Puppet MastersS


Arrow Up

Trump says he will lift sanctions on Turkey and 'certainly consider' F-35 sale

ErdoganTrumpF-35
© Picture Alliance/AP/KJNTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan • US President Donald Trump • F-35 fighter jet
The president also expressed gratitude that Turkey didn't join the Iran war on the side of Iran.

President Trump said on Tuesday that the US will lift sanctions imposed on Turkey in 2020 and that he would "certainly consider" selling F-35 fighter jets to the country, as he met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the opening of the NATO summit in Ankara.

"We're going to be taking the sanctions off," Trump told reporters alongside Erdogan. The US sanctioned Turkey during the first Trump administration under the 2017 Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act over its purchase of Russian S-400 missile defense systems.

When asked about the F-35 sale, Trump said:
"It's a decision we're going to make. We have a better relationship with Turkey, and Turkey has been, in many ways, much more loyal than other countries that we think would be loyal, so, yeah, it's something certainly we would consider."
While Trump has been critical of other NATO countries for not backing his war with Iran, he expressed appreciation to Turkey for not entering the conflict on the side of Iran, citing its hostile relationship with Israel.
"They could've gotten into the fight. They're a very powerful military nation. They didn't do that, maybe they didn't do that because of me, but they could've gotten into the fight on the other side."

Comment: There is no global free market. The cost is in the price to pay for 'choosing wrongly'.
Turkish President ⁠Tayyip ⁠Erdogan said Middle East peace efforts ​could not succeed without regional backing and that Israel must not be allowed to "dynamite" the U.S.-Iran peace deal.

"No solution that ​does not take strength from the will and contributions of regional countries can be lasting."

Turkey, a NATO ​member and Iran's neighbour, has repeatedly accused Israel ⁠of ⁠trying to undermine the ⁠U.S.-Iran ​deal mediated by Pakistan, and has condemned Israeli operations ​in Gaza, Lebanon ⁠and Syria.
"We are closely following the Israeli administration's attempts to dynamite the (U.S.-Iran) deal... The current war-addicted Israeli government must not be allowed to ⁠drown our geography in the smell of gunpowder and ⁠blood again."
Erdogan also said Turkey aimed to deepen cooperation with Pakistan in energy, transport, critical minerals, information technology and defence, while pursuing a bilateral trade target of $5 billion.



Black Magic

NATO Top Yes Man Backs Renewed US Strikes On Iran As 'Absolutely Necessary'

Rutte and Trump
Even if most individual NATO members are still reluctant to jump on board Trump's Iran war, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte is busy praising American military action there amid the annual summit in Ankara.

Rutte has freshly described the overnight fresh US military strikes on Iran in response to Tehran attacking multiple international shipping vessels "absolutely necessary". Rutte voiced agreement with Trump that Iran's actions violated the MoU ceasefire agreement with the US, which required a response.
"When you have a ceasefire and Iran ​is basically violating the ceasefire, I think it is totally ​crucial that the US forcefully react," Rutte told reporters.
The new US actions resulted in a swift Iranian response, in the form of Iranian drones and missiles on Kuwait and Bahrain, which the latter country decried as a "dangerous escalation".

"The era of bullying and extortion is over," Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf wrote on X. "It leads nowhere. We don't fold."


Comment: Rutte is the essential yes-man for the military industrial complex and has a special knack for feeding Trump's ego.


Comment: That NATO and the EU for that matter has clowns for leaders totally explains why it looks like a circus with nothing of substance coming from such summit of clowns.

Aligning itself with the US/Israel against Iran, also means that Europe will harvest the consequences.


Eye 1

Lawsuit targets CIA for investigating officers for espionage over not taking COVID-19 vax

Men standing on CIA logo
© David Burnett/Newsmakers
The CIA has investigated thousands of personnel and contractors for not receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, according to a new lawsuit.

In 2021, then-President Joe Biden imposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates for federal employees and contractors. Shortly after, the CIA's chief operating officer directed the CIA's Counter Espionage Department to investigate all unvaccinated contractors and workers within the agency, plaintiffs said in the suit, which was filed on June 30 in federal court in Virginia.

"Any employee or contractor who refused the vaccine was treated by the Agency as a threat to the United States government and ordered to be investigated as the same," the suit reads.

Explosion

Warning? Double-tap bombing rips through Damascus near French President Macron's hotel

double explosion damascus hotel macron
© Yamam Al Shaar/ReutersEmergency personnel survey the aftermath of an explosion next to the Four Seasons Hotel in Damascus, Syria on Tuesday, July 7, 2026. At least 18 people were injured, including four police officers.
Major explosions ripped through an area in of the Syrian capital near the hotel where French President Emmanuel Macron had been staying, during an official visit of the French leader to Nusrah Front (Syrian AQ) founder and now self-appointed Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Macron is said to be safe, after talks with Sharaa at the presidential palace, but at least 18 people were injured when explosive devices went off - an attack which was captured on video from various angles.

It appeared a double-tap explosion, leading some pundits to speculate that it could have been a drone attack. It also happened near the Ministry of Tourism in central Damascus, home to some high-end hotels as well as government buildings.

Revolver

Cleaning up: Ukrainian woman suspected of Monaco bombing found shot dead near Kyiv

Anastasiia Berezovska suspect monaco bombing
© Interpol/AFP/Getty ImagesAn image released by Interpol allegedly showing Anastasiia Berezovska.
Anastasiia Berezovska was being sought by police over attack that seriously injured a Ukraine-born businessman

A woman suspected of carrying out last week's bomb attack in Monaco that seriously injured a Ukraine-born business tycoon has been found shot dead near Kyiv, in the latest twist in a case that has shaken the wealthy Mediterranean principality.

Ukrainian prosecutors said on Tuesday the woman had been found with a gunshot wound to the head and that two men had been arrested in connection with the case, including an officer with Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR) and a former law enforcement officer.

On Friday, Interpol issued a red notice for 39-year-old Anastasiia Berezovska, a Ukrainian national who speaks German. The notice - a request to law enforcement agencies worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a suspect pending extradition - said Berezovska was wanted by Monaco on charges of attempted murder, placing an explosive device in a public place with criminal intent, and criminal conspiracy.

Comment: Among other criminal activities, Vadym Iermolaiev apparently ran a number of call center scamming operations. From the Daily Mail:
Now, Ukrainian police sources have claimed that the violent attack is directly linked to a network of fraudulent call centres in Dnipro, Ukraine, allegedly used to carry out large-scale financial scams across Europe.

The Yermolaiev family is alleged to have played a significant role in the scheme, with the oligarch's name reportedly at the centre of a sprawling pan-European investigation into clandestine call centres operating out of Ukraine.

According to sources, the so-called 'boiler room' operations defrauded thousands of investors in Germany, Estonia and Ukraine of more than €100million (£86million) between 2019 and 2022, through fake cryptocurrency investment schemes.

The network also allegedly sold fraudulent divorce advice to unsuspecting victims.

Ukrainian law enforcement sources say that French investigators believe the murder attempt may have been orchestrated by members of a criminal network in retaliation.

Ukrainian outlet Ukrainska Pravda reported that the attempted assassination stemmed from a failed agreement to divide territory and unpaid debts allegedly owed to organised crime bosses in Dnipro.

While Vadym, who is currently subject to sanctions in Ukraine, handled the financial side of the operation, it was his son, Artur, who reportedly ran the network.

According to local reports, Artur was arrested by Interpol in Cyprus at the end of 2025 following an Estonian arrest warrant.
Although it isn't mentioned, Zelensky is known to demand a cut of criminal profits made in Ukraine in exchange for looking the other way. The professionalism of the operation certainly points to a state operation.

From ZeroHedge:
Per Euronews:
After the explosion, she is believed to have walked to the nearby French town of Beausoleil, where she retrieved her rental car and drove through Italy to Germany, her last known country of residence, Morgan Raymond, Monaco's deputy public prosecutor, told reporters.

"The relative sophistication of the explosive device and the modus operandi appear to indicate that the person who planted the device did not act alone," the prosecutor said, confirming that the individual was "a woman posing as a man."
Given that Ukrainian businessman Iermolaiev had long ago been declared an enemy of the Ukrainian state, and has been under sanctions for years for his extensive business dealings in Crimea, Ukrainian intelligence has come under the spotlight for possible involvement in the Monaco bomb attack - a first of its kind in the small, wealthy principality.

Le Figaro reported that the investigation focuses on Zelensky's secret police (SBU) in the Monaco bomb attack: "According to several concurring sources at Le Figaro, investigators are focusing on the possibility that the attack was orchestrated by the SBU, the Ukrainian intelligence service."

[...]

So already the Zelensky government is desperately trying to distance itself from the ordeal, claiming that Ukraine's own intelligence officer was merely "acting on his own". More details are as follows:
Ukrainian authorities said they detained two men on suspicion of murdering Berezovska "by prior conspiracy."

Police said that one of the men - a current employee of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate - confessed to the murder of Berezovska and claimed that the second suspect, who is a former law enforcement officer, was an accomplice.



Nuke

Bibi tries once again to convince Trump Iran has nukes

NetanyahuTrump
© Public DomainIsraeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu • US President Donald Trump
Is Bibi about to cheat Trump for a second time? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Trump's flirtation with U.S. world domination through his short war with Iran has given him more problems than he could have ever imagined. And it's about to get worse.

When Benjamin Netanyahu arrives at the White House to hold high-level talks with him, Trump is going to be given a dilemma which will tie him up in knots with no good options before him. Bibi will try to convince him that the Iranians are making a nuclear weapon. The difference is that this time his claims might be taken seriously, as the unintended consequences of the U.S./Israel campaign have not only made Iran stronger and a regional superpower - now that the GCC countries want to strike a deal for cooperation - but have also pushed the Iranians into a corner on the nuclear issue.

Comment: Speculation on a turn of events is not unrealistic. A second war will be far more than a do-over.


Star of David

After the Islamabad Memorandum

Rahm Emanuel/Benjamin Netanyahu
© UnknownThe parents of Rahm Emanuel and Benjamin Netanyahu already had close ties.
While the Arab states of the Persian Gulf concluded from the war against Iran that Israel was a predator and the United States was not the world's policeman, Americans still do not know what to make of Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition.

"Revisionist Zionists" are attempting to introduce pro-Israel candidates into the Republican and Democratic parties, even as the majority of voters no longer wish to support this genocidal state. Moreover, they are attempting to turn the Arabs of the Gulf against Iran and to relaunch the Israeli operation in Lebanon.

The Islamabad Memorandum [1] did not merely establish peace in the Persian Gulf. It also stipulated that Iran would receive $300 billion — not as "war reparations," but as an "investment." In doing so, it tacitly acknowledged the victory of the Islamic Republic.

This victory does not signify a military defeat for the United States, but rather the political defeat of a specific faction within the country. The losers are Israel's traditional supporters, who refuse to acknowledge the massacres of civilians perpetrated by the so-called "Jewish State" in Palestine and Lebanon.

X

Hamas dissolves Gaza government as it presses for implementation of peace plan

Palestinian Rubble
© Dawoud Abu Alkas/ReutersPalestinians make their way past the rubble of residential buildings destroyed during the Israeli offensive as displaced people shelter in tents, in Gaza City, June 15, 2026
Hamas on Monday announced that it was dissolving its governing body in Gaza as it's pushing for the implementation of the US-backed Gaza peace plan amid Israel's constant violations of the ceasefire deal signed in October 2025.

Gaza's Government Media Office said in a statement:
"Mohammed al-Farra, the head of the governing "Emergency Committee, has decided to submit his official resignation from his position and to announce the dissolution of the Government Emergency Committee, as a demonstration of the seriousness of these measures, in implementation of the agreed arrangements, and to facilitate the administrative transition process."
Hamas said the purpose of the dissolution was to begin the transfer of governing authority to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a group of Palestinians who, under President Trump's Gaza plan, are supposed to take over the governance of the Palestinian territory. However, Israel has been blocking the NCAG, and there's no sign that it will allow the group to enter following Hamas's announcement.

Comment: Give Israel 1% chance of honoring commitments and ending hostilities.


Warning

The dangerous logic of NATO 3.0

soldiers/tank
© Henry Nicholls/WPA/Pool/Getty ImagesTroops and Tank
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is entering its third age. When it was founded three quarters of a century ago, it was meant to contain the spread of communism and confront the military might of the Soviet Union. In other words, to keep Western Europe capitalist and under US control. Despite the allegations of the Soviet propaganda at the time, NATO was a defensive rather than an aggressive alliance. Through all the crises of the Cold War period, it stood still.

When the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union imploded, NATO gained a victory it had not won. The US-led military bloc refused to dissolve upon the completion of its original mission. Instead, it sought to become the sole security regulator for Europe. It went onto an offensive and waged war against Serbia. It went "out of area" to fight in Afghanistan. It embarked on an enlargement spree to include the former Soviet satellite countries of Eastern Europe, and some ex-republics of the USSR itself.

Yet, it miserably failed to manage relations with the former adversary, Russia. It spurned Moscow's request for membership and proposed a partnership instead which turned out to be essentially hollow. It ignored Russia's security interests by refusing to stop its expansion all the way toward the Russian border and turning down Moscow's proposals for a pan-European security order. The issue of Ukraine's membership in NATO, which the Kremlin perceived as an intolerable threat to its national security, became the principal cause of the Ukraine war, now in its fifth year. This ongoing war has given NATO a new lease on life.

Comment: NATO 3.0 v. Goliath? (Spoiler: Goliath wins)


Arrow Down

One word spoils the NATO jamboree... Konstantinovka

NATO Summit
© Strategic Culture Foundation
The NATO summit taking place in Turkey this week was already looking fraught with simmering tensions between Trump and Europe. Now the jamboree in Ankara and the facade of unity are shattered by the dramatic liberation of Konstantinovka by Russian forces.

The Russian military's victory over the key Ukrainian stronghold paves the way for the complete takeover of the Donbass region. The NATO-backed Kiev regime had dug its best defences at Konstantinovka, some 150 kilometers of elaborate trenches and minefields. Russian forces finally vanquished those defences with an estimated loss of 14,000 Ukrainian troops. This was not just Ukrainian defenses. It was NATO's, the bloc having weaponized the regime since the coup in 2014 and lending its best technical advisers and engineers on the ground.

Thus, in one fell swoop, the narrative of the Kiev regime and its NATO sponsors has been demolished. In recent months, the Ukrainian puppet president, Vladimir Zelensky, has been busily claiming that his forces were making gains on the battlefield and that Russia was supposedly on the back foot. The European elites and the Western media amplified that narrative. At the G7 summit in France last month, U.S. President Donald Trump had also bought into the fiction that Ukraine was "making progress on the battlefield and there is now a new momentum."

Of course, this was all empty public relations by Zelensky and the Europeans to keep the river of money rolling into the war effort. The summit in Ankara this week was billed as another round of multi-billion-dollar donations to help Ukraine win. Crucial to the fundraising was the appearance of "unity" among NATO members over their commitment to supporting Ukraine.

Fearing that irascible Trump could spoil that appearance of unity, Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary-general, went to the White House on June 24 on a grovelling mission. The former Dutch prime minister put on another cringe-making act of self-debasement and obsequiousness by hailing Trump as a savior of NATO. Rutte lavished praise on the American leader for the "Trump Trillion" effect, pointing out that European and Canadian allies had boosted military spending by €1 trillion under pressure from the U.S. president.

This insane military spending is, by the way, leading to the collapse of Europe, with governments falling from taking on unsustainable debt levels and consequent political crises. Britain is perhaps the worst basket case, looking for its seventh prime minister in 10 years.