Most informed people are pretty tired of the nonsensical mudslinging Western mainstream media (tabloid media) engages in. And where Russia or her President Vladimir Putin are concerned, all information networks are like those Looney Tunes episodes we all watched as kids. I expect Porky Pig to pop out of my smartphone screen at any moment. It would all be hilarious if the disparaging lying were not so deadly serious.

Please allow me to present a few cartoonish stories so that we are all dying laughing while digging our atomic bomb shelters.

Politico. EU tops the list on Google News for the search "Putin," with "Putin could attack NATO in '5 to 8 years,' German defense minister warns." The subheading reads, "Europe sounds the alarm amid growing concern that the Russian president's veiled threats against the military alliance could turn real." Nicolas Camut, Politico Europe's breaking news reporter, says Mr. Putin is growing increasingly belligerent (no small wonder), and this has Germany's Defense Minister Boris Pistorius peeing his pants.

It's fantastic that so-called "top officials" of NATO are fearful of Russian actions of any kind. This is true given the fact NATO took almost a decade to build a sort of Maginot Line (WW2 defense fortifications) to put missiles and troops right in Russia's face. The good German general skips to the point in a Der Tagesspiegel interview, saying, "But we also have to learn to live with danger again and prepare ourselves — militarily, socially and in terms of civil defense." General Dynamics stocks went up $2, and some change per share, on the news.

Bloomberg has far more convincing proof (hardy, har, har) that Vladimir Putin is conducting a world conquest exercise. "Putin Orders Hunt for Property of Russian Empire, Soviet Union" is clickbait to get idiots who believe Bloomberg anymore to read all about it. The financial paper tries to misrepresent a recent order by Mr. Putin for officials to hunt for Russian assets abroad. The fact is, the president's office "allocated funding for a state unit to conduct searches for property abroad and ensure Russia's ownership rights are registered." (Yahoo! News) As we have been taught to expect, there is no proof whatsoever of assets of the Soviet Union or the Russian Empire being looked after. Bloomberg's editors just figured this would sound good, and that a billion of sanctions and illegal seizures of Russian assets by the elite order have nothing to do with Putin's move.

Genocide is not question but punishment for it.

ICJ finding debated

The ICJ decision on Israel's genocide is now hotly debated from different sides.

Eric Zuesse, for example, thinks that the ICJ is a crock....

...the Court itself, from the top on down, simply cannot rationally be trusted. Its problems are deep and severe. The genocide case against Israel will drag on for years and yet even at its outset, South Africa had presented a more trustworthy verdict (its case) regarding Israel than the ICJ ever will be able to, unless the entire institution becomes radically changed so as to become decent.

B. at Moon of Alabama has a different and more positive opinion.

The court clearly orders Israel to take all(!) measure to prevent the killing or wounding of Palestinians.

In short: The court orders Israel to cease fire.

All of it. Now.

But what was the ICJ's actual decision ?

Outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte denies that his Ministry interfered at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to hide or change unwelcome information about Israel. "That simply did not happen," the outgoing government leader said in a letter to parliament on Thursday. On Friday, the International Court of Justice in The Hague will make an interim ruling on the genocide case South Africa filed against Israel over its incessant bombings of the Gaza Strip in the war against Hamas.

Last week, NRC reported that Rutte's Ministry of General Affairs asked the Legal Affairs Directorate at Foreign Affairs: "What can we say so that it appears as if Israel is not committing war crimes." According to Rutte, there is a lot of discussion between Ministries about advice on how to weigh in. "That is normal."

Should Beijing successfully wean the world off the U.S. dollar, it would reshape the global economy and geopolitical landscape.

Ganzhou, a landlocked city that once served as a revolutionary base for the Communist Party of China, is not a typical tourist stop for visitors to southeastern China. Spread across an expanse larger than Maryland, however, the city boasts a population that rivals New York City and an economy similar in size to Alaska.

Known as the "Rare Earth Kingdom" and the "Tungsten Capital of the World," Ganzhou today serves an important role in the Chinese government's overall effort to use mineral exchanges as a way to increase the use of its currency, the renminbi, and improve its pricing power in global commodities markets.

Home to the headquarters of the China Rare Earth Group — a state-owned behemoth born from the 2021 merger of three of China's largest state-owned rare earth enterprises — Ganzhou now produces nearly 70% of the country's rare earth mineral products, with China fulfilling roughly 90% of global demand.

Ganzhou also hosts the Ganzhou Rare Metal Exchange, where China's renminbi currency is used to quote prices for spot trading of tungsten, rare earth products and critical minerals like cobalt that are essential to the clean energy transition.

The metal exchange, established in 2019 with the approval of the State Council, now operates as a subsidiary of China Rare Earth Group. It is China's second mineral exchange, which was established to use the renminbi to price and trade minerals and rare earth products.

The war-torn nation has announced a clean-out of its weapons procurement process amid ongoing corruption.

Ukraine's National Police and Security Service on Ukraine (SBU), alongside the country's Ministry of Defense, announced on Saturday they have uncovered an insider network that has been charged with embezzling almost $40 million in funds marked for weapons purchases.

Five individuals who formed a suspected criminal organization have been served "notices of suspicion" — the first stage in Ukrainian legal proceedings — for "appropriation, embezzlement of property, or possession of it by abuse of official position," the SBU said.

Four of the suspects are current or former employees of the Ministry of Defense, including the head of the Department of Military and Technical Policy, Development of Weapons and Military Equipment of the Ministry of Defense, and the head and commercial director of the Lviv Arsenal company.

The White House has reportedly shifted its focus to defensive tactics and will no longer help Kiev recapture lost territory

The US is working on a new strategy for Ukraine that would mark a departure from the failed forward push of 2023 and instead focus on frontline defense, the Washington Post has reported. The supposed adjustments come in response to Kiev's failed counteroffensive last year, the newspaper added.

In an article on Friday, the newspaper quoted a senior White House official explaining that "it will be difficult for [Ukrainian forces] to try to mount the same kind of major push on all fronts that they tried to do last year." In light of this, the hope is now much less ambitious - to ensure that Kiev does not lose any more ground to Moscow, the unnamed staffer told reporters.

Tapping Russian assets frozen in the EU will bring harm to the single currency, the head of the Bank of Italy has warned

Using the euro as a tool in sanctions wars and political disputes would harm the currency's image and standing, Bank of Italy Governor Fabio Panetta warned on Friday. He was commenting on discussions in Brussels regarding frozen Russian assets.

The EU, US, Japan and Canada froze some $300 billion of Russian central bank assets in 2022 as part of Ukraine-related sanctions against Moscow. Some $200 billion of that is held in the EU, largely in the Belgian clearing house Euroclear.

Brussels is currently working on plans to apply a windfall tax to the profits Euroclear is making on the frozen funds, while opting not to seize the immobilized money outright. However, Italy is one of several EU member states, including Germany and France, that have been skeptical of moves involving the assets, arguing that using them could prompt investors from other countries to doubt the safety of their own holdings in the EU and quit the bloc's market, ultimately weakening the euro.

On Wednesday the US Navy attempted to escort two US owned and flagged container carriers through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait into the Red Sea, but they turned around after coming under Houthi ballistic missile fire.

A we detailed earlier, two contradictory narratives soon emerged: namely the Houthis said they scored a direct hit on one of the US ships, while the Pentagon flatly rejected the claim as nonsense. US CENTCOM said the missiles were intercepted, with one falling into the sea. But this has given rise to many more questions than answers, and some analysts are calling the hostile encounter a clear "loss" for the US Navy and the no less than three well-armed warships attempting to keep the commercial vessels safe.

It is now abundantly clear that Russia has defeated the Western sanctions regime that was intended to cripple its economy and force its withdrawal from Ukraine. Instead of collapsing, the Russian economy is growing rapidly. Russia's GDP grew by an impressive 5.5 percent in the third quarter of 2023. Final figures for the year are not yet in, but Russian GDP growth for all of 2023 should exceed 3 percent. Ironically, the Russians are doing rather better than those who imposed sanctions on them. In 2023, the U.S. economy grew by 2.4 percent while the German economy shrank, and the EU as a whole grew by less than 1 percent. Instead of withdrawing from Ukraine, Russia has increased the size of its invasion force from 190,000 troops in February 2022 to more than 600,000 today.

Between February 2022 and February 2023, Western countries imposed on Russia the most extensive sanctions regime seen since World War II. In all, several thousand sanctions on Russian individuals, businesses, and government institutions caused only a mild recession in 2022 which the Russians quickly turned around. How did they do it? Very simply. The Russians have a lot of gold, grain, oil, and friends, all of which they used effectively to defeat the sanctions. Any realistic war game could have easily predicted all of this.

The strange decree on "historically" Ukrainian territories may be a hint at a planned insurgency once the war is lost...

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has caused a stir. But this time not by haranguing the West on how much it owes his country (in short: everything and then some). Or because prominent Ukrainians (former presidential adviser Aleksey Arestovich, for instance) are plausibly accusing Zelensky of missing a real and favorable opportunity for peace with Russia almost two years ago.

Rumors of intrigues surrounding the military leadership of General Valery Zaluzhny or accusations of authoritarianism leveled by, for example, the mayor of Kiev, Vitaly Klitschko, are not the reason either. By now, that sort of thing is just Kiev background noise.

Instead, this time Zelensky has managed to get attention by issuing a decree 'On Territories of the Russian Federation Historically Inhabited by Ukrainians'. Much of this fairly short document, which officially came into force on Ukraine's Unity Day (January 22) is unsurprising. First, there is a rehash of weaponized/nationalized 'history' narratives that would make any serious historian blush, painting Russia (including during the Soviet period) as an evil empire that has 'systematically' sought to 'destroy' Ukrainian national identity for centuries. In Zelensky's own words, the decree is meant to "restore the truth about the historical past for the sake of the Ukrainian future."