The France of President Emmanuel Macron, who is really the egomaniac-in-chief, is somewhere on the spectrum between "spiraling political crisis" (Financial Times), "big trouble" (The Economist) and terminal collapse. Again.

Barely a week after a new, if fragile, government was cobbled together in acute crisis mode, the country is bracing "for big anti-austerity street marches and labor strikes," while the state's finances are "pernicious" and the budget for 2026 a big question without an answer. In Paris, for instance, the Metro is semi-comatose; in the country as whole, a third of teachers are on strike.

An earlier wave of protests - under the slogan "Let's block everything"- did not quite achieve that ambitious aim, but it did attract double the number of participants the authorities had expected. In that respect - even if they were different in their ideological background - the French protests resemble the recent 'Unite the Kingdom' rally in London. On both sides of the Channel, decrepit, unpopular, unresponsive Centrist regimes are barely hanging on now.

As the French have taught us to say "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" ("The more things change, the more they stay the same"). Especially after Macron's two irresponsible and egotistic decisions of 2024, France can't find a way out of the mess he has created: first, he called snap parliamentary elections to then, second, ignore the will of the French voters.

New Delhi, which fought a brief conflict with Islamabad in May, has said it will study the implications of the move.

Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan have signed a formal mutual defense pact, further strengthening the decades-long security partnership between the two Muslim nations.

The move comes shortly after an extraordinary joint session between the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), in which member states condemned last week's Israeli attack on the Qatari capital, Doha, which targeted officials from Palestinian armed group Hamas. According to media reports, the incident caused concern among Gulf nations about the ability of the US to guarantee their security.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the defense pact between their countries in Riyadh on Wednesday. The joint statement by Riyadh and Islamabad read:

"This agreement, which reflects the shared commitment of both nations to enhance their security and to achieving security and peace in the region and the world, aims to develop aspects of defense cooperation between the two countries and strengthen joint deterrence against any aggression."

According to the deal, any attack against Saudi Arabia or Pakistan "shall be considered an aggression against both," it stressed.

Once the architect of balance, Washington is now sidelined as West Jerusalem, Ankara, and Riyadh shape the future of the region.

On September 9, 2025, Israel carried out an airstrike on a Hamas-linked compound in Doha. The attack landed like a thunderclap: it was the first time Israel had struck inside Qatar, home to Al-Udeid Air Base - the largest US military facility in the region and a cornerstone of Washington's posture in the Middle East.

The strike exposed the contradictions of America's regional strategy. For decades, Washington positioned itself as the guarantor of balance in the Middle East. But Israel's decision to act unilaterally, in the heart of an American ally, has shaken that framework and raised the question: is US influence in the region slipping away?

Several former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) directors who lambasted Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have connections to special interests targeted by the Make America Healthy Again movement, according to a review of their biographies and lobbying records by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The former directors described Kennedy as "dangerous" in a Sept. 2 New York Times editorial and in cable news appearances. While the paper noted the group included officials in both parties — exploiting fractures in the Republican caucus on Kennedy's leadership — it failed to mention they have financial or professional ties to the industries and nonprofits facing diminished influence under Kennedy.

"Conflicts of interest and an entrenched status quo have broken the American people's trust in our public health system," an HHS spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation in response to the investigation's findings. "Secretary Kennedy is committed to transparency and upholding gold-standard science to restore confidence in our country's health care institutions."

Guatemala requested the children be returned.

A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump Administration from deporting Guatemalan children in HHS custody to their home country.

US District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, said Trump's claim he is reunifying the migrant children with their parents "crumbled like a house of cards."

The government of Guatemala has now formally requested that these children be returned home.

No amount of convincing and irrefutable evidence of the genocide will convince Western leaders to halt support for Israel, because it isn't in their interests. The only thing that will stop the genocide is to make it more costly than profitable.

We are repeatedly told that the Western political elite, along with their institutional appendages, are cowardly — that they are simply too afraid to say and do more in the face of the Zionist regime's genocide in Gaza, or that they are too readily influenced by Zionist propaganda and too beholden to the pro-regime lobby. But such accusations don't stand up to scrutiny.

Biden, Harris, and almost the entirety of the Democratic Party — including its so-called "progressive wing" — were so committed to the Zionist settler colony that they preferred to throw away the 2024 election rather than offer any serious opposition to its atrocity crimes and other rights abuses. Similarly, a plethora of European government officials — Keir Starmer, David Lammy, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, Friedrich Merz, and many more — are so committed to the Zionist settler colony that they are willing to risk indictment for aiding and abetting war crimes rather than suspend trade agreements or arms sales.

First, earlier this month saw the Trump administration lift some sanctions on Belarus in a surprise move (part of a prisoner return deal) - which opens national airline Belavia to international routes, including to the US - and now Moscow has announced there could be resumption of direct flights with the United States. Next, Pentagon observers showed up in Belarus to observe joint exercises with Russia, which was also a clear sign of improving Washington-Moscow relations.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told a press briefing Wednesday, "For our part, today, on the bilateral track with the United States, we are focused, in particular, on the task of resuming direct flights. Unfortunately, there is no proper response from the American side yet. We are making additional efforts, our relevant departments and structures are involved in this work."

He added, "We hope that by the time the format that has been called 'bilateral consultations on irritants' in recent months is resumed, a more constructive attitude will be formed in Washington and we will make real progress in resolving this issue," Ryabkov added.

US President Donald Trump has announced that he is officially designating the left-wing Antifa movement as a terrorist organization.

The decision comes a week after the assassination of conservative podcaster and organizer Charlie Kirk during his college speaking tour. Senior Republican officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance, have attributed the murder to "left-wing extremism."

"I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Wednesday evening.

He added that those funding Antifa should be "thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices."

Over recent weeks, chaos has engulfed Nepal. Public and private buildings have been set ablaze, with dozens of civilians reportedly killed. On September 9th, Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli resigned. The Western media has universally framed the upheaval as spontaneous revolutionary fervour on the part of Kathmandu's "Gen Z", motivated by anger over official corruption, unemployment, state efforts to censor social media, and more. However, there are unambiguous indications the insurrectionary disarray has long-been in the making, and assisted by spectral, foreign forces.

The "Gen Z" protests comprise a cluster of local youth activist groups, and are widely dubbed "leaderless", although Hami Nepal has clearly emerged at the movement's forefront. English language Nepali Times has reported the hitherto unknown NGO "played a central role in guiding the demonstrations, using its Instagram and Discord platforms to circulate protest information and share guidelines." The group was established to assist victims of earthquakes - a common occurrence in the country - and provide food, medical and other aid to disadvantaged Nepalese communities.

Subsequently, Hami Nepal oversaw the election of Kathmandu's interim premier Sushila Karki on September 12th, via the highly unorthodox, and completely unprecedented, expedient of an online vote via Discord. The NGO's chat group reportedly boasts 145,000 members, although it's unclear how many people ultimately voted for Karki. The Western media, and local journalist Prayana Rana, a fervent supporter of the unrest who considers the palace coup to be wholly legitimate and organic, has acknowledged choosing a leader in this manner to be deeply problematic:

"It is much more egalitarian than a physical forum that many might not have access to. Since it is virtual and anonymous, people can also say what they want to without fear of retaliation. But there are also challenges, in that anyone could easily manipulate users by infiltration, and using multiple accounts to sway opinions and votes."

Karki has firmly pledged to only serve six months in the post, until elections are held. She herself has an impressive revolutionary history, having participated in the 1990 People's Movement that successfully overthrew Nepal's absolute monarchy, for which she was jailed. In June 1973, her husband hijacked a plane, stealing vast sums of money to fund armed resistance against the country's brutal regency, which similarly landed him in prison. Karki's commitment to seriously tackling corruption as Nepal's Chief Justice led to her politically-motivated impeachment in June 2017, after just one year.

It is entirely uncertain who and/or what will replace Karki, and by which mechanism they will attain office. Nonetheless, that Hami Nepal, a previously obscure NGO with no history of political activism has played such an outsized role in ousting the government of a country of 30 million people and installing its new ruler within mere days, should give us pause. While the organisation's activities appear benevolent, its rollcall of "brands that support us" contains some entries that are puzzling, if not outright concerning.

Chrystia Freeland's grandfather edited a German-controlled newspaper during World War II, a fact she has attempted to dismiss as "KGB propaganda"

Chrystia Freeland has resigned as Canada's minister of transport to become her country's special representative for the reconstruction of Ukraine, according to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Freeland, the granddaughter of a Nazi collaborator who has denied awareness of his past, has long faced scrutiny over her denial of the facts of her family's legacy.

One of the most prominent figures in Canadian politics for over a decade, she has held ministerial positions in international trade, foreign affairs, and finance. In a statement on Tuesday, Carney said that Freeland, often seen as a potential political rival, will remain a member of parliament.