The 'total victory' the PM has set as his goal is impossible, with or without American support.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has trapped himself in a predicament that requires him to either bow out of power or drag his whole state down with him. In over 18 months, Israel has failed to defeat any of its enemies and escalation in Gaza could be the most dangerous decision he has taken yet.

While the Israeli prime minister insists on continuing the war on Gaza, holding to his pledge to "crush and destroy" Hamas, he has failed to do so and according to his own nation's intelligence estimates, the victory he speaks of is nowhere in sight. Now, Netanyahu has declared a new military operation in the Gaza Strip, labelling it "Gideon's Chariots," allegedly seeking the re-occupation of the entirety of the besieged coastal territory.

Alfredo Jalife, one of the greatest geopoliticians of our time, asserts in La Jornada that President Donald Trump has just shaken up politics and the balance of power in the Middle East. While decoupling the United States from Israel, he declared that the Middle East now constitutes the "center of the world." According to him, Trump is ensuring the economic survival of the United States by allying the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) with US transnational corporations. Washington will now deploy its forces around these oil monarchies, and no longer around the Jewish state.

The oilman Trump of Arabia [1], who claims to emulate Lawrence of Arabia [2], offered two transcendental cosmogonic* presentations, overflowing with chiaroscuro*, which merit meta-analysis. At the Riyadh Investment Forum (capital of Saudi Arabia [3]) and before the six Arab petro monarchies of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) [4], he attacked Iran's allies in Gaza and Lebanon, and spoke out against Iran's nuclear bomb development, while promoting Israel's controversial "Abraham Accords"[5] with four countries: Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan (the remnants of its remote-controlled civil war).

Among the thousands of phrases Trump has uttered, I was struck by the fact that, in the face of the six Arab oil monarchies of the GCC, he published one of great marketing prowess, which even the sublime Arab historian Ibn Khaldun (IK) — whom Bertrand Russell defined as the father of modern sociology — author of the marvelous Prolegomena, would not have dared to utter.

A new round of talks between Moscow and Kiev will take place, but the Vatican is not "a very realistic" venue, the Russian Foreign Minister has said.

Moscow is at an "advanced stage" in preparing a memorandum that outlines steps toward a potential peace agreement with Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

Addressing a conference in Moscow, Lavrov reiterated Moscow's readiness to continue dialogue with Kiev, following the resumption of talks in Istanbul earlier this month after a three-year pause.

"Yes, we support the idea of talks. There will be a second round of negotiations. They [the Ukrainian side] have confirmed this. This is already a positive development."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that he had agreed with US President Donald Trump that the next move toward resolving the Ukraine conflict should be a memorandum outlining the principles and timeline for a peace settlement.

The daily images of the humanitarian catastrophe that Benjamin Netanyahu's government is causing in Gaza with its military offensive and the blockade of international aid are shaking even the European countries most aligned with Israel.

The increasingly critical tone from several EU capitals in the face of a situation almost unanimously described as "unacceptable" culminated on Tuesday in Brussels with a shift that, until just weeks ago, would have been unthinkable in Europe — traditionally very reluctant to take retaliatory action against Israel.

At the request of an "overwhelming majority" of member states — 17 out of 27 — the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, has decided to review the EU-Israel Association Agreement, the main instrument of political and trade relations between the two since it came into force in 2000.

"Pressure is necessary to change the situation," explained Kallas after a meeting of foreign ministers in which the dire situation of the population in Gaza — militarily besieged and with barely any access to humanitarian aid blocked by Israel for more than two months — was a central focus of discussion, along with Ukraine.

The tragedy in the Palestinian enclave has also led the United Kingdom to take decisive action: the Labour government of Keir Starmer has decided to suspend ongoing negotiations on a future trade agreement with Israel. Starmer himself has said he is "horrified" by the military escalation in the Gaza Strip. Downing Street has also summoned the Israeli ambassador in London to express its protest over the "intolerable" offensive in Gaza, according to Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

There is no question that it is more difficult to search the Internet today than was the case 15 or 20 years ago. Especially on the English-language Internet, information control is much more apparent and effective, and censorship is now fully in the open with little or no pretense or disguise. Many web pages or documents which would always appear on the first page of a search in the past, cannot now be accessed by normal means and, increasingly, a great many important sources have been deleted. ^[1]

This is so true, and the deleted contents follow such a distinct pattern that it is reasonable to assume there are armies of people engaged in sanitizing the Internet, effectively burning the books. The topics all relate to buried history, unspeakable crimes long forgotten, almost anything related to the Jews or to Israel, including Jewish crimes like the opium travesty in China, among many others. It seems that anything which might be embarrassing or inconvenient is targeted for removal.There is no substantive difference between physically burning books and deleting Internet documents. The result is the same.

Some links to historical documents that I saved 15 or 20 years ago, are still active, and the documents can still be accessed, but they will no longer appear on a search with any terms. It is now often true that even if you know the complete title of a document, the search engines - especially Google - will refuse to produce it. This is so true that Google (particularly) no longer functions as a useful search engine; it is instead a "gate-keeper" with two main functions. One is to feed you information it wants you to have (or things it wants you to think), and the second is to ensure you never find information it doesn't want you to have(or things it doesn't want you to think). You may not want to hear this, but ChatGPT is not better in any respect. It receives its marching orders from the same place as Google and the New York Times.

The point of the above is that those "army members" are following an ideological agenda, and are actively scrubbing the Internet of important historical and other documents and sources of information that are uncomfortable primarily to the Jews. This was brought home to me a while back, and it had to happen twice before I learned my lesson.

As Russia and Ukraine resume direct talks in Istanbul and Europe's ultimatums fade, the spotlight turns to a Putin-Trump phone call.

In recent weeks, the focus of the Russia-Ukraine conflict has shifted noticeably from the battlefield to the diplomatic arena. Political actors on all sides have turned their attention to shaping the terms of a potential settlement - or at least the framework for future negotiations.

This latest phase began with a coordinated visit by Western European leaders to Kiev and concluded, for now, with a phone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, on Monday. But the centerpiece of this diplomatic shift was the unexpected resumption of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul.

What's unfolding is not just a conversation about peace, but a broader contest over influence and strategic direction. Competing visions of how the conflict should end - or be managed - are colliding in real time. Western Europe is scrambling to maintain relevance, Ukraine is caught between urgency and uncertainty, and Trump, now at the center of this geopolitical tug-of-war, is being courted by both sides.

So, who's really winning this shadow war of influence? And what happens if the diplomatic front collapses?
Let's take a closer look.

Western capitals are still coordinating with Israel and the US on their 'criticisms' of the genocide - just as they coordinated on their support for the slaughter

After 19 months of being presented with dissembling accounts of Gaza from their governments, western publics are now being served up a different - but equally deceitful - narrative.

With the finishing line in sight for Israel's programme of genocidal ethnic cleansing, the West's Gaza script is being hastily rewritten. But make no mistake: it is the same web of self-serving lies.

As if under the direction of a hidden conductor, Britain, France and Canada - key US allies - erupted this week into a chorus of condemnation of Israel.

Moscow is prepared for unconditional negotiations with Kiev based on realities on the ground, the former president has said.

Authorities in Kiev have one last opportunity to preserve some kind of statehood after the Ukraine conflict inevitably resolves, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said, urging Kiev to engage in peace talks.

Speaking at an international legal forum in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, Medvedev - who serves as the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council - admitted that Moscow doesn't like the current political regime in Kiev "at all."

Nevertheless, he suggested that Ukraine's leaders have "one last chance to preserve, under certain conditions, after the end of military actions, some kind of statehood or, if you like, some kind of international legal personality and gain a chance for peaceful development."

Though the Ukrainian government lacks any sovereignty and is a failed "quasi-state" in its current form, Moscow remains open to holding unconditional direct peace negotiations that would take into account the current realities on the ground and address the root causes of the conflict, Medvedev stated.

On the road in Iran - The International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) is one of the most crucial geoeconomic/infrastructure projects of the 21st century. It unites at its core three key BRICS nations - Russia, Iran and India - branching out to the Caucasus and Central Asia.

When fully operational, the INSTC will offer a full trade/connectivity corridor sanctions-free, cheaper and faster than the Suez canal to a great deal of Eurasia. The geoeconomic consequences will be staggering.

To re-visit Iran in these times of geopolitical trouble, relentless "maximum pressure", red lines on uranium enrichment and bombing threats could not be more pressing - and enlightening.

The "presidency" of Joe Biden is one of the greatest scandals in American history. The legacy media is only now covering the mental incapacity of a president who apparently left the entire ship of state to the unaccountable bureaucracy.

On Friday, Axios released Friday night news dump audio of Biden's 2023 interview with special counsel Robert Hur.

If you heard the tape and haven't been in a coma for the past four years, then nothing here is truly surprising. The former president sounded senile and evasive when answering questions about his handling of top secret documents.


Some of my colleagues went through the full tapes and found that Biden "forgot the names of President Barack Obama's former secretary of defense and comedian Jay Leno; referred to Africa as a country, not a continent; and was unaware he had in his possession a notebook with war advice in it for Obama during his interview with special counsel Robert Hur and investigators in October 2023."