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US, South Korea and Japan Begin Joint War Games

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | September 7, 2026

The US, South Korea, and Japan kicked off five-day Freedom Edge war games in and around the Korean Peninsula.

“The exercise will also incorporate multi-national maritime and aviation capabilities, and introduce enhanced air defense scenarios, medical evacuation training, and maritime interdiction operations,” a statement from Pacific Command (PACCOM) said. “Building on the foundation of Freedom Edge 25, as well as regular trilateral ballistic missile defense and defensive counter-air exercises throughout the year, Freedom Edge 26 stands as our most advanced trilateral cooperation to date.”

The US, South Korea and Japan began holding Freedom Edge in 2024. For the second year in a row, the drills will occur without an American aircraft carrier. The US carrier fleet has been strained by the wars in the Middle East, and the Japan-based USS George Washington was recently deployed to the region.

The military drill often provokes a hostile response from North Korea. During last year’s iteration of Freedom Edge, Pak Jong Chon, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea, said the drills “pose a grave challenge to the security interests of our state and a major danger of undermining regional stability and escalating military tension.”

On Monday, North Korean Minister Kim Song-gi said Freedom Edge was pushing the situation to the brink. “US-led military demonstrations are being held one after another, without any break in time or space, as military cooperation between the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea evolves into a dangerous offensive alliance with nuclear elements.” He continued, “This reality poses a serious security threat, pushing instability on the Korean Peninsula and beyond to the brink.”

Last month, President Donald Trump said that the US and South Korean bilateral Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) war games were unnecessarily hostile toward North Korea. “These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful,” he posted on Truth Social.

While Trump cut the UFS drills in half, the Freedom Edge war games have gone forward as planned. South Korean Rear Adm. Kim Ji-hoon called the Freedom Edge drills the “most effective” exercises. “The trilateral Freedom Edge exercise is being executed to counter North Korean nuclear and missile threats and that’s the main purpose of the exercise,” he added.

Trump’s decision to scale back the UFS drills appeared to be part of a push to secure a meeting with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, rebuked the overture, saying that merely scaling back the war games did not change the hostile US policy towards North Korea.

Supreme Leader Kim said Pyongyang remains focused on establishing a nuclear deterrent to prevent Washington and South Korea from starting a war. On Monday, North Korea put its second 5,000 ton destroyer into service.

“The enemies’ concerns will surely be deepened,” Kim said at the commissioning ceremony. “We must establish more clearly a powerful and reliable nuclear war deterrent, to put into practice the diverse and effective operation of our nuclear combat systems and further strengthen our military activities for maritime defense and war deterrence.”

September 7, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Comments Off on US, South Korea and Japan Begin Joint War Games

Israel’s Rafael to produce missile parts at Volkswagen factory in Germany

The Cradle | September 7, 2026

Rafael Advanced Defense Systems plans to begin manufacturing parts for Israel’s Iron Dome missile systems at the Volkswagen factory in Osnabrueck, Germany, WirtschaftsWoche reported on 7 September.

According to the German business magazine, Volkswagen will sell the plant to a consortium which will include the German federal state of Lower Saxony and a Bavarian investment fund.

Volkswagen is streamlining its operations in Germany as industrial production in the country slows following the loss of cheap Russian natural gas after the start of the Russia–Ukraine war and the destruction of the Nord Stream Pipeline in 2022.

The German automaker will also close four factories, laying off up to 50,000 employees.

Olef Lies, minister-president of Lower Saxony, participated in the negotiations and will announce the new partnership on Monday.

The Financial ​Times (FT) first reported in March that Volkswagen and Rafael were in talks to shift production at the Osnabrueck ​plant from cars to missile components.

Rafael had planned to build missile parts and motors, rather ​than explosives, which would be manufactured at a separate facility, ​the sources speaking with FT said.

A deal between Volkswagen and Rafael for the sale of the plant was reached in April.

However, it was blocked by the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), which holds 10 percent of Volkswagen shares and 17 percent of its voting rights.

To bypass Qatari opposition, Lower Saxony was brought in to help purchase the factory alongside Rafael and Aurelius Capital, a Munich-based investment fund.

The Osnabrueck plant currently employs 2,300 employees. It is unclear whether employees will retain their jobs or what employment protections they will receive.

Volkswagen reportedly plans to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Aurelius Capital to protect workers’ rights at the factory.

The Iron Dome, Arrow, and David’s Sling missile defense systems have helped Israel wage the genocide in Gaza and wars on Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen by shielding Israel from retaliatory missile and drone attacks.

A shift from automobile to missile production would mark Germany’s renewed focus on manufacturing weapons amid the ongoing wars between the US and Iran, and Ukraine and Russia.

Germany and NATO are strong supporters of Ukraine and say they are preparing for a direct conflict with Russia in the coming years.

Support for Israel’s security is at the core of Berlin’s foreign policy, German leaders have stated, citing as justification the country’s Nazi past.

Der Spiegel revealed last week that despite the genocide in Gaza, Berlin has approved nearly $930 million in military equipment exports to Israel during the first half of this year alone.

September 7, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , | Comments Off on Israel’s Rafael to produce missile parts at Volkswagen factory in Germany

After historic German election, will the AfD rule Saxony-Anhalt?

Remix News | September 7, 2026

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) just won the largest share of any party in a German state election in the party’s history. Despite the historic result, which has sent shockwaves through the German political establishment, lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund in Saxony-Anhalt still fell short of an absolute majority needed to govern.

That gap, three seats in an 83-member Saxony-Anhalt Landtag, is now the focal point of unfolding drama in the capital city of Magdeburg, where the future direction of the state, and perhaps even of the country, will be decided. AfD has a political mandate and a number of options that could produce dramatic results. Here are three possible scenarios.

An AfD and BSW coalition?

On the preliminary official count, the AfD took 43.8 percent and 39 seats. The threshold for an absolute majority is 42. The BSW scraped in with 5.3 percent and five seats. Together they would have 44. Everyone else together also has 44. Without the BSW, the chamber splits 39–39.

The BSW has already been open that it is willing to pursue a coalition with the AfD, but this is not a comfortable coalition for the AfD.

Siegmund spent the campaign insisting he would not take office without a stable majority of his own. After election night he kept the hard line in one respect and loosened it in another. He still rejected the BSW’s preferred model, a non-partisan minister-president governing with shifting majorities, as messy power politics.

Siegmund called the offer “nonsense” and said he did not want to give up the AfD’s goals and values in the face of “power games.”

He still said the AfD would not trade away its program for power, but he also said he would extend a hand to anyone prepared to deliver a “fundamental political change,” including, if necessary, individual deputies rather than whole parties.

If that fails?

“In an emergency, there will simply be new elections.,” he said. In such a scenario, he predicts the AfD would score “50 to 55%.”

The question is whether cooperation with the BSW on some level is possible. Sahra Wagenknecht framed the result as a chance for a change of course on energy, Russia sanctions, education, and public broadcasting. State-level BSW figures say they will not join a “firewall” coalition against the AfD. They also say they will not elect Siegmund. Their offer is a third way, involving a new leader both parties can agree on, plus issue-by-issue majorities that could include the AfD.

However, the BSW is already hinting they may be willing to give up even more for an AfD government.

BSW’s lead candidate, Thomas Schulze, suggested that in the third ballot for minister-president, the BSW may abstain from the vote, which in theory, could let Siegmund through to become the state leader.

What the BSW would obtain in return remains to be seen.

However, despite the differences between the AfD and BSW, the two parties have much in common. The overlap involves a strict crackdown on migration, tackling energy costs, shifting policy on Ukraine, and hostility to the public broadcasters.

At the same time, BSW politicians have already flagged education policy and parts of the AfD’s economic and social agenda as unacceptable. A formal coalition was ruled out by Wagenknecht before the vote. What remains is only a quasi gray zone where both parties can exist together a vote a time.

For Siegmund, the political costs of that gray zone are obvious. He ran as the man who would reshape the state standing alone. Accepting a non-AfD premier, or even a minority premiership propped up only with the support of Wagenknecht’s left-wing party, would look like the opposite. However, stepping back from the deal would leave his party out of the halls of power once again.

AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel both appear eager for Siegmund to take the deal. Chrupalla has already talked up the possibility of a minority government that would seek majorities case by case.

Peel off CDU MPs?

Siegmund’s second option may prove even more explosive for German politics. He spoke of not working with parties, but with individuals from the parties. He suggested individual deputies could “support an AfD government.” Some in the AfD’s federal circle even talk about CDU members crossing the floor to the AfD camp, and there are even suggestions that some MPs may defect.

If any CDU politician defected to the AfD, there would be a national firestorm. While if only one vote was needed, this might be in the realm of possibility, but finding three such MPs may prove a very tall order. The CDU has tried to build the firewall into its DNA, and if three CDU members helped bring the AfD to power in a state, it may be enough to collapse the federal government and end the chancellorship of Friedrich Merz.

Regardless of whether the AfD can peel off three CDU votes, the pressure on the party is tremendous after it collapsed to a mere 17.2 percent, effectively halving its support. The CDU is almost assured to continue facing a political reckoning in the future, which means the dam may break at some point, and CDU politicians may be more and more willing to jump ship to the AfD.

A repeat election possible?

An anti-AfD government is mathematically possible but politically? It would be a total mess.

It would need the CDU, SPD, Greens, Left, and BSW — five parties, two of which spent the campaign treating each other as the problem. The CDU already ruled out coalitions with both the AfD and the Left Party. The BSW campaigned to push the CDU out, with Wagenknecht also calling another firewall coalition an affront to voters.

That does not mean it cannot be attempted, and it very well might be, even despite the potential consequences for all the parties involved. If that project forms and then staggers, Siegmund’s threat of new elections stops being a far-fetched scenario. A second vote in such a scenario could indeed catapult the AfD above the 50 percent mark.

Procedurally, the clock is already running, as the new Landtag must convene by Oct. 6. The strongest group proposes the Landtag president in the first round. The minister-president is elected by secret ballot, with no fixed deadline once nominations begin. While the first ballot requires a majority of all votes, in the final round, a simple majority of votes cast can suffice to elect a new minister-president.

As far as the best outcome for the AfD, it is hard to argue against CDU defectors handing the AfD the keys to victory. It would allow the AfD to take control with a like-minded party on paper while sparking a major crisis for the ruling CDU.

However, remaining outside government also comes with plenty of bonuses, and as Remix News previously wrote, avoids serious pitfalls that the federal government and even the EU can put up against an AfD government.

Despite falling short of an absolute majority, the AfD appears to be in the driver’s seat.

September 7, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism, Russophobia | | Comments Off on After historic German election, will the AfD rule Saxony-Anhalt?

‘Russophobia a national sport’ – Polish party rallies against push to war

RT | September 7, 2026

Polish protesters have accused Warsaw of whipping up anti-Russian hostility and dragging the country toward war as the government continues to arm Ukraine and deepen confrontation with Moscow.

Supporters of the Confederation of the Polish Crown party marched through Gniezno on Sunday behind a banner reading “Poland for Peace,” carrying Polish and party flags.

“They’re trying to turn Russophobia into our national sport. But we won’t give in,” activist Marta Czech told the crowd, urging “prudence” as tensions with Russia continue to rise.

Another speaker, Lukasz Pakulski, accused the authorities of frightening Poles with talk of tanks, nuclear weapons, and a wider conflict. “They are pushing us into war,” he said, declaring that “Poles stand for peace.”

The Crown is a traditionalist, Euroskeptic party founded by MEP Grzegorz Braun. It campaigns for tighter immigration controls, less power for Brussels, and Poland’s withdrawal from the EU, while opposing deeper Polish involvement in the Ukraine conflict.

The protest comes as Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government has continued to support Kiev, arguing that Ukraine’s security is inseparable from Poland’s own. Warsaw has provided around $6.8 billion in aid to Kiev since 2022, including more than $5 billion in military assistance. Poland also hosts around 961,000 Ukrainians under temporary protection.

However, public enthusiasm for the policy has been fading, with a July poll finding that 52% of Poles opposed accepting more Ukrainian refugees, while another survey showed 67% backed deporting unemployed Ukrainian men of military age.

Another survey found 27% believed Western aid to Ukraine was too large, compared with 22% who wanted more, while opposition to Ukrainian EU membership reached a record 40%.

Relations between Warsaw and Kiev have also recently deteriorated over historical grievances after Vladimir Zelensky named a military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which Poland holds responsible for massacring up to 100,000 ethnic Poles during World War II.

President Karol Nawrocki later stripped Zelensky of Poland’s highest state honor, while other politicians have called for an end to free weapons deliveries to Kiev.

Moscow has consistently accused Warsaw of deliberately stoking anti-Russian sentiment while supporting Kiev’s war effort.

Russian officials have also highlighted the Kiev-Warsaw UPA dispute, arguing that even one of Ukraine’s strongest backers can no longer ignore Kiev’s embrace of neo-Nazi ideology and glorification of figures linked to wartime atrocities.

September 7, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , | Comments Off on ‘Russophobia a national sport’ – Polish party rallies against push to war

US Placing Missiles in Europe to Cancel Strategic Stability Talks Prerequisites – Russian MFA

Sputnik – 07.09.2026

MOSCOW – The deployment of US ground‑based US intermediate-range and shorter-range missile systems in Europe, in particular in Norway, will nullify the prerequisites for a constructive dialogue with the United States on strategic stability, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Monday.

“Steps such as the deployment of US ground‑based US intermediate-range and shorter-range missile systems in Europe, which threaten Russia, will, to put it mildly, nullify the prerequisites for a constructive conversation with the United States on strategic issues,” Zakharova said in a statement.

Russia views the deployment of systems in Norway capable of launching medium- and short-range missiles as yet another step in a series of highly destabilizing actions by NATO, the statement read.

“As part of Russia’s response measures, the locations where US systems are deployed and controlled, as well as the infrastructure supporting them, are becoming the focus of special attention from Russia’s strategic deterrence forces, which includes planning the combat use of the relevant strike assets in the event of an armed conflict,” Zakharova said.

The ministry added that favorable conditions for a substantive and productive dialogue with the United States on strategic stability had not been established now.

September 7, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Comments Off on US Placing Missiles in Europe to Cancel Strategic Stability Talks Prerequisites – Russian MFA

Analysts warn of ‘colonization’ as US ‘saturates’ Australia with 110 bases

Press TV – September 7, 2026

The United States reportedly wields control over, or has access to, 110 military facilities belonging to Australia — a presence so extensive that analysts now describe it as a “saturation” and even a “colonization” of the Australian continent.

The Guardian, citing information gathered from the database of the Nautilus Institute, reported that the US military or US defense corporations have access to more than half of Australia’s military facilities.

According to the database, the United States controls 17 military facilities on mainland Australia, has access to 75 more Australian-run military installations elsewhere, while US defense corporations have access to an additional 18 facilities.

“This is not a matter of penetration, it’s a matter of saturation,” said Prof Richard Tanter, the database’s author.

“Over half of the defense facilities that we have looked at have some level of American access: that means American personnel, it means American corporations, some of the biggest armaments companies in the world.”

The US military in Australia engages in gathering intelligence, accessing satellite data for targeting information, and communications intercepts.

Other military activities include training for some 2,500 marines on dry-season rotation in the Northern Territory, as well as the pre-positioning of warfighting assets, weapons, munitions, and fuel, stored in case of a regional war in the Pacific.

The US now practically owns Australia’s human, soil, and mineral resources through its control of the nation’s military, according to critics.

The US military presence will continue to expand. From next year up to 1,200 uniformed military personnel will operate from the HMAS Stirling submarine base just off Fremantle.

The government insists that technically this will not be a US base — rather a “rotation” — but there is little contestation of its actual implication.

The AUKUS nuclear submarine agreement, described by former defense minister Christopher Pyne as “a lot more than the submarine procurement,” effectively establishes a new United States submarine base in the Indian Ocean.

“For the Americans, being able to have a submarine base in the Indian Ocean is a massive strategic advantage,” Pyne told a public inquiry.

Dr Vince Scappatura, author of The US Lobby and Australian Defense Policy, described US base access across Australia as a kind of “second wave of colonization.”

“Today we are shaping up to be the ‘tip of the spear’ for US power projection into the region — that’s what the sprawling US base access represents,” he said.

“Each one of those dots on the map represents a point of leverage Washington has over Canberra when it comes to matters of defense and foreign policy.”

Scappatura noted that the phrase “empire by invitation” was originally coined to describe US hegemony over western Europe “but it is applicable equally here. I sometimes describe it as ‘voluntary subordination’.”

The United States has been escalating militarization in the Pacific by resetting ties with regional countries in an attempt to form a coalition against China.

Beyond Australia, US bases and military access points are expanding across Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and other regional nations, effectively drawing them into Washington’s orbit.

Critics say this is a desperate bid by Washington to arrest the rise of China, with Australia and other regional countries being used as forward operating bases in what could become a larger confrontation.

Tanter says that the acceptance of the US military presence has become so ingrained within the government and defense that unwinding Australia’s enmeshment within the world’s most powerful military is increasingly difficult.

“This is a massive institutional failure in Australia, a kind of learned incapacity at a political, parliamentary and bureaucratic level,” he said. “We’ve learned how not to ask those questions.”

Dr Emma Shortis, director of international and security affairs at the Australia Institute, says Australia’s increasing integration with the US military has resulted in “an accelerating erosion of Australia’s independent, sovereign, decision-making power.”

“Instead of having the option of saying ‘no’ to involvement in United States wars, involvement becomes the default position,” she said.

She cited the March attack by a US nuclear-powered submarine on an Iranian frigate, sinking it and killing more than 100 people. Three Australian naval personnel were onboard, part of the submarine’s crew: the US did not forewarn Australia of the attack.

“Australia might maintain the pretense of sovereign decision-making power, but that’s not the reality,” Shortis said.

Dr Albert Palazzo, an adjunct professor at the University of New South Wales Canberra and formerly the director of war studies for the Australian army, told the Guardian the US military’s accelerating buildup carries danger for Australian security.

“The Australian government seems to be waltzing its way into a war between the United States and China, by allowing this country to become an outpost or bastion of the US military, and as a platform from which they will launch military force against China,” he said.

Australians’ faith in the US is fragile and fracturing. A Lowy Institute poll showed Australians’ “trust in the United States to act responsibly in the world” has fallen to 31%, the lowest level in its polling history.

Just 21% of Australians have confidence in Donald Trump to do the right thing in world affairs, the lowest level of confidence in a US president yet.

More than twice as many Australians (59%) now believe Australia’s interests are best served by a more independent foreign policy rather than a closer alliance with the US (23%). Just 13% of Australians believe the US is a “very reliable” security ally.

This represents, Shortis says, a “seismic shift” in Australia’s perception of its once-great and powerful friend.

“After following the US into nearly every war since World War II, Australians have had enough. They see tangible risks in being so close to President Trump’s bleak and violent version of America.”

September 7, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , | Comments Off on Analysts warn of ‘colonization’ as US ‘saturates’ Australia with 110 bases

Inside America’s deadly war on suspected drug boats | Fault Lines Documentary

Since September 2025, the US military has carried out more than 60 strikes on suspected drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, killing more than 220 people.

In a military campaign called Operation Southern Spear, President Donald Trump’s administration has claimed to wage war against “narcoterrorism”. Yet the government has released little information about who was killed, the evidence against them or how targets were selected.

In Killing at Sea, Fault Lines investigates the administration’s claims about Operation Southern Spear by uncovering the stories of those targeted and the evidence used to justify lethal military force.

Through the stories of families left searching for answers, alongside witness accounts, physical evidence and interviews with legal experts, Fault Lines asks whether the strikes are lawful, whether they have disrupted the drug trade and what accountability exists for those killed.

From fishing communities in the Caribbean to Washington, DC, Killing at Sea examines a military campaign conducted largely beyond public view—and asks who is being killed in the US’s new war at sea, and why.

September 7, 2026 Posted by | Video, War Crimes | , , | Comments Off on Inside America’s deadly war on suspected drug boats | Fault Lines Documentary