Donald Trump has praised former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower for his mass deportation of illegal immigrants in the 1950s, insisting again that he will deploy similar tactics if reelected this year.  

Eisenhower was “very strong on deportation,” Trump told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo in an interview aired on Sunday. The former US leader’s military-style expulsion campaign in the summer of 1953 affected as many as 1.3 million people, making the program the largest of its kind in American history. Trump is seeking to surpass Eisenhower if elected president in November. 

“He dropped them [immigrants] very close to the border, and they came back. Then he dropped them 2,000 miles away, and they didn’t come back,” Trump said, describing the Eisenhower administration’s tactics. 

The Eisenhower-era ‘Operation Wetback’ was intended to address public discontent with foreign workers, predominantly Mexican nationals, who had moved to the US in large numbers a decade earlier in response to a labor shortage caused by the World War II military draft. The name derived from a disparaging term for illegal Mexican workers employed by US farm owners in border states.

Playing on anti-immigrant sentiment helped lead Trump to electoral success in 2016, and the Republican frontrunner has made the issue part of his current bid for a return to the White House.  

In his interview with Fox, Trump claimed Latin American governments were “sending people … that they don’t want” across the US border. He also alleged that China was encouraging the crossings, predicting that this would result in a “terrorist attack, 100%.” 

The former US leader also commented on the high-profile incident in New York last month, in which a group of migrants was filmed attacking police officers in Times Square while one of them was being arrested. The assault caused a nationwide uproar, with politicians on both sides of the political aisle calling for the perpetrators to be deported.

“The people of New York are angry. People that would have never voted for me because I’m a Republican,” Trump said. “I think they’re going to vote for me. So I think we’re going to give New York a heavy shot.”

Michelle O’Neill, the only Irish nationalist to have ever been appointed first minister of Northern Ireland, has said that she anticipates a referendum on Irish unity to take place within the next 10 years. 

In an interview with Sky News on Sunday, O’Neill noted that her campaign was based on being the “first minister for all.”

“I am somebody who wants to be a unifier. I am somebody who wants to bring people together,” she stressed.

When asked whether she agrees with the statement of her party leader Mary Lou McDonald, that a United Ireland is “within touching distance” as opposed to “decades” away, O’Neill said that she believes that Northern Ireland is witnessing “a decade of opportunity.”

Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement signed between the UK and Irish governments in 1998 to end decades of sectarian violence, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland should call for a border poll (a referendum on Irish unification) if “a majority of those voting would express a wish” that Northern Ireland “should leave the UK and join a united Ireland.” 

A command paper signed by the rival Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) last month outlined that the region’s future in the UK will be secure for decades and that there is “no realistic prospect of a border poll.” However, O’Neill said that she would “absolutely contest what the British government has said in the document.”

O’Neill, the vice president of the nationalist Sinn Fein party, won the election on Saturday. She said the victory “represents a new dawn” for Northern Ireland and stated that her goal was to achieve a united Ireland. 

O’Neill had served as first minister-designate since May 2022, when the pro-united Ireland group emerged as the largest party in the 90-seat Northern Ireland Assembly (Stormont) following elections. However, O’Neill has been blocked from taking office by the DUP, which boycotted the assembly in protest over post-Brexit trading rules. The party said the trade restrictions undermined the region’s relationship with Britain, effectively crippling the legislature, which relies upon a power-sharing agreement to function.

Prior to O’Neill, there had been 11 consecutive unionist leaders at the head of Northern Ireland’s government since Stormont was established 103 years ago.

Sinn Fein has the stated goal of achieving a united Ireland, whereas the DUP wants it to remain part of the UK. A referendum on Irish reunification can only be held at the discretion of the British government.

The US Senate released the text of a long-awaited national security supplemental on Sunday, which pairs provisions for tougher border security with foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The initial vote on the legislation is expected by midweek.

Out of the $118 billion package, more than a half – roughly $60 billion – is allocated for military aid to Ukraine. Another $14 billion is destined for Israel and $4.8 billion to support Washington's Indo-Pacific “partners” amid tensions with China.

A further $10 billion will go towards humanitarian assistance for civilians in Gaza, the West Bank and Ukraine.

The overall cost of the proposed border policy changes comes to just over $20 billion, which could cover transportation for deportation, shelters and more than 4,000 new asylum officers.

The US leader specifically emphasized two “important priorities” that would allow the United States and partners “to continue our vital work,” referring to aid for Ukraine and Israel, urging the Congress to “swiftly pass” the bill.

President Biden has been struggling for months to garner support for a $60 billion military aid package to Ukraine as part of a wider national security supplemental. However, it remains unclear if the newly negotiated border measures will be enough to convince Republican critics and not drive away progressive Democrats.

The speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, warned on Sunday that the Senate proposal will be “dead on arrival” if it reaches the House floor in its current form.

I’ve seen enough. This bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created. As the lead Democrat negotiator proclaimed: Under this legislation, “the border never closes.”

If this bill reaches the House, it will be…

— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) February 5, 2024

“I’ve seen enough. This bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created,” Johnson said on X.

While US lawmakers are entangled in negotiations over the new security supplement, EU leaders last week signed off on a €50 billion ($54 billion) support package for Kiev “within the EU budget.” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who originally vetoed the proposal arguing that Brussels has no idea how the monies will be spent, was reportedly “blackmailed” into accepting the deal.

Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has criticized US President Biden’s approach to Israel’s war in Gaza, arguing that the situation would be “completely different” if former President Donald Trump were in power.

“Instead of giving us his full backing, Biden is busy with giving humanitarian aid and fuel (to Gaza), which goes to Hamas,” Ben-Gvir told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday. “If Trump was in power, the US conduct would be completely different.”

Since the beginning of the military conflict, following Hamas’s incursion on October 7, which left around 1,200 Israelis dead and over 200 taken hostage, the United States pledged to give Israel “whatever it needs” to achieve its military goals – but repeatedly urged the IDF to avoid harming Palestinian civilians.

Labor chairwoman Merav Michaeli interpreted the comments as a “blatant and deliberate intervention in the American election campaign” and urged Prime Minister Netanyahu to sack the minister.

“If Netanyahu does not fire Ben-Gvir, it is tantamount to unreservedly endorsing his remarks. No one anywhere will believe that a government minister would dare to make such harmful and even ungrateful remarks without having the backing of the prime minister of Israel,” she said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry denounced Ben-Gvir’s comments as “racist” and called for international sanctions against him. 

Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was appointed as a national security minister in December 2022, is known for his ultra-nationalist views. He previously called for the occupation of Gaza and the expulsion of the Palestinian population from the enclave. He also threatened to bring down Netanyahu’s governing coalition if the PM was too soft on Hamas.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has expressed hope that the newly approved €50 billion ($54 billion) package of EU aid for Ukraine will be used to support civilians by preventing the collapse of the bankrupt state, rather than to fund more weapons and bloodshed.

Orban has repeatedly called for a ceasefire in Ukraine and for peace talks between Moscow and Kiev. Ukraine cannot hope to defeat Russia on the battlefield, he has argued. His stance, as well as Budapest’s opposition to sanctions on Russia and its blocking of EU military aid to Ukraine, has seen Hungary vilified in Kiev and threatened with counter-sanctions by Brussels.

“The West still thinks that time is on our side. Yet, I think the opposite is true. I think that time is on the side of the Russians, and the longer the war goes on, the more people will die, and the balance of power will not change in Ukraine’s favor,” Orban told Kossuth Radio on Friday.

The Hungarian leader went on to insist that “peace will come when there is change in Brussels,” and that after almost two years of failed efforts to defeat Russia militarily, “everything in Brussels should revolve around achieving a ceasefire as soon as possible.”

“We are not sending weapons, we get our money from Brussels, and we will contribute to the civil financing of Ukraine,” Orban said on Friday, reiterating his position that the only way to end the Ukrainian crisis was through negotiations.

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine would have never happened without the interference of the West and its “insane” idea of an ever-expanding NATO, Tarik Cyril Amar, an associate professor at Koc University in Istanbul, believes.

Speaking to RT’s Oksana Boyko on Worlds Apart, the history professor shared his thoughts on the insistence of both Kiev and its Western backers on inflicting a decisive battlefield defeat on Russia – which seemingly remains unchanged despite all the setbacks the Ukrainian military has suffered. For Kiev, such a belief might actually be genuine, he suggested.

“Regarding the Ukrainian leadership, I would not be able to tell. I have a guess that President Zelensky himself is, basically, delusional and has become drunk on his own rhetoric as well as the flattery that he used to receive from the West. I think it has really deranged him a bit and disturbed his relationship to reality,” the historian suggested.

In the West, the understanding that such a goal is not viable has become more prominent, and talk of continuous support for Ukraine is, at least partially, a “negotiation tactic,” the professor argued.

“Concerning the West, my guess is that quite a few people in Washington and in the EU as well understand that they have to get out of this war without a Russian defeat. Now do they understand already how much they have to concede? Again, I can’t tell,” Amar stated.

Without Western interference, the conflict between Kiev and Moscow would have never started, and multiple opportunities to bring it to an end were deliberately sabotaged, including the Minsk agreement of 2015 and the Istanbul talks of March 2022, Amar said.

“The roots of the war do really go to 2008, the infamous Bucharest summit, when both Georgia and Ukraine were put by the West into this insane position of saying’ One day you’ll be in NATO, but not now,’ which, of course, exposed them and made them threats for Russia.”

The West’s insistence on fueling the conflict largely stems from two ideas, Amar explained. The West “simply won’t give up on its idea of expanding NATO, which in itself is an insane idea,” as well as pursues a “long-term geopolitical strategy of getting Russia down,” as it refused to accept Moscow’s resurgence following the 1990s turmoil.

Watch the full video below:

The British Royal Navy's largest military vessel, the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, will miss upcoming NATO war games that it was supposed to lead, after suffering an unexpected “issue” in one of its propeller shafts. The development was announced by London on Sunday, with the aircraft carrier’s sister ship, the HMS Prince of Wales, set to take its place in the military bloc's drills.

The “issue” was discovered during the final pre-sail check, with the carrier then assessed as unfit to take part in the exercise.

“Routine pre-sailing checks yesterday identified an issue with a coupling on HMS Queen Elizabeth’s starboard propeller shaft. As such, the ship will not sail on Sunday,” Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Andrew Burns said in a statement.

“HMS Prince of Wales will take her place on NATO duties and will set sail for Exercise Steadfast Defender as soon as possible,” he added.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman further elaborated on the issue, insisting that the Queen Elizabeth’s problem was “separate and not linked” to earlier technical troubles on its sister ship. The Prince of Wales, commissioned in late 2019, has spent months in repairs over various issues, including at least two floors.

The Queen Elizabeth has also experienced assorted technical problems during its service, including with its propeller.

HMS Prince of Wales is reportedly expected to be ready to sail for the NATO war games within a week. The major multidimensional drills kicked off in late January and are set to run until May 31, 2024, becoming the largest war game held by the US-led NATO bloc since the Cold War.

The troubles with HMS Queen Elizabeth have become the second embarrassing setback for the Royal Navy in just two weeks. On January 18, two British minesweeper vessels collided while docking in Bahrain. One sustained considerable damage, suffering a large hole punctured in its hull.

Former US President Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner to battle likely Democratic candidate Joe Biden in November’s election, has said that his prospective running mate must be capable of being a good president should an “emergency” befall his administration, should he win.

The latest polling data shows Trump, 77, holding a commanding lead over the former South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley, in the race to secure the GOP nomination. 

But with Trump having so far avoided the debate stage as the Republican field thinned to just two candidates, several questions remain over his candidacy – including exactly what he will be looking for in a running mate should he, as expected, be anointed as the Republican nominee.

“Always it’s gotta be who is going to be a good president,” Trump told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday when asked what the criteria for his VP selection might be. 

“Obviously you always have to think that, because in case of emergency,” Trump added. “Things happen, right? No matter who you are, things happen. That’s gotta be number one.”

While Trump said that he doesn’t intend to make a selection for “a little while,” he did highlight the candidacy of some potential contenders. “You know, I called [South Carolina Senator] Tim Scott and people like Tim Scott, and I said you’re a much better candidate for me than you are for yourself,” Trump said to Bartiromo. 

“When I watched him, he was fine. He was good, but he was very low-key,” he added. 

Trump also said that South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has caught his eye. Noem said last summer that she would never run as a candidate against Trump because she does not believe that she, or anyone else for that matter, can beat him.

Recent media reports have suggested that Trump’s campaign team had last year reached out to former Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to gauge his interest as a possible running mate. Kennedy, now running for US president as an independent candidate, denied the claim – as did Trump on Fox News on Sunday, saying that the reported discussions “never happened.”

Trump’s vice president between 2017 and 2021 was former Indiana Governor Mike Pence. Their political alliance ended in acrimonious circumstances over the January 2021 riots at the US Capitol, after Pence refused to comply with Trump’s demands to prevent Congress from certifying the results of Joe Biden’s 2020 US presidential election victory.

Global cases of cancer will surge to 35 million by the year 2050, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) cancer agency has predicted – a 77% increase over figures reported in 2022.

The predictive data, published on Thursday by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), cites the use of tobacco and alcohol, as well as obesity and poor air quality, as the primary factors driving the expected increase in cases by 2050.

“Over 35 million new cancer cases are predicted in 2050,” the IARC said in a statement on its website, adding that this number is 77% higher than the 20 million diagnosed in 2022.

The IARC’s biannual report, which is based on data from 185 countries and 36 different types of cancer, also said that there were some 9.7 million deaths from the illness globally in 2022. About one in five people can expect to develop cancer in their lifetimes, it added, with one in nine men dying from the disease compared to about one in 12 women.

The IARC data also detailed that diagnoses can vary greatly depending on where the afflicted people live. “One of the biggest challenges we are seeing is the proportional increases in the cancer burden are going to be the most striking in the lower income, lower human development countries,” the agency’s Freddie Bray told Al Jazeera on Thursday.

“They are going to see a projected increase of well over a doubling of the burden by 2050,” Bray said, adding that many of these countries are “currently ill-equipped to really deal with the cancer problem.”

The data also showed that lung cancer is the most common variant of the disease amongst men, while in women breast cancer accounts for the most cases. The IARC also said that lifestyle changes can impact cancer diagnoses, with colorectal cancer – the third most common type of cancer, and second biggest killer – seeing an increase driven by factors like tobacco, alcohol and obesity.

While there are more than 100 different types of cancer, the five most common collectively amount to about 50% of all cases.

US President Joe Biden handily won the Democratic Party’s first primary in South Carolina on Saturday, sweeping the sparsely-populated field with over 95% of votes.

Thanking the state’s voters for his landslide victory in a statement on Saturday, Biden said, “I have no doubt that you have set us on the path to winning the Presidency again – and making Donald Trump a loser – again.” 

About 131,000 people voted in the primary - a dismal 4% turnout. Party officials had warned Reuters they expected between 100,000 and 200,000 total votes this year, a significant decrease on 2020, when over 540,000 Democrats turned out to vote in South Carolina’s presidential primary – 16.4% of registered party voters.

Biden’s campaign had lobbied to make South Carolina’s voters first to cast their ballots for the party’s presidential nomination. Previously, the US state of Iowa inaugurated election season, while New Hampshire followed with the first primary. Republicans in the state vote later this month.

While Biden easily defeated his opponents, Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson, rock-bottom voter turnout suggested a lack of enthusiasm about the incumbent’s repeat candidacy, as Phillips himself observed in a statement on Saturday.

Democratic insiders have long warned of an “enthusiasm gap” surrounding the nation’s octogenarian commander-in-chief. Polls have repeatedly indicated that even Democratic voters believe Biden is too old and frail, both mentally and physically, for a second term. 

South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, whose endorsement of Biden was trumpeted by the media establishment as a seal of approval from the black community, was quick to herald his victory as proof the president has “not lost any support among African-Americans” in an interview with CNN.

Biden’s approval rating among black voters has dropped to 42%, according to a recent AP-NORC, just over half of what it was when he took office in 2021.

One black South Carolina voter interviewed by MSNBC ahead of the primary blamed the economy, explaining, “We were broke with Biden; we weren’t with Trump.”

An NBC poll published Sunday placed Trump five points ahead of Biden, reversing the incumbent’s lead as measured in July by the same pollster.

A pigeon suspected of conducting espionage operations on behalf of the People’s Republic of China has been released by Indian officials after eight months of detention following an intervention by PETA, the animal rights group has said.

The bird was detained last May close to a port in Mumbai after it was discovered wearing two rings on its legs, with words that appeared to be Chinese inscribed on its wings, prompting concerns about its possible involvement in espionage.

Eventually, though, it was determined that the pigeon had no nefarious intentions towards the Indian state and was in fact an open-water racing bird from Taiwan that had escaped and made its way to the subcontinent.

The pigeon – who had apparently been deemed a flight risk – was held at an animal hospital before its transfer last week to the Bombay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, whose staff set it free on Tuesday.

“After learning that a pigeon was held at the Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Hospital for Animals (BSDPHA) in Parel as case property for an astonishing eight months, PETA India sprang into action to secure the bird’s freedom from captivity,” the animal rights organization said in a statement on its website.

Following PETA’s intervention, Mumbai police approved the release of the wrongfully accused avian.

In 2016, another pigeon was detained in India after it was reportedly found carrying a note containing a threat to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Historically, pigeons have been used in spying operations – including by the UK during both World Wars – to deliver messages. Famously, a bird named Gustav ferried the first news of the D-Day landings back to the UK after details were attached to the winged messenger on Sword Beach in Normandy on June 6, 1944.

Last year, scientists in the US state of New Mexico began working on a project in which they intended to repurpose dead, taxidermied birds into drones in order to better understand the habits of flocks of birds on flights.

The research, which was presented last year at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, could also be harnessed to enable espionage directed at military targets, reports said.

Canada has frozen a plan to expand its assisted suicide program to include people suffering from mental illnesses, Health Minister Mark Holland and Justice Minister Arif Virani have announced.

Among the reasons for the postponement, they cited a lack of medical professionals, especially psychiatrists, willing to evaluate patients before a lethal injection.

Canada legalized euthanasia after the Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that requiring people to cope with intolerable suffering was tantamount to violating their basic rights. In 2021, the Superior Court of Quebec demanded that the government expand the criteria to those suffering from “grievous and irremediable” conditions, such as depression and other mental health issues.

The law’s separate provisions for people with mental illnesses were originally postponed for two years.

Speaking to reporters on Monday following a session of a special parliamentary committee looking into the issue, Holland explained: “it’s clear from the conversations we’ve had that the system is not ready, and we need more time.”

On Thursday, Canada's Health Ministry released a statement, clarifying that the expansion originally slated for March 17 of this year had been postponed until 2027. It is hoped that by then, regional healthcare providers will be better prepared to administer euthanasia to the mentally ill, with clear guidelines developed in the meantime, the document added.

However, plans to extend the practice to the mentally ill have proven controversial, with members of the opposition Conservative Party accusing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government of promoting a “culture of death.” 

Some critics on the left have also argued that the authorities should instead focus on improving psychiatric care, which is said to be chronically underfunded.

A number of psychiatrists, for their part, have voiced concern that patients could bail out of treatment schemes that do not provide immediate relief, and opt for the easy way out instead.

According to a report released by the Canadian Health Ministry last October, there was a 31.2% increase in the number of cases involving what is termed in the country as medical assistance in dying (MAID) in 2022 compared to 2021.

In 2022, a total of 13,241 people chose to end their lives this way, with 463 of those being “individuals whose natural deaths were not reasonably foreseeable.”

Germany and Ukraine may seal a security cooperation agreement at the Munich Security Conference, which will take place from February 16-18, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has reported. The German newspaper claimed that Berlin and Kiev had already drafted the deal.

The UK became the first nation to sign a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine on January 12, under which the two nations pledge to defend each other if attacked. Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron revealed plans to follow suit in February.

In its article on Friday, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, citing anonymous “government circles,” claimed the pact would be signed on the first day of the upcoming summit. The newspaper quoted Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, Olga Stefanishyna, as saying that a Ukrainian delegation had worked out a “draft for an agreement on bilateral security guarantees” the previous day. She added that the text was “not decided on, but generally ready.”

According to Stefanishyna, both Berlin and Kiev have agreed that the accord should be concluded as soon as possible.

In late January, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that the topic of a bilateral security pact had “played a big role” during his telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky earlier that month, with the accord being “intensively prepared.”

Scholz added that he had the “feeling that we are on the verge of conclusive negotiations.”

In a post on X (formerly Twitter,) Zelensky confirmed that he had discussed Berlin’s commitment to Kiev’s security with the German chancellor.

During a NATO summit in Vilnius in July 2023, the G7 nations agreed to work out bilateral security guarantees for Kiev, pending its possible accession to the US-led military bloc at some point in the future.

Commenting on this decision, Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out at the time that while “every country has the right to ensure its security,” this should not be done at the expense of other nations.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed the agreement signed between the UK and Ukraine in January, which, among other things, guarantees “prevention and active deterrence of, and counter measures against, any military escalation and/or a new aggression by the Russian Federation,” describing it as “half-baked.”

“I did not see any legally binding provisions in this document, except that Ukraine will have to stand up for Britain,” the diplomat explained.

Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and current deputy chair of the country’s Security Council, in turn, warned last month that Moscow would consider any deployment of British troops to Ukraine to be a “declaration of war.”

Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, for her part, accused Britain of “actively working to prevent peace” in Ukraine, while turning it into a “bargaining chip.”

Sinn Fein vice president Michelle O’Neill has hailed a “new dawn” in Northern Irish politics after becoming the province’s first-ever nationalist first minister on Saturday, in an historic move that could increase the prospect of a united Ireland.

O’Neill had served as first minister-designate since May 2022, when the pro-united Ireland group emerged as the largest party in the 90-seat Stormont assembly following elections.

However, O’Neill’s ascent into office had been blocked by Sinn Fein’s rivals, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), who boycotted the assembly in protest at post-Brexit trading rules it said undermined its relationship with Britain, effectively crippling the legislature, which relies upon a power-sharing agreement to function.

Addressing the Assembly Chamber in Belfast on Saturday O’Neill, 47, vowed to represent people of both nationalist and unionist backgrounds. “As an Irish republican I pledge cooperation and genuine honest effort with those colleagues who are British, of a unionist tradition and who cherish the Union,” she said.

Prior to O’Neill, there had been 11 consecutive unionist leaders at the head of Northern Ireland’s government since Stormont was established 103 years ago. She added on Saturday that the “historic” day “represents a new dawn” for Northern Ireland.

US President Joe Biden on Saturday hailed the return of a functioning government in Belfast as an “important step” and said that he anticipated “seeing the renewed stability of a power-sharing government that strengthens the peace dividend, restores public services, and continues building on the immense progress of the last decades.” 

The breakthrough in restoring the government follows the DUP’s decision last week to end its boycott of Stormont after agreeing a deal with London that it claims effectively removes the so-called Irish Sea border checks on goods imported from the UK.

The DUP, which supported the UK’s decision to leave the European Union (EU), had previously argued that the implementation of post-Brexit customs checks effectively placed a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. There are also concerns among unionists that imperiling Northern Ireland’s relationship with the UK could lead to further calls for a vote on Irish unity, particularly under a Sinn Fein First Minister.

The DUP’s Emma Little-Pengelly, who also assumes the role of Deputy First Minister in the new government, said that dual appointments will be “recognized by many” as an “historic day” despite admitting that there are issues upon which she and O’Neill “will never agree.” 

Sinn Fein has a stated goal of achieving a united Ireland, whereas the DUP wishes to retain ties with the UK. A referendum on Irish reunification can only be held at the discretion of the British government.

The European Union held a summit this week at which it aimed to convince Ukraine of its support for as long as it’s needed. Hungary balked, but its resistance was limited.

For prestige reasons and to demonstrate strategic unity, it was critical for the EU to secure approval for the long-term financing of Kiev. No one knows what will happen next, but it will be possible to adjust plans if necessary.

The EU summit reflected an interesting phenomenon – the ever-diverging agendas of the Western European ruling classes and those they govern. The main issue in Brussels is aid for Ukraine, while at the same time farmers are rioting in France and the Benelux countries, and Germany is paralyzed by a series of strikes. Of course, this is not because of Ukraine, but driven by the fall in living standards.

The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), an influential transnational non-governmental organization, has published an analysis of sociological polls predicting the outcome of the European Parliament elections in June. Let’s be clear: it is not the European Parliament that determines the policies and prospects of the Old World. Whatever its eventual composition, this will be no revolution.

However, the peculiarities of the pan-European representative body are such that citizens vote, as we used to say, with their hearts and not with their pockets, as happens in elections to national parliaments. Voters’ immediate well-being depends on these representatives, which is why the experienced ones are often preferred over clever ones. But an MEP doesn’t determine anything in the life of an ordinary European, which is why you can let your feelings run wild and send the one you really like to Olympus without fear of things going down the drain. In other words, the European Parliament election results are a good indicator of the real mood.

However, this doesn’t mean the formation of an “unbreakable bloc”; the moderates are unlikely to engage seriously with the extremes. But the social shift to the right is undeniable.

This rightward shift is evidence of disillusionment with the establishment, which has seen little renewal in more than three decades, despite a wealth of impressive socio-political developments. After the Cold War, there was a leveling out of party platforms. Previously clearly labeled socialists, conservatives or liberals, whose approaches may not have been antagonistic but had differences, were lumped into a single mainstream.

European integration, multiplied by the worldwide process of globalization, almost eliminated policy variability. The latter was increasingly determined by external structural frameworks, and decisions were more and more often taken at the supranational level, above the governments of individual countries. And the ability of national leaders to respond to the aspirations of their peoples depended on their ability to work not only with their own populations, but also one floor above, seeking concessions and privileges from a centralized Brussels.

Populism as an appeal to the masses against elites monopolizing influence is an old phenomenon. But at the beginning of the 21st century, in the spirit of the so-called “end of history,” these elites began to interpret their own line as the only true and legitimate one. Accordingly, those who oppose it are either deliberately wrong or deliberately malicious (singing “in someone else’s voice”). In this way, opposition to populism has led to fierce political antagonism.

There is a dangerous contradiction here for the EU. The “wrong” line, even if we think of it as such, increasingly resonates with what Europeans are worried about “on the ground” – from migration to economic problems caused by the abandonment of traditional energy sources. And the “right” point-of-view, aimed at fulfilling the bloc’s geopolitical commitments, does not seem to be a priority for a growing part of the population. Especially as these obligations imply a subordinate role for the EU in the Atlantic community.

So far, the Western European mainstream has been able to push its agenda through, albeit with some difficulties. But if the results of the above survey are to be believed, this will not always be the case.

This means that the bloc is set for further turbulence.

This article was first published by Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper, translated and edited by the RT team

Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi have been sentenced to seven years in prison and fined after a court declared their marriage unlawful on Saturday. It was the third ruling against Khan this week. 

On Wednesday, Khan along with his wife were sentenced to 14-year terms for illegally selling state gifts, and the day before Khan was given ten years in prison for leaking state secrets. He claimed the cable he released contained evidence of collusion between the Pakistani military and US officials to have him removed from power in April 2022. 

Khan’s representatives say he will appeal all three cases. The sentences add up to 34 years and will be served concurrently.

The marriage case was filed by Bushra Bibi’s former husband Khawar Maneka, who claimed that she did not observe “iddat” – a mandatory three-month waiting period that a woman must abide by under Islamic law after the death of her husband or a divorce, before marrying another man. The Khans have denied wrongdoing.

Imran Khan, however, argued that the case was brought to “humiliate and disgrace” him and his wife. 

“This marks the first instance in history where a case related to iddat has been initiated,” he told reporters. 

The court decision has been condemned by members of Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

Syed Zulfiqar Bukhari, a PTI official, called the marriage case “fake”, saying the judgements against Khan represent a “mockery of the law.”

“The way these trials are being conducted leaves a huge question mark on the February 8 elections. This is a test case for Pakistan’s higher judiciary,” he told Al Jazeera. PTI President Gohar Ali Khan described the trial as “shameful” and vowed to appeal the verdict in a higher court. 

Reema Omar, a Pakistani legal adviser for the International Commission of Jurists, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that the sentence was “a damning blot on our justice system.”

Khan, a cricketer-turned-politician, was ousted in a no-confidence vote in 2022, with the opposition accusing him of mismanaging the economy and foreign policy. Khan has dismissed all the charges against him as politically motivated. 

The speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, announced on Saturday that he would hold a vote on a “clean, standalone” aid package for Israel that will not entail any spending cuts.

The newly proposed legislation is set to include $17.6 billion in additional military funding as well as “important funding for US forces in the region.” The initial  $14.3 billion package, rejected by the Senate last year, included an equal amount in spending cuts to the Internal Revenue Services (IRS) and was therefore branded by Democrats as a “poison pill.”

“Next week, we will take up and pass a clean, standalone Israel supplemental package,” he wrote in a letter to colleagues sent on Saturday afternoon. “The Senate will no longer have excuses, however misguided, against swift passage of this critical support for our ally.”

The announcement comes as the Senate prepares to vote on a long-anticipated national security supplemental requested by US President Joe Biden, which will include tougher US border controls paired with nearly $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, as well as more assistance to Israel and Taiwan. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Friday that he was preparing to release the legislation text “no later than Sunday” with the first procedural vote coming by midweek.

The White House previously indicated that it would oppose a stand-alone Israel aid bill, with John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, saying President Biden would veto it.

While Washington is struggling to secure additional military funding for Ukraine, Brussels approved a €50 billion ($54 billion) aid package on Thursday, having reportedly pressured Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban into lifting his veto. Orban, who previously called Ukraine “one of the most corrupt countries in the world,” accused the “imperialist EU” of “blackmailing” him into accepting the deal.

The US and UK have carried out a series of combined air- and sea-launched strikes against at least 36 targets at 13 locations across Yemen, the US Central Command announced on Saturday.

The joint operation was carried out by Tomahawk missiles launched from US Navy ships, and F/A-18 fighter-bombers launched from the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower. The US Central Command said the raid targeted “multiple underground storage facilities, command and control, missile systems, UAV storage and operations sites, radars, and helicopters.”

“These strikes are intended to degrade Houthi capabilities used to continue their reckless and unlawful attacks on US and UK ships as well as international commercial shipping,” CENTCOM said.

Earlier on Saturday, the US struck six locations in Yemen, targeting Houthi cruise missiles set to be launched at ships in the Red Sea, US Central Command posted on X (formerly Twitter).

Yemen’s Houthi rebels have been attacking shipping in the region in solidarity with Palestinians since the breakout of the Israel-Hamas conflict in October last year. Initially targeting only Israeli-affiliated vessels, the Houthis later began attacking US and UK-owned ships, after the coalition launched strikes on Yemen.

Saturday's assault came a day after airstrikes on Iraq and Syria. Washington claimed it had targeted members of the Islamic Resistance movement and other “Iranian-backed” militias, in response to a drone strike that killed three US soldiers at a military facility in Jordan last weekend.

Three people were injured in a stabbing allegedly carried out by a Malian national at the Gare de Lyon rail hub in Paris on Saturday, police told AFP. 

The Paris prosecutor’s office is conducting an investigation into the attack, which left one individual with serious wounds to the abdomen and two more with light wounds.

“The suspect did not cry out (any religious slogans) during his attack,” a police source told AFP, and Paris police chief Laurent Nunez confirmed there was no suspicion the attack was motivated by terrorism. The national antiterrorism prosecutor is nevertheless “observing proceedings” regarding the inquiry, according to AFP.

The man, who was armed with a knife and a hammer, appeared to be homeless with “psychiatric troubles,” Nunez told media. He was reportedly subdued by bystanders who held him until railway police arrived at the scene.

“A thank you to those who overpowered the man who carried out this unbearable act,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday. 

The incident caused a brief delay in train services to Paris, with rail operator SNCF referring only to “an act of criminal intent” at the French capital’s transit hub, which sees more than 100 million passengers per year.

Last summer, riots broke out across France following the police shooting of a 17-year-old of Algerian descent during a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. Of the thousands arrested, most were between the ages of 17 and 18. The officer responsible was charged with homicide, though this action failed to quell the unrest which spread beyond France’s borders.

A nationwide law enforcement crackdown has put more people in French prisons than ever before, with the country’s incarcerated population surpassing 73,000 for the first time in 2022. Detention facilities are reportedly so overcrowded that thousands of prisoners are forced to sleep on mattresses on the floor.

The Crimean Peninsula was historically part of Russia “for most of the time,” Polish President Andrzej Duda has said, expressing doubts Ukraine will be able to capture it.

The president made the remarks on Friday during an interview with YouTube channel Kanal Zero. Asked whether he believed Ukraine could seize Crimea from Russia – a goal repeatedly proclaimed by Kiev – Duda said it was hard for him to answer such a question, particularly given the “special” history of the peninsula.

“I don’t know if [Ukraine] will regain Crimea, but I believe it will regain Donetsk and Lugansk,” he stated, referring to the two republics that broke off Ukraine in 2014 and joined Russia after referendums in late 2022. Crimea, however, “is a special place,” including for “historical reasons,” the Polish president argued.

“In fact, if we look historically, it was in Russia’s hands for most of the time,” he stated.

The controversial remarks received a poor reception in Poland and Ukraine alike. Kiev’s envoy to the country, Vassily Zvarych, took to X (formerly Twitter) to reiterate Ukraine’s goals to recapture all the territories it has claims on.

“Crimea is Ukraine: it is and will remain so,” he wrote. “The deoccupation of Crimea is our shared task and an obligation to the free world.”

“What an incredibly stupid statement!” Giertych wrote. “I would like to remind Mr. Duda that there are cities in our country that in their history belonged to Poland for a shorter time than to another country,” he added. His comments were presumably referring to formerly German territories incorporated into Poland after the country was recreated in the aftermath of World War II.

The criticism prompted Duda to explain his remarks, with the president insisting his position on Ukraine’s territorial claims remains unchanged and has been “clear from the day one.”

“Russia’s attack on Ukraine and occupation of the internationally recognized Ukrainian territories, including Crimea, is a crime,” he said in an X post on Saturday.

Crimea broke away from Ukraine in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup, which ousted democratically-elected President Viktor Yanukovich, ultimately triggering the conflict in then-Ukrainian Donbass. Crimea joined Russia following a peninsula-wide referendum, during which the local population overwhelmingly backed the idea of reunification. Moscow has repeatedly stated that its sovereignty over the peninsula was not a matter of negotiations.

The US has made a huge blunder by attacking targets in Iraq and Syria, as it will only further inflame tensions in the already turbulent region, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani has said.

In a statement on Saturday, Kanaani condemned the US airstrikes on militia groups in the two countries. American officials have said that the attacks targeted groups linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) Quds Force, an elite secret unit specializing in foreign operations, and came in response to an earlier attack on a US military post in Jordan that left three service members dead and dozens wounded.

The ministry’s spokesman insisted that Washington had violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq and Syria, calling the decision “another adventure and strategic mistake by the American government, which will have no result other than the escalation of tension and instability in the region.”

He also stressed that by launching the strikes, the US was helping Israel, which is locked in conflict with the Palestinian armed group Hamas in Gaza. The latter has close ties to Tehran, and attacked the Jewish state in early October, with the fighting resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, including many civilians, and unprecedented destruction.

However, the spokesman did not address US claims that it had attacked Iranian-affiliated groups. Tehran previously stated that regional groups that attacked American military facilities were acting independently and not on Iran’s orders.

On Friday, commenting on the new wave of US airstrikes in the region, US President Joe Biden stressed that the US “does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world” but warned of retaliation against those who do harm to Americans. Senior US officials have also said that they do not want conflict with Iran.

Prior to the US moves, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi also said that Tehran “will not be the initiator of any war,” but vowed to “respond firmly” to anyone who would try to pressure his country.

Since the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the start of the IDF ground operation in Gaza, it has been repeatedly reported that one of the potential participants in an open confrontation with Israel could be the Lebanese Shiite paramilitary group and political party, Hezbollah. In January, there were even more statements by officials about the likelihood of a military clash on Israel’s northern border.

Thus, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on January 8 that his country is ready to go to war with the Lebanese group. However, he still believes that it is better to resolve the conflict peacefully. Netanyahu made his statement following a visit to the town of Kiryat Shmona, after it was hit by a Hezbollah anti-tank missile. The locality in northern Israel is regularly shelled by the organization.

Later, on January 17, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Commander-in-Chief Herzi Halevy said that the likelihood of a full-scale military operation in Lebanon has now drastically increased. “I don’t know when a war will happen in the north. What I can say is that the likelihood of this happening in the coming months is now much higher than in the past,” The Times of Israel quoted him as saying. Halevy made the statement while speaking to soldiers in northern Israel at maneuvers simulating an IDF offensive in Lebanon. He noted that troops are “building up readiness for battles in Lebanon.”

Indeed, Israel’s military buildup on its northern border is confirmed. According to ABC News, tens of thousands of regular troops and about 60,000 reservists are stationed there. The other day, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant noted that Israeli troops may very soon engage in hostilities along the country’s border with Lebanon. However, he did not specify when exactly this would happen.

But before we can understand why the likelihood of a military conflict between the IDF and Hezbollah is growing, we should briefly dive into the history of the Lebanese Shiite group’s origins and its relationship with Israel.

Hezbollah’s genesis

Hezbollah, or in Arabic, “The Party of Allah,” is a Shiite military and political organization operating in Lebanon. It was founded in 1982 in response to the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon, which was one episode in the 15-year Lebanese Civil War that ended in 1990 after the signing of the Taif Accords.

Hezbollah was originally established as a paramilitary organization to protect Lebanon’s Shiite population from Israeli aggression. Over time, however, it has evolved into an influential political movement that plays an important role in Lebanese political life. Several factors contributed to Hezbollah’s emergence.

First of all, it was the growing anti-Israeli sentiment in Lebanon. In the 1970s, the struggle between various religious and political groups intensified. One of the main issues was the Palestinian-Israeli problem. Lebanon became a haven for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who clashed with the local population. In 1982, Israel invaded southern Lebanon to dismantle Palestinian refugee camps and suppress anti-Israeli activity. This event caused widespread discontent among Lebanese Shia, who made up a large part of the population of South Lebanon.

Lebanon has a political balance in which power is divided among the three main religious groups: Maronite Christians, Sunni Muslims, and Shiite Muslims. The Shia, who made up about 40% of Lebanon’s population, felt underrepresented in the political and economic life of the country.

In 1982, a group of Shiite activists who were dissatisfied with the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon united under the leadership of Imam Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Hassan Nasrallah, the current secretary general of Hezbollah, and Ibrahim Amin, Lebanon’s former defense minister.

Today, Hezbollah is one of the most influential political forces in Lebanon, with representation in the Lebanese parliament and control over a number of important ministries. Hezbollah is also one of the most powerful paramilitary groups in the country. It has significant armed forces that include the regular army, special forces, and popular defense forces.

Hezbollah’s main source of strength is its combat units, which are composed of well-trained and motivated fighters. They have extensive skills in guerrilla warfare tactics and urban warfare, making them a dangerous opponent for the group's adversaries. In addition, Hezbollah possesses a significant arsenal of weapons that includes medium and long-range missiles as well as unmanned aerial vehicles. It has the ability to attack targets in Israel and other countries in the region from Lebanese territory.

The organization is an influential player in the regional arena, maintaining close ties with Iran and Syria. It has taken an important role in the Syrian conflict by supporting the government of Bashar al-Assad. As one of the most powerful and influential Shiite organizations in the world, it plays an important role in the political and military life of Lebanon and the region. Hezbollah is, however, the subject of fierce controversy. Its supporters consider it a heroic organization that fights to protect Lebanon and the Palestinians, while its opponents accuse it of terrorism and destabilizing the region.

Hezbollah has waged an armed struggle against Israel and repeatedly attacked Israeli territory, including firing rockets, hitting military targets and killing Israeli civilians. The group also supports the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip.

Difficult relationship: Born to feud

Relations between Israel and Hezbollah have remained tense for decades and have often resulted in armed conflict. This relationship, as noted above, developed after Hezbollah’s founding in the early 1980s and broadly spans the political, military, and economic spheres.

The roots of the confrontation can be traced back to the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948 and later to the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon in 1982. Hezbollah emerged as a reaction to Israeli influence in Lebanon and the persecution of that country’s Shiite population. It quickly became a major political and military force, presenting itself as both the opposition and resistance to Israel.

The most significant conflict between Israel and Hezbollah was the 2006 war, also known as the Second Lebanon War, which began on July 12, 2006 and lasted until a UN Security Council resolution was passed on August 14 the same year.

The main cause of the war was the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah and subsequent Israeli military operations in Lebanon to free the hostages and weaken Hezbollah. Hezbollah in turn responded with rocket attacks on Israelis and offensives into northern Israel.

The 2006 war was devastating and had serious consequences for both sides of the conflict as well as for Lebanese citizens. Significant damage was inflicted on Lebanon’s infrastructure, civilian facilities, and industry; including airports, roads, bridges and power grids. Some 1,200 Lebanese, most of whom were civilians, were killed as a result of the war.

For its part, Hezbollah fired more than 4,000 rockets at Israel, causing casualties and damage to Israeli cities and settlements. Some 160 Israeli soldiers and about 40 Israeli citizens were also killed. Israel suffered significant losses in tanks, armored vehicles and military equipment.

As a result, a ceasefire was agreed under the auspices of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which called for a cessation of military operations, the withdrawal of the Israeli army from southern Lebanon and the establishment of stability in the region. As part of the resolution, UN peacekeeping troops (UNMC) were deployed to monitor the truce and implement the agreement’s provisions.

Overall, relations between Israel and Hezbollah remain complex and confrontational. Both sides continue to wage online warfare, using cyberattacks and information operations against each other. But there are also occasional exchanges of rocket fire. Despite the regular clashes and tensions, it is also possible to find a path to a diplomatic settlement which would allow both sides to achieve peace and stability.

Will there be an open war between Israel and Hezbollah?

Many analysts of the processes taking place in the Middle East expect tensions to rise on Israel’s northern border. This opinion is conditioned by the increasing frequency of clashes between Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces, which has already led to the death of more than 160 representatives of the Lebanese group since the start of the Palestinian-Israeli war on October 8, 2023.

Since the first days of the current escalation, Israeli tensions with Hezbollah have increased. And thoughts of launching military action to the north were in the minds of the Jewish state’s political and military establishment as early as late October. For example, The Wall Street Journal, citing sources, reported that on October 11 US President Joe Biden persuaded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to launch a preemptive strike against Hezbollah because of the risk of a major war in the region.

On that day, Israeli intelligence received information about Hezbollah’s intention to invade Israel from several directions, and Israeli fighter jets were already in the air, waiting for orders to attack the group’s facilities in Lebanon. It took about six hours of negotiations and meetings for Israeli officials to back down, WSJ sources said.

The situation on the border between Israel and Hezbollah remains tense, and the possibility of a full-scale conflict is real. This was confirmed by Israeli media, citing remarks by National Security Council head Tzachi Hanegbi at a closed session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on January 17. Hanegbi also provided interesting details regarding Hamas.

According to the official, Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, has taken a harder line during negotiations for the exchange of hostages, which will likely draw out the process of returning the 117 people still held captive since the October attacks on Israel. In his remarks, Hanegbi emphasized that the physical elimination of Sinwar is still a pressing goal for Israeli security forces.

However, recently negotiators from Israel, the US, Egypt and Qatar met in Paris and agreed on the basics of a new deal aimed at releasing the hostages. This was reported by NBC News on January 29. The plan envisions the gradual release of captives, starting with women and children. For its part, Israel will offer limited pauses in hostilities and the admission of humanitarian aid, as well as the release of Palestinian prisoners. The plan has been sent to representatives of Hamas.

If a temporary reduction in the intensity of the fighting in Gaza is achieved, the controversy within Israel surrounding the current Netanyahu government will escalate. Obviously, the end of the conflict would also lead to the end of the prime minister’s political career and those of other prominent figures. Even Washington, Israel’s most important ally, has delivered repeated messaging that Netanyahu must go.

No one wants a major war in the region. Hezbollah, which is closely allied with Iran, also does not want tensions to escalate into open warfare. This is demonstrated by its restraint, both in statements by top officials and in attacks on Israeli forces. But if Netanyahu does decide to launch an operation in southern Lebanon, the war will be long and bloody. Representatives of the “Axis of Resistance” led by Iran will lend support with even greater effort. Then the specter of war will become a reality and the Middle East will burst into flames, the consequences of which no one can assess or foresee.

Companies based in Taiwan have sold Russia more than $20 million in advanced equipment that can be used for weapons production, the Washington Post has claimed, noting that Moscow’s defense sector has ramped up purchases in recent months.

Citing “trade records and Russian tax documents” obtained by the outlet, the Post pointed to entities in the Russian arms industry that have boosted transactions with Taiwan, with one firm, I Machine Technology, importing over $20 million in CNC machine tools produced on the island since January 2023. The machines were reportedly sent in 63 separate shipments.

“The Taiwan-made machines accounted for virtually all of the Russian company’s imports in the first seven months of last year, according to the records, and the company’s sales during that period were overwhelmingly to the Russian defense industry,” the newspaper added, although it did not specify how the CNC machines were to be used.

Instead, Bredikhin said that any purchases after January were for spare parts only, and did not run afoul of Taiwan’s export controls, which were further tightened early this year. “I’m not buying anything from them except for parts,” he added.

Nonetheless, the American official claimed that the CNC machines were “very important for making military items” and could be connected to “military-end uses,” including manufacturing drones.

Another executive from one of the Taiwanese producers, Yu Ming Je, questioned the authenticity of the files obtained by the Post, and also insisted that the sales were in line with local laws. Asked about ties to Russia’s arms industry, Yu said he was not aware of any such connections with his company, adding “Distributors basically have many users.”

In announcing its latest round of sanctions, which mirrored those already imposed by the US and European Union, Taiwan's economy ministry vowed to “in principle” block all export license applications to Russian firms going forward. The ministry declined to comment on whether such equipment sales violated export rules, but said the government planned to specifically bar sales to I Machine Technology in the future.

Asylum seekers in Germany will cease receiving cash payments during the course of this year, and will be issued special debit cards instead, the governor of Hesse, Boris Rhein, has announced. The cards will reportedly have limited functionality, with features like free cash withdrawal and transfers to recipients inside and outside of Germany disabled.

A number of municipalities across the country have introduced the new payment method ahead of nation-wide implementation. These include several communities in Baden-Wuerttemberg and Thuringia. Bild reported last month that at least 15 asylum seekers left their localities after Thuringian authorities imposed the new protocols.

Speaking on Wednesday, Rhein revealed that 14 out of 16 German states had agreed on uniform standards for such cards, with Bavaria and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern seeking other schemes. They will, however, introduce the new payment method as well, which is expected to be finalized by this summer.

According to Rhein, “with the introduction of the payment card we reduce the administrative burden on local municipalities [and] prevent the possibility of transferring money from state subsidies to countries of origin, and thus combat the inhuman human-trafficking crime.”

Asylum seekers will apparently be able to withdraw small amounts of cash using the cards, with the monthly ceiling to be determined by local authorities.

While German Finance Minister Christian Lindner hailed the scheme as a “milestone,” critics from the left have denounced the measure as “cheap populism” and “discrimination.”

More than 350,000 people applied for asylum in Germany in 2023, the highest number since 2016 and a 51% rise compared with the previous year, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) reported in early January.

Last month, Germany’s parliament passed legislation that facilitates the deportation of failed asylum seekers. Among other things, the new rules considerably extend the custody period pending deportation in a bid to prevent situations where failed applicants simply abscond around the time they are supposed to be sent home.

Moreover, police were granted additional power to search migrant accommodations and access their cell phones to facilitate identification of asylum seekers.

The US has unleashed a series of airstrikes on militia groups across Iraq and Syria in response to an earlier attack in Jordan that killed three American soldiers and left dozens wounded.

What was in the Pentagon’s crosshairs?

The attack was directed at more than 85 targets, including command and control centers, intelligence facilities, and weapons storage facilities, which the US claims were used by groups linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) Quds Force, an elite clandestine unit specializing in foreign operations. Washington previously accused the groups of attacking the US and its allies in the region.

Tehran has claimed that these regional groups act independently.

Kirby claimed that the targets were “selected to avoid civilian casualties” and were based on evidence that they were linked to attacks on US military personnel, adding that Washington believes the strikes were successful.

First of many

US President Joe Biden stated that the move was only the first in a series of retaliatory actions to come following the drone attack on US troops in Jordan. “Our response began today,” he said. “It will continue at times and places of our choosing.”

He added that the US “does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world,” but will retaliate against anyone who might seek to harm Americans.

Politico reported, citing two unnamed US officials, that Washington can now focus on Yemen to target local groups which the US believes are also linked to Iran.

What was the US retaliating for?

The Pentagon said Iranian-linked groups have conducted more than 160 raids on US bases and forces in the Middle East since October 7, when tensions in the Middle East flared up once again after the Palestinian armed movement Hamas, which has close ties with Tehran, launched a surprise attack on Israel.

The new wave of US airstrikes came after a drone attack last weekend on Tower 22, a US base in Jordan located near the Syrian and Iraqi borders, killed three US soldiers and wounded more than 40 others. Responsibility was claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group for Shia militias. Biden blamed it on “radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq.”

Backlash

Both Iraq and Syria have condemned the US strikes.

Iraqi military spokesman Yahya Rasool called the attacks “a violation of Iraqi sovereignty,” warning that they “undermine the efforts of the Iraqi government, and pose a threat that could lead Iraq and the region into dire consequences.”

The Syrian military, as quoted by SANA news agency, denounced the raid as “the aggression of the American occupation forces.” It insisted that the attack resulted in a number of deaths among civilians and soldiers, and came in an area where Damascus was fighting IS (Islamic State, formerly ISIS) terrorists.

Meanwhile, in the US, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson rebuked Biden for his weak foreign policy, suggesting that it took the White House an entire week to respond to the attack in Jordan. He stated that the administration’s “public handwringing and excessive signaling,” rather than a “clear and forceful response,” undercut Washington’s ability to respond to Iran.

Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene also accused Biden of pursuing a failing foreign policy. She stated that under the current president, the troops are spread too thin around the world, making them vulnerable to attacks while problems at home, including “terrorists, cartels, criminals invading our country,” have been completely neglected.

The US should withdraw its ground troops from Middle Eastern countries that do not welcome them, independent candidate for US president Robert F. Kennedy Jr has said.

He said the escalation could have been avoided, reacting in an X (formerly Twitter) post to Washington’s attack on more than 80 targets allegedly linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) in Iraq and Syria in a wide-ranging air assault.

US Central Command says it hit 85 Iranian-linked targets in Syria and Iraq in retaliation against the recent “Iran-affiliated” fighters’ attack that killed three US servicemen in Jordan. President Joe Biden’s X post read that the US does not “seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. But to all those who seek to do us harm: We will respond,” despite Iran denying involvement in the incident.

“If we ‘do not seek conflict,’ then let’s get the troops out of there,” Kennedy said, apparently reacting to Biden’s statement. “They are not welcome. They are not needed,” he added.

Besides pulling US troops “out of the Mideast,” Kennedy urged Washington to forge ties with regional powers instead. The presidential candidate also described the troop presence in the area as “indefensible targets for anyone in the region who wants to provoke a conflict.”

Iraq has rebuked the US over the airstrikes, saying they constitute “a violation of Iraqi sovereignty” and “pose a threat that could lead Iraq and the region into dire consequences. The Syrian military, as quoted by SANA news agency, denounced the raid as “the aggression of the American occupation forces.”

President Joe Biden has defended the US response to a recent drone strike that left three American soldiers dead, claiming that the air raids have targeted militia groups in Iraq and Syria allegedly backed by Iran.

In a statement issued on Friday, Biden said he personally ordered the Pentagon’s response to last weekend’s deadly drone strike on a Jordanian military base housing US troops.

“This afternoon, at my direction, US military forces struck targets at facilities in Iraq and Syria that the IRGC and affiliated militia use to attack US forces,” the president said, referring to Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite military unit. 

“Our response began today,” Biden stated, adding that retaliatory strikes would continue “at times and places of our choosing.”

US defense chief Lloyd Austin also warned that the latest round of strikes is just “the start of our response,” adding that “the president has directed additional actions.”

LIVE UPDATES: US unleashes strikes across Middle East

US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, previously announced that it had carried out air raids on more than 85 targets across both Iraq and Syria, also citing last Sunday’s drone strike in Jordan. The operation involved “numerous aircraft,” including long-range bombers flown from the US, which dropped over 125 precision munitions on their targets, the command added. Those targets were said to include command and control centers, intelligence sites, weapons caches, and supply-chain facilities of Iranian-backed militias.

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel is among a handful of tech billionaires bankrolling the Enhanced Games, a privately-funded sporting contest that encourages doping and transhumanist-inspired upgrades, according to a post on X (formerly Twitter) by the official account for the Games on Tuesday.

Venture capitalist Christian Angermayer and former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan were also named as contributors to the Games’ “investors’ circle.” The funding round yielded enough capital to pay for the first edition of the Games, founder and Australian venture capitalist Aron D’Souza told the New York Post on Thursday. However, D’Souza declined to reveal the absolute total raised, merely stating that it was in the “high single-digit millions.”

Thiel reportedly plans to provide more details regarding his investment in April and will promote the Games during the ‘real’ Olympics in Paris in July. The Palantir CEO is himself an avid doper, taking human growth hormone and metformin for muscle-building and anti-aging purposes, respectively, and hopes to be cryogenically frozen before death.

In addition to taking performance-enhancing drugs, athletes are encouraged to use so-called “performance technology” like the polyurethane swimming “super suits” banned by FINA in 2010 after they were used to break 55 world records in a single year.

D’Souza justified the idea of allowing athletes to take drugs “out in the open and honestly” by claiming that “44% of Olympians admit to using banned substances while only 1% get caught.” He cast his pro-doping outlook as a stand for medical freedom, telling the Post, “Individuals should be able to make choices about your body and no one – whether it’s a sports federation or the government – should be able to tell them what to do about it.”

The investor also pitched his event as a boon to scientific research, with athletes as guinea pigs testing which “compounds and therapies” work for “extending human life.”

US Anti Doping Agency head Travis Tygart dismissed the Games as a “dangerous clown show” and “not real sport” in a November interview with CNN, while former Australian Olympic gold medalist Anna Meares called it “unfair, unsafe” and “a joke.” Lawyer Jim Walden added that it was probably illegal in the US.

US podcast king Joe Rogan has signed a contract renewal with Spotify that essentially allows him to have his cake and eat it, too – reportedly earning as much as $250 million from the streaming service and gaining the freedom to distribute his show on other platforms.

Spotify confirmed the new multiyear agreement on Friday, saying it will continue to stream ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ and will allow it to be carried by rival distributors. This means that the show – which is already rated as the most-watched podcast in the world – while being streamed exclusively on Spotify, will soon be opened up to listeners of services such as Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and YouTube.

Rogan’s controversial show has ruffled feathers at Spotify since he joined the platform in 2020 in a deal valued at around $200 million. Elderly rock musician Neil Young removed his songs from the streaming service in 2022 and urged Spotify employees to quit after CEO Daniel Ek refused to cancel Rogan’s show for spreading “deadly misinformation” on Covid-19 vaccines.

Rather than counting on an exclusivity arrangement with Rogan’s podcast to help attract more subscribers, Spotify is betting on ad sales to generate more revenue. Rogan’s compensation will include a base fee and a share of advertising revenue. Spotify said it will work with Rogan to “continue to maximize the audience of the show across platforms.”

There was media speculation that Rogan would move to another platform when his Spotify contract expired. He turned down a $100 million, censorship-free offer to join Rumble in early 2022.

The Pentagon has commenced retaliation strikes in response to a drone attack that killed three US troops at a secretive base in Jordan, targeting dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups.

“Our response began today” and “will continue at times and places of our choosing,” US President Joe Biden announced on Friday night. The airstrikes started around midnight on Saturday local time and hit more than 85 Iranian-linked targets, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.

The bombings come nearly one week after a drone packed with explosives struck Tower 22, a US base in Jordan located near the Syrian and Iraqi borders, killing three soldiers and wounding more than 40 others. The attack, which the US blamed on the Iranian-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq, marked the first deaths of American troops in a wave of assaults triggered by the Israel-Hamas war.

US forces have begun a new bombing campaign in the Middle East to punish Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups in response to a series of drone and missile attacks on American military bases in the region.

Washington’s latest airstrikes began around midnight Baghdad time on Saturday and hit more than 85 targets in Syria and Iraq, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement. The operation involved “numerous aircraft,” including long-range bombers flown from the US, which dropped over 125 precision munitions on their targets.

Those targets included command and control centers, intelligence sites, weapons caches, and supply-chain facilities of Iranian-backed militias, as well as “their IRGC sponsors who facilitated attacks against US and coalition forces,” CENTCOM said.

LIVE UPDATES: US unleashes strikes across Middle East

The bombings follow a series of assaults on American military bases in the Middle East, including a drone attack that killed three soldiers and wounded more than 40 others at a secretive installation in Jordan. That base, called Tower 22, is located near the Syrian and Iraqi borders.

CENTCOM Statement on U.S. Strikes in Iraq and Syria

At 4:00 p.m. (EST) Feb. 02, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces conducted airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups. U.S. military forces… pic.twitter.com/ZVx2uOQ1qD

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) February 2, 2024

The attack on Tower 22 was “planned, resourced and facilitated” by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday. The group consists of multiple militias, including Kataib Hezbollah, which has launched multiple rocket and drone strikes against US forces in the region since the Israel-Hamas war began in October.

Media reports in recent days raised concern that Biden was telegraphing his plans and giving the militias too much time to take preparatory steps, such as vacating obvious targets. Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin tried to deflect those worries on Friday, denying that the administration was giving Iran too much warning. He said the US response will be “multi-tiered” and insisted that neither he nor Biden would tolerate attacks on American troops.

The IRGC’s Quds Force is an elite unit that specializes in guerilla warfare and intelligence-gathering outside Iran. It has sought to drive American forces out of neighboring Iraq since the US invasion in 2003.

US forces have carried out airstrikes targeting Iranian-backed militants in Syria and Iraq in response to a series of assaults on American military bases in the region, including a drone attack that killed three American soldiers and wounded more than 40 others.

Washington’s latest strikes come nearly a week after Sunday’s deadly attack on a secretive US base in Jordan, near the Syrian and Iraqi borders, named Tower 22. The retaliatory bombings mark “the start of what will likely be a series of larger-scale US strikes on Iranian-backed militias who have carried out attacks on US troops in the Middle East,” CNN reported on Friday, citing two unidentified American officials.

An unidentified Pentagon official told the New York Times that Friday’s airstrikes targeted a half dozen sites in Iraq and Syria, “marking a sharp escalation of the war in the Middle East that the Biden administration has for four months sought to avoid.”

Kirby suggested that the US response would be carried out over multiple days. It “won’t just be a one-off,” he said. “As I said, the first thing you see will not be the last thing.” He added that Biden is still trying to avoid a broader war with Iran.

Biden has blamed Iran for supplying the weapons that Islamic militants have used in attacking US forces in the Middle East more than 150 times since the Israel-Hamas war started. He has faced political pressure to respond aggressively, including calls by Republican lawmakers to launch devastating strikes inside Iran.

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has said that it will ban AI-generated scam “robocalls” after New Hampshire residents were contacted by a computer-generated Joe Biden urging them to sit out the state’s Democratic primary election.

In a statement released on Wednesday, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said that she will instruct her agency to recognize calls made with AI-generated voices as “artificial,” thereby subjecting them to the same rules that already govern pre-recorded “robocalls.”

Under the FCC’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), telemarketers must obtain prior consent from consumers before calling them with “artificial” messages. Should AI-generated voices be classed as “artificial,” state attorneys general could prosecute the companies or organizations responsible. 

“AI-generated voice cloning and images are already sowing confusion by tricking consumers into thinking scams and frauds are legitimate,” Rosenworcel said. “No matter what celebrity or politician you favor, or what your relationship is with your kin when they call for help, it is possible we could all be a target of these faked calls.”

“It’s important that you save your vote for the November election. We’ll need your help in electing Democrats up and down the ticket,” the AI-voiced message said. “Voting this Tuesday only enables Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again.”

It remains unclear who was behind the calls, which New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella called “an unlawful attempt to disrupt the New Hampshire Presidential Primary Election and to suppress New Hampshire voters.”

Researchers said last week that the culprits likely spoofed Biden’s voice using software from a voice-cloning startup called ElevenLabs. The company’s safety policy states that users usually do not need to seek permission to clone a public official’s voice for “political speech contributing to public debates.”

Muslim-American voters have balked at US president Joe Biden's latest political outreach efforts, making it clear that his support for the Israeli war effort in the Gaza Strip may imperil his reelection bid.

Widespread voter anger was evidenced on Thursday, when Biden’s motorcade reportedly had to be re-routed during a campaign stop in Michigan. “Genocide Joe has got to go,” protestors chanted while waving Palestinian flags

They show us every day whose lives they value and whose lives they consider disposable. We will not be attending this discussion, which can only amount to a box-ticking exercise. Our families, our community and all Palestinians deserve better.”

Pro-Palestinian protestors have also camped outside Blinken’s home in recent days to press for a change in policy. Dr. Tariq Haddad, a Virginia cardiologist who declined to attend Thursday’s meeting at the US State Department, told Blinken in a letter that he could not face him after the administration’s policies led to the deaths of 80 of his family members in Gaza.

“The more I thought about this meeting, the more I could not emotionally bring myself to look you in the eyes, Secretary Blinken, knowing you and President Biden have knowingly contributed to the suffering and murder of so many of my family, the homelessness and dispossession of 2 million Gazans, and the famine that has befallen my remaining family members,” Haddad wrote.

The Biden administration has approved two emergency arms sales to Israel, bypassing congressional authority, and has rejected calls for a ceasefire. At the same time, Biden and Blinken have urged Israeli leaders to minimize civilian casualties and allow more humanitarian aid trucks to enter Gaza.

A Quinnipiac University poll released this week showed that only 34% of US voters approve of Biden’s handling of the Gaza crisis. An earlier poll by CBS News found that the president’s support for Israel was alienating at least one-third of Democrat voters.

At stake for Biden's reelection campaign are several so-called “swing states” with large Muslim populations that helped propel Biden to an electoral victory in the 2020 presidential race. Even small shifts in support from Arab-Americans in such hotly contested states as Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona could swing the 2024 election against the Democrat incumbent, who already faces an “abandon Biden” movement in Michigan.

Half of Americans think Israel’s military response to the October 7 Hamas raid has “gone too far,” according to an AP-NORC poll published on Friday. The figure represents a ten-point increase since the pollster asked the same question in November. 

Less than a third (31%) of the 1,152 poll respondents said West Jerusalem’s military actions had “been about right,” while 15% said it had not gone far enough. Both figures represent a significant decrease from November, when 38% of those polled approved of the response, and 18% said it should go further.

Democrats were almost twice as likely as Republicans to say Israel had gone too far in its bombardment of Gaza – 62%, compared to 33%. 

However, more Democrats also said the campaign had not gone far enough compared to November’s polling (9% vs 7%). Over a third (37%) of respondents said the US was too supportive of Israel. However, the majority (61%) of those who answered the survey said Hamas held “a lot” of responsibility for the war compared to just 35% who said the same about the Israeli government. A third also thought the Iranian government was significantly responsible, but just one in ten thought Washington had played a major role.

Two-thirds (67%) disapproved of President Joe Biden’s handling of the conflict, with a growing portion of Democrats speaking out against their leader (53% compared to just 39% in December).

Israel has killed over 27,000 Palestinians in Gaza since the war began nearly four months ago, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry, leading South Africa to accuse it of genocide in a case filed with the International Court of Justice in December. The court has since ordered West Jerusalem to prevent genocide in the territory and preserve evidence of any crimes classifiable as such. 

Israel was also ordered to alleviate the humanitarian situation for Palestinians, most of whom are considered in danger of starvation or malnutrition. Over 85% of Gaza residents have been displaced by Israeli bombardment since October.

Instead of allowing more aid into the besieged territory, Israel accused the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, of aiding and abetting Hamas. This led the US and over a dozen other countries to pull funding from the already-overstretched organization.

When you read in Financial Times (or FT to its friends) that the EU wants to destroy Hungary’s economy because of its “recalcitrance,” you should always bear in mind that this is a UK-based newspaper and that the political aim of the publication is to create internal contradictions in the EU after its home country’s exit.

Accordingly, the information given to the newspaper by British officials is primarily aimed at manipulating journalists to create stories that will create additional controversies within the EU and worsen the situation of Germany and France. This is the first thing we have to understand when we talk about political war propaganda.

Secondly, Hungary’s relations with officials in Brussels and the main countries of the bloc are not easy, but they are not linear either. If they were, the Budapest government would long ago have come under more serious pressure, first from Germany, then from France, then from Austria. Together they could have influenced the investment climate in Hungary if they had wanted to. But judging by all their actions, they don’t want to, and there are no examples to the contrary.

Brussels alone will not do anything that Berlin and Paris do not want to do. Indeed, come to think of it, if what FT wrote is true, it is a first in the history of any union – killing a member state to give money to a non-member? It’s completely un-European somehow.

The Hungarians themselves have a normal, balanced attitude towards the EU. They are positive on economic issues – such as the common market, for example. Another thing is that Budapest knows that it can’t dictate overall bloc policy, and they accept this.

On the issue of aid to Ukraine, the Hungarians will stick to their line, as they have been doing for two years, and they have no reason to change anything here. After all, when it comes to fundamental issues, Orban can go for a coffee during the vote and then complain that the others voted without him. Remember, this has happened before.

Also, remember this, when we read FT’s articles on Russia, we know that they are mostly untrue. So why would Hungary and Germany be treated much better? They are also ultimately London’s opponents.

This article was first published by Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper, translated and edited by the RT team

South Africa’s government has claimed that it’s facing destabilization campaigns by foreign intelligence agencies as retaliation for daring to launch a genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The country’s security minister, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, said her agency has been put on high alert to deal with foreign meddling as the country prepares to hold national elections later this year. “There are international misinformation campaigns which are aimed at destabilizing the country,” she told reporters on Thursday in Pretoria. “As the security cluster, we are very focused on that work. We are monitoring, and we are strengthening our capacity.”

Ntshavheni confirmed concerns raised earlier this week by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who said foreign governments were using their intelligence agencies to punish Pretoria for accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians in its war with Hamas. Neither the security minister nor Ramaphosa identified the foreign adversaries involved in those alleged meddling efforts.

“I believe the rulings of the court have been ignored,” Pandor said. “Hundreds of people have been killed in the last three of four days, and clearly, Israel believes it has license to do as it wishes.”

More than 27,000 Gazans – primarily civilians – have been killed since the war began in October, according to local health authorities, and the UN has reported that 570,000 people in the besieged enclave are starving. The conflict started when Hamas fighters launched surprise attacks against Israeli villages, killing more than 1,100 people and taking hundreds of hostages back to Gaza.

“We continue to support the Independent Electoral Commission to make sure that we do not have a threat of cyber interferences from foreign agencies,” Ntshavheni said. “We cannot allow for foreign agencies to destabilize our elections.”

Romanian Chief of Defense Staff General Gheorghita Vlad has called for ordinary citizens to be trained for war with Russia, arguing that such a conflict could break out “in the immediate future.” Multiple European politicians and generals have issued similar statements in recent weeks.

“The Russian Federation has become a problem for the world order,” Vlad said in an interview with the US state-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty outlet on Thursday. The general claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin will “not stop” at victory in Ukraine, and will attack either Moldova or the western Balkans “in the immediate future,” and that NATO states must “prepare the population accordingly.”

Romania’s professional military is not ready for war, he stated, noting that 6,000 of its roughly 80,000 full-time soldiers left the ranks last year. The Romanian armed forces should increase its number of full-time troops to 120,000, he recommended, while also training large numbers of 18-35 year old civilians “in the basic principles of warfare.”

Romania suspended mandatory military service in 2007. Former Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca – an ex-general – suggested last year that it be reintroduced, but his successor, Marcel Ciolacu, has not followed through on this push. Responding to Vlad’s interview, Ciolacu called for “calm,” telling reporters on Friday that “Romania will not enter into any war.”

However, Romania’s parliament is currently considering a bill to introduce the kind of system described by Vlad. The general told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that it will be “discussed with priority” after elections later this year. 

Vlad is the latest in a growing line of European political and military leaders to predict an imminent war with Russia. Among others, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas claimed last month that such a conflict could break out within “three to five years,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorious put the timeline at five to eight years, while British Defense Minister Grant Shapps went further than all of his continental counterparts, predicting a cataclysmic war with Russia, China, Iran and North Korea within the next five years.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed these apocalyptic predictions as “complete nonsense,” arguing that Moscow has “no geopolitical, economic … or military interest” in attacking NATO territory. Speaking at the UN headquarters in New York last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that “no one wants a big war,” including Russia. “We have lived through ‘big wars’ many times in our history,” he added.

Polish farmers will block border crossings with Ukraine during a general strike planned for next week, the Solidarity trade union announced on Thursday.   

In addition to making Ukrainian crossings impassable, the union plans intermittent road blockades across Poland to last through March 10, it said. 

“Our patience has run out. Brussels’ position on the last day of January 2024 is unacceptable for our entire agricultural community,” the union said in a statement, referring to Thursday’s EU summit, which was loudly protested by farmers from across the bloc.  

Farmers across Germany, France, the Netherlands, and many other EU countries have turned out to protest in recent weeks, citing the bloc’s “green” climate policies targeting agricultural producers with price hikes on fuel, as well as the cheap Ukrainian imports flooding their domestic markets.  

They converged on Brussels with over 1,300 tractors during the EU summit this week, throwing eggs, rocks, and fireworks at the EU Parliament building and setting huge piles of manure on fire.  

The European Commission outraged farmers with its proposal on Thursday to extend the suspension of customs duties on agricultural goods from Ukraine and Moldova through 2025. Brussels had initially justified dropping the tariff in 2022 as a means of supporting Kiev during the conflict with Russia, and the suspension was previously scheduled to expire this year. 

Polish farmers initially took to the streets last year to protest the cheap Ukrainian imports that have driven prices down and imperiled their livelihoods. Polish truckers joined the protests, claiming they too were being undercut by their Ukrainian counterparts. Along with Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia, Poland moved to ban imports of Ukrainian grain in May.  

A separate protest by another group of farmers and truckers blocking a key border crossing with Ukraine ended earlier this month when Warsaw capitulated to the protesters’ demands, which included reinstating a permit system for Ukrainian truckers, adopting government subsidies for Polish corn, and a moratorium on tax hikes.  

After weeks of farmer protests across Europe, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen held a “strategic dialogue” with community and business leaders in Brussels last week in an effort to find “common and lasting solutions” for European agriculture. However, critics highlighted a lack of farmer representation at the meeting.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered his officials to avoid provoking Washington into a direct war, but to be prepared to respond to any strike by the US on Iranian soil, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council held an emergency meeting on Monday, less than 24 hours after a militia group aligned to the country struck a US army outpost in Jordan, killing three American soldiers and leaving dozens more injured. At the meeting, the council – which includes Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and military chiefs – discussed likely US responses to the attack, the New York Times reported, citing three Iranian sources.

The council concluded that the US would either attack Iran directly or limit its response to militias in Iraq and Syria, the sources claimed. 

Informed of these possibilities, Khamenei responded with “clear orders,” the newspaper wrote: “Avoid a direct war with the United States and distance Iran from the actions of proxies who had killed Americans – but prepare to hit back if the United States struck Iran.”

The largest of these militias, Iraq-based Kataib Hezbollah, said a day later that it would suspend “military and security operations against the occupation forces [US troops],” adding that it chooses targets independently of Tehran.

Iran’s envoy to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, then issued a warning to the US. “The Islamic Republic will decisively respond to any attack on the county, its interests and nationals under any pretexts,” Iravani said.

In a similar statement a day later, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) chief Major General Hossein Salami said “No threat will be left unanswered.” He added: “We are not looking for a war, but are not afraid of war either.”

According to the New York Times, Khamenei has told his closest advisers that open war would carry the twin risks of destabilizing Iran and diverting the world’s attention from Gaza – two outcomes that the Islamic Republic would seek to avoid. Nevertheless, the paper’s sources said Iran had placed its armed forces on the highest alert, activated air-defense systems, and moved ballistic missiles to the border with Iraq.

“Agreement! The European Council delivered on our priorities. Supporting Ukraine…. A good day for Europe,” tweeted unelected European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday, as EU farmers “high-fived” her by throwing eggs, lighting fires and dumping manure in Brussels, where a reported 1,300 tractors had gathered in protest.

Surely it must have been in anticipation of this “great day for Europe” that Brussels rolled out the barbed wire to keep the bloc’s own struggling farmers at bay while its leaders cut yet another check for Ukraine — after threatening the one anticipated holdout with national economic “blackmail,” as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban qualified it. It’s hard to believe that this meeting actually took place in Brussels. These officials are so disconnected from reality that it may as well have been held on a whole other planet. 

Unlike the Ukrainian products making their way onto Western European dinner plates to stick it to Russian President Vladimir Putin (because turtlenecks and short, cold showers apparently failed to do the job), this crisis is certifiably EU-made. No one knows this better than the farmers, who also realize that it makes more sense to blockade the streets of Brussels than the national highways of their home countries, which they’ve been doing with overwhelming public support – from nine out of every ten citizens in the case of France, according to a recent Odoxa poll.

It was the EU with its climate change obsession that imposed a Common Agricultural Policy on farmers across the entire bloc, managed by bureaucrats divorced from the reality on the ground. Pencil pushers use EU Copernicus satellite images to spy and crack down on farmers whose paperwork doesn’t match – even if any discrepancies can be chalked up to uncontrollable but temporary conditions like the weather. 

It was also the EU that piled on regulations under the pretext of ensuring the quality of farm products, while at the same time flooding the bloc with grain, poultry, and other imports from Ukraine. Does “Chernobyl chicken” mass-produced by workers who are paid a pittance represent a threat to the physical health of citizens and economic health of farmers? If not, then why can’t Brussels take its jackboot off the necks of its own farmers so they can compete on a level playing field? The EU has also suddenly decided to ease up on some pesticide bans, angering greens. Paris is promoting the idea that ideologically-driven bans need to end, which seems like a tacit admission of their uselessness. So what should we be more worried about now – ideologically-driven authoritarianism under the guise of health consciousness, or an actual health threat? 

It was also the EU that screwed itself, its entire population, industry, and farmers out of cheap Russian energy, driving inflation that caused consumers to turn to cheaper food products and, in turn, driving industrial distributors to buy more cheaply, favoring Ukrainian imports. French President Emmanuel Macron said that he’d now be merciless with those industrials, as he limbers up to toss them under the tractors instead of taking responsibility for his own inaction or blaming Brussels for a top-down anti-Russia policy that’s doing far more harm than good.

The farmers’ problems are existential. And while some French farming union chiefs have called for the suspension of blockades in light of the most recent series of promised reforms announced by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, it’s not clear whether the rank and file will actually listen in the long term. These are people who don’t talk much, but when they do, they’re direct and concrete. As one farmer told me, “Our feet may be in the dirt, but the dirt is clean” – in contrast to some politicians who have different narratives depending on their audience. Even with the suspension of the blockades on Friday, union reps admit that if government action and implementation doesn’t follow shortly, then the blowback from the same farmers risks being “catastrophic.” 

For many farmers I’ve spoken with, it’s far too little, and way too late. The average French farmer’s income, estimated by government statistics back in 2021 at around €17,700 a year (for people who regularly work 70 hours a week), has since been subjected to even more blows. Yet governments have insisted on milking this particular cow until there’s nothing left. How else to explain the careless decision to raise taxes on farm fuel by 3 cents a liter, every year, and the insistence on maintaining such a policy at a time when the price of energy had skyrocketed as a result of knee-jerk anti-Russian ideological choices imposed by the EU? Until the tractors spilled onto the highways in France, Paris showed no interest in reversing this tax policy, which was implemented to drive the “green transition” away from conventional energy, and against all pragmatic reality. Clearly French officials knew of its devastating impact, as it was one of the very first concessions that Attal tried tossing like a speed bump in front of the advancing tractors on January 26 – and which the farmers rolled right over, demanding more. 

And how exactly could she know this demagoguery was killing European farming? You’d think that the first clue would have been the fact that EU policies ended up strong-arming Dutch farmers to sell their land to the government because their cattle’s nitrogen emissions exceeded climate policy limits. 

Macron has now started to lobby the EU to restrict Ukrainian imports. Wow. You’d think these tractors were Decepticon Transformers about to rise up and kick their behinds, the way that all these EU leaders are suddenly springing into action. But the fact that an elected president even has to go cap in hand to plead with unelected Brussels bureaucrats, rather than make sovereign decisions in the best interests of his own country, is pathetic. Like, what if they say no? Then what? Does Macron think that he’s going to single-handedly and permanently derail the new Mercosur free trade deal, ready for signature, and set to flood the EU with even more farm products from Brazil and the rest of South America?

If Macron, or any other EU leader had any courage, they would have vetoed the €50 billion for Ukraine and demanded that it be used in consultation with EU farmers to ease their burden and “unscrew” the bloc. That’s a lot of bought time for the EU to figure out how to deconstruct the mess that it has made of its own house through corruption and special interests – all in hope that one day, people doing honest work can also make a commensurately decent living.

Governor Ron DeSantis has announced that he will deploy members of the Florida National Guard to assist Texas in repelling an “invasion” of illegal immigrants. US President Joe Biden’s administration has fought to prevent Texas from sealing the border.

Roughly 1,000 soldiers will be sent to Texas, DeSantis’ office said in a statement on Thursday. They will be joined by members of the Florida State Guard, and around 90 members of various Florida law enforcement agencies already at the border.

“States have every right to defend their sovereignty and we are pleased to increase our support to Texas as the Lone Star State works to stop the invasion across the border,” DeSantis said. “Our reinforcements will help Texas to add additional barriers, including razor wire along the border. We don’t have a country if we don’t have a border.”

During his first week in office, Biden signed a flurry of executive orders repealing former President Donald Trump’s immigration restrictions. Illegal crossings have surged as a result, with a record 302,000 people caught crossing the 2,000-mile border in December, and more than 10 million entering the US since 2021. Under Biden’s policy of ‘catch and release’, apprehended migrants are immediately released into the US, with orders to show up at immigration hearings years in the future.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott vowed to defy the ruling and install more wire, arguing that the Biden administration has neglected the constitutional obligation to enforce federal immigration law, and that his duty to protect his constituents supersedes any federal laws. 

Although the Department of Homeland Security gave Abbott three days to begin removing the obstacles late last month, a US Customs and Border Patrol official told Fox News that the agency had “no plans” to move in and destroy the barriers after Abbott ignored the deadline.

Some 25 Republican governors issued a joint statement of solidarity with Abbott last week, accusing Biden of “illegally allowing mass parole across America of migrants who entered our country illegally.”

One of the main architects of the US sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukraine conflict is leaving her position, Bloomberg reported on Friday. Elizabeth Rosenberg is departing the US Treasury to pursue opportunities in the private sector, according to the media outlet.

Rosenberg was part of a core group of officials who have worked on sanctions against Moscow, including the freezing of sovereign bank assets as well as the price cap on Russian oil, according to the news agency.

She also reportedly toured some 25 countries in a bid to push governments to comply with Washington’s punitive measures.

Friday will be Rosenberg’s last day as assistant secretary covering terrorist financing and financial crimes, Bloomberg reported. 

As well as the sanctions imposed on Russia, Rosenberg is said to have played a significant role in overseeing measures against Libya, Syria, and Burma during her time in the position.

Washington and its allies have slapped Russia with a slew of sanctions since the start of Moscow’s military offensive against Kiev in February 2022, although they have failed to cripple the Russian economy. Several top-ranking Western and Ukrainian officials have since acknowledged that the sanctions have proved less effective than expected, partly citing the refusal of China and other Global South nations to toe the Western line.

Earlier this week, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell stated that the bloc’s sanctions against Russia have failed to weaken its resolve in the Ukraine conflict, with no “light at the end of the tunnel.”

Citing three anonymous diplomatic sources, Reuters reported on Wednesday that the European Commission will start informal high-level meetings with member states on Saturday to thrash out a 13th batch of sanctions against Russia. Brussels is said to be hoping to roll out the measures by the second anniversary of the conflict on February 24.

The proposal will likely focus on clamping down on sanctions circumvention and the elimination of loopholes, the news agency said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently insisted that the national economy is in good shape despite sanctions, and is even expanding.

Close associates of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban are reportedly responsible for organizing the farmers’ protests in Brussels over the past week, the Financial Times reported on Friday.

The Hungarian leader personally met with protesters in the Belgian capital on Wednesday ahead of an EU summit on Ukraine aid, expressing support for what he described as “the voice of the people.” 

The farmers, thousands of whom have descended on Brussels, have been picketing the EU Parliament building, where they have burned pallets and piles of manure, and hurled eggs, stones and fireworks. They have also blockaded the Belgian capital using around 1,300 tractors.

Similar demonstrations have also been seen in other EU states including France, Germany, Italy and Poland. The farmers are protesting against the EU’s agriculture policies, environmental standards, and rising fuel prices, and are highlighting the threat to their livelihoods posed by cheap Ukrainian imports.

The FT has claimed that the farmers’ protests have been organized by a think tank chaired by a close aide of the prime minister, apparently referring to the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) – a Budapest-based college whose chairman is Balazs Orban (no relation) who has served as political director to the Hungarian prime minister. 

The MCC has a Belgian-based offshoot, MCC Brussels, whose director Frank Furedi had previously claimed in an op-ed for Politico in 2022 that the purpose of the think tank was to “provide an alternative” for Europe’s “polarized cultural landscape.”

Orban, who has repeatedly found himself at odds with other EU leaders, also stated in December that he did not wish for Hungary to leave the EU behind, but instead intends to “take Brussels” when Budapest assumes the rotating presidency of the EU Council from Belgium later this year. During the presidency, Orban said he hopes to convince as many member states as possible that Hungary’s insistence on standing by its ideals and values is the “right” way to do things.

Nevertheless, on Thursday, the Hungarian leader lifted his veto on the EU’s €50 billion ($54 billion) package of economic aid to Ukraine, claiming that he had been “blackmailed” by Brussels into accepting the deal after months of resistance. 

Orban has described Ukraine as “one of the most corrupt countries in the world,” and opposed giving it any money out of the EU budget without oversight. Brussels, however, threatened to launch a financial blockade against Hungary if it did not back the deal, Orban explained.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has apologized for attempting to hide his bout with cancer from the American people and even the president himself, after returning to the Pentagon earlier this week following a lengthy hospital stay.

Speaking to reporters at a press briefing on Thursday – his first at the Pentagon in two years – Austin admitted that he had attempted to keep his illness private, and that his staff made efforts to cover up his health status as he went in for surgery in December.

“I want to be crystal clear, we did not handle this right. I did not handle this right,” he said. “I should have told the president about my cancer diagnosis. I should have told my team and the American people, and I take full responsibility.”

He went on to note that his position “means losing some of the privacy that most of us expect,” but acknowledged that “The American people have a right to know when their leaders are facing health challenges that might affect their ability to perform their duties, even temporarily.”

While the Pentagon chief said he did not believe his decision created an atmosphere of secrecy within the Defense Department, he stated that some of his staffers may have believed they were “doing things in my best interest” by concealing his diagnosis from the public and even President Joe Biden. Austin insisted that he did not direct his team to lie, however, but still described his conduct as “a mistake.”

“Again, it’s more about privacy than secrecy. In my case, I should have informed my boss. I did not,” he added.

Following the controversy over the move, the Pentagon is now reviewing how defense officials handled information surrounding Austin’s illness, while the defense secretary said there would be policy changes requiring the notification of several senior officials in cases like his.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has offered an apology to victims and relatives of people harmed by his social media sites, including teens who were sexually abused online and those who took their own lives following digital bullying.

During a contentious Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, the Facebook founder was grilled about the negative effects his products have on children and teenagers, with families and victims sharing concerns on a wide range of issues, including sexual predators, mental health, and the addictive nature of social media.

Following their testimony, Republican Senator Josh Hawley asked the CEO whether he had personally compensated any of the families for what they endured, with Zuckerberg responding “I don’t think so.”

Asked if he would like to apologize to the victims, Zuckerberg took the opportunity, turning to address the parents and teens in attendance.

“I’m sorry for everything you have all been through. No one should go through the things that your families have suffered,” he said, adding that his company would continue to invest in “industry-wide efforts” to protect young people. He pointed to Meta’s parental control tools, which can limit the content children see online.

Hawley also went on to accuse Zuckerberg’s sites of “killing people,” and in a letter published on Thursday, he urged the chief executive to “immediately create a fund endowed by your own personal wealth for the purpose of compensating those who have been victimized by your platforms.”

Meta’s platforms – which include Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp – have repeatedly come under fire for failing to protect minors, with legal documents obtained by The Guardian, TechCrunch, and other outlets suggesting that around 100,000 underage users face sexual harassment on the former two sites on a daily basis.

Though Meta insisted it had spent “over a decade working on these issues,” the recently released documents highlight cases in which the company appears to have deliberately limited child safety features even while attempting to draw in more young users.

A former CIA software engineer who allegedly gave a massive trove of classified information to WikiLeaks has been sentenced to 40 years in prison by a New York judge.

US District Court Judge Jesse Furman handed down the sentence against Joshua Schulte on Thursday, falling short of the life prison term that federal prosecutors had requested. Schulte, who was accused of carrying out the largest theft of US secrets in the CIA’s history, was convicted on charges of espionage, computer hacking, contempt of court, making false statements to the FBI, and possessing child pornography.

Schulte, 35, was the source behind the so-called Vault 7 release by WikiLeaks in 2017, which revealed the methods used by the CIA to hack smartphones and other devices. The bombshell report exposed how the US spied on foreign governments, terrorism suspects, and other targets. The release also reportedly triggered a secret CIA plot to kidnap or assassinate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Prior to his arrest in 2018, Schulte had helped create the hacking tools that he later revealed to WikiLeaks. The CIA tactics included efforts to turn so-called smart TVs – televisions with online connectivity – into listening devices. Prosecutors claimed he was behind “the most damaging disclosures of classified information in American history.”

Furman found that Schulte was motivated by “anger, spite and perceived grievance” against his CIA bosses after they ignored his complaints about working conditions. After being jailed in 2018, the ex-programmer continued trying to leak classified materials in what prosecutors called an “information war” with the US government, the judge said.

Although Furman didn’t grant the request by the US Department of Justice to imprison Schulte for life, he did agree to apply a “terrorism enhancement,” a legal provision that allows harsher sentences for terrorism-related offenses.

Julian Assange, who has been jailed in London since 2019 while fighting extradition to the US, faces up to 175 years in prison on 17 US espionage charges.

The Russian and Chinese governments have held an inter-agency meeting in Beijing to share their assessments of biological security concerns, and address the threats posed by bioweapons – particularly those allegedly being developed by the US military.

Moscow and Beijing agreed to work together in seeking to strengthen the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention (BTWC), a treaty signed by 109 nations in 1972 to block the development of these unconventional armaments, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday in a statement.

“The meeting confirmed the unity of approaches of Russia and China to the biological security,” the ministry said, adding that “particular attention in this context was paid to the military and biological activities of the United States.”

“The need for further close coordination and constructive interaction both in bilateral format and at relevant multilateral fora, primarily within the framework of the BTWC, the UN and the SCO [Shanghai Cooperation Organization] was noted,” the ministry added.

Moscow and Beijing have repeatedly pressed for greater transparency from the US and its allies regarding their military biological activities. Wednesday’s talks between the two governments devoted “particular attention” to the Pentagon’s bioweapons activities, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The US and its NATO allies vetoed a UN resolution last year calling for an investigation of Washington’s biolabs in Ukraine. Some “unfinished” bioweapons projects were moved to Africa amid the conflict in Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said in November. The ministry accused Washington of exploiting Nigerian citizens as a “free clinical resource,” conducting illegal research on the pretense of public health.

US President Joe Biden – facing anger from pro-Palestinian voters over his support for West Jerusalem’s war against Hamas – has issued an executive order seeking to penalize Israeli settlers who perpetrate acts of violence in the West Bank.

Biden signed the order on Thursday, calling for asset freezes, visa restrictions, and other sanctions against foreign nationals accused of attacking or threatening civilians in the Palestinian territory. The US State Department later announced the first set of sanctioned individuals under the initiative, naming four settlers who had been accused of attacking West Bank civilians or Israeli activists.

“Israel must do more to stop violence against civilians in the West Bank and hold accountable those responsible for it,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. “The United States will continue to take actions to advance the foreign policy objectives of the United States, including the viability of a two-state solution, and is committed to the safety, security, and dignity of Israelis and Palestinians alike.”

Settler violence “poses a grave threat to peace, security, and stability in the West Bank, Israel, and the Middle East Region, and threatens the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement.

The sanctions will include blocking access to the American assets of the individuals targeted, as well as banning them from entering the US. The accused settlers also will be blocked from transactions with American citizens and from accessing the US financial system.

Biden, who is seeking reelection in November, has faced political backlash over his support for the Israeli war effort against Hamas. More than 27,000 people – primarily civilians – have been killed in Gaza since the conflict began, according to local health authorities.

A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday showed that only 34% of US voters approve of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. An earlier poll by CBS News found that the president’s support for Israel was alienating at least one-third of Democrat voters.

Washington believes that Iran produced the drone which was used to kill three American soldiers in Jordan over the weekend, US officials told Reuters on Thursday. The US is reportedly planning a lengthy bombing campaign against Iran-aligned militias in Iraq and Syria in response.

A drone packed with explosives struck a remote US outpost in Jordan on Sunday, killing three American soldiers and injuring dozens more. The strike marked the first time that American lives were lost after months of attacks on US bases in the region by various militant groups working in solidarity with Hamas.

US analysts concluded that the drone was of Iranian origin after analyzing fragments from the blast site, the officials told Reuters, without giving any further information about the precise model.

Asked about Reuters’ report later on Thursday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the Pentagon was “still doing the forensics” on the drone, adding that “most of the drones that are in the region have a connection with Iran.”

Iran denies having orchestrated the attack; the Foreign Ministry in Tehran stated on Monday that the militias “do not take orders from the Islamic Republic of Iran.” 

“How much Iran knew or didn’t know, we don’t know,” Austin told reporters. “But it really doesn’t matter because Iran sponsors these groups, it funds these groups, and in some cases, it trains these groups on advanced, conventional weapons.”

Iran will “decisively respond” to any attacks on “the country, its interests and nationals under any pretexts,” Tehran’s envoy to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, warned on Tuesday.

Israel has agreed to a ceasefire proposal that would halt its war with Hamas, Al Jazeera reported on Thursday, citing the Qatari Foreign Ministry. Hamas has reportedly responded to the plan in a “positive atmosphere.” 

The ceasefire plan was hashed out in Paris over the weekend, with Qatari and Egyptian diplomats mediating between Israel and the Palestinian militant group. Delegations from West Jerusalem and Gaza had left the French capital promising to study the proposal and negotiate further, and by Thursday evening, a deal was apparently within reach.

“Israel agreed to the ceasefire proposal and we have initial positive confirmation from Hamas,” a spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry said on Thursday evening, according to Al Jazeera. “We are awaiting their response,” the spokesman added.

The proposed ceasefire will be implemented in three stages, according to a Hamas statement shared with Reuters earlier this week. The first phase would see fighting stop for 40 days as Hamas hands over the female civilians, children, and elderly people it is still holding captive. During this time, large-scale deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza would resume.

“Military operations on both sides will stop during the three stages,” the militants said, adding that the number of Palestinian prisoners freed would be open to negotiation.

The proposal falls short of the full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza that Hamas initially demanded. As a step toward ending the war, however, it also threatens Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to keep fighting until Israel achieves “total victory” over the militants, as he has promised on multiple occasions.

While hardliners within Netanyahu’s cabinet have pressed him to reject any deal they view as too lenient towards Hamas, Israel has faced international condemnation over its conduct in Gaza, and two of the Jewish state’s most stalwart backers – the US and UK – suggested this week that they could soon recognize an independent Palestinian state. Such an outcome would be a political disaster for Netanyahu, who angered Washington and London last month when he outright rejected a two-state solution to the decades-long conflict with the Palestinians.

US Capitol Police have declined to make any arrests over a video posted late last year on social media showing a congressional staffer having gay sex in a Senate hearing room.

A “comprehensive investigation” into sex tape has been closed following consultations with federal and local prosecutors, Capitol Police said on Thursday in a statement. “It was determined that, despite a likely violation of congressional policy, there is currently no evidence that a crime was committed,” police added.

The video was circulated online in December, apparently showing a staffer for Senator Ben Cardin performing lewd acts in the Hart Senate Office Building. The scene played out in a room that has hosted such historical events as hearings for US Supreme Court nominations and the 9/11 Commission.

The staffer was fired or resigned under pressure amid political fallout from the tape. Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, said he was angered by the incident, which he called a “breach of trust.” Georgetown University law professor Jonathan Turley suggested at the time that the men shown having sex in the video could face charges for trespassing, indecent exposure, and misuse of public property.

Reacting to the decision against pressing charges on Thursday, Turley quipped, “While many view Congress as an often obscene display, it appears that the line between porn and politics is not found in the criminal code.”

The men shown in the video refused to cooperate with investigators, Capitol Police said. The ex-staffer invoked his constitutional right to remain silent. “Our investigators are willing to review new evidence should any come to light,” the police added.

Female voters have propelled US President Joe Biden into the lead over Republican candidate Donald Trump in the 2024 race for the White House, a newly released survey has shown.

A Quinnipiac University poll, released on Wednesday, suggests that the incumbent Democrat has a 50-44 edge over Trump in a hypothetical one-on-one matchup. That compares with a 47-46 lead for Biden, essentially a tossup, when Quinnipiac conducted the same poll just a month ago.

The major shift is due to support from female voters, who favor Biden by a 58-36 margin, up from 53-41 in December. The results were little changed for male voters, who prefer Trump by a 53-42 margin, compared with 51-41 previously.

“The gender demographic tells a story to keep an eye on,” Quinnipiac polling analyst Tim Malloy said. “Propelled by female voters in just the past few weeks, the head-to-head tie with Trump morphs into a modest lead for Biden.”

Trump is far and away the leading Republican candidate to face Biden in the November election, and other recent polls have shown him ahead of the incumbent. For instance, a Reuters/Ipsos survey released last week found that Trump has a 40-34 edge over Biden. Respondents to that poll largely agreed that they didn’t want a rematch of the Biden-Trump 2020 race, with 67% saying they “want someone new.”

Trump’s last remaining opponent for the Republican nomination, former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, would lose handily to Biden, Quinnipiac found. In a hypothetical matchup with Haley and the rest of the field, Biden would beat the Republican by a 36-29 margin, with Kennedy winning 21% of the votes. Haley would defeat Biden in a one-on-one matchup, the survey showed, but she would lose when other candidates are included because of her relatively weak support from Republicans.

The US will carry out a series of strikes on “Iranian personnel and facilities” in Iraq and Syria in response to a deadly attack on American troops in Jordan, CBS News reported on Thursday, citing anonymous officials. Tehran has vowed to strike back if its people or interests are threatened.

The officials did not state when the strikes would begin, but said US forces would likely wait for good weather in order to maximize accuracy. Sources told CBS the strikes would take place over several days, while NBC News quoted the same officials as saying that the campaign could last “weeks.”

American forces regularly engage in tit-for-tat strikes with Iran-aligned militia groups in Iraq and Syria, although the admission that the coming attacks could last for several weeks marks a significant escalation in the long-running conflict. 

The news came after one of these groups killed three American troops and wounded dozens more in a drone attack on a US outpost in Jordan on Sunday. US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that he had decided how to respond to the strike, without revealing further information.

By the time of Biden’s statement, the Islamic Resistance had struck US bases in the Middle East more than 150 times since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, in a campaign aimed at harming Israel’s most prominent backer.

Biden also told reporters that he holds Iran responsible for the three US troop deaths, “in the sense that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it.”

While Iran arms and trains numerous Islamic Resistance groups in Iraq and Syria, the Foreign Ministry in Tehran insisted on Monday that these fighters “do not take orders from the Islamic Republic of Iran.” 

Across the Middle East, US forces are facing potential conflict on multiple fronts. American ships and warplanes have traded missile strikes with Yemeni Houthi militants for almost two weeks, in a bid to break the Houthi blockade on “Israel-linked” shipping in the Red Sea. Elsewhere, US Air Force personnel in Iraq have been ordered to remain on standby in case of “on-ground US involvement in the Israel-Hamas war,” according to a Pentagon memo reported by The Intercept on Tuesday.

A crowd of furious farmers picketed the EU Parliament building in Brussels on Thursday to protest environmental regulations and the threat to their livelihoods posed by cheap Ukrainian imports. The protesters hurled stones, eggs, and abuse at the bureaucrats behind police lines.

Convoys of tractors began streaming into Brussels on Wednesday night, and by Thursday morning the streets of the Belgian capital were blockaded by around 1,300 vehicles, according to a police estimate.

The farmers assembled in front of the European Parliament building on Luxembourg Square where they burned pallets and piles of manure. The crowd lobbed eggs, stones, fireworks, and flaming projectiles at the legislature, while similar scenes took place outside the nearby headquarters of the European Council.

Riot police used water cannons to extinguish the fires and push back stone-throwing protesters. As of Thursday afternoon, no arrests or injuries had been reported.

Belgian farmers have set piles of manure ablaze in front of the EU Parliament building in Brussels. The fire rises. pic.twitter.com/9HT2vgC3fn

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) February 1, 2024

The atmosphere in Brussels in EU Parliament is very warm. European farmers are very angry. pic.twitter.com/gPCE0M6DSN

— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) February 1, 2024

🇧🇪 BELGIUM - #Brussels
First tensions in front of the European Parliament with farmers prepared to defend their livelihood. #protest pic.twitter.com/3LzIg41aek

— Freddie Ponton 🇫🇷 (@LFCNewsMedia) February 1, 2024

The protest was a culmination of months of demonstrations in different EU countries. Farmers in Germany have blocked city streets since December, demanding that Chancellor Olaf Scholz abandon his plans to scrap a diesel subsidy, while those in France have also protested rising energy costs. In Eastern Europe, farmers have been demonstrating against an EU policy allowing tariff-free imports of cheap Ukrainian grain, which significantly undercuts local produce.

A short walk from the protest, the European Council met on Thursday morning, but agricultural issues were not on the agenda. Instead, the council agreed on a €50 billion package of economic aid to Ukraine. However, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo told reporters that the farmers’ concerns would be discussed, stating that EU leaders “need to make sure that [the farmers] can get the right price for the high-quality products that they provide.”

With European Parliament elections coming up in June, the European Commission announced on Wednesday that it would grant the farmers some limited concessions, including a one-year exemption from the fallow land rule for some producers, and a promise to cap imports of Ukrainian poultry, eggs, and sugar. However, the commission said that it would extend the tariff-free regime for all other Ukrainian produce until June 2025.

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), has placed its former president Hans-Georg Maassen under surveillance, suspecting him of ties to the country’s far right, local media has reported.

According to the website t-online and the national public broadcaster ARD, the agency now maintains an extensive dossier on its former director, who stood at the helm between 2012 and 2018. The BfV has made him an “observation case,” as he is suspected of right-wing extremism.

Maassen was forced to step down from the BfV after a string of scandals, including his questioning of reports of far-right violence against foreigners. Several media outlets have also claimed that he handed over sensitive information to the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Maassen is now the leader of the Values Union, a right-wing party that recently splintered from the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU). Initially created in 2017, the Union originally portrayed itself as a conservative association within the CDU but the two had a major ideological falling out that eventually led to a break-up.

The BfV’s decision to place Maassen under surveillance was confirmed by the politician himself, who published the relevant notification from the agency. Among the reasons, it cited the fact that members of the Reichsburger movement – which denies the existence of the modern German state and believes that the nation’s citizens are still living in the German Reich based on the 1871 Constitution – shared his video on social media.

In December last year, German authorities charged 27 people, suspected of membership of the Reichsburger movement, of planning to overthrow the constitutional order in the country. 

The letter also said that Maassen had described authorities’ actions against Reichsburger members as “disproportionate,” adding that some right-wing figures have described Maassen as a “staunch Republican.”

In an interview with Tichys Einblick magazine on Wednesday, the former BfV president called the allegations of right-wing extremism “without substance and unjustified,” suggesting that his former office was abusing its powers to hunt down political opponents.

”This is an attack on the free democratic basic order by the Federal Minister of the Interior, Ms. [Nancy] Faeser,” he added.

EU leaders have signed off on a €50 billion ($54 billion) package of economic aid to Ukraine, overcoming resistance from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The Hungarian leader accused Brussels of “blackmailing” him into accepting the deal.

European Council President Charles Michel announced the news on Thursday morning, minutes after the bloc’s leaders sat down for talks in Brussels.

“All 27 leaders agreed on an additional €50 billion support package for Ukraine within the EU budget,” Michel wrote on X. “This locks in steadfast, long-term, predictable funding for Ukraine.”

The sum will be drawn from the EU’s collective budget and doled out over four years to Kiev, where it will be used to pay public sector salaries, keep government departments open, and prop up the beleaguered welfare system. The EU budget, already agreed three years ago, will have to be modified to include the mammoth aid package.

Orban has described Ukraine as “one of the most corrupt countries in the world.” Transparency International ranks Ukraine 104th out of 180 in its Corruption Perceptions Index report, and over the weekend, the country’s Security Service (SBU) announced that it had uncovered a major scheme by high-ranking defense officials to embezzle money intended to purchase ammunition.

Earlier this week, the Financial Times revealed that the European Council had drawn up a plan to cut funding to Budapest and tank the Hungarian economy if Orban maintained his veto. Orban accused the “imperialist” EU of trying to “blackmail” him, and said that he proposed a compromise deal whereby Ukraine would receive a smaller transfer of aid every year, which any member state could veto.

Under the terms of the deal agreed on Thursday, EU leaders will debate the implementation of the package annually, while the budget will be reviewed in two years. Speaking anonymously, multiple European diplomats told Politico that these measures were included to placate the Hungarian PM.

However, other anonymous officials said that Orban was given no concessions, and was pressured to accept that “there was no alternative than giving in on the money to Ukraine.”

NATO has launched its largest exercise since the Cold War ended. Steadfast Defender 2024 will last several months and involve about 90,000 troops, over 50 naval vessels, 1,100 ground vehicles (including at least 133 tanks and 533 armored troop carriers), and 80 aircraft of various kinds (planes, helicopters, and drones).

All 31 alliance members will participate, as will Sweden, which is in the process of joining. However, it’s not only a matter of numbers and duration. The massive event is also special for two more reasons, one fairly straightforward, the other more complicated and worthy of serious scrutiny.

In simple terms, the exercise will test regional defense plans, which NATO has not done since the end of the Cold War. A political benefit of returning to such detailed plans is that they provide leverage, in essence to Washington through NATO’s SACEUR office, to make European governments toe the line by committing troops, gear, and money. That is what The Economist pointed out, with satisfaction, at the time of last year’s Vilnius summit, when all of this was set in motion. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko’s observation is correct: The maneuver marks an “irrevocable return” of the alliance to Cold War mode, although, this, too, is only a new peak of a long period of aggressive development. Hence its no surprise either that the enemy targeted in this imaginary fight is Russia (even if appearing only as a “near-peer adversary” in Steadfast Defender’s official announcement). 

The more complicated issue is that the exercise was preceded by a veritable onslaught of propaganda - or in up-to-date NATO-speak, cognitive warfare. One dead give-away that this has been deliberate is that the Western think tank/information-war platform the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) is already accusing Russia of engaging in “an information operation to misrepresent” the purely “defensive” Steadfast Defender. 

In reality, NATO's representatives and spin masters (official and in the guise of academics and think tank experts), politicians, and journalists were laying down a narrative barrage. Through official statements, interviews, and even Tom-Clancy-style fantasy scenarios, the Western public, especially in the EU, was made to imagine a scary – and near – future in which Moscow launches an invasion of European NATO member states. In this sense, “Steadfast Defender” is not merely a return to Cold War patterns but to the dark tone of its most virulent and dangerous phases, for instance, the early 1980s. Think of deep-frosted Cold War Hollywood classics such as “Firefox,” where Clint Eastwood steals a Soviet super-jet, or (the original) “Red Dawn,” where valiant American teenagers die heroically fending off evil Russians (and Cubans!) who had landed smack in the middle of America's heartland. That kind of vibe.

It’s important to note that there is nothing self-evident about this propaganda blitz. NATO could conduct its big maneuver but make less of a fuss about it. Or accompany it with a different, less strident message, stressing due security diligence but refraining from detailed statements about Russia’s putative actions, as it were, tomorrow. Hence, this cognitive warfare offensive is deliberate. It was driven so far, that, after the initial wave attack of panic-mongering; even the formal figurehead of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, got cold feet and felt compelled to remind everyone that there is “no direct threat.”

Let’s look at some examples of this remarkable propaganda offensive: 

Not-yet-even-NATO member Sweden hurried to display exemplary verbal militancy: Its commander-in-chief General Micael Bydén urged his fellow Swedes to “prepare themselves mentally” for war, while Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin stressed that “war could come to Sweden.” (It seems abandoning neutrality can make you more anxious.) Partly in response to Bydén, Germany’s minister of Defense Boris Pistorius then shared his wild guess that a Russian attack on a NATO country could occur within less than ten years. 

In a press conference, the chairman of NATO’s military committee, Dutch admiral Rob Bauer, followed up by striking the same tone, albeit with more details. Bauer spoke about operations to shape the armed forces of the alliance for decades, a historically unprecedent degree of integration between NATO and national defense plans, and “resilience” to be cultivated by a “whole-of-society approach” to war as well as to preparing for war. All of this may sound grandiloquent. However, it would be a mistake not to take it seriously.

The NATO war talk barrage is also not only about Russia. In a way, it is even more about the European NATO member states’ societies: a very clear reminder that their sovereignty is worth about as much as that of Greece when the “Troika” of Western overlords came knocking in 2015. None of this is surprising, of course: as a key tool of US control and European (self-)subjugation, NATO has always been a through-and-through imperialistic (in the technical, not polemical sense of the term) tool of US power projection and control in Europe. 

Now, with the EU submitting to America to the point of serious self-harm, Bauer's style of cajoling Europeans is only consistent. However, there is something remarkable about how brazenly NATO is displaying its will to power now, especially against the background of Donald Trump, a declared NATO foe, now the man most likely to win the American presidential elections at the end of this year: This could turn out to be NATO’s last hurrah. 

For the mass media handling of the messaging offensive around Steadfast Defender 2024, let’s pick just two examples. The hyper-popular British tabloid The Sun was as blunt as you would expect, hammering its readers with the headline “GEARING UP FOR WAR: Nato calls up biggest global force in DECADES with 90,000 troops to begin ‘Steadfast Defender’ WW3 drills in days.” The rest of the article is as sensationalist as the title promises, including allegations of a Russian plan to attack on “Day X” as early as 2025. 

More of a middle-class paper, the British Daily Mail was a tad more subtle, running a long, illustrated piece (with big red arrows on maps and all that) about the “Herculean war games.” Speculating how a Russian attack sometime in the next twenty years would unfold, the paper depicts Moscow’s massive future cyber-attacks, deep missile strikes, and AI-operated tanks on the move. (Clearly, the times of Westerners fantasizing about Russian soldiers storming forward with nothing but shovels are well and truly over.) Hapless retired US general Ben Hodges, who last spring still predicted a victorious Ukrainian counteroffensive, has moved on and is now prophesying about how Russia’s large coming strike against NATO in Europe will unfold.     

What is all of this about?

The most frightening interpretation would be that NATO is dead set already on fighting Russia, come what may. That would be highly irrational and suicidal, but, then again, the West has not shown much rationality recently. Call it the “Baltic Kamikaze” or “Britain is Suicidally Bored” explanation of NATO behavior.

My guess: We are, luckily, not quite there yet. Don’t get me wrong: I am certain that there are nutcases in NATO (and the EU) who’d love to go to war, better yesterday than tomorrow. In that respect, rumors about Kaja Kallas, the would-be iron lady of Estonia being tapped for the de facto EU foreign ministry are very disturbing indeed. Yet what is more likely is a messy internal compromise: Where some already want war, others are playing for something else: Compensating for the West’s looming defeat in Ukraine.

But let’s zoom out for a moment: There’s an irony grand strategists like Admiral Bauer miss: If you want the “resilience” of a “whole-of-society approach,” then your society needs to be basically content, with its elites enjoying the ultimate reserve currency of politics - fundamental legitimacy, which sustains polities even when the ruled greatly disagree with the rulers. However, that kind of agreement grows only from trust, which is precisely what all too many citizens of the EU, and the US as well, do not have any more.

War – and preparing for war – remain essentially political activities, but not in the shortsighted manner NATO is applying now: Imbuing societies with a sense of a great outside threat can work, for a while. However, it will be futile in the not-so-long-run when two things happen: That outside threat fails to materialize, and, instead, the frustration that most people really feel in their own lives keeps coming from the inside. That’s, by the way, what killed the Soviet Union, which, as some NATO Cold War re-enactors may care to remember, died while armed to the teeth and having practiced “whole-of-society” defense indoctrination for decades.

Republicans in the US Congress have slammed Ukraine after the country’s successor to the KGB (SBU) uncovered an embezzlement scheme in which top officials are implicated. It comes as Kiev attempts to secure more funding from its supporters for its conflict with Russia, despite growing reluctance in the West.

The SBU announced on Saturday that it had uncovered a major embezzlement scheme involving high-ranking Defense Ministry officials and a private arms manufacturer. Five suspects attempted to steal 1.5 billion hryvnia (around $39.6 million) in state funds intended for mortar shells for Ukrainian troops, according to the security service.  

The announcement comes as Republicans in the US Congress push back against President Joe Biden’s efforts to send a further $60 billion aid package to Ukraine.

On Wednesday, the American Conservative (TAC) magazine published an article in which several congresspeople were asked to comment on the matter.

In a phone interview with TAC, Republican Matt Rosendale of Montana said, “Just a few years ago, the only thing that we knew about Ukraine was that it was the most corrupt country that anyone had ever heard of… To even try to believe and hope that maybe the funding is being managed better now than it was previously is laughable.”   

“Clearly, the money designated for Ukraine isn’t going where it was supposed to,” she said, calling for a full audit of the funds sent to Ukraine.

Republican Congressman Eli Crane of Arizona told TAC that the latest instance of fraud “is likely just the tip of the iceberg.” In a written statement, Crane questioned the idea of expecting “a full and clean accounting from a country whose leader dissolved rival political parties and aims to suspend national elections.”

In September, Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov was dismissed from his post over graft allegations. His successor, Rustem Umerov, announced earlier this month that a probe he had initiated revealed $262 million in theft-related costs in weapons procurement. 

Moscow has condemned Western military support for Ukraine, arguing that pumping the country with more weapons will only prolong the fighting and cause more bloodshed.

The US used last year’s largest-ever joint drills with Australia to create new stockpiles of equipment in the country, in preparation for a potential conflict with China over Taiwan, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing sources.

According to US officials interviewed by the agency, the war materiel was stashed during the Talisman Sabre exercises last July and August. The drills, which were held in and around Australia, involved more than 34,000 troops from 13 nations and focused on boosting combat readiness and logistical capabilities.

The equipment from the exercises included 330 vehicles and trailers and 130 containers stored in the southeastern part of Australia, Reuters reported. It added that in the event of a conflict, this would be enough to supply about three logistics companies with a combined strength of 500 or more soldiers. Alternatively, the equipment could be used during future drills or to deal with a potential natural disaster.

Numerous officials interviewed by the news agency cited logistics as a weak spot in the US military which China could exploit in the event of a conflict, potentially by bombing refueling ships and jet fuel depots. Such tactics, the officials warned, could allow Beijing to hamstring Washington without having to engage the bulk of US forces.

The rift between the US and China over Taiwan has widened in recent months, fueled by Washington’s arms sales as well as visits by senior lawmakers to the self-governing island.

Beijing regards Taiwan as part of its sovereign territory, and has denounced US contact with Taipei as meddling in its internal affairs. President Xi Jinping has said China is seeking peaceful reunification with the island, although Beijing has not ruled out the use of force to achieve this goal.

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden pledged in 2022 that Washington would defend Taiwan if “there was an unprecedented attack,” but insisted that his country is not encouraging independence for the island.

Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun has told his Russian counterpart, Sergey Shoigu, that strategic cooperation between Moscow and Beijing is a pillar of maintaining peace around the globe, in his first public appearance since his appointment at the end of last year.

As two great powers, Russia and China should deepen their cooperation and decisively respond to global challenges, the defense chiefs said during a video call on Wednesday.

“We have supported you on the Ukrainian issue despite the fact that the US and the EU continue to put pressure on the Chinese side,” Dong stated, promising that Beijing “will not change or abandon our established policy course over this,” even under the threat of more sanctions.

At the same time, China feels “strong support from the Russian side on the Taiwan issue as well as on other topics of our key interests,” Dong added. “As the two most important and key forces in the world, we should decisively respond to global challenges.”

Shoigu agreed that unlike Western states, Russia and China are not “creating military blocs,” and their military cooperation is not “directed against third countries.” The defense chief noted that “Russian-Chinese relations in the military sphere are developing steadily in all areas,” and said he was looking forward to “close, productive cooperation” with his Chinese counterpart.

Moscow perceives the Ukraine conflict as part of a Western proxy war against Russia, which is being waged in an attempt to preserve US hegemony on the world stage. Chinese officials have said that Washington is stuck in a “Cold War mentality.” 

Ireland may cut welfare benefits to Ukrainian refugees by more than 80% and introduce limits on their stay in government-provided housing, the social protection minister has told the Dáil, the country's parliament.

The proposed change would be retroactive and would affect Ukrainians currently living in state accommodation, in addition to new arrivals, the Irish Independent newspaper reported on Wednesday. 

“We may have to make the decision that anybody in state provided accommodation, regardless of what date they arrived, they will receive a payment of €38.80,” Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys told the Assembly of Ireland.

Currently, Ireland provides tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees state housing and a jobseeker’s allowance of €232 per week, but a devastating housing crisis and riots in the capital over immigration policy, have forced the government to cut state benefits, bringing the country in line with other EU nations.

Western cash and military aid infusions for Kiev have slowed in recent months after Ukraine’s counteroffensive last year ended without significant gains and nearly 400,000 Ukrainian casualties, according to Moscow’s estimates. However, Ukraine’s chief of military intelligence, Kirill Budanov, has promised another counteroffensive this spring.

In order to aid the recruitment drive, Kiev even urged Western states to cut payouts to Ukrainian refugees if they refuse to return home for the draft. One of Zelensky’s senior aides, Mikhail Podoliak, said in December that they should be given the choice to “either to get drafted or… lose certain opportunities granted to people that temporarily left Ukraine.”

A White House aide has admitted that his colleagues are worried about US President Joe Biden’s deteriorating cognitive skills and the unpopularity of his vice president, Kamala Harris, but they can’t publicly voice those concerns as the president seeks reelection later this year.

Speaking in a hidden-camera interview posted online by undercover journalist James O’Keefe on Wednesday, White House cybersecurity analyst Charlie Kraiger acknowledged that the 81-year-old Biden is “slowing down.” He also said that there had been discussions about removing Harris from the 2024 ticket, given her struggles as vice president, but the Democratic Party’s nominees are set in stone.

“I think they need to get rid of him or get rid of her, but I don’t think they’re gonna do that,” Kraiger told O’Keefe, who disguised himself for the conversation by dyeing his hair and wearing fake glasses. Asked if White House staffers could speak publicly and truthfully regarding the fitness of Biden and Harris to seek another term, he added, “No, no, they’ve got to toe the line.”

BREAKING VIDEO: Top White House Cyber Official tells O’Keefe in Disguise “they can't say it publicly” the White House wants to replace Kamala Harris and Confirms President @JoeBiden mental decline: “Biden is definitely slowing down.”

“I'm just telling you what I've heard…… pic.twitter.com/75Wdw03DHs

— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) January 31, 2024

Kraiger admitted that staffers are “really concerned” about Biden’s mental state, which O’Keefe called “dementia,” but they have to keep those worries private. “They know it; of course, they do. But it’s the optics and, like, the scandal, I think they feel wouldn’t be worth it. I’m just telling you what I’ve heard. Does it make sense? No, but that’s what I’ve heard.”

Kraiger works in the White House Executive Office as a cybersecurity analyst and foreign affairs desk officer, according to a now-locked LinkedIn account. He told O’Keefe that he manages security of the computer networks at the US State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

“She’s not popular, but you can’t remove the first black lady to be vice president from the g*****n presidential ticket,” he said. “Like, what kind of message are you going to send to, like, African-American voters?” He added that Harris was unable to retain black staffers, who “quit on her en masse,” but administration officials “sadly” decided to keep her as Biden’s running mate after an internal debate.

O’Keefe outed himself at the end of the interview, asking Kraiger how a White House security official wound up meeting with a famous hidden-camera journalist. “We’re running a good cybersecurity operation,” the staffer insisted. O’Keefe replied, “Obviously not, because you’re meeting with me. Did you not do your research? What is this clown show you guys are running over at the White House?”

The US military and Yemen’s Houthi rebels have made dueling claims of successful strikes in their ongoing battle over Red Sea shipping lanes.

The latest salvos included a US airstrike targeting a Houthi missile in Yemen that was reportedly prepared to launch. The Houthis later claimed an “accurate and direct” missile strike against a cargo ship in the Red Sea.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the surface-to-air missile was struck and destroyed on Wednesday afternoon in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen. American forces targeted a Houthi launch site after determining that the missile “presented an imminent threat to US aircraft,” CENTCOM said. The command did not specify the missile’s location. The Houthis reportedly confirmed the US strike and said it was in the northern Yemeni city of Saada.

Saree said the merchant ship was targeted a few hours after the Houthis launched missiles against the USS Gravely destroyer in the Red Sea. CENTCOM previously said that the USS Gravely had shot down a cruise missile over the Red Sea on Tuesday night.

The latest strikes come amid an escalating conflict between US forces in the Middle East and various militant groups in the region. The Houthis and other militias have reportedly carried out hundreds of attacks against US military assets and shipping interests since the Israel-Hamas war began in October.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday that the “Iranian-backed” Islamic Resistance in Iraq was responsible for a drone strike that killed three US troops and wounded more than 40 on Sunday. He said a multi-faceted US response is being prepared, but he reiterated the claim that the administration of US President Joe Biden seeks to avoid a wider war with Iran.

The administration of US President Joe Biden has identified the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella organization for several Islamist Shia militias in the region, as the group responsible for the drone strike that killed three American soldiers and wounded over 40 others on Sunday.

The attack was “planned, resourced, and facilitated” by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday in a press briefing. The group consists of several militias, including Kataib Hezbollah, which has launched multiple rocket and drone strikes against US forces in the region since the Israel-Hamas war began in October.

A drone packed with explosives struck a secretive US outpost in Jordan, near the Iraqi and Syrian borders, on Sunday, causing the first American fatalities in months of attacks by various militant groups working in solidarity with Hamas. Biden has vowed to strike back “at a time and in a manner of our choosing.” He told reporters on Tuesday that he had decided on a response, though he offered no details.

Biden blamed Iran for supplying the weapons that Islamic militants have used in attacking US forces in the Middle East more than 150 times in recent months. He has faced political pressure to respond aggressively, including calls by Senator Lindsey Graham and other Republican lawmakers to launch a devastating strike against Tehran.

“We have obligations in the region, including those to our troops and our facilities,” Kirby said. “We will have to do, we will do, what we need to do to make sure that those responsible are held properly accountable.”

Iranian officials have pledged to “decisively respond” to any attack. Major General Hossein Salami, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said on Wednesday that no US threat against his country would “be left unanswered.” He added, “We are not looking for war but are not afraid of war, either.”

Ukraine is a convenient, rather cheap tool for the US to weaken and contain Russia, and to force its European allies to keep their discipline and obey. This is all part of an international struggle for a new form of hierarchy.

Of course, it’s just a temporary phenomenon until a new balance of power, recognized by all, is established. Until this point is reached, we will see foreign policy experiments by various countries. The position of small and medium-sized states is increasingly attracting the attention of the great powers, which are negotiating the formation of a new balance. We are at a point where a small state can demand much more than it would get in a system of rigid hierarchy.

In the struggle to increase its status in the world hierarchy, Russia feels like it’s well prepared to defend its national interests and restore justice. It is through such a stress test, like the one we see now, that the realism of assessments, national qualities, and the strength of resources and strategy are put to the test. 

In essence, this crisis is a test of the quality of the strategy of all participants: Everyone enters it with their own initial understanding of what the world looks like, how it works and where history is going.

The US sincerely believes that foreign policy is part of domestic policy. Moreover, every American external strategy is a component of internal struggles. Of course, the country’s self-absorption makes its allies near and far very nervous and creates uncertainty in the development of the situation. I do not see any objective conditions for Washington to reduce its involvement in Ukrainian affairs, at present. The current decision to suspend funding is of a technical nature: Most likely, the US will find a way to transfer the necessary funds to Ukraine from another source.

There is another observation: that Americans never “hold” a falling asset. As investors, they realize that they need to put their dollars into something else quickly. And maybe at some point they will get the feeling that Ukraine is an asset that is constantly costing them money but has stopped adding value.

The Americans could be forced to withdraw their support from Ukraine by an emergency situation in another part of the world, which would force them to concentrate their efforts there. Taiwan or a sudden crisis in the Western Hemisphere come to mind.

The suspension of funding for Ukraine would not have happened if Kiev had shown signs of being a good investment, and if the media image of a “victorious Ukraine” and “doomed Russia” painted by the Americans was a reality. The problem for Ukraine and the West is that the constant production of illusory ideas is not supported by reality. This makes it harder to “hold” the asset.

Instead of positive images associated with victory: triumph, good returns on investment, other news comes in: a stalled offensive, corruption scandals, President Vladimir Zelensky’s attempt to pressure allies, scandals with Nazi collaborators in which he is directly involved. The shocking episode of honoring a World War Two Waffen SS criminal in the Canadian Parliament is symptomatic of a larger problem.

However, some changes are taking place: For the first time, the Americans are correcting the Ukrainians when they stage provocations, including information provocations, in an attempt to shift responsibility for their crimes onto Russia. The missile strike on civilian facilities in Kostantinovka, which by a strange set of circumstances coincided with Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Kiev, was attributed by Ukrainian propaganda as a “Russian crime.” Washington neatly corrected Kiev, and seemingly for the first time, by pointing out that the missile was Ukrainian. The fact that such disagreements have arisen suggests that at some point the interests of the US and Ukraine may diverge. I believe that the elites in Kiev should think about what a “plan B” would look like for them, because right now they are putting all their eggs in one basket and thus cutting off any path to negotiations, retreat, or some other scenario.

Is it possible that the American election campaign could have an impact on the Ukrainian conflict? I would consider a scenario in which it would not make anything better for Russia, and I would start from the premise that we should be indifferent to who sits in the White House. Frankly, discussions with the Americans on regional crises are repetitive. I remember them on the Syrian conflict, when Washington’s experts said that it would have a strong negative impact on Russia’s domestic politics, that we would be at odds with the Islamic world and that our relations with Türkiye, Iran, and others would collapse. All this was unfounded speculation. Russia acted in its own interests and in the end achieved the optimal picture for itself.

It must be recognized that the US is becoming increasingly cynical and no longer observes many rules it once espoused.

First, communication with our country in the fight against terrorism have been interrupted, even though this is an absolutely vital area of interest in which cooperation is extremely important.

Second, Americans often use the groups that are recognized in our country as terrorist groups instrumentally to achieve their goals.  Americans are completely blind to the terrorist actions of the Ukrainian armed forces, the government, and the special services, which openly target civilian infrastructure and intimidate the civilian population. It is as if they are turning a blind eye to this, as well as to all manifestations of Nazi elements in Ukrainian politics.

The structural problems of the US in its relations with Russia and other major countries are as follows: Washington cannot imagine that human dignity and self-respect can be possessed by anyone other than itself and that other countries have their own points of view. What the Americans practice quite well in their domestic politics – attention to every voice, different communities, freedom of speech – they cannot tolerate in international affairs. The principle of sovereign equality of countries is very difficult for them.

This article was first published by Valdai Discussion Club, translated and edited by the RT team.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has reportedly floated the idea of exiling some Hamas leaders to other Middle East countries to help end the war in Gaza and clear the way for a new governing authority in the Palestinian exclave.

The proposal calls for letting top Hamas officials in Gaza – including political leader Yahya Sinwar and military commander Mohammed Deif – move to another country, such as Algeria, Qatar or Saudi Arabia, Semafor reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with discussions by Israeli and US officials. The militant leaders who planned the October 7 attacks that triggered the current war would be among those allowed to escape into exile.

Some Israeli officials see the plan as a way to help persuade Hamas to free its remaining hostages in Gaza, lay down arms and turn over governance of the Palestinian territory to new leadership, Semafor said. Such a peace agreement might then accelerate a US-brokered deal for Saudi Arabia to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.

The strategy of letting Hamas leaders go into exile might be similar to a 1982 initiative in which the Palestinian Liberation Organization, led by Yasser Arafat, moved its headquarters to Tunisia after being besieged by Israeli forces in Lebanon. However, even if a willing country could be found to provide a safe haven, Semafor said it’s unlikely that Hamas leaders would accept such an offer.

“The Hamas guys in Gaza won’t leave,” as they would probably prefer to die as martyrs, a senior Arab official told the media outlet. Besides, Hamas leaders know that the Israelis could eventually hunt them down and kill them anywhere they might take refuge. Mossad chief David Barnea vowed earlier this month to take revenge on everyone involved in the October 7 attacks, “wherever they will be.”

All countries must refrain from supporting Israel’s military in light of last week’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling concerning the war in Gaza, as they could be making themselves accomplices to genocide, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor has argued.

“The finding, we think, makes it clear that it is plausible that genocide is taking place against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” Pandor told reporters on Wednesday in Pretoria. She added that other nations therefore must ensure that they are not aiding such conduct in the Israel-Hamas war. “This necessarily imposes an obligation on all states to cease funding and facilitating Israel’s military actions, which as the court has indicated, are plausibly genocidal.”

The ICJ, also known as the World Court, ruled on January 26 that Israel must take all necessary steps to prevent a genocide in the Palestinian enclave. West Jerusalem also was ordered to punish members of its military who commit genocidal acts, as well as government officials who call for genocide. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the UN court’s finding “outrageous” and vowed that no Israeli soldiers would be “hauled before the international Criminal Court in the Hague.”

Nearly 27,000 people – primarily civilians – have been killed in Gaza since the war began in October, according to Palestinian health officials. The conflict started when Hamas fighters launched surprise attacks against Israeli villages, killing more than 1,100 people and taking hundreds of hostages. Around 85% of Gaza residents have been displaced from their homes, and the UN has reported that 570,000 people in the besieged enclave are starving.

US President Joe Biden’s administration approved two emergency weapons sales to Israel last month, bypassing congressional approvals. Washington will not alter its support for Israel as a result of the ICJ ruling, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters last week. Kirby previously called South Africa’s genocide allegations against Israel “meritless.”

In addition to its civil claim against Israel with the ICJ, South Africa has called for a war-crimes investigation by the UN’s International Criminal Court (ICC). Pandor said Wednesday that she had met with the ICC prosecutor last week to discuss the case, and she noted that it appeared to be handled differently than the allegations against Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine crisis. “I asked him why he was able to issue an arrest warrant for Mr. Putin and is unable to do so for the prime minister of Israel. He did not answer that question. But I read into some of what he said that the investigations are still under way.”

As support for NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine shows signs of collapsing, hysterical anti-Russian rhetoric is accelerating to the point of countdowns towards all-out war.

The year 2024, barely emerging from the cradle, is already forced to deal with reckless predictions of an imminent clash between NATO and Russia in what would be nothing less than the outbreak of World War III.

Europe has between three and five years to prepare for Moscow to become a military threat on NATO’s eastern flank, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told The Times in an interview. “Our intelligence estimates it to be three to five years, and that very much depends on how we manage our unity and keep our posture regarding Ukraine,” Kallas said.

Not to be outdone, the German Council of Foreign Relations, pointing to Russia’s “imperial ambitions,” came out with a report that said the Kremlin “may need as little as six to ten years to reconstitute its armed forces.”

Johnson’s role in upending the hopes for peace was reported in May 2022 by the online publication Ukrainska Pravda. According to the outlet, the British prime minister arrived in Kiev with “two simple messages” that Vladimir Putin was “a war criminal” who should not be negotiated with and that even if Kiev was prepared to sign an agreement with Moscow, the West was not. In other words, it is the West that wants continued war between Moscow and Kiev, not Russia.

The abovementioned prognostications are not happening in a vacuum. As already mentioned, the US is heading headlong into a momentous presidential election, which will greatly determine the future trajectory of the conflict in Ukraine. As proven by the non-stop legal hurdles being thrown in Trump’s way, the Democrats have no intention of relinquishing power with so much war booty at stake. That’s why the months running up to the US presidential election are going to be filled with all sorts of aggressive posturing aimed square at Russia, with the goal of convincing the public that Western Europe is about to be invaded by Russian forces.

Aside from ludicrous projections of an imminent Russian invasion, NATO member states are ramping up the fear factor by conducting their largest military exercises in a decade – smack on Ukraine’s border with Germany and Poland.

Dubbed “Steadfast Defender 2024,” the war games will host some 90,000 troops from all 31 member states – as well as Sweden. The last military exercises to rival the size of the upcoming one came in 1988, at the peak of the Cold War, when 125,000 Western troops assembled for the US-led “Reforger” games.

“Exercise Steadfast Defender 2024 will be the largest NATO exercise in decades, with participation from approximately 90,000 forces from all 31 Allies and our good partner Sweden,” the US-led military bloc’s Supreme Allied Commander for Europe Christopher Cavoli said during a press briefing, adding that the drills would simulate an “emerging conflict scenario against a near-peer adversary.”

It goes without saying that these massive war games come at a very precarious time in the showdown between Russia and Ukraine, which the former is handily winning. In the event that things continue to deteriorate as they have been for Kiev, then there is the possibility that ‘Steadfast Defender’ will be used as a ploy for NATO forces to enter and occupy Western Ukraine. This idea has been getting a lot of traction among military pundits of late.

Aside from the possibility of proxy military actions against Russia, Moscow can expect an assortment of ‘pinpricks’ from NATO’s minions, and not least of all from the Baltic States.

“In 2014, there was also a coup d’etat and the declaration of Russians in Ukraine as a non-titular nation. This was followed by a whole series of other decisions that nullified and actually led to what is now happening in Latvia and in other Baltic republics when Russian people are simply dumped across the border,” Putin said.

The message here is clear: The year 2024 is not going to be an easy ride. The Western military bloc is going to do everything in its power – much as Barack Obama did as he was leaving office in 2016, evicting Russians from their homes on New Year’s Eve – to make Western-Russian relations as bad as humanly possible. Then, in the event that Trump wins another four years in the White House, the political situation will be so muddied that the chances for Trump to help the peace process will be dramatically diminished, and the interested parties will be able to continue profiting off of war. That’s why Moscow will have to endure the slings and arrows throughout 2024 and hope that some reason and common sense settles on the geopolitical landscape in the event of a Trump victory.

Iran will not let any threat from the US go “unanswered,” the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Wednesday. The statement came after US President Joe Biden said he had drawn up a response to an attack on American troops in Jordan.

Biden told reporters on Tuesday that he had decided how to respond to the drone attack, which left three US soldiers dead and dozens more injured on Sunday. The White House blamed the assault on Iranian-aligned militants operating in Iraq and Syria, while Biden said he holds Iran responsible for the deaths, “in the sense that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it.”

The US president did not reveal what kind of response he had planned.

“We hear threats coming from American officials, [and] we tell them that they have already tested us and we now know one another, no threat will be left unanswered,” Major General Hossein Salami said at an event in Tehran, according to Iran’s Tasnim News Agency.

Iran’s envoy to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, issued a similar warning on Tuesday night. "The Islamic Republic will decisively respond to any attack on the county, its interests and nationals under any pretexts,” Iravani said, according to Iran’s state news agency, IRNA.

Tehran has denied orchestrating the fatal attack on US troops. While Iran arms and trains numerous Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Monday that these fighters “do not take orders from the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

“These groups decide and act based on their own principles and priorities as well as the interests of their country and people,” a ministry spokesman said.

Militant groups have launched more than 150 attacks on US bases in the Middle East in recent months, but Sunday’s incident marked the first time American troops in the region were confirmed killed by enemy fire since the Israel-Hamas war began in October.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed on Tuesday that it has been flooding Hamas’ underground tunnel network with seawater, a controversial tactic that it first trialed late last year.

In a statement shared with Israeli media, the IDF said that it had developed and was using “several tools for injecting high-flow water into Hamas tunnels in the Gaza Strip.” Not all of the roughly 350-400 miles of tunnels are being targeted, the military said, adding that the operation would cause unacceptable damage in some areas.

Israeli forces installed several high-flow pumps in Gaza late last year and experimented with pumping seawater from the Mediterranean into the underground labyrinth, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time. In a follow-up report on Monday, the American newspaper said that the flooding operation had expanded, with the installation of an additional pump in the city of Khan Younis, located in the south of the enclave.

Despite flooding, bombing, and raids by special forces and robots, between 60% and 80% of the subterranean network remains intact, the newspaper reported.

Back in December, US officials warned their Israeli counterparts that the use of seawater could contaminate Gaza’s limited freshwater resources. Prior to the conflict with Israel, around 90% of the enclave’s drinking water came from groundwater wells, according to the Palestinian Water Authority.

Relatives of the roughly 132 hostages still held by Hamas also fear that flooding the tunnels will endanger their loved ones. In meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in December, freed hostages complained that the flooding would be a death sentence for those left behind, according to audio recordings published by Hebrew news site Ynet.

Israeli tanks and troops have been on the ground in Gaza since late October. However, while the Palestinian death toll now stands at nearly 27,000, US officials believe that the IDF has killed just a fifth of Hamas’ fighters after almost four months of fighting. The IDF announced the deaths of three Israeli soldiers on Wednesday, bringing to 224 the number killed in Gaza since October.

US Air Force personnel in Iraq have been ordered to remain on standby in case of “on ground US involvement in the Israel Hamas war,” The Intercept reported on Tuesday, citing a Pentagon memo. 

Circulated earlier this month, the memo instructs an unknown number of troops to be placed  “on standby to forward deploy to support troops in the case of on ground US involvement in the Israel Hamas war,” the news site reported. The standby order applies to troops stationed in Iraq since last year, according to a separate Pentagon document seen by The Intercept.

The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.

The White House has stated on several occasions since October that its support for the Jewish state would not involve American soldiers fighting alongside their Israeli counterparts.

However, US special forces have been active in Israel since October, with senior official Christopher Maier telling reporters at the time that American commandos were “actively helping the Israelis to do a number of things.” The Pentagon has also admitted to flying spy drones over Gaza “in support of hostage recovery efforts.”

Since the conflict began, US troops in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan have come under fire more than 150 times, with Iran-aligned Shi’ite militias subjecting their bases to regular drone and rocket barrages. One such attack on an outpost in Jordan on Sunday killed three US soldiers and injured several dozen others.

American ships and warplanes have also launched several strikes against Houthi militants in Yemen, in a bid to break the Houthi blockade on “Israel-linked” merchant shipping passing through the Red Sea. The Houthis have responded by targeting US commercial and military vessels in the area. On Wednesday, the militants announced that they had fired multiple missiles at the destroyer USS Gravely. 

US Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, said that the Graveley shot down one incoming missile, and suffered no damage or casualties.

The US and Germany are resisting calls by other NATO members to invite Ukraine into the bloc at a major summit later this year, fearing that the move could trigger a full-scale clash with Russia, Foreign Policy (FP) magazine reported on Tuesday.

Citing a dozen current and former officials, the American magazine wrote that both Kiev and some of its most ardent backers, including Poland and the Baltic states, are pushing for Ukraine to be accepted into the US-led bloc at a key summit in Washington, DC in July.

Proponents of fast-tracking Ukraine’s NATO bid argue that only full-fledged membership for Kiev could force Russia to end the conflict, while claiming that the move would be cheaper in the long run than arms shipments in perpetuity. This is despite Russia's constant assertion it is ready for peace talks.

However, according to the article, the US and Germany, the two top supporters of Ukraine in terms of military aid, disagree. Officials from the two countries reportedly believe that while Kiev should eventually join NATO, now is not the right time, adding that the West should instead focus on supplying Ukraine with weapons.

According to FP, the stand-off is exacerbated by the stance of several EU members, including Hungary and Slovakia, who have opposed sending arms to Ukraine. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has warned that Kiev’s membership in the bloc could draw NATO into the conflict. His Slovak counterpart, Robert Fico, has said the move could spark World War III.

The US has reportedly urged EU members not to raise the issue at the summit, arguing that it could expose behind-the-scenes divisions.

Moscow has repeatedly warned the West against providing military aid to Ukraine, saying it will only prolong the conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin has also said that Kiev’s push to join NATO, which was enshrined in its constitution as a strategic objective in 2019, was one of the key reasons for the current conflict.

US Republican lawmakers took another step on Wednesday towards launching an impeachment process against US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The official is accused of failing to secure the border with Mexico, which has seen a record number of illegal crossings in the past year. 

Two impeachment articles were initially released by the House Homeland Security Committee last week. In the first document, Mayorkas was charged with “willful and systematic refusal to comply” with US immigration laws, while the second alleged that he had “breached the public trust” by making “false statements” to Congress and the American people 

After a 15-hour debate that lasted into the early hours of Wednesday, House Republicans participating on the committee voted to advance the articles against Mayorkas, arguing that the charges against him amount to impeachable offenses of high crimes and misdemeanors. The articles will next be voted on by the full House of Representatives, although it’s unclear when that will happen.    

If the Republican bid succeeds, Mayorkas would become only the second cabinet secretary in US history to be impeached, with the last such incident taking place in 1876. 

However, a number of legal experts have argued that such a turn of events is unlikely, claiming that the charges against Mayorkas do not constitute impeachable offenses based on the evidence provided so far by House Republicans.

Meanwhile, Mayorkas himself has denied the charges against him, arguing that the “broken and outdated immigration system” in the US is a long-standing issue. He has also called on Congress to help provide a legislative solution to the problem. 

The charges against the Homeland Security chief, who has been at the helm since the start of Joe Biden’s presidency, come as Republicans and Democrats continue to clash over the situation at the US-Mexico border.  

It’s estimated that more than 300,000 migrants illegally entered the US in December alone, marking a record monthly high. Meanwhile, as many as 7.5 million people are believed to have entered the country illegally since Biden took office in 2021, according to US Customs and Border Protection data. 

In particular, Republicans have blamed the uptick on Biden’s controversial ‘catch and release’ policy, under which illegal migrants are detained but then released into the country, with orders to appear in court at a later date. As of December, the backlog of such cases was over 3.2 million.

Former US President Donald Trump has been put forward for the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the signing of a treaty that helped normalize relations between Israel and several Arab states.

The proposal was made by Republican congresswoman Claudia Tenney, who told Fox News on Tuesday that Trump was “instrumental” in facilitating the “historic” Abraham Accords, which she said were “the first peace agreements in the Middle East in almost 30 years.”

The lawmaker praised the former president and GOP frontrunner, saying Trump had proven many foreign policy pundits wrong who argued for decades that additional Middle East peace agreements were impossible without a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

”The valiant efforts by President Trump in creating the Abraham Accords were unprecedented and continue to go unrecognized by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, underscoring the need for his nomination today,” Tenney stated, adding that the move comes at a time when President Joe Biden’s “weak leadership” on the global stage has put national security at risk.

The Abraham Accords were a series of US-mediated bilateral agreements signed in late 2020 between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco. They helped bring the Jewish state and the Arab nations closer, with the UAE and Bahrain also recognizing Israel’s sovereignty.

However, the treaty has been criticized for emboldening Israel to ignore the rights of Palestinians, as it resulted in Arab states dropping the demand to recognize the state of Palestine. Some experts have argued that the move paved the way for the recent surge in violence.

Trump had already been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times. In 2020, he was put up for the award by Norwegian MP Christian Tybring-Gjedde, who praised the former president for what he described as his peace-making efforts in the Middle East. That same year, Trump was nominated by Swedish MP Magnus Jacobsson, who cited his role in brokering a deal between Serbia and its breakaway region of Kosovo.

Trump’s nomination is considered valid as it was submitted by a member of a national assembly or national government. The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in Oslo, Norway in October and awarded in December.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres must resign from the post that he has held since 2017, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has said.

The demand follows allegations made by the Jewish state earlier this month that 12 employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) were involved in the incursion into Israel by Hamas on October 7.

”Of course [Guterres] is responsible as UN secretary-general” for the actions of UNRWA staff, Katz said in an interview with Politico’s parent company Axel Springer on Tuesday. “Guterres must resign” or “the UN must replace him,” he added.

The UN chief “ignored many complaints and information regarding the behavior of the aid organization, as well as indications of cooperation with Hamas,” the foreign minister claimed. Israel believes that UNRWA is “almost fully cooperating with Hamas,” he said.

According to Katz, UNRWA – which runs schools, hospitals and aid programs in refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan – “is not part of the solution, it is part of the problem.” It must be replaced with a new agency, “in which the Arab states should be more involved than before,” he said.

On Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Israeli allegations were “highly credible,” but acknowledged that Washington had not been able to investigate them independently.

The New York Times reported on Sunday, citing a secret Israeli government report, that the UNRWA workers helped Hamas to kidnap Israelis, and armed Palestinian fighters on October 7.

In a statement on Sunday, Guterres said “the abhorrent alleged acts of these staff members must have consequences,” including criminal prosecution. However, he urged countries not to follow in the footsteps of the US, Germany and Italy, who cut funding of UNRWA. Some 2 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza depend on the aid provided by the agency to survive, the UN chief noted.

According to the UN, it fired nine UNRWA employees in connection with the allegations. One is believed to have died, while two others have yet to be identified.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife have been sentenced to 14 years in prison in a corruption case. This comes after another court ruling in which Khan was given ten years for leaking state secrets.

The politician and his wife, Bushra Bibi, were sentenced by a Pakistani accountability court on Wednesday in the city of Rawalpindi, not far from the capital, Islamabad. Both were charged with the illegal sale of state gifts while Khan was prime minister from 2018 to 2022.

In addition to the sentence, the two have been barred from running for public office for ten years and fined $2.7 million.

This comes after Khan was sentenced to ten years on Tuesday for leaking state secrets. The charges are related to a cipher, a classified cable that was sent to Islamabad by the Pakistani ambassador to Washington in 2022, which allegedly suggested that the US wanted Khan ousted over his neutrality in the Ukraine conflict.

“Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi have faced yet another kangaroo trial in which no right to defense was given to both. Like cipher, this case has no basis to stand in any higher court.”

Both sentences come ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for February 8. The PTI said the “atrocities against [Khan] will be avenged by the power of the vote.”

Khan, a former cricketer-turned-politician, was ousted in a no-confidence vote in 2022, with the opposition accusing him of mismanaging the economy and foreign policy. Khan claims that he was overthrown as a result of a US conspiracy.

Since then, the former leader has fought dozens of legal battles. Islamabad’s attempts to prosecute him sparked massive public unrest with numerous casualties.

The US military is planning to provide Ukraine with its first shipment of a new, longer-range munition recently developed by Boeing, according to Reuters and Politico, which reported that the bombs could arrive in the country as soon as this week.

With the Pentagon recently wrapping up final tests for the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB), the US is preparing a maiden transfer to Kiev, Politico reported, citing two officials and two others familiar with the discussions. The bombs can achieve a maximum range of 90 miles (145km), and will be “a significant capability for Ukraine,” one of the officials said.

”It gives them a deeper strike capability they haven’t had, it complements their long-range fire arsenal,” the official added. “It’s just an extra arrow in the quiver that’s going to allow them to do more.”

Developed jointly by Boeing and Saab, the ground-launched variant of the new bombs has not yet reached the US arsenal, which currently contains an air-fired version only. The weapon is said to have twice the range compared to the US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) already used by Ukrainian troops, according to Reuters.

Citing several unnamed sources, the outlet added that testing on the GLSDB was completed on January 16 and saw six rockets fired over the Gulf of Mexico. The weapon could reach Ukraine as soon as Wednesday, and would be brought to the country by air transport.

In order to speed up deliveries, Boeing and the Pentagon reportedly agreed to an “expedited nine-month option,” under which the company bypassed the usual arms sale review ensuring that firms provide the lowest price possible.

Kiev has already depleted its small supply of its longest-range bomb to date, the US-made ATACMS missile, and has repeatedly called for additional weapons from foreign sponsors. While the GLSDB packs less power than the ATACMS, its superior range and cheaper production cost could enable deeper and more frequent strikes on Russian territory.

Moscow has denounced previous attacks on civilian infrastructure as acts of “terrorism,” and has called for an end to Western military aid to Kiev, saying the arms would only prolong the conflict and lead to more bloodshed without affecting the outcome.

The US will only allow Türkiye to return to the F-35 fighter jet program if it agrees to ditch Russia’s S-400 missile defense system, Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has said. The American official also suggested that Washington may even lift sanctions on its NATO ally if Ankara is more amenable.

Speaking with CNNTurk television on Monday, Nuland said Ankara could be brought in from the cold on the F-35 project if it resolved the spat, after Türkiye was booted from the program in 2019 over its acquisition of the S-400 from Russia.

“If we could get through this S-400 issue, which we would like to do, the US would be delighted to welcome Türkiye back into the F-35 family,” she stated. “If we can get through this issue, then the CAATSA issue will go away, and we can get back into an F-35 conversation,” Nuland added, referring to US sanctions which target Türkiye’s arms industry.

While it remains unclear whether Ankara will accept Nuland’s offer to walk away from the Russian air defense system, officials have previously rejected the idea, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisting the purchase was a “done deal.” Turkish defense industry chief Haluk Gorgun later added that his country was “making air defense systems” of its own, saying “we don’t need S-300s [or] S-400s.”

In addition to being kicked out of the F-35 program, under which Ankara produced hundreds of aircraft parts, the White House had also declined to authorize a sale of F-16 upgrades for the Turkish air force. However, US officials greenlit a deal for 79 modernization kits last week, though it remains to be seen whether the move spells any broader change to US policy toward its NATO ally.

The senior US diplomat went on to suggest that Ankara’s recent vote in favor of Swedish NATO membership had sealed the deal, stating: “We are very pleased that Türkiye joined us in saying yes to Sweden.”

An American F-16 fighter jet has crashed in waters near South Korea, the US military has confirmed. The incident marks the third time a US war plane has gone down in the region in less than a year.

A fighter pilot was forced to abandon the jet and ejected from the aircraft early Wednesday morning, with the F-16 falling into waters off the coast of Gunsan, South Korea, near Washington’s Kunsan Air Base, Yonhap reported.

“Information on the cause of the in-flight emergency will not be made available until the conclusion of thorough safety and accident investigations,” said Col. Matthew C. Gaetke, 8th Fighter Wing commander.

“Now we will shift our focus to search and recovery of the aircraft,” the statement added, praising Seoul’s rescue forces for the swift recovery of the American pilot, who has been transported to a medical facility for “assessment.”

pic.twitter.com/WKYj63YvnL

— 8th Fighter Wing — Wolf Pack (@KunsanAirBase) January 31, 2024

The crash follows similar incidents involving the same type of fighter jet in recent months, with another F-16 going down over the Yellow Sea during an exercise in December. That plane was also based at Kusan as part of the US 8th Fighter Wing.

In May, yet another F-16 crashed close to Osan Air Base in the northwest of the country. Officials revealed few details about the incident, but said the pilot was taking part in a routine training mission during the accident and had safely ejected.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba believes that the Hungarian leadership is not “pro-Russian,” despite attempts by Western media and politicians to label it as such.

Kuleba held a meeting with his Hungarian counterpart, Peter Szijjarto, on Monday, seeking to find common ground over Hungary’s blocking of EU financial aid for Kiev. In an interview with Hungarian news portal Telex, the Ukrainian foreign minister was asked about Szijjarto and Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s alleged “pro-Russian” stances.

“If such a thing were to be confirmed, it would represent a major problem for both the EU and for Hungary. But I think they are pro-Hungarian,” Kuleba stated. “If they were pro-Russian, Peter would not have declared at today’s meeting that he respects Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.”

Hungary, which is heavily dependent on Russian energy, has criticized the EU’s Ukraine policy and has refused to supply arms to Kiev, while denouncing the sanctions on Moscow as detrimental to the bloc’s economy.

While some Western politicians and media outlets have branded Orban as “pro-Russian,” Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov dismissed the notion, saying the label is being applied to leaders who tend to “think about their nation’s sovereignty… [and] defend the interests of their country.”

“It’s a sort of blackmailer’s manual,” he stated. “It is important for Europeans to understand that member states, if they disagree on issues like war, migration, gender, immediately experience an imperialist reaction from Brussels.”

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has rejected the notion of peace talks and a ceasefire in Ukraine, instead demanding that the bloc’s member states cough up “whatever it takes” for Kiev to defeat Moscow.

In an op-ed for France’s L’Obs magazine on Tuesday, Borrell urged EU leaders to reject “the temptations of conciliation” with Russia. “These ideas were wrong in 2022, and they remain wrong today,” he wrote, arguing that “we must not let them shape our policy towards Ukraine.”

It is unclear which calls for peace Borrell was referring to. In the EU, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has persistently called for a negotiated settlement, arguing that Kiev’s forces cannot win a military victory against their Russian opponents, and that the EU’s sanctions on Moscow hurt EU economies more than they hurt Russia’s.

Borrell, on the other hand, claimed that sanctions have “weakened Russia’s war machine,” despite admitting in a speech one day earlier that they have largely failed to achieve their goals.

“We must shift the paradigm from supporting Ukraine for ‘as long as it takes’ to committing to doing ‘whatever it takes’ for Ukraine to win,” he declared, calling for Ukraine to be given “long range missiles and other advanced weapons systems,” including more air-defense batteries.

Ukraine’s demand for arms and ammunition can only be met if there is “a renaissance of the European defense industry,” Borrell wrote. 

While Borrell boasted that defense spending across the EU has risen by 40% since 2014, this increase has not been matched by a corresponding increase in arms production. EU member states committed last March to the joint supply of a million artillery shells to Ukraine by March 2024, for example, but only a third of that number has been delivered, and German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters in November that “the one million target will not be reached.”

From the outset of the conflict in Ukraine, Borrell has consistently portrayed Russia as the party that was uninterested in peace. Even in March 2022, as Russia offered Ukraine peace terms which former Ukrainian officials now concede were generous, the EU diplomat claimed that Moscow “doesn’t want to sit and negotiate anything: what it wants is to occupy the ground.”

Moscow insists that it has not ruled out a negotiated end to the conflict, but maintains that peace will only be reached when the goals of its military operation in Ukraine are achieved, either by military or diplomatic means.

US President Joe Biden asked his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, not to “interfere in the 2024 US presidential election” when the two met in November, CNN reported on Tuesday. Xi reportedly told Biden that Beijing would keep its hands off the vote.

The exchange supposedly took place during high-profile discussions between the two leaders in California. An anonymous source told CNN that Biden was the one that raised the issue.

Ever since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, American officials – most often Democrats – have repeatedly claimed that foreign powers are “interfering” in US elections. These claims are often unsubstantiated – as Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into so-called “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Moscow found in 2019 – or based on information withheld from the public, as was the case with the US National Intelligence Council’s heavily-redacted report into supposed efforts by Russia, China, Iran, and Cuba to meddle in the 2022 midterm elections.

Beijing and Moscow have repeatedly denied meddling in American elections, but US officials have persisted with their public accusations.

“The potential for China to interfere in or influence US elections has repeatedly come up at senior-level meetings between the two nations in recent months,” CNN’s source said.

The news outlet listed Natasha Bertrand as a contributor to Tuesday’s article. Bertrand played a key role in pushing false allegations of Russian election interference after Donald Trump’s victory in 2016, and in boosting debunked claims by American spies that Russia fabricated damaging information on Biden’s son, Hunter, ahead of the 2020 election.

For more than 115 days Israel has been fighting in Gaza, in a bid to free its 136 hostages and destroy Hamas, the Islamic militant organization responsible for the October 7 massacre that claimed the lives of more than 1,200 Israelis.

So far, over 26,000 Palestinians have died in the relentless Israeli shelling. Thousands more have been injured. Israel is facing strong international pressure to end the war, but officials in Jerusalem are refusing to budge, while a recent poll indicated that 87% of Israeli Jews support the operation and want it to continue.

Yet, there are also those who refuse to follow the majority view. RT spoke to two representatives of the so-called anti-war bloc, which is calling for an end to Israel’s occupation. Gaia Dan is a 23-year-old Jewish student originally from Haifa in northern Israel. Dr. Salim Abbas is an Arab geologist. Both are concerned about the route Israel is taking, and have been resorting to demonstrations to change the reality.

‘There is no justification for the murdering of innocent civilians’

RT: First of all, how did the events of October 7 impact you? What was your reaction?

Abbas: The events of October 7 surprised us all, and especially me, I  did not believe that Palestinian freedom fighters could commit such atrocities and descend to such a disgusting and painful level as the behavior of the occupation army and the fascist settlers. I believed in a just struggle of an entire people living under continuous humiliation, oppression and murder but there is no justification for the murdering of innocent civilians.

On October 7, I was on my way to a Palestinian village in the occupied territories (near Qalqilya), where we were supposed to pick olives with Jewish friends. But the news did not stop pouring in. Even now, with after more than 105 days, the magnitude of the tragedy and the failure – due to which I lost good friends, and some are still kidnapped – have not been determined yet.

’This is pure revenge’

RT: What promoted you to take this path of demonstrating against the war?

Dan: When October 7 happened, I was in no hurry to leave the house with chants of protest. I believed there was still a chance for negotiations. But as time passed, and the bodies in Gaza piled up, I realized that it is not in our culture to negotiate; we only understand the militant language. They slaughtered us so we will slaughter them back. This is pure revenge.

But I’m not ready for them to act on my behalf. I am not ready for them to ignore the big picture of why the events of October 7 took place. I’m not ready for people to be massacred, or settlements inside our outside the Green Line to be erected. Not ready for them to lie that what they are doing is for our security.

Plus, I have an aversion to people who sit on the sidelines and are ready to watch the world burn. I don’t have this privilege.

Abbas: I am a social activist and coordinator of a group of citizens against crime, which brought me to be at the heart of the current storm... I am not used to sitting on the fence as a citizen. What has been happening in recent years, the madness and the destruction caused by the fascist right-wing government hurts me. So as a citizen who has a dream and a vision for a reformed and equal democratic state for all its citizens, I wanted to act. This impulse comes from my parents, who were born in an uprooted village called Maalul (5km west of Nazareth), and I decided to go in the footsteps of my father, pursuing the just struggle that he fought for all his life. I have hope and optimism that it is possible to bring change for the better, that it is possible to build a reformed state that strives to live next to an independent Palestinian state, in peace.

’We can only dream of raising the flag of Palestine’

RT: How freely can you actually protest? We are not seeing these protests that often...

Dan: Even before October 7 it was difficult to demonstrate. It was tough to raise Palestinian flags. We made countless attempts to do so during protests, but it all boiled down to the mood of the police officers. Sometimes our flags were taken away, sometimes we were arrested. Sometimes they were less violent and sometimes more. But we did manage to negotiate and even reach some understandings with the police – for example small Palestinian flags were indeed allowed.

Then came October 7, and now we can only dream of raising the flag of Palestine. Any attempt to demonstrate against the war is brutally dismantled, whether it is in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem or Haifa. Gagging is everywhere. They tell you that the war is justified, that Israel didn’t have a choice. When you try to protest against it, you become a traitor, a bad Jew or an anti-Semite. Your opinions become irrelevant.

Police violence is a big problem for us, simply because people don’t want to leave the house, fearing they will be arrested or beaten up. Another issue is that the police remember you so if you happen to be a prominent activist in Haifa, you end up living with a constant feeling of political persecution. It frightens people, so this intimidation works.

Abbas: It has always been problematic to demonstrate against the occupation and its injustices, but in recent months the situation has worsened in the face of the political persecution of Arab and Jewish activists and the prohibition of demonstrations and protests against the massacre and the extermination of the people of Gaza.

We are facing more and more restrictions through the threats of the police and the Shin Ben [Israel’s internal security agency - ed.]  – something that I have experienced myself. I can say that for the first time I felt fear and despair, something that brought me back to the period of martial law that was imposed on the Arab community within the country [from 1949 till 1966 - ed.], a period which included suppression, arrests and political persecution. Yet, these things only prompt us to go on and swim against the current. They make us strengthen our humane position against a mentality that sanctifies the horrific circle of blood.

’Israel wants its citizens to be violent’

RT: Israel prides itself on its flourishing mass media that provides a platform for all opinions. Would you agree with this? And what do you think of Israel’s education system and the set of values it gives?

Dan: Only two local media outlets gave me the platform to express myself  – Sikha Mekomit and Haaretz. Others don’t invite me. The media is mobilized for the war effort. We are being hidden because they don’t want to show that there are other options. They don’t want to show that people like me exist.

They are talking about the de-Nazification of Gaza but what about de-Nazification here? Listen to how people here are talking, they are calling for mass extermination, and this is exactly what they see in the news.

As for our education system. Israeli society is militant because we are in the mindset that everyone wants to kill us. People grow up on this ideology, in schools they pump you the narrative that everyone is against you so it gives you an existential dread. 

We are a society where the discourse is violent. Your success in life is measured by what you did during your military service, and how combative you were. Israel wants its citizens to be violent. Of course, I can blame the education system and the media for the current mess, but the truth is that they are only tools in the hands of the government.

Abbas: State media tries to ignore the sane voice that fights for peace, equality and social justice for all citizens.

As for education, the problem is that the majority of Israeli society is militant. It comes from an education that is built on a militaristic mentality that raises generations of fighting machines and not normal human beings. This mentality is based on fear and terror while cynically exploiting the issue of the Holocaust and the concentration camps. It can thereby turn the young people into murder and hatred machines for anyone who opposes their spirit.

RT: Do you think the events of October 7 changed things for the worse?

Dan: I think that every incident of terror or violent resistance in which innocent people are involved changes Israeli society for the worse. What happened on October 7 was not an exception. Just like violent acts before, it brought out the demons in 90 percent of Israelis including in those who were initially supportive of peaceful solutions to the conflict, and following the events ditched that path.

Abbas: Such events always succeed in changing Israeli society for the worse because most of the citizens are led as a herd and the establishment media concentrates all its efforts in transmitting disinformation in favor of the government which has failed in the simplest task: to secure its own citizens. Let’s not forget that similar events on a smaller scale – such as Hamas’ suicide attacks from 1996 onwards – led to the radicalization of Israeli public opinion and resulted in the right-wing government and Bibi’s Likud coming to power [reference to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - ed.].

Unfortunately, the victims of Hamas have become the fig leaf of the Israeli occupation. They are now used by the Israeli government to incite the world public opinion and divert it from the daily injustices of the occupation.

’Salvation will not come from the Jews’

RT: Do you think a change is possible? What needs to happen for it to occur?

Dan: I do believe in change but for it to take place, it requires a reset of Israeli society as we know it. It requires us ditching the notion of a Jewish and democratic state because if you define yourself as Jewish, you cannot be democratic towards non-Jews; and it requires a lot of international pressure that will force Israel to reach a compromise.

For me, one thing is certain: salvation will not come from the Jews, the ones who will eventually end the occupation and bring about a revolution will be the Palestinian people themselves. What I can do as a Jew is to spur it on, speed it up and push it in every possible way as I am doing now.

Abbas: I do believe that the situation will change for the better despite the difficulty and madness that rages around us.

The road is still long but what prompts me and my partners in this struggle is the belief that we are fighting for future generations, for the sake of young men and women who deserve a bright and just future.

It seems that many things need to be done for us to reach that goal. First of all, is the establishment of a left wing, Arab-Jewish democratic bloc that will unite all human rights organizations, movements and parties. Then, later on, it will expand and grow stronger until it becomes a true partner in a government coalition. Such a development can also involve a serious ambition from political parties to design a constitution for the country through a referendum that can guarantee full rights and equality for all citizens.

US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that he has decided how to respond to a deadly drone attack on US forces in Jordan. Biden said that he would not seek a “wider war in the Middle East.”

Asked by a reporter whether he had settled on a response to the attack, Biden replied “yes,” without revealing any further details. His answer adds little to an official White House statement put out immediately after the attack, which said that the US “will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing.”

Three US Army soldiers were killed and dozens more injured when an unmanned drone struck an American outpost in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border in the early hours of Sunday morning. After more than 150 such strikes on US forces across Iraq and Syria in recent months, the attack marked the first time that American troops in the Middle East were confirmed killed by enemy fire since the Israel-Hamas war began in October. 

“These groups decide and act based on their own principles and priorities as well as the interests of their country and people,” a ministry spokesman said.

Asked whether he holds “Iran responsible for the deaths of those three Americans,” Biden said on Tuesday that he does, “in the sense that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it.” Pressed on whether he would upgrade this assessment to holding Tehran “directly responsible,” Biden said “we’ll have that discussion.”

Biden’s seemingly cautious response to Sunday’s attack incensed some Republican lawmakers, including South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a longtime proponent of military action against Iran. ““Hit Iran now. Hit them hard,” he posted on X after the attack, claiming that “until [Iran pays] a price with their infrastructure and their personnel, the attacks on US troops will continue.”

Speaking on Tuesday, Biden offered no indication that he would listen to these calls for conflict. “I don’t think we need a wider war in the Middle East,” he said. “That’s not what I’m looking for.”

The director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has admitted that his country no longer enjoys undisputed superiority in global politics.

In an op-ed published by Foreign Affairs magazine on Tuesday, William Burns acknowledged that China’s rising military and economic strength, Russia’s willingness to use military force in Ukraine, and a growing number of regional powers pursuing independent foreign policies have all led to “a world of intense strategic competition in which the United States no longer enjoys uncontested primacy.” 

With American power facing more challenges than at any point since the end of the Cold War, the CIA has increased its recruitment efforts in Russia and opened a new “mission center” focused exclusively on China, Burns revealed.

Much of the article makes a case for continued military aid to Ukraine, arguing – as other Washington officials have – that cutting Kiev off from Western weapons would send a message of “American fecklessness” to China, thus encouraging President Xi Jinping to attack Taiwan.

Burns also claims that discontent within Russia has created a “once-in-a-generation recruiting opportunity for the CIA.” However, while the agency has been attempting to recruit informants via its Telegram and X accounts, Burns did not elaborate on any successes.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted last week that “someone should have told the CIA that VKontakte [a social media network] is much more popular in our country than X,” which was banned in Russian in 2022.

The agency has doubled the proportion of its budget spent on China, hired more Mandarin speakers, and competed for influence with Beijing in Latin America, Africa, and the Indo-Pacific, he said. In 2021, the agency opened “a new mission center focused exclusively on China,” he said, adding that the center is the only one of around a dozen such facilities to focus on a single country.

However, current and former intelligence officials told the Wall Street Journal last year that the CIA has struggled to recruit Chinese sources and informants. While Burns boasted of the CIA’s work in Latin America, officials told the journal that agents working in the region are routinely surveilled by their Chinese counterparts. 

The CIA suffered a devastating blow to its intelligence-gathering abilities in 2010, when Chinese authorities began identifying, arresting, and reportedly executing CIA agents in the country. An investigation by the New York Times put the number of spies killed or imprisoned at 20, while Foreign Policy magazine has claimed that at least 30 agents were executed between 2010 and 2012.

Despite the CIA’s struggles, Burns’ Russian counterpart, Sergey Naryshkin, told the Russian ‘National Defense’ magazine in September that Moscow still considers Washington its “most dangerous and uncompromising geopolitical opponent.” Speaking to Russian media earlier this month, Naryshkin warned that the US is currently attempting to recruit Russian students to build a “fifth column” in Russia ahead of the presidential election in March.

The United States has replaced Russia as the reigning Olympic figure skating champions in the team event, the sport’s governing body said on Tuesday. The announcement comes a day after Russian teenager Kamila Valieva was hit with a four-year ban for a doping violation.

The suspension was issued by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Monday, more than two years after Valieva initially tested positive in a doping case that dominated the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022.

The International Skating Union (ISU) published an amended points table from the team figure skating event at the Olympics on Tuesday, removing the points scored by Valieva. The new tally demotes the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) team from first place to third, with the US moving into the top position and Japan becoming runners-up.

In a statement on Tuesday, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it “welcomes” the clarity provided by the CAS ruling against Valieva. It said that it has “great sympathy” for the athletes who had to wait for more than two years to receive the final results of the team figure skating event.

The IOC added that it will contact the relevant sporting bodies “in order to organize a dignified Olympic medal ceremony.” Valieva’s three teammates will be eligible to receive bronze medals, though she herself will not.

The teenager claimed in her defense that she had accidentally consumed the substance which had been prescribed to her grandfather. However, in its Monday ruling, CAS said that it could find no definitive evidence that the drug, trimetazidine, was not ingested deliberately.

On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested the CAS findings were politically motivated, adding that Russian officials will consider an appeal. “If there are at least some opportunities for challenging [the ruling] and to continue protecting the rights of our athletes, they need to be mobilized,” he said.

The Russian Olympic Committee also on Monday disputed the CAS judgment, questioning the “impartiality and objectivity of this international structure” and said that “a war has been declared to Russian sport.” The ROC also vowed to take “appropriate measures to ensure legal defense of Russia’s interests.”

The world’s richest man has visited one of the world’s darkest places. Elon Musk has gone to Auschwitz – to be precise, to the museum that preserves the memory of the Nazi camp in that location.

A whole complex of camps – which combined mass murder with brutal slave-labor – Auschwitz played a key role in the Holocaust, the genocide of Jews committed by Germany (with some help from others) between 1933 and 1945.

The background of Musk’s visit is simple: Last year, the tech billionaire got himself into serious – and well-deserved – trouble by retweeting and endorsing an anti-Semitic tweet on X, the powerful social media platform (formerly known as Twitter) that he took over in 2022. Since then, he has been on what the New York Times gloatingly calls his “rehabilitation” (as in criminal) and “penitence” (as in sinner) tour. 

He has called his own nasty tweet “literally the worst and dumbest post I’ve ever done.” He has gone to Israel and de facto helped its government in its propaganda effort to “justify” its ongoing genocidal attack on the Palestinians. And now he has visited Auschwitz in an attempt to signal that he understands the gravity of anti-Semitism and what it led to, namely, a genocide. Contradictory? Indeed. We will get back to that.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Let’s not simply assume that Musk is nothing but a deliberate and complete opportunist, doing anything he calculates he has to do in order to mitigate the consequences of his endorsement of an antisemitic message. Let’s instead give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that, like most of us, he is acting out of both base and sincere (not the same as ethically correct!) motives. While (again like most of us) rationalizing away his more sordid motivations and idealizing himself as simply “true to himself” (as he has tweeted).

For Musk could easily have shown a true and genuinely compassionate understanding of what the lessons of the Holocaust are. Imagine the richest man in the world, who also has a lot of cultural (in the wider and more important sense of that word) and political influence, going to Auschwitz and saying one simple and (moderately) courageous thing: “The lesson of the Holocaust is indeed ‘never again’. And that never, actually, means never: never and to no one and by no one. Hence, the best – and, really, the only – way to honor the memory of the victims of the German genocide of the Jews is to now stand with the victims of the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians.” 

But Musk, probably very predictably, did no such thing. Instead, he took along the well-known right-wing talking head Ben Shapiro, who has recently spent much of his usual venom on running interference for Israel’s great crime. Once again, I cannot help but agree with Jackson Hinkel. His conclusion was spot-on: The visit to Auschwitz – a site to remember a horrific genocide in the past – was perversely instrumentalized to make us forget a genocide in our own time.   

How did this happen? And how did Musk end up in such a low farce?

Regarding his initial anti-Semitic tweet, Musk is now pleading ignorance. Or, in his own words, he has come to feel that he used to be “naïve” about the extent of anti-Semitism. That is, on the face of it, a commendably frank admission. It’s shameful for a man of his age (and means) to choose to be so ill-informed for so long. Maybe there’s some merit in being open about it now.

Yet, in reality, his admission also betrays that he is not honest enough to face the root of his own moral failure: If he used to be “naïve” about how much anti-Semitism there is, then he should avoid being (or appearing?) even more naïve now.

But he is. Musk, in his obsessive crusade against “wokeness” sometimes invokes George Orwell, whom – I suspect – he has never read, like most libertarians and other right-wingers who misunderstand that complicated socialist as their guru. Orwell would have kicked Musk’s behind, very hard. Because Musk is right about one thing: He hated lying. Yet, here is Musk lending his considerable influence to three big lies:

The second big lie Musk is now helping to spread is that the opposite of anti-Semitism is relentless support for an Israeli state that is run by a far-right government that systematically and massively abuses millions of Palestinians – including by killing tens of thousands of their civilians – and openly defies basic morality and international law. In reality, the opposite of anti-Semitism is, of course, to resist and reject all forms of murderous stereotyping. Always, everywhere, and against everyone. You never side with the stereotypers and the perpetrators. No, not even those who claim to represent former victims. (And, by the way, it doesn’t matter if you feel “aspirationally Jewish,” as Musk now tells us he does. There are many Jews – real ones, not the “aspirational” type, freshly fine-tuned by Ben Shapiro – who are opposed to Israel’s crimes, too.)

And the third big lie Musk is supporting now is that the memory of the Holocaust is the property of Zionists to do with as they please. And what they want is always the same: Namely, use it to shut down any resistance to their own agenda.

Again, let’s assume that Musk genuinely aspires to be more than a humdrum conformist adjusting to pressure. After all, he prides himself on knowing his own mind, doing his own thing, and pursuing the truth. Let’s take these claims seriously, not because they reflect much reality but because he shares them with many others in the West (even if they are less blunt about their self-adulation). How does such a personality reconcile this flattering self-image with such obvious intellectual inconsistency and moral failure?

By not perceiving the equal humanity of others. There are, for Musk, clearly, always those who matter and those who don’t. Recall, for instance, that the anti-Semitic tweet he endorsed was also a mean, racist complaint about migrants, who were caricatured as nothing but a tool to demographically “attack” “white” societies. Yet Musk is now on his “penitence tour” to show contrition to Jews (as he should, just not the way he does), but not to migrants. See a pattern?

Recall also that one reason Musk has given for his former underestimating of the virulence of anti-Semitism is that so many of his friends are Jews (so that anti-Semitism does not appear much among them, he says). I doubt, Musk has – or cares to make – many Palestinian friends. And the Palestinian victims in Gaza (and elsewhere) simply do not matter enough for him to be worth mentioning in Auschwitz, which is precisely where they must be mentioned, because Auschwitz is not “only” about the Holocaust but about all genocides as well.

The ultimate tragedy (if that is the word) of Elon Musk – and so many like him – is that he is far less special or individualist than he believes. His lazy lack of attention to – and empathy for – those who do not have the power to bother and push him is the sign of a deeply ordinary personality responding to very ordinary stimuli. One day he may realize that “being true to oneself” is a primitive, petty motto worthy only of an immature narcissist. (Shakespeare hinted at that fact by making an idiot say it.) If Musk could learn to, instead, be true to his conscience and to what other humans justly deserve, all other humans – now that would be the beginning of progress. The richest man in the world surely has the means for some genuine self-improvement. The good news: It’s all still ahead of him. Less Netanyahu, more, say, Ali Abunimah and Norman Finkelstein; less Shapiro, much more Kant would be my prescription.

Israeli commandos, some disguised as civilian Palestinian women and medics, conducted a raid on a hospital in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, officials have said. Three people died in the operation, including one accused by Israel of plotting an imminent attack.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli troops had killed three people in the Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin, and called upon the international community to condemn such operations taking place at health facilities.

CCTV footage of the raid circulating on social media, which has not yet been independently verified, appeared to show several undercover troops, including three dressed as women and two disguised as medics, carrying rifles in a hospital corridor. The commandos can be seen searching one man who is kneeling against a wall, before they appear to place a bag over his head.

Israel claimed that the three people killed in the raid were Palestinian militants who had been using the hospital as a hideout. One of the deceased men, identified by the military as Mohammed Jalamneh, had been planning “a raid inspired by the October 7 massacre,” Israeli officials said.

Israeli terror : The Israeli special troop invaded this early morning Ibn Sina (Avisina) hospital in Jenin disguised as Nurses, women, old men and one of as a patient in a wheelchair and executed 3 Palestinians who were getting treatment in the hospital violating humanitarian law pic.twitter.com/sK8HxMGKS3

— Mustafa Barghouti @Mustafa_Barghouti (@MustafaBarghou1) January 30, 2024

On that date last year, Hamas militants staged a cross-border attack into Israel from Gaza, killing about 1,100 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostages. Palestinian health officials say that more than 26,000 people, mainly women and children, have died in Israel’s subsequent bombardment of the besieged coastal enclave.

The violence, which has led to fears of a broader crisis in the Middle East, has also spilled into the West Bank despite Israel concentrating its military response in Gaza.

Hamas said one of those killed in the hospital was a member of the group, while paramilitary faction Islamic Jihad claimed the other two people who died were members of the organization, adding they were brothers.

The Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry described Tuesday’s attack as a “new massacre inside hospitals” by Israel, which itself has claimed that Hamas is using health facilities to hide militants and weapons in underground tunnels. Hamas denies the claims.

“This is another example of the cynical use of civilian areas and hospitals as shelters and human shields by terrorist organizations,” the Israeli military said.

Israel has received criticism from the international community for its raids on hospitals in Gaza, operations which have exacerbated an already buckling healthcare system on the verge of collapse.

Since the initial Hamas attack last year, Israel has killed at least 357 Palestinians in the West Bank territory, according to the United Nations. At least ten Israelis have died in Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets in the West Bank during that same period.

The UK is considering whether to officially recognize a Palestinian state, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has revealed. Such a gesture would create “irreversible progress” toward peace in the Middle East, he believes.

Speaking at a reception for Arab diplomats in London on Monday, Cameron called for a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, and for the Palestinian people to be given “a political horizon” toward a two-state solution.

“We have a responsibility there because we should be starting to set out what a Palestinian state would look like; what it would comprise; how it would work,” he said in remarks reported by multiple British news outlets.

“As that happens, we, with allies, will look at the issue of recognizing a Palestinian state, including at the United Nations. This could be one of the things that helps to make this process irreversible.”

The UK’s official position, set out by Britain’s ambassador to the UN General Assembly in November, is that Britain “will work with our partners towards a two-state solution, based on 1967 lines with Jerusalem as a shared capital.”

The term “1967 lines” refers to Israel’s borders as they stood before the Six-Day War. A return to these lines would see Gaza expand, while Israeli security forces and settlers would withdraw from the West Bank, Golan Heights, and West Jerusalem.

The idea is a non-starter for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long opposed the creation of an independent Palestinian state. “I will not compromise on full Israeli security control over the entire area in the west of Jordan – and this is contrary to a Palestinian state,” he said earlier this month, with “west of Jordan” including both the West Bank and Gaza.

Netanyahu is not alone in opposing such a solution. A Pew Research survey last year found that only 35% of Israelis “believe that Israel and an independent Palestine can coexist peacefully,” down from 50% in 2013.

The Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, backs a two-state deal. Hamas, which governs Gaza, rejects the proposal, demanding a nation that extends “from the river to the sea” – a claim covering all of present-day Israel.

Some 139 of 193 UN member states recognize the State of Palestine. Israel is recognized by 165.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said that the EU still intends to “blackmail” Budapest despite his offer of a compromise deal with Brussels, whereby Ukraine would receive a yearly transfer of economic aid rather than a €50 billion ($54.2 billion) lump sum. 

EU leaders will meet on Thursday to discuss a four-year, €50 billion economic aid package for Ukraine, drawn from the bloc’s collective budget. Orban is the sole EU leader pledging to oppose the package, and the Council of the EU has responded by drawing up plans to sabotage the Hungarian economy, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. 

Speaking to France’s Le Point news magazine on Monday, Orban said Hungary had made a “compromise offer” to the Council. This would see aid to Ukraine parceled out every year after a unanimous vote by member states, without any modifications to the bloc’s budget – which was agreed three years ago and did not include a four year, €50 billion commitment to Kiev.

“Third, who did the counting? Who did the calculation? Why exactly €50 billion? We do not know exactly what this amount corresponds to,” he continued, adding that the bloc should not commit to a four-year aid package of this size when the political situation in the union could be radically altered by this summer’s EU elections.

Orban said he presented this proposal to the Council before the apparent plan to torpedo Hungary’s economy was leaked to the Financial Times. The article, he said, can be interpreted as Brussels’ response to his compromise offer.

According to the newspaper, the Council plans to withhold EU aid to Hungary in order to discourage foreign investment, weaken the Hungarian forint, and drive up unemployment. A “strategy to explicitly seek to undermine a member state’s economy would mark a major new step for the bloc,” the Financial Times noted.

A spokesperson for the Council refused to confirm or deny the existence of the plan, telling the newspaper that it does not comment on leaks. 

“It’s a sort of blackmailer’s manual,” he continued. “It is important for Europeans to understand that member states, if they disagree on issues like war, migration, gender, immediately experience an imperialist reaction from Brussels.”

Hungary has faced similar threats from Brussels before, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen telling lawmakers earlier this month that around €20 billion in funds earmarked for Budapest would remain blocked until Orban liberalizes his conservative policies on migration and LGBTQ issues. 

Should the EU’s 26 other member states refuse to accept his compromise deal, Orban did not say whether he would maintain or abandon his veto on the €50 billion plan. 

Any negotiations between Moscow and Kiev about a peace agreement are “inextricably” linked to the situation on the battlefield, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has stated, insisting that the bloc must send even more military aid to Kiev.

Speaking in Washington at a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Stoltenberg said that aid to Ukraine is “not charity” but is an “investment into our own security.”

He also shared his view that, in order to achieve a lasting peace in Ukraine, the West needs to ramp up its support for Kiev and send it more weapons and ammunition, proclaiming that “weapons to Ukraine is the path to peace.”

The comments come as the future of Western aid to Ukraine looks increasingly uncertain, with many of Kiev’s backers running out of resources to help the country. The Ukrainian leadership is also reportedly losing hope of success against Russia, without Western support.

Stoltenberg also argued that a Ukrainian surrender could not be considered a “just peace,” which, he prescribed, can only be reached by having Russian President Vladimir Putin “realize that he will not get what he wants on the battlefield.”

Blinken nonetheless admitted during their press conference that the lack of foreign military aid to Kiev, especially now that Washington has run out of the military assistance it has been providing to it, has put Ukraine in a tough spot on the battlefield. 

Blinken stressed that it is “vital” that Congress pass the president’s supplemental budget request in order to “ensure that Ukraine knows success and Russia knows strategic failure,” noting that without US assistance, “everything that Ukrainians achieved … will be in jeopardy.”

Moscow, meanwhile, has repeatedly denounced Western military support to Ukraine, stressing that “pumping” the country with more weapons and ammunition has only served to prolong the fighting and cause more bloodshed without affecting the inevitable outcome of the conflict.

A Pakistani court has sentenced former prime minister Imran Khan to ten years behind bars. He has been charged with leaking state secrets, according to the spokesman for the politician’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI).

On Tuesday, Zulfiqar Bukhari said, as quoted by AP, that the verdict was announced at a prison in the northern city of Rawalpindi, not far from the capital, Islamabad. The same sentence was also imposed on former Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

The charges relate to the so-called cipher, a classified cable sent to Islamabad by the Pakistani ambassador to Washington in 2022, shortly after the start of the Ukraine conflict. The document allegedly suggested that the US wanted to remove Khan over his neutrality regarding the hostilities.

The ex-Pakistani PM called the cipher case on Tuesday “false,” adding that it “is being completed in violation of constitutional requirements and legal regulations.” “This is not a trial but a fixed match outcome of which was predetermined,” he added.

Khan, a former professional cricket player who became prime minister in 2018, was ousted in 2022 in a non-confidence vote. The opposition accused him of poor governance, as well as of mismanaging the economy and foreign policy. At the time, he claimed that he had been toppled as a result of a US conspiracy.

The controversy around the politician did not end there, however, with Khan becoming a target of dozens of cases, sparking mass street protests organized by his supporters, which resulted in dozens of casualties.

In August 2023, the politician was sentenced to a three-year jail sentence on charges related to what prosecutors argued was an attempt to conceal receiving state gifts while Khan was serving as PM. The country’s judiciary, however, later suspended the sentence, granting him bail. Khan still remained incarcerated on other charges.

Czech President Petr Pavel has urged European NATO members to prepare for former US President Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House, and subsequent changes to Washington's strategy for the continent. 

If the Republican frontrunner wins the November election, it could mean the conclusion of an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he warned in an interview with radio station Radiozurnal.

“This is nothing about disrupting the transatlantic bond, challenging the United States as an ally. But we should realistically admit that Donald Trump looks at a number of things differently,” Pavel pointed out. If Trump is legitimately elected, it is necessary to respect the decision of American voters, “but we should be prepared for that, because there will certainly be some consequences,” he cautioned.

Reacting to the statement, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said he was worried about the prospect of Trump returning to the White House, branding the claim that he could stop the conflict so easily as “very dangerous.”

Putin has many times stressed that Moscow has never rejected peace talks with Ukraine, whereas Kiev has publicly withdrawn from the negotiation process. In October 2022, Zelensky signed a decree which left the door open to future talks with the Kremlin, but also states that negotiations with the current Russian leader are “impossible.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in December that it doesn't matter who wins the 2024 US presidential election because the political establishment in Washington “sees Russia as an enemy and an existential threat” regardless of party affiliation.

Elon Musk has said his biotech company Neuralink has successfully implanted one of its brain chips in a human for the first time, claiming the recipient is in good condition following the surgery. The firm hopes to create an interface allowing people to control devices using their brain alone.

Musk unveiled the development in a post to his social media site, X (formerly Twitter), on Monday evening, stating that the “first human received an implant from Neuralink yesterday and is recovering well.”

Though he offered few other details, the tech mogul added that initial results had shown “promising neuron spike detection,” referring to brain cells which send chemical and electrical signals to the rest of the body.

The company said it would use its R1 Robot to surgically implant the chip in a region of the brain that controls motor function, noting that it is intended to “record and transmit brain signals wirelessly to an app that decodes movement intention.”

The trial was granted approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last May, overcoming allegations that earlier tests resulted in “animal-welfare violations.” According to more than 20 current and former Neuralink employees, as well as dozens of internal company documents obtained by Reuters, Musk had pushed Neuralink researchers to “accelerate development,” in some cases resulting in “botched experiments.”

Musk has voiced hopes the brain implant could also allow the blind to regain their sight, among other medical miracles. While the results of the first in-human trial have yet to be seen, the billionaire has demonstrated the brain chip on more than one occasion, including an April 2021 presentation in which a macaque monkey purportedly played a video game using its mind alone.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said that despite the West’s best efforts to help Ukraine and “weaken” Russia, sanctions have largely failed to achieve their goals, and more cooperation is needed from Central Asian states to isolate Moscow.

The Ukrainian conflict has been “a stark reminder of the critical importance of jointly defending the core principles of the United Nations,” Borrell told the Global Gateway Investors Forum for the European Union-Central Asia Transport Connectivity in Brussels on Monday.

“You know that in order to defend these principles, the European Union has imposed substantial sanctions against Russia, which have significantly weakened its war machine. But still, they are there, and the war continues. And if I can say it, the intensity of the fighting increases and we do not see the light at the end of the tunnel,” the EU’s top diplomat acknowledged.

According to President Vladimir Putin, the Russian economy is in good shape, rapidly expanding, and has even benefitted from Western sanctions, which have forced it to focus more on manufacturing than energy exports.

The sanctions on Russian oil introduced by the G7 and EU late last year were conceived as a means to curtail Moscow’s energy revenues. In reality, however, they have had a boomerang effect, according to a recent study.

Kiev also repeatedly expressed concerns that Moscow is not being isolated as promised by the West, as China and multiple Global South nations have refused to toe the line set by the West, instead maintaining a neutral position.

Ukraine is also “working hard” to secure Western funding for the country in 2024, according to Prime Minister Denis Shmygal. The US has provided Kiev with around $111 billion in economic and military support to date, but the flow of funds has subsided dramatically as the White House struggles to push through another $60 billion in assistance. The EU has also so far failed to reach an agreement to funnel €50 billion ($54 billion) from the bloc’s budget to Ukraine.

Several aid workers with the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA helped kidnap Israelis and arm Hamas during its attack on October 7, the New York Times claimed on Sunday citing the contents of a secret Israeli government report.

The dossier allegedly details Israel’s claims about 12 UNRWA employees said to have been involved in the raid. Seven were teachers with the agency and two more worked at its schools in other capacities, while the other three were a clerk, social worker, and storeroom manager. Ten of the workers were also allegedly members of Hamas, whose civilian wing remains the legally elected government of Gaza despite its classification as a terrorist group by Israel, while another was said to be affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

A school counselor from Khan Younis supposedly worked with his son to kidnap an Israeli woman, while a social worker from Nuseirat reportedly removed a dead Israeli soldier’s body back to Gaza and helped distribute vehicles and ammunition ahead of the raid. Another three men allegedly received text messages summoning them to meeting points on October 7, with one ordered to bring rocket-propelled grenades.

Because UNRWA lacks any emergency cash reserves, it may have to curtail the vital services it provides to some 5 million Palestinians starting in February. The funding cutoff comes at a precarious time for Gaza’s residents, many of whom already face hunger and starvation. Over 85% of them have been displaced from their homes since the war began, according to the UN.

Israel’s accusations came just days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take action to prevent genocide in Gaza, including by allowing more aid deliveries to reach the territory’s besieged residents. While the ruling indicated the court found South Africa’s genocide case against Israel to have some merit, it stopped short of issuing an immediate demand for a ceasefire.

However, Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Saturday called for UNRWA to be “replaced with agencies dedicated to genuine peace and development,” demanding the resignation of its director, and Israel has previously claimed the agency is a Hamas front.

The UN launched a probe into the allegations, and immediately terminated staff members suspected of terrorist activity, but Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on Western nations not to penalize all relief workers indiscriminately.

The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine is the result of a series of mistakes made by the US and its NATO allies, former Czech President Vaclav Klaus told the World Economic Forum in Davos in a speech published on Friday.

The West’s blatant disregard for the geopolitical context led to this “tragic historic event” that “could and should have been avoided,” Klaus, who led the Czech Republic between 2003 and 2013, said.

“This war started on 4 April 2008,” Klaus argued, referring to a NATO summit in Bucharest, where members of the US-led bloc decided to support Ukraine and Georgia’s “aspirations for membership,” saying both nations “will become members of NATO” at some point in the future.

Recalling the event at which he was present, Klaus called it “a tragic mistake.” He said he had personally opposed the decision and “tried to argue against it,” but it was “pushed through by the US and the UK.”

The West remained oblivious to the nature of Ukrainian statehood, Klaus argued, calling the country an example of an “unsuccessful and unfinished transition from communism to parliamentary democracy and market economy.”

Ukraine, he said, was not “a consolidated country” as it had major differences in ethnic composition and political preferences between its northwest and southeast. The country had already been in a state of “civil war” since 2014, long before the current escalation, Klaus said.

Following the US-backed coup in 2014, the then-Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, known as Donbass, refused to accept the new government, which increasingly embraced nationalist ideology. The regions proclaimed their independence and Kiev responded with a military campaign that led to a years-long conflict.

Klaus also argued that Moscow had not intended to occupy Ukraine when it launched its military operation in February 2022, but merely sought to prevent it from joining NATO. Russian President Vladimir Putin also recently pointed to NATO’s 2008 decision as making conflict inevitable, having “drastically changed the situation in Eastern Europe.” Moscow has repeatedly said that preventing Ukraine’s accession to NATO is one of the key reasons for its military campaign.

It is now clear that “all sides in the conflict have miscalculated,” Klaus said, adding that the frontlines remain “frozen” and no end to the conflict is in sight. He called on the West to change its approach and engage in meaningful dialogue with Moscow.

“My modest advice is to start negotiating,” Klaus concluded.

Last week, on January 26th, Australians celebrated Australia Day – the country’s national day, akin to July 4th in America or Bastille Day in France.

Australians are not as overtly patriotic as the Americans or the French, and usually celebrate the public holiday by having a barbeque, going to the beach, or having a few beers with family and friends.

Australia Day this year, however, witnessed displays of political extremism from both ends of the political spectrum – a disturbing trend in a nation that has remained relatively immune from the political instability that has plagued other Western democracies in recent years.

Thousands of people calling for the abolition of Australia Day – recently rebranded as “Invasion Day” by the woke elites that rule Australia – flocked to protest rallies in state capitals throughout the country. And in Sydney, Australia’s largest city, police forcefully prevented dozens of black clad, balaclava wearing neo-Nazis from confronting the protestors. 

How has the traditionally apolitical celebration of Australia’s national day come to this?

The short answer is that irrational elite politics in Australia is now generating an even more irrational right-wing extremist backlash that neither side, nor the government, seems capable of controlling.

Traditionally Aboriginal politics was focused on repealing racist laws, ending discrimination, obtaining land rights, and remedying Aboriginal disadvantage and poverty – particularly in remote communities.

Over the past fifty years Aboriginal political leaders have achieved substantial reforms – explicitly racist laws have been abolished, formal discrimination ended, and land rights have been recognised in all states and nationally. Sadly, the problem of Aboriginal disadvantage and poverty in remote communities has grown worse.

Unfortunately, in recent years a new generation of Aboriginal political leaders, in conjunction with a few leaders of the previous generation, have been seduced by Australia’s elites and have adopted wholesale their irrational mode of politics.

As a result, the Aboriginal political elite has split into two bitterly opposed groups – one still focused on ending Aboriginal disadvantage and poverty in remote communities; the other irretrievably woke in its orientation. 

The latter group is not interested in conditions in remote communities – and focuses its energies on virtue-signalling issues such as unattainable claims of sovereignty, creating the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, rewriting history, destroying statues and, last but not least, calling for the abolition of Australia Day.

The demand to abolish Australia Day derives from the crudely simplistic view – embraced enthusiastically by guilt-ridden white elites and their ignorant millennial and Gen Z children – that Australian history is nothing more than a continuing genocidal war conducted by white colonial oppressors against the Aboriginal people.  And if Australian history is nothing more than a protracted exercise in genocide, it follows that Australia’s national day should be abolished.

Those Aboriginal political leaders who have thrown their lot in with the elites now regularly espouse this mantra as a matter of blind faith, as do influential media organisations like ABC and Channel 9.

Those Aboriginal political leaders who are aware of the complex and tragic history of black-white interaction in Australia – and realise that confected elite self-hatred and virtue signalling will do nothing to eliminate Aboriginal disadvantage and poverty – take a contrary view. These leaders also realise that the woke elite takeover of Aboriginal politics is not only extremely damaging and hypocritical, but also insincere.

Albanese promised to establish the Voice – a constitutionally enshrined Aboriginal advisory body to the federal parliament – the night he won the federal election in May 2022.

Albanese did this at the behest of the group of Aboriginal leaders that had allied with Australia’s elites  – as had Albanese and the Labor party years before. The Voice was their idea, and it was opposed by other Aboriginal political leaders.

The Voice was a classic elite project – it was divisive, expensive and would have achieved little. But it would have established dozens of well-paid sinecures for members of the Aboriginal elite who invented it, and, not surprisingly, it was was enthusiastically supported by large corporations, universities, public service organisations, the Labor party, and media organisations. 

Albanese’s campaign in favour of the Voice never explained how it would achieve anything worthwhile. Albanese cried crocodile tears while giving endless emotional speeches; pro-Voice Aboriginal leaders told white Australians they were genocidal murderers; and anyone who dared oppose the Voice was immediately branded a “racist”. 

Not surprisingly, late last year over 60% of the Australian electorate voted against the Voice.

Albanese responded to this political debacle by saying that he was not responsible for the failure because he was was not Aboriginal, and that anyway Aboriginals were used to disappointments. It is clear that Albanese’s brief and disastrous flirtation with Aboriginal politics has now ended. 

Those Aboriginal leaders who campaigned against the Voice were probably not surprised by Albanese’s response – but they are aware that the divisive campaign waged by Albanese and his woke mates has damaged the Aboriginal cause by alienating many white Australians who were sympathetic to legitimate Aboriginal demands. 

Those Aboriginal leaders who supported Albanese’s divisive Voice campaign have apparently learnt nothing from its failure, and it is they who are now doubling down in their misguided commitment to white elite politics by supporting protests in favour of the abolition of Australia Day. 

How did all of this this play out on Australia Day last week?

In Melbourne a statue of the eighteenth century explorer Captain Cook – who took possession of Australia for Britain in 1770 and engaged in the first act of reconciliation with Aboriginals – was vandalised and desecrated earlier in the week. And the media conducted extensive campaigns criticising Australia Day and calling for its immediate abolition.

No wonder that thousands of protestors – urged on by elite political leaders both black and white – attended marches demanding the abolition of Australia Day.

Nor should the fact that a group of neo-Nazis sought to confront these protestors in Sydney come as any surprise. For some years such groups have been active in disrupting political demonstrations in Victoria – by far the most woke of all states in Australia.

Media organisations like ABC and Channel 9 have given these groups a disproportionate measure of publicity in recent years. So too have Labor governments by passing repressive so called “hate speech” laws together with laws banning Nazi insignia and the Nazi salute. This week the Labor Premier of New South Wales announced plans to “name and shame” neo-Nazis – thereby ensuring more publicity and advancing their cause even further.

The demonstrators on Australia Day and the neo-Nazis that tried to confront them are different sides of the same irrational political coin.

It should not surprise anyone that calling all white Australians genocidal killers and racists should engender a political movement whose stated aim is to defend white Australia.

As politics grows more irrational in Australia, it appears that political extremism will only intensify in the future.

US President Joe Biden has deployed overseas his CIA Director William Burns, who served as secretary of state and deputy secretary of state under President Barack Obama, to try and broker a deal between Israel and Hamas.

Details of what exactly Burns discussed with high-level diplomatic and intelligence officials from Egypt, Qatar, and Israel are unknown at this time. It is reported, however, that Israel’s latest proposal would see a 60-day pause in combat in return for the staggered release of more than 100 captives still held by Hamas, with women and children first, then civilian men, military members, and the remains of hostages who died in captivity.

While, indeed, the CIA chief’s met with peers from the intelligence community, his attendance displays something that reflects poorly on the state of US diplomacy, and implies a lack of savoir faire at the State Department.

It should be noted that the US government has many different offices, bureaus, and departments that compete against one another for funding and clout. For decades, the CIA and the State Department had tried to stay apart. It has been noted, for example, by CIA founding member Miles Copeland Jr. that the State Department was originally averse to some of its covert activities, such as agents using diplomatic credentials as cover. During the Cold War, Copeland said, the State Department not only refused to take part in CIA activities but did not even want to be informed about them, as in the case of the coup d’etat in Syria in the 1960s.

During the administration of former President Donald Trump, he promoted Mike Pompeo from CIA director to Secretary of State. The Trump administration’s foreign policy style thus shifted to a much more aggressive and subversive approach, emulating how the CIA conducts its business. This was particularly aimed at undermining the resurgence of China, as well as ratcheting up tensions with Russia.

In contrast, President Joe Biden enlisted William Burns, a long-time diplomat, as his CIA director. According to Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, this pick was because of Burns’ reliability, experience, and honesty – traits becoming of a diplomat. Biden apparently did not want someone who’d gained their professional experience from the CIA to head the spy agency, probably because such people are prone to what Pompeo described as lying, cheating, and stealing.

The fact that the director of the CIA is getting so intimately involved in negotiations between Israel and Hamas, having already been a part of the November agreement that led to the release of Palestinian and Israeli hostages and to a week-long ceasefire, may perhaps be worrying. It could be interpreted that the US is not actually interested in real diplomacy but rather in trying to threaten Hamas leaders into surrendering on behalf of West Jerusalem.

As Burns has been managing negotiations between Israel and Hamas, Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up a West Africa trip that analysts believe was an attempt by Washington to shore up transatlantic trade in light of instability in the Middle East. He also stuck to the same tired script with regard to China, invoking ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ and unfair labor and trade practices. Meanwhile, protesters sat outside Blinken’s Arlington, Virginia home demanding a ceasefire in Gaza – apparently unaware that he’s not even the one leading diplomatic efforts currently.

A lack of leadership on behalf of Blinken at this defining moment in the conflict in Gaza, as American soldiers die in the Middle East and international trade is threatened by Houthi attacks on ships that use the Suez Canal, is apparent. The fact that the CIA has had to step in at this juncture demonstrates the sorry state of US diplomacy, underscoring the gradual but inevitable decline of American soft power.