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Israel systematically torturing Palestinians in custody: UN special rapporteur Albanese

Press TV | March 22, 2026

A UN expert says that the Israeli regime systematically tortures Palestinians on a scale “that suggests collective vengeance and destructive intent.”

In a report released on Friday, Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, said that since October 7, 2023, when the Israeli regime began a genocidal war on Gaza, Palestinians in custody “have been subjected to exceptionally ruthless physical and psychological abuse.”

Entitled “Torture and genocide”, the report “examines Israel’s systematic use of torture against Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territory since October 7, 2023.”

“Torture in detention has been used on an unprecedented scale as punitive collective vengeance,” the report said.

Brutal beatings, sexual violence, rape, lethal mistreatment, starvation, and the systematic deprivation of the most basic human conditions have inflicted profound and lasting scars on the bodies and minds of tens of thousands of Palestinians and their loved ones,” the report stated.

Torture has become integral to the domination of and punishment inflicted on men, women and children, both through custodial abuse and through a relentless campaign of forced displacement, mass killings, deprivation and destruction of all means of life to inflict long-term collective pain and suffering, it warned.

Since October 2023, abduction of Palestinians in the occupied territory had “escalated dramatically,” with more than 18,500 people arrested, including at least 1,500 children, the report added.

About 9,000 Palestinians were still in detention, while more than 4,000 have been subjected to enforced disappearance, it said.

Israel’s detention system “has descended into a regime of systemic and widespread humiliation, coercion, and terror,” according to the report.

Albanese demanded Israel “immediately cease all acts of torture and ill-treatment of the Palestinian people as part of its ongoing genocide” and urged all countries “to do everything in their power to stop the destruction of what remains of Palestine” as every delay “worsens irreversible harm and further entrenches a system of cruelty.”

She urged the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to request arrest warrants for hawkish Israeli ministers Israel Katz, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

She said she had gathered written submissions about these atrocities, including at least 300 testimonies, and is due to present her report to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) on Monday.

Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli regime has killed at least 72,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded more than 172,000 others, most of them women and children.

March 22, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Comments Off on Israel systematically torturing Palestinians in custody: UN special rapporteur Albanese

How the US-Israeli aggression against Iran is affecting the war in Ukraine

By Dmitri Kovalevich | Al Mayadeen | March 22, 2026

In the second half of March, the US and Israeli aggression against Iran is taking its toll on Ukraine. Retail stores are updating their prices daily, while the government is unable to keep gasoline prices in check through threats against sellers, as operators simply hide their product, creating artificial shortages.

Following the rapid deindustrialization that accompanied ‘independent’ Ukraine’s secession from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the only remaining productive industry in the country is agriculture, specifically, the production of grain and corn for export. Ukrainian authorities now face a harsh choice: supply fuel to agrarians at the start of this year’s planting season, or divert dwindling fuel supplies to meet the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal, supplying the Armed Forces of Ukraine remains the priority, in order that the proxy war by Western powers against the Russian Federation may continue.

He stated on March 1: “The war in Iran has triggered a global fuel crisis. Our key task is to supply the army. Sowing is the second priority. After that come businesses and people.”

European fuel suppliers have reduced their supplies to Ukraine in order to meet demand in their own markets. Fuel shipments from Poland have been suspended for one week, while Romania and Moldova have also temporarily halted fuel exports. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán already halted sales of diesel fuel and gasoline to Ukraine in February due to Ukraine’s disruption of the Druzhba pipeline from Russia.

As a result, Ukraine may be forced to seek fuel in more distant markets… and pay much higher prices for it. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Western imperialist powers cannot sustain two wars at once—one against Russia, the other against Iran.

Danylo Getmantsev, head of Ukraine’s legislative committee on tax policy, says that Ukraine could face serious fuel shortages as early as April if the war with Iran drags on. “According to analysts of the Ukrainian fuel market, the situation with a shortage of fuel and lubricants may arise in our country in April,” he said in early March. To counter this, Getmantsev proposes exploring opportunities to establish a strategic reserve of petroleum products in partner countries.

Andriy Gerus, head of the energy committee of the Ukrainian legislature, noted earlier in March that due to Russia’s shelling of oil depots, Ukraine has no remaining strategic fuel reserves. “Everything is operating on a just-in-time basis; there are no remaining stocks of cheaper resources, so any price change in Europe quickly translates into a price change in Ukraine.” He explains that fuel in Ukraine will always be more expensive than in Europe.

Legislator Oleksandr Dubinsky, currently in jail accused of treason, believes that due to the war against Iran, the economic situation in Ukraine has become critical, much like it was in February 2022 at the start of the war. “Society and the army are exhausted. Exchange rates, energy costs, and prices have risen. The budget deficit is widening. At the same time, uncertainty is growing,” Dubinsky explains.

Nevertheless, according to Dubinsky, officials in Kiev believe that Ukraine is seen as too important in the global game to be allowed to fail, so money for its survival as a Western vassal will be found regardless of the widespread corruption that has further overwhelmed the Ukrainian economy beginning in 2022.

Legislator Yuriy Boyko says that if oil reaches $200 per barrel, everyone will feel the impact. “In that case, the planting season will be at risk, and prices for goods will rise sharply. Ukrainians aren’t well-off to begin with, so we can’t let that happen,” the lawmaker says.

Another legislator, Mykhailo Tsymbaliuk, has stated that high gasoline prices are already affecting the country’s military capabilities. According to him, the fuel being allocated by the Ministry of Defense is insufficient for the armed forces, causing grave problems. Even evacuations of wounded soldiers are being compromised. “The skyrocketing price of gasoline has become a serious warning sign for the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” the lawmaker warns.

Ukraine’s European supporters will continue for some time to divert fuel resources away from their own needs in order to supply the Ukrainian Armed Forces with gasoline, even at the expense of their own citizens. However, with every passing week and month that the war with Iran continues, the cost of such assistance will rise sharply for them.

In March, Ukrainian lawmakers told Ukrainian media that European governments are urging them to assure Ukraine keeps fighting Russia for another year-and-a-half to two years. “The Europeans have told us ‘Keep fighting for another year and a half to two years; we’ll provide the money you need’”, reports the publication Zerkalo Nedeli on March 12.

Under such pressure, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy has tasked the political leadership in the national legislature to continue functioning for several more years without an electoral mandate. The last national election Ukraine took place in April 2019, with a five-year mandate. It featured the banning of political parties deemed to be sympathetic to dialogue and good relations with Russia, a feature of the system that took power in February 2014 following a violent coup spearheaded by neo-Nazi paramilitaries.

To so many Ukrainians, the urgings and hidden threats by the leaders of ‘civilized Europe’ mean they will continue to be abducted from their own streets for two more years by the recruiters of Kiev’s compulsory military service.

None of the possible scenarios cited by Ukrainian military experts envisage a Russian defeat or the recapture of territories lost by Ukraine. In other words, the sole result of scenarios for continued war being urged is continued destruction of the Ukrainian population, all politely funded by European/NATO-member governments.

This approach speaks volumes about the overall strategy of Kiev and its Western allies. Theirs is a ‘strategy’ of holding out for a while longer without any long-term expectation of peace, hoping for some ‘black swan’ event (‘extremely rare and unpredictable’) that will drastically change the geopolitical situation. In other words, Western imperialism and its Ukrainian stooges are pinning their hopes on a miracle that might save them all.

Ukraine’s European ‘allies’, in truth, currently lack the funds to continue the war in Ukraine. They are negotiating a €90 billion loan for the country, but as mentioned above, European Union member Hungary is currently blocking this proposal.

Meanwhile, on March 18, Ukrainian media, citing a US State Department report, reported that USAID auditors have uncovered irregularities in the oversight of the more than $30 billion in direct budget support to Kiev since February 2022. There are a great many corruption scandals festering in Ukraine, but none have acted as grounds for refusing further loans and financial aid, despite the evidence that much of that could be embezzled.

Zelenskyy told the BBC during a visit to Britain on March 17 (which included a warm welcome by the British monarchy) that the war in Iran raises ominous forebodings about Ukraine’s future. Yet as Ukrainian media has noted, Zelensky is a firm supporter of that war.

In a speech to the annual Munich Security Conference on February 14, Zelensky called for measures to “immediately stop” Iran, without any delay. “Regimes like the one in Iran must not be given time. When they have time, they only kill more. They must be stopped immediately.”

Then, on February 27, he told an interview with Sky News that he supported an operation to depose the Iranian leadership.

Ukraine’s European allies are currently concerned with how to win back Donald Trump’s favor and persuade him to continue funding the Zelensky-led government in Kiev. Finnish President Alexander Stubb fears that negotiations on Ukraine are approaching a “moment of truth” that could force Kiev to formally cede territory in the Donbass region to Moscow. (Populations there voted in 2022 and before that to secede from coup Ukraine and join the Russian Federation.)

Europe, Stubb says, finds itself in a difficult position due to reductions in direct US aid to Ukraine. He proposes an odd trade-off to resolve this dilemma, namely, an ‘exchange’ of military assistance by Ukraine to the US and “Israel” in the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for continued assistance to Kiev’s war. That includes a proposal that the European Union agree to provide the US with military assistance to unblock the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for increases in direct US supplies to Ukraine.

But this is wishful thinking. The European Union member-countries of NATO lack the military capabilities required to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. They do have experience (gained during the Ukrainian crisis) in buying time and ‘bogging down’ the crisis in the Middle East through numerous rounds of fruitless negotiations with Iran. The essence of the EU approach would see the Iranian side fulfilling certain conditions in the here and now, while the West and its allies promise to ‘do something’ to normalize relations, but at a later time.

During the war in Ukraine, we witnessed endless negotiations in this vein under the ‘Minsk-1’ and ‘Minsk-2’ agreements in 2014 and early 2015. Then there was the ‘grain deal’ of July 2022, whereby the Russian navy would allow Ukraine to export grain from Black Sea ports. In all these cases, Ukraine and the West failed to fulfill their part of the commitments.

Oleg Yasinsky, a Ukrainian political analyst now living in Chile, commented on March 19 about the resistance of the Iranian people to aggression and the tradition of deception to which the West has consistently resorted during negotiations following military failures. “Once upon a time, the ancestors of today’s democratic world leaders negotiated with Indigenous peoples as they plundered and conquered them. At peace-signing ceremonies with the indigenous peoples of Patagonia, poison-laced whale carcasses were served at the table, while in the cold mountains of North America, smallpox-infected blankets and clothing were given as gifts to original peoples.

“Today, from Minsk for Russia to Geneva for Iran, the peacemaking traditions of the ‘civilized world’ have not changed one bit in all this time. Therefore and unfortunately,” he concludes, “missiles are the only real negotiators today.”

Zelensky is now desperately traveling around the world seeking to regain attention for his government as Iran becomes the main topic of global media. He is ‘jumping on the bandwagon’ of war against Iran in efforts to render some valuable service to Western imperialism and prove his continued usefulness. He has offered Ukrainian troops to guard “Israel” and Western military bases in the Gulf and in Cyprus. Alas for him, Trump has dismissed his obsequious ‘servant,’ going so far as to say that “Zelensky is the last person from whom we would need help.”

According to Odessa-based anarchist Vyacheslav Azarov, Ukraine is scrambling to align itself with the dominant theme in international politics and position itself as a useful part of the crisis exploding in the Middle East. Demands for additional support to Kiev are being delivered from this new vantage point. However, in the end, Kiev may simply end up with “additional airstrikes accompanied by the friendly shrieking of minor allies who have no real influence” and a large, new adversary in the form of Iran.”

Zelensky’s humiliating traveling and messaging does not go unnoticed in Ukraine. But the pompous president, who sees himself as a sage colonialist in the style of Winston Churchill and is continuously applauded by the governments of European countries, turns out to be a frightened servant, fearing that his ‘masters’ may abandon him. The war waged by Western imperialism against the Iranian people has once again underscored the weakness and dubious value of Zelensky’s government, whose image the West has artificially inflated for years through its media.

March 22, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on How the US-Israeli aggression against Iran is affecting the war in Ukraine

Bahrain admits US Patriot missile hit residential area, injured dozens

Al Mayadeen | March 21, 2026

Bahrain’s government has admitted that a US Patriot air defense system was involved in the March 9 interception over the Sitra residential area that left dozens of civilians injured, Reuters reported.

This admission directly refutes the account offered by US Central Command, which had attributed the casualties to an Iranian drone strike.

In a statement to Reuters, a Bahraini government spokesperson said the Patriot system intercepted an Iranian drone, insisting that the operation “prevented a drone strike and saved lives.”

CENTCOM had previously maintained that an Iranian drone directly struck a residential neighbourhood. Bahrain’s admission that a Patriot missile was involved now places both accounts in open contradiction with the footage and with each other.

Video published by Drop Site News shows an air-defense interceptor descending following a failed interception attempt, with an impact occurring off-camera shortly afterward. The images strongly suggest it was the interceptor, not an Iranian drone, that struck the residential area, injuring 32 civilians, including children, with four reported in critical condition.

Whose lives were being saved?

The Iranian missiles and drones at issue were directed at US military bases in Bahrain, installations that a significant portion of the Bahraini population regards as an occupying presence, which secures the authoritarian order and is complicit in the genocide in Gaza and the war waged on Iran and Lebanon.

Had those bases not existed on Bahraini soil, no Iranian missile would have targeted Bahrain, and no Bahraini civilian in Sitra would have been injured. The only lives the Patriot system could plausibly claim to have saved were those inside the bases themselves, the very presence most Bahrainis have long demanded be ended.

Death penalty for documenting the damage

Rather than launching an independent inquiry into how a US missile system came to strike a residential neighbourhood, Bahraini authorities have moved to prosecute those who documented the aftermath.

The kingdom’s Public Prosecution is seeking the death penalty for several citizens charged with photographing locations where photography is allegedly prohibited, in what prosecutors framed as “high betrayal”.

During court proceedings, they described the situation as “brutal Iranian aggression” and called for “maximum penalties, without the slightest mercy,” specifying that this meant capital punishment.

162 arrested, crackdown still ongoing

According to the Prisoners Affairs Authority in Bahrain, 162 citizens, including men and women, have been detained since the onset of the US-Israeli war on Iran, with only five released as of March 18.

Detentions have targeted citizens who filmed Iranian strikes on US military bases in the region, individuals who publicly expressed solidarity with those operations, as well as citizens who participated in peaceful protests denouncing the war and the assassination of martyred Iranian Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei.

The Prisoners’ Affairs Authority warned that the documented figure almost certainly undercounts the actual number of arrests, as raids and detention operations were still ongoing at the time of reporting.

March 22, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Bahrain admits US Patriot missile hit residential area, injured dozens

Angela Lipps Spent 108 Days in Jail Because a Facial Recognition Algorithm Was Wrong

By Regina Morrison | Reclaim The Net | March 20, 2026

Angela Lipps spent nearly six months in jail because an algorithm looked at surveillance footage and decided she matched the suspect. She had never been to North Dakota. She had never been on a plane. A facial recognition system said otherwise, and police took that as enough.

Lipps, a 50-year-old mother and grandmother from north-central Tennessee, was arrested at her home in July while babysitting four children. US marshals arrived with guns drawn. She was booked as a fugitive from justice.

“I’ve never been to North Dakota, I don’t know anyone from North Dakota,” she told WDAY News.

The case began with bank fraud in Fargo.

Between April and May 2025, someone used a fake US Army military ID to withdraw tens of thousands of dollars from banks across the city. Detectives pulled surveillance footage of a woman at the counters. They fed that footage into facial recognition software. The software returned a name: Angela Lipps.

A detective wrote in court documents that Lipps appeared to match the suspect based on facial features, body type, and hairstyle.

That assessment, made by software and rubber-stamped in a report, was treated as sufficient cause for arrest. Nobody from the Fargo police called Lipps before the marshals showed up at her door.

She sat in a Tennessee county jail for 108 days waiting for North Dakota to arrange her transport. No bail. Four counts of unauthorized use of personal identifying information. Four counts of theft. The algorithm had spoken.

Her attorney, Jay Greenwood, told InForum: “If the only thing you have is facial recognition, I might want to dig a little deeper.”

Fargo police did not dig deeper. What eventually cleared Lipps was her bank records, which showed she had been more than 1,200 miles away in Tennessee during every transaction investigators said she committed in North Dakota. Greenwood obtained those records and brought them to the investigators. Lipps was released on Christmas Eve.

The story didn’t end there. While locked up and unable to pay bills, Lipps lost her home, her car, and her dog. When Fargo police released her, they didn’t arrange her trip back to Tennessee. Defense attorneys helped cover a hotel room and food over Christmas. A local nonprofit, the F5 Project, got her home.

As of the reporting from InForum, nobody from the Fargo police department had apologized.

This is how facial recognition operates: it generates a match, law enforcement acts on it, and the burden of disproving a computer’s guess falls entirely on the person whose life gets upended.

Lipps had to produce documentary evidence of her own location to escape charges based on software that was simply wrong.

The Lipps case is not unusual. Last October, an AI system at a Baltimore school identified a bag of Doritos as a firearm and notified police.

Officers arrived armed at Kenwood High School, forced student Taki Allen to his knees, handcuffed him, and searched him. They found nothing.

In the UK, Shaun Thompson, 39, had just finished a volunteer shift with Street Fathers, a group dedicated to steering young people away from knife crime, when the Metropolitan Police’s live facial recognition cameras flagged him outside London Bridge station.

Officers detained him for nearly half an hour, demanded his fingerprints, and threatened arrest, even as he produced multiple forms of ID proving he wasn’t the person they were looking for. “They were telling me I was a wanted man, trying to get my fingerprints and trying to scare me with arrest, even though I knew and they knew the computer had got it wrong,” he said.

Thompson is now bringing the first legal challenge of its kind against the Metropolitan Police’s use of live facial recognition. The man the algorithm flagged as a criminal was spending his evening trying to prevent crime. The technology made no distinction.

What these cases share is a common architecture. A system makes an identification, human oversight treats that identification as reliable, and the person flagged has no recourse until significant damage has already been done.

March 21, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Comments Off on Angela Lipps Spent 108 Days in Jail Because a Facial Recognition Algorithm Was Wrong

Israeli Journalist Demands Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens Be Placed in WWII-Style Internment Camps

The Talmudic mask comes off

José Niño Unfiltered | March 17, 2026

The landscape of American free speech has entered treacherous new terrain. On February 27, 2026, an Israeli historian and journalist named Yair Kleinbaum published an editorial in JFeed demanding that the United States government arrest and detain Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens, Cenk Uygur, Jackson Hinkle, and other prominent commentators who have opposed American military action against Iran. The model he proposed for their imprisonment was the World War II internment of Japanese Americans.

“It’s time to put Fuentes, Owens, Carlson and Uygur inside a WWII-Style internment camp,” Kleinbaum wrote. “We have reached a point where there is no choice but to take decisive action and arrest them.”

Kleinbaum’s argument rested on the claim that these commentators had crossed from protected speech into criminal incitement by allegedly encouraging soldiers to defy orders and discouraging enlistment. He explicitly compared them to Japanese Americans during World War II, though he distinguished the cases by asserting that unlike those who were “unjustly profiled,” the targeted influencers had “proven that their loyalty is with anti-American forces.”

“Just as the Japanese-American population was suspected of loyalty to a murderous Japanese regime that had declared war on America during World War II, these figures, including Jackson Hinkle and others, have, unlike most those Japanese who were unjustly profiled, proven that their loyalty is with anti-American forces,” Kleinbaum wrote. “Hence their call for mutiny.”

Kleinbaum himself is a graduate student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the Department of History of the Jewish People and Contemporary Jewry. He also served as a research assistant in the Jewish Peoplehood department at The Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, now Reichman University. His academic work focuses on the history of the Israeli political left between 1967 and 1973.

For perspective, JFeed is an English language news platform founded in 2023 and led by CEO Yarit Elbaz and Editor in Chief Eli Gotthelf, who previously worked at Kikar HaShabbat, an Israeli Haredi news outlet. The platform describes itself as “proudly unfiltered, proudly Jewish, and proudly committed to conservative values,” with the stated mission of becoming “the leading English-language news source for global Jewry.” Kleinbaum serves as one of the platform’s most prolific writers, covering breaking news on the Iran conflict, antisemitism analysis, and U.S. Israel relations.

Kleinbaum’s call for internment is not a fringe view among the American Jewish community. Multiple surveys reveal a community deeply divided on these questions. A CHIP50 survey in 2024 found that 39 percent of American Jews supported restrictions “prohibiting speech that opposes Israel’s existence as a Jewish state” on college campuses, compared to only 21 percent of non-Jews.

A Forward-CHIP50 poll in 2024 found 31 percent of Jews supported “prohibiting certain political speech” on campus, while 47 percent were opposed. Separately, 44 percent supported banning statements of support for Hamas, and 58 percent supported using law enforcement to police campus demonstrations.

The Japanese American internment that Kleinbaum cited as his model represents one of the most egregious violations of civil liberties in American history. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the forced removal of approximately 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. The majority were American citizens. They were imprisoned in remote camps surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, losing their homes, businesses, and livelihoods.

Decades later, the United States government formally apologized for this injustice. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, which acknowledged that the internment was based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” The government paid reparations to surviving internees.

An even more insidious aspect of the Japanese internment that is often overlooked by court historians is how Jewish individuals benefited from the Roosevelt administration’s internment policy. Gus Russo’s 2006 book Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America’s Hidden Power Brokers contains a chapter that directly addresses the seizure and sale of Japanese American properties during WWII.

Russo’s book details how the Office of Alien Property Custodian (OAP), headed by David L. Bazelon—a well-connected Chicago attorney and son of Russian-Jewish immigrants—oversaw the liquidation of seized Japanese American (and German-owned) properties after the war. According to Russo, Bazelon sold many of these properties to associates linked to Chicago mob lawyer Sidney Korshak—also of Jewish extraction—and members of the Pritzker family for pennies on the dollar. Russo identifies David Bazelon as running the OAP and controlling the disposition of properties collectively worth an estimated $400 million in 1942 dollars (billions today), including half a million acres of California farmland and some 1,265 small Japanese-owned hotels.

Jay Pritzker — patriarch of the Hyatt hotel fortune — was hired as an assistant attorney at the OAP under Bazelon and allegedly profited from the fire-sale liquidations. The broader network Russo calls the “Supermob” — a cadre of mostly Chicago-connected figures with ties to organized crime — acquired California land, hotels, and urban parcels through these OAP sales.

Back to Kleinbaum, his demand for the state detention of Israel’s vocal critics reflects a deepening panic within the Jewish community following the October 7 conflict. The graphic, public nature of those events triggered a global realization, driving millions to critically examine the extent and nature of Jewish influence in their own nations. This shift signifies that the traditional methods of social control—specifically the use of guilt-based Holocaust tropes to silence dissent—have lost their efficacy. As Jewry’s reliance on soft power through propaganda falters, they are increasingly turning to the hard power of state-sanctioned speech suppression.

What appears as the reactionary outburst of a single, traumatized Jewish intellectual may signal a shift toward a broader, more aggressive strategy intended to crush the burgeoning opposition to Jewish hegemony across the West. These efforts to institutionalize censorship are a testament to the fragility of a crumbling Judeo-American order. The truth is no longer a hidden secret, and the attempt to force it back into the shadows is a battle that world Jewry is poised to lose once gentiles wake up from their slumber.

March 18, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Comments Off on Israeli Journalist Demands Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens Be Placed in WWII-Style Internment Camps

Brussels wants ‘our sons to die for Ukraine’ – Orban

RT | March 16, 2026

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has accused Brussels of dragging the EU into a direct war with Russia through potential troop deployments to Ukraine.

Speaking at the ‘Peace March’ in Budapest on Sunday, which drew tens of thousands of supporters, Orban said Brussels had taken “the war upon itself” and was pursuing a wartime economic policy.

“They do not want to keep trouble at a distance – they want to march into it: more money, more weapons, more soldiers. We do not know the day or the hour when the first soldier from Brussels will step onto Ukrainian soil, but it will happen. They can hardly wait for soldiers bearing EU insignia to be sent,” he said.

He stressed the importance of renewing “the anti-war alliance” forged by his government, pledging to “preserve Hungary as an island of security and calm.”

“Our sons will not die for Ukraine; they will live for Hungary,” Orban said. “We will protect support for mothers, we will protect our children, and we will not allow our national colors to be replaced with Ukrainian or rainbow flags.”

Orban also claimed that “enormous forces” are trying to pressure Hungary politically and economically to “push the country off its own path” by blocking funding and affordable energy supplies. He accused Brussels of trying to turn Hungarians into “debt servants” to fund the war effort, “using Ukraine as a pretext,” and seeking a change of government in Budapest because his administration refuses to hand over “the keys to the treasury.”

The Orban government has long opposed the EU’s policy of arming and funding Ukraine against Russia, as well as Kyiv’s bid to join the bloc. Tensions between Budapest and Kyiv have escalated in recent months after Ukraine suspended Russian oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia via a Soviet-built pipeline, while Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has also issued personal threats against Orban.

March 16, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , , , | Comments Off on Brussels wants ‘our sons to die for Ukraine’ – Orban

Palestinian family displaced after settlers violently attack them in Humsa, Jordan Valley

International Solidarity Movement | March 13, 2026

On Friday, March 13, at 1:20am, around 30 masked Israeli settlers invaded a Palestinian property in Humsa, north of Jordan Valley, where a family of 12 people live. The family decided to leave their land after this latest attack.

The settlers first stormed a tent where one of the Palestinian men was asleep and Portuguese and US international activists were staying. The settlers attacked and blindfolded the man and activists and took them into another tent where they brought three other men and five children from the family. The settlers tied the hands and ankles of the Palestinian men and the activists, dragged them by the hair and ankles, beat them with sticks and kicked their faces. The settlers exerted extreme violence toward the Palestinian men and beat the eldest man with rocks.

The settlers told the family and activists to leave, stating: “We are Jewish, this is our land”. When asked by an activist what they wanted, they responded: “We want to kill you”. The settlers also took rings from the activists, asking them if they wanted their fingers cut off.

As the family’s children were crying while forced to witness the violence, the settlers told them to shut up.

The settlers opened the family’s sheep pen and let loose around 350 sheep. They stole the activists’ passports, phones, money, as well as one of their backpacks, and cut one of their jackets. They then cut the men and activists’ ties, rolled one of the activists on top of a Palestinian man, and left.

The Palestinian men and the activists were taken in ambulances to receive medical treatment.

Israeli settler attacks in the north Jordan Valley have increased sharply in the past few weeks as the Israeli government begins building a 500km apartheid wall and military road in the region. At the end of February, Israeli forces have also issued demolition orders for 10 farms and a vegetable store in the area.

These coordinated efforts are accelerating the ethnic cleansing of communities in the Jordan Valley at alarming rates. Families have left the villages of Hammamat Al Maleh, Al Miteh and Al Burj, Khirbet Yarza, and Humsa during the last month alone. Hammamat Al Burj is now completely empty, while the two remaining families in Hammamat al Maleh were badly attacked yesterday.

Since Israel-USA attack on Iran, settlers have also killed six Palestinians in the West Bank.

March 13, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Comments Off on Palestinian family displaced after settlers violently attack them in Humsa, Jordan Valley

UK Parliament Plans ISP Blocking and Age Verification Powers

By Cam Wakefield | Reclaim The Net | March 10, 2026

If you wanted a case study in how modern democracies widen state oversight step by step, Britain has offered a clear example. On March 9, two major surveillance-related bills advanced through Parliament, each pointing toward broader government authority, reduced personal privacy, and tighter limits on protest activity.

These measures advanced through procedural votes and technical amendments that sounded administrative, yet carry consequences for how millions of people use the internet and exercise civic rights.

The main legislative action unfolded in the House of Commons during debate on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Members of Parliament actually rejected amendments from the House of Lords that would have required age verification for VPNs and certain user-to-user services.

But don’t get too excited. Replacement amendments approved by MPs would grant significant new authority to the state. The powers allow the government to require internet service providers to block or restrict children’s access to specific online platforms, impose time-of-day limits on when services can be used, and mandate age verification across nearly any platform that enables users to post or share content.

The replacement amendments allow the UK government to make regulations that require specified “information society services” (a definition that applies to most online services) to implement age verification to prevent children from using the service.

This is as bad as it gets. The practical challenges are considerable and the privacy issues are even worse. Internet service providers supply connections to households rather than individuals. Enforcing child-specific restrictions would require identifying which devices belong to minors through ID verification and applying controls selectively, a level of precision that home broadband systems were never designed to provide.

Enforcement may therefore produce household-wide restrictions or increased pressure on platforms to verify the age of all users.

The amendments now return to the House of Lords. Approval there would send the bill to Royal Assent.

March 10, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Comments Off on UK Parliament Plans ISP Blocking and Age Verification Powers

Openly Pro-Israel Tech Group Now Has Control over UK’s Most Sensitive National Security Data

By Alan Macleod | MintPress News | February 7, 2023

This is the story of how a multibillionaire who has dedicated his life to advancing the cause of the Israeli national security state is now in control of Great Britain’s most sensitive public and military data.

In 2020, software giant Oracle won a gigantic contract with the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) to provide it with cloud infrastructure, digital assistance, data visualization software, mobile hub and development tools. The military is far from the only British institution entrusting its most sensitive data to the Texas-based firm, however. The Home Office, Office of National Statistics and National Health Service, among others, also rely on Oracle databases to function.

For years before signing the MoD agreement, Oracle founder Larry Ellison had been ingratiating himself with the British establishment, employing all manner of well-connected individuals at his foundation. Among these included media executive and father-in-law of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Matthew Symonds, who earned over $600,000 per year as the executive director of the Larry Ellison Foundation. Richard Meredith, a longtime director of the U.K.’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, was also snapped up at a similar salary to become deputy executive director.

Many other well-connected British government officials, including Vel Gnanendran, went straight from the Larry Ellison Foundation into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and worked there at the time that the body signed off on the lucrative Oracle contracts. For years, the Larry Ellison Foundation also bankrolled the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the former U.K. prime minister’s new political project.

Yet, just after as the partnership with the Ministry of Defence was secured, Ellison abruptly shut down his foundation, prompting speculation that it had fulfilled its purpose.

“Our mission to support Israel”

Why this should be of concern is that both Ellison and key Oracle figures have made clear that their business model is less about making money, and more focused on furthering the interests of the Israeli national security state.

Furthermore, few people realize how important Oracle is to the functioning of the modern world. It is the third-largest software company globally. Yet because it sells its products to businesses and governments rather than consumers, it is far less known than competitors such as Microsoft or Amazon. Nevertheless, it is as important to the modern hi-tech economy as its rivals, its software and databases powering the likes of Netflix, Zoom, financial corporations such as JPMorgan Chase, as well as a myriad of educational institutions.

While opening a new data center in Jerusalem in 2021, the company’s Israeli-American CEO, Safra Catz, laid out Oracle’s purpose, stating,

We are not flexible regarding our mission, and our commitment to Israel is second to none. This is a free world and I love my employees, and if they don’t agree with our mission to support the State of Israel, then maybe we aren’t the right company for them. Larry [Ellison] and I are publicly committed to Israel and devote personal time to the country, and no one should be surprised by that.”

Catz made the comments in response to a question about Israel’s poor human rights record and the rebellion of Silicon Valley employees refusing to facilitate the country’s war crimes. In 2017, Catz was offered the position of U.S. Director of National Intelligence.

Safra Catz, Oracle’s CEO, poses with Alon Ben (left), CEO of Tel-Aviv-based Oracle data partner, Bynet

Ellison, if anything, is even more forthright in his support for the Israeli government and its agenda. The billionaire – currently the fourth-richest individual in the world – has bankrolled the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) for years, giving tens of millions of dollars to the Friends of the IDF, including the largest single donation the organization has ever received. In 2017 alone, he pledged $16.6 million to build a new training facility for IDF soldiers defending, in his words, “our home”. As Ellison explained:

Through all of the perilous times since Israel’s founding, we have called on the brave men and women of the IDF to defend our home. In my mind, there is no greater honor than supporting some of the bravest people in the world, and I thank Friends of the IDF for allowing us to celebrate and support these soldiers year after year. We should do all we can to show these heroic soldiers that they are not alone.”

This was far from his first donation to the organization. Three years previously, he gave $9 million at a star-studded gala – the largest donation on a record-breaking night for the FIDF.

The big tech mogul also has a direct hand in furthering the Israeli settlement project. In 2007, he met with then-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to pledge half a million dollars in support to the Israeli border town of Sderot.

But if Ellison can count Livni as a friend, then Benjamin Netanyahu is virtually family. The pair have been close for many years; Ellison even flew Netanyahu out to his private Hawaiian island to vacation together. There, he offered the embattled prime minister a seat on Oracle’s board, replete with a salary of $450,000.

Netanyahu had previously gone to Ellison, encouraging him to buy out the struggling Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper in an attempt to change the outlet from an adversary of his political project into a mouthpiece for his Likud Party.

Unsurprisingly, Oracle has signed numerous deals with the Israeli national security state.

“The Israelis think they control the Foreign Office. And they do!”

In recent years, Israel and pro-Israel groups have managed to amass considerable influence over U.K. government policy. A measure of this is the fact that, by 2021, one-third of the cabinet – including then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson – were directly funded by the Israeli government or pro-Israel organizations. Chief amongst these groups is the Conservative Friends of Israel, who have claimed that 80% of Tory members of parliament belong to their organization.

The Israel lobby has been able to shape government policy, to the point where they blocked Boris Johnson’s appointment of Alan Duncan to the post of Middle East Minister. Johnson, according to Duncan, was “indignant”. “They shouldn’t behave like this”, the prime minister reportedly said about the Israelis, but acquiesced to their demands. “The Israelis think they control the Foreign Office. And they do”, Duncan later wrote. Home Secretary Priti Patel (a longtime champion of the apartheid state) also secretly flew to Israel for “off the radar” talks with Netanyahu – a huge breach of ministerial codes, for which she later resigned.

The Israeli Embassy also played a key role in the coordinated smear campaign demonizing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, an operation that helped to ensure Johnson’s electoral victory in 2019.

In addition to this, there have also been national security questions raised about the extent to which Israeli businessmen have bought up key British industries. Last year, for example, Patrick Drahi’s attempt to purchase 18% of BT, the formerly state-owned telecoms giant that owns and controls much of the country’s telecommunications infrastructure, was put on hold due to concerns over national security.

That a company like Oracle that defines itself so explicitly as pro-Israel raises serious concerns over the nature of the work they do for the United Kingdom or any other nation. How can the Ministry of Defence or the Home Office’s data be considered uncompromised in these hands?

The CIA in all but name

“The Oracle database is used to keep track of basically everything,” Ellison once said, adding,

The information about your banks, your checking balance, your savings balance, is stored in an Oracle database. Your airline reservation is stored in an Oracle database. What books you bought on Amazon is stored in an Oracle database. Your profile on Yahoo! is stored in an Oracle database.”

This should be of concern to everyone, as Oracle itself started off as a project for the Central Intelligence Agency. Indeed, Ellison named his company after Project Oracle, a 1970s CIA operation he worked on.

“Our very first customer was the Central Intelligence Agency,” Ellison boasted, telling the story of how, in 1977, the CIA commissioned his firm to build them a database. From there, Ellison immediately began pitching to other wings of the national security state, and within months had secured contracts with Navy Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence and the NSA. The bottomless pit of money available for the military has helped turn Oracle from a tiny operation to a $46 billion dollar per year behemoth.

One of Oracle’s largest deals came in 2020, when it was part of a consortium that won a 15-year contract with the CIA and the other 16 U.S. intelligence agencies said to be with tens of billions of dollars.

Part of the reason the CIA trusts Oracle is that the company’s upper echelons are filled with ex-CIA executives. A case in point is former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who was appointed to the company’s board in 2015. David Carney, who spent 32 years at the agency, rising to become its third-in-command, also joined Oracle, heading up its information assurance center.

Indeed, on its own website, Oracle aggressively recruits CIA agents, sharing stories of former spooks who have gone on to succeed in its ranks. One of those is Senior Technical Program Manager Andrew C. “As an Intelligence Officer in the US Navy, as well as in the CIA, Andrew has had to lead, build teams, and work on fast-breaking projects, all things Oracle requires on a regular basis,” Oracle writes, before actively encouraging other agents to apply,

Now that you’ve heard about Andrew’s experience, are you ready to join Oracle National Security Region team? If you hold a U.S. Government Top Secret SCI or higher clearance, click here to check out our latest opportunities. Once you’ve found an opening that fits your talent, passion, skills, and background, apply for us to consider you. Create the future with us.”

Oracle, a firm that stores reams of your sensitive data, openly boasts of its cozy ties to the CIA

The revolving door between Oracle and the CIA also swings the other way, with Oracle staff finding employment in Langley, VA.

The Silicon Valley giant also works closely with the U.S. military. “Oracle Cloud is advancing Department of Defense mission success”, it boasts on its website. Oracle notes that it is “delivering real-time intel to warfighters”, thereby “securing command and control at the tactical edge.” Thus, by the company’s own telling, it is a centerpiece of both the military-industrial-complex and the national security state. Big media outlets agree: “Larry Ellison is a billionaire today thanks to the CIA” concluded Business Insider.

Surveillance State

If Ellison had his way, however, Oracle would be an even more crucial part of a greatly expanded national security state. In the immediate wake of the September 11 attacks, he flew in for a series of meetings with top Bush-era officials, including NSA chief Michael Hayden and Attorney General John Ashcroft. There, he likely pitched an idea he had been promoting for some time: a single, comprehensive national security database that collected every piece of information possible to identify someone, from thumbprints and iris scans to medical history and social security details. “The single greatest step we Americans could take to make life tougher for terrorists would be to ensure that all the information in myriad government databases was copied into a single, comprehensive national security database,” he insisted.

In the end, even the Bush administration balked at such a sweeping project. Nevertheless, Oracle has deeply ingratiated itself into the world of policing and surveillance. In 2012, at the height of an anti-NATO demonstration, U.S. law enforcement used Oracle’s Endeca software to match protestors’ tweets with data about their criminal records, 911 calls and other information to pre-arrest demonstration leaders before the action took off.

Since then, Oracle has sold the same or similar software to authorities in Europe, South America, the Middle East and China. Job listings for developers at Guantánamo Bay also note that familiarity with Endeca and Oracle software is a desired trait.

Oracle is far from the only Silicon Valley giant with questionable ties to intelligence. Here at MintPress, we have exposed how Facebook’s top ranks are filled with former FBI and CIA agents, how ex-Israeli spies have found roles working for Microsoft and Google, and uncovered what we termed a “NATO to TikTok pipeline.”

Yet the openness with which Oracle and Ellison work with the Israeli state to further its interests should be highly concerning to those working in national security. Israel already has a long history of using its tech industry to surveil and eavesdrop on foreign governments.

Can it really be a wise idea for the United Kingdom to entrust its most sensitive government, health and defense data to a company with such close ties to the Israeli government?

So far, Great Britain has overlooked the potential grave national security threat this poses. Surely this cannot continue indefinitely.

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

Lowkey is a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic, political campaigner, and a MintPress video and podcast host. As a musician, he has collaborated with the Arctic Monkeys, Wretch 32, Immortal Technique, and Akala. He is a patron of Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial Justice Network, and The Peace and Justice Project founded by Jeremy Corbyn.

March 8, 2026 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , | Comments Off on Openly Pro-Israel Tech Group Now Has Control over UK’s Most Sensitive National Security Data

Iran Red Crescent says 6,668 civilian sites targeted in US-Israeli attacks

MEMO | March 7, 2026

The Iranian Red Crescent Society said that 6,668 civilian locations have been targeted in attacks carried out by the US and Israel, including thousands of homes and dozens of public service facilities, Anadolu reports.

In a statement, the Iranian aid organization said that the attacks by the US and Israel struck a wide range of civilian infrastructure across the country.

According to the statement, 5,535 residential buildings, 1,041 commercial units, 14 health centers, 65 schools, and 13 facilities affiliated with the Red Crescent were among the locations hit.

The organization also reported that numerous aid and rescue vehicles were damaged during the attacks, while several relief workers and Red Crescent staff members were injured.

The statement emphasized that the attacks by the US and Israel targeting civilians violate the Geneva Conventions.

“International institutions, humanitarian aid organizations, and human rights defenders are expected to take urgent and effective measures to protect civilian lives, ensure the safety of aid workers, and guarantee respect for the rules of international humanitarian law,” it added.

March 7, 2026 Posted by | War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Iran Red Crescent says 6,668 civilian sites targeted in US-Israeli attacks

Indian journalist reveals severe Israeli censorship after escape from occupied territories

Press TV – March 7, 2026

An Indian journalist who was trapped in the occupied territories from February 28 to March 6 has revealed severe Israeli censorship amid the regime’s war of aggression against Iran.

Braj Mohan Singh of India’s Sandha News said he witnessed people dying in 100‑foot‑deep bunkers while Israeli officials withheld details.

Missiles “don’t differentiate between Indian or Israeli,” he said.

He contrasted press freedom in India with the restrictions in Israel, noting journalists cannot film bodies, visit hospitals, or receive accurate casualty numbers. Local accounts often reveal far higher losses than official reports, he added.

“When an incident takes place, we are not given the details of the location. The next day, when we visit the site, we are told, ‘There was only one casualty,’ but a local told us, ‘There were four houses, and everyone died,” which shows there was a major incident,’” he added.

Despite Israel’s touted advanced warning systems, Singh reported missiles arriving without sirens or prior alerts, highlighting technology failures and the unpredictability of drone and missile attacks.

He also mentioned reports of Iranian targeting of US embassies across West Asia and possible attempts in Tel Aviv, underscoring the heightened danger in the region.

The regimes in Washington and Tel Aviv started their unprovoked military assault on February 28, assassinating Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and top Iranian military commanders.

Iran began to swiftly retaliate against the criminal aggression by launching barrages of missile and drone attacks on the Israeli-occupied territories as well as on US bases in regional countries.

March 7, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Comments Off on Indian journalist reveals severe Israeli censorship after escape from occupied territories

Majority of Israelis Back War with Iran as Anti-War Minority Faces Stigmatization

teleSUR | March 7, 2026

Israelis who oppose the war with Iran face threats and stigmatization, according to testimonies collected by a Spanish news agency. However, they represent a small minority, as 93% of Jewish Israelis support the offensive, a new poll by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) shows.

“Opposing the war and war crimes in Israel is practically a punishable offense. Even leftists and pacifists consider this a ‘just war,’” Adam Eli, secretary of the Jewish-Arab leftist coalition Hadash in Tel Aviv said.

Among those few critics is 19-year-old activist Itamar Greenberg, known in Israel for refusing to serve in the military in 2024. That decision, he recounted, cost him six months in prison and ostracism at his university, where he still leads a student circle while studying law.

Nearly one year after walking out of prison, Greenberg found himself back in custody on Tuesday for attending an anti-war rally that barely mustered 20 people across a nation of 10 million.

“About 40 police officers charged at us, confiscated our signs, and beat us. I was arrested and stripped naked for a search,” Greenberg said. He is also the founder of Mesarvot, a network of Israeli youth refusing military service.

An anti-war demonstration scheduled for Saturday at Habima Square in Tel Aviv will test wartime restrictions that cap gatherings at 50 people.

Meanwhile, restrictions on the right to assembly have been applied loosely during recent Purim celebrations—a sort of Jewish carnival—while Israeli authorities continue to bar Palestinians from praying at Al Aqsa Mosque despite Ramadan, and have militarily sealed off much of the West Bank.

March 7, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism | , | Comments Off on Majority of Israelis Back War with Iran as Anti-War Minority Faces Stigmatization

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