Epstein survivor says she was beaten, raped by ‘well-known PM’, referring to Israel’s Ehud Barak
Press TV – October 19, 2025
Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a victim of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, has disclosed in her posthumous memoir that she endured brutal beatings and rape at the hands of a prominent political figure in a series of encounters.
In her book titled Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, Giuffre recounted how she pleaded with Epstein to intervene after the “well-known prime minister” subjected her to terrifying experiences and forced her to beg for her life, but Epstein coldly told her it was simply part of her job.
“After the attack, I couldn’t stay a fool. Having been treated so brutally and then seeing Epstein’s callous reaction to how terrorized I felt, I had to accept that Epstein meted out praise merely as a manipulation to keep me subservient,” she wrote. “Epstein cared only about Epstein.”
Giuffre referred to the man as the ‘Prime Minister,’ fearing retribution if she revealed his identity, although she had previously pointed to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in court filings as one of the many elites who had raped her, a claim he has repeatedly denied.
According to Giuffre, she first encountered the ‘Prime Minister’ on Epstein’s private island when she was 18 years old in 2002, where he subjected her to violent and terrifying acts.
She described how he repeatedly choked her to the point of losing consciousness, inflicting extreme fear and violence upon her, which she detailed in her memoir.
The politician “raped me more savagely than anyone had before,” Giuffre said, adding that she immediately went to Epstein to beg him not to send her back to the prime minister.
But Epstein showed indifference, stating, “You’ll get that sometimes,” when confronted with the politician’s brutality.
Epstein later allegedly arranged for Giuffre to have a second encounter with the prime minister in a cabin aboard his private plane, the Lolita Express, during which she spent the time in constant fear of further violence.
Giuffre admitted that prior to the traumatic experiences, she had given Epstein the benefit of the doubt, believing he cared for the girls, but she was forced to confront the truth after his indifference to her suffering at the hands of the prime minister.
“I didn’t know it then, but my second interaction with the Prime Minister was the beginning of the end for me,” Giuffre said, adding she stopped recruiting other young girls for Epstein as he had forced her to do in the past.
Giuffre’s memoir, written before her death in April, is scheduled for release next week, offering a detailed account of her harrowing experiences at the hands of powerful individuals. Giuffre was 41 when she died.
Holocoughs, Emotional Rapes & Bad Signals
By Kevin Barrett | October 19, 2025
The Zionists are obviously waging war on Palestine. It’s a war of extermination—a genocide—and always has been, since there obviously could never be a “Jewish state” in Palestine without the forced disappearance of the Palestinian people. Unfortunately for the Zionists, the Palestinians stubbornly refuse to disappear.
The Zionist war on Palestine is also, of necessity, a war on the entire MENA region. That, too, is inevitable, since the region’s people support their Palestinian brothers and sisters—and recognize that the endlessly-expansionist Greater Israel project is coming for them next.
Given the difficulties of subduing Palestine and MENA, the Zionists also have no choice but to wage another war: an all-out but covert and deniable war on the West. They need to control the commanding heights of the US and Europe, hijack the West’s military and economic power, and use it against the Palestinians and MENA.
The Zionist war to control the West’s commanding heights is not entirely bloodless. It has featured a long list of assassinations and terrorist attacks, including the Kennedy assassinations and 9/11.
But it’s mainly a propaganda war. Its enemy is truth—one might even say reality. Its weapons are lies, big and small, sometimes plausible and sometimes laughable.
9/11, of course, was a very big lie, like the ones Hitler discussed in Mein Kampf:
… in the primitive simplicity of their minds (the masses) more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.
Sometimes people tell small lies by invoking alleged health issues. A few days ago Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu avoided testifying in his corruption trial by citing a persistent cough:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained of a cough and a cold during his testimony under cross-examination in the Tel Aviv District Court on Wednesday morning, leading the judges to agree to his request to truncate the hearing. (Times of Israel)
Social media wags suggested he should have gone all the way and invoked “The Holocough”—the ultimate excuse for Jews.
When I heard about Netanyahu’s holocough, I remembered Larry Silverstein’s dermatology appointment. Silverstein, who confessed on national television to being party to a decision to “pull” World Trade Center Building 7 on 9/11, was known to eat breakfast every morning in the Windows to the World restaurant at the top of the North Tower. But on September 11, 2001, as Silverstein was leaving the house, his wife reminded him that he had a dermatology appointment. (Were the reptilian scales starting to show through? David Icke wants to know!) Miraculously, a random, barely-remembered dermatology appointment saved Silverstein from being blown to kingdom come… and provided an implausible excuse for behavior betraying foreknowledge of the worst crime ever committed on American soil.
But since all of us have told little lies about health issues—for example, I once skipped school in third grade by claiming not to have recovered from a cold—it’s easy to understand that Netanyahu and his close friend Silverstein might very well have done things like that. But lying outrageously about murderous events like September 11 and October 7, and using those lies to convince the world that the heroes are really the villains and vice versa, is so extreme that most people just can’t wrap their minds around the audacity of such “large-scale falsehoods.”
And speaking of large-scale falsehoods: The Ziomedia lie that Hamas is a bunch of sadistic rapists, while Israelis are nice well-behaved hyper-civilized eternal victims, took another hit this week as the words and physical and mental condition of released captives on both sides told precisely the opposite story. Palestinians showed signs, and told stories, of the unspeakable tortures they routinely experience in Israeli captivity, while most Israelis held by Hamas described kind and courteous treatment:
Omri Miran, 48, a father of two and shiatsu massage therapist, was held in 23 different places in Gaza, above ground and in tunnels, according to his brother Nadav. “Sometimes he would cook food for his captors, and they loved his cooking,” Nadav told the Ynet news site. “He knew exactly what the date was and roughly what day it was. He knew exactly how many days he was in captivity. They spent most of their days playing cards with their captors.” (The Guardian)
This time there were no female prisoners to disabuse Israelis of their “Hamas rape” fantasies, because Hamas had released all female captives during previous prisoner swaps. (Video link.)
One female Israeli captive, it turned out, once did accuse Hamas of “eyeball rape”:
“There is a terrorist looking at you 24/7, looking, raping you with his eyes,” she said.
Back home in Israel, she quickly got raped, and not with eyes, by her gym instructor. It turned out she had been “safer when she was with Hamas.”
That’s hardly surprising, given that Israel is the only nation that holds gigantic “right to rape” protests, makes national heroes out of people who rape captives to death with sticks, and has a male population 60% of whom believe it’s fine to rape women as long as you are acquainted with them. Yet because Zionist-loyal Jews dominate the media, the gullible Western public has been force-fed the big lie that the Rapist Nation is the victim.
But controlling the narrative isn’t the same as controlling reality itself. To do that, you need someone like Uri Geller, the famous Israeli Mossad-linked spoon-bender who uses psychokinesis (PK) to directly affect the material world.
Unfortunately for the Zionists, Geller’s powers, however well they work with cutlery, aren’t up to reshaping large-scale reality. Geller and his team of Israeli PK specialists apparently couldn’t create an actual al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center, so more conventional techniques had to be employed to create that illusion. They couldn’t conjure up evil golems dressed in Hamas outfits, so the IDF had to murder hundreds of its own civilians with tanks and helicopter gunships on October 7, while the real Hamas heroes scored the military raid of the century. And they couldn’t cause Trump to drop dead of an apparent (Hamas-attributed) insider attack during the US president’s recent peace conference at Sharm El Sheikh, as Geller had floated shortly before that event.
Ultimately, Zionism epitomizes cosmic chutzpah. Like other millenarian-messianic movements, it imagines itself capable of completely rebuilding or repairing the world (tikkun olam) from the ground up. The world as we know it—an evil, terrible world, dominated by goyim who for no discernible reason insist on persecuting Jews—can be miraculously transformed into a paradise in which every Jew has 2800 goyim slaves. All we have to do is blow up the Al-Aqsa Mosque, build a blood sacrifice temple, invite the Messiah to move in, and—hey presto—the spoon will be bent!
Trump’s so-called peace plan offers no justice, no peace
By Fareed Taamallah | MEMO | October 19, 2025
I skipped the olive harvest in my village near Nablus to listen to Donald Trump’s much-anticipated speech before the Israeli Knesset and the subsequent summit in Sharm el-Sheikh. I had hoped—perhaps naively—that the US president, now once again playing a central role in Middle East diplomacy, might finally acknowledge Palestinian suffering or offer a genuine vision for peace. Instead, what I heard left me deeply disappointed, even angry.
Trump spoke for nearly an hour, full of self-congratulation and exaggerated praise for Israel’s “resilience” after 7 October. He called it one of Israel’s darkest days, repeating stories of Israeli pain, fear, and heroism. But not once did he mention the ongoing genocide in Gaza—the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed, the families buried under rubble, the starving children trapped in what has become the world’s largest open-air graveyard.
He seemed proud—boastful even—of his role in arming Israel. He bragged about how his administration “stood by Israel like no other” and reminded the audience that it was he who moved the US embassy to Jerusalem and recognized the illegal Israeli settlements as “legitimate.” He said all this as though gifting our land away was an act of peace.
As a Palestinian living under occupation, I felt that his words were not just ignorant but cruel. They erased our humanity. They erased 77 years of Palestinian displacement and oppression. They erased the checkpoints that divide our lives, the walls that suffocate our villages, and the soldiers who humiliate our elders and children daily.
While Trump was speaking in Jerusalem, my close friend in Gaza was searching for food and shelter for his family after their home was destroyed by Israeli bombing. He lives with his wife and children in a small tent, far from their shattered neighbourhood. In a short voice note he sent me — with the sound of drones buzzing above — he said they had eaten only a little food in two days. As Trump boasted about “supporting Israel’s defence,” my friend was struggling to defend his family from hunger, cold, and despair — not from an army, but from a war machine that has turned his life into rubble.
Trump’s so-called “peace plan,” unveiled once again with great fanfare, offers nothing resembling peace. It is not even a plan—it is a continuation of the same colonial logic that has defined every failed American initiative since 1948: to secure Israel’s dominance while pacifying Palestinians into submission.
From what we have seen, the “plan” does not even address the root cause of the conflict—the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. It speaks vaguely about “economic opportunities” and “regional cooperation,” as if what we need are more jobs instead of freedom. It promises “security for Israel” but nothing about security for Palestinians living under constant military siege. It celebrates normalisation between Israel and Arab regimes, while ignoring the normalization of apartheid and dispossession on the ground.
This is not peace. It is a political mirage designed to buy time for Israel to continue its colonization project.
I remember the last time Trump presented a “deal of the century,” back in 2020. Back then, too, he stood beside Israeli leaders while excluding Palestinians entirely from the process. That plan, like this one, sought to legalize the illegal: annexation of settlements, denial of refugee rights, and the permanent fragmentation of Palestinian territory. The difference now is that the destruction in Gaza and the tightening of Israel’s control over the West Bank have made such plans even more grotesque.
When Trump stood before the Knesset and described Israel as “a beacon of democracy and civilization,” I thought of the olive trees uprooted near my village by settlers under army protection. I thought of the hundreds of checkpoints that prevent us from reaching our land. I thought of my friends in Gaza who haven’t had a single night of safety in two years. Is this the “civilization” he was praising?
For us Palestinians, peace has never meant simply the absence of war. Peace means justice. It means accountability for war crimes. It means the right to live freely on our land without occupation, without siege, without fear.
At the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, Trump was joined by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and several Arab officials. They all spoke in the same language of “stability,” “security,” and “ending the cycle of violence.” But what they did not say was more telling: none demanded an end to occupation; none called for lifting the siege on Gaza; none spoke of justice for Palestinian victims.
Many Arab regimes seem eager to move on from the Palestinian issue, to normalize with Israel and focus on their own interests. But ignoring injustice will not bring stability to the region. The Palestinian struggle for freedom cannot simply be erased because it is inconvenient to powerful governments. Injustice breeds resistance. And no amount of political summits or empty declarations will change that fact.
Trump’s “peace plan” is not only about politics—it is also about profit. He treats diplomacy as a business deal, where justice and human rights are bargaining chips. His approach is transactional: sell weapons, secure contracts, reward allies. By promoting this plan, Trump is trying to whitewash Israel’s crimes, to make genocide and apartheid look like stability and partnership. He aims to polish Israel’s image internationally while creating lucrative opportunities for arms deals and regional investments. It is the commercialization of oppression.
But if Israel is not held accountable for what the entire world has seen—massacres livestreamed to our screens, starvation used as a weapon, entire families erased—then the international system itself has collapsed. The institutions that were built after World War II to uphold justice and prevent genocide will have proven meaningless. If such atrocities can occur in broad daylight, with impunity, while world leaders speak of “peace,” then the moral foundation of the international order has crumbled.
When Trump left the podium to applause from Israeli lawmakers, I realized that this was not a peace process—it was a performance. It was meant to reassure Israel and its allies that nothing would fundamentally change, that Palestinian suffering would remain background noise to the “new Middle East” they dream of.
But for us, the reality is very different. Every day, we wake up to news of more killings in Gaza, more arrests in the West Bank, more land confiscations, more despair. We do not have the privilege of pretending that peace can exist without justice.
I returned to my olive trees after Trump’s speech, with the noise of his words still echoing in my head. As I picked the olives from branches planted by my grandfather, I felt the deep connection between our land and our struggle. These trees have survived droughts, wars, and occupations. They are witnesses to our history and symbols of our steadfastness.
Trump may talk about “peace” in grand halls and luxury resorts, but real peace begins here—in the soil of Palestine, in the dignity of our people, and in the pursuit of justice that no speech can silence.
Until the occupation ends, until the siege on Gaza is lifted, until those responsible for genocide and ethnic cleansing are held accountable, there will be no peace—no matter how many plans or summits are announced.
The world must understand that Palestinians do not reject peace; we reject oppression disguised as peace. We are not asking for privileges or favours. We are demanding our basic human rights: freedom, equality, and justice.
Trump’s visit has only reinforced one truth—that peace built on denial and injustice will never last. The path to real peace begins not in the Knesset or in Sharm el-Sheikh, but in the recognition of Palestinian rights and the end of Israeli occupation. Only then can we speak of peace with meaning.
Iran announces legal campaign to hold Israeli officials accountable for ‘crimes against humanity’
The Cradle | October 18, 2025
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei announced on 18 October that Tehran is launching a comprehensive legal campaign to hold Israeli officials accountable for crimes against humanity.
Speaking at a specialized meeting titled Legal Response to the 12-Day Aggression: From Criminal Justice to Restorative Justice, Baghaei said the legal challenge aims to end what he described as Israel’s “entrenched impunity.”
“Iran will pursue justice through international legal channels,” he said, warning that the absence of accountability has emboldened Israel’s continued violations across West Asia.
He emphasized that the Foreign Ministry has been documenting legal evidence since the beginning of the 12-day aggression, which has been compiled into a book detailing human rights violations committed by Israel.
Baghaei noted that, although Iran is not a state party to the International Criminal Court (ICC), it engages with the court and supports global efforts to confront Israeli crimes.
The Iranian diplomat also rejected Israeli claims of “preventive attacks,” calling them legally baseless, and asserted that Iran’s response represents an act of legitimate defense.
He accused western governments of shielding Israel from accountability despite overwhelming evidence of war crimes.
Baghaei added that 120 countries have expressed strong support for Iran’s opposition to Europe’s attempt to reimpose sanctions through the snapback mechanism unlawfully, highlighting this consensus during the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) ministerial meeting in Uganda.
He argued that European maneuvers undermine the integrity of the UN Security Council and lack legal standing, and that they face opposition from permanent members China and Russia.
Separately, Baghaei condemned the thousands of Israeli ceasefire violations in southern Lebanon, and blamed France and the US—both ceasefire guarantors—for enabling these actions through their continued appeasement of Tel Aviv.
The real ISIS
By Muhammad Jamil | MEMO | October 19, 2025
The people of Gaza Strip lived through two years of an unprecedented genocide in the history of warfare, leaving more than seventy thousand dead, tens of thousands more wounded and mutilated, and the territory itself reduced to rubble. Amid this devastation, a few conscienceless individuals emerged. They were collaborators who assisted the occupier in killing, looting, and abduction. They were also war profiteers whose crimes were no less vile, hoarding essential goods and extorting the starving with outrageous prices.
History, whether ancient or modern, shows that when wars end, the enemy swiftly abandons his agents to their fate. That is exactly what Israel did in the first minutes of the ceasefire, just as it did to the South Lebanon Army (LAHD) when it pulled out of southern Lebanon in 2000.
There were, by all accounts, only a few hundred collaborators and profiteers. Despite the magnitude of their crimes, retribution in Gaza was limited, that after field trials, a handful of those directly implicated in killings were executed. There was no sweeping revenge, but rather patience and dignity, which prevailed over the pain.
This is not to justify summary executions but to explain the extraordinary circumstances of a shattered society emerging from unprecedented destruction, where emotions run high and restraint is hard to find. By comparison, the European purge after the Second World War, what the French called the “épuration sauvage “, saw thousands killed without trial. Women accused of “horizontal collaboration” with German soldiers had their heads shaved and were publicly humiliated.
Wars always rupture the social fabric, where the occupier targets the communal web to achieve military ends. Gaza is not unique in this; its unprecedented unity during the two years of genocide made it a particular target. Israel used every devious method to tear it apart, spreading rumours, forming gangs through bribery or intimidation, even calling entire families, clan elders and sheikhs to demand collaboration under threat of bombing their homes.
On 27 September 2025, for example, Israeli intelligence phoned members of the Bakr family in the Shati camp in western Gaza, promising safety if they would form a militia modelled on the Abu Shabab gang in Rafah. The family refused; at dawn their houses were struck, killing nine people, including women and children.
Western newspapers and bulletins seized on the single field executions and raids on collaborators to revive the narrative Israel launched at the start of its onslaught which claimed that “These are the ISIS-like extremists we warned you about; what happened proves our story.” In the midst of a humanitarian catastrophe, this single episode was what interested them. Rather than pushing to enter Gaza after two years of being barred and seeing the destruction with their own eyes, they returned to their usual role of hijacking the truth to smear the victims.
Their hypocrisy and obsession with demonising Gaza’s residents in order to portray the occupation and its collaborators as “innocents” blinded them from seeing the tonnes of explosives that turned Gaza to ash, to the tens of thousands killed and wounded, the displaced and the hungry. They focused on a single incident because it could be made to echo the videos of ISIS beheadings and executions in Iraq and Syria that once shocked the world.
The Arab normalisation platforms, newspapers, and TV channels, which from the very beginning promoted and supported the occupation’s narrative, were the most eager to portray the event as an “ISIS-like” act, fuelling the fire of sedition and inciting the population to internal conflict. What is striking is that these outlets hosted tribal leaders and elders from the Gaza Strip on their programs, assuming they would go along with their narrative that labeled the criminals as “opposition” and innocent civilians. Instead, those leaders shattered and refuted the narrative, explaining the danger of these gangs and the crimes they had committed.
They ignored the real ISIS-like elements within the occupation army who proudly filmed themselves blowing up whole residential blocks, while arresting hundreds and stuffing them into stadiums and open pits, then transferring them to prisons to disappear them forcibly. After some were released, especially following the recent agreement, these people told horrifying stories of torture, some leaving permanent disabilities and some dying in cold-blooded field executions. We saw the bodies handed over by the occupier showing signs of brutal torture, ropes tied around their necks, and in some cases their organs had been stolen.
The bitter truth is that we find ourselves forced to highlight certain scenes of the massacre to prove that these are the true ISIS, even their masters, in order to counter the false propaganda. It has become lodged in people’s minds that killing by slitting throats with a knife or shooting at point-blank range is what is called “cold-blooded” murder, an unforgivable crime. But what about killing by bombing for two years, collectively striking entire residential blocks so that women and children are killed, their bodies torn apart and burned? Is that “hot-blooded” killing? Is what matters the way of killing not the outcome?
Damn the propaganda that planted in the minds of the gullible the idea that one act is different from the other. Whoever is psychologically prepared to drop tons of bombs on civilians, killing women and children and destroying homes, schools and hospitals, is no different from someone who uses a knife or a rifle to kill. Both actions express the same criminal intent, equally willing to kill by bombing, shooting or slaughtering.
The real surprise came from Trump’s statements, which silenced everyone. He expressed his satisfaction with what had happened, saying that he was the one who had allowed it to confront “dangerous gangs,” adding that he “did not find it particularly troubling.” He further noted that the situation reminded him of what had happened in other countries, such as Venezuela, where the United States had dealt with Venezuelan gangs, some of whom were sent to America, in the same manner.
In all cases, field executions are unacceptable under any circumstances. Every accused person must be granted a fair trial in accordance with the requirements of the law, no matter how grave their offense. Emotions and anger must not take control when dealing with those who have harmed society, whether in times of peace or war.
Discipline and adherence to the rule of law are what distinguish law enforcement officers from criminals and present a bright image of society as civilized and cohesive, unshaken by the actions of such individuals.
Finally, as a tribute to the great sacrifices made by the Palestinian people throughout two years of extermination, we must avoid any actions that can be used to falsify reality, awareness or distort the truth. We want the story of sacrifice and heroism during the extermination to be told without any blemish in a manner that expresses the brutality of the occupation and of everyone who collaborated or conspired with it.
Turkey prepares its historic turn: from NATO sentinel to Eurasian protagonist
By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 19, 2025
For decades, Turkey was considered a pillar of NATO’s eastern flank — a key piece on the chessboard of containing Russia. Since joining the alliance in 1952, the country has played a dual role: on one hand, a strategic partner of the West; on the other, a regional power with ambitions of its own. This balance was always unstable — and now, it is beginning to undergo substantial change.
What was once whispered behind closed doors is now being openly voiced by central figures in Turkish politics. In September 2025, an unexpected statement from the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahçeli, sent shockwaves through Ankara and beyond: he openly proposed the formation of a strategic alliance between Turkey, Russia, and China, directly opposing what he called the “US-Israel evil coalition.”
Though shocking to some Western observers, this proposal did not emerge in a vacuum. According to analyst Farhad Ibragimov, Bahçeli’s remarks mark “the deepest ideological shift in Turkish nationalism since the Cold War.” A nationalism traditionally aligned with the West now appears skeptical — if not openly antagonistic — to the Washington-led structure.
It is important to note that Bahçeli is not alone in this shift. The idea is echoed with enthusiasm by other sectors of Turkish political life, such as Doğu Perinçek, leader of the Patriotic Party. For him, this reorientation is neither a tactical maneuver nor a veiled threat to NATO — it is, rather, a “civilizational project.” In his words, it is a historic decision: either Turkey remains a satellite of the Atlantic powers, or it fully integrates into the Eurasian civilization, alongside Russia, China, and Iran.
In this context, the suggested alliance should not be seen merely as a military or diplomatic pact, but as an attempt to redefine Turkey’s role in the 21st century. The proposal carries an implicit — and at times explicit — critique of the decadent, domineering, and unsustainable liberal world order.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s position has been more ambiguous. He stated he was “not fully familiar” with Bahçeli’s idea, but added: “Whatever is good, let it happen.” This phrase summarizes Erdoğan’s strategy in recent years: keeping the country in a bargaining position, flirting with Moscow and Beijing while still participating in Western institutions. However, there are signs that even this balancing act may be giving way to more definitive choices.
The growing instability in the Middle East, the erosion of European institutions, and constant pressure from the U.S. have pushed Turkey toward a new posture. As Perinçek aptly put it, “this is not a choice, but a necessity.” Remaining within the Atlantic system, in his view, offers no guarantees of sovereignty, economic development, or territorial security.
Although short-term technical obstacles remain, Turkey’s path toward Eurasian integration is not only viable — it is necessary. The country’s economic dependence on the West, inherited from decades of participation in the liberal-globalist architecture, is not a fixed destiny — but a chain that must be broken. Remaining in NATO, far from providing security, leaves Ankara a passive target of American strategy. In contrast, a strategic alliance with Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran — while demanding structural adjustments — offers something the Atlantic has never guaranteed: full sovereignty, mutual respect, and active participation in building a new international order based on multipolarity.
More than a geopolitical alignment, the proposals of Bahçeli and Perinçek carry a profound civilizational dimension. By drawing closer to Russia, China, and Iran, Turkey is not merely seeking strategic partners but also reconnecting with the historical and cultural space of Turkic populations within those countries — from the Arctic-Siberian frontiers in Sakha to the Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang and Iranian Azerbaijan. This reconnection creates fertile ground for a broader alliance that could also involve the Central Asian republics — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan — and Mongolia itself. This is, therefore, not just a political axis, but an identity-based one, capable of forming a cohesive civilizational bloc with shared roots and converging interests in the face of the moral and structural decline of the liberal West.
The trend is clear: a significant part of Turkey’s political and military elite no longer believes the country’s future lies in Brussels or Washington. Instead, they look to the heart of Eurasia — where emerging powers are gradually drawing the contours of a new multipolar world.
At this moment, Turkey seems to be standing in front of a mirror: it can continue acting as a peripheral extension of Western will, or it can take a more independent course. The statements from Bahçeli and Perinçek may be just the beginning of a turn that, if consolidated, will shift the geopolitical balance of the region for decades to come.
UK’s Covert Support for Ukraine’s Black Sea Strikes Exposed
Sputnik – 19.10.2025
Ukraine’s military has been spotted integrating satellite communications from the British company OneWeb to command and control its fleet of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) in the Black Sea.
The Ukrainian military uses the UK company OneWeb’s satellite system to control USVs in the Black Sea, a source in Russian security services told Sputnik.
“OneWeb terminals have been integrated into the USVs’ control system. OneWeb is now used as a secondary channel alongside the main system —the US’ Starlink,” the source said, adding that one such vehicle has been captured by Russian forces.
He explained that unlike Starlink, which operates thousands of low-orbit satellites, OneWeb deploys its network in medium Earth orbit. This allows each satellite to provide broader coverage, but requires more complex and expensive user terminals.
In 2022, the Russian Federal Agency Roscosmos demanded that the UK provide guarantees that the OneWeb satellite network would not be used against Russia. The company did not comply, leading to the suspension of OneWeb satellite launches aboard Russian rockets.
Poland’s president signs new zero income tax law for parents with two children
By Emily Mangiaracina | LifeSiteNews | October 17, 2025
WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s president has signed into law the cancellation of personal income tax for parents who are raising two or more children, in an effort to support and encourage families and boost the economy.
The newly enacted bill removes the income tax obligation for families earning up to 140,000 zloty (€32,973, or $38,486) a year. The average Polish family is expected to keep in pocket an extra 1,000 zloty (€235 or $274) per month as a result of the tax break.
Polish president Karol Nawrocki, who was sworn into office in August, presented the bill before it was approved by Parliament as a means to financially help families as well as encourage a sustainable birth rate in a country suffering, like most others, from birth rate decline.
“Financial resources must be found for Polish families,” said Nawrocki while presenting the bill. He highlighted the fact that Poland is suffering from a birth rate crisis. Last year, the number of births in Poland fell to a new low. Poland’s birth rate is one of the lowest in the world, at 1.1 by 2024, far below replacement rate. Only eight countries have a birth rate lower than Poland’s according to the Population Reference Bureau.
Public consultations about the law before its passage found that the tax break is very popular among Poles. About 76 percent of respondents said the law was “definitely needed,” and only 16 percent were strongly opposed to the bill, EuroNews reported.
Demography experts such as data analyst Stephen Shaw, the creator of the documentary “Birthgap,” are skeptical about whether economic incentives can reverse the trend of population decline. He has noted that even the Roman Empire, in its later stages, enacted policies aimed at increasing birth rates, including taxing the childless.
According to Shaw, “No society in history has been known to come out of” the “spiral” of population decline.
In his film “Birthgap,” he has documented how declining birth rates in the U.S. and around the world are being driven by an “explosion” in childlessness as opposed to smaller family sizes.
Dmitry Polyanskiy: Tomahawks, Nuclear War & Failure of Diplomacy
Glenn Diesen | October 17, 2025
Dmitry Polyanskiy is the First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations. Polyanskiy argues that the spirit of Alaska is not dead, and it is still a diplomatic path to peace. However, if Trump sends Tomahawk missiles, then it will be considered a direct US attack on Russia by the Trump administration. Furthermore, as the Tomahawk can carry a nuclear warhead, Russia will have to consider it a possible nuclear first strike.
‘Formal, Unequivocal Apologies’ Needed to Restore Public Trust After COVID Vaccine Mandates
By Jill Erzen | The Defender | October 15, 2025
The public deserves “formal, unequivocal apologies from governments and medical bodies” for COVID-19 vaccine mandates and for “silencing truth seekers,” according to a paper published Oct. 9 in the journal Science, Public Health Policy and the Law.
Vaccine mandates and lack of transparency during the COVID-19 pandemic eroded public trust, which deepened the divide between health authorities and the people they serve, according to authors Dr. Aseem Malhotra and Andrea Lamont Nazarenko, Ph.D.
“The pandemic demonstrated that when scientific integrity is lacking and dissent is suppressed, unethical decision-making can become legitimized,” they wrote. “When this happens, public confidence in health authorities erodes.”
Trust in public health agencies plummeted during the pandemic. Confidence in decision-making at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) fell from 73% in 2020 to 61% in 2025, according to polling firm KFF.
Public opinion on physicians and hospitals also suffered, with trust dropping from 71.5% in April 2020 to 40.1% in January 2024, according to a study in JAMA Network Open.
Restoring faith in public health agencies requires “long overdue” apologies, as well as “full transparency of data, independent evaluation of evidence, and accountability through both policy change and public acknowledgment of harm,” the paper’s authors said.
‘Pandemic of the vaccine injured’
The “safe and effective” narrative surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine shifted over the years toward “unsafe and defective,” according to the authors.
Policymakers’ unwillingness to acknowledge the vaccine’s emerging safety signals may be “the most egregious failure” of all. “We are currently facing what some call a ‘pandemic of the vaccine injured,’” the authors said.
In 2022, a study in the journal Vaccine found that the risk of serious harms from the COVID-19 vaccine was two to four times greater than the risk of being hospitalized with COVID-19. That same year, researchers surveyed 40,000 Germans and found a high rate of severe side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine that persisted for months or longer.
Studies from 2025 suggest the risks may not decrease over time.
- A preprint study found that genetic material contained within mRNA COVID-19 vaccines can integrate into the human genome, potentially contributing to the onset of aggressive cancer.
- An analysis of a Japanese database of 18 million people showed that people who received COVID-19 vaccines had a significantly higher risk of death in the first year after vaccination compared to the unvaccinated, and the risk increased with each additional dose.
- A peer-reviewed study published in EXCLI Journal was the first to uncover statistically significant evidence of increased cancer risk following COVID-19 vaccination in Italy.
In public health, policymakers must anchor their decisions in cumulative evidence that evolves with new knowledge, according to Malhotra and Nazarenko. “It is a profound failure of scientific and ethical responsibility to overlook these safety concerns,” they wrote.
Health systems must adjust to manage ‘psychological fallout’ of pandemic
The authors said the health risks revealed by the emerging COVID-19 vaccine studies illustrate one of the central lessons of the pandemic: evidence evolves. Policies must be adjusted as new evidence comes to light, but that didn’t happen, they wrote.
“If the full body of research ultimately shows a net harm from COVID-19 vaccination and pandemic-era policies, the greater barrier will be psychological, not scientific,” Malhotra and Nazarenko said. “Our social systems must therefore be prepared to manage the psychological fallout, responding with clarity and compassion.”
To rebuild legitimacy, institutions must actively uphold ethical principles that prioritize the public over political or corporate interests, they said. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is taking steps in this direction, according to the authors.
In September, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. led two roundtable discussions on long COVID that included doctors, researchers and patients. The talks were, in part, in response to “the calls that I get almost every day from people who are suffering from long COVID across the country and don’t know where to go and feel that their voices aren’t being listened to,” Kennedy said.
In August, Kennedy canceled nearly $500 million in contracts and grants intended to develop mRNA vaccines. “We reviewed the science, listened to the experts, and acted,” Kennedy said in announcing the move.
Restoring public trust hinges on informed consent and shared decision-making, according to the authors.
“A contributing factor to the prevalence of injury has been the extent to which government officials and public health authorities overrode the doctor-patient relationship, taking precedence over the ethics of individualized medicine,” they wrote.
Earlier this month, the CDC handed supporters of informed consent a win by updating its childhood immunization schedule to emphasize individual-based decision-making for COVID-19 vaccination in children 6 months and older.
‘Suppression may quiet critics, but it suffocates science’
In 2024, the journal Cureus retracted the first peer-reviewed paper to provide an extensive analysis of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine trial data and post-injection injuries.
“Silencing contestation is not a neutral choice; it is contrary to the methods by which science corrects itself,” Malhotra and Nazarenko said.
“Voices that push the mainstream should be encouraged, not silenced. Yet, contemporary public health often substitutes condemnation for curiosity, marginalizing dissent even when data warrant debate,” they wrote.
According to the authors, Kennedy’s critics provide “the most striking example of silencing opposition.”
Vaccine lobbyists at a leading biotech industry trade group purportedly criticized Kennedy’s “anti-vaccine stance” during an April meeting, calling him a “direct threat to public health.” A spokesperson for the organization denied the statements.
Kennedy’s policies at the HHS have sparked similar claims from six former U.S. surgeons general, who said he is “endangering the health of the nation.” Several senators have made similar assertions and called for Kennedy’s resignation.
Corporations and regulatory bodies commonly use character assassination to weaken their opposition, according to the paper’s authors. Those in power silence dissent by discrediting critics with smear campaigns and labels like “anti-vaxxer,” shifting focus from evidence to identity.
“Suppression may quiet critics, but it suffocates science,” Malhotra and Nazarenko wrote. “The remedy for disagreement is better evidence and open debate — not censorship or character assassination. Robust science requires robust dissent.”
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.
Houston Hospital Denies Refusing Organ Transplants to Unvaccinated Patients
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 15, 2025
A Houston hospital accused of denying organ transplants to patients who haven’t been vaccinated against COVID-19 today told The Defender it “does not have a policy requiring transplant patients to be vaccinated against COVID-19, or any other disease, and does not deny care based on vaccination status.”
“We abide by all state laws and, as one of the largest transplant programs in the country, the safety of our patients always comes first,” Houston Methodist Hospital said in a statement.
The allegations stem from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who stated in a letter that his office may investigate Houston Methodist Hospital for allegedly denying organ transplants to patients who refused the COVID-19 vaccine, according to a letter his office sent the hospital.
The letter to Houston Methodist Hospital’s President and CEO Marc L. Boom cited a July 24 X post by Texas doctor Mary Tally Bowden. The post included a screenshot of the hospital’s transplant policy showing that patients seeking a kidney transplant must receive the COVID-19 shot.
Monday, Bowden posted Paxton’s press release on X, claiming she had “written and oral proof (recorded conversation)” that the hospital required transplant patients to get the shots. “To my knowledge, their policy has not changed,” she added.
Bowden previously worked at Houston Methodist Hospital. The hospital suspended her privileges after she prescribed ivermectin to prevent and treat COVID-19. The hospital also accused her of spreading “misinformation.”
Bowden sued Houston Methodist after hospital officials refused to provide public information about the institution’s finances during the pandemic.
In the press release issued Monday, Paxton said, “Texans looking to receive medical care should never be turned away due to arbitrary COVID-19 vaccine mandates imposed by woke medical providers.”
He added:
“Vaccine mandates as a precondition for certain life-saving treatments may not only violate new state laws that became effective on September 1, but they also violate human dignity and run contrary to foundational principles of medical ethics. That’s why I’ve requested that Houston Methodist Hospital clarify its compliance with Texas’s new laws and position on vaccine mandates.”
The hospital has 14 days to notify the Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG) about the steps it has taken to comply with the recently passed provision in the Texas Health and Safety Code, which prohibits denying organ transplants based on vaccination status.
The OAG said it will open a formal investigation if the hospital fails to respond.
Paxton’s office said its letter to the hospital “reaffirms Attorney General Paxton’s stance against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and reflects his commitment to protecting the rights and freedoms of Texans by challenging unlawful vaccine mandates.”
In recent years, Paxton’s office has challenged Big Pharma’s actions related to COVID-19 shots and weight-loss drugs, and has investigated toothpaste companies for deceptive marketing geared toward children.
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.
Qatar warns EU sustainability law could end its LNG exports to Europe
The Cradle | October 17, 2025
Qatar’s Minister of Energy, Saad al-Kaabi, said on 16 October that Doha would be unable to continue supplying liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe if the EU fails to revise its corporate sustainability rules.
In an interview with Reuters, Kaabi warned that the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), adopted in 2024, poses a “significant risk” to state-owned QatarEnergy – one of the world’s largest LNG exporters.
The regulation requires major companies operating within the bloc to identify and address human rights and environmental violations in their supply chains or face fines.
Kaabi, who also serves as QatarEnergy’s chief executive, said his concern centers on potential penalties of up to five percent of a company’s total global revenue for failing to meet the EU’s climate-transition requirements under the Paris Agreement.
He said such exposure could make it impossible for QatarEnergy to justify doing business in Europe.
“QatarEnergy will not be able to justify doing business in the EU, be it in LNG or other products, due to the significant risk it would be exposed to due to the overreaching nature of the proposed regulations, which will ultimately harm the European end consumers,” Kaabi told Reuters.
Qatar currently supplies between 12 and 14 percent of Europe’s LNG needs under long-term contracts, including with Shell in the UK.
Kaabi said Doha has been attempting for nearly a year to “constructively engage with the key players at both the European Commission and every EU Member State” on the directive, but has received no reply.
Reuters confirmed that the European Commission did not immediately respond to its request for comment.
Earlier this week, the European Parliament’s legal committee supported efforts to soften the law following pushback from corporations, but Kaabi said the amendments “did not address key concerns.”
He urged Brussels to make further changes or risk discouraging investment and weakening the bloc’s competitiveness.
“Europe must decide if it wants to continue to attract investment into the bloc by further changing CSDDD, or risk undermining efforts to strengthen its competitiveness and prevent economic deterioration,” he said.
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On ‘conflict’, ‘peace’ and ‘genocide’: Time for new language on Palestine
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 12, 2021
On 25 May, famous US actor Mark Ruffalo tweeted an apology for suggesting that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.
“I have reflected and wanted to apologise for posts during the recent Israel/Hamas fighting that suggested Israel is committing ‘genocide’,” Ruffalo wrote, adding: “It’s not accurate, it’s inflammatory, disrespectful and is being used to justify anti-Semitism, here and abroad. Now is the time to avoid hyperbole.”
But were Ruffalo’s earlier assessments, indeed, “not accurate, inflammatory and disrespectful”? And does equating Israel’s war on besieged, impoverished Gaza with genocide fit into the classification of “hyperbole”? … continue
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