The Strange Definition of “Free and Fair” Elections
By Jeffrey Silverman – New Eastern Outlook – October 15, 2025
Recent elections across Eastern Europe and the Caucasus—in Moldova, the Czech Republic, and Georgia—reveal deepening tensions between Western-backed elites and nationalist, often anti-Western movements challenging EU and US influence in the region.
It has been a full week of elections in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, with a highly contested election in Moldova on the 28th of September, the Czech parliamentary elections held on the 3rd and 4th of October, and the Georgian municipal elections on Sunday, 4th of October.
What is rather interesting is the rhetoric surrounding each of these election processes. In Moldova, western governments and media have lauded the “convincing win” of the incumbent President, Maia Sandu’s PAS party, which “won” 50.16% of the vote, with, contrary to the EU narrative, a severely reduced majority in Parliament.
Needless to say, Sandu and her EU backers blamed the party’s relatively poor performance on “Russian interference,” conveniently ignoring the massive expenditure of state resources and EU influence intended to ensure her party remained in power. It should be noted that the “pro-Russian” opposition block won 49.84%, so “convincing win” is a bit of a stretch.
On the other hand, the results in the Czech Republic and Georgia delivered quite different results from those desired by the EU and US, with former Prime Minister Andrej Babis set to return to power in the country. Babis, a long-time critic of military support for Ukraine, is set to join Hungary and Slovakia in refusing to allow the supply of military aid to Ukraine using EU funds, as well as by dismantling the current Czech initiative to provide artillery shells.
Needless to say, Babis has been widely smeared as a “populist,” “Trumpist,” “pro-Russian,” etc. Having won 37% of the vote against the 23% of his pro-Western rivals in the pro-Western coalition of the current prime minister, Petr Fiala, Mr. Babis is expected to be called upon to begin negotiations with the other minor parties amongst whom the remainder of the vote was split in order to form a coalition government.
Finally, in Georgia, the municipal elections delivered a resounding victory to the ruling Georgian Dream party, with Georgian Dream sweeping the board, winning in every municipal race, receiving just over 70% of the vote in a clear rejection of the pro-Western opposition by Georgian voters. Needless to say, before the election even took place, Western embassies, particularly the EU Mission to Georgia, were decrying the process, claiming Russian “interference” and encouraging street protests.
It is interesting to compare the EU and other Western claims of “election interference” by Russia in Moldova and Georgia with the facts of each case.
In Moldova, the election was clearly interfered with, but not by Russia. As with the recent presidential elections, Sandu’s PAS party actually lost the election INSIDE Moldova but was saved by the diaspora vote, which itself was rigged strongly in her favour. Again, there was a massive disparity in the number of polling stations for the diaspora.
The countries with the most polling stations were Italy (75), Germany (36), France (26), the United Kingdom (24), Romania (23), the United States (22), Spain (15) and Ireland (12), with only two being opened in Russia. It should be noted that there are an estimated 400,000 Moldovans in Russia, while Italy has 100,000, something hardly reflected by the number of polling stations in each.
In addition, Moldovan citizens in the separatist region of Transnistria were also disenfranchised, with polling stations shut by Moldovan officials, moved across the river, and the bridges “shut for maintenance” or by “mining threats,” severely limiting the ability of voters to reach them. The bridges were only opened 20 minutes before the polling stations closed. The same story is true for the Gaugaz autonomous region, where the population has seen its political leadership targeted by politicised arrests and sham court proceedings. In this case, however, Sandu’s repressions had the opposite result, with Gaugaz voters giving only 3.19% to Sandu’s PAS and 82.35% to the Patriotic Bloc.
Very “free and fair”
In Georgia, where most Western governments still refuse to recognize the results of the 2024 parliamentary elections, the EU, through its puppet NGOs and media, has even been going so far as to defend the throwing of Molotov cocktails as “peaceful protests.” The hypocrisy of the EU position regarding the Georgian police handling of violent protests, contrasted with the extreme violence meted out by, for example, French, German, and British police against actual peaceful demonstrators, where incredible brutality has become the norm.
As with the previous anti-government protests in Georgia, in stark contrast to their European counterparts, Georgian police do not use force unless the opposition protesters use violence first.
Furthermore, the violence used by the protesters appears to have the full support of European officials, including the EU ambassador to Georgia, Paweł Herczyński, with the Georgian prime minister directly accusing the EU ambassador, saying:
“You know that specific people from abroad have even expressed direct support for all this, for the announced attempt to overthrow the constitutional order,” Kobakhidze said. “In this context, the European Union ambassador to Georgia bears special responsibility. He should come out, distance himself, and strictly condemn everything that is happening on the streets of Tbilisi.”
Needless to say, the EU has remained silent.
What is obvious is that despite all the money poured into Georgia through NGOs, the EU attempt to destabilize Georgia has failed, with the EU doing little more than offending the majority of the population of this socially conservative Orthodox Christian country. The same thing can be seen in Moldova, where the pro-EU candidate was only able to win through blatant vote rigging and exclusionary actions that disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters.
Needless to say, the hypocrisy of Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, was on full display as she posted on X:
My thoughts are with the people of Georgia, who stand for freedom and their European future.
Democracy cannot be silenced. Moldova is by your side.
Which, given her arrest of opposition politicians, banning of rival parties, and suppression of voters, is chutzpa indeed.
More ominous is the revelation by the Georgian government that the State Security Service had intercepted a large number of weapons and explosives that had been purchased on the orders of the Georgian Legion, the mercenary unit fighting on the Banderist side in the ongoing fighting in the eastern part of Ukraine. The first deputy chief of Georgia’s State Security Service, Lasha Magradze said:
“On the basis of intel information, the State Security Service found a large quantity of firearms, munitions, explosives, and detonators. According to investigators, Georgian citizen B. Ch., acting on orders from a Georgian representative of an armed unit operating in Ukraine, purchased a great quantity of firearms, which is proved by a lot of evidence. According to intel information, acts of sabotage with the use of the above-mentioned weapons were supposed to be staged along with massive violence and the attempted seizure of the presidential residence in Tbilisi on October 4,” he said, adding that security officers “neutralized a number of individuals who presumably were to bring munitions and explosives to downtown Tbilisi.”
Given that the Georgian Legion is tightly bound to the Ukrainian intelligence service, which is controlled by Western intelligence agencies, particularly British MI6, the American CIA, and the French DSGE, it is almost certain that this attempted armed coup was planned in the West.
Luckily for the people of Georgia, it has failed, at least so far.
With the rapidly rising risk of war with Iran, not to mention the US and European desire to spread fires along Russia’s borders in the hope of stretching Russian resources thin, unfortunately I doubt this will be the last attempt, however.
What is certain is that the EU and US have a very strange definition of “free and fair” elections, in that if the Western-supported candidate wins, they are “free and fair,” but if, God forbid, Joe Public elects someone the globalists in Washington and Brussels can’t accept, they are “unfair” or “rigged” by “Russian interference.”
As Europe fractures over the proxy war in Ukraine and the rise of nationalist governments, understanding the manipulation of “democracy talk” is critical. These elections are not just local contests; they are proxy battles in a much larger fight over who controls the narrative of legitimacy in the 21st century.
Jeffrey K. Silverman is a freelance journalist and international development specialist, BSc, MSc, based for 30 years in Georgia and the former Soviet Union
Talk of Sending Tomahawk Missiles to Ukraine is Calculated Psy-Op to Pressure Russia
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 14.10.2025
The US won’t allow strikes on Russian refineries, says Alexander Mikhailov, head of the Bureau of Military-Political Analysis.
Psy-op in the Making
“I don’t see any military prospects for using Tomahawks against Russia, except for attempts at informational blackmail and political pressure,” Mikhailov tells Sputnik.
No Tomahawks have been sent or launched, yet Western media frenzy suggests a pressure tactic.
It’s all connected:
- Washington raises the stakes by hinting at sending Tomahawks to Russia
- Western media, aligned with Washington, hype the story — discussing targets, launches, and control
- The impression is the missiles are already on their way
A Tomahawk launcher might even be rolled out at a test range somewhere simply for PR videos, Mikhailov suggests. But it would be similar to the Taurus missiles Germany promised: hyped by the media – yet still absent from Ukraine.
Washington Isn’t Suicidal
The Kremlin has repeatedly said Ukraine cannot launch Tomahawks on its own.
“Every Tomahawk fired at Russia from a US-made system by American crews would mark the start of a war between the US and Russia,” Mikhailov says.
- The idea of US-made Tomahawks striking energy infrastructure inside Russia is a fantasy
- Such an act would cross a red line that would trigger a response the US is 100% not ready for
- Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine explicitly states that a massive cruise missile attack (like a volley of Tomahawks) can be met with a NUCLEAR response
- Are the Americans ready to “collectively die” for this? The expert is clear: “I am absolutely sure, no.”
What Does the West Want?
The real target would be the “shadow fleet” moving Russian oil, according to the pundit. To that end, NATO holds provocative Baltic drills and tries to seize Russian ships.
The Nord Stream sabotage exemplifies economic attacks to choke Russia’s energy exports abroad.
The EU isn’t at war with Russia – it’s at war with the minds of its own citizens
European leaders are trying to gaslight their populations into believing that it’s Moscow that wants a fight, not them
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | October 14, 2025
Among other things, this particular moment in history will be remembered – whether in whole books, mere chapters, or (if we are lucky) forgotten footnotes – as the Great European Drone Scare. For weeks now, the populations of NATO-EU Europe have been subjected to a barrage of vague but scary reports about drone sightings. The drones have appeared – seemingly – over various places and installations, prominently including airports in Denmark and Germany.
They are of unknown origin and unknown purpose. And, quite often, it is actually also unknown whether they are even real. Indeed, there is no proof of Russia being responsible for any of these incidents, as even Western media admit. We are once again asked to simply trust our politicians and “experts.”
That is, the same ones who took months to stop pretending that Russia – absurdly – blew up its own Nord Stream pipelines in 2022. As late as spring 2023, Germany’s Carlo Masala, for instance, who also believes “Girkin” and “Strelkov” are two different individuals (just like “Santa” and “Claus”), was still spreading groundless speculation – really, a conspiracy theory – about a “false flag attack” on Nord Stream, that is: Russia, Russia, Russia.
And – oh, coincidence! – also recently, Moscow, we are told, has had nothing better to do than oblige Western information warriors with three further sort-of incidents: a purported electronic-warfare attack on the plane of EU despot and de facto US proconsul Ursula von der Leyen over the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv, an alleged incursion into Estonian airspace, and low fly-overs over the German frigate Hamburg during a recent NATO exercise.
In reality, those three stories share only one thing with the great drone saga: They don’t hold up to scrutiny. The case of the alleged Plovdiv GPS attack is so shoddy and cratered so badly so quickly that it’s been consigned to oblivion. The incursion into Estonian airspace did not happen either. Due to an agreement that Estonia itself signed in 1994, it cannot claim a 12-mile but only a 3-mile zone in the relevant area. Estonia’s case is hysterical to begin with; the 1994 agreement deprives it of even the flimsiest pretext of legality. Regarding the so-called buzzing of the Hamburg, finally, even Western military officials admit that it was not “imminently dangerous.” Instead, they complain, it was “unfriendly and provocative.” Frankly: Boohoo. What do you expect holding exercises on Russia’s doorstep while fighting an indirect war against it in Ukraine? A friendly chat among sailors over a stiff grog?
And yet everyone in NATO-EU establishment politics and its mainstream media has been singing the same old tired song, once again, sotto voce: Russia is coming, Russia is already here, Russia is everywhere. The new head of Germany’s spy agency – the Bundesnachrichtendienst – seems to believe that his job is not to do secret things quietly but to join the chorus of the panic-mongers: He also has sleepless visions of the Russians attacking just any day now. Maybe from right under his bed or out of his cupboard, one must suppose.
It is almost as if they were all reading from the same hymn sheet, that is, memo. And, of course, the new wave of self-induced hyper-ventilation has been milked for all it’s worth – a lot, as in billions of Euros – for yet more money to be spent on armaments, including but not limited to a “drone wall,” while ordinary people are subjected to ever more brutal austerity. Even more disturbingly, there is a clear drive to concentrate ever more powers with those same political establishments that can’t stop ruling by frightening and confusing their own citizens.
That the drone stories are already crumbling makes no difference: A dramatic French attempt – special forces and all – to pin nefarious drone activity on a tanker, for instance, has failed miserably. In Germany, a recent sighting has actually been cleared up quickly. The culprit? A hapless German drone amateur who must be living under a rock.
And perish the thought that Ukraine itself might have anything to do with those mystery drones! Its regime has plenty of motive, and, by now, even the West has been compelled to acknowledge that it is perfectly capable of massive sabotage operations and lies to manipulate its European backers. Because that is now even the official story of the Nord Stream terror attack. But: thinking logically – verboten!
Instead, let’s pretend that we know what we don’t know (Russia, Russia, Russia!) and start overreacting, again, based on our ignorance and panic at best, on a malevolent, deliberate strategy of cognitive warfare against our own countries at worst. In Germany, for instance, both Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius have made the bizarre claim that while the country is not (yet?) at war, it is also no longer at peace. And the-Russians-are-coming head of the BND? He feels the current peace is “icy” at best and – drum roll – “could turn into heated confrontation at any moment.”
What is that even supposed to mean? Is there a backhanded admission, finally, that Germany has made a deliberate and awfully self-harming choice to fight Russia through Ukraine? If so, thank you, Hauptmann Obvious: during last year’s Ukrainian Kamikaze offensive, German tanks got shredded once again in the vicinity of Kursk – at the 1943 site of the largest tank battle in history. (And guess who lost?) We have noticed that much. How about you, our supposed leaders, stop playing with fire?
Or are these fear-mongering statements meant to prepare the ground for a concrete power grab? That is what Roderich Kiesewetter, an ultra-Russophobe and war fantasist from Merz’s own center-right CDU party has already suggested explicitly: he wants the German parliament to declare the so-called “Spannungsfall,” literally “situation of tension.” In the mainstream media, for instance the important newspaper Welt, the usual information warriors are already amplifying Kiesewetter’s message. And – yet another striking coincidence – a recent military exercise called “Red Storm Bravo,” in Hamburg, one of Germany’s biggest cities, was dedicated to cosplaying the “Spannungsfall” – with maximum publicity.
The consequences of initiating a “Spannungsfall” – a kind of official pre-war – are complex and severe: Open-ended, compulsory, and universal military service is only one of them; the army can be used domestically; citizens can be drafted for work; civil rights are painfully restricted; those critical of government policy, NATO, or the “Spannungsfall” itself can be cajoled even worse than usual.
Last but not least, the “Spannungsfall” allows the government to postpone or otherwise influence elections. In Germany, it would be an ideal vehicle for the traditional parties to at least stall the consequences of their own failure, unpopularity and decline, on one side, and the rise of challengers on the so-called “populist” new right and left, on the other.
Carl Schmitt, Germany’s 20th-century version of Niccolo Machiavelli – brilliantly smart, ruthlessly realistic, and morally badly questionable – defined ultimate political power as the ability to declare a state of exception. In essence, Schmitt’s logic was simple: we live together by having rules; hence, the power that trumps all others is to decide when those rules do not apply.
Schmitt explained extremes. In reality, governments don’t raze all rules in one fell swoop. Why should they? To unshackle themselves and become even less accountable than usual they proceed stealthily and gradually. No need to trumpet a state of exception in its pure, all-or-nothing form. Why needlessly scare the subjects and, perhaps, provoke resistance?
Instead, what usually happens is the invocation of an emergency – either simply made-up or greatly exaggerated – to justify chipping away at citizens’ rights, first a little then a lot, while boosting the unchecked powers of the rulers and their bureaucrats. Call it the salami-slicing tactics of Western liberalism.
Dialing up the state of exception in handy instalments – that is also the most plausible explanation of the recent great drone scare in NATO-EU Europe. Yet another phase in the years-long Putin-is-gonna-get-you cognitive warfare campaign that Western establishments and mainstream media have been waging on their own fellow citizens, the great drone scare serves the general purpose to promote even more panic over an allegedly impending Russian attack on NATO states.
The techniques for escalating the war scare are dishonest and repetitive, but highly developed. As a high-ranking NATO general has told us, their aim is not simply to manipulate “what people think.” That, in NATO-speak, would be mere propaganda and just so old-hat. Rather, the state-of-the-art approach is to “exploit vulnerabilities of the human mind” to influence “the way” people think. Targeting “human capital” – yes, that’s us, all of us – “from the individual to states, to multinational organizations, across everyday life.”
Of course, the official pretense is that all of the above is what the enemy – read: Russia (and China) – does or, at worst, what NATO will do to that enemy. But is in the nature of the cognitive warfare shtick that it easily allows for turning the psychological disruption guns on the West’s own populations. Because – so the pretext – those populations are already under cognitive attack by the enemy. So what can you do, except fight back on the battlefield you claim is under attack: their minds? We have seen and experienced the results of this nifty little sleight of hand for years already.
But there also is something special. In the words of Jonas Togel, one of the few Western experts daring to notice Western information warfare, “it is worse than it has ever been.” Indeed, but there is no guarantee that things won’t get even worse again. The real question is how much longer our cognitive warriors-in-chief will have a free hand to drive us all mad with fear.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.
No, Reuters, Climate Change is Not Threatening Europe’s Resources

By Anthony Watts | ClimateRealism | October 2, 2025
In the article, “Climate change and pollution threaten Europe’s resources, EU warns,” Reuters asserts that climate change poses a “direct threat” to Europe’s natural resources, citing an EU environment agency report, and warns of worsening droughts and extreme weather. These claims are patently false. History shows far worse droughts in the past with no appreciable trend of other types of extreme weather events becoming more common or severe. Europe’s resource problems are caused by humans, stemming from overuse and poor management, just not from human-caused climate change.
The article declares that “Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent and is experiencing worsening droughts and other extreme weather events.” It further states that more than 80 percent of protected habitats are in poor condition, blaming climate change and pollution.
“The window for meaningful action is narrowing, and the consequences of delay are becoming more tangible,” European Environment Agency executive director Leena Yla-Mononen told Reuters. “We are approaching tipping points – not only in ecosystems, but also in the social and economic systems that underpin our societies.”
The is political rhetoric couched in weak science.
The reality is far more mundane. The European Environment Agency’s own data show that water stress is primarily linked to intensive agriculture, industrial demand, and population growth. As the “Review of National Water Allocation Policies in Six European Countries” documents, many European countries continue to over-allocate water rights, creating artificial scarcity even in years with average rainfall. This is a governance problem, not a climate one. Similarly, biodiversity decline across Europe is overwhelmingly the result of land use change, habitat fragmentation, and invasive species—not a few tenths of a degree of warming over the last few decades.
When it comes to extreme weather, Reuters’ claims are directly contradicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 report which notes there is little to no attribution of many types of severe weather to climate change. As Climate at a Glance: Extreme Weather summarizes, data do not support claims that extreme weather events are becoming more frequent or severe worldwide.
Further, Europe’s worst droughts occurred long before today’s modest warming. The megadrought of 1540 lasted an entire year, with contemporaneous records describing riverbeds across central Europe running dry, widespread crop failure, and thousands of deaths. More recent severe droughts struck in the 1920s and 1940s, periods that cannot be blamed on modern greenhouse gas emissions. The paper “The 1921 European drought: impacts, reconstruction and drivers” describes the 1921 European drought as “the most severe and most widespread drought in Europe since the start of the 20th century.
In “A drought climatology for Europe,” decadal trends show “greater pan-European drought incidence in the 1940s, early 1950s … and lesser drought incidence in the 1910s, 1930s” over the 20th century.
And there are many more worse droughts even further back in the past, before climate change even had a name, as this graph from the 2021 paper Recent European drought extremes beyond Common Era background variability shows:
Compared to these historical drought episodes, recent intermittent summer dry spells are far from extraordinary.
Also, as detailed in multiple Climate Realism posts on the topics neither floods, here and here, for example, nor wildfires, here and here, are more frequent or severe now than they have been in the past.
Even heatwaves are neither more frequent nor deadly now than they have been historically, with deaths from temperatures declining.
Europe’s actual environmental challenges—such as nutrient pollution in rivers, overfishing, and urban sprawl—require pragmatic policy solutions, not grandiose climate pledges. By conflating resource depletion with climate change and exaggerating extreme weather risks, Reuters has misled its audience. The problems it describes are not new, not worsening because of climate change, and not solvable by CO₂ reductions. They are solvable by better governance, better planning, and better science. Once again, journalism has been sacrificed to climate alarmism.
Moscow comments on Assad poisoning rumors
RT | October 13, 2025
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has rejected rumors that former Syrian Bashar Assad has been poisoned, saying that Assad and his family are safe in Moscow and have been living there without any problems since being granted asylum.
Earlier this month, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) cited an anonymous source as claiming that Assad had been discharged from a hospital in Moscow Region after a supposed poisoning attempt in September. The rumor has since been widely circulated by both Western and Russian media outlets.
SOHR consists of a single individual – Rami Abdulrahman – who runs the organization from his home in Coventry, England, which also functions as a clothing shop. SOHR’s reports on the war in Syria have been cited by Western governments and media, although it has consistently faced accusations of anti-Assad bias and sympathy toward armed opposition groups.
Lavrov stressed that Assad “has no problem living in our capital” and that “no poisonings have occurred.” “If such rumors appear, I leave them to the conscience of those who spread them,” he said.
The minister added that Russia had provided asylum to Assad and his family “for purely humanitarian reasons,” noting that they had faced threats of physical harm after last year’s change of power in Damascus.
Lavrov drew parallels with the 2011 conflict in Libya, recalling Muammar Gaddafi’s public killing which was widely broadcast on television – an event that the Russian foreign minister said “delighted Hillary Clinton, who watched his physical annihilation live and clapped her hands.”
Assad, a longtime Russian ally, was overthrown last December when forces led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seized Damascus. The situation in Syria has remained unstable since, with clashes between Islamist factions and government units under the new leadership.
Russia has maintained its military presence at the Khmeimim Airbase and Tartus naval facility, and says it plans to repurpose them for humanitarian operations in coordination with the Syrian authorities.
Ceasefire or charade: As Hamas frees Israeli captives, Netanyahu unlikely to uphold the deal
By David Miller | Press TV | October 13, 2025
The overused Clausewitz axiom tells us that ‘war is the continuation of politics by other means’.
What is often less well understood – especially when dealing with the Zionists – is that diplomacy is merely the continuation of war by other means. And so it is with the latest ‘ceasefire’ agreement achieved by the Palestinian resistance in the field of diplomatic warfare against the Zionist enemy.
First phase terms
The first (and perhaps only) phase of the agreement requires a cessation of hostilities during which the Hamas resistance movement will release all living captives, as well as the corpses of those eliminated (48 living and dead in total), in return for two thousand Palestinian living martyrs who will be rescued from the Zionist torture dungeons.
At the time of writing this, Hamas has handed over seven captives to the International Red Cross Committee (ICRC) in Gaza and is expected to release 13 more, while awaiting the release of 2,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons under the terms of the deal.
But more detailed negotiations will have to follow, since at least two thousand more Palestinians kidnapped by the Zionist occupation may remain in captivity after this ceasefire.
The agreement also requires that the Zionists withdraw from 47 per cent of Gaza’s territory, although Palestinian resistance officials are doubtful that this condition will be met.
No one is under any illusion that the Zionists will cease fire. Just the other day, I saw smoke rising from the ashes of Gaza City and Khan Younis as the Zionists terrorised Palestinian families from the sky, likely using Boeing’s Apache AH-64 attack helicopters as they so often do.
That’s the same Boeing that was recently gifted $96bn by Qatar Airways; $14.5bn by Abu Dhabi’s Etihad, and $37bn by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund on behalf of Riyadh Air.
Donald Trump has just touted an in-person signing of the agreement, while the four Jewish extremists who are materially in charge of the agreement’s details for the Zionists – Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Benjamin Netanyahu and his chief adviser Ron Dermer – gave the treaty, and the genocide which has preceded it, fulsome blessings during a cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv.
The presence of Witkoff and Kushner at a Zionist cabinet meeting in Occupied al-Quds leaves no room for metaphor. Little wonder that Americans today are coming to the belated understanding that their Empire has been run by and for Jewish supremacist interests for several decades.
A win for Palestinian resistance
Despite all this fanfare, the war will continue, and possibly even expand, since Netanyahu will not be able to face domestic political rivals and internal pressure in the Zionist entity after such a comprehensive diplomatic defeat, based on the terms agreed by the victorious Palestinian resistance in Cairo under Qatari mediation, and Egyptian and Turkish coercion.
Turkish and Egyptian representatives have repeatedly pushed the Palestinian resistance to capitulate, disarm and end their struggle against Zionist colonization since the UN General Assembly summit last month, during which the Trump regime strongarmed Muslim-majority states into committing to Zionisation in their own states.
The agreement is, as some Palestinians in Gaza have said, the result of “Palestinian struggle and steadfastness” surviving two years of genocide against all the odds, under the bombs and complicity of the whole world. The freedom of the living martyrs is their achievement above all, though it is likely the Zionists will immediately target released Palestinian prisoners for assassination.
The agreement is also a major success for the Qatari strategy as lead mediator, which has delicately balanced the genocidal demands of the Zionist entity and its organ-grinder in the White House on the one hand, and on the other, the urgent need to both tamp down the indescribable suffering faced by the Palestinian people and to release thousands of Palestinians held in Zionist torture dungeons.
The Palestinian resistance has always placed the release of Palestinian hostages in return for the captured Zionist invaders at the top of the agenda, and predicated all other conditions on this and the end, which appears to translate into Hebrew as a mere slowdown of the genocide.
The wheels are at least turning to achieve one of these conditions.
Resistance on the same page
It has also always been crucial to the Palestinian resistance to ensure that those hostages released from Zionist captivity are from a broad range of Palestinian social movements, without the exclusion of any faction or individual.
Hamas is negotiating on behalf of Palestine itself because it represents Palestine – electorally, militarily, diplomatically and in terms of its social composition. But it is not alone on the Palestinian side of the table.
Its delegates have been joined in this round of negotiations by representatives from other Resistance factions, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), whose Saraya al-Quds fighters have been vital to the Palestinian war effort for two years, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), whose Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades have also played a role in confronting Zionist fire.
Abu Ali Mustafa’s successor as Secretary General of the PFLP, Ahmad Sa’daat, also known as Abu Ghassan, is one of the high-profile Palestinians whose release the resistance is demanding.
He is credited by the Zionists with avenging the martyrdom of Abu Ali Mustafa by overseeing the elimination of the bloodthirsty Zionist and advocate of Palestinian ethnic cleansing, then Zionist ‘tourism minister’ Rehavam Ze’evi, who founded the Moledet Party, in a storied operation in 2001 in Occupied al-Quds.
Another of the renowned Palestinian hostages held in the Zionist torture dungeons is Ibrahim Hamed, a Hamas military commander from the occupied West Bank who has overseen many significant Qassam Brigade operations to liberate the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Zionists credit him with eliminating 96 regime agents and wounding 400 more during the Second Intifada. In typical style, Zionist military agencies have been kvetching that Hamed cannot be released as part of this deal because he is ‘the next Yahya Sinwar’.
So naturally, ‘senior sources’ believed to be in Shin Bet wasted no time briefing favoured Zionist propagandist Nadav Eyal that Hamed is actually ‘two or even three Yahya Sinwars’.
No doubt that in short order, he will be blamed for eighty-eight 9/11s, and we will be told he is worth $6bn, accompanied by grainy footage of a Turkish leather handbag said to be made by Hermès.
One high-profile prisoner the Zionists have already refused to release – and who senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouq says his party insists on freeing through this deal – is the Fateh icon Marwan al-Barghouti, who has spent three decades incarcerated at the hands of the Zionists, and who has been widely touted as a potentially unifying presidential candidate across Palestine.
Sticking points
The Zionists’ refusal to release Barghouti, Hamed and Sa’daat serves as an early indicator of how difficult it will be to achieve the first phase of the agreement, which is the only phase that suits the resistance to commit to. The following phases of the proposed ‘Trump peace plan’ are too outrageous and insulting to even consider, and amount to a full and eternal Zionisation of Palestine (and, as a result, the rest of the world) under a Pax Judaica.
The Zionist supremacists have overstated their leverage over the Palestinian resistance if they think they can demand capitulation and disarmament the way they have in Lebanon. But they are already working deep inside Gaza to Zionise Palestinians without the consent of the resistance.
Take the example of Dr. David Hasan, a North Carolina neurosurgeon who seeks to target 20,000 hungry Palestinian orphans for brainwashing with aid in one hand and an ‘Israel-friendly curriculum’ in the other with his morbid ‘Gaza Children’s Village’ scheme.
The resistance is currently occupied with rooting out the Yasser Abu Shabab’s Daesh-linked gangs used by the Zionist regime as a subcontractor for rape, torture and executions inside Gaza during the genocide, but in time it will also doubtlessly address such Zionisation programmes and their coordinators with equal vigour.
This will cause friction while the Chabad extremist Kushner, who is personally obsessed with Zionising West Asia and bringing about a hegemonic Jewish Empire, remains by Donald Trump’s side.
There is also the most obvious route Netanyahu is likely to take to frustrate any progress: taking back the Zionist colonists held as prisoners of war by the resistance and then continuing the war in Gaza City instead of withdrawing.
Netanyahu is closer than ever, and closer than any other figure in history, to bringing about a Pax Judaica – a complete transfer of global hegemony from the US to the Zionist entity.
In the unlikely eventuality that the Muslim-majority states refuse to Zionise as part of this Kushner-brokered ‘peace plan’, he and Netanyahu (who he has known as a father figure since his childhood) will simply forge ahead to bring about Zionisation at the end of a gun.
David Miller is the producer and co-host of the Press TV show Palestine Declassified. He was sacked from Bristol University in October 2021 over his Palestine advocacy.
No ground for negotiations with E3 anymore: Iran FM
Al Mayadeen | October 11, 2025
Tehran no longer sees a basis for nuclear talks with the E3 countries, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi stated on Saturday evening, adding that the country is not seeking it either.
Speaking to the Iranian state TV, Araghchi revealed that Washington had asked to hold direct talks with Tehran on the sidelines of the UN meetings, a message conveyed by US envoy Steve Witkoff. Iran, according to Araghchi, expressed readiness to engage, but only on the condition that representatives from the E3 countries and the IAEA Director, Rafael Grossi, be present, which the latter refused.
In this context, the top Iranian diplomat revealed that “the United States has always sought to integrate regional issues into nuclear negotiations, but we have never allowed that,” describing Washington’s positions as “constantly changing”.
Iran’s interests are red line
Regarding Tehran’s red lines, Araghchi confirmed that the interests of the Iranian people are paramount, emphasizing that while Iran will never give up its right to enrich uranium, it is willing to provide the international community with assurances, if need be, about the peaceful nature of its nuclear program.
He further criticized Europe, stating it has demonstrated a lack of independence, and indicated that Iran remains open to studying any new, fair plan from Washington as long as it respects the interests of the Iranian people, expressing a willingness to engage in dialogue.
On the topic of the Cairo Agreement, Araghchi stated, “It is currently frozen, and our cooperation with the Agency is only conducted within the framework of the Iranian parliament’s law and through the Supreme National Security Council.”
Araghchi addressed the prospect of renewed war with “Israel”, disclosing that, following an exchange between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu several days ago, Russian officials subsequently informed the Iranian ambassador in Moscow that Netanyahu has no interest in returning to a state of war with Iran.
Gaza ceasefire solely a Palestinian Resistance matter
Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi addressed the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, denying that any discussions had taken place with Steve Witkoff concerning it, while affirming Iran’s support for any plan that would halt what he described as Israeli crimes.
Araghchi said Trump shared his view on Iran’s statement about the Gaza deal, but no messages were exchanged with Washington, adding that only the Palestinian Resistance and people can decide on a ceasefire, and no one else.
He stressed that “Israel” is not trustworthy, citing past experiences like Lebanon, which is clear proof that the entity does not honor its commitments, based on which Iran raised its concerns and issued the necessary warnings. He added that while Washington has made positive promises regarding the Gaza deal, there are doubts about its seriousness in fulfilling them, as these promises are constantly shifting.
Araghchi also noted that most foreign ministers in the region are skeptical about the future of the subsequent phases of the Gaza agreement.
On the issue of the normalization agreements, Iran’s FM noted that “these deals intrinsically constitute a sinister plan to deprive the Palestinian people of their rights,” adding that Iran’s position on such agreements is clear: “it will never join them.”
Regarding the trade war imposed by Washington, Araghchi stated that Iran would reciprocate in kind if its commercial ships were obstructed in any way under the pretext of sanctions, affirming that escalating tensions is not in anyone’s interest.
The Empire’s Assassins
Tales of the American Empire | October 9, 2025
The recent assassination of Charlie Kirk was done by professionals. The FBI story is full of holes and experts agree that he was not shot by a high-power rifle, something our corporate media refuses to report. That would have knocked his head off!
This is not a detailed report of his assassination, but how it matches the proven method used by teams of professional killers, which includes setting up a lone nut patsy.
_______________________________________
“Analysis Solves Kirk Case”; a retired pathologist explains why Kirk was not hit by a high-power rifle bullet; Chris Martenson; September 26, 2025;
• Analysis Solves Kirk Case—Evidence Points …
“Valhalla VFT” channel; a retired Green Beret soldier with several videos about the magic bullet;
/ @valhallavft
Related Tale; “The American Colony of Thailand”;
• The American Colony of Thailand
Related Tale; “Football Star Murdered in Afghanistan”;
• Football Star Murdered in Afghanistan
“Charlie Kirk Assassination: Narrative vs Reality”; a great short video summarizing the odd stories about this killing; RangeDayBro; October 4, 2025;
• Charlie Kirk Assassination: Narrative vs R…
“PROOF Epstein Jail Video Is A Sham & Doctored By FBI!”; Jimmy Dore Show; August 2, 2025;
• PROOF Epstein Jail Video Is A Sham & Docto…
• Lee Harvey Oswald was a Patsy
‘Lies, misinformation’: Israeli military produced videos to justify Gaza genocide
Press TV – October 10, 2025
A new analysis has found that the Israeli military produced three-dimensional or animated visualizations not based on verified intelligence but fabricated content and digital assets to justify the Tel Aviv regime’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
A months-long investigation by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, together with the research collective Viewfinder, the Swiss network SRF, and the Scottish outlet The Ferret analyzed 43 animations released by the Israeli army over the past two years and found that many contain “serious spatial inaccuracies or pre-fabricated assets”.
The videos, including those depicting the alleged tunnels beneath the al-Shifa Hospital and a UN-run school in Gaza, are “sourced not from classified intelligence but rather from commercial libraries, content creators, and cultural institutions,” the study found.
The clips are typically published across the Israeli military’s Telegram, YouTube, Facebook, X, and Instagram channels, and may be paired with a press conference by the occupation army’s spokesperson.
International media outlets will use the ready-made visuals, in many cases amplifying them uncritically.
“Instead of revealing hidden truths — as Israeli military officials insist, and as the international media readily amplifies — the visualizations actually blur them,” according to the investigation.
It further said that interviews with soldiers involved in the production of these videos further illuminate how the Israeli army prioritizes the aesthetic value of the animations over their accuracy.
The analysis also found that more than half of the videos contained 3D assets, which were taken from third-party sources.
Over 50 different third-party assets were identified in total, which were replicated hundreds of times across animations of sites supposedly in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, it added.
“A parking lot from Washington state, scans from a boat-building workshop in Scotland, and commercial storefront kits from the video game industry — all of these have been inserted, without credit, into animations presented as ‘illustrations’ of Hamas bunkers or Iranian weapons facilities.”
Eyad Elyan, a Palestinian academic at Scotland’s Robert Gordon University specializing in AI and 3D modeling, said he was “deeply disturbed” to learn that Israel has been using Scottish assets in its propaganda animations, saying the practice aligns with the regime’s “long history of exploiting others’ resources and employing every means possible to promote baseless claims.”
“What is especially troubling, however, is how such fabricated content is uncritically accepted and amplified by mainstream media outlets,” he continued. “Much of this material consisted of outright falsehoods — for instance, the widely circulated animation alleging that Hamas operated a command center beneath the al-Shifa Hospital. No such facility was found, but [this claim] was used to destroy almost the entire healthcare system in Gaza.”
Scottish lawmaker Patrick Harvie said the Israeli military made and distributed the videos in order to “justify” its Gaza genocide.
“When lies and misinformation are such a core part of an army’s strategy, it makes it all the more important that our governments take a stand and act to stop the atrocities that they are inflicting,” he added.
Israel unleashed its brutal onslaught on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out its historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
The Tel Aviv regime failed to achieve its declared objectives of eliminating Hamas and freeing all captives in Gaza, despite killing, according to the health ministry of Gaza, 67,194 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 169,890 others.
Trump’s Gaza peace plan won’t work, it’s an ultimatum under genocide
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 9, 2025
The so-called peace plan put forward by U.S. President Trump is a non-starter that won’t work, according to international legal expert Alfred de Zayas.
De Zayas says Trump’s much-ballyhooed initiative is not a peace offer. It is an ultimatum demanded by criminal rogue regimes that are responsible for genocide – the United States and Israel.
Professor De Zayas points out that Donald Trump and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu have no credibility. Both are complicit in the genocide of Palestinians. The very idea of Trump proposing a peace deal amidst an ongoing U.S.-backed mass slaughter, where there is no legal prosecution of the perpetrators of genocide, nor for the illegal occupation of Palestinian land, and numerous other war crimes, is grotesque and absurd.
The appointment of British former leader Tony Blair to oversee Trump’s “peace plan” in Gaza is another insult.
“He should be behind bars as a war criminal,” says de Zayas, referring to Blair’s role in launching the U.S.-British war on Iraq in 2003, based on lies, killing over one million people.
On the issue of Gaza, the problem is that Israel, with support from the U.S. and European states, has been grossly violating international law and UN treaties for decades with impunity. This shameful lack of accountability and enforcement of international law makes Israel and its Western sponsors criminal regimes. It is nonsense to expect such serial violators to now propose a peace deal when they have not been held to account for a litany of crimes.
De Zayas says we need a ceasefire in Gaza urgently, with massive humanitarian aid for a population being deliberately starved to death by Israel. But any resolution must be applied with international law and justice for the horrific crimes.
Trump’s plan is a whitewash of the genocide. The Western mainstream media are also guilty of covering up the depth of horror. The media are ridiculously spinning Trump’s offer as genuine and credible, perhaps with a few flaws pooh-poohed here and there. The media are not reporting on the true horror and Western complicity in genocide. That’s because their long-time role is to serve as a propaganda service to sanitize the crimes and systematic lawlessness of Western rogue regimes.
Professor Alfred de Zayas teaches international law and history at the Geneva School of Diplomacy. He has worked as a UN staff expert on human rights for nearly 50 years.
His latest book is The Human Rights Industry (Clarity Press, 2023), see here: https://www.claritypress.com/product/human-rights-industry/
Catch his recent articles on wide-ranging international issues at Counterpunch: https://www.counterpunch.org/author/alfred-de-zayas/
Turkiye to boost US gas imports, cut reliance on Iran and Russia
The Cradle | October 9, 2025
Turkiye is moving to cover more than half of its natural gas demand by 2028 through domestic production and increased US liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports, decreasing reliance on Iran and Russia, according to analysts cited by Reuters on 8 October.
The plan follows a White House meeting on 25 September, during which US President Donald Trump urged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to curb Russian energy purchases, as part of the US push to press allies to scale back ties with both Moscow and Tehran.
Ankara’s strategy centers on expanding LNG terminals and boosting local output through the state-owned energy firm, Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO).
According to Turkiye’s Energy Exchange (EPIAS), the country’s LNG terminals can now import up to 58 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas each year, enough to meet its entire domestic demand.
Domestic production and contracted LNG imports are projected to exceed 26 bcm annually from 2028, compared with 15 bcm this year.
That would account for more than half of Turkiye’s 53 bcm gas demand, sharply reducing its need for Russian and Iranian pipeline supplies.
“Turkiye has been signalling that it will take advantage of the [global] LNG abundance,” said Sohbet Karbuz of the Paris-based Mediterranean Organisation for Energy and Climate (OMEC).
Although Russia remains Turkiye’s largest supplier, its share of the market has fallen from over 60 percent two decades ago to 37 percent in the first half of 2025.
Moscow’s long-term pipeline contracts – covering 22 bcm annually via Blue Stream and TurkStream – are nearing expiry. Iran’s 10 bcm contract ends next year, while Azerbaijan’s 9.5 bcm deals run until 2030 and 2033.
To replace these, Ankara has signed $43 billion worth of LNG agreements with US suppliers, including a 20-year deal with Mercuria in September.
Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said in a recent interview that Turkiye “must source gas from all available suppliers,” which includes Russia, Iran, and Azerbaijan, but noted that US LNG offers cheaper alternatives.
Analysts believe Ankara will likely burn Russian and Iranian gas domestically while re-exporting imported LNG and its own output to Europe, where a full ban on Russian energy is expected by 2028.
Turkiye’s state energy company BOTAS has already begun small-volume exports to Hungary and Romania as part of its efforts to become a regional gas hub.
Exposed: Western journalists secretly served ‘Israel’s’ war propaganda
Al Mayadeen | October 8, 2025
Leaked emails from the inbox of former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor reveal that prominent Western journalists, ncluding The Atlantic’s David Frum and British writer Douglas Murray, secretly offered to write speeches and provide other forms of assistance to Israeli officials during the entity’s 2014 war on Gaza, according to a report by journalists Murtaza Hussain and Ryan Grim published on Drop Site.
The correspondence, obtained by the hacker collective Handala and published by the whistleblower group Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), includes communications between Prosor and several journalists and media figures.
The trove reveals that while “Israel” faced global condemnation for its war that killed over 2,200 Palestinians, more than 550 of them children, figures in Western media were privately coordinating with Israeli diplomats on messaging and advocacy efforts.
Frum’s dual role: Journalist and speechwriter
David Frum, a senior editor at The Atlantic and a former speechwriter for US President George W. Bush who coined the phrase “Axis of Evil,” began his editorial role at the magazine in early 2014. Just months later, at the height of “Israel’s” bombardment of Gaza, Frum sent Prosor a full draft of a UN speech.
In an email dated July 31, 2014, Frum told Prosor he had collaborated with Seth Mandel, a writer for the neoconservative publication Commentary, to prepare the text. The draft portrayed “Israel’s” war on Gaza as part of the “free world’s” struggle against “tyranny”, comparing it to the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany and invoking figures such as Harry Truman and the architects of the Marshall Plan.
The speech urged Americans not to grow “war weary” and to maintain support for “Israel’s” military actions. Prosor thanked Frum and said he would review the draft, though it remains unclear whether the text was ever used.
Remarkably, just one day earlier, Frum had contacted Prosor in his capacity as a journalist for The Atlantic, requesting an interview for a profile of the ambassador. Two months later, The Atlantic published Frum’s piece, “Israel’s Man at the United Nations,” which praised Prosor for his “toughness” and diplomatic skill in defending “Israel” against international criticism.
Douglas Murray’s contributions and fundraising
Frum was not alone. British commentator Douglas Murray, now an associate editor at The Spectator and a frequent television pundit, also sent Prosor a proposed draft for a UN speech on the same day, July 31, 2014.
In his email, Murray described the text as “first draft ideas,” noting it may include “more diplomatic things than needed.” His proposed speech echoed hardline pro-“Israel” narratives, including condemnation of BDS movements and disparaging references to European Muslims.
Murray pledged to continue assisting the ambassador. “I will give all the time I can to helping get it right,” he wrote.
In subsequent months, Murray continued corresponding with Prosor, sharing articles and offering public relations advice. Later that year, he informed the ambassador that he had hosted a London fundraiser that brought in over £1 million for the Association for the Wellbeing of Israeli Soldiers, a group providing direct support to Israeli occupation forces.
Prosor thanked Murray for his “wonderful work”, calling his efforts vital to “Israel’s cause”.
The revelations contrast sharply with Murray’s later insistence on journalistic independence. In an April 2025 appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, he chastised critics of “Israel’s” Gaza policies for lacking firsthand experience, saying he avoided commenting on countries he hadn’t visited.
Murray has frequently appeared in public wearing a “PRESS” flak jacket while embedded with Israeli forces, without disclosing his prior speechwriting and fundraising for the same military he was covering.
CNN producer’s role in Iron Dome fundraising
The leaked correspondence also implicates Pamela Gross, a former CNNproducer, who maintained close ties with Prosor during the war. Emails show that Gross and her husband, media executive Jimmy Finkelstein, then-owner of The Hill, privately discussed raising money for “Israel’s” Iron Dome missile system.
In one July 2014 message, Gross wrote to Prosor, “Clearly Iron Dome is doing the trick and saving lives. Please dear friend, let’s get it finished. Please let me know what is still left to be done at your soonest convenience.”
Prosor responded by thanking Gross for her “amazing work in fundraising for the Iron Dome project,” calling her and her husband “true assets to the state of Israel.” Gross later asked the ambassador to connect her with officials who could provide details about the project’s funding needs and how to channel donations.
Gross continued to book Prosor for CNNappearances while maintaining their personal friendship. In one 2015 exchange, she invited him on air to discuss Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress, telling him she and her husband had recently dined with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Unanswered questions, ethical fallout
The leaked cache contains hundreds of verified messages, photographs, and attachments, though DDoSecrets noted it could not independently authenticate every file. Handala, the hacking group that released the material, issued a violent threat against Prosor, which DDoSecrets publicly condemned.
None of the journalists or organizations named in the emails, including Frum, Murray, Mandel, CNN, or the Israeli Embassy in Germany, where Prosor now serves, responded to requests for comment from Drop Site, which first reported the findings.
The revelations raise fresh ethical concerns about the blurred lines between journalism and government lobbying efforts during times of war. While journalists are expected to maintain independence and avoid conflicts of interest, the emails suggest that several prominent figures in Western media privately worked to shape pro-“Israel” narratives during one of the deadliest wars on Gaza.
For “Israel”, such alliances helped bolster its messaging at a time of mounting global outrage over civilian casualties. For the public, however, the leaks expose the extent to which supposedly independent voices in Western journalism may have functioned, willingly or not, as part of a broader influence campaign.

