Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, released a bombshell report with new and damning information on Wednesday. On Wednesday afternoon she shared with White House reporters at the daily briefing. The documents reveal it was Barack Obama and the FBI and CIA leadership at the time to sabotage President Trump before he even stepped into office. Obama did this knowing the entire story was manufactured and not a word of it was true.

Gabbard released one House Intelligence Report that had been locked up in a CIA vault for almost a decade! It now is clear that Obama doctored the information to make it look like Putin and his buddy Donald Trump stole the election.

There were four key elements in the reports about the fake Russian collusion that formed the basis of the Russia hoax.

A fifth man has been arrested after two properties and a car linked to Sir Keir Starmer were targeted in north London in alleged arson attacks last year.

Scotland Yard said a 19-year-old male was arrested yesterday in Harlow, Essex, on suspicion of conspiracy to commit arson.

He was taken into custody at Essex police station for questioning and has since been released under investigation.

The arrest is in relation to a Met Police investigation into a vehicle blaze last year on May 8, a fire at the entrance of a property on May 11 and a fire at a residential address on May 12 that are connected to the Prime Minister.


A fourth man, 48, who was arrested at Stansted Airport in June last year on suspicion of conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life has been released without charge.

Three men have already been charged in connection with the fires: Ukrainians Petro Pochynok, 35, and Roman Lavrynovych, 21, and 27-year-old Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc.

Pochynok has been charged with conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life, Lavrynovych with three counts of arson with intent to endanger life, while Carpiuc has been charged with conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life.

They all deny the charges and have been remanded in custody ahead of a trial at the Old Bailey on April 27.

Our place in the world is clear

Mythology does not record whether Cassandra, whose double curse was the gift of prophecy fated to be ignored, felt at least some glimmers of satisfaction as her city of Troy burned around her. On the evidence of Davos, perhaps her penultimate indignity, before capture and death, was to watch those who dragged the wooden horse within the walls, against her fervent warnings, pose, too late, as hard-nosed sceptics of Greek magnanimity.

It is hard not to empathise with Macron — longstanding and much-mocked critic of Europe's dependence on the United States; prophet of our mother continent's strategic autonomy — as he was forced to watch the former handmaiden of transnational globalisation, Mark Carney, win plaudits for his speech declaring that the rules-led global order was always a fiction, and that economic interdependence has become "the source of your subordination".

The latest piece of the future U.S. plan for Gaza was revealed last week by the U.S. President's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at the inaugural ceremony of Trump's "Board of Peace." Kushner's presentation included a map of how Gaza would look like after reconstruction, including industrial zones, residential blocks, and tourism beaches. The plan advertises a new Rafah and a new Gaza City, completely separate from each other. Meanwhile, the edges of the Strip — which once served as Gaza's farmland and bread basket — would now be home to industrial complexes. Kushner's plan doesn't foresee any restoration of Palestinian neighborhoods or villages, and offers no place for natural Palestinian life. Only fixed residential blocks, surrounded by investments.

After two years of genocide, the outcome that is being laid out for the people of Gaza — and the Palestinian people as a whole — is the creation of a dystopian reality on top of the destroyed homes and communities; one focused on business and power. The only role for Palestinians in this vision is to be managed — controlled, "concentrated" in confined zones, and later possibly expelled. All masked as a humanitarian effort.

Key messages

• The capture of Nicolás Maduro marks a turning point that goes beyond Venezuela. The US operation not only abruptly changes Venezuela's internal political balance; it also clearly exposes the structural tensions of today's international system. Rather than engaging in a normative debate -legitimate and necessary- about the legality or legitimacy of the operation, this paper focuses on what the episode reveals about how central actors actually behave in a context of geopolitical competition, where power and strategic interests prevail.
• Donald Trump must be taken very seriously. Far from being erratic or merely reactive, the Trump Administration's foreign policy follows an explicit prioritisation of national interests, clearly laid out in the National Security Strategy. The intervention in Venezuela fits that framework almost perfectly and was foreshadowed by it: a narco‑dictatorship, institutional and economic collapse, mass migration, the presence of hostile actors and abundant strategic resources.
• The US still needs a legal framing to exercise power. The Trump Administration does not act constrained by international law, but it deems it politically indispensable to package the unilateral use of force within a legal narrative. The legal basis does not explain the action; it is built after the fact to manage political costs, keep allies from breaking ranks and preserve the ability to challenge similar conduct by strategic rivals. The law thus operates less as a material constraint and more as an instrument for managing power.
• The operation entails an explicit return to Realpolitik. The sidelining of Venezuela's democratic opposition and the willingness to bargain with the regime's apparatus show that Washington's priority is stability, control of strategic resources and geopolitical alignment -even at the cost of sacrificing the immediate restoration of popular sovereignty-. Venezuela is emerging as a client state of the US, where the democratic credentials of this circumstantial 'partner' are secondary to its strategic usefulness.
• The Latin American left defends principles selectively and loses credibility. While condemnation of the US unilateral action is to be expected, the joint statement by several left‑leaning governments of Latin America fail to clearly condemn Maduro's regime and to recognise the government elected in 2024. This selective defence of principles -severe towards those they disagree with and lenient towards like‑minded regimes- undermines their moral authority and condemns them to irrelevance in an international system increasingly structured in blocs, where medium and small actors preserve autonomy only if they are consistent and predictable in defending norms.
• The EU's response reflects a pragmatism consistent with its nature. The EU reaffirms international law while avoiding a direct confrontation with Washington, mindful of its military limitations and strategic dependence. Its main strategic asset remains its identity as a normative power. In a global order dominated by hard power, the EU's most rational strategy is not to dilute but to reinforce -without ambiguity- its defence of rules, institutions and procedures that define its identity, underpin its internal cohesion and serve as its primary calling card to third parties. It is also the only credible basis from which it can rally intermediate powers and medium and small countries that see their security, prosperity and autonomy depending less on forced alignment with one bloc or another than on the effective vitality of institutions, norms and limits on the arbitrary use of power.

A base in Caracas would give the agency a platform to dramatically expand its operations in Latin America.

The CIA is setting up a permanent outpost in Venezuela, from where it will reportedly replicate its work in Ukraine. That could mean anything from controlling local politicians to turning the country into a forward operating base for regime change.

With Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in US custody and acting President Delcy Rodriguez cooperating with Washington, America's "priority number one" is to establish a CIA "annex" in Caracas, an anonymous US source told CNN on Tuesday. Long before the formal opening of a US embassy, this outpost will allow CIA agents to reach out to Rodriguez's government and opposition parties, and "target third parties who may be threats," the source said.

That the CIA would want to expand its operations in Venezuela is no surprise. US President Donald Trump authorized the agency to conduct covert operations in Venezuela last October, three months before Maduro was abducted by US special forces. Following the raid, CIA Director John Ratcliffe was the first senior American official to visit Venezuela to meet with Rodriguez and her military chiefs.

Washington is reportedly sitting on $30 billion worth of the South American nation's property.

The US has unfrozen some of Venezuela's impounded assets, acting President Delcy Rodriguez has announced. Rodriguez said the money will be spent on hospital equipment and power infrastructure.

Speaking on national television on Tuesday, Rodriguez said she had spoken to US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio with "respect and courtesy," and that the unblocked funds would be used to purchase hospital equipment from the US "and other countries."

"We are unblocking Venezuelan resources that belong to the Venezuelan people... and this will allow us to invest significant resources in equipment for hospitals. Venezuela will also purchase equipment for the electricity sector and equipment for the gas industry with the funds."

Rodriguez did not say what amount of assets would be released.

The hour is getting late. Virtually all pieces of the puzzle are falling into place.

Even as his "massive armada" is being deployed, neo-Caligula social posts/vociferates to Iran: "MAKE A DEAL" (originally in caps). That's maximum pressure in effect. Not even the possibility of negotiation. It's Capitulation or War.

Neo-Caligula's Top Three demands:

1. Iran should ditch its - civilian - nuclear program, as in total cessation of uranium enrichment.
2. Iran must reduce its missile program to a minimum.
3. Iran must stop supporting "proxy forces" - as in Hezbollah, Yemen's Ansarallah and Iraqi militias.

There's absolutely no way that Ayatollah Khamenei, the IRGC and the Majlis - the Iranian Parliament - will agree to any item on this ultimatum, dictated, of course, by the Zionist axis. Hence no capitulation.

Cue to Tehran dramatically raising the stakes.

The Majlis has already approved the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The final decision is in the hands of the Iranian government/security apparatus. This is in fact binding for the government and the military, de facto authorizing the IRGC, under full constitutional cover, to seal the Strait of Hormuz.

I've extensively written about that on Asia Times during the past decade. At the time, Goldman Sachs derivative experts were adamant: if Hormuz is blocked, before or during a full-scale naval war in the Gulf, oil may reach $700.00 a barrel.

And this will only be temporary - because the entire global economy will collapse.

Most of all, the blocking of Hormuz would trigger the detonation of the TWO QUADRILLION (caps mine) dollars derivative market - updating the initial, misleading calculation by the BIS (Bank for International Settlements), placed at $700 trillion. Over the years, several Gulf traders, off the record, have agreed with the "quadrillion" numbers.

Also during the past decade, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff admitted that they do not have the military ability to keep Hormuz open. That remains the case.

Now cut to clueless little gusano Marco Rubio - bought and paid for by Zionist vulture billionaire Paul Singer, who already profited from the Venezuela operation - talking about US "force posture" near Iran.

As 30-40k US troops are "in reach of thousands of Iranian UAVs and ballistic missiles", it's "prudent" to have forces to "defend against what could be (Rubio's own definition) an Iranian threat".

Of course, this "threat" would never come from the Empire of Chaos, Plunder and Permanent Strikes - following a neo-con dream already sketched in the late 1990s.

So, according to Rubio logic, the US Army now reserves the right to launch a preemptive strike against Iran.

Assuming this preemptive strike happens, Tehran has already signalled, via a Supreme Leader's advisor and the Foreign Ministry, among others, that it won't be a limited war.

Translation: even the ghost of a Tomahawk hitting Iranian territory will be answered by an "immediate and comprehensive response" targeting Tel Aviv and US bases across the Gulf.

Quick recap: neo-Caligula - at least at face value - frames his threats as a prelude to a "deal" which would in effect amputate Iran's nuclear program and its whole defense/disuassion mechanisms.

Tehran's response: you attack us, and we destroy Israel as a functioning entity - plenty of hypersonic missiles are up to the task - and you, neo-Caligula, becomes responsible for the collapse of the global economy.

Most of the recent vitriolic opposition to ICE is a feint by unrepentant open-borders progressives. They won the first round when Joe Biden was elected president, lost the second when Donald Trump returned to office, and are back for a rematch.

Democratic leaders portray ICE agents as violent Gestapo thugs and murderers. They claim ICE kidnaps good people off the street, rips apart their families and communities, and deprives them of due process. They give lip service to deporting the "worst of the worst," but they lead sanctuary cities that release hardened criminal illegal aliens and incite protesters to harass and prevent ICE from arresting rapists, child predators, and killers.

For most, the venom has little to do with how ICE performs its mission and everything to do with preventing the Trump administration from undoing Biden's brazen deluge of illegal migrants. But for the protests, ICE would be nearly invisible to most Americans, who abhor these violent confrontations. Instead, two Americans have tragically died in Minneapolis.

Sweden is moving forward with plans to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 13 in serious cases as it grapples with a growing number of children recruited into gangs to carry out violent crimes without facing serious legal repercussions.

Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer said the country was in an "emergency situation" and stopping the use of children in criminal networks was a "crucial task" for the government.

But several authorities, including police, prison officials and prosecutors, have opposed the plan, with some worried that it may lead to even younger children becoming offenders.

If passed, the legislation will go into force as early as this summer.