain, formalized by the impending ‘Putrump’ accord (the strategic understanding between the Putin and Trump administrations on the general conditions for the Russia-Ukrainian Peace deal and the future of Europe), is one of hard security and political patronage. It stretches from a Finlandized Europe across the Mediterranean to North Africa, West Africa, and key Central African states.

The US decision to withdraw support for Ukraine was not an isolationist whim but a calculated move to remove the final military hurdle to Russia’s pacification of Europe. With Ukraine neutralized, European nations, lacking credible autonomous defense, will gradually accommodate themselves to Moscow’s security and energy dictates.

In Africa, Russia’s offering is not economic miracles but political survivability and security. Through vehicles like the Africa Corps, Russia provides a service no other power can match: security in the face of internal rebellion and Western-instigated instability. It trades in the currency of sovereignty, making it the paramount power across the Sahel and into the coastal states.

The colonial ghosts of Europe are being exorcised. The influence of France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Portugal, and Spain – maintained through the CFA franc, military bases, and paternalistic diplomacy – is in terminal decline. By 2028, it will be a historical footnote. Any African leader still orchestrating their security or economic policy through Paris or London is piloting their nation towards irrelevance and poverty in the new order.

Africa now exists under a collaborative duopoly: Russian security stewardship and Chinese economic administration, and this is a synergistic partnership.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), long viewed as a vehicle for Franco-Nigerian influence, is fracturing. The principle of collective security has been shattered by the defiance of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) – Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. The AES is the prototype for Russia’s African sphere: a military-political compact underwritten by Moscow’s security guarantee. Its appeal is gravitational. I would project that Guinea-Bissau, Togo, Ghana, Senegal, and Mauritania might seek membership by 2026, drawn by the promise of regime security outside Western condemnation. Chad and the Central African Republic will likely pivot from their regional bodies to this more potent alliance. What could remain of ECOWAS will be a geopolitically insignificant rump of coastal states – Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Liberia – technically intact but stripped of its strategic purpose.

My homeland, Nigeria, exemplifies the new managerial logic. The nation is not being torn apart but is being efficiently managed according to zonal competencies. The Northwestern and Southwestern regions, facing acute internal security challenges, naturally fall under Russia’s security purview. Simultaneously, the Central, Eastern, and Northeastern zones, rich in minerals and requiring massive infrastructure, align with China’s economic and developmental framework. This is not a conspiracy but a rational division of labor by the resident powers, ensuring stability and resource flow without destructive competition.

African elites should internalize these foundational truths to navigate the coming decades. The Westphalian myth of equal sovereignty is dead. In the Tripolar Order, sovereignty is stratified. Nuclear capability grants absolute sovereignty. All other nations possess only a conditional, delegated sovereignty, exercised within the boundaries and interests of their managing superpower.

Institutions like the United Nations, WHO, and NATO are becoming artifacts of a bygone order which will likely be repurposed as administrative tools for the Tripolar directors.

The era of aid, grants, and moralistic conditionalities is over. The only remaining ‘-ism’ is transactionalism. Foreign policy is now pure quid pro quo. China seeks resources and strategic alignment; Russia seeks political loyalty and economic concessions; the US seeks secure resource flows. African leaders should become master dealers, offering clear assets (minerals, ports, votes in defunct international bodies) in exchange for tangible returns (infrastructure, weapons, regime security).

Fantasies of US military intervention – to save democracy, to fight terrorism, to stop genocide – must be abandoned. The United States will not deploy troops to Africa; its entire African policy is now subcontracted. Africa’s peace and conflict are solely the domain of the Russian security apparatus and, where its investments are threatened, the Chinese.

For Africa, the philosophical debate seems closed. The question is no longer ”Who should we partner with?” but ”How do we optimize our position within the existing framework?” The path forward demands unflinching pragmatism, transactional brilliance, and a clear-eyed alignment with the relevant power structure.

If Donald Trump were to consummate a purchase of Greenland, he would almost certainly secure a place in both American and global history.

Beyond the spectacle, the scale alone would be staggering. Greenland spans roughly 2.17 million square kilometers – making it comparable in size to the entire Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and larger than the 1867 Alaska Purchase. Fold that landmass into today’s United States and America’s total area would jump past Canada, placing the US second only to Russia in territorial size. In a system where size, resources, and strategic depth still matter, such a shift would be read around the world as an assertion of enduring American reach.

Prestige is only part of the story. Greenland sits astride the Arctic, where warming seas are reshaping trade routes and great‑power competition. It hosts critical radar and space‑tracking infrastructure and lies close to emerging maritime lanes and subsea resources. Its geology, long discussed for rare earths and other critical minerals, adds a layer of economic promise. For a president who measures success in visible, audacious strokes, the symbolism of converting a long‑mooted idea into a concrete map change would be irresistible – and historically resonant.

How would Trump be remembered at home if he pulled it off peacefully, through purchase? American memory tends to fix on outcomes, not process. The Louisiana Purchase is celebrated for doubling the young nation, not for the constitutional scruples it raised at the time. The Alaska Purchase, derided as “Seward’s Folly,” is now taught as strategic foresight. The sheer scale of Greenland would make it the single largest one‑time expansion of US territory, narrowly edging out Louisiana in raw area. That alone would place any president in the pantheon of consequential leaders; Trump would likely be discussed in the same breath as Jefferson and, by sheer magnitude of territorial change, alongside the transformative figures students learn first.

Domestically, opposition would likely be sharp in the moment, especially over process, cost, and precedent. It would be massively amplified by the divisiveness of Trump’s figure. Yet American political memory is selective. If the acquisition delivered clear strategic advantages, and was followed by effective integration and investment, the drama of the negotiations would fade while the map endured. Schoolroom globes would change. So would calculations in defense, climate science, and resource policy. Over time, anniversaries – not the acrimony – would structure how most citizens encountered the story.

There are, of course, ways this legacy could sour. America remembers big swings, but it also remembers boondoggles. If the path to acquisition trampled consent, sparked long‑running disputes, or failed to deliver tangible benefits, the afterglow would dim and the comparison to Jefferson or Seward would feel strained. For a time.

Still, if Trump were to acquire Greenland, historians would struggle to write the modern American story without giving him a central chapter. The combination of scale, symbolism, and strategic repositioning would be too significant to treat as a footnote. Whatever one thinks of his methods, the legacy question in that scenario is straightforward: the map would testify on his behalf long after today’s arguments have quieted. That is how history so often works. Outcomes, etched in borders, become the monuments.

Sometimes a surprising statement made almost in passing on a minor occasion can pack a lot of political oomph. And sometimes, it’s just a slip and won’t tell you much about either the present or the future. But how do you know?

That is the challenge posed by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s recent – and very unusual – talk about a “compromise”  (“Ausgleich” in German) with Russia, which, he also stressed, is “a European country,” indeed “our greatest European neighbor.”

Outside the context of current Western and, in particular, German and EU politics, such a statement may seem almost commonplace. Obviously, it would make sense for Berlin – and Brussels, too – to work toward a peaceful, productive, mutually beneficial relationship with Moscow. Equally obviously, this is not merely an option but, in reality, a vital necessity (as Merz may have been hinting at when emphasizing that Russia is Germany’s greatest European neighbor: Greatest as in indispensable?).

Yet once you add the actual context of escalating German and EU policies toward Russia since 2014 at the very latest, Merz’s sudden insight into the obvious appears almost sensational. For over a decade, German and EU policy toward Moscow has been based on three simple – and self-damagingly insane – ideas: First, Russia is our enemy by default and “forever” (see the refreshingly frank admission by German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul). Second, using Ukraine (and a lot of Ukrainians), we can defeat that enemy with a combination of economic and diplomatic warfare and a very bloody proxy war on the ground. Finally, there is no alternative: it is VERBOTEN to even think about genuine give-and-take negotiations and any compromise that would also be good enough for Moscow.

Merz, moreover, has no record as a doubter of these moronic dogmas. On the contrary, he has been a consistent uber-hawk, combining the requisite constant Russophobic undertone with a long series of hardline initiatives and positions. Just a few months ago, for instance, Merz fought tooth and nail for confiscating Russian sovereign assets frozen in the EU. That he lost that fight was due to resistance from Belgium – which would have been exposed to absurdly irrational risks by permitting that robbery – and France and Italy, whose leaders tripped up their hapless German “ally” at the last minute.

Just this month, the German chancellor declared he is ready to send German soldiers to secure a “ceasefire” in Ukraine. Yes, that would be that ceasefire that Moscow has ruled out as a dishonest half-measure. It is true that Merz hedged this announcement with conditions that make it irrelevant. But, nonetheless, it was not a contribution to de-escalation with Russia.

Yet here we are. Speaking not in Berlin, but the provincial metropolis of Halle in Eastern Germany, Merz used the occasion of a fairly humdrum meeting under the auspices of a regional IHK (Industrie und Handelskammer) meeting to speak about Germany’s relationship with Russia.

The IHK is a chamber of industry and commerce, an economic association of some weight. But it is not the parliament in Berlin or, for instance, even a foreign-policy information war outfit/think tank. Most of Merz’s remarks, unsurprisingly, concerned the German economy, which, he had to admit, is not in a good state, but, he promised, will be better soon. He also gave his word to fight and reduce bureaucracy, not only in Germany but the EU as well. That sort of stuff, nothing special, political potboiler.

His audience may or may not have been convinced by that all-too-quick denial. Halle is not only a major city in Germany’s East, but also, more specifically, the second-largest conurbation in the Land of Saxony-Anhalt. That is where, polls suggest, the new-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party may well win a crucial election in September, particularly by outdistancing Merz’s own mainstream conservatives (CDU). A similar scenario is possible in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, also in Germany’s East.

In both places, even a relative (not absolute) AfD majority, which seems certain at this point, would expose the traditional parties and especially the CDU to one of their worst nightmares: the end of the so-called “firewall,” that is, the harebrained and undemocratic policy of simply freezing the AfD out of the building of ruling coalitions. Merz personally has been an iron proponent of the “firewall.” Razing it, even regionally, will cost him his political career or force him into a brutal, humiliating 180-degree turn.

One important reason voters in Germany’s East are unhappy with the traditional parties is their policy of relentless, self-damaging confrontation toward Russia and equally relentless, really masochistic support for Zelensky’s regime in Ukraine. Just now, one of Germany’s highest courts has finally, in essence, recognized the fact that Ukraine was deeply involved in the worst vital-infrastructure attack in postwar German history, the destruction of most of the Nord Stream pipelines. Many Germans have had enough, not only but especially in Germany’s East.

And perhaps that is all it was. But there are good reasons to keep an open mind. For one thing, Merz has not been the only EU leader striking a more conciliatory note recently. As the Russian government has noted, similar statements have been made in France and Italy. The leaders of both countries, Emmanuel Macron and Georgia Meloni, have been no less bold than Merz in stating the obvious, namely – to summarize – that not even talking to Moscow is a daft policy.

It is not hard to see why EU politicians may be prepared to pursue diplomacy again. Their imperial overlord in Washington has made it clear that the Ukraine war will be their problem and theirs alone, while also displaying a brutality towards the world, including the clients/vassals in Europe, that is unusually open even by American standards.

After the tariff wars, the new US National Security Strategy, Venezuela, and the threats against Denmark over Greenland, could it be that, at very long last, some in Europe are slowly waking up to the fact that the worst threat to the sorry remains of their sovereignty, their economies, and also their traditional political elites is Washington, not Moscow? It would be very rash to assume so. But we can hope.

Everything has gone beautifully in Donald Trump’s Venezuela operation. An alleged narcoterrorist dictator was captured and brought to justice in a New York court, and the planet’s biggest oil wealth is now owned by the US. At least, according to Trump himself.

“We’re in the oil business,” he said after declaring billions of dollars’ worth of Venezuelan crude was now heading to the US. “You don’t talk to the Venezuelans, you talk to me,” he told Big Oil executives who gathered in the White House last week.

The trouble is, Big Oil doesn’t see it that way. The chief executives of ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips are not rushing back into Venezuela.

Trump called the oil chiefs to the White House last Friday to urge them to invest $100 billion in upgrading Venezuela’s petroleum and gas industries. Decades of US economic sanctions are reckoned to have caused the country’s industrial infrastructure to deteriorate.

Venezuela’s oil industry was nationalized between 2004 and 2007 by former socialist President Hugo Chavez. This policy continued under his successor, Nicolas Maduro, who was kidnapped on January 3 when US special forces raided his residence in Caracas.

After Venezuela’s oil industry was nationalized and run by state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the US oil giants Exxon and Conoco quit operations in the country. They later sued in US courts, which ruled that Venezuela owes them $13 billion in expropriated assets. The third biggest US oil company, Chevron, continued to do business in Venezuela in partnership with PDVSA.

Exxon boss Darren Woods described Venezuela as “uninvestable.” Woods said: “We have a very long history in Venezuela… We’ve had our assets seized there twice. You can imagine to re‑enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we’ve historically seen here and what is currently the state.” He added: “If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s uninvestable. And so significant changes have to be made to those commercial frameworks, the legal system, there has to be durable investment protections, and there has to be a change to the hydrocarbon laws in the country.”

The Exxon CEO’s comments were echoed by Conoco’s boss, Ryan Lance, who said: “We need to be also thinking about even restructuring the entire Venezuelan energy system, including PDVSA.”

What that means is that Venezuela is far from under US control.

Maduro may have been abducted, but the Venezuelan government continues under interim President Delcy Rodriguez and the same administration as when Maduro was in office. Rodriguez and her top aides, including Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, have condemned the US aggression and are demanding the safe return of Maduro and his wife.

Venezuela has not collapsed, nor has its socialist government been overthrown. The scores of warships and 15,000 troops, as well as 200 special operations commandos, deployed at an estimated cost of over $600 million to kidnap Maduro, seem to have brought a Pyrrhic victory.

Big Oil backed Trump’s election campaign in 2024. Delivering Venezuela was part of the deal. But, from what the chief executives are telling the president, he failed to deliver enough for them to feel confident about going back into the South American country.

Hence Trump’s irritated reaction over the weekend. On returning to Washington from Florida, he was asked by reporters about Exxon’s reluctance to stump up $100 billion to go back into Venezuela. His response to reporters on Air Force One: “I didn’t like Exxon’s response… they’re playing too cute.” As a sign of his displeasure, Trump said he would block Exxon from returning to Venezuela in the future.

Big Oil just rained on the supposed victory parade about the Venezuela operation.

The spectacular raid did not change the government in Caracas. Independent journalist Camila Escalante, reporting on the ground, says the interim administration under Rodriguez is continuing the policies of Maduro. The Big Oil executives seem to be in agreement with this assessment.

If Trump wants to take control of Venezuela’s oil wealth instead of hijacking a few tankers, he will need to send US troops into the country in a large-scale invasion to install a new regime. This will come with huge, likely unbearable political and military costs.

There are three major foreign-policy items on the EU’s radar, and they’re all connected: Ukraine, Venezuela, and Greenland. All three involve Washington doing whatever it wants, largely to the EU’s detriment.

And no, this didn’t start with Trump. He just yanked off the white gloves and revealed Washington’s bare knuckles in all their glory. All three cases also involve the EU at least pretending that it’s on Washington’s side – even when resistance would have been squarely in Europe’s own interests. The US has long viewed the EU as an economic competitor and has repeatedly leaned on “national security” to pressure it into undercutting itself.

The EU was only too happy to comply once its initial resistance to US sanctions against its economy-fueling supply of cheap Russian gas via Nord Stream finally collapsed. That resistance evaporated entirely when Russia, after years of US-led NATO treating the Ukrainian side of its border like a militarized flophouse – complete with neo-Nazis bunking in the guest rooms – finally had enough.

The EU followed the same script with Trump’s recent attack on Venezuela: ritual nods to national sovereignty, enthusiastic praise for the outcome, and a determined refusal to name or shame the perpetrator.

It took them several hours to synchronize their talking points. Kids in a cult all dressed up in identical rhetorical outfits for Daddy Trump. Lots of talk about “illegitimacy.” Not the coup itself. Not the “drug trafficking” accusations, even though fentanyl doesn’t appear once in the indictment and the Justice Department has already quietly abandoned the idea that there’s even such a thing as the “Cartel de Los Soles” that the US once accused Maduro of leading. And certainly not the illegitimacy of kidnapping a sitting head of state from his own country to try him for crimes in another – without an extradition treaty. Instead, they keep calling Maduro himself “illegitimate,” even as he’s charged by a country whose constitution enshrines the right to keep and bear arms, for possessing weapons – in Venezuela.

A British MP tried to argue self-defense. For Trump. Because apparently it’s self-defense when you obsess over someone who poses no real threat to you, march into their house, drag them outside, and kidnap them.

Perhaps because Europe has been so chronically obtuse, Trump now feels emboldened to target it directly – starting with Greenland. Time to grow a spine yet? Not quite, apparently.

The explanation is simple. Every concession that the EU has made to Washington at the expense of its own sovereignty has left it totally dependent on staying in Trump’s good graces – like a tradwife who gave up her career and now depends entirely on her partner, beholden to his moods and whims. What happens when you wake up and realize that you’re married to a jerk, but you long ago sold out your own independence?

The EU wants Washington to act as its bouncer in Ukraine. Russia has made clear that it doesn’t want NATO there, even under a ceasefire. So with Macron and Starmer’s ‘Coalition of the Willing,’ Europe is lining itself up for a near-certain Russian butt-kicking if peace efforts go sideways (which is not a zero-probability scenario) – unless Washington is there to hold their hand and murmur “it’s okay.”

Instead of marching up the block and giving Trump a piece of its collective mind, the EU did what it always does with Daddy Trump. It issued a joint statement, bravely dodging the elephant in the room: American belligerence, now turbocharged by the fresh smash-and-grab on Venezuela. And it was all done for oil, a fact Trump spent 90 minutes on TV rubbing in, just in case anyone was confused or watching on mute. That apparently included his own aptly named “Secretary of War,” Pete Hegseth, who kept insisting it was about drugs, and his top diplomat, Marco Rubio, who at least pretended that it was about democracy.

European “leaders” keep emphasizing that Denmark and Greenland should decide Greenland’s future – as if anyone was confused about that part, rather than the US invasion part they keep trying to avoid referencing. Talking points in hand, they did what they do best: repeat themselves. As if a “my body, my choice” argument is going to work on a guy who brags about grabbing countries by the assets.

Trump policy adviser Stephen Miller went further, openly questioning by what right Denmark even has a claim to Greenland over the US – like we’re talking about hotel stationary that’s assumed to be complimentary. It conveniently ignores the fact that in 1916, the US acquired the Danish West Indies – now the US Virgin Islands – as part of the deal that recognized Denmark’s rights to Greenland. But sure, that was over a century ago. Times change. Trump wants Greenland for national security. Just like he wanted Venezuela for national security – against drugs – until he got what he wanted and dropped the pretext entirely.

At the same time, the Europeans reassure themselves that Washington would never seize territory from a NATO country, because that would be unthinkable. Except that Trump keeps thinking it out loud, repeatedly, insisting that acquiring Greenland is non-negotiable. Rubio claims Trump wants to buy it, so it’s not like they’ll jump straight to invasion, he suggests. Only after negotiations fail, presumably.

And what is the US counting on? The EU blinking. Stephen Miller openly said there won’t be any military confrontation with NATO over Greenland. Why? “Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland,” he said.

They’re starting to sound like the drunk guy at a bar who won’t take no for an answer. And Trump keeps acting this way because none of these European so-called leaders have the nerve to tell him off – even when it’s clearly in their own interest.

Congratulations, Eurobozos. The self-sabotaging strategy you’ve spent years perfecting – cheerfully riding shotgun on Washington’s regime-change superhighway at your own people’s expense – has now spectacularly boomeranged straight into the windshield of the driver’s seat of your own clown car.

Is it becoming impossible to protest the US government as specifically protected by the First Amendment without being branded a domestic terrorist, or worse, killed? That is what many fear is happening following the violent death of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a stay-at-home mother of three, in the US city of Minneapolis.

On January 7, Good was blocking a neighborhood street inside of her SUV before being approached by two ICE agents. The video shows one of the officers jostling with the door handle, demanding that the woman get out of the vehicle. Instead of exiting the car, Good went briefly in reverse and then lurched forward in an apparent attempt to flee the scene. At this point, another officer, identified as Jonathan Ross, drew his revolver and fired two bullets into the windshield of the moving SUV, striking Good in the head. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.

At this point, nothing makes sense about this ‘police stop’, which wasn’t your typical police stop at all. As is clearly seen in the video, the first officer does not attempt to speak to the woman to understand why her car is parked sideways on the road. Perhaps she is having car problems, we don’t know and, apparently, he doesn’t either (media has since confirmed that Good belonged to ICE Watch, a loose group of activists dedicated to disrupting ICE raids in the sanctuary city). Instead, he grabs the door handle while hollering at the woman to get out of the car. As anybody who has been through a police stop knows, that is not how they are supposed to work. People are usually terrified when getting confronted by the police, thus it is essential that the officer make some sort of communication with the driver, asking for a driver’s license and registration as the most obvious way. Under normal circumstances, the officer will go back to his vehicle to check the information.

What is unfortunate about all of this is that the Trump administration – and Trump himself – wasted no time pinning blame on the driver of the car. Worse, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem portrayed the victim, a mother of three and award-winning poet, as a “domestic terrorist.” Good, Noem said without providing any evidence, had been “stalking and impeding” ICE officers before “weaponizing her vehicle” in an effort to run over the agent who shot her.

The game of victim-blaming did not end there. Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and a spokesperson for ICE, declared in a post on X that “one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them – an act of domestic terrorism.”

Several ICE officers were injured, she insisted, when videos of the shooting proved that claim to be categorically false.

This is a very dark day in America when average citizens – soccer moms no less – are declared “domestic terrorists” before any investigation into their ‘crimes’ has even started. The dead mother was not engaged in violent protesting, unless we have reached the point when blocking traffic with one’s automobile can be considered a terrorist act worthy of losing one’s life over. That’s why it’s crucial to wait for an in-depth investigation before jumping to conclusions. What is disturbing, however, is the way officials were tossing around explosive phrases, like “rioter,” “domestic terrorist,” and “weaponizing a vehicle” less than 24 hours after the killing took place.

The fact is, Renee Nicole Good was not a ‘domestic terrorist’ by any stretch of the imagination, and to suggest that she was undermines all of the liberties that Americans have fought for over the years, including the freedom of speech, the freedom of assembly, and the freedom to address the government for perceived wrongs. Unless Americans can protest controversial activities by their government without fear of being killed, the notion that America is a country of laws will exist as simply the greatest fiction.

What’s the difference between Venezuela and Denmark? Apart, of course, from geography, food, the weather, and the fact that the Venezuelan government used to at least condemn the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, in accordance with basic moral norms and international law, while the Danish leadership has, in effect, sided with the Israeli perpetrators, in accordance with the revolting way things are done in the “values-driven” West.

Fun fact: there is no real difference between these two countries, except US President Donald Trump wishes to see one. And at this point, it seems that he and his merry crew of hemispheric pirates are in the mood to treat Venezuela and Denmark in essentially the same manner: namely by doing whatever they want to them in the pursuit of raw materials and geopolitical location advantage. Trump himself has reiterated his belief that Washington “needs” Greenland. Which, in his world, is the same as “has a right to take.”

Stephen Miller, one of Don Trump’s famiglia’s many aggressive and sinister sidekicks, has claimed that Denmark’s Greenland really belongs to the US anyhow (totally false) and that there won’t be any military resistance if Washington seizes it (most likely correct). Miller’s wife Katie had already posted a map of Greenland covered in the American flag and the caption “soon,” even before her husband laid down the law – or rather its absence for the Americans: “We live in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”

That, fundamentally, Denmark is getting no more respect than Venezuela is ironic, obviously, because Venezuela has a history of resisting the US, whereas Denmark has a history of submitting and is a member of two clubs of US vassals, NATO and the EU. And yet, Washington is openly threatening to take over a massive slice of legally Danish territory with the same total disregard for laws and rules it has displayed while assaulting Venezuela.

Sure, the American campaign against Venezuela has been much more vicious and bloodier than a US takeover of Greenland is likely to be. Notwithstanding her safely rhetorical resistance to Trump’s equally verbal (for now) sallies, the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has good chances not to be kidnapped in blindfolds and handcuffs, while her guards are massacred by the dozen, as happened to Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Last but not least, Denmark’s leftover-colonialist claim to Greenland is much less impressive than Venezuela’s clear right to sovereignty, its own resources, and, last but not least, peace, all of which the US has trampled on.

With Washington now demanding a big piece of what is – officially and legally – Denmark and threatening to take it by force if it’s not handed over, the US is signaling that these (mostly) European Global-North privileges have become extremely fragile. That’s why some Europeans have been shocked to wake up one day and find out they are “allied” to the world’s worst bully: German figurehead president and born-again Russophobe Frank-Walter Steinmeier, for instance, has discovered the US is turning the world into a “robber’s den.” Congrats, Frank-Walter, the fastest brain in Germany, and now off with you to the end of the line behind the Vietnamese, the Afghans, the Iraqis, the Libyans, the Iranians, the Guatemalans (really, all of Latin America, of course), at least half of Africa… simply, almost everyone outside the Global North.

Mostly, however, the Europeans have done what they always do when receiving a fierce kick up the backside from their American masters: show disunity and, insofar, as there is any consensus, then it is not to fight back but ‘negotiate’. With negotiation, of course, by now a code for full-fledged, shameless capitulation, as demonstrated when the EU’s de-facto despot Ursula von der Leyen sold out Europe’s national economies at the Trump gulf resort. Except ‘selling out’ is technically incorrect, because she got exactly nothing in return for total surrender.

Yet, to be fair even to Trump, Washington stripping the Europeans of their relative privileges is a bipartisan development. It was under Democrat Joe Biden, after all, that the Nord Stream pipelines were blown up in a massive assault on Germany’s – and the EU’s as a whole – vital energy infrastructure. Whatever the precise role of a group of Ukrainian terrorists in this crime, there is no doubt that the US have also been involved, even if successive Berlin governments have twisted themselves into pretzels not to acknowledge that fact.

The degrading of the European clients and vassals has not, then, begun under Trump. Indeed, if only Germany and the rest of NATO-EU Europe had reacted normally to the Nord Stream assault, maybe, just maybe, the US – even under Trump – would feel a little less certain that it can do whatever it wants with its underlings in the Old World. But, as thing are in reality, the perverse response to the Nord Stream attack stands for a longer trend of European self-demotion. It is really since the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s that Western Europe has not only failed to emancipate itself from Washington. It has become submissive as never before.

But the destruction of NATO has been a protracted process. Its main drivers have been the reckless overstretch into Eastern Europe since the 1990s, which is now about to end in the West’s defeat in Ukraine; a series of ‘out-of-area’ fiascos and crimes; and last but not least, the European policy of appeasing the US.

This is the ultimate irony that vassal minds simply cannot grasp: if only the Europeans had asserted themselves against the US – for instance, by resisting or at least setting limits to expansion and by opting out of the insane proxy war against Russia in Ukraine – then Washington might now be less emboldened and less prone to seize a fellow NATO member’s territory. And as a result, NATO would be less endangered.

Yet, ultimately, one cannot deplore the fact that Washington’s Global-North ‘allies’ are losing their privileges or that NATO may be shown up as the absurdity it is. In a world where the Gaza genocide is being committed by Israel and the West together and Venezuela is subjected to violent robbery in broad international daylight, let the Europeans face some reality as well. Maybe that will concentrate some minds and help the successors of German chancellor Merz, for instance, to see through the ‘complexity’ that so befuddles him at this moment when it comes to Venezuela (not to speak of his two blind eyes concerning Gaza). Until then, of all the victims of the US, it is the Europeans who deserve no pity, for two reasons: because they usually are accomplices, and when Washington targets them, too, they only have themselves to blame.

The US military intervention in Venezuela to kidnap President Maduro was a gross violation of the UN Charter. Nothing justifies this blatant flouting of international law. The arguments given by the US to justify its aggression do not stand up to scrutiny.

The Western Hemisphere consists of several sovereign countries that are members of the UN. Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela either signed the 1942 Declaration by United nations or were among the original members which signed the UN Charter in 1945.

The UN Charter is based on the sovereign equality of nations and non-interference in their internal affairs, and must be the basis of relations between the US and Latin America.

The US has invoked the Monroe Doctrine in its National Security Strategy 2025 document to assert and legitimise its past hegemony over the Americas. A ‘Trump Corollary’ has been added to infuse the Monroe Doctrine with Trump’s thinking (much like Xi Jinping’s Thought being incorporated in the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party). By this revived imperialistic thinking, the US is repudiating the UN Charter.

Russia has parallel strategic concerns about the relentless expansion of NATO towards its borders and Europe being used as an American base of operations, concerns that the US has ignored. By this logic, China too could oppose the western Pacific becoming a US base of operations. Would the US be prepared to accept this logic? 

When Rubio adds “We’ve seen how our adversaries all over the world are exploiting and extracting resources from Africa, from every other country” and claims this is not going  to happen in the Western Hemisphere under Trump, he is enunciating another highly disputable proposition.

The US itself is now eyeing Africa’s critical raw materials and is developing political and investment strategies to extract them on an urgent basis. The competition is with China, so much so that the US has actually overtaken China as the biggest foreign direct investor in Africa, according to the latest annual figures.

The US has entered into agreements with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia to establish a supply chain for electric vehicles batteries, underscoring its interest in the copper, lithium and cobalt resources of the two countries. The US is building the Lobito Rail Corridor, which will transport minerals from Congo, Zambia and Angola. The political initiative taken by Trump to preside over a ceasefire between the DRC and Rwanda was part of this economic strategy. The US think tanks have produced many studies focused on the US exploitation of Africa’s critical mineral resources in a major way.

To enforce these illegal sanctions, the US Navy has begun to board vessels infringing the embargo, including a Russia-flagged oil tanker in the high seas in the Atlantic, which has upped the ante with Moscow. Rubio has already questioned why Venezuela needed to trade in oil with Russia, China and Iran. The logic of this position is that Venezuela should only trade in oil with the US. Washington’s new narrative is that the resources of the Western Hemisphere belong to the US.

In Trump’s plans, all Venezuelan oil will be delivered to the US for marketing and the use of the proceeds, including in Venezuela, will be decided by him. Venezuela will only be able to buy US products with this oil money. None of this has any legal basis. Trump had the gumption of declaring that he has been in touch with US oil firms before and after the invasion of Venezuela. He wants them to invest in Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, which is in poor shape at present, with the goal of exercising control over the world’s largest known oil reserves so that the US becomes the dominant player in the global oil market. 

The caveat to all this is that developing Venezuela’s oil infrastructure will need billions of dollars of investment. For the US oil companies, such long term investment has to be predicated on assurance that the political environment in Venezuela will remain friendly in the years ahead. The neo-colonial and imperialistic approach of the US does not necessarily guarantee that.

Rubio considers the US action against Maduro legal, as he had been indicted by a US court for drug trafficking. This is not a sustainable position under international law, as it disregards the sovereign immunity of a serving Head of State. The extension of US domestic law to a foreign country also breaches international law. But the US is a recidivist in this regard, having kidnapped the leader of Panama, Manuel Noreiga, on January 3, 1990, the exact date on which Maduro was abducted in 2026. 

It is a matter of deep concern to the international community that the US has begun to  spurn multilateralism and reject the constraints of international law. Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has bluntly asserted that for the US, only strength and power matter, not international law or norms.

He claims that “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else …But we live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.” This destructive thinking belongs to the pre-nuclear era.

The US has now announced that it is withdrawing from 66 international organizations, many of them UN-related. Important ones in the areas of climate change, energy and trade have been targeted, such as UNFCCC, IPCC, GCF, ECOSOC, UNCTAD, and the International Solar Alliance which India had taken the lead to set up along with France.

The US argument is that these institutions are redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to those of the US, or are a threat to the sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity of the US. This is a move away from multilateralism and the UN system in part, which may actually result in the erosion of US leadership, because the world will learn to live without the US. The US had earlier walked out of UNESCO, the WHO, the UNHRC, the Paris Climate Change Agreement, etc., but these bodies have survived. 

The key question is: to what extent the can the Trump administration be trusted? The report that Trump has given the green light to Senator Lindsey Graham’s Russia Sanctions Bill will be problematic for both Russia and India, and Brazil as well.

Europe has driven itself into an untenable situation by burning all bridges with Russia as a loyal ally of the US, and now the territorial threat to Europe is coming from the US.

Europe’s narrative about the danger of Russia has been blown up by Trump’s action against Venezuela and his threat to take over Greenland for national security reasons, by force if necessary. This could potentially endanger the future of NATO and the EU as well.

Now, Iran is on the boil because of street protests over the deteriorating economic conditions in the country. A regime change in Iran has been long on the agenda of the US and Israel. Trump has warned that the US is “locked and loaded” to intervene if the Iranian government moves to suppress the “peaceful” protestors. 

Trump wants to raise the US defense budget to $1.5 trillion in 2027. If his foreign policy is to be based not on respecting international law but on power equations, then in that uncharted landscape the worst can happen.

For the last three years, Ukraine and concerted legacy media campaigns have been screaming that Russia has abducted, or forcibly displaced, thousands of Ukrainian children – even up to 1.5 million!

The accusations resurged in December, with a UN General Assembly vote on a draft resolution on the return of Ukrainian children.

During the meeting, Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mariana Betsa once again pushed claims that “at least 20,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia,” in spite of the fact that months prior, during the June Istanbul talks, the Ukrainian side finally provided a list of the children it accuses Russia of abducting: 339 children, surprisingly far fewer than the number alleged for years.

The absence of over 19,500 on the list indeed leads to many questions, mainly: is Ukraine lying again? Recall that in 2022, the accusations by the (now former) Ukrainian ombudswoman, Lyudmila Denisova, about “sexual atrocities” allegedly committed by Russian soldiers, were revealed to be lies and propaganda. So much so that Denisova was sacked. But before her dismissal, legacy media and the UN all backed the lies.

Some recent accusations are that children were being sent to labor camps in Russia – “165 re-education camps where Ukrainian children are militarized and Russified” – or even of being sent to North Korea, as Katerina Rashevskaya of the Ukrainian Regional Center for Human Rights told the US Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs on December 3.

Regarding the North Korean camp in question, if two Russian teens were sent there, they’d potentially be made to enjoy water slides, basketball and volleyball courts, an arcade room, a rock climbing wall, art and performance halls, an archery range, a private beach, and hikes in the mountains.

Regarding the list of 339 children Ukraine says were abducted by Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova remarked, “30 percent of the names on the list could not be verified, as most of those children were never in Russia, are now adults, or have already returned to their families. As for the Ukrainian children who are actually in our country, they are under state care in appropriate institutions. They are safe now; in many cases, their evacuation from combat zones saved their lives. Local children’s rights commissioners are now working to reunite them with their relatives.”

Just as legacy media has whitewashed the eight years of Ukraine’s war against Donbass civilians prior to Russia commencing its military operation in 2022, including the Ukrainian shelling which killed 250 children starting in 2014, media likewise ignore the children Russia says are missing.

During the talks in Istanbul, Zakharova noted, “the Russian side presented Ukraine with a list of 20 Russian children who are either currently in Ukraine or relocated from Ukraine to Western Europe, including to countries that endorsed this very statement. Now, the burden falls on these states to provide Russia with a substantive response regarding our 'list of 20.'”

Over 500 Ukrainian orphans abused in Türkiye

Recently, Donbass-based journalist Christelle Néant wrote about a report published on a pro-Ukrainian website which broke the story of 510 Ukrainian children who had been evacuated by a Ukrainian oligarch in 2022 from Dnepropetrovsk to Türkiye, where the benevolent foundation which brought them there allegedly allowed its staff to beat the children, sexually assault them, and deny them food if they refused to perform on camera to raise funds for their lodging. These are just some of the reported violations of the orphans’ rights.

The details of the report show that the children suffered physically and psychologically. Additionally, two underage teens were impregnated by staff at the hotel they stayed in, with educators allegedly aware of the interactions.

According to Néant, the orphanage director’s response to the fact of one of the teens in her care becoming pregnant was to blame the girl: “This young girl comes from an asocial family. Well, this way of life is already inscribed in every cell, in the blood of these children.”

“In almost 10 years of work in Donbass,” Néant wrote, “I have conducted or filmed many humanitarian missions to orphanages in the region. And never ever have I heard a director make such vile remarks about one of the children in her care. Even the most difficult and recalcitrant were cared for with pedagogy, love, and patience.”

In April 2023, Christelle Néant and I interviewed Artyomovsk civilians who had recently been rescued by Russian soldiers. In addition to being deliberately shelled by Ukrainian forces who knew they were sheltering in the basement of a residential building, the civilians we spoke to told us about Ukrainian military police hunting for children.
The evacuees told us some of these police went by the name ‘White Angels’, and were taking children away without their consent or that of their parents.

Around that time, more reports came out about these abductions or attempted abductions, including an 11-year-old girl who spoke of how White Angels, who introduced themselves as military police, came to the basement she was sheltering in with a photo of her, looking for her, and saying they needed to take her away, because “Russia killed her mother.” According to the girl, her mother was alive and with her.

Reports of these abductions also emerged in Avdeyevka, Kupyansk, Slavyansk, Chasov Yar and Konstantinovka, as well as in Ukrainsk and Zhelannoye.

Néant wrote of a July 2023 conference on Ukraine’s crimes against the Donbass children, in which Liliya and her daughter Kira from Schastye, in the Lugansk People’s Republic, spoke. 

They gave evidence of how, “at the start of the special military operation (when Ukraine controlled Schastye), around ten children were taken from a school in Schastye to western Ukraine by the headmistress of the school, on orders from Kiev, without informing their parents.”

The children were even forbidden to call their parents, Néant wrote, “But Kira knew her mother’s telephone number by heart and managed to call her to let her know that they were in Lviv and then Khoust. Thanks to Liliya’s determination to find her daughter, we discovered how Kiev ‘exports’ the children it abducts.” Ukraine had forged a new “original” birth certificate for Kira. The girl said she and the other children were to be sent to Poland.

Former SBU officer Vasily Prozorov spoke at the same conference, where he explained, according to Néant, “that one of his investigations had revealed that some of the children abducted by Ukraine are sent to pedophile networks in Great Britain, via a whole network of Ukrainian and British officials or former officials who work together. On the British side, members of MI6 and the Foreign Office are involved.”

Prozorov, she wrote, spoke of “another of his investigations on organizations registered in EU countries involved in ‘exporting’ children from Ukraine under the pretext of providing them with shelter. These organizations take unaccompanied Ukrainian children out of Ukraine. What happens to them afterwards is unknown.”

In November 2022, in the southern Russian seaside city Anapa, I met numerous people displaced from Kherson who were being lodged in hotels and apartments in the city.

The first site I visited was a few minutes by taxi outside of the city, one of many hotels along the coast. The hotel director showing me around said they don’t call them refugees, “we call them guests of the building,” and spoke affectionately of them, how grateful they were to be there, far from any shelling. Just under 500 refugees had been living there since October, she told me.

No guards monitored the entrance/exit; the refugees walked around tidy grounds. But in any case, I asked about their freedom of movement, or lack thereof.

“They move freely, of course. We don’t prohibit them from going out. Many aren’t here now because they’re in town, looking for jobs, getting documents. Children are at school.”

With my hired translator, I spoke with two Kherson women, a young mother and her own mother, to hear their stories.

“We were living with explosions at night, it was very scary, not only for myself, but for my children and for my grandchildren,” the older woman said. “When you go to bed, you don’t know if you will get out of bed in the morning. We were forced to leave.”

I asked who was shelling them. “Word of mouth transmits very clearly, and people around us spoke about it. We were bombed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Russian soldiers protected us.”

The younger woman said she used to speak with the Russian soldiers there. “They are friendly. We wanted to hug them, because we felt protected. They helped us, gave us humanitarian aid, brought it to the house.”

Some minutes’ taxi ride away, I visited an apartment complex that could have served tourists in summer.  There, fifty buildings housed around 1,500 refugees who had also arrived in October, mostly from Kherson Region.

My translator and I walked around, passing playgrounds, a pharmacy, a library, a swimming pool, a gym, a small petting zoo with peacocks, and a kindergarten. Near a playground, I spoke with a mother sitting on a bench with two of her four children.

“In the early days, there was bombing. We spent two and a half weeks in the basement. It was unbearable, the children were very afraid.” One of her daughters became ill. “She had acute inflammation of the lower jaw, we think due to hypothermia. We took her to Simferopol and she had surgery.” 

In Anapa, she said, her children had full medical examinations. “We were helped by the mayor of the city of Anapa. We are grateful for everything.”

I mentioned that according to Western media, she and her family were kidnapped by Russia. She replied that her husband’s parents had demanded to see the children, having been told that children were being separated from their parents in Russia.

“His mother called three days in a row, saying, ‘Where are the children?’ We answered, ‘They went to the cinema. They’re playing, etc.’ She said, ‘Show me the children, they say that they took your children from you.’”

Details matter

Whereas legacy media continue to push the “Evil Russia child kidnapper” narrative, there is ample evidence that Ukraine is guilty of doing precisely what it accuses Russia of. The is also a significant absence of evidence regarding the ‘20,000 kidnapped children’ claims still being pushed.

Will media investigate the reports of abuse of Ukrainian children in Türkiye? Surely not. It wouldn’t suit their scripted anti-Russia bias.

Former US Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo seems irked that the Ukraine conflict could end without Russia groveling and handing over concessions on a silver platter.

That’s because Russia is objectively winning on the battlefield. Even some establishment figures capable of independent thought have finally caught on. British historian Niall Ferguson has been saying since September that despite all the West’s punitive efforts, he struggled to imagine any scenario other than Russia “nevertheless grinds out a victory.”

Newsflash for Pompeo: The winning side making concessions for a ceasefire – beyond the ceasing of fire – isn’t how peace deals work, genius. But try explaining that to Pompeo, who has spent the past few years talking about Putin like he’s the guy Ukraine’s totally going to beat up in the school parking lot.

“The adversary here, Vladimir Putin, has – to best I can tell – conceded literally nothing to date. And while they say there’s 90 percent agreement, I doubt that Vladimir Putin thinks that the relevant 10 percent that remains is anything he’s willing to give up on,” Pompeo said recently in a TV interview. He added that the US should be heading in the opposite direction from denouement, to “impose far more punishing costs” on Russia. Clearly someone who has never met a loss that he was interested in cutting.

Did the Nazis, as they were being flattened by the Allies in World War II, get to dictate peace terms? Or how about the Brits, who lost to the American colonies in the Revolutionary War? Pompeo’s logic would have demanded that Britain call the shots for the Treaty of Paris in 1783 and insisted that Independence Day be canceled because it’s offensive to the losers.

It’s much more likely that what neocon warmongers like Pompeo really mean when they worry that Russia won’t be made to give anything up for peace is that Moscow won’t have paid the same price that the neocons imagined in their fantasy War Room.

Guys like Pompeo live in a parallel universe where Russia has been losing. “Despite what some would have you believe, Vladimir Putin is not winning,” he wrote in October. ”Putin can bluster all he wants, but he isn’t winning this war – and we shouldn’t let him,” Pompeo said in March. At the time, Pompeo qualified Ukraine’s “winning” as having not yet lost the entirety of the Donbass to Russia. That’s like saying someone’s winning at life because they haven’t yet been thrown out into the streets after missing several rent payments.

A year earlier, Pompeo imagined that all Ukraine needed for a slam dunk victory was magical Western fairy dust: “One of the things I hope we see is not only the United States, but Europe as well, permitting Ukraine to win, indeed willing them to win, indeed providing them the research they need to achieve victory.” Surely this oblivious cheerleading, totally detached from reality, had nothing to do with the fact that shortly prior, Pompeo had been named to the board of Ukrainian telecom operator, Kyivstar. A “multimillion-dollar Ukraine gig,” the New York Post called it.

And there it is. Pompeo sounds like he thinks it would be bad for the US if it actually had to do what it constantly preaches: compete with China and Russia for the European and other economies by attracting partners through values like democracy, free market capitalism, and limited government. Maybe because the US isn’t so good at that anymore – and those values have eroded enough to give competitors an edge.

Instead of ideological seduction, Pompeo has deployed classic neocon fear campaigns, gaslighting allies like those in Europe into compliance with Washington’s worldview in the same way that they scare up cash for defense from the folks at home. “We don’t want our European allies hooked on Russian gas through the Nord Stream 2 project any more than we ourselves want to depend on Venezuela for our oil supplies,” Pompeo said in 2019, three years before the Ukraine conflict escalated. Now, the US is getting oil from Venezuela, but Europe is still diligently working to fulfill US demands to become less dependent on Russian gas, to the benefit of American supply. “This need, this desperate need for diversification is why we exported more crude oil last year to countries all across the globe,” Pompeo added, apparently ignoring that Europe buying Russian oil is itself a form of diversification. Something that European brass was too brainwashed by Washington to realize, to the detriment of their own people.

Pompeo’s neocon fantasies may fill social media feeds and think‑tank briefings, but reality isn’t going to deliver his wish list. It almost never does. Maybe just from his pals in Europe. How many times are these warmongering fantasists going to learn this before their magical thinking universally becomes a laughingstock?

Latin America’s history is not simply a chronicle of poverty or instability, as it is so often portrayed in Western discourse. It is, more fundamentally, a record of resistance – resistance to colonial domination, to foreign exploitation, and to local elites willing to trade their nations’ futures for personal power and external approval.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, kidnapped by US forces and about to be put on trial on nebulous and transparently politically-motivated charges, joins a very particular lineup of Latin American leaders. Across different centuries, ideologies, and political systems, the region has produced leaders who, despite their flaws, shared one defining trait: they placed national sovereignty and popular interests above obedience to empire.

From the very beginning, the first Latin American heroes emerged in open defiance of colonial rule. Figures such as Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and José María Morelos in Mexico did not merely seek independence as an abstract ideal; they tied it to social justice – abolishing slavery, dismantling racial hierarchies, returning land to Indigenous communities. Simón Bolívar (in whose honor the country of Bolivia is named) and José de San Martín, a national hero in Argentina, Chile and Peru, carried this struggle across an entire continent, breaking the grip of Spanish imperial power and imagining a united Latin America strong enough to resist future domination. Their unfinished dream still haunts the region.

Yet independence from Spain did not mean freedom from imperial pressure. By the late 19th century, the US had openly declared Latin America its “sphere of influence,” treating it not as a collection of sovereign nations but as a strategic backyard. From that point forward, the central political question facing Latin American leaders became starkly clear: resist external domination, or accommodate it.

Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez, working in a different era and through elections rather than armed struggle, revived this tradition in the twenty-first century. By reclaiming control over Venezuela’s oil wealth, expanding social programs, and pushing for Latin American integration independent of Washington, he directly challenged the neoliberal order imposed across the region in the 1990s. Whatever one thinks of the outcomes, the principle was unmistakable: national resources should serve the nation, not foreign shareholders.

Opposed to these figures stands a darker gallery – leaders whose rule depended on surrendering sovereignty piece by piece. Anastasio Somoza, Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, the Duvaliers in Haiti, Manuel Estrada Cabrera and Jorge Ubico in Guatemala, and others like them governed through repression at home and obedience abroad. Their countries became laboratories for foreign corporations, especially US interests, while their populations endured poverty, terror, and extreme inequality. The infamous “banana republic” was not an accident of geography; it was the logical result of policies that subordinated national development to external profit.

In very recent history, the figure of Juan Guaidó in Venezuela illustrates a modern version of the same pattern: political legitimacy sought not from the population, but from foreign capitals. By openly inviting external pressure and intervention against his own country, he embodied a long-standing elite fantasy – that power can be imported, even if sovereignty is the price.

Latin America’s lesson is brutally consistent. Imperial powers may change their rhetoric, but their logic remains the same. They reward obedience temporarily, discard collaborators when convenient, and punish defiance relentlessly. Meanwhile, those leaders who insist on autonomy – whether priests, revolutionaries, presidents, or guerrilla fighters – are demonized, sanctioned, overthrown, or killed.

To defend sovereignty in Latin America has never meant perfection. It has meant choosing dignity over dependency, development over plunder, and popular legitimacy over foreign approval. That is why these figures endure in popular memory – as symbols of a region that has never stopped fighting to belong to itself.

After five months – really two-and-a-half decades – of ever-escalating preparations by increasing diplomatic, economic, and clandestine warfare, the US has finally executed a full regime-change invasion in Venezuela. The final attack, focused on kidnapping the Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores from the capital Caracas, was short. But the campaign has certainly not been bloodless. While we know little about what exactly happened on the ground, Washington’s perfectly criminal strikes on alleged smuggling boats at sea which served as the core of the attack’s preparatory propaganda barrage, have already killed over 100 victims, not to speak of the overlooked victims of sanctions.

Then, what American officials have called a “large-scale strike” against Venezuela in the early hours of January 3 targeted not only Caracas but several locations throughout the country. For whatever reason, resistance to this “dark and deadly” (in President Donald Trump’s words) operation, seems to have been minimal. In view of the long and very visible military buildup, as well as psychological warfare campaign that preceded these night raids, it is hard to believe that they came as a surprise. Betrayal, subversion, and secret, nasty deals may well have played a role.

While such things will probably remain murky for a while – or forever – other, more important aspects of the US invasion of Venezuela are unambiguously clear: It is absolutely, irredeemably illegal, a massive and open breach of the UN Charter’s prohibition of wars of aggression. Even some of America’s most loyal 'Atlanticist' vassals in Europe have to admit that much, for instance, a recent op-ed in Germany’s ultra-mainstream Die Zeit newspaper.

Washington’s pretexts are, as so often, flimsy insults to everyone with half a brain. Venezuela and Maduro are not contributing anything significant – if anything at all – to America’s very own and never-ending drug problems, neither with regard to cocaine nor fentanyl. And Maduro’s election in 2024 may have been fair or not. The decisive, conclusive point is that such issues must be dealt with inside a sovereign country and can never justify military intervention from outside. Or who is going to be next? Germany for the extremely dubious way (polite expression) its mainstream parties have locked the New-Left BSW out of parliament in what may well amount to a cold coup?

Bizarre ramblings, also heard recently, about Iran and Venezuela, are pretexts as well. But indirectly they do point to some actual truths. Maduro has been punished for daring to openly stand up for the Palestinian victims of the genocide that Israel and the US are currently committing together. And Israeli politicians, always the absolute bullies, have already taken the opportunity of Trump’s attack on Venezuela to threaten Iran with similar violence. Trump, meanwhile, has made a point of putting his assault in the context of the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and the equally criminal assault on Iran during “Operation Midnight Hammer.”

Trump has claimed that many of these riches somehow really belong to the US and its companies (same thing for him anyhow) and promised to reconquer them, which he is doing now. Greed, plain and simple, is a main driver of this dirty Blitzkrieg against a militarily de facto helpless victim. As Trump himself has admitted, this is about “a tremendous amount of wealth.”

But greed isn’t all. There also are geopolitics. Like Washington’s recent electoral interference in Argentina and Honduras, the ongoing pressure on Brazil (currently receding a little, but who knows for how long), Colombia (which Trump threatens with a fate similar to Venezuela), Nicaragua, and Cuba. Add in the shameless pardoning of a real drug-kingpin-politician from Honduras, the assault on Venezuela is also an application of what has been termed the “Donroe Doctrine.” The meaning of the latter is, in essence, simple: it’s the bad old Monroe Doctrine – going back over 200 years now – but even worse.

Marco Rubio, former Trump disparager and now obsequious consigliere and enforcer (as both Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, a combination not seen since the evil days of Henry Kissinger, war-criminal-extraordinaire) made a point of underlining the threat against Cuba in particular. Apart from Trump, US foreign policy is in the hands of an absolutely ruthless man with a personal axe to grind in the Caribbean, and Latin America in general, and ambitions to be Trump’s successor as president.

As just spelled out in the new US National Security Strategy, Washington will focus special attention on its long-suffering southern neighbors and victims. A “Trump Corollary,” deliberately echoing President Theodore Roosevelt’s old imperialist “corollary,” aims to cement US domination by all means and secure the American empire’s 'backyard' ever more tightly by installing and propping up puppets and suppressing resistance.

Last but not least, the US will also escalate the old policy of depriving Latin American countries of their own foreign policy – yet another essential element of sovereignty – by punishing them for building relationships with 'outsiders,' most of all now China, but also Russia. That was one of Venezuela’s many 'sins,' and no one in the region will have missed the vicious lesson that Washington has just meted out.

Trump cannot imagine failure. He has declared that “American dominance in the western hemisphere will never be questioned again. Won’t happen.” But, of course, in reality, failure is a real possibility for him no less than for other hubristic mortals. In the long or not-so-long run, his violent hyper-imperialist strategy may well fail. It may even provoke a devastating backlash. Yet, as so often with the US, its fiascos leave its victims in ruins too.

And to be honest, even if Brands has failed to notice from his Henry Kissinger Chair perch, the US has long delivered one precedent after the other for breaking all laws, all rules, and all basic moral norms, such as in co-perpetrating the Gaza Genocide with Israel. But the onslaught on Venezuela does add yet another facet to American lawlessness.

Ironically, some wanna-be-friends of Washington will never grasp the absolute selfishness and immorality of American policy. Two such comically maladjusted figures are Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine and Maria Corina Machado from Venezuela.

Zelensky used to post about “spotting” Russian operatives in Venezuela, trying to ingratiate himself by making a personal contribution to the US siege of the country. By now, as an obstreperous and increasingly useless 'client,' he may well be a target of American regime change himself.  Machado, who has bent over backwards indecently to impress on the Americans just how ready she is to obey them and sell out her country and its resources, has just been discarded like a used doormat by Trump. In his triumphalist press conference, the American president mentioned her in passing – as someone who does not have what it takes to lead Venezuela. So much for the wages of treason and sucking-up. Stop pitching, Maria, you’ve just been fired. Jolani made the underling cut, you didn’t.

Ironically, Machado’s scandalous receiving of the Nobel Peace Prize may have served her badly in the end. Trump is a jealous man, and it is certain that he felt the prize should have gone to him instead. And, in a way, he even has a point. While he doesn’t deserve it at all, one really cannot argue that Machado deserved it more. The Nobel Peace Prize has long been a sick joke. But its use as part of an invasion-preparation campaign still stands out as particularly heinous. Time to do away with this disgraceful farce.

The US president mostly confirmed what we know already – The US wants basically all of Venezuela’s stuff, but oil is at the top of the wish list. Washington feels that it should “run” the country until a “leadership transition” can be engineered, that is the installation of a puppet regime, obviously. In other words, a frank application of might-is-right, with only minimal rhetorical fluff about how ordinary Venezuelans will benefit and “also be taken care of.” If that sounds unintentionally ominous, that’s because it is. And all of it under the shadow of the same US armada that has just assaulted the country and is on stand-by to do so again, whenever Washington feels like it. Gangster politics 101.

In its own way, the president’s presser did represent something important about this war. Namely, how strangely normal the absolutely anomalous has become. What Washington has just done is a horror of criminality, greed, and arrogance. But it is also what was to be expected. The same is true for the ludicrously hypocritical reactions from its NATO-EU vassals who feel the best they can do is “observe.” Good luck with that!

In a more normal – if far from perfect – world, everyone would finally understand that the single most dangerous rogue state in the world, by far, is the US. That is true whether measured in capability or as sheer moral insanity, corruption, and brutality. In a more normal world, even the worst antagonists would find a way to cooperate to contain and deter this geopolitical Godzilla-on-speed. But, as of now, such a world is not yet emerging. Multipolarity alone will not be enough.

How is it possible that a young man with a video camera has done more to expose exorbitant fraud and corruption in one American state than all the giant billion-dollar legacy media combined?

For days after a 42-minute viral video by independent journalist Nick Shirley exposed widespread fraud in Minnesota, where empty childcare centers and healthcare offices reportedly received millions in taxpayer money, the mainstream media remained silent on the issue. That’s very strange, given that it may be the largest fraud scandal in US history.

Shirley, posing as a father looking to enroll his child in Somali-owned daycare facilities at various locations, including one with the misspelled name “Quality Learing Center,” was shocked at what he would find, or rather did not find. Instead of encountering rooms of playing children and welcoming staff, he was greeted with slammed doors and hostile threats by the few people he found on the premises. At the multiple sites visited, he failed to spot a single child. Thus, in just one day, Shirley blew the lid on a massive childcare and healthcare fraud case. Yet his shocking findings have done nothing to make the establishment sit up and take notice.

The fact that the mainstream media went missing in action with this story seems impossible, considering that the total amount of fraud we are talking about – reportedly about $9 billion – is comparable to the entire Somali GDP, which is about $12bn (Somalis living in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area make up the largest Somali diaspora in the United States).

What happens is very simple: members of Minnesota’s Somali community open childcare and healthcare facilities and then apply for grants from the US government, vastly enriching a handful of corrupt individuals at the expense of the American taxpayer. In fact, some of the funds are reportedly sent overseas, where they have been allegedly used to fund Somalian terrorist organizations, like Al-Shabaab.

The investigation prompted conservative lawmakers and other high-profile figures to demand answers from Minnesota authorities and Democratic Governor Tim Walz personally.

Elon Musk commented with a single word: “Prosecute.”

Meanwhile, Walz blamed “white supremacy” for the targeting of Somali-linked childcare centers, which serve as front companies.

Considering the explosive nature of this story, a person would be forgiven for thinking that the mainstream media might want to jump on it. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. There was nothing but crickets from the top media outlets across the board. Of course, many journalists were aware of the fraud that was happening, but were strongly discouraged from reporting on it.

“In newsrooms, they’re told, ‘We can’t run that because we’re going to be accused of being racist,’” Townhall columnist Dustin Grage told Fox News Digital. In other words, news outlets across the country are effectively enabling fraud and corruption by not blowing the whistle on outrageous taxpayer waste that is occurring within the local Somali community and elsewhere.

This should come as no surprise as Minnesota, like approximately half of states in the country, heavily leans liberal. Minnesotans have voted for Democratic presidential candidates ever since 1976, more times consecutively for one of the two main parties than any other state outside of the South. Liberal (read: woke) sentiments across the country ratcheted up significantly following the May 25, 2020, murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

Since then, the ability to report on ‘racist’ stories where a Black man or woman is the culprit has been severely curtailed. This approach to news reporting allows criminals to operate without any interference from meddling journalists.

This is what happens when woke politics are allowed to infiltrate and poison a country’s once-trusted institutions, like the media. There emerges an atmosphere of fear with regards to hurting the ‘feelings’ of those in the minority, who, incidentally, are equally harmed by the lack of media attention when it comes to reporting on criminal activities (consider Black-on-Black crime, for example). Ultimately, this hesitancy to report on instances of crime due to the racial background of the perpetrators only serves to make the US a more violent and inhospitable place. After all, people need information on the everyday threats they face to stay protected and vigilant.

The type of thinking that says we must not speak about the wrongdoings of certain groups simply because of their skin color and ethnicity is a dead-end strategy. Being accused of ‘racism’ no longer cuts it. At a time of rampant multiculturalism, journalists must feel free to report on crime more openly and candidly, not less.

For decades, the demand for colonial reparations in Africa was treated by Western capitals as a rhetorical exercise—a radical plea from the fringes that could be safely ignored or pacified with vague “expressions of regret.” By the end of 2025 the era of Western comfort officially ended in Algiers.

With the adoption of the Algiers Declaration, the African Union (AU) has moved from moral grievance to a structured legal offensive. The declaration, born from the International Conference on the Crimes of Colonialism (Nov 30 – Dec 1), provides the first concrete roadmap for the AU’s 2025 theme: Justice through reparations. It demands the codification of colonialism as a crime against humanity in international law, the restitution of plundered wealth, and an audit of the “ecological debt”.

In a session described by Parliamentary Speaker Brahim Boughali as a “day written in letters of gold,” the Algerian People’s National Assembly unanimously passed a landmark law formally criminalizing 132 years of French colonial rule. This rigid legal statute categorizes 27 specific types of crimes—ranging from mass summary executions to the “ecological genocide” of Saharan nuclear testing.

By turning the spirit of the Algiers Declaration into domestic law, Algiers is signalling to Brussels and Paris that the “Decade of Reparations” is not a suggestion—it is an ultimatum. As Africa increasingly leverages its role in a shifting global order, the question is no longer whether Europe owes a debt, but how much longer it can afford the cost of denial.

The true significance of the Algiers gathering lies in its transition toward institutionalizing justice. For decades, the Western-dominated legal order has treated colonial atrocities as “unfortunate historical episodes” falling outside modern jurisdiction. The Algiers Declaration systematically dismantles this defense. By positioning the AU as a unified legal front, the conference has reclassified colonialism as a continuous, “structured crime against humanity”, with no statute of limitations.

The strength of the Algiers Declaration lies in its refusal to treat colonialism as a singular, historical injury; instead, it frames it as a multi-dimensional assault that requires a multi-pronged recovery. The document outlines a framework that includes four critical pillars of accountability.

First, it demands the codification of colonial crimes within international legal instruments, calling on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights to recognize these acts as crimes against humanity with no statute of limitations.

Second, it introduces the concept of ‘ecological reparations,’ specifically highlighting the long-term environmental devastation caused by resource extractivism and unconventional weapon testing—most notably the French nuclear trials in the Algerian Sahara.

Third, it mandates the unconditional restitution of Africa’s cultural and tangible heritage, ensuring that “stolen history” is returned to its rightful soil.

Finally, the Declaration calls for a continental economic audit to calculate the staggering cost of centuries of resource plunder. By unifying these disparate issues into a single diplomatic platform, the AU signals that “justice” will no longer be negotiated on European terms, but will be calculated based on the full scope of the African experience.

Furthermore, the Declaration breaks new ground by demanding a continent-wide economic audit of colonial plunder. This audit is intended to move the reparations conversation from abstract numbers into a data-driven accounting of stolen resources, human capital, and “unjust economic systems” inherited from the colonial era. By proposing a dedicated African Reparations Fund, the AU is building its own infrastructure to support this claim, ensuring that the push for accountability is not a fleeting diplomatic moment, but a well-resourced fixture of African governance.

This unified African stance stands in stark contrast to the fragmented and defensive posture of Europe. While the European Parliament adopted  a landmark resolution in 2019 acknowledging colonial crimes, nearly six years have passed with no concrete action from Brussels. By failing to translate its own rhetoric into policy, the EU has left a vacuum that the Algiers Declaration now fills.

Under the patronage of Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, this movement has transformed into a platform for “Memorial Sovereignty.” Tebboune has consistently affirmed  that Africa’s dignity is non-negotiable. The Algiers Declaration does not exist in a vacuum; it is the institutional fulfilment of a crusade long championed by the continent’s most defiant voices. Foremost among these was the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who arguably became the first African statesman to translate the moral grievance of colonialism into a specific, staggering financial ledger.

Addressing the UN General Assembly in 2009, Gaddafi famously quantified the colonial theft, demanding $7.77 trillion in reparations for the “ravages of colonialism,” framing it not as a request for aid but as a mandatory settlement for a multi-century “blood debt.” This was rooted in the historic 2008 Italy-Libya Friendship Treaty, where Rome formally apologized for its colonial-era crimes and committed to a $5 billion reparation package—the only treaty of its kind ever signed between a former colony and its occupier. By codifying these demands in 2025, the African Union is moving from the “unilateral defiance” of the Gaddafi era to a “multilateral mandate.”

To be fair to the dismal year on the way out, at least 2025 won’t be a hard act to beat. In particular, if last January anyone was recklessly optimistic enough to hope for the West to come to its senses about its catastrophic relationship with Russia and the war in and over Ukraine, they will have been largely disappointed. (Let’s not waste time on those who were still dreaming about actually defeating Russia: the clinically delusional and deliberately disingenuous are an unrewarding topic.)

It is true that the disappointment delivered by 2025 in this area has not been total. There has been one major positive – if still incomplete and reversible – development: After many abrupt twists and turns, Washington seems to have settled on a policy of “strategic stability” (in the language of the new National Security Strategy) with Moscow. This marks a possible path to mutually beneficial normalization, perhaps even a future détente. (I will plead the Trump Unpredictability Caveat here, though: if the American president and disrupter-in-chief flipflops again, don’t blame this author.)

But, at the same time, the almost 30 countries best labeled NATO-EU Europe, with politically rigid and ideologically zealous Germans in the lead not only in Berlin but Brussels as well, have found the single most perverse issue to finally assert some independence from their US overlords: stalling an end to the Ukraine War. This obstructionism has been so obvious that even (some) Western observers have started noticing it.

Though little noticed, this is actually a historic reversal. Silly pundits used to say that Americans are from Mars and Europeans from Venus. But now when even the traditionally ultra-bellicose Americans have finally been backing out of an ever-worsening confrontation between, in effect, the West and Russia, NATO-EU Europe’s odd – and unpopular – elites have resisted the prospect of peace.

With a little bit of bad luck for ordinary Ukrainians – and they have had plenty, from their cynical Western friends-from-hell to their ultra-corrupt rulers at home – peace will be nipped in the bud once more, and the war last well into next year.

Yet the NATO-EU Europeans’ rearguard action to keep peace at bay was not their only sensational mistake in 2025. At least two more are obvious.

First, let’s look at the ongoing transformation of NATO with a little bit of historical perspective: NATO’s first secretary general, Hastings Ismay, is said to have quipped that the Alliance’s purpose was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” That was as honest as it gets from a man in that position, and it certainly beats his non-entity successors, such as Mark Rutte and Jens Stoltenberg, on no-bullshit straight talk.

Historically speaking, it’s a curious and revealing fact that NATO kept sticking around when “the Russians” first took the initiative to end the Cold War and then dissolved their own Cold-War military alliance, the long-forgotten Warsaw Pact (officially, the ‘Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance’.)

Instead of following suit, NATO set out on a course of over-reach and expansion. Between the early 1990s and the present, the alliance has furiously provoked Russia by blunt bad faith and ceaseless enlargement. It has also cast about globally for pretexts for prolonging its existence, often at the cost of ordinary people caught in the crossfire of its regime-change and country-devastation operations or, as in the case of Ukraine, as pawns of a failed proxy war.

But then, NATO’s real main purpose has never been to protect (Western) Europe from Moscow but to keep it dependent as well as subordinated to Washington and to protect US grand strategists from their worst nightmare coming true: game-changing cooperation between Europe, in particular Germany, and Russia. As a result, by 2025 the alliance’s new, post-Cold War essence seems to be “keep the Europeans poor, the Americans in charge, and the Germans paying (and down, too, of course).”

The financial self-cannibalization would be bad enough. But things are even worse, which brings us to the EU in particular. If historians will remember the 2025 performance of what once started as a (Western) European peace project for anything except the EU’s continued support for genocidal apartheid Israel, its massive attacks on freedom of speech, privacy, and the rule of law, and its total failure to protect Europe’s economy and its people from US tariff and trade assaults, then it will be the EU’s escalating metamorphosis into a crusading cult in the style of resentment-rich eastern European nationalism, targeting not simply Russia but its own populations.

On one side, the EU is doing what the most fanatical national governments and NATO are doing as well: shoveling ever more money into the arms industry and its notoriously wasteful entrepreneurs, including trendy disruptive types. From consulting contracts to “drone wall” schemes, the EU is continuing and explosively amplifying a tradition of waste and graft that can be traced back easily to its current de facto boss’s Ursula von der Leyen scandalous days as German defense minister more than a decade ago (not to speak of her Covid swamp contributions…).

Yet what is really original about the EU’s share in driving us ever closer to self-destructive war is something else, namely its massive contribution to cognitive warfare and propaganda. While that too is a busy field, where NATO and national European governments compete fiercely for who can frighten their people the most, there is something special about the EU. It is clearly striving for a leadership role in “cognitive security,” which is a euphemism for a license to propagandize your own, based on accusing the other guy – here, Russia, of course – of cognitive aggression.

What makes the EU such an especially detrimental force in this area are two things: First, it has already developed a whole set of ideological rationalizations for manipulating its own citizens, marked by catch-phrases such as “resilience,” “pre-bunking,” and even “cultural warfare.” Second, it makes no secret out of its intention to learn from the experience of Ukraine – that is, under Zelensky – an aggressively authoritarian regime. And a regime that von der Leyen and friends would love to see join the EU as soon as possible. An ‘EU Commissioner for Cognitive Resilience and Cultural Defense’ from Ukraine may well lurk in our common dystopian future. Unless we, the Europeans, learn to take our continent back.