On 14 April 2026, Giorgia Meloni delivered a decision that instantly disrupted the post-Cold War assumption of automatic alignment within the Western security architecture.

A Sovereign Break in the Western Security Chain

The Italian prime minister announced the suspension of the automatic renewal mechanism of the Italy-Israel defense memorandum — signed in 2003 and ratified by Israel in 2005-2006 — a framework covering military technology exchange, equipment cooperation, and defense industry procurement.

The move was not symbolic. It was structural.

It halted a system that had renewed itself every five years without friction for over two decades — a mechanism that embodied the very logic of unquestioned alignment. In Rome, the decision was framed as a matter of national interest and strategic reassessment. In Tel Aviv and Washington, it was read for what it was: a rupture in the chain of automatic Western cohesion.

This was not a policy adjustment. It was an assertion of sovereignty against external strategic pressure.

The operation marked the first time a Hezbollah fiber-optic FPV drone has reached the western Galilee

Hezbollah attacked the Israeli army with a fiber-optic drone in the Galilee on 30 April, injuring at least a dozen soldiers and destroying a military vehicle.

Israeli Army Radio reported that 12 soldiers were injured when the drone struck a military position in the Shomera settlement.

Two soldiers were "moderately" injured while 10 sustained minor wounds, Army Radio added, also revealing that other soldiers may be transferred to the hospital later for anxiety and ringing in the ears.

The drone directly struck an Israeli army vehicle in Shomera. Israel's Channel 15 reported that it was likely a fiber-optic guided FPV drone.

So MbZ - the sole owner of the UAE - decided to quit OPEC and OPEC+.

Epstein Syndicate minions are billing it as a sophisticated New Energy Order play.

Not really.

At face value, the move is sound. The UAE spent a fortune boosting its production capacity to 5 million barrels of oil a day.

Yet under OPEC+ rules, their quota was much lower, hovering around 3.4 million barrels a day.

So they went all out for monetization. Now, in theory, they can sell as much as they want, and as much as demand from Asian customers such as China, Japan and India remains high.

Saudi Arabia, on the other hand - the big OPEC power and one of the top two on OPEC+ alongside Russia - will be forced to keep its production low, so prices won't collapse.

The Abu Dhabi-Riyadh relationship has become uncontrollably incandescent. After all they both compete for the same sources of foreign investment.

Abu Dhabi calculated that the Iranian energy industry is in dire straits (it isn't: Tehran has a PhD on Resistance under Pressure and always finds alternative ways). So for MbZ, Iran is finished as a top market competitor - for a long time. Enter the UAE as a stable, high capacity provider.

Finally, enter the Empire of Piracy. Trump is obsessed with increased supply leading to lower oil prices. So here we have MbZ directly aligned with Trump. Already was since the Abraham Accords; the $1.4 trillion pledge to invest in the U.S. economy and in data centers in the Gulf; and as a partner of IMEC: the misnomed India-Middle East Corridor, which is in fact the Israel (centered on Haifa)-Saudi-UAE-Europe-India Corridor.

The reward for the UAE for the extra alignment with the Empire of Piracy - after all these are two mafia engines - is increased "U.S. security guarantees".

The problem is the Empire of Piracy cannot provide it anymore, as the war on Iran has shown. And frankly, Trump simply doesn't give a damn.

West Jerusalem must be prepared to resume attacks on Iran if necessary, Defense Minister Israel Katz has warned.

The US has delivered 6,500 tons of munitions and equipment to Israel within 24 hours, West Jerusalem has said.

The announcement coincided with media reports claiming that the head of US Central Command, Brad Cooper, has briefed US President Donald Trump on a plan for the potential renewal of military action against Iran in a bid to pressure it to consent to a more favorable peace deal.

According to Fox News, what Cooper described as the "final blow" against Tehran could include a "short and powerful wave of strikes" targeting Iran's "remaining military assets, leadership and infrastructure."

The ceasefire in the US-Israeli war against Iran was announced on April 8 after more than a month of fighting, but attempts by Washington and Tehran to reach a diplomatic settlement to the crisis have so far been in vain. The control of the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranian nuclear program reportedly remain the main stumbling blocks between the sides.

The British monarch's trip showcases an alliance held together by shared complicity and decline.
King Charles III has gone to Washington, ostensibly to help the transatlantic cousins celebrate getting rid of his predecessor George III 250 years ago. But being a royally gracious loser is, of course, only a pretext.

In reality, as The Economist, the premier British mouthpiece of transatlantic orthodoxy, has deplored, Charles's mission is to salvage what's left to be salvaged from the sinking "special relationship" between Washington and London.

That the relationship is in very bad shape is obvious from the compulsive manner in which Britain's leader Keir Starmer keeps insisting that it still exists, while also emphasizing that he "will remain laser-focused on what is in the British national interest."

Indeed, the abysmally unpopular Starmer has been subjected to so much typical Trump hazing that, as The Guardian notes, he may be enjoying "a vanishingly rare moment of public approval for his relatively robust response."

Historically, the "special relationship" has certainly seen better days. It goes back a long way, even if the term itself was coined as late as 1946, when Winston Churchill needed a polite way of suggesting a political friendship with benefits: The British Empire was bankrupt and shrinking, and London was ready to submit to its former colonists in America in return for a new place as their permanent privileged sidekick in the beginning Cold War crusade against the Soviet Union.

Historically, the moderately sized island realm off Europe's shores had laid the foundations for the continental behemoth across the Atlantic, even if - to be fair to the British - not deliberately but by strategic blunder. The bloody divorce between the rebellious colonists and the obstinate mother country - in many respects really a war between competing oligarchies, including plenty of slave holders and traders - has been imaginatively baked into the bedrock of US self-glorification as a war of independence and revolution.

It is true that, at first, the British were very cross indeed and returned in 1812 to burn the White House. When the Americans went to war with each other in the 1860s, Britain's upper classes mostly rooted for the South, that is, for the break-up of the US. But even then, London was already cautious enough to maintain official neutrality.

Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has since the war's start and prior assassinations of top leaders including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei become the most visible figurehead representing the Islamic Republic to the world, has continued trolling the United States even as President Trump is renewing fresh military strikes amid an uneasy extended ceasefire and ongoing US naval blockade of Iranian ports.

He stated Wednesday that the United States' naval blockade of the country has a goal to create division and "make us collapse from within." His message was delivered through state TV and he is warning citizens about "maintaining unity" in the face of this unprecedented economic and military pressure.

Ghalibaf went on to explain that Trump falsely "divides the country into two groups: hardliners and moderates, and then immediately talks about a naval blockade to force Iran into submission through economic pressure and internal discord," according to more from state media sources.

Former FBI Director James Comey issued a defiant statement in response to his federal indictment Tuesday for allegedly threatening to kill President Trump.

In a video statement published on his Substack, Comey said after an earlier indictment had been thrown out on procedural grounds that Trump's Department of Justice was "back: This time about a picture of seashells on a North Carolina beach a year ago."

"And this won't be the end of it. But nothing has changed with me. I'm still innocent. I'm still not afraid. And I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let's go," he added.

The Secret Service is kept vulnerable to allow for assassination attempts against American leaders, a Russian special forces veteran has suggested

The latest assassination attempt on US President Donald Trump was not only a complete security failure but a product of systemic weakness that may even be deliberate, a special forces veteran of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has told RT.

Cole Tomas Allen, a 31‑year‑old teacher from California, has been charged with trying to assassinate the US president during a dinner event at the Washington Hilton on Saturday. Allen had reportedly checked into the hotel the day before. On the day of the attack, he used an internal stairwell to get to the hotel's terrace level where the event was held. Armed with a pump-action shotgun, a semi-automatic handgun, and three knives, Allen rushed through the metal detector frame and engaged in a gunfight with Secret Service agents. He was apprehended just a few meters from the ballroom.

On Monday, 27 April, Britain's king Charles III came to Washington for a four-day state visit to the United States hosted by President Donald Trump. His "majsesty," is also known to his fans as late Jimmy Saville's BFF and the brother of Jeffrey Epstein's BFF Andrew, formerly known as prince. Yesterday, Charles graced the joint session of U.S. Congress with an inspiring speech during which he found it appropriate to call on his American audience to get on with the business of World War III already. Thus spoke his majesty:

"In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 when NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time, and the United Nations Security Council was united in the face of terror, we answered the call together as our people have done so for more than a century, shoulder to shoulder through two world wars, the Cold War, Afghanistan, and moments that have defined our shared security. Today, Mr. Speaker, that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defence of Ukraine and her most courageous people."

Glorifying wars of the past, particularly Afghanistan, and invoking NATO Article 5 which was "needed for the defence of Ukraine and her most courageous people," was a naked call for the United States to commit to war against Russia: another great war on the European continent.

Given that the last two World Wars resulted in some 70 million casualties, one would think that the king's warmongering would prompt U.S. elected representatives to tar and feather the British royal and run him out of town on a rail, but of course, one would be wrong. King's call for World War III elicited an enthusiastic standing ovation from the politicians, otherwise passionately supportive of the 'no kings' protests in their country.

Former Israeli prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid unveiled Monday that they are merging their parties into a joint ticket dubbed "Together - Led by Bennett" - as a major challenge to current leader Benjamin Netanyahu in the upcoming elections.

During a press conference Bennett said the alliance with Lapid is the "most Zionist and patriotic act we have ever done, for the sake of our country" - adding that the "era of division is over." Netanyahu out soon?

Bennett will lead the ticket as its prime ministerial candidate, and has invited Gadi Eisenkot, chairman of the Yashar party and a former army chief of staff, to join, saying that "our door is open for you too."

Bennett describes himself as a "right-wing, liberal Zionist" and has emphasized he will only rely on "Zionist parties" - and so no Arab representative support will be involved in his coalition. "We're not in the left bloc or the right bloc, we're in the bloc of the entire Israeli nation," he proclaimed.