The Northern Corridor project promoted by Russia and China has reopened interest in the Arctic and the Poles, prompting the newly-elected US President Trump to take up the issue immediately.

During 2024, the race for northern routes intensified. The Northern Corridor project promoted by Russia and China has reopened interest in the Arctic and the Poles, prompting the newly-elected US President Trump to take up the issue immediately. Let us try to understand the reasons for a possible 'Arctic War'.

A look towards the North

The infamous North is always little thought of. At the North Pole is Father Christmas's village with his Elves producing presents for good children, but nothing more. We are used to looking at the world map from the side of the equator, but if we try to look 'from above', putting the Pole in the middle, the spatial view of the earth's geography allows us to make very different considerations.

The Arctic as a macro-region covers some 14 million square kilometres and hosts as yet uncalculated reserves of hydrocarbons, precious metals and rare earths. Competition between Arctic powers is exacerbated by overlapping territorial claims on the seabed. Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) allows states to extend their continental shelf, but claims often overlap, as in the case of the North Pole, claimed by Russia, Denmark and Canada.

With the ban on the flow of Russian gas to Europe through Ukrainian territory, little remains before the absolute economic and social collapse of the European continent.

Finally, energy cooperation between Russia and Europe is (almost) completely over. After nearly three years of sanctions and sabotage, the bilateral Moscow-EU energy partnership suffered its greatest historical blow. Kiev fulfilled its promise not to extend its contract with Gazprom, which was allowing the arrival of Russian gas to Europe, then creating an extremely uncomfortable energy insecurity situation for its own "partners" in the European Union.

On the morning of the first day of 2025, the Russian Federation stopped supplying gas to European buyers via Ukraine. Even amidst the conflict, the Russian Gazprom and Ukrainian Naftogaz had kept in operation an energy transit agreement signed in 2020, which expired on the last day of 2024. Previously, Kiev had already announced it was unwilling to renew the contract with Gazprom, although some European countries repeatedly asked Ukraine to do so.

The "quietly" supplied armaments have proven "instrumental" in the country's defense, according to the US secretary of state.

Washington supplied "a lot of weapons" to Ukraine in the months before the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev began in February 2022, outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has admitted.

The top diplomat made the remarks while speaking on the New York Times' 'The Interview' podcast, aired on Saturday. The US saw the conflict between Russia and Ukraine "coming" and wanted to get Kiev "prepared" for it, according to Blinken.

"Starting in September and then again in December, we quietly got a lot of weapons to Ukraine to make sure that they had in hand what they needed to defend themselves - things like Stingers, Javelins that they could use. They proved 'instrumental' in preventing Russia from taking Kiev, as well as rolling over the country, erasing it from the map."

The intentions ascribed to Moscow by the top US diplomat, however, sharply contrast with the goals of the military operation repeatedly articulated by Russia's leadership. The original aims included demilitarization and denazification of the country, as well as Kiev accepting a neutral status and abandoning its aspirations to join NATO.

The outgoing president has awarded the US top civilian honor to 19 prominent individuals.

US President Joe Biden has named 19 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's top civilian award, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and liberal billionaire financier George Soros.

The ceremony to present the awards was held at the White House on Saturday. This honor is given to individuals who have made "exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors," according to a statement from the White House.

Soros was recognized for his efforts to "strengthen democracy, human rights, education, and social justice" through his Open Society Foundations, as well as "partners and projects in more than 120 countries." The 94-year-old billionaire did not attend the ceremony, with his son Alex Soros, accepting the award on his behalf.

With just two weeks to go until Trump's inauguration, some analysts — even a few who are well known and respected — are talking up the possibility of an Israeli American strike on Iran to "cut off the head of the snake".

I'm not sure whether that's Iran's head - or Trump's.

The idea seems to be circulating in the British media - which is, of course, a snake pit.
British journalists hiss a lot. And slither.

Those who believe this nonsense rationalize that the Israelis have been bombing Syria's air defense systems so that they can launch a large fleet of aircraft towards Iran undetected, which shows how good educations are wasted on bad minds.

Why an attack now you ask?

Hiss and slither....

In January 17, the president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, will visit Moscow to sign a comprehensive mutual cooperation agreement, which of course includes security cooperation. Within a year, with even more Russian help, Iran will be in an even stronger position to defend itself. And Oreshnik has shown that you don't need nuclear weapons to do that.

Fortresses fell and fronts shifted in a transformative year in the conflict

As the third year of the Russia-Ukraine conflict draws to a close, the trajectory of the fighting has shifted decisively. At the start of 2024, Kiev and its Western sponsors aimed to stay on the defensive, hoping to exhaust Moscow's forces and create a stalemate. Ukraine's goal was to prove it could still mount resistance, while Russia focused on systematically degrading its opponent's military capabilities and infrastructure. The year as a whole, however, brought significant developments on the battlefield that highlight the changing dynamics of the conflict.

Here, we detail four key episodes from 2024 that shaped the war's course.

Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips' decision to block a public inquiry into the Oldham grooming gangs seems, from the outside, to be almost inexplicable. Children were raped and abused by gangs of men while the authorities failed to protect them.

A review of the abuse in Oldham was released in 2022, but its terms of reference only stretched from 2011-2014. Survivors from the town said that they wanted a government-led inquiry to cover a longer period, and catch what the previous review had missed. In Jess Phillips's letter to the council, revealed by GB News, she said she understood the strength of feeling in the town, but thought it best for another local review to take place.

This is a scandal that should be rooted out entirely, and investigated by the full might of the British state. Voices ranging from Elon Musk to Kemi Badenoch have joined the calls for an inquiry. Yet the Government seems curiously reluctant to dig into the failings of officials.

This reluctance is not new. Across the country, in towns and in cities, on our streets and in the state institutions designed to protect the most vulnerable members of our society, authorities deliberately turned a blind eye to horrific abuse of largely white children by gangs of men predominantly of Pakistani heritage.

I've heard this phrase, "Why should I worry? I have nothing to hide," more often than I am comfortable with. This is a clear declaration of innocence with an assumption that the only reason one would have to worry about any sort of repercussions is if they committed a crime.

But what constitutes a crime? And where is this strange misunderstanding that authority has never cared much about "laws" and other such nonsense, before moving in on someone?

Of course, the people who say they have "nothing to hide" do not believe for a second that authority would come after them illegally, on a whim, or for nefarious reasons. Anyone who thinks such things is a paranoid conspiracy theorist and is over-reacting. "You've seen too many spy movies," they might say — movies about East Germany or the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Only those oppressive sorts of governments would do such things, and here in the "free world," we are immune from such shenanigans. "We are past that kind of cloak-and-dagger crap," they might say.

In fact, I doubt if they believe this sort of thing happens anywhere in the world in the 21st Century (authority herding up people to persecute for no specific breach of any law). Maybe in North Korea or certain parts of the Middle East with terrorists and such, but nowhere in the civilized world. Talk about naive.

But isn't that the name of the game these days? Naïveté. Or denial. Or stupidity. Or lack of common sense.

For me, and I would venture to say for most of you reading this, it doesn't take much to see how stupid this line of thinking is — and how incomplete it is. You don't have to believe that every move you make is being scrutinized and puts you in harm's way to at least realize and understand the more accessible we are to scrutiny, the more likely something could go wrong, and we could get screwed. And we are approaching very quickly the time when every move we make WILL be scrutinized, evaluated, recorded, assessed, and used "against" us. Whether we have "anything to hide" or not.

I put "against" in quotes because gone are the days where we would need to have broken an obvious law or rule to have action taken. The "against" at this point can be quite a bit more subtle than being punished acutely, beaten by police thugs, or thrown in prison. "Against" can be simpler than those extreme acts, it can be being barred from social media or the internet altogether, it can be having your email no longer function, not being allowed to drive more than 10 miles from your home, not being "approved" for a loan, or not being allowed to shop in a grocery store.

On and on and on.

A new American president and a new Middle East configuration have brought Iran back into the crosshairs for regime change with an intoxicating vengeance. The signs are that Iran is going to face intensified hostility from the U.S. over the next year for regime change.

The sudden fall of Syria and the isolation of Hezbollah in Lebanon - Iran's regional allies - have made Tehran look vulnerable. Anti-Iran hawks in the U.S. are cock-a-hoop about the prospect of regime change in Tehran.

The recent death of Jimmy Carter at the age of 100 puts in perspective how great a prize the Islamic Republic represents for Washington's imperial desires. Carter was disparaged as the American president who lost Iran in 1979 as a crucial client state for U.S. power in the Middle East.

For over four decades, American imperialist power has sought to topple the Islamic Republic and return the Persian nation to the U.S. global fold. Though, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken lamented last month, American "regime change experiments" in Iran have been a failure.

Now, however, there is renewed enthusiasm in Washington for the Persian prize. The lust for regime change in Tehran has peaked with the dramatic fall of President al-Assad in Syria.

The US president-elect has been ordered to appear in court ten days before his inauguration.

The Manhattan judge who presided over former and future President Donald Trump's hush money trial has denied a motion to dismiss the case and set the sentencing date for January 10, just ten days before his inauguration for a second term.

Judge Juan Merchan stated in his ruling on Friday that Trump can appear in person or virtually for the sentencing and indicated that the president-elect will receive an unconditional discharge, avoiding jail time.

Merchan wrote:

"Finding no legal impediment to sentencing and recognizing that presidential immunity will likely attach once the defendant takes his Oath of Office, it is incumbent upon this Court to schedule the imposition of sentence prior to January 20, 2025. It is this Court's firm belief that only by bringing finality to this matter will all three interests be served."

Trump's legal team has criticized the judge's decision to proceed with sentencing, calling the case politically motivated. His spokesperson, Steven Cheung, said:

"Trump must be allowed to continue the presidential transition process and to execute the vital duties of the presidency, unobstructed by the remains of this or any remnants of the witch hunts. There should be no sentencing, and President Trump will continue fighting against these hoaxes until they are all dead."