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Photojournalist resigns from Reuters over its ‘betrayal of journalists’ in Gaza

MEMO | August 26, 2025

Canadian photojournalist Valerie Zink has resigned after eight years with Reuters, criticizing the news agency’s stance on Gaza as a “betrayal of journalists” and accusing it of “justifying and enabling” the killing of 245 journalists in the Palestinian enclave, Anadolu reports.

“At this point it’s become impossible for me to maintain a relationship with Reuters given its role in justifying and enabling the systematic assassination of 245 journalists in Gaza,” Zink said Tuesday through the US social media company X.

Zink said she worked as a Reuters stringer for eight years, with her photos published by many outlets, including The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and others worldwide.

She criticized Reuters’ reporting after the killing of Anas Al-Sharif and an Al Jazeera crew in Gaza, accusing the agency of amplifying Israel’s “entirely baseless claim” that Al-Sharif was a Hamas operative, which was “one of countless lies that media outlets like Reuters have dutifully repeated and dignified,” she said.

“I have valued the work that I brought to Reuters over the past eight years, but at this point I can’t conceive of wearing this press pass with anything but deep shame and grief,” Zink said.

Zink also emphasized that the agency’s willingness to “perpetuate Israel’s propaganda” has not spared their own reporters from Israel’s genocide.

“I don’t know what it means to begin to honour the courage and sacrifice of journalists in Gaza, the bravest and best to ever live, but going forward I will direct whatever contributions I have to offer with that front of mind,” Zink highlighted, reflecting on the courage of Gaza’s journalists.

“I owe my colleagues in Palestine at least this much, and so much more,” she added.

Referring to the killing of six more journalists, including Reuters cameraman Hossam Al-Masri, in Israel’s Monday attack on the Nasser hospital in Gaza, Zink said: “It was what’s known as a “double tap” strike, in which Israel bombs a civilian target like a school or hospital; waits for medics, rescue teams, and journalists to arrive; and then strikes again.”

Zink underlined that Western media is directly culpable for creating the conditions for these events, quoting Jeremy Scahill, who said major outlets—from the New York Times to Reuters—have served as “a conveyor belt for Israeli propaganda,” sanitizing war crimes, dehumanizing victims, and abandoning both their colleagues and their commitment to true and ethical reporting.

She said Western media outlets, by “repeating Israel’s genocidal fabrications without determining if they have any credibility” and abandoning basic journalistic responsibility, have enabled the killing of more journalists in Gaza in two years than in major global conflicts combined, while also contributing to the suffering of the population.

The new fatalities among the media personnel in Gaza brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli attacks since October 2023 to 246.

Israel has killed more than 62,700 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, which is facing famine.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

READ ALSO: China ‘shocked’ over Israeli killing of journalists in Gaza 

August 26, 2025 Posted by | Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

The Palestine Chronicle case: When truth becomes the crime

By Mohamed El Mokhtar | MEMO | August 26, 2025

The Palestine Chronicle is not a militant organisation. It is a modest, independent publication, sustained by small donations and animated by a singular mission: to bear witness. It tells the untold stories of Palestine, documenting dispossession, resistance, and the endurance of a people condemned to silence. In a media landscape dominated by powerful conglomerates repeating the language of governments, the Chronicle insists on a journalism of proximity — grounded in daily lives, in the rubble of Gaza, in voices otherwise erased. Its true offense, in the eyes of its detractors, is not invention but truth.

At the heart of this endeavor stands Ramzy Baroud. His career is the antithesis of clandestine. For decades he has written, taught, and spoken in public, producing books translated into multiple languages, contributing columns to international publications, addressing audiences in universities and public forums across continents. He is not a shadowy figure; he is a man whose work has been consistent, transparent, and intellectually rigorous. His life is not untouched by the tragedy he describes: many members of his family were killed under Israeli bombardments. Yet while mainstream media rushed to amplify unproven allegations against him, they remained deaf to his personal grief. His tragedy was ignored, his integrity overlooked, his voice distorted — because his engagement is unbearable to those who would prefer silence.

A crime of conscience, not of law

He is an engaged journalist in the noblest sense: independent, lucid, unflinching. His so-called crime is not collusion with violence but fidelity to memory. That is why he is demonised — not for what he has done in law, but for what he represents in conscience. America, unable to silence Palestinian voices through censorship alone, now instrumentalises its justice system to achieve by indictment what it failed to achieve by argument. Having harassed universities, intimidated students, and punished professors for their solidarity with Gaza, it turns the courtroom into a new battlefield. And Congress, captive to the whims of its Zionist masters, joins the manhunt, targeting a journalist for the sole offense of telling the truth of his people. As for the mainstream press, it chooses cowardice: ignoring his family’s suffering, ignoring the emptiness of the charges, while echoing the accusations of power as if they were evidence.

Law twisted into a weapon

The complaint filed against Ramzy Baroud and the organization (People Media Project) that runs the Palestine Chronicle rests on the Alien Tort Statute, grotesquely overstretched to criminalise editorial decisions rather than acts of war. It alleges that by publishing articles from Abdallah Aljamal — described by Israel as a Hamas operative killed during a hostage rescue — the Chronicle “aided and abetted” terrorism. But here lies the first fissure: this characterisation of Aljamal comes exclusively from Israeli military sources, themselves a belligerent party. It has never been independently verified. The claim that he was both a journalist and a Hamas operative remains an allegation, not an established fact. To treat it as judicial evidence is to replace proof with propaganda.

Even if—hypothetically—Aljamal had, at the demand of a militant group, harbored hostages, such a circumstance would not in itself render him culpable: what ordinary civilian in a war zone can refuse the command of militants under threat of force? And even if it occurred, how could Ramzy Baroud have known of it? Even taken at face value, the allegation collapses upon scrutiny. No evidence demonstrates that the Chronicle or its editor had actual knowledge of Aljamal’s supposed operational role, nor that modest freelance payments — if any at all — bore any causal nexus to hostage-taking. The federal judge, in February 2025, dismissed the original complaint precisely for lack of proof of knowledge or intent. The plaintiffs returned with an amended filing, repackaged in rhetoric and pathos, but still devoid of the material elements required under international law: actus reus (a substantial contribution to the crime) and mens rea (intent or knowledge).

To equate the publication of articles with material support for terrorism is not jurisprudence but a juridical contortion. It is the substitution of law by politics, the criminalisation of journalism under the mask of counterterrorism. What is sought is not justice but intimidation — to cast suspicion on every Palestinian voice, to brand their words as weapons, their witness as crime.

Thus the legal emptiness is evident:

  • Jurisdiction overstretched: the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) was never intended to criminalise editorial contracts.
  • Elements unmet: no proven knowledge, no intent, no substantial assistance.
  • Factual foundation unstable: the Hamas label rests on unverified allegations from one warring party.
  • Political aim transparent: to silence Palestinians and punish one of their most articulate representatives for his independence.

This case is not justice. It is intimidation. It is not law. It is propaganda dressed in the robes of a courtroom. The allegation against Ramzy Baroud rests not on proof, but on the word of a belligerent army. An army that bombs, besieges, and kills — and then dictates who is journalist, who is terrorist, who is fit to speak. To transform those claims into evidence is to surrender law itself to war.

Ramzy Baroud is not a conspirator. He is a journalist of record, a man of books, a teacher, a witness. His own family has been buried under rubble. And yet, America has not mourned them, has not spoken of them. Instead, it chooses to hunt him — to turn his grief into accusation, his fidelity into crime.

Some congressmen have joined this manhunt, eager to please their Zionist patrons. Universities have been disciplined, their students silenced. The press, that great sentinel of truth, has abandoned him, repeating only the charges while ignoring his suffering. This is not democracy. It is servitude.

The elements of law are absent. There is no actus reus, no mens rea, no causal link. There is only suspicion. There is only the will to silence.

And so the true purpose stands naked: to criminalise the Palestinian word, to punish a journalist for speaking the truth of Gaza, to make an example of him so that others will be afraid to write.

But intimidation is not justice. A trial without evidence is not law. And silencing the witness will not erase the truth.

Law or servitude

Here one hears Thurgood Marshall’s axiom: “The Constitution does not permit the discrimination of silence.” One hears Cochran’s defiance: “If the proof is not there, the case cannot stand.” One hears Vergès exposing the colonial reflex that brands resistance as terror. One hears Vedel’s warning: that when law is bent to politics, law ceases to exist.

Ramzy Baroud stands here not accused, but accusing. He accuses a system that bends to power, a Congress that bows to lobbyists, a press that betrays its duty, and a nation that dares call itself free while shackling its own justice.

Therefore, the American justicial system has a choice: to lend its authority to propaganda, or to defend the very principle that sustains law — that guilt must be proven, not declared. To condemn Ramzy Baroud would be to condemn journalism itself. To acquit him is to restore some dignity to justice. The choice is clear.

August 26, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Here is why the Israeli occupation of Gaza won’t work

By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | August 26, 2025

At every key juncture of the Zionist regime’s “seven front war”, it has announced new plans that it will claim are going to defeat Hamas or that they will reach a ceasefire agreement. The truth is that they have no intention of reaching a negotiated settlement, nor do they have a plan to achieve “victory” in Gaza.

At the beginning of the Zionist entity’s ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, in late October of 2023, its military campaign had focused on northern Gaza. For those who remember, the major goal of their operation at the time was to take control of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, claiming it to be a “Hamas command and control center”.

Back then, the Western corporate media reported that US intelligence reports supported the notion that at the very least, there was a Hamas “command node” based there, as the Israeli army released CGI footage featuring an extensive tunnel network under the hospital.

After committing various massacres, in and around al-Shifa Medical Complex, it became clear that the claims were all lies and no Hamas infrastructure existed underneath the hospital. However, the Israelis and their Western allies did not admit that the entire military operation was based upon a pack of lies and that no Hamas targets were there; instead, they simply moved on to the next major set of lies, as the Zionist military finished off its genocidal missions in northern Gaza.

Failing to inflict any major blow, let alone a total defeat upon Hamas or any of the some dozen Palestinian armed groups in northern Gaza, then came the claim that “the real Hamas headquarters” were in Khan Younis. In December of 2024, again with the full backing of their Western allies and their media machines, the Israelis launched the invasion of Khan Younis.

After besieging Khan Younis in January of 2024, they eventually made it their final mission to assault the Nasser Hospital, again claiming that it was used by Hamas as a major base. By this time, the Israelis had launched a campaign to systematically target every hospital their forces worked in the vicinity of, seizing medical workers and the injured as captives, inflicting massacres, setting up bases inside the hospitals, and always claiming that Hamas was there.

As the military campaign on the ground waged on, the Israeli public realised that they were not even one step closer to the “total defeat” of Hamas that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised them. So then began the talk of invading Rafah.

Israeli political leaders vowed that without invading Rafah, they could not “win the war”. They claimed that tunnels were leading into Gaza from Egypt, despite knowing they were all sealed off around a decade ago.

In the lead-up to the invasion of Rafah, a massive deception campaign was launched with the full unquestioning complicity of the Western media. We heard about then US President Joe Biden’s alleged “red line” being Rafah. Up until that point, we had also heard about Biden hanging up the phone on Netanyahu, yelling at him and even swearing, for which there was never any evidence produced.

We had the propaganda of a “Christmas ceasefire” and a “Ramadan ceasefire”, with even the UN Security Council voting on the temporary Ramadan ceasefire that never materialised. The public was also informed about all of the alleged hard work that the US government was doing to achieve a ceasefire, which we would later learn never happened from Israeli media leaks; Biden never once asked his Israeli allies for a ceasefire.

In the lead-up to the invasion of Rafah, which would eventually happen on May 6 with full US support, we heard two main narratives. One warned of the impending humanitarian disaster after the Israelis had displaced the majority of the population to Rafah, the second was the idea that this would mean the defeat of Hamas and would rob the group of its financing networks.

Evidently, the Israelis launched their invasion, and unsurprisingly, it was more of the same; they continued mass murdering civilians and destroying Gaza’s infrastructure. Hamas still lived. There were even initiatives then like the failed US military aid pier, which only appeared to have been used one time, for a deadly military operation in Nuseirat that killed around 300 civilians to seize back Israeli captives.

Fast forward to October 2024, when we began to hear about the infamous “General’s Plan”, an operation that was again sold by the Israeli regime and its media as the final blow to end Hamas by besieging northern Gaza entirely and then starving out the remaining fighters. This went on for months, until there was a ceasefire declared in January.

On March 18, the Israelis violated the Gaza Ceasefire. Then came an escalation in its genocidal campaign against civilians in the territory, an uptick once again in the bombardment, coupled with the total blockade on all aid into the territory that would last over 80 days.

For some time after violating the ceasefire, the Israeli media and regime’s officials promoted the idea of a new operation that was going to be the most explosive yet and the final blow against Hamas. They spoke of potentially new weapons and strategies, hyping up the campaign to be a game changer.

The May offensive was then labelled “Operation Gideon’s Chariots”, dubbed “Phase 2” of the Gaza war. First, the Israeli media hyped it up and put out reports that 20,000 reservists had been called up to duty, then we heard 60,000, the next day 50,000, some even claimed 100,000 soldiers would be used to invade Gaza.

The real result was a few small incursions into the outskirts of major cities and camps, which were met with deadly ambushes carried out by the Palestinian resistance. “Gideon’s Chariots” was a game changer, but repeated the exact same cowardly strategy as every Israeli operation before it.

So now we have the approval of plans to “occupy Gaza”. Originally, the idea communicated across Israeli media platforms was that all of Gaza would be occupied, which is what Netanyahu would go on to claim. Then it went back and forth between all of the territory and just Gaza City, which is not the established goal of the newly approved operation.

Logistically, this plan makes no sense for an already overburdened Zionist military force that does not want to fight in the Gaza Strip at all anymore. They’ll need an absolute minimum of 200,000 soldiers just to occupy Gaza City, a plan that, according to Israeli military analyst,s will take between 2 to 5 years to properly complete.

On top of this, the strategy runs contrary to the Israeli military’s doctrine and strategy that it has followed throughout the entire war. The reality on the ground is that with the exception of a limited number of special forces operations, the Israeli army never targeted Hamas. They invaded with the intention of making Gaza unlivable and have systematically dismantled the territory’s infrastructure, while inflicting a genocide.

The truth is that they have no military strategy to defeat Hamas. They don’t even have an answer as to how to end the fighting at all, even as their allied Arab regime attempts to give them solutions. A ceasefire would happen within a day if they wanted it to, but they clearly don’t, and no Israeli politician even accepts the notion of the Palestinian Authority taking over Gaza because they believe it will lead to a so-called “Two-State solution”.

So here we are again, back to the same old tired Israeli script. They send negotiating delegations with no intention of reaching deals and launch new operations that will ultimately fail to achieve anything other than continuing the slaughter of civilians.

The Zionist Entity has done everything except actually target and try to fight the Palestinian Resistance on the ground, hiding in fortified areas and inside their military vehicles, occasionally getting picked off by ambushes. This is also why they have no battle footage despite having fought for 22 months, because they only engage in armed clashes on the ground when they are being attacked by the Palestinian armed groups. There is no real army, it’s a glorified police force that was built to bully teenagers, with a sophisticated intelligence apparatus and air force behind it.

It appears very unlikely that we will see Israeli soldiers manning checkpoints in between tent cities in Gaza and managing everyday life like we see in the occupied West Bank. Simply put, they are too cowardly for this task, and unlike the case in the West Bank, it will be extremely dangerous for them to do this, costing them thousands of casualties over a long period of time.

More likely than not, this has all been psychological warfare, as the Israeli military prepares to attack on a different front. Although it does seem likely they will launch some kind of operation in northern Gaza, one which will accelerate its mass murder of civilians, but will fail to achieve its stated objectives.

August 26, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Jerusalem churches say their staff will not leave Gaza City

Palestinian Information Center – August 26, 2025

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and the Latin Patriarchate in Occupied Jerusalem have said that their staff will not evacuate Gaza City, ahead of the Israeli occupation regime’s declared intent to take control of the city, where hundreds of thousands of civilians live.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, the patriarchates said that the Greek Orthodox compound of Saint Porphyrius and the Holy Family Church compound have been refuges for hundreds of civilians since the outbreak of war in October 2023, among them elderly people, women, and children.

“Among those who have sought shelter within the walls of the compounds, many are weakened and malnourished due to the hardships of the last months. Leaving Gaza City and trying to flee to the south would be nothing less than a death sentence. For this reason, the clergy and nuns have decided to remain and continue to care for all those who will be in the compounds,” they said.

They criticized Israel’s announced attack, saying “there can be no future based on captivity, displacement of Palestinians or revenge.”

The patriarchates called on the international community to act for an end of this deadly and destructive war.

August 26, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine conflict marks end of Western dominance – former French ambassador

RT | August 26, 2025

The Ukraine conflict has highlighted a gradual shift in the global balance of power and has signaled the end of Western supremacy, former French Ambassador to the US Gerard Araud has claimed.

“We are experiencing the end of an era,” Araud wrote in the French magazine Le Point on Sunday, adding that the collapse of the order inherited from the end of WWII means the West no longer dominates international affairs.

He argued that the Ukraine conflict has shown that Western leaders are unable to accept this change, describing it as revealing “to the point of caricature the incomprehension and rejection of the world to come by European leaders.”

Araud suggested that one of the main reasons behind this shift is that the US, under President Donald Trump, no longer wishes to serve as the world’s “policeman,” leader, and “protector.” Trump has scaled down Washington’s involvement in Ukraine, urged European NATO members to take greater responsibility for their own defense, and prioritized domestic issues.

While lamenting the decline of Western power, Araud admitted that global affairs have always been defined by “power relations” in which “the strong imposed their law on the weak.”

Moscow has also repeatedly insisted that Western hegemony has ended and that a multipolar world is emerging, with interests increasingly represented by BRICS and the Global South. Russian officials have argued that the Ukraine conflict confirms this transition.

In May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a high-level security forum in Moscow that the “tectonic shift” in world politics reflects the redistribution of power toward Eurasia, Africa, and Latin America.

He also dismissed Western claims that multipolarity would lead to “chaos and anarchy,” stating instead that unipolar dominance, characterized by sanctions, interventions, and economic coercion, had triggered the major crises of recent decades.

Russia has consistently described the Ukraine conflict as a proxy war waged by the West and maintained that any settlement must address Moscow’s security concerns and the root causes of the crisis, including NATO’s continued eastward expansion.

August 26, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Has Ukraine just declared war on Hungary?

By Nadezhda Romanenko | RT | August 26, 2025

In the swirl of the Ukraine war, headlines rarely fail to shock. Yet the latest spat between Kiev and Budapest raises a question that would have been unthinkable two years ago: has Ukraine effectively opened a second front – albeit hybrid, rhetorical, and economic – against an EU state?

The immediate spark was the Druzhba (“Friendship”) oil pipeline that still delivers crude from Russia to Central Europe. Several Ukrainian drone strikes targeted the pipeline in recent weeks, halting supplies to Hungary and Slovakia. A Ukrainian commander, known by the call sign Madyar, publicly admitted involvement.

For Hungary and Slovakia, this was more than an economic disruption. Both countries rely heavily on the pipeline, and in response, their leaders called on the European Commission to guarantee supply security. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, a frequent critic of EU policy on Ukraine, accused Brussels of serving Kiуv’s interests over those of member states. His frustration boiled over further when he described Vladimir Zelensky’s quips about “friendship” as thinly veiled threats.

Zelensky’s gambit

Zelensky’s remark – “We have always supported friendship between Ukraine and Hungary, and now the existence of this ‘Friendship’ depends on Hungary” – was apparently meant as a pun on the pipeline’s name, but to Hungary it sounded like a mafia-style threat. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s reaction was uncompromising: “Zelensky openly threatened Hungary. He admitted that they hit the Druzhba pipeline because we don’t support their EU membership. This proves again that Hungarians made the right decision.”

The timing is telling. Strikes on the pipeline coincided with Zelensky’s Washington visit alongside EU leaders. Either Brussels tacitly encouraged him to punish Orbán, an ally of Donald Trump, or the EU simply looked away as Zelensky acted on his own. Both explanations sound outrageous, but there hardly seems to be a third option. What is clear is that Kiev, facing immense pressure on its eastern front, is choosing a dangerous rhetorical battle with Budapest.

Hungary’s lonely stance

Hungary has made abundantly clear its discomfort with the EU’s unquestioning support for Ukraine. Since the Russian military operation began in 2022, Budapest has resisted sanctions on Russian energy, insisted on continuing imports through the Druzhba pipeline, and refused to send weapons to Kiev. Orbán has shown himself to be a pragmatic outlier: defending Hungarian interests, pursuing cheap Russian energy, and maintaining cordial ties with Moscow.

For this, Hungary has faced isolation within the EU. While Poland, the Baltics, and most of Western Europe rallied behind Ukraine with military and financial aid, Budapest has been resisting this consensus. Orbán’s government was derided as Putin’s Trojan horse in Europe. Yet for Hungarians, this positioning has had a rationale: keep the economy stable, avoid direct confrontation, and retain flexibility in a deeply uncertain geopolitical landscape.

The forgotten refugees

Lost in the heated rhetoric is the fact that Hungary has also quietly carried a humanitarian burden. In 2022 alone, over 1.3 million Ukrainians crossed into Hungary – second only to Poland and Romania. Budapest accepted them with little fanfare, though later tightened its asylum rules to restrict new arrivals to those from active war zones. At the same time, Hungary supplies a significant share of Ukraine’s electricity, a fact Szijjártó reminded Kiev of when rebuffing Ukrainian accusations.

To respond with accusations and pipeline attacks against such a neighbor seems, at minimum, ungrateful. At worst, it risks alienating one of the few EU members that has provided crucial – if unheralded – humanitarian support in a time of war.

War, politics, and overreach

The broader context is sobering. On the battlefield, Ukraine faces mounting setbacks in the Donbass and along the eastern front. Against that backdrop, Zelensky’s rhetoric toward Hungary appears almost surreal – boastful, as if victory against Russia were imminent. The contrast between battlefield realities and diplomatic bravado risks undermining Kiev’s credibility.

In any sane timeline, here is where Brussels should stop and think again about continuing its support for Kiev. Should the EU stand behind Zelensky even when his actions harm member states, or acknowledge that Orbán – despite his many disagreements with Brussels – has a point? Recent history shows that we are not in a sane timeline, though. Open threats, pipeline sabotage (remember Nord Stream?), and insults from Ukrainian officials don’t seem to register with Brussels officials at all.

Kiev’s behavior towards Budapest may not amount to a declaration of war, but it is undeniable that Ukraine has chosen to ramp up its confrontation with Hungary. If the EU wants to sell its support for Kiev as “unity” – a word often used and abused by the likes of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen – then letting Zelensky get away with this is a bizarre choice.

August 26, 2025 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

The West seemingly preparing to remove Zelensky from power

By Ahmed Adel | August 26, 2025

The arrest of a Ukrainian citizen in Italy, suspected of sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, confirms that Kiev was an accomplice, but not the one who ordered the act. Nonetheless, the launch of the investigation serves a broader political goal – the removal of Volodymyr Zelensky from power. The plan could be to appoint a new leader, both for the West and for possible negotiations with Russia, given that Zelensky’s presidential mandate expired in May 2024 and he cannot be a signatory to a peace agreement with Moscow.

An investigation by American journalist Seymour Hersh found that American divers placed explosives under the Nord Stream gas pipeline during the NATO exercise Baltops in the summer of 2022, and that it was activated three months later by the Norwegians. According to Hersh, then-US President Joe Biden had a clear motive for sabotaging the Nord Stream pipeline — fear that Germany, facing serious economic difficulties due to the war in Ukraine, might lift sanctions on Russia and resume imports of Russian gas.

The journalist said this is what prompted Washington to organize the sabotage of the gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany. The West did not want to allow this, which ultimately plunged Germany into economic and political chaos.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also believes that the sabotage of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines was carried out by American intelligence services, specifically the CIA. According to him, in such cases, one should always look for who has a motive and who can carry it out. There may be many interested parties, but not everyone can dive to the bottom of the Baltic Sea and carry out that explosion. It is the combination of these components – who had a motive and who is able to carry it out – that, according to Putin, reveals who is really behind the sabotage.

After a period of lull, the issue of sabotage on the Nord Stream gas pipelines has returned to the spotlight following the announcement by German prosecutors that Ukrainian citizen Sergey Kuznetsov was suspected of involvement in the underwater explosions that damaged the gas pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022. Following the arrest of the retired captain of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who also served in the Security Service of Ukraine, Italian media reported that he is connected to another major incident – the explosions on an oil tanker in Savona in February, which was allegedly transporting oil of Russian origin.

Sahra Wagenknecht, leader of the German party “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance,” after the arrest of Kuznetsov, stated that the German parliament should convene a commission to investigate the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. She noted that this act of state terrorism must be thoroughly investigated and that Zelensky should also testify before the commission.

Wagenknecht believes it is absurd to think that the arrested Ukrainian citizen and his accomplices acted without the knowledge of the Ukrainian leadership and the Biden administration. She added that it is unacceptable that Germany is providing substantial aid to Ukraine without seeking an explanation from Zelensky, and that consideration should be given to possible compensation for damages.

The question of whether United States President Donald Trump will take advantage of the Nord Stream controversy and launch an investigation against Biden remains an exclusively internal matter for the US. Trump has the opportunity to conduct his own investigations and deal with his domestic adversaries, whom he claims stole his victory in the 2020 elections. However, this does not affect the situation in Ukraine for the time being, as the West continues to support Ukraine with weapons, intelligence, and other assistance.

The fate of the Nord Stream gas pipeline is one of the key and most complex issues in the energy and geopolitical spheres. With Trump’s pragmatic approach, there is a possibility of cooperation between Russia and the US. Russia does not refuse to continue gas supplies to the European Union. However, the bloc continues to feel the consequences of its own policy, such as suffering economically by still purchasing Russian energy at inflated prices from third parties like India and Azerbaijan.

Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, which directly connect Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea, have not been operational since 2022 and remain damaged, but they are still strategic infrastructure that American investors have set their sights on. These pipelines could become the property of American investors, which would enable the US to control Russian gas supplies to Europe. Although Europe is currently refusing Russian gas, it may be forced to buy it in the future, albeit at a significant margin, to the benefit of the Americans.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

August 26, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Economics, False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Colossal industrial-scale warfare in NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict

By Drago Bosnic | August 26, 2025

Heavy industry has always been the key element of modern warfare. Without the ability to outproduce the opponent, your chances of winning are slim to none. Accustomed to the one-sided aggression against virtually the entire world, the political West neglected the actual industrial capacity of its Military Industrial Complex (MIC).

Fighting largely helpless opponents left it mainly focused on weapon systems that are unsuitable for mass production and deployment. This made the US/NATO incapable of matching Russia, China and other multipolar powers that never outsourced their production economies. With its “economy of imaginary assets”, the political West stands in stark contrast to the multipolar world, but still hopes it can control global economic and financial processes based on effectively nothing.

Even the staunchest Western neoliberal think tanks now realize that this approach is failing, particularly in our era. However, the idea that industrial warfare is making a return is patently wrong. The simple truth is that it was always there. The NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict dispelled virtually all Western myths about warfare in this day and age. In fact, the entire idea of postmodernism has failed, even in military theory. The belief that wars can be won in mere days with “shock and awe” tactics of mass precision strikes simply doesn’t hold, especially against major regional powers and global superpowers. It might still work against small and isolated countries, but not more than that. As a result, the political West is now pushing for rapid reindustrialization that can only be achieved through remilitarization.

The reason for this is quite simple. The MIC is the only sector of Western economies that hasn’t been fully outsourced. However, the process itself is still taking too long. Back in June, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte admitted that Russia alone is outproducing the world’s most aggressive racketeering cartel by a factor of four in several key sectors (particularly artillery).

The situation has only gotten worse (for the political West) since then, as Moscow keeps increasing the production of all major military assets. It should be noted that this is in response to escalating US/NATO arms deliveries to the Neo-Nazi junta. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, published on August 23, the United States has authorized the sale of 3,350 ERAMS (Extended Range Attack Munitions) to the Kiev regime forces.

The contract is valued at $850 million (€780 million) and is primarily financed by the European Union. First deliveries are expected within six weeks. The Trump administration delayed the decision until after the conclusion of high-profile talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. ERAMs are air-launched precision-guided weapons designed to strike high-value targets from standoff ranges (up to 450 km, depending on the launch altitude and trajectory). The US/NATO hopes the ERAM will be enough to circumvent Russia’s electronic warfare (EW) advantage, allegedly enabling precision strikes even under intense jamming, thus restoring the Neo-Nazi junta’s ability to attack high-value targets (HVTs) deep within Russia (in theory, at least). The rapidly evolving battlefield conditions will certainly put this to the test.

ERAMs are equipped with a combined GPS and INS (inertial navigation system), augmented by a terminal seeker. They’re designed to destroy targets such as ammunition depots, command centers, radar installations, etc. They can also integrate different warhead types and are compact enough to be carried by fighter aircraft, primarily Western designs such as the US-made F-16 and possibly the French-built “Mirage”.

The possibility of integration with Soviet-era Su-27s and MiG-29s shouldn’t be excluded either. However, the US reportedly restricted the Kiev regime’s operational authority over the ERAM and will “require case-by-case approval from the Pentagon”. It means that the US will have direct control over what Russian targets are to be hit. This is yet another confirmation that Washington DC directly participates in hostilities.

Other NATO member states are also involved in similar projects through the so-called PURL (Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List) program. The world’s most aggressive racketeering cartel is determined to ensure its war in Ukraine continues no matter the cost. Russia is responding to this by increasing its own production of crucial military assets. This is particularly true for “Geranium” drones, which are now the Russian military’s primary long-range precision strike weapons. Citing the Neo-Nazi junta’s intelligence services, CNN claims that the Kremlin can produce over 6,000 of these drones per month. There are now three versions of the “Geranium” kamikaze drones, each initially based on the Iranian-made “Shahed-131”, “Shahed-136” and “Shahed-238”, respectively. The “Geranium-3” is powered by a turbojet engine.

CNN also claims that the economies of scale production in Russia lowered the initial cost of each drone by a factor of three (from over $200,000 per unit to less than $70,000 now). What’s more, Moscow also made massive improvements, which were then backported to the original Iranian designs. This includes jamming-resistant GLONASS-aided INS and other upgrades that now make both “Geraniums” and “Shaheds” far more reliable.

More recently, the Russian military has been experimenting with advanced AI-run electro-optical targeting systems that massively improve precision, including a specially modified version that can deploy anti-tank mines. Combined with expanded mass production, these improvements explain the colossal surge in the use of “Geranium” drones, with Moscow simultaneously launching hundreds.

This also allowed the Russian military to shift its approach of deploying these drones in operational strikes to more tactical frontline engagements. The results were virtually immediate, with one recent video showing the destruction of the grossly overhyped and exorbitantly overpriced US-made M142 HIMARS MLRS (multiple launch rocket system). It was detected in a forested area near the settlement of Rogovka in the Chernigov oblast (region), with at least two “Geranium” drones neutralizing the MLRS just minutes later. Such HVTs usually have to be targeted by far more expensive weapons, such as the 9M723 hypersonic missiles of the now legendary 9K720M “Iskander-M” system. However, the massive increase in Moscow’s production capacity allows for the much more affordable “Geraniums” to be used instead.

Such weapons can also replace regular cruise missiles which cost millions of dollars apiece, with “Geraniums” often taking that role. Their ability to destroy or at least damage critical infrastructure cannot be countered by virtually any air defense system, as SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) are usually dozens of times more expensive than these drones.

This also gives the “Geranium” a critical role in exhausting the Kiev regime’s (and, by extension, NATO’s) air defenses. Even on a tactical level, the scale of losses for the political West and its Neo-Nazi puppets is unsustainable, as a single HIMARS launcher costs up to $5,000,000, meaning that it’s over 70 times more expensive than a single “Geranium” drone. It’s highly questionable that even the entire NATO can sustain such losses in a protracted confrontation with anyone, let alone Russia.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

August 26, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Britain faces worst crash in fifty years – economists

RT | August 25, 2025

Britain is facing the prospect of a repeat of its crippling 1976 economic crash as soaring debt and borrowing costs raise doubts over Labour’s budget policies, leading economists have warned, according to a Telegraph report.

The crisis nearly fifty years ago saw a Labour government forced to seek an emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after deficits and inflation spun out of control. It became one of Britain’s worst postwar crises, with the bailout bringing deep spending cuts and Labour losing power a few years later.

Now Chancellor Rachel Reeves faces similar warnings, with forecasts showing a £50 billion ($68 billion) gap in the public finances and debt interest set to exceed £111 billion. Debt now exceeds 96% of GDP. At around £2.7 trillion, it is one of the heaviest burdens in the developed world. Government borrowing costs have surged, with yields on 30-year bonds climbing above 5.5%, higher than those of the US and Greece.

Jagjit Chadha, former head of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, told the Telegraph the outlook was “as perilous as the period leading up to the IMF loan of 1976,” warning Britain could struggle to meet pensions and welfare payments.

Andrew Sentance, once a Bank of England policymaker, said Reeves was “on course to deliver a [former UK Chancellor Denis] Healey 1976-style crisis in late 2025 or 26,” accusing Labour of fueling inflation with higher taxes, borrowing, and spending.

The warnings come weeks before Reeves is due to present her first autumn budget, where she is expected to announce further tax rises to cover the shortfall – a move critics argue would deepen the downturn. The Labour government also faces deepening political and economic challenges, including declining support.

On Saturday, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage declared it was “the 1970s all over again,” while Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch described soaring borrowing costs as the price of Labour’s “economic mismanagement.”

London has pledged to raise military spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, aligning with NATO commitments. Britain remains one of Ukraine’s most ardent supporters, delivering billions in military and financial aid – further squeezing already stretched public finances.

August 26, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Polish president vetoes bill extending aid for Ukrainians

RT | August 25, 2025

Polish President Karol Nawrocki vetoed a bill on Monday to prolong benefits for Ukrainian refugees, arguing the legislation needs a rework. The current system of payments is set to expire in September.

In announcing the decision, the president, who took office earlier this month, reiterated his stance that state benefits should only cover Ukrainians who work in Poland.

“We remain open to providing assistance to Ukrainian citizens – that hasn’t changed. But after three and a half years, our law should be amended,” Nawrocki said in a statement.

The vetoed bill would have extended current benefits for Ukrainians until March 2026. Poland has been one of the top destinations for Ukrainian refugees since the escalation of the conflict between Kiev and Moscow in February 2022. Around one million Ukrainians are believed to have settled in the country since then.

“President Nawrocki does not agree to the privileged treatment of citizens of other countries. That is why he has decided to veto the bill on assistance for Ukrainian citizens in its current form and will present his own legal proposals,” the presidential office stated.

The decision has prompted concerns it could ultimately have grave implications for Ukraine itself, given that funding for Ukraine’s access to Starlink satellite internet was in the same legislation.

“Presidential vetoes are slashing blindly! With his decision, Karol Nawrocki is cutting off Ukraine’s internet, since that is effectively what his veto of the law on assistance to Ukrainian citizens means,” Polish Digital Affairs Minister Krzystof Gawkowski wrote on X.

Nawrocki’s office told Reuters that the payments for Starlink could continue if parliament adopted a bill including the presidential proposals before the end of September.

Starlink is a key command and control element for the Ukrainian military, and has seen direct combat use, with satellite terminals routinely mounted on long-range aerial and naval drones.

August 26, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

HHS REINSTATES VACCINE TASK FORCE

The HighWire with Del Bigtree | August 21, 2025

Aaron Siri reveals how ICAN has fought HHS since 2017, relentlessly exposing and litigating the agency’s decades-long neglect of its legal duty under the 1986 Act to ensure vaccine safety. After disbanding its safety task force in 1998—following just one report—and failing to submit even a single required biannual report to Congress, HHS is finally being forced back to the table. Now, with RFK Jr. at the helm of HHS, the task force is being revived—and ICAN is ready with decades of overdue recommendations.

 

August 25, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | | Leave a comment

Green Energy Wall Coming Into Focus In New York?

By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | August 17, 2025

It was back in 2021 that I started to ask which country or U.S. state would be the first to hit the “Green Energy Wall.” It has long been obvious to anyone who looks at the situation that the fantasy of a fully de-carbonized energy system, with everything run on electricity generated by intermittent wind and sun, could never happen.

But what would be the limiting condition that would put a stop to the madness? Would it be confronting the absurd costs of grid-scale battery storage? Or perhaps a string of blackouts caused by insufficient backup of the wind and solar generation?

Here in New York, we are starting to see some push back from politicians on the fantasy green energy transition, but the source may be the last thing you would have predicted. The immediate issue is the cost of upgrading local delivery infrastructure to transmit sufficient electricity for the imagined future of electrified buildings and vehicles.

Supposedly, under a statute known as the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019, we are faced with a 2030 deadline to get some 70% of our electricity from “renewables.” Currently the percent of our electricity that we get from these “renewables” is around 44%, and almost half of that comes from the gigantic waterfall known as Niagara Falls. Without another Niagara Falls on the horizon, theoretically we should be building vast fields of wind turbines and solar panels to meet the statutory mandates; but that effort has stalled out, and the costs of wind and solar generation, and of backup to make the grid run all the time, have barely started to show up in consumer bills. Nor have various big new long-distance transmission projects yet come into consumer bills.

But meanwhile, the big utilities have come forward with large demands for rate increases. So why the need for big rate increases if not from new generators or long-distance transmission? The answer is that the rate increases mainly relate to the portion of the consumer bills referred to as the “delivery” charge, as opposed to the charge for generation. The utilities seek funds to add delivery infrastructure like substations, transformers, and cables to deliver vastly increased amounts of electricity for things like vehicle charging stations (for both cars and trucks) and for the electrification of building heat.

In upstate New York, a utility called National Grid has been petitioning the regulator for a large electricity rate increase, mostly to support these kinds of upgrades to the delivery infrastructure. The service territory of National Grid in upstate New York covers the region between about Syracuse and Albany, and from there North to the Canadian border. After prolonged negotiations, the regulator (Public Service Commission) and National Grid entered into a “settlement” a few days ago on August 14. Here is the PSC release describing the settlement. Basically, the PSC congratulates itself on beating back a much larger rate increase originally sought by National Grid. (The headline is “PSC Dramatically Reduces National Grid’s Rate Request.”). But if you read on you find that they still agreed to a very large increase. The release makes clear that most of the increase relates to the delivery infrastructure:

National Grid had sought a base delivery increase of $509.6 million (25.5 percent delivery or 10.4 percent total revenue) and $156.5 million (29.7 percent delivery or 15.7 percent total revenue) for electric and gas, respectively for one year. Instead, the Commission adopted a joint proposal establishing levelized increases, on a percentage basis, to the company’s electric revenues of $167.3 million in the first year, $297.4 million in the second year, and $243.4 million in the third year.

Basically, they spread NG’s requested increase out over three years; but it still comes to almost a 30% jump on the delivery side by the time it all kicks in.

Governor Hochul then issued a release expressing extreme displeasure:

While I appreciate that the New York Public Service Commission worked to significantly lower the outrageously high initial rate proposals, it’s still not enough. I have been crystal clear that utilities must make ratepayer affordability the priority.

Well, Governor Hochul, good luck trying to blame the utility, but you are the one with all the electric vehicle mandates and incentives and subsidies, thus calling on the utility to provide all this new infrastructure. In all likelihood few will ever buy the electric vehicles, and nobody will ever generate the extra electricity from wind and sun, and thus this infrastructure will mostly be wasted. But can the utility just refuse to make itself ready to meet your ridiculous mandate?

And meanwhile down here in New York City, our utility Con Edison is requesting almost as large a rate increase, again focused on the delivery portion of the bill, and on local infrastructure upgrades necessary to support increased electricity demand. In the City, the increased demand is anticipated to come both from electric vehicles (per the state mandates) and from building electrification (based on a City building electrification mandate known as Local Law 97). It is likely that the result of the Con Edison rate proceeding will be a settlement agreement comparable to what occurred in the National Grid case a few days ago.

I am an intervenor in this Con Edison rate case, and in recent days I have actually been personally participating — in a minor way — in the settlement negotiations. My co-intervenors and I are objecting to any rate increases based on adding infrastructure to support building and vehicle electrification unless and until the additional electricity generation capacity has been built to support these mandates. (There is no chance that this additional capacity, supposedly wind and solar generators, will actually be built.)

The New York Post has a lead editorial today summarizing how the green energy madness is coming around to bite New Yorkers in their pocketbooks. Excerpt:

New York’s state Public Service Commission just OK’d big National Grid rate increases that’ll hike many upstate utility bills by $600 a year — fueling outrage Democrats will soon feel. Downstate, Con Edison is seeking an 11.4% hike to electric bills and 13.3% gas hike — largely thanks to green-energy mandates that Gov. Kathy Hochul embraced along with the rest of the party. The “climate agenda” is delivering pain we’ve long warned of, in New York and New Jersey.

If we ever get to the point of building dozens of gigawatts of wind and solar generation capacity, and enough backup and storage to make them work to support a grid, that would cause electricity rates to multiply by a factor of five or ten or more. We are a long way from that. But here we are just trying to add enough substations and transformers to support 30-50% vehicle electrification, and a comparable amount of building electrification, and it is causing politicians to start to scream. How much more of this will it take before we quit?

August 25, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

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