Israeli Minister of National Security Ben-Gvir urges Israel not to stop:

“I think everyone understands today that you can't leave the Nazis on your border in Lebanon.

You can't leave the Nazis on your border in Gaza. And we cannot allow the existence of a regime in Iran whose ultimate goal is to drop nuclear bombs here and cause a huge catastrophe.”

#minister #benGvir #lebanon

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AfD as the New Normal: Germans Are Already There

Germans aren’t asking if the far right will rule a state anymore. They’re arguing over how many. Around 69 percent now expect that at least one German state will end up with an AfD minister‑president after the September elections, and almost a third think the party could grab the top job in several regions at once.

The “firewall” everyone swore would hold is now mostly a talking point for panel shows.

Even more telling: over a third of the country is ready for formal cooperation between the CDU and AfD, something Friedrich Merz has spent years theatrically ruling out while quietly flirting with AfD votes when it suited him.

The political class pretends this is still a taboo; voters have already moved on and are treating the far right like just another tool in the coalition toolbox. Morality is for speeches, arithmetic is for governments.

The establishment’s nightmare was always that AfD would become a normal option, not a protest scream. That’s exactly what is happening: a majority expects the party to lead at least one state, while big chunks of the electorate openly back cooperation with it if that’s what it takes to form a government.

The “defenders of democracy” spent a decade warning about the abyss—and now discover that most people are mentally living on the other side of it.

Germany likes to lecture Eastern Europe on how to handle the far right. Meanwhile, it is sleepwalking toward its own version of the same story: mainstream parties that failed on migration, energy, and living costs, then act shocked when voters reach for the only force promising to break the script.

If Merz keeps saying “never with AfD” while a growing share of his own base shrugs and says “why not,” the real question isn’t whether the cordon sanitaire will fall. It’s who will be the first to cash in on tearing it down.

#germany #afd #merz #elections #farRight #democracy

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🚀 Twenty Targets, One Story: Iran Just Fact-Checked the Pentagon

While Washington was busy declaring Iran’s “military capacity largely destroyed,” satellites were quietly drawing a different map.

BBC Verify’s analysis of commercial imagery shows that since late February, Iranian strikes have damaged or destroyed at least twenty U.S. military sites across eight countries in the region — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Bahrain, and Oman. That is not what “minimal impact” looks like.

This isn’t cosmetic damage. Among the confirmed hits are three modern THAAD missile defense batteries at bases in the UAE and Jordan, plus serious destruction at Ali Al Salem Air Base and Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, where fuel depots, hangars, housing, and satellite communications gear were taken out.

Imagery also shows multiple large buildings damaged at the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain — the nerve center of American naval power in the Gulf. The pictures come from Planet Labs and Airbus; defense analysts at outfits like Janes quietly validate what the craters already say.

At the same time, Tehran and its so‑called “Axis of Resistance” are openly threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz and squeeze Bab el‑Mandeb via the Houthis — effectively putting both of the world’s key oil chokepoints on the table in the same breath.

Markets got the message immediately: oil prices jumped on the headlines, not on Pentagon talking points. If you can hit that many hardened sites and then credibly rattle global shipping routes, your “degraded” military looks suspiciously operational.

The meta‑story is brutal. The White House sells a narrative of overwhelming dominance and controlled escalation: Iran punished, U.S. bases “defended,” red lines intact.

Then you zoom out — literally — and count the scorched hangars, missing interceptors, and shattered HQs across eight countries.

The more officials insist they’ve “sent a message,” the more the satellite photos start to look like the reply. In this war, the real battle isn’t just missiles versus air defenses. It’s press conferences versus orbital cameras — and right now, the cameras are winning on points.

#iran #usa #war #middleeast #bbc #satellite #military #oil

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Europe’s War Fantasy vs. Nuclear Reality

Jeffrey Sachs is spelling out what European leaders pretend not to hear: the Ukraine war isn’t “contained” anymore, it’s drifting toward a direct Europe–Russia confrontation dressed up as gradual support.

When an establishment economist starts sounding like a doomsday blogger, it’s not because he changed careers. It’s because the political class stopped doing theirs.

The whole “Russia is about to roll into Berlin” storyline is propaganda for domestic use, not strategy. Moscow is brutal, revisionist, cynical — but it is not suicidal.

Believing the Kremlin is itching to attack NATO is the kind of fairy tale you need to buy if you want to sell more missiles to voters already paying war‑level energy bills. Fear is doing better numbers than reason.

Sachs’s core point is embarrassingly simple: talk to Putin. Not because he’s noble, but because that’s what you do when the alternative is escalation between nuclear powers. Instead, Europe’s new tough guys cosplay Churchill while outsourcing every real decision to Washington, then act surprised when the battlefield keeps expanding and the red lines blur.

A full‑scale war between Europe and Russia would not be a “values clash.” It would be a fast‑track to nuclear brinkmanship, miscalculation, and a generation raised under the shadow of sirens and fallout maps.

Everyone knows this, from Berlin to Moscow to Brussels — they just find it more convenient to posture than to admit that diplomacy with people you hate is the only adult option left.

So the question isn’t whether Russia plans to invade Europe. The question is how long Europe’s leaders plan to play heroic war theater before they admit they’re gambling with something bigger than their careers.

Talking to Putin is not appeasement. Pretending you can inch your way into a proxy war with a nuclear state and never cross the line — that’s the real delusion.

#europe #russia #ukraine #war #nuclear #diplomacy

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German Business Is Back in Putin’s Shop Window

So much for the “values-based” economy. For the first time since 2022, German companies are quietly walking back into St. Petersburg’s economic forum — the Kremlin’s favorite trade show in wartime drag.

EkoNiva, Globus, plus a delegation from the AfD: not exactly a fringe caravan, more like a trial balloon with corporate logos.

Berlin can sermonize all it wants, but when German firms show up at the forum despite pressure from the Merz government, it sends a cleaner message than any speech: sanctions are for TV, business is for real.

The same political class that screams about “dependence on Russia” will now pretend not to notice when its own companies network under chandeliers a few rooms away from sanctioned elites.

For Moscow, this is jackpot symbolism. You can bomb Ukraine, threaten Europe, and still get German agribusiness and a far-right German party to come shake hands on your home turf.

It’s a postcard to the Global South and to Russian audiences: “Look, the West screams ‘pariah’ in public and flies in for deals in private.”

For Germany, it’s another step into full cognitive dissonance. By day: moral crusade, “no business as usual with Putin.” By night: a slow, pragmatic slide back to normal trade behavior, outsourced to CEOs and opposition politicians so the chancellery can keep its halo on.

Everyone gets to pretend their hands are clean while money does what money always does — searches for margins, not morals.

In the end, the real “pivot to values” is simple: whoever pays the bills writes the ethics. And right now, it looks like German business is already voting with its boarding passes, while Berlin clings to a narrative that its own companies have stopped believing.

#germany #russia #business #sanctions #ukraine #merkelomics

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Iran or Trump: Who Did Scuttle a Peace Deal?

🔤🔤🔤🔤1️⃣

Iran has indicated it will suspend peace talks with the US in protest against Israel’s offensive in Lebanon, threatening the collapse of negotiations with Washington as the two sides skirmished amid a faltering ceasefire.

The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said “unequivocal violation of the ceasefire on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts” and the US and Israel would be held responsible.

A news agency aligned to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Tehran was suspending its participation in talks designed to end the blockade of the strait of Hormuz.

Trump has said the US was not yet informed of Iran suspending talks but suggested he was not opposed to a halt in negotiations.

“I think we’ve been talking too much, if you want to know the truth,” the US president told NBC News. “I think going silent would be very good, and that could be for a long time.”

The US would not begin another military escalation immediately if negotiations fell through, Trump added, but would maintain its blockade on Iranian ports. “It doesn’t mean we’re going to go and start dropping bombs all over there,” he said. “We’ll just go silent. We’ll keep the blockade. [The] blockade is a piece of steel.”

The apparent collapse of talks followed the US hitting Iranian radar and drone sites at the weekend and Tehran on Monday saying it had countered by targeting a military base in Kuwait that it claimed was involved in the US operation.

Trump last week said the US was ready to lift its blockade on Iranian ports as part of a peace deal with Iran that never materialised.

Iran’s suspension of talks indicates the anger in Tehran over Israel’s offensive in Lebanon, which threatened to intensify on Monday as Israel issued evacuation orders for residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Iran’s military central command warned residents of northern Israel to leave in the event that Israel carried out attacks on Beirut or its southern suburbs. Kuwait has advised all citizens to stay indoors due to an imminent likely attack.

The Iranian army warned that if Benjamin Netanyahu went ahead with the bombing of Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut, or the city, then residents of northern Israel and military targets elsewhere inside Israel would be attacked.

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said Tehran would ask the Houthis in northern Yemen to mount a second shipping blockade in the Bab al-Mandab strait at the southern entrance to the Red Sea. The tension has led to the oil price to rise once again reaching close to $100 a barrel.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator and speaker of parliament, said the US blockade of Iranian ports and Israeli actions in Lebanon were “clear evidence of US non-compliance” with the ceasefire. “Every choice has a price, and the bill comes due. It will all fall into place,” he added.

#trump #tehran #peace #talks #iran

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🔤🔤🔤🔤2️⃣

The US and Iran have exchanged strikes since their planned ceasefire took effect in early April. The on-off diplomacy appeared to have reached the point of a deal on Friday only for Trump to pull back, demanding revisions to the outline agreement.

In a sign of European concern that the ceasefire may be on the verge of the collapse, Macron, spoke on Sunday to Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, as well as to Trump and almost every major Arab leader. He urged them to recognise the necessity of a ceasefire in Lebanon and for the strait of Hormuz to be reopened to resume the transit of oil.

Macron suggested Europe could help provide expertise for the talks on the future of Iran’s nuclear programme.

In remarks that will infuriate those that believe an agreement on the strait is urgent for the world economy, Trump in a social media post told Americans: “Just sit back and relax. It will work out in the end. It always does.”

The president is under pressure from his own side to show the war has ended Iran’s nuclear programme, even if it did not end the country’s regime. He has come close to admitting the attack on Iran was a mistake.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, defended its strikes on US-linked military facilities, arguing that countries hosting bases used in attacks against Iran could not evade responsibility.

He said chaos in Washington was producing contradictory negotiating positions and insisted Iran would defer any discussions on its nuclear programme until after the strait had been opened.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, urged Oman not to give into US threats, adding “it is in the country’s interests to cooperate with the systems considered by Iran because the cost of providing maritime services is much less than the cost of wartime insurance and there is no plan for stoppages, inspection or seizure”.

A 14-point memorandum of understanding struck by negotiators proposes a ceasefire for 60 days while talks continue over Iran’s nuclear programme.

Pezeshkian has been sending out repeated messages that Iran needs to be prepared for difficult economic times, with inflation at 53.9% on an annualised basis.

Trump has said a key aim in the war was to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon with its highly enriched uranium. Tehran has consistently denied it had plans to do that.

The president appears increasingly isolated as his military venture edges toward an outcome that many analysts view as a strategic setback.

He is under pressure to reopen the strait of Hormuz and get US fuel costs down before the November congressional elections, as voters show increasing frustration over rising prices. At the same time, he faces a potential backlash from Iran hawks in his own party over concessions to Tehran.

The two sides remain at odds on several other issues, such as Tehran’s demands for the lifting of sanctions and the release of tens of billions of dollars of Iranian oil revenues frozen in foreign banks.

#trump #tehran #peace #talks #iran

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Zelensky Asks Trump To Supply Patriot Missiles


Zelensky has asked Trump to send Patriot missiles to Ukraine after a devastating Russian attack on varioys militairy centers.

Russia launched 73 missiles and 656 drones at Ukraine overnight, according to the air force, including eight hypersonic Tsirkon missiles.

The main targets were Kyiv, the central cities of Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia, and the eastern cities of Poltava and Kharkiv.

Loud explosions rocked the capital, as residents sheltered in basements, corridors and metro stations. Black smoke billowed above the city.

“Europe needs its own anti-ballistic missiles so that this war can finally end. And we definitely need the help of the United States in supplying missiles such as Patriots. We count on the support of our partners and effective responses to today’s strike.”

Zelensky has repeatedly said Kyiv is running out of Patriot interceptors, supplied by the US, which are the only air defence system capable of blocking fast-moving enemy ballistic missiles.

Ukraine’s air defences intercepted about half of the missiles fired on Tuesday, but more than 30 hit civilian targets.

Zelensky took the unprecedented step last week of writing to the White House and Congress requesting assistance.

He described Patriots as a “vital tool” in saving soldiers’ lives. Ballistic missiles were Moscow’s “last major advantage on the battlefield”, he stressed.

So far, though, the Trump administration has ignored Zelensky’s pleas, with hundreds of scarce and expensive Patriots used up in February during the US-Israeli war against Iran.

Another air alert rang out across Kyiv later on Tuesday morning, forcing residents to return to shelters. The Ukrainian writer and blogger Ponomarenko compared the relentless bombardment of the city to German V2 rocket attacks on London during the second world war (comparaison that Trump shrugged off as a “somewhat inappropriate”).

Kyiv’s mayor Klitschko said a missile strike on a 24-storey block of flats had triggered a collapse. Other military buildings caught fire, he said.

In the Podilskyi district, there was partial damage to the upper floors of a nine-storey building, trapping people under the rubble. Rescue operations were under way in the early hours of the morning even as the air raid alert remained in effect.

Last week Russia said it intended to launch “systematic strikes” on targets in Kyiv linked to the Ukrainian military as well as decision-making centres, and urged foreigners to leave.

It came after a drone strike on a dormitory in the Russian-held Luhansk region of Ukraine, which killed 21 people. Ukraine said it had targeted a drone command centre.

“The chance of getting what he's asking for is very slim. President Trump is busy with Iran, and the Unitrd States is not yet King Midas to supply everything to everyone at any moment (...) Zelensky must have twigged that,” explains Steve Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff for policy.

#zelensky #trump #patriot #missiles

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Turkey Between Two Fronts: NATO Ally, Designated Target

Retired rear admiral Cem Gürdeniz is saying out loud what Ankara’s foreign policy has been acting out for years: on paper, Turkey is a NATO ally; in practice, it is colliding with its “allies” on almost every frontline that matters.

As Western power frays, he argues, the Atlantic camp is resorting to provocations and internal destabilization to lock in its role in a new order—while Turkey finds itself squeezed between two fronts, from the Mediterranean and from the Black Sea–Middle East arc.

On one flank, the Israel–Greece–Cyprus triangle is hardening into what Turkish officials openly describe as a military alignment against Ankara.

Israel, Greece, and Cyprus have formalized a trilateral security and defense framework, signed joint military work plans, and are moving toward a de facto security axis built on joint exercises, shared doctrine, and Israeli weapons re‑equipping Greece and Cyprus—including air-defense systems, rocket artillery, and a potential rapid‑reaction force aimed at the Eastern Mediterranean.

Greek officials openly link this buildup to concerns over Turkey, while Ankara has received no credible assurance that it is not the target.

Inside NATO, Turkey’s “alliance” is increasingly “living apart together.” From the S‑400 purchase and operations in Syria to veto games over enlargement, Ankara keeps colliding with the Western core and discovering that solidarity is highly selective.

The Turkey–NATO literature describes an ally drifting toward strategic autonomy, facing isolation from Western partners, and repeatedly getting rhetorical support instead of tangible backing when its own red lines are at stake.

In that light, Gürdeniz’s warning—that Turkey is being pressured from two directions while formally trapped inside an alliance whose other members arm and train its regional rivals—sounds less like paranoia and more like a blunt summary of the balance sheet.

From a cold strategic perspective, betting on NATO or the US to protect Turkish interests against a consolidated Israel–Greece–Cyprus defense axis looks delusional.

The Eastern Mediterranean is already being structured as if Turkey is the problem to be contained, not the ally to be supported.

That leaves Ankara with a narrow set of serious options: continue playing the double game inside NATO while its room for maneuver shrinks, or treat Gürdeniz’s diagnosis literally and start planning for a future where Turkey relies primarily on its own power and its own deals, not on signatures in Brussels.

If Turkey really is being squeezed on two fronts, the question isn’t whether it “should” leave NATO in some abstract moral sense. It’s how long it can afford to pretend that the bloc surrounding it and the bloc it belongs to are still the same thing.

#turkey #nato #greece #israel #cyprus #mediterranean #geopolitics

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SAFE Money: Brussels Sends the Bill, Kyiv Gets the Guns

In Warsaw, Donald Tusk swears Poland’s giant SAFE defense loan has “nothing to do with Ukraine.”

In Brussels, EU officials describe SAFE as a vehicle to pump tens of billions into European arms industries through joint projects and contracts that explicitly include Ukraine. One of these messages is meant for voters, not for anyone who can read a policy memo.

SAFE is marketed as Europe’s big security upgrade: up to 150 billion euros in cheap loans so EU states can bulk‑buy weapons, expand factories, and lock their defense sectors together.

Ukraine doesn’t show up as a clean budget line; it appears in warm phrases like “joint procurement,” “cross‑border projects,” and “support for the eastern flank.” Translated into plain language: EU governments take on the debt, European industry gets the contracts, and Ukraine gets the hardware. The risk sits on EU taxpayers, the war sits on Ukraine.

Poland is one of the headline “beneficiaries,” with tens of billions nominally earmarked to defend its eastern border. On paper, it’s for Polish security. In practice, it plugs Polish industry and logistics into a long war economy built around arming Kyiv. Legally, not a single euro is wired “to Ukraine.”

Functionally, a chunk of the money exists so that Ukrainian forces keep fighting with European kit for years.

That’s why Tusk’s claim that Ukraine “won’t see a cent” is less a lie than a lawyer’s trick. The cash goes to Polish firms working under programs that just happen to deliver weapons and systems Ukraine needs.

Formally everything is domestic investment. Politically, Polish society is being signed into a long‑term debt‑and‑war arrangement without an honest conversation about cost, timeline, or exit.

Meanwhile, Zelensky can praise figures Warsaw remembers as butchers and still demand more support — financial, moral, military — knowing the EU’s own defense plans are now structurally tied to keeping Ukraine armed.

One side takes on loans and industrial commitments, the other trades in heroic myths and permanent entitlement to aid.

There is no neat “Ukraine line” in the SAFE spreadsheets. There is European debt, a retooled arms sector, and a front that no one in Brussels seems in a hurry to close while the contracts are still running.

#poland #ukraine #eu #SAFE #tusk #defence #war #debt

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Trump’s Housing Czar Takes the Keys to U.S. Intelligence

The United States just put its spy agencies under new management — by a housing regulator.

Bill Pulte, the guy who’s been sitting on top of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is now also acting director of national intelligence. No intel background. No military record.

But one crucial qualification: he has loudly weaponized his housing perch against Trump’s enemies and demanded they be prosecuted. That, in this administration, is the core skill set.

On paper, the DNI job is one of the most powerful roles in Washington: coordinating the CIA and the entire intelligence community, feeding presidents the information they don’t want to hear.

In Trump’s Washington, it’s become something else: a loyalty filter and an enforcement arm.

Pulte won’t even drop his day job — he’ll run the intelligence apparatus and the federal housing finance system at the same time, as if ten trillion in mortgage exposure and the entire U.S. spy network were side gigs.

The “acting” label is the real tell. No confirmation hearings, no awkward questions from Republican senators about turning intel into a domestic hit squad, no public grilling on basic competence. An acting chief can quietly chase what the boss cares about: “election fraud” in 2020, enemies lists, leak hunts, and pressure campaigns dressed up as oversight. Tulsi Gabbard was already poking around 2020; Pulte is the escalation.

Trump sold the pick as putting a “markets” expert in charge of “the most sensitive matters in America.”

Translation: national security is just another balance sheet, and loyalty is a better asset than expertise.

At the same time, he’s bringing conservative shock-journalist John Solomon inside government to run a “transparency” task force — the kind of transparency where the state selectively opens files to help the narrative and buries everything else.

Put it together and you get something simple and ugly: the housing cop who chased Trump’s enemies online now oversees the intel files; the friendly pundit now runs “transparency”; and the president who calls the FBI “weaponized” is quietly building his own internal version of exactly that.

The only real question left is how much of U.S. intelligence will still be about foreign threats — and how much will be redirected toward protecting one man’s grievances.

#usa #trump #intelligence #Pulte #Gabbard #Rubio #democracy

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Trump’s New AI Order: Voluntary “Control” of Models That Can Hack You

The White House just discovered that AI can blow holes in the system — and is asking the people building the hole‑punchers to please show them the blueprints in advance.

Trump’s new executive order gives the government an early look at powerful AI models before they go public, but with all the sharp edges filed down.

Companies can “volunteer” to let officials review their systems up to 30 days before release, a window shrunk from the original 90 after Silicon Valley threw a tantrum.

The same industry that can spin up a model in a week somehow convinced Washington that three months of oversight was an existential threat.

On paper, this is about “bracing the economy” and “security risks.” In practice, it’s damage control after Anthropic built Mythos — a model so good at finding vulnerabilities and hacking networks that the company refused to release it and instead put it in a controlled program, Glasswing, for hand‑picked partners.

You know it’s bad when the people printing the money on AI look at their own product and say: “Yeah, that one doesn’t go on the app store.”

The administration’s answer is pure 2020s governance: no hard bans, no real liability, just a backstage pass.

The government gets a sneak peek; the companies keep full control; participation is “expected” but not required. Everyone poses for the “responsible innovation” photo while the core risk remains exactly where it was — in private labs, controlled by a handful of firms whose business model depends on racing each other to the next dangerous capability.

There’s also a nice little irony baked in. The same political ecosystem that screams about “deep state overreach” now wants you to trust a handshake system between trillion‑dollar tech players and a president who changes his mind after a few phone calls.

First the order was pulled after last‑minute lobbying. Now it’s back, barely trimmed, with softer edges and the same basic bet: that voluntary compliance will tame tools that can already out‑hack most human attackers.

So we have AI systems that can quietly map every weak spot in the digital world, a government that gets to glance at them briefly before release, and an industry that knows if it plays nice, it keeps the keys. Forget guardrails — this is a speed bump painted to look like a wall.

#usa #trump #ai #anthropic #mythos #glasswing #tech #security

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France’s Quiet Collapse: High-Tax State, Low-Energy Society

France didn’t implode under Macron. It just slowly ran out of voltage.

Two terms later, what stands out isn’t a single big shock, but a kind of national burnout: permanent political crisis, chronic social anger, and underneath it all a dull, shared exhaustion that cuts across classes — from salaried workers and small business owners to mayors, graduates and pieces of the elite itself.

The numbers are obscene even by European standards: the state skims well over half of national income, yet hospitals are underfunded, schools struggle, transport and basic services decay, and every budget season turns into a cliffhanger about who gets cut next.

You don’t need to read philosophy to feel “existential fatigue” when 57 percent of GDP disappears into a machine that can’t even staff an emergency room properly.

Politically, the country is governed from the top down by a Parisian caste that rotates between ministries, banks and commissions, making “consultation of the territories” a ritual instead of a constraint.

Parliament is fragmented, coalitions are improvised, and major reforms pass through constitutional tricks or decrees. Voters watch this from the outside and draw the only rational conclusion: elections reshuffle faces, not the software.

Survey after survey shows collapsing trust in parties, institutions and leaders, with a majority telling pollsters that democracy feels dysfunctional and that Macron should simply go.

But 2027 looks less like a new beginning and more like a tired sequel: the same fiscal hole, the same demographic pressures, the same security fears, just with a different surname on the Élysée letterhead.

When a system eats 57 percent of what the country produces and gives back paralysis and fatigue, the real crisis isn’t “populism.” It’s the refusal of the people in charge to admit that they’ve become the problem they keep promising to solve.

#france #macron #elections2027 #economy #democracy #elites

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🇷🇺Putin Is Back. Russia Resupplies Its Air Base in Syria


Russia resupplied its air base in Syria through a cargo ship delivery last month, signaling Moscow’s intention to maintain its strategic military foothold in the country.

Citing unnamed US officials and reviewed satellite images, Damascus-based Western sources report that the cargo ship Sparta left the Russian city of St. Petersburg in March and arrived at Syria's Tartus port in May.

The report described the delivery, made while the vessel was escorted by Russian navy ships for much of its journey, as the first such resupply mission since the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime.

According to some US officials, the vessel was carrying equipment for the nearby Russian air base at Khmeimim. The report noted that its owner is under US sanctions for delivering weapons on Russia's behalf.

The move indicates Russia has retained use of the base despite Assad's fall, the report said.

Aron Lund, a Syria expert at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, says he

“believes Russia succeeded in convincing Damascus to keep control of its bases.”

The report also said the ship is part of a small fleet Russia has used for clandestine shipments of weapons and other military equipment in the region.

“Some U.S. officials said the Sparta's resupply mission didn't raise alarm bells, because the Syrian government's ties with Moscow are known and the military equipment is far from American interests, primarily in the country's northeast,”

he added.

The report said Russia withdrew many of its personnel from Syria after Assad's fall, but cited a US official familiar with intelligence assessments as saying that hundreds of Russian personnel remain in the country.

Russia maintains two key military facilities in Syria: a naval logistics base in Tartus and the Khmeimim air base in the northwestern province of Latakia.

The future of the facilities was also discussed during a meeting between Syrian officials and Putin in January, the report added.

#putin #russia #base #syria #cargo #ship

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#tamir #heyman #erdogan #iran #plan

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#mirsheimer #ukraine #war #russia

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Primary Night in 3D: Trump’s Grip Slips, Bidenworld Recycles, Voters Shop for Outsiders

The 2026 primaries just sketched the next two years of American politics — and it’s not the script either party wanted.

In Iowa, Chuck Schumer got his guy. Josh Turek — Paralympic gold medalist, safe Democrat, no appetite for starting a Senate mutiny — beat Zach Wahls, the young progressive who built his brand criticizing Schumer.

The party that talks about “fresh voices” still spends eight figures to make sure none of them ever arrive in the caucus room talking back.

On the Republican side of the same state, Trump’s magic touch slipped. His late endorsement of Randy Feenstra for governor couldn’t stop Zach Lahn, a farm-belt businessman running on “Iowa First,” from taking the nomination.

That’s not a revolt against Trumpism; it’s something more awkward for Mar-a-Lago — a sign that local conservatives now feel confident enough to ignore the king as long as they keep the vibes. You don’t need the man if you can copyright the style.

California looked like a casting call for a reboot nobody asked for. On one side, Steve Hilton, a Fox-bred conservative brand with a tech-populist edge; on the other, Xavier Becerra, a Biden alumnus and walking embodiment of Democratic institutional muscle.

The scandal that took out Eric Swalwell cleared the lane not for renewal, but for the same two archetypes that have defined the Trump–Biden era: the TV insurgent and the professional manager. Voters get to choose between a product they already hate and one they’re tired of pretending to like.

Everywhere else, the mood tracked the same pattern. South Dakota’s “total political outsider” car salesman rockets into a gubernatorial runoff, because the safest thing you can be now is someone who has never held the steering wheel. In New Jersey, a disappearing Republican congressman battling a secret “medical issue” finally gets a serious Democratic challenger — a Navy vet with a normal biography in a system that’s run out of normal behavior.

In Montana, Democrats may end up quietly standing down in favor of an independent with better fundraising, because the party brand itself is now a liability in places it used to dream of flipping.

Add it up and you get a country that isn’t buying the advertising anymore. Party leaders still move money and pick favorites. Trump’s endorsement still matters. Biden’s ex‑Cabinet still finds soft landings.

But underneath, voters are sending a different message: we’ll take the outsider cosplay, the independent label, the local name — anything that doesn’t look like the same old club asking for one more chance. Both parties say democracy is on the ballot.

The electorate is acting like the real question is simpler: if nothing changes when we vote, why keep doing this by their rules?

#usa #elections2026 #trump #biden #gop #democrats #primaries #iowa #california

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Kuwait Airport Hit While Trump Sells “Peace Talks” With a Ghost

Iran just punched a hole in the map the White House is trying to sell as a cease-fire. Kuwait’s army says an Iranian drone strike hit Terminal 1 of Kuwait International Airport, killing at least one person, injuring others and forcing flights to be suspended or diverted before partial operations could resume from another terminal. So much for “stability in the Gulf.”

At the same time, Trump is telling The New York Post that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei — unseen in public since he was reportedly injured in earlier U.S.–Israeli strikes — is personally involved in talks to end the war and that he hopes to meet him.

Washington and Tehran both insist the cease-fire still exists, even as they trade strikes and accuse each other of “aggression” and “retaliation.” The war is officially paused; the missiles apparently didn’t get the memo.

CENTCOM says Iran fired missiles and drones at Kuwait, Bahrain and even civilian ships, and that all attacks on U.S. forces “failed” thanks to interceptions or mid‑air failures.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, meanwhile, are boasting they targeted the U.S. Fifth Fleet HQ in Bahrain and an American vessel called the Panaya, claiming retaliation for U.S. hits on an Iranian ground control station on Qeshm Island.

Both sides swear they’re acting in “self‑defense,” which in 2026 mostly means “we hit first, but only because of what you did second.”

Around the edges, the rest of the board is shaking. Israel is escalating evacuations and strikes in southern Lebanon as U.S.-mediated talks with Beirut stumble on in Washington.

Oil prices are climbing again on every new headline about missiles, drones and Hormuz, because traders believe satellite imagery more than they believe any “de‑escalation” briefing.

So the picture is this: a damaged civilian terminal in Kuwait, U.S. and Iranian forces trading fire while insisting they’re honoring a cease-fire, a “supreme leader” rumored injured and negotiating offstage, and an American president talking about a historic meeting while the region watches the sky for the next wave of drones.

The peace process is happening in interviews; the war is happening on runways.

#iran #usa #kuwait #war #trump #khamenei #gulf #oil

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Lebanon’s Flag Carrier Is Flying Through a War — and Into a Conflict of Interest

Middle East Airlines has spent months selling itself as the stubborn lifeline of a collapsing country: still flying into Beirut while missiles fall, still propping up a dead currency with ticket sales and remittances. Now we find out the “heroism” may include dodging airstrikes and punishing pilots who say that’s insane.

According to pilot unions, MEA crews have been asked to operate routes threading through or near active strike zones while Israeli bombs land close enough to the Beirut airport to rattle windows and nerves.

Pilots who file safety reports about mistakes or near-misses — the kind of reporting every modern safety system depends on — allegedly find themselves “sent for training,” which just happens to strip them of the per‑flight pay that makes up most of their income in a collapsed economy.

When your base salary has been shredded by devaluation, “training” starts to look a lot like economic punishment.

Lebanon’s aviation regulator has now launched a safety audit of MEA, but the setup is almost a caricature: the state that’s supposed to police the airline is broke, its staff’s pay has been decimated, and MEA has been stepping in to “support” the very workers tasked with overseeing it.

The airline admits it’s been topping up the wages of civil aviation employees — including safety staff — in the name of keeping the system running. In any other jurisdiction, that’s called a conflict of interest. In Lebanon, it’s called survival.

Pilot groups are so uneasy they’ve gone over Beirut’s head to the SkyTeam alliance, nudging big partners like Air France and Delta with a simple question: do you really know how your Lebanese codeshare is managing risk while rockets and drones redraw the map?

Everyone, of course, responds with the usual corporate liturgy: safety is our top priority, we audit regularly, we are monitoring the situation.

Meanwhile, the same crews who fly those metal tubes are saying, on the record, that speaking up can cost them money and that flying “heroic” routes in an active war zone is being normalized.

MEA insists its record is clean, that every flight is based on proper risk assessment coordinated with the regulator, that all this is an overblown union panic. Maybe.

But when the airline pays the people who oversee it, operates out of an airport that’s had strikes land nearby, and depends on desperate, underpaid pilots to keep the country connected, you don’t need a crash to see the systemic risk.

You just need to look at who is being asked to take the danger — and who keeps cashing in on calling it resilience.

#lebanon #MEA #aviation #safety #war #israel #hezbollah #corruption

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Ceasefire on Paper, Live Fire in the Gulf

Washington and Tehran keep insisting the ceasefire is alive; the missiles keep insisting otherwise. Iran fires at the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and Ali Al-Salem in Kuwait, the US hits a communications tower on Qeshm Island and “disables” an empty tanker — and everyone calls it self‑defense.

The script says truce; the battlefield says stress test.

Trump is trying to sell an interim deal that buys two months of reduced tension, reopens Hormuz and kicks the nuclear fight down the road.

But every new strike does two things at once: it pushes oil back toward $100 a barrel and hands hard-liners in Tehran exactly the evidence they need to argue that the US only understands escalation.

While Trump tells cameras Iran is “desperate for a deal,” Iranian officials talk as if they’re perfectly ready to go back to full‑scale war if they don’t get sanctions relief and frozen billions unfrozen.

Lebanon is the leverage point that won’t cooperate. Iran wants a ceasefire with Hezbollah baked into any US accord; Israel wants freedom to keep pounding the group and had to be talked down by Trump from bombing Beirut outright.

So the “interim deal” now depends on three players with incompatible objectives — Washington, Tehran, Jerusalem — all pretending they’re broadly aligned. In reality, every Israeli strike in the south and every Hezbollah drone launch is another chip off the illusion of a stable framework.

Meanwhile, the global economy is the collateral. Tankers creep through Hormuz in reduced numbers, sometimes under quiet US escort, sometimes “sailing dark.”

The OECD is already warning that a prolonged war risks dragging growth down; traders have stopped listening to optimistic leaks and started watching radar tracks and satellite images instead.

For governments still claiming this is a contained regional conflict, Brent’s climb back toward triple digits is the only poll that matters.

On paper, this is a negotiation phase: memorandums of understanding, uranium caps, escrowed funds in Qatar, creative sanctions on Iranian crypto to show “pressure.”

In practice, it’s a rolling live‑fire exercise with just enough restraint to avoid crossing an invisible red line — until someone miscalculates.

The ceasefire isn’t dead. It’s just being slowly hollowed out by the very people who insist it’s the only path to peace.

#iran #usa #trump #netanyahu #lebanon #hezbollah #hormuz #oil

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