The French state is now policing the algorithm in the name of democracy
French prosecutors have opened a criminal case into X on allegations it altered its algorithms in ways that may have supported “foreign interference.”
Magistrate Laure Beccuau confirmed on Friday that the investigation began Wednesday, with authorities looking into whether X violated French law by manipulating its recommendation systems and deceptively collecting user data.
This latest development builds on a separate inquiry launched in January, which was prompted by complaints from a French parliamentarian and a senior civil servant.
The original accusation targeted X for promoting “an enormous amount of hateful, racist, anti-LGBT+ and homophobic political content, which aims to skew the democratic debate in France.”
X is facing mounting pressure not only from French officials but also from European regulators. On Thursday, two members of France’s National Assembly filed a complaint with Arcom, the national digital watchdog.
At the European level, the Commission has been examining X’s practices for close to two years under the recent censorship law, the Digital Services Act. The focus has included “misinformation” but in January the scope of the investigation widened to include X’s algorithms.
Momentum is building within EU institutions to wrap up that investigation. While regulators cite threats to democratic discourse and online safety, the French government’s move to criminally probe X brings into sharper focus the tension between public oversight and free expression.
These state-led actions, framed as efforts to regulate tech platforms, may well cross the line into political censorship under the cover of legality.
July 13, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | France, Human rights |
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Moscow has dismissed a US media report claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin urged Iran to accept a nuclear deal that would strip it of the right to enrich uranium, calling it a dirty ploy to stoke tensions in the region.
In a statement on Sunday, the Russian Foreign Ministry slammed Western outlets as a “tool” in the hands of the political establishment and “deep state,” which it said does not hesitate to resort to any means, including provocative acts and “fake news.”
Russian officials singled out the US outlet Axios, which it described as a “toilet tank” that consistently spreads targeted disinformation, mentioning in particular its recent article titled “Scoop: Putin urges Iran to take ‘zero enrichment’ nuclear deal with US, sources say.”
The Axios story, the ministry said, was “apparently yet another dirty, politicized campaign launched with the aim of escalating tensions around Iran’s nuclear program.” It also reiterated that Moscow’s position remains that the crisis around Iran’s nuclear program should be resolved “exclusively by political and diplomatic means.”
On Friday, Axios reported, citing European and Israeli officials, that Putin told both US President Donald Trump and officials in Tehran following the 12-day Israel-Iran war that he would support a nuclear deal involving “zero enrichment.”
One European official told the paper that Putin encouraged Tehran to move in this direction in order to aid talks with Washington, but noted that the Iranians declined to consider the idea.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency, citing sources, reported that Tehran had received no such messages from Putin.
The US has insisted that Iran commit to zero enrichment as part of a potential nuclear deal, a demand Tehran has dismissed as unacceptable, explaining it needs such capacity for its civilian nuclear program. Iran also maintains it has no plans to create a nuclear bomb.
July 13, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Iran, Russia, United States |
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Journalist Mick Hall was accused of slipping “Russian disinformation” into copy at New Zealand’s state broadcaster, sparking an international furor about Kremlin infiltration. Following an intel agency investigation, his name was cleared.
Now, Hall tells The Grayzone how a simple copy editing dispute brought him into Five Eyes’ crosshairs.
Until two years ago, Mick Hall was a fairly obscure journalist publishing wire copy for Radio New Zealand (RNZ), far-removed from media capitals like Washington and London where international opinions are shaped. But in June 2023, Hall suddenly became the target of Five Eyes intelligence agencies when he was accused by Western sources – including his own employer – of inserting “Russian disinformation” into wire stories.
What started with a dispute of Hall’s copy edits turned into an investigation by New Zealand’s Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (NZSIS), which briefed top government officials about its probe. For months afterward, major Western media outlets fretted that Kremlin agents had infiltrated New Zealand’s national broadcaster.
But Hall insisted he had been unfairly accused and defamed by a pro-war element driven into the throes of paranoia by the Ukraine proxy war. In November 2024, he lodged a formal complaint against the NZSIS, demanding to know whether Wellington’s primary intelligence service “acted lawfully and properly” and followed “correct procedure” in its investigation, and if any information gathered about him “was shared appropriately, including with overseas partners.”
On April 9, New Zealand’s Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (NZSIS) published the results of the investigation triggered by Hall’s complaint. The Inspector General report noted its investigation lasted between June 10 and August 11 2023, and was closed due to “no concerns of foreign interference” being identified.
The Inspector General acknowledged the intelligence services’ probe was initiated purely due to public “allegations [emphasis added] of foreign interference,” rather than substantive evidence of any kind, and expressed sympathy that Hall found it “disconcerting to discover” he had “come to the attention of an intelligence agency… particularly as a journalist reporting on conflicts where different views can validly be expressed.” However, it concluded NZSIS’ actions were “necessary and proportionate”, and the agency acted “lawful [sic] and properly.”
Hall’s name had been cleared, but he had been denied any recompense for being smeared as a Kremlin agent, and having his career in national media effectively destroyed.
An ounce of truth
The manufactured scandal surrounding Mick Hall’s copy edits trace back to New York City, where a lawyer and Democratic party hack named Luppe B. Luppen erupted in outrage at something he happened across on RNZ’s website.
In a Twitter/X post, Luppen complained that RNZ had republished a Reuters article authored by the news agency’s Moscow bureau chief Guy Faulconbridge, with “utterly false, Russian propaganda” inserted. Namely, that the February 2014 Maidan “revolution” was in fact a “violent” US-sponsored “colour revolution,” provoking a civil war in eastern and southern Ukraine, during which local “ethnic Russians” were “suppressed.”
Mick Hall was responsible for inserting this wording.
He told The Grayzone, “it always seemed odd to me a New York-based lawyer would come across a republished Reuters story on a small national broadcaster’s website in the South Pacific – I’ve not read too much into it, but it felt strange at the time, and still does.” Nonetheless, Hall believed his changes were legitimate given the story’s content, and stands by his decision to this day.
Since joining RNZ in September 2018 as a “digital journalist” and subeditor, he was responsible for selecting and processing news stories from international news agencies and wire services for republication on the broadcaster’s website. Hall frequently found that copy by the BBC, Reuters, and other prominent Western news services contained extraordinary bias and distortions. He felt compelled to balance the coverage by adding context, or amending and deleting passages which seemed overtly ideological.
When the Ukraine proxy war erupted in February 2022, Hall sensed that Western news agencies were not even attempting to conceal their biases any longer.
Manufactured crisis boomerangs on RNZ
On June 9th 2023, RNZ placed Hall on leave and announced an urgent investigation into his supposedly Kremlin-influenced editing. By this point, the foundations of an international scandal had been laid. For months afterwards, “disinformation experts”, think tank hawks, mainstream ‘journalists’ and politicians whipped up a paranoid, conspiratorial frenzy over Hall’s edits. The BBC, Independent, New York Times and Reuters cranked up the controversy with blanket coverage. The Guardian’s obsessively anti-Russian Luke Harding took a particularly keen interest.
Olga Lautman, a Ukrainian nationalist from arms industry-funded think tank CEPA, strongly suggested that Hall was taking orders from the Russian state to insert “disinformation” into RNZ’s output. This libelous conjecture was not helped by RNZ chief Paul Thompson offering a servile public apology, in which he begged for forgiveness for “pro-Kremlin garbage… [ending] up in our stories.” An internal audit identified “inappropriate” edits made by Hall in 49 stories, out of 1,319 he worked on for RNZ in total – exactly 3.71%.
At his lawyer’s suggestion, Hall produced a detailed document listing every story he edited that had been flagged by RNZ for supposedly “inappropriate” tampering. He included personal explanations for why changes were made and passages inserted, along with expert supporting commentary from figures such as economist Jeffrey Sachs and political scientist John Mearsheimer. However, Hall gave up after just 39 stories. “The reasons RNZ flagged the remaining 10 – such as referring to Julian Assange as a journalist – were so ridiculous, it seemed a waste of time,” he explained.
RNZ subsequently appointed an independent panel to assess the fiasco. In a bitter irony, the report they published on July 28 2023 was a rebuke to Hall’s accusers. It declared that “not all of the examples of inappropriate editing identified by RNZ were found by the panel to be inappropriate.” Moreover, the panel accepted Hall “genuinely believed he was acting appropriately,” and “was not motivated by any desire to introduce misinformation, disinformation or propaganda.”
While the report accused Hall of several cases of “inappropriate editing,” breaching both RNZ’s editorial policy and its contractual agreement with Reuters, the panel did not conclude this was deliberate, but a well-intentioned effort to add “balance and accuracy into the stories.” Moreover, the edits flagged by the panel as “inappropriate” were usually factual, and contained valuable historical context. For example, Hall amended a May 2022 story about the attempted evacuation of Mariupol to note that Azov Battalion “was widely regarded before the Russian invasion by Western media as a Neo-Nazi military unit.”
That Azov’s extremist background, history and ideology has been obfuscated and whitewashed since the proxy war began is a basic statement of fact. The panel even acknowledged the group’s neo-Nazi links had “been noted, reported on and debated” previously, but bizarrely found Hall’s “uncritical and unexplained inclusion” of this inconvenient truth “had the effect of unbalancing the story.” This was despite the panel admitting, “experienced people operating in good faith can and do disagree” on editorial standards, which are in any event “matters for judgment”.
Conversely, the review was extremely scathing of how Hall’s “errors were framed” by RNZ’s leadership. Their conduct was found to have “contributed to public alarm and reputational damage which the panel believes was not helpful in maintaining public trust.” It furthermore concluded “the wider structure, culture, systems and processes that facilitated what occurred” were the state broadcaster’s responsibility. Grave “gaps” in supervision and training of RNZ’s “busy, poorly resourced digital news team” were identified. For example, “limitations on changing content” from newswires weren’t clearly communicated to staff.
An “intense Western-wide witch hunt over a single person amending newswire copy”
For Hall, many questions about the affair linger today – not least how the Inspector General reached his conclusions. The report states, “much of the information my inquiry has considered is highly classified, which limits the information I can provide you to explain my findings.” It is difficult to conceive what “highly classified” information NZSIS “considered” given the public nature of the allegations against Hall. What’s more, both the independent review panel and NZSIS cleared him of any wrongdoing within two months of the first accusations.
Similarly curious was the vague language which filled the three-page report. For example, it claimed that NZSIS had taken “relatively limited steps” in investigating Hall. Yet it failed to clarify which steps were taken. Confusing matters even further, the Inspector General admitted “NZSIS shared information about the conclusion of its enquiries with interested parties… to allay concerns of foreign interference.” The identity of those “interested parties,” and why it was NZSIS’ responsibility to ameliorate their baseless anxieties, was also unclear.
“We’ll likely never know the answer to any of these mysteries. I lodged my complaint when I learned NZSIS briefed both the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Office on my case. I also have grounds to believe at least one of Wellington’s Western intelligence partners was given information on me,” Hall tells The Grayzone.
“This was a simple matter of minor procedural errors on my part, and disagreement over editorial standards with RNZ’s management, which could’ve been quietly and professionally resolved internally. Instead, I was thrust into the glare of the international media and the Five Eyes global spying network. The intense Western-wide witch hunt over a single person amending newswire copy at a tiny news outlet could indicate there was some kind of deeper, darker coordination at play. Again though, we’ll probably never know.”
July 13, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | Radio New Zealand, Ukraine |
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The Kiev authorities are refusing to pay compensation to the families of Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) soldiers whose bodies were returned to Ukraine by Russia, using various pretexts, a source in the anti-fascist underground told Sputnik.
“Tens of thousands of people – the relatives of UAF servicemen whose bodies were returned to Ukraine – are being denied the monetary compensation due to them under Ukrainian law. For example, when a relative of a soldier whose body Russia returned from the Kursk region requested compensation, the Kiev authorities replied they would not pay anything because they lacked verified information, such as eyewitness testimony, that the serviceman died in combat in the line of duty,” the underground representative told Sputnik.
The source explained that the soldier in question had multiple shrapnel wounds on his body, which could only have been caused by artillery fire.
“This refusal is far from an isolated incident. It is systemic and widespread. People understand that someone has already profited, stolen, or saved money off the deaths of their relatives – and no one intends to give anything back to them,” the representative emphasized.
Earlier, Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who led the Russian delegation in talks with Ukraine in Istanbul, stated that Russia had returned the bodies of 6,060 deceased Ukrainian officers and soldiers. In exchange, Russia received the remains of 78 fallen Russian servicemen.
July 13, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Deception | Ukraine |
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MOSCOW – Russia notes the line of NATO countries on restricting freedom of navigation in the Baltic region, the military-political situation has become significantly more complicated because of this, the risks of escalation have increased, Russian Ambassador to Oslo Nikolay Korchunov told Sputnik.
“We note the deliberate line of NATO member countries on restricting freedom of navigation in the region, launching for these purposes, under the pretext of threats to underwater infrastructure, among other things, the alliance’s mission ‘Baltic Sentinel,’ which is accompanied by the strengthening of the naval group operating in the open sea, as a result of which the military-political situation in the region has become significantly more complicated and the risks of possible escalation and conflict have increased,” Korchunov said in an interview with the agency.
The ambassador emphasized that the norms of international maritime law must be observed by all countries in the region.
“We proceed from the imperative of compliance by all countries in the region with the norms of international maritime law and the exercise of restraint in the interests of ensuring commercial shipping and preventing military incidents. It is obvious that in the current conditions, the forces and means of the Baltic Fleet and other security services of the Russian Federation in the Baltic Sea region are an important factor in ensuring freedom of navigation both in the interests of the Russian Federation and third countries,” Korchunov noted.
He drew parallels with the actions of Russia’s neighboring states in the past — Poland, Germany, Sweden — in the 17th-19th centuries.
“They also tried with all their might to prevent the passage of ships carrying Russian goods through the Baltic to the priority markets of Britain, Holland and France. The Swedes did not even shy away from pirate seizures. Ultimately, these efforts, as is known, ended in failure. It is regrettable that the spirit of unfair rivalry and confrontation is once again being implanted in the Baltic, which for decades has been a platform for peaceful multilateral cooperation,” the diplomat said.
July 13, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Russophobia | Germany, NATO, Poland, Russia, Sweden |
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The military activities of the US and its allies around the Korean Peninsula threaten the stability of the entire region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during his visit to North Korea.
The US, South Korea, and Japan are increasing the number of joint military drills, some of which involve “a nuclear component,” Lavrov told reporters at a press conference in Wonsan on Saturday.
“This does not contribute to peace and stability, not only on the Korean Peninsula but throughout Northeast Asia,” the diplomat said, expressing skepticism about Seoul’s intentions to normalize relations with Pyongyang.
Lavrov condemned what he described as “dangerous attempts by actors outside the Indo-Pacific to form exclusive alliances and expand NATO infrastructure in the region.” He emphasized that countries should not build alliances at the expense of others, adding that both Russia and North Korea are committed to “equal and indivisible security” for all nations in Eurasia.
The US, South Korea, and Japan conducted joint exercises this week involving the deployment of America’s nuclear-capable B-52H strategic bombers. In a joint statement, the allies accused Pyongyang of “unlawful activities” that “destabilize the Korean Peninsula.”
Russia and North Korea signed a defense pact in June 2024, after which Pyongyang dispatched troops to help expel Ukrainian forces from Russia’s Kursk region later that year. The cooperation is a testament to the “invincible brotherhood” between the two countries, Lavrov said.
July 13, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Japan, Korea, NATO, Russia, United States |
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Syria’s new rulers exploit wildfire and war to reshape the coastal region
Less than four months into its rule, Syria’s interim government is under mounting pressure, as each crisis—natural or security-related—casts doubt on its ability to govern and maintain control.
The recent wildfires that tore through northern Latakia were no seasonal accident. They broke out as sectarian killings escalated and suspicions of state complicity grew.
The blaze behind the purge
Never before in Syria had an armed group claimed responsibility for a natural disaster. That changed when Saraya Ansar al-Sunna announced it was behind fires that spread through the Qastal Ma’af region, explicitly stating that the arson attack “led to the fires spreading to other areas, forcing the Nusayris [Alawites] to flee their homes, and causing a number of them to suffocate.”
The statement came just three days into the blazes and only weeks after the same group had claimed responsibility for the 22 June bombing of Mar Elias Church in Damascus’ Douweila neighborhood.
That attack had sparked a rare public dispute between the Interior Ministry and Saraya Ansar al-Sunna. While the ministry blamed ISIS and paraded an arrested cell, the group named a different perpetrator, Muhammad Zain al-Abidin Abu Uthman.
Despite vowing to release confessions to back its version, the ministry has remained silent.
Anas Khattab—former Al-Qaeda commander and Nusra Front co-founder, now serving as interior minister—only deepened the contradictions during his visit to the fire zone. He insisted there was “no evidence” of arson, even as his own ministry investigated suspects.
Khattab’s refusal to acknowledge Saraya Ansar al-Sunna suggests that Damascus still considers it a phantom—a position reinforced when ministry spokesman Noureddine al-Baba publicly dismissed it as “imaginary” during a press conference after the church bombing.
At the same time, some Alawites believe that Interior Minister Khattab is using Saraya Ansar al-Sunna to carry out attacks against Alawites, Christians, and other minorities, while maintaining plausible deniability.
Coordinated chaos and forced displacement
In Latakia’s coastal hinterlands, fear was already running high. Many villages had yet to recover from the violence of March, when security raids and sectarian killings devastated entire communities, leaving behind charred homes and mass graves that remain under-reported by official channels.
Only months ago, bloody confrontations claimed 2,000 lives across the region. Locals, mainly from the Alawite community, saw these events as the culmination of a systematic purge under the new regime. A wave of targeted killings, kidnappings, and violence had left communities deeply scarred.
Just days before the fires erupted, the murder of two brothers working as grape leaf pickers, along with the kidnapping of a girl, sparked widespread protests in the Al-Burjan and Beit Yashout areas in the Jableh countryside.
These demonstrations, amplified by diaspora voices, coincided almost to the hour with the first outbreaks of fire, feeding widespread suspicion that the flames were a diversion or smokescreen. On the same day this call was issued, the spread of fires in the Latakia countryside forests began to attract media attention.
The Qastal Ma’af fire—the most intense and destructive—was explicitly claimed by Saraya Ansar al-Sunna. Although the group declared it aimed to displace Alawites, some affected villages housed significant Sunni Turkmen populations. Later, the group issued a cryptic clarification: “The burning of Sunni villages is attributed to Nusayri groups, and this is in the context of the ongoing, raging conflict.”
Local sources tell The Cradle that the fire consumed large swaths of forest and farmland, displacing entire communities. Despite the government’s dismissals, few believe this was a coincidence.
Denial and deception by Damascus
Rather than confront the threat, the Interior Ministry downplayed the human hand in the fires. Observers suggest this was a deliberate choice to avoid validating Saraya Ansar al-Sunna’s claim—and to prevent inflaming sectarian tensions.
But some in the Alawite community accuse Ahmad al-Sharaa’s government of weaponizing fire as a tool of demographic engineering. They point to circulating videos of security forces, Sunni Bedouin groups, and even Turkish-plate vehicles setting fires to Alawite lands.
One Alawite source explains to The Cradle:
“The Alawites rely on their land and employment, while Sharaa seeks to bring about a demographic shift in the coastal region. His aim is to strangle the Alawites and kill them, forcing them either to flee the country or remain amid ongoing cases of murder, abduction, and arson. The objective is clear: displacement and the destruction of every source of livelihood.”
The source adds that on 9 July, in the town of Al-Haffa in Latakia, a small fire broke out.
Thirty young men rushed to extinguish it—all around 21 years old—including nine Alawites. After the fire was put out, the nine Alawite young men were arrested and mysteriously disappeared.
When their families asked the local authorities regarding their whereabouts, the only response they received was: “We transferred them to Latakia.”
Demographic warfare under the cover of fire
Many Alawites believe Turkiye seeks to effectively annex parts of the Syrian coast to seize maritime gas reserves, and that attacks by Turkmen and Uighur militants loyal to Damascus are designed to provoke pleas for Turkish protection.
Historically, arson has not been random in Syria. In 2020, the former government arrested 39 individuals for setting coordinated fires across Latakia, Tartous, Homs, and Hama—allegedly financed by a “foreign party.”
Last year, vast fires scorched Wadi al-Nasara in Homs and later spread to Kasab near the Turkish border. Then-Governor Khaled Abaza admitted, “The multiplicity of fire outbreaks strongly suggests that they were intentional, as between 30 and 40 fires broke out in a single day in various areas of the governorate, especially those rugged areas that are inaccessible to vehicles.”
He continued, “A search was launched for two vehicles believed to belong to the arsonists.”
The pattern of politically timed arson is now impossible to ignore. Every major fire in the past five years has coincided with key political milestones such as regime transitions and outbreaks of sectarian unrest, pointing to a deliberate strategy masked as environmental catastrophe.
While poverty and illegal logging are the usual explanations for Syria’s seasonal fires, deeper motives have taken shape. Intelligence services are reportedly scouring Latakia’s forests for buried weapons stockpiles.
Foreign militaries are surveying the terrain for future base sites. Coastal land developers are eyeing scorched villages for luxury tourism projects. And behind it all, Israel remains a constant agitator, stoking sectarian flames for its own expansionist agenda and to further undermine the Resistance Axis.
If anything, the ministry’s insistence on ruling out human involvement in this year’s fires has further eroded public trust. In a country exposed to endless covert operations, the official version of events cannot withstand scrutiny.
In Latakia, what’s burning isn’t just land—it’s the last hope that post-Assad Syria might survive this transition intact.
July 12, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | al-Qaeda, Syria, Zionism |
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Lebanon risks being invaded and occupied by Syria and Israel unless Beirut acts to disarm Hezbollah, US special envoy Thomas Barrack warned on 12 July.
Speaking to The National, Barrack, who is the US special envoy for Syria and ambassador to Turkiye, stressed Lebanon faces an existential threat” from the two US allies on its borders, while urging Beirut to act quickly to disarm Hezbollah.
“You have Israel on one side, you have Iran on the other, and now you have Syria manifesting itself so quickly that if Lebanon doesn’t move, it’s going to be Bilad Al Sham again,” he said, using the historical name for greater Syria, which included Lebanon and Palestine.
“Syrians say Lebanon is our beach resort. So we need to move. And I know how frustrated the Lebanese people are. It frustrates me,” he added.
In December, the former Al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) conquered Damascus, bringing Syria under US, Israeli, and Turkish influence.
Syria’s new government, led by former ISIS commander Ahmad al-Sharaa, has reportedly demanded it be given the Sunni-majority city of Tripoli in northern Lebanon while relinquishing the Golan Heights as part of a peace deal with Israel.
Last month, Barrack presented Lebanese officials with a proposal that calls for reconstruction aid and an end to Israel’s attacks if Hezbollah gives up its weapons.
The war between Israel and Hezbollah ended in November with a US-brokered ceasefire. But Israel continues to carry out air strikes and assassinations throughout Lebanon. Israeli ground forces also occupy five points in the south of the country.
In response to the proposal, Lebanese authorities submitted a seven-page document calling for a full Israeli withdrawal from occupied Lebanese territory, including the Shebaa Farms, and pledging to dismantle Hezbollah’s arms in south Lebanon, but not nationwide as Israel is demanding.
When The National asked Barrack why Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has not publicly committed to a disarmament timetable, Barrack said: “He doesn’t want to start a civil war.”
“We don’t have the soldiers on the ground for the [Lebanese Armed Forces, LAF] to be able to do that yet because they don’t have the money. They’re using equipment that’s 60 years old,” he said.
“Hezbollah is looking at it saying, ‘We can’t rely on the LAF. We have to rely on ourselves because Israel is bombing us every day, and they’re still occupying our land,’” Barrack added.
On 6 July, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said the Lebanese resistance movement will not disarm or back down from confronting Israel until it ends its air strikes and withdraws from southern Lebanon.
“We cannot be asked to soften our stance or lay down arms while [Israeli] aggression continues,” Qassem told thousands of supporters gathered in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday.
He was speaking during religious gatherings for Ashura, which commemorates the martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Imam Hussein, in 680 AD in Karbala, Iraq.
Lebanese President Aoun stated on Friday that Lebanon has no intention of normalizing relations with Israel.
US President Donald Trump is pressuring both Syria and Lebanon to sign the Abraham Accords, which saw the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco normalize relations with Israel in previous years.
July 12, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, United States, Zionism |
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Or perhaps to forget
If one thinks that arming Ukraine against Russia or having Israeli soldiers and also American contractors slaughter Gazan civilians are not supportive of any United States actual interests, last week could easily be written off as yet another descent into Hell on the part of the United States. Americans and others should have the right to criticize how the Israelis wage war without being denounced and criminalized by governments that have been corrupted from the inside, most often by money, but that is exactly what is going on in the US and in select countries in Europe. Watching children being targeted for killing and complaining about it does not make one an anti-Semite even though the Israeli government exploits that issue precisely as a tool to avoid any consequences for its horrific behavior. Here in America, it’s past time for the White House and Congress to rid themselves of their obscene and unseemly obsession with judging overseas developments using the optics of Israel loyalty tests. There is an appreciable difference between hating Israel reflexively based on its religion and acting like a member of a cheering gallery on steroids every time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes to town.
There were three major developments during the week. The first was the passage through Congress and the signing by President Donald Trump of the “big, beautiful budget bill” which establishes by law the national government’s spending projections for 2026. The fiscal year begins on October 1st. The government has long exploited alleged foreign threats to national security to boost spending to enhance America’s military power. This tendency has been largely unchallenged since 9/11, when President George W Bush announced that he and the US now represented “a new sheriff in town” and would be waging war against terrorists worldwide. In 2025 Pentagon costs were budgeted at the $895 billion level. Now, however, President Donald Trump has topped even that with his bill, adding $150 billion to the military budget for 2026, which will exceed in theory for the first time more than $1 trillion.
Interestingly, however, the reality is that the US has for some time exceeded $1 trillion due to the way the government handles its war costs through unfunded material transfers and extra expenses that are approved outside the budget process itself, combined with the fact that the Pentagon’s several components and poor money management make it impossible to be successfully audited. Based on the $895 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), US national security spending for 2025 is, for example, expected to actually reach about $1.77 trillion. The difference partly derives from military-related spending from other government agencies not funded by the NDAA, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security as well as from the national security share of the interest accrued on the US debt.
In September 2024 the Government Accounting Office reported that the Defense Department “remains the only major federal agency that has never been able to achieve a clean audit opinion.” And the numbers are astonishing. In fiscal year 2024, which ran from October 1st, 2023 to September 30th, 2024, the Pentagon could not account for at least 44% of its assets, nor for at least 68% of the money allocated by Congress.
The biggest addition to actual defense spending is the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, with a new front recently opened in Iran, that the US is supporting off-budget, meaning that they are being paid for “out of pocket” and the money is printed up by the Federal Reserve and is added to the government debt, where it increases through the accumulation of interest to bill and bond holders. The Federal debt is now $37 trillion and Trump’s bill is expected to add at least $3 trillion more to it. Foreign nations that have invested in the debt by buying Treasury Bills might soon figure out that it is a bad investment and will stop doing so and the dollar will plummet.
And then there is the visit to Washington, the third by Benjamin Netanyahu since Trump became president six months ago, which was memorable in its own way. Netanyahu was in America again due to the fact that he wanted something. The larger issue is to get US direct support to renew an attack on Iran and the second objective being to speed up the resupply of weapons as Israel had de facto lost the conflict with the Iranians having run through its defensive weapons. What arrangements have been made vis-à-vis Iran have not yet been completely revealed, but it has been reported that multiple transport plane loads have been making their way filled with weapons drawn from US reserve stocks that are on their way to Tel Aviv as a gift from the US to Israel. And then there was the comedy routine provided by Netanyahu proposing Trump as recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, possibly the first time when a head of a state that is openly carrying out a genocide plus mass deportations and is about to create concentration camps endorses the country leader who enables the mass murder taking place. While in Washington Netanyahu also carried out the usual sucking up to Congress and vice versa as well as the closed-door meeting with the Jewish billionaires that have so effectively corrupted the US government.
The third performance of comic opera took place over Ukraine. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth apparently halted the shipment of new weapons to Kiev as a means of disengaging from the conflict with Russia. While it is clear that the US has no interest to be fighting a proxy war with Moscow, Trump had proven unable to end the fighting on his first day in office, which he had promised pre-election. To everyone’s actual surprise, Trump did not appear to know about the decision and reversed it, exhibiting some actual confusion during a press conference over what had happened. It was reminiscent of last week’s bizarre development over the disappearance of Israeli spy Jeffrey Epstein’s “client list” possibly to avoid embarrassing Israel and also, it has been suggested, to eliminate any speculation regarding Donald Trump’s relationship with Epstein in Florida back prior to 2019. It might be reasonable to assume that the whole episode amounts to one more big lie and cover-up coming out of the clownish ensemble that constitutes the Trump cabinet.
Finally, there is one other story that I consider a pure product of the ignorance and downright stupidity that characterizes the Trump regime. The United Nations Human Rights Council has what they refer to as a Special Rapporteur and investigator over developments in Israel and Palestine, to include the Israeli occupied territories on the West Bank. Francesca Albanese, an Italian, is an experienced bureaucrat of demonstrated integrity who has focused on human rights issues. She has been under intense pressure from both the United States and Israel to forego on reporting Israel’s atrocities, particularly in Gaza, but those who have actually interacted with her claim that she has recorded developments honestly and accurately. This past week, coinciding with the Netanyahu visit, Washington decided to move against her with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announcing sanctions against her.
This is how Rubio described the case to be made to justify the sanctions: “Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against US and Israeli officials, companies, and executives… Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated. We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
One begins to wonder if Rubio is as totally ignorant and stupid as his boss. The US has previously called on the UN to replace Albanese and a week before the sanctions were issued a warning from Washington suggested that something was coming. “The United States once again expressed its grave concerns to UN Secretary-General António Guterres about the continued activities of Francesca Albanese … and again called upon the Secretary-General to condemn her activities and call for her removal,” the US UN mission said in a statement on July 1. The US has characteristically accused Albanese of “virulent antisemitism” for her criticism of Israel, a smear on Albanese also made by President Joe Biden’s administration after she last year produced a report accusing Israel of genocide. One might observe that in February the US also used the sanctions tool against the justices of the International Criminal Court (and their families) after the court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and the Israel’s former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of genocide.
Wish that were all, but there is one more story about what a fine place “America’s best friend and closest ally” Israel actually is. A twenty-year old Palestinian American from Tampa Florida, Seif al-Din Muslat, was visiting family in the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, on Friday. In town, he was confronted and beaten to death by rampaging Israeli settlers. Another Palestinian teen Mohammad Shalabi was shot dead in the same incident. The US Embassy apparently was informed of the killing by the boy’s family but as usual it will take no action and will defer to the so-called Israeli justice system to investigate. That means that the scum Settlers, largely expat Americans from places like Brooklyn, will in no way be punished and will walk free to kill more Palestinian children. There have been an increasing number of instances where Israeli settlers in the West Bank ransack Palestinian neighborhoods and towns, burning homes and vehicles and destroying crops and businesses in attacks. And they feel free to kill any Palestinian who crosses their paths or who tries to intervene. Thank you Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump for your loyalty to murderous Jews. It does you proud, or at least it demonstrates what you are made of!
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
July 12, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Militarism, Wars for Israel | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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Iran has categorically rejected a report by the United Kingdom’s parliament’s intelligence watchdog as “unfounded and politically-motivated,” warning that such a “hostile” move reveals a broader attempt of distortion aimed at maligning the Islamic Republic’s legitimate regional and national interests.
On Thursday, Britain’s Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) alleged that Iran has “significantly increased” its threats within the UK, claiming that Iranian spies have been behind at least 15 attempts to kill or kidnap British-based individuals since 2022.
The accusations drew a swift response from the Iranian Embassy in London, which issued a “categorical rejection of the unfounded, politically motivated and hostile allegations” leveled by the ISC against Tehran.
“The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran firmly denies all allegations made in these sections and considers them to be baseless, irresponsible, and reflective of a broader pattern of distortion intended to malign Iran’s legitimate regional and national interests. These claims not only lack substantive evidence but also contradict the Islamic Republic of Iran’s principled commitment to international law, sovereign equality, and peaceful coexistence,” the statement stressed.
The embassy also emphasized that not only is the report not grounded in reality and unhelpful in resolving misunderstandings, but it also presents false information to the public and policy-makers, thereby distorting the understanding of the issue and leading to miscalculations.
“The suggestion that Iran engages in or supports acts of physical violence, espionage, or cyber aggression on British soil or against British interests abroad, is wholly rejected. Such accusations are not only defamatory but also dangerous, fueling unnecessary tensions and undermining diplomatic norms,” it further emphasized.
Iran’s Embassy in London also advised the authors of the report to focus on the real roots of the region’s challenges—namely, the grave crimes and illegal aggressions committed by the Israeli regime with the support of its Western allies—instead of making baseless accusations against Iran.
“When western countries turn a blind eye to all the war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, and aggression which are certainly violations of international law by the Israeli regime, they inevitably have to open their eyes to genuine reactions against the aggressors,” it added.
The statement also denounced the continued weaponization of baseless intelligence assessments in an attempt to justify hostile policies, urging the UK to “refrain from further disseminating false information that damages bilateral relations and regional stability.”
July 12, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Iran, UK, Zionism |
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The sensational claim – initiated by the German government and amplified by some Western media – that a Chinese warship used a laser to target a German aircraft has turned out to be entirely false news. In response to a Global Times inquiry on July 10, China’s Ministry of National Defense provided two key pieces of information: first, a Chinese naval task group was conducting an escort mission in the Gulf of Aden at the time and had no operations in the Red Sea, where Germany alleged the incident occurred; second, the Chinese vessels did not activate or use any laser equipment. In short, Germany made a big scene over what was essentially a complete misunderstanding. In its latest response, the German side simply stated it had taken note of China’s statement but insisted it had conducted an “investigation.”
The incident was entirely provoked by Germany, yet no evidence has been made public to show which Chinese warship allegedly “threatened” a German aircraft. As some German media have pointed out, the government simply keeps stressing that the evidence is solid.
It’s not impossible that the German aircraft misidentified something – after all, the German navy last year mistakenly classified a US drone as a hostile target. But if Germany deliberately misrepresented the Gulf of Aden as the Red Sea and tried to dress up a baseless accusation as an “investigation,” then its intentions are clearly questionable.
Germany now owes both China and the international community a clear explanation to several questions: First, why was a Chinese warship operating in the Gulf of Aden suddenly “moved” to the Red Sea by the German narrative? Second, for what purpose did the German aircraft – which was supposed to be monitoring the missiles of the Houthi forces – approach the “Chinese warship”? Third, did Germany verify the situation with China through related channels before drawing its conclusions? Fourth, if Germany claims to be safeguarding maritime security and freedom of navigation, does provoking such a dispute really contribute to peace and stability in the region?
Some analyses suggest that this is a “setup” orchestrated jointly by Germany’s Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs – an incident it deliberately created but did not want to lose control over. However, whether it was a “blunder” or a “setup,” the actual consequence is that the German side’s posturing and media hype have caused real damage to mutual trust between China and Germany.
This familiar pattern – from spreading false claims, hyping the “China threat,” to using it to justify “decoupling” or cutting ties – has played out many times before. History shows it only leaves behind hard lessons for the countries involved. We hope this kind of incident will not repeat in China-Germany relations.
The Chinese Navy’s warships have gone to the Gulf of Aden in an open and aboveboard manner. Our contributions are there for the entire international community to see, and we have never stooped to any hidden or unspeakable agendas. Since 2008, for 17 consecutive years, the Chinese Navy has dispatched escort fleets to conduct counterterrorism and anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden and the waters off Somalia, escorting nearly 7,300 Chinese and foreign vessels in total as of 2024.
In the past, pirates would appear several times a month in these waters. Today, merchant ships still traverse these busy sea lanes, but encountering pirates has become extremely rare, which is unprecedented since the start of the Age of Exploration. If some countries wish to similarly contribute more to regional stability, they should fulfill their own responsibilities. The international community does not wish to see more disputes in this region. China and Germany have no major differences in their overarching objectives here. It would be regrettable if certain “misunderstandings” were to hinder further cooperation.
The Chinese and European economies are highly complementary and deeply intertwined, and Germany, as a leading economy in Europe, should continue to play a constructive role in promoting healthy and stable China-EU relations. A sound China-Germany relationship will not only drive China-EU ties in a positive direction overall, but also carry significant weight for global stability and development. Some analysts now claim that Germany’s new government is pursuing a policy of “maintaining stability while reducing dependence” on China. China and Germany are bound by profound common interests, and such rumors, coupled with the recent “laser incident farce,” risk undermining confidence in both societies.
On Thursday, a spokesperson from China’s Ministry of Commerce summed up China’s kind advice for Europe, saying that China hopes that the EU side will engage in less criticism and more communication, less protectionism and more openness, less anxiety and more action, less labeling and more consultations. We hope the German side will also take this to heart, join hands with China to strengthen strategic dialogue and coordination, and inject more certainty into the world through the stability of China-Germany relations.
July 12, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Sinophobia | China, Germany |
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