With a 'wink', Israeli control over Google, Amazon cloud data exposed

Al Mayadeen

Leaked files reveal how Google and Amazon accepted secret terms granting the Israeli entity unprecedented control over cloud data and surveillance tools.

When Google and Amazon sealed a $1.2 billion cloud-computing contract with the Israeli government in 2021, they agreed to more than just technical terms. According to a leak-based investigation by The Guardian, "Israel" insisted on a clandestine addition, a covert signal system known as the “winking mechanism".

The unusual demand required the two tech giants to discreetly alert Israeli authorities whenever they were compelled to share Israeli data with foreign law enforcement agencies.

In practice, this meant finding a way to bypass global legal disclosure limits, a move that could place the companies in potential conflict with international law.

Secret signal hidden in the cloud

Governments worldwide routinely request access to customer data from major cloud firms to aid criminal investigations, often under strict gag orders. But for "Israel", the prospect of its data ending up in foreign hands posed an acute security concern. To address that, officials devised an encrypted warning system: whenever Google or Amazon complied with a foreign subpoena, they would covertly signal "Israel" through coded financial transactions.

The companies reportedly agreed to the scheme, dubbed the “winking mechanism”, to secure the lucrative Project Nimbus contract, according to leaked documents obtained by The Guardian in collaboration with Israeli outlet +972 Magazine and Israeli publication Local Call.

The leaked records detail how the two tech firms accepted a set of “stringent and unorthodox” conditions demanded by "Israel", which sought to retain absolute control over its data. Both Google and Amazon have denied violating any legal obligations.

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Ukraine Conflict Destroying Europe - Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson | RT

The conflict with Russia cannot be won by Ukraine, the US media host has argued.

European leaders are being "stupid" and "reckless" by continuing to back Kiev against Russia, effectively destroying both Ukraine and Europe itself, American political commentator Tucker Carlson said in an interview published on Monday.

Speaking to RTVI US, a New York-based Russian-language media outlet, Carlson mocked the idea that Kiev could prevail over Moscow on the battlefield.

"They cannot win this war. All it's doing is destroying Europe. It has already destroyed Ukraine.

"Of course they are not going to beat Russia. Russia is an industrial power, a resource power, a close military ally of China at this point. It's a joke. All they can do is destroy themselves and destroy the world with a nuclear exchange. This is deranged.

"Europe is falling apart because the same people and the same ideas that got us into this war have dominated for 80 years."

A vocal Christian conservative, Carlson tied Europe's current economic decline to decades of secular liberal policies, claiming that the same elites who provoked a confrontation with Moscow had already undermined the continent's cultural foundations.

He also pointed to Ukraine's escalating demographic crisis and its plans to import foreign nationals to beef up the workforce. Carlson argued that should a plan like that be implemented, "there will be no Ukraine" and that "that was the plan" from the start, in his opinion.

Pro-Kiev European nations have spent billions of euros on military aid for Ukraine and pledged to continue funding the country's government for years to come. Meanwhile, Western attempts to curb Russian energy imports have contributed to a sharp surge in energy prices in the European Union, which is working to replace affordable Russian products with more expensive alternatives.

Germany, widely considered the EU's driving economy, is undergoing a "dramatic" economic decline, the ifo Institute, a leading economic think tank, cautioned last week.

Anti-Russian Propaganda and Preparation for War Against Russia

Thierry Meyssan | Voltairenet.org

While deep state propaganda convinces public opinion that Russia is evil, armies are being prepared for war before our very eyes. The Chief of Staff of the French Army, General Pierre Schill, has just announced to the National Assembly that he is preparing for the next war against Russia. Meanwhile, the Polish Deputy Prime Minister has announced that he will intercept Vladimir Putin's presidential plane. Alone against all his allies, Donald Trump is trying to preserve world peace.

The confrontation between President Donald Trump and the coalition of British, American, Israeli, and Ukrainian deep states is likely to extend to the Far East. In Japan, Sanae Takaichi has just formed a LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) government thanks to his alliance with the Innovation Party, which shares his warmongering views.

Far East

Although Prime Minister Takaichi is the first woman to hold this office, she is nonetheless a champion of "Japanese imperialism" from the Showa era. Barely inaugurated, she announced her intention to rewrite the National Defense Strategy (NDS), the Defense Enhancement Program (DBP), and the National Security Strategy (NSS). These texts are, in principle, updated every ten years, but will be reformed seven years ahead of schedule.

Sanae Takaichi claims that she simply wants to honor President Trump's wish that each US ally devote 5% of its GDP to defense; everyone has understood that she wants to restore the Emperor's army, amend the Constitution to end Japanese neutrality, and attack the Korean Peninsula and the People's Republic of China.

To be clear, her predecessor and outgoing Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, sent an offering to the Yasukuni Shrine in memory of Japanese criminals against humanity. Ishiba is the largest private collector of World War II memorabilia. His home is a shrine to war criminals.

Ms. Takaichi certainly did not go to the Yasukuni Shrine this year, unlike in previous years. She refrained from using anything too provocative, and Shigeru Ishiba went there very rarely. But she did appoint seven men from among the parliamentarians corrupted by the Moon sect as ministers and secretaries of state.

Following the assassination of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on July 8, 2022, by a victim of the Moon sect, the police discovered that she had not only bribed him, but also parliamentarians from her own party, the Liberal Democratic Party. In previous years, she had paid them half a billion dollars. Yes, half a billion dollars. The largest parliamentary corruption scandal in history; a scandal that remains unsolved and has only led to three indictments.

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The Mthethwa Case: Unravelling a Diplomatic Tragedy's Darker Questions

Anda Mbikwana | The Star (South Africa)

The death of South African Ambassador Nathi Mthethwa in a Paris hotel has thrust uncomfortable questions into public discourse: questions not just about how a senior diplomat died, but about what his death might reveal regarding the state of governance, investigative integrity, and institutional safety in South Africa.

While French authorities conduct their investigation, South Africans are left grappling with a narrative that feels disturbingly familiar — another prominent figure connected to sensitive inquiries, another unexpected death, another round of speculation about whether the official story holds water.

What we know is limited but significant. Ambassador Mthethwa was found after falling from his hotel room. A window was forced open. He had allegedly sent a "disturbing message" beforehand. He was connected to investigations touching on corruption involving high-level figures.

What we do not know is everything that matters: the content of that message, who might have had access to his room, what security protocols were in place, and crucially, what specific evidence or testimony he might have possessed.

The forced window presents the most glaring anomaly. Modern hotels — particularly those hosting diplomatic personnel — typically have windows designed against accidental opening.

For such a window to be "forced open" suggests either determined intent from within or external interference. Neither scenario comfortably supports a straightforward suicide narrative.

South Africa has witnessed a troubling pattern over the past decade: individuals connected to corruption investigations, whistle-blowers, and those positioned to provide damaging testimony have died under circumstances ranging from suspicious to inexplicable. 

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International Court of Justice Delivers Opinion on Israel’s Obligations

Voltairenet.org

At the request of the UN General Assembly, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the internal court of the United Nations, issued an advisory opinion on 22 October on the "Obligations of Israel with regard to the presence and activities of the United Nations, other international organizations and third States in and in connection with the Occupied Palestinian Territory". 

The Court is of the opinion that the State of Israel, as the occupying power, must fulfil its obligations under international humanitarian law. These obligations include:

 ensuring that the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory has access to the essentials of daily life, including water, food, clothing, sleeping materials, shelter and fuel, as well as medical items and services; 

 accepting and facilitating to the fullest extent possible relief actions for the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory as long as they are inadequately supplied, as has been observed in the Gaza Strip, including relief actions by the United Nations and its entities, in particular the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and by international organizations and third States, and not to prevent such actions; 

 respecting and protecting all emergency and medical personnel, as well as their premises; 

 respecting the prohibition of forcible transfer and deportation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory;... 

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Professors’ study disputes long-standing claim conservatives are more rigid thinkers

College Fix

Key Takeaways

• A recent study disputes the notion that conservatives are inherently more rigid in their beliefs, suggesting both conservatives and progressives exhibit similar psychological traits.
• The study, involving collaboration among professors, aimed to address biases in the social sciences' examination of political ideology and emphasized fair testing of the rigidity-of-the-right hypothesis.
• Findings indicate that while conservatives can be rigid, this is only sometimes and to a minor degree, and political extremity at both ends correlates with less evidence-based belief updating.
• The research highlights the importance of ideological diversity in academia, suggesting that the lack of varied viewpoints may influence how political ideologies are studied.

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"Neurodiversity", needles, and 9am gin...

Comment: Highly recommended folks read this one...  Neurodiversity? No, vaccine injury...

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MIRI'S MASSIVE MISSIVES

One of my earliest experiences of realising that the world, and people, didn’t function quite as I’d been taught they did came - astonishingly enough - courtesy of school. Not via a lesson or teacher, of course, but rather, through one of my friends. 

I had a friend, we’ll call her Catherine, who, at the age of sixteen, was widely considered to have it all. She was extremely clever (and top of the class for everything), pretty, slim, and, for a swot, reasonably popular - she wasn’t in with the token Mean Girls (she was too nice for them), but she had two really close friends, Shauna and Natalie, who she did everything with. She even had neat handwriting and an immaculately tidy room. She might easily have been hated if she wasn’t so nice - but she was, and so everyone generally liked her.

She also had a very nice family: married parents who’d been together since school and got along well together, a younger brother she was close to, and nearby grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins.

You’d imagine, then, that Catherine was having quite a pleasant experience growing up, and I had assumed that she was, until one day after history class, she grabbed my arm and hissed in a low whisper:

“Will you walk to maths with me?”

“But I’m not in your maths class,” I said, puzzled. “You know I can’t count and I’m in with the remedials.”

“I know,” she said. “But can you just walk with me to mine anyway? You’ll still be able to get to yours on time.”

Thinking she must have some vitally important gossip or something to share with me, I accompanied her, but was left none the wiser when we got to her classroom and no such gossip had been divulged.

A few weeks later, the same thing happened again: after history, Catherine asked me to walk with her to maths.

I couldn’t understand it, and tried to think if there was anything linking these two events. The only thing I could think of was that on both occasions, our mutual friend Shauna - who was in Catherine’s maths class - hadn’t been in for history. Shauna had recently discovered the joys of alcopops, and older boys who could drive, and so was frequently MIA for morning classes.

So, eventually, I questioned Catherine about this, and was absolutely astonished when she shamefacedly admitted she needed me to walk with her from history to maths when Shauna wasn’t there, as she was too anxious to walk there on her own. She said she never walked to class alone and had structured her timetable specifically in order to make sure there was always a “crossover friend” to walk between classes with.

“But... but...” I stuttered, trying to get my head around how perfect, poised Catherine could be too scared to walk down a corridor on her own. “You walk to school on your own.”

“I know,” she said, eyes cast downwards in shame. “I’ve been stealing my mum’s gin and swigging it before I leave the house so I don’t get too anxious on the way.”

Believe me when I say if there was anyone in my year at school you would predict might start drinking hard liquor first thing in the morning, it was not Catherine. Shauna, maybe (Shauna, definitely, in later years, as it turned out) but not Catherine.

I couldn’t understand it.

One would normally associate that level of crippling anxiety and burgeoning alcoholism with a severely damaged and traumatised person, which Catherine was not. Although she did well at school, that wasn’t because of pressure from her parents, who hadn’t been particularly academic themselves and would have supported her to leave school at 16 had she wanted to, like they did. She had a good family, nice friends, a future full of potential - what was she so anxious about?

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Bill Gates is suddenly skeptical: pivots away from climate doom and renewables

Jo Nova | joannenova.com.au

 

Yet another climate change heavyweight abandons ship

It’s the beginning of the end of the renewables fantasy, but there will be no apology — no admission they were wrong, or that thousands upon millions of people have suffered because of climate sorcery.

Watch as the billionaire who lectured us from private jets, pivots into word salad. Now he says we still have to solve climate change (whatever that means), but the doomsday view is wrong, and it “will not be the end of civilization.” He’s suddenly turned into a kind of Bjorn Lomborg. Forget mitigation, say hello to Adaptation.

On the cusp of COP30 in Brazil, Bill Gates has launched a life raft for his reputation —  a 17 page memo called Three tough truths about climate

Bill Gates can see what’s coming (a reckoning for the renewables debacle), so he is repositioning himself so he doesn’t go down with the ship. Indeed, he’s almost writing an escape plan for the whole Blob. In a nutshell, he’s admitting between the lines that wind and solar power are unaffordable, and since climate change won’t actually be that catastrophic, everyone should calm down while we invent technologies, and in the mean time, get back to stopping people from starving. Wouldn’t you know, he says “Health and prosperity are the best defense against climate change.” (That’s Truth #3 ).

What he’s not saying is that he and his friends wasted untold billions (maybe trillions) of dollars of our money installing wind and solar panels which aren’t very good. He is not joining those dots.

We still need that breakthrough mythical technology to save us from the climate monster.

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Faster Than Truth: Quantum-Enhanced AI and the Next Frontier of Information Warfare

Joshua Nieubuurt | Propaganda in Focus

In the very near future disinformation will target you autonomously in fractions of a second. As the quantum computing age draws near, Baudrillard’s notion of hyperreality will coalesce with Edward Bernays’ notion of a crystalized public opinion: creating consensus through individualized reality creation. The methods of the deployment of the past will give way to an infrastructural inevitability: GenAI, guided by algorithmic troves of personalized information, will be weaponized into personally targeted mis/disinformation campaigns that cost pennies on the dollar. Propaganda will no longer be an international foxtrot of moving actors and action but will become an autonomous force plowing into the synapses of the masses on micro scales. As this occurs, humanity’s long-smoking gun will be turned back on the gunman — obliterating the boundary between the real and its simulation through recursive, accelerated, and increasingly personal targeted information operations.

Your Data Used on You

This process has already begun and – for the time being – is being spat forth into the world at the speed of an AI prompt. According to the findings of Goldstein et al. (2024), Generative AI is capable of “generating text that is nearly as persuasive for US audiences as content we sourced from real-world foreign covert propaganda campaigns.” In other words, the digital machines we have created to help us are already being used to persuade our ideas and actions. As public facing models increase their aptitude, more advanced private models will likely follow. This extends far beyond text-based modalities and into the realms of photo and video generated by generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) models.

In fact, AI-generated propaganda is already being deployed en masse. The 2024 election in the United States was rife with examples flooding social media feeds and creating alternative narratives to not only the election, but also real-world events. In more recent world events, the conflict between Israel and Iran, and the infamous black bags being thrown from a window of the White House, have also produced increasingly potent misinformation across the web. There are currently varying degrees of virility with AI-generated propaganda. The newness of the technology and the experimentation of finding ways of making it effective to skulk into the minds of people still maintains a firehose approach. Meaning that it is created with a widespread in mind: reach as many people as possible and hope that it lands with some of them. If attempts at virility are stymied – it fails. But what if AI-generated propaganda were to be tailored to individual users en masse? One of the key elements in potentially deploying tailor-made propaganda at scale is already part of how the internet-connected world works: Surveillance Capitalism. 

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Covid response killed more children than covid, UK Covid Inquiry hears

Rhoda Wilson | Expose News

Earlier this month, Professor Steve Turner, a consultant paediatrician, gave evidence at the UK Covid Inquiry.  He testified that paediatricians learnt very early on that covid did not make children sick, the virus “bounced off” even the most severely sick children.

“Children who had kidney transplants, whose immune system was suppressed – we were really worried about them.  But the virus bounced off them.  So, we knew very, very quickly that this virus, for whatever reason, was not doing harm for the vast majority of children in whom we thought it would,” he said.

Professor Steve Turner, President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (“RCPCH”), provided evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry on 8 October 2025, on behalf of the paediatric workforce.

His testimony focused on the impact of the pandemic on children, young people and their health services, highlighting that the de-prioritisation of children’s healthcare services persisted for too long and that the indirect effects on their health and wellbeing were not adequately recognised. 

Speaking of the most vulnerable children who had serious health issues and should have been at risk of falling victim to covid, as the official narrative had claimed, Prof. Turner explained that it was known very early on that this was not the case.

“When we started, we thought this [covid] could be really nasty, and there were three categories into which people of all ages were placed in terms of risk. But very, very, very, very quickly, our patients and their parents told us that if … children who have gone through heroic surgery, have life-threatening problems, are ventilated at night, when they get covid and the rest of the family gets covid, it was the parents and the carers who were [sick].

“Children who had kidney transplants, whose immune system was suppressed – we were really worried about them.  But the virus bounced off them.  So, we knew very, very quickly that this virus, for whatever reason, was not doing harm for the vast majority of children in whom we thought it would,” he said.

When asked what the Government and its advisors had not done well in responding to covid, Prof. Turner said: “There was not enough consideration given to the innumerable harmful indirect harm that was done to them as a consequence of the provisions made around covid.”

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Putin 'most popular leader in the world' - Tucker Carlson

RT

Russian President Vladimir Putin is the most popular leader in the world, American journalist Tucker Carlson has claimed, in an interview with RTVI US. Outside of Western Europe, Canada, and the "Anglo-sphere," it is almost impossible to meet someone who doesn't like Putin, Carlson told the network.

"He is the most popular leader in the world, by far," Carlson said, noting that the primary reason for Putin's global popularity is the fact that he has "put his own country's interests above his own in a lot of ways. In ways that Western leaders don't."

Asked if his perspective on Putin's worldview had changed after an interview with him in February 2024, Carlson said that he was surprised to realize that the Russian president "actually likes the West." And that he probably likes it "way more than anyone who would potentially replace Putin."

In his interview with RTVI US, Carlson also suggested that the US, Western Europe, and most of the industrialized world, are "in a decline phase" while Russia is experiencing a "spiritual revival" and is proving to be a prosperous country with "a sense of self-worth and a sense of purpose." He further proposed that this was one of the reasons the West "hates it so much" and wants to destroy it.

RTVI US is a subsidiary of RTVI (Russian Television International), a privately-funded Russian-language television network with headquarters in Moscow and New York.

Carlson told Germany's Bild, in July, that while Putin had been doing a "great job for Russia," Western leaders were failing their people.

"Your country is going down, Russia is going up. You should be mad at your own leaders. You are mad at Putin instead," he told the outlet. Carlson went on to suggest that German officials were attacking Putin and Russia to distract the public from domestic economic and migration issues. 

The Great Barrington Declaration At Five Years

Jeffrey A. Tucker | Zero Hedge

It was 8:45 a.m. and the date was Aug. 23, 2020. We were five months into the pandemic panic. The isolation and strangeness had become unbearable not only to me personally but to vast numbers. The businesses and schools were closed. Anthony Fauci of NIAID and all his media cheerleaders seemed to be the only narrative around.

Everyone was waiting for something. One day rolled into the next, marked by unbearable repetition, each turn of the clock nearly indistinguishable from the last one and the next one. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something to happen but it was not clear what that was.

I had been writing about pandemic planning for 15 years and knew that what was going on was a grave error. Indeed, from January 2020 I had warned that some people imagined that the way to battle a virus was through an elaborate duck-and-cover ritual that contradicted the whole history of public health. By mid-March, 2020, the experiment was on, and the world economy was being strangled.

The usual proponents of free enterprise and civil liberties fell silent. This was mostly for reasons of career protection. It was obvious at the time what everyone was supposed to say: listen to the science, we are all in this together, wear your mask, don't do your own research, stop longing for your "freedumb." Most everyone in the professional classes went along, partially because so many people enjoyed working from home and receiving vast sums from the government dropped directly in their bank accounts.

Desperate for allies in this struggle, I happened to notice a professor at Harvard was posting some sensible things. Not sure why this particular post made it through the censors but it did and I read it. I was thrilled, and decided to try my luck. That early morning, I dropped him a note on Twitter direct messaging. I invited him for dinner. He accepted.

That was the beginning of a long friendship that continues to this day. But it was also the beginning of the hardest years of our lives. Martin Kulldorff and I visited each other and I learned from him: about public health principles, natural immunity, the normal course of respiratory infection waves, how to deal with the many features of such pathogens, and so on.

It was Martin's idea to broaden the discussion. What if we invite a group of top journalists in and offer some expert commentary? This would surely help improve their reporting. Maybe then they would stop simply echoing the crazy claims coming from the CDC and NIH. That struck me as a good idea, so I went to work on logistics. The deadline was tight: two weeks.

The problems began immediately. Not a single reporter responded to my invitation. I could not understand why. Three of the world's top epidemiologists — Martin plus Jay Bhattacharya (now directing the NIH) and Sunetra Gupta — were coming together for their benefit. Why were they not interested in learning more about the subject they were covering for TV and newspapers?

The gathering took place anyway.  

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The Quest for Truth: The Tangled Web of Epistemology

Laura Knight-Jadczyk | Postcards From the Edge of Reality

 

From ancient philosophers to modern crises, how do we know what we know?

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned once or twice in my recent posts that I've been planning to write about epistemology. It sure has been on my mind a lot for the past few weeks and the more I look into it and think about it, the more complicated it seems.

We recently had guests - a young couple - and, over supper, I was asked what I was working on. I said that I was thinking about - not actually working on - epistemology. The husband and wife looked at each other and exchanged some sort of silent communication which she then explained. Apparently, her father, a professor at a university, has been writing a book about epistemology for the past 40 years. I thought, 'holy frijoles!' I worked on the research for my book on early Christianity - off and on - from about 1982 until it was finally completed in 2020. That's only 38 years and I'm satisfied with the work I did on that. But this poor guy -the father of our guest- has been working on epistemology longer than that and is still laboring with, apparently, no end in sight.

So, I did a lot more thinking and poking into the matter. Naturally Grok got a real workout with me sending it out to fetch data to help me think even harder. I am no longer surprised that someone can work on this topic for 40 years with no end in sight.

What is Epistemology and What Does it Do?

The word epistemology comes from the Greek words epistēmē (ἐπιστήμη), meaning "knowledge" or "understanding," and logos (λόγος), meaning "study" or "discourse." So, epistemology literally means the study of knowledge. (It's not related to the word 'epistle'; they only share a prefix: epi.)

Epistemologists are philosophers who specialize in epistemology, the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origins, scope, and limits of knowledge. Their work primarily involves analyzing fundamental questions such as: What constitutes knowledge? How do we distinguish between justified beliefs and mere opinions? What are the sources of knowledge (e.g., perception, reason, memory, or testimony)? And how can we respond to skepticism about whether we can truly know anything at all?

In practice, epistemologists engage in a range of activities:

• They develop theories and arguments about concepts like belief, truth, justification, and evidence. For instance, they might debate whether knowledge requires certainty or if it's possible to have knowledge without absolute proof, often using thought experiments.
• Many epistemologists are academics who lecture at universities, design courses on philosophy of knowledge, and mentor students in critical thinking and logical reasoning.
• They collaborate with fields like cognitive science, artificial intelligence, law, or education to apply epistemological insights, such as evaluating the reliability of eyewitness testimony or the ethics of belief in misinformation eras.
• Overall, their role is more theoretical than practical; they aim to clarify how humans achieve cognitive success (accurate understanding) and avoid failure (false beliefs or ignorance), rather than conducting empirical experiments like scientists.

Epistemology affects the average person in subtle but profound ways, influencing how we navigate information, make decisions, and interact with the world. Epistemological principles guide how we assess risks, form opinions, and learn from experience. For example, when deciding whether to trust a medical treatment, we implicitly draw on ideas of evidence and justification to weigh expert opinions against personal anecdotes. In politics, it affects how we view authority and propaganda; in relationships, it influences trust and communication by prompting reflection on biases or assumptions. Without epistemological awareness, people might fall into echo chambers or dogmatism, leading to poorer outcomes in personal or professional life. It informs fields like science (e.g., the scientific method relies on empirical justification) and law (e.g., standards of evidence in trials), which in turn structure institutions that impact daily routines, from healthcare policies to consumer protections.

The Failure of Epistemology

It seems pretty obvious to me that somehow, epistemology has lost its way in the West, at least. There is substantial discussion in recent analyses about a perceived downturn in educational outcomes and knowledge retention in Western countries. For instance, standardized test scores in reading, math, and science have stagnated or fallen in many nations, including the U.S., where national assessments show declines since the 1990s, exacerbated post-COVID. Critics argue this reflects systemic failures: outdated curricula that prioritize standardized testing over critical thinking, inadequate teacher training, and a shift away from core subjects like history and civics. In Europe, similar issues emerge, with reports highlighting school failure linked to socioeconomic disparities and rigid structures that don't adapt to modern needs. Some attribute this to a broader "dumbing down," where rote memorization replaces deep understanding, leading to lower civic knowledge among youth. 

 

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Gaza Cease-fire Agreement Furthers Ongoing Age of Imperialism

Jeremy Kazmurov | Covert Action Magazine 

In October 9, Israel and Hamas announced the adoption of a cease-fire agreement involving the release of all hostages held by Hamas.

Israel, in exchange, agreed to allow for the entry of humanitarian aid, to release Palestinian prisoners, and to withdraw its forces to a so-called “yellow line” from which they will still control all land crossings into Gaza.

The U.S. additionally agreed to send 200 more troops to Israel to monitor and oversee the agreement.

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman gushed that President Donald Trump deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for helping to broker the agreement. However, the World Socialist Web Site reported that the October 9 “peace” deal inscribes a return to the open colonial domination of the Middle East that prevailed in the 19^th century.

Gaza is now to be governed by a “Board of Peace” headed and chaired by Donald Trump and which will include former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) noted that the “peace agreement” was “steeped in colonial rhetoric” and that its “inclusion of an international ‘Board of Peace’…ensures the exclusion of Palestinian voices from the decision-making of Palestinian futures.”

A hidden U.S.-Israeli agenda has long been to control oil and gas fields off the Gaza coast that are estimated to be worth more than $500 billion.

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Hundreds of prominent Jews call for sanctions on Israel

Comment: It only took over 70 years....

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RT

Hundreds of prominent Jewish figures across the world have called on the UN and global leaders to impose sanctions on Israel over what they describe as "unconscionable" actions in Gaza that they say amount to genocide.

An open letter urging governments to hold Israel accountable for alleged violations of international law in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem garnered more than 450 signatories, including former Israeli officials, intellectuals, and artists. The letter coincides with reports that EU leaders may abandon plans to introduce sanctions against Israel during a summit in Brussels on Thursday.

The signatories wrote:

"We have not forgotten that so many of the laws, charters, and conventions established to safeguard and protect all human life were created in response to the Holocaust. Those safeguards have been relentlessly violated by Israel."

The appeal includes former Knesset speaker Avraham Burg, Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy, authors Michael Rosen and Naomi Klein, Oscar-winning filmmaker Jonathan Glazer, actors Wallace Shawn and Ilana Glazer, and philosopher Omri Boehm.

The group has urged world leaders to enforce International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court rulings, halt arms sales, and impose targeted sanctions on Israeli officials and entities complicit in alleged crimes.

The petition follows a shift in public opinion among American Jews and voters more broadly. A recent poll by the Washington Post found that 61% of US Jews believe Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza, and 39% say it is committing genocide. A separate Quinnipiac survey in August found that half of US voters hold the same view.

Israel launched its military operation in Gaza in response to the Hamas attack in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 others were taken hostage in October 2023. The scale of the Israeli response has elicited widespread condemnation and has prompted a wave of support for the Palestinian people.

Gaza's Health Ministry has reported at least 68,000 Palestinians killed and more than 170,000 injured over the past two years. The UN has estimated that around 90% of Gaza's residents have been internally displaced. 

Louvre heist sparks ‘woke’ hiring policy backlash

RT

The management of the Louvre Museum has been criticized for prioritizing diversity over competence in key appointments, following a daylight robbery in which the French crown jewels were stolen.

The controversy has centered on the Louvre's security chief, Dominique Buffin, whose appointment was hailed in French media last year as part of a gender-balance drive. Buffin, who previously held posts in the police and the Culture Ministry, became the museum's first female head of security last September after being appointed by director Laurence des Cars, herself the Louvre's first woman to hold the position.

Marion Marechal, a member of the European Parliament and niece of veteran right-wing politician Marine Le Pen, said France had become the "laughingstock of the world" over what she called the "ridiculous theft."

"This humiliation cannot go unanswered," Marechal wrote on X on Monday, urging Culture Minister Rachida Dati to demand the immediate resignation of des Cars and Buffin, who she accused of being appointed "as part of a feminization policy."

Marechal said the approach came "at the cost of forgoing competence and endangering the nation's cultural heritage."

The Louvre, home to masterpieces such as the Mona Lisa, has faced criticism for security lapses and modernization delays. A state audit had found security systems to be "old and inadequate" before the heist. Former Louvre director Pierre Rosenberg warned as early as 1998 that the museum's security was "fragile."

Investigators said they were pursuing several leads and have not ruled out an inside job, though early evidence points to organized crime. The Louvre remained closed to visitors on Monday as police reviewed CCTV footage.

EU Declares War On Its Own Members

Simplicus The Thinker

Yesterday, two near-simultaneous acts of sabotage saw explosions ripping through oil refineries in both Hungary and Romania. In Hungary it was the MOL in Százhalombatta, which reportedly receives Russian oil, while in Romania the Petrotel-Lukoil, a subsidiary of the Russian parent company.

As one commentator writes, these attacks came literally hours after the European Council had just approved to ban Russian gas starting in 2026:

The timing here is exceptionally curious because this attack came just hours after the European Council essentially locked in its position to almost completely ban Russian gas imports, with new contracts being outlawed at the beginning of 2026, and all long term contracts forcibly expiring in 2028. A similar ban on oil imports is expected in the near future. Hungary and Slovakia have pledged to issue legal challenges to the ban.

As of this writing, there were reports that a new explosion lit up a refinery in Bratislava, Slovakia—which allegedly processes Russian oil from the Druzhba pipeline. But subsequent follow-ups appear to show these were fake—though it’s as of yet uncertain.

The real attacks on Romania and Hungary came just days after Europe essentially gave carte blanche for terror attacks across the EU by way of several top European officials openly condoning not only the Nord Stream attacks, but even attacks against Hungarian oil pipelines. Here Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski addresses Hungary’s Peter Szijjarto:

  

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The US-Israel plan for Gaza: a paradise for the ruling class and its business interests

Donde Vamos?

Since 7 October 2023, we have been watching, virtually powerless, as genocide unfolds live before our eyes, simply because our leaders are compromised by the Zionist lobby. Today, both Trump and Israel have a plan for Gaza, and once again we find the good old lobby behind Trump's ‘peace plan,’ rejected on Friday, 3 October by Hamas, which consisted of handing over the keys to Gaza to a delegation of globalists.  But beyond territorial conquest, this plan for Gaza is a globalist, authoritarian utopia, which probably foreshadows what our societies will be like tomorrow if we let this ruling class have its way.

In February 2025, Trump spoke of his Riviera project in Gaza, where nearly 2 million people were crammed together before the Zionists began their process of total destruction. The plan, developed with his Israeli friends and Tony Blair, called for the deportation of the remaining population to create a luxury tourism and high-tech development site, officially under US supervision for 10 years.


Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

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Trump’s Sanctions Put Him on “Warpath” with Russia, Says Medvedev

Will Jones | The Daily Sceptic

Donald Trump has put the US on the “warpath” with Moscow with his decision to impose sanctions and cancel a peace summit, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has said. The Telegraph has more.

On Wednesday night, the US President announced sanctions against Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil. The measures followed the collapse of a proposed meeting with Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin had signalled it was unwilling to meet America’s terms for a ceasefire.

“The US is our enemy, and its talkative ‘peacemaker’ has now fully embarked on the warpath with Russia,” Mr Medvedev wrote on Telegram. 

“The decisions taken are an act of war against Russia. And now Trump has fully aligned himself with loony Europe,” said the Deputy Chair of Russia’s National Security Council, reigniting his war of words with the US President.

The European Union also announced new sanctions on Russia, including a ban on the import of liquefied natural gas. The natural gas ban will phase out imports rather than halt them immediately. 

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Japan's hardline conservative Sanae Takaichi elected first female prime minister

France 24

Japan's parliament elected ultraconservative Sanae Takaichi as the country’s first female prime minister Tuesday, a day after her struggling party struck a coalition deal with a new partner expected to pull her governing bloc further to the right.  

Hardline conservative Sanae Takaichi was elected Japan’s first female prime minister on Tuesday, shattering the nation’s glass ceiling and setting it up for a forceful turn to the right.

An acolyte of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and an admirer of Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, Takaichi received 237 votes in the lower house election to choose the next premier, topping the majority of the 465-seat chamber.

Her victory marks a pivotal moment for a country where men still hold overwhelming sway. But it is also likely to usher in a sharper move to the right on things like immigration and social issues.

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Israel Flipped Out And Killed 45 Palestinians After Running Over Their Own Bomb

Caitlin Johnston | Caitlin's Newsletter

In today’s news, Israel’s stupid fucking genocidal rapists ran over an unexploded ordnance from their own evil carpet bombing campaign, blamed Hamas for the explosion, started bombing the fuck out of Gaza again, killed scores of civilians, said they were once again cutting off aid to the enclave, and then quietly backed down on urging from Washington.

Rather than report that Israel violated the ceasefire agreement as blatantly as any agreement could possibly be violated, the western press have been referring to this as a “test” of the ceasefire. Killing Palestinians is so normalized and accepted as a baseline expectation in the western press that CNN called it the “first major test” of the ceasefire after Israel killed people in Gaza every single day since the ceasefire agreement was signed.

I hope the “WHY AREN’T YOU CELEBRATING?” crowd have gotten their answer by now. We weren’t celebrating because we know more than you. We’ve actually been paying attention, so we know Israel is going to seek out every excuse to kill Palestinians and torch this fake “ceasefire”.

The Israeli government keeps issuing statements making it explicitly clear that Israel will not consider the “war” over until Hamas is fully disarmed and Gaza is fully demilitarized, terms that the Palestinian resistance has explicitly refused. These mutually contradictory positions place Gaza on a collision course toward full-scale reignition of the genocide.

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Virginia Giuffre beaten, raped by ‘well-known prime minister’ in attack that broke Epstein spell, her memoir reveals

Katherine Donlevy | New York Post 

Prominent Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre was brutally bloodied, beaten and raped by a “well-known prime minister” in a series of savage encounters that finally helped the teenager break free from the sex trafficker’s spell.

In her posthumous memoir “Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice,” Giuffre recalled begging Epstein to step in after the unnamed politician forced her to beg for her life — but the pedophile coldly told her it was simply part of her job.

“After the attack, I couldn’t stay a fool. Having been treated so brutally and then seeing Epstein’s callous reaction to how terrorized I felt, I had to accept that Epstein meted out praise merely as a manipulation to keep me subservient,” Giuffre wrote, according to an excerpt shared with The Post.

“Epstein cared only about Epstein.”

Giuffre simply referred to the deranged man as the “Prime Minister,” saying she was afraid the brute would “seek to hurt” her if she printed his name.

In the past, however, she pointed to Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Barak in court filings as one of the many elites who had raped her, a claim he has repeatedly denied. 

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