The Ukraine conflict could last until 2030 and the West is to blame for making it global rather than local in nature, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said, according to Radio Free Europe (RFE/RL).

Orban was reportedly speaking at a closed-door event involving his ruling Fidesz party a week ago, with the details of his speech now being leaked to the media.

The Hungarian leader allegedly told his supporters in the village of Kotcse on September 10 that he believed Ukraine may end up losing between one third and one half of its territory due to the conflict with Russia, RFE/RL reported on Friday, citing participants of the meeting.

The fighting between Moscow and Kiev - which is being helped by the US, EU and some other countries - could continue all the way until 2030, Orban reportedly warned. The crisis in Ukraine started as a local conflict but the involvement of the West has turned it into a global affair, the prime minister said.

According to the report, Orban again lashed out at EU sanctions imposed on Russia over its military operation in Ukraine, saying the bloc had shot itself in the foot with those curbs.

The Biden administration is mulling whether to grant Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sovereign immunity in a case related to the 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi. The journalist's fiancé and a non-profit organization he helped found filed the lawsuit in a Washington district court.

The court has extended its original August 1 deadline until October 3 for the administration to advise Judge John Bates on whether it believes that Mr. Bin Salman qualifies for sovereign immunity, a status usually reserved for heads of state, heads of government, and foreign ministers.

It is hard to believe that the administration would refuse the crown prince immunity following US President Joe Biden's July pilgrimage to the kingdom and the energy crisis sparked by sanctions imposed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

Mr. Biden's visit intended to repair relations with a country that he had described as a "pariah" state during his election campaign. Moreover, it came after Mr. Biden had refused to deal directly with Mr. Bin Salman in the president's first 18 months in office. It is equally unlikely that the court would go against the probable advice of the administration to grant immunity to Mr. Bin Salman.

The European Commission has unveiled sweeping new regulations it claims will protect independent media against political interference and surveillance. The Media Freedom Act, published on Friday, will ban the use of spyware and other surveillance tactics against journalists and their family members, and forbid the search and seizure of media offices - except "on the grounds of national security," in which case law enforcement must meet a high burden of proof.

The legislation will also require media companies to disclose their ownership and any conflicts of interest that might influence their reporting in the name of ensuring "media pluralism" by mandating transparency. The European Magazine Media Association and European Newspaper Publishers' Association have already taken issue with that part of the law, arguing it impinges on their "freedom to invest and conduct a business."

The law will also form an "independent" European Board for Media Services, which will be populated by "national media authorities" and tasked with advising on regulatory issues, including the allocation of state advertising and concentration of power in the hands of a few media conglomerates. This body is also meant to guard against the intrusion of non-EU media that "present a risk to public security" and ensure global internet platforms comply with supposedly voluntary EU initiatives such as the Code of Practice on Disinformation.

The European Commission on Sunday proposed withholding $7.5 billion in funds allocated to Hungary, due to corruption concerns. The suspension is aimed at protecting the bloc's budget, according to Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn.

"Today's decision is a clear demonstration of the Commission's resolve to protect the EU budget, and use all tools at our disposal to ensure this important objective," the commissioner told reporters. The money would come from the "cohesion funds" granted to Hungary, which are intended to help EU countries bring their economies up to the bloc's standards.

If approved, the funding cut will be the first punitive measure of its kind under the EU's rule of law mechanism, which gives Brussels the right to impose financial penalties on member states if their actions are seen as violating EU values. Brussels triggered the unprecedented procedure against Hungary in April this year.

State media adverts currently running in the US and UK are raising awareness about myocarditis in children. What on Earth could this mean?

THE Queen is still dead. Have YOU paid your respects yet?

Notice #MAGACommunism trending on Twitter this week? Trump certainly did! But it's just LARPing, surely?

Meanwhile in the United States of Europe, Ursula Von Der Leyen has all but crowned herself Queen Europa, decreeing phenomenal new centralized powers for Eurocrats to put 500 million people who never voted for them on an 'eat-or-heat' diet.

But the main topic Joe and Niall address in this week's NewsReal [commencing at 1:09:00] is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit and 'coincidental' border skirmishes in Central Asia. Right on the eve of this major pan-Asian event - representing half the world's population - in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, border clashes flared up between Azerbaijan and Armenia, followed almost immediately by clashes between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

And this while the leaders of all four countries were present as full or partial SCO members in Uzbekistan. Is a hidden hand poking around in Central Asia?


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In this interview, investigative journalist Whitney Webb discusses her book, "One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime That Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein." The book is so long, it was cut into two volumes. Volume 1 alone is 544 pages, but it's a fascinating read and incredibly well-referenced.

When asked what drove or inspired her to become an investigative journalist and to write this tome, Webb reviews some of her personal history that made her question adults and authority in general and, more specifically, the systems that run our world, including health care and politics.

The NATO-backed Atlantic Council has proposed apartheid Israel as a blueprint for a hyper-militarized Ukraine. The paper was authored by Obama's former ambassador to Tel Aviv, now an Israeli spy-tech consultant.

Just forty days after Russia's military campaign began inside Ukraine, Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky told reporters that in the future, his country would be like "a big Israel." The following day, one of Israel's top promoters in the Democratic Party published an op-ed in NATO's official think tank exploring how that could be executed.

Zelensky made his prediction while speaking to reporters on April 5, rejecting the idea that Kiev would remain neutral in future conflicts between NATO, the European Union, and Russia. According to Zelensky, his country would never be like Switzerland (which coincidentally abandoned its Napoleon-era tradition of nonalignment by sanctioning Russia in response to its February invasion).

"We cannot talk about 'Switzerland of the future,'" the president informed reporters. "But we will definitely become a 'big Israel' with its own face."

Government officials, public health officials, media and a whole host of other talking heads that parrot official talking points have repeatedly lied to us. We knew this, but now — without apology — they're all starting to "admit" it by subtly changing the narrative.

The SCO summit of Asian power players delineated a road map for strengthening the multipolar world.

Amidst serious tremors in the world of geopolitics, it is so fitting that this year's Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) heads of state summit should have taken place in Samarkand - the ultimate Silk Road crossroads for 2,500 years.

When in 329 BC Alexander the Great reached the then Sogdian city of Marakanda, part of the Achaemenid empire, he was stunned: "Everything I have heard about Samarkand it's true, except it is even more beautiful than I had imagined."

Fast forward to an Op-Ed by Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev published ahead of the SCO summit, where he stresses how Samarkand now "can become a platform that is able to unite and reconcile states with various foreign policy priorities."

After all, historically, the world from the point of view of the Silk Road landmark has always been "perceived as one and indivisible, not divided. This is the essence of a unique phenomenon - the 'Samarkand spirit'."

And here Mirziyoyev ties the "Samarkand Spirit" to the original SCO "Shanghai Spirit" established in early 2001, a few months before the events of September 11, when the world was forced into strife and endless war, almost overnight.

All these years, the culture of the SCO has been evolving in a distinctive Chinese way. Initially, the Shanghai Five were focused on fighting terrorism - months before the US war of terror (italics mine) metastasized from Afghanistan to Iraq and beyond.

Over the years, the initial "three no's" - no alliance, no confrontation, no targeting any third party - ended up equipping a fast, hybrid vehicle whose 'four wheels' are 'politics, security, economy, and humanities,' complete with a Global Development Initiative, all of which contrast sharply with the priorities of a hegemonic, confrontational west.

Arguably the biggest takeaway of this week's Samarkand summit is that Chinese President Xi Jinping presented China and Russia, together, as "responsible global powers" bent on securing the emergence of multipolarity, and refusing the arbitrary "order" imposed by the United States and its unipolar worldview.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pronounced Xi's bilateral conversation with President Vladimir Putin as "excellent." Xi Jinping, previous to their meeting, and addressing Putin directly, had already stressed the common Russia-China objectives:

"In the face of the colossal changes of our time on a global scale, unprecedented in history, we are ready with our Russian colleagues to set an example of a responsible world power and play a leading role in order to put such a rapidly changing world on the trajectory of sustainable and positive development."

Later, in the preamble to the heads of state meeting, Xi went straight to the point: it is important to "prevent attempts by external forces to organize 'color revolutions' in the SCO countries." Well, Europe wouldn't be able to tell, because it has been color-revolutionized non-stop since 1945.

Putin, for his part, sent a message that will be ringing all across the Global South: "Fundamental transformations have been outlined in world politics and economics, and they are irreversible." (italics mine)

A politician has been accused of using a fake social media profile to groom a teenage boy.

The politician's party confirmed last night it has removed the party whip from the accused and that an investigation into the allegations is now underway.

In a statement, the party said it 'moved immediately to withdraw' the whip from the man when it became aware of the allegations.