While deep state propaganda convinces public opinion that Russia is evil, armies are being prepared for war before our very eyes. The Chief of Staff of the French Army, General Pierre Schill, has just announced to the National Assembly that he is preparing for the next war against Russia. Meanwhile, the Polish Deputy Prime Minister has announced that he will intercept Vladimir Putin's presidential plane. Alone against all his allies, Donald Trump is trying to preserve world peace.

The confrontation between President Donald Trump and the coalition of British, American, Israeli, and Ukrainian deep states is likely to extend to the Far East. In Japan, Sanae Takaichi has just formed a LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) government thanks to his alliance with the Innovation Party, which shares his warmongering views.

Japan's new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stated that the Japanese government is committed to concluding a peace treaty with Russia despite the challenging state of bilateral relations.

Russia welcomes the Japanese government's desire to sign a peace treaty with Russia and is also in favor of peace, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"We welcome this statement. We are also in favor of concluding a peace treaty with Japan," the spokesman said, commenting on the statement by Japan's new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi that Tokyo is determined to conclude a peace treaty with Moscow despite the difficult bilateral relations.

In her keynote speech to parliament during her inauguration, the new prime minister stated that the Japanese government is committed to concluding a peace treaty with Russia despite the challenging state of bilateral relations. Takaichi also reiterated Japan's criticism of Russia regarding the conflict in Ukraine.

Moscow and Tokyo have been in negotiations on a peace treaty based on the outcome of World War II since the mid-20th century. The main obstacle to such an accord remains the disagreement over rights to the southern part of the Kuril Islands.

After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday instructed the country's military to "carry out powerful strikes in Gaza," the IDF followed in a Wednesday morning statement saying it has resumed the ceasefire in Gaza. The military indicated it had launched "series of significant strikes in which dozens of terror targets and terrorists were attacked" - the result of Hamas gunmen allegedly opening fire on its troops.

Israel says that during this ground attack by Hamas in Rafah, an Israeli reservists was killed. "The slain soldier was named as Master Sgt. (res.) Yona Efraim Feldbaum, 37, a heavy machinery operator in the Gaza Division, from the West Bank settlement of Neria," Times of Israel reports.

But Gaza health authorities said more than 100 Palestinians were killed in the fresh strikes Tuesday strikes, which have at this point abated. Israel announced at 10am (local) that the ceasefire is once again in effect.

Trump's attempt to build a 'Budapest scenario' (i.e. a Putin-Trump summit grounded on the earlier Alaska 'understanding') was unilaterally cancelled (by the U.S.) amid acrimony. Putin had initiated the 2.5 hr Monday call. It reportedly contained tough talking by Putin about the lack of U.S. preparation towards a political framework - both in respect to Ukraine, but crucially also in respect to Russia's wider security needs.

However, when it was announced by the American side, Trump's proposal had reverted (yet again) to the Keith Kellogg (the U.S. Ukraine Envoy) doctrine of a 'frozen conflict' on the existing Contact Line preceding any peace negotiations - not vice versa.

Trump must have known well before the Budapest talks were mooted that this Kellogg doctrine had been rejected, time after time, by Moscow. So why did he repeat the demand for it again? In any event, the Budapest summit scenario had to be cancelled after the pre-agreed 'set-up' call between Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State Marco Rubio ran up against a wall. As Lavrov again insisted that a Kellogg-style ceasefire in place would not fly.

It seems that the U.S. Administration expected that its threats to supply Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles amid toughening U.S. rhetoric of deep strikes into Russia would be pressure enough to have Putin agree a freeze in the here and now format, with all discussion of details and a wider solution postponed, sine die.

Russian military analysts reportedly told Putin that Trump's threats were bluff — even if the Tomahawk supplies were made available, the quantity would be limited and would not inflict any tactical or strategic defeat on Russia.

The course of events implies that either Trump did not grasp this Russian 'reality' - despite two years of repetition that Russia would not budge on a 'here and now freeze'. Or alternatively, that the 'dark money' interests came down hard on Trump, telling him that a real peace process with Russia was not allowed. So Trump cancelled the whole scenario, muttering to the media that a Budapest meeting would have been "a waste of time" — leaving his Administration (U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent) to announce new sanctions on Russia's largest oil companies, accompanied by a call to allies to join with them.

The US president denied that the resumption of hostilities was "jeopardizing" the ceasefire

US President Donald Trump has defended Israel's renewed strikes in Gaza nearly three weeks into a ceasefire he helped broker.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered "immediate and powerful strikes" on Tuesday evening, citing Hamas attacks on Israeli soldiers still holding parts of the Palestinian enclave. At least 30 Palestinians were killed in the action, according to Gaza's Hamas-run government.

"As I understand it, they took out an Israeli soldier," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday en route from Japan to South Korea. "They killed an Israeli soldier. So the Israelis hit back - and they should hit back. When that happens, they should hit back," he added.

The death of South African Ambassador Nathi Mthethwa in a Paris hotel has thrust uncomfortable questions into public discourse: questions not just about how a senior diplomat died, but about what his death might reveal regarding the state of governance, investigative integrity, and institutional safety in South Africa.

While French authorities conduct their investigation, South Africans are left grappling with a narrative that feels disturbingly familiar — another prominent figure connected to sensitive inquiries, another unexpected death, another round of speculation about whether the official story holds water.

What we know is limited but significant. Ambassador Mthethwa was found after falling from his hotel room. A window was forced open. He had allegedly sent a "disturbing message" beforehand. He was connected to investigations touching on corruption involving high-level figures.

What we do not know is everything that matters: the content of that message, who might have had access to his room, what security protocols were in place, and crucially, what specific evidence or testimony he might have possessed.

Once, the US wanted the country deindustrialized but ultimately decided against it - now, Berlin's incompetent authorities are wrecking it themselves.

Toward the end of World War II in Europe, the US government pondered a plan to not only demilitarize but also disintegrate and deindustrialize postwar Germany.

Named after its main proponent, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, the Morgenthau Plan proceeded from the insane assumption that "it is a fallacy that Europe needs a strong industrial Germany." If it had been implemented, the remains of defeated Germany would have been deliberately turned into a post-industrial wasteland.

At the request of the UN General Assembly, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the internal court of the United Nations, issued an advisory opinion on 22 October on the "Obligations of Israel with regard to the presence and activities of the United Nations, other international organizations and third States in and in connection with the Occupied Palestinian Territory".

The Court is of the opinion that the State of Israel, as the occupying power, must fulfill its obligations under international humanitarian law.

These obligations include:

- Ensuring that the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory has access to the essentials of daily life, including water, food, clothing, sleeping materials, shelter and fuel, as well as medical items and services;

- Accepting and facilitating to the fullest extent possible relief actions for the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory as long as they are inadequately supplied, as has been observed in the Gaza Strip, including relief actions by the United Nations and its entities, in particular the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and by international organizations and third States, and not to prevent such actions;

One of the root causes of the conflict is Kiev's "extermination of everything Russian" in violation of international law and conventions, the foreign minister has said.

Moscow recognizes Ukraine's independence but not the "Nazi" regime in Kiev bent on the "extermination of everything Russian," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

In an interview with Hungarian YouTube channel Ultrahang aired on Sunday, the top diplomat said today's Ukraine differs greatly from the one whose sovereignty Moscow supported after the fall of the USSR.

"We recognize the independence of Ukraine, no doubt about this, [but] we recognized Ukraine on the basis of its own Declaration of Independence and Constitution... which defined Ukraine as a non-nuclear, neutral, non-bloc country guaranteeing the rights of all national minorities."

© UnknownStreets of Portland

"Protests are meant to be the voices of the unheard. Yet these protests are the voices of those who never shut up."
— Unnamed Observer of No Kings, reported by Roger Kimball

Over the weekend, you might have noticed, the Portland, OR, police cleared out the Antifa encampments down around the city's ICE facility, carted away their lavish riot supplies, and warned them not to congregate on the street there. For now, anyway. Hmmmm. . . . Why do you suppose that happened? Antifa has been rioting freely around federal buildings in Portland since the Summer of Floyd, 2020. Did the police suddenly notice that Antifa has been disturbing the peace?

So far, nobody in the news media has bothered to ask the Portland Police honchos about this sudden change of heart, nor did the honchos venture to say. Did word come from higher up to finally put a stop to Antifa's psychotic monkeyshines? Like, from Mayor Keith Wilson or Oregon Governor Tina Kotek? Wouldn't you say those two have got some 'splainin' to do?