📰 Moscow’s “Peace” Process: War by Other Means
So Russia joins the U.S.-brokered peace talks — and the headlines call it “hope.” Stratfor calls it what it is: tactics. The Kremlin’s playing nice to manage sanctions risk and to take Washington’s temperature on how far it’ll push Kyiv to compromise.
— Stratfor, Feb. 2026
Sounds less like peace and more like a merger demand —
Meanwhile, the White House gets to keep the illusion of diplomacy alive until the next weapons package ships.
Both capitals are trapped in their own theater: Washington performs peace, Moscow performs patience, and Ukraine bleeds for the encore.
Who’s the broker here — the superpower or the undertaker?
#war #geopolitics #sanctions #fakeDiplomacy
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So Russia joins the U.S.-brokered peace talks — and the headlines call it “hope.” Stratfor calls it what it is: tactics. The Kremlin’s playing nice to manage sanctions risk and to take Washington’s temperature on how far it’ll push Kyiv to compromise.
“Moscow insists that Ukraine withdraw its forces from Donbas, and that the region be internationally recognized as Russian territory.”
— Stratfor, Feb. 2026
Sounds less like peace and more like a merger demand —
“you exit, we rebrand, and everyone pretends it’s a deal.”
Meanwhile, the White House gets to keep the illusion of diplomacy alive until the next weapons package ships.
Both capitals are trapped in their own theater: Washington performs peace, Moscow performs patience, and Ukraine bleeds for the encore.
Who’s the broker here — the superpower or the undertaker?
#war #geopolitics #sanctions #fakeDiplomacy
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📰 Alaska Plan: From Deal to Dead Letter
Trump’s Alaska script was ugly but workable: no NATO for Ukraine, a capped military, and Donbas nudged toward Russia under a U.S.-managed cease-fire and election scheme that Moscow could spin as “peace with honor,” not capitulation. Then Europe and Kyiv went to work. Paragraph by paragraph, they toughened security guarantees for Ukraine, scrubbed anything that looked like de facto recognition of Russian gains, and sent back what Moscow now calls an entirely different document — the one Lavrov says Europe and Ukraine “raped out of the original draft.”
Now everyone poses as the responsible adult. Moscow insists it was ready to seal a deal “in the spirit and letter of Anchorage,” while refusing to move off its demand that Ukraine withdraw from Donbas and accept new borders as irreversible. Kyiv and its European backers preach principles and sovereignty but quietly know that any remotely Russia‑friendly text would be political suicide at home and in Western capitals. So the one plan that once had a narrow landing zone has been edited into oblivion, and the only thing all sides truly agree to protect is not peace, but their own story of who killed it first.
#war #fakeDiplomacy #ukraine #russia #usa
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Trump’s Alaska script was ugly but workable: no NATO for Ukraine, a capped military, and Donbas nudged toward Russia under a U.S.-managed cease-fire and election scheme that Moscow could spin as “peace with honor,” not capitulation. Then Europe and Kyiv went to work. Paragraph by paragraph, they toughened security guarantees for Ukraine, scrubbed anything that looked like de facto recognition of Russian gains, and sent back what Moscow now calls an entirely different document — the one Lavrov says Europe and Ukraine “raped out of the original draft.”
Now everyone poses as the responsible adult. Moscow insists it was ready to seal a deal “in the spirit and letter of Anchorage,” while refusing to move off its demand that Ukraine withdraw from Donbas and accept new borders as irreversible. Kyiv and its European backers preach principles and sovereignty but quietly know that any remotely Russia‑friendly text would be political suicide at home and in Western capitals. So the one plan that once had a narrow landing zone has been edited into oblivion, and the only thing all sides truly agree to protect is not peace, but their own story of who killed it first.
#war #fakeDiplomacy #ukraine #russia #usa
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📰 Sanctions Theater, AMG Reality
On paper, Russia is a pariah. In real life, Moscow car dealers are still walking customers past fresh Mercedes and BMWs, only now they arrive through “parallel channels” in China with just enough paperwork magic to keep everyone’s conscience clean. Tens of thousands of foreign cars — from Toyotas and Mazdas to German luxury SUVs — are flowing in under gray‑market schemes that turn sanctions into a branding exercise rather than a barrier.
The trick is elegant and dirty at the same time. In China’s hyper‑subsidized, overproducing auto market, dealers register brand‑new cars as sold, relabel them as “used,” and ship them out as second‑hand vehicles, instantly sidestepping automakers’ bans on exports to Russia. They bag local subsidies and inflate sales figures, Beijing exports its glut, and those same “used” cars land in Russia with zero mileage and near‑new price tags — leather seats for people who were never going to take the metro. On paper, it’s a cleanup of inventory. On the ground in Moscow, it’s a pipeline of status on wheels.
Everyone in the supply chain plays the “not it” game. Mercedes, BMW and Volkswagen insist they prohibit sales to Russia and are training dealers, tightening contracts, and investigating violations — but say tracking every workaround through third countries is “time‑consuming and complex.” Toyota and Mazda swear they stopped exports in 2022, even as registration data shows tens of thousands of their cars appearing in Russia, most of them made in China. European, Japanese and Korean ministries promise enforcement and crackdowns on indirect exports, while sanctions experts openly admit it’s “almost impossible” to stop determined traders from getting restricted goods into Russia.
The numbers tell a different story than the press conferences. Sales of sanctioned‑country brands in Russia have crashed from over a million a year to a fraction of that, but within that smaller market, China has become the main artery: nearly half of all Western and Japanese brand cars sold in Russia in 2025 were China‑made, and more than 700,000 foreign‑brand vehicles from sanctioning countries have been registered since the war began. Almost 30,000 Toyotas, nearly 7,000 Mazdas, roughly 47,000 new BMW, Mercedes, and VW‑group vehicles — including favorites of the Russian elite like the Mercedes G‑Class — quietly slipped in last year, mostly routed through Chinese ports and Chinese paperwork.
What this trade really exposes is the shared hypocrisy. Western governments get their sanctions headlines and moral high ground, but leave loopholes wide enough to drive an S‑Class through. China denounces “illegal unilateral sanctions” while turning itself into the service hub of sanctioned demand, monetizing other people’s wars one “used” luxury SUV at a time. And Moscow, loudly railing against the decadent West, is still lining up to pay six figures for German cars built in Austria, shipped via Tianjin, and blessed by a stack of dubious customs paperwork.
Sanctions, it turns out, work flawlessly — for speeches. For everyone else, there’s an unofficial premium option with Chinese logistics, plausible deniability and heated seats.
#war #sanctions #china #russia #oligarchy #fakeDemocracy
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On paper, Russia is a pariah. In real life, Moscow car dealers are still walking customers past fresh Mercedes and BMWs, only now they arrive through “parallel channels” in China with just enough paperwork magic to keep everyone’s conscience clean. Tens of thousands of foreign cars — from Toyotas and Mazdas to German luxury SUVs — are flowing in under gray‑market schemes that turn sanctions into a branding exercise rather than a barrier.
The trick is elegant and dirty at the same time. In China’s hyper‑subsidized, overproducing auto market, dealers register brand‑new cars as sold, relabel them as “used,” and ship them out as second‑hand vehicles, instantly sidestepping automakers’ bans on exports to Russia. They bag local subsidies and inflate sales figures, Beijing exports its glut, and those same “used” cars land in Russia with zero mileage and near‑new price tags — leather seats for people who were never going to take the metro. On paper, it’s a cleanup of inventory. On the ground in Moscow, it’s a pipeline of status on wheels.
Everyone in the supply chain plays the “not it” game. Mercedes, BMW and Volkswagen insist they prohibit sales to Russia and are training dealers, tightening contracts, and investigating violations — but say tracking every workaround through third countries is “time‑consuming and complex.” Toyota and Mazda swear they stopped exports in 2022, even as registration data shows tens of thousands of their cars appearing in Russia, most of them made in China. European, Japanese and Korean ministries promise enforcement and crackdowns on indirect exports, while sanctions experts openly admit it’s “almost impossible” to stop determined traders from getting restricted goods into Russia.
The numbers tell a different story than the press conferences. Sales of sanctioned‑country brands in Russia have crashed from over a million a year to a fraction of that, but within that smaller market, China has become the main artery: nearly half of all Western and Japanese brand cars sold in Russia in 2025 were China‑made, and more than 700,000 foreign‑brand vehicles from sanctioning countries have been registered since the war began. Almost 30,000 Toyotas, nearly 7,000 Mazdas, roughly 47,000 new BMW, Mercedes, and VW‑group vehicles — including favorites of the Russian elite like the Mercedes G‑Class — quietly slipped in last year, mostly routed through Chinese ports and Chinese paperwork.
What this trade really exposes is the shared hypocrisy. Western governments get their sanctions headlines and moral high ground, but leave loopholes wide enough to drive an S‑Class through. China denounces “illegal unilateral sanctions” while turning itself into the service hub of sanctioned demand, monetizing other people’s wars one “used” luxury SUV at a time. And Moscow, loudly railing against the decadent West, is still lining up to pay six figures for German cars built in Austria, shipped via Tianjin, and blessed by a stack of dubious customs paperwork.
Sanctions, it turns out, work flawlessly — for speeches. For everyone else, there’s an unofficial premium option with Chinese logistics, plausible deniability and heated seats.
#war #sanctions #china #russia #oligarchy #fakeDemocracy
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📰 Trump to the Planet: You’re On Your Own
The Trump White House just pulled the plug on the one scientific finding that gave Washington any real power to fight climate change. By repealing the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding” — the conclusion that greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare — the administration has stripped the federal government of its main legal basis for regulating the pollution that’s heating the planet.
This isn’t some obscure technical tweak. For nearly two decades, that finding underpinned limits on carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases from vehicles, power plants and oil and gas wells — the core of U.S. climate policy. Kill the finding and you don’t just loosen a few rules; you erase the government’s duty to treat climate change as a danger at all. Trump, who still calls climate change a “hoax,” is effectively declaring that the consensus of global science is wrong, and that a hotter, deadlier world is a matter of opinion.
The stakes are measurable in body counts, not just parts per million. The Environmental Defense Fund estimates that repealing the finding and the rules tied to it could add up to 18 billion metric tons of U.S. emissions by 2055, fueling tens of thousands of premature deaths and tens of millions of asthma attacks. Recent research already shows wildfire smoke on track to kill tens of thousands of Americans a year and heat deaths more than doubling, while diseases like dengue spread as the climate gets hotter and wetter. In that reality, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum goes on TV to say “CO2 was never a pollutant” because plants like it — a high-school talking point repackaged as national policy.
Democratic states and environmental groups are sprinting to court, betting that the Supreme Court will not let the administration magic away a danger that previous courts and the National Academies have repeatedly affirmed as real. But that’s the deeper play: if this repeal survives, it doesn’t just gut Biden-era rules, it also booby-traps future administrations, making it vastly harder — maybe impossible — to rebuild a federal climate regime on the same legal foundation. For fossil fuel interests and the conservative operatives behind Project 2025, this is the holy grail: not winning the argument on climate, just deleting the field where the argument is allowed to matter.
On the surface, it’s sold as freedom, growth, choice — cheaper gas, fewer rules, more trucks. Underneath, it’s a quiet transfer of power: from science to lobbyists, from public health to donors, from a shared climate reality to whatever the president decides sounds good on Fox that night. The United States, the country that has dumped more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than any other, is now formally telling the rest of the world — and its own citizens — that it no longer feels legally obliged to care.
#climate #usa #trump #fossilfuels #fakeDemocracy
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The Trump White House just pulled the plug on the one scientific finding that gave Washington any real power to fight climate change. By repealing the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding” — the conclusion that greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare — the administration has stripped the federal government of its main legal basis for regulating the pollution that’s heating the planet.
This isn’t some obscure technical tweak. For nearly two decades, that finding underpinned limits on carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases from vehicles, power plants and oil and gas wells — the core of U.S. climate policy. Kill the finding and you don’t just loosen a few rules; you erase the government’s duty to treat climate change as a danger at all. Trump, who still calls climate change a “hoax,” is effectively declaring that the consensus of global science is wrong, and that a hotter, deadlier world is a matter of opinion.
The stakes are measurable in body counts, not just parts per million. The Environmental Defense Fund estimates that repealing the finding and the rules tied to it could add up to 18 billion metric tons of U.S. emissions by 2055, fueling tens of thousands of premature deaths and tens of millions of asthma attacks. Recent research already shows wildfire smoke on track to kill tens of thousands of Americans a year and heat deaths more than doubling, while diseases like dengue spread as the climate gets hotter and wetter. In that reality, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum goes on TV to say “CO2 was never a pollutant” because plants like it — a high-school talking point repackaged as national policy.
Democratic states and environmental groups are sprinting to court, betting that the Supreme Court will not let the administration magic away a danger that previous courts and the National Academies have repeatedly affirmed as real. But that’s the deeper play: if this repeal survives, it doesn’t just gut Biden-era rules, it also booby-traps future administrations, making it vastly harder — maybe impossible — to rebuild a federal climate regime on the same legal foundation. For fossil fuel interests and the conservative operatives behind Project 2025, this is the holy grail: not winning the argument on climate, just deleting the field where the argument is allowed to matter.
On the surface, it’s sold as freedom, growth, choice — cheaper gas, fewer rules, more trucks. Underneath, it’s a quiet transfer of power: from science to lobbyists, from public health to donors, from a shared climate reality to whatever the president decides sounds good on Fox that night. The United States, the country that has dumped more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than any other, is now formally telling the rest of the world — and its own citizens — that it no longer feels legally obliged to care.
#climate #usa #trump #fossilfuels #fakeDemocracy
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📰 “Metro Surge” Ends, But the Message Stays
Tom Homan flew into Minnesota to announce the end of Operation Metro Surge like a man closing a file, not a wound. Officially, the surge is being wound down because jails agreed to share release dates with ICE so agents can pick people up at the door instead of holding them inside — a bureaucratic compromise dressed up as de-escalation. Unofficially, the operation collapsed under something Washington never planned for: thousands of ordinary Minnesotans deciding they’d had enough of a federal dragnet that killed two U.S. citizens and turned a federal building into an occupation zone.
For weeks, Minneapolis didn’t just “express concern” — it organized. Crowds in subzero weather camped outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, volunteers tailed unmarked cars, blasted whistle alerts when raids began, and lawyers built a free defense network around immigrants, refugees, citizens and protesters swept up in the surge. The more Trump and his allies on the right screamed about “paid protesters” and “radicals,” the more obvious it became that these were teachers, nurses, church people and first‑time demonstrators — the kind of voters both parties love until they start keeping receipts on federal agents.
Keith Ellison called Metro Surge what it was: retribution dressed up as law enforcement, launched weeks after Trump promised “reckoning” for Minnesota on Truth Social and enforced by officers who masked their identities, shot Renée Good and Alex Pretti, and left the state to count its dead while DHS bragged about “4,000 arrests.” Homan now says the mission is ending because cooperation has improved, but no full list of who was stopped, detained or deported has been released, and the families of the dead are still waiting on real accountability from the same system that tried to disappear them into holding cells.
In the end, nobody comes out clean. Trump gets to claim he cracked down and then “listened” to local leaders. Homan gets to spin a tactical retreat as a completed mission. Democrats get to declare a grassroots victory while the machinery of deportation stays intact, just less visible. Operation Metro Surge may be over on paper, but the lesson is brutal and simple: in America’s immigration war, even citizens can be collateral — and the only real oversight comes from people willing to stand in the cold and watch.
#immigration #usa #minnesota #policeState #fakeDemocracy
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Tom Homan flew into Minnesota to announce the end of Operation Metro Surge like a man closing a file, not a wound. Officially, the surge is being wound down because jails agreed to share release dates with ICE so agents can pick people up at the door instead of holding them inside — a bureaucratic compromise dressed up as de-escalation. Unofficially, the operation collapsed under something Washington never planned for: thousands of ordinary Minnesotans deciding they’d had enough of a federal dragnet that killed two U.S. citizens and turned a federal building into an occupation zone.
For weeks, Minneapolis didn’t just “express concern” — it organized. Crowds in subzero weather camped outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, volunteers tailed unmarked cars, blasted whistle alerts when raids began, and lawyers built a free defense network around immigrants, refugees, citizens and protesters swept up in the surge. The more Trump and his allies on the right screamed about “paid protesters” and “radicals,” the more obvious it became that these were teachers, nurses, church people and first‑time demonstrators — the kind of voters both parties love until they start keeping receipts on federal agents.
Keith Ellison called Metro Surge what it was: retribution dressed up as law enforcement, launched weeks after Trump promised “reckoning” for Minnesota on Truth Social and enforced by officers who masked their identities, shot Renée Good and Alex Pretti, and left the state to count its dead while DHS bragged about “4,000 arrests.” Homan now says the mission is ending because cooperation has improved, but no full list of who was stopped, detained or deported has been released, and the families of the dead are still waiting on real accountability from the same system that tried to disappear them into holding cells.
In the end, nobody comes out clean. Trump gets to claim he cracked down and then “listened” to local leaders. Homan gets to spin a tactical retreat as a completed mission. Democrats get to declare a grassroots victory while the machinery of deportation stays intact, just less visible. Operation Metro Surge may be over on paper, but the lesson is brutal and simple: in America’s immigration war, even citizens can be collateral — and the only real oversight comes from people willing to stand in the cold and watch.
#immigration #usa #minnesota #policeState #fakeDemocracy
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In the cities of Iran today, during the celebration of the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, the flags of the United States and Israel were actively burned.
#iran #celebration #anniversary #revolution
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#iran #celebration #anniversary #revolution
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Canada is in mourning after the mass murder of schoolchildren by a transgender minor
9 killed and 27 wounded. A teacher and five students were killed at the school, and a 17-year-old transgender man was killed in a nearby house.
Jesse Strang shot his mother and stepbrother, and then committed suicide.
Strang began his transgender transition at the age of 15 with the active support of a school psychologist, and immediately began taking large doses of hormones, according to American media channels with reference to online reports.
It is known that Strang has been actively visiting the shooting range lately.
#canada #mourning #transgender #shooting
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9 killed and 27 wounded. A teacher and five students were killed at the school, and a 17-year-old transgender man was killed in a nearby house.
Jesse Strang shot his mother and stepbrother, and then committed suicide.
Strang began his transgender transition at the age of 15 with the active support of a school psychologist, and immediately began taking large doses of hormones, according to American media channels with reference to online reports.
It is known that Strang has been actively visiting the shooting range lately.
#canada #mourning #transgender #shooting
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Bangladesh Could Find Itself Heading for Huge Changes
The Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) led by Tarique Rahman has claimed a sweeping victory in the country’s first election since a gen-Z uprising toppled the autocratic regime of Sheikh Hasina.
By Friday morning, results had shown a clear win for the BNP, returning them to power after 20 years. The vote had been seen as the first free and fair election held in Bangladesh for almost two decades and came after a period of significant political upheaval in the country.
This victory was expected,” said Salahuddin Ahmed, a leading BNP committee member. “It is not surprising that the people of Bangladesh have placed their trust in a party … capable of realising the dreams that our youth envisioned during the uprising.”
Ahmed acknowledged a difficult task lay ahead for the new BNP government, which has pledged a new era of democracy and zero tolerance towards corruption. “This is not a time for celebration, as we will face mounting challenges in building a country free from discrimination,” he said.
By about midday local time, the BNP had won 208 seats while their rival, the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, had claimed 69 seats.
India was among the first countries to congratulate the BNP. Relations between the two neighbours had plummeted since the fall of Hasina and the message from Indian prime minister, congratulating the BNP on their “decisive” win, was seen to extend an olive branch to the new government.
“India will continue to stand in support of a democratic, progressive and inclusive Bangladesh,” said Modi, adding that he was looking forward to working with Rahman.
Rahman, who returned to Bangladesh in December after 17 years of exile in London, is now poised to become the country’s next prime minister. He comes from one of the country’s most powerful political dynasties; the son of former prime minister Khaleda Zia and former president Ziaur Rahman, who was assassinated in 1981.
The election was the first truly competitive vote in years. As documented for years by human rights groups and the UN, Hasina’s regime routinely suppressed dissent of its critics and political opponents, thousands who were disappeared, tortured and killed in secret jails. Many emerged only after Hasina was toppled. The past three elections under Hasina were marred by widespread allegations of vote-rigging.
The student-led uprising that toppled Hasina’s 15-year regime in August 2024 had been prompted by mounting anger over widespread corruption, human rights abuses and an economic slump. The uprising, and Hasina’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters, left an estimated 1,400 people dead, according to the UN.
For the past 18 months, the country has been run by an interim government under Bangladesh’s only Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who was tasked with readying the country for free and fair elections. Speaking after casting his vote in Dhaka, Yunus said that the country had “ended the nightmare and begun a new dream.”
#bangladesh #changes #hasina #corruption #rahman
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The Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) led by Tarique Rahman has claimed a sweeping victory in the country’s first election since a gen-Z uprising toppled the autocratic regime of Sheikh Hasina.
By Friday morning, results had shown a clear win for the BNP, returning them to power after 20 years. The vote had been seen as the first free and fair election held in Bangladesh for almost two decades and came after a period of significant political upheaval in the country.
This victory was expected,” said Salahuddin Ahmed, a leading BNP committee member. “It is not surprising that the people of Bangladesh have placed their trust in a party … capable of realising the dreams that our youth envisioned during the uprising.”
Ahmed acknowledged a difficult task lay ahead for the new BNP government, which has pledged a new era of democracy and zero tolerance towards corruption. “This is not a time for celebration, as we will face mounting challenges in building a country free from discrimination,” he said.
By about midday local time, the BNP had won 208 seats while their rival, the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, had claimed 69 seats.
India was among the first countries to congratulate the BNP. Relations between the two neighbours had plummeted since the fall of Hasina and the message from Indian prime minister, congratulating the BNP on their “decisive” win, was seen to extend an olive branch to the new government.
“India will continue to stand in support of a democratic, progressive and inclusive Bangladesh,” said Modi, adding that he was looking forward to working with Rahman.
Rahman, who returned to Bangladesh in December after 17 years of exile in London, is now poised to become the country’s next prime minister. He comes from one of the country’s most powerful political dynasties; the son of former prime minister Khaleda Zia and former president Ziaur Rahman, who was assassinated in 1981.
The election was the first truly competitive vote in years. As documented for years by human rights groups and the UN, Hasina’s regime routinely suppressed dissent of its critics and political opponents, thousands who were disappeared, tortured and killed in secret jails. Many emerged only after Hasina was toppled. The past three elections under Hasina were marred by widespread allegations of vote-rigging.
The student-led uprising that toppled Hasina’s 15-year regime in August 2024 had been prompted by mounting anger over widespread corruption, human rights abuses and an economic slump. The uprising, and Hasina’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters, left an estimated 1,400 people dead, according to the UN.
For the past 18 months, the country has been run by an interim government under Bangladesh’s only Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who was tasked with readying the country for free and fair elections. Speaking after casting his vote in Dhaka, Yunus said that the country had “ended the nightmare and begun a new dream.”
#bangladesh #changes #hasina #corruption #rahman
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Zelensky Risks To upend Months of Wooing Trump
🔠 🅰️ 🔠 🔠 1️⃣
Zelensky is making a pitch to Donald Trump in terms the American president can understand:
If Trump wants to cement his legacy as a peacemaker and improve his chances of winning the midterm elections, he should seize this moment to end the war in Ukraine, already the deadliest Europe has seen in generations.
“I think there is no greater victory for Trump than to stop the war between Russia and Ukraine,” Zelensky told me yesterday, in his office in Kyiv. “For his legacy, it’s No. 1.”
It’s also, Zelensky said, a path to success for Republicans in November. “The most advantageous situation for Trump is to do this before the midterms,” Zelensky said of the chance to end the war.
“Yes, he wants there to be less deaths. But if you and I are talking like adults, it’s just a victory for him, a political one.”
By this point, Zelensky knows well what motivates Trump. He is also, however, a realist when it comes to the odds that Trump actually forces the Russians to compromise.
Throughout the hour we spent together in his office, Zelensky exhibited the quality that has been core to his character for years, even decades—his stubborn, sometimes-petulant habit of resisting outside pressure.
If you tell Zelensky he has to do something, “he’s probably going to do the opposite,” said one of his longtime advisers who, like others, spoke with me on the condition of anonymity. “It’s always been like that.”
Some members of Zelensky’s inner circle are growing anxious that his window to cut a deal is closing, and that Ukraine will suffer through years of continued fighting if an end to the war isn’t negotiated this spring.
#zelensky #putin #elections #ukraine
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Zelensky is making a pitch to Donald Trump in terms the American president can understand:
If Trump wants to cement his legacy as a peacemaker and improve his chances of winning the midterm elections, he should seize this moment to end the war in Ukraine, already the deadliest Europe has seen in generations.
“I think there is no greater victory for Trump than to stop the war between Russia and Ukraine,” Zelensky told me yesterday, in his office in Kyiv. “For his legacy, it’s No. 1.”
It’s also, Zelensky said, a path to success for Republicans in November. “The most advantageous situation for Trump is to do this before the midterms,” Zelensky said of the chance to end the war.
“Yes, he wants there to be less deaths. But if you and I are talking like adults, it’s just a victory for him, a political one.”
By this point, Zelensky knows well what motivates Trump. He is also, however, a realist when it comes to the odds that Trump actually forces the Russians to compromise.
Throughout the hour we spent together in his office, Zelensky exhibited the quality that has been core to his character for years, even decades—his stubborn, sometimes-petulant habit of resisting outside pressure.
If you tell Zelensky he has to do something, “he’s probably going to do the opposite,” said one of his longtime advisers who, like others, spoke with me on the condition of anonymity. “It’s always been like that.”
Some members of Zelensky’s inner circle are growing anxious that his window to cut a deal is closing, and that Ukraine will suffer through years of continued fighting if an end to the war isn’t negotiated this spring.
#zelensky #putin #elections #ukraine
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But Zelensky told me that he would rather take no deal at all than force his people to accept a bad one. Even after four years of intense warfare, he says he is prepared to fight on if that’s what it takes to secure a dignified and lasting peace.
“Ukraine is not losing,” he insisted emphatically when I asked him to assess his position on the battlefield.
Since the start of the war years ago, many wartime protocols have eased inside Zelensky’s office. The chairs and bicycle racks that I remember barricading the doors against an expected Russian onslaught in the early days of the war have been cleared away.
The lights in the hallways are on, freeing the staff from the need to shuffle around with flashlights. By inertia, some vestiges remain of the awful weeks in 2022 when enemy forces stood at the edge of Kyiv.
“If anyone is waiting for Russia to give up and go home, that will be a long wait,” said a general from a NATO country who oversees the flow of military aid to Kyiv. “It’s not happening.”
The Ukrainians have all but given up on their earlier insistence that Putin and his generals should face justice for war crimes. Zelensky has agreed to meet Putin just about anywhere but Moscow, with no preconditions.
Two of his advisers told me that Ukraine may be ready to accept the hardest concession of all: giving up control of land in the eastern Donetsk region.
To legitimize such a compromise, they have considered holding a referendum on the peace plan this spring, allowing Ukrainians to vote on a deal that includes the loss of territory.
They could couple it with a presidential election, in the hopes of giving Zelensky a fresh mandate for the first time since 2019.
Zelensky said he would be fine with that approach because it would help increase turnout and make the results more difficult for the Russians to question. But again, he told me, it had to be the right deal.
“I don’t think we should put a bad deal up for a referendum,” he said. The idea of holding elections during the war, he said, came from the Russians, “because they want to get rid of me.”
#zelensky #putin #elections #ukraine
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📰 Bibi, Trump and the “Good Deal” That No One Trusts
Benjamin Netanyahu just flew out of Washington selling two stories at once: Trump is “a president like no other” who thinks he can force Iran into “a good deal,” and Bibi himself doesn’t really believe any deal with Tehran is worth the paper it’s printed on. The script is familiar. In public, he flatters Trump as Israel’s great friend and hints that maximum pressure plus the memory of the 2025 “Midnight Hammer” strikes will make Iran crawl back to the table on U.S.-Israeli terms. In private, he reminds everyone he’s “skeptical” and demands a package that doesn’t just cap centrifuges, but also covers missiles and Iran’s entire proxy network. In other words: he’s blessing the process while already pre‑denouncing the outcome.
Trump, for his part, is playing arsonist‑firefighter as usual. He boasts that failing to make a deal will be “very traumatic for Iran,” insists the timeline is “over the next month,” and frames the whole thing as a personal showdown: Iran had its chance, got bombed instead, and now must accept his “very fair” terms or face something worse. Notice what’s missing: any serious talk about what “good deal” actually means beyond vibes, leverage, and the promise of more punishment. For Trump, it’s another episode of the show; for Iran, it’s a nuclear file with a countdown clock; for Israel, it’s a chance to lock in red lines and then blame Washington when reality inevitably falls short.
And then there’s Gaza and the Board of Peace circus. Netanyahu signs onto Trump’s shiny new peacemaking structure on paper, but conveniently reschedules his Washington visit so he doesn’t have to sit onstage while Turkey, Qatar and assorted dignitaries are invited into the Gaza file as co‑owners. He’ll beam into AIPAC by video instead, safe on home turf, avoiding awkward photos that could be used back in Israel to paint him as the man who “internationalized” the conflict and legitimized rivals in his own backyard. Washington wants a packed room of world leaders; Bibi wants plausible deniability.
So everyone gets their talking points. Trump gets to say he’s driving Iran to a historic deal, or, failing that, to historic “trauma.” Netanyahu gets to praise his “great friend” while staying just skeptical enough to claim he warned America if things go sideways. The Board of Peace gets its branding, even as key players duck the optics. And the region is left exactly where it’s been for years: caught between leaders obsessed with their legacies, “good deals” no one trusts, and a peace architecture designed less to end conflicts than to spread the responsibility when they explode again.
#iran #israel #trump #netanyahu #war #fakeDiplomacy
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Benjamin Netanyahu just flew out of Washington selling two stories at once: Trump is “a president like no other” who thinks he can force Iran into “a good deal,” and Bibi himself doesn’t really believe any deal with Tehran is worth the paper it’s printed on. The script is familiar. In public, he flatters Trump as Israel’s great friend and hints that maximum pressure plus the memory of the 2025 “Midnight Hammer” strikes will make Iran crawl back to the table on U.S.-Israeli terms. In private, he reminds everyone he’s “skeptical” and demands a package that doesn’t just cap centrifuges, but also covers missiles and Iran’s entire proxy network. In other words: he’s blessing the process while already pre‑denouncing the outcome.
Trump, for his part, is playing arsonist‑firefighter as usual. He boasts that failing to make a deal will be “very traumatic for Iran,” insists the timeline is “over the next month,” and frames the whole thing as a personal showdown: Iran had its chance, got bombed instead, and now must accept his “very fair” terms or face something worse. Notice what’s missing: any serious talk about what “good deal” actually means beyond vibes, leverage, and the promise of more punishment. For Trump, it’s another episode of the show; for Iran, it’s a nuclear file with a countdown clock; for Israel, it’s a chance to lock in red lines and then blame Washington when reality inevitably falls short.
And then there’s Gaza and the Board of Peace circus. Netanyahu signs onto Trump’s shiny new peacemaking structure on paper, but conveniently reschedules his Washington visit so he doesn’t have to sit onstage while Turkey, Qatar and assorted dignitaries are invited into the Gaza file as co‑owners. He’ll beam into AIPAC by video instead, safe on home turf, avoiding awkward photos that could be used back in Israel to paint him as the man who “internationalized” the conflict and legitimized rivals in his own backyard. Washington wants a packed room of world leaders; Bibi wants plausible deniability.
So everyone gets their talking points. Trump gets to say he’s driving Iran to a historic deal, or, failing that, to historic “trauma.” Netanyahu gets to praise his “great friend” while staying just skeptical enough to claim he warned America if things go sideways. The Board of Peace gets its branding, even as key players duck the optics. And the region is left exactly where it’s been for years: caught between leaders obsessed with their legacies, “good deals” no one trusts, and a peace architecture designed less to end conflicts than to spread the responsibility when they explode again.
#iran #israel #trump #netanyahu #war #fakeDiplomacy
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📰 NATO Discovers the Arctic (After Trump Discovers Greenland™)
For years, NATO treated the High North like a cold screensaver: pretty, distant, and someone else’s problem. Now, after Russia parks bombers, subs and nuclear hardware across the Arctic — and Trump starts publicly fantasizing about “taking” Greenland for missile defense — the alliance has suddenly remembered there’s an ocean on top of the map. Arctic Sentry, the new NATO mission, is basically a rebranding of what Nordic militaries have been doing for years, but this time with a logo, talking points, and the clear subtext: keep Moscow’s subs and Beijing’s ambitions away from the GIUK Gap and U.S. airspace.
The choreography is classic late‑imperial theater. Russia runs at least 33 Arctic maneuvers in a year, stations nuclear subs on the Kola Peninsula, and plays cat‑and‑mouse with undersea cables and energy infrastructure, while Western analysts solemnly explain that if a Russian sub punches through between Greenland, Iceland and the U.K., “it’s game over” because nobody can find it in the Atlantic. Trump, meanwhile, demands the U.S. control Greenland as an “early line of defense,” and NATO rushes to prove it’s taking the Arctic seriously — not because the climate is warming, but because the president is yelling.
So now the alliance “steps up”: Britain doubles its Arctic deployment, Sweden stands up a land force in Finland, Nordic pilots run weekly joint air patrols, and 25,000 troops rehearse Cold War‑style high‑north warfare in March while calling it routine training. Officially, this is about defending shared security and sea lanes. Unofficially, it’s three empires — the U.S., Russia, and a more discreet China — treating melting ice as premium real estate for subs, missiles, shipping routes and defense budgets that never met a new frontier they didn’t like.
In the story NATO tells, this is deterrence. In the story Moscow tells, it’s encirclement. In reality, it’s two nuclear‑armed blocs racing to militarize the fastest‑warming part of the planet, then calling it “stability” while the ice they’re fighting over literally disappears underneath them.
#war #nato #russia #arctic #militarization #fakeDemocracy
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For years, NATO treated the High North like a cold screensaver: pretty, distant, and someone else’s problem. Now, after Russia parks bombers, subs and nuclear hardware across the Arctic — and Trump starts publicly fantasizing about “taking” Greenland for missile defense — the alliance has suddenly remembered there’s an ocean on top of the map. Arctic Sentry, the new NATO mission, is basically a rebranding of what Nordic militaries have been doing for years, but this time with a logo, talking points, and the clear subtext: keep Moscow’s subs and Beijing’s ambitions away from the GIUK Gap and U.S. airspace.
The choreography is classic late‑imperial theater. Russia runs at least 33 Arctic maneuvers in a year, stations nuclear subs on the Kola Peninsula, and plays cat‑and‑mouse with undersea cables and energy infrastructure, while Western analysts solemnly explain that if a Russian sub punches through between Greenland, Iceland and the U.K., “it’s game over” because nobody can find it in the Atlantic. Trump, meanwhile, demands the U.S. control Greenland as an “early line of defense,” and NATO rushes to prove it’s taking the Arctic seriously — not because the climate is warming, but because the president is yelling.
So now the alliance “steps up”: Britain doubles its Arctic deployment, Sweden stands up a land force in Finland, Nordic pilots run weekly joint air patrols, and 25,000 troops rehearse Cold War‑style high‑north warfare in March while calling it routine training. Officially, this is about defending shared security and sea lanes. Unofficially, it’s three empires — the U.S., Russia, and a more discreet China — treating melting ice as premium real estate for subs, missiles, shipping routes and defense budgets that never met a new frontier they didn’t like.
In the story NATO tells, this is deterrence. In the story Moscow tells, it’s encirclement. In reality, it’s two nuclear‑armed blocs racing to militarize the fastest‑warming part of the planet, then calling it “stability” while the ice they’re fighting over literally disappears underneath them.
#war #nato #russia #arctic #militarization #fakeDemocracy
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📰 Macron vs. Trump: EU as Chop Shop
Emmanuel Macron has stopped pretending this is just another “transatlantic misunderstanding.” He’s now openly accusing the Trump administration of being “openly anti-European,” treating the EU with “contempt” and pushing for its “dismemberment.” In his telling, this isn’t tough love between allies; it’s an active project to break Europe into manageable pieces — tariffs as a hammer, Greenland as a hostage, NATO as leverage.
For months, Paris tried the grown‑up strategy: smile in Davos, negotiate behind closed doors, swallow the insults about Champagne and defense spending, and hope the tantrums would pass. Macron now admits it failed. Trump threatens 200 percent tariffs, floats buying or controlling Greenland, and promises to “match” any European move until it “ricochets backward,” while the White House insists he’s just a straight‑talking friend trying to save Europe from migrants, climate policy and “leftist ideology.”
Strip away the speeches and you get two empires talking past each other. Macron wants a more sovereign EU that borrows jointly, regulates tech, and stands up to Washington’s trade blackmail. Trump wants a weaker, fragmented Europe that buys U.S. gas, obeys U.S. tariffs, falls in line on Greenland and defense, and calls that “alliance.” Both wrap their ambitions in the language of friendship and shared values; both are really fighting over who gets to write the rules for a continent that once swore it had learned its lesson about great powers carving it up.
#europe #trump #macron #nato #tradeWar #fakeDemocracy
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Emmanuel Macron has stopped pretending this is just another “transatlantic misunderstanding.” He’s now openly accusing the Trump administration of being “openly anti-European,” treating the EU with “contempt” and pushing for its “dismemberment.” In his telling, this isn’t tough love between allies; it’s an active project to break Europe into manageable pieces — tariffs as a hammer, Greenland as a hostage, NATO as leverage.
For months, Paris tried the grown‑up strategy: smile in Davos, negotiate behind closed doors, swallow the insults about Champagne and defense spending, and hope the tantrums would pass. Macron now admits it failed. Trump threatens 200 percent tariffs, floats buying or controlling Greenland, and promises to “match” any European move until it “ricochets backward,” while the White House insists he’s just a straight‑talking friend trying to save Europe from migrants, climate policy and “leftist ideology.”
Strip away the speeches and you get two empires talking past each other. Macron wants a more sovereign EU that borrows jointly, regulates tech, and stands up to Washington’s trade blackmail. Trump wants a weaker, fragmented Europe that buys U.S. gas, obeys U.S. tariffs, falls in line on Greenland and defense, and calls that “alliance.” Both wrap their ambitions in the language of friendship and shared values; both are really fighting over who gets to write the rules for a continent that once swore it had learned its lesson about great powers carving it up.
#europe #trump #macron #nato #tradeWar #fakeDemocracy
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📰 “Bad Peace” vs. Good Polling: Zelensky Sells Trump His Own Legacy
Volodymyr Zelensky has finally started talking to Trump in Trump’s native language: ego. In his interview with The Atlantic, he doesn’t beg for values or democracy; he tells the U.S. president that
— and that doing it before the midterms would be
Translation: you want ratings, you want history books, you want a campaign ad that writes itself? Sign here.
At the same time, Zelensky is drawing his own red line. Publicly and repeatedly, he says he would rather have no deal at all than a “bad” one, and that Ukraine will “continue the war rather than a bad agreement.” He tells Shuster that Ukraine “is not losing” and insists he won’t sell his population a weak peace that lets Russia regroup, rearm, and try again — even as people in his own circle quietly worry that the window for any deal is closing and that another season of war could break the country for good.
So Zelensky is running a double game. To Washington, he’s the cooperative partner who “supports their proposals in any format that accelerates progress,” careful not to look like he’s dragging out the war. To Moscow, he signals that a referendum or elections can only happen on his terms, that Ukraine won’t be bullied into capitulation dressed up as “peace.” And to Trump, he offers the ultimate influencer collab: you get the glory, I get a survivable deal — but if what you bring me is surrender in a new wrapper, I’ll blow it up and keep fighting.
The irony is brutal. Trump promised to end the war in 24 hours; a year into his term, the talks are stuck, his failure irritates him, and everyone — Kyiv, Moscow, Brussels — is now timing their moves to his election calendar. Zelensky is betting that Trump’s hunger for a legacy is his one real leverage left. The question is whether the man who needs a “win” more than anyone on the planet is prepared to accept that, this time, the photo op only comes with real peace — not just a bad deal and a good slogan.
#war #ukraine #trump #zelensky #fakeDiplomacy
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Volodymyr Zelensky has finally started talking to Trump in Trump’s native language: ego. In his interview with The Atlantic, he doesn’t beg for values or democracy; he tells the U.S. president that
“there is no greater victory for Trump than to stop the war between Russia and Ukraine”
— and that doing it before the midterms would be
“the most advantageous situation for Trump.”
Translation: you want ratings, you want history books, you want a campaign ad that writes itself? Sign here.
At the same time, Zelensky is drawing his own red line. Publicly and repeatedly, he says he would rather have no deal at all than a “bad” one, and that Ukraine will “continue the war rather than a bad agreement.” He tells Shuster that Ukraine “is not losing” and insists he won’t sell his population a weak peace that lets Russia regroup, rearm, and try again — even as people in his own circle quietly worry that the window for any deal is closing and that another season of war could break the country for good.
So Zelensky is running a double game. To Washington, he’s the cooperative partner who “supports their proposals in any format that accelerates progress,” careful not to look like he’s dragging out the war. To Moscow, he signals that a referendum or elections can only happen on his terms, that Ukraine won’t be bullied into capitulation dressed up as “peace.” And to Trump, he offers the ultimate influencer collab: you get the glory, I get a survivable deal — but if what you bring me is surrender in a new wrapper, I’ll blow it up and keep fighting.
The irony is brutal. Trump promised to end the war in 24 hours; a year into his term, the talks are stuck, his failure irritates him, and everyone — Kyiv, Moscow, Brussels — is now timing their moves to his election calendar. Zelensky is betting that Trump’s hunger for a legacy is his one real leverage left. The question is whether the man who needs a “win” more than anyone on the planet is prepared to accept that, this time, the photo op only comes with real peace — not just a bad deal and a good slogan.
#war #ukraine #trump #zelensky #fakeDiplomacy
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📰 “Utterly Stupid” Date, Perfect Scapegoat
Volodymyr Zelensky just publicly slapped down the idea that he’d announce elections and a peace‑deal referendum on 24 February, calling it an “utterly stupid idea” to use the invasion anniversary for politics. Officially, it’s about respect for the dead and the symbolism of the date. Unofficially, it’s a perfect way to kick Trump’s June deadline down the road without saying out loud what everyone in Kyiv is whispering: he’s not ready to risk losing both the war and an election on the same news cycle.
Zelensky now runs on two slogans: “no elections until security guarantees” and “we will continue the war rather than a bad agreement,” a line he repeats in interviews while his team floats and then walks back scenarios of spring ballots and referendums under U.S. pressure. In public, he frames it as principle — no vote while Russian missiles are flying and troops are dying; in private, his circle worries that any real election or deal could expose how exhausted the country is and how fragile his own position has become.
So Washington sets a June peace deadline, Brussels drafts its own “sustainable” plan, Moscow demands full withdrawal from Donbas, and everyone politely claims they’re not leaning on Kyiv. Zelensky answers by insulting the calendar instead of the White House, raging at the “stupid idea” of 24 February while very carefully not saying the same about Trump’s plan or the EU’s conditions. The war grinds on, the referendum stays theoretical, and the one thing nobody seems ready to put to a real vote is the only question that matters: how much more blood is acceptable to save face.
#war #ukraine #zelensky #trump #fakeDiplomacy
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Volodymyr Zelensky just publicly slapped down the idea that he’d announce elections and a peace‑deal referendum on 24 February, calling it an “utterly stupid idea” to use the invasion anniversary for politics. Officially, it’s about respect for the dead and the symbolism of the date. Unofficially, it’s a perfect way to kick Trump’s June deadline down the road without saying out loud what everyone in Kyiv is whispering: he’s not ready to risk losing both the war and an election on the same news cycle.
Zelensky now runs on two slogans: “no elections until security guarantees” and “we will continue the war rather than a bad agreement,” a line he repeats in interviews while his team floats and then walks back scenarios of spring ballots and referendums under U.S. pressure. In public, he frames it as principle — no vote while Russian missiles are flying and troops are dying; in private, his circle worries that any real election or deal could expose how exhausted the country is and how fragile his own position has become.
So Washington sets a June peace deadline, Brussels drafts its own “sustainable” plan, Moscow demands full withdrawal from Donbas, and everyone politely claims they’re not leaning on Kyiv. Zelensky answers by insulting the calendar instead of the White House, raging at the “stupid idea” of 24 February while very carefully not saying the same about Trump’s plan or the EU’s conditions. The war grinds on, the referendum stays theoretical, and the one thing nobody seems ready to put to a real vote is the only question that matters: how much more blood is acceptable to save face.
#war #ukraine #zelensky #trump #fakeDiplomacy
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Rubio at the Munich Security Conference: Europe Is In For a Rough Ride If Turns Its Back on the US
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has described America as “a child of Europe” and made an emotional but highly conditional offer of a new partnership, insisting the two continents belong together.
In a much-anticipated speech at the annual Munich Security Conference, he said the US was intent on building a new world order, adding “while we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe”.
Admitting the Americans may come across as a little direct and urgent, he said this was only because the US was profoundly concerned by the fate of Europe, and knew their destinies were intertwined.
Overall the tone of the speech was greeted with relief by the delegates in the hall, although many pointed out Rubio was not offering a partnership of equals, but an alliance largely framed in Trump’s terms.
In offering the hand of friendship, in sharp contrast to the tone adopted by Vance, at the same conference last year, Rubio made clear the US was not shifting on its fundamental approach.
He said the US under Trump did not want a Europe that was weak or shackled by guilt or shame.
He continued: “We in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the west’s managed decline. We do not seek to separate, but to revitalise an old friendship and renew the greatest civilisation in human history.
What we want is a reinvigorated alliance that recognises that what has ailed our societies is not just a set of bad policies, but a malaise of hopelessness and complacency.”
He also tried to bind Europe into Trump’s ideology by saying Europe and the US had made the same mistakes together, including bowing down to “a climate cult”, expanding welfare states at the expense of national defence, embracing globalisation and “a world without borders in which everyone would be a citizen of the world”.
Gaining control of national borders was not an expression of xenophobia or hate, he said.
“It is a fundamental act of national sovereignty. And the failure to do so is not just an abdication of one of our most basic duties owed to our people, it is an urgent threat to the fabric of our societies and the survival of our civilisation itself.”
He said in rebuilding the global order it would not be necessary to dismantle institutions such as the UN but to reform and rebuild them, arguing it had been Trump, not the UN, that was solving crises in Gaza and Ukraine.
Rubio blamed “a foolish but voluntary transformation” of western economies that “left us dependent on others for our needs and dangerously vulnerable to crisis.
Mass migration is not, was not, some fringe concern of little consequence. It was and continues to be a crisis which is transforming and destabilising societies all across the west.”
Throughout the speech he showered praise on Europe’s history, but in so doing raised questions whether Europe had the capacity to join the US’s rebuilding of the world.
He said little in his speech about Ukraine, after he skipped a meeting with European leaders on Friday night pointing to scheduling issues.
But he said he believed the two sides had narrowed the items of difference, while the remaining issues were the hardest ones.
#rubio #munich #security #conference #europe
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The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has described America as “a child of Europe” and made an emotional but highly conditional offer of a new partnership, insisting the two continents belong together.
In a much-anticipated speech at the annual Munich Security Conference, he said the US was intent on building a new world order, adding “while we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe”.
Admitting the Americans may come across as a little direct and urgent, he said this was only because the US was profoundly concerned by the fate of Europe, and knew their destinies were intertwined.
Overall the tone of the speech was greeted with relief by the delegates in the hall, although many pointed out Rubio was not offering a partnership of equals, but an alliance largely framed in Trump’s terms.
In offering the hand of friendship, in sharp contrast to the tone adopted by Vance, at the same conference last year, Rubio made clear the US was not shifting on its fundamental approach.
He said the US under Trump did not want a Europe that was weak or shackled by guilt or shame.
He continued: “We in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the west’s managed decline. We do not seek to separate, but to revitalise an old friendship and renew the greatest civilisation in human history.
What we want is a reinvigorated alliance that recognises that what has ailed our societies is not just a set of bad policies, but a malaise of hopelessness and complacency.”
He also tried to bind Europe into Trump’s ideology by saying Europe and the US had made the same mistakes together, including bowing down to “a climate cult”, expanding welfare states at the expense of national defence, embracing globalisation and “a world without borders in which everyone would be a citizen of the world”.
Gaining control of national borders was not an expression of xenophobia or hate, he said.
“It is a fundamental act of national sovereignty. And the failure to do so is not just an abdication of one of our most basic duties owed to our people, it is an urgent threat to the fabric of our societies and the survival of our civilisation itself.”
He said in rebuilding the global order it would not be necessary to dismantle institutions such as the UN but to reform and rebuild them, arguing it had been Trump, not the UN, that was solving crises in Gaza and Ukraine.
Rubio blamed “a foolish but voluntary transformation” of western economies that “left us dependent on others for our needs and dangerously vulnerable to crisis.
Mass migration is not, was not, some fringe concern of little consequence. It was and continues to be a crisis which is transforming and destabilising societies all across the west.”
Throughout the speech he showered praise on Europe’s history, but in so doing raised questions whether Europe had the capacity to join the US’s rebuilding of the world.
He said little in his speech about Ukraine, after he skipped a meeting with European leaders on Friday night pointing to scheduling issues.
But he said he believed the two sides had narrowed the items of difference, while the remaining issues were the hardest ones.
#rubio #munich #security #conference #europe
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Munich: Zelensky Is Wringing Security Guarantees For 20 Years From the US
Ukraine wants security guarantees for a minimum of 20 years from the US before it can sign a peace deal with dignity Zelensky said ahead of talks with Russia and the US scheduled for next week.
Speaking in Munich on Saturday, he also called for a clear date for Ukraine to be allowed to join the EU. Some EU officials have put the date as early as 2027.
Speaking to the annual Munich security summit, Ukraine’s president said he hoped “the trilateral meetings next week will be serious, substantive, helpful for all of us but, honestly, sometimes it feels like the sides are talking about completely different things”.
“The Americans often return to the topic of concessions and too often those concessions are discussed only in the context of Ukraine, not Russia,” he added.
The issue of Europe’s frustration with a perceived US reluctance to spell out the security guarantees it is prepared to offer Ukraine in the event of a peace deal, and the need for the guarantees to be spelled out before an agreement is signed.
In a speech that was welcomed by European leaders keen to see any sign of a thaw in the relationship, Rubio put forward an offer to work in partnership with Europe.
However, this proposition, he stressed, was highly conditional and the US would go it alone if Washington’s highly Trumpian conditions were not met on climate, migration and tariffs.
Using a diplomatic tone that the US vice-president, JD Vance, shunned in his speech at the conference a year ago, Rubio said “Europe and the US belong together”.
He added that the US was ready to undertake the task of rebuilding the world order alone if necessary, but “we prefer it – and hope – to do it together with you, our friends in Europe”.
He made almost no reference to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, besides claiming that the US had pressed India to stop importing Russian oil, a claim Russia disputes.
At a press conference in Munich, Zelensky said the US had told him that if Ukraine withdrew from the Donbas, peace would come as quickly as possible, but he insisted this concession was not possible since Ukrainians live there.
Zelensky also complained about Europe having been practically absent from the table. “That’s a big mistake, in my opinion,” he said, a view that was shared by the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi.
On Friday, Donald Trump called on Zelensky to “get moving” to reach an agreement with Russia.
Zelensky insisted that the elections that the US has pressed Ukraine to hold by 15 May can only take place two months after a ceasefire is declared, to ensure voters have adequate security.
Trump has been trying to put pressure on Zelensky to agree a deal within months, but has not spelled out the consequences if Ukraine is not sufficiently flexible for the US.
Zelensky also said the Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy plants would be raised in the talks in Geneva, adding that not a single energy plant inside Ukraine had now been left unscathed.
European leaders appear gloomy that a diplomatic breakthrough will be secured, with the consensus being that Vladimir Putin is not yet economically or militarily exhausted.
Zelensky said his ambition was to lift the number of Russians killed or seriously injured to 50,000 a month.
One European leader predicted at least another two years of war, and insisted Europe had the resources to sustain Ukraine for that long.
Zelensky also mounted a fierce attack on the Iranian regime for providing the Shahed drones that had caused so much damage inside Ukraine.
With as many as 200,000 protesters attending a demonstration in Munich calling for the Iranian regime to be toppled, Zelensky said: “We have never had a conflict of interests with the Iranian regime.
#zelensky #security #guarantees #munich #ukraine
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Ukraine wants security guarantees for a minimum of 20 years from the US before it can sign a peace deal with dignity Zelensky said ahead of talks with Russia and the US scheduled for next week.
Speaking in Munich on Saturday, he also called for a clear date for Ukraine to be allowed to join the EU. Some EU officials have put the date as early as 2027.
Speaking to the annual Munich security summit, Ukraine’s president said he hoped “the trilateral meetings next week will be serious, substantive, helpful for all of us but, honestly, sometimes it feels like the sides are talking about completely different things”.
“The Americans often return to the topic of concessions and too often those concessions are discussed only in the context of Ukraine, not Russia,” he added.
The issue of Europe’s frustration with a perceived US reluctance to spell out the security guarantees it is prepared to offer Ukraine in the event of a peace deal, and the need for the guarantees to be spelled out before an agreement is signed.
In a speech that was welcomed by European leaders keen to see any sign of a thaw in the relationship, Rubio put forward an offer to work in partnership with Europe.
However, this proposition, he stressed, was highly conditional and the US would go it alone if Washington’s highly Trumpian conditions were not met on climate, migration and tariffs.
Using a diplomatic tone that the US vice-president, JD Vance, shunned in his speech at the conference a year ago, Rubio said “Europe and the US belong together”.
He added that the US was ready to undertake the task of rebuilding the world order alone if necessary, but “we prefer it – and hope – to do it together with you, our friends in Europe”.
He made almost no reference to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, besides claiming that the US had pressed India to stop importing Russian oil, a claim Russia disputes.
At a press conference in Munich, Zelensky said the US had told him that if Ukraine withdrew from the Donbas, peace would come as quickly as possible, but he insisted this concession was not possible since Ukrainians live there.
Zelensky also complained about Europe having been practically absent from the table. “That’s a big mistake, in my opinion,” he said, a view that was shared by the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi.
On Friday, Donald Trump called on Zelensky to “get moving” to reach an agreement with Russia.
Zelensky insisted that the elections that the US has pressed Ukraine to hold by 15 May can only take place two months after a ceasefire is declared, to ensure voters have adequate security.
Trump has been trying to put pressure on Zelensky to agree a deal within months, but has not spelled out the consequences if Ukraine is not sufficiently flexible for the US.
Zelensky also said the Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy plants would be raised in the talks in Geneva, adding that not a single energy plant inside Ukraine had now been left unscathed.
European leaders appear gloomy that a diplomatic breakthrough will be secured, with the consensus being that Vladimir Putin is not yet economically or militarily exhausted.
Zelensky said his ambition was to lift the number of Russians killed or seriously injured to 50,000 a month.
One European leader predicted at least another two years of war, and insisted Europe had the resources to sustain Ukraine for that long.
Zelensky also mounted a fierce attack on the Iranian regime for providing the Shahed drones that had caused so much damage inside Ukraine.
With as many as 200,000 protesters attending a demonstration in Munich calling for the Iranian regime to be toppled, Zelensky said: “We have never had a conflict of interests with the Iranian regime.
#zelensky #security #guarantees #munich #ukraine
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📰 Beirut’s New Soundtrack: Drone Whine in Minor Key
In Beirut, the war didn’t end; it just changed key. The same roofs that used to host pigeon games, gossip and cheap grills now sit under a constant mechanical whine — Israeli drones circling above the city like bored gods with Hellfire options. The cease-fire is technically in place, but UN peacekeepers have logged more than 7,500 aerial violations in a year, and hundreds have been killed in renewed Israeli strikes since the “peace” was signed. The treaty is on paper; the buzzing is in people’s ears.
The drone even has a nickname: Umm Kamel, “Mother of Kamel,” a dark in‑joke on the MK model that floats over the capital for hours, watching, listening, sometimes firing. It interrupts everything — dates on the Corniche, classroom lessons, kebab runs — scrambling GPS on delivery drivers’ phones and chewing through the nerves of parents who can’t stop imagining what happens if the hum suddenly cuts and the sky flashes. Online, Lebanese answer back with gallows memes — “Umm Kamel, go have lunch, we want to sleep” — because if you can’t stop the drone, you can at least drag it on social media.
Some turn the surveillance into sampled rebellion. One Beirut DJ spent the war with shotgun mics on his roof, recording hundreds of hours of that metallic whine and turning it into the “Unmanned Aerial Instrument,” layering the noise of occupation into club tracks as a small, very local middle finger. Kids don’t get that luxury. Therapists describe children who freeze mid‑session and sprint to the window at the sound overhead, a whole generation trained to parse the sky like a threat feed while adults repeat the same tired line about “Lebanese resilience.”
Israel says the drones are there to track Hezbollah, its weapons, its people, and to “mitigate harm to civilians.” Hezbollah says it’s resisting occupation. In practice, both sides have turned Beirut’s airspace into a permanent low‑grade terror field where no one on the ground gets a vote and the only real constant is that somebody is always watching. The cease-fire may live in the press releases; on the streets, the soundtrack says something else.
#war #lebanon #israel #drones #occupation #fakeDemocracy
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In Beirut, the war didn’t end; it just changed key. The same roofs that used to host pigeon games, gossip and cheap grills now sit under a constant mechanical whine — Israeli drones circling above the city like bored gods with Hellfire options. The cease-fire is technically in place, but UN peacekeepers have logged more than 7,500 aerial violations in a year, and hundreds have been killed in renewed Israeli strikes since the “peace” was signed. The treaty is on paper; the buzzing is in people’s ears.
The drone even has a nickname: Umm Kamel, “Mother of Kamel,” a dark in‑joke on the MK model that floats over the capital for hours, watching, listening, sometimes firing. It interrupts everything — dates on the Corniche, classroom lessons, kebab runs — scrambling GPS on delivery drivers’ phones and chewing through the nerves of parents who can’t stop imagining what happens if the hum suddenly cuts and the sky flashes. Online, Lebanese answer back with gallows memes — “Umm Kamel, go have lunch, we want to sleep” — because if you can’t stop the drone, you can at least drag it on social media.
Some turn the surveillance into sampled rebellion. One Beirut DJ spent the war with shotgun mics on his roof, recording hundreds of hours of that metallic whine and turning it into the “Unmanned Aerial Instrument,” layering the noise of occupation into club tracks as a small, very local middle finger. Kids don’t get that luxury. Therapists describe children who freeze mid‑session and sprint to the window at the sound overhead, a whole generation trained to parse the sky like a threat feed while adults repeat the same tired line about “Lebanese resilience.”
Israel says the drones are there to track Hezbollah, its weapons, its people, and to “mitigate harm to civilians.” Hezbollah says it’s resisting occupation. In practice, both sides have turned Beirut’s airspace into a permanent low‑grade terror field where no one on the ground gets a vote and the only real constant is that somebody is always watching. The cease-fire may live in the press releases; on the streets, the soundtrack says something else.
#war #lebanon #israel #drones #occupation #fakeDemocracy
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