MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Countries across Asia, Africa and the Middle East are increasing imports of Russian food products amid uncertainty surrounding the Strait of Hormuz and concerns over the approaching El Nino climate phenomenon, Russia’s state-owned Rosselkhozbank (RSHB) told Sputnik on Sunday.

El Nino is a characterized by unusually warm sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The resulting temperature shifts can trigger major weather disruptions worldwide, causing droughts in some regions and flooding in others.

Remember Taurusgate? When several German officers, including its former air force head, were caught making insane and childish plans for plastering Russia with German missiles but from Ukraine? That and the amateurish manner in which these grand strategists in prankster mode let themselves be caught were daft as well as sadly comical. But lessons have not been learned, even if the German Air Force is now under new management.

Germany is itching to get revenge on Russia for 1945

Germany’s top brass is proclaiming its readiness to “fight tonight,” seemingly eager to rush toward total annihilation

“I couldn’t be part of a Writers Festival accepting this dirty money from the Club.” Former ambassador Gregory Andrews resigns from Canberra Writers’ Festival over National Press Club links.

Last week I resigned as Deputy Chair of the Canberra Writers Festival because I could no longer reconcile my governance responsibilities with the Festival’s funding and other links with the National Press Club.

Australia’s most powerful media club has a legitimacy problem

by Gregory Andrews

The buffoons who orchestrate fascism, with its quack science, idiocy, penchant for violence and grotesque hypermasculinity, are ripe for satire. It is easy, as late-night comics do — and as the cabarets did for the Nazis in Berlin — to pillory the goons, misfits and mediocrities who hold power and spew fascist bile. But this form of satire blinds opponents to its destructive power and murderous core.

The retreat into satirical attacks on Trump and his supporters fuels the solidification of fascism.

Chris Hedges

"We are being taken for bloody fools."

If there's one sentence that sums up Pauline Hanson's attitude to Australia's place in the world, this probably is it. 

With One Nation running red hot in the polls and posing a serious challenge to the incumbent parties, there's more and more scrutiny on what its policies would mean for Australia. 

Russian officials have welcomed Warsaw’s decision to strip Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state honor. The decision came after Kiev named a military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a nationalist force implicated in massacres of Poles and Jews during World War II.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki announced the move on Friday, saying Kiev had crossed a red line. He argued that “historical truth is not and can never be a bargaining chip” and that remembering the victims was “the moral duty of the Polish state.” 

On June 11 and 12, I participated in the 2026 Global Human Rights Governance Forum in Beijing, alongside nearly 300 participants from 91 countries, including government officials, academics, experts, and a large number of Chinese leaders. I [Jean-Pierre PAGE] delivered the following address.

Droit au développement, droits de l’homme les réponses du socialisme aux caractéristiques chinoises.

Right to development, human rights: socialism's responses to Chinese characteristics.

BY Jean-Pierre PAGE

I would like to begin by quoting President Xi Jinping at the 2024 G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro: "Escaping poverty is not an end in itself, but the starting point of a new life, a new quest!"

The pro-establishment, Brussels-based publication Politico Europe, owned by Germany’s Axel Springer SE, has refused to publish an exclusive article written by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Lavrov’s article was initially slated for publication in the Brussels-based Politico Europe, but due to a “last-minute decision by the outlet’s editorial team,” the publication was canceled, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

A letter from afar by A. Lincoln

As received by David North

The following letter, signed “A. Lincoln” but without a return address or subject line, appeared in my email this morning. No sooner had I made a copy of the letter than it disappeared from my inbox. Despite its strange and unexplained origin, the signature demands that attention be given to the letter; and, for this reason, it is being made available to readers of the WSWS.

***

China has an important role to play in ensuring that artificial intelligence serves humanity rather than replacing it, RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan has said.

She made the remarks during a lengthy interview with Zhang Weiwei, a professor of international relations at Fudan University who hosts ‘China Now’ on Shanghai’s Dragon TV, which aired on Wednesday.

RT’s editor-in-chief expressed concern that rapidly developing artificial intelligence “is already changing people, and I fear that it will change and then replace humanity” at some point in the future.

One Nation says leader Pauline Hanson’s safety was compromised when activist group GetUp was able to unfurl a stunt banner behind her as she delivered her first-ever speech at the National Press Club in Canberra.

Hanson pushed on to outline plans to clamp down on Muslim migration, end multiculturalism and axe the climate change department.

Speaking after Wednesday’s event, Hanson’s chief of staff, James Ashby, said, “there are safety concerns around Pauline’s security”. He demanded the club impose a lifetime ban on the activist group, including the organisation’s media and campaigns lead, David Sharaz.

The club issued an apology to Hanson and said neither its staff nor its contractors had any involvement in the incident and that it was the work of third parties. Footage has been handed to the Australian Federal Police.

..Iran says an end to Israel’s hostilities in Lebanon is inseparable from the deal. But the Israelis are saying “our forces will remain in the country indefinitely.” Where is all this going to lead? Let’s welcome back to the program a friend of ours, the academic author and broadcaster, and long-time contributor to Iran’s Press TV, and he has traveled extensively in Iran, it’s always a pleasure to welcome back to the show our old pal Kevin Barrett. Kevin, how are you?

Richie Allen Interview: Iran Deal, Israel, Jewish Victimization, and Why the UK May Throw Me In Prison

Can I read aloud "Why I Support Hamas" at Hyde Park Speaker's Corner?

KEVIN BARRETT

Let’s give Donald Trump credit for one thing… He kept his word and lifted the US blockade on Iranian ships and Iran is going to town with its oil tankers moving in and out of the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz. The picture above shows ships — marked red and green — moving as of 22:55 hours Eastern time on 15 June 2026. 

The Straight of Hormuz is Open for Iranian Business… Oil is Moving and Iran is Getting Paid

by Larry C. Johnson

This does not mean that the MOU with Iran, which is supposed to be signed in Geneva on Friday, will hold, but it is a step in the direction of de-escalation. So the question we ought to ask is why did Donald Trump blink and accept the proposal that Iran proffered way back in April?

During a press conference at the G7 meeting in France US President Donald Trump criticized Israel’s way of waging war against Hizbullah.

Video via FOXnews.

Partial transcript:

I tell you what – Israel is fighting Hizbullah too long and too many people are being killed. And you don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you are looking for somebody. Because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses and not all are Hizbullah. That I can tell you.