Signs of the ongoing US government shutdown causing difficulties or uncertainties for US soldiers appeared, and then were swiftly removed after drawing attention, on the US Army Garrison Bavaria website this week. 

The US Army Garrison Bavaria is the army's largest group outside the US with around 36,000 troops stationed across four facilities in Germany.

"The shutdown will impact services provided by the Garrison at installations across Rose Barracks, Tower Barracks, Hohenfels and Garmisch," it said on a web page to provide guidance to members of how to deal with the government shutdown.

"During this time our US Army Garrison Bavaria team will continue to deliver life, health, and safety services for those working and living in our community."

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s recent tour of several units fighting in the Donbass featured a flurry of Nazi and Nazi-adjacent symbolism, worn on the flags and shoulder patches of Ukrainian servicemen. None of it, of course, was picked up by Western media.

First off, we have the infamous Wolfsangel – a medieval Germanic symbol, widely adopted by Nazi Germany during the Second World War and used by multiple Nazi-linked groups then and since – including Ukraine’s now-defunct Azov Brigade and its still-intact successors, the 1st Azov Corps.

When the razzle dazzle of the prime minister’s first face-to-face meeting with the mercurial US president is forgotten and the huge sigh of relief that nothing went wrong subsides, questions will be asked about what all the puffery achieved.

Trump gave a vacuous sounding endorsement of AUKUS, but did nothing for Australia on tariffs, despite the US running a continuous trade surplus with Australia and the infinitesimal amount of revenue the Australian tariff raises.

Geoff Raby

.... Now it remained for Minin and Pozharsky to take the Kremlin.

The Polish garrison in the Kremlin did not want to give up, but quickly ran out of food supplies. First, they resorted to eating crows, rats, and grass, and then set upon their dead comrades in an orgy of cannibalism. The Russians subsequently discovered an absolutely monstrous trophy in the Kremlin worthy of a horror movie – a barrel of salted human flesh.

Why Russia celebrates its 'Unity Day' every November 4
Modern Russia’s main national holiday replaced the biggest celebration in the Soviet calendar

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson will rail against the Coalition and lavish praise on Donald Trump as she rubs shoulders with the US president’s inner orbit at a $25,000-a-head conservative forum at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

Australia’s most prominent populist-right politician, who is hoping to recruit Barnaby Joyce to boost her fortunes, has been staying at Trump’s resort this week as polling shows her party is tracking at a high of 15 per cent for primary votes – only nine points short of the opposition.

Hanson attacks Coalition at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago as she closes on Ley in polls

BY Paul Sakkal

On July 4, 1776, America freed itself forever, it believed, from the tyrannical rule of kings. Yet here we are today, almost 250 years later, as millions of Americans are gearing up for the 2028 presidential election, contemplating the possibility that Donald Trump will opt to remain in power. And it’s not altogether beyond the realm of possibility.

Is Trump plotting to be ‘king for life’?
The 47th president continues to dismiss rumors of a planned third term – but will he change his mind and find a way after all?

BY Robert Bridge

The US Constitution’s 22nd Amendment only bans a candidate being “elected” to more than two presidential terms without mentioning anything about taking the Oval Office on an additional occasion through succession.

..... an awkward introduction in Kyiv where Ambassador Whitaker (U.S. ambassador to NATO) and European leaders meet. Whitaker frames the U.S. role as selling weapons to NATO allies — who then supply them to Ukraine — under a “we won’t give things away, we’ll sell them” policy (the “PURL” initiative). He mentions roughly $2.5 billion in expected sales/packages.

Lt COl Daniel Davis 's core critique: massive spending, sanctions and weapon transfers are happening without a clear strategy or defined objective. Despite many sanctions packages (he cites the EU’s 19th package and talks of a 20th), there’s no evidence these rounds change the battlefield; they’re criticized as ritualistic and untethered to concrete goals.

On Monday, the charity Oxfam published a report on the growth of social inequality in the United States, titled “Unequal: The Rise of a New American Oligarchy.”

The report notes that the “past year has been indelibly shaped by concentrated wealth and power.” It cites data showing that in the past 12 months alone, the 10 richest US billionaires got approximately $700 billion richer. Over this period, their wealth grew by a staggering 40 percent, from $1.79 trillion to $2.5 trillion.

Oxfam: 10 US billionaires have had their wealth increase 6-fold since 2020

Andre Damon

Beneath the diplomatic pomp and illusions of partnership, France is bitterly discovering that in the Atlantic Alliance, allies have no friends but their own interests.

Paris’s futile efforts: why is French military-technical cooperation with its allies failing?

    Mohamed Lamine KABA

CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with EU officials last week in an attempt to rebuild strained relations with US intelligence agencies, Politico reported, citing three people familiar with the matter.

According to the report published on Friday, Ratcliffe met with the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, as well as senior officials from the EU Intelligence and Situation Center (INTCEN) and the EU Military Staff Intelligence Directorate (EUMS). He sought to reaffirm Washington’s commitment to intelligence-sharing and to convey that the CIA “wants to keep lines open,” Politico said.

The first in a series of first-hand accounts of the Dismissal, from the man who was there: John Menadue.

Deceit is the one word that comes to mind when I think about the Dismissal.

Many in the Coalition, with a born-to-rule view after 23 years of conservative rule, believed that the election of the Whitlam Government in 1972 was an aberration.

More bills were defeated in the Senate in the three years of the Whitlam Government than in the previous 72 years.

John Menadue

The new Support at Home Program for older people is introducing a ‘free market’ transactional aged care system. It’s a retrograde step, Sarah Russell reports.

Forty years ago, the Hawke Government introduced a significant aged care initiative that was in line with traditional Labor values. The Home and Community Care (HACC) program provided government-subsidised home and community-based support services. These services – such as meals on wheels, community transport and nursing care – enabled older people to live independently in their own homes.

Pay per shower: fully-funded aged care turns market-driven aged support
by Dr Sarah Russell

Palestinian women share how Israeli forces used them as human shields in Gaza and the West Bank
Throughout the Gaza genocide, testimonies have documented the Israeli army’s use of Palestinian women as human shields. These are not isolated acts by rogue soldiers but a systematic practice known to Israeli commanders and acknowledged by soldiers.

BY MAJD JAWAD 

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in Arabic on Raseef22, and has been translated into English for republication with permission. The original article can be found here.

The Kremlin welcomes Japan’s desire to sign a peace treaty with Russia, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. This follows a statement by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who told parliament that pursuing an agreement is part of her government’s foreign policy agenda.

Japan and Russia never signed a peace treaty after the end of World War II. The absence of a treaty stems from a longstanding dispute over the four southernmost islands of the Kuril archipelago, which were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1945 as part of the postwar settlement. Tokyo, however, continues to claim what it calls the Northern Territories.

“The Japanese government’s policy is to resolve the territorial issue and finalize the peace treaty,”Takaichi told parliament.