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Easy fix for Europe’s chaos? Stop fueling war against Russia

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 23, 2026

There is a straightforward way to alleviate the social chaos sweeping Europe, as well as the war in Ukraine threatening to engulf the continent. It’s an easy fix – and it’s not shoving more white powder up Zelensky’s nose paid for by European taxpayers.

European leaders just have to find the resolve to stop fueling the war against Russia and engage in diplomacy with Moscow to establish an all-encompassing security architecture (as Russia had proposed back in December 2021). That, in turn, will salvage European nations from unsustainable debt driven by militarism and propping up a kleptocracy in Kiev, whose puppet leader is obviously degenerating from cocaine addiction.

Across Europe, cities are looking like battle zones with mass protests, public tensions, buildings burning, shops looted, riot police baton-charging crowds, and masked mobs running amok. France is bearing the brunt of street violence, but so too are Italy, Belgium, and others. Spain and Portugal are seeing their cities turned into tent camps in protests against a lack of affordable housing.

In the turmoil, it is easy to lose sight of the basic problem. People en masse are suffering from economic privation. Why can’t their individual and social needs be met in an efficient and effective manner? Why is there seemingly no money to fix broken societies?

Curfews are declared in Paris and cities across France while Italy moves to deploy soldiers in Milan to restore a semblance of order. Thousands of arrests have been made in recent days. Revolution is in the air, and so too is the sinister possibility of supposedly democratic governments flipping to become police-state dictatorships.

In this volatile, explosive situation, it is tempting to look for scapegoats.

French President Emmanuel Macron goes on national television to denounce “ultra-left groups” who he says are mindlessly trying to destroy France.

Even American President Donald Trump weighs in to claim that a once great nation (France) is being “conquered by immigrants, jihadists and communists.”

There were also predictable accusations in Western media that Russia is fomenting the unrest across Europe.

Another misdirection is to portray the European governments as cash-strapped and unable to deliver relief from the cost-of-living crisis and deteriorating public services. The governments and media tend to define the problem as one of balancing fiscal bookkeeping, overspending on social welfare, aging populations, or some other demographic factor.

European nations, we are told by pundits, are in massive debt and under pressure from bond markets to ramp up austerity by slashing public spending. The challenge for France and other governments is that they “no longer have the fiscal room to simply throw more money at these problems,” as one commentator put it.

Another commentator lamented that: “Hamstrung governments seem to have no answer to the public’s furious demands, making further discontent likely.”

In other words, we are told, “there is no alternative to austerity,” to paraphrase the late British leader Margaret Thatcher.

But that premise deceptively tells only part of the picture. The crucial part omitted is that the fiscal crunch of European governments is largely caused by the reckless funnelling of money to fuel the war in Ukraine and inordinately build up their own military forces. That wasteful misallocation of resources is “justified” by relentlessly and absurdly demonizing Russia as a “threat to Europe”. The news media play the role of amplifying the propaganda.

The media do not question, never mind expose, how Europe’s economies have been exhausted by a proxy war agenda against Russia that has involved cutting themselves off from Russian affordable energy, the lifeblood of industry, and on top of that racking up hundreds of billions in debt by propping up the endemically corrupt Kiev regime.

That regime is losing the war against Russia as it runs out of conscripts for the meat grinder. Yet, European governments are fixated on keeping the futile war going with ever more funding of the regime.

Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, dissembled this week by claiming that “Ukraine would have surrendered a long time ago if not for European support”. This is a tacit admission that the EU and Britain are fueling the war.

She also accused the Trump administration of forcing Ukraine into a surrender. In her soulless view, diplomacy and peace are sneered at as surrender.

European societies are deprived of financial resources for vital public services and infrastructure all in the fraudulent name of “defending” Ukraine in a war that has gone on for nearly five years. There is no end in sight if the European leaders have their way.

The European Union’s unelected bureaucracy has donated €90 billion to the Kiev regime for 2026 and 2027 alone, in addition to over €200 billion already allocated. This largesse is still not enough. The Zelensky dictatorship is calling for an extra €70 billion to be doled out, and the EU Russophobic elites are clamoring to oblige.

No wonder that European societies are visibly falling apart from underinvestment and widespread hardship from the soaring cost of living. The social implosion is a direct consequence of a policy of militarism and war, a policy that the Euro elites are running with impunity and unaccountability. That’s dictatorship by any definition.

The depiction of fiscally constrained and helpless European governments is an illusion. The constraint is not a natural condition of societies. It is the consequence of a deliberate, criminal policy of warmongering.

So spare us the scapegoating and misdirection. Spare us the curfews and calls for emergency police state powers to curb “hooligans and extremists.” That misdirection is playing into the hands of the ruling class, which has delegitimized itself by its sponsoring of war in Ukraine, its support for American aggression against Iran and Yemen, and its complicity in Israeli genocide in Gaza and Lebanon.

Contrary to the politicians and pundits claiming that there is “no easy fix” to the chaos erupting in Europe, there is. It is for the European governments to stop fueling the war in Ukraine and actually manage societies according to democratic needs.

However, that rational and feasible solution is probably out of reach under the prevailing political system. The elites in control of the system are incapable of overseeing any meaningful reform. They will not engage in diplomacy to find a peaceful settlement in Ukraine with Russia.

And so the outcome seems to be either they consolidate the emerging dictatorship and quash the legitimate social demands of the people, or the people will prevail by sweeping away the corrupt regimes that masquerade as “democratic”.

October 23, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Comments Off on Easy fix for Europe’s chaos? Stop fueling war against Russia

White House envoy declares kinetic action against Yemen ‘fruitless’

The Cradle – October 20, 2026

US special envoy Tom Barrack conceded that a “ground kinetic” battle in Yemen by the US “seems fruitless” during a talk at the Global Security Forum in Qatar on 20 October.

“I think the president’s been clear that he supports Saudi Arabia and the backing that they need logistically he will supply. But America getting involved in a ground kinetic battle somewhere else seems fruitless.”

Barrack is Washington’s ambassador to Turkiye and special presidential envoy for Syria and Iraq.

He admitted that military force has failed in Yemen and that Riyadh is in a “very difficult position.”

“These kinetic reactions have never worked. It doesn’t work. It’s probably not likely that it’s going to work,” he said.

Barrack questioned whether US meddling across West Asia has helped or harmed the region, arguing that Ansarallah in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the resistance factions in Iraq would lose their reason to exist only once states took responsibility themselves.

He pressed for talks between Riyadh, Sanaa, and regional mediators, urging regional capitals to build their own alliances instead of leaning on Washington.

He went further, admitting that the US has had a hand in 23 regime changes across the region, none of which achieved their aims.

He declined to say whether the US-Israeli war on Iran launched on 28 February was a mistake, while conceding that it had unleashed unintended consequences across the region.

The admission comes as the Saudi-led coalition presses on with airstrikes on Yemen, drawing retaliatory missile and drone strikes by the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) on the kingdom.

Riyadh has turned to its defense partners under the Mecca pact, including Pakistan and Turkiye, after Washington declined its requests for direct US intervention against Yemen.

Barrack’s remarks follow Washington’s failed bid to subdue Yemen by military force, with more than 1,000 US airstrikes between March 2024 and April 2025 unable to halt Yemeni naval operations waged in support of Gaza, forcing the US into an Omani-brokered ceasefire with Sanaa in May 2025.

The campaign cost Washington $1 billion in its first three weeks alone, as Yemeni forces downed 17 MQ-9 Reaper drones and the US lost two F-18 fighter jets.

Ansarallah leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said in November 2024 that the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier had retreated hundreds of miles after coming under Yemeni fire, while then US Under Secretary of Defense Bill LaPlante admitted he was “just shocked” by what Yemen’s missiles could do.

Europe fared no better, with Rear Admiral Vasileios Gryparis, commander of the EU’s Operation Aspides, telling Bloomberg in June 2024 that his Red Sea fleet needed to more than double in size and that US–UK strikes on Yemen were “not contributing to the solution,” after France withdrew one of his frigates citing the threat level.

 

October 20, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Comments Off on White House envoy declares kinetic action against Yemen ‘fruitless’

Rising fuel prices and shortages have helped drive ongoing protests and rioting in France

Remix News | October 19, 2026

France’s fuel shortages persisted Monday, with roughly 14 percent of the country’s service stations reporting at least one product out of stock and hundreds completely dry, as diesel prices hovered near multi-year highs and President Emmanuel Macron began a Gulf tour aimed at securing additional supplies.

Official data from the Economy Ministry showed 14 percent of stations nationwide facing shortages of diesel or gasoline as of 9 a.m. Monday, up from 10 percent on Saturday.

Independent trackers drawing on the same government feed reported more than 1,600 stations with at least one temporary shortage and several hundred that had run completely out of the fuels they normally sell. Diesel was among the products affected, with median prices around €2.35–€2.36 per liter.

The disruptions have been most acute at TotalEnergies stations, which have capped prices at €1.99 per liter for gasoline and €2.25 for diesel since July.

More than half of the company’s roughly 2,300 sites have reported shortages in recent days, according to data analyses, as drivers seek the cheapest fuel and inventories run low. Regions including the Grand Est, Île-de-France and Normandy have been among the hardest hit.

The shortages are rooted in global market tightness linked to disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz amid conflict involving Iran, which has constrained refined product flows, particularly diesel. However, Ukraine’s ongoing strikes against Russian refineries have also played a key role.

France and other G7 members agreed earlier this month, under French chairmanship and with International Energy Agency coordination, to release up to 100 million barrels of emergency oil and diesel stocks. France is drawing down 10 million barrels of its own diesel reserves over three months, with the government estimating the move could cut pump prices by 12 to 18 cents per liter starting around Nov. 1.

TotalEnergies has separately pledged reductions of roughly 8 to 12 cents at its stations over the same period.

Macron arrived in Kuwait on Monday for a three-day tour that also includes the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar. The Élysée said the goal is to secure additional diesel and oil volumes and explore alternative shipping routes, with senior executives from TotalEnergies and Engie accompanying him.

A presidential adviser said that the aim is “additional volumes and more supplies for the French people, which will indirectly have an effect on prices.” Macron has linked the price surge to the Hormuz disruptions and maintained the trip despite the weekend’s violent cost-of-living protests, during which fuel prices were among the grievances cited by demonstrators.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has said the reserve release should begin easing prices from Nov. 1 and that electricity bills will not rise this winter. Opposition figures have called the plan insufficient or a “scam,” arguing it does little to address longer-term vulnerabilities or the immediate empty pumps. The government has maintained that strategic stocks remain adequate and that the main issue has been logistics and distribution under high demand.

Drivers across multiple regions reported long searches for open pumps over the weekend, with some stations posting “out of stock” signs for diesel. The combination of high fuel prices and shortages has added to broader cost-of-living pressures that [have fueled] large demonstrations and mass riots on Oct. 17, which turned violent in several cities.

October 19, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia, Wars for Israel | | Comments Off on Rising fuel prices and shortages have helped drive ongoing protests and rioting in France

Ongoing tales of Syrian chemical weapons

OPCW Inspector Ian Henderson responds regarding alleged newly-found, un-declared chemical weapons.

By Ian HENDERSON | Consortium News | October 11, 2026

If Douma, one of the highest-profile “proven” chemical attacks attributed to Syria’s former Bashar Assad government, has been shown to be fake, what does it say about new, undeclared Syrian chemical weapons that have supposedly been found?

It says we should be extremely skeptical about news of such discoveries.

I spent years compiling an insider’s analysis of the evolving Western narrative of Syrian chemical attacks while I was at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) as well as afterwards.

My conclusion was it is nigh impossible to prove a negative in this situation; to say there had never been a chemical attack by the Syrian government forces.

However, when it came to high-profile allegations of such attacks in the Syrian towns of East Ghouta, Khan Sheykhoun, Ltamenah, Saraqib and Douma, there were fatal flaws in the official narratives.

There were unmistakable signs, clear to us on the inside, of fabrication.

The Douma attack eight years ago appeared to be the last of a series of chemical allegations against the regime.

Yet the saga continues. The OPCW sent a new mission to Syria this May to try to find alleged, undeclared chemical weapons from the government of Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted in 2024.

Before examining the intentions and results of this mission, it is useful to review how the Western-backed OPCW handled its investigation into the 2018 chemical weapons attack in Douma, a suburb of Damascus.

I was an OPCW inspector on that mission and this is why I blew the whistle.

The Establishment Narrative

Just how much of the establishment narrative that blamed Assad for using chemical weapons be believed ?

Devised during the early part of the Western and Gulf-backed jihadist war to overthrow Assad a decade and a half ago – and built upon steadily by Western belligerents throughout the crisis – the story that Assad had “gassed his own people” was widely believed with mainstream media fully on board.

Doubters were glibly dismissed, including “official” dissenters such as some senior inspectors at the OPCW. I was among them.

The chemical allegations followed a well-oiled procedure. Armed opposition groups – who were seeking direct Western military intervention to support their effort to overthrow Assad – would raise the alarm online by posting slick images and videos of an alleged chemical attack.

These opposition groups, sometimes assisted by Western NGOs, would then bring supposed witnesses of these alleged attacks to Gaziantep in Turkey, where the OPCW would send fact-finding missions to interview them.

The OPCW would generally believe the opposition groups and their witnesses and accept items of supposed “evidence” handed over to them, sometimes months after the alleged attack. Until the Douma allegation in 2018, the fact-finding mission never got to the scene of any Syrian chemical attack after an initial attempt in 2014 went awry.

The fact-finding report would be secretly drafted under the direct control of OPCW top management, bypassing any procedural or technical oversight, and would conclude that it was “reasonable to believe” that a chemical attack had indeed taken place.

The follow-up investigations by the heavily politicized Joint Investigative Mechanism (J.I.M.), or by the later Investigation and Identification Team (I.I.T.), would suggest that “a reasonable person would believe” that the Syrian Armed Forces were responsible for the attack.

OPCW inspectors are not fools. Many of us saw what was going on, seeing the tight political control that the U.S. and to a lesser degree the U.K. exerted over anything to do with the Syrian file. But the draconian confidentiality regime in the OPCW kept everyone subdued.

The breakthrough came after the April 2018 Douma allegation.

For the first time, an OPCW team actually got to the scene of an alleged chemical attack, at the town of Douma, in southwestern Syria, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) northeast of Damascus.

We did our job thoroughly, and in doing so we identified serious flaws in the allegation.

OPCW Extreme Measures

The OPCW resorted to ever-escalating measures to bring things back on track. After trying to secretly modify the interim report by withdrawing it from publication and sneaking in the preordained conclusions that were required by influential delegations, senior OPCW officials went to extremes.

They removed all the team members who had gone to Douma and produced a flawed Fact Finding Mission report written by persons unknown, none of whom had much knowledge of what the Douma team had done.

The fact-finding report predictably found that “it was reasonable to believe” there had been an attack with chlorine in Douma. This was followed much later by the OPCW’s inevitable I.I.T. report that blamed the Syrian regime for the attack.

In reaching its conclusions, the drafters claimed, as usual, to have been informed by anonymous experts. The context in the reports was usually along the lines of  the fact-finding mission (F.F.M.) “asked an expert about this and the expert said it was possible.” Many qualified experts and commentators, including me, consider this laughable.

The OPCW were going too far, and ultimately this led to the ongoing dispute where the two most senior and experienced inspectors in the F.F.M. team objected.

The drafter of the team’s interim report, Dr. Brendan Whelan (“Inspector B”), was one. I was the other. In my case I had also led the politically-mandated inspections at two facilities of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Centre (S.S.R.C.) suspected of harbouring illicit chemical weapons activities.

Here again, we did our work thoroughly and in drafting the S.S.R.C. inspection reports I made clear that there was nothing amiss in either of the facilities.

This didn’t stop the U.S., U.K. and France from conducting punitive missile strikes on Barzah S.S.R.C., on the basis of social media postings on the Douma allegation, even before the OPCW team had arrived at the incident scene.

Rather than another detailed analysis of the Douma scandal, suffice it to say, the official Douma narrative has been clearly and scientifically picked apart by many credible observers, including by Dr. Whelan and myself.

This has been widely reported, although predictably not much in the mainstream media.

The OPCW and Western delegations have been in crisis management mode ever since the first leak, that of an internal engineering summary that cast doubt on the allegation that chlorine cylinders had been dropped from aircraft, raising the possibility that militants had placed the cylinders to stage the scene of a chemical attack.

I was the author of that report.

Nose of chlorine cylinder alleged to have smashed through a steel-reinforced concrete roof, April. 21, 2018. (OPCW, courtesy former Syrian government)

Worse still for the prevailing Douma narrative, Dr. Whelan recently won a legal case against the OPCW for their charges against him of confidentiality breaches.

In their submissions, the OPCW inadvertently admitted to suppressing the key toxicology assessment (incidentally by NATO specialists) that dismissed chlorine as the likely cause of death of deceased victims shown in images posted from the scene.

[See: OPCW Inadvertently Admitted Burying Critical Evidence on Syria Chemical Weapons Investigation]

The OPCW has refused to engage in any discussion on the facts and scientific substance of the case, ever since concerns were first raised by Dr. Whelan and myself.

This intransigence to re-open the file is likely dictated by the needs of the three belligerent governments that subjected Syria to punitive missile strikes in retaliation for the supposed Syrian chemical attack even before the Douma F.F.M. had started work.

Any updated or corrected findings on Douma would be inconvenient.

The New OPCW Mission

Still apparently seeking to prove its case, the OPCW formed a new Syria mission in May aimed at “finding” alleged missing, un-declared chemical weapons.

At the end of May the mission reported finding 42 empty chemical weapons munitions; a launcher; bomb-mixing units; precursor-type containers; a facility whose contents were not revealed and thousands of pages of documents that are still being reviewed.

The mission also found 650 kg of “a chemical compound known to have been used by the former government for the production of nerve agents,” which the report does not name. It says an unknown quantity of hexamine, a legal chemical with wide industrial use, was found but it is not clear if this is the same compound as in the 650 kg.

In September, the Syrian government, now under the leadership of a former al-Qaeda and ISIS leader, began destroying the empty bombs, but not any of the chemicals that were found, presumably meaning none were banned.

Despite all the fanfare of these results being presented at a U.N. Security Council meeting last month, it appears that the new OPCW mission came up as empty as those bombs.

None of these discoveries does anything to prove that Assad ever used a chemical weapon, in other words, nothing to prove that I, along with other OPCW officials and countless observers and commentators who challenged the Assad chemical weapons narrative were wrong.

Presumably after all the effort in creating that narrative, Western governments and mainstream media that promoted the Iraq war and then the Syrian conflict to achieve regime change in that country, require a tidier ending than the mess they made of the Iraqi WMD story.

An early press release from the OPCW is telling. It shows what they were attempting to prove with this May mission, in particular two rather flimsy suggestions.

They report the discovery of some of the empty munitions,

“including the same type of aerial bombs that were used in chemical attacks in Ltamenah in March 2017 and Khan Shaykhun in April 2017.”

This refers to empty M4000 aerial bombs, declared by the Syrians as part of their stockpile.

Aside from the questionable Douma-like irregularities surrounding “evidence” used by the OPCW to conclude that sarin-filled M4000 bombs were used in those attacks, it’s important to mention something else.

The Syrians had clearly explained to us that 2,000 of these bombs, never filled, had been set aside to be “repurposed,” in other words to be filled with high explosive to turn them into conventional munitions. These could turn up anywhere.

A second questionable statement in the press release is,

“Rockets were also found, of the same type as those that were used in the Ghouta chemical weapons attack in August 2013.”

This relates to artillery rockets crudely modified with a large cylindrical payload container added at the front.

For a start, the U.N./OPCW report of Ghouta did not attempt to identify the perpetrators of that sarin attack, since it was not part of their mandate. The accusations against the regime have always been political, something the mainstream media happily took up.

The Most Credible Analysis So Far

The Ghouta sarin attack took place on Aug. 21, 2013 and according to Western sources killed more than 1,000 people in the Damascus suburb.

The most serious investigation of the Ghouta incident to date points to the attack being launched from opposition-occupied positions, and remains the most credible analysis of the attack.

Indeed the U.N./OPCW team was in Damascus at the time of the attack in Ghouta because it was responding to an earlier request from the Syrian government to investigate chemical attacks against their forces.

The OPCW release also mentions a typical catch-all referring to “quantities of separately stored chemicals and related equipment, the nature of which is currently under technical analysis.”

There will always be suggestions of vague bits and pieces, rusty remnants that “may have been a part of” alleged undeclared elements of a chemical weapons program.

And, keep in mind, it’s been 22 months since the Assad government was ousted and their enemies in the opposition group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have been running the country.

So far as I can see, the OPCW hasn’t found anything remotely close to the desired smoking gun. Anything real, I should say.

Partners in the Anti-Assad Chemical Narrative

Syrian President Ahmaad Al Shaara, former Al Nusra/HTS fighter, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in New York City, September 2025. (State Department Photo, Wikimedia)

We need to keep in mind how this is working. There are three partners in this latest endeavour on the anti-Assad chemical narrative.

First, we have the Western governments, belligerents in the Syrian conflict, which worked hard on building the chemical narrative to delegitimise the regime.

The U.K. government offered specialists to check out suspected sites in Syria to prepare them for the May mission in order to “assist” the current government in finding evidence of hidden chemical weapons.

That leads us to the second group, the government in Syria, reportedly eager to please their Western sponsors in return for economic favours. They are the Al-Nusra/HTS extremists who, in the case of Douma, fabricated the scene to raise a chemical false flag allegation against the Assad.

The third partner is the OPCW.

That means the various groups who have been on this mission are a) those who staged scenes of chemical attacks; b) those who directed them to do so (including Western intelligence agents who allegedly coached and assisted them); and c) the organisation that went along with the narrative and dutifully produced reports damning the Assad regime.

It may appear to the reader that I’m suggesting that the OPCW reports on Syrian chemical weapons will continue to be little more than propaganda, the usual sexed-up nonsense. Perhaps so. In disputing this, these assertions will be dismissed as conspiracy theories.

However, this argument is weakened because the source of the alternative narrative is the scientists and senior inspectors (many “Western”) from within the OPCW teams, including the Douma fact-finding mission and Scientific Studies and Research Centre inspections.

This is why Douma remains a key element in the debate. If they did it once (and doggedly stuck to their guns), they probably did it before.

Many serious and eminent observers are imploring the OPCW to conduct a review of the Douma case, including by the OPCW’s own Scientific Advisory Board.

I see this being done by credible, independent and neutral experts in the fields of chemistry, toxicology, metallurgy and engineering, overseen by the relevant professional institutes.

These experts would report their findings transparently, putting their names and reputations behind their analysis. This will clear up the Douma controversy, either demonstrating that it could have actually happened as alleged, or demonstrating the flaws in the OPCW reports.

Exposing a clear and deliberate fraud would seriously weaken the Western narrative on alleged Syrian chemical attacks. Therefore, in my view, it is not going to happen under the purview of the OPCW.

Ever.

I don’t mean to suggest that those calling for a review are unrealistically hopeful. But the risks of such a review are perhaps too high for it ever to be envisaged by the Western group that was aligned with the efforts on regime change in Syria — chiefly the U.S., the U.K. and France.

This does not mean it can’t happen. There is more than enough open-source material, as well as now-unclassified facts, images, analysis results and information available from the OPCW itself, from former OPCW officials and inspectors, and held by Member States, that would support a credible in-depth review.

The basis for expert analysis would be the material used in the fact-finding mission and I.I.T. reports themselves.

By now we know there isn’t any “smoking gun” evidence. If there had been, it would have been cited in the mission and I.I.T. reports.

Trust me, this study will bear clear results. My hope is that someone sufficiently curious and responsible will commission and fund it.

Ian Henderson served as an OPCW inspector from the establishment of the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997, and was appointed as one of the first Inspection Team Leaders. An experienced chemical engineer with military experience, he led many of the more complex missions to more than 55 countries. After returning to a career in the chemical industry for 10 years he rejoined the OPCW in 2016 as part of the “rehire” scheme aimed at bringing back experienced inspectors. It was during this time that he became involved in the Syrian chemical weapons operations and, along with others, objected to the apparent influences of political control in the organization. He was suspended from the OPCW in May 2019 after the leak (by unknown others) of his dissenting engineering report on the Douma cylinders.

October 17, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Comments Off on Ongoing tales of Syrian chemical weapons

Moscow warns of ‘hunt for Russians’

RT | October 17, 2026

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has warned citizens to exercise caution when traveling abroad “amid a worldwide hunt for Russians.”

The statement follows the detention of Russian military blogger Mikhail Zvinchuk in Montenegro, a NATO member state in the Balkans, on October 9.

After nine hours in custody, Zvinchuk, founder of the Rybar Telegram channel, his wife and three associates were expelled from the country on the grounds of what Montenegro’s leading daily, Vijesti, described as “criminal, operational and intelligence processing.”

“We are compelled to once again remind people of the need to remain vigilant when traveling abroad, even if there is the slightest suspicion of any kind of claims by US law enforcement agencies, amid a worldwide hunt for Russians,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.

Montenegro, where the blogger was detained, is not on Russia’s list of unfriendly states, Zakharova said, adding that similar situations were unfolding in countries not considered unfriendly to Russia.

The arrest was described as targeting alleged “hybrid activity” by the Rybar network, but no specific evidence supporting the accusation has been presented.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the details of the arrest but warned Russian citizens that visiting Europe is “currently dangerous.”

The Rybar channel, which has around 1.3 million subscribers, had previously also faced US and British accusations of spreading Russian propaganda and conducting information operations abroad. The US State Department had even issued a $10 million bounty in 2024 for any information about the individuals behind the channel.

Russians who have been targeted include basketball player Daniil Kasatkin, a point guard playing for the national team, who was arrested at Paris airport in June 2025 at the behest of the US, which accused him of being a member of a ransomware gang. He denied the allegations and was released in January 2026 as part of a Russia-France prisoner exchange.

October 17, 2026 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , , | Comments Off on Moscow warns of ‘hunt for Russians’

Saudi Arabia under fire… Yemen is burning down the House of Saud

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 16, 2026

The Saudi kingdom is facing the danger of collapse from soaring war costs as Yemeni air strikes ramp up, hitting its northern neighbor’s capital and industrial centers with impunity.

Yemeni journalist Hussein al-Bukhaiti says the corruption and arrogance of the “House of Evil” is culminating in historic defeat. Its U.S. patron seems unable to avert the coming collapse.

Despite decades of the U.S. selling weapons worth hundreds of billions of dollars to the Saudi rulers, the regime seems shockingly exposed, with no viable defenses. Yemen’s missiles are striking Saudi Arabia at will. The panicky rulers are pleading with the United States and Europe for help.

Yemen’s armed forces are taking the war to Saudi Arabia, striking its airports, imposing a no-fly zone over the entire state and shutting down its vital oil industry.

“The Saudis cannot stop our drones and hypersonic missiles… we are taking the war to them,” says Sanaa-based Hussain al-Bukhaiti.

With no oil exports, Al-Bukhaiti reckons the Saudi rulers are facing an existential nemesis. Many observers have long predicted that the autocratic Saudi kingdom, created by the British Empire, is awaiting downfall from its ossified and family-run power structure.

Speaking from the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, Hussain al-Bukhaiti described the Saudi monarchy as “a house of glass” that is now being shattered by air strikes that cannot be defended against.

“Yemen did not want this war, but we are bringing the fire back to Saudi Arabia.”

Western politicians and media are portraying the conflict between the two Arab Peninsula countries as being caused by recent aggression from the Ansar Allah-led Yemeni government.

Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid international airport was attacked on October 10 with ballistic missiles that killed several people. Other Saudi airports have also been hit. This has led international airlines to suspend flights.

The state-owned Aramco oil industry has also been blasted with missiles. Fires are raging at major facilities, including at the main base of operations in Dammam on the Persian Gulf coast.

Following the missile strike on Riyadh airport at the weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump and all European leaders condemned an “act of terrorism” by Yemen.

Hussain al-Bukhaiti pointed out the gross hypocrisy of European governments not condemning the thousands of Saudi air strikes on Yemen that have occurred since 2015. These governments still remain silent about the ongoing Saudi atrocities against Yemeni civilians. The European Union even declares “solidarity” with Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi monarchy, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, started the war with unprovoked attacks in March 2015. The aggression was enabled by the United States, Britain, and France supplying warplanes, bombs, and intelligence.

These Western powers continue to arm and direct the Saudi regime in its war against Yemen.

Since 2015, there have been thousands of Western-backed air strikes on Yemen, resulting in more than 20,000 mainly civilian deaths.

“They hit everything, schools, hospitals, water-treatment plants, farms, homes, wedding and funeral halls,” says Al-Bukhaiti.

In addition, over 400,000 Yemenis have died from starvation and diseases caused by a blockade on the country imposed by Saudi Arabia and its Western backers for over 10 years.

He says the war reignited in July 2026 after the Saudis broke a four-year truce signed in 2022 by bombing Sanaa international airport. There was no condemnation by Europe of the Saudi violation then.

What Yemen is doing to Saudi Arabia now is but a taste of what the House of Saud inflicted on Yemenis since 2015 with Western support.

The Yemenis this week rejected a reported Saudi proposal for a short-term truce because they see it as just a ploy by the Saudis for rearming and regrouping in a losing situation.

For the war to end, Saudi Arabia must respect Yemen’s sovereignty and stop interfering in its internal affairs.

However, Hussain al-Bukhaiti thinks that the United States will double down and escalate its military involvement in Yemen with a full-blown war. This is not primarily to support the Saudi monarchy, he believes, but rather to prop up the Israeli regime.

Yemen has inflicted huge damage on the Israeli state since it intensified the genocide against Palestinians in October 2023. Yemeni air strikes have repeatedly struck Tel Aviv despite American air defenses.

An expanded U.S. war in Yemen might seem surprising given that Trump has made such a mess of his reckless aggression against Iran and may not have the military forces at his disposal.

But Al-Bukhaiti believes the issue is beyond Trump’s choice. Washington is locked in with the Zionist regime and will do whatever it takes to salvage Israel from defeat. Yemen represents the biggest threat to Israel from the cutting off of its shipping in the Red Sea.

“We are ready for the war that is coming,” he warns.

October 16, 2026 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Comments Off on Saudi Arabia under fire… Yemen is burning down the House of Saud

Russia accuses France of ‘piracy’ over tanker seizure

RT | October 13, 2026

The Russian Embassy in Paris has accused France of “piracy” after its naval forces seized an oil tanker in international waters near Madagascar, rejecting claims that the operation complied with international maritime law.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced the detention of the DF Peak on Monday, saying the vessel was suspected of sailing under a false flag and involvement in illegal fuel transportation.

The tanker was intercepted 450 nautical miles south of Reunion, a French island territory east of Madagascar, Macron said.

According to MarineTraffic, the DF Peak sails under Benin’s flag. Macron did not identify the owner but described the seizure as part of France’s campaign to “fight the ghost fleet wherever it may be in the world.”

The Russian Embassy called the operation a “flagrant violation of international law,” dismissing France’s references to maritime regulations and “international sanctions” as a “fig leaf” concealing “outright piracy and robbery.”

The embassy denounced the sanctions as illegitimate unilateral measures and said the French authorities failed to notify Russian diplomats of the seizure. It added that officials are checking whether any Russian nationals were aboard.

Western governments have used the term ‘shadow fleet’ to describe vessels that allegedly help Russia circumvent sanctions on oil exports. Moscow rejects the designation, arguing that it has no basis in international maritime law.

France previously detained the Tagor tanker in the Atlantic in June, and British forces seized the Smyrtos in the English Channel later that month. Moscow condemned both operations as piracy.

In July, the EU adopted a mechanism allowing member states to sell oil and other cargo confiscated from sanctioned vessels. President Vladimir Putin subsequently warned that Russia could retaliate against ships carrying Western cargo.

The latest seizure comes days after Putin and US President Donald Trump agreed to expand Russian diesel supplies to American and global markets in an effort to ease soaring fuel prices.

Washington subsequently issued a temporary sanctions waiver covering Russian diesel trade until April 7, 2027. Trump announced initial deliveries of more than 300,000 tons, followed by another 500,000 tons in November, and 1 million tons thereafter.

October 15, 2026 Posted by | Economics, War Crimes | , | Comments Off on Russia accuses France of ‘piracy’ over tanker seizure

West’s death cult in a theater near you

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 14, 2026

It’s hard to know whether to break the TV set or throw up when listening to the European governments rushing to condemn the air strike by Yemeni forces on Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid international airport.

The blast from a ballistic missile that slammed into the airport at the weekend, October 12, killed at least 13 civilians and injured scores of other travellers. Horrific video footage shows the moment the missile explosion ripped through a terminal lounge.

European leaders immediately in a coordinated fashion trotted out condemnations of Yemeni “terrorism” and vowed solidarity and support for Saudi Arabia. U.S. President Donald Trump called it “a terrible thing.” (As if bombing schoolchildren is not quite a terrible thing.)

Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, and Spain all issued strident denunciations of the Yemeni attack.

The strike on the Saudi capital came after the Ansar Allah-led Yemen Armed Forces had given ample warning to the Saudis that their airports would be targeted and for civilians to avoid the areas. The airports were kept open for business as usual. The Yemenis have said that the attack on Riyadh and other Saudi airports are retaliation for weeks of multiple air strikes by the Saudis on Yemeni civilian centers.

Hundreds of Yemeni civilians have been killed since Saudi Arabia broke a four-year truce with an air strike on the international airport in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, on July 13. Saudi warplanes, U.S.-supplied F-15s and European Typhoon jets, have been continously bombing homes across Yemen. This week, two days after the Riyadh strike, at least nine people including five children were killed in air raids on houses in Taiz city and in northern al Jawf province. Al Masirah TV footage showed a distraught father holding up a child’s shredded body amid rubble. There was no condemnation of that atrocity from any European leader.

As Mick Wallace and Clare Daly, former Irish Members of the European Parliament, point out in their podcast this week, the official European reaction is utter hypocrisy and a cynical distortion of the conflict on the Arabian Peninsula.

Britain and France in particular, along with the United States, have backed the Saudi aggression against Yemen beginning in 2015. Over seven years, that aggression killed up to 400,000 Yemenis through air strikes and a blockade on humanitarian needs.

The European Union remained largely silent for seven years. No protests were made to Washington, Paris or London. Ambassadors were not summoned, sanctions were not imposed.

The return to hostilities that began with Saudi air strikes on Sanaa in July have been enabled by U.S. and Britain supplying warplanes, military advisors and intelligence.

None of the European governments have bothered to condemn this recent U.S. and UK-backed slaughter.

So, it is nauseating when one hears British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband saying he is “appalled” by the strike on Riyadh airport. And other European leaders vowing “full solidarity with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul condemned Yemen’s “terrorist act.”

His French counterpart said France stood with Saudi Arabia “in defending its territory and infrastructue.” (No mention of what the Saudis have been doing for years to Yemen’s territory.)

Referring to the strike on Riyadh without any context, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni said: “Attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure are unacceptable and must cease.” (Yes, indeed, so why not tell that to the Saudis who are doing it deliberately on a massive scale with support from Washington and London?)

What is instructive here is not just the sickening hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy. It is the manifestation of a systematic corruption and criminal responsibility. This is not just one more example of a flawed European political class whose judgement is suspect. What is increasingly apparent is the totality of the corruption.

The same European supporters of Saudi monarchs waging a genocidal war on Yemen are also contemporaneously supporting the Israeli Zionist regime in its extermination of Palestinians. They are complicit in enabling the U.S. aggression against Iran, Cuba and Venezuela. They are sponsors of the NeoNazi regime in Kiev to keep fighting a proxy war against Russia despite more than one million Ukrainian military casualties and the risk of nuclear conflagration.

The death cult of Western capitalism is on full display in multiple theaters, exposing the organic evil at work. There is sense that all of Western imperialist history is now on display in one final orgy of barbarity.

In previous times, the death cult operated discreetly in seemingly disparate conflict scenarios. Wars on different continents seemed somehow unconnected. The Western media would in the past reliably cover up the crimes by distorting the motives and objectives with false narratives and (laughable) claims of noble purpose. The West was “defending democracy,” “fighting communism,” “protecting human rights,” or “waging war on terrorism,” or some other pretext that in isolation and with loads of media propaganda managed to fool a lot of people as somehow plausible.

What’s happening now, it seems, is a concatenation of wars that ultimately exposes the essential system that drives the violence, and its insatiable lust for human suffering.

It is impossible to work for such a vile system, the death cult of capitalism, without also being oblivious to its evil ways. To remain oblivious necessitates denial or lies. That deception might be tenable for occasional and seemingly disparate scenarios. But not when the system is exposed in its infernal entirety.

American and European wars in the past might have succeeded in being sold to the Western public as one-off wars and misadventures. We think of the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Latin American, Africa, former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and more recently Libya.

In more recent years, as consciousness evolved, the public began discerning and decrying “endless wars”.

But now the world is witnessing a totalizing of the war machine that goes by the name of “Western democracy”.

What’s happening in Ukraine, Gaza, Iran and Yemen is not coincidence. It is the death cult on display and unable to hide itself. It manifests too in attacking and locking up Western citizens who condemn genocide or who simply call for peace.

Capitalism, fascism, wars, the Epstein class, endemic poverty and suffering – it’s a death cult in a theater near you.

The politicians, governments, media and pundits who promote it or serve it are seen for what they are.

October 14, 2026 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Comments Off on West’s death cult in a theater near you

Europe’s mounting social chaos… chickens coming home to roost for proxy war against Russia

Strategic Culture Foundation | October 9, 2026

The European Union is witnessing a full-blown social revolt. Governing political parties and their economic policies are held in open contempt as public protests and strikes escalate across multiple countries.

Protests, mass marches, and industrial strikes are spreading across the EU in France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, and other countries. The grievances are various, from students and teachers over woeful education services, to healthcare professionals and transportation workers denouncing crumby wages and pension cuts.

But at the core is a warmongering, dehumanizing system of capitalist inequality.

Unbearable living costs for basic needs, from food to housing, are driving millions onto the streets in desperation and anger at the lack of adequate political response to their concerns. As one French student said: “Too young to be listened to, old enough to be tear-gassed.”

The entire political system is being brought into disrepute for its dysfunction and indifference towards meeting rudimentary human needs. Then, infuriating all the more, are lies from the elite rulers and their propaganda media about “national defense and threat of war from Russia.”

In Spain this week, an 87-year-old frail woman known as Maricarmen died in hospital after she was evicted from her Madrid home because she could not pay the extortionate rent increase. Her plight has come to galvanize a nationwide protest against Spain’s housing crisis, a crisis that is repeated across every European country. Protesters shouted furiously that the pitiful old woman was “murdered by the state and corporations.”

In France, the brutality of police against student protests has shocked the nation and the world. Nearly 7,000 young people have been arrested, as riot police tear gas and shoot at largely peaceful rallies. Students gathering at the Place de la Bastille in Paris and other cities vow that they will not back down. One student had his hand blown off by a police stun grenade while another teenager lost an eye from a rubber bullet fired at close range.

The Place de la Bastille is where the French Revolution manifested in 1798 against a hated aristocracy amid abject misery. Today, the tensions are boiling towards another momentous rebellion, this time inspiring again similar movements across Europe.

These protests and the inhumane suffering that underlie them are channeling uprisings all over the EU.

There is a palpable sense that populations en masse have had enough of decades of inequality and chronic deprivation inflicted by capitalist policies that enrich a few and are enforced by governments slavishly serving the interests of capital over the needs of the citizen majority.

Western media reports talk about “cash-strapped” governments under pressure from bond markets to reduce record debt levels while workers, students and pensioners demand more public investment and relief from economic hardship.

That is a misleading partial portrayal of the problem. Omitted is the crucial backdrop that European governments are directing vast economic resources towards militarism and the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. That is what is causing the “cash-strapped governments.” In other words, their declared fiscal straits are a policy choice, not some mysterious dilemma.

The social crisis sweeping across Europe is also seen in the United States and other Western-aligned nations. The background is a failed economic system that no longer provides a modicum of acceptable living conditions. The problem has been decades in the making from growing inequality and diminishing political representation. Today it is even questionable if Western states are democracies, controlled as they are by corporate oligarchies.

Nevertheless, the social crisis that is unfolding across Europe has been intensified and amplified by European political rulers operating in a relentless war mode against Russia.

The European Union has pumped hundreds of billions of euros into Ukraine over the past four years to prop up a NeoNazi regime run by a corrupt dictatorship – all for the objective of defeating Russia. The EU leaders – many of them unelected, like Ursula von der Leyen, Kaja Kallas and António Costa – are driven by an obsessive Russophobia. But that is only part of the explanation.

Other elected leaders and parties like France’s Macron and Germany’s Merz are also despised for their elitism and delusions of grandeur. Merz declares that he wants to make Germany the strongest military in Europe, in total tin-ear deafness to his nation’s economic and social problems and the sinister historical connotations of resurrecting Nazi Germany. Meanwhile, as his government suffers electoral defeat after defeat, European elites deprecate German voters as being blind because they dare to choose parties that are opposed to war with Russia.

There are many grounds for the Europe-wide contempt of ruling parties. Inequality, poverty, unemployment, soaring living costs, declining wages, deteriorating public services. Uncontrolled immigration amid the pressure on inadequate public resources is another cause for grievance. Europe’s complicity in the Israeli genocidal war on Palestinians, and Europe’s complicity in Trump’s aggression towards Iran, Yemen, Cuba, and so on, are other factors.

However, the bogus narrative that governments are “cash-strapped” is a cause for immense public disgust. There are plenty of economic resources to meet public needs. It’s a question of those resources not being permitted to create just and humane societies under the prevailing capitalist system with its priority of enriching a tiny elite class.

The conditions of “tight budgets” and “austerity for the masses” are created by deliberate policies of militarism and fuelling a proxy war in Ukraine.

European “leaders” and their NATO lobbyists like Mark Rutte demand hundreds of billions of euros to boost military industries while at the same time calling for draconian cuts in public spending and social welfare in order to pay for this reckless militarism. The EU is “lending” an additional €90 billion over the next two years alone just to prop up the corrupt regime in Kiev so that it can keep fighting a futile war with Russia. The perverse priority is driven by the military-industrial complex and its corporate investors. It is also driven by an ideological, propagandized mindset that demonizes Russia as an enemy. President Putin and other Russian voices have repeatedly stated that they do not want war with Europe. They say the conflict in Ukraine has root causes that can be resolved through diplomatic engagement. Why are European politicians implacably opposed to peace?

A major factor is covering for internal political and economic failure of the European system. The EU’s economies, as with those in the U.S. and other Western states, are bankrupt dystopias in terms of delivering on social and democratic needs. The failure has been compounded by the costs of war in Ukraine.

That failure is criminal and fatal for the politicians and governments who have overseen the policies. Thus, the political class, including the propaganda news media, cannot admit their criminal policies.

In the face of their own internal contradictions, the European political elites are seeking a solution by externalizing Russia as an enemy. This is the same modus operandi that European rulers have used for the past century and more, unleashing two world wars as a result.

These criminal politicians and their dysfunctional economic system are again pushing war as their escape plan for survival at the expense of millions of lives and at the risk of starting a third world war, one that this time around could involve catastrophic nuclear nemesis.

It is damning of virtually every European government, including primarily the British, that there are no calls for diplomacy and political settlement with Russia. They are committed to waging war on Russia to absolve themselves from the social devastation they are responsible for.

One positive thing, though, is that increasing numbers of people can see through the chicanery and lies. A German student placard summed it up: “We won’t fight your wars… Education not bombs!”

A day of reckoning is imminent. Criminal political leaders and their warmongering system are exposed like never before and in a way that demands total revolt as a proper solution. The consequences are not to be externalized this time. Chickens are coming home to roost, as Malcom X once said.

October 10, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Europe’s mounting social chaos… chickens coming home to roost for proxy war against Russia

‘Harsh reality’: Iran says France seeks monopoly on power and intimidation, not peace for all

Press TV | October 9, 2026

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei says France does not want peace for all but seeks to preserve its monopoly on military power and the ability to intimidate others.

Baghaei made the remarks in a post on his X account on Friday, responding to French President Emmanuel Macron’s earlier statement during a test of a ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, during which Macron said, “To be free, therefore, one must be feared, and to be feared, one must be powerful.”

Baghaei contrasted those remarks with Macron’s position on Iran, which has never sought to acquire nuclear weapons, quoting the French president as saying, “Iran must never possess nuclear weapons. Neither today, nor in five years, nor in ten years. Never.”

He said the question is not why France possesses a nuclear deterrent force, but why Paris regards its own nuclear deterrent as essential to guaranteeing its security and freedom while portraying Iran’s nuclear activities as a “threat,” even though Tehran’s nuclear program is peaceful and subject to international oversight.

“The harsh reality is this: they do not want peace for all. They want to maintain the monopoly on the kind of power that inspires fear and the monopoly on the legitimacy to intimidate,” the Iranian spokesperson wrote.

Baghaei emphasized that France seeks to remain powerful, armed with nuclear weapons and capable of inspiring fear, while imposing restrictions on countries that seek to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes under the pretext of an alleged “nuclear threat.”

“A peace in which nuclear powers regard their own weapons as the guarantors of their freedom and security, but label the same logic a threat when invoked by others, is not true peace. It is a monopoly on power founded on a sense of superiority,” he said.

He added that an international order that fails to recognize every country’s right to security and peace serves the dominance of a small circle of powers rather than protecting peace itself.

Iran has maintained a consistent position regarding its peaceful nuclear program, citing a religious decree by martyred Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, who forbade the acquisition of nukes.

Iran, as a signatory to the NPT, maintains that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful and that there has been no diversion of nuclear material following more than two decades of inspections.

Despite this and the extensive inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Israeli regime has long been trying to portray Iran’s nuclear program as a threat.

The regime persuaded the administration of US President Donald Trump to launch two rounds of aggression against Iran in June 2025 and early 2026 on the false pretext of divergence from a civilian nuclear program.

In both wars, the aggressors targeted Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including nuclear facilities, in flagrant violation of international law and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

October 9, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , | Comments Off on ‘Harsh reality’: Iran says France seeks monopoly on power and intimidation, not peace for all

MEP blasts ‘Euro-Gestapo’ for lecturing Russia on democracy

RT | October 8, 2026

Brussels is steering Europe toward totalitarianism and a “Euro-Gestapo” while lecturing Russia on democracy, Slovak MEP Lubos Blaha has warned.

Blaha made the remarks during a European Parliament debate on Tuesday, responding to EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who denounced Russia’s recent parliamentary elections as undemocratic.

The politician questioned why Brussels was focusing on Russia while cracking down on dissent within the bloc.

He cited arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters in Germany and the imprisonment of Estonian opposition figures, who he claimed were jailed for opposing war with Russia.

“Are you going to set up the Euro-Gestapo here, Mrs. Kallas, and lock up everyone who wants peace?” he asked.

The Slovak lawmaker also questioned why Brussels was debating Russia’s elections while Europe faced mounting unrest.

“You may not have noticed, but Spain is in the streets, France is in the streets, and you are here dealing with Russian elections. You must be joking,” he said.

Blaha went on to accuse Brussels of double standards over Ukraine’s suspended presidential elections.

“You blame the Russians for having elections, but you don’t mind that [Ukraine’s Vladimir] Zelensky has been governing for three years without any elections, without a mandate,” he said. “You are hypocrites!”

Zelensky’s presidential term expired in May 2024, but elections have remained suspended under martial law.

Blaha also cited the annulment of Romania’s 2024 presidential election, claiming the vote was canceled because “the wrong candidate won.” Romania’s Constitutional Court scrapped the result over alleged irregularities and accusations of Russian interference after EU- and NATO-skeptic Calin Georgescu won the first round. Pro-EU candidate Nicusor Dan won the rerun in May 2025.

The MEP argued that Russia had held elections despite the ongoing conflict and daily Ukrainian missile and drone attacks on its territory.

The September poll saw the ruling United Russia party win nearly 58% of the party-list vote.

Blaha also defended Russian President Vladimir Putin, contrasting his popularity with that of Western European leaders.

“You have nothing to criticize Putin for, Mrs. Kallas,” he declared. “Unlike you and your Merzes and Macrons, he has the support of his own population.”

Recent polls have put German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s approval rating at a record low of 10% in October, while French President Emmanuel Macron’s support fell to 17% in September. Neither Kallas nor European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was directly elected to her current position by voters, having assumed office through the EU’s institutional appointment process.

Blaha belongs to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s Smer-SD party, which opposes EU sanctions on Russia and has criticized Western military assistance to Ukraine.

October 8, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , , , , , , | Comments Off on MEP blasts ‘Euro-Gestapo’ for lecturing Russia on democracy

Paris bans pro-Palestinian demonstration planned for Oct. 7 over ‘risks of public disorder’

MEMO | October 6, 2026

Paris police chief Patrice Faure on Tuesday banned a pro-Palestinian demonstration planned for Wednesday, the third anniversary of Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in Israel, over “risks of public disorder,” Anadolu reports.

“At the request of Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, I issued an order banning a demonstration ‘against the genocide in Gaza and for respect for the ceasefire’ in Paris on Wednesday,” Faure said on US social media platform X.

He noted that such a demonstration could pose “significant risks of public disorder,” citing a “high terrorist threat” and antisemitic acts that “remain at historically high levels” across France.

“In light of this, and in view of all the risks identified, it is my responsibility to ensure everyone’s safety. I have therefore decided to ban this demonstration,” Faure added.

Israel’s genocidal war launched three years ago in Gaza has killed more than 74,000 people, injured many more and destroyed most of the enclave’s infrastructure.

October 6, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Comments Off on Paris bans pro-Palestinian demonstration planned for Oct. 7 over ‘risks of public disorder’

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