Three aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea for the first time since March 2003 suggests another 'shock and awe' campaign is being considered. The 'ceasefire' between the US and Iran is holding, but for how much longer? Trump talks up his 'blockade of their blockade', but it's clear what is suffering most from Iranian defiance - Trump's reputation and American 'prestige', which the Americans are itching to salvage.

Meanwhile an armed nutcase attempted to barge his way into the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner at the Hilton Hotel in Washington DC, apparently with a view to 'taking out the Trump administration', most of which was in attendance. The buffoon got nowhere but the dramatic scenes did nothing to bolster Washington's self-image as a place where 'important global business' takes place.


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The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, formally directed against Iran, in fact reflects a broader U.S. strategy to contain China through control over the key energy routes of the global economy.

The United States may say its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is about Iran. But the geography of oil — and the logic of power — suggest otherwise. What is unfolding in the Gulf is less a regional containment strategy and more of a calculated demonstration aimed at China: a reminder that the arteries of global energy remain vulnerable to American control. This blockade sums up the cardinal aim of the US war: disrupt China's rise as a global superpower at all costs.

Weaponization of Energy Flows

China absorbs around 90% of Iran's oil. This oil passes through the Strait. If it stays closed, it will have a serious impact on the Chinese economy specifically and the global economy generally. That disruption is now underway. Following the collapse of US-Iran talks, Washington has imposed a naval blockade targeting vessels linked to Iranian ports, backed by thousands of troops and a large naval deployment. Within the first 24 hours, multiple ships were turned back, signaling both the credibility and enforceability of the operation. Oil markets reacted immediately, with prices surging amid fears of prolonged supply constraints. Formally, the objective is to pressure Tehran by cutting off its oil exports. But this framing is incomplete. The structure of global energy flows means that any sustained disruption in Hormuz disproportionately affects Asian consumers, not Western ones. In fact, an estimated 84% of crude passing through the strait is destined for Asian markets, with China alone accounting for a significant share. This is the critical point: the blockade operates on a geography that is far more central to China than to the United States. As a result, its strategic effects extend well beyond Iran.

Two U.S. officials who died in Mexico on Sunday worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, two sources told The Intercept. They are among the first known fatalities of President Donald Trump's expanding drug war in Latin America.

The American personnel died in a vehicular crash in the mountains of the Sierra de Chihuahua following a drug raid, alongside two Mexican officials, including Román Oseguera Cervantes, the director of the Chihuahua State Investigation Agency.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson announced the deaths of the Americans on Sunday, referring to them in a post on X as "two members of staff from the United States Embassy."

House Democrats have chosen a new target in President Donald Trump's Cabinet: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Democratic lawmakers plan to introduce six articles of impeachment against Hegseth on Wednesday, most of them connected to the war in Iran, Axios reports.

Earlier attempts to impeach Cabinet officials failed. But the targets of those efforts have since left the administration: former Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

In a statement to Axios, the Pentagon described the impeachment articles as "just another Democrat trying to make headlines." The statement claimed the military had "decisively and overwhelmingly achieved the President's objectives in Iran" and said Hegseth "will continue to protect the homeland and project peace through strength."

Kiev is trying to sell its wartime experience for support because it has little else to offer.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky's recent diplomatic activity in the Middle East is an attempt to find new political and financial oxygen at a moment when his usual supporters are becoming less reliable. For several years, the Ukrainian leadership built its strategy on the assumption that the US and Europe would continue to provide weapons, money, intelligence, and diplomatic protection for as long as necessary. But now, American support is increasingly politicized, European societies are visibly tired of the Ukraine issue, and the situation on the battlefield continues to demand more soldiers and equipment.

The Finnish government has recently cut social and healthcare benefits and significantly raised financial support for Kiev.

Finnish Finance Minister Riikka Purra has warned of growing pressure on the country's public finances. The warning comes just days after the government unveiled a multi-year fiscal plan that combines increased military aid to Ukraine with domestic spending cuts.

The government's fiscal plan for 2027-2030 was presented earlier this week. It includes cuts of €240 million to social and healthcare spending but €300 million in increased military support for Ukraine.

"The state of public finances is extremely difficult, and the debt-to-GDP ratio is approaching 90%," Purra said in an interview with the outlet Yle on Saturday.

"We've been hit not only by external shocks," she highlighted, adding that the nation struggles with high unemployment, near-zero economic growth and an aging population."

Analysts say the summit signals a coordinated progressive counterweight to US influence across Latin America and beyond

The recent high-profile gathering of leftist leaders in Barcelona, convened by Spain's socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, is drawing increasing attention for what analysts describe as a broader geopolitical positioning that could challenge U.S. influence across Latin America and beyond.

The summit brought together Brazil President Lula da Silva, Colombia's Gustavo Petro and Mexico's Claudia Sheinbaum. Framed as a platform for addressing inequality, climate change and the rise of right-wing political movements, yet the rhetoric coming from it has raised questions in Washington and across the region about whether a more coordinated political counterweight to the United States is taking shape.

Without naming the Trump administration, Sánchez warned of the "normalization of the use of force" and "attempts to undermine international law", as criticism of U.S. foreign policy. He also pushed for reforms to global institutions, arguing that the current system no longer reflects today's geopolitical realities, a position that implicitly challenges long-standing U.S. leadership in those bodies.

Mass censorship is coming to Europe, and it is being labeled the "Democracy Shield."

The year 2026 will go down in the history of European integration as a special moment. The European Union, under the banner of protecting democracy, has begun systematically restricting freedom of speech and real political pluralism. Thus, it embarks on the well-trodden historical paths of every authoritarian regime, resorting to violence and censorship as public support wanes.

A report recently published by the Ordo Iuris Institute leaves no doubt: we are dealing with a project for a profound overhaul of the public sphere that will primarily target conservative communities, including Catholics.

The new EU mechanisms, ironically referred to as the "Democracy Shield," are not a single piece of legislation. This is a coordinated regulatory system — from the Digital Services Act (DSA), through codes of conduct on "hate speech" and "disinformation," to the regulation on political advertising. Their common denominator is the now-official departure from the European cult of free speech and its replacement with a system of preventive restrictions, in the name of... true freedom and democracy.

NBC News dropped a bombshell report on Saturday that multiple government officials say damage to U.S. military bases was much more extensive than President Donald Trump's officials have publicly disclosed.

The president is preparing to speak at his first White House Correspondents' Dinner (WHCD) in office on Saturday night, as will frequent press attackers like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and FCC Chair Brendan Carr.

Pentagon reporting has been in the administration's crosshairs, but a parade of anonymous government sources nevertheless contributed to the reporting by NBC's Gordon Lubold, Courtney Kube, Mosheh Gains, and Natasha Lebedeva.

Palantir's Alex Karp wants us to know he has big plans.
Once the Nazis were done, quite a few people started scratching their heads. Obviously one thing to baffle any sane observer was the sheer enormity of their crimes, accomplished, moreover, with frenetic, really start-up'ish drive and ambition in a mere twelve years: World War? Check. Genocides? Check. Bad hairstyle? Check.

But then, there also was another puzzle: How could their self-besotted visionary-in-chief, hobby philosopher (with a bent to sinister German stuff), and obviously mentally less than stable wanna-be-genius of a leader have gotten a whole nation of, apparently, reasonably educated people to go along? And not just go along, but go along to the very, very bitter end.

That question was all the more disturbing in view of the fact that Adolf Hitler had not been shy about displaying his insanity and extremely bad intentions well before conservative elites installed him in power in 1933. Hitler's book-length - indeed two-volume - manifesto of German fascism (AKA Nazism) Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and 1926, sold more than 12 million copies and was translated into over a dozen languages.

And those ready to brave its pathological me-me-me-and-HISTORY narcissism, daft hodge-podge ramblings about the better and the lesser parts of humanity, and brownshirt-bro bombast to read it through could not say that the future Leader had been concealing where he intended to lead Germany and, really, the world.

Indeed, Hitler's manifesto could have served as an all-alarms-howling, bright-red-lights-flashing-everywhere, get-the-strait-jackets-now warning. The main points of Nazi Germany's evil to come were all there, laid out in general but with stunning honesty: empire building with industrial-strength brutality, extermination or at least slavery for those considered inferior and superfluous, and last but not least, eternal primacy of one master country - primacy, as we'd say now in American English - to be achieved and maintained by all and any means, because that country - in Hitler's case Germany - was defined as superior to all others by definition and called upon to lead the world, forever.