'...not just the Oscars, but if like me you can no longer bear to watch the pantomime because you see the strings and the shadows in the background....you're not alone...'

Exploitation of other nations by the so-called "golden billion" is coming to an end, the Russian president has stated.

The era of Western elites being able to exploit other nations and other peoples across the world is coming to an end, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an exclusive interview published by Rossiya 1 and RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

The president stated that over the past few centuries, the so-called "golden billion" has grown accustomed to being able to "fill their bellies with human flesh and their pockets with money" as they have been "parasitizing" other peoples in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

"But they must understand that the vampire ball is ending," Putin said.

He added that the citizens of the aforementioned regions, which have been continuously exploited by the West over the past 500 years, have started to associate Russia's struggle for sovereignty with "their own aspirations for sovereignty and independent development."

The West has set itself on a path of collective suicide — both moral and economic.

Western leaders are experiencing two stunning events: defeat in Ukraine, genocide in Palestine. The first is humiliating, the other shameful. Yet, they feel no humiliation or shame. Their actions show vividly that those sentiments are alien to them - unable to penetrate the entrenched barriers of dogma, arrogance and deep-seated insecurities. The last are personal as well as political. Therein lies a puzzle. For, as a consequence, the West has set itself on a path of collective suicide. Moral suicide in Gaza; diplomatic suicide - the foundations laid in Europe, the Middle East and across Eurasia; economic suicide - the dollar-based global financial system jeopardized, Europe deindustrializing. It is not a pretty picture. Astoundingly, this self-destruction is occurring in the absence of any major trauma - external or internal. Therein lies another, related puzzle.

Some clues for these abnormalities are provided by their most recent responses as deteriorating conditions tighten the vise - on emotions, on prevailing policies, on domestic political worries, on ginger egos. Those responses fall under the category of panic behavior. Deep down, they are scared, fearful and agitated. Biden et al in Washington, Macron, Schulz, Sunak, Stoltenberg, von der Leyen. They lack the courage of their stated convictions or the courage to face reality squarely. The blunt truth is that they have contrived to get themselves, and their countries, in a quandary from which there is no escape conforming to their current self-defined interests and emotional engagement. Hence, we observe an array of reactions that are feckless, grotesque and dangerous.

HG Wells concocted a marvelous trick ending to his classic tale The War of the Worlds (1897). Remember: the colossal Martian tripod "fighting machines" swarm all over the planet zapping cities with "heat rays". . . it looks like all-is-lost . . . but finally the darn things just quit marching, stop zapping, and stand down . . . the alien protoplasms at the controls (surprise ending) turn up dead and rotting inside from the action of our tiny invisible allies: the earth's one-celled, disease-causing bacteria, to which the Martian blob creatures have no immunity!

The Gaian overtones in that story resound today as we Earthlings devise ingenious new methods to wreck terrestrial life, including ourselves. The planet seems to have some teleological drive to save itself, a kind of immune system. Notice: in all the ongoing debates about the wonders and dangers of A-I, and Bitcoin, and suffocating surveillance, nobody ever talks about the sketchy condition of the electric grid that all these worrisome phenomena utterly rely on. In our chatter over Peak Oil, there's little awareness of oil production's utter dependence on steady capital flows. In all the guff about centralized control emitted by Klaus Schwab and his World Economic Forum, there's no mention of the centrifugal forces driving human affairs to re-localization, dis-aggregation of large states, and down-scaling of many activities. In our zeal to become Gods, we miss a lot.

Macron's statements show that rationality and strategy are not relevant in Western foreign policy.

Apparently, Europe will continue to engage in its anti-Russian crusade, even knowing that the consequences of such irresponsibility could be catastrophic. In a recent statement, French President Emmanuel Macron warned Europeans not to be "cowards" in the face of the supposed "Russian threat". According to him, if Europe remains inert, Russia will become "unstoppable", which is why measures should be taken to dissuade Moscow.

Macron's words were delivered during a visit to the Czech Republic, where the French leader met with local officials to discuss an action plan to increase military support for Ukraine. The Czechs propose a project for the simultaneous purchase of military material in several countries around the world to overcome European difficulties in producing weapons. Thus, it is expected to reach a satisfactory number of equipment to enable Kiev to continue facing the Russians, while the European defense industry recovers from two years of systematic weapons production.

Macron absolutely endorses the Czech project and is willing to take tough measures to pressure Russia militarily. According to him, there is now a war on European soil that could reach the EU countries at any moment, which is why the bloc should come together in a common plan to "stop" Russia. The narrative endorses the myth of the "Russian plan to invade Europe" and legitimizes the upsurge of European military actions - not only to support Ukraine, but to act directly against the Russian Federation, if "necessary".

The country will reportedly be unable to reach NATO's military spending target next year...

Germany's current military budget for 2025 is below NATO's defense spending targets, the news outlet Bild reported on Saturday, citing sources within the Defense Ministry. The bloc's members are committed to spending 2% of GDP on defense annually.

Berlin fell short of the defense spending goal in 2022 and 2023 but reportedly plans to hit the target at some point this year. Nevertheless, according to Bild, it appears set to miss again next year. The current defense budget for 2025 stands at €52 billion ($56.9 billion), but these funds will be almost completely eaten up by operating costs such as soldiers' wages, heating barracks, repairing existing weapons, etc., the report notes.

Thus, with only €500 million remaining for investment in new weapons, the Bundeswehr's list of planned projects will be short of funding. Such projects include the stationing of a Bundeswehr brigade in Lithuania and the acquisition of new Tranche 5 Eurofighter combat aircraft, the report notes. According to calculations seen by Bild, the defense budget would need to be hiked by as much as €6 billion for Germany to fund these and other projects and also to reach the NATO spending goal next year.

Pope Francis asserted in a soon-to-be-released interview that Ukraine should have the "courage" to enter into negotiations with Russia to end the war between the two countries before "things get worse."

Ukraine entered its third year of war with Russia on Feb. 24 after mounting a failed counteroffensive and facing the prospect of delayed and diminished Western support. Francis said Ukraine should negotiate as its prospects of winning the war continue to slip away, according to an interview transcript and clip shared with Reuters on Saturday.

Following the February 29 Israeli slaughter of at least 115 starving Palestinians lined up for food aid, there was little or no outrage by the same Western media which would have howled if the perpetrator were Russia or Syria.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, early morning on Thursday, February 29, Israeli forces opened fire on unarmed Palestinians waiting just southwest of Gaza City for desperately needed food aid. As a result, 115 civilians were killed and over 750 wounded.

Popular US commenter Judge Andrew Napolitano said in a recent interview with award-winning analyst Professor Jeffery Sachs, "Innocent Gaza civilians were lined up to receive flour and water from an aid truck, and more than 100 were slaughtered, mowed down, by Israeli troops. This has got to be one of the most reprehensible and public slaughterings that they've engaged in."

The official Israeli version of events, unsurprisingly, puts the blame on the Palestinians themselves. The deaths and injuries were supposedly caused by a stampede, and the Israeli soldiers only fired when they felt they were endangered by the crowd. The BBC even cited one army lieutenant as saying that troops had "cautiously [tried] to disperse the mob with a few warning shots." Mark Regev, a special adviser to the Israeli prime minister, went as far as to tell CNN that Israeli troops had not been involved directly in any way and that the gunfire had come from "Palestinian armed groups."

Testimonies from survivors and doctors tell a different story, though, saying the majority of those treated after the incident had been shot by Israeli forces. Legacy media reports, however, use characteristically neutral wording when evidence starts to stack up against Israel. "112 dead in chaotic scenes as Israeli troops open fire near aid trucks, say Gaza officials," a Guardian headline reads. Palestinians always seem to just "die," not get killed, and Israeli troops seem to have just "opened fire" nearby. The skewed wording conventions persist even despite the attribution to Palestinian officials present in that same headline - officials like the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, which was quite clear in accusing Israel of perpetrating a "massacre" as part of a "genocidal war."

Dries Van Langenhove, the founder of the far-right movement Schild & Vrienden, has been sentenced to a one-year effective prison term for violations of the racism and negationism law.

The Ghent correctional court announced its sentence for Van Langenhove, a former MP for the Flemish far-right party Vlaams Belang, on Tuesday.


He has been given up to one year of effective imprisonment for violations of the racism and negationism law, including denying the Holocaust.

He also has to pay a €16,000 fine and loses ten years of his civil rights, taking away his right to vote, but also the right to be elected or hold public office. He was also handed down ten months of suspended imprisonment for violations of the weapons law. Van Langenhove was again not present at the hearing.

The final sentence is more lenient than what was initially requested by the prosecution (a two-year prison sentence and a fine of €24,000). However, the Ghent court judge used strong language in the sentencing, stating that the accused was "an instigator of racism and negationism."

The latest cyberattack to hit France follows a warning from Attal's defence adviser just last week that the Olympics games in July and European Parliament elections in June could be "significant targets".


Prime Minister Gabriel Attal's office said several state bodies were targeted but did not provide details.

"Many ministerial services were targeted" from Sunday "using familiar technical means but of unprecedented intensity," Attal's office said.

A security source told AFP that the attacks "are not currently attributable to Russia," an obvious suspect for many given Paris' support for Kyiv since the invasion of Ukraine.