Pentagon Puts AUKUS on Ice, Leaving Allies Rattled
By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 12.06.2025
The US Defense department is reviewing the 2021 AUKUS submarine deal with the UK and Australia, the Financial Times reported earlier. The review is being led by Elbridge Colby, a senior defense official known for his past skepticism of the pact.
The Pentagon is taking a hard look at its role in the AUKUS alliance to make sure it fits squarely within the Trump administration’s “America First” agenda, according to a Department of Defense spokesperson.
“We’re reassessing AUKUS to ensure this carryover from the last administration aligns with the president’s priorities,” the spokesperson said.
Australia has rushed to say it’s still on board with US defense cooperation, but according to The Australian, the Pentagon’s review is a “major blow” to Canberra.
The Financial Times earlier reported that Washington is weighing a full exit from the AUKUS pact with Australia and the UK.
Announced on September 15, 2021, the AUKUS trilateral partnership between the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia promised to bolster Australia’s fleet with nuclear-powered submarines and increase defense cooperation among countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The deal led to a diplomatic rift between Australia and France after Canberra reneged on a $66 billion contract with Paris to develop 12 advanced conventionally powered attack submarines.
Russia has criticized the trilateral security pact, which focuses on military cooperation and countering China in the Indo-Pacific, as undermining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by transferring nuclear submarine technology to Australia, a non-nuclear-weapon state.
US President Trump Streamlined the National Endowment for Democracy, not Dismantled it
By Brian Berletic – New Eastern Outlook – June 11, 2025
While many believe that under the Trump administration the controversial National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was defunded, dismantled, or otherwise dissolved, the reality is far less dramatic and far more dangerous.
Despite President Donald Trump’s outspoken criticism of global entanglements and calls of “ending the era of endless wars,” stretching back all the way to his first term in office, the NED not only continues to receive taxpayer funding under his administration to facilitate instability and conflict worldwide, it has quietly expanded its reach behind a newly adopted policy that makes its activities less transparent than ever.
On its official website, the NED recently revealed what it calls a “duty to care” policy – an internal shift that effectively ends the organization’s long-standing practice of openly listing most of the foreign organizations and movements it finances. This change, framed as a protective measure for recipients in “high-risk environments,” marks a complete reversal of one of the few things that previously distinguished NED operations from covert CIA influence campaigns – the veneer of transparency.
A “Pro-Democracy” Front With Covert DNA
Founded in 1983, the NED was created to do overtly what the CIA used to do covertly, according to former NED co-founder Allen Weinstein. For decades, it served as the US arm of so-called “soft power,” funneling money to foreign political groups, media outlets, labor unions, and activist organizations deemed favorable to US interests – usually under the banner of “promoting democracy.”
But “democracy” in this context is indistinguishable from regime change. From Venezuela to Belarus, from Hong Kong to Myanmar, NED-funded groups have played central roles in political destabilization and even precipitating war, many of them advocating positions explicitly aligned with US foreign policy and done entirely at the cost of their own nation’s stability and best interests.
The obvious purpose of creating the NED wasn’t to end covert interference around the globe, but rather to continue the CIA’s work Americans and people worldwide were increasingly aware of and opposed to, by whitewashing it and repackaging it as transparently “promoting democracy.”
Since the NED’s founding, the Western media has intermittently admitted the NED has been involved in global-spanning regime change. In 2004, the London Guardian admitted the US government through the NED overthrew governments in Serbia in 2000 and Georgia in 2003, while unsuccessfully attempting to do so in Belarus and Ukraine.
The article described unrest taking place in Ukraine at the time as:
… an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.
Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.
Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze.
Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in central America, notably in Nicaragua, organised a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hardman, Alexander Lukashenko.
The article names the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), and Freedom House by name, all three of which are subsidiaries of the NED.
In 2011, the NYT would admit the US government through the NED was behind the regional destabilization and regime change in 2011 referred to as the “Arab Spring.”
The article explained:
A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington, according to interviews in recent weeks and American diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks.
And that:
The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department.
The US-engineered “Arab Spring” would precipitate multiple US-led wars across the region, ravaging Libya, Yemen, Syria, and affecting every nation in between.
US political interference continues up to and including today under the current Trump administration with attempts to once again destabilize the nation of Georgia along Russia’s borders, continued US-sponsored violence in Myanmar along China’s borders, attacks by US-backed militant groups in southwest Pakistan targeting China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and the continued operation of virtually every NED-funded organization operating elsewhere along China’s periphery including in Thailand and the Philippines.
Democracy as a Cover for Political Interference
Democracy, by definition, is a form of self-determination. If a political movement relies on, or is shaped by the funding and direction of a foreign government – especially one with a track record of overt military invasion, occupation, and conquest like the United States – it is not “promoting democracy,” but rather political interference.
Any nation whose internal political affairs are subject to the influence of the US government through the NED, its subsidiaries or adjacent organizations is not exercising democratic self-rule, but living under a subtler form of political occupation – one where ballots replace bullets, but the end result is the same – the replacement of sovereign leadership with a US-installed client regime.
In many cases, US NED-funded and directed instability takes the form of armed-violence amid which “activists” rather than invading US troops seize critical government buildings, attack critical infrastructure, and carry out other objectives an invading US military force would seek to achieve including the destruction of specific infrastructure and the ousting of ruling governments.
The End of “Transparency”
The NED’s decision to stop publishing the identities of the groups it funds represents more than just an administrative shift. It is a turning point, following years of growing public awareness both in the US and worldwide of what the NED is really doing and why.
In the past, critics were at least able to track and expose how NED money was flowing into particular movements – from opposition parties in Nicaragua to protest organizers in Hong Kong. That visibility, however minimal, imposed some form of political pressure and constraint on the US.
With the “duty to care” policy, even that has now been eliminated.
Today, the NED operates with the same impunity as any covert intelligence operation – only without the oversight, legal restrictions, or classification protocols typically associated with CIA activity.
In practice, this allows the US to wage political war under the pretense of “promoting democracy,” while overall leaving fewer fingerprints behind.
And while the shift within the NED and across US foreign policy as a whole should prompt nations to respond with stricter scrutiny and regulation of the organizations still likely receiving US support, even when US interference was more transparent, many nations failed categorically to protect national security from it. Now that US interference is being done more covertly, it will be even more difficult for advocates of greater national security regarding foreign-funded NGOs to spur governments around the world into action.
Under Trump, Business as Usual
Despite the perception among some that the Trump administration intended to dismantle or defund the NED, no such action occurred. In fact, NED funding is continuing after only a brief pause, with the majority of NED operations continuing uninterrupted.
Much like the US military-industrial complex which continues expanding despite President Trump’s rhetorical opposition to “forever wars” – the regime change-industrial-complex led by the NED, its affiliates, and subsidiaries, have likewise not only continued, but are enhancing their menace to peace and stability worldwide.
Some may argue that recent attention placed on the NED and adjacent organizations like USAID is positive progress in the right direction. In reality, this recent attention has more in common with what is known as a “limited hangout,” a method of perception management used when state secrecy has been compromised, and “limited” information is either admitted to or even volunteered, while central information is still withheld from the public. The public is often distracted by or satisfied with this limited admission and fails to pursue the issue further.
In the case of NED and USAID funding, after many years of growing awareness of and opposition to both, many Americans believe both organizations have now been dismantled, oblivious to the fact that both are still operational and the global network of political subversion they facilitate continues operating uninterrupted.
A Hidden Hand With Open Consequences
The NED’s new era of covert funding and hidden recipients marks a dangerous evolution in US foreign policy. Under the guise of care and caution, the organization has closed the one window that allowed even limited public scrutiny of its global interference.
Regardless of whether the CIA or NED fund and direct foreign interference worldwide and regardless of the degree of transparency involved, the outcome remains the same – a world where real decisions are not made by people on the ground in any one of the many nations targeted by US interference, but by politicians in Washington and policymakers at corporate-funded think tanks.
While American voters and many around the globe held hope that the incoming Trump administration would make good on its promises to roll back US interference abroad and focus instead on the best interests of Americans in America, the administration has instead continued US wars and proxy wars in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia together with sharpening and streamlining the military and non-military means with which to expand them even further.
Despite the illusions of reform or even “revolution” under the Trump administration, the truth is the NED (and USAID) remains as active as ever, more unaccountable than ever, and continue to serve as a sophisticated instrument of political manipulation for the very special interests of the “deep state” many Americans voted President Trump into office to oppose.
A Message to Georgians: America Will Not Protect You
No offense, but Georgia’s interests are just none of my affair. It’s such a long way from here.
I know my government has been messing around there since the 1990s, picking winners and losers, making big promises and causing lots of trouble.
Keeping Russia out of their former sphere of influence was thought by Washington to be its most important goal.
Under the Bill Clinton administration, it was decided that building the BTC Pipeline across Georgia was the highest priority – to prevent Azeri gas from flowing north through Russia or south through Iran.
Under George W. Bush, it was decided that the government of Edward Shevardnadze was too close to Russia, compromising with them over Abkhazia, making deals with Gazprom, and joining the CIS, and had to go.
USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and the rest of the regime change industry poured in tens of millions of dollars to support the groups supporting Mikhail Saakaashvili’s rise and the Rose Revolution of 2003, which installed him in power. This included a Soros front called the Liberty Institute – not to be confused with the Libertarian Institute, I assure you.
As I’m sure you all know, former President Salome Zourabichvili was born in France, not Georgia, and was just parachuted in by the new regime to take over as Finance Minister after the overthrow of 2003. She later explained that:
“These institutions were the cradle of democratization, notably the Soros Foundation. … The NGOs which gravitate around the Soros Foundation undeniably carried the revolution. However, one cannot end one’s analysis with the revolution and one clearly sees that, afterwards, the Soros Foundation and the NGOs were integrated into power.”
Soros’s business partner Kaka Bendukidze became the new economy minister. Alexander Lomaia, the director of Open Society Georgia, was made education minister. At the same time, Giga Bokeria, co-founder of the Liberty Institute, became the leader of the National Movement party in the parliament. In the name of fighting against corruption, they stayed on Soros’s payroll. Saakashvili too.
“I’m delighted by what happened in Georgia, and I take great pride in having contributed to it,” Soros told the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
How y’all let her become the president of the country is a mystery. Oh yeah. All the foreign money.
I sure hope that Mr. Saakashvili’s trial was more fair than his opponents received while he was in power. And that Saakashvili is not being tortured in prison the way his regime tortured people. No human deserves to be treated in such a barbarian fashion.
Do I believe Georgia country is better off under the domination of Russia or any other significant power?
Of course not. But I do mean that American intervention is not in the interest of either country.
I’ve read that current Georgian leaders have expressed frustration that they have not been able to reach the new Trump administration to see if they can get a reset in America’s Georgia policy. Be careful what you wish for. Georgians are more likely to be better off when America does not have a Georgia policy at all than even a favorable one, with strings attached.
As far as the difficulties Georgia may face in maintaining full independence as a small country in a world of major competing powers and Georgia’s advantageous or disadvantageous geographic position relative to important resources, I could not say what your best solution must be.
I could say that at the end of the day, America will not guarantee Georgia’s independence, which is why there is no major U.S. troop presence there, and why NATO membership has not moved forward since W. Bush’s foolish declaration at Bucharest in April 2008.
Perhaps maintaining Tbilisi’s neutrality in these major contests could be the path to maintaining independence from outright control.
Even after Russia intervened to reverse Saakashvili’s attempt to forcefully reintegrate South Ossetia in 2008, Moscow did not sever the BTC, nor roll its tanks into Tblisi, thank goodness. Though Putin and Medvedev had plenty of counter-incentives, they certainly had the pretext to go that far if they had chosen to do so.
President Bush, in his lame-duck year, had already chosen not to intervene, despite the protests of then-Vice President Cheney, who insisted on strikes against Russian forces coming through the Roki tunnel, risking World War III.
Thank goodness the cool, patient wisdom of George W. Bush, relative to Cheney anyway, prevailed that day.
Surely Russia would have escalated in kind, and Tbilisi would have lost its independence to the Federation after Bush had inevitably backed down. Thank goodness it did not come to that.
Making sure the Russians continue to feel like such a move would be unnecessary and unreasonably costly would probably be the best course of action.
Of course, USAID, NED, IRI, NDI, and all the usual suspected Soros-backed groups have spent a ton to keep the current ruling party out of power. I’m sure the permanent professional protestors — analyst Brad Pearce calls their rallies an “organized labor protest by the foreign influence industry” — have some real concerns, just as I’m sure that any protestor receiving the backing of a foreign regime can only be taken so seriously by anyone else.
Again, ultimately, America is too far away and has too little to lose if Tbilisi’s status were to truly change to truly be motivated to do anything about it. When Russia came across the mountains in 2008, many Americans were terrified – they thought that our Georgia was under attack, the state between South Carolina and Florida. They either had never heard of your country, or they could not fathom why it being invaded should be top news in Colorado or Illinois. That Russia would attack America out of the blue seemed to them more plausible, at first glance, at least.
That being the case, Georgians are almost certainly better off choosing the proper course forward for their country with that in mind. Because chances are that if worse comes to worst, no one over here is coming to intervene over there.
Long live Georgia and its independence, good luck.
And may liberty always remain your highest political goal.
Thank you.
Legacy media has a meltdown after RFK Jr fires the CDC’s vaccine panel
By Maryanne Demasi, PhD | June 10, 2025
Yesterday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired every single member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—the influential group of experts that decides which vaccines are added to the childhood schedule.
Today, he set fire to the media’s hysterical reaction.
Within 24 hours, legacy outlets and public health institutions lost their collective minds. Former CDC directors, industry-funded doctors, and conflicted public health groups lined up to denounce Kennedy’s move as reckless, anti-scientific, even deadly.
“This is a dangerous and unprecedented action that makes our families less safe,” said former CDC director Dr Tom Frieden.
“Unilaterally removing the entire panel of experts is reckless,” said paediatrician Dr Tina Tan to The New York Times.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) said it was “deeply troubled and alarmed.” It claimed the move would “stoke distrust in lifesaving vaccines”—this from the same organisation that has spent decades pushing the childhood vaccine schedule while taking money from the very companies that profit from it.
Others framed it as a political purge, a blow to science, or a “coup” that would bring back measles and polio.
But within hours, Kennedy hit back—and this time, he wasn’t the outsider being easily dismissed. He was the Secretary of Health and Human Services. And he came armed with evidence, receipts, and a brutal takedown of the media’s favourite falsehoods.
In a searing post on X, Kennedy explained the decision.

He said the clean sweep was necessary because ACIP had demonstrated its “stubborn unwillingness to demand adequate safety trials before recommending new vaccines for our children.”
And despite the media’s insistence otherwise, Kennedy argued that no routine injected childhood vaccine on the CDC’s schedule had ever been approved based on a placebo-controlled trial using an inert substance.
CNN had tried to prove him wrong last week—claiming it had found “257 placebo-controlled studies” of vaccines on the schedule.
Kennedy dismantled it in forensic detail.
“CNN is wrong,” he wrote. “No routine injected vaccine on CDC’s schedule was licensed for children based on a placebo-controlled trial. That is not conjecture. It is a fact based on FDA’s clinical trial data.”
Then came the body blows.
He pointed out that most of the 257 studies used active substances like aluminium, antibiotics, or other vaccines—not inert placebos.
He linked directly to FDA definitions of “placebo” and to official clinical trial records. Of the few studies that may have used saline controls, none were relied on by the FDA to license a single routine vaccine for American children.
Some studied products that were never approved in the US. Some occurred after licensure. Others involved discontinued vaccines. “CNN’s list ironically proves the lack of adequate safety trials,” Kennedy wrote in a stinging rebuke.
The post was devastating.
It was a clinical takedown of an industry riddled with deception—and it landed—because this time, Kennedy wasn’t being filtered through a hostile press.
He was speaking directly to the public, as a government official, with all the links to back it up. And the media couldn’t handle it.
Predictably, the media rolled out the same tired “experts” to recycle the same tired script—Paul Offit quotes, panic about “undermining trust,” warnings that children would die.
But Kennedy turned the whole thing inside out.
“We’ve gone from three routine injections by age one in 1986 to 25 in 2025,” he wrote. “And not one of them was licensed using a placebo-controlled trial.”
He said it plainly for the cameras: “That is just malpractice. So the people who are in charge of that are now gone.”
For years, the press had written Kennedy off as an anti-vaxxer and moved on. Now, they’ve thrown everything at him—and he threw it right back. Only now, he has the authority, data, and reach.
Kennedy told his followers he’d be announcing replacements in the coming days—no “ideological anti-vaxxers” just “highly credentialed physicians and scientists” committed to evidence, objectivity, and common sense.
Legacy media may still control the headlines, but they can no longer suppress the debate.
And perhaps that’s what really has them rattled.
They’re not defending science. They’re defending a regime of experts who signed off on decades of vaccine approvals without ever insisting on rigorous, inert-placebo safety trials.
When Kennedy calls them out, their only defence is to scream “danger!”—and hope no one checks the fine print.
Yesterday, he fired the gatekeepers. Today, he exposed the game.
US makes sweeping changes to key vaccine group
RT | June 10, 2025
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has dismissed all the members of a key advisory panel that has helped shape national vaccination policy for decades. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Monday that the move was necessary to reestablish public trust and address longstanding concerns over conflicts of interest.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) was created within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the mid-1960s. In an op-ed published on Monday in the Wall Street Journal, Kennedy claimed that the panel has “a history of conflicts of interest, persecution of dissidents, a lack of curiosity, and skewed science.”
The secretary cited reports from a House committee in 2000 and the HHS inspector general in 2009 that detailed financial connections between ACIP members and pharmaceutical companies. He said his decision to replace all 17 current members was driven by the need for a “clean slate.”
“The problem isn’t necessarily that ACIP members are corrupt. Most likely aim to serve the public interest as they understand it,” Kennedy wrote. “The problem is their immersion in a system of industry-aligned incentives and paradigms that enforce a narrow pro-industry orthodoxy.”
ACIP members are appointed to four-year terms, and eight of the most recent appointments were made in the final days of the administration of Joe Biden.
”It was very intentional,” a former senior HHS official told STAT News. “It was our goal to fill every vacancy on every [federal advisory committee] the department has, with particular focus on ones like ACIP where maintenance of our scientific expertise was critical.”
Mandy Cohen, who served as the CDC director under Biden, told NBC News the move “spreads confusion and casts doubt on transparent public health processes that protect Americans.” Richard Besser, who was acting CDC director under Barack Obama, said it “should erase any remaining doubt that he intends to impose his personal anti-vaccine agenda on the American people.”
Kennedy has long criticized aspects of US vaccine programs, arguing they are too closely aligned with industry interests and fail to prioritize public health. His detractors frequently label him an “anti-vaxxer.”
During his confirmation hearings, Kennedy pledged that his decisions would be science-driven. In his WSJ piece, he warned against attributing the American public’s “crisis of trust” solely to “misinformation or anti-science attitudes.”
Trump to Netanyahu: No green light to attack Iran, pursue deal
Al Mayadeen | June 10, 2025
US President Donald Trump has reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “Israel” does not have a “green light” to launch a military strike against Iran, emphasizing that diplomacy remains Washington’s preferred path.
According to Israeli Channel 12 sources, Trump stated during a phone conversation on Monday, “You don’t have a green light, there will be a deal with Iran. The attack (on Iran) needs to be taken off the agenda right now.”
The firm statement came in response to Netanyahu’s demand that Trump abandon ongoing negotiations with Tehran and support an Israeli military operation. Netanyahu reportedly insisted that Washington should “cease talks and support direct military action.”
Despite Netanyahu’s warning that “negotiations with Iran are futile, and they are trying to deceive you; all they want is to buy time,” Trump pushed back, reiterating that “nothing closes the door” and that “work is underway to reach an agreement.” Israeli Channel 12 previously reported that Trump expected a “not-so-good response” from Iran but remains committed to diplomacy.
Trump also addressed the war in Gaza during the call, urging Netanyahu to de-escalate. “I want you to work on ending the war in Gaza, not just the Deal of the Century, the war has exhausted itself,” he said.
Intelligence Blow to “Israel” Changes Strategic Calculus
The conversation took place against the backdrop of a major intelligence breakthrough by Iran, which, according to Iranian and regional sources, has obtained thousands of highly sensitive documents detailing “Israel’s” nuclear infrastructure and strategic projects.
On June 7, Al Mayadeen cited Iranian intelligence sources who revealed that the trove includes photos, videos, and technical data on “Israel’s” nuclear facilities, some previously undisclosed. The volume of data, the sources said, was so vast that reviewing it all “would take an exceptionally long time.”
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council announced on June 9 that this intelligence enables Tehran to carry out a proportional retaliatory strike on hidden Israeli nuclear sites if Iran is attacked. “Today, access to this information… has allowed the warriors of Islam to give a clearly proportionate response to a possible attack by the Israeli regime,” it stated.
Meanwhile, Iran has accused the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of leaking confidential communications to Israeli intelligence, claiming this had led to the targeted assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. “These documents clearly show that instead of playing a neutral role, the IAEA has become an instrument serving the objectives of the Zionist regime,” a source told Fars News on June 10.
Broader Implications
The revelations have added urgency to Trump’s diplomatic posture, as US intelligence officials increasingly warn that a unilateral Israeli strike could unravel the fragile state of nuclear negotiations and trigger a regional war. According to the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, “Israel” had been preparing to strike Iran’s nuclear sites but delayed the move at Washington’s request.
Iranian officials, meanwhile, have warned that any Israeli military action will be met with devastating counterstrikes. IRGC Commander Major General Hossein Salami recently said that it is not Iran’s nuclear sites that will be destroyed, but the “targets of the Israeli occupation entity.” Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh echoed that sentiment, stating, “Any hostile action by Israel against Iran would inevitably result in its destruction.”
With Iran holding what it describes as “one of the most significant intelligence blows” ever dealt to “Israel,” and with talks in Washington still on the table, analysts say that Trump’s call to de-escalate may reflect a growing US effort to avoid being drawn into a full-scale conflict.
40 Buses Destroyed: Electric Bus Confirmed as Cause in Philly Fire
StacheD Training | June 7, 2025
On June 5, 2025, a massive fire broke out at SEPTA’s Midvale Depot in Philadelphia, destroying 40 out-of-service buses. Speculation swirled—was it arson, a setup, or just bad luck? Now we know: the fire started in an electric bus. And it’s not the first time a Proterra bus has ignited in Philadelphia. Back in 2022, a similar bus caught fire while charging at SEPTA’s Southern Depot. That incident led to a national recall, but no fix was in place.
Link to NTSB Investigation (HWY23IH002): https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket/?NTSBNum…
Training & Consulting: https://www.stachedtraining.com
Most people across 24 surveyed countries have negative views of Israel and Netanyahu
By Laura Silver | Pew Research Center | June 3, 2025
International views of Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are much more negative than positive, according to a Pew Research Center survey of 24 countries conducted this spring.
Israelis, for their part, tend to say their country is not respected internationally: 58% say Israel is not too or not at all respected around the world, while 39% think it is.
In 20 of the 24 countries surveyed, around half of adults or more have an unfavorable view of Israel. Around three-quarters or more hold this view in Australia, Greece, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Turkey.
Views of Israel are fairly divided in India (34% favorable, 29% unfavorable).
In Kenya and Nigeria, around half of adults or more have a favorable view of Israel.
How views have changed in recent years
The recent survey is not the first time Pew Research Center has asked about international views of Israel. We have asked about views of Israel before in some countries – including in the United States, where the share of adults with a negative view of Israel rose 11 percentage points between March 2022 and March 2025.
In 10 other countries, we last asked this question in 2013. In seven of these countries, the share of adults with a negative view of Israel has increased significantly. In the United Kingdom, for example, 44% had an unfavorable view of Israel in 2013, compared with 61% now. (In Nigeria, both the share of adults with a negative view of Israel and the share with a positive view have increased since 2013, due to a decline in the share saying they don’t know.)
Views by age
In some countries, younger people are more likely than older people to have an unfavorable view of Israel. This is particularly the case in the high-income countries surveyed: Australia, Canada, France, Poland and South Korea and the U.S. In fact, the U.S. has one of the largest age gaps in views of Israel. … Full article
Who’s behind LA Anti-ICE Riots?

Sputnik – 09.06.2025
President Donald Trump called the Los Angeles protests “paid”, but who could be behind the havoc?
Soros in the shadows
“Allegations of funding links to [Soros’] Open Society Foundations have been raised,” Dr. Marco Marsili, researcher at Cà Foscari University of Venice, tells Sputnik.
The protests aren’t spontaneous, there’s “a structured strategy” behind them, he claims.
The color revolution playbook
Marsili outlines hallmarks of a Soros-style uprising:
*Protesters linked to well-funded, Democrat-aligned NGOs
*Liberal media frame riots as “moral resistance”
*Symbolic activism—hashtags, slogans—spreads rapidly
*Federal agencies portrayed as “oppressive”
Your tax dollars at work
One group behind the LA unrest, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) got $34M in US government grants in 2023 alone.
It’s also linked to Soros-funded programs like the Soros Justice Fellowships.
‘Fake protests’ go viral
US author Scott Adams denounced the LA protests as “fake” and “paid” by wealthy Democrats and Soros-linked organizations in a video post on X.
He believes the real goal is to create chaos and undermine Trump.
Who dropped the bricks?
Conservative X influencers spotlighted pallets of bricks conveniently dropped at protest sites across Los Angeles.
Bricks, rocks and Molotov cocktails are used against law enforcement.
Organized?
LA Council Member Eunisses Hernandez: “When they show up, we got to show up even stronger.”
Conservatives say she all but admits on camera that the ICE riots are Democrat-organized.
BLM 2.0 with a twist
Observers say it’s the repetition of the 2020 BLM riots.
Conservative blogger Andy Ngo notes Antifa’s back in the mix too.
Desperate move to stop Trump?
Zero Hedge alleges the LA protests are a last-ditch Democrat effort to sabotage Trump after their DOGE-fueled unrest flopped. The goal? Spark a fresh national riot wave.
UNIFIL denies talks on ending its mission in south Lebanon: Exclusive
Al Mayadeen | June 9, 2025
Any discussion about the future of UNIFIL falls solely under the authority of the UN Security Council, the spokesperson for UNIFIL clarified to Al Mayadeen, noting that the force remains committed to coordinating with the Lebanese Army and insists on the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.
UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told Al Mayadeen, “There are currently no talks about UNIFIL’s future,” adding that “any such discussion would take place within the UN Security Council.”
Meanwhile, a US State Department spokesperson told Al Mayadeen in a short briefing that the recent reports claiming the United States intends to end the UNIFIL peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon are inaccurate.
Tenenti stated that UNIFIL continues its operations in southern Lebanon in full cooperation with the Lebanese Armed Forces. He emphasized that Israeli forces should withdraw from their occupied positions in the area, noting that the UN Security Council alone holds the authority to assess whether UNIFIL’s ongoing presence remains necessary and effective.
“Restoring stability to southern Lebanon depends on Israel’s withdrawal from recently occupied positions,” he added.
Lebanese Army is adhering to resolution 1701
Tenenti also affirmed that the Lebanese Army remains committed to implementing UN Resolution 1701, deploying to required areas in close coordination with UNIFIL forces.
When asked about French troops, he responded: “I don’t distinguish between the role of French forces and UNIFIL, all are fulfilling their duties under Resolution 1701.”
The statement follows reports in Israeli media claiming the US and “Israel” agreed to terminate UNIFIL’s operations in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom cited sources claiming that “the United States and Israel have agreed to end UNIFIL’s operations in southern Lebanon.” According to the report, the US administration is “not interested in renewing UNIFIL’s mandate,” and “Israel, frankly, isn’t pushing hard to convince them otherwise.”





