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BMJ Probe Into Excess Mortality Study Drags On for Two Years With No Resolution

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | June 17, 2026

Controversy over a BMJ paper examining excess mortality trends during the COVID-19 pandemic remains unresolved more than two years after publication, Steve Kirsch reported on Substack.

Dutch researcher Saskia Mostert, M.D., Ph.D., led the study, which was published in BMJ Public Health in May 2024.

Mostert’s team analyzed excess mortality data from 47 Western countries and reported that elevated death rates persisted through 2022 and 2023 despite the end of pandemic restrictions and the widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines.

The authors argued that the findings warranted further investigation into potential contributing factors, including pandemic-era policies, healthcare disruptions and mass vaccination programs.

The paper was attacked on PubPeer and Retraction Watch, two platforms that have become the driving force behind many recent retractions of peer-reviewed scientific papers whose findings challenge the mainstream narrative on vaccines, COVID-19 treatments and aluminum, among others.

Critics did not dispute the paper’s core findings that excess mortality was high and remained elevated in many Western countries during the study period. Instead, they criticized the paper’s discussion of the COVID-19 vaccines, saying it implied there was a causal link between the shots and excess death and encouraged readers to infer causation.

Several critics called for the paper to be retracted.

In response to these and other mainstream criticism of the paper, BMJ Public Health issued a statement saying that media reports had misrepresented the findings. However, in mid-June 2024, the journal stamped the article with an “expression of concern.”

The journal said its “integrity team and editors” were investigating issues “regarding the quality and messaging of this work.” It also said the Princess Máxima Center, where three of the four study authors were based, was investigating the study.

BMJ Public Health added that the study does not support the claim that vaccines are a major contributor to excess deaths.

The BMJ typically waits for the home institution’s findings before taking action, according to Kirsch. He said the Princess Máxima Center hasn’t yet sufficiently explained what was wrong with the study.

BMJ updated the expression of concern in January 2025, stating that it was awaiting the findings and that the institution had no update regarding when the information would be sent. The Princess Máxima’s website says the investigation is “complete but not yet finalized.”

“After more than two years, the ‘issues’ with the paper have not been revealed,” Kirsch wrote. He said that the center’s investigation revealed that the data and methodology are real and the authors committed no fraud.

“The institution just didn’t like the political implications of being associated with a paper that called the safety of the COVID vaccine into question.”

Princess Maxima Center did not respond to The Defender’s request for comment.

Study used proper methods, reported valid findings

All-cause mortality expert Denis Rancourt, Ph.D., told The Defender that the authors conducted their analysis, “using a correct method and without error.”

“Those results are robust and are corroborated and expanded upon by others,” Rancourt said. All-cause mortality is an important metric that is valid regardless of different opinions about what drives that mortality, he added.

Rancourt said the researchers discussed their results in relation to a broad range of published studies.

The push for retraction was based on how the media and social media commenters interpreted the discussion — not based on what the authors actually did in the paper.

“This is a regressive reason to start unpublishing papers,” he said, adding:

“The large industry of unpublishing shows that our society has moved away from independent thought (intellectual literacy) and towards excessive reliance on the pronouncements from high-status sources. I include scientists themselves in the said society.”

All-cause mortality identified in the paper ‘unprecedented and raises serious concerns’

The original paper showed that excess mortality in 2020 was documented in 41 of the 47 countries the authors analyzed. Over the next two years, that number increased to 42 and 43 countries in 2021 and 2022, respectively.

Overall, there were 3,098,456 excess deaths from Jan. 1, 2020, to Dec. 31, 2022, with just over 1 million of those occurring in 2020.

“This is unprecedented and raises serious concerns,” said researchers, who analyzed all-cause mortality reported in the Our World in Data database.

“In 2021,” they wrote, “the year in which both containment [i.e., lockdown] measures and COVID-19 vaccines were used to address virus spread and infection, the highest number of excess deaths was reported: 1,256,942 excess deaths.”

They reported that in 2022 — “the year in which most containment measures were lifted and COVID-19 vaccines were continued” — there were 808,392 excess deaths.

The authors pointed out that during the pandemic, politicians and the media emphasized: “on a daily basis that every COVID-19 death mattered and every life deserved protection through containment measures and COVID-19 vaccines.”

“In the aftermath of the pandemic, the same moral should apply,” the authors said. “Every death needs to be acknowledged and accounted for, irrespective of its origin.”

The authors called for government transparency in cause-of-death data so researchers can do “direct and robust analyses to determine the underlying contributors.”

This also means that autopsies need to be done to determine the exact reason for death, they added.

The authors noted that the data they analyzed may not have recorded all actual deaths because “countries may lack the infrastructure and capacity to document and account for all deaths.”

Record-keeping mishaps or delays may also cause deaths to go unrecorded.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

June 20, 2026 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | | Comments Off on BMJ Probe Into Excess Mortality Study Drags On for Two Years With No Resolution

Securing Peace with Iran Compels Trump to Divorce Israel

Israel’s goals of territorial expansion conflict with the goals of the US president

By Harrison Berger | The American Conservative | June 19, 2026

After President Donald Trump signed a preliminary Iran peace deal on Wednesday, Israel’s occupation and bombing of Lebanon presents the central obstacle to a final agreement and lasting peace. Securing and upholding the final peace deal will require the kind of confrontation with Israel that Trump has avoided for most of his presidency, given Iran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz and global energy flows.

Iran has insisted that the ceasefire and now the framework peace deal cover the entire regional war and thus require that Israel end its occupation of southern Lebanon. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council declared Monday that under the framework deal, called a memorandum of understanding, “war and military operations on all fronts—including immediately ending the Lebanon front tonight and permanently—will conclude.”

That demand stems directly from the “long-term security guarantees” Tehran has invoked across its public statements since the beginning of the conflict. For those guarantees to mean anything, Tehran needs Trump to rein in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ensure that Israel does not launch another surprise attack against Iran. The only way Washington can demonstrate that commitment is to pressure Israel now, in Lebanon. As Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute has argued, binding Israel to a ceasefire is a “test of America’s willingness, and its ability, to restrain its closest regional ally.”

Iran is right to doubt that Washington will exert that kind of pressure over Israel. After Israel’s latest bombing of Beirut’s southern suburbs, Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Ghalibaf wrote that the incursion into Dahiyeh “has once again shown that America either lacks the will to fulfill its commitments or the ability to do so.” Recognizing that Israel’s violent quest to grab territory in Lebanon could only be accomplished with U.S. approval, Iran’s leading negotiator declared that “the game of bad cop and good cop is outdated.”

Up until that point, the White House had seemed to use Axios and other friendly outlets to give Iran the impression that it was pressuring Israel, even as it kept giving its protectorate in the Middle East the green light to occupy its northern neighbor. Indeed, while American audiences heard from the Axios reporter Barak Ravid that Washington was “furious” over the Lebanon strikes, Israeli audiences heard the opposite.

Miriam Adelson’s Israel Hayom newspaper reported that the United States and Israel were in fact “fully coordinated, both on the strikes in Dahiyeh in Beirut and on the Israeli response to the missile fire from Iran,” and that Secretary of State Marco Rubio in particular played a “significant role” in getting Trump to back Israel’s retaliatory strikes. The Israeli operation, the paper said, was “fully coordinated with CENTCOM, even though the Americans did not strike themselves.” The munitions used by the Israelis in Lebanon are further proof of U.S. involvement, with Courtney Bonneau, the American-Dutch journalist reporting from southern Lebanon, recently telling The American Conservative that the waste left by Israel’s demolition and bombing campaign is recognizably U.S.-made.

Trump wants to have it both ways. The political costs of the war are piling up and he wants an exit, but an exit requires confronting Israel and the lobby over Lebanon, and that is a political conflict he has avoided fighting directly even as he has criticized Netanyahu in recent weeks.

Israel is betting he will continue to avoid it. Shortly after a deal was announced, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon would continue, and that it planned to stay “indefinitely” in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich likewise announced on Tuesday that “there will be no withdrawal from Lebanon, neither by Friday nor afterward. We will remain in south Lebanon and strengthen our presence there,” while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Monday that Israel is not bound by any agreement.

Though Israeli leaders insist they are carefully fighting “Hezbollah,” the death toll of at least 3,826 Lebanese civilians killed by Israeli attacks reveals that to be merely a pretext. Trump, though he has not skipped any payment when it comes to funding the conflict, admitted as much on Tuesday at the G7 Summit, telling reporters that Israel “does not have to knock down an apartment house every time [it’s] looking for somebody. There are a lot of people in those apartment houses and they’re not all Hezbollah.”

And though Israel invokes Hezbollah as its excuse for military action, there is little reason to believe the IDF’s occupation would end even if Hezbollah laid down its arms. In their public statements, Israeli officials have expressed interest in territorial expansion for its own sake and, increasingly, in the Judaification of Lebanese land through settlements—an idea Jewish Currents describes as “once fringe” but now backed by “an organized movement with broad governmental and public support.” Twenty members of Israel’s Knesset wrote to the cabinet in April urging “occupation and full control” of southern Lebanon alongside the “complete displacement” of its population, while a poll conducted by Direct Polls for i24NEWS found that 62 percent of Israelis favor occupying everything south of the Litani River.

Israeli occupation of Lebanon, like its ethnic cleansing campaigns in Gaza and the West Bank, works directly against American interests, in this case stopping a war that has wrecked the global economy. Washington has all the necessary tools to put a stop to this, yet has simply declined to use them. As Joe Kent, the administration’s former head of the National Counterterrorism Center and one of the most prominent America First critics of the war argued on X, “We can strengthen our chances of this deal holding by cutting all military/intel assistance to Israel,” who “took every opportunity to tank this deal & will likely do so again unless we take action,” adding that in order for a deal to hold, we must “take away every factor that we can control that could force us back into the war on Israel or Iran’s terms. Set all conditions that we can control in our favor.”

Though once unthinkable, Trump in recent days has shifted closer toward this America First position and away from the Israel First mindset that led to war with Iran. With Iran insisting any peace deal must cover “all fronts,” including Lebanon, and with the Israelis fully committed to the Greater Israel project, cutting off Israel is now the minimum price of the complete exit from the conflict that Trump says he wants.

Harrison Berger is a correspondent at The American Conservative. He has contributed to Drop Site News, The Nation, and Responsible Statecraft. Previously, he was a researcher and producer for System Update with Glenn Greenwald. His work focuses on civil liberties and U.S. foreign policy. He studied Political Science and Russian Studies at Union College (NY).

June 20, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Securing Peace with Iran Compels Trump to Divorce Israel

Old Iraq war architects rise up to wag finger at Trump’s Iran deal

Who asked for Doug Feith’s opinion anyway?

By Jim Lobe | Responsible Statecraft | June 18, 2026

Assume, for the sake of argument, that you think the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) just signed by President Donald Trump in Versailles is a disaster for both the United States and especially for Israel. Who would you want to be in the forefront of the campaign to persuade American public opinion that it should be abandoned or killed off altogether?

There are any number of candidates, but I, for one, would NOT choose anyone who bore major responsibility for the debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So, it was with great surprise that I found today that Douglas Feith, a key architect of both disasters ab initio, emerged from near-total obscurity at the hardline neoconservative Hudson Institute to publish an op-ed in the Washington Post assailing Vice President J.D. Vance (and indirectly Trump) for dangerous naivete in dealing with Iran.

I don’t want to get into his argument, which asserts that democracies can never trust “bad actors” like Iran to comply with their undertakings (an ironic point given the history of Iran’s compliance with and Washington’s unilateral abandonment of the 2015 JCPOA). You can read it yourself.

But to illustrate why I was so surprised that it was Feith, who hasn’t published an op-ed in the Post, the New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal since 2016, taking a public role in what will be a major PR campaign to kill the deal I will do what we strongly discourage on RS : I’ll quote from AI.

I asked Microsoft’s Co-Pilot’s the following question:

“Why is Douglas Feith the last person opponents of Trump’s deal with Iran would want to publish an op-ed on the deal’s alleged weaknesses?”

The answer:

“Because Feith is widely associated with the flawed intelligence, strategic misjudgments, and disastrous outcomes of the Iraq War, his criticism of any Iran policy risks undermining the anti-deal position by linking it to the same neoconservative thinking that produced the Iraq debacle. His involvement makes opponents look less credible, not more.”

I couldn’t have put it better or more succinctly, and, while Co-Pilot offered to elaborate at length, I’ll cite my own abbreviated list of why Feith is such a terrible messenger.

Feith, who served as undersecretary of defense for policy, the third-ranking post in the Pentagon, during President George W. Bush’s first term, was a long-time protégé of Richard Perle, the “Dark Prince” and the dean and impresario of hardline, Washington-based neoconservatives dating back to the early 1970’s. Feith followed Perle from his first job after law school in Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson’s office, which served as the hatchery of Washington-based neoconservatives in the 1970s, through Perle’s service as a senior Pentagon official during the administration of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

In 1996, the two men worked with several others who would later serve in the Bush II administration in a “study group” that produced the notorious “Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” paper for incoming Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Among other things, the memo called for Netanyahu to take steps that would ensure Israeli control of the occupied Palestinian territories in part by working for regime change in Syria and “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.”

But Feith is best known for his Pentagon service under George W. Bush, and, as Co-Pilot noted, his roles in the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. Gen. Tommy Franks, the CENTCOM commander in both campaigns found working with Feith particularly frustrating, complaining at one point to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, “I have to deal with the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth almost every day.”

Part of that frustration was due to Feith’s clear determination to shape or search for or even possibly invent intelligence that would justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq and rally public opinion behind that enterprise. Indeed, Feith created offices in the Pentagon, most notoriously the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Unit, whose job was to collect and disseminate any information that might suggest a cooperative relationship between Saddam Hussein’s regime and Al-Qaeda despite the judgments by the U.S. intelligence community that such a relationship did not exist.

As part of his efforts to shape the intelligence, he and his team worked with Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress which provided “informants” who concocted evidence of alleged advances by Saddam’s alleged nuclear weapons program that also did not actually exist.

Even more damaging was the Office of Special Plans (OSP), which was charged with planning the occupation after the invasion, plans which included “de-Baathification,” a program long promoted by Chalabi, Perle, and other neoconservatives, that virtually overnight created the largely Sunni insurgency and that eventually resulted in a bloody sectarian civil war that not only devastated the country, but exhausted the occupation forces.

Besides his work with the OSP, Feith was also responsible for establishing the short-lived Office of Strategic Influence, which was closed down after creating a furor in Congress because of its purported aim of “providing news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations as part of an effort to influence public sentiment and policy makers.”

But those examples are really just some of the most salient examples. “Undersecretary of Defense for Fiascos,” as Slate once described him, may have been a more appropriate title.

Six months into Bush’s second term, he was out, but, unlike his nominal boss, Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz, he didn’t get a consolation prize like the presidency of the World Bank. He retreated to write his 800+-page memoir in which he made what most critics described as a lame attempt at evading responsibility for the most disastrous “war of choice” in U.S. history.

It may be significant that the word “Iraq” did not appear once in Feith’s new attempt at a comeback.

Jim Lobe is a Contributing Editor of Responsible Statecraft. He formerly served as chief of the Washington bureau of Inter Press Service from 1980 to 1985 and again from 1989 to 2015.

June 20, 2026 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Old Iraq war architects rise up to wag finger at Trump’s Iran deal

Strait of Hormuz closed over Israeli aggression on Lebanon

Al Mayadeen | June 20, 2026

The Strait of Hormuz is shut down in response to ongoing Israeli aggression on southern Lebanon, Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters announced, deeming Israeli actions a violation of Iran’s agreement with the US.

In a statement carried by Iranian state television, the Khatam HQ accused the United States of breaching its obligations under a memorandum of understanding related to ending the war, and also cited continued Israeli military actions in southern Lebanon, including ceasefire violations, killings, forced displacement of civilians, and failure to withdraw from Lebanese territory. It added that the measure reflects a response to the deterioration of compliance by the opposing parties and the persistence of hostilities on the ground.

“In light of the United States’ blatant violation of its commitments and breach of the provisions of Article One of the memorandum of understanding to end the war and in response to the ongoing and continuous violation of the ceasefire by the Israeli entity in southern Lebanon, the continued brutal killing and forcible displacement of the Lebanese people, and its failure to withdraw from southern Lebanon, it is hereby announced that the Strait of Hormuz will be closed to maritime navigation,” the statement read.

More steps to follow

The statement from Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters concluded by emphasizing that the measure was presented as an initial response to what it described as the enemy’s breach of commitments, warning that any continued escalation would prompt additional actions aimed at compelling compliance with its stated obligations.

“It is noted that this first step is a response to the enemy’s breach of promise, and if the aggression continues, further steps will be planned and taken to force the enemy to comply with its obligations,” it asserted.

37+ martyrs in continued Israeli attacks on southern, eastern Lebanon

Israeli occupation forces (IOF) carried out a fresh wave of attacks across southern Lebanon and western Bekaa on Saturday morning, killing at least 37 people and extending a pattern of aggression that has persisted despite an alleged ceasefire in place since April 17, 2026.

In the Nabatieh area alone, at least 25 people were martyred and another 35 were injured in an initial toll, as reported by the Civil Defense Operations Room of the Islamic Health Authority’s Jabal Amel II region. Rescue and ambulance teams are still clearing rubble and searching for missing people. Among those martyred in the Nabatieh area is a Lebanese Army soldier killed in an Israeli drone strike in Kfar Rumman.

Meanwhile, an Israeli attack on a residential building in the town of Qennarit in the Saida district killed 7 and injured 13 others, among them 5 children and 5 women, as per the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.

In western Bekaa, Al Mayadeen’s correspondent reported that four people were killed in an Israeli attack on a house in the town of Sohmor, in addition to a person killed earlier in a separate drone attack that targeted a motorcycle in the same town, bringing the death toll in Sohmor to five. Lebanon’s National News Agency reports that a child remains under the rubble in Sohmor, with rescue teams working to save him.

Dozens of towns bombed

Local media reports that the IOF carried out at least 80 attacks on southern Lebanon and the western Bekaa since early morning on Saturday, comprising 65 airstrikes and 15 drone strikes, in addition to artillery shelling and sweeping fire.

The hardest hit areas are al-Nabatieh al-Fawqa (8 times) and al-Rihan heights (6 times).  Kfar Tebnit and its surroundings, Jabal al-Rafi’, Shoukin, and Nabatieh city were each bombed four times, while Kfaroumman, Aramta, the al-Aroush quarry, Harouf, and Habboush were each bombed three times.

Sojod, the area between Toul and Kfour, Kfar Joz, Zebdine and its surroundings, and Shhour were each attacked twice, while Nmairiyeh, Arabsalim, al-Mahmoudiyeh, Borj Qalaway, Qabrikha, Barish, al-Qatrani, and Qennarit were each bombed once.

Drone attacks, artillery shelling

Israeli drones, meanwhile, attacked Nabatieh city four times and Arabsalim twice, with single drone attacks hitting Deir al-Zahrani, Doueir, Deir Qanoun Ras al-Ain, Kawthariyet al-Riz, Sohmor, Harouf, Jibchit, and al-Nafakhiyeh.

Israeli artillery also shelled Majdal Zoun, Habboush, Harouf, and Ali al-Taher, while occupation forces carried out sweeping-fire operations in Buyout al-Sayyad.

Friday’s escalation

Saturday’s strikes followed a sharp escalation on Friday, when the IOF expanded its attacks to include several southern villages, the outskirts and northern entrance of Baalbek, and the Litani Riverbed near the town of Zellaya in the western Bekaa, attacks that resulted in massacres of civilians.

The bombardment continued even as Reuters reported that a ceasefire agreement between “Israel” and Hezbollah had taken effect at 4 pm that day. Within moments of the so-called ceasefire taking hold, Israeli occupation warplanes launched more than 16 attacks on areas across the South, according to Al Mayadeen’s correspondent.

The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health confirmed that the intensified aggression carried out from midnight through Friday afternoon martyred 47 people and injured 97 others, an updated toll showed. The Ministry put the cumulative toll of Israeli attacks between March 2 and June 19 at 3,980 martyred and 12,001 injured.

June 20, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Strait of Hormuz closed over Israeli aggression on Lebanon

Keir Starmer arson mysteries multiply

By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | June 20, 2026

On June 15th, two young Ukrainian men were found guilty in London of conspiring to carry out arson attacks on two homes and a car intimately connected to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Little-reported, curious details of the trial, and a post-conviction propaganda blitz led by the BBC blaming Russian intelligence actors for inspiring and directing the pair’s incendiary crimes, raise a number of ominous questions about precisely what happened, why, and for whom the alleged perpetrators were truly working.

On May 8th 2025, a Toyota vehicle previously owned by Starmer was set ablaze in north London, not far from where he’d previously resided. Three days later, flats in Islington Starmer managed years previously were similarly put to the torch, then on May 12th, a home where he once resided, now leased to his sister-in-law was also set ablaze. That same day, 22-year-old Ukrainian national Roman Lavrynovych was arrested by British police for his purported role in the arson.

Despite the Prime Minister being personally targeted in a highly organised, repeated and potentially lethal manner, major news outlets within and without the country exhibited bizarrely muted interest. Starmer describing the incidents in parliament on May 14th that year as “an attack on all of us, on democracy and the values that we stand for” – condemnation from Conservative and Liberal Democrat politicians echoed – elicited some headlines. However, basic facts about the case, and discussion of its obvious potential national security implications, remained unforthcoming.

This seeming omerta endured when, on May 17th, 26-year-old Ukrainian-born Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc was arrested at Luton airport for his role in the attacks, attempting to flee. Four days later, 34-year-old Ukrainian national Petro Pochynok was arrested, accused of conspiring with Carpiuc, Lavrynovych, “and others unknown to damage by fire property belonging to another.” The names and nationalities of two further individuals arrested in the case – a 48-year-old on June 2nd that year, and a 19-year-old in January 2026 – were never released.

Police investigations into these anonymous suspects were eventually dropped, without fanfare. Who they were, why they became subjects of interest, and the grounds for their elimination from enquiries, hasn’t been revealed and wasn’t discussed at trial. There were apparently no “others unknown” with whom Carpiuc and Lavrynovych colluded after all. Pochynok was acquitted, successfully arguing he was “deceived” by the pair and had no idea they intended to start fires with his help. Notably, all three were charged with mere arson, not national security offences.

This aspect is striking, given when the trial commenced on April 28th, prosecution lawyers immediately declared the trio’s arson assault was directed by a Russian-speaking Telegram user, for cash. The December 2023 National Security Act grants British authorities sweeping powers to severely punish people who break the law at the behest of “hostile states”. Repeatedly since the Starmer-linked attacks, British citizens have been jailed for national security offences after being recruited to commit crimes, including arson, via Telegram by supposed Russian actors.

All along, alarm has been sounded about Iranian intelligence using Telegram for similar purposes, in particular “[hiring] anyone who can harm Israeli interests or individuals” in Britain. Yet, a coordinated criminal conspiracy targeting the Prime Minister, which required access to sensitive private information on Starmer not readily available to average citizens, allegedly orchestrated by a malign foreign actor, mysteriously didn’t qualify as national security-related. Moreover, jurors and the public alike were strictly prohibited from learning anything about the group’s alleged recruiter.

‘Wholly Irrelevant’

On the trial’s first day, dropping the bombshell that Lavrynovych was “recruited, instructed and promised with payment for the fires that ​he was told to start” by a Russian-speaking source known as “EL Money”, the lead prosecutor promptly ordered jurors to leave the entire issue alone. “It is not part of your considerations ​to decide who ‘EL Money’ is and what reason he might have had to co-ordinate the actions of ​these defendants,” they said, before adding:

“It does not ​matter whether they knew that the property they were targeting was connected to the Prime Minister or whether that formed part ​of their motivation.”

As such, the trial centred solely around the extremely limited question of whether the accused committed arson. All other avenues of inquiry weren’t up for discussion or investigation in open court. While the financial motivation of the three accused was explored, the identity, connections and motives of the individual – or individuals – who commissioned and directed the attacks on Starmer was effectively inadmissible. This was despite Lavrynovych’s defence hinging on claiming to have felt intimidated by the unknown Telegram contact, and therefore acting under duress.

The BBC reports how during the trial in the jury’s absence, Lavrynovych’s lawyers applied for prosecutors to hand over wider information held by authorities on EL Money. This included whether he was associated with intelligence services or a state informant, and where he was based. They argued the actions of EL Money were “redolent of tradecraft” – in other words, cloak-and-dagger techniques employed by spies. But the judge flatly rejected the application, inexplicably ruling these burning queries to be “wholly irrelevant” to issues before the jury.

Nonetheless, it did emerge at the trial that EL Money sent messages to Lavrynovych on May 12th, following the final arson, notifying him “there is news, you’ll get crypto” and “you need to throw away the clothes.” Subsequently, EL Money warned him, “you attacked the home of a very high-ranking person in Britain,” and “you need to leave the city.” Lavrynovych was arrested hours later, indicating he was already in law enforcement’s crosshairs by this time. How he came to police attention isn’t clear.

Apparently, the central coordinating role of EL Money in the attacks on Starmer wasn’t ascertained until after Carpiuc and Lavrynovych were in custody, and legal proceedings well-underway. At a pretrial hearing in late May 2025, prosecution lawyers said the arrested Ukrainian pair’s conspiracy was “unexplained”. A contemporary Financial Times report noted counter-terror cops leading the probe were “keeping an open mind about motive.” Nameless government officials stressed “many different versions of the events” remained under investigation, “and nothing had been ruled out at this stage.”

‘No Evidence’

How prosecutors settled on the “version of events” they dramatically presented in court, before directing jurors to disregard considerations of EL Money entirely, is likewise unknown. Only a small number of messages the user exchanged with Lavrynovych – in which EL Money notably communicated in perfect Russian and Ukrainian – were presented in court. However, within just hours of the pair’s conviction, the BBC released a dedicated Panorama documentary, and 3,500-word long-read on the “Russian connection” behind the Starmer-linked arson.

Miraculously, “using open-source tools,” Britain’s state broadcaster was able to ‘crack the case’ to an extent police purportedly couldn’t. The BBC named EL Money as a “Russian diplomat, schooled in information warfare by spies and propagandists, who is close to the highest levels of power in Moscow.” Posing as EL Money, the 23-year-old supposedly sought to bribe numerous Ukrainians in Britain into perpetrating a variety of criminal activities, via dedicated local jobs groups, while also oddly deploying “deeply offensive Russian terms for Ukrainian people.”

“Messages from the [EL Money] account in various Telegram channels show him glorifying [Vladimir] Putin and Russia, attacking the Ukrainian people and promoting Russian narratives,” the BBC claimed. Its investigation acknowledged the trial of Carpiuc, Lavrynovych and Pochynok “was strange, mainly because the true author of the drama was never revealed,” with the conundrum of EL Money’s identity “deliberately avoided.” Suspicion can only abound as to why the British state broadcaster unravelled this crucial riddle, rather than courts and/or law enforcement.

Even more suspiciously, the BBC quoted a senior British counter-terror police chief as saying while the aim of the attacks on Starmer’s properties was “to intimidate and create fear for the Prime Minister and to attack the UK,” law enforcement had “not been able to prove the identity of [EL Money] or who he was working for.” They categorically declared, “we’ve got no evidence to suggest this was a state-backed threat.” But Britain’s state broadcaster is seemingly better informed than the police.

“Sources have told us that authorities in the UK and in Ukraine have privately concluded Russia was behind the arson attacks,” the BBC boasted. One might reasonably ask why Kiev has apparently taken it upon herself to solve a British criminal case, although Ukraine’s SBU is certainly an authority on recruiting chaos agents via Telegram, and other messaging apps. The heavily CIA and MI6-infiltrated agency has, over many years, exploited this technique to blackmail and bribe Russians into perpetrating serious crimes at home.

These scandalous activities have been universally ignored by the Western media. By contrast, numerous major news outlets have boldly seized on the BBC blaming Russia for the arson attacks. The Financial Times published a slick investigation the same day, replete with photos, videos, and graphics, documenting EL Money’s contacts with and payments to Lavrynovych. Shady investigative website The Insider went so far as to release extensive biographical information and photos of the 23-year-old Russian named by the BBC as EL Money.

Other outlets have produced quotes from Lavrynovych’s trial testimony, in which he states EL Money “wanted to see [the arson] on the news.” Of course, the attacks barely registered in the media contemporaneously, and what was said at the trial by defendants, their lawyers, prosecutors and the judge went unreported until now. In all the post-trial rush to convict Russia, not a single source has mentioned how British police themselves admit they possess “no evidence” indicating the arson attacks were sponsored by any state. Make of that what you will.

June 20, 2026 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , | Comments Off on Keir Starmer arson mysteries multiply

IRAN WAR “ON PAUSE” – w/ Prof. Glenn Diesen

Mario Nawfal | June 19, 2026

June 19, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Video | , , , , | Comments Off on IRAN WAR “ON PAUSE” – w/ Prof. Glenn Diesen

Zelensky threatens to attack Belarus

RT | June 19, 2026

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has issued an ultimatum to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, threatening him with military action if Minsk fails to meet Kiev’s demand, just days after a deadly drone strike on a bus carrying a children’s soccer team from Belarus.

Earlier this week, Lukashenko said that those seeking to drag his nation into the conflict “will have to pay dearly for that,” demanding answers from Kiev over the strike on the bus and other “provocations.” The attack in Russia’s Bryansk Region injured six minors and killed the wife of a Belarusian school soccer team coach who was accompanying the young athletes to a Russian seaside resort.

Kiev denied responsibility, while Zelensky claimed that it was Lukashenko who must “be honest” and prove Minsk’s peaceful intentions by removing air defenses and relay transmitters along the border with Ukraine.

“I think one week would be enough for him to accomplish this,” the Ukrainian leader stated at a press conference in Kiev on Friday. “If he does not do it, we will.”

Lukashenko has repeatedly said that Belarus has no intention of engaging in a war against any nation and “is not threatening anyone.” Zelensky, however, stated that there was “no need for unnecessary words,” and issued another veiled threat against the Belarusian oil refining industry.

“Just like his, for example, oil refining industry,” Zelensky said, claiming that Minsk is one of Russia’s “main” suppliers of petroleum products. “Can this be stopped? I am sure that it is within his power.”

A close Russian ally, Belarus has largely stayed out of the conflict since 2022, while calling on Moscow and Kiev to engage in dialogue and expressing its readiness to contribute to a diplomatic resolution. In September 2025, Lukashenko stated that he was ready to meet Zelensky personally to discuss possible compromises, but the Ukrainian leader rejected the offer. In November, Minsk released 31 Ukrainian citizens from detention in a “goodwill gesture” at the request of Kiev and US President Donald Trump, who was also seeking to mediate the conflict.

Over the past few weeks, Zelensky has been ramping up his rhetoric about an allegedly growing threat posed by Belarus. He accused Minsk of preparing to enter the Ukraine conflict on Russia’s side – and threatened it with a preemptive strike.

June 19, 2026 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Comments Off on Zelensky threatens to attack Belarus

UK to send Ukraine 150,000 drones

RT | June 19, 2026

The UK will provide Ukraine with 150,000 UAVs by the end of the year, London announced on Thursday following one of Kiev’s largest drone attacks on Moscow since the start of the conflict.

The package, worth £752 million ($996 million), was announced by British Defense Secretary Dan Jarvis at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels. According to the British government, which has been among Kiev’s most active military supporters, the package will be funded through London’s £2.26 billion loan to Kiev, backed by proceeds from frozen Russian sovereign assets.

British officials presented the package, which includes drones, missiles and radars, as necessary military support for Kiev. Chancellor Rachel Reeves pledged that London would continue backing Ukraine and putting pressure on Moscow. Russia has long argued that continued Western arms deliveries only prolong the conflict and undermine peace efforts.

The announcement came after Moscow and the surrounding region were hit by one of the largest Ukrainian drone raids in recent years. Russian air defenses intercepted 194 drones approaching the capital overnight, according to officials, but the attack still caused damage.

Local authorities reported that one drone struck the Moscow Oil Refinery in the Kapotnya district, triggering a fire, while debris damaged residential buildings, vehicles, and commercial sites, including several shopping centers.

Residents in several districts also reported black rain and soot falling from the sky after the refinery blaze, with local authorities advising people to keep windows closed and limit time outdoors.

At least 17 civilians, including two children, were reported injured in the Moscow Region. The raid also disrupted air traffic, with temporary restrictions imposed at Moscow’s airports and numerous flights delayed or canceled.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov condemned the attacks and said Moscow would respond by changing its strategy and begin regularly carrying out large-scale strikes against targets that “directly affect the combat capability” of the Ukrainian military.

“I have long been convinced that words are not enough,” Lavrov told reporters.

Moscow has repeatedly accused Ukraine of using Western-supplied weapons, funding and intelligence to carry out “terrorist attacks” on Russian territory and civilian infrastructure.

Russian officials have argued that continued arms deliveries from the UK, EU and NATO members make Western governments direct participants in the conflict and reduce the chances of a peace deal.

June 19, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Comments Off on UK to send Ukraine 150,000 drones

‘Biased censorship’: Iran deputy FM slams X for stripping him of blue tick

Press TV – June 19, 2026

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi has decried a recent “biased” move by the social media platform X to remove the blue checkmark from his account.

In an X post on Friday, Gharibabadi said that the online social network has removed the blue tick from his account after doing the same with the accounts of Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Minister Abbas Araghchi, and spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei.

“This biased and politically-motivated measure is the continuation of the pattern of censorship aimed at silencing the truth and the official voice of governments, as well as instrumentalizing digital credibility,” he added.

Since Elon Musk’s acquisition of X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2022, the platform has faced criticism for arbitrarily removing verification badges and deleting accounts perceived as politically inconvenient.

Since February, X has stripped many Iranian officials of their blue checkmarks and deleted without explanation hundreds of accounts supportive of Iran’s brave resistance against the US-Israeli war of aggression.

June 19, 2026 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Comments Off on ‘Biased censorship’: Iran deputy FM slams X for stripping him of blue tick

Hezbollah lawmaker says Israel has 60 days to withdraw from Lebanon

MEMO | June 19, 2026

Mohammad Raad, head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, said Israel has 60 days to complete its withdrawal from Lebanese territory, urging Lebanese authorities to study the understanding signed between the United States and Iran “carefully and objectively”.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Raad made the remarks as Israel continues its military actions and maintains its presence in areas it occupies in southern Lebanon.

He noted that the first clause of the agreement signed between Tehran and Washington calls, in part, for the “immediate and permanent cessation of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon”.

The agreement also includes a commitment to “guarantee Lebanon’s territorial integrity and sovereignty” and confirms a “permanent end to the war on all fronts” in its final form.

On Wednesday evening, US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian electronically signed the “Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding”, which aims to end the war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran on 28th February.

A Pakistani mediator later announced that the memorandum had entered into force. Under the arrangement, Iran is expected to begin reopening the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, while the United States starts lifting its naval blockade on Tehran.

Raad called on Lebanese authorities to “read the text of the memorandum carefully and objectively and draw conclusions about the realities and prospects that will have a significant impact on the region and the world, including Lebanon”.

He also warned against “underestimating Iran’s ability to fulfil its commitment to deter the Zionist enemy should it insist on violating the terms of the memorandum”, according to the statement.

June 19, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Hezbollah lawmaker says Israel has 60 days to withdraw from Lebanon

Iran rules out IAEA inspections of war-damaged nuclear sites

Press TV – June 19, 2026

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman has dismissed reports claiming that the Islamic Republic will invite the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its nuclear sites damaged in two rounds of US-Israeli aggression.

Referring to the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by Iran and the US with the aim of ending the war on Thursday, Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters on Friday that the document’s clause 8 stipulates that negotiations on the nuclear issue will be held within a period of 60 days.

“Of course, this will require the fulfillment of the prerequisites for starting negotiations in accordance with clause 13,” he emphasized.

Baghaei stressed that, according to clause 9 of the MoU, the current status of Iran’s nuclear program will be maintained during the 60-day period, and accordingly, inspections of facilities such as Bushehr, which have been conducted so far, will continue.

He added that inspections of facilities to which the IAEA’s access was suspended due to the US-Israeli aggression hinge on the process of negotiations and their outcome.

His remarks come as US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, claimed that Iran will invite the IAEA to inspect its nuclear facilities and begin work on identifying and disclosing the locations of enriched materials possessed by Tehran.

This came during a special briefing by Witkoff to congressional leaders and members of the committees concerned with national security.

The MoU, signed remotely by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and US President Donald Trump, calls for a permanent end to hostilities across all fronts, the removal of the US naval blockade, the restoration of commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days, a reconstruction plan worth at least $300 billion, and the lifting of US sanctions.

Under the MoU, the two sides have entered a 60-day negotiation period, with the goal of reaching a comprehensive final agreement.

The agreement followed an unprovoked US-Israeli war of terrorism against Iran that began in late February.

June 19, 2026 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Iran rules out IAEA inspections of war-damaged nuclear sites

Israeli regime’s only interest is ‘permanent war,’ Iran’s FM Araghchi says

Press TV – June 19, 2026

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has condemned provocative statements by senior Israeli ministers advocating intensified attacks on Lebanon, warning that the only interest of the genocidal Israeli regime is permanent war.

In a post on X on Friday, Araghchi denounced comments made by Israel’s far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir following the deaths of four Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon.

Ben-Gvir wrote on X that “all of Lebanon must burn,” and that “for every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep.”

“This is not a rant by a random genocidal lunatic,” Araghchi wrote. “It’s a public post by the national security minister of the Israeli regime.”

“The genocidal death cult headquartered in Tel Aviv is a threat to all of humanity. It threatens all humans,” he added.

Araghchi said that Tel Aviv’s “only interest is permanent war.”

Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich also called for a harsher military aggression against Lebanon, writing on the social media platform that it was “time to speak with fire” and “open the gates of hell.”

Iranian officials have repeatedly warned that halting Israeli attacks in Lebanon is a key component of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by the presidents of Iran and the United States on Thursday.

Israeli warplanes bombed residential areas in southern and eastern Lebanon before dawn Friday.

At least 31 Lebanese have been killed as Israel keeps attacking the country despite the US-Iran deal coming into force.

Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that strikes targeted inhabited homes in the towns of al-Sharqiyah, Harouf and Kfar Sir in the Nabatieh district.

In an earlier statement, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei underscored Washington’s direct responsibility under the current circumstances.

He said the Islamic Republic of Iran “will take all necessary measures to safeguard its interests, security and rights, as well as those of its allies.”

According to official Lebanese figures, the death toll from Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon has risen to 3,912.

More than 11,870 people have been wounded and over one million displaced, according to official figures.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that a ceasefire has taken effect between Hezbollah and the Israeli regime as of 4 PM local time. However, Lebanese media outlet Al Mayadeen has reported Israeli strikes following the start of the reported ceasefire.

June 19, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Comments Off on Israeli regime’s only interest is ‘permanent war,’ Iran’s FM Araghchi says

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