The North Atlantic Treaty Organization had its 15 minutes (plus a little more) of fame four decades ago. During the 1950s the U.S. offered a supposedly temporary military shield behind which the continent’s western war-ravaged states could recover economically. Although hindsight suggests that Moscow was unlikely to launch a war of conquest, no one wanted to trust the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin.

NATO Goes Mad
Do European and American policymakers want a real war with Russia?

Doug Bandow

Top Hamas official announces end to Gaza war
The organization has received “guarantees” from the US that the hostilities will not continue, Khalil al-Hayya has said

The Gaza war is over, a senior Hamas official, Khalil al-Hayya, has said, adding that the peace plan put forth by US President Donald Trump would mark the start of a “permanent ceasefire.”

The militant group received some “guarantees” from Washington and other mediators that the hostilities would not continue, he told Gaza residents in a televised address on Thursday.

https://www.rt.com/news/626156-hamas-leader-end-gaza-war/

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto on Wednesday accused Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk of “defending terrorists,” over comments about the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. 

Tusk had claimed the day before in a post on X that “the problem with North Stream 2 is not that it was blown up. The problem is that it was built.”

The Nord Stream pipelines, which carried Russian natural gas to Germany along the Baltic Sea floor, were blown up soon after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. 

Szijjarto condemned the Polish prime ministers post in a reply, asking what else the Polish prime minister could find “forgivable or even praiseworthy.”

“According to Donald Tusk, blowing up a gas pipeline is acceptable,” he wrote. 

US President Donald Trump is pressuring the Norwegian government and the Nobel Committee in an unprecedented push for the Nobel Peace Prize, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. Experts reportedly remain skeptical that the campaign will succeed, however. 

Trump has pointed to his recent Middle East peace plan as evidence that he deserves the award, claiming it marks the eighth conflict he has helped resolve since taking office in January. The US president has claimed he ended disputes involving Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, Congo and Rwanda, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as Pakistan and India.

Senior officials in Poland and the Baltic states have blasted former German Chancellor Angela Merkel after she claimed they derailed potential EU-Russia talks on Ukraine months before the escalation of the conflict in 2022.

As chancellor, Merkel spearheaded the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements, which aimed to resolve the hostilities in Donbass by giving the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. However, Russia accused Ukraine of failing to implement the agreement and ultimately sent troops into the neighboring country to protect the people of Donbass.

Uproar in EU after Merkel’s claim of Ukraine talks ‘sabotage’
Leaders in Poland and the Baltic states are fuming after the ex-German chancellor suggested they derailed 2021 negotiations with Russia

Argentina is on the brink of bankruptcy. Because that’s the name for where you are when you desperately need a promise of a bailout to buy time, while you may still need the full bailout later, as both the Financial Times and The Economist admit.

This president took a chainsaw to his BRICS prospects, and look where it got his country
Javier Milei has led Argentine to ruin by utterly subjugating it to the US

BY Tarik Cyril Amar

Any EU move to use frozen Russian state assets to support Ukraine must comply with international law, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said on Monday, adding that the institution was following the process closely.

The comment comes as EU nations’ leaders are discussing a plan to provide Kiev with a €140 billion ($164 billion) loan backed by Russia’s immobilized central bank assets.

ECB boss warns EU against seizing Russian assets
The European Commission has proposed using the frozen funds to guarantee loans to Kiev

The scheme, designed to avoid the legal hurdle of outright confiscation, would invest the blocked Russian funds into EU-backed bonds. The proceeds would then be used to pay off a “reparations loan” to Ukraine.

Rising inequality and declining living standards have posed a threat to democracy in several democracies, but so far not in Australia. However, the increasing inequality of wealth, driven by housing becoming unaffordable without rich parents, is a threat.

Michael Keating

The requirements for democracy

President Donald Trump has hinted that US forces could soon move from sea to land operations in Venezuela, expanding what he called “a war on terrorist drug cartels.”
Speaking at a Navy anniversary ceremony in Norfolk, Virginia, Trump said American forces had struck another vessel off Venezuela’s coast allegedly carrying narcotics.

“In recent weeks, the Navy has supported our mission to blow the cartel terrorists the hell out of the water ... we did another one last night. Now we just can’t find any,” he said.

“They’re not coming in by sea anymore, so now we’ll have to start looking about the land because they’ll be forced to go by land.”

Britain is “furious” over its failure to bring about the “strategic defeat” of Russia and is preparing a new “provocation” in response to battlefield gains in the Ukraine conflict, Moscow's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has warned.

In a statement on Monday, the SVR claimed that UK secret services have resorted to preparing a group of Russian nationals who fight for Ukraine to sabotage a Ukrainian navy ship or a foreign civilian vessel in a European port, after which London would accuse Moscow of orchestrating the attack.

The service also claimed that the group would leave behind them Chinese-made underwater equipment, which would later be presented as “proof” of Beijing’s support for Russia.

The Israeli authorities have confirmed deporting activist Greta Thunberg. She and hundreds of others were detained last week after attempting to reach Gaza aboard an aid flotilla.

Thunberg was a part of a group of over 170 activists deported to Greece and Slovakia on Monday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a post on X. It also published a photo of her and two other women at the Ben Gurion airport.

The group included citizens of a total of 19 nations, including the US, the UK, Germany, and France, among others, according to the ministry.

The US President Donald Trump has said he had already made a decision on supplying long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. He however refused to reveal what the exact decision is.

“I’ve sort of made a decision on that. I would have to ask the question where are they sending them,” he told journalists at the White House on Monday.

“I’m not looking to see escalation,”Trump stressed.

Last month, US Vice President J.D. Vance revealed that the White House was considering supplying Kiev with the rockets, which cost an estimated $1.3 million each and have a range of 2,500km (1,550 miles), meaning that they could potentially reach Moscow and far beyond.

Sometimes when you order champagne, what you receive is kvass.

To wit, not long ago Yours Truly was called into Headquarters of Central Office to be given the riot act.

"Somerset! You've been gone weeks! Where're you hiding!?! Meanwise, all this mail of yours keeps piling up and polluting the News Bureau. If it's not too much trouble, reply to your adoring masses?”

Naturally, I implore The Boss, "Agreed! This is EXACTLY why I would appreciate your approval for that sweet little studio apartment on Malaya Morskaya where I can store all my Fan Mail…just sign here…”.

Yet the Slav is not so easy to dissuade…”What!?! No, no, no and again no…as in, we KNOW the reason you want a "sweet little apartment' in St. P paid by Pravda and it has nothing to do with males! Denied!”

So, I mournfully drag myself back to the "ol teak and begin sifting across my various lot of Lonelyhearts…

(NOTE: Some missives have been edited for vanity.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMCuSHGecyA

Roger Waters joins the show to talk about Gaza, the UN, free speech & what he wants the president of Colombia to do. Plus, he reacts to the latest crackdowns on speech, the war in Ukraine, & why some musicians are such cowards when it comes to Israel.

For the full discussion, please join us on Patreon at - / patreon-full-140151702

00:00 What the hell is up with Regina Spektor?
02:13 What the hell is up with Bono??
03:08 What the hell is up with Nick Cave???
05:22 What the hell is up with non-Jews being pro-Israel????
08:46 What the hell is up with U2?????
09:53 What the hell is up with Thom Yorke of Radiohead’s email address??????
11:03 What the hell is up with Gwenyth Paltrow and Chris Martin???????