The exiled spiritual leader of Tibet has confirmed that he will have a successor when he dies, reassuring Buddhist followers around the globe that the 600-year-old institution of the Dalai Lama will continue.

It is a landmark decision for Tibetans, many of whom had feared a future without a leader.

Supporters around the world who see the Dalai Lama as a symbol of non-violence, compassion and the enduring struggle for Tibetan cultural identity under Chinese rule will also be relieved at the decision.

Germany will send navy ships to patrol Arctic waters in response to Russia’s growing military presence in the region, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced on Monday. Russia has insisted that it is mirroring NATO moves in the far north to maintain balance.

Earlier this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized that Moscow is  implementing an appropriate response strategy to potential encroachments on the country’s sovereignty across Russia’s 24,000km Arctic coastline.

At a joint press conference in Copenhangen with his Danish counterpart, Troels Lund Poulsen, Pistorius delcared [sic] “as early as this year, Germany will show its presence in the North Atlantic and the Arctic.”

The US decision to suspend its supply of weapons to Ukraine could make Kiev’s situation dire in less than two months, the German tabloid Bild has reported, citing military experts. Without America’s support, the Ukrainian military would struggle to fight Russia in several major fields, the outlet stated.

Washington’s envoy to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, confirmed to Fox News on Wednesday that the decision to halt arms shipments was made as part of the “America first” policy. He also said that the US needs to focus on maintaining its own “strategic defense capabilities” and particularly make sure that “we have enough Patriot missiles.”

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte mentioning Jesus Christ when talking about Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov means that Moscow’s top diplomat is doing good job, ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

She was referring to a brief interview Rutte gave Fox News on Wednesday. The NATO chief sought to diminish the role of the Russian foreign minister by claiming that he “has been foreign minister of Russia … since the birth of Jesus Christ. And since then, nothing… useful came out of his month.”

“Not for nothing has Sergey Lavrov been working for so many years since he has made the NATO Secretary General remember Jesus Christ,” Zakharova quipped in response in a Telegram statement.

A veteran diplomat, Lavrov has headed the Russian Foreign Ministry for more than 20 years, since 2004.

Medical sources told Al Jazeera on Monday that Israeli attacks killed at least 95 Palestinians in Gaza throughout the day as Israeli forces bombed a seaside cafe and gunned down more desperate people who were seeking aid.

US President Donald Trump has said that he might entertain the idea of deporting Elon Musk and could consider getting the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to look into the billionaire’s government contracts.

The president’s comments come amid a very public falling out between him and Musk, who was until recently one of Trump’s staunchest supporters. Last month, Musk stepped down as the head of DOGE after heavily criticizing Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill, which includes a $5 trillion debt ceiling increase.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Trump was asked if he would look at deporting Elon Musk – a naturalized US citizen – to his native South Africa, to which the president replied: “I don’t know, we’ll have to take a look.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has spoken with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron by telephone, the Kremlin press service said on Tuesday. It is the first phone contact between the leaders since September 2022. 

The conversation revolved around the situation in the Middle East, as well as the Ukraine conflict.

During the call, Putin told Macron that the Ukraine conflict was “a direct consequence of the policies pursued by Western states, which for many years ignored Russia’s security interests,” and had established an “anti-Russian bridgehead” in the country, the press service stated.

The Russian leader reiterated Moscow’s approach to any settlement, stating that it must “be comprehensive and long-term, address the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis and be based on new territorial realities.”

Germany’s new chancellor Friedrich Merz has plunged the country into a deep political and geopolitical crisis, driven by aggressive pro-war rhetoric and a failing foreign policy agenda centered on Ukraine.

One way to get a robust, comparative fix on how obscene American global preaching about human rights has become is (borrowing a vivid image from Caitlin Johnstone) to imagine what the world might think about a scorching lecture from a Taliban leader on the Western oppression of women and women’s rights.

Richard Cullen

What America does

Lugansk People’s Republic liberated: How it happened
Russian troops have gained control over all areas of the region, ending Kiev’s occupation

Russian forces have taken complete control of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) after over a decade of hostilities in the contested region. The announcement was made Monday by the local governor, Leonid Pasechnik, who confirmed that all remaining settlements occupied by Ukrainian troops had been liberated.

Uprising and declaration of independence

A Melbourne company is recruiting Australians to work on a mysterious Israeli and American-backed aid project in Gaza. Could it be the infamous Gaza Humanitarian Foundation? Yaakov Aharon reports.

An ad posted by Claymore Personnel – named after an anti-personnel landmine – promises that successful candidates will “be looked after.”

Workers will have accommodation expenses in Israel covered, operate in American-led teams, and receive payment in US dollars. 

    by Yaakov Aharon

The implications of Iran’s nuclear program are not what we think. Tehran renounced the atomic bomb in 1988, but is attempting, with Russia’s cooperation, to discover the secrets of nuclear fusion. If it succeeds, it would help the Southern states decolonize by freeing themselves from oil.
As for the implications of the bombing of certain Iranian nuclear sites by the United States, they may also not be what we think.
This affair is all the more opaque because it is not possible today to establish a clear distinction between research on civilian nuclear fusion and military fusion.

Methinks that Allan Patience is naive and over-optimistic… He gives the game away when he writes:

“He is an Australian version of America’s Pete Buttigieg”. Oh boy! Pete Buttigieg was as efficient a Transport Supremo as a dead toad can be used for a road-block. We had high hopes about Pete, but we soon discovered he could not run an outback dunny tipping plate, as customers went for the bushes.

Having been a student of history, not as being told by Professors and historians, but as an observer of street gangs and spaces between the lines, Gus can assure Allan that had the unfortunate Cancun meteorite incident not happened, there is 75 per cent chance the dinosaurs would have evolved into smart beasts and humans would still be rats living in fear of being trodded on (we are but this is beside the point as we breed like rabbits).

From the outset, Moscow condemned Israel's aggression against Iran in sharp terms. The Russian Foreign Ministry’s first official statement left no ambiguity in assigning blame to Tel Aviv.

Israel is doing a damn fine imitation of Lt. Frank Drebin, a character played by Leslie Nielsen in the 1988 comedy film The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! In an iconic scene, Lt. Drebin stands in front of a fireworks explosion and chaos while trying to calm the crowd by saying:

“Nothing to see here, please disperse! Nothing to see here!”

Update on Iran’s Targeting of Israel’s Defense Industry
by Larry C. Johnson