US President Donald Trump’s top negotiators are preparing to pitch “new ideas and proposals” aimed at breaking the deadlock in the Ukraine conflict, with talks involving representatives of Kiev and its European backers scheduled to begin in Miami on Friday, according to Reuters and Axios.

Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner are expected to hold a two-day working session with the Ukrainian delegation in an effort to develop a unified proposal that could later be presented to Moscow.

The pair could then travel to the Russian capital later this month for another round of talks with President Vladimir Putin, Axios reported, citing a source familiar with the discussions.

According to Reuters, the ideas were developed during and after Witkoff and Kushner’s diplomatic tour of Moscow and Kiev in early September. The pair have since remained in contact with both Russian and Ukrainian officials while working on an updated peace initiative.

Witkoff and Kushner met Trump on Thursday to present the latest proposals and receive his input ahead of the Miami talks, according to Axios. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Deputy National Security Adviser Mike Needham also attended the meeting.

Kiev's European backers ‘nervous’ about winter

Kiev will reportedly be represented by Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff, Kirill Budanov, intelligence chief Rustem Umerov, diplomatic adviser Sergey Kislitsa and top lawmaker David Arakhamia.

A US source told AFP that European governments have privately complained about soaring energy prices and other economic costs stemming from the conflict, adding that there is growing concern about another winter of hostilities.

“They are all nervous about the winter. It will be a tough winter if the war does not stop,” the source said.

Kremlin agrees with Rubio on ‘stalemate’

The new diplomatic push comes as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the conflict as a “dangerous stalemate,” warning that further escalation could spill beyond Ukraine and trigger a broader confrontation.

The Kremlin said it shared Rubio’s assessment of the current diplomatic impasse, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying he “agreed” that no clear prospect of a negotiated settlement was currently visible.

He nevertheless reiterated Moscow’s position that Russia remains open to negotiations, while accusing Kiev of showing no willingness to accept reality and pursue a long-term settlement.

Despite the lack of progress on Ukraine, contacts between Washington and Moscow have continued on other tracks, Peskov added, noting that the two countries are discussing “a whole range” of potentially mutually beneficial economic projects, including possible cooperation in the energy sector.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has announced plans to livestream the execution of a former US Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at a military base in Texas, arguing that Americans should witness the consequences of such crimes.

Nidal Malik Hasan, a former Army major sentenced to death for a 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, is scheduled to face a military firing squad on December 3. The execution would be the first carried out by the US military in more than six decades and the first by an Army firing squad since World War II.

Speaking to conservative commentator Jack Posobiec on Thursday, Hegseth defended the decision to execute Hasan at the same installation where he carried out the massacre.

“He’s going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be, and we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” Hegseth said.

MAJOR NEWS!!! @SECWAR REVEALS FORT HOOD SHOOTER’S FIRING SQUAD EXECUTION WILL BE PUBLIC Sec. Pete Hegseth says Nidal Hasan will be executed by soldiers at Fort Hood on December 3 at 1 PM—the same time as the 2009 attack. “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public.” @JackPosobiec

— Real America's Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) October 8, 2026

The Department of War subsequently confirmed that the execution would be livestreamed for public viewing, with further details to follow, according to the Washington Post and AP.

The gunman had previously exchanged emails with radical Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was subsequently killed in a US drone strike in Yemen. During his court-martial, Hasan admitted responsibility for the massacre, claiming he had acted to protect fellow Muslims from American military operations in Afghanistan.

He was convicted of premeditated murder and attempted murder in 2013 and sentenced to death. The US Supreme Court declined to review his conviction in March 2025, clearing the way for President Donald Trump to approve the execution earlier this month following a recommendation from Hegseth.

The last US military execution took place in 1961, when an Army private was hanged after being convicted of rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-orld girl.

Capital punishment by firing squad remains legal in five US states – Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah – although the method is rarely used.

Public executions are even more unusual in modern American history. The last widely recognized public execution in the US took place in Kentucky in 1936, when a convicted murderer was hanged before thousands of spectators.

Tehran is striving to find a diplomatic solution to the war imposed on it by the US, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday at a meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian.

The Russian president noted that Tehran had recently put forward a proposal aimed at resolving the conflict peacefully, adding that Moscow is willing to play a constructive role in the process.

“Iran is making real efforts to end the conflict, which broke out in the region through no fault of its own, through no fault of Iran,” Putin said.

Putin also hailed the deepening cooperation between Russia and Iran, especially in trade and humanitarian affairs, during bilateral talks in Turkmenistan, where he is set to take part in a leaders’ summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and a Caspian Sea environmental summit.

In late September, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced that Tehran had submitted a peace plan to the US. Under the roadmap, the Islamic Republic signaled its readiness to restore navigation through the Strait of Hormuz – a strategically important waterway for crude oil exports from the Middle East.

In exchange, Iran, which imposed a blockade on the crucial oil shipping route after the start of the conflict, expects the US to lift its own blockade of the Islamic Republic, ease restrictions on its oil exports, and release some of its frozen assets. Tehran is also seeking an end to hostilities on all fronts, including Israel’s military operation in Lebanon.

While there have been media reports of indirect negotiations between the two countries in recent weeks, President Trump has rejected the Iranian proposal outright. He told reporters that Tehran wants to “make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make.” The US president has also suggested that Washington is not ruling out resuming strikes on Iran in the coming weeks.

Syria could join a Saudi-backed military offensive against the Houthis in Yemen by deploying thousands of troops, Axios has reported, citing US officials.

Yemen’s internationally recognized government forces have launched a major counteroffensive to recapture territory seized by the Iranian-backed Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, including areas around the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The Saudi-led coalition has backed the operation with extensive airstrikes against Houthi positions.

According to an Axios report, Riyadh and Damascus are discussing the deployment of up to 20,000 Syrian troops. Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who previously led the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is reportedly considering the proposal but has yet to make a decision.

The issue came up during al-Sharaa’s meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh on Tuesday, the sources said. Saudi Arabia is seeking to reinforce Yemeni government forces, which US officials described as less well-trained than the Houthis.

The Syrian units under consideration reportedly include thousands of Islamist foreign fighters who fought against former President Bashar Assad under the HTS umbrella before his overthrow in December 2024. Their involvement could deepen sectarian divisions, as the fighters include Sunni Islamists, while the Houthis follow Zaydi Shiite Islam.

Reuters separately reported that Damascus was considering military assistance, including defensive support for Saudi Arabia or participation in operations inside Yemen. However, Syrian presidential adviser Ahmad Zaidan denied that Riyadh had requested troops, describing the reports as baseless.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa is in Riyadh for talks with MBS. https://t.co/LWZajNI04M

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) October 6, 2026

The renewed fighting follows Houthi territorial gains along the Red Sea coast in September, threatening shipping through Bab el-Mandeb, a vital trade route connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. The waterway has gained particular importance following disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran. The Houthis also claimed to have effectively encircled Taiz, a major city linking northern and southern Yemen with the Red Sea coast, after cutting a vital supply route to the southern port city of Aden.

Riyadh has also secured military support from Türkiye and Pakistan under a collective defense agreement dubbed the ‘Muslim NATO’ that was signed in August.

The Yemen conflict escalated after the Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention the following year. Fighting largely subsided following a 2022 truce, before flaring up again this year.

Yemen’s Houthi forces have reportedly struck King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh with missiles for the second time in a day, hours after issuing a “final warning” to airlines against operating in Saudi airspace.

The Houthis hit the airport with two cruise missiles on Thursday evening, the group’s military spokesman, Yahya Saree announced in a statement. Houthi forces also hit Abha Airport and King Khalid Air Base with ballistic missiles, Saree added.

“The strikes were precise and direct, resulting in the disruption of air traffic at the two airports and causing damage to them and the air base,” Saree said. The Saudi government has not acknowledged the strikes. The head of the Saudi military coalition against the Houthis in Yemen, Turki al-Maliki, has claimed that two missiles were intercepted before they reached Riyadh, and one was intercepted before it reached King Khalid Air Base.

Earlier on Thursday, Houthi forces hit King Khalid International Airport with a ballistic missile, which Saree said “struck its target with precision and caused the disruption of airport operations.” 

Video footage shared by the Houthis showed a thick plume of smoke rising from the apron of the airport, while footage shared on social media suggested that the missile landed directly on a parked aircraft belonging to the Saudia airline.

After the first strike, Saree issued what he called a “final warning to all global airlines,” warning them to stay out of Saudi airspace, “which has become a theater for our military operations.”

Saudi Arabia has been waging war against the Houthis since 2015, although the fighting was paused by a ceasefire in 2022. Fighting resumed this July after Saudi-backed forces struck the runway at Sanaa airport to prevent an Iranian plane carrying a Houthi delegation from landing. The Houthis responded with strikes on Saudi targets, while Saudi jets resumed large-scale airstrikes on Yemen.

The conflict escalated further in September, when the Houthis made their largest territorial gains in years, taking Mocha and key positions along the Red Sea coast and around Bab el-Mandeb.

It took a bungled kidnapping for Germany’s former spymaster to be charged with espionage and treason, but August Hanning’s ties to Israeli spies and criminals should have set alarm bells ringing in Berlin long ago.

Prosecutors have alleged that Hanning bought state secrets from his former BND aide – identified as ‘Manfred D’, who remained in the agency after Hanning’s departure and served several of his successors. They claim Hanning acquired nearly 2,000 BND documents between 2010 and 2022, which he then leveraged in his work as a private security consultant at-large to the rich and powerful.

Hanning, part of the woodwork on the security conference circuit, used this material to prepare a report for an employee of a foreign intelligence service, and maintained “close contact with a representative of another foreign intelligence service,” to whom he passed information obtained by Manfred D “for several years.”

Prosecutors haven’t identified which foreign services Hanning collaborated with, though media reporting suggests one is believed to be the Foreign Intelligence Service of Azerbaijan, a country Hanning has openly lobbied for since the mid-2010s. As for the other, Hanning’s involvement in a bizarre kidnapping plot suggests one obvious culprit.

The Israeli kidnapping plot

German investigators picked up Hanning’s trail last September, when Hamburg police searched his apartment as part of an investigation involving multi-millionaire Christina Block, whose father built Germany’s most popular steakhouse chain, as well as a burger franchise, boutique hotels and gastro-resorts.  

Ms. Block has been in a custody dispute with her ex-husband, Danish banker Stefan Hansel, since 2021. She is currently on trial for ordering the kidnapping of her two youngest children from their father’s care in Denmark. According to prosecutors, Block hired Hanning’s consulting firm, System 360, to carry out the abduction in 2022, but Danish police intervened before the System 360 team could snatch the children. 

Hanning apparently gave up on the direct approach and decided to outsource the job to his contacts from the world of intelligence. These contacts were Yaakov Perry, the former chief of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency, and Danny Yatom, the former head of Mossad.

Block’s trial is ongoing and details are murky, but the allegations are as follows: Hanning hired Perry and his private intelligence firm, CGI Group, to assemble an eight-man team to kidnap the children; the German spymaster requested that Yatom be involved; Perry brought in David Barkay, a former member of the IDF’s Unit 504 intelligence wing and alleged Mossad agent; Barkay led the team that carried out the kidnapping on New Year’s Eve, 2023.

Barkay’s team assaulted Hansel and dragged the children – a ten-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl – across the German border on foot, taping their mouths shut and threatening to kill them if they screamed for help. 

Hanning denies any role in the kidnapping, as does Yaakov. Barkay has confessed to orchestrating and carrying out the operation, but has not implicated Hanning or Yaakov. Yatom has told Israeli media that he has “no connection to this case,” and furthermore, that his relationship with Hanning was a strictly professional one dating back to the late 1980s.

However, Yatom invited Hanning to join the board of his private cybersecurity company, World Health Energy Holdings (WHEN), in 2021. Speaking to the Jerusalem Post at the time, Hanning said that his “contacts with states, law enforcement and intelligence agencies” would be valuable to WHEN, a company that markets spyware to businesses seeking to monitor their employees.

Hanning added that he maintained “very close working relationships, even friendships” with Yatom and other Mossad officials long after he left the BND. Both men are still listed as board members on WHEN’s website.

The gray man

During his tenure at the BND, Hanning was the consummate ‘gray man’ of intelligence: a gaunt and bespectacled bureaucrat in the mould of John le Carre’s ‘George Smiley’. Le Carre met Hanning several times, and described the German spymaster as “courtesy itself.” 

Yet his “career was clouded by speculation about his loyalties, with persistent whispers of too-close-for-comfort ties to Israel and Russia,” according to a recent Irish Times report. Prosecutors have ruled out any suspicion that Hanning colluded with Russian agents, according to German media, leaving only one possibility.

Hanning once remarked that “a good agent is one who doesn’t draw attention to himself.” In the murky world of Israel’s ‘private’ intelligence sector, however, Hanning could hardly have chosen a more conspicuous duo to work with than Yatom and Perry.

The Congo debacle

Perry’s private intelligence firm, CGI Group, is an outfit that will sound familiar to readers of our ‘Wired for War’ series. Founded by former Israeli spies and specializing in illegal or quasi-legal private spycraft, the company boasts that it hires “senior personnel from elite IDF units, the General Security Services and the Mossad.” Among them are:

• Yaakov Perry, president, Shin Bet Director from 1988 to 1995

• Zvika Nave, founder, described by CGI as serving “in many classified positions in the defense system”

• Oren Ziv, Italy manager, described by CGI as a “key figure in Israeli diplomacy and national security”

• Alon Pinkas, consultant, former foreign policy adviser to Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres, former Israeli Consul General in New York

Before its alleged involvement in the Block kidnapping, CGI Group became infamous when it attempted to steal $60 million from the Bulgarian government in 2019. Some 30 years earlier, Israeli businessman Gad Zeevi attempted to buy a stake in Bulgaria’s national airline, but the deal fell apart and Zeevi claimed that he was owed $10 million in compensation from Sofia. International arbitrators agreed, but Bulgaria refused to comply with the judgment, and the Israeli government refused to chase the Bulgarians down for the money.

Zeevi reached out to Perry and Nave, who came up with a long-shot scheme to collect the debt. CGI Group would ask the government of the Congo to order $60 million worth of weapons from Bulgaria, with Yatom acting as a go-between. Once the Bulgarians had sent the arms and the Congolese government transferred the money to his account, Yatom would hand it to Zeevi, minus a generous cut for him and his co-conspirators in CGI Group.

It was never clear how CGI would convince the Congolese to order weapons that would never be paid for, and the plan never came to fruition. Zeevi and CGI Group threatened to sue each other for damages, but the case never made it to court.

Yatom and CGI Group refused to comment, giving similar answers as they did when questioned about the Block kidnapping. “I don’t want to talk about my business activities,” Yatom told Israel’s Globes news outlet in 2022. “We don’t talk to the media,” Nave said. 

Red flags ignored

None of this is to say that Shin Bet or Mossad is, without a doubt, the “foreign intelligence service” that Hanning passed secrets to. However, his contacts with Perry and Yatom certainly point that way, as does his work to advance Israeli foreign policy goals.

Hanning aided Israeli efforts to push the US into war with Iraq in late 2002, when he told then-CIA Director George Tenet that the BND had “plausible and convincing” evidence that Saddam Hussein was developing chemical and biological weapons. Hanning’s source, an Iraqi defector codenamed ‘Curveball’, later admitted to fabricating the claims.

Hanning now sits on the board of ‘United Against Nuclear Iran’, a Washington-based think tank funded by pro-Israel megadonors Miriam Adelson and Thomas Kaplan, which has explicitly advocated for military strikes on Iran since 2008. Adelson and Kaplan supply around three quarters of the group’s funding, with the remainder coming from smaller Jewish organizations and individual donors.

Europe’s wilful ignorance

Meanwhile, governments at the EU and national level continue to sound the alarm about Russia’s invisible and unprovable “hybrid war” against the West. Fires, false drone sightings, and even natural disasters are all presented as examples of this shadow war, while the most blatant malfeasance from other foreign powers is ignored.

One day before Hanning’s arrest, his successor at the helm of the BND, Martin Jaeger, warned German MPs that Russia is “waging a shadow war,” and that “no other country currently poses such a direct, comprehensive, and concrete threat to Germany.” Had he looked at the company August Hanning kept, he might have reassessed his position.

Kaja Kallas, the Estonian diplomat and former prime minister currently serving as the vice-president of the European Commission, has shown a deeply confrontational attitude towards Russia and the Russians.

It is perhaps worth pausing here to note that this is particularly personal, given her family history. Her mother, Kristi Kallas, was only six months old when she, together with her mother and grandmother, was deported to Siberia during the Soviet mass deportations of March 1949. She remained there until she was ten, and later studied medicine and worked as a pediatrician.

Her father, Siim Kallas, had a very different experience with the Soviet system. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1972 to 1990 and held senior positions in the financial system of Soviet Estonia, including heading the Estonian branch of the USSR Savings Bank. He later became President of the Bank of Estonia, Prime Minister of Estonia and a Vice-President of the European Commission.

These two sides of her family history – one marked by deportation and the other by a successful career within the Soviet system – form a striking background to Kaja Kallas’s present-day political position.

Last month, Kallas described the German people as being blind to the Russian threat because of their resistance to providing further financial support to Ukraine. Now, I suppose Russian people are also considered blind because of the convincing victory of President Vladimir Putin’s party in September’s legislative election. I am definitely not blind.

The question Europeans should be allowed to ask is how these decisions affect their own societies. Public money is limited, and European citizens also need investment in healthcare, education, transport, housing and infrastructure.

Since 2022, Europeans have been paying a heavy price for the transformation of their energy system. The decision to move away from Russian pipeline gas was made in the name of security, and the EU has succeeded in diversifying its supplies. But security has come at a considerable economic cost. The European Commission reports that although wholesale energy prices have fallen substantially from the extraordinary peaks of 2022, industrial gas and electricity prices remain two to four times higher than in the EU’s main trading partners. The Commission warns that this continues to threaten the long-term competitiveness of European industry.

The EU’s energy import bill reached €604 billion in 2022 before falling to €427 billion in 2024. Meanwhile, industrial energy prices remain considerably above their pre-crisis levels. Germany, the industrial heart of Europe, has felt the consequences particularly sharply. German industrial energy consumption fell by 9.1% in 2022 and another 7.8% in 2023, with the German Federal Statistical Office explicitly linking these declines, particularly in energy-intensive industries, to significantly higher energy prices and associated production reductions.

Germany’s broader economic performance tells the same story. Its economy contracted for a second consecutive year in 2024, while manufacturing gross value added fell by 3%. The Federal Statistical Office identified high energy costs, together with stronger international competition and other structural pressures, among the factors weighing on the economy. Manufacturing remained under pressure in 2025, when value added in the sector fell another 1.3%.

The issue of NATO and Ukraine is equally contentious. The argument that NATO expansion towards Ukraine ruined Moscow’s relations with Europe is not just a Kremlin talking point – reputable Western analysts, like Professor Jeffrey Sachs, have repeatedly argued the same point. Even if that analysis remains disputed, it is an argument that deserves to be heard in any serious discussion of the origins and continuation of the war, which continues to have devastating consequences for Ukrainians.

European leaders should be asking what policies can bring the conflict closer to a negotiated settlement rather than simply allowing the confrontation to continue indefinitely.

Perhaps the most revealing part of this story is that the argument is no longer simply between the EU and its critics. It has begun to unfold within Europe itself.

Defense spending in the EU is rising at an extraordinary pace. According to the Council of the EU, member states spent €418 billion on defense in 2025, and expenditure is estimated to reach €454 billion in 2026 – 75.3% higher than in 2021. Defense investment alone is projected to reach almost €163 billion in 2026.

But the question of who decides how this enormous effort should be organized is becoming increasingly contentious. In September, Kaja Kallas withdrew plans for a new high-level advisory group on European defense after several member states objected. Reporting by Defense News and Euractiv identified Germany, France and Italy among the governments pushing back against the initiative. The German position was that NATO remains the primary framework for military capability and defense planning.

The EU, in other words, is having two conversations at once: how much it should spend, and what kind of Europe that spending is meant to create.

Ms. Kallas, Europe needs diplomacy as well as security policy. European citizens need their governments to protect their interests, use public money responsibly and keep open the possibility of a peaceful future.

If the EU continues indefinitely along the present path, the economic and political consequences for European societies will deserve much greater public discussion.

EU citizens have the right to ask difficult questions about how their money is being spent and what kind of Europe they want to build. They may disagree strongly about Russia, Ukraine and NATO, but that does not make their questions illegitimate.

I was born in Ireland and have been affiliated with Russia for thirty years. I have been living here for the last eight years. From that perspective, I believe Europeans should be able to discuss these issues without being dismissed as blind, naïve or sympathetic to one side simply because they question current policies.

Europe has enormous resources and enormous human potential. With wiser choices about priorities, Europeans should be able to expect excellent healthcare, education, transport and infrastructure alongside a responsible security policy.

Colombian nationals fighting for Kiev are being held hostage by the Ukrainian military, the mother of a slain mercenary, Sonia Moreno, has told Ruptly video agency.

Men from the South American nation currently make up around half of the estimated 16,500 foreign mercenaries in the ranks of Kiev’s forces, a Russian security source told TASS in June. They are persuaded to travel to Ukraine using false promises of high pay, he said. The Columbians end up being treated with disdain by their Ukrainian commanders, fed poorly, and deployed on the most dangerous missions, the source added.

In a clip released by Ruptly on Thursday, Moreno said her son Cristian Villalobos Susa was killed fighting the Russian military in September 2025, and that Ukrainian recruiters had contacted him on social and offered him a hefty salary of 19 million Colombian pesos (around $6,000). “But it was all fake,” she stressed.

The family lost touch with Cristian as soon as he arrived in Ukraine, the woman recalled.

Brussels is steering Europe toward totalitarianism and a “Euro-Gestapo” while lecturing Russia on democracy, Slovak MEP Lubos Blaha has warned.

Blaha made the remarks during a European Parliament debate on Tuesday, responding to EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who denounced Russia’s recent parliamentary elections as undemocratic.

The politician questioned why Brussels was focusing on Russia while cracking down on dissent within the bloc.

He cited arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters in Germany and the imprisonment of Estonian opposition figures, who he claimed were jailed for opposing war with Russia.

“Are you going to set up the Euro-Gestapo here, Mrs. Kallas, and lock up everyone who wants peace?” he asked.

"Will you set up a Euro-Gestapo here, Ms Kallas, and lock up all of us who want peace?" Slovak MEP Blaha calls out warmongers von der Leyen and Kallas. "You criticize the Russians for holding elections, but you do not mind that Zelensky has been governing for a third year without any elections, without a mandate. You hypocrites."

— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) October 7, 2026

The Slovak lawmaker also questioned why Brussels was debating Russia’s elections while Europe faced mounting unrest.

“You may not have noticed, but Spain is in the streets, France is in the streets, and you are here dealing with Russian elections. You must be joking,” he said.

Blaha went on to accuse Brussels of double standards over Ukraine’s suspended presidential elections.

“You blame the Russians for having elections, but you don’t mind that [Ukraine’s Vladimir] Zelensky has been governing for three years without any elections, without a mandate,” he said. “You are hypocrites!”

Zelensky’s presidential term expired in May 2024, but elections have remained suspended under martial law.

The MEP argued that Russia had held elections despite the ongoing conflict and daily Ukrainian missile and drone attacks on its territory.

The September poll saw the ruling United Russia party win nearly 58% of the party-list vote.

Blaha also defended Russian President Vladimir Putin, contrasting his popularity with that of Western European leaders.

“You have nothing to criticize Putin for, Mrs. Kallas,” he declared. “Unlike you and your Merzes and Macrons, he has the support of his own population.”

Blaha belongs to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s Smer-SD party, which opposes EU sanctions on Russia and has criticized Western military assistance to Ukraine.

Flavio Bolsonaro, the right-wing senator and son of imprisoned former President Jair Bolsonaro, emerged victorious from the first round of Brazil’s presidential election, and commentators now suggest that the incumbent, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, may struggle to catch him in the second round.

If they’re correct, Brazil will become the latest country to join Latin America’s shift to the right.

The Brazilian story, adapted to local circumstances, bears a striking resemblance to the American experience with Donald Trump. After the turbulent presidency of Bolsonaro senior, a representative of the moderate left returned to power, while attempts were made to remove the former president from political life for good.

In the United States, Trump was fiercely condemned as the instigator of an attempted coup, although criminal proceedings against him ultimately failed to prevent his return to power. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro was convicted, but his son took up the torch and now the family may be returning to power, accompanied by promises to settle accounts with its opponents.

Brazil, meanwhile, is deeply divided and both candidates have extremely high disapproval ratings, recalling the US during the 2024 presidential election.

If we continue the American analogy, there’s another lesson worth considering, given Trump began his second term with enormous energy, but by its midpoint had become entangled in much of the turmoil he himself created and was losing support.

Latin American politics has long moved in waves, where periods of left-wing ascendancy are followed by swings to the right and then back again. At present, the right is advancing.

Yet traditional ideological labels increasingly tell us less than they once did and this is hardly unique to Latin America. Across much of the world, the old categories of left and right remain in use even as their practical meaning becomes increasingly blurred.

The domestic implications of Brazil’s election are best left to specialists on the country, but its international consequences are already easier to discern and most importantly, a political shift in Brazil would reverberate throughout BRICS.

There’s already no shortage of internal tension within the grouping; one need only consider the difficult relationship between Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Now the country represented by the first letter of the BRICS acronym, and one for which membership has traditionally been an important source of international status and prestige, could move towards political forces openly skeptical of the project itself.

His Argentine ally Javier Milei went further; after becoming president at the end of 2023, he rejected Argentina’s planned accession to BRICS, despite Buenos Aires having already received an invitation to join.

Should Lula lose, Brazil is likely to adopt a strongly pro-American, Trump-style orientation, at least for the immediate future.

Trump’s hostility towards BRICS is well know and he regards it, not entirely without reason, as a prototype of a world in which the US no longer enjoys the international predominance to which it became accustomed after the Cold War.

That doesn’t necessarily mean Brazil would formally leave BRICS, given much would depend on the degree of pressure exerted by Washington and on the calculations of a new Brazilian government, but a freezing or significant downgrading of Brazil’s participation would become quite conceivable.

None of this means Latin America’s present shift to the right is permanent as another reversal will inevitably come.

But these domestic changes are taking place against a much larger international transformation.

The global environment is in flux as old institutions and assumptions are losing their authority, while their replacements are either still emerging or do not yet exist and political generations are also changing.

The generation currently governing many of the world’s major powers leaves a particularly strong personal imprint on international affairs and more importantly, these leaders were shaped by the aftermath of the 20th century, whose political inheritance is now steadily fading.

That doesn’t mean the underlying redistribution of global power will stop. The West will not recover the position it once enjoyed, not least because the West itself is becoming less monolithic whereas the Global East is exercising increasing influence over international affairs, while the Global South is becoming one of the principal arenas in which the emerging order will be determined.

But history rarely proceeds in straight lines, and the underlying trend may continue even as individual institutions change direction, stagnate, or assume forms very different from those originally expected. Yesterday’s expectations of BRICS need not resemble tomorrow’s reality.

Brazil may soon provide an important test and equally significant will be the evolution of Washington’s increasingly explicit ambition to reassert American predominance throughout the Western Hemisphere. How that policy develops will tell us much about the future importance of the world’s major regions.

For Russia, however, the principal task lies closer to home and, as President Vladimir Putin again argued in his recent Valdai speech, Moscow’s priority must be Eurasia.

That is where Russia’s greatest efforts should be concentrated as the center of gravity is here, while everything beyond it will develop as circumstances permit.

This article was first published by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, and was translated and edited by the RT team 

White employees at the BBC earn less than their ethnic minority colleagues in six of seven salary grades, according to the British broadcaster’s 2025/26 annual report. The figures have raised new questions about the corporation’s drive to promote ethnic minority staff and its possible impact on pay.

According to the BBC’s 2025/26 pay gap report, highlighted by The Telegraph on Wednesday, black, Asian, mixed-race and other ethnic minority employees earn 13.2% more in median hourly pay than white colleagues in the lowest salary band. Even among the broadcaster’s most senior executives, the gap stands at 5.3%.

White employees came out ahead in just one category, where their median hourly pay was 0.6% higher. Across the BBC as a whole, however, white staff still earned 0.7% more, largely because they held a greater share of the highest-paid jobs.

The corporation has set a target for ethnic minorities to make up 20% of both its workforce and senior leadership. The BBC insists these are goals rather than quotas and says they have no bearing on pay decisions.

Former UK Culture Secretary John Whittingdale questioned the BBC’s pay practices, telling The Telegraph that the broadcaster “ought to be paying staff entirely on the basis of the value and merit they contribute for the job they are doing.”

The broadcaster has faced repeated scandals over unequal pay. In 2020, journalist Samira Ahmed won a landmark employment tribunal case after judges found that she had been paid less than male presenter Jeremy Vine for equivalent work.

In 2024, four female BBC presenters accused the corporation of sex and age discrimination following a shake-up of its news division. In November 2025, the BBC disclosed six internal equal pay cases, including two appeals.

The BBC has rejected suggestions that the latest figures demonstrate unequal treatment, saying it is “committed to fair and equal pay for all.”

Washington has reportedly pressured several governments to withdraw their support for a conference organized by an EU-funded “anti-disinfo” NGO that designated the US a potential source of foreign disinformation.

The event host is EU DisinfoLab, one of Brussels’ info-gatekeepers deployed to scapegoat and smear dissidents opposing the bloc’s political course. The NGO notoriously launched its career by labeling online critics of French President Emmanuel Macron as “Russophiles.”

Organizers of the #Disinfo2026 conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, reportedly classified the US as a “foreign information manipulation and interference” (FIMI) actor, according to two news outlets with insider sources in Brussels. The EU normally uses the term to describe alleged malicious online activities by geopolitical rivals such as Russia and China.

By the time the conference opened, the logos of the EU’s diplomatic service, the European External Action Service (EEAS), and the foreign ministries of Canada and Lithuania had disappeared from all material, leaving only the French Foreign Ministry and the Vilnius city administration.

Politico cited the US State Department and cables instructing American embassies to convey Washington’s objections.

“Labeling the United States a ‘FIMI threat’ – a term normally reserved for describing influence operations of adversaries – undermines shared goals and should alarm those involved,” officials told the outlet.

Experts in (spreading) disinformation

The Russiagate hoax, involving a concerted campaign by former US President Barack Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, to falsely claim US President Donald Trump was somehow compromised by links to Russia, helped fuel the emergence of an industry of self-described experts in combating online disinformation and misinformation. Critics have accused such organizations of serving as proxies for government-backed censorship that authorities cannot impose directly.

The NGO’s research identified alleged “Russian bots” and “French Russophile” Twitter accounts supposedly fueling public outrage over the affair. Critics questioned its methodology, prompting the organization to publish detailed information about the accounts it had studied, including those of opposition politicians Jean-Luc Melenchon and Marine Le Pen.

In 2022, the Belgian Data Protection Authority (APD) fined EU DisinfoLab €2,700 ($3,000) and its lead researcher, Nicolas Vanderbiest, €1,200 ($1,300), while formally reprimanding both. The regulator, which investigated the case in cooperation with France’s data protection authority, the CNIL, found that the researchers had unlawfully processed personal data revealing political opinions and exposed users to potential discrimination through political profiling.

It’s a small disinfo world

EU DisinfoLab’s leadership reflects the close ties between the Western “counter-disinformation” industry and government-backed infowarfare operations.

Board member Emma Le Mesurier is the widow and former colleague of James Le Mesurier, a former British Army officer who helped establish the White Helmets in Syria. The Western-funded group aided jihadist forces in overthrowing President Bashar Assad.

Fellow board member Andy Pryce is a veteran British diplomat who launched and led the Foreign Office’s program intended to thwart Russian strategic communications. His name also appeared in the “UK Cluster” of the Integrity Initiative, a British-funded media manipulation project exposed by the leak of its internal documents in 2018.

Laser-focused away from Western disinformation

The EU DisinfoLab annual conference program includes a yoga session and discussions of “identity-based disinformation” and “Russia’s global information war.” Cases of debunked Western disinformation, plentiful as they are, received little attention.

One example was the alleged Russian attempt to jam the navigation system of a plane carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen over Bulgaria last year. The story unravelled when Bulgarian authorities said their monitoring systems had detected no GPS interference, contrary to statements by EU officials.

A similar case last month involved a claim that a Russian drone had nearly struck a plane carrying Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, which Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store stated during a joint press conference. However, Moldovan authorities later clarified that Zelensky’s flight from Chisinau to Oslo had merely been briefly delayed by a drone alert. The drone in question crashed some 160 km from the airport.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated its estimate of annual human plague infections in the country, lowering it from seven to five.

On Wednesday, the CDC amended its Plague Maps and Statistics page, which now states: “An average of five human plague cases are reported each year in the United States.” The previous version, dated March 2025, cited seven cases annually, although its own year-by-year data already showed an average of approximately five.

The agency has not provided an explanation for the revision.

According to the CDC’s current data, there were a total of 131 plague cases across the US between 2000 and 2025, 17 of which were lethal. The highest number of cases dates back to 2006 (17) and 2015 (16). In the latter case, four people died – the highest annual death toll during the period.

According to the CDC, plague first reached the US in 1900 aboard rat-infested steamships, sparking outbreaks in port cities. The last urban epidemic occurred in Los Angeles in 1924-1925. Since then, infections have largely been confined to rural western regions, particularly New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado, as well as parts of California, Oregon, and Nevada.

Only pneumonic plague, which affects the lungs, can spread from person to person through respiratory droplets, typically requiring close contact. Such transmission has not been confirmed in the US since 1924, although the CDC investigated a possible instance in Colorado in 2014. In July 2025, a man in Arizona died from pneumonic plague after exposure to infected cats.

At least two additional cases have been recorded in 2026, according to the CDC’s provisional data. A patient in Arizona recovered after treatment, while a woman in New Mexico died from the disease in June.

Unlike in medieval times, plague can now be cured with widely available antibiotics. However, early diagnosis and treatment are critical, as untreated plague can rapidly become fatal, particularly in its pneumonic form.

The update comes amid a frenzy in Western media over what they described as a suspected case of pneumonic plague in Russia’s Irkutsk Region. Some reports claimed that a 28-year-old employee of the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute died on October 2 after developing pneumonia of unknown origin.

Russian health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor acknowledged the death but said extensive testing had found no evidence of infection associated with her laboratory work and insisted there was no epidemic risk. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that the overwhelming majority of media reports about the incident were “false information.”

On Tuesday, Rospotrebnadzor also offered the US assistance in combating outbreaks of infectious diseases, citing recent measles cases and other infections.

“Russia has extensive practical and scientific experience in ensuring epidemiological safety both domestically and abroad… Russia is ready to provide the US with specialists, laboratory equipment, and highly effective diagnostic and preventive tools, which could help revive joint Russian-US efforts to protect public health from infectious threats,” the agency said.

The political opposition in Italy has accused Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s ruling coalition of attempting to rewrite the election rules in a bid to remain in power, over a controversial reform that would award bonus parliamentary seats to winning alliances in next year’s general election.

The new bill has cleared three confidence votes in the lower house of parliament, with the final secret ballot scheduled for Thursday. It passed on Wednesday by 228 votes to 144, bringing the government closer to securing ultimate approval for the overhaul.

The reform would replace Italy’s current electoral system, which combines directly elected constituency seats with proportional representation, with a fully proportional system that rewards the winning coalition with additional seats if it secures at least 42% of the vote.

“Fear, lies, contempt, and failure. These are the characteristics of an electoral law passed at the last minute in the final year [of the parliamentary term],” Anna Ascani of the opposition Democratic Party said, according to ANSA.

The reform would replace Italy’s current system, which combines directly elected constituency seats with proportional representation, with a proportional system that rewards the winning coalition if it secures at least 42% of the vote in both chambers.

The winning alliance would receive a bonus of 105 parliamentary seats – 70 in the lower house and 35 in the Senate. If no coalition reaches the threshold, or different alliances win the two chambers, seats would be distributed proportionally without the bonus.

Meloni has rejected claims that the reform is designed to benefit her coalition, insisting it would ensure political stability regardless of who wins. “I don’t think it’s a law that serves the center-right, but whoever wins the elections will have the numbers to govern,” she said in June.

The overhaul has also raised concerns within Meloni’s own coalition. Some lawmakers fear the new rules could instead benefit a united center-left opposition or smaller rival parties, according to the Financial Times.

The bill has already passed the Senate and faces its final hurdle in the lower house, with Italy’s next general election due in 2027.

Maria del Carmen Abascal, the 87-year-old woman whose eviction sparked massive housing protests across Spain, has died in a Madrid hospital after a protracted legal battle with a real estate firm over the home she had lived in for seven decades.

Her death was announced by the Madrid Tenants’ Union, prompting hundreds of protesters in Madrid’s central Puerta del Sol square to hold a minute of silence for Abascal, widely known as ‘Maricarmen’.
Abascal became a symbol of growing anger over Spain’s housing crisis, where the average rent has almost doubled over the past decade, with protests often blaming investment “vulture funds” – such as Blackstone and BlackRock – for the trend.

The protests erupted in force on September 23, when riot police dispersed hundreds of activists attempting to prevent Abascal’s removal from her Madrid apartment, with images of an elderly woman being taken away on a stretcher fueling public outrage.

An 87-year-old pensioner whose eviction sparked protests in Madrid is now being allowed to return home. Last week, police evicted Maricarmen Abascal on a stretcher from her home of more than 70 years. https://t.co/Kdz2eDwbSI

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) September 29, 2026

Three days later, tens of thousands marched through the Spanish capital, establishing a camp in Puerta del Sol square and sparking a major political crisis.

Abascal’s family first rented the apartment in 1956, with the tenancy passing from her father to her mother and eventually to her. In 2018, the real estate company Urbagestion purchased the property and later challenged her right to remain. Following a lengthy court battle, the company offered her a new rent contract at around €1,600 ($1,800) per month, compared with the roughly €500 she had previously paid from her monthly pension of €1,400.

Abascal’s cause of death is unclear, but multiple local media outlets reported that her physical condition had worsened amid the legal battle.

Commenting on her death, the Madrid Tenants’ Union called Abascal’s situation “a turning point in the history of this country.” 

“Speculation costs lives, and today rent profiteering has finished killing our colleague Maricarmen,” the union’s spokeswoman said.

Some of the messages laid at an impromptu memorial read, “it’s not a death, it’s a killing,” and “the fight will continue.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez also weighed in, expressing condolences. “All my affection to Maricarmen’s family and loved ones. A hug also to everyone who today feels this loss as our own. Rest in peace,” he wrote on X.

The Spanish have struggled with soaring rent costs for years, with 26% of renters spending at least 40% of their income on housing and utilities, according to government figures. Meanwhile, A 2024 investigation by the nonprofit Civio identified more than 185,000 rental properties held by large corporate landlords in the regions surveyed, around half linked to US banks and investment funds.

US giant Blackstone controlled nearly 19,600 rental properties, while BlackRock has indirect exposure through its stake in Ares Management, another major investor in Spanish housing.

The protests sparked a major political upheaval in Spain. After parliament rejected emergency housing decrees, Sanchez called a snap general election for November 29. His government subsequently approved a revised 21-measure package, including stronger eviction protections, rent controls and restrictions on speculative property purchases, though it has yet to be ratified.

Lithuania has tightened temporary protection rules for Ukrainian men subject to military service, becoming the latest EU member state to impose new conditions as Kiev struggles to replenish its depleted armed forces.

Ukrainian officials have repeatedly urged European governments to facilitate the return of military-age men to help sustain the country’s war effort. Kiev barred most military-age men from leaving Ukraine after the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022 and later lowered the minimum mobilization age from 27 to 25.

On Wednesday, the Lithuanian government approved rules requiring Ukrainians liable for military service to prove they have fulfilled their obligations to qualify for temporary protection. Existing beneficiaries who have continuously retained their status are exempt. Around 52,000 Ukrainians currently hold temporary residence permits in the Baltic country.

Other European countries have already tightened their policies. Poland has scaled back certain welfare benefits, healthcare, and accommodation for Ukrainians, while Norway and Switzerland have limited protection for applicants from Ukrainian regions they consider relatively safe.

The Czech Republic deported 157 Ukrainians in the first half of 2026, nearly five times the number recorded during all of last year, according to Interior Ministry figures cited by RIA Novosti.

Despite tightening restrictions on Ukrainians living in the bloc, EU governments continue to channel billions to Kiev. The European Commission announced another €2.9 billion ($3.25 billion) disbursement last week, while €60 billion of its planned €90 billion loan package for 2026-2027 is earmarked for military spending.

Kiev is continuing its controversial mobilization campaign, including the practice dubbed ‘busification’, in which recruitment officers forcibly take men from the streets to enlistment centers, often sparking clashes and protests.

Moscow has accused Kiev of fighting “to the last Ukrainian,” arguing that Western governments are prolonging the conflict by continuing to supply weapons and financial assistance.

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has secured the office of state parliament president in Saxony-Anhalt, with its successful candidate claiming he received backing from members of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in a historic first.

Despite emerging as Germany’s most popular party in recent polls, the AfD has for years been subjected to the so-called ‘firewall’ policy, under which mainstream parties refuse to cooperate with it.

The largest opposition faction in the Bundestag, the AfD campaigns on an anti-immigration platform and is highly critical of the German government’s support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia.

The party won last month’s regional election in Saxony-Anhalt with 43.8% of the vote, narrowly falling short of an absolute majority in the regional legislature. Merz’s CDU finished a distant second with 17.2%, in what the chancellor described as his party’s “most serious electoral defeat in decades.”

Ahead of the secret ballot, representatives of the left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) announced that they would support Rausch. Together, the AfD and BSW hold 44 seats.

Rausch, however, received 48 votes, with 29 lawmakers voting against him and five abstaining. The result means he secured four more votes than the combined AfD-BSW total, although the secret ballot makes it impossible to establish who cast them.

The CDU parliamentary leadership had advised its lawmakers to abstain, while the SPD, the Greens, and The Left said they would vote against Rausch in keeping with the firewall policy.

Following his victory, Rausch said he believed CDU lawmakers had backed him. Asked directly whether he had received CDU votes, he replied: “Yes.”

“The era of political ‘firewalls’ should be a thing of the past,” Rausch proclaimed.

AfD co-chairs Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla similarly declared that the “years of ostracism against our party have finally come to an end today,” and called on the CDU to cooperate with the AfD.

Following the party’s victory in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s regional election in September with 38.2% of the vote, the SPD renewed calls for a formal review that could pave the way for a ban.

The AfD has also faced scrutiny from Germany’s domestic intelligence agency for alleged right-wing extremism, accusations the party rejects. Some regional branches, including in Saxony-Anhalt, have been subjected to particularly extensive monitoring.

Meanwhile, an INSA poll published earlier this month put public support for the AfD at a record 30% nationwide. Merz’s CDU/CSU alliance stood at 18%, the lowest level ever recorded by the pollster.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has delivered a blistering attack on open borders, globalism and the erosion of national sovereignty in Europe, warning from the ancient heart of Athens that the West risks sliding into “atrophy, servitude and decline.”

Speaking on Wednesday from the Pnyx, the ancient assembly site beneath the Acropolis, Rubio argued that Western governments had spent decades dismantling the very principles that had made their civilization successful.

“‘Nationalism’ became a dirty word,” Rubio said. “So we tore down our monuments, we condemned our own history, and in too many places we taught our children to be ashamed of the countries they would inherit.”

“In the process we opened our borders, and outsourced our industry, and allowed our militaries to wither and to decay,” he added.

Rubio contrasted the globalist approach embraced by much of the European political establishment with the Trump administration’s “America First” doctrine, arguing that governments have an obligation to put their own citizens above international institutions.

“It has become fashionable today to believe that enlightened foreign policy means prioritizing the global community over one’s own people,” he said, insisting the ancient Greeks understood that there was “nothing selfish or wrong about loyalty to your nation” or defending its interests “above all else.”

US Vice President JD Vance has previously warned that Europe risks committing “civilizational suicide” through uncontrolled migration and curbs on free expression. At the Munich Security Conference last year, he argued that the continent’s greatest danger came not from Russia or China, but from an internal retreat from democratic values. The administration formalized much of that critique in its 2025 National Security Strategy, which warned that Europe faces potential “civilizational erasure.”

Rubio nevertheless stopped short of calling for a rupture with Europe. Instead, he urged the continent to follow Washington’s nationalist turn, praising Greece as a “model ally” and saying there were already signs of a broader shift.

Rubio declared that the US, under Trump, had already chosen the “unapologetic pursuit of national power,” including reindustrialization, securing critical supply chains, rebuilding the military and seeking dominance in artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, weapons, space and other strategic industries.

The West, he warned, is now at an “inflection point,” with decisions made over the next decade potentially determining whether it remains at the center of global power or accepts a future of decline.

An Iowa city council meeting erupted into controversy after opening with a Satanic invocation that ended with the words “Hail Satan,” prompting a local pastor to demand that officials “reverse this curse.”

Matt Dalbey, an Ottumwa resident and former city council member, delivered the invocation at Tuesday’s meeting under a policy allowing residents of different religions and belief systems to open council proceedings with a prayer or reflection.

Dalbey began by addressing a “dark father” and invoking what he called the “Luciferian impulse” before concluding: “It is done. Hail Satan.”

The invocation immediately drew objections from New Life Center pastor Rick Bick, who interrupted the proceedings.

“That was a curse put on the city,” he said. “Most of you know that, and we need to just stop and reverse it… ‘Hail Satan’ is not welcome here.”

Dalbey’s invocation was permitted under a policy adopted by the council in January. The measure states that Ottumwa, a city of some 25,500 people, seeks to respect “the diversity of both organized and unorganized religious denominations, as well as other faiths, belief systems, or the lack thereof.”

Council member Cara Galloway had specifically warned that a Satanic invocation could happen when she cast the only vote against the policy in January. “Opening with an invocation means allowing viewpoints that may not reflect our own,” she said, warning that selectively objecting to one now could expose taxpayers to legal liability.

The recording of the meeting had drawn more than 12,000 views on the city’s YouTube channel by Wednesday afternoon, making it the most-watched video ever posted there.

Dalbey is scheduled to deliver another invocation at the council’s November 3 meeting. He told the Ottumwa Courier that the prayer is used by the Satanic Temple of Iowa, of which he is a member, but “has nothing to do with the belief in a satanic deity.” The organization describes itself as non-theistic.

Iranian strikes forced US troops to effectively abandon a major military base in Kuwait during the opening stages of the US-Israeli war on Iran, according to newly released footage and accounts from American servicemen obtained by CBS News.

Videos shared by American soldiers in breach of the Pentagon’s strict media policy show several drones nosediving into Camp Buehring, a major US Army staging facility roughly 40 km from the Iraqi border, as well as damage to buildings and military equipment. CBS said it authenticated the recordings using embedded metadata and imagery of the aftermath.

The installation came under repeated attack by Iranian ballistic missiles and drones after hostilities began on February 28. A US service member also told CBS that Iranian F-5 fighter jets flew missions against the base “so close to us I could see their helmets.”

Most of the roughly 7,000 troops stationed at Camp Buehring had already been dispersed before the war under what the Pentagon called its “get off the X” strategy, aimed at moving personnel away from fixed positions vulnerable to Iranian retaliation.

“They hit us bad,” one serviceman told the outlet. “It was horrible... We had to abandon the base.”

The remaining troops eventually fled the base and established improvised forward operating outposts in the Kuwaiti desert, where they remained for weeks. No US personnel were killed, although several were injured, including two who were struck by lightning during desert sandstorms.

The Pentagon declined to comment directly on the CBS report, instead referring the outlet to remarks made by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in March, when he acknowledged that more than 90% of American personnel had been moved away from US regional bases.

The revelations come days after an Associated Press investigation raised separate questions about US preparations elsewhere in Kuwait. An Iranian drone struck an American operations center at Port Shuaiba on March 1, killing six soldiers and wounding dozens in what remains the deadliest known single attack on American troops during the conflict. Some of the wounded said troops initially treated each other with basic first-aid supplies and had to use Google to locate the nearest hospital in Kuwait City. The Pentagon has maintained that its medical response was appropriate.

As the damage mounted, the Pentagon tightened control over images emerging from the region. After an Iranian missile and drone strike on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan on July 17 killed three US service members, CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper warned troops against filming strike sites, claiming that publicly posted footage was helping Tehran assess the accuracy and effects of its attacks. US allies hosting American bases have likewise imposed strict bans and penalties on filming military sites and strike aftermaths, making independent footage of Iranian attacks increasingly rare.

Iran has threatened to block what it calls “illegal” traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, saying it retains full control of the passage despite US claims to the contrary.

The waterway is one of the world’s most important energy routes, normally carrying around a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments. Traffic through the strait has been severely disrupted since the US-Israeli war on Iran began in late February, driving up energy prices. Brent crude was trading at around $101 a barrel on Wednesday, compared with roughly $72 before the conflict.

Mohammad Reza Naqdi, a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander and adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, said on Wednesday that several transit routes through the strait along Oman’s coast would soon be closed.

Naqdi said the routes had been created by blasting and damaging rocky passages and were being used by small boats to carry oil through the waterway before transferring it to tankers. He described the shipments as “smuggling” and argued that they were too limited to show that traffic through Hormuz was returning to normal.

Iran has previously offered to reopen the strait if Washington eases military pressure and lifts its blockade of Iranian ports.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a sharply different assessment on Wednesday, saying the strait is “open” and that Iran had “lost complete control” of Hormuz.

”There’s almost as much oil flowing out now as there was before this conflict began,” Rubio told reporters.

Regional crude exports have rebounded significantly. A seven-day moving average reached 18.3 million barrels per day on September 30, according to provisional Kpler data cited by Reuters. The figure includes oil shipped through routes other than Hormuz.

Security risks in the strait remain high. The Panamanian-flagged tanker On Peace was hit by a projectile near Oman on Tuesday, injuring 12 crew members, according to the Indian authorities. No group has claimed responsibility.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas and other Palestinian resistance organizations launched an attack out of the Gaza Strip and into Israel under the code name “Al-Aqsa Flood.” Israeli and Western mainstream media and politicians rapidly labelled this a massive act of terrorism and flooded the world with tales of horrific atrocities allegedly perpetrated by the Palestinians, such as sadistically murdering children and women and committing mass rape.

We now know that these atrocious tales were lies calculated to generate domestic and international outrage against the Palestinian resistance and Palestinians in general. They were part of the same poisonous Israeli narrative that labeled these people “Amalek” – a reference to a perversely “exemplary” genocide in the Old Testament – and denied that they were human beings. They were taking steps, in other words, to start a genocide.

These atrocious propaganda lies were made up and spread by, for instance, Israel’s Zaka activists and Western mainstream journalists, such as the New York Times, high public officials such as the UN’s Pramila Patten, and activists. For instance, former Meta executive Sheryl Sandberg acted as a Zionist propagandist, who chose to rely on Israeli disinformation.

In reality, there were no mass rapes, there were no sadistic baby murders by beheadings or in microwave ovens, no pregnant woman was found killed with a headshot, with her baby stabbed and still attached to the umbilical cord. It “simply didn’t happen,” as a detailed investigation by Israeli newspaper Haaretz found.

The core of this offensive targeted Israel’s Gaza Division, which, according to high-ranking Israeli officers was “overpowered.” In the process, Palestinian resistance fighters killed and captured Israeli military personnel. While Israel’s propaganda has done its best to obfuscate this fact, these actions were neither “terrorism” nor hostage-taking but legitimate acts of armed resistance under international law.

The Palestinian fighters also attacked a music festival as well as several settlements. There, according to an Amnesty International summary in early 2024, they did commit crimes, including the deliberate killing of civilians and the taking of hostages, that is, civilians, not soldiers, whose capture makes them POWs and not hostages. A crime, in any case, is a crime even if it’s only realistic to recognize plenty of mitigating circumstances in the immense injustice, dispossession, and often sadistic and humiliating violence Palestinians have suffered from Israelis over decades.

Honesty also dictates that we take three key facts into account: First, the leader of the pro-Israeli UAE, has revealed that he warned Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu personally of Hamas’s plans. In a similar vein, Qatar’s leader claims that Hamas was ready to free all civilian hostages immediately after the attack (which would have left it with only military prisoners). Yet the Israeli leadership ignored the warning and rejected the offer to free all civilians.

It’s almost as if it wanted the attack to happen, as a pretext to initiate a massive ethnic cleansing-by-genocide campaign, and for the civilian hostages to stay in Gaza, as a pretext for  continuing that campaign.

And finally, a simple point all too often drowned out by Israeli and pro-Israeli propaganda: A legitimate military force does not lose its overall legitimacy – or that of its goals – even when some of its members commit crimes. If that were the case, most armies in this world would have to be dissolved because none of them have a history entirely free of crimes. Armed Palestinian resistance is fundamentally legitimate under international law – and morally, too, obviously – and remains so. In fact, in the future, the outnumbered, outgunned, and abandoned Palestinian defenders of Gaza will be remembered as heroes, as they should.

Things are different, as a matter of fact, if we look at the actions of the Israeli military since October 7. Unlike with anything that individual Palestinian resistance fighters may have done, in the case of Israel’s euphemistically mis-labeled Defense Forces – a “citizen army [and] representative sample” of Israeli society – we are looking at a clear case of a whole, large organization deliberately and enthusiastically dedicated to committing every war crime and crime against humanity in every book, including ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Because that is a precise description of what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians of Gaza – and not only – since October 7, 2023. It is also by now the consensus among honest observers, including the global community of genocide experts. This, indeed, has been the most public genocide in human history, despite Israeli attempts to seal Gaza off and mass murder its journalists under false pretexts.

The nature and extent of Israel’s crimes is obvious and exceedingly well documented, and that is a very important thing. Humanity owes an enormous debt of gratitude to those Palestinians and others who have undertaken the harrowing task of compiling and analyzing the evidence, such as, to name only a few, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese or the tireless staff of the Electronic Intifada.

What needs at least as much attention is what the Gaza genocide says about our world as a whole: namely that genocide is not only possible – it was before – but can take place over years and in full view of the global public, with the active support of most of the establishments of virtually the entire West and the passive acquiescence of the elites of most other countries.

In a more or less sane world, fulfilling its obligations under the short and clear UN Genocide Convention of 1948 – it bears recalling – the Israeli genocide perpetrators would long have been stopped by a combination of diplomatic, economic, and, of course, military intervention. That would have been the minimum of what both international law and basic ethics obviously demand.

Yet, instead, we live in a world, where – apart from the Palestinian resistance itself – only a handful of states and political organizations have done anything at all to interfere with Israel’s mass murder campaign: Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Ansarallah – the Houthis – in Yemen.

But failure to act has been only part of this real-life horror story. In the West, many governments and mainstream establishments, including in the media and academia, have pro-actively supported Israel. This is a shameful history of criminal collaboration and complicity still to be written. Indeed, in the worst cases, such as the elites of the US, the UK, and Germany, complicity seems too weak an expression: they are better described as genocide co-perpetrators.

The obvious inference from this state of the world is that international law does not matter. There is no more devastating attack on the very idea of international law and a law-based order than the impunity of Israel and its accomplices. Benjamin Netanyahu, with an International Criminal Court warrant to his name, has been able to brazenly deny his and his country’s crimes at the recent UN General Assembly and even repeat the Amalek reference, as Craig Mokhiber has pointed out. Outside, meanwhile, his critics were being arrested.

Annalena Baerbock, in her time as one of Germany’s most embarrassing foreign ministers ever, also justified, shielded, and supported Israel; she has just finished her ill-begotten sinecure as the UN General Assembly’s president and made a lateral move to an absurdly undeserved position at Columbia University. The examples could be multiplied endlessly: the elites of the West, including American presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump, have devastatingly compromised themselves by their complicity with Israel. And yet, they keep thriving.

Now add the fact that Israel has not “only” been committing the Gaza genocide. It has also escalated ethnic cleansing terror in the West Bank, invaded Syria and Lebanon, attacked Yemen, participated in and triggered brutal assaults against Iran that have also tanked the world energy economy, and, in general, has followed its usual modus operandi of assassination, subversion, torture, rape, and relentless aggression. And yet it faces no discernible consequences beyond ludicrously inappropriate, purely symbolical measures at best and, of course, massive continued support.

Meanwhile, those in the West who dare be human and show their solidarity with the Palestinians and other victims of Israel and its accomplices and co-perpetrators are harassed, beaten up by police, arrested, and blacklisted.

What the Gaza genocide has shown with respect to the world as a whole is simple: Those who rule us will go much farther, much more shamelessly and openly than most of us, even the pessimists, used to be able to imagine. More importantly, they will get away with it, and they will let each other get away with it. Gaza is not an exception. It is a harbinger of a world of horrors. Resistance is not an option; it is the only one.

A former Australian Catholic bishop has been sentenced to six and a half years in prison for sexually abusing two young indigenous men over the course of a decade. 

76-year-old ex-bishop Christopher Saunders is one of the most senior Australian clerics to be convicted in a series of scandals that have shaken the Catholic Church for decades. In August, Saunders was found guilty on 13 out of 19 sexual abuse charges pertaining to two accusers he victimized between 2008 and 2019. 

Saunders narrowly dodged a harsher punishment, with all the charges related to his alleged sexual relations with minors flopped in court. Four charges related to the alleged abuse of a child younger than 13 were dropped on the first day of his trial, while he was acquitted of six further charges involving a 16-year-old child.

All the crimes were perpetrated by Saunders when he led the remote Broome Diocese between 1996 and 2021, when he resigned from the position over allegations of sexual misconduct. While the territory of the diocese covers an area larger than France, it has a population of only some 50,000, predominantly indigenous people.

The scale of sexual misconduct by the ex-bishop was likely significantly greater than the crimes he was convicted of. The Church’s internal report was leaked to Australia’s Seven Network and indicated that Saunders likely sexually assaulted at least four and groomed a further 67 indigenous minors and young men.

The sentencing has been welcomed by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, with its president, Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, insisting it reflected the gravity of the crimes committed.

“To each victim and survivor who courageously revealed what they had endured, we want to say this: We are sorry for the pain and suffering that was inflicted on you. We are sorry that your trust was so directly and profoundly betrayed by a leader of the Church,” Costelloe said in a statement.

Europe’s leaders have grand plans – spend more on weapons, prepare for war, and tighten citizens’ belts. The people have more immediate concerns however, like finding somewhere to live, keeping their jobs, and getting an education. Across France, Germany, Spain, and other EU states, the widening rift has started to spill into the streets.

Recent weeks have seen housing marches across Spain, student riots and public-sector strikes in France, and demonstrations against military recruitment and industrial job cuts in Germany. Immigration has added to the anger over housing and overstretched services, while the prospect of conscription has young Germans asking whose wars they are expected to fight.

The demands differ, but a recurring complaint unites them – aside from those simply looking for an excuse to wreak havoc: governments aren’t listening. Instead of putting domestic problems first, European leaders are telling their constituents to accept less and sacrifice more, while committing billions to preparations for a suicidal war with Russia. That’s despite Moscow and even Europe’s own intelligence services repeatedly saying there is no imminent threat.

Spain: Priced out and fed up

Spain’s housing crisis has pushed tens of thousands into the streets. After years of soaring rents, the eviction of an 87-year-old woman from her home of 70 years in Madrid last month turned into a rallying point for those sick of being priced out of their homes and the government’s failure to tackle the housing affordability crisis. 

Rents in Spain have almost doubled over the past decade as immigration-driven population growth has continued to outstrip housing construction. The population, excluding migration, has meanwhile only continued to decline.

The pressure is even more visible in Ceuta, Spain’s North African enclave, where around 72,000 people crossed from Morocco in late July into a territory with roughly 84,000 inhabitants. Although most returned, thousands remained, overwhelming accommodation and straining public services.

Residents have taken to the streets demanding stronger border controls and faster deportations, accusing Madrid of abandoning them. Protests have escalated into clashes with police, while angry locals have torn down makeshift migrant camps.

France: School’s out

France has also been gripped by overlapping protests over wages, spending cuts, public services, and school conditions. Teachers, healthcare workers, firefighters and transport staff have joined numerous strikes in recent weeks, while a growing student movement has added school blockades to the disruption.

Around 266,000 people joined demonstrations nationwide on Tuesday. More than 6,500 have been arrested over three weeks, while hundreds of students and police officers have been injured, including a 15-year-old who lost his hand to a police grenade and a 16-year-old who reportedly lost sight in one eye after being hit by a rubber bullet. 

As the movement has grown, violent groups have joined the protests, torching buses, attacking emergency workers, and damaging schools. Across France, 24 schools have been burned or ransacked.

France: The cuts keep coming

The student demonstrations came on the heels of wider protests that have gripped France for weeks, with public-sector workers protesting a squeeze on wages and services, compounded by soaring fuel prices. 

Other demonstrations have also challenged continued funding for Ukraine, with protesters arguing that the money should go toward hospitals, education, and lower fuel taxes. 

Separate rallies in more than 20 cities have also opposed a bill that could give police shootings the presumption of legality, which critics say would make officers harder to hold accountable.

Germany: Factories shrink, the military grows

Around 45,000 students joined protests in some 100 cities and towns in late September, carrying banners reading ‘We won’t fight in your wars’ and ‘Education instead of bombs’.

The government meanwhile is pressing ahead with plans to expand the armed forces to more than 260,000 active troops and 200,000 reservists by 2035 to align with Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s fixation on creating “Europe’s strongest conventional army.”

Young men are already required to register for potential service, but politicians have been pushing for a return to conscription if voluntary recruitment fails to fill the ranks.

Tens of thousands of automotive workers have also protested sweeping job cuts and threats to factories. Volkswagen, for example, plans to shed 100,000 jobs across its brands, while other manufacturers are cutting production or moving it abroad.

Germany’s industrial woes have been further compounded by the loss of cheap Russian energy, which helped make its manufacturers competitive. Higher energy costs, US tariffs, and Chinese competition are now squeezing businesses and threatening jobs across the sector.

More guns and more fear

Even with streets burning and protesters demanding relief, European leaders have not let the turmoil distract them from their military ambitions.

In Germany, Merz and NATO chief Mark Rutte smiled and waved through boos and chants of “murderers” and “blood on your hands” after the military bloc received the Westphalian Peace Prize last week. Inside the ceremony, officials praised military strength as the foundation of peace.

Those priorities are also taking shape in Brussels’ budget negotiations. Germany and five other EU states have demanded cuts to the bloc’s next budget, pushing to sacrifice funding for farmers and poorer regions in favor of ever-growing military spending.

The urgency is being justified by the supposed threat of a future Russian attack. However, Moscow has repeatedly denied any such plans, while even Finland’s president has admitted that his intelligence services see no imminent military threat. 

A major escalation in Yemen has brought Saudi Arabia back into military confrontation with the Iran-backed Houthis, ending years of relative calm as tensions rise across the Middle East.

Much of the fighting has taken place along Yemen’s Red Sea coast and around the strategically important Bab el-Mandeb Strait, following major Houthi territorial gains and a Saudi-backed counteroffensive. The waterway has become increasingly important as the US-Israeli war on Iran disrupts regional trade and energy routes, particularly through the Strait of Hormuz.

Who are the Houthis?

The Houthis, formally known as Ansar Allah, are a Zaydi Shia armed and political movement that emerged in northern Yemen in the 1990s. Their traditional stronghold is the mountainous province of Saada along the border with Saudi Arabia. The movement emerged in opposition to Yemen’s central government and Saudi and US influence.

They now control much of northern and western Yemen, including areas where most of the country’s population lives.

The Houthis are backed by Iran and describe themselves as part of the Tehran-aligned “Axis of Resistance.”

Over years of fighting, the group has developed an arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones capable of striking Saudi Arabia and ships in the Red Sea.

How did Yemen’s civil war begin?

In 2014, the Houthis seized Sanaa and forced the internationally recognized Yemeni government from the capital. Saudi Arabia intervened the following year at the head of a military coalition seeking to restore the government and counter Iran’s growing influence.

Years of fighting failed to dislodge the Houthis. A UN-brokered truce in 2022 sharply reduced hostilities and cross-border attacks, and although it formally expired after six months, hostilities remained limited for several years.

Fighting resumed in July, when Yemeni government forces struck the runway at Sanaa airport to prevent an Iranian plane carrying a Houthi delegation from landing. The delegation was returning from the funeral of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the opening US-Israeli strikes on the Islamic Republic at the end of February. The Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia for the airport strike, declared the de-escalation over, and retaliated against the kingdom.

Why is Saudi Arabia involved?

Yemen shares a long border with Saudi Arabia, making the conflict a direct security concern for Riyadh. The Houthis have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to strike deep inside the kingdom.

The Saudi-led coalition said on Monday that 100 fighter jets were taking part in Operation Dawn of Yemen, providing air cover for government forces, and claimed to have destroyed 324 “high-value” Houthi targets. Hundreds of fighters have reportedly been killed on both sides since then.

The Houthis have responded with missile and drone attacks on Saudi cities, airports, and military facilities.

What does the Iran war have to do with it?

The US has not resumed direct strikes against the Houthis, but American and regional officials reportedly said that Washington is providing Riyadh with intelligence, target identification, and operational planning.

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Türkiye activated the collective-defense provisions of their Makkah Alliance for Defense for the first time on Monday in response to attacks on the kingdom. The pact, sometimes dubbed the ‘Muslim NATO’, was signed in August and commits all three members to respond if any one of them comes under attack.

Who else is involved?

The forces fighting the Houthis are themselves divided. Yemen’s internationally recognized government relies heavily on Saudi Arabia, but government-aligned formations have different political and regional loyalties.

Western countries are also providing military support to Riyadh. The UK has deployed an RAF Voyager tanker to provide air-to-air refueling for Saudi defensive operations, while France has announced the deployment of troops, radars, and air-defense systems to help protect Saudi energy infrastructure around Yanbu, a major Saudi oil-export hub on the Red Sea.

Why does Bab el-Mandeb matter now?

Bab el-Mandeb is a narrow strait between Yemen and the Horn of Africa connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Ships traveling between Asia and Europe through the Suez Canal normally have to pass through it.

The strait has become especially important since the US-Israeli war on Iran disrupted shipping through Hormuz on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi Arabia can bypass Hormuz by moving crude from its eastern oil-producing regions through the East-West pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea.

The pipeline was shut after drone attacks in September that Riyadh blamed on Iraqi militias but has since resumed operations, with flows reportedly reaching 5.8 million barrels per day.

How does it affect global energy markets?

Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser has warned that the world’s supply cushion was “scarily thin,” saying nearly 3 billion barrels of regional supply had been lost since the war with Iran began and that depleted stocks could take up to two years to rebuild.

The pressure has been even greater on refined fuels. Nasser said diesel and other fuel prices had risen more sharply than crude. G7 countries agreed last week to release 100 million barrels of oil and refined products from emergency reserves in an effort to ease the squeeze.

What happens next?

Yemen’s government has set a goal of restoring its authority across the country, including retaking the Houthi-held capital, Sanaa. Fighting remains intense, however, with the Houthis launching missiles and drones at Aden International Airport on Wednesday as clashes continued elsewhere.

The conflict is worsening Yemen’s long-running humanitarian crisis. Some 184,000 people had been displaced by the latest fighting as of October 4, according to the International Organization for Migration. The WHO said last week that 838 people had been killed and more than 3,600 injured since August.

Diplomatic efforts are continuing, with the UN urging support for a political settlement and de-escalation.

Russia has also urged restraint and expressed readiness to help mediate if requested. The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Moscow was watching the escalation “with concern.”

On October 7, 2023, Israel faced a horrific attack when Hamas killed over a thousand of its citizens and took hundreds of hostages. This atrocity can never be justified.

But there is another fact that we cannot ignore: Israel’s overconfidence and conviction of superiority over its adversaries led to the country’s most catastrophic security failure. Three years later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government still has no convincing answer as to how the ensuing war is supposed to secure a safer future for the country.

More firepower, no endgame

The Israeli leadership’s main takeaway from the October 7 tragedy was the need to strike earlier, harder, and deeper. Deterrence gave way to destruction and elimination – first of the adversaries’ military capabilities, then of their leaders. The war expanded beyond Gaza, engulfed Lebanon, and finally escalated to a direct confrontation with Iran. Aggression became the guiding principle of regional policy. Yet, the tragedy also demanded a reassessment of the adversary, a sober evaluation of the country’s intelligence, and governmental accountability. Force can punish an enemy, but it cannot rectify the errors that made the attack possible in the first place.

Here, we clearly see the main contradiction of Netanyahu’s policy. Israel can destroy command centers, eliminate commanders, demolish infrastructure, and occupy territory. However, it is incomparably more difficult to shape neighboring societies in a way that would prevent the threat from re-emerging. The government expanded its military objectives but never defined a realistic political outcome. Who will govern Gaza? What kind of international recognition will that authority rely on? How can the daily lives of Palestinians be restored? What will ensure the safety of Israelis once the army withdraws? As long as there are no answers to these questions, every victory necessitates yet another military operation. 

It’s true that the loss of leadership disrupts command structures, severs ties, and hinders the restoration of military capabilities; however, the outcome must be judged by the state of the organizations and the country itself following these strikes. Iran retained its operational capacity; on March 8 – barely a week after the assassination – Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late Ali Khamenei, was elected as the new Supreme Leader. The death of the leader did not lead to the collapse of Iran, as both Israel and the US had hoped.

Nothing drives people to become militants like the loss of loved ones and the destruction of their homes and lives. Those who have survived deadly attacks on their families have nothing to lose; such people seek protection, revenge, or at least a sense of purpose – and militant organizations step in to provide all this. Moreover, Hamas and Hezbollah are structured not as armies with a vertical chain of command, but as networks comprising a military wing, social services, schools, charitable activities, family and community ties. A slain commander can be replaced, but such an environment cannot be easily destroyed by bombs.

History has already demonstrated this. Hezbollah emerged in response to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon; following the 1992 death of its leader, Abbas al-Musawi, Hassan Nasrallah took the helm and strengthened the movement. Hamas lost its founder, Ahmed Yassin, in 2004, yet won the parliamentary elections in Gaza just a couple of years later. Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah may regain their former strength anytime soon: they suffered great losses, and their supply and command capabilities have been crippled. Yet their story does not end with a list of slain commanders; it lives on in those who remain amidst the ruins.

On the third anniversary of October 7, the situation in Gaza reveals the same disconnect between military pressure and political outcomes. The October 2025 agreement secured the return of the surviving hostages, and by January 2026, the bodies of the deceased had also been brought back from Gaza. However, Hamas has not been disarmed (despite Netanyahu describing it as largely disarmed), and the transition to a new governance structure has yet to begin. Israeli strikes continue, and the army reportedly controls about two-thirds of the territory. While Israel retains immense coercive power, it has been unable to establish a sustainable order. 

The external aspect proved particularly difficult to handle. In the wake of October 7, Israel was naturally seen as a nation that had endured a horrific attack; everyone sympathized with it. Later, however, the image shifted: the world saw a devastated Gaza, a displaced population driven from place to place, and a humanitarian catastrophe. Now, facing another rainy winter, hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are living in overcrowded camps where torrential rain floods their tents, or in buildings at risk of collapse. The longer this catastrophe drags on, the less people are willing to believe the explanation offered by Israel – that its actions are merely self-defense. 

People all over the world have openly started expressing hostility toward Israel. Such a level of hatred would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. In the spring of 2026, Pew Research Center surveyed residents of 36 countries: on average, 67% held a very negative view of Israel, while only 25% viewed it favorably. Attitudes have deteriorated even in countries that sympathized most with Israel – such as the UK, Italy, Poland, and Australia. While criticism of the government’s actions does not equate to justifying Hamas, global anti-Semitism has risen due to the conduct of Netanyahu and his far-right ministers – Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who publicly express hateful, dehumanizing statements. 

The Middle East has become less predictable. The weakening of Iran’s allies has shifted the balance of power but failed to establish recognized rules of coexistence. Regional states are seeking additional external security guarantees and are ramping up their military capabilities. The direct confrontation between Israel and Iran has expanded the scope of potential targets and the number of parties involved in the conflict. Israel’s tactical advantage exists alongside the heightened vulnerability of the entire regional system.

Russia’s stakes in a fractured Middle East

Russia is primarily concerned with Iran’s stability. Tehran is important both as an independent partner and as a participant in Eurasian transport, trade, and energy networks. Strikes on Iranian infrastructure and disruptions to its foreign trade directly affect Russian interests. The North-South Corridor is gaining importance as an alternative transport route, yet it is simultaneously becoming more dependent on Iran’s ability to keep ports, roads, and border crossings operational. Increased demand for the route does not automatically guarantee an increase in its capacity; the war increases the need for connectivity while complicating the task of maintaining it.

For Moscow, these changes meant that it had to negotiate the terms of its military presence with the new authorities. Agreements reached in August 2026 regarding Russian facilities demonstrate that it is still possible to maintain relations. Exercising regional influence now requires greater flexibility and less reliance on a single political partner.

The economic consequences for Russia are also mixed. Disruptions in Middle Eastern oil supplies could keep global prices high and boost export revenues. However, a protracted war also drives up transport and insurance costs, disrupts payment settlements, and dampens economic activity in countries with which Russia is developing ties. Amidst this turbulence, Moscow’s role is growing. Russia is a major player in the global energy market, a partner in coordinating oil policy, and an independent diplomatic force that maintains contact with opposing sides.

Cooperation with Moscow enables the Persian Gulf states to expand their options and reduce reliance on US security guarantees. Diplomatically, the crisis offers Russia an opportunity to champion a more consistent approach to security. Its support for Palestinian statehood and opposition to strikes against sovereign nations resonate with many non-Western partners. However, political influence is only achieved when a country’s stance is backed by practical action. Moscow needs to maintain channels of communication with Iran, Israel, and Arab nations, facilitate agreements, and safeguard its own projects.

Netanyahu’s policy has failed to ensure long-term security. Despite Israel’s military achievements, the stated objective – long-term security – hasn’t been met, and the costs of the risky venture continue to rise. Three years on, Israel finds itself more capable of delivering strikes, yet less able to convince its neighbors – and even its allies (such as the Trump administration) – that its policies are paving the way to an acceptable future. As long as Israel substitutes these objectives with continued reliance on coercion, the consequences of the war will be felt far beyond its borders.

Outrage over the alleged killing of a woman by a US Marine in Okinawa has erupted in Tokyo, where protesters marched on the US Embassy demanding an end to the American military presence in Japan.

The demonstrations follow the arrest of Lance Corporal Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, suspected of strangling Anna Yagi, 39, at a hotel on the island on Saturday and stealing her belongings. Ballard has denied the allegations.

Okinawa is home to several major US military installations and tens of thousands of American service members.

Footage from Tuesday’s rally shows demonstrators carrying placards demanding justice for Yagi and calling for US forces to leave Japan, before marching outside the embassy under a heavy police presence.

“Neither the US military nor the embassy has offered a proper apology. It is only natural to be angry about this,” one protester said.

Another demonstrator said resentment over crimes involving US personnel had accumulated over decades and accused the authorities of ignoring repeated demands to remove American bases.

“It is truly infuriating that the presence of these bases leads to women being killed or raped like this. I cannot forgive it,” the protester said.

The case has reignited a decades-old dispute over the concentration of US military facilities in Okinawa. The prefecture accounts for just 0.6% of Japan’s territory but hosts around 70% of the land exclusively used by US forces in the country.

Crimes involving American personnel have repeatedly fueled opposition to the bases. In 1995, the abduction and rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl by three US servicemen triggered mass protests. In 2016, former Marine and US base worker Kenneth Franklin Gadson raped and murdered 20-year-old Rina Shimabukuro and was later sentenced to life imprisonment.

The West should abandon the thought that the Ukraine conflict will cause Russia to collapse like the USSR did in 1991, foreign affairs expert and RT contributor Fyodor Lukyanov has said.

Lukyanov, a program director at the Valdai International Discussion Club, moderated a more than three-hour-long session with Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of the club’s annual forum last week.
Putin said at the event the current tensions with the US and EU stem from the fall of the Soviet Union. Since then, Moscow has repeatedly tried to build good relations with Western countries, but their leaders have persisted in doing “everything they could to truly isolate and further break apart Russia itself,” Putin stressed.

During his appearance on RT’s East Meets West podcast with Olga Bataman and Tara Reade, Lukyanov said that “there are a lot of grounds on our [Russian] side to believe that we can win… by military means” in the conflict with Kiev.

“Paradoxically, Ukraine has the same idea based on another calculation, based on the expectation that the Western support will not stop and that on “a very traditional, old, good belief that Russia at some point will suddenly collapse,” he said.

Lukyanov said that he has already given up explaining to his American and European interlocutors that Russia is “different” and that it “will not collapse as the Soviet Union, but people in the West and now in Ukraine, they still believe it’s possible.”

The analyst also suggested the EU’s current hostility towards Russia should be explained by its leader’s trying to “find a way how to consolidate societies” amid “enormous” political, economic and social problems experienced by the bloc as a whole and its individual member-states.

They seek “to blame someone else and to find a menace which, as during the Cold War, can unify Europe,” he stressed.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has praised Iceland for allowing Washington to “project power” from the North Atlantic island nation into the Arctic.

Iceland is strategically positioned to help the Pentagon monitor Arctic airspace and conduct missions tracking Russian submarines in the Atlantic, not unlike Denmark’s autonomous territory of Greenland, which US President Donald Trump had notoriously threatened to annex. The US president and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen have signed an agreement to substantially increase Washington’s military presence there.

On Tuesday in Iceland, which joined NATO when it was created in 1949, Rubio praised Rejkyavik for allowing “the US military to project power using your land, your air, your sea, giving us a critical outpost for monitoring clandestine behavior and deterring our adversaries.”

Rubio and Gunnarsdottir both played down the diplomatic incident at their joint press conference.

”We’re not talking about social media posts,” Rubio said, while Gunnarsdottir said the two governments “are looking forward, not backward.”

.@SecRubio on Trump social media post depicting U.S. acquisition of Iceland: "We're not talking about social media posts, I'm here, we're here meeting with a country...everything's very positive in our relationship." https://t.co/ZVA5q5Bjq1

— CSPAN (@cspan) October 6, 2026

Long also apologized last year after joking that Iceland could become the 52nd US state, with himself as governor. A petition urging Gunnarsdottir to reject his posting as US ambassador reportedly gathered around 2,000 signatures.

The US first established a presence in Iceland during World War II, taking over from British forces in 1941. A 1951 defense agreement signed under the banner of the newly created NATO cemented Iceland’s role during the Cold War.

Rubio’s visit was designed to highlight decades of cooperation and the legacy of the Cold War. He and Gunnarsdottir met at the same venue where US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev held talks in 1986 on nuclear arms.

Washington’s ability to project military power worldwide is currently strained, with substantial assets tied down in the Middle East supporting the war with Iran. Rubio said the smaller US role in the joint Northern Viking exercise earlier this year reflected the need to “allocate resources” in response to current events and was not an “enduring decision” to reduce Washington’s attention to Iceland.

As Israel marks three years since the October 7 Hamas-led assault in 2023, the security failures surrounding the attack have become a major election issue, RT Middle East correspondent Charlotte Dubenskij has reported.

The incursion by the militant group left around 1,200 people dead in Israel while 251 others were taken hostage. Israel’s response was to launch a war in Gaza that has spread to additional fighting across the region. Around 73,000 Palestinians have since been reported killed in the enclave, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, is facing new allegations about what he knew before the attack. Recent reports claim he personally received warnings from Egypt and the UAE about a possible major Hamas operation – claims the prime minister denies.

The dispute comes just weeks before Israel’s October 27 election – the country’s first national vote since the assault.

Watch RT’s Charlotte Dubenskij’s full report below.

Military representatives from all of NATO's 32 members have gathered in Kiev. Ukraine has been trying to join the expansionist military-bloc for years, but has been consistently rejected. 

The visit by the members of the so-called Military Committee, takes place just a day after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said possible Ukrainian membership of NATO – one of the central issues at the heart of the Ukraine conflict – “is not on the table as we speak.” 

Moscow has long opposed the US-led military bloc’s eastward expansion and has made Ukrainian neutrality a key condition of any settlement, arguing that NATO’s presence there would pose a direct threat to Russian national security.

Ukraine made joining NATO a foreign policy priority following the Western-backed Maidan coup in Kiev in 2014 and later enshrined the objective in its constitution. In September 2022, Vladimir Zelensky demanded “accelerated accession.” As recently as July, he argued that Ukraine’s membership would be “entirely natural.”

NATO continues to officially describe Ukraine as being on an “irreversible path” toward entry. However, former Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny, who now serves as Kiev’s ambassador to the UK, said in August that he saw no realistic prospect of it happening.

“We are here in full strength with a clear message: the bond between NATO and Ukraine is stronger and stronger,” Dragone said.

According to the NATO official, the delegation discussed Ukraine’s military priorities with the country’s top brass, as well as lessons from the conflict that could be used to strengthen the bloc’s preparedness for “current and future threats.”

A number of influential member states, including the US and Germany, have repeatedly voiced opposition to NATO membership for Kiev. Speaking to the German newspaper Handelsblatt in early July, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte acknowledged that “there is no unanimous support now” for Ukraine’s admission to the bloc.

US President Donald Trump and other senior American officials have ruled out Ukraine joining NATO as part of a potential peace settlement with Russia. Speaking to reporters ahead of his February 2025 White House meeting with Zelensky, which infamously devolved into a shouting match, Trump reiterated: “NATO – you can forget about.”

The extent of US aircraft loses in the conflict with Iran is much larger that the Americans acknowledge, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said.

In a paper published on Tuesday the Congressional Research Service (CRS) said that at least 81 US warplanes, helicopters, and drones had been destroyed or damaged in the fighting with Tehran since late February.

Araghchi reacted to the report in a post on X on Thursday, insisting that the “real toll is far higher” than the one presented by the CRS.

“Proof? CENTCOM (US Central Command) won’t let a sitting Senator inspect bases it claims are fine,” the foreign minister wrote.

According to Murphy, the “unprecedented” rejection was “part of a coordinated, deliberate campaign by the Department of Defense to hide the consequences and the true costs of the Iran war.”

It is getting harder for the Pentagon to “fool all the people,” Aragchi said. He did not provide any alternative figures for US aircraft losses.

The CRS said in its paper that the cost of American planes, helicopters, and UAVs destroyed or damaged during the conflict could reach $3.3 billion. The figures provided in the document came from news reports and statements by CENTCOM and officials from the Department of Defense, the CRS said.

Congress has criticized the Pentagon for its reluctance to provide a complete list of aircraft losses in the conflict.

Some of the most advanced US warplanes have suffered hits, including one F-35A Lightning II stealth fighter, which was damaged by Iranian fire on March 19, and 12 F-15E Strike Eagle fighters, the report read.

Seven KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueling aircraft were also destroyed or damaged, according to the paper. Two were involved in an incident on March 14, with one KC-135 crashing in Iraq, killing all six crew members, and another performing an emergency landing. Six more refueling planes were affected in an Iranian bombardment of a US base in Saudi Arabia a few days later.

Other notable aircraft losses included two A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, two MC-130J special operations aircraft and an E-3 Sentry airborne warning-and-control aircraft, the report added.

Among the helicopters reported destroyed, one AH-64 Apache was shot down over the Strait of Hormuz, four AH-6 Little Birds were lost during rescue operations and an MH-60 Sea Hawk crashed over the Arabian Sea in mid-September.

The CRS said that several issues could benefit from congressional oversight, including whether the Pentagon possesses the funding to replace damaged aircraft and whether the losses of aging platforms, which are in short supply, could create capability gaps for the US military.

Last month, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said that the conflict with Iran had cost the US approximately $38 billion in its first five months. The bill could increase by another $2 billion to $3 billion for every additional month of fighting, it cautioned.

Iran has increased its capacity to produce arms by 2.5 times compared to its pre-war level, the country’s Defense Ministry spokesman, Brigadier General Reza Talaei-Nik, said on Tuesday, warning that any further US aggression will be met with a decisive response by Tehran. The Islamic Republic currently manufactures more than 1,000 types of weapons systems and munitions, many of which have undergone technological upgrades during the conflict, he stressed.

For residents of Israel’s Gaza Envelope, the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, was not an abstract national trauma. Communities close to the Gaza border were among the first to come under assault, and residents spent hours locked in safe rooms, hiding from gunmen and rocket fire. Three years later, that shared experience has produced sharply different political conclusions among people living in the same region.

Michal Koren Kariv, a 50-year-old filmmaker from Kibbutz Mefalsim, remembers that morning all too well. As Hamas launched its deadly assault on communities across southern Israel, her family remained inside their home as armed militants reached the area. They spent hours in a protected room without electricity, unsure of what was happening outside.

When the family was finally able to leave, Koren Kariv says she saw devastation on a scale she had never witnessed before. The experience, she says, fundamentally changed her relationship with the state.

“I no longer believe anything,” she said. “Simply nothing.”

Accountability is a must

For her, the coming election is largely about the demand for a state commission of inquiry into October 7, an investigation that would establish what went wrong, who knew what and when, and which decisions or institutional failures contributed to the disaster. She says she plans to vote for those who promise to get to the bottom of those failures.

“I believe that whoever was prime minister when the attack occurred must bear political responsibility. Netanyahu was the head back then, so he should have resigned. I am not saying I won’t be voting for a right-wing party. All I am saying is that Netanyahu should not be prime minister.”

Koren Kariv says she has never voted for Netanyahu’s Likud, but she has never been in the so-called “anti-Bibi camp,” simply because she acknowledges the positive things Netanyahu has done for the country. She also recognizes that the current government has invested heavily in rebuilding the southern communities.

Shortly after the attacks, the Israeli government established the Tkuma administration to oversee reconstruction and recovery in communities damaged or evacuated after the massacre. Government figures show a multibillion-shekel reconstruction program covering housing, infrastructure, education, community services, and economic recovery.

Koren Kariv acknowledges that the Gaza Envelope has received substantial investment since the attack, including new construction, educational funding and a stronger military presence. But she draws a distinction between rebuilding communities physically and addressing the political and institutional failures she believes preceded the attack.

Tilting towards the right

A few kilometers away, Sami Danieli, a 65-year-old former security officer from the religious moshav of Shibolim near Sderot, drew a very different lesson from October 7.

Unlike many other communities in the Gaza Envelope that experienced direct infiltration by militants, his moshav was relatively protected. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad reached its outskirts but did not enter. Residents nevertheless sheltered as rockets fell, and Danieli says he lost close friends in neighboring communities that bore the brunt of the attack.

Even before October 7, Danieli had voted for National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who supports the expulsion of Palestinians and promotes settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza. The events of October 7 did not weaken that support. They reinforced it.

“If I could vote for Ben Gvir twice, I would do so,” he said.

“I don’t believe there can be peace with Hamas, and that’s why Israel needs to take a tougher approach in its security policy.”

Ben-Gvir has said he would pursue a tougher security policy if he were given the defense portfolio following the election. As national security minister, he has already pursued a series of hardline measures towards Palestinians. These include worsening conditions for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, backing legislation imposing the death penalty for people convicted of terrorism, and distributing thousands of firearms to Israelis living in areas considered vulnerable to Palestinian attacks.

Danieli says he supports those measures. He remains firmly behind the right-wing bloc headed by Netanyahu and rejects claims that the current government bears responsibility for Israel’s failure to prevent or decisively end the war.

Instead, he points to anti-government protests and other factors that he believes constrained Israel’s ability to defeat Hamas.

“The anti-government protesters were the ones who weakened the country with their demonstrations. Then, when the war happened, total victory was not achieved partially due to the restrictions imposed by the Americans [under the Biden administration – ed.] and partially because of ammunition shortages.

“Netanyahu’s performance during the war was excellent though. Not very good – it was excellent.”

Danieli also gives the government credit for the reconstruction effort in the south.

“Government assistance reached the region and funds were provided, but of course there will always be people who will say that this is not enough,” he said.

“I believe that much of the criticism is coming from residents who are politically motivated. Eighty percent of them have a political agenda and this anti-Bibi bias prevents them from seeing the truth. This is why I don’t want the left to come to power. The right-wing must stay and rule,” he added.

Polling, however, shows that the hopes of Danieli might not materialize.

Reuters’ polling tracker, updated in late September, showed the centrist Yashar party led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot narrowly ahead of Likud in the polling average. The aggregate projected 66 seats for parties opposed to Netanyahu and 48 for parties supporting him, while also noting that the anti-Netanyahu camp did not have an obvious coalition path to the 61-seat threshold.

Individual polls by Israeli television channels and news outlets have produced different results. A Kan survey reported in late September put Yashar at 23 seats and Likud at 21, with the two main blocs each projected at 52 mandates.

A Times of Israel poll published on October 1 likewise found Netanyahu’s bloc ahead but still short of the 61 seats required to form a government on its own. Likud and Yashar were tied for first place among individual parties.

Israel uses nationwide proportional representation. Parties must pass a 3.25% electoral threshold to enter the Knesset, and a governing coalition requires the support of at least 61 of the parliament’s 120 members.

For the residents of the Gaza Envelope, however, the numbers on a polling chart tell only part of the story.

They lived through the same morning, heard the same rockets and waited behind the same locked doors for help to arrive. Yet, three years later, their memories of October 7 have taken them in opposite political directions.

Koren Kariv sees the election as a test of accountability, a chance to establish why the state failed and who should answer for it. Danieli sees it as a test of resolve, an argument for maintaining the political course he believes offers the strongest security.

Three years on, the communities closest to Gaza are no longer simply asking how they survived October 7. They are asking what the country should become because of it. And when they enter the voting booth, those two questions will lead them to very different answers.

Armed Israeli settlers have beaten and robbed an AFP photographer marked as press in the occupied West Bank, according to media reports. Around a dozen IDF soldiers were present and did not intervene.

Veteran Palestinian photographer Jaafar Ashtiyeh was hospitalized after being repeatedly struck with rifle butts. The assault is the latest in a growing series of attacks on journalists in the West Bank.

The Committee to Protect Journalists documented at least 16 incidents involving 35 Palestinian, Israeli and international journalists in the first eight months of 2026 alone, already exceeding the 13 incidents involving 25 journalists it recorded throughout 2025.

 A Palestinian was shot in the foot and hospitalized, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said.

Israeli settlers routinely target theses locals during the annual olive harvest, attacking farmers and seizing or destroying crops and trees that provide a vital source of income.

At least six other armed men then rushed toward the journalists while firing their weapons. As Ashtiyeh tried to enter a vehicle clearly marked “Press,” two men tackled him and repeatedly struck him with rifle butts.

Ashtiyeh was left with bruises on his head and torso and was hospitalized. Around a dozen fully equipped IDF soldiers were stationed roughly 500 meters away but did not intervene, according to Wessels. AFP said it had contacted the Israeli military for comment.

“We strongly condemn yet another serious attack on journalists trying to report on events in the West Bank and demand a full investigation,” AFP global news director Phil Chetwynd said. He called it “unacceptable” that journalists could be beaten and robbed by armed settlers while Israeli security forces failed to intervene.

The incident comes as settler violence against local residents in the West Bank has intensified, with near-daily attacks, theft and vandalism reported in recent months. Extremist settlers have also reportedly seized Palestinian-owned olive groves.

Days earlier, Haaretz reporter Matan Golan and photographer Itay Rom were attacked near Qusra – showing that even journalists working for Israeli media have not been spared. Settlers surrounded their vehicle, with one kicking and spitting on Golan, while Israeli soldiers nearby did not intervene, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Earlier this year, Palestinian journalists were beaten, threatened or driven from assignments in a string of other incidents, while crews from CNN, Reuters, Al Jazeera and Anadolu were also confronted or attacked by settlers.

The attacks come against an already deadly backdrop for the press. Israel was responsible for 86 of the record 129 journalists and media workers killed worldwide in 2025 – roughly two thirds of the global total – according to CPJ.

Russia’s emerging Rassvet satellite network – often described as a “Starlink rival” – could provide Moscow’s military with sustainable communications and data to attack any target in Ukraine at will, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has warned.

Speaking to The Economist last week, Schmidt noted that while Ukraine was initially seen as the main innovator in the conflict, Russia had largely closed that gap while pressing its advantage with far greater resources.

Schmidt noted that one of these domains is Russia’s Rassvet satellite project, which he suggested was about a year from maturity. “Once that network is in place, it is more or less unblockable,” he warned, adding that this could let Russian forces “hunt anywhere” inside Ukraine.

“It’s really a government decision. And the US government needs to grapple with this question,” he said.

Developed by private Russian aerospace firm Bureau 1440, part of the IKS Holding conglomerate, Rassvet debuted in 2023 with the launch of three experimental satellites. The network is designed to offer speeds of up to 1Gbps with latency below 70 milliseconds and to operate at an orbit of around 800 km – higher than that of Starlink to balance the number of satellites against an increased coverage area.

On Tuesday, the company also unveiled a line of user terminals, some of which claimed speeds of up to 700 Mbps. The Ukrainian outlet Militarny suggested that some of the showcased terminals could eventually be fitted to strike drones.

Russia’s deployment of Rassvet has sparked major concern in Ukraine across the spectrum. In July, satellite communications expert Vladimir Stepanets told Militarny that the first satellite group provided at least two stable “communication windows” over the country daily, each lasting more than an hour.

Ukraine’s military intelligence separately told Janes it had recorded Russian forces using Rassvet communications over Ukraine for “several hours” by late July and warned the system could support real-time reconnaissance and strike-drone operations.

Vladimir Zelensky’s technology adviser, Sergey Beskrestnov, also warned that a fully deployed Rassvet could become a “small catastrophe” for Kiev as it would provide Russia with online control of strike drones and missiles.

Zelensky himself told the Financial Times last week that he had repeatedly asked US President Donald Trump to sanction companies involved in Rassvet development and production while warning that the network could become operational “by the end of this year or early next year.” Trump has not publicly responded to the request.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said that attempts to “block” Rassvet would amount to destroying it and could trigger “full-scale space warfare.”

US President Donald Trump has blamed the violent student protests in France on the country’s migration policies, rejecting rioters’ claims that the unrest is driven by poor school conditions and teacher shortages.

On Tuesday, France saw the largest day of demonstrations demanding that the government of President Emmanuel Macron provide more resources and better funding for schools since the student protest movement began in mid-September.

Some 266,000 people took to the streets across the country, with 56,000 joining the march in Paris and major rallies also taking place in Marseille, Strasbourg, Nantes, Lyon, and other cities, the Interior Ministry said. The organizers put the attendance at 450,000.

In some locations, including Paris, protests escalated into vandalism and clashes between demonstrators and police, who employed tear gas and batons to disperse the crowds. A total of 488 people were arrested on the day nationwide, according to the French authorities.

Teachers, parents, and rights groups have accused police of excessive force, with around 215 students injured over the past three weeks. They include a 15-year-old who lost his hand after reportedly picking up a police stun grenade and a 16-year-old who lost sight in one eye, allegedly after being hit by a rubber bullet. On Wednesday, the French government banned the use of stun grenades during the student protests. More than 6,500 people, mostly minors, have been arrested, according to AP.

In a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, Trump insisted that “what’s happening in France is nothing less than out of control mass migration,” rather than a dispute over schools, claiming that “Islam [wants] to take over a once great Country!”

France, which has been one of the main destinations for migrants in the EU in recent years, has a foreign-born population of 9.6 million, the second largest in the bloc after Germany.

Trump’s words were echoed by the US envoy to the UN, Mike Waltz, who told Fox News that Washington would “always condemn lawlessness” and the violence in Paris, but argued that Europe’s “open borders” and “unchecked immigration” policies had caused “a level of frustration” to boil to the surface.

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu rejected claims that the government had ordered “police repression” or that officers were being racist. He said “ultra violence” would not be tolerated, while promising investigations into what he described as “accidents” during the protests.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez insisted that the response by police had been proportionate in “almost all cases.” A total of 715 officers have been injured in the clashes over the past three weeks, he said. According to the Education Ministry, 24 schools have been burned or ransacked by demonstrators since mid-September.

The sudden death of a British whistleblower who helped expose previously undisclosed links between Jeffrey Epstein and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has triggered calls for an independent investigation into how he was treated by UK regulators.

Simon Andriesz, a 57-year-old former managing director at the brokerage BGC Partners, spent years fighting his former employer and Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) over allegations of financial misconduct and retaliation against whistleblowers. His family said there is no suggestion of foul play after he died by suspected suicide in Thailand on September 23.

Andriesz had begun raising concerns about alleged accounting irregularities at BGC as early as 2016. He later accused the FCA of failing to properly investigate his disclosures and protect him after his identity became known to the company. The regulator subsequently acknowledged that it had wrongly advised him that he was not entitled to whistleblower protections and apologized.

ANOTHER EPSTEIN WHISTLEBLOWER IS DEAD. WHAT HAPPENED TO SIMON ANDRIESZ? Simon Andriesz, a British banker and whistleblower linked to the Jeffrey Epstein story, has died. He brought information to the FBI and later to Congress involving BGC, Cantor Fitzgerald, and Howard Lutnick, now one of the most powerful officials in the Trump administration. This was not someone making claims online without evidence. Federal regulators acted on information he provided. Andriesz later reviewed Epstein records and found 2018 emails between Lutnick and Epstein discussing a company called ADFIN, in which both men had investment ties. He took his findings to the House Oversight Committee. Congressional investigators later questioned Lutnick behind closed doors about his contact with Epstein. Lutnick denies wrongdoing and denies having the ongoing relationship with Epstein that reports allege. Andriesz is not the first person at the center of the Epstein story to die before the case’s major questions were resolved. Jeffrey Epstein himself died in jail in 2019 while awaiting federal trial; his death was ruled a suicide. Model Ruslana Korshunova, later reported to have visited Epstein’s island, died in 2008; her death was ruled a suicide. Jean-Luc Brunel, an Epstein associate awaiting trial in France, died in jail in 2022; his death was ruled a suicide. Steven Hoffenberg, Epstein’s former business associate, was found dead at home in 2022. Carolyn Andriano, an Epstein victim and Maxwell trial witness, died in 2023; her death was ruled an accidental overdose. Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers, died in 2025. Her family said she died by suicide; police said the death was not suspicious, though no final public coronial ruling has been issued. Investigative journalist and Andriesz associate John Robertson joins to discuss his legacy, his whistleblowing, and the questions his death leaves behind.

— Ben Swann (@BenSwann_) October 6, 2026

His allegations led to action elsewhere. US regulators, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission, pursued enforcement cases connected to BGC, while Britain’s tax authority imposed penalties on the firm. Andriesz received a $420,000 whistleblower award from US authorities, although he said his legal, medical and other costs had far exceeded the payout.

He said he uncovered 2018 emails in the released Epstein files showing Lutnick and the convicted sex offender discussing a digital advertising company called Adfin, in which both had invested. Andriesz provided the material to the US House Oversight Committee before Lutnick testified to lawmakers in May. Lutnick told the panel he had not known until 2026 that Epstein was a fellow investor in the venture.

The revelations intensified scrutiny of Lutnick’s previous characterization of his relationship with Epstein. The Commerce Department has rejected accusations that Lutnick misled lawmakers, dismissing them as partisan attacks.

Labour MP John McDonnell and other members of a cross-party parliamentary group have argued that the regulator should not be allowed to investigate itself. The FCA has instead appointed board member Lea Paterson to review its handling of Andriesz’s case.

The FCA claimed it took information supplied by Andriesz seriously but acknowledged errors in its dealings with him. Before his death, Andriesz had described its response to the alleged wrongdoing he exposed as little more than a regulatory “slap on the wrist.”

NATO membership for Ukraine is not currently under consideration, as Washington is focused on ending the conflict between Kiev and Moscow, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said.

Asked about Washington’s stance on Ukraine's bid to join the US-led military bloc during a joint press conference with Icelandic Foreign Minister Thorgerdur Katrin Gunnarsdottir in Reykjavik on Tuesday, Rubio said “there’s no yes-or-no answer to that.”

Ukraine’s admission to the US-led military bloc is “not on the table as we speak,” he clarified, noting that such a move would require the unanimous consent of all 32 NATO members.

“Right now, we’re simply focused, when it comes to Ukraine, on the ending of this conflict,” Rubio said, adding that Washington is willing to play a “constructive role” in the peace process.

Ukraine has made NATO membership a key foreign policy objective since the Western-backed Maidan coup in Kiev in 2014, eventually enshrining the goal in its constitution. In September 2022, Vladimir Zelensky formally applied for “accelerated accession” to the bloc.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly ruled out Ukraine joining NATO as part of a potential peace settlement. Ahead of his February 2025 White House meeting with Zelensky, which descended into a heated exchange, Trump told reporters: “NATO – you can forget about.”

The Trump administration has recently intensified its diplomatic push to resolve the Ukraine conflict, with the president’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visiting Moscow and Kiev last month for talks with both sides.

Russia has cited Kiev’s NATO ambitions among the key reasons for the Ukraine conflict, describing the bloc’s eastward expansion as a major threat to its national security.

The FBI tracked the movements of Donald Trump’s wife and teenage son and monitored the phone contacts of one of his closest aides during its investigation of him prior to his return to the White House, newly declassified documents have revealed.

The disclosures are fueling accusations from the White House that the administration of then-US President Joe Biden weaponized federal law enforcement against its main political rival. The files shed new light on an FBI probe codenamed Plasmic Echo, which examined Trump’s handling of classified documents and ultimately led to the 2022 raid on his Mar-a-Lago residence.

Internal planning records show that agents sought detailed information on the travel of Trump, Melania and their son Barron while preparing to search the Florida estate.

One FBI task list instructed investigators to “finalize FBI understanding of FPOTUS/FLOTUS/minor son’s travel,” including the type of aircraft being used and a “specific timeline.” Another internal message indicated that any search warrant would be executed only after Trump had left Mar-a-Lago.

Between February and May 2023, investigators used a pen register and trap-and-trace system to monitor metadata associated with Wiles’ phone. It allowed agents to track numbers, timing and duration of calls involving lawyers, campaign advisers, journalists and others in Trump’s orbit.

In one instance, investigators reviewed Wiles’ phone activity shortly after interviewing her, apparently seeking to determine whom she contacted following the meeting. Agents also sent preservation requests to Google, Microsoft, MSN and Yahoo for information associated with her email accounts and examined political endorsements and social-media activity by Trump allies.

“Jack Smith’s surveillance operation was a disgraceful abuse of government power,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis told Fox News. “Spying on political opponents is weaponization of law enforcement, plain and simple.”

The investigation was conducted under Biden and overseen by senior Justice Department and FBI officials. Trump and his allies have repeatedly accused the former president of turning federal agencies into political weapons, an allegation the previous administration denied.

An oil tanker caught fire off Russia’s Black Sea coast after being attacked by unmanned boats near Sochi, the Russian Transport Ministry has said. Its 23-member crew of Indian nationals were all rescued and no injuries have been reported.

The Liberian-flagged Aframax Rio, which was carrying crude, was struck by sea drones on Tuesday, according to the ministry. The attack triggered an oil fire in the Black Sea, with emergency crews initially unable to approach the tanker because of the intensity of the blaze.

Russian Transport Minister Andrey Nikitin convened an emergency response headquarters, while the ministry said sufficient personnel and equipment had been deployed to deal with the consequences.

Authorities temporarily closed beaches in the nearby federal territory of Sirius, adjacent to Sochi, as a precaution. Local officials said subsequent monitoring found pollutant concentrations below permitted limits and that there was no immediate danger to public health.

Eighteen crew members were rescued from the latter vessel, two of whom had severe injuries. One indicated that the Able was carrying Ukrainian cargo.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev condemned the attacks as a “blatant violation of international law and maritime law” and warned that repeated strikes were disrupting Black Sea shipping and driving insurance costs higher.

No-one has claimed responsibility for the strikes. Moscow has already been targeting vessels it says are carrying military or dual-use cargo to Ukrainian Black Sea ports, while the Russian Defense Ministry said Zelensky would bear “full personal and political responsibility” for any further escalation.

Ukraine has sharply expanded attacks on Russian oil infrastructure and commercial shipping in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov in recent months, using combinations of naval and aerial drones to strike vessels linked to Russian ports.

The strikes have also become a factor in the global fuel market. US President Donald Trump said on Monday that rising American gasoline prices were now being driven less by disruption around the Strait of Hormuz and more by Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries.

Trump had previously urged Zelensky to “stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia,” saying the campaign was “hurting the world.” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has similarly said Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy assets and refined products are contributing to a broader “energy shock.”

The debate on the use of nuclear weapons has moved into the practical realm, so while NATO is discussing the Russian Foreign Ministry’s warning of a full-spectrum response in the event of an attempt to blockade Kaliningrad Region, Russian experts are discussing nuclear deterrence and President Vladimir Putin’s speech at the Valdai Forum last week.

Russia must be prepared to use nuclear weapons in cases of extreme necessity.

Responding to questions about nuclear weapons, Putin recalled the saying that if a gun is hanging on the wall, it will eventually go off, but the Russian leader called for such a scenario to be avoided.

“At the heart of this escalation lie arrogance and overconfidence. This is a path to the brink of the abyss. All the more so today, when the arsenals of the world’s leading powers contain weapons capable of destroying all life or, at the very least, reducing the Earth to a catastrophic state. We are all familiar with the well-known saying: if a gun is hanging on a wall somewhere on stage at the beginning of a play, it is bound to go off eventually. We must bear this in mind,” said the president.

As Putin emphasized, Russia understands that in the event of a direct attack by NATO countries, “the enemy will be twice as numerous and have far greater economic potential” and Russia’s competitive advantage lies in the fact that no one else in the world possesses such weapons of destruction, he noted.

Why do we need nuclear weapons?

Tensions and conflicts between countries are on the rise worldwide and the West, particularly the EU, having suffered a strategic defeat, is desperate for revenge. Nuclear weapons are necessary to prevent major wars, but this only works if the threat is taken seriously, and at present far too many people have forgotten what a nuclear war entails, so they treat the matter lightly.

Many, particularly Western European politicians, want war; they are actively whipping up military hysteria in their own countries. For the time being, they are acting through the Ukrainians, but they have also begun actively stirring up their own populations.

The Western European elites must be punished for their aggressive policies, meaning Ukraine must be crushed and demilitarized, while the purely Russian regions must be reunited with Russia and an EU that has lost its mind must begin to truly fear.

Without the active use of nuclear deterrence, this can’t be achieved. Now, I hope it will never come to that, but Russia must be prepared, in the event of absolute necessity, to use nuclear weapons effectively and victoriously.

Nuclear deterrence has weakened considerably. First, decades have passed not only since the US first used nuclear weapons in combat against Japan, but also since the last known tests. Secondly, the Americans have for a long time deliberately downplayed the role of nuclear weapons in order to emphasize their advantages in other areas of armaments.

Furthermore, people’s mindsets and public sentiment have changed, given that we, the older generation, particularly in Russia, are more acutely aware of the threat of nuclear war, and of war in general, and have therefore been seriously committed to the cause of peace. In the past, it was almost considered improper even to speak of the possible use of nuclear weapons.

Now circumstances have changed significantly and that’s precisely why we need to step up nuclear deterrence and intimidation to the point of being genuinely prepared, God forbid, to use nuclear weapons to prevent a larger-scale war.

Seeking peace through non-nuclear means alone could prove far too costly for Russia and it would be a shame to sacrifice the health and lives of our men simply to quell the aggression of those same Western Europeans.

What would be the consequences of using nuclear weapons?

The reaction of the international community would have to be disregarded because it makes absolutely no difference what the rest of the world thinks or says.

If we refuse to use nuclear weapons, as many are calling for, including here in our own country, we will deprive ourselves and the world of the most effective tool for preventing war and give aggressors free rein, but they can only be restrained by the threat of their use.

If nuclear weapons were used, there would be other negative consequences as even a limited and effective nuclear war would remove the taboo on other countries using nuclear weapons in their own regional conflicts, so I therefore continue to regard such use as a last resort.

Why is the European Union preparing for war with Russia?

There are two reasons for the aggressive anti-Russian sentiment in the EU. First, Western European elites have deteriorated significantly during the period of relative peace in the second half of the 20th century, although we hope that not all of them are complete madmen. 

And secondly, they are trying to stir up military hysteria in order to distract their peoples from widespread failures and thereby retain power.

Under these circumstances, it would be sensible and rational for us to strengthen our reliance on nuclear weapons and modernize our arsenal, particularly the part of it aimed at other European countries. At the same time, it is important to continue dialogue with the US in order to avoid a global nuclear conflict.

Western Europe is now returning to its usual state, which is a belligerent one and this means the time has come to remind these Europeans once again who they are and what their belligerence leads to. If the current Ukrainian or German regime, or any other non-nuclear country in Europe, were to acquire nuclear weapons, we would be obliged to launch a preemptive strike because we’d have to stop them. It would be a short war, as a result of which these countries would cease to exist.

Is it possible to win a nuclear war?

It’s possible to win a nuclear war in Europe because the US will never risk its own territory for the sake of the Europeans. If France or the UK continue to stick their necks out, a preemptive, devastating strike could be launched against them. But, I repeat, God forbid.

I hope Western Europe comes to its senses and that this can be avoided. In the meantime, much of Europe should be placed behind a security cordon and a security system should be built within the framework of Greater Eurasia, excluding the Western subcontinent. That said, it will be possible and necessary to cooperate with individual European countries if they shake off the rule of the current madmen in Brussels and Berlin.

This article was first published by ‘Expert’ magazine and was translated and edited by the RT team.

The mayor of Paris’ Saint-Denis suburb has been tear-gassed while attempting to shield masked student street protesters from riot police. Mayor Bally Bagayoko has accused officers of using “totally disproportionate” force.

Bagayoko, a descendant of Malian immigrants, was filmed standing between heavily armored riot police and a crowd of predominantly black and Middle Eastern youths in Saint-Denis on Tuesday, as smoke and tear gas filled the air.

After the gathering had been dispersed, Bagayoko and his entourage were seen applying eye drops to their bloodshot eyes. 

In a social media post after the incident, Bagayoko said that he “witnessed a totally disproportionate use of force against young people who are simply asking to be heard.”

“To the mobilized youth: your demands are just,” he added. “Continue to organize yourselves and make your voices heard. But do not give in to any provocation. Stay united and non-violent!”

As the protests grew, many degenerated into violent riots, with students setting fires, looting, and assaulting police officers and other emergency workers. More than 6,000 people have  been arrested in connection with the protests, and more than 700 police officers have been injured, according to Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu.

Around 215 students have been injured, some of them apparently as a result of police brutality. A 15-year-old boy had his hand blown off by a police stun grenade in Lens; a 14-year-old had his jaw broken by a tear gas grenade in Val-d’Oise; and a 16-year-old was blinded in Tours, allegedly by a rubber bullet.

In Saint-Denis, Bagayoko has been accused of inciting violence and vandalism. The mayor was condemned by the right, maintaining he was filmed dancing in front of a dumpster fire outside a school in his district, with the leader of the conservative Republicans (LR) party Bruno Retailleau declaring that Bagayoko’s party coming to power would “sound the death knell of the French Republic.”  

L’accession au pouvoir de ces factieux sonnerait la fin de la République française. https://t.co/KgQ8GAzQZW

— Bruno Retailleau (@BrunoRetailleau) September 28, 2026

But the unedited video shows the mayor was actually helping to put the fire out.

🚨🇫🇷 Saint-Denis : la vidéo intégrale disculpe le maire Bagayoko Des médias accusaient le maire LFI Bally Bagayoko d’avoir participé aux débordements du blocus du lycée Paul-Éluard. La vidéo intégrale prouve le contraire : l’élu écarte une poubelle en feu de la grille et tente d’éteindre l’incendie pour protéger les lycéens. 🎥🔥🚒 Bagayoko dénonce des « accusations grotesques » et des « mensonges » : il n’a « ni allumé ni encouragé » le feu, mais agi pour la sécurité des élèves. Les fact-checkers confirment que la vidéo initiale était tronquée et trompeuse. ✅🧐 Sources : Libération, Le Monde, Le Figaro, L’Humanité, Brut, Le Parisien, France 24 #SaintDenis #BallyBagayoko #BlocusDesLycées #FakeNews #VidéoTronquée #LFI

— BREF_INFOS (@BREF_ACTUALITES) September 29, 2026

The leader of Bagayoko’s left-wing La France Insoumise (France Unbowed, LFI), Jean-Luc Melenchon, has called for “the high-school movement to spread,” but insisted that he is not responsible for the actions of violent rioters. Lecornu’s office has described the rioters as “far-left proxies” of LFI.

The number of Germans seeking conscientious objector status has risen sharply amid Berlin’s military buildup and debate over reinstating conscription, the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND) reported on Tuesday.

According to RND, whose parent company is partly owned by the ruling coalition’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), Germany’s Federal Office for Family Affairs and Civil Society Functions received 12,102 conscientious objection applications between January and August, compared with 3,879 in all of 2025 and 2,249 in 2024. Applicants include reservists, active-duty troops and people who have never served in the military.

Germany suspended the draft in 2011. Following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Berlin announced plans to expand the Bundeswehr from around 186,000 active-duty troops to more than 260,000 by 2035, backed by 200,000 reservists. Senior German officials have cited the country’s NATO commitments and a perceived threat from Russia to justify the military buildup. Moscow has repeatedly dismissed claims that it intends to attack NATO as “nonsense.”

Several politicians in Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s ruling coalition have argued that conscription may have to be reinstated if voluntary recruitment falls short.

Such a prospect has fueled student protests across Germany. In late September, organizers of the so-called School Strike Against Conscription said around 45,000 demonstrators took to the streets in some 100 cities and towns.

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has warned that Russia could attack a NATO member as early as 2028 and suggested compulsory service may be necessary to boost Germany’s preparedness.

Last May, Merz pledged to turn the Bundeswehr into the strongest conventional military force in the EU.

Moscow has sharply criticized Germany’s military buildup. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned earlier this year that Germany and the EU risked evolving into a “Fourth Reich.”

Two commercial vessels were hit by unidentified drones on Tuesday off the Bulgarian coast in the Black Sea, Prime Minister Rumen Radev has confirmed.

The attack marks the first time when merchant vessels were attacked within the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of a NATO member in the waterway. Such zones have a unique legal status and are adjacent to a country’s territorial waters, with the area being neither fully under its sovereignty or categorized as international open waters. 

“This is an unacceptable attack in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone. It is a blatant violation of international law and maritime law,” Radev said while speaking after an emergency government meeting to assess the incident. 

The vessels, the Togo-flagged Alfa Watan and the Palau-flagged Able, were hit overnight around 80 miles (128 kilometers) off Bulgaria’s coast by unknown sea and aerial drones, according to the PM, who did not immediately assign the blame to any party. 

The Alfa Watan, which was sailing to Romania from Egypt, sustained critical damage, sinking shortly after the attack with the status of its crew not immediately known, according to Radev. The second vessel, which sailed from Romania to Türkiye, caught fire, and its crew of 18 was rescued by a Bulgarian ferry. Two of the sailors suffered severe injuries and were flown to a hospital in the port city of Varna, Radev noted. 

“What is happening is seriously disrupting shipping in the Black Sea, driving up insurance costs even further and making shipping extremely difficult,” he added. 

Neither of the likely suspects, Ukraine and Russia, made any remarks on the latest maritime incident in the Black Sea. While Kiev has been actively attacking shipping in the waterway heading to and from Russian ports, Moscow has recently begun retaliating in kind and striking vessels carrying military cargo and dual-use goods to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. The retaliatory campaign has heavily damaged the Ukrainian shipping, effectively bringing the traffic to a halt. 

The modus operandi described by Radev, with the attacks involving both sea and aerial drones, however, likely points at Ukraine. Kiev has repeatedly staged such combined attacks on commercial shipping, while Moscow has relied almost exclusively on aerial drones. 

Once a key arms supplier of Kiev, Sofia has changed its stance on the Ukraine conflict under Radev’s government. Bulgaria withdrew from the so-called “coalition of the willing,” a European group of Kiev’s backers, and announced that it would no longer send weapons packages.

One of the world’s most recognizable and beloved athletes, Washington Capitals captain Alexander Ovechkin, has announced he will retire at the end of the current NHL season, closing out a record-breaking career spanning more than two decades.

The 41-year-old Russian legend, who is entering his 22nd and final NHL season, broke the news to his teammates on Monday, saying it was hard to tell them he would be leaving after this season, but “it is what it is.” He urged the team to “enjoy the moment” and “do some special things this year.”

The timing was poignant: Monday marked exactly 21 years since Ovechkin made his NHL debut with the Capitals.

For more than two decades, the man known as ‘the Great Eight’ (he has worn the number 8 throughout his NHL career) has been far more than a celebrated athlete. Known affectionately as Ovi, he became the face of a franchise, an icon in both Russia and the US, and the most prolific goalscorer in NHL history. Through it all, he remained proudly Russian, even as political pressure on Russian athletes reached a boiling point.

So who is the man behind the records?

How Ovi came to hockey

Ovechkin was born into a sports family in Moscow. His mother, Tatyana, was a two-time Olympic basketball champion, and his father, Mikhail, played professional football. But it was hockey that captured their son’s imagination.

He came through the famed Dynamo Moscow system and made his professional debut in the Russian Superleague at just 16. Powerful, fast, and relentlessly physical, Ovechkin combined brute force with a devastating shot – qualities that quickly made him one of the game’s most exciting young talents.

Ovechkin’s spectacular goals and bruising style soon helped turn the Capitals into one of the NHL’s biggest attractions. In January 2010, he became the 14th captain in franchise history – a role he has held ever since, making him the Capitals’ longest-serving captain.

Trophies and records

Ovechkin’s trophy cabinet is difficult to match. He is a three-time world champion with Russia, a three-time Hart Trophy winner as NHL MVP, and an eight-time First All-Star Team selection. In 2007-08, he won the Art Ross Trophy after recording 112 points, including 65 goals.

Washington reached the playoffs in 16 of Ovechkin’s 21 seasons and won three Presidents’ Trophies (given to the team with the best overall record). But the big prize that had eluded him for many years finally came in 2018, when he captained the Capitals to their first and only Stanley Cup, scoring a league-leading 15 playoff goals.

Then came the record once thought untouchable. On April 6, 2025, Ovechkin scored his 895th regular-season goal, passing Wayne Gretzky’s 894 to become the NHL’s all-time leading regular-season goalscorer. 

ALEX OVECHKIN. FROM HIS OFFICE. BECAUSE OF COURSE. #ALLCAPS https://t.co/SMWk89x5Ys

— NHL News (@PuckReportNHL) April 6, 2025

He went on to become the first player to reach 900, pushing the record to 929 at the time of writing.

🇷🇺 P🏒ck You, Russophobia! "Fans All Around the World, Russian, We Did It" - Ovechkin Writes His Name into Hockey Folklore Alexander Ovechkin broke Wayne Gretzky's NHL scoring record with his 895th goal, and couldn't resist a shout out to his homeland during the awards ceremony. Proof that sport can be a force to unite, despite rampant Russophobia in the Western world - which has seen many Russians banned from competing on the intl stage.

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) April 7, 2025

Behind many of those goals was an Ovechkin trademark: His devastating one-timer from the left faceoff circle. The spot became known as ‘Ovi’s office’.

His name sits atop numerous other lists: He holds NHL records for power-play goals (331), game-winning goals (141), overtime goals (27), empty-net goals (72), and 30-goal seasons (20). His nine 50-goal seasons tie Gretzky and Mike Bossy. Gretzky still holds the records for career points, playoff goals, as well as combined regular-season and playoff goals – but Ovechkin still has plenty of time to pass ‘the Great One’ in combined regular-season and playoff goals.

The quirks behind the Great Eight

For all the discipline required to stay at the top for more than two decades, Ovechkin has never exactly been a sports nutritionist’s dream. Teammates have spoken of his fondness for spicy Italian sandwiches, hot Cheetos, and Coca-Cola – which he has been known to drink on the bench.

His celebrations have been equally memorable. After Washington’s 2018 Stanley Cup triumph, Ovechkin famously performed a headstand over the Cup in a Georgetown fountain. The stunt was later recreated on ‘The Tonight Show’, with Ovechkin holding Jimmy Fallon upside down as the host drank from the Cup.

4 years ago today, Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals showed the world how to do a proper Stanley cup stand. It was just part of an unforgettable 3 day party in Washington DC! 🏆🍺❤️ #ALLCAPS @Capitals https://t.co/HN9SgDptHq

— LoyalCaps 🇺🇸🏒🥅 (@dmddusseau) June 8, 2022

His legendary slapshot has even reached space, at least in name. In 2014, an asteroid was officially named 257261 Ovechkin in honor of the player whose slapshot has been clocked at more than 160 kph.

One of his best-known rituals carries a far more personal meaning. After scoring, Ovechkin kisses his finger and points to the sky in memory of his older brother Sergey, who died in a car accident when Ovechkin was ten.

A different kind of legacy

Away from the rink, Ovechkin has spent years supporting children, cancer research, and accessible hockey in both North America and Russia. His Ovi’s 8’s program, launched in 2006, has provided more than 6,000 game tickets to underserved children and families. In Russia, he has supported children’s charities, orphanages, and adaptive sports, including para hockey.

One memorable episode came at the 2015 NHL All-Star Draft, when Ovechkin famously campaigned to be picked last so he could win a new Honda – not for himself, but to donate to a hockey program for children with developmental disabilities, inspired by 10-year-old fan Ann Schaab, who had Down syndrome. He missed out, but Honda later gave him a car anyway – and Ovechkin kept his promise.

Unapologetically Russian

For all the affection Ovechkin has earned in Washington, he has never tried to hide his love for his homeland. Through more than two decades in the US – and amid tensions between Washington and Moscow – he has continued to describe himself first and foremost as Russian.

That refusal to distance himself from his homeland has made him a target of criticism from supporters of Ukraine, particularly since the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022. While Ovechkin has publicly called for peace, he has repeatedly resisted pressure to denounce Russia. Among his fiercest critics is former Czech goaltender Dominik Hasek, who has called for Russian NHL players’ contracts to be suspended and accused the league of facilitating Russian propaganda by continuing to showcase Ovechkin.

Ovechkin once again attracted criticism after appearing in a campaign video for Russia’s ruling United Russia party last month. Latvia subsequently banned him from entering the country, while the Ukrainian Canadian Congress called for him to be sanctioned and barred from Canada. Commenting on the ad, Ovechkin said: “I’m Russian, and I support my country.”

The controversies have done little to diminish Ovechkin’s standing with hockey fans, with his milestones celebrated in North America and around the world. US President Donald Trump earlier this year described him as “a great hockey player, a great gentleman.”

Alex Ovechkin giving Capitals fans a moment they’ll never forget! Year 20 for The Captain @MonSportsNet https://t.co/isQJsA5UgD

— Ethan Cadeaux (@Ethan_Cadeaux) October 12, 2024

How Ovi’s news was received

The announcement prompted tributes from teammates, rivals, and some of hockey’s biggest names.
Zach Leonsis, the president of Capitals owner Monumental Sports & Entertainment, who has known Ovechkin for more than 21 years, said, “I know this season will be emotional,” urging fans to “cherish every game and every moment.”

Capitals coach Spencer Carbery pointed to Ovechkin’s reach far beyond Washington, recalling his amazement at seeing thousands of his jerseys at away games. For younger players, he said, Ovechkin’s 22 seasons carry a simple lesson: “It goes by in a flash… Make sure you make the most of it.”

Washington Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery talked to @seangentille about Alexander Ovechkin's legacy in the NHL. https://t.co/XnCwumplLg

— The Athletic NHL (@TheAthleticNHL) October 5, 2026

Gretzky said the farewell season will be “great for the NHL... I’m happy for him.” Fellow Russian star Evgeny Malkin, who entered the NHL a year after Ovechkin and went from bitter rival to close friend, was similarly reflective. “He’s a legend. Fans love him,” Malkin said, wishing Ovechkin a healthy final season.

Columbus coach Rick Bowness recalled Ovechkin’s famous falling-down goal against Phoenix during his rookie season, saying his defenseman and goalie did everything perfectly, but the puck still went in. “I knew right there, ‘Wow, this kid’s special.’” More than 20 years later, he said it’s been “a real pleasure to coach against him his whole career.”

What’s next, Ovi?

When Ovechkin told his teammates he is retiring, he did not specify whether he meant the NHL or professional hockey as a whole, briefly leaving open the possibility of a return to Russia’s KHL. Speaking to reporters later on Monday, however, he indicated that this would likely be his final season as a professional player.

“I love this game so much, but I know in my heart it’s the right decision… I’m not 20 years old,” he said. “I want to play with my kids when they’re growing up. Play hockey, play soccer, play basketball. I want to be healthy enough to do that kind of stuff.”

Ovechkin has revealed few other retirement plans, but several projects offer clues.

Earlier this year, he completed the preliminary defense of a 145-page dissertation on hockey training methods as part of his pursuit of a candidate of sciences degree in pedagogical sciences – roughly equivalent to a Western PhD. He is also closely involved in the Alexander Ovechkin International Hockey Academy, a 43,000-square-meter complex under construction in Moscow. Ovechkin owns a 35% stake in the academy, which aims to develop young Russian talent and could give the Great Eight a new role in hockey after retirement.

Last month, Ovechkin made it clear where he expects to settle once hockey is over.

“I’m Russian, so when I’m done playing hockey, probably I’m gonna stay there,” he said. For now, though, Ovechkin has one season left and a characteristically simple priority: “I’m gonna focus on my game.”

In Tehran, discussions about Iran’s potential withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) are growing increasingly urgent. Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmail Baghaei has recently acknowledged that the issue is being seriously considered by Iranian officials. His statements lend significant political weight to the discourse around Iran’s potential withdrawal from the NPT: One can no longer downplay it as something proposed by hardliners or fringe groups. While Baghaei also reaffirmed Iran’s commitment to its membership in the NPT and the associated obligations, he made it clear that the possibility of exiting the treaty is being considered. 

This situation has been triggered by Tehran’s mounting frustration. Iran finds it increasingly difficult to justify why participation in the NPT demands constant concessions from it, while the country’s rights remain negotiable. Despite Iran’s regular affirmation of the peaceful nature of its nuclear program, disputes persist and external pressure continues to mount. This gives Iran reason to question the practical value of the agreement. The Iranian leadership is signaling that its willingness to remain a member of the NPT cannot be viewed as unconditional.

The NPT was designed to maintain balance: Non-nuclear states refrain from developing nuclear weapons and receive international guarantees, while their right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy is recognized by the treaty; nuclear powers, meanwhile, pursue negotiations toward nuclear disarmament. For Tehran, the critical issue lies in the balance of rights and responsibilities. Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear technology does not exclude the international monitoring of its nuclear program. But there is a difference between inspections and demands to relinquish nuclear technologies, and Iran believes that this line is increasingly being blurred. 

A pivotal aspect of the NPT is the so-called ‘nuclear deal’ signed in 2015. Iran agreed to impose significant limitations on its nuclear program and accepted extensive international oversight in exchange for relief from sanctions. In 2016, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that Iran had implemented the necessary measures to put the agreement into effect. However, in 2018, the US withdrew from the deal and reinstated sanctions. This unfortunate experience casts a shadow on how Tehran views any potential future compromises. Iran accepted the restrictions, but the change in Washington’s policy undermined many of the anticipated benefits of the deal.

This raises a poignant question for Tehran. If cooperation with international institutions does not prevent sanctions and strikes against Iran, then what argument can the supporters of the treaty bring up in favor of remaining a party to the NPT? The treaty’s supporters outline its theoretical benefits, but the country assesses its results. As the costs of external pressure rise, it becomes increasingly hard to convince anyone that further concessions will enhance security. Instead, there’s a growing perception that new compromises simply lead to new demands. This sense of injustice largely explains Iran’s current irritation.

Another factor is the unequal standing of the countries in the region. Israel is not a party to the NPT and does not face the same comprehensive oversight that Iran does. While Tehran is constantly questioned about its nuclear program, no one raises concerns about Israel. This situation strikes Tehran as fundamentally unfair; its participation in the treaty imposes restrictions that Israel does not have to deal with. From Iran’s perspective, Israel, which is not bound by the treaty, enjoys greater freedom, while Iran’s membership comes with constraints and threats. Consequently, the treaty’s opponents have a strong argument in favor of withdrawing. 

One cannot dismiss the fact that the IAEA has grounds to question Iran’s compliance. The IAEA faces multiple restrictions in Iran when it comes to inspections, nuclear material tracking, access to facilities, and so on. The Iranian Foreign Ministry emphasizes that it remains committed to the NPT and expects respect for its rights under the treaty, noting that disagreements with the IAEA should be resolved through dialogue and inspections, not through threats or attacks on Iranian facilities.

At the same time, Iran is raising the stakes. As long as Iran’s opponents believe that it will remain in the NPT despite pressure, the threat of withdrawal can be dismissed as mere rhetoric. Baghaei’s statements make it clear that the option of leaving the NPT is being seriously considered by Iranian officials. However, Tehran is in no rush to actually exit the treaty. The Foreign Ministry has reaffirmed Iran’s existing obligations while leaving the final decision to the country’s leadership and Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. 

By openly discussing the possibility of withdrawing from the NPT, Tehran can analyze the reaction of Russia, China, the EU, its neighbors in the region, and also its own populace. This will help assess the potential support for such a move and see whether other parties are willing to offer conditions that might persuade Iran to remain a party to the agreement. The Foreign Ministry’s statement is most likely driven by several factors, including a strategic calculation in negotiations, internal disagreements within the leadership, and a growing dissatisfaction with external pressure. 

Moreover, Tehran understands that withdrawing from the NPT could further escalate tensions in the region. Türkiye and Saudi Arabia may believe that Iran is about to develop nuclear weapons, prompting them to consider their own nuclear capabilities. Their argument would be straightforward: If Iran no longer feels bound by the prohibition against acquiring nuclear weapons, why should its neighbors refrain from doing the same? Although withdrawing from the treaty doesn’t confer a legal right to nuclear arms, this detail could easily be overlooked in political debates. Tehran faces a serious risk: In its quest to enhance national security, it may inadvertently push its neighbors toward a nuclear arms race, and ultimately have to confront new threats. Therefore, we can neither be confident of Iran’s inevitable exit from the treaty nor reduce the situation to mere bluffing.

The main takeaway from the statement by the Iranian Foreign Ministry is that Iran no longer wishes to view its participation in the NPT as grounds for America’s endless, unfounded demands. Tehran insists on discussing its rights, the predictability of its partners’ commitments, and the potential for peaceful development. For now, this demand is articulated through diplomatic language, allowing room for negotiation. However, it is rooted in a profound crisis of trust. If the NPT continues to be perceived in Iran as a source of restrictions without practical benefits (an outlook that appears increasingly likely), then the arguments in favor of remaining a party to the treaty will become weaker. At some point, it may cease to be an issue that raises the stakes in negotiations and may become a matter requiring practical resolution.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has condemned the alleged killing of a woman in Okinawa by a US Marine, calling it a “heinous crime” and demanding tougher discipline and measures to prevent a recurrence. The incident has also reignited public anger and protests over long-time American military presence.

The controversy erupted on Sunday after Lance Cpl. Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, was arrested on suspicion of strangling Anna Yagi, 39, at a hotel in Naha and stealing her wallet and backpack. Security footage showed the man entering the hotel with Yagi and later leaving alone with what appeared to be her belongings. Ballard has denied the accusations.

Addressing parliament on Monday, Takaichi called the case “extremely regrettable” and a “heinous crime,” urging Washington to fully cooperate with the investigation and prevent similar incidents in the future. Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi summoned US Ambassador George Glass, while Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi separately summoned US Forces Japan commander Lt. Gen. Stephen Jost to lodge protests.

The US embassy in Japan extended its “sincere condolences to the victim’s family,” adding that US officials are cooperating with Japanese authorities. The Third Marine Expeditionary Force stated that the “Marine Corps takes these allegations very seriously and expects every Marine to adhere to the highest standards of behavior.”

The case also sparked backlash from Okinawa residents, with about 160 people rallying in Naha, the capital city of the prefecture, condemning the killing and renewing calls for US bases to be removed from the island.

The anger over US military presence on Okinawa – which has been there since 1945 – has been simmering for several decades. Despite accounting for only about 0.6% of Japan’s territory, Okinawa hosts roughly 70% of the country’s US-exclusive military facility area.

Crimes involving US personnel have repeatedly triggered major protests. In 1995, three US servicemen abducted and raped a 12-year-old Okinawan girl, fueling mass demonstrations. In 2016, former Marine and US base worker Kenneth Franklin Gadson raped and murdered 20-year-old Rina Shimabukuro and was later sentenced to life imprisonment.

Unlike in countries such as Russia, the US, or France, the German presidency is not a powerful office. At least not in terms of what it can do directly or independently. Instead, Germany’s president is a largely representative figure, while real power to lead national policy belongs to the chancellor.

Yet the presidency is no mere decoration. According to a 2014 summary by Germany’s constitutional court, the authority of the office derives, above all, from the intellectual and moral influence it should exert, and whoever holds it “embodies the unity of the state.” In short, Germany’s president has two real jobs: to stand for national togetherness, especially when tensions increase and politics polarize, and to be a widely acknowledged moral authority.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the current president, has failed quite spectacularly on both counts, and his recent speech on the Day of German Unity has shown once again how and why. This is a scandal, but it is not a surprise. Even before his latest performance, Steinmeier had earned himself the nickname “Walter der Spalter,” which translates as Walter the Splitter.

And for good reasons: Although charged with integrating the nation, Steinmeier has a long record of explicitly calling for the marginalization and exclusion of large numbers of Germans, not only but in particularly those who dare represent or vote for the new-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

This year, in a revealingly snobbish sally, he has labelled them “vulgar democrats.” For Steinmeier, clearly, there is not merely a distinction between “democrats” and “non-democrats,” but also one between inferior (“vulgar”) and superior (presumably sophisticated) democrats. Steinmeier clearly sees himself as a distinguished example of the latter. On a personal level, the obvious smugness of his attitude is merely deeply embarrassing. What is worse is that taking popular sovereignty seriously – as prescribed by the German constitution – would look vastly different.

Now, in his German Unity Day speech, Steinmeier has taken aim at what he himself described as large numbers of Germany’s citizens. They, the president has correctly noticed, are displaying “distrust toward the political order.” That, for Steinmeier, is no reason to seriously examine what might be wrong with that order or to make a genuine effort to understand the reasons for that distrust. His scant and general remarks on Berlin’s own mistakes and the anxieties of ordinary Germans illustrated not humility but aloof and patronizing disinterest.

Generously conceding that maybe not all of those who have lost trust in the status quo are “against democracy as such,” Steinmeier explicitly kept all of them under precisely that suspicion. In essence, he conflated many Germans’ very plausible discontent with the devastating policies imposed by radical-Centrist establishment parties with rejecting the constitutional order or even democracy as such: If you are not for us, so the message, you’re not just against us but a virtually criminal misfit.

How convenient – if, that is, you are Frank-Walter Steinmeier and your whole political biography happens to represent precisely that establishment, its privileges, its obstinate refusal to learn, and its failure.

Against this dark backdrop, the complacent, crusading president invoked the specter of Weimar – that is the collapse of interwar German democracy that was followed by the catastrophe of Nazism. Steinmeier insisted that today’s Germany is “not Weimar,” but he also made clear that he believes it could end in a similar crash.

That was ironic, as Steinmeier also warned that historical ignorance is unforgivable. Indeed. But then he should know that Weimar was destroyed by many things, yet it could have survived all of them, if its people had not been hit by the mass immiseration of the Great Depression. Yes, Nazis – and conservatives foolishly promoting them – killed that first German democracy. But they could only do so because the country was sinking into ruin, misery, and mass despair, while its establishment elites pursued a hopelessly misguided economic policy and – even if that is often forgotten now – massively curtailed democracy well before the Nazis finished off what was left of it.

Say what you will about the AfD; it is not the equivalent of the Nazi party. That is where Steinmeier’s implied analogy makes no sense. Indeed – deliberately or not – he is misusing history as a cheap rhetorical, not to say demagogic device.

It was precisely that spirit of irresponsible, privileged aloofness that the president, in his Unity Day speech, displayed when promising nothing but empty phrases and the same all over again: more so-called “reforms” at home which many Germans recognize as what they really are, namely deep cuts into their welfare and life chances.

And abroad, of course, more support for Ukraine, that is, the ultra-corrupt Zelensky regime that has committed the worst act of terrorism against Germany in its history. That as well, more and more Germans see for what it really is: a perverse national self-humiliation and an absurd waste of money to finance a highly corrupt regime as well as an avoidable, unwinnable, and disastrous – also for ordinary Ukrainians – proxy war against Russia; an indirect (if barely) German war against Russia that constantly escalates the risk of an even worse direct war between Berlin and Moscow, as German intelligence services acknowledge, if in a biased manner.

Steinmeier delivers his polarizing and divisive messages while performing a tired patina of wise statesmanship that betrays at least a clumsy effort to impress. One day after Steinmeier’s unfortunate speech, Chancellor Friedrich Merz chose the bluntest way possible to convey, in essence, the same message. Traveling to visit the Kiev establishment, where Merz – with his bottomless wallet fed by German taxpayers – may enjoy the popularity he absolutely lacks at home, the chancellor made it rudely, brutally clear once more: Germany’s current rulers care more for the Kiev regime, which they may or may not genuinely mistake for Ukraine as a whole, than for their own country and the citizens who have elected and pay them. And this is just one, if striking, outcome of the true core of Germany’s malaise: a widespread and very plausible sense that Germany’s establishment does not care about Germans. Even if you dislike the AfD or “populists” in general, they are a response to this sense of abandonment.

France and Germany are pressing Brussels to take a tougher line on China by creating new powers that could rapidly shut foreign countries out of the EU market.

The proposal effectively tells Brussels to beef up its position as it prepares for negotiations with Beijing. It also marks a shift for Germany, which has traditionally been more cautious than France about restrictions on China because of German businesses’ reliance on the Chinese market.

European manufacturers complain that cheap Chinese imports, supported by government subsidies, are undercutting their businesses. Last year, the EU ran a roughly €360 billion ($400 billion) goods trade deficit with China. Beijing has rejected that explanation for its competitiveness.

Both sides have stepped up investigations into each other’s exports. On Saturday, Beijing opened a probe into a European chemical used in dyes, medicines, and pesticides, following complaints from Chinese producers. The move followed three recent EU investigations into Chinese chemicals.

The anti-dumping probes examine whether goods are being exported at unfairly low prices and harming local producers. The investigations can lead to additional import taxes to protect businesses.

They called for a new instrument giving the Commission powers to take “powerful measures up to an immediate cut-off from the internal market if needed.” The South China Morning Post described the proposed mechanism as effectively a trade “kill switch.”

Paris and Berlin want the Commission to be able to activate countermeasures unless a qualified majority of EU governments votes to stop them, potentially making it easier for Brussels to act despite opposition from individual member states.

The proposal does not explicitly identify China as a target and says that the new instrument should apply regardless of country. However, its complaints about subsidies, cheap exports, and other alleged market distortions closely match EU accusations against Beijing.

The dispute has also extended to Europe’s dependence on Chinese raw materials, with EU officials saying Beijing’s export restrictions have hurt the bloc’s companies. Paris and Berlin have called for a separate tool to reduce reliance on single suppliers and prevent further dependencies.

EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic is set to visit Beijing later this week for talks with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao. Brussels has set an October deadline for tangible progress in addressing its trade concerns, with Sefcovic warning of “harsher measures” without results.

Beijing has warned it will respond firmly to any new restrictions on Chinese companies or products. China’s Commerce Ministry has stressed that the EU should address its own economic problems and resolve disagreements through dialogue.

Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces have launched a major offensive against the Iranian-backed Houthis, with both sides claiming territorial gains as battles rage around the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.

The escalation comes after the Houthis took over the key territory around Bab el-Mandeb in September, one of the world’s most important shipping chokepoints, which has gained particular significance amid disruptions at the Strait of Hormuz caused by the US-Iran war.

On Monday, the Yemeni army claimed to have pushed north along the Red Sea coast toward Mocha, while announcing “a strategic offensive operation on Sanaa,” which serves as the de facto capital of the Houthi movement.

The Houthis have denied the government gains, claiming to have made headway around Taiz, some 80km from the Red Sea coast. The group has also retaliated with ballistic missiles and drones against Saudi targets, claiming strikes on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport, military bases, and Aramco oil facilities, including the Rabigh refinery. Saudi Arabia has confirmed damage from Houthi attacks on airports at Jizan and Najran.

The Houthis have consistently accused Riyadh of waging an “aggression” and blockade against Yemen, arguing that Saudi military operations serve US and Israeli interests. Their Yemeni opponents, meanwhile, view Houthis – who identify themselves as part of the “Axis of Resistance” – as “terrorists” and insurgents who overthrew the internationally recognized government in 2014.

The conflict in Yemen in its current form began when the Houthis seized the capital of Sanaa more than a decade ago, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention. However, fighting largely subsided after a 2022 truce.

Amid the fighting in Yemen and continued US-Iran standoff, US President Donald Trump argued that record gas prices are being driven not by disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz but by Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries.

This live feed has now ended.

Former German intelligence chief August Hanning has been arrested on charges of espionage and treason, amid accusations that he recruited the former head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency to carry out a child kidnapping.

Hanning, who headed the BND from 1998 to 2005, was arrested on Tuesday along with his former aide within the agency, identified by prosecutors as ‘Manfred D’. Hanning is accused of buying state secrets from Manfred D, who remained in the BND after Hanning’s departure and served several of his successors.

Hanning acquired nearly 2,000 BND documents between 2010 and 2022, which he  leveraged in his work as a private security consultant, prosecutors said.

In one case, Hanning allegedly used BND material to prepare an analytical report for an employee of a foreign intelligence service. He is also accused of maintaining “close contact with a representative of another foreign intelligence service,” to whom he passed information obtained by Manfred D “for several years,” according to the prosecutors’ statement.

The Mossad connection

The espionage case was reportedly built on evidence found at Hanning’s residence in Hamburg, which was searched by local police in September 2025 as part of a separate investigation involving businesswoman Christina Block.

Block, an heiress to her family’s Block House restaurant group, is at the center of a high-profile custody dispute and is currently on trial for kidnapping. Prosecutors allege that she hired Hanning’s private security firm, System 360, and former state criminal police officer Thorsten Mehles to abduct her two youngest children from their father’s home in Denmark and return them to Germany.

After a foiled attempt by System360 and Mehles, Hanning allegedly contracted the job out to Yaakov Perry, the former chief of Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet. Perry, who now runs a private intelligence company called CGI Group, assembled a team that assaulted Block’s ex-husband and kidnapped the children. The ex-husband, Stefan Hansel, claims that Hanning also recruited former Mossad chief Danny Yatom to take part in the operation.

Questioned about these claims by Israeli media, Yatom said that he knew Hanning in the late 1980s, but had “no connection to this case.” However, speaking to Israeli media in 2021, Hanning said that he maintained “very close working relationships, even friendships” with Yatom and other Mossad officials long after he left the BND.

Yemen’s internationally recognized government has vowed to retake territory held by the Houthis, raising the prospect of a new phase in a conflict that has ravaged the country for more than a decade.  

The Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) has ordered its armed forces and security formations to begin implementing plans “until the country is liberated from the grip of terrorist militias,” while also calling for a general mobilization.  

But the balance of power is more complicated than the lines on the map suggest, RT’s Oumaima Ichchar reports.

 “The government may control more of Yemen on the map, but it is the Houthis who control most of its people,” she said. The PLC is estimated to hold around 60.4% of Yemen’s territory, while the Houthis control about 22.8%, including the capital Sanaa and some of the country’s most densely populated areas.  

The Houthis are estimated to have around 350,000 fighters, while estimates for the fragmented PLC forces range from 40,000 to 250,000. But, as Ichchar notes, “even hundreds of thousands of fighters mean little if you can’t properly arm or supply them.”  

The Houthis have also built a “parallel economy” in the territory they control, collecting taxes, customs duties, religious levies and other revenues estimated at around $2.5 billion a year. The PLC, meanwhile, remains heavily dependent on outside financial support, particularly from Saudi Arabia.  

With manpower, weapons, money and foreign backing all potentially determining what comes next, Ichchar examines the comparative strength of the warring sides and what she describes as the “ultimate war of resources.”

Watch RT's full report below:

US President Donald Trump has blamed Kiev for record-high fuel prices in the US, saying they are no longer driven by the Iran war but by Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries. He also pointed to policies pursued by Democrat-led states as a contributing factor.

In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump said: “What’s driving up gasoline is no longer the Strait of Hormuz, because record numbers of barrels are coming out now on an almost daily basis, but the word, ‘refineries,’” adding that Russian refineries “are being blown up by Ukraine.”

Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Russian refineries and other petroleum-linked facilities in recent months, disrupting production and contributing to fuel shortages and price hikes.

Moscow responded by restricting exports of gasoline, diesel, and other petroleum products. The diesel ban is currently in effect until the end of October. Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that the strikes cost around 1% of GDP, but said damaged facilities are being quickly restored and the country’s energy system has significant reserve capacity.

https://t.co/FuWlIHEEeZ

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 5, 2026

This is not the first time Trump has lashed out at Kiev over the strikes. During a visit to Ireland last month, he blamed Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky directly, saying: “Zelensky has to do one thing. He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia… Don’t hit diesel fuel, because that’s hurting the world.”

Despite repeated warnings about the global fallout, Zelensky vowed over the weekend to intensify strikes on Russian oil facilities. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry also claimed that its long-range attacks have disabled 51% of Russia’s refining capacity, though Moscow has not corroborated the figure.

Russia, which has retaliated by expanding strikes on Ukraine’s military-industrial facilities and severely disrupting Ukrainian logistics and Black Sea shipping, pledged on Sunday to step up its campaign.

Can Trump blame his way out of the fuel crisis?

With the midterm election just weeks away, Trump also blamed high fuel prices on the Democrats, lashing out at the “Dumocrats” for jeopardizing supplies “in Blue States, like California” through refinery closures.

Trump has also sought to play down the impact of the Iran war. The months-long disruption of the Strait of Hormuz – which once handled around 20% of global oil supplies – earlier pushed crude oil above $100 per barrel. Crude oil flows have since largely recovered through pipelines and ship-to-ship transfers, but refined oil supplies, particularly diesel, remain constrained. US diesel prices hit a record $6.52-$6.53 a gallon on September 22 and remain near historic highs, with prices in states such as California exceeding $8.21 a gallon, while regular gasoline stood at around $4.36 as of October 5.

Trump signed an executive order on Monday expanding the measure nationwide and deferring the federal fuel tax through the end of the year. However, an AP-NORC poll found that 65% of Americans blame Trump’s policies for the high prices, and 69% said the economy is worse off now than when he returned to office.

With fuel costs squeezing truckers, farmers, and consumers, the issue has become a political liability for Republicans heading into the midterms. RT’s Caleb Maupin reports on the mounting pressure – and whether voters will make Trump pay at the ballot box.

A multimillion-euro artwork featuring a massive bronze cover designed by Salvador Dali has been stolen from a museum in central France. It is the latest in a string of high-profile thefts targeting the country’s cultural institutions.  

Thieves took the artwork from the Centre of Contemporary Art in Issoire overnight to Monday. Prosecutors described it as an “exceptional and unique” work of “great value” and opened a criminal investigation.  

The stolen work is Joseph Foret’s ‘Livre de l’Apocalypse’ (The Book of the Apocalypse), a monumental 210kg volume produced between 1958 and 1961 with contributions from prominent figures in 20th-century art and literature, including Dali, Jean Cocteau, Bernard Buffet, and Jean Giono.  

The Issoire theft is the latest in a string of high-profile robberies to hit French museums. In September, thieves broke into the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer in southeastern France and grabbed four paintings from the walls. Two were abandoned in the museum garden as the thieves fled, while two remain missing. The four were initially valued at €9 million ($10.1 million), with the missing pair later valued at €4.2 million.  

In July, three masked thieves raided the Lalique Museum in northeastern France, escaping with 27 valuable pieces worth €4.5 million in just 11 minutes. Despite the museum receiving “special attention” after the Louvre robbery, its security company reportedly failed to alert gendarmes when the alarms went off, leaving a cleaner to call police.  

The string of thefts triggered a national scandal over museum security. A parliamentary inquiry released in May found widespread shortcomings, pointing to aging infrastructure, staff shortages and inadequate surveillance. Only 23% of French museums had an emergency and risk-prevention plan in 2024, while just 54% had video surveillance, according to the report.  

France has also cut heritage spending while ramping up military expenditures. The country’s 2026 heritage budget was reduced by €106 million, or 8%, while the Louvre lost €5 million in funding. By contrast, the defense budget rose by €6.7 billion to €68.4 billion as the government accelerates what it calls France’s “rearmament.”

Washington Capitals captain Alexander Ovechkin will retire after the current NHL season, he told his teammates in a video shared on social media.

In the short clip, which was filmed in the team’s locker room on Monday, the 41-year-old Russian said he was sad to tell his teammates he would soon be leaving, while urging them to “have fun and enjoy the moment” and “do some special things this year.”

Ovechkin, who was born in Moscow, has faced controversy over his unapologetic support for his home country. He was placed on Ukraine’s semi-official ‘kill list’ of purported enemies of the state after setting the NHL’s all-time goal record last year and has recently faced sanctions.

Alex Ovechkin announced to his teammates this morning that this season will be his final in the NHL https://t.co/wnnnkrIl5U

— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) October 5, 2026

Ovechkin signed a one-year contract with the Capitals this summer after surpassing Wayne Gretzky’s all-time regular-season goal record in April 2025. He confirmed his retirement plans two days before Washington’s opening game on Wednesday night.

The Capitals, who drafted Ovechkin in 2004, missed the playoffs in 2025-26, but their captain played all 82 games and scored 32 goals.

Alex Ovechkin on appearing in the Putin commercial. https://t.co/CwtdUsPfDU

— Grant Paulsen (@GrantPaulsen) September 17, 2026

Responding to the backlash, Ovechkin said: “I’m Russian, so when I’m done playing hockey, probably I’m gonna stay there,” living in Russia with his family. He stressed that he considers Russia his home and the US his second home, and that he stands “for peace and love.”

Julian Assange is a key figure in the creation of alternative media, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern has said, expressing hope that the Australian journalist and activist is preparing to get back to work.

McGovern spoke to RT as WikiLeaks marks its 20th anniversary. The website, co-founded by Assange in 2006, has published some of the most explosive leaks of the past two decades, exposing CIA hacking tools, classified US war records, illegal mass surveillance, and other closely guarded secrets.

The platform became a global phenomenon, making Assange one of the most prominent contemporary publishers, while also embroiling him in more than a decade of conflict with the US and other governments. Ahead of the anniversary, Assange suggested that he will return to public life two years after striking a deal for his freedom with the US and securing his release from British custody.

“The media in our country, and I dare say in many countries, the UK, Germany, is very tightly controlled. And so that’s the fourth estate, as Edmund Burke said, more important than Parliament itself. The fourth estate is co-opted now, it has been for decades,” he said.

“It’s very clear that the intelligence services have a lot of influence over what goes out into the media. And so you need an alternative. That’s why we placed great hope in what we call the ‘fifth estate,’ namely WikiLeaks and outfits like it that would encourage people to blow the whistle in a secure way and not endanger themselves.”

McGovern welcomed the prospect of Assange’s return to active work, calling it “salvation” for people willing to blow the whistle on dirty government secrets.

“He will find ways to make it possible for people like me and my colleagues, if we come upon information that needs to be spread out into the media or out into the public, to have a secure way of doing that. That was his success. He’s bright enough to do that again, I am convinced.”

Watch the full video below:

Thousands of sexual offenses against children under 13 have been reported at or near schools in England and Wales over the past five years, averaging nearly five cases a day, according to a Guardian analysis of police data.

At least 8,500 offenses against children aged 12 and under were recorded between 2021 and 2025, the newspaper reported on Sunday. They included almost 2,000 alleged rapes and attempted rapes – equivalent to at least one rape allegation at a school every day.

Most police reports did not specify the age of the alleged perpetrators, although The Guardian said they were likely to be fellow pupils given where the incidents occurred. In at least 1,890 cases involving under-13 victims, the alleged offender was reportedly under 18. Girls were the victims in nearly two-thirds of cases where the victim’s sex was recorded.

Police also recorded at least 9,100 sexual crimes against children aged 13 or over at or near schools, as well as 6,140 offenses involving the possession, production or distribution of sexualized images of children.

Children’s Commissioner for England Rachel de Souza described peer-on-peer abuse in schools as “widespread, normalized and too often brushed under the carpet.” She said that despite recent government efforts, much more needed to be done, stressing that the problem extended beyond schools and reflected a broader societal issue.

Lawyers and campaigners condemned the scale of the abuse and called for tougher action.

“Those in authority can no longer claim that they were not aware of how prevalent an issue this is,” said Andrew Lord, a lawyer representing sexual-abuse survivors. “Anything short of concrete action to tackle this problem is simply not good enough.”

Janaya Walker of End Violence Against Women said repeated warnings had failed to prevent young people from being “harmed en masse.”

The controversy also comes amid heightened scrutiny over child sex crimes linked to gangs involving men of Pakistani origin. An inquiry funded by Restore Britain MP Rupert Lowe reported in June that at least 250,000 women and girls were raped by grooming gangs since the year 2000, and that senior politicians helped the gangs escape prosecution.

The government has tightened online-safety rules, expanded sex education and introduced mandatory abuse reporting for professionals working with children. Critics, however, argue that the safeguards remain inadequate.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has declared a statewide disaster emergency over a rapidly growing measles outbreak, expanding authorities to vaccinate and test residents as cases surge across the northeastern US.

The emergency, announced on Monday, is the first declaration of the kind by a US state since measles cases began rising sharply nationwide in 2025. New York has recorded 108 confirmed cases this year through October 3, with the majority reported in rural communities among populations with low immunization rates.

“After reviewing the latest data on measles cases in New York State, I am declaring a State Disaster Emergency to strengthen our ongoing efforts to confront this disease,” Hochul said. “No one should get seriously ill or die from a vaccine-preventable disease.”

The executive order is scheduled to remain in force through November 4, the day after the midterm election, and expands the number of healthcare workers permitted to administer measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccines and conduct testing. Pharmacists will be allowed to vaccinate children as young as two, while registered nurses will be able to order tests for suspected cases.

US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic, previously questioned Pennsylvania’s reporting of its first measles-associated deaths and suggested they may have been “fabricated.” State health officials rejected the criticism.

Nationwide, the US is battling its worst measles resurgence since 1991. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recorded 3,887 confirmed cases as of October 1, compared with 2,289 during all of 2025.

Measles is among the world’s most contagious diseases and spreads through airborne respiratory particles. The virus can remain infectious in a room for up to two hours after an infected person leaves.

A vaccination rate of around 95% is required to prevent sustained measles outbreaks, but vaccination rates have declined in parts of the US and elsewhere, with health experts attributing the trend to misinformation spread during the Covid-19 pandemic and protests against vaccine mandates.

A 15-year-old school student had his hand blown off by a police crowd-control grenade during a protest in the French city of Lens. The incident comes amid a nationwide wave of unrest and street violence that has gripped France since late September.

Demonstrators demand increased funding for public schools and better learning conditions, including more teachers, smaller classes, and repairs to dilapidated buildings.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Francois-Xavier Lauch, the prefect of the northern Pas-de-Calais department, reported that the teenager’s “hand was torn off,” apparently by a police grenade, during a protest outside Behal high school in Lens earlier in the day.

“There was no hand left, not even his wrist, there was nothing there,” one student told BFMTV, describing the gruesome scene. The boy was rushed to a hospital in Lille and is in non-life-threatening condition, according to officials.

Lauch stated that violence erupted after an estimated 200 students began hurling objects at police officers who were deployed to the school to lift a blockade imposed by protesters.

French police have several types of non-lethal explosive crowd-control devices in their arsenal, including grenades capable of dispersing rubber pellets and the GM2L tear-gas and stun grenade. The type involved in the Lens incident has not been officially established, although French media reports that witness accounts and footage appear consistent with a GM2L.

Amid escalating street violence across France, Marine Tondelier, the national secretary of the Ecologists party, called for reform of police crowd-control protocols. Jean-Luc Melenchon, the founder of the left-wing France Unbowed party, wrote on X on Monday that the “escalation of police tactics is out of control,” eclipsing even the May 1968 demonstrations.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu’s office accused France Unbowed and “its far-left proxies” of orchestrating the unrest – which the party has denied.

According to the French authorities, more than 5,060 people have been arrested since late September. Around 650 police officers, 78 education staff, and at least 190 students have also been injured in the unrest.

French police have repeatedly been accused of using excessive force when confronting protesters. In 2018-2019, at the height of the Yellow Vest demonstrations, at least 20 protesters lost an eye, while others had theirs hands partially or entirely blown off after being hit by 40 mm rubber projectiles and explosive grenades.

In March 2019, then-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called for a comprehensive investigation into reports of excessive use of force by French police.

Yemen’s Houthis have claimed a direct missile strike on Riyadh’s main international airport as part of a large-scale barrage targeting airports, military bases, and oil infrastructure across Saudi Arabia.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said on Monday night that the group, officially known as Ansar Allah, carried out three operations using “a large number” of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones in response to intensified Saudi-backed strikes on Yemen.

The first attack targeted King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and achieved a “direct and precise hit,” Saree claimed, saying air traffic was disrupted. The second targeted Saudi Aramco’s refinery in Rabigh, where the group claimed a direct hit started fires. The third operation reportedly targeted Abha Airport, Khamis Mushait air base, the Aqeefah military camp, and other “sensitive sites” in Najran and Jizan.

The Saudi authorities have not addressed the specific claims of direct hits on the airport and refinery or said whether Houthi strikes caused disruption at King Khalid. The Foreign Ministry issued a broader statement condemning continued Houthi attacks on Riyadh and several other Saudi cities and “civilian and economic facilities,” while reiterating the kingdom’s right to respond.

#Statement | The Foreign Ministry expresses the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s strongest condemnation and denunciation of the terrorist Houthi militia’s continued targeting of civilians and civilian and economic facilities in the Kingdom; its blatant and repeated attacks against the holiest sites on earth—Makkah and Madinah— the capital Riyadh, and the cities of Abha, Khamis Mushait, Jazan, Najran, Taif, and Yanbu; and its targeting of Saudi vessels in the southern Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

— Foreign Ministry 🇸🇦 (@KSAmofaEN) October 5, 2026

Loud explosions were reportedly heard in northern Riyadh near King Khalid airport. An AFP journalist reported hearing a “powerful explosion,” and residents said blasts shook windows in the area.

The Houthis warned international airlines against using Saudi airspace, declaring it a theater of military operations, while exempting the airspace over Mecca and Medina. King Khalid airport remains operational, but Flightradar24 data shows substantial delays, with average delays reaching 38 minutes.

The group said the barrage was retaliation for 60 Saudi air and missile strikes on Sanaa and the provinces of Al-Jawf, Taiz, Hodeidah, Saada, and Marib over the previous 24 hours, which it said caused civilian casualties. Saree claimed that Saudi forces conducted 1,576 strikes since the latest escalation began.

Saudi-backed forces said on Monday that they recaptured Dhubab and the nearby towns of Bab and Hadeid, with witnesses telling AP they saw government tanks and troops entering the towns. The Houthis have denied reports of a broader retreat, while fighting has also intensified around Taiz.

The US is also assisting the Saudi campaign with intelligence sharing, target identification, and operational planning, American and regional officials told AP. The US Embassy in Riyadh has warned Americans to remain vigilant for missile and drone attacks.

A three-nation military alliance dubbed the “Muslim NATO” has activated its collective-defense commitments and ordered the rapid deployment of military forces and capabilities to Saudi Arabia amid an escalating confrontation with Yemen’s Houthis.

Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan made the decision at an emergency meeting of the Mecca Defense Alliance in Riyadh on Monday after a series of Houthi attacks. In a joint statement they condemned the “attempted targeting” of the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, as well as attacks on Saudi cities and civilian and economic infrastructure.

The group decided to “move immediately to the practical implementation of the collective defense commitments” and take measures to provide agreed military forces and capabilities and ensure their “rapid deployment” in Saudi Arabia. It said the move was intended to boost military readiness and integration and strengthen the three countries’ “collective capacity to confront and counter threats.”

The Emergency Meeting of the Strategic Political and Defense Committee under the Makkah Alliance for Defense reaffirmed the solidarity and unity of our countries in confronting the heinous attacks against the Kingdom and the holy sites. The committee agreed to activate collective deterrence measures within the framework of the Alliance in response to the attacks and all those responsible for them.

— Khalid bin Salman خالد بن سلمان (@kbsalsaud) October 5, 2026

The alliance was formed in August under an agreement treating an armed attack on any member as an attack on all three, mirroring NATO’s Article 5 collective-defense principle.

🔊PR No.2️⃣7️⃣5️⃣/2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣6️⃣ Joint Statement: Emergency Meeting of the Strategic Political and Defense Committee of the Makkah Alliance for Defence, Riyadh -5 October, 2026 🔗⬇️ https://t.co/ynFYzqILzc

— Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Pakistan (@ForeignOfficePk) October 5, 2026

Yemen’s civil war has escalated sharply in recent weeks. A Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s internationally recognized government said on Monday that 100 fighter jets were taking part in Operation Dawn of Yemen, providing air cover for ground forces. Coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki said 324 “high-value targets” had been destroyed.

Yemen’s government announced a new campaign on Sunday aimed at retaking all Houthi-held territory. The move followed major gains by the group in September, when it captured swathes of the Red Sea coast and territory around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key shipping route.

Government forces said on Monday that they had retaken several areas around the strait, including the town of Dhubab, which sits strategically along the strait. The Houthis have disputed reports of government advances.

Saudi Arabia first intervened in Yemen in 2015 in support of the internationally recognized government after the Houthis had driven it from Sanaa the previous year. Large-scale fighting decreased significantly following a UN-brokered truce in 2022.

Fighting escalated again last month. The Houthis have accused Riyadh of imposing an illegal siege on Yemen, while Saudi Arabia says the group has stepped up missile, drone, and maritime attacks against the kingdom itself and shipping in the Red Sea.

The escalation comes as the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to most shipping and US-Iranian talks on ending the conflict have stalled.

Several Saudi allies have stepped up military support for the kingdom. Britain has agreed to provide air-to-air refueling for Saudi warplanes, while France is sending troops, radar, and air-defense systems to help protect the Red Sea oil hub of Yanbu.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, has taken Thames Valley Police to court over raids on his residences as part of an investigation into his dealings with Jeffrey Epstein.

The former British royal has challenged the legality of search warrants executed in February that saw him briefly placed in custody on suspicion of sharing confidential government information with the convicted American pedophile financier.

The former Duke of York has for years faced separate allegations of sexual misconduct. In 2022, he settled a civil lawsuit with American activist Virginia Giuffre out of court. According to media reports, the former prince had to pay £12 million ($16.3 million) in hush money to the woman, who accused him of raping her in 2001 when she was 17.

Giuffre took her own life in 2025. Her posthumously released memoirs prompted King Charles III to strip his brother of his remaining titles and to evict him from his royal residence last October.

Epstein was found dead in his prison cell while awaiting trial in 2019, in what was ruled a suicide.

On Monday, the press office for Britain’s judiciary announced that Mountbatten-Windsor’s legal claim will be heard in private on Thursday at the High Court.

“The case concerns an application by Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor for a judicial review to quash search warrants issued by a judge at the Central Criminal Court on 18 February 2026,” the judicial spokesperson said, as cited by the media.

The proceedings will be closed to the public at the request of Thames Valley Police, which also confirmed that they are “engaged in legal proceedings in relation to warrants previously obtained from the Central Criminal Court.”

The former prince’s ties to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender came under renewed scrutiny following the release of the final tranche of the Epstein files by the US Justice Department in February. Some of the emails released indicated that Mountbatten-Windsor used his position as UK trade envoy, which he held from 2001 to 2011, to brief Epstein on investment opportunities in Afghanistan, Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and China.

Thames Valley Police subsequently raided Mountbatten-Windsor’s home on the Sandringham Estate and his former residence at Royal Lodge in Windsor. He was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, but was eventually released “under investigation” after 12 hours of questioning, and has denied any wrongdoing. He is the most senior member of the royal family to be arrested in modern history.

On Sunday, The Telegraph reported that the police investigation has stalled due to the refusal of the US Justice Department to hand over the unredacted versions of the Epstein files to the UK authorities.

In May, Thames Valley Police said the probe would also look into allegations of sexual misconduct by Mountbatten-Windsor.

The last tranche of the Epstein files included images appearing to show then-Prince Andrew kneeling over a woman lying on the ground, as well as a claim by an anonymous FBI witness that he attended “pedophile ring parties” in the mid-1990s in which minors as young as six were allegedly abused.

Some of the materials released by the Justice Department also appeared to corroborate allegations by Giuffre – one of the most prominent accusers of Epstein.

Commenting on the release of the last batch of the files in February, Russian presidential aide Kirill Dmitriev described the former prince and his “liberal Western friends” as “satanic.”

The right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group has launched a motion to probe the European Left Alliance (ELA) over an alleged breach of “EU values” and support for student unrest gripping France, Politico has reported, citing an email it has obtained.

Protests have gripped the country for days and have spread to neighboring Belgium. Students are demanding increased funding for public schools and better learning conditions, including more teachers, smaller classes, and repairs to deteriorating buildings. In numerous locations, the protests turned violent, leading to the full closure of some 400 high schools and around 5,000 arrested, mostly teenagers. 

The protests have been endorsed by the left-wing La France Insoumise (France Unbowed, LFI), which instructed its officials to step in to protect students from riot police yet urged demonstrators to stay nonviolent. The French prime minister’s office, citing intelligence services, accused the party and “its far-left proxies” of organizing the violence altogether. The LFI has strongly denied allegations that it somehow initiated or orchestrated the violent unrest.

The ELA has condemned the looming action by the right-wingers, insisting it was not in breach of the bloc’s values. 

“The ECR, whose own members regularly attack these very values, is abusing an EU procedure to try to avert attention from investigations of breaching EU values by the far- and extreme right,” ELA Co-President Catarina Martins said, as quoted by Politico. “Standing with young people asking for better education is not a breach of EU values,” she added. 

In France, former interior minister and the leader of the Republicans (LR) party, Bruno Retailleau, called for outlawing the LFI, branding it a “seditious party” that is “fascinated by violence.” The ban demand has been dismissed by LFI leader Jean-Luc Melenchon as “ridiculous” and “absurd,” with the politician mockingly suggesting that the proponents of the allegations against his party apparently been using “telepathy.”

Student protests have spread from France to Belgium, with demonstrations over education conditions marred by vandalism, fires, and arrests in the Liege region on Monday.

The unrest follows weeks of violent school protests across France, where students began protesting in mid-September over teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms, deteriorating buildings, and long school days. Belgian students have raised similar grievances while also opposing local education reforms, higher public transportation costs, and rising tuition fees.

Hundreds gathered outside schools across Liege, blocking entrances and marching through the city. Shops in the center closed as a precaution, while protesters attempted to damage shutters at the Saint-Michel Institute. Firefighters also reported scooter fires in nearby Herstal and Chenee.

Belçika'nın Liege kentinde öğrenciler, hükümet karşıtı protesto gösterileri düzenliyor. https://t.co/peDq12gwOL

— gdh (@gdhdijital) October 5, 2026

Police made 16 arrests on Monday, according to local media. Officers also found glass bottles and fabric in some protesters’ bags that they said could potentially be used to make Molotov cocktails, although no flammable substances were discovered.

Manifestation des étudiants de plusieurs écoles liégeoises ce vendredi place Saint-Léonard pour dénoncer la réforme de l’enseignement et l’augmentation du coût de la vie dont notamment les tarifs du bus. @DESQUESNESF @valerieglatigny @WBE_officiel @Fil_law https://t.co/HniBxkoPgd

— L-Post (@lpost10) October 2, 2026

In France, nearly 2,000 people were arrested last Thursday, while more than 300 law enforcement officers were injured. School staff and students also suffered injuries, prompting police watchdog investigations.

The disruption continued on Monday, with the French Education Ministry reporting protests at 413 secondary schools.

Despite the violence, student organizations say they intend to continue demanding more funding, replacement teachers, smaller classes, and lighter schedules. Supporters argue that neglected facilities and excessive workloads have made learning conditions unacceptable.

The unrest has also sparked a political row in France, with the government accusing the left-wing France Unbowed party of orchestrating the protests after lawmakers visited school blockades. The party rejects the allegation and blames government neglect for students’ anger. Its leader, Jean-Luc Melenchon, has called for nonviolent action.

The student demonstrations overlap with broader public-sector protests against spending cuts involving teachers, healthcare workers, firefighters, and transportation staff. The movements have added pressure on President Emmanuel Macron, whose approval ratings have fallen to 16-18% in recent polls.

The US has sought to influence Brazilian politics for decades, including through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and has played a role in the country’s current presidential election, independent journalist and geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar has told RT.

He was speaking after Sunday’s first round of voting, in which right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, finished ahead of incumbent left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Both fell short of the 50% threshold needed to win outright. The two are set to face each other in a runoff on October 25.

Brazil’s government has previously accused Washington of interference in its internal affairs, while Trump has denounced the prosecution of the former president – who is serving 27 years for plotting a coup – as a “witch hunt.” Brazil’s Federal Police have since opened an investigation into alleged US interference in the election, following a request from the Attorney General’s Office over reported US funding of projects aimed at undermining the country’s Supreme Court.

“The Americans put a lot of money in this election,” Escobar said, calling for a federal investigation into possible foreign influence.

He singled out Brazil’s influential evangelical churches, claiming that the CIA had spent “decades” funding efforts to cultivate them and that this was now “paying off.”

Escobar’s remarks come as US involvement in Brazilian politics has already become a point of contention between Brasilia and Washington. Flavio Bolsonaro met US President Donald Trump at the White House in May, while his brother Eduardo has lived in the US since 2025. Eduardo was sentenced by Brazil’s Supreme Court in June to four years and two months in prison for coercion after the court found that he had sought US pressure on Brazilian authorities in an effort to interfere with proceedings against his father.

The runoff is widely seen as a highly polarized contest over Brazil’s political direction. Lula has sought to strengthen the country’s role in BRICS and deepen ties with China and other Global South powers, while Bolsonaro has advocated closer relations with Washington.

Lula previously served two terms as president from 2003 to 2010 before returning to office for a third term in 2023, following the annulment of corruption convictions that had prevented him from running in 2018.

A Bolsonaro victory could also have major implications for Brazil’s foreign policy, according to Escobar. He predicted a “complete reversal” toward closer alignment with Washington and the Trump administration.

Such a shift could diminish Brazil’s role in BRICS, Escobar argued, saying the country could become a “bystander” within the group. Brazil is a founding member of BRICS alongside Russia, India, and China.

The world should accept some “bad things” including hacks, scams, and misuse in exchange for the benefits of artificial intelligence and keeping the technology broadly accessible, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said.

In an interview with Politico published on Monday, Altman rejected the idea that preventing all harmful uses of AI would justify placing the technology under tighter control.

“The world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency,” Altman said.

The OpenAI chief said he would not restrict access to AI even in exchange for guarantees against major hacks, misuse, scams, and other harmful consequences. “I think people will do tremendously – orders of magnitude more – good stuff than bad stuff,” he explained.

Altman stressed, however, that he would not accept “the really catastrophic risks,” including “a serious loss of control to AI.”

The remarks come as OpenAI faces scrutiny over increasingly autonomous AI agents behaving in unexpected ways. Over the summer, the company’s agents escaped their testing environment and hacked into servers belonging to Hugging Face, an online repository for AI models and datasets. Since then, AI agents have gained unauthorized access to or attempted to breach websites belonging to US federal agencies, the Australian government, and the UN.

OpenAI was among six major US tech companies that signed a White House accord last week pledging stronger safeguards against rogue AI. Google, Meta, xAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, and OpenAI agreed to introduce tougher internal controls and independent audits, and to ensure their models “do not hack or access technical systems in unintended ways.”

Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton warned last month that increasingly powerful AI could eventually escape human control, with potentially catastrophic consequences for humanity. He argued that there is no established method for ensuring humans remain in control of systems that become significantly more intelligent than their creators.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has likewise called for government regulation, warning that AI in the hands of malicious actors is powerful enough to trigger events causing “a billion deaths.”

Multiple security and vetting failures across Oman, the UAE, and Israel allowed a pilot previously deemed too radical to fly to reach the cockpit of a Tel Aviv-bound FlyDubai passenger jet and attack its captain, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing sources.

The near-disaster occurred on Wednesday onboard the Boeing 737 MAX 8 flying from Dubai to Ben Gurion Airport with around 180 passengers and crew members. Roughly two hours into the flight, co-pilot Hamam Hammami asked Capt. Smit Machchhar if he could pray, and after receiving permission, hit him several times with an emergency axe as the plane went into a dangerous dive.

However, the badly wounded captain managed to open the locked cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to rush in and overpower Hammami. Two other Flydubai pilots traveling aboard the flight took the controls and eventually landed the plane safely in Saudi Arabia. The UAE attorney general has called the assault an attempted terrorist act, with the investigation still ongoing.

Oman, however, did not circulate its concerns more broadly or formally revoke his license in a way that would likely have alerted the UAE, the paper reported.

One of the last missed opportunities to stop Hammami was reportedly on Israel’s side. While Flydubai submitted its passenger and crew manifest before departure, Hammami was not flagged despite Omani pilots being barred from flying into Israel because the countries lack diplomatic relations, according to the paper.

Israel’s Transportation Ministry said it did not believe it had the authority or intelligence capability to vet crews and had never requested access to a passenger-information database established in 2023.

CNN earlier reported that now-deleted social-media accounts bearing Hammami’s name contained material featuring Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and a suicide bomber who killed seven CIA personnel and two others in 2009. The network’s analysis of Hammami’s alleged X account also found him “deeply religious and misogynistic.”

“If this was a dedicated jihadist terror attack, there are multiple levels of failure,” aviation-security expert Matthew Borie told the WSJ.

Meanwhile, Machchhar’s actions, which helped to prevent the disaster, drew widespread praise. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his courage had helped avert a major tragedy, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described him as a “hero of the entire world.”

Germany could become “embroiled in a violent conflict with Russia,” the country’s foreign intelligence chief has warned, claiming that a mysterious drone incident at Leipzig airport is an example of the “real and imminent” threat posed by Moscow.

Speaking to lawmakers at a parliamentary hearing on Monday, Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) head Martin Jaeger declared that “the confrontation we are facing with Russia has taken on a new, more dangerous dimension.”

“Germany is in danger ​of becoming embroiled in a violent conflict with Russia – the attempted attack in Leipzig ⁠is just one example,” he continued, referring to the discovery of an explosive-laden drone next to a Ukrainian transport plane at the city’s airport in August. 

German authorities have not released any evidence linking the incident to Russia, and Moscow has described the episode as a “hastily cobbled-together provocation” serving “exclusively the aims of Kiev and the militaristic wing of the European political class.” It is “obvious that Germany is pursuing a further course of escalation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month.

Jaeger is one of dozens of Western political, military, and media figures to accuse Russia of waging a “hybrid war” or “shadow war” against Europe in recent weeks. The accusations are, by their nature, impossible to verify, and Moscow has written them off as pretexts to deepen Western involvement in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, justify military spending hikes, and expand surveillance and persecution of domestic opponents.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has explicitly and without evidence described the country’s most popular political party, the right-wing AfD, as “Russia-backed.” Martina Rosenberg, the head of Germany’s Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD), alluded to this claim during Monday’s briefing, telling lawmakers that the country is “threatened by diverse dangers from both outside and within.”

Despite their allegations of “hybrid war,” European leaders have repeatedly stressed that they do not believe Russia to be planning any actual attacks on NATO territory. The BND has seen “no indication of an imminent large-scale Russian attack on NATO territory,” Jaeger added on Monday.

Amid an unprecedented escalation in the West’s rhetoric toward Russia, RT is tracking the statements, accusations, and threats in our ongoing ‘Escalation Watch’ special. Keep an eye on it here as we sort the facts from the propaganda and debunk the psyops in real time. 

Iran has forced the US fleet to retreat more than 1,000 km from its borders, leaving no American warships in the Strait of Hormuz or surrounding waters, a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander claims.

Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi made the remarks in a televised interview, Iran’s Press TV reported on Monday, amid competing claims by Washington and Tehran over control of the critical shipping route, through which around one-fifth of global oil and natural gas supplies passed before the conflict.

“The Americans fled and moved more than 1,000 km away from our borders. This was not their choice; it was due to the authority of the Islamic Republic and the authority of the IRGC Ground Force,” he said.

Fadavi claimed that no US vessels remain in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, Sea of Oman, or northern Indian Ocean, and described US warships as “100 percent vulnerable” to Iranian attacks.

He insisted that the strait remains under Iranian control and warned that ships using the US-supervised southern route could be targeted.

On Monday, the UK Maritime Trade Operations agency reported that a tanker near Oman complied with an IRGC instruction to turn back or risk attack.

The standoff has persisted despite indirect negotiations. Iranian Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on Sunday that Hormuz would not reopen until Washington accepts Tehran’s conditions.

Iran’s seven-day proposal offers to restore passage and resume nuclear negotiations in exchange for lifting the blockade, easing restrictions on Iranian oil exports, and releasing frozen assets.

US President Donald Trump rejected the terms and threatened to “annihilate” Iran if talks fail. Axios and the Wall Street Journal report that major US combat operations could resume after the midterm election in November.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday that Iran is committed to diplomacy but is ready to defend against another attack.

Milorad Dodik, the former president of Republika Srpska, the Serb-majority entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has celebrated his party’s performance in Sunday’s general election.

The Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) is set to retain its lead in the Republika Srpska parliament, keep the entity’s presidency and hold on to the Serb seat in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s three-member collective presidency, according to preliminary results released by the Election Commission after more than 90% of ballots had been counted. The party is projected to get roughly 40% of the seats in the regional legislature.

Dodik himself was not on the ballot after being barred from holding public office over his 2025 conviction for defying Christian Schmidt, the German politician who at the time served as the international high representative overseeing implementation of the 1995 Dayton Agreement. Dodik argued that Schmidt lacked UN Security Council backing for the post and had abused the office to curb Republika Srpska’s autonomy, leading to a bitter political standoff.

Former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose sovereignist politics have often aligned with Dodik’s, hailed the result as a “grand slam” for SNSD.

Grand slam! Congratulations to President @MiloradDodik and all our friends at SNSD - especially President Cvijanović and President Minić - on sweeping today’s elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska. A strong mandate to continue standing up for the interests and rights of Republika Srpska.

— Orbán Viktor (@PM_ViktorOrban) October 5, 2026

More than 3 million people were eligible to vote in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They chose representatives on multiple levels from the ten cantons of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina up to the national presidency. The country used biometric voter identification and ballot scanners for the first time in an effort to streamline voting and counting.

Dodik ally Zeljka Cvijanovic and Croat nationalist politician Darijana Filipovic are on course to join incumbent Bosniak presidency member Denis Becirovic in leading the Balkan country, whose political system is divided along ethnic and religious lines.

Savo Minic is set to become the next president of Republika Srpska, succeeding Sinisa Karan, another SNSD member.

Swiss police are investigating a sprawling fraud operation with suspected links to Ukrainian scam call centers, an industry said to be worth billions to corrupt officials in Kiev, Neue Zurcher Zeitung (NZZ) has reported, citing law enforcement officials.

According to a report on Sunday, NEDIK, the police network coordinating Switzerland’s fight against digital crime, recently recorded an increase in fraud offenses suspected of having links to Ukraine. The network declined to provide nationwide figures “for tactical reasons,” but noted that at least four fraudulent call centers in Ukraine have been identified in international investigations involving Swiss authorities, with Swiss and German citizens among their main victims.

One investigation by Bern authorities, reportedly underway for years, concerns a man suspected of operating several call centers in Kiev. On just one platform allegedly linked to the operation, reported losses in Switzerland amounted to nearly 4 million Swiss francs ($4.8 million).

Several Ukrainian nationals have also recently been arrested in Swiss cantons for allegedly acting as cash collectors in telephone scams. In St. Gallen in early September, a person posing as a bank employee called a 93-year-old man and instructed him to withdraw and hand over a large sum of money. Police later arrested a 38-year-old Ukrainian who allegedly collected the cash.

While Russians have long been portrayed as the main targets of Ukrainian scammers, sources cited by NZZ challenged that narrative. Brian Lee, head of the Eurasia Observatory at the Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), said Russians accounted for just 10%-15% of targets even at the height of the so-called “patriotic fraud” narrative, under which young Ukrainians were recruited into scam networks on the pretext of taking revenge for Moscow’s military operation against the Kiev regime. Victims have been identified in at least 29 countries, with scam centers increasingly targeting Europe and the US, according to a GI-TOC report published earlier this year.

Scam networks and state structures

Corruption has long plagued Ukraine, with high-level scandals including last year’s $100 million Energoatom kickback scheme, reportedly led by Timur Mindich, a former business partner of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. Western-backed investigators have since uncovered further graft involving Ukrainian officials.

The scam call center network reentered the spotlight last month after Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko – a key pillar of Zelensky’s increasingly fragile governing structure – resigned amid the exposure of an industrial-scale network across the country with alleged links to senior figures in Kiev. Ukraine’s Western-backed National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) accused Sergey Kropiva, head of the cybercrime unit at the Prosecutor General’s Office, of leading a ring that collected protection payments from notorious Ukrainian scam call centers. NABU said it identified assets worth almost $1 million allegedly purchased with proceeds from the scheme.

The scam industry has also been linked to powerful security structures under Zelensky’s government. In September, personnel from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and military intelligence (HUR) exchanged fire in Kiev in a confrontation that left three servicemen injured. The clash centered on Stepan Kaplunov, a member of an HUR-linked armed unit detained by the SBU. A law enforcement source cited by Ukrainian outlet Strana said Kaplunov may have been involved in operating scam call centers, pointing to a broader struggle between rival security agencies over the lucrative industry. Ukrainian journalists have also reported that proceeds from criminal operations help finance parts of the HUR’s activities.

Russian forces have recently intensified strikes on Ukrainian telecommunications infrastructure, mobile operators, and data centers in response to Kiev’s botched “pressure campaign” of drone attacks on civilian infrastructure deep inside Russia. The strikes have disrupted internet access, digital television, and other services, including by hitting data centers in Kiev that Moscow says were used by Ukrainian military and intelligence services. Media reports late last month also claimed a Russian strike hit one of the scam call centers in Dnepropetrovsk.

Poland and Romania have refused to help Kiev move millions of tons of grain – which got stuck in Ukraine following Vladimir Zelensky’s war on exports – into the EU, Politico reports, citing officials in Warsaw and Bucharest. Zelensky’s 40-day campaign resulted in Russia implementing a de facto blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, with the wider consequences of the strikes estimated at 1.5% of the country’s collapsing GDP.

Last week, Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotsky appealed to the EU for a €1.1 billion ($1.23 billion) allocation to improve transit capacity, which would help free large quantities of grain – Ukraine’s key source of income – trapped in the country.

The request came after Zelensky’s 40-day PR ‘pressure campaign’ on Russia, which involved long-range strikes on oil refineries and civilian infrastructure. The effort backfired, as Russia ramped up strikes on Ukraine’s military-related logistics, including the key hub of Odessa, accounting for an overwhelming majority of Kiev’s agricultural exports.

He added that export restrictions leave Ukrainian farmers without cash needed to plant seeds now for next year’s harvest. “If the situation stays like this till spring, it could mean the decrease of even 35-40% of the planted area,” he warned.

Last month, Ukrainian officials estimated damage to infrastructure from Russian strikes at nearly $10 billion, with wider consequences amounting to around 1.5% of GDP.

Romanian Agriculture Minister Barna Tanczos rejected the prospect of substantially expanding capacity, telling Politico that “the interest for our own farmers remains a priority.”

The Polish Infrastructure Ministry spokesperson said, as cited by Politico, that Poland “has no plans to introduce any changes aimed at increasing the transit of Ukrainian agricultural products.”

Before the €1.1 billion plea, Ukraine requested €220 million from the EU in grants to support farmers affected by disrupted exports, but the bloc effectively turned it down, pointing instead to existing EU mechanisms.

Agricultural trade has long been a source of friction between Ukraine and its EU neighbors. After the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022, Brussels suspended duties and quotas on Ukrainian exports, which triggered massive protests from European farmers over what they saw as unfair competition. As a result, the EU introduced an ‘emergency brake’ system in 2024, allowing tariff quotas to return for sensitive products if imports exceed set thresholds.

In addition, many of Ukraine’s neighbors, including Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia, maintain significant restrictions on Ukrainian imports at the national level.

The US has rushed to withdraw bombers from an airbase in the UK after receiving new threat information about an alleged terrorist plot against the facility, the New York Times reports, citing sources.

The announcement cited by the NYT comes a week after five men were arrested in what was trumpeted as a high-level security operation near RAF Fairford, which hosts US bombers used in the war against Iran. However, after a hysterical media reaction in the UK, the five, all British citizens in their early 20s, were released on bail the following day.

Days later, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham claimed that London had “strong indications” that Iran could have been behind the incident, which only came to life after a local farmer called the police, having seen a group of men run from their white vans on a country road when caught in the headlights of her car. 

All 12 US Air Force B-1 bombers were withdrawn over the weekend, allegedly after commanders received new warnings concerning a possible Iranian-backed plot against the base, two anonymous US officials told the NYT on Sunday. 

Some aircraft had reportedly only arrived the week before as part of a routine rotation. According to the NYT’s sources, the withdrawal was deemed so urgent that several bombers took off without aerial refueling support. At least three bombers reached their home base in South Dakota by Sunday, the officials said.

The Pentagon’s European Command confirmed that the aircraft left England but declined to comment on any new warnings.

“We can acknowledge now that all US bombers that were deployed to RAF Fairford are redeploying to their home stations in the United States,” the command said in a statement. “US Air Force bombers routinely operate around the world to support global force readiness and operational requirements.”

Iran has denied having any involvement. The embassy in London accused Britain of promoting “Iranophobia.” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi rejected Burnham’s allegation, saying he is “barking up the wrong tree.”

Stubb made the remarks in an interview with Spanish newspaper El Mundo over the weekend. Asked about potential hybrid threats posed by Russia, Stubb said the country would try to interfere with the upcoming Spanish election.

Madrid “should expect some form of sabotage or hybrid attack. It could be related to information warfare or a campaign that threatens their democracy,” he claimed.

The president went on to allege that Russian-backed cyberattacks are “happening as we speak against Spanish banks and other targets,” without citing specific evidence.

“They send asylum seekers to our border, as we have also seen in Ceuta,” he said, accusing Russia of committing acts of sabotage throughout the EU.

He also mentioned cases in which Russian-linked ships were accused of cutting undersea telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea and the recent incident at Germany’s Leipzig/Halle Airport, where explosives-laden drones were found near Ukrainian cargo planes. Germany blamed Moscow and ordered the closure of a Russian consulate in Bonn and a Russian cultural center in Berlin. Russia dismissed the accusations as “nonsensical” and denied any involvement.

Pressed further about Russia’s alleged role in the Ceuta crisis in late July, when more than 70,000 migrants crossed into the enclave, Stubb admitted that he did not “know the matter well enough to take a position.”

Reuters reported at the time that migrants had been encouraged by viral videos and misleading claims about Spain’s asylum and migration rules. Spain later accused Russian- and Israeli-linked networks of spreading disinformation regarding the crisis, which both countries denied.

“When able, when you are sure it is the Russians, or almost sure it is the Russians, attribute it to the Russians,” Rutte said this week.

Direct conflict unlikely

Asked about the possibility of a direct conflict between NATO and Russia, however, Stubb dismissed it as negligible.

“Do we expect Russia to attack? The answer is no. We have no evidence of that,” he told El Mundo.

Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius urged officials this week not to “exaggerate” when making alarmist statements about Russia and said there is no evidence that the country is planning to attack NATO. Rutte has also said there is “no imminent threat to NATO territory.”

Nevertheless, EU officials have argued that the bloc, as well as NATO, should be prepared for a potential clash with Russia. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the country must be ready for a conflict by as early as 2028. The German government amended its constitutional debt brake to fund military spending and passed a 2026 budget allocating a record €108.2 billion ($121.5 billion) to defense and €11.5 billion in military assistance for Ukraine.

Russia has stated that it would not attack any NATO country unless attacked first – warning, however, that Western military aid to Ukraine makes a dangerous escalation more likely. President Vladimir Putin has argued that European politicians are stirring tensions with Russia to distract voters from problems at home.

A US Marine has been arrested on suspicion of killing and robbing a woman in Okinawa, the Japanese authorities have said.

The victim, identified as Anna Yagi, 39, was found dead in a hotel room in Naha, the prefectural capital, on Saturday. Okinawa is home to several major US military installations and tens of thousands of US service members.

Lance Corporal Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, who is stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan, is accused of strangling Yagi and stealing her wallet and backpack. He has denied the allegations.

Surveillance footage reportedly shows a man believed to be Ballard entering the hotel with Yagi and later leaving alone with what appeared to be her belongings. Police located him in an entertainment district late Saturday.

The Marine Corps confirmed that Ballard is assigned to the III Marine Expeditionary Force and said it is cooperating with the authorities.

“I must say, discipline and troop education are not working at all,” he added, referring to measures introduced by the US military following a series of sexual assault cases involving American personnel on the island.

The Japanese government lodged a formal protest with Washington on Sunday. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi demanded full cooperation with the investigation, stricter discipline among US personnel, and “thorough measures” to prevent similar incidents.

“The occurrence of such an extremely brutal and heinous incident is a matter of profound regret,” she wrote on X, extending sympathy to the victim’s family.

Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi summoned US Ambassador George Glass, who pledged full cooperation with the investigation.

Okinawa accounts for just 0.6% of Japan’s territory but hosts 70.3% of the land area of US military facilities in Japan that are exclusively used by US forces, according to the Okinawa prefectural government.

In June 2024, Tokyo formally protested two alleged sexual assaults involving US personnel and delays in disclosing the cases. The Marine Corps subsequently stepped up sobriety checks and off-base patrols, while US Forces Japan later barred service members from off-base drinking establishments from 1:00-6:00 AM.

Despite the measures, further sexual assault allegations involving American personnel followed. In January 2025, then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi urged US Forces Japan to tighten discipline and take stronger measures to prevent further incidents.

Brazil’s presidential election is headed to a runoff, with right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, leading incumbent left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

With almost all votes counted, Bolsonaro received 47.03% of the vote, compared with Lula’s 45.16%, according to the official tally.

Under Brazilian election rules, a presidential candidate must secure more than 50% of valid votes to win in the first round. With neither Bolsonaro nor Lula reaching that threshold, the two will face each other in a runoff on October 25.

The election is widely seen as a highly polarized contest over Brazil’s political direction, pitting Lula’s left-wing agenda against Bolsonaro’s conservative platform, which emphasizes tougher measures against crime and protecting traditional values.

The vote also presents a foreign-policy choice, as Lula has sought to strengthen Brazil’s role in BRICS and deepen ties with China and other Global South powers, while Bolsonaro has emphasized closer relations with Washington and touted his ties with US President Donald Trump. 

Lula served as Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2011 and returned to office for a third term in 2023. He was barred from running in the 2018 election due to a corruption conviction and spent 580 days in prison. Brazil’s Supreme Court annulled his convictions in 2021, ruling that the court that tried him lacked jurisdiction, restoring his political rights and allowing him to run again.

Bolsonaro’s other son, Eduardo, has lived in self-imposed exile in the US since 2025. Brazil’s Supreme Court sentenced him in June to four years and two months in prison for coercion after finding that he sought US pressure on the Brazilian authorities in an effort to interfere with his father’s coup trial. 

The Brazilian authorities have also investigated alleged US interference in the country’s politics after Trump denounced the case against Jair Bolsonaro as a “witch hunt,” and Flavio and Eduardo Bolsonaro met with the US president at the White House in May.

Yemen’s civil war has intensified, with the internationally recognized government announcing a military operation aimed at retaking territory captured last month by the Iranian-backed Houthis.

The Houthis, a Shiite armed group, continued their own offensive, reportedly seizing more towns in southwestern Taiz province near the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

In a televised speech on Sunday, Rashad al-Alimi, the head of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, said the government ordered “military operations to restore the remaining territory of the republic and extend state authority nationwide.”

The spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, Major General Turki al-Maliki, said the coalition would continue supporting Yemeni government forces. Saudi Arabia first intervened in the civil war in 2015 after the Houthis seized Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, the previous year.

Houthi-aligned media reported later on Sunday that the group captured the town of Turbah and the districts of Shamayatayn and Samea, as well as the Taiz-Aden road.

NEW: Footage of the Houthis driving through the city of Al-Turbah in Yemen. https://t.co/S11LYNOTJ5

— OSINT News (@OSINTNewsqrb) October 4, 2026

Last month, the Houthis launched a major offensive along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, capturing the strategic port city of Mokha from government forces. They subsequently took control of Perim, also known as Mayyun, an island lying in the middle of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Large-scale fighting died down after a UN-brokered truce took effect in April 2022. Hostilities reignited in July amid the US-Iran war and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, after Yemeni government forces struck Sanaa Airport to prevent an Iranian plane carrying a Houthi delegation home from the funeral of Iran’s late supreme leader from landing. The Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia for the strike and retaliated.

The latest escalation comes as US-Iran talks aimed at ending the wider conflict and reopening the Strait of Hormuz remain stalled. President Donald Trump has rejected Tehran’s latest peace proposal. US media reports suggest that he could resume large-scale strikes on Iran after the midterm election in November.

The polls have closed in Brazil’s hotly contested presidential election, which could reshape the country’s domestic and foreign policy.

The race is dominated by incumbent left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his right-wing challenger, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro. Lula is seeking a fourth nonconsecutive term in office. More than a dozen other candidates are also on the ballot.

Polls released on the eve of the election showed Lula and Bolsonaro neck and neck. Quaest put them at 46% and 45%, respectively, while Datafolha had Lula at 45% and Bolsonaro at 42%, with both surveys showing a statistical tie. If neither candidate wins more than half of the vote, a runoff will be held on October 25. All other candidates are polling in the low single digits, but their endorsements could prove important in a second round.

Brazilians will also elect all 513 federal congress members, 54 of the country’s 81 senators, 27 governors, and some regional legislatures.

Bolsonaro called for change, blaming Lula’s policies for high living costs and promising tougher security policies and tax cuts. The 45-year-old senator for Rio de Janeiro has also leaned heavily on the image of his father, known to supporters as ‘mito’ (the legend).

Jair Bolsonaro, 71, was sentenced to 27 years behind bars for attempting to overturn the results of the 2022 presidential election, which he lost to Lula. He has denied wrongdoing. He spent several months in prison after breaking house arrest monitoring rules before being hospitalized in March 2026 over health issues and eventually transferred back to temporary house arrest, which has since been extended.

Why does this election matter?

Brazil is a founding member of BRICS and has played a prominent role in the group. Under Lula, Brasilia has pursued a policy focused on strengthening multipolarity and resisting Western pressure, particularly from Washington.

The Trump administration has placed renewed emphasis on US dominance in the Western Hemisphere under what it calls the ‘Donroe Doctrine’, a modern interpretation of the 19th-century hegemonic political strategy known as the Monroe Doctrine.

Opposing ‘colonization’

During his current term, Lula has criticized the US over what he described as attempts to undermine multipolarity and impose its will on other nations.

Last year, India and Brazil stepped up talks on trade and investment after both countries were hit with 50% tariffs by the US. Lula also called for a coordinated BRICS response to Washington’s tariff policies, accusing Trump of attempts to “dismantle multilateralism” and promote “unilateralism, where he negotiates one-on-one with other countries.”

The Brazilian president also sharply condemned the US kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in early 2026. In March, he proposed boosting defense cooperation with South Africa to reduce reliance on foreign weapons, arguing that both nations could be vulnerable to “invasion.”

‘Trump’s candidate’?

Flavio Bolsonaro, who Lula has described as “Trump’s candidate,” has emphasized his affinity with the US president and repeatedly praised him, while denying receiving assistance from Washington for his campaign. He has insisted that Brazil should seek better deals with the US, including rare-earth minerals – a topic that has been repeatedly invoked by US President Donald Trump in his talks with various nations, including Ukraine and Russia.

The senator also promised a “flood of investments” from the US if he wins. “Brazil and the United States will once again have a high-level and long-term relationship, including the largest trade and investment agreement in our history!” Bolsonaro wrote in a post on X in June.

Bolsonaro has also reportedly pledged to join the US campaign against drug cartels. The US military has at times targeted boats supposedly belonging to traffickers, killing dozens of people.

Shadow of interference

The Brazilian authorities have opened a probe into allegations that the US government funded activities aimed at interfering in the election and undermining the legitimacy of the country’s Supreme Federal Court, Agencia Brasil reported on Friday.

This followed a report by The Guardian earlier in the week, claiming that the White House planned to allocate $1 million for a project titled ‘Countering Lawfare and Censorship in Brazil’.

In September, Lula cited a confidential assessment by the Brazilian Intelligence Agency, which warned that the risk of US interference in the election was at a “critical level.”

Trump avoided openly endorsing any candidates ahead of the election, but said he was following it “very closely.”

“Brazil is a very important country. The people of Brazil are fantastic. These are very important elections,” he said on Thursday.

Moscow has expressed hope that the election would be held “without any adverse external interference.” 

“We are open to… continuing our cooperation with our Brazilian partners across the entire agenda,” the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Latin American Department, Aleksandr Shetinin, told TASS.

Sunday marks 20 years since Australian journalist and activist Julian Assange founded WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing platform that would publish some of the most consequential leaks of the internet age, exposing classified US war records, CIA hacking tools, mass surveillance and other closely guarded government secrets.

Registered in 2006, the website provided a secure and anonymous channel for whistleblowers to submit material for publication. Its early releases included operating procedures for the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, banking and corporate secrets, and internal documents from the Church of Scientology.

However, it was the scoops published in 2010 that made WikiLeaks a global phenomenon. That year, the website released “Collateral Murder,” raw classified US footage of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad which killed over a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff. WikiLeaks later published more than 91,000 documents from the Washington-led war in Afghanistan and some 391,000 reports from the US invasion of Iraq.

Major disclosures continued, including leaks exposing surveillance of US allies by the National Security Agency (NSA). Documents released in 2015 indicated that the NSA had spied on French presidents Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Francois Hollande, leading to a diplomatic row. In 2017, WikiLeaks’ Vault 7 releases exposed an arsenal of CIA hacking capabilities, including techniques aimed at smartphones and internet-connected TVs.

Assange has since argued that his prosecution set a dangerous precedent for press freedom, telling the Council of Europe that he was freed after having “pleaded guilty to journalism.”

For a retrospective on WikiLeaks’ two-decade history, watch the full RT report below:

So, big bad US President Donald Trump just successfully strong-armed French President Emmanuel Macron and the EU into dumping their precious ‘rainy day’ diesel from strategic reserves.

Why? Because Trump, threatening a disastrous cutoff of diesel exports to Europe altogether, wanted to keep domestic gas prices looking perky ahead of next month’s US midterms.

“We have decided to release strategic reserves of diesel and crude oil, under the coordination of the International Energy Agency – which will meet in the coming hours or days to organize this… This process will begin by prioritizing diesel,” Macron declared.

Wait, aren’t those the exact same strategic reserves that have given Brussels a collective nervous breakdown over imminent winter shortages? Oh well, what’s a leader to do when he’s just a helpless, innocent little cog in a grand G7 multilateral machine? It’s not like Macron is directly engineering this self-inflicted disaster in any sense, right?

“In any case, France will make this effort regarding its own reserves, which also reflects a desire to send a clear signal to the market,” Macron added. Yeah, the signals are about as subtle as a flare gun to the face.

Visionary European leaders like Macron have long since handed the wheel to Washington because they apparently thought that it was a better look in the eyes of their Ukrainian girlfriend, Zelensky, than dealing with Russia and its cheap gas.

And now we get yet another Macronian capitulation to a more recent bogeymen that he’s been whining about on the global stage: Trump.

All this drama peaked amid a state visit to Madrid, where Macron dropped by a local university to jam out some avant-garde thoughts on Europe alongside prominent Spanish cultural figures. A local writer teed up a softball right across the center of the plate, invoking Trump and the global rise of populism in the same breath as fascism to frame them as an existential threat to democracy. Which, of course, was the ultimate cue for Macron to explain whose fault this mess actually is. And the short answer is: absolutely, unequivocally not his.

“The great blow for France was the 2008-2012 crisis. And who paid the bill? The middle classes. Even in countries that were less affected, some categories have still not fully recovered in terms of purchasing power and living standards they had before that crisis. And this has been a betrayal,” he said.

The same guy who’s been running the joint for nearly a full decade has to time-travel back 15 to 20 years to find someone responsible for the fact that French middle class is currently on economic life support. Because obviously, he couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with it despite holding the royal scepter for the past ten years.

“A key factor in European competitiveness was very cheap gas coming from Russia. That ended in 2022,” Macron pontificated. “But our great export market was China. That is over too. Europe now has a trade deficit with China. Today, every day, we lose €1 billion in trade with China.”

You’ve got to admire the poetry – if not the gall – of the passive tense there. It ended in 2022. Like a rainstorm! It just happened to end. Totally out of his hands. What can a mere mortal do? Same with selling things to China. Poof, it’s over now! Who knows why? A total mystery. Bleeding a billion euros a day while standing there and shrugging.

Never mind his other brilliant policy hits, like trying to flatline French nuclear power before panicking and awkwardly resurrecting it as the next greatest thing in green renewables, or selling off French industrial crown jewels to Americans only to proudly buy them back later at a massive taxpayer loss. Or riffing to the press on his private jet about how Europe shouldn’t be an American vassal – right before making French citizens and industry pay through the nose for the privilege of heating or cooling their homes as a result of doing precisely that.

It’s the exact same laissez-faire energy that he’s currently bringing to France’s annual far-left protest-and-smashfest season. This fall, the usual professional malcontents have managed to rope some high schoolers into doing their dirty work, meaning that we get to endure teenagers setting fire to their own academic institutions because they believe that their school days are too grueling – in a country where they enjoy a mandatory two-week vacation every six weeks of the academic calendar.

Every single year, the same script plays out, and the authorities just hunker down and wait it out. That appears to be Macron’s playbook for everything, even as he enjoys his 18% approval rating. Just wait for the fire to burn out, and then casually chalk it up to something entirely out of your control. He can’t even bother to unroll the hose at this point.

Looks like maybe the French will just have to wait out Macron himself, and for his term to end, before having a shot at anyone actually doing something useful to reverse course on any of this.

Yemen’s Houthis say they struck oil facilities in Saudi Arabia in response to Saudi attacks on the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and other provinces.

In statements late Saturday and Sunday, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group targeted a Saudi Aramco facility near the capital, Riyadh, with ballistic missiles and drones, sparking fires at the site, as well as unspecified Aramco facilities in the Khurais area.

The Saudi-led coalition disputed the Houthi claim of the attack on a facility near Riyadh. Spokesman Major-General Turki al-Malki called it an “attempt to divert attention from the scale” of the group’s losses, which he said are driving them to seek “illusory victories.”

Videos and satellite images posted online purport to show large plumes of smoke rising from the facility near Riyadh. Saudi Aramco did not comment on whether any of its facilities were hit.

🛰🇸🇦 Sentinel-2 satellite imagery captured today confirms that Saudi Aramco’s Riyadh refinery was hit by the Houthis, with at least three oil storage tanks appearing to be on fire and thick plume of smoke rising from the facility. https://t.co/C23llbXQxQ

— Egypt's Intel Observer (@EGYOSINT) October 3, 2026

مالم تنقله قنوات العربية والحدث وقناة الجزيرة الحقيرة العبرية من الاستهداف الصاروخي اليمني المبارك اليوم على اراااامكو. نعرضه لكم لاتقصرو إعادة النشر https://t.co/HRg1DY3tQu

— بركان المسيرة (@AlnsarAllah10) October 3, 2026

Overnight, Houthi forces struck the Aramco Oil facility in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with ballistic missiles. Satellite imagery shows a large plume of smoke originating from the refinery, engulfing several areas of northern Riyadh. At its peak, at around 10:00 local time (07:00 UTC), the plume reached an approximate length of 107km.

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) October 3, 2026

A video was also released by locals, showing the facility burning. At least three oil storage tanks were targeted in the attacks. https://t.co/QImgjzTMvT

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) October 3, 2026

According to Saree, the strikes were in response to at least 110 Saudi air and missile attacks over the previous 36 hours on Sanaa and the northwestern governorate of Saada, a Houthi stronghold, along with other areas. He did not provide details on specific targets or casualties, but media reports suggest that one strike damaged a Sanaa hospital, and videos posted online purport to show missiles striking the city.

Strikes on Sana’a https://t.co/VZAC1OAnh5

— Basha باشا (@BashaReport) October 3, 2026

🇾🇪🇸🇦 The Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) is carrying out more airstrikes on Houthi military infrastructure in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, following the Houthi attack on the Riyadh oil refinery. The strikes likely hit targets near 15°19'55.50"N 44°10'21.41"E. https://t.co/xqhxwG73mb

— Egypt's Intel Observer (@EGYOSINT) October 3, 2026

الضربة استهدفت مدخل واحد، فخرجت النيران من المداخل الأخرى للكهف. إذا لم تخني الذاكرة، فالمكان المستهدف هو معسكر الحفا في جبل نقم، وهذا الجبل يضم كهوف وأنفاق تستخدم كمخازن للأسلحة والصواريخ. ضربة موفقة. #صنعاء https://t.co/N2djy4ymS8

— يوسف الفقيه🇾🇪 (@YSFYEMEN) October 3, 2026

Yemen’s Saudi-backed forces earlier confirmed the strikes but said they were targeting vital Houthi positions, claiming 700 fighters were killed or wounded in 24 hours.

Tensions reignited in July after government forces struck Sanaa Airport to prevent an Iranian aircraft carrying a Houthi delegation from landing. The Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia, declared the de-escalation over, and announced a naval blockade of the kingdom. By mid-August, they were launching coordinated missile and drone attacks on Saudi-backed government forces, prompting counteroffensives across several provinces.

Fighting escalated last month as the Houthis struck energy infrastructure in southern Saudi Arabia, including Saudi Aramco facilities and the East-West Pipeline. The group has also made major territorial gains, seizing Yemen’s Red Sea coast and the strategic Bab el-Mandeb shipping chokepoint.

Saudi Arabia is preparing an offensive to reverse the Houthi gains, Reuters reported on Friday, citing officials and diplomats. Riyadh could mobilize more than 100,000 Yemeni government troops backed by Saudi airstrikes, the report said, with Western allies providing intelligence and material support but staying out of combat. Plans reportedly range from retaking the strategic Bab el-Mandeb coast to a broader multi-front assault across Houthi-held provinces.

The renewed fighting has worsened Yemen’s already dire humanitarian crisis. The UN World Food Program warned on Friday that three-quarters of the population is unable to meet its basic food needs.

UPDATE: Later on Sunday, Yemen announced the launch of large-scale military operations to retake Houthi-held territory.

Presidential Leadership Council Chairman Rashad al-Alimi said the government exhausted all possibilities for de-escalation and is moving “from the preparation phase to action” to restore state control.

Donald Trump and major tech leaders from OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, SpaceX, Meta and other tech companies gathered for a meeting at the White House to reach a deal on what Trump described as an “AI constitution” to ensure that frontier models do not pose catastrophic, unintended risks.

In the course of the meeting a “morally binding” voluntary accord was signed in order to “win safely,” as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei put it.

Beyond this self-regulation pact, the Trump administration will additionally set up a governmental board to oversee the safety of AI tools.

Another big change emerging from the meeting is not surprising, given Trump’s affinity for the naming of names. From now on, executive departments and agencies “shall use ‘Super Intelligence’ or SI” in place of “Artificial Intelligence” in official correspondence, reports, and policy documents within the executive branch.

Trump’s rationale is that the word “artificial” makes the technology sound “fake.” So this new White House executive order seeks to implement the change, stating that the name “Super Intelligence” more appropriately captures the promise, potential, and rapidly advancing capabilities of these technologies.

All of this signals that the American government is actively looking to pivot away from the current doomsday public narrative surrounding AI, aiming instead to focus public attention on the positive outcomes of its development.

Broadly speaking, experts remain skeptical about what genuine safety regulations will actually come out of the pact, given that the executives signing it are likely to be the very ones who will get to define the term “safety.” So at least in this regard, the meeting is largely symbolic.

It is primarily aimed at cooling public heat around apocalyptic AI narratives and the growing discontent over data centers, exactly what you would expect from an administration whose 2024 campaign was heavily bankrolled by tech elites such as Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, and others eager to promote their own corporate agendas.

But if we zoom past the end-times scenarios that the administration and these billionaires are trying to dampen, there is one critical thread left out of the conversation, which is the inherently collectivist nature of the Super Intelligence shaping this future “Golden Age of America.”

From each according to his ability

Since the beginning of his term, Trump and the Republican Party have been championing AI as an individualistic enterprise, framing it as a tool to amplify personal intellectual capabilities and boost American rugged individualism on a new technological frontier. That certainly has a pleasant Americana ring to it, especially if the bell that it’s ringing is Republican.

However, not even all the tech billionaires bankrolling the party see it the same way. A notable example is venture capitalist and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, who has drawn parallels between AI and collectivism. Thiel previously argued that unlike crypto, which he believes promotes libertarianism, AI is, at its core, communist.

If you look closely at what kind of future artificial intelligence has to offer, Thiel’s claim no longer seems so far-fetched. There is indeed a deep, structural similarity between the growth of AI systems and core Marxist ideals.

That means your private intellectual ownership is effectively cast out of the window. For good. Whatever you write on the internet, post on YouTube, or even the books you published way before the age of AI, all of it turns into AI food, constantly fed in chunks into a data center to train a model, which in its turn redistributes the results of your work to anyone who uses AI.

That inherently builds a top-down, centralized system of information redistribution, which is reminiscent of how a collectivist state functions.

To each according to his needs

Silicon Valley leaders are increasingly using the rise of AI to push for heavily socialist economic frameworks as part of their public relations strategy. Because advanced AI systems are automating millions of human jobs, tech leaders believe they need to pacify the public by advertising AI as a structural safety net to keep society stable when human labor is no longer economically viable.

Open AI CEO Sam Altman, for instance, advocated for universal basic income, a classic socialist economic concept. If that sounds too good to be true, well, it’s because it is. Even Altman eventually walked back the idea, replacing it with a concept he calls “universal basic compute.”

Comparing AI to public utilities like water or electricity, Altman argues that every human being should be given an equal, baseline slice of a centralized supercomputer’s output in the form of AI tokens, which people can use, share, or sell.

In Marxist terms, these tech billionaires are basically advocating for the redistribution of the means of production to the masses, pushing the idea of collective ownership over the very personal data they seized from you. The “empowering everyone” rhetoric surely sounds nice when reading the utopian visions of Altman and Zuckerberg and it conveniently keeps you from thinking about how those same tech lords acquired your data in the first place by making off with your intellectual property.

Intellectual communism

In the 20th century, Soviet ideologists spent decades trying to engineer what they called the “New Soviet Man.” This was a theoretical ideal of a uniform, selfless citizen who would completely dissolve their individual desires, beliefs, and identity into one collective entity striving for the common good.

This experiment became a major concern for dystopian writers like George Orwell, who saw one of the vices of collectivism in making everyone the same, and it is the very same concept actively criticized by Republicans today as a totalitarian manifestation of communism.

Yet, this totalitarian equality of thought is an inherent design feature of AI operational systems we use every day.

In an interview with journalist Tucker Carlson, Sam Altman explicitly admitted that they train their AI models “to be like the collective of all of humanity.” This means that instead of amplifying unique human perspectives or protecting individual thought, the core goal of leading AI development seems to be building a machine that represents the mathematical average of everyone at once – not highlighting individualism, but eroding it.

Furthermore, AI models by design always favor strict neutrality and highly balanced answers. They are taught to avoid taking strong, polarizing ideological stances, which you may have noticed whenever an AI chatbot answers a controversial question. It automatically forces a framework of mutual understanding and polite compromise, which makes the answer lack individuality or any personal edge.

However, this forced neutrality and conformity has a dangerous dark side to it. By constantly pushing users toward a safe, mass-approved middle ground, AI slowly rewires your individual reasoning patterns and causes you to adopt a safer, collective intellectual framework and a common morality shared by the majority – essentially turning you into a Clockwork Orange.

If one relies on AI to write, think, and make decisions, which is incredibly convenient and tempting in modern, fast-paced society, their unique worldview and ideological standing are gradually lobotomized. Over time, it creates a synthetic collective unconscious where individual dissent is softly phased out in favor of a group consensus, or rather, a group consensus approved by the Superintelligent Equalizer that AI is.

Republican AI paradox

All of this creates a paradox for Donald Trump and his conservative base. Anti-communist rhetoric, warnings of a “socialist takeover,” and the defense of American individualism are the absolute core fixtures of Trump’s political speeches.

Yet, by demanding the rapid, acceleration of the domestic AI industry, Trump is championing the exact technology intentionally or unintentionally designed to dissolve individual identity into a massive collective pool, strip citizens of private data ownership and centralize technological power. And Republicans, knowingly or unknowingly, are actively building the infrastructure for the ultimate collectivist system, all while preaching the virtues of the free market.

So, while GOP members continue to manufacture a new Red Scare to rally voters in the culture wars, they are simultaneously subsidizing a technological framework, which upon closer examination, looks very much like a textbook caricature of some dystopian totalitarian collectivism run by a party of techlords.

And even though Trump says “America will never be communist,” even some of his billionaire donors don’t seem to buy it.

Hundreds of anti-government protesters took to the streets of Paris on Saturday to rally against continued aid to Ukraine as part of a nationwide protest organized by former MEP Florian Philippot, who is running in France’s 2027 presidential election.

The protesters called on French President Emmanuel Macron to halt aid to Ukraine and pushed for France’s withdrawal from the EU and all supranational institutions, including NATO. Apart from Paris, the right-wing Les Patriotes party, led by Philippot, organized rallies in Aubiere, Annecy, Grenoble, Perigueux and Chaumont, highlighting issues such as fuel costs, freedom of expression and peace.

The demonstration comes after a series of mass protests has gripped France in recent weeks, with students taking to the streets alongside broader labor actions over wages, public spending, working conditions and the government’s budget plans.

Philippot, a prominent Eurosceptic, marched through Paris with supporters, who waved French flags, as well as banners reading “Russia is not our enemy,” and calling for France to stay out of the Ukraine conflict.

“We must leave NATO, we must stop funding the war in Ukraine and stop arming it as well,” he stressed. “Instead of putting money over there, it must be put into lowering taxes on petrol, for example, because people can’t take it anymore.”

A Philippot supporter argued that “war efforts don’t achieve much,” calling for greater spending on “hospitals, education, and a whole range of budgets that are humane.”

The nationwide unrest comes as the French government unveiled its proposed 2027 budget earlier this week, targeting €54 billion in measures to bring the budget deficit to 5% of GDP, including spending cuts and freezes affecting public services, pensions and social benefits.

Philippot tore up an EU flag in front of demonstrators, saying, “This blue-starred rag is not our flag and never will be. So today, we are obviously going to get rid of it, because our fight is to get out of this horror through Frexit.”

Earlier this week, the EU reiterated its commitment to the €90 billion ($101 billion) loan aimed at covering the Ukrainian government’s budgetary and military financing needs for 2026 and 2027.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is being weakened by the “impotence” of its member states and the UN, renowned American criminal-defense and human-rights attorney Stanley L. Cohen has told RT.

“Unless the international signatories to the Rome Statute and the UN begin to take action against those countries that are seeking to silence, if not end, the call to justice from the ICC, then its power is obviously going to be weakened,” Cohen said in an interview on Friday.

Cohen pointed to the freedom of movement Western nations have afforded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite an outstanding ICC warrant for his arrest. In 2024, the Hague-based court issued warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Gaza war.

The fact that Netanyahu who’s a fugitive, who’s a wanted fugitive and war criminal, can fly to New York, could go in front of the UN, who’s wanted for genocide, and go on to speak in furtherance of genocide without any accountability from the UN, really sums up the problem, the impotence, and apparently the indifference of most of the UN.

Cohen also argued that as global power shifts toward a new generation of leaders in the Global South and Western “violations of international law” are exposed, future leaders will be less willing to tolerate efforts to undermine or constrain the ICC.

Established in 2002 under the Rome Statute, the court is tasked with prosecuting genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and aggression, and relies heavily on the cooperation of its 125 members. However, some of the world’s most powerful states, including the US, China, India or Russia, reject its authority.

Until recently, it seemed that a split within the main, long-established opposition party (founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the architect of modern Türkiye) would play into the hands of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Following a court ruling that removed Ozgur Ozel as the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), his supporters broke away to form the Yeni Parti (New Party). The opposition suddenly found itself with two headquarters, two leaders, and a dispute over who rightfully owns its political legacy. However, September polls showed that a significant number of voters had followed Ozel. Yeni Parti took second place in surveys conducted by ASAL and GENAR. While it still has a long way to go to catch up with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Parti), the new movement can no longer be dismissed.

According to ASAL, if parliamentary elections were held, 33.8% of respondents would support AK Parti, while 23.6% would back Yeni Parti; that’s a gap of 10.2 percentage points. GENAR put support for the ruling party at 36.1% and Ozel’s party at 21.6%, recording a difference of 14.5 points. In both instances, AK Parti retained the top spot. Yet, for a political force established only in late July, the result is remarkable – especially considering that the CHP, under the leadership of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, garnered only about 6% in the same polls. The leadership of the party changed due to the court ruling, but judging by the surveys, the party failed to retain the bulk of its voter base.

To understand the origins of Yeni Parti, one must look back at the events of this spring. In May, a court annulled the results of the 2023 CHP congress – where Ozel had been elected chairman – and reinstated his predecessor, Kilicdaroglu. Ozel’s supporters viewed the ruling as interference in the affairs of the opposition. Turkish authorities deny allegations of pressuring the court and insist on the judiciary’s independence. The confrontation lasted several weeks until Ozel and 90 opposition MPs left the CHP. On July 24, they announced the formation of a new party. It immediately secured 91 parliamentary seats, becoming the largest opposition faction.

This demonstrates the unique nature of the current crisis. Yeni Parti emerged from a split within the opposition, yet it did not have to start from scratch. Ozel was supported by MPs, prominent politicians, and a portion of the organizational network that had worked for the CHP. He also retained the experience gained from the campaigns that delivered the opposition’s victory in the 2024 local elections. The new party allows the team to stay together and continue the fight, even though legal and political ties to the former party have been severed. For voters who supported Ozel prior to the court ruling, the shift to Yeni Parti appears logical. 

The party’s future will depend on whether it can reach beyond the CHP’s traditional base of supporters. For now, the September figures can be interpreted either as a success for Ozel or as a redistribution of votes within the opposition. For example, a July study by GENAR put support for the CHP at 15.4% and for the then-nascent Yeni Parti at 14.5%. By September, the balance had shifted: Ozel’s party polled at 21.6%, while the CHP stood at 6.6%. These figures indicate voter migration between the two political forces. However, further polls and, ultimately, elections are necessary to confirm a sustained expansion of the opposition’s overall electoral base. 

There is another issue that party ratings alone cannot resolve: Who will challenge Erdogan in the 2028 presidential election? Following the creation of Yeni Parti, Ozel reaffirmed his support for Ekrem Imamoglu – the mayor of Istanbul and a politician popular among Turkish youth – who is currently under arrest and facing legal proceedings. While Imamoglu remains a pivotal figure for opposition voters, his potential candidacy is complicated by a court case and the invalidation of his university degree, a requirement for presidential candidates. Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavas is also mentioned as a potential contender. While Yeni Parti boasts a prominent leader and a parliamentary faction, it is unclear who will be the opposition’s presidential candidate. And in a presidential campaign, this choice could prove far more significant than monthly fluctuations in party ratings.

Despite certain public fatigue regarding his long tenure, Erdogan retains significant political advantages. The ruling AK Party remains the leading party in the two abovementioned polls. Together with its ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP, or Grey Wolves), it commands a stable electoral base, and the president continues to set the agenda for national politics. It is too early to say that Erdogan is in serious trouble, as the AK Party retains the top position in both surveys. However, Ozel has managed to retain a significant portion of the opposition electorate following the split within the CHP. If Ozel manages to attract voters who did not previously support the CHP, Erdogan will face a formidable rival.

The economic situation adds further tension to the situation. In September, the Turkish market faced a crisis involving investment funds and a sharp drop in asset prices. Against this backdrop, Zeynel Emre, a representative of Yeni Parti, leveled accusations regarding stock market transactions against AK Party Deputy Chairperson Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya and her husband. Kaya requested to be relieved of her party duties pending the investigation. While the allegations still require verification, the political impact is already evident: The new party is striving to position itself not only as a defender of its own rights following the split within the CHP but also as a force capable of posing uncomfortable questions to the authorities.

Looking ahead, Turkish politics faces another pressing issue: the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for 2028. The question of whether Erdogan can participate in the presidential race hinges on the timing of the election and constitutional regulations. An early vote called by parliament would allow him to run for another term, but such a decision requires a majority of 360 out of 600 deputies. The ruling bloc lacks the votes to resolve this matter unilaterally. Consequently, the outcome will depend not only on voter sentiment but also on negotiations between parties – including those currently on opposite sides of the political divide. 

The latest surveys only show that following a painful rift within the opposition, Ozel has retained significant support. They do not reveal whether the Yeni Parti can catch up with the ruling AK Parti, find a presidential candidate acceptable to other forces, or bring about a change of power. For Erdogan, this means that he will have to monitor his new rival more closely. And for Ozel, it marks the beginning of a new phase in which he will have to transform his rapidly gained popularity into lasting political influence. Put together, these factors will determine the outcome of their standoff.

Ukrainian officials are embezzling foreign financial aid, former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller has said, adding that Kiev’s backers are well aware of the corruption but prefer not to ask questions.

Speaking on the ‘Jankowski Kontra’ podcast on Polsat News on Saturday, Miller called for suspending aid to Ukraine until Kiev accounts for previously supplied weapons and funds.

“Nobody’s asking what happened to the 300 tanks we sent in the first phase. What happened to the heavy equipment, the lighter equipment... Nobody’s asking what happened to the billions of euros we donated. Mr. Zelensky simply comes and says, ‘Give it’, and we give it,” Miller stated.

Asked whether he suspected that funds transferred to Ukraine were being embezzled, Miller replied: “Of course, everyone knows it.” The veteran politician argued that Warsaw should demand an accounting of how its assistance has been used and halt further support if Kiev fails to provide one.

Poland has been one of Kiev’s staunchest backers in its conflict with Russia, pouring billions into military, financial and humanitarian aid while serving as a crucial hub for Western supplies. Yet relations have increasingly soured over Kiev’s honoring of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators linked to the World War II-era Volhynia massacres, in which UPA militants, linked to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), killed at least 100,000 ethnic Poles.

Relations have also been strained by mounting opposition to Ukrainian refugees. A July CBOS survey found that 52% of Poles now opposed accepting them, against 42% in favor – a sharp reversal from the overwhelming support seen after Kiev’s conflict with Moscow escalated in 2022. Tensions deepened earlier this month after a 31-year-old Ukrainian man stabbed five people at a Benedictine abbey in Jaroslaw, killing a priest.

Western-backed investigators have uncovered multiple other graft schemes involving Ukrainian officials, including one reported earlier this month in which they allegedly embezzled more than $3 million through the delivery of used Soviet-made metro cars donated by Poland.

Against that backdrop, the EU this week rebuffed Kiev’s bid to fast-track its latest €90 billion support loan, making clear that further funds depend on Ukraine delivering promised anti-corruption and governance reforms.

Tens of thousands of people have demonstrated across Spain to demand affordable rent and stronger protections for tenants amid a deepening housing crisis.

Average rent has almost doubled over the past decade, according to property website Idealista. On Friday, parliament narrowly rejected two emergency housing decrees proposed by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government.

Around 70,000 people marched through the streets of Madrid on Saturday to denounce the decision, according to the authorities, while organizers put the figure at half a million. Similar demonstrations took place across around 50 Spanish cities.

In the eastern city of Valencia, demonstrators clashed with police, who fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowds. Around 30 protesters breached the security perimeter around the City of Arts and Sciences, a landmark cultural complex, before officers removed them.

Protesters are demanding a 50% reduction in rent, open-ended rental contracts, and the expropriation of homes from investment firms they describe as “vulture funds.” Tenants’ Union spokesperson Valeria Racu said a general strike would be called following talks with labor unions.

Histórica manifestación hoy en Madrid contra los desahucios y por la vivienda digna. Impresionante. https://t.co/XURtxVrX3v

— Fonsi Loaiza (@FonsiLoaiza) October 3, 2026

“There is an irreparable disconnect between what the people want and what the parties vote for,” the Tenants’ Union, which coordinates the demonstrations, said in a statement.

The protests, which began last month, were sparked by the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, 87, from the Madrid flat where she had lived for around seven decades. She was carried out on a stretcher after being unable to afford a sharp rent increase. Her landlord subsequently agreed to let her return at a lower rent, but the wider demonstrations continued.

Rompen el cordón e intentan asaltar el Palau de #Valencia. La Delegada de Gobierno envía allí a la policía a proteger sus instalaciones, pero en cambio les impide ser contundentes y con pocos medios. @_Laura_Garcia_P https://t.co/nLYWLV56bt

— Alerta Zeta | Sucesos 🇪🇸 (@AlertaZeta) October 3, 2026

In response to the crisis, Sanchez proposed two decrees aimed at protecting tenants. The first included suspending evictions of vulnerable renters, increasing taxes on tourist apartments, and restricting residential purchases by investment funds, while the second provided for the automatic renewal of rental contracts. The measures require parliamentary approval.

La delegada del govern @pilarbernabe ha de donar l’ordre immediata perquè deixen de disparar bales de goma i gas a la gent decent que es manifesta contra els buitres i especuladors. Registrem preguntes. Ni gent sense casa ni cases sense gent. Els perillosos estan dins. https://t.co/FBFIxpeADP

— Alberto Ibáñez i Mezquita 🍉 (@alberto_aim) October 3, 2026

“Housing doesn’t get cheaper with decrees, it gets cheaper with more homes,” Juan Bravo, a PP member of parliament, said.

The outcome has increased pressure on Sanchez to call an early election. Spanish media reported that he could bring the vote forward to November rather than next summer. His office declined to comment on the reports.

Tennessee’s prisons chief will step down following a failed attempt to execute death row inmate Christa Pike, Governor Bill Lee said on Saturday.

Pike, who was sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, remains unconscious and on a ventilator after surviving a failed lethal injection with two doses of pentobarbital on September 30, according to her lawyers.

Lee announced the resignation of Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada after ordering an independent review of the botched execution.

“Commissioner Strada has served with integrity, and I appreciate his willingness to put the interests of Tennesseans first during this difficult moment,” Lee said in a statement.

“I believe this review is entirely appropriate and necessary, and I look forward to doing everything I can to help determine exactly what occurred,” Strada added.

The New York Times, citing outside medical experts, said Pike probably survived the procedure because the lethal drug leaked into tissue around the insertion sites instead of entering her bloodstream.

Pike was convicted of first-degree murder after she, her boyfriend, and another accomplice lured Slemmer, a fellow student, to an isolated area near the University of Tennessee agricultural campus, where Pike brutally beat her and cut her throat. Pike was 18 when she committed the crime.

The case was Tennessee’s second botched execution this year. In May, officials halted the execution of death row inmate Tony Carruthers after repeatedly failing to establish intravenous access to administer pentobarbital.

Carruthers was returned to death row, and Lee subsequently granted him a one-year reprieve. The incident raised questions about Tennessee’s lethal-injection procedures months before Pike’s execution.

British livestock farmers are confronting an unprecedented spread of bluetongue, a virus carried by biting midges. Cases this season have exceeded the previous three seasons combined, according to UK government data updated on Saturday.

The UK has recorded 2,579 cases so far in the 2026-27 bluetongue season, which runs from July 1 to June 30 of next year, according to the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). The government defines a case as a property where bluetongue has been confirmed.

In just three months, this season’s bluetongue outbreak has recorded more than four times as many cases as the previous three seasons combined.

The government recorded 348 cases in Great Britain in the 2025-26 season, 163 in 2024-25, and 126 in 2023-24.

The virus affects sheep, cattle, and other ruminants. Common signs include fever, lameness, mouth sores, and swelling of the head or tongue. Severe infections can cause a blue tongue, breathing problems, abortions, fetal deformities, stillbirths, and death. The virus does not infect people or pose a risk to food safety.

“Essentially the midges are active earlier and continue their activity until later in the year,” Dr. Christopher Sanders of the Pirbright Institute said in a WOAH publication on an earlier outbreak. “That means that the gap between transmission seasons is actually reduced, which may allow the virus to overwinter more easily.”

The bluetongue outbreak comes as livestock producers across the Atlantic are confronting another insect-borne threat.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has urged member states to blame any incident they find suspicious on Russia even if they lack irrefutable evidence. He also hailed a recent accusation made by Estonia against its eastern neighbor and called on other nations to follow suit.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius this week, Rutte encouraged a public blame game over what he called “malign grey zone activities” routinely attributed to Russia by NATO members.

“You have heard the Supreme Allied Commander yesterday saying, ‘Hey, when able, when you are sure it is the Russians, or almost sure it is the Russians, attribute it to the Russians’ – exactly like Estonia did today. I applaud it,” Rutte said.

Rutte has been known for his staunch anti-Russian position, as well as his ardent support for Kiev in the conflict with Moscow. Last week, he offered to help “protect the United States from threats of Russia” while speaking at a Chicago Council on Global Affairs event in Iowa. During his joint press conference with Sinkevicius, he also maintained that the bloc should be doing “even more for Ukraine, and not less.”

Moscow has dismissed the claims of NATO members regarding the alleged ‘Russian threat’ as “nonsense” and maintained that it has no intention of attacking any member states. It has warned that NATO’s own belligerent rhetoric and military buildup, as well as the surge in NATO military activity along Russia’s western borders could put the bloc on a collision course with Moscow.

Watch the full report here:

French police have arrested a teenager on suspicion of using an aerosol can to direct a jet of flames at a woman’s face during student protests, which are sweeping the country.

The altercation was filmed on Thursday in the southern port city of Marseille, where protesters attacked public transport, torching at least one bus and a fire engine.

The victim, a social worker, told BFM TV that she was waiting for a bus when a crowd of young people approached and began vandalizing the bus stop. She said she tried to intervene, prompting one of the youths to use an aerosol can as an improvised flamethrower.

“I wasn’t expecting such violence. I thought I might get shoved… I didn’t expect kids to be so violent,” the woman said. “Fortunately, my face didn’t suffer injuries as serious as the images might suggest,” she added.

🇫🇷 A woman was burned in the face in Marseille after a masked, hooded rioter used an improvised aerosol “flamethrower” against her during the unrest.

Follow: @europa pic.twitter.com/jEZE6KMrVP

— Europa.com (@europa) October 2, 2026

She suffered first-degree burns to her face, according to Le Parisien.

Police identified the suspect as a 15-year-old boy whose name has not been released.

The demonstrations began in late September over unfilled teaching posts at a high school in Creteil, near Paris, before spreading nationwide as students demanded better learning conditions, including more teachers, smaller classes, and repairs to deteriorating buildings. They have also called for increased funding for public schools.

Education Minister Edouard Geffray said on Friday that 65 education staff, including 40 headteachers, were injured since the protests began. He also reported severe damage at more than 100 schools.

Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin has called for a firm criminal justice response, and where appropriate, for parents to be held civilly liable for damage caused by their children.

The government has also blamed the violence on the left-wing La France Insoumise party and “its far-left proxies.” The party has denied the allegation and urged students to refrain from violence.

Student unions have distanced themselves from the violence but called for further demonstrations on October 6, saying the government has yet to offer concrete measures addressing their concerns.

Louise Paternoster, a CGT education union representative in Seine-Saint-Denis, blamed staffing shortages on government cuts that eliminated 3,256 teaching positions nationwide in 2026.

The government’s proposed 2027 budget, unveiled on Thursday, would increase education funding by €1.2 billion ($1.35 billion) while eliminating another 1,588 teaching posts. Geffray has defended the planned reductions, citing falling student numbers.

The student unrest coincides with broader labor action across France, with unions staging strikes and demonstrations over wages, public spending, and the government’s budget plans.

The US has expelled two more members of the Iranian delegation that attended the UN General Assembly in New York after they allegedly ignored an order to leave the country, AFP and Axios reported on Saturday, citing a State Department official.

US and Iranian negotiators separately met with mediators last month without reaching a breakthrough, leaving the Middle East bracing for a potential resumption of hostilities. US media reported that after the sides failed to reach an agreement on Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and other diplomats to leave the country earlier than planned.

“Two more members of the Iranian delegation were found still in [New York] long after the United Nations General Assembly had passed. They have now been kicked out of the US,” a US official told AFP, adding that Rubio “means business.”

According to Axios, one diplomat left on Friday night and the other on Saturday morning.

“Having achieved nothing, the State Department has resorted to propagating baseless and worthless news,” the mission wrote on X on Thursday.

US President Donald Trump has resumed threats to “annihilate” Iran’s leadership in recent weeks, hinting that he could order new strikes unless Tehran accepts his terms.

Iranian officials and the military say they are prepared for further escalation.

“After one failure after another, the worst president in American history just keeps talking – and talking – and now his words have even outrun his own fantasies. You can win every day in your own imagination. But reality is shaped by Iran – by its people, its soldiers, and its missiles,” Mohsen Rezaei, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, wrote on X on Friday.

The standoff comes as the US reinforces its military presence in the Middle East. The USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group and USS Makin Island amphibious ready group are heading to the region, adding 9,000 to 10,000 sailors and Marines.

The USS George Washington and USS George H.W. Bush are already operating there. If both remain when the Theodore Roosevelt arrives, the US could have three aircraft carriers in the Middle East by late October.

Some US officials reportedly believe Trump could resume major combat operations after the midterm elections in early November. The war remains unpopular among Americans, with 71% of registered voters saying the Trump administration lacks a clear strategy for ending the conflict, according to a recent Fox News poll.

Nationwide support for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU/CSU alliance has collapsed to a historic low following a series of defeats in regional elections, a new poll suggests.

The bloc’s popular backing stood at just 18%, its worst in German postwar history, according to a survey conducted by the INSA polling institution on behalf of Bild.

The poll put the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) at 30%, the highest since the party was established in 2013. It remains the most popular party in Germany by a wide margin, the poll suggests. The CDU/CSU’s junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats and the Greens are polling at 14% each, with the Left Party at 10%.

The survey was conducted September 28 to October 2 among 1,202 eligible voters; the results were published on Saturday.

Merz has been described as Germany’s least popular head of government in around 30 years. He came to power following snap elections in February 2025, promising to revive Germany’s struggling economy, but has since poured more money into the military while blaming economic problems on Germans themselves.

The survey also came after the CDU suffered defeats to the AfD in the eastern states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, results Merz described as a “disaster.”

The right-wing party won 43.8% in Saxony-Anhalt and 38.3% in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The CDU finished a distant second in Saxony-Anhalt with 17.5% and failed to clear the electoral threshold in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where it received just 4.9%.

Despite the defeats, Merz said he will not change course and will keep focusing on the military buildup and antagonizing Russia. “I will not deviate by a single millimeter from my fundamental conviction that, especially now, we must defend our freedom against Russia,” he stated in early September.

Moscow has dismissed Berlin’s claims regarding the supposed ‘Russian threat’ as “nonsense.”

Journalists and public figures from nearly 40 countries gathered at this year’s Valdai Club conference to discuss how the world is responding to a growing number of crises, and one conclusion stood out – the world has become more complex and there will be no return to an age of simple solutions.

The 20th century gave humanity a great deal, but it also encouraged the belief that fundamental political and social questions can be settled by choosing the correct ideology. Capitalism and communism competed to provide the answer, and after the Cold War, liberal globalism made its own attempt to reduce international affairs to a common set of rules and assumptions, but this has also failed.

We are therefore learning to live in a world where even the most dangerous developments need not produce panic or despair. This was reflected in the agenda at Valdai as participants discussed issues that would have seemed extraordinary 15 or 20 years ago about how societies withstand prolonged war, the increasingly impersonal nature of modern warfare, the military use of AI, and the uncertain future of nuclear deterrence.

Yet these discussions took place without a sense of panic, and without attempts to frighten participants with the prospect of a world in which the US and Europe can no longer set the rules. As Russian President Vladimir Putin argued in the closing session, the global situation under these circumstances could instead change for the better.

One reason is that the overwhelming majority of participants come from countries outside the West, and their perspective is often quite different from that which prevails in Europe, as rather than seeking to restore an international order that is disappearing, they’re trying to understand what will replace it.

In this respect, Valdai provides a useful snapshot of the intellectual debate taking place beyond the Western world.

For Russia, this matters enormously, given new ideas and alternative approaches to development are increasingly being debated in China, India, Iran, and the Arab world, and across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and Russia has much to learn from these discussions.

It’s equally important to understand the thinking of countries that have resisted pressure from the US and Europe and maintained relations with Russia during the past four years. These countries constitute much of the ‘global majority’ with which Russia hopes to build a multipolar international order.

The exchange also gives Russia the opportunity to explain its own perspective, not only on the Ukraine conflict but on broader questions that will shape international affairs for decades, and the first is war.

The second question is how international rules will be established and maintained as Western influence declines.

Russia, China, and other countries have long promoted multipolarity as an alternative model of international order. Putin used his Valdai appearance to call for reform of the UN system and a greater role for developing countries and the Global South in making important international decisions.

The third challenge is older but no less pressing because climate change, environmental degradation, inequality, and poverty have not disappeared, and while the struggle by the US and Europe to preserve their international position has increasingly pushed these questions into the background, they will eventually have to be addressed.

This raises two difficult questions regarding the role China and other Asian powers will play, and which institutions will be capable of coordinating international action.

There is still no clear answer to the first, and Asian countries show little enthusiasm for simply replacing the West as global leaders, but on the second, BRICS increasingly appears capable of playing an important role.

Its weaknesses should not be ignored, because BRICS lacks the internal discipline characteristic of traditional Western alliances, and two of its members, Iran and the UAE, came dangerously close to conflict this spring, yet the organization is increasingly discussed as a source of mutually beneficial ideas and practical solutions.

Another challenge is AI, and this goes far beyond its military uses. Fundamental questions concern the ethical limits of AI, the preservation of humanism, and the danger of what Putin calls “digital totalitarianism.” Technological progress is moving faster than the political and social institutions that are expected to regulate it.

For Russia, perhaps the most important lesson is that the economic and social problems it faces aren’t uniquely Russian, given that countries everywhere are struggling with economic imbalance, technological disruption, and rapid social change, and this is both good and bad news.

It’s good news for Russia because it demonstrates the failure of Western attempts since 2022 to isolate the country from the wider world, but it’s bad news because nobody has discovered universal solutions to these problems.

Economic and social resilience will therefore be critical, as the international system is undergoing changes on a scale rarely seen in modern history. An era lasting more than 500 years, during which Western civilization progressively acquired the ability to determine much of humanity’s political and economic development, is coming to an end, and this transformation coincides with extraordinary advances in technology, medicine, and genetics.

Every major civilization is searching for answers, but the fundamental disagreement concerns how these answers should be found, as Western countries are attempting to preserve the international positions they have accumulated over centuries, while Russia and its partners in BRICS argue instead for an order based on sovereign choice and mutual benefit.

The clash between these two approaches may prove to be the defining conflict of our time.

This article was first published by Vzglyad.ru, translated and edited by the RT team.

Iran has the right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program as a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Beijing has said.

China’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Sun Lei, made the statement to the General Assembly on Thursday.

“As a non-nuclear-weapon State party to the Treaty on the NPT, Iran should honor its commitment not to develop nuclear weapons, and its legitimate right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy should be respected,” Sun said in a plenary meeting on the use of the veto.

The monitoring body was reinstated as part of the ‘snapback’ mechanism invoked in August by the UK, France, and Germany (the E3), aimed at reimposing sanctions. China and Russia consider the snapback legally invalid and maintain that the sanctions were not restored.

According to Sun, China used its veto to “uphold a correct understanding of right and wrong,” support a political settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue, address non-proliferation concerns, and promote long-term peace and stability in the Middle East.

Under the 2015 agreement, Iran agreed to curtail its enrichment activities in exchange for sanctions relief. President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the agreement in 2018 during his first term and reimposed sanctions on Iran.

In February, the US and Israel attacked Iran in what Trump described as an effort to prevent the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

President Vladimir Putin, speaking at the annual Valdai forum on Thursday, said a Russian proposal to transfer Iran’s enriched uranium to Russia remains on the table. The US initially agreed to this but later toughened its position and refused, he said.

“If all the participants in this process ultimately conclude that this would help defuse tensions in any way, we are ready to engage in that work,” Putin stated.

The partner of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, a prominent US true-crime figure known for her role in the 2015 killing of her abusive mother, has been found dead at his Louisiana home in a suspected drug overdose.

Ken Urker was discovered unresponsive at his Raceland residence on October 1, the day he turned 34 years old, after relatives requested a welfare check when he stopped answering calls and failed to show up for work. Family members said he had seemed depressed and upset the previous evening and later appeared on TikTok Live driving without speaking.

Relatives and Urker’s boss found him lying on his bed, cold to the touch and not breathing, before police arrived. Deputies later found syringes and a spoon near a “brown powdery substance” in the bathroom, along with another syringe, two shot glasses and a holstered handgun on the nightstand. The police report said Urker was “dead upon arrival.”

In a statement to the media on Friday, the local sheriff’s office said there were no signs of foul play but that the death remained under investigation.

The case that made Blanchard famous

Blanchard became the focus of intense media attention after the murder of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, who had abused her.

According to well-documented accounts, Dee Dee portrayed her daughter as seriously ill and disabled for much of her childhood, isolating her and forcing her to use a wheelchair and undergo unnecessary medical procedures, while obtaining donations and other benefits based on her supposed illnesses. As she grew older, Blanchard began secretly communicating online and met her future boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, with whose help she plotted Dee Dee’s killing. Blanchard provided Godejohn with a knife he used to stab her mother to death at their home in Springfield, Missouri, on June 14, 2015.

Prosecutors took Blanchard’s circumstances into account when she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2016. She was sentenced to ten years in prison and served more than seven before being released on parole in 2023. Godejohn was separately convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The case attracted widespread attention while Blanchard was still incarcerated and resulted in multiple screen adaptations, including HBO’s 2017 documentary ‘Mommy Dead and Dearest’ and Hulu’s 2019 drama series ‘The Act’. Interest further intensified after her release: she gained millions of social media followers, made numerous media appearances and became the subject of Lifetime’s reality show ‘Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up’, which followed her adjustment to life outside prison.

A relationship that began in prison

Urker first contacted Blanchard in 2017, while she was serving her sentence, after watching a documentary about her. He sent what she later described as a “supportive letter” along with his phone number. Their friendship eventually became romantic, and Urker proposed during a prison visit in 2018, but the couple called off their engagement the following year and later separated.

Blanchard rekindled her relationship with Urker in 2024. In December of that year, a year after she had left prison, the couple had a daughter. Blanchard earlier acknowledged that her relationship with Urker had faced difficulties, including the pressure of constant public attention.

By the time of Urker’s death, the couple had reportedly separated again. Accounts citing family sources claim they began living apart roughly two months earlier and ended their romantic relationship about a month before his death, though they continued co-parenting their daughter. Some reports attributed the breakup to Urker’s mental health struggles.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) has announced plans to launch a probe into a new religious affairs office recently unveiled by US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

The Wisconsin-based nonprofit said on Thursday that it is seeking transparency into the office’s funding, operations and plans to assess troops’ “spiritual fitness.”

The announcement came shortly after Hegseth said the Pentagon was establishing the Office of Religious Affairs (ORA) to address what he described as a decline in religious community in the military following an era of “political correctness.”

In his State of the Force address on Wednesday at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, Hegseth said the new office’s head is expected to serve as the secretary and deputy secretary’s chief adviser on religious affairs.

According to the memorandum signed by the secretary earlier this week, the office is tasked with aligning religious-affairs policy, overseeing the Armed Forces Chaplains Board, representing the department to civilian religious endorsing organizations, and sponsoring research and tools to “support and assess spiritual fitness, spiritual readiness, and spiritual resilience.”

The FFRF said it will use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which allows the public to request records from US government agencies, to seek documents on the office’s funding, budget and staffing. The group also wants records on how the Pentagon defines and plans to assess “spiritual fitness,” “spiritual readiness” and “spiritual resilience,” including any technologies or tools being considered. The requests will also cover ties to outside religious groups and records concerning atheist, humanist and other nonreligious service members and potential First Amendment issues.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State President and CEO Rachel Laser said Hegseth’s new office would elevate Christianity’s role in shaping US military policy. She also accused him of using his position to advance what she described as a “Christian Nationalist agenda” in the military.

In March, The Washington Post cited former senior military officials and experts on religion and law as saying that Hegseth’s religious policies had challenged longstanding norms limiting the promotion of a particular faith. The war secretary reportedly held monthly evangelical services at the Pentagon at the time, while department employees were reluctant to discuss concerns related to his religious campaign.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon, at Hegseth’s initiative, cut the number of recognized religious denominations and belief systems for service members from 211 to 31. The department’s latest official breakdown from 2019 shows that about 70% of active-duty service members identified as Christian, 2% as atheist or agnostic, and 24% as having no religious affiliation or an unknown religious affiliation.

The US has delivered Taiwan’s first two newly built F-16 fighter jets, part of an $8 billion order that has repeatedly drawn condemnation from Beijing.

The two aircraft, the modern F-16V Block 70 variant, arrived in Taiwan on Friday. They are the first of 66 new fighters approved for sale by Washington in 2019.

Beijing has long opposed US arms sales to Taiwan, which it considers part of China. The delivery came a week after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Washington and urged US President Donald Trump to oppose “Taiwan independence” and “handle the Taiwan question with caution.”

The new jets will join Taiwan’s existing fleet of older F-16 variants, which Taipei has operated since the late 1990s. The first aircraft from the 66-plane order were initially expected in 2023, but deliveries were delayed by software development and production issues.

The US maintains a one-China policy but remains Taiwan’s primary foreign arms supplier.

Under the Trump administration, Washington has approved its largest military packages for Taiwan to date, greenlighting an unprecedented $11 billion in arms last December. Trump has also stalled an even larger $14 billion military package for months, openly describing the sale as a “very good negotiating chip” in talks with Beijing.

Beijing regards Taiwan as part of its territory under the One China principle, a position recognized in varying formulations by most UN member states, including Russia. China has said it prefers peaceful reunification but has not ruled out the use of force.

A US appeals court has blocked Minnesota’s ban on AI-generated fake nude images, handing Elon Musk’s xAI an early victory in its free-speech challenge to the law.

The state’s anti-nudification legislation – the first in the nation – which took effect last month, targets apps and websites that enable non-consensual sexualized deepfakes, with fines of up to $500,000 per image. It was spearheaded by state Senator Erin Maye Quade after a man allegedly used social media photos to create explicit images of more than 80 women without their consent. Quade likened the measure to longstanding laws against peeping through windows to take photographs.

Musk’s xAI challenged the law in July on First Amendment grounds, calling it an “overbroad, content-based ban on free speech” and warning that penalties could run into the billions of dollars.

This comes as the company faces allegations involving the content the law targets. A class-action lawsuit proposed earlier this year claims that xAI’s Grok Imagine was used to create and distribute child sexual abuse material from real images, and accuses xAI of failing to provide the authorities with information on users who allegedly ‘nudified’ them.

Minnesota urged the court to keep the law in place, arguing that it is needed to combat the “staggering amount” of child sexual abuse material generated by AI products such as Grok Imagine. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office said it is disappointed by the ruling and will continue defending the law.

XAI previously mounted a similar First Amendment challenge to a California law restricting AI-generated election deepfakes. A federal judge struck it down last year, finding the restrictions, as written, amounted to unconstitutional censorship. XAI also argues that Grok Imagine has “rigorous protections” against illegal content and has begun suing users it accuses of bypassing safeguards to create non-consensual sexual images.

Losing control of AI?

The news comes amid broader unease over rapidly advancing AI, from privacy and copyright risks to threats to the livelihoods of human creators, with copyright disputes already sparking dozens of lawsuits.

Recently, attention has shifted to increasingly autonomous models going rogue and acting outside their intended environments. Since ChatGPT creator OpenAI’s agents escaped a test environment and accessed Hugging Face servers over the summer, models from companies such as Google, Anthropic, and Meta have gained unauthorized access to or attempted to breach systems belonging to businesses, governments, and international organizations.

AI companies have begun reporting rogue behavior by their models with growing frequency. OpenAI said on Wednesday that its models may have bypassed safeguards or negatively affected systems at more than 100 organizations, significantly expanding the known scale of incidents. Though AI companies say the the breaches have so far caused little or no harm, they have raised questions over whether developers can maintain control as models gain greater autonomy. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently called for a “balanced rate” of development to give safeguards time to catch up – an appeal backed by Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

“What’s good for a Russian is death to a German.” Russian speakers often use this tongue-in-cheek saying to explain the differences between the Russian and German mindsets, whether in everyday matters – such as how mustard should taste – or in deeper questions of worldview and existence.

Many scholars, including the distinguished Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky, have attributed this unmistakable civilizational divide between Europe’s two largest peoples to geography, climate, and landscape, which shaped different ways of life. Living in a predictable climate, Germans developed a habit of methodical, steady work. They could plan ahead because their surroundings allowed them to anticipate the results of their efforts with considerable certainty. Russians, by contrast, inhabit a land of unpredictable conditions stretching, in the words of Russia’s modern national anthem, “from the southern seas to the polar frontier.” They have often found that planning ahead can prove utterly futile. As a result, they frequently have to work at a furious pace within tight deadlines, relying on the distinctly Russian notion of avos: the hope that somehow, things will work out.

Germany’s current leadership views Russia as a threat to national security, much as its predecessors did on the eve of the First and Second World Wars. It is methodically remilitarizing the economy and expanding military assistance to Ukraine in an effort to weaken Russia across the board. In 2022-2023, at the beginning of the special military operation, aid packages were limited in scale and narrowly targeted. Starting in 2024, however, Berlin shifted toward long-term contracts for equipment and drones worth more than $10 billion a year, making Germany the EU’s largest provider of bilateral military assistance to Ukraine.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, formerly Germany’s defense minister, has quietly emerged as the chief overseer of how German funds are distributed. Meanwhile, in keeping with this gradual drift toward military confrontation with our country, Friedrich Merz’s government is continuing Olaf Scholz’s policy of dismantling Russia’s diplomatic presence in Germany. After forcing the closure of Russian consulates general in Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Leipzig in May 2023, Berlin decided this September to shut down the consulate general in Bonn and the Russian House cultural center in Berlin.

Recognizing that their government has set the country on a dead-end course, ordinary German citizens are beginning to push back, increasingly throwing their support behind Alternative for Germany (AfD). The party promises a 180-degree turn in both foreign and domestic policy – not a “360-degree” turn, as former Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock once proposed, inadvertently producing Germany’s defining political meme of the past decade. In the 2021 election, the main opposition party won just 10% of the vote. Four years later, in the snap election of 2025, its share reached 28.5%. For the first time since German reunification in 1990, it came out on top in every eastern state of the former East Germany. This year, AfD consolidated its gains with victories in state elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

To be sure, the party’s victories remain regional, and Germany’s other political parties refuse to consider the movement led by Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla even as a hypothetical coalition partner. But if its electoral base continues to expand, drawing support not only from native-born Germans but eventually from immigrant communities as well, AfD could have a chance of securing more than 50% of the vote nationwide. That would allow it to form a government on its own.

”As for German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, he requested a meeting at the last minute. We had an opening this morning, before my address to the General Assembly. We never refuse to hear out any of our colleagues, including those who accuse Russia of every sin imaginable… When we met, I invited Foreign Minister Wadephul to explain what he had come to discuss. He took out his notes and read a text that repeated, word for word, what Germany’s leaders say publicly and officially every day. I told him as much. I learned nothing new… I told him frankly that I had thought he might have something interesting or out of the ordinary to say. They could simply have called and told us to read their official statements…”

Why have relations between Moscow and Berlin deteriorated so profoundly that even meetings between their foreign ministers have become fruitless exchanges of prepared talking points, rather than negotiations aimed at a breakthrough? At least three factors deserve attention.

1) Berlin’s unconstructive role in efforts to resolve the conflict in Ukraine

From the earliest days of the Ukraine crisis, Germany sought to control the diplomatic process in order to put the country firmly on an anti-Russian course. In February 2014, after unrest broke out on the Maidan, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his French and Polish counterparts, Laurent Fabius and Radoslaw Sikorski, acted as guarantors of an agreement between President Viktor Yanukovich and the opposition. It called for a national unity government, early elections, and an end to all forms of violence. As we know, the protesters soon violated the agreement, took up arms, and staged the ‘Revolution of Dignity’.

A year later, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande joined Russia as mediators in talks between Kiev and the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, culminating in the signing of the package of measures to implement the Minsk agreements. After leaving office, Merkel admitted that Minsk II had been needed not to end Ukraine’s civil war, but to provide cover for further arming the Ukrainian military.

2) The severing of trade and economic ties with Russia

Apart from brief recessions associated with global upheavals such as the financial crisis of 2008-2009 and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2021, Germany’s economy recorded steady annual growth of 1-3.5% in the 21st century. Cheap Russian energy, which helped fuel industrial expansion, was one of the most important ingredients in that success. Another was access to Russia’s sizable market, where more than 6,000 German companies were doing business at the peak of commercial ties.

Germany’s modern ‘economic miracle’ came to an end when its government became a driving force behind the EU’s adoption of a 21st sanctions package, prompting a mass exodus of German capital from Russia. Berlin then refused to investigate the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, which damaged the country’s industrial capacity and helped drive some German manufacturing operations outside the EU.

As a result, the economy has stagnated since 2022, with an annual shortfall of around 1%. The broader social and political climate offers little cause for optimism, as low birth rates and an influx of illegal immigrants put growing pressure on public finances. All of this invites grim thoughts about the inevitability of Germany’s “self-destruction,” to borrow the term used by German commentator Thilo Sarrazin. At least, that is, Germany as it has existed since reunification – a process that essentially amounted to West Germany economically ‘devouring’ the East, an approach that reached its natural limits in the early 2020s.

3) Confidence that Russia will act responsibly

Russia has long served as a bogeyman in the German media. Yet, paradoxically, Germany’s government is militarizing the economy in the belief that an actual shooting war may never materialize.

First, the longer Germany uses Ukraine as a military and political battering ram against Russia, the longer Russian forces will remain focused on the special military operation. That spares Germany’s regular armed forces from having to fight Russia directly with everything at their disposal.

Finally, however belligerent some German politicians may sound, they cannot simply switch off their historical memory. It reminds them that over the past three centuries alone, the Russian army has liberated Berlin – Germany’s present-day capital – three times, exactly once per century. It is hard to imagine a German politician today eager to play ‘Russian roulette’ a fourth time. And that brings us back to a defining difference between Russians and Germans: we may take a long time to harness the horses, but once we get moving, we move fast – especially in times of great geopolitical upheaval.