What Solutions Could Pave the Way to Putin-Trump Summit?
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 07.11.2025
A few key issues must be resolved between the US and Russia before the Budapest peace summit can happen, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has stated. What’s he driving at?
At least three issues concerning Ukraine require careful consideration, according to Michael Maloof, former senior security policy analyst in the US Office of the Secretary of Defense.
- First, Russia won’t give up what it holds; it also made it clear that Ukraine should withdraw from the new Russian regions. As of yet, the Kiev regime has resisted the option, the pundit explains to Sputnik.
- Second, it’s the security arrangement: “In a post-settlement period, do you allow Western forces into Ukraine at all? Because then it becomes ipso facto a NATO bastion. And that’s the thing that [President Vladimir] Putin is trying to avoid,” Maloof says. Russia has repeatedly warned that the deployment of a military contingent involving NATO countries in Ukraine could trigger an uncontrolled escalation of the conflict with unpredictable consequences. The Russian Foreign Ministry assessed the EU and UK’s calls for intervening as “openly provocative and predatory”.
- Third, the US also needs to make sure its NATO allies comply with any agreement it signs with Russia.
Once those issues are solved, Russia and the US “can get on with their own bilateral areas of interest in a more geostrategic fashion,” including new arms control and nuclear weapons.
“So you have issues that are overriding the Ukraine issue that need to bring Russia-US relations back in sync so that we can lessen the temperature in the world,” Maloof concludes.
Trump’s 20 point plan to end the war in Gaza is the usual Israeli ultimatum: surrender or be murdered
By Eva Bartlett | Reverse Press | November 5, 2025
Given that the US is bankrolling Israel’s genocide and has made no effort whatsoever to stop Israel from bombing, starving, and sniping Palestinian civilians for the past two years, skeptics of Trump’s “20 point proposal to end the war in Gaza” published on September 29 can be forgiven for doubting that it will end the genocide, much less that it will be a just proposal for Palestinians.
Recall that earlier this year, while Israel continued its ongoing genocide of Gaza, Donald Trump callously boasted about the US desire to own Gaza.
He described Gaza as a “big real estate site” and a new “Riviera,” and said, “We’re committed to owning it, taking it, and making sure that Hamas doesn’t move back.”
Recall also that in September, Israel attempted to assassinate Hamas’ negotiating team in Qatar.

Trump’s plan to end the Gaza War
The 20 points can be read in full at this link, but it’s worth mentioning some of the most important key takeaways from the plan:
- Fighting would stop immediately and the Israeli captives would be released within 72 hours once both parties agree.
- Israel will free 250 prisoners serving life sentences along with 1,700 Palestinians from Gaza detained after 7 October [Note: Israel imprisons nearly 11,000 Palestinians (as of early August 2025), including more than 450 children and 49 women. Since October 7, 2023, Israel has abducted over 2,300 Palestinians from Gaza, including numerous doctors. From October 2023 to early August 2025, 76 prisoners have died in prison, most having been tortured. Three doctors from Gaza were tortured to death, including by raping].
- Israel will withdraw and refrain from annexing the territory.
- “Security” will be provided by regional and international forces, who will also help train Palestinian police, while aid will be delivered to Gaza at agreed levels. The US will oversee dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis if the Palestinian Authority (PA) implements “reforms” according to US-Israeli demands.
- Gaza will be administered by a temporary technocratic government, with oversight and supervision by a new international transitional body headed and chaired by Trump and Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, among others.
- No forced displacement from Gaza, and reconstruction of the Strip as a “de-radicalized terror-free zone” will begin.
- All ‘military operations’ will be halted during this period for a phased withdrawal of Israeli forces. Hamas members who commit to ‘peace’ will be granted amnesty, while those who do not will be offered safe passage to third countries.
- Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form.
- Aid will be delivered to Gaza at agreed levels, through the United Nations and other international institutions. [Note: In May 2025, Israel imposed the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) as a sole replacement for the UN;s aid distribution, claiming Hamas hinders the humanitarian mission of the foundation. This claim was not true and not proven.]
Unfair, unjust, unrealistic proposal
While lauded in legacy media and by Western leaders, Trump’s proposal is an insincere plan not for peace but which really amounts to a surrender ultimatum to Hamas.
Shortly after its announcement, Netanyahu said that the Israeli army will not withdraw from the Gaza Strip. “No way, that’s not happening.”
He also said, “If Hamas refuses [the proposal], Trump will give Israel full backing to complete the military operation and eliminate them.”
The US has already given Israel full backing to commit its genocide in Gaza, so in that regard Netanyahu is correct. But for any who thought he would abide by Trump’s proposal to pull out of Gaza, there was never a chance of that.
On October 3, 2025, Hamas agreed to the release of all Israeli hostages, but did not accept the proposal unconditionally, with other elements to be negotiated.
Trump responded by saying,
“After negotiations, Israel has agreed to the initial withdrawal line, which we have shown to, and shared with, Hamas. When Hamas confirms, the Ceasefire will be immediately effective, the Hostages and Prisoner Exchange will begin, and we will create the conditions for the next phase of withdrawal…”
He urged Israel to “immediately stop bombing Gaza” to allow for the safe release of hostages.
The important nuances written out of legacy media reporting on the proposal include:
- Hamas does not accept that the affairs of Gaza, as a part of Palestine, be managed by any non-Palestinian party.
- The entry of foreign forces or a foreign administration into the Gaza Strip is an issue that is not acceptable to Palestinians.
- Israel has no intention to fully withdraw from Gaza.
- Demanding the dissolution of Hamas is to deny the Palestinian people their right to political self-determination.
Further, Trump’s proposal to appoint Former Prime Minister Tony Blair to chair a board overseeing Gaza’s transition is not acceptable to Palestinians, nor to people who opposed the invasion and slaughter of Iraqis.
Enabling continued genocide and Israeli expansion
The Trump proposal doesn’t consider what Palestinians want. It speaks of peace, but in reality proposes a full surrender to an occupying power and giving control to foreign decision makers and forces. Trump and Netanyahu want Hamas to capitulate, drop their weapons, and hand over control to the US and Israel, in the name of “peace”.
In addition to the above points, it must be stressed that Israel never honours ceasefires or its word, instead violating the ceasefires immediately, resulting in the slaughter or more Palestinians (and Lebanese).
Case in point, just hours after President Trump ordered Israel to stop bombing Gaza, Israeli bombing killed a 3-month-old baby and 14 other members from her family in Gaza City, leaving 20 more people buried beneath the rubble.
Israeli bombing that day killed 70 Palestinians, the majority of them children.
The Government Media Office in Gaza reported 131 Israeli air and artillery strikes across on October 4th and 5th, killing 94 civilians. The Israeli bombing continues.
Former US Ambassador Chas Freeman in recent interview noted,
“This is a peace plan that was never discussed with the Palestinians who have to have something to say about peace. Either they benefit from peace or they don’t. There’s no benefit to them in this plan… It is the same old demands from Israel: exile yourself, leave or be killed. This is an exercise in colonial rule.”
Indeed, the proposal comes at a time when global condemnation is high of the Israeli genocide and starvation campaign in Gaza. Pitching such a proposal gives the veneer of Trump trying to stop the killing, but in reality, he gives Netanyahu carte blanche to continue killing.
Over the past month since parts of the proposal were enacted, Israel has continued violating the ceasefire with more bombing. On October 29, it was reported that Israel says it has “resumed enforcing ceasefire”. In the 24 hours prior, at the last 104 people were killed in strikes across Gaza, including at least 46 children.
Torture and Rape Are All in A Day’s Work for Israel’s Defenders
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • November 6, 2025
A couple of recent stories relating to the utter bestiality of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians have exposed the criminality of successive US governments in supporting the Jewish state no matter what it does. Observers of the lopsided relationship understand very clearly that Israel’s lobby in the United States, backed up by Jewish billionaires who are willing to spend whatever it takes to corrupt the political system and buy up the media, has succeeded in making Washington a totally controlled client state manipulated by extreme war criminals like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is rewarded by the near complete loyalty of Congress and the White House. The one sided relationship dominates both Republicans and Democrats and has been most evident in the Presidencies of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, who have chosen to ignore the reality of the Israeli slaughter of some hundreds of thousands of Palestinians using US weapons and Washington’s political protection in international fora.
The irony of it all is that Washington’s subjugation by Israel, far from being politically neutral, does terrible damage to the United States, both in terms of actual costs and the fact that the US is now reviled by much of the world as it continues to protect and enable Israel as it continues it program to turn the Middle East into a region that it dominates by dint of perpetual slaughter of the original inhabitants. Beyond that, one of the costs of loving Israel so much is the lack of any consequences when it comes to protection of American citizens who find themselves on the wrong end of the Israeli police state. Citizens like Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by an Israeli Army sniper in May 2022, but the US Embassy did nothing to establish responsibility for the murder, leaving it up the Israeli judiciary, which did nothing and may even have rewarded the soldier. Abu Akleh was one of 276 journalists targeted deliberately and murdered by Israeli forces in the past two years.
Going back a bit, the most egregious case of the US abandoning its own to Israeli connivance was the attack on the USS Liberty intelligence ship in international waters in June 1967. Thirty-four crewmen were killed and 174 more wounded and the clear intention was to sink the ship using planes and torpedo boats with their identifications covered to blame the incident on the Egyptians. A cover-up engineered by President Lyndon B Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara followed and repeated attempts by surviving crewmen to open an investigation have been blocked in Congress, most notably by Senator John McCain, whose father was the Admiral that chaired the inquiry held in Malta that decided that it was all a case of mistaken identity, which was a lie. LBJ called back planes that were sent to aid the stricken Liberty and was heard to explain that he would be satisfied if all those “sailor-boys were to go to the bottom of the sea” rather than offend “our good friend” Israel.
Last week, there surfaced a bizarre tale involving the Chief Legal Officer of the Israeli Army, a Major General named Yifat Tomer-Yeralshami. Yeralshami is a woman who was highly respected by her peers though it should be assumed that she was constrained by the policies towards the Israel Defense Force (IDF) as dictated by the Netanyahu regime and its extreme right winger chief National Security officer Itamar Ben-Gvir. Tomer-Yeralshami had been involved in the case of a Palestinian prisoner who had been serially raped in the notorious Sde Terman prison.
Terman was the best known IDF torture center. In October 2024, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel issued a report examining the treatment of thousands of Palestinian detainees after October 7th, 2023. In the report, the commission determined that detainees from Gaza held in Israeli military prisons, including children, were “subjected to widespread and systematic abuse, physical and psychological violence, and sexual and gender-based violence amounting to the war crime and crime against humanity of torture and the war crime of rape and other forms of sexual violence.”
Israeli soldiers were reportedly creative in their rape techniques. Dr. Mark Perlmutter, a Jewish-American orthopedic surgeon who was a volunteer medic in Gaza last year, reported how one Palestinian prisoner was treated. “He was raped by female IDF soldiers with a zucchini placed up his rectum and the zucchini was soaked in pork blood” the pork used specifically because pork is forbidden to Muslims, as it is to Jews.
The rape in question being investigated by Tomer-Yeralshami had been carried out by five Israeli soldiers. The incident occurred in July 2024 and the soldiers had been detained after the Palestinian proved to be so seriously injured that he had to be hospitalized. The IDF soldiers raped the man so violently, using in one instance a knife in his rectum, that his intestines exploded and his rectum was ruptured. He has undergone 20 surgeries since what happened to him. The facility where the soldiers were detained was subsequently stormed by a group consisting mostly of Israeli armed settlers led by Ben-Gvir and the men were later released and have reportedly been waiting on a military hearing to determine their possible guilt. They not only claim to be innocent, they believe that they should be rewarded and have even appeared before the press wearing black uniforms and head covers to make their case that comes down to soldiers not being held accountable if they torture or kill Palestinian prisoners.
Recent stories relating to the utter bestiality of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians have exposed the criminality of successive US governments in supporting the Jewish state no matter what it does. Observers of the lopsided relationship understand very clearly that Israel’s lobby in the United States, backed up by Jewish billionaires who are willing to spend whatever it takes to corrupt the political system and buy up the media, has succeeded in making Washington a totally controlled client state manipulated by extreme war criminals like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is rewarded by the near complete loyalty of Congress and the White House. The one sided relationship dominates both Republicans and Democrats and has been most evident in the Presidencies of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, who have chosen to ignore the reality of the Israeli slaughter of some hundreds of thousands of Palestinians using US weapons and political protection in international fora. For what it is worth, neither Biden nor Trump has spoken out effectively on the murder and torture of the Palestinians by Israel.
The irony of it all is that Washington’s subjugation by Israel, far from being politically neutral, does terrible damage to the United States, both in terms of actual costs and the fact that the US is now reviled by much of the world as it continues to protect and enable Israel as it pursues its program to turn the Middle East into a region that it dominates by dint of perpetual slaughter of the original inhabitants.
Inevitably, stories about Israeli inhumanity are either completely suppressed or substantially modified to make the Jews involved appear to be victims of whatever takes place, what one might refer to as the “holocaust syndrome,” but sometimes the reality is just so horrific that it manages to leak through the damage control and censorship. In this case, the story of the savage rape in the prison would have died in an Israel court but for the fact that the rape was videoed and was leaked to Israeli news network Channel 12, apparently by the General and possibly others in her office, and the story subsequently developed that she had resigned her commission and disappeared. In her resignation letter, she apparently admitted that she had approved the release of a video revealing institutionalized acts of torture committed by the IDF against Palestinian prisoners of war that took place in the Sde Teiman detention camp in July 2024.
Shortly after the footage was aired, Tomer-Yerushalmi was placed on forced leave by the Israeli Defense Ministry after a criminal probe was launched to investigate the origins of the leak. In the months that followed her being placed on leave, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that Tomer-Yerushalmi would not be permitted to return to her post, forcing her resignation. In her resignation letter, Tomer-Yerushalmi stated that “To my regret, this basic understanding—that there are acts to which even the most vile of detainees must not be subjected—is no longer convincing to all,” a tacit admission of the institutionalized abuse sanctioned by Israeli officials within the IDF and Netanyahu government.
Tomer-Yerushalmi disappeared from sight and it was subsequently rumored that she might have killed herself, but she was found and subsequently arrested. The Netanyahu government and its right-wing supporters have tried to benefit from the developing story, claiming that the general’s arrest confirms that the soldiers were “innocent” and that the leaked videos were “fake.” However, the trial of the soldiers is reportedly proceeding, and the videos have been confirmed as genuine. General Tomer-Yerushalmi is now being accused of “treason” for her role in the leak.
This affair could have been a classic case of silencing the messenger who was bearing bad news but it has become clear that the General was not operating alone. The Israeli police claim to possess WhatsApp group communications involving other high-ranking officers connected to the leaked information. The Israeli press has cited eight top officers within the IDF prosecution command headed by Tomer-Yerushalmi. The video and related documents were reportedly actually physically leaked by a junior officer within the military prosecutor’s command, who also confessed to his behavior before the Israeli General Security Organization (Shabak). Some believe that it is unconceivable that General Tomer-Yerushalmi would have made the decision to expose the IDF’s conduct without a green light from up above. Who could give such a green light? Her direct commander, the Israeli chief of staff (Herzi Halevi), or even the defense minister (Yoav Gallant), which would place them at odds with Netanyahu.
Some suspect that the actual objective by the army high command may have been to prove that Israel “has the legal means to prosecute its war criminals”—a message to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague that it should stay away from the case. If this theory is correct, General Tomer-Yerushalmi and those who authorized her were driven by “patriotic sentiments” to protect the behavior of the army soldiers. It may have been an attempt to defuse possible court cases by presenting a false image of ethical accountability. In short, the image of “ethical behavior” replaces any actual concern for ethical conduct, something that is absent from the nation that calls itself the Jewish State with an army that calls itself the world’s “most moral.”
Predictably, as a response to Tomer-Yerushalmi’s admitting she was behind the release of the video from Sde Teiman, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to shift the blame. He characterized the leak as the worst public relations disaster that Israel has ever faced saying “It is perhaps the most serious public relations attack Israel has experienced since its founding—I cannot recall one so concentrated and intense. This requires an independent and impartial inquiry, and I expect that such an investigation will indeed take place.” What Netanyahu was really demanding was a cover-up of what crimes have become systematic in Israel’s torture and killing of Palestinian prisoners.
Another story, equally hideous, concerns the activity of the so-called Israeli settlers, who have been armed by the Israeli government and have been systematically attacking the Palestinians remaining on the West Bank by beating and even killing the Arabs and destroying their livelihoods. It was again a case of a video having surfaced that showed a raid on a Palestinian farm, revealing how the settlers raided a barn containing the farmer’s sheep and lambs. Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone describes the scene and what it means: “Israeli settlers were filmed torturing lambs which belonged to Palestinians in the West Bank. Gouged their eyes out. Smashed them with cinder blocks. Beat them to death in front of their mothers. Lambs. It’s not the most evil thing the Israelis have done. Not by a long shot. Hell, all of human civilization subjects animals to cruel abuses every minute of every day through the horrors of factory farming. But this particular incident shines a special sort of light into exactly what’s going on behind Israeli eyes over there in that sadistic society. Think about the hatred and savagery you’d need to summon up within yourself to gouge the eyes out of a living baby sheep. Think about the kind of person you’d have to become to do something like that to an innocent creature. Those lambs didn’t know they were Palestinian. They didn’t know anything about Hamas or October 7 or the Nazi Holocaust, or any of the other reasons Israelis generally cite for their abuses of human beings. They were just sitting there, doing absolutely nothing that could possibly be construed as harmful by even the most talented hasbarist. And those settlers went in there and inflicted completely gratuitous suffering upon them. This, to me anyway, just says so much about the level of vitriolic hatred by which the state of Israel is sustained. It’s baked in to the way the whole state.”
I rest my case about what is wrong with Israel to include its criminal relationship with the United States. So Mr. Trump, I already know you hate animals just as you hate and seek revenge on anyone who does not agree with you, but what is your response to the murders of children and rapes of prisoners as well as the torture of baby creatures who have done no wrong? Just what is your justification for making the United States a partner and even enabler in the crimes?
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Paramount blacklist pro-Palestine voices under new pro-Israel leadership
MEMO | November 6, 2025
A growing number of Hollywood actors and filmmakers who have voiced solidarity with Palestinians are reportedly being blacklisted by Paramount, following its takeover by pro-Israel billionaire David Ellison, according to Variety. The move has raised fears of a systematic campaign to suppress dissenting voices in the entertainment industry under the guise of combating anti-Semitism.
The blacklist follows Paramount’s $7.7 billion merger with Skydance Media, led by Ellison—the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, one of the largest donors to Israel’s occupation forces. The leadership overhaul has included the appointment of Bari Weiss, a self-described Zionist and vocal defender of Israel’s assault on Gaza, as editor-in-chief of CBS News, one of Paramount’s flagship assets.
Industry sources suggest that artists who have expressed solidarity with Palestinians or criticised Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and its apartheid regime in the occupied West Bank may now face reprisals. According to Variety, Paramount “maintains a list of talent it will not work with because they are deemed to be ‘overtly antisemitic’ as well as ‘xenophobic’ and ‘homophobic.’ Whether the boycott signatories are on that list is unclear.”
This labelling follows Paramount’s decision in September to publicly denounce a celebrity-signed letter calling for a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions involved in what signatories described as “genocide and apartheid.” Over 300 figures, including Oscar winners Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Rooney Mara, Tilda Swinton and Yorgos Lanthimos, had signed the statement, demanding accountability from Israel for its documented war crimes and structural violence against Palestinians.
Paramount’s swift condemnation of the letter—branding it anti-Semitic—has been interpreted as part of a broader ideological purge within the industry. It echoes earlier incidents such as the sacking of actress Melissa Barrera for condemning Israeli attacks on Gaza, and Susan Sarandon’s revelation that she was dropped by her agency and blacklisted after criticising Israel’s occupation.
The blacklist forms part of a growing pattern across the United States, where support for Palestinian rights is increasingly conflated with hate speech. University students have lost scholarships, faculty members have been suspended or dismissed, and entire student organisations have been deregistered for protesting visits by Israeli officials accused of supporting ethnic cleansing policies.
Kyrgyzstan’s Forgotten Colour Revolution
By Kit Klarenberg | Global Delinquents | November 6, 2025
October 5th marked the 25th anniversary of the world’s first “colour revolution”, in Yugoslavia. A lavishly-funded, multi-pronged CIA, NED and USAID campaign exploited civil society actors, in particular youth groups, to dislodge President Slobodan Milosevic from power. Such was the effort’s success, US officials and media openly boasted about Washington’s central role. A slick ‘documentary’ on the unrest, Bringing Down A Dictator, was even produced. Milosevic’s fall also provided a blueprint for countless future ‘soft coups’, which continue to this day.
So it was, one by one in the early 2000s, insufficiently pro-Western governments throughout the former Soviet sphere were toppled using strategies and tactics identical to those deployed against Belgrade. A common ruse was for the US to fund, via local NGOs, a “parallel vote tabulation” to project an election’s outcome in advance, and publicise the data before results were officially announced. As in Yugoslavia, PVT figures differing from formal tallies were the spark that ignited Georgia’s 2003 ‘Rose Revolution’, and Ukraine’s 2004 ‘Orange Revolution’.
Over subsequent years, much has been written by academics, historians and independent journalists about those colour revolutions. Conversely, Kyrgyzstan’s 2005 ‘Tulip Revolution’ has gone almost entirely unremarked upon, and is largely forgotten now. Yet, its destructive consequences reverberate today. Hitherto the freest and most stable state in Central Asia, post-colour revolution Bishkek careened from crisis to crisis, with multiple governments collapsing along the way. It’s only in recent years – following another Anglo-American coup in 2020 – the country has regained its economic, political, and social balance.
Pre-2005, Kyrgyzstan was not an obvious colour revolution candidate. Upon its 1991 independence from the Soviet Union, the country quickly established itself not only as the most democratic and open in the region, but a dependable US ally. President Askar Akayev, a former scientist with zero political background, was organically popular, and moreover made clear his economic policies were informed by arch-capitalist Adam Smith, not Karl Marx. In other words, Bishkek was primed to do business with the West.
Akayev moreover allowed a relatively free media to develop, and welcomed widespread foreign civil society penetration. Thousands of European and US-funded non-governmental organisations duly opened up shop locally. At one stage, the President quipped, “if the Netherlands is a land of tulips, then Kyrgyzstan is a land of NGOs.” His comments proved bitterly ironic, given the title of the colour revolution that eventually unseated him. In another deeply sour twist, it was precisely Akayev’s welcoming of Western financial and societal infiltration that was his undoing.
A self-laudatory USAID factsheet on the President’s removal notes, from 1994 onwards $68 million was funnelled into Kyrgyzstan. This vast windfall was used to train NGOs “to lobby government,” finance “private newspapers” critical of Akayev, establish an “American University” locally, and much more besides. The Tulip Revolution stands today as a stark warning to governments the world over of the dangers of permitting such entities to operate on their soil with impunity – and how often, even pro-Western leaders can fall victim to their mephitic influence.
‘Defeat Dictators’
Despite much goodwill built up since 1991, in October 2003 Akayev angered Washington by inviting Moscow to open an airbase not far from Bishkek, and just a few dozen kilometres from the Empire’s vast Manas military installation, one of a cluster constructed by the US across Central Asia post-9/11 to facilitate the War On Terror. Such insubordination was sufficient to mark the President for removal, and preparations for a colour revolution according to a by-then well-honed formula began almost immediately.
Akayev was not unwise to this risk, warning in December 2004 of an “orange danger” of the kind that had just engulfed Ukraine threatening Kyrgyzstan, in advance of the country’s elections in February the next year. As it was, the results were far too clean to allege rigging or other shenanigans, as with prior colour revolutions. A detailed investigation by the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations in fact praised a “positive… lack of reports of vote-buying, voter intimidation, and harassment of journalists.”
Washington’s vast local standing army of civil society insurrectionists began causing havoc anyway. Some operated under the banner of KelKel, a group directly inspired by US-sponsored revolutionary youth factions in Yugoslavia, Georgia and Ukraine, and trained by their alumni. Moreover, as the Wall Street Journal revealed just before the elections, an ostensibly “independent” local printing company in receipt of Freedom House, NED, Soros and USAID cash was responsible for publishing a panoply of opposition pamphlets.
Days earlier, the firm’s electricity was cut off by local authorities. Kyrgyzstan’s US embassy “stepped in with emergency generators” to maintain its anti-government propaganda deluge. This included a prominent newspaper that published “front-page photos of a palatial mansion purportedly owned by the President and of a boy in a decrepit alleyway,” highlighting state embezzlement versus citizen poverty. Another was a handbook produced by CIA-connected Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy, dubbed “the bible” of Ukraine’s US-sponsored youth activists at the forefront of the Orange Revolution.
This “manual on how to defeat dictators, including tips on hunger strikes and civil disobedience,” includes guidance “on nonviolent resistance – such as ‘display of flags and symbolic colors’.” However, the protests that instantly erupted after the elections were highly belligerent from inception, with bomb attacks, police pelted with bricks and beaten with sticks, and government buildings torched and forcibly occupied. The New York Times contemporaneously acknowledged broadcasts by US-funded local TV stations inspired violence in certain areas of Kyrgyzstan.
Upheaval raged for weeks, prompting a personal intervention from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who expressed significant alarm over “the use of violence and intimidation to resolve electoral and political disputes.” He welcomed Akayev’s invitation to instigate dialogue with protesters. They demanded he resign instantly – despite the President having already pledged before the election to do so in October that year. In March, Akayev acquiesced and stood down, replaced by Kurmanbek Bakiyev.
‘Terribly Disappointing’
Bakiyev’s seizure of power was initially framed by Western journalists, politicians and pundits as a sparkling victory for people power, and the dawning of a new era of democracy and freedom in Kyrgyzstan. Yet, five years later, he fled the country, following mass protests over his savage, corrupt rule. The tipping point for Bakiyev’s ouster was the April 7th 2010 mass shooting of demonstrators by security forces, which killed up to 100 people and wounded at least 450 more.
As Forbes recorded at the time, the level of graft under his Presidency was “mind-boggling”. Bakiyev appointed close relatives to key positions, allowing his family to profit handsomely from legally questionable privatisation of state industries, and supply of fuel to Washington’s Manas base. Bakiyev’s son Maxim, who oversaw the latter, was described by US diplomats in leaked cables as “smart and corrupt.” By some estimates, companies he ran reaped $1.8 billion from these deals, close to Kyrgyzstan’s total GDP in 2003.
Meanwhile, Bakiyev’s brother Zhanysh ran Bishkek’s security apparatus with an iron fist. Harsh restrictions on political freedoms were enacted, while arbitrary detentions, bogus convictions, torture, and killings of opposition activists, journalists, and politicians became commonplace. For example, in March 2009 Bakivey’s former chief of staff Medet Sadyrkulov died in an alleged road traffic accident. It was later revealed he was brutally slain upon Zhanysh’s order. That December, dissident reporter Gennady Pavlyuk was murdered, thrown out of a sixth-floor apartment with his arms and legs bound.
Bishkek’s Tulip Revolution wasn’t unique in producing such horrors. A March 2013 essay in elite imperial journal Foreign Policy acknowledged the results of every US-orchestrated government overthrow in the first years of the new millennium were “terribly disappointing”, and “far-reaching change never really materialized” resultantly. This is quite an understatement. Most target countries slid into autocracy, chaos and poverty as a result of Washington’s meddling. It has typically taken years for the damage to be corrected, if at all.
Still, despite this disgraceful legacy, the US appetite for fomenting colour revolutions – and the willingness of groomed citizens, particularly youth, the world over to serve as Washington’s regime change footsoldiers – remains undimmed. In September, Nepal’s elected government was overthrown by disaffected ‘Gen Z’ activists, with the full support of the country’s powerful military. The palace coup bore all the hallmarks of a colour revolution. Who and what will replace the felled administration still remains far from clear.
As a September 15th New York Times editorial noted, “Nepalis from all walks were ready to reject the system they had fought for decades to achieve,” but lack “any clear sense of what comes next.” There is an extraordinary political vacuum in Kathmandu presently, which elements within the country are seeking to exploit for malign ends. As before, Nepal’s “revolution” is likely to produce a government far worse than that which preceded it.
Why Mamdani and Fuentes Are Both Good Signs
By Kevin Barrett | November 5, 2025
Most Zohran Mamdani voters loathe Nick Fuentes. Fuentes’ groypers aren’t big fans of Mamdani, either. But if “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” the two no-longer-marginalized figures, and their followers, ought to be friends.
Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York, and Fuentes’ almost simultaneous entry into the mainstream conversation, are not unrelated. The smarter fans of both Mamdani and Fuentes realize that America’s real enemy is its Zionist oligarchy. Overthrowing that oligarchy, and restoring relatively sane rule that takes majority interests into consideration, is the goal of both Fuentes’ America First movement and Mamdani’s brand of anti-Zionist democratic socialism.
Mamdani and Fuentes, of course, have different views of which “majority interests” need representation. For Mamdani, it’s the 99%—people who aren’t double-digit millionaires and billionaires. Fuentes and his followers don’t necessarily disagree. But they also want to reclaim power and agency for the racial and religious majority, namely white Christians.
Since Mamdani is neither white nor Christian, and his followers have been conditioned to believe that pro-white pro-Christian voices are reactionaries if not Nazis, there is an obvious basis for conflict between the two factions. Extremists on the Mamdani side have battled Fuentes types in street violence in places like Charlottesville and Portland. One could imagine the two figures leading their respective followers into an epic conflict, maybe even a new Civil War.
But one could also almost imagine them uniting to run for president on the same independent ticket. That would, of course, require enormous compromises from both sides.
What if they both decided that taxing America’s Zionist-dominated oligarchy out of existence was a joint number one priority? Mamdani probably already supports that, while Fuentes would need to rethink his worldview to sign on. He would have to recognize that rewriting the economic rulebook to favor non-oligarchs would open up opportunities for his groyper followers to crawl out of their moms’ basements and get jobs, marry, become responsible productive citizens and churchgoers, and support their wives and children.
To join forces with Fuentes, Mamdani would need to admit that the torrent of oligarchical abuse directed at Fuentes (“antisemite,” “conspiracist,” etc.) is a backhanded tribute to Fuentes’ honesty in addressing controversial but critically important topics. Though a nonwhite immigrant, Mamdani is presumably capable of understanding why ethno-religious majorities don’t like being decimated in the course of just a couple of generations. And as a Muslim, Mamdani should basically share the conservative family values that Fuentes espouses (in lieu of espousing an actual woman, but hey, Nick’s still young). To the extent that Mamdami is a believing and practicing Muslim, he ought to prefer a country dominated by Christian-style family values to the current Sodom and Gomorrah.
Fuentes and Mamdani are also natural enemies of the Orwellian social control mechanisms being developed by both the oligarchy’s left (Cass Sunstein) and right (Peter Thiel). Since both the Grand Groyper and the new NYC mayor loathe the genocidal Zionist settler colony squatting demonically in the Holy Land, perhaps they could agree to nuke it out of existence, thereby eliminating most of the world’s worst social control tech enterprises, as well as its worst war criminals.
If Fuentes and Mamdani teamed up and openly vowed to annihilate our ruling Zionist oligarchy, they might get Charlie Kirked or Kennedy’d or Wellstoned. But their joint martyrdom would certainly be glorious. And it might well inspire the younger generation to finally figure out who the real enemy is—IT’S THE ZIONIST OLIGARCHY, STUPID—and take belated but appropriate measures.
Two New York Families Sue Schools for Denying Medical Vaccine Exemptions
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | November 4, 2025
Two New York families are suing their school districts in federal court, alleging that district officials unlawfully denied their children’s medical exemptions.
One case involves an 11-year-old, identified as “Sarah Doe,” in the Webster Central School District. According to the complaint filed last month in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York, Sarah has a “documented history of life-threatening reactions to vaccines.”
The school district denied her medical exemption request for the Tdap vaccine.
The other case concerns a 17-year-old, identified as “Michael Doe,” in the Penfield Central School District. His complaint, also filed last month, and in the same federal court, states that he has a “documented personal history of severe vaccine-induced airway constriction, a strong family history of autoimmune disorders, and a life-threatening latex allergy.”
The school district denied his medical exemption request for the meningococcal vaccine.
The lawsuits ask the court to issue a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to allow Sarah and Michael to return to school and to recognize their medical exemptions as valid. The plaintiffs also seek compensation for damages, including lost educational opportunities and emotional distress.
Chad Davenport, the plaintiffs’ attorney, told The Defender that the New York school districts’ actions were “egregious” and “in direct contradiction” to a recent federal ruling in a related case, Doe v. Oceanside, involving a New York mother and her teenage daughter, also called “Sarah Doe.”
Davenport and attorney Sujata Gibson represented the teen and her mother, who successfully sued the Oceanside Union Free School District for refusing to grant the teen a medical vaccine exemption for the hepatitis B vaccine. Children’s Health Defense (CHD) funded the lawsuit.
In August, the judge issued a preliminary injunction allowing the teen to return to classes.
On Sept. 1, Davenport and Gibson sent a letter on CHD’s behalf to all New York state boards of education and superintendents, threatening legal action if school district officials continued to deny medical exemptions certified by students’ physicians.
“We sent it out and we tried to stop them from doing this, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough,” Davenport said.
New York’s ‘flawed’ medical exemption process puts kids at risk
The situations described in the two new lawsuits are “happening throughout New York state,” he said.
CHD General Counsel Kim Mack Rosenberg said the new lawsuits highlight “how flawed the medical exemption process is in New York state.” Gibson agreed.
Mack Rosenberg added:
“For too many, the existence of the medical exemption truly is illusory and the misinterpretation of grounds for a medical exemption is rampant, both at the state and district level.
“The flaws in the system are placing families who choose to have their children educated in schools — versus homeschooling, which is not an option for everyone — in the horrible position of potentially risking their child’s health to attend school, where doctors familiar with the children recommend that the children not receive vaccines.”
Davenport said he reached out to the New York schools, requesting homeschooling curriculum.
“They give us nothing — and again, this is not unique,” he said. “Every single time that they kick these children out into homeschooling, they give them nothing. … They basically say, ‘We’re done with you.’”
Doctors cited ‘clear and documented danger’ to Sarah’s health
The Oct. 22 lawsuit states that Webster Central School District denied 11-year-old Sarah’s Tdap vaccine medical exemption despite the warning from her treating physician that further vaccination was “absolutely contraindicated” because of a prior “life threatening, multi-organ failure after vaccinations.”
When the family tried to meet the school’s vaccine requirement, healthcare providers refused to vaccinate Sarah. The complaint states:
“When the family, acting under extreme duress from these threats, attempted to comply with the District’s demands, they were turned away by multiple medical providers who refused to administer the vaccine, citing the clear and documented danger to Sarah’s health.”
The district denied Sarah’s exemption because her condition was not listed on “a rigid, pre-approved list of contraindications” published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee.
The lawsuit also alleges that the district responded to Sarah’s exemption request with “coordinated campaign of intimidation and threats involving Child Protective Services (CPS).” The county health department warned Sarah’s mother that CPS could intervene if Sarah remained unvaccinated.
In addition to the Webster Central School District, the lawsuit names Dr. Margaret Callahan, the district’s designated school physician, and Chris Callahan, principal of Spry Middle School, as defendants.
School’s medical director showed ‘clear bias’ in case involving 17-year-old
The Oct. 24 lawsuit states that Dr. Robert Tuite, the medical director who reviewed the exemption request, said the district should need it because the request was issued by a psychiatrist, whom Tuite deemed was the “wrong” type of doctor.
However, Davenport said the judge who ruled in Doe v. Oceanside made it clear that medical exemptions don’t have to be written by a specific type of doctor.
The judge “went through the district’s demands for letters from specialists, including hematologists, immunologists” and explicitly said letters from specialists are not required, Davenport said.
“The statute is very clear: it is any physician. You do not need to have somebody with a certain specialty to certify that a vaccination may be detrimental to the health of your child,” he added.
The lawsuit also says Tuite had “profound” conflicts of interest that affected his review of Michael’s exemption request. The complaint names Tuite as a defendant, along with Penfield Central School District, Penfield High School Principal LeAnna L. Watt and Superintendent Tasha Potter.
Tuite, the district’s medical director who also runs a private practice, previously served as Michael’s doctor until a “contentious disagreement” arose between Tuite and Michael’s mother.
After “an argument over the COVID shot and whether or not her child should receive it,” Tuite kicked Michael’s mother out of his practice, Davenport said. “That’s clear bias.”
Davenport continued:
“Not only that, but then [Tuite] actually got on the phone with the doctor who wrote the medical exemption … [and] admitted that the reason why he’s rejecting it is because last time he accepted a medical exemption, he got his wrist slapped by New York State.”
New York schools fined for approving medical exemptions, case alleges
Tuite told the psychiatrist that the district faces “substantial fines” from the state’s health department for accepting any medical exemption that the state later deems invalid.
Davenport said Tuite isn’t the first person to claim that the New York State Department of Health will fine a district for allowing medical exemptions. According to Davenport, medical directors and school officials involved in lawsuits he files often make similar claims.
Davenport said they know that he will sue them for fees and damages, but they tell him that approving a medical exemption request and allowing the student into school would cost the district $2,000 per day.
“That is what they are being threatened with,” he said. “I don’t know how that message is being conveyed from the Department of Health to the schools and the school officials, but it is.”
Davenport hopes the new cases reinforce the precedent set by Doe v. Oceanside.
He also hopes the cases will send a message that New York school districts can no longer deny medical exemptions without facing judicial challenges.
Davenport said districts have generally assumed they would be “insulated” from meaningful judicial review, since families whose exemptions are denied must appeal to the state commissioner, and the commission historically sides with the school district.
“Not one final decision has ever resulted in the New York State Education Department overturning a school’s decision to deny a vaccine waiver. Not one,” Davenport said.
Now, however, families are taking their cases to federal court after the state commission fails to provide meaningful judicial review.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Erasing evidence: Over 700 videos of Israeli crimes wiped off YouTube
Al Mayadeen | November 5, 2025
The Intercept on Wednesday revealed that YouTube has permanently removed the official channels of three major Palestinian human rights organizations, namely Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), erasing hundreds of videos that documented Israeli war crimes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
The deletions, which took place in early October, wiped years of footage that included investigative reports on the killing of Palestinian civilians, “Israel’s” destruction of homes, and the murder of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. YouTube confirmed to The Intercept that the decision followed a review prompted by US State Department sanctions against the three groups.
“Google is committed to compliance with applicable sanctions and trade compliance laws,” YouTube spokesperson Boot Bullwinkle said, noting that the platform enforces restrictions against any entities sanctioned under US law.
YouTube bows to pressure
The Trump administration imposed the sanctions in September, targeting the organizations for their collaboration with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in its investigations into Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Security Minister Yoav Gallant, who were charged with war crimes in Gaza.
Human rights advocates denounced YouTube’s move as politically motivated censorship. “I’m pretty shocked that YouTube is showing such a little backbone,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now. “It’s really hard to imagine any serious argument that sharing information from these Palestinian human rights organizations would somehow violate sanctions. Succumbing to this arbitrary designation of these Palestinian organizations, to now censor them, is disappointing and pretty surprising.”
Katherine Gallagher, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, accused YouTube of advancing Washington’s efforts to suppress accountability. “It is outrageous that YouTube is furthering the Trump administration’s agenda to remove evidence of human rights violations and war crimes from public view,” she said. “Congress did not intend to allow the president to cut off the flow of information to the American public and the world, instead, information, including documents and videos, are specifically exempted under the statute that the president cited as his authority for issuing the ICC sanctions.”
YouTube silences Palestinian rights
The affected groups condemned the decision as a violation of free expression and an attempt to obstruct justice. Al Mezan said its channel was terminated abruptly on October 7, without warning. “Terminating the channel deprives us from reaching what we aspire to convey our message to, and fulfill our mission,” a spokesperson said, stressing that the move limits their ability to communicate with global audiences.
Al-Haq’s channel was deleted a few days earlier, on October 3, with YouTube claiming that its content “violates our guidelines.” The organization responded that “YouTube’s removal of a human rights organisation’s platform, carried out without prior warning, represents a serious failure of principle and an alarming setback for human rights and freedom of expression.” It warned that US sanctions are “being used to cripple accountability work on Palestine and silence Palestinian voices and victims.”
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, described by the United Nations as Gaza’s oldest human rights organization, said the deletion “protects perpetrators from accountability.” Its representative, Basel al-Sourani, noted that “YouTube said that we were not following their policy on Community Guidelines, when all our work was basically presenting factual and evidence-based reporting on the crimes committed against the Palestinian people, especially since the start of the ongoing genocide on 7 October.” He added, “By doing this, YouTube is being complicit in silencing the voices of Palestinian victims.”
Digital Censorship
The Intercept estimated that the deletions collectively erased more than 700 videos, ranging from field investigations to personal testimonies and short documentaries. Some of the content remains accessible on other platforms or through archived versions, but much of it has been lost. The organizations said they are now seeking alternatives outside the US to ensure their work remains available to the public.
The takedowns come amid broader efforts by the Trump administration and “Israel” to undermine the ICC and limit exposure of Israeli actions in Gaza. “They are basically allowing the Trump administration to dictate what information they share with the global audience,” Whitson warned. “It’s not going to end with Palestine.”
Nations ‘monitoring’ Gaza’s ceasefire implicated in daily violations
By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | November 5, 2025
Over a dozen nations are willingly participating and overseeing Israeli ceasefire violations, including the mass slaughter of civilians in Gaza and the blocking of aid. All of those involved need to be held to account as they no longer have plausible deniability.
Around five days after the implementation of the so-called ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip, a multinational group calling itself the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) was set up in southern occupied Palestine. It quickly attracted at least 14 countries and over 20 non-governmental organizations, which jumped at the opportunity to participate.
The CMCC was supposedly set up to monitor ceasefire violations, coordinate on issues like aid entry, and help enforce the ceasefire on all sides. So far, it has only worked in favor of the Israelis, and not a single nation has successfully put its foot down amid countless Israeli violations of the deal.
Nations like the US, France, Jordan, the UK, Germany, Denmark, Canada, Australia, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates all joined the CMCC. According to US CENTCOM, as part of this mission, the Egyptians even deployed teams of specialists to aid in finding the bodies of Israeli captives in Gaza, who are buried under the rubble caused by the Israeli Air Force’s own bombs.
While the CMCC’s Arab and Western members quickly moved to help achieve Israeli objectives, they have not moved a finger to grant the Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip the bare minimum required under the ceasefire.
The Zionist entity, as per the ceasefire it signed, agreed to allow at least 400 aid trucks to enter Gaza for the first five days of the deal, before allowing an unlimited amount afterward. Weeks in, they had only allowed an average of 90 trucks per day, even after signaling they would permit the entrance of 600 every day, the actual minimum required for the population to meet the bare necessities.
If the Israelis aren’t even being pressured to let the bare minimum amounts of desperately needed humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip by the CMCC, then why does it even exist to begin with?
Evidently, it only exists to play the role of aiding the Zionist regime in fulfilling its genocidal goals. The US has already sent hundreds of soldiers as so-called “advisors”, while flying its reconnaissance drones in the skies of the besieged coastal territory.
Every single day, the Israelis not only violate the ceasefire through bombing civilian areas and using their soldiers and drones to snipe civilians dead in cold blood, but they are also carrying out ongoing military operations through their engineering units and civilian private contractors to demolish the remaining civilian infrastructure in the territories the Israeli army remains inside.
Where is the CMCC when it comes to four Israeli-armed and well-fed ISIS-linked militias operating in the Gaza Strip? Did they object to these groups raiding and looting civilian businesses? Have they objected or left the CMCC in protest after the Israelis slaughtered 104 people, including 46 children, in a single day?
Are the nations belonging to the CMCC completely blind to what the entire world has been witnessing live-streamed on their phones day in and day out? No, of course they are not. The leadership of the nations involved in this should be held criminally liable; they are watching on and playing ball with the Israelis as they violate the ceasefire and commit daily war crimes.
While NGOs are also involved in the CMCC, they evidently have less power, and their role is to do work that is not part of the military sphere. The question that must be posed to everyone involved is: When you are part of a coordination committee set up to monitor and help enforce the ceasefire, at what point is it enough before some kind of action is taken?
Meanwhile, the US-Israeli plan to put together a so-called International Stabilization Force (ISF) appears to be the priority when it comes to the Gaza ceasefire agreement. Already, a range of Arab nations have rejected participating directly in the ISF due to fears surrounding Gaza’s security situation and that Israeli airstrikes could endanger their soldiers. They could also be forced into confrontations with Palestinian Resistance groups.
US Vice President JD Vance has already expressed that the ISF will be tasked with disarming Hamas, which, in essence, makes it an invasion and regime change force, not a stabilization force as its name suggests. Due to this overtly being the ISF’s mission, according to US officials, this is why they are now approaching nations in East Asia to join the force in order to replace some Arab nations that had previously expressed interest in the project.
The United States’ Central Command is also putting forth draft proposals for a Palestinian “police force” to take over the Gaza Strip, one which would be trained and vetted by the US, Jordan, and Egypt.
All of the focus is being placed solely upon how to remove Hamas and the other Palestinian Resistance groups by force, in other words, achieving the goal behind the Israeli war. There is simply no concern for Palestinians being murdered on a daily basis, the continued Israeli expansion of its so-called “Yellow Line”, the ISIS-linked Death Squads, the refusal to allow reconstruction in the populated areas of Gaza, or the blocking of aid from entering the enclave.
Everything that is being done now is completely on Israeli terms, even down to the Zionist regime demanding that the ISF cannot include Turkish soldiers. This is not a ceasefire; it is an international scheme that has been hatched in order to achieve the goals that the Zionist entity failed to complete during two years of genocide. All of those involved in this project must be held to account, as their silence is complicity.
Yemen between two wars: A fragile truce and the shadow of a regional escalation
By Mawadda Iskandar | The Cradle | November 4, 2025
Since mid-October, Yemen has returned to the forefront of the regional scene. Political and military activity has intensified across several governorates, exposing the limits of the current ceasefire. From Sanaa’s view, the phase of “no war and no peace” cannot continue.
Any attack, it warns, will be met with a direct response. Deterrence, it insists, is now part of its core strategy.
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is trying to juggle two tracks – military pressure and renewed dialogue through Omani mediation. Riyadh wants to keep its weight on the ground while testing the possibility of a broader settlement.
The US and Israel have again inserted themselves into the mix, each working to block a negotiated outcome that might strengthen the Sanaa government. Washington has revived coordination channels with the coalition, while Tel Aviv watches the Red Sea front and pushes for the containment of Ansarallah-aligned armed forces. Yemen has once more become an overlapping arena of peace talks, foreign manoeuvring, and military threats.
Negotiations under fire
Oman has returned as the main regional mediator, moving to calm tensions after both Sanaa and Riyadh accused each other of violating the 2024 economic truce – the backbone of the UN “road map.” On 28 October, Muscat announced new diplomatic efforts to prevent a wider clash and reopen a political track.
But the situation on the ground shows little restraint. In Saada governorate alone, monitors recorded 947 violations this year, leaving 153 dead and nearly 900 injured. On 29 October, Saudi artillery shelled border villages in Razeh.
Sanaa affirmed that the “reciprocal equation” remains in place, staging a large military parade near Najran to display readiness. Riyadh, in turn, tested civil-defence sirens in its major cities – a move mocked by Ansarallah figure Hizam al-Assad, who said no siren would protect Saudi cities while the aggression and siege continue.
Speaking to The Cradle, Adel al-Hassani, head of the Peace Forum, points out that the crisis is worsening due to the deterioration of the economic situation and sanctions, which have affected more than 25 million Yemenis, while Oman is intervening as a mediator for the de-escalation.
According to Hasani, the roadmap includes two phases: the first is humanitarian, including the lifting of the blockade, the payment of salaries, and the resumption of oil exports; the second is political – to form a unity or coalition government that would coincide with a declared coalition withdrawal. Only that, he says, could stabilize the situation.
Washington and Tel Aviv’s new strategy
After Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the ensuing war on Gaza, the US-Israeli approach to Yemen has shifted toward hybrid operations – mobilizing local partners, information warfare, and targeted strikes rather than any open intervention.
Sanaa’s recent warning about hitting Saudi oil sites came after detecting moves to create a US-Israeli front against Ansarallah. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the resistance movement “a very big threat,” and Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened airstrikes on Sanaa itself.
The idea is to keep Saudi Arabia under pressure while allowing Israel to act indirectly. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the “Yemeni threat” is unresolved and urged Arab allies to take part in containing it.
Western think tanks have echoed this, urging Washington to rebuild Riyadh’s military role after the failure of the Red Sea naval alliance. The head of Eilat Port, Gideon Golber, admitted that maritime trade has been badly hit, adding that “We need a victory image by restarting the port.” A US Naval Institute report also noted that despite spending over $1 billion on air defense and joint operations, control over the corridor remains weak.
Between November 2023 and September 2025, Yemeni forces carried out more than 750 operations in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Indian Ocean – part of what Sanaa calls a defensive response. Head of the Supreme Political Council, Mahdi al-Mashat, urged Saudi Arabia to “move from the stage of de-escalation to ending aggression, siege, and occupation and implementing the clear entitlements of peace.”
He further accused Washington of using regional tensions to serve Israel. National Council member Hamid Assem added that an earlier de-escalation deal, signed a year and a half ago in Sanaa, was dropped by Riyadh under US direction after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
A source close to Sanaa tells The Cradle:
“The movement’s leadership is firmly convinced that the responsibility for these tools cannot be separated from those who created, armed, and trained them since 2015. Therefore, Sanaa affirms that any movement of these tools in Marib, the west coast, or the south of the country will not remain isolated, and will carry with it direct consequences that will affect the parties that supported and supervised the preparation of these groups.”
The source adds that:
“America has long experience with Yemen and may be inclined to avoid direct ground intervention, as its priorities appear to be focused on protecting Israel by striking Ansarallah’s missile and naval capability without extensive land friction. Therefore, it has begun to implement a plan that adopts hybrid warfare: intensifying media pumping, distortion, information operations, and psychological warfare, in addition to logistical and coordination preparations to move internal fronts through local pro-coalition tools.”
This hybrid strategy may coincide with Israeli military and media steps, the source points out, through threats and statements by officials in Tel Aviv, so that the desired goal becomes to “blow up the scene from within” and weaken Sanaa through internal chaos that paves the way for pressing options or strikes targeting its arsenal without direct American ground intervention.
US and UAE movements in the south
Throughout October, the US, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE expanded their presence in the south, west coast, and Al-Mahra to reorganize coalition factions and tighten control. US and Emirati officers arrived in Lahj Governorate, supervising the restructuring of Southern Transitional Council (STC) units from Al-Kibsi Camp in Al-Raha to Al-Mallah district. Security around these areas was reinforced with barriers and fortifications.
In Shabwa and Hadhramaut, joint committees of American and Emirati officers inspected Ataq Airport and nearby camps, counting recruits, running medical checks, reviewing weapons stock, and mapping command chains. Sources say Latin American contractors and private military firms assisted, ensuring resources stayed under external supervision.
In Taiz, another committee visited Jabal al-Nar to evaluate the Giants Brigades, their numbers, and armaments. On the west coast – from Bab al-Mandab to Zuqar Island – construction work is ongoing: terraces, fortifications, and outposts operated by “joint forces” hostile to Sanaa, including Tariq Saleh’s formations. Coordination reportedly extended to naval meetings aboard the Italian destroyer ‘ITS Caio Duilio’ to secure sea routes and “protect Israeli interests” in the Red Sea.
Hasani, who follows these movements, informs The Cradle that “These committees are evaluation and supervisory, not training, and are directly supervised by the US to ensure the readiness of the forces and perhaps as a signal to pressure Sanaa.”
He adds that British teams have appeared in Al-Mahra, while groups trained on Socotra Island are being redeployed to Sudan and Libya under UAE management.
Saudi-aligned Salafi units known as “Homeland Shield” now operate from Al-Mahra to Abyan and Hadhramaut. “These forces are today a pillar of the coalition to reduce the ability of Ansarallah, taking advantage of its religious beliefs, as part of the coalition’s tendency to turn the conflict into a sectarian war,” Hasani explains.
In Al-Mahra, local discontent is growing. Ali Mubarak Mohamed, spokesman for the Peaceful Sit-in Committee, tells The Cradle that Al-Ghaydah Airport remains closed after being converted into a joint US-British base.
“The committee continues to escalate peacefully through field trips and meetings with sheikhs to raise awareness of the community about the danger of militias,” he says, noting that the US presence has been ongoing since the coalition was established, though the exact nature of its presence is unknown.

A map showing the distribution of control in Yemen
Where is Yemen heading?
These field movements are taking place as Washington and Abu Dhabi coordinate more closely with Tel Aviv. After meetings in October between the US CENTCOM commander and the Israeli chief of staff, a new plan began to take shape: build a joint ground network across southern Yemen to contain Sanaa and safeguard the Bab al-Mandab Strait – one of the world’s most critical shipping lanes.
At the same time, the US State Department appointed its ambassador to Aden’s Saudi-backed government, Steven Fagin, to lead a “Civil-Military Coordination Center” (CMCC) linked to ceasefire efforts in Gaza. Regional observers see this as a move to integrate the Palestinian and Yemeni fronts into one framework of US security control stretching from the Mediterranean to the Arabian Sea.
Reports circulating in Shabwa and Al-Rayyan say Emirati officers have been dispatched to Gaza to help organize local brigades – a claim still unconfirmed but consistent with the UAE’s wider operational pattern. Investigations by Sky News Arabia noted similarities in the slogans and structure of UAE-backed militias in Yemen and armed factions in Gaza, hinting at shared logistics and training links.
Adnan Bawazir, head of the Southern National Salvation Council in Hadhramaut, tells The Cradle that the scenario of recruiting mercenaries to fight in Gaza is not proven, but is possible – especially with the assignment of the interim administration in Gaza by Fagin, linking local moves to broader regional plans.
In Hadhramaut, Fagin’s visits to Seiyun, which includes the First Military Region, indicate preparations for a possible confrontation, especially since the area is still under the Saudi-backed Islah’s control in the face of the STC conflict, while Riyadh seeks to reduce Islah’s influence by transferring brigades and changing leadership.
Bawazir also points to suspicious movements in Shabwa and at Ataq airport, where field reports indicate flights transporting weapons to strengthen the front, given the governorate’s proximity to Marib and the contact fronts with Ansarallah, which makes it a hinge point for any regional or local escalation.
The moves are therefore part of three interrelated scenarios.
First, shifting pressure from Gaza to Yemen to compensate for the political and moral losses of Tel Aviv and Washington, while using the pro-coalition factions as a pressure arena against Sanaa. Second, preparing for possible military action in the event of the failure of the negotiations. Third, reorganizing the pro-coalition factions and building a central command that can be directed by Washington, thus turning the brigades into executive tools, ready to escalate the situation internally with a sectarian character.
Each scenario positions Yemen once again as a test field for foreign ambitions. The country remains divided between two trajectories: the possibility of a political settlement through Oman’s diplomacy, and the risk of a new conflict fed by regional competition and foreign control over its coasts and resources.
Whether the coming months bring a deal or another war will depend less on what Yemenis want and more on how their neighbors choose to use their soil.
Trump and the Deep State: The Tomahawk deadlock and the illusion of presidential autonomy
By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 5, 2025
The current controversy over the possible delivery of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine reignites a crucial debate in American politics: to what extent does the president of the United States truly control his country’s strategic decisions? The episode suggests that Donald Trump, despite his rhetoric of independence and his supposed desire for a “pragmatic rapprochement” with Moscow, remains bound by the constraints of the so-called Deep State — the bureaucratic-corporate-military structure that has dictated the course of Washington’s foreign policy for decades.
According to Western media sources, the Pentagon had given the White House the green light to release the Tomahawks, arguing that the transfer would not harm U.S. stockpiles. The final decision, however, would rest with Trump. Initially, the president indicated that he did not intend to send the missiles, stating that “we cannot give away what we need to protect our own country.” A few days later, however, he reversed his stance — and then reversed it again, after a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This oscillation reflects, more than personal indecision, the tension between two competing power projects within the United States. On one hand, Trump seeks to maintain a more restrained foreign policy, focused on rebuilding the domestic economy and avoiding the strain of a direct confrontation with Russia. On the other hand, the military-industrial complex and its allies in Congress, the media, and the intelligence services continue to push for the escalation of the war in Ukraine.
The Deep State does not act solely out of abstract strategic interests. The supply of weapons to Kiev is, above all, a multibillion-dollar business that guarantees extraordinary profits for corporations such as Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. The Tomahawks, in particular, symbolize this economic power. Mass-produced and widely used in previous wars, they represent both a military tool and a currency of political influence. Allowing Ukraine to use them against strategic targets deep inside Russia would, however, be a dangerous act of escalation — something that Trump, in a rare moment of prudence, seems to understand.
Putin’s phone call to Trump, as reported by the press, was likely a direct reminder that the use of missiles with a thousand-mile range against cities such as Moscow or St. Petersburg would have incalculable consequences. Contrary to the Western narrative, which tries to portray Russia as isolated and vulnerable, Moscow maintains full retaliatory capability, including nuclear. By avoiding authorization for the Tomahawks’ transfer, Trump did not yield to “Russian blackmail” — as the Atlanticist media would claim — but rather to the elementary logic of global security.
Even so, the fact that the Pentagon and European allies pressured the White House to approve the delivery shows how the structure of real power in the U.S. transcends the president himself. The Deep State shapes not only foreign-policy decisions but also the perceptions of what is “possible” or “acceptable” for an American leader. When Trump seeks dialogue with Moscow, he is immediately accused of “weakness” or “complicity.” When he imposes sanctions, even tactical ones, he is praised for his “toughness.” Thus, a political siege is created in which any attempt at rationality is seen as betrayal of American hegemony.
Analyzing this episode, it becomes clear that presidential autonomy in the United States is largely an illusion. Trump, who came to power promising to break with globalism and restore national sovereignty, now finds himself in a dilemma: either he resists establishment pressure and risks political isolation, or he yields and becomes just another administrator of Washington’s perpetual wars.
The hesitation over the Tomahawks is, therefore, a symptom of the deeper struggle that defines contemporary American politics. Russia, for its part, watches cautiously, aware that the true interlocutor in Washington is not the president but the system surrounding him — a system that profits from war and fears, above all, peace.
Russia should prepare for full-scale nuclear tests – defense minister
RT | November 5, 2025
Russia must prepare to conduct full-scale nuclear tests in response to US plans to restart nuclear weapons detonations, Defense Minister Andrey Belousov has said.
Attending a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Belousov told Russian President Vladimir Putin that Moscow “must respond to Washington’s steps to ensure the security of Russia. It is expedient to start preparing for full-scale nuclear tests immediately.”
Putin responded by reiterating that Russia has long said it would adhere to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, provided other members do not violate the deal.
“If the US or other states party to the relevant treaty conduct such tests, then Russia will also be required to take appropriate retaliatory measures,” the president said.
Putin went on to instruct all relevant government agencies, including the Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry, to gather and analyse the necessary information on US plans to restart nuclear tests, before submitting proposals on “the possible commencement of work on preparing for nuclear weapons tests.”
Last week, US President Donald Trump ordered the Department of War to begin preparations for nuclear testing, claiming the US is “the only country that doesn’t test.”
Trump accused Russia and China of conducting “secret” nuclear explosions, although both Moscow and Beijing have refuted the allegations. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has also said the nuclear watchdog has no indication that either country has conducted any nuclear detonations.
Following Trump’s statement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that Moscow is still waiting for “clarifications from the American side” as to the full meaning of the US president’s comments.

