Bill & Hillary Clinton face prison for defying Epstein subpoena, their ties to trafficking exposed

Comment: Clintons in prison? Dream on.

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Liz Crokin | X.com

Bill and Hillary Clinton will be facing prison time if Congress votes to hold them in contempt this week after defying a federal subpoena and refusing to give testimony in the Jeffrey Epstein inquiry. The proof the Clintons were close with and working for Epstein and are involved in child trafficking and other sex crimes against children is overwhelming and the information is publicly available.

Before diving in, it's important for people to understand that sex trafficking and Satanic Ritualistic Abuse (SRA) often go hand-in-hand. It's not uncommon for a sex slave to also be a victim of SRA — especially those trafficked in elite pedophile rings. So it's important to factor in the Clinton's involvement in the occult before I lay out all their ties to pedophilia and child trafficking.

The Clintons & the Occult

For decades, the Clintons dabbled in the occult. As early as the 1970's, Bill and Hillary went to Haiti and took a course in voodoo theology from a voodoo priest and sat in on a dark ritual. This was documented in Bill's own words in his memoir My Life, according to The Washington Post. Bill described the ritual stating "spirits arrived, seizing a woman and a man". Bill then described how the woman screamed in a frenzy and proceeded to grab a live chicken and bite off the animal's head. Years later the Haitian publication, Haiti Observateur, reported that Bill returned to the island in 1995 to reaffirm his faith in voodoo by participating in another ritual. Also, it's rumored in Haiti that Hillary returned to the island as well and participated in more voodoo rituals too.

Former Clinton insider, Larry Nichols, who was known as their "fixer" said that Hillary regularly flew to California once a month decades ago to take part in a ritual at a witch's coven. The Clintons tasked Nichols to keep stories like this out of the media. However, Bob Woodward reported in his book The Choice that Hillary refused to talk about Jesus Christ, and also that she frequently held necromantic seances in the White House where she attempted to communicate with the dead including with Eleanor Roosevelt.

Fast forward to 2018, Hillary was awarded a lifetime membership by the witch's coven The Wing which is comprised of occult-practicing feminist witches. The Wing scrubbed some of their references to the occult and witchcraft online; however, there's still some evidence that has been left up on social media.

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Iran didn't erupt, it was ignited: The hidden hands behind a manufactured crisis

21st Century Wire | Freddie Ponton

When the first chants rose up in Tehran's Grand Bazaar at the end of December 2025, they came from merchants worn down by real, everyday suffering: inflation eating away savings, a collapsing currency, and the unceasing grind of uncertainty. Yet within days, what began as a grassroots protest against economic hardship abruptly became a battleground for global geopolitical forces, reflecting not just Iran's internal struggles but a war over narrative, power, and influence that spans continents.

Foreign capitals watched with interest, while intelligence agencies saw opportunity. Media networks amplified messages that served strategic interests, but amid these swirling forces, ordinary Iranians became actors in a drama orchestrated in part by powers far beyond their cities. This is not a recounting of statistics; this is a story about how a nation's protest against the price of bread became a potential spark for wider conflict, and what that says about the world we live in today.

The Anatomy of Interference: Intelligence, NGOs, and Manufactured Momentum

Almost immediately, the protests were framed in global media as a moral struggle for freedom, a narrative that dovetailed neatly with the interests of Western powers seeking to exert pressure on Tehran. Social media lit up with slogans like "Trump must intervene, save the Iranian people!" and "Free Iran!", messages that would soon be echoed by political elites in Washington. But behind these slogans lay something far less organic.

Western intelligence services, notably Mossad, CIA, and MI6, have a long history of operations aimed at destabilising Tehran. According to regional reporting, counter‑government elements linked to foreign intelligence were embedded among pockets of unrest, with accusations that these operatives helped precipitate violence and chaos that went far beyond spontaneous civil discontent. The effect was not subtle: targeted sabotage of peaceful protests, direct engagement with activists, and narrative shaping via digital and human channels. These efforts were designed to transform economic protests into a broader political crisis, ripe for exploitation.

Compounding this were the roles of Western‑aligned NGOs. Organisations such as the Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRA/HRAI) and its news arm HRANA, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Centre for Human Rights in Iran (ABCHRI), and the Centre for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) were presented globally as independent voices documenting the turmoil. In reality, their funding and alliances reveal a much deeper entanglement with U.S. political and security interests. HRANA, for example, is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a body established by the U.S. Congress and widely criticised as a civilian proxy for CIA regime‑change operations. According to investigative sources, HRANA received over $900,000 from NED in 2024 alone, a fact rarely disclosed by Western media when reporting their casualty figures and "expert" testimonies.

These groups became the foundation for many Western media narratives about casualty counts, repression, and protest dynamics, figures that were amplified without adequate scrutiny. Their role introduces a crucial question: to what extent were narratives designed to justify external pressure, and possibly intervention, rather than merely inform?

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ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt suggests they are 'helping' Ted Cruz and Ben Shapiro 'take down' Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes

Information Liberation | Chris Menahan

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt suggested in a now-deleted interview that "behind the scenes" he is "helping" Senator Ted Cruz to "take down" Tucker Carlson and helping Ben Shapiro "take down" Nick Fuentes.

"I need people on the right to take down Tucker Carlson -- so I'm trying to help Ted Cruz," Greenblatt revealed. "I need people on the right to take down Nick Fuentes -- so I'm trying to help people like Ben [Shapiro]," Greenblatt told Rabbi David Wolpe and a gathering at Sinai Temple in West Los Angeles on Saturday.

He also named Hasan Piker as one of his targets and said the ADL is doing the "same thing on the left."

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Unmasking the Flames: Israel's shadow over Patagonia and Milei's betrayal of Argentina

Sarah B. | ddgeopolitics.substack.com

From Conspiracy to Reality? Fires Clear the Way for Foreign Control in the Last Frontier

As I was scrolling through news feeds, trying to keep up with some of the chaos unfolding around the world, I stumbled across a flurry of reports from Argentina about raging wildfires tearing through Patagonia. Starting around January 5, 2026, flames have devastated thousands of hectares in Chubut province, areas like El Hoyo, Puerto Patriada, and near Epuyén, and prompting evacuations amid thick smoke, destroyed homes, and threatened ecosystems. Thousands of Argentines and other Spanish speakers were flooding the replies on X posts about the blazes, most of them incredibly irate at the Milei government. Phrases like "The Zionists are trying to steal Patagonia!" and "Milei has sold us out to Israel!" popped up repeatedly in viral threads, with users sharing videos of suspicious activity and linking the fires to foreign interests.

I thought, sure, these could be bots amplifying outrage, but Elon's bot army has always been staunchly pro-Milei, relentlessly boosting his image as a free-market hero and his tight alliances with Israel. So why were genuine locals, from southern Patagonians to urban commentators, reacting with such raw, widespread fury, accusing their own president of enabling a Zionist takeover? I jumped down the rabbit hole, cross-checking eyewitness accounts, viral clips, and the mounting public backlash, and what I discovered was yet another stark instance of Zionist imperialism sweeping across the globe, this time setting South America's pristine frontiers ablaze to pave the way for control and exploitation.

In footage captured by Argentine hiker Martín Morales, one suspect is seen kneeling and igniting dry grass and branches in a high-risk zone amid extreme fire danger conditions, while his companion stands watch. Morales confronts them in Spanish, yelling, "How can you be making a fire, brother?" The men scramble to extinguish the flames with water from a nearby stream, gather their gear, and flee down the trail without a word, leaving Morales to ensure the fire is fully out before alerting park rangers via radio. He later posted a follow-up video explaining his actions: "I was alone, I couldn't get close — they had bad intentions. I made sure the fire was off and they left. I'm not crying from fear; it's the impotence, brother."

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Israeli ban on 37 aid organizations expected to have devastating impacts across Palestine

Qassam Muaddi, Tareq S. Hajja | Mondoweiss

Aid organizations say Israel's recent ban of 37 groups has dealt a severe blow to humanitarian work across Palestine. In Gaza, it means "cutting off a lifeline for over two million people," says Rahma Worldwide's Dr. Shadi Zazzah.

Israel's decision to cancel the registration of 37 international aid organizations at the beginning of the year has dealt a severe blow to the international presence in Palestine. Beyond that, it has delivered a serious blow to Palestinian society itself. The banning of dozens of international NGOs threatens many social assistance and development programs, many of which are Palestinian-run and crucial to sustaining essential services in communities across Palestine.

The ban followed a new set of registration conditions imposed by Israel on international organizations earlier in December, including a requirement to provide Israeli authorities with the personal data of Palestinian staff. Israel said the 37 organizations failed to comply with this requirement, with Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister, Amichai Chikli, saying the decision aimed to prevent the "exploitation of humanitarian aid for terrorism," although Israel has never provided evidence of such links.

The decision includes several prominent international humanitarian organizations, such as Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and even the Catholic Relief Services (Caritas), all of which were notified to cease operations in the Palestinian territories by March. The ban does not apply to any UN body.

The impact of the ban is expected to be felt most acutely in the Gaza Strip, where all two million Palestinians depend partly or entirely on humanitarian aid. Aid deliveries remain restricted following months of near-total shutdown prior to the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that came into effect in October 2025.

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US operation in Venezuela a 'flagrant violation' of international law - Lavrov

RT

The US attack on Venezuela earlier this month in which President Nicolas Maduro was abducted was a blatant violation of international law, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.

Speaking at a press conference after meeting with Namibian Foreign Minister Selma Ashipala-Musavyi, Lavrov stated that Moscow's assessment of the US operation in Caracas remains unchanged. He added that the condemnation is shared by the overwhelming "global majority," including the Global South and East.

"Only Western Europeans and other allies of Washington try to shamefully avoid the principled assessments, although everybody understands that we're talking about a flagrant violation of international law," the foreign minister said.

Speaking at the UN Security Council last week, Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia described Maduro's abduction as "a cynical crime that cannot be justified." Chinese envoy Sun Lei also condemned the US, saying the military intervention in Venezuela threatens peace and security in the region.

The US military launched an attack against the oil-rich country on January 3, abducting Maduro and his wife. They were taken to a US warship and later flown to New York, where they appeared in court last week on charges of drug-trafficking conspiracy. Both pleaded not guilty.

After the kidnapping, US President Donald Trump said Washington would "run" Venezuela while cooperating with officials in Caracas until a transition is achieved. He stressed that the US needs "total access... to the oil and to other things in their country."

Days later, Trump announced that Venezuela's interim authorities would "turn over" 30 to 50 million barrels of "sanctioned oil" to be sold and "used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States."

Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez, a close ally of Maduro, said neither the US nor any other "foreign agent" will control Venezuela. Rodriguez signaled openness to "cooperation" with the US, but vowed that her country "will never return to being the colony of another empire."

Distinct AI models seem to converge on how they encode reality

Ben Brubaker | Quanta Magazine

Is the inside of a vision model at all like a language model? Researchers argue that as the models grow more powerful, they may be converging toward a singular "Platonic" way to represent the world.

Read a story about dogs, and you may remember it the next time you see one bounding through a park. That's only possible because you have a unified concept of "dog" that isn't tied to words or images alone. Bulldog or border collie, barking or getting its belly rubbed, a dog can be many things while still remaining a dog.

Artificial intelligence systems aren't always so lucky. These systems learn by ingesting vast troves of data in a process called training. Often, that data is all of the same type — text for language models, images for computer vision systems, and more exotic kinds of data for systems designed to predict the odor of molecules or the structure of proteins. So to what extent do language models and vision models have a shared understanding of dogs?

Researchers investigate such questions by peering inside AI systems and studying how they represent scenes and sentences. A growing body of research has found that different AI models can develop similar representations, even if they're trained using different datasets or entirely different data types. What's more, a few studies have suggested that those representations are growing more similar as models grow more capable. In a 2024 paper, four AI researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology argued that these hints of convergence are no fluke. Their idea, dubbed the Platonic representation hypothesis, has inspired a lively debate among researchers and a slew of follow-up work.

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Second Nakba, Bibi's 9/11: The start of monumental destruction of the Middle East?

Peter Koenig | Global Research

On October 7, shortly after the Hamas attack on Israel, PM Benjamin Netanyahu declared the offensive as Israel's 9/11. He is right in more ways than one. The US 9/11 was a horrendous and deadly false flag, and so is the Israeli one, or the so-called Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, assault by Hamas.

Both 9/11's are meant to "justify" endless and crushing retributions. In the US, an endless and worldwide war on "terror" which means the entire world, as Washington sees fit, according to its "rules-based order." Misbehaving nations are simply sanctioned and crushed, forced to their knees.

Israeli intel, as well as that of Egypt, the UK, the US, Brussels - EU - knew about the impending attack, planned by Israel in coordination with Hamas. A Jewish charity leader says Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to stand down for 7 hours during the Hamas invasion.

For Israel, it justifies a stepped-up war on Palestine, the end of Gaza, eventually forcing 2.3 million Gazans to flee through Rafah into the Sinai Peninsula in northeast Egypt.

Despite the official rejection of Israel to establish a corridor for Gazan refugees - an agreement with Israel and Washington to starve to death as many Palestinians as possible - Egypt eventually may allow to open the Rafah border for "humanitarian reasons." It is all part of the deal. 

[...]

This was planned for years.
Hamas was set up and funded by Israel and the US/UK secret services.

Hamas must do the bidding of its masters - namely periodically shooting back at aggressive Israeli attacks at Palestine settlements, mostly in the Gaza strip, and eventually launching a massive attack on Israel (on 7 October), thus, provoking an even more gigantic and deadly act of retribution - one that may not end until Palestine is erased from the map.

And then onwards - for the creation of Greater Israel, in the process absorbing one third to half of the current Middle East.

For broader understanding of the Israel-Palestine war, see also this.

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Behind The DoJ's Politicized Indictment of Maduro: a CIA-created 'Network' And Coerced Star Witness

 Max Blumenthal | The Gray Zone

The US Department of Justice indictment of Venezuela’s kidnapped leader, Nicolas Maduro, is a political rant that relies heavily on coerced testimony from an unreliable witness. Despite DOJ edits, it could expose more Americans to the CIA’s own history of drug trafficking.

The January 3 US military raid on Venezuela to kidnap President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores was followed by the Department of Justice’s release of its superseding indictment of the two abductees as well as their son, Nicolasito Maduro, and two close political allies: former Minister of Justice Ramon Chacin and ex-Minister of Interior, Justice and Peace Diosdado Cabello. The DOJ has also thrown Tren De Aragua (TDA) cartel leader Hector “Niño” Guerrero into the mix of defendants, situating him at the heart of its narrative.

The indictment amounts to a 25 page rant accusing Maduro and Flores of a conspiracy to traffic “thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States,” relying heavily on testimony from coerced witnesses about alleged shipments that largely took place outside US jurisdiction. It accuses Maduro of “having partnered with narco-terrorists” like TDA, ignoring a recent US intelligence assessment that concluded he had no control over the Venezuelan gang. Finally, the prosecutors stacked the indictment by charging Maduro with “possession of machine guns,” a laughable offense which could easily be applied to hundreds of thousands of gun-loving Americans under an antiquated 1934 law.

DOJ prosecutors carefully avoid precise data on Venezuelan cocaine exports to the US. At one point, they describe “tons” of cocaine; at another, they refer to the shipment of “thousands of tons,” an astronomical figure that could hypothetically generate hundreds of billions in revenue. At no point did they mention fentanyl, the drug responsible for the overdose deaths of close to 50,000 Americans in 2024. In fact, the DEA National Drug Threat Assessment issued under Trump’s watch this year scarcely mentioned Venezuela.

By resorting to vague, deliberately expansive language larded with subjective terms like “corrupt” and “terrorism,” the DOJ has constructed a political narrative against Maduro in place of a concrete legal case. While repeatedly referring to Maduro as the “de facto… illegitimate ruler of the country,” the DOJ fails to demonstrate that he is de jure illegitimate under Venezuelan law, and will therefore be unable to bypass established international legal precedent granting immunity to heads of state.

Further, the indictment relies on transparently unreliable, coerced witnesses like Hugo “Pollo” Carvajal, a former Venezuelan general who has cut a secret plea deal to reduce his sentence for drug trafficking by supplying dirt on Maduro. Carvajal was said to be a key figure in the so-called “Cartel of the Suns” drug network which the DOJ claims was run by Maduro. If and when he appears to testify against the abducted Venezuelan leader, the American public could learn that the “cartel” was founded not by the deposed Venezuelan president or one of his allies, but by the CIA to traffic drugs into US cities.

As sloppy and politicized as the DOJ’s indictment might be, it has enabled Trump to frame his lawless “Monroe Doctrine” as an aggressive policy of legal enforcement, emboldening the US president to levy further threats to abduct or bump off heads of state who stand in the way of his resource rampage. This appears to be the real purpose of the imperial courtroom spectacle to come.

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The American blitzkrieg on Venezuela: No one is safe

Tarik Cyril Amar | RT.com

The military incursion and kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro shows how normalized the outrageous has become.

After five months - really two-and-a-half decades - of ever-escalating preparations by increasing diplomatic, economic, and clandestine warfare, the US has finally executed a full regime-change invasion in Venezuela. The final attack, focused on kidnapping the Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores from the capital Caracas, was short. But the campaign has certainly not been bloodless. While we know little about what exactly happened on the ground, Washington's perfectly criminal strikes on alleged smuggling boats at sea which served as the core of the attack's preparatory propaganda barrage, have already killed over 100 victims, not to speak of the overlooked victims of sanctions.

Then, what American officials have called a "large-scale strike" against Venezuela in the early hours of January 3 targeted not only Caracas but several locations throughout the country. For whatever reason, resistance to this "dark and deadly" (in President Donald Trump's words) operation, seems to have been minimal. In view of the long and very visible military buildup, as well as psychological warfare campaign that preceded these night raids, it is hard to believe that they came as a surprise. Betrayal, subversion, and secret, nasty deals may well have played a role.

While such things will probably remain murky for a while - or forever - other, more important aspects of the US invasion of Venezuela are unambiguously clear: It is absolutely, irredeemably illegal, a massive and open breach of the UN Charter's prohibition of wars of aggression. Even some of America's most loyal 'Atlanticist' vassals in Europe have to admit that much, for instance, a recent op-ed in Germany's ultra-mainstream Die Zeit newspaper.

Washington's pretexts are, as so often, flimsy insults to everyone with half a brain. Venezuela and Maduro are not contributing anything significant - if anything at all - to America's very own and never-ending drug problems, neither with regard to cocaine nor fentanyl. And Maduro's election in 2024 may have been fair or not. The decisive, conclusive point is that such issues must be dealt with inside a sovereign country and can never justify military intervention from outside. Or who is going to be next? Germany for the extremely dubious way (polite expression) its mainstream parties have locked the New-Left BSW out of parliament in what may well amount to a cold coup?

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Israel And Its Supporters Deliberately Foment Hate And Division In Our Society

Caitlin Johnstone | Israel-Palestine News

An influx of anti-Muslim and Islamophobic comments and content points towards the new wave of the Israeli media strategy – a strategy that has been around for quite a while.

I’ve noticed a lot of angry comments underneath my posts these past few days which bizarrely mention the words “Islam” and “Muslims” completely out of the blue.

“Why don’t you turn your attention sometimes to the genocidal intent of the radical Muslims, or does that suit your racist narrative?” reads one tweet.

“What can you say about Islamic Jihadists Muslims murdering thousands of Christians in Sudan and other parts of Africa?” reads another.

“The muslims must be irradicated,” reads another.

There are too many examples to quote here, but here’s what’s so funny about all this: I haven’t been saying anything about Islam or Muslims on Twitter — I’ve been tweeting about Israel. 

Hasbarists just babble about Islam when they can’t defend Israel’s actions.

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Ex-CIA Director Joins Board of Ukraine’s Largest Drone Company

Jeremy Kuzmarov | Covert Action Magazine

Mike Pompeo, CIA Director and Secretary of State in the first Trump administration, has long been a Ukraine war hawk, calling Russia’s actions genocide, stating that Crimea should be returned to Ukraine (when its people voted overwhelmingly to be part of Russia) and consistently advocating for increased military aid to Ukraine.

Pompeo’s tenure as CIA Director in 2017-2018 coincided with a significant expansion of the CIA’s involvement in Ukraine. The CIA set up 12 clandestine bases following the February 2014 CIA-backed Maidan coup that fueled the conflict with Russia.

In November, AP News reported that Pompeo had joined the advisory board of Ukraine’s leading defense company, Fire Point, which develops long-range drones capable of striking targets deep inside Russia.

At a press conference announcing his appointment, Pompeo said that his mission with the company was to help Fire Point become an important supplier for Western hardware [i.e., drones].”

CovertAction Magazine reported last February on how the CIA—going back to Pompeo’s time as Agency director—had played a key role in the development of Ukraine’s drone industry by making billion-dollar investments in it and sending intelligence officials to help out with it.

The same article detailed how Ukrainian drone strikes had struck oil refineries and gas processing plants, causing terrible environmental damage, and struck civilian infrastructure, including apartment buildings and hospitals, and killed three civilians walking on the street in the Belgorod border region.

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Five takeaways from the US' "special military operation" in Venezuela

Andrew Korybko

It was astoundingly successful and will likely serve to coerce the rest of the hemisphere into strategically capitulating to the US.

The US launched a half-hour-long "special military operation" in Venezuela on Saturday morning that culminated in Delta Force's capture of President Nicolas Maduro. Several military sites were bombed, US helicopters flew freely over Caracas in a surreal display of the US' aerial supremacy, and there were reportedly no US casualties. The US' "special military operation" was therefore an astounding success regardless of one's personal opinions about its merits. Here are five takeaways from this event:

1. The US' Grand Strategic Goal Is To Build "Fortress America"

It was assessed here that the National Security Strategy's prioritization of the Western Hemisphere is all about building "Fortress America", which refers to the restoration of the US' hegemony over the Americas in order for it to survive and even thrive if it loses control of the Eastern Hemisphere. It might not happen right away, but the US' "special military operation" will likely result in it obtaining control over Venezuela's oil reserves, the world's largest. That would help make "Fortress America" a reality.

2. Maduro Should Have Taken Trump's Deal In Hindsight

Trump earlier claimed that Maduro had "offered everything" to the US when asked about a report that the Venezuelan leader agreed to let American companies take control of his country's resources. The only sticking point appeared to be Maduro's political fate, with Trump wanting him to go into exile likely at the urging of Marco Rubio (his powerful Secretary of State and National Security Advisor), while Maduro seemingly refused. He should have taken Trump's deal in hindsight to avoid this humiliating end.

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U.S. strikes Venezuela and captures Maduro; Trump says "we're going to run the country" for now

Comment: Nothing to do with drug trafficking which the CIA has been involved in for decades. It's all about the oil. Trump has joined the same Zio-Con playbook as his predecessors. 

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CBS News

• President Trump said Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife were "captured and flown out of the Country" early Saturday morning, confirming a "large scale strike" by the U.S. that drew quick condemnation and concern from across the globe.
• Mr. Trump said in a press conference that the U.S. will "run" Venezuela on a temporary basis.
• The U.S. Army's Delta Force, an elite special forces unit, carried out the operation to capture Maduro, officials told CBS News.
• A Republican senator said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had indicated that Maduro would face criminal charges in the U.S., where he was indicted years ago, and that Rubio "anticipates no further action in Venezuela." The Trump administration has long accused Maduro of drug trafficking and working with gangs designated as terrorist organizations, which Maduro denies.
• The strikes follow months of U.S. military buildup in the region, with the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier and numerous other warships positioned in the Caribbean.
• In recent weeks, the U.S. has seized two oil tankers off Venezuela, launched deadly strikes on more than 30 boats the administration says were carrying drugs, and struck what President Trump called "the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs."

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Germany's economic collapse: A review of 2025 and what lies ahead

Thomas Kolbe | Zero Hedge

Germany's economy has endured a terrible 2025. Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government has set the course for further decline in the coming year.

If German politicians' salaries were linked to private sector growth, lawmakers would likely have to take out loans in the deeply recessive year of 2025 and compensate citizens for parliamentary inaction and ideological foolishness.

Although the term diät derives from the Latin dieta, loosely meaning "compensation," in the context of Germany's collapsing industry it more accurately reflects the German meaning: deserved frugality and material austerity. Economically, Germany is now facing the end of the illusion of prosperity, which follows the catastrophic policies of the government.

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The collapse of global norms: How 2026 is shaping a no-rules world

Taut Bataut | New Eastern Outlook

The world welcomes 2026 with intensified geopolitical and geo-economic tensions and persistent conflicts.

A Fracturing International Order and the Rise of a "No-Rules World"

As 2025 comes to an end, the world is replete with geo-economic and geopolitical tensions and ongoing regional conflicts. Amidst the world grappling with uncertainty and volatility, US President Donald Trump's America First unilateralist approach has further fueled global instability. The US-led so-called rules-based international system is bound to decline further in the coming months. Due to the United States' unilateralist policies, multilateralism would face further strain in 2026. Similarly, the Western global dominance will also decline further. However, the US-led Western nations will still continue to influence the international system.

On the other hand, the new Eastern superpowers, Russia and China, will have a greater role and power on the global stage. Nonetheless, volatility and instability will be the defining factors of the international landscape. In addition, the world would see a sharp rise in multipolarity, with middle powers playing an unprecedentedly increasing influence in shaping global geopolitics. Given the ongoing international events, the world will see a surge in shifting alliances, increasing unpredictability, and eroding regulations - leading to an unprecedented shift in the international geopolitical landscape.

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CIA taught Ukraine how to target Putin’s Achilles heel

Comment: Anyone who supports President Trump after he blessed this sabotage and his strikes against Venezuela must be delusional. Trump certainly deserved to be given the benefit of the doubt after the Russiagate hoax and January 6 psyops but unfortunately, he has proved to be just like all the other Presidents - wholly under the thumb of the Zio-cons. 

In the bin with you. 

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The Telegraph (UK)

Attacks on oil refineries have cost Moscow $75m a day, according to US intelligence

The CIA secretly taught Ukraine how to target crucial components of Russia's oil refining infrastructure and its sanction-busting shadow fleet, according to officials.

Despite Washington pulling back its support for Kyiv's war effort under the Trump administration, it has emerged that US intelligence and military officers continued to find new ways to stifle Vladimir Putin's war machine.

Since June, the CIA, with Donald Trump's blessing, has been covertly providing specific intelligence to bolster Ukraine's aerial offensive against oil refineries inside Russia, according to the officials.

The move came amid Mr Trump's growing frustration with Putin's unwillingness to negotiate while Russian forces accelerated attacks on Ukrainian cities.

The US has long shared intelligence with Kyiv that helps with attacks on Russian military targets in occupied parts of Ukraine and provides advanced warning of incoming Russian missiles and drones.

Under persuasion by Ukraine sceptics in the White House, led by JD Vance, the vice-president, and his allies, Mr Trump froze military aid in March and intelligence sharing was suspended as a result.

However, The New York Times, citing officials, said the CIA heavily lobbied for the agency to keep sharing intelligence.

Before summer, the impact of the strikes on Russia's energy infrastructure - which often hit storage depots or structures easily repaired - had been relatively minimal.

Under a new plan, crafted by the CIA and US military, the campaign was concentrated exclusively on oil refineries, targeting a newly found Achilles heel.

A CIA expert had identified a coupler device that is so difficult to replace that it could lead to a facility remaining shut for weeks.

The strikes became so successful that Russian oil refining was reduced by as much as a fifth on certain days, cutting exports and leading to domestic fuel shortages.

It was costing its economy an estimated $75m (£55m) a day, according to US intelligence.

In response, Mr Trump praised the strikes for the leverage and deniability they gave him as Putin continued to stonewall negotiations, according to the sources.

It was first reported in October that Washington was closely involved in the planning of such strikes, but it wasn't known that the CIA was responsible for the new focus of the campaign and identifying specific weaknesses in its energy infrastructure.

In late November, Ukraine also began a maritime campaign against Moscow's shadow fleet, a clandestine network of hundreds of vessels carrying sanctioned oil to keep the Russian economy afloat.

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US Electric Grid Heading Toward ‘Crisis’ Thanks to AI Data Centers

Brad Reed | Common Dreams

The massive energy needs of artificial intelligence data centers became a major political controversy in 2025, and new reporting suggests that it will grow even further in 2026.

CNBC reported on Thursday that data center projects have become political lightning rods among politicians ranging from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on the left to Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on the right.

However, objections to data centers aren’t just coming from politicians but from ordinary citizens who are worried about the impact such projects will have on their local environment and their utility bills.

CNBC noted that data centers’ energy needs are so great that PJM Interconnection, the largest US grid operator that serves over 65 million people across 13 states, projects that it will be a full six gigawatts short of its reliability requirements in 2027.

Joe Bowring, president of independent market monitor Monitoring Analytics, told CNBC that he’s never seen the grid under such projected strain.

“It’s at a crisis stage right now,” Bowring said. “PJM has never been this short.”

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The persecution of Colonel Jacques Baud: A hero in Europe's age of conformity

The Postil Magazine

In the shadowed theatre of contemporary European politics, where spectacle often substitutes for substance and moral posturing masks a vacuum of principle, the figure of Colonel Jacques Baud emerges not as a rabble-rouser, but as a profound and unsettling reflection. A former Swiss strategic intelligence officer, NATO planner, and United Nations peacekeeping expert, Baud is the antithesis of the caricatured dissident. His method is not the megaphone but the microscope; his weapon, not rhetoric, but evidence; his arena, not the public square, but the dispassionate realm of analysis.

Yet, for committing the most subversive act possible in our era — the insistence on thinking clearly and speaking truthfully about war, power, and the West's complicities — he has been systematically hounded, professionally ostracized, and publicly vilified. The persecution of Jacques Baud is not an anomaly; it is the diagnostic symptom of a Europe that has tragically confused democracy with docility, freedom with fealty to consensus, and its own enlightened values with a rigid, pusillanimous conformity. In an age that demands heroes of conviction over heroes of conquest, Baud stands as a necessary one, a man persecuted precisely for embodying the intellectual rigour Europe claims to revere.

I. The Crime of Independent Thought: From Analyst to Heretic

Jacques Baud's biography reads as a curriculum vitae of the ideal European technocrat. Swiss, multilingual, educated at elite military and diplomatic institutions, and seasoned in the complex labyrinths of NATO, the UN, and arms control, he represents the apotheosis of the continent's self-image: rational, cosmopolitan, pragmatic, and humane. This very pedigree, however, magnifies the perceived treachery of his conclusions. When such a man, trained within the system and privy to its inner workings, begins to articulate analyses that deviate from the sanctioned narrative, the system reacts not with intellectual engagement, but with institutional excommunication.

Baud's "crime" is a tripartite heresy against the new orthodoxy. First, in his analyses of the Ukrainian conflict, he refused the simplistic morality play of unalloyed good versus absolute evil. Drawing upon open-source intelligence, military history, and a nuanced understanding of post-Soviet geopolitics, he detailed the sequence of provocations, the Minsk Agreements' collapse, and the strategic miscalculations on all sides. He did not absolve Russian aggression, but he contextualized it within a longer chain of actions and reactions, arguing that understanding cause is not the same as excusing effect. For a media-political ecosystem demanding unequivocal condemnation, such nuance is intolerable.

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How Israel's Iron Dome Works (And Why It Doesn't Intercept Every Missile)

MSN

If you have watched any news coverage of Israel's conflicts against Hamas, Hezbollah, or Iran, you have likely seen Israel's "Iron Dome" airborne threat defense system in action. Raytheon, one of the developers of the defense system, claims that it's the "world's most used system" of its kind. Rafael, an Italian defense company that also develops the Iron Dome, says that it has made more than 5,000 successful interceptions over 14 years since it was first deployed in Israel.

So what is the Iron Dome? How does it work? And what are its shortcomings? First, Iron Dome is the brand name given to its tailor-made missile defense system. It was developed jointly by both Raytheon and Rafael in 2011 and, in basic terms, uses missiles to intercept other missiles. Additionally, it can be used to intercept smaller targets like individual mortars, short range rockets, and artillery shells. It has also proved effective in the ever-changing battle against drones. For threats at a higher altitude, the David's Sling defense system takes over.

How It Protects Against Threats

The Iron Dome doesn't describe a single missile or missile launcher. It's a system of different components that work together to make a "net" of sorts over Israel's cities or otherwise populated areas. Raytheon notes that, all told, there are 10 individual Iron Dome batteries located around Israel.

Each battery consists of missile launchers (either three or four launchers), a radar installation, and the actual missiles. Israel uses its own "Tamir" missile, supplying 20 per battery. The Tamir has the advantage of being comparatively inexpensive, reportedly between $40,000 and $50,000 for each missile. For reference, a Patriot surface-to-air missile can cost well over $3 million each.

Once a threat is detected by the Iron Dome's radar, it launches a Tamir missile to intercept. The missile is guided via not only a datalink to the radar system and Israel's missile operators, but also an onboard radar system. That means that once the missile is launched, if it loses connection with forces on the ground, it can still intercept.

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One excavator, 10,000 bodies, a sea of rubble: Inside Gaza's effort to retrieve and bury its dead

Tareq S. Hajjaj | Mondoweiss

Under the relative calm of a ceasefire, Civil Defense crews in Gaza are undertaking the monumental feat of recovering thousands of bodies still trapped under the rubble.

Fatima Salem waits outside anxiously, as rescue crews dig through the rubble of her family's home in Gaza City on December 15th. With bated breath, she clings to the hope that all 60 of her family members - brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and grandchildren - who were buried under the rubble after an Israeli airstrike targeted their building, will be rescued.

But this was not a typical rescue operation, and Fatima was not waiting for signs of life. She knew everyone was dead. That's because the airstrike on her family's home happened almost exactly two years ago, on December 19, 2023, just two months into the genocide.

The 60 members of the Salem family are some of an estimated 10,000 Palestinians whose bodies remain trapped under the extensive rubble across the Gaza Strip. Due to two years of active Israeli bombardment, the targeting and killing of civil defense crews, and the lack of heavy duty machinery required to excavate the tons of concrete rubble, rescue missions in Gaza have been largely stalled.

But on December 15, the Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip announced the start of a long recovery process of bodies that have remained under the rubble for two years. The operations are focused only on the areas in the Gaza Strip not actively being occupied by the Israeli military, which accounts for roughly half of the territory.

The first rescue mission was for the Salem family in Gaza City.

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Iran in ‘full-scale war’ with US and Europe, says president

The Independent

Iran’s president has claimed that his country is in an all-out war with the West, days before Donald Trump meets with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Masoud Pezeshkian said that the “full-scale war with the US, Israel and Europe” was worse than Iran’s war with Iraq in the 1980s, in which hundreds of thousands of people died.

“We are in a full-scale war with the US, Israel and Europe; they do not want our country to stand on its feet,” he said in the interview published on the website of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Saturday.

Mr Pezeshkian said the West’s war against Iran is “more complicated and more difficult” compared to the 1980-88 war with Iraq that left more than 1 million casualties on both sides.

“In the war with Iraq, the situation was clear: they fired missiles, and I also knew where to hit,” he explained. “Here, they are besieging us from every aspect, they are putting us in difficulty and constraint, creating problems – in terms of livelihood, culturally, politically, and security-wise – while raising society’s expectations. 

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