Trump administration ordered to restore funding to US propaganda outlet
RT | July 20, 2025
A federal judge has ordered the administration of US President Donald Trump to restore funding for state-run Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), ruling that the decision to stop the support was “unprecedented” and lacked any basis.
RFE/RL was a key tool for spreading Western propaganda in the Soviet bloc during the Cold War and was funded by the CIA. The outlet currently receives nearly all of its funding from Congress.
The Trump administration has sought to cut funding for RFE/RL and several other state-linked outlets. It has denounced the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the body that oversees state-funded media, saying it is “not salvageable,” while indulging in “obscene overspending.” The administration also claimed it is crawling with “spies and terrorist sympathizers.”
Consequently, the USAGM essentially froze funding for RFE/RL and refused to enter into a new contract with the outlet after the previous agreement expired in March. This led to staff furloughs and programming cuts, though the EU stepped in to fill the budgetary gap.
On Friday, Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Trump administration lacks the legal authority to refuse Congress-approved funding of more than $70 million, arguing that they provided no clear basis for the move.
”It is unprecedented for an agency to demand that entirely new terms govern its decades-old working relationship with a grantee entity,” he wrote. He went on to rebuke the USAGM for a lack of responses to RFE/RL to negotiate a new agreement, describing it as “stonewalling” and adding that the agency went dark for days or even weeks.
The “USAGM’s flagrant disregard for its funding responsibilities” caused RFE/RL to suffer “mass furloughs, cancelation of programming, and inevitable damage to the global influence that RFE/RL has built over decades,” the ruling said.
RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus welcomed the court’s decision. “This victory provides our journalists with the momentum necessary to continue reaching the nearly 47 million people each week… With this ruling, RFE/RL can continue to advance US national security interests.”
Just Six US House Members Vote Against Sending Israel Another Half Billion Dollars in Military Aid
By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | July 18, 2025
Special interests are continually finagling to gain more support from the United States government that oversees a vast trove of money and power. A vote just after midnight Friday morning in the US House of Representatives suggests that the government of Israel is at the top of the heap of special interests when it comes to being able to extract benefits from the US with very widespread support from American legislators.
The vote was on an amendment Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) offered to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act (HR 4016) that was being considered on the House floor. Greene’s amendment would have removed the bill’s providing of 500 million dollars in military aid to the Israel government.
As Greene explained in her House floor speech introducing the amendment, this money would be doled out by the 37 trillion dollars in debt US government to the government of “nuclear armed Israel” that provides universal health care and college education subsides to Israelis while receiving US handouts. Further explained Greene, the half billion dollars in the bill is not a one-off payment. Rather, Greene explained that “the US already provides Israel with 3.8 billion annually in foreign aid” and provided an additional 8.7 billion dollars via just one other bill last year. Further, noted Greene, the US has spent enormous sums recently on taking military actions of its own in support of Israel. She provided as an example the US having spent over 800 million dollars shooting off “15 to 20 percent of our Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles stockpiles” in aid of Israel in the “twelve-day war” against Iran earlier this year.
Gather a random group of 435 Americans — the same number as there are voting members in the House — to vote on this matter, and Greene’s amendment would be sure not to lose in a landslide. But, the US House of Representatives, despite on occasion being referred to as the people’s house, has a membership whose views in regard to the US giving more and more to the Israel government are far askew from public opinion.
Just 1.4 percent of House members voted for Greene’s amendment. Here is the list of the six House members who voted in opposition to providing another half billion dollars in military aid to what is looking like the most successful special interest in America:
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)
Rep. Al Green (D-TX)
Rep. Summer Lee (D -PA)
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)
Trump’s ultimatum to Russia is bluster and bluff to hide proxy war defeat
Strategic Culture Foundation | July 18, 2025
What’s behind Trump’s angry ultimatum to Russia this week? The short answer: failure and frustration. Donald Trump promised American voters that he would end the Ukraine war in 24 hours upon his election in November 2024. Six months into his presidency, Trump has failed to deliver on his boastful promises.
This week, Trump flipped his pacemaker image by pledging billions of dollars worth of new American weaponry to Ukraine. He also issued a warning to Russia to call a ceasefire within 50 days or else face severe secondary tariffs on its oil and gas exports. The tariffs, quoted at 100 percent, will be applied to nations purchasing Russian exports, primarily Brazil, China, and India. The latter move indicates that the U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine against Russia is really part of a bigger geopolitical confrontation to maintain American global hegemony.
In any case, Moscow dismissed Trump’s ultimatum. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Moscow would not comply with pressure and that Russia would not back down from its strategic goals in Ukraine to counter NATO’s historic aggression.
It is clear that Trump and his administration have failed to understand Russia’s strategic position and the root causes of the conflict.
Trump’s supposed diplomacy is seen to operate on a superficial basis more akin to showbiz, with no substance. He wants a peace deal with Russia to show off his vaunted skills as a business negotiator and to grab the limelight, headlines, and adulation.
Resolving a conflict like Ukraine requires deep historical understanding and genuine commitment to due diligence. Moscow has repeatedly stated the need to address the root causes of the conflict: the expansion of NATO on its borders, the CIA-sponsored coup in Kiev in 2014, and the nature of the NATO-weaponized Neo-Nazi regime over the past decade.
Trump and his administration have failed to appreciate Russia’s viewpoint. Thus, expecting a peace deal based on nothing but rhetoric and vacuous claims about “ending the killing” is futile. It won’t happen.
This failure, based on unrealistic expectations, has led Trump to adopt an increasingly bitter attitude towards Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent weeks. Ironically, Trump has accused Putin of duplicity and procrastination when, in reality, it is Trump who has shown no serious commitment to resolving the conflict.
Now, with chagrin and bruised ego, Trump has reacted with frustration over what are his own failings by issuing ultimatums to Russia. Trump’s 50-day deadline for a Russian response to his demands has a similarity to the 60-day deadline he threatened Iran with, after which he carried out a massive bombing attack on that country. Trump’s aggression towards Iran has turned out to be a fiasco and failure. Threatening Russia is even more useless.
This proclivity for threatening other nations has the hallmark of a Mafiosa megalomaniac. It is also causing Trump to lose support among his voter base, who believed he was going to end “endless wars.” It’s shambolic. Biden’s war is becoming Trump’s war because, at the end of the day, it is the U.S. imperial deep state that rules.
Trump’s mercurial switch from professing peace in Ukraine to ramping up the promise of weapons shows that his previous aspirations were always hollow and contingent on other interests.
It seems that the 47th American president did not want peace after all. What was driving his apparent desire to end the conflict in Ukraine – what he deprecated as “Biden’s war” – was simply to cut American financial costs.
What has appealed to Trump is that the proposed new supplies of American weapons to Ukraine will be paid for by Europe. Money and profit are all that matter to him. It is significant that when Trump announced the new arms racket scheme, he was sitting beside NATO chief Mark Rutte in the Oval Office. Rutte has a knack for wheedling, previously referring to Trump as “daddy” and this week absurdly praising the U.S. as the world’s policeman for securing peace. It seems that the NATO and transatlantic ruling establishment have found a way to manipulate Trump. Tell him that the Europeans will henceforth directly subsidize the U.S. military-industrial complex.
The trouble for Trump and the NATO establishment is that it is all an unworkable bluff. For a start, the U.S. arsenal of Patriot missiles and other munitions has been depleted and destroyed by Russia over the past three years in Ukraine. There are no “wonder weapons” that can alter the battlefield dominance of Russia.
Secondly, the European economies are broke and can hardly sustain the proposed purchase of U.S. weapons for Ukraine, even if such supplies were feasible, which they are not. At least four European states, including France, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Hungary, have said they will not engage in any scheme of buying American weapons for Ukraine.
Thirdly, Trump’s threat of secondary sanctions against Brazil, China, India, and others for doing business with Russia is a blatant assault on the BRICS and Global South that will only garner international contempt. Trump’s bullying is neither viable nor credible. His earlier trade war against China has already failed and shown that the United States is an impotent giant whose power is a thing of the past. Trump had to climb down from his hobby horse towards China.
So, threatening to hit China and others with 100 percent tariffs for doing business with Russia is like a former prizefighter shaking a feeble fist while sitting in a wheelchair. He is liable to incur more self-harm.
Lastly, Russia is decisively winning the NATO-led proxy war in Ukraine. The Kiev regime’s air defenses are non-existent at this stage. Therefore, Russia can and will press its strategic terms to end the conflict because it is the military victor.
Trump’s ultimatum to Russia is nothing but bluster and bluff. He once mocked Ukraine’s puppet president Zelensky, that he had no cards to play. Trump, for all his bravado, has only a couple of deuces himself.
In 50 days, Trump will have a serious amount of egg on his face when Russia’s defeat of the NATO proxy war becomes more evident.
Tulsi Gabbard releases ‘overwhelming evidence’ of Obama coup plot against Trump
RT | July 18, 2025
Former President Barack Obama’s administration deliberately manipulated intelligence to frame Russia for interfering in the 2016 presidential election, according to newly declassified documents released on Friday by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Gabbard unveiled more than 100 pages of emails, memos, and internal communications, which she described as “overwhelming evidence” of a coordinated effort by senior Obama-era officials to politicize intelligence and launch the multi-year Trump–Russia collusion investigation. She dubbed it “a treasonous conspiracy to subvert the will of the American people.”
The scandal severely damaged relations between Moscow and Washington, leading to sanctions, asset seizures, and a breakdown in normal diplomacy.
”This intelligence was weaponized,” Gabbard said. “It was used as a justification for endless smears, for sanctions from Congress, and for covert investigations.” She added: “When key internal assessments found that Russia ‘did not impact recent U.S. election results,’ those findings were suppressed.”
“For months before the 2016 election, the Intelligence Community maintained that Russia lacked both the intent and capability to hack U.S. elections,” Gabbard noted. “But once President Trump won, everything changed.”
One document — a draft President’s Daily Brief dated December 8, 2016 — stated Russia “did not impact recent U.S. election results” through cyberattacks. The report, prepared by the CIA, NSA, FBI, DHS, and other agencies, found no evidence of voting interference.
Yet Fox News reported on Friday that the document was pulled — “based on new guidance,” according to internal emails. Hours later, a high-level Situation Room meeting took place, attended by officials including DNI James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
According to declassified notes, attendees agreed to produce a new intelligence assessment at President Obama’s request. That report, released on January 6, 2017, claimed Russia had intervened in the election to help Donald Trump — directly contradicting earlier assessments.
Gabbard claims the revised assessment leaned on the discredited Steele Dossier — compiled by a former British spy — while sidelining dissenting views within the intelligence apparatus. “This was not intelligence gathering,” Gabbard stated. “It was narrative building.”
Confirmed as DNI earlier this year — after a contentious process — Gabbard says she has forwarded the documents to the Department of Justice. She has urged investigations into former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey, who are reportedly facing criminal inquiries. “No matter how powerful, every person involved must be brought to justice,” she stressed. “Our nation’s integrity depends on accountability.”
“The integrity of our democratic republic depends on full accountability,” Gabbard concluded. “Nothing less will restore the public’s trust — and ensure nothing like this ever happens again.”
Want To Wipe Out Patriot Systems? Ask The Russians How
Sputnik – 18.07.2025
US-made Patriot air defenses aren’t a magic fix for Ukraine — and Russia’s arsenal has already exposed their weaknesses.
“Patriot is ineffective against hypersonic missiles,” retired Russian Colonel Viktor Litovkin tells Sputnik.
- The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal, a Russian hypersonic missile that reaches speeds up to Mach 10 and ranges of 3,000 km, easily destroys Patriots.
- Iskander-M’s single-stage solid-fuel guided missile 9M723 boasts a quasi-ballistic trajectory. With a striking range up to 500km it is another effective tools against Patriot systems.
- Both the Iskander-M and Kinzhal systems demonstrate high precision.
- Not by hypersonic alone: Geran dones + Kalibr missiles is a killer combo. A swarm of Geran drones forces Patriots to waste missiles. Then, while it’s reloading, a cruise missile, like a Kalibr, is fired.
Patriot’s Achilles’ heels
- “Dead Zones”: The Patriot has dead zones, like up to 100m altitude where it can’t detect targets, per Litovkin.
- So drones flying low can evade it. This is exactly how Houthi drones overcome air defenses in the Middle East, and Patriots couldn’t stop them.
- Easy to detect: The Patriot system has a radar station that emits radio waves. By detecting these waves, you can determine where they come from and pinpoint the coordinates of the source. So, in this case, reconnaissance is technically quite simple.
Ukraine’s Layered Defense Dream
The Kiev regime aims to build a layered system, says Yuriy Knutov, a military expert and air defense historian, which would include:
- long-range Patriots
- mid-range SAMP/T
- short-range NASAMS or IRIS-T
- plus Gepard guns
Who gets protection:
- Knutov believes that new Patriot systems will protect Western military plants in Ukraine.
- They’ll also be deployed around Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, and Lichevsk — key hubs for weapons.
- Ukrainian troops at the front lines? Just cannon fodder.
The Patriot is the core — so it must be precisely targeted, he says.
Bogota Summit launches Global South’s legal intifada against Israel and US impunity
By José Niño | The Cradle | July 17, 2025
From 15–16 July, Bogota became the unlikely capital of a global insurrection against western legal impunity. Over 30 countries – including key powers from the Global South and even some European states – gathered in the Colombian capital for the Hague Group Emergency Summit.
This was the most ambitious multilateral initiative yet to directly confront what participants unflinchingly termed Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and the broader culture of impunity that has shielded the occupation state since 1948.
From steadfast client to anti-imperial spearhead
That the summit was held in Colombia – a long-standing US vassal in Latin America – was not incidental. Once regarded as Washington’s most loyal client in the hemisphere, Colombia’s dramatic pivot under President Gustavo Petro represents the boldest regional defiance of US authority in decades.
Petro, who severed diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv in 2024, has placed Bogota on a collision course with the US over his unwavering opposition to the occupation state’s onslaught in Gaza.
Washington reacted predictably by issuing warnings to allies against the “weaponization of international law,” and sanctioning UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her “illegitimate and shameful efforts” to advance the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) prosecutions of Israeli and US officials. Bogota responded with direct defiance. In the run-up to the summit, Petro publicly backed Albanese, declaring that “the multilateral system of states cannot be destroyed,” in a thinly veiled rejection of US diktats.
Over 30 nations participated, including the eight founding members of the Hague Group – Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa, co-chaired by Colombia and South Africa. They were joined by more than 20 additional states spanning Latin America, Africa, Asia, and even Europe.
The participation of European countries such as Portugal and Spain was noteworthy. Both states only established full diplomatic relations with Israel in the latter part of the 20th century: Portugal in 1977 and Spain in 1986, emblematic of their historic caution over Israel’s contested legitimacy.
But since Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza began in late 2023, Madrid has adopted a string of punitive diplomatic moves.
Spain canceled a €6.6 million (around $7.2 million) ammunition purchase from an Israeli firm, scrapped a €285 million (around $310.7 million) anti-tank missile deal with the Spanish subsidiary of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, banned Israeli weapons from port entry, formally recognized Palestinian statehood, and pushed to suspend the EU–Israel Association Agreement.
Though neither European state fully endorsed all of Bogota’s proposals, their participation and scathing denunciations of Israeli policy reflect a deeper fracture within Europe over Tel Aviv’s legitimacy and the cost of complicity.
Laying the legal gauntlet
Central to the summit was a blistering legal and moral condemnation of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. The Hague Group issued a detailed catalog of war crimes: the mass killing of over 57,000 civilians, the targeting of hospitals and schools, the weaponization of starvation and siege, and the deliberate use of forced displacement.
The apartheid state in the occupied West Bank, enforced through racial segregation, parallel legal systems, and land confiscations for settlements, was cited as a textbook violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and, per the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) 2024 advisory opinion, a breach of international prohibitions against forced territorial acquisition and apartheid.
Francesca Albanese delivered the summit’s keynote, setting the tone with an uncompromising indictment:
“For too long, international law has been treated as optional – applied selectively to those perceived as weak, ignored by those acting as the powerful … That era must end.”
The ICC arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant – citing crimes such as starvation as a weapon, indiscriminate civilian targeting, and the murder of Palestinian non-combatants – were repeatedly invoked as a historic turning point.
The Resistance Axis of lawfare
The summit’s ethos was clearly to rupture the impunity enabled by the UN Security Council’s paralysis. The Hague Group, founded in January 2025, framed itself as the Global South’s corrective to a postwar order that protects violators so long as they are shielded by US power.
That paralysis, most attendees argued, was not accidental but structural: The P5 veto system ensures impunity for those, such as Israel and its allies.
Meeting in the San Carlos Palace, delegates from 12 states – Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Indonesia, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Namibia, Nicaragua, Oman, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and South Africa – announced six binding measures. These included a full arms embargo on the occupation state, port bans for Israeli military vessels, contract reviews to terminate commercial complicity with the occupation, and firm support for domestic and international prosecution of Israeli officials.
These policies were anchored in the ICJ’s 2024 opinion declaring Israel’s occupation illegal and the UN General Assembly’s September 2024 resolution urging decisive global action within 12 months.
A global rift – but still an uphill battle
Despite the breakthrough, significant limitations remain. Only 12 states adopted the measures outright. Others were given until the UN General Assembly in September to sign on. Key powers, including China, withheld endorsement – despite supporting the initiative’s aims – likely due to economic entanglements with Israel, including port infrastructure investments.
Organizers acknowledged the uphill road ahead: absent broader UN uptake and stronger alignment from economic powers, Washington’s veto and European hesitation could neuter the Hague Group’s legal insurgency. But the coalition remains adamant that justice is no longer negotiable.
Colombian Vice Minister Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir captured the summit’s urgency:
“The Palestinian genocide threatens the entire international system … The participating states will not only reaffirm their commitment to opposing genocide, but also formulate concrete steps to move from words to collective action.”
A warning – and a promise
The Bogota summit was not just another international conference. It openly challenged the post-1945 legal fiction of a “rules-based order” – a system long exposed as a euphemism for western prerogative.
As South Africa’s International Relations Minister, Roland Lamola, asserted
“No country is above the law, and no crime will go unanswered.”
Yet the struggle remains unfinished. The Hague Group’s bold confrontation with Israeli impunity marks a decisive break, but the future of this legal uprising hinges on whether its momentum can breach the fortified walls of New York and The Hague, and whether powers like China, India, and Brazil shift from quiet endorsement to active alignment.
On 16 July, as thousands gathered in Plaza Bolivar in support, the message was unambiguous: either the era of impunity ends, or the legitimacy of the global order collapses with it.
Between China & USA: Australia chooses trade over geopolitics
By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – July 17, 2025
While the Trump administration doubles down on its ‘America First’ approach to reshaping global power dynamics, key allies like Australia are quietly charting their own course—rebalancing relations with China in ways that may diverge from Washington’s long-term strategy in the Indo-Pacific.
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albances was supposed to meet Donald Trump on the sidelines of G7 summit in Canada. The meeting did not take place, as Trump left the summit in the middle of Iran-Israel war. While such diplomatic snubs would normally raise eyebrows, Canberra seemed unperturbed. Instead, Albanese’s subsequent high-profile visit to Beijing sent a clear message: for Australia, economic pragmatism continues to trump imperatives of ideological or geopolitical alignment. With trade relations with China showing signs of recovery after years of friction, the visit underscored Australia’s effort to navigate a delicate path between its largest trading partner and its key strategic ally.
This calibrated diplomacy comes at a time of renewed uncertainty surrounding the AUKUS pact—a trilateral security agreement between Australia, the US, and the UK aimed at equipping Australia with nuclear-powered submarines to bolster its naval presence in the Indo-Pacific to check Chinese advances. The deal, worth tens of billions of dollars, is currently under review by the Trump administration in Washington. This review includes calls for Australia by the Trump administration to increase its defense spending and overall contributions to the pact, further highlighting Canberra’s growing dependence on the whims of US domestic politics.
This visit comes against the backdrop of the fact that AUKUS, while it offers an unprecedented opportunity to Australia to acquire modern systems, also exposes a deeper vulnerability: Australia’s limited ability to shape the strategic direction of its own neighborhood, caught as it is between economic ties with China and defense commitments to an America that may no longer see alliances as sacrosanct. In this shifting landscape, Australia’s challenge is not just about balancing Beijing and Washington. It’s about asserting agency in an Indo-Pacific increasingly shaped by volatility, mistrust, and great-power rivalry. This assertion has once led it to redefine its ties with China.
Australia’s recalibration is not taking place in a vacuum. There is considerable domestic political support for this policy. Despite how Washington portrays China as a ‘threat’, within Australia, only a minority considers China to be a threat. A majority of the Australians see ties with China as a complex configuration that nonetheless should—and can be—managed because it is ultimately beneficial. Even within China, this publicly backed support for better ties with China and Canberra’s efforts to mutually balance ties between the US and China is clearly well received and understood. China’s state newspaper Global Times says Albanese’s visit “carries special significance” and shows “Australia’s desire to seek more reliable partners in an uncertain world order… with China being the obvious choice”. There is little denying this. China is Australia’s largest trading partner, and Albanese’ visit is about furthering these ties. As reports indicate, Albanese is accompanied by a business delegation to the cities of Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu for his six-day trip. His official itinerary included meetings with groups involved in business, tourism and sports.
From AUKUS to new forms of bilateral and multilateral trade
In this context, therefore, many observers view the Australian Prime Minister’s recent visit to China as a strategic step toward reinvigorating economic ties and potentially paving the way for China’s entry into the 11-member Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Australia, which currently chairs the CPTPP, plays a central role in shaping the pact’s direction. The CPTPP evolved from the original Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) after the United States withdrew in 2017 under President Trump. China formally applied for CPTPP membership in 2021 and continues to lobby for inclusion.
Beijing is increasingly framing its engagement with Canberra within the broader context of a new multilateralism represented by the CPTPP—one that spans beyond the Indo-Pacific to include countries like Canada and the United Kingdom. Underscoring its commitment to deepening trade ties in all possible ways, the Chinese ambassador to Australia has published op-eds in major Australian newspapers emphasizing Beijing’s willingness to deepen bilateral economic partnership, even highlighting emerging sectors such as artificial intelligence as potential areas of collaboration.
The core message from Chinese officials has been consistent: China does not view Australia as an adversary, and there is ample room for peaceful coexistence and mutual benefit. With no direct territorial disputes or major political conflicts between the two nations, this message has found a receptive audience in parts of the Australian political landscape. Labor senator Raff Ciccone, who chairs the Australian Parliament’s security committee in Australia, recently stated that economic engagement with China can play a stabilizing role. “When there’s trade, when there’s dialogue, when there’s economic interests at play,” he said, “countries are less likely to engage in the worst-case scenario, which is war.” In other words, Australia, too, does not necessarily view China as a foe. Albanese’ visit may thus not only reset diplomatic relations but also signal Australia’s openness to a broader regional vision where economic pragmatism and strategic dialogue can go hand-in-hand.
This will not go unnoticed in the White House as well. However, what matters is how the Trump administration responds or can possibly respond. Either it could threaten to withdraw from AUKUS and focus more on developing its own resources or it could double down on its commitment to shoring up Australian naval capability. However, as long as Washington continues to lack a viable programme to reverse China’s economic dominance in Australia specifically and the Indo-Pacific generally, countries like Australia will continue to maneuver in ways that best serve their interests. It is increasingly clear in Australia that their trade interests are best served by having stable ties with China. There is a growing appreciation of the fact that Australia’s ties with China and the US must not be mutually exclusive. This, for China, is a major victory.
Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs
China Ready to Work With SCO Countries to Restore Peace in Middle East
Sputnik – 17.07.2025
China is ready to cooperate with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member countries and the international community to promote a political settlement and the speedy restoration of peace in the Middle East, the Chinese Foreign Ministry told Sputnik on Thursday.
On Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi asked the SCO to promptly consider the situation with Israel’s aggression against the Islamic Republic, as well as to provide Tehran with political support in light of the June conflict with the Jewish state.
“The peoples of China and Iran are bound by traditional friendship. China is committed to maintaining friendly cooperation with Iran in order to benefit the peoples of both countries and bring positive factors to maintaining peace and stability in the Middle East,” the ministry said when asked to comment on Iran’s request to the SCO.
The ministry noted that “the situation in the region currently remains complex and sensitive.”
“China is ready to cooperate with members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the international community to uphold peace, promote a political settlement and quickly restore peace and stability in the Middle East, which meets the common interests of the countries in the region and the international community,” the ministry added.
Iran: World bodies giving up legitimacy, ‘sense of mission’ to bullying, unilateralism
Press TV – July 17, 2025
Iran says the imposition of US sanctions targeting a UN-appointed human rights expert and the mass resignation of members of the UN Palestine inquiry show that the world bodies are no longer allowed to even record the truth.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei made the remarks in a post on his X account on Thursday after the US on July 9 announced punitive measures against Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, while all three members of the UN commission investigating crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories submitted their resignations on Monday.
In his post, Baghaei said the sanctions and the resignations should not be taken lightly as they are an “alarming sign of the erosion of the global legal and normative order.”
“International institutions are giving up their legitimacy, effectiveness, authority and ‘sense of mission’ to militant bullying & radical unilateralism,” the Iranian spokesperson wrote.
He said future generations would affirm that silence, indifference, and double standards in the face of grave injustices and wars led to the collapse of the world normative order.
Albanese, independent from the UN bureaucracy, operates under a UN Human Rights Council mandate. She has faced repeated smears and threats from Israeli officials and lobby groups for her accurate, evidence-based reporting on the situation in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Despite growing political backlash, human rights defenders continue to raise the alarm over the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza.
Since October 2023, the Israeli regime has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians—most of them civilians, women, and children—amid widespread destruction and blockade-induced starvation.
No Due Process at Gitmo
By Andrew P. Napolitano | Ron Paul Institute | July 17, 2025
Last week, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., invalidated a plea agreement for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has been incarcerated at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for 20 years. Mohammed has been charged with conspiracy to commit mass murder in the United States on 9/11. Originally, the federal government blamed Osama bin Laden as the 9/11 mastermind. Then, after bin Laden was murdered in his home in Pakistan by the feds, they decided that Mohammed was the real mastermind. Bin Laden had never been charged with any crimes in the U.S.
After 20 years of litigation, the feds and Mohammed and his lawyers entered into a written plea agreement. The agreement, which was sought and drafted by the prosecutors, relieved them of the intractable burden of defending torture in a public courtroom and removed the death penalty from the menu of penalties available for imposition upon the defendant.
Both sides presented the plea agreement to the military judge, who held hearings on its voluntariness, after which he accepted the plea agreement and all parties reasonably believed they had a guilty plea on their hands — a valid, freely negotiated, publicly accepted, lawful guilty plea.
Then, Lloyd Austin, who was the Secretary of Defense at the time, decided that the Biden administration did not want to answer for allowing the 9/11 mastermind to escape the federal death penalty. So, he ordered the same legal team that sought and negotiated and actually drafted the guilty plea to ask the trial judge to vacate it. Following standard criminal procedure, the court upheld the agreement as a binding, judicially approved contract between the United States government and Mohammed.
Then the feds appealed this denial to a military court of appeals, which also upheld the plea agreement. Thereupon the feds appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which, last week, on a 2 to 1 vote, rejected the plea, holding that the decision was Austin’s to make; and it didn’t matter if he said no well after the agreement had been entered.
Here is the backstory.
Due process has numerous definitions and aspects, but for constitutional purposes it basically means that all charged persons are presumed innocent and entitled to a written notice of the charges, a speedy and fair hearing before a neutral fact finder, a right to appeal; and the entire process imbued with fairness and a profound recognition of personal innocence until guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Due process also explicitly prohibits the use of torture.
In order to ensure that due process and habeas corpus — the right to compel the jailer to justify one’s confinement — would trump the whims of government officials, stated differently, to ensure that the British system of torture and confession and conviction did not occur here, James Madison and the Framers crafted protections in the Constitution to which all in government needed to swear allegiance and support.
Fast forward to Gitmo, and you can see the constitutional system turned on its head.
This George W. Bush-crafted American Devil’s Island, which costs $500 million a year to operate, once held 780 prisoners, allegedly there due to their personal involvement in the war on terror against the United States. Not a single one of them has been convicted of 9/11-related crimes, and only one former detainee is currently serving time in an American federal prison.
Nearly all the prisoners were tortured, and most were captured by roving militias and sold to American forces for bounties. Last year, the Biden administration laudably released 11 detainees, all of whom had been at Gitmo for 20-plus years and none of whom had even been charged with a crime.
The best known of the remaining 15 prisoners is Mohammed, who was scheduled for trial when the military judge in his case retired. The new judge — the fifth on the case — was confronted with the daunting task of reading 40,000 pages of transcripts and documents concerning the torture of Mohammed by U.S. personnel.
At the same time, a new team of military and civilian prosecutors was assigned to the case and the new prosecutors told their bosses in the Pentagon, chief among whom was Austin, and the new military judge that unlike their predecessors — who sought to mitigate the 183 torture sessions U.S. personnel administered to Mohammed — they were prepared to acknowledge it and decline to use any evidence obtained from it in the courtroom.
This remarkable turnaround — one that rejected the premises upon which Gitmo came into being — resulted in the prosecutors commencing plea negotiations.
The Bush-inspired premises of Gitmo were that since it is located in Cuba, federal laws don’t apply, the Constitution doesn’t apply and federal judges can’t interfere. In five landmark decisions, the Supreme Court rejected all these premises, and the new team of prosecutors and the new judge recognized as much.
The prosecutors basically said that they cannot ethically defend torture, they will not offer evidence derived from it in the case and the case is difficult to prove without evidence derived from torture.
This is a remarkable lesson to be learned. Instead of cutting holes in the Constitution, follow it. Instead of using torture, use acceptable investigative techniques. Instead of crafting a Devil’s Island, use the systems in place that have basically worked for hundreds of years.
None of this jurisprudential mess would have occurred if Bush had allowed the criminal justice structure to proceed unimpeded. The use of torture, rotating judges and prosecutors, and incarceration for a generation without charges or trial are all hallmarks of an authoritarian government.
If justice consists in convicting the guilty using established norms and fair procedures, Gitmo has been an unjust unhumanitarian disaster. But if justice consists in the government getting whatever he wants, then the Constitution is useless as a protector of freedom.
To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.
COPYRIGHT 2025 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
Connecticut Passes Law Mandating Water Fluoridation at Existing Levels in Move to Preempt Federal Changes
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | July 16, 2025
Connecticut Gov. Ted Lamont on Tuesday signed legislation requiring public water systems to continue fluoridating drinking water at the levels currently recommended by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
In the press release, Lamont said current recommended levels of water fluoridation have been proven to be “safe and effective for many decades.”
The new law will ensure that “this public health standard continues in Connecticut regardless of whatever political decisions are made at the federal level,” Lamont said.
Previous state law mandated that water be fluoridated at levels recommended by HHS. Currently, the agency recommends 0.7 milligrams per liter, but it may reexamine that recommendation.
The law mandates that the amount of fluoride that must be added to the state’s water supply remains at the HHS-recommended level of 0.7 milligrams per liter.
Pro-fluoridation lobbyists, including the American Dental Association (ADA) and state dental associations, celebrated the news. The ADA said it was pleased that Connecticut “has taken a proactive approach to protecting community water fluoridation.”
The Fluoride Action Network (FAN), which educates the public about the dangers of fluoridation, criticized the move. “Change is hard,” it posted on X. “Connecticut has stubbornly fossilized current fluoridation levels into law.”
In a press release, Lamont’s office cited outdated statistics claiming water fluoridation reduces cavities by 25%. It also quoted Connecticut senators, the state’s public health commissioner, and several dental organizations who affirmed the importance and safety of fluoridation. It didn’t cite any evidence to back those claims.
A growing body of research showing fluoride’s toxic effects, particularly for pregnant women and children, gained national attention when a federal judge in September 2024 ruled against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a landmark lawsuit brought by the FAN, Mothers Against Fluoridation, Food & Water Watch and others.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen ruled that water fluoridation at current levels of 0.7 milligrams per liter posed an “unreasonable risk” to children’s health and must be regulated.
Chen’s 80-page decision outlined the scientific evidence that fluoride exposure is linked to reduced IQ in children.
The decision to fluoridate water is usually made by local governments. However, fluoridation infrastructure typically has state funding, and a handful of states require fluoridation, usually for communities of a certain size.
Trump administration gives mixed signals on water fluoridation
Since the September federal court ruling, more than 60 communities, towns and states — including Florida, the third most populous state — have voted to stop adding fluoride to their water systems.
Water fluoridation has been practiced in the U.S. since the 1940s. At the time of the lawsuit ruling, 200 million Americans were drinking water treated with fluoride.
Water fluoridation hasn’t always been a partisan issue. In the early 2010s, Democratic cities such as Portland, Oregon, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, voted to end water fluoridation over concerns about the chemical’s toxic effects.
However, the issue became more politicized in November 2024, after Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime fluoride critic, said the incoming Trump administration would advise local water systems to stop fluoridating water. Kennedy was confirmed as HHS secretary in February.
Since then, Democratic politicians and the mainstream press have vocally supported water fluoridation and attacked critics — including even CNN and Washington Post health commentator Dr. Leana Wen.
However, the Trump administration has given mixed signals on its approach to water fluoridation.
In April, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced plans to “expeditiously review” new science on the possible health risks of water fluoridation. Also that month, Kennedy said he planned to tell the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop recommending water fluoridation nationally.
However, that recommendation has not happened.
Instead, last week, Michael Connett, attorney for the plaintiffs in the landmark fluoride lawsuit, announced on X that the EPA plans to appeal Chen’s decision ordering the agency to address the risks of water fluoridation.
The agency is expected to file its appeal later this week.
In 2015, President Barack Obama’s Surgeon General Vivek Murthy officially lowered the recommended dosage for water fluoridation from 0.7-1.2 milligrams per liter to 0.7 milligrams per liter after considering “adverse health effects” along with alleged benefits.
The original draft version of Murthy’s revised water fluoridation recommendations included a summary of research on fluoride’s impact on IQ and other neurological issues, with a statement saying further research was needed on the topic. Those statements were not present in Murthy’s final draft.
Related articles in The Defender
- Trump’s DOJ Says EPA Will Appeal Landmark Fluoride Ruling
- Breaking: New Cochrane Review Finds Water Fluoridation Has Minimal Effect on Dental Health
- Breaking: Fluoride in Water Poses ‘Unreasonable Risk’ to Children, Federal Judge Rules
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.
Featured Video
Prof Seyed Marandi: Will the US Collapse the Global Economy?
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
The toxic legacy of nuclear weapons testing serves as a stark warning of the danger these weapons pose
By Scott Ritter | RT | March 11, 2021
Millions of people suffer and die from the effects of radiation exposure from decades of nuclear weapons testing. Their experience should give serious pause to those who continue to embrace the viability of a nuclear deterrent. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Russia stops record number of Ukrainian drones overnight – MOD
- Denmark admits ‘no evidence’ for Russian drone hysteria
- Washington agreement ‘will not pass’: MP Fadlallah
- Iran mocks US for ‘solving’ domestic hunger problem, lecturing others on issue
- Germany, Israel hold joint naval drill off Haifa amid Gaza genocide
- Trump’s war on Iran becomes ‘most unpopular conflict’ in US history
- The Middle East is wringing its hands of Washington. Finally
- The Starmer legacy the establishment media won’t tell you: Celebrity sex crimes, imprisoning Assange and torture terror
- 13-18 DAYS: The PRACTICAL DIESEL BUFFER… Does It Preclude Bombing Iran?
- Prof Seyed Marandi: WILL the US COLLAPSE the GLOBAL ECONOMY?
- If Americans Knew
- Four Reasons the Netanyahu-Backed Plan to ‘End’ U.S. Military Aid to Israel Is a Scam
- Archbishop of Canterbury vows to help Palestinians achieve ‘freedom you deserve,’ calls for end to Israeli occupation
- The scars left behind by Israel’s white phosphorus in Lebanon
- Drones and decomposing babies: What’s in UN report on Israel’s genocide of Palestinian children
- Crimson Thread: The new Israeli separation wall that cuts through the ‘breadbasket of Palestine’
- Gaza ceasefire talks back to square one as Israel changes the rules – Daily Update
- The NDAA Proposed Merger of the U.S. and Israeli Military is Strategically Unwise and Inherently Unconstitutional
- Victories by Pro-Palestinian Democrats Show the Party’s Shift on Israel
- Massie moves to strike $3.3B in Israel military aid from the budget
- How Jeffrey Epstein’s Israeli Network Shaped Congo’s Deadly Mineral Trade
- No Tricks Zone
- 2025 Study: Cloud Effects Reduce Downwelling Longwave Radiation, Overriding The CO2 Impact
- 3 New Studies Find Increasing Trends In Solar Radiation Since The 1980s – Easily Explaining Warming
- THE TRANSCEIVER PARADOX: Why Organoid Intelligence (OI) Could Become Our Ultimate Alien Predator
- German Wind Turbines Face Regulatory Shutdown Due To Excessive Noise
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
Aletho News 