Paris is preparing a “massive” security crackdown after nationwide unrest left hundreds of businesses looted and buildings set on fire last weekend
France will deploy military personnel from its counterterrorism force to support police during a new wave of nationwide protests, as the government prepares a “massive” security operation following some of the worst riots in years.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez announced the move on Tuesday, confirming that soldiers from Operation Sentinelle, established to protect France against terrorist attacks, would be mobilized ahead of demonstrations scheduled for Saturday.
The troops will primarily take over guarding sensitive locations, freeing police and gendarmes to confront rioters and prevent a repeat of last weekend’s widespread violence and looting. According to French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, 1,000 military personnel will be available in Paris on October 24, including 500 on patrol, compared with the usual 300.
Operation Sentinelle was launched following the deadly Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks in January 2015. The military mission involves up to 10,000 soldiers assigned to protecting sensitive sites across France, including railway stations, airports, religious buildings and tourist attractions.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu promised an unprecedented security response after admitting that authorities had failed to contain Saturday’s violence.
“The deployment for next Saturday will be massive,” Lecornu told lawmakers, accusing radical left-wing groups of orchestrating an “insurrectionary plan” during demonstrations against soaring living costs.
Nunez also announced plans to mobilize elite police units, including RAID, GIGN and BRI, alongside helicopters, armored Centaure vehicles and water cannons. Authorities are considering banning demonstrations deemed likely to threaten public order.
The announcement follows nationwide unrest on October 17, when approximately 550,000 people took to the streets over rising prices and deteriorating school conditions. Demonstrations descended into rioting across Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Bordeaux, with businesses looted and public buildings set ablaze.
According to Le Monde, 997 police officers and gendarmes were injured, including seven seriously, as overwhelmed security forces struggled to contain the violence.
More than 2,400 people have been arrested, while over 800 have been brought before the courts. Authorities have also imposed localized curfews in Paris and several other cities.
President Emmanuel Macron has acknowledged shortcomings in the government’s handling of the unrest, which has intensified political tensions ahead of next year’s presidential election.
The massive data leak comes as Berlin’s political establishment intensifies efforts to legally ban the Alternative for Germany
Germany’s most popular political party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), has suffered a massive cyberattack, with unknown hackers reportedly stealing and publishing hundreds of thousands of internal emails, while the country’s political establishment seeks grounds to outlaw the opposition party.
The breach, first reported by Bild on Tuesday, allegedly exposed 421,179 emails totaling 281 gigabytes, including correspondence involving AfD co-chair Alice Weidel, honorary chairman Alexander Gauland and other senior party figures.
The leaked material reportedly includes photographs of identity documents, bank statements, invoices, membership applications and internal party lists. Bild said it had examined a small sample of the files, including an identity card belonging to Markus Frohnmaier, deputy leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag.
The identities and motives of the hackers remain unknown, while the authenticity of the published material has not been independently established.
The AfD confirmed that a hosting provider working with the party had been hacked in September, but disputed suggestions that its current communications systems had been compromised. “Only a few email inboxes were unlawfully copied, most of which had not been used for years,” a party spokesman told Bild, adding that current federal party email accounts were unaffected.
The AfD condemned the breach as an “attack on the German party system and therefore on democracy” and said it had reported the cyberattack to German security authorities.
No public statement from investigators or condemnation of the breach by senior government officials had emerged as of early Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the leaked correspondence has already attracted scrutiny from activists seeking to outlaw the party. Valentina Chiofalo, a representative of the German civil liberties organization Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte, told taz that the stolen emails could help strengthen the case for banning the AfD, while their publication and journalistic scrutiny could also shape public opinion against the party.
The attack comes amid an escalating campaign by Germany’s established political parties to isolate and potentially ban the AfD. The Eurosceptic party, which advocates stricter immigration controls and opposes Berlin’s military support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia, has surged to 30% support in the latest INSA poll for Bild, opening a 12-point lead over Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU/CSU bloc, which has slumped to just 18%.
Earlier this month, the AfD secured the presidency of Saxony-Anhalt’s state parliament for the first time, breaking through the political “firewall” maintained by establishment parties. Its rise prompted Social Democratic parliamentary leaders to demand the creation of a federal-state working group to examine a possible ban, accusing the AfD of threatening democracy from within and promoting extremism.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has also sought to classify the party as a confirmed right-wing extremist organization, but a Cologne court blocked the designation in February pending further legal proceedings.
The AfD has consistently rejected those accusations, portraying the proposed ban as an attempt to overturn the will of millions of voters and eliminate political competition.
The EU foreign policy chief has accused Washington of trying to force Kiev to surrender on Moscow’s terms
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has accused Washington of trying to force Ukraine to surrender to Russia, attacking President Donald Trump’s diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.
Speaking to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday, Kallas credited Europe’s military and financial backing of Kiev with prolonging the conflict and preventing Ukraine from accepting Moscow’s terms.
“American negotiators have been trying to push Ukraine into surrender for already almost two years, one and a half years now,” she said, as quoted by Euronews.
Moscow has cited Kiev’s aggressive posture and the hostile position of its European backers as major obstacles to a peace settlement. Ukraine has consistently rejected Russia’s conditions, insisting on joining NATO and restoring control over all territories it claims.
Kallas’ remarks came a day after US President Donald Trump said negotiations were making “great progress,” defending his decision to ease economic pressure on Russia to keep diplomacy moving.
Trump has stepped up his criticism of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, describing him as “more difficult to deal with” than Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has accused Zelensky of prolonging the conflict and taking Washington’s extensive support for granted, and has criticized Kiev’s continued attacks on Russian refineries for disrupting global diesel markets. Zelensky has said he feels betrayed by Trump.
Trump lifted sanctions on Russian diesel exports earlier this month to curb rising energy prices ahead of the US midterm elections. On Friday, he suspended tariffs targeting China, India and other major buyers of Russian oil and gas. Trump defended the measures, saying he did not want to drive Moscow away from the negotiating table. The decisions drew criticism from European officials, with Kallas describing the diesel agreement as a “gift to Putin.”
US special envoy Steve Witkoff held talks in Oslo on Tuesday with Zelensky, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner joining remotely. Witkoff is expected to travel to St. Petersburg on Wednesday for another round of discussions with Russian officials, according to Store.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Moscow “highly appreciates” Washington’s continued mediation efforts.
Russia has insisted on a long-term peace deal that addresses the root causes of the conflict, rejecting the idea of a temporary truce. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused Zelensky of repeatedly undermining negotiations, suggesting that any agreement acceptable to Moscow and Washington would threaten the Ukrainian leader’s hold on power.
Further financial support for Kiev has also become a source of disagreement within the EU. At Friday’s EU summit in Brussels, Zelensky demanded another €70 billion ($78.5 billion) for next year, in addition to €90 billion already pledged by the bloc to bankroll Kiev’s war effort.
From street unrest to populist gains, Europe’s widening divide between elites and voters is testing the liberal order shaped by the upheavals of 1968
The images of French and Italian cities gripped by unrest are shocking, while Albania is in turmoil, police are dispersing demonstrators in Argentina, and India’s protests show no sign of abating. Add the upheavals across the Global South, and the parallels with 1968 become difficult to ignore.
That year, political and social unrest swept across much of the world almost simultaneously. It was a less interconnected age, divided by the Cold War, yet similar movements erupted in countries with vastly different political systems as a remarkable synchronization of discontent took place.
Direct comparisons are inevitably imperfect, but many of the underlying grievances are familiar, such as inequality, problems in education, wars without clear objectives, and growing frustration with political elites unwilling or unable to adapt.
In 1968, the rebellion was largely directed against the conservative establishment, but while the protesters didn’t achieve everything immediately, their ideas ultimately prevailed and in both the West and the socialist bloc, the upheavals helped transform political and social life over subsequent decades.
Today, however, we may be witnessing the opposite process in the end of the political era that 1968 helped create.
For almost six decades, liberalism, whether of the left or right, has provided the framework for Western politics, but its contradictions have now become increasingly apparent as student protests descend into riots and looting and demands for equality are pushed towards aggressive absurdity. Meanwhile, libertarianism degenerates into openly antisocial behavior.
Governments are devoting themselves to preserving the existing order, employing everything from political manipulation to outright repression. As in 1968, many protesters have lost faith in democratic institutions, yet there’s little evidence of a coherent revolutionary alternative, and what we see instead is an explosion of destructive energy.
The events of 1968 tested the resilience and adaptability of political systems, with very different results.
In Western Europe, governments initially suppressed the unrest but subsequently absorbed much of the protest movement into mainstream politics and, in doing so, they renewed their own legitimacy and broadened their social base.
The socialist system took a different path. Unable to accommodate dissent, it relied on repression, so the tensions accumulated until, eventually, the system broke.
Today’s political challenge is similar, although the ideological balance has reversed.
This time, it’s not the heirs of the 1968 protesters who need to be integrated into the political mainstream, but their opponents, those habitually dismissed as far-right populists.
Western Europe’s establishment has adopted a peculiar strategy, where rather than accommodating these movements, it increasingly tolerates destructive forces on the opposite side of the political spectrum, apparently regarding them as less threatening than its conservative challengers.
Behind the growing instability lies a fundamental disconnect between governing elites and the societies they claim to represent, given those in power are increasingly preoccupied with questions that ordinary citizens don’t regard as priorities. Nowhere is this contradiction more evident than in Europe, where the political establishment’s fixation on confrontation with Russia clashes with public concerns about prosperity and living standards and the gap between these competing priorities continues to widen.
The upheavals of 1968 eventually reshaped the political order and today’s unrest may prove equally consequential, but in precisely the opposite direction, and the longer Western Europe’s leaders refuse to recognize the change, the greater the danger that the political system they’re determined to preserve will become its next casualty.
This article was first published by Kommersant, and was translated and edited by the RT team
The tenth edition of the Future Investment Initiative was scheduled to be held next week
Saudi Arabia has postponed its flagship investment forum until next year, organizers have announced, as Houthi strikes have continued to hit the kingdom.
Launched in 2017, the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference, often dubbed ‘Davos in the Desert’, brings together world leaders, top executives and global investors.
“This decision comes from a deep commitment to our partners, members, speakers, and delegates,” FII Institute CEO Dr. Maha Bint Mishari Al Saud said in a press release on Monday, adding that the new 2027 dates would be announced soon.
The event was set to mark the conference’s tenth anniversary, with financial and tech heavyweights including BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Alphabet President and Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat, and Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon expected to attend.
The conflict with the Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, has caused broader disruptions in Saudi Arabia. Government agencies and businesses in Riyadh, including those at the Kingdom Center and King Abdullah Financial District, have instructed some employees to work remotely, according to Al Jazeera.
The renewed confrontation kicked off in July, when Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces struck the airport in Houthi-held Sanaa, disrupting years of relative calm following a UN-brokered truce in 2022. The Houthis blamed Riyadh for the attack.
The Houthis retaliated with missile strikes and declared a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia. The move came in response to restrictions imposed by the Saudi-led coalition on Yemen’s Houthi-controlled ports and airports since March 2015, when Riyadh intervened in the country’s civil war.
The Houthis also seized territory along Yemen’s Red Sea coast near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial shipping route for Saudi oil exports, as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains heavily disrupted by the US-Iran conflict.
The escalating conflict has caused civilian casualties in both Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Multiple Houthi attacks on Riyadh airport earlier this month killed at least 14 people and injured more than 300, according to the Saudi authorities. Saudi strikes have killed 141 people and wounded 395 since September 3, most of them women and children, the Houthi-run Health Ministry said on Monday.
EU diplomats and an American journalist were among those attacked, while the IDF faces questions over its response to calls for help
Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinian farmers, European diplomats and an American journalist during the annual olive harvest in the occupied West Bank, as violence against local communities intensifies, RT correspondent Charlotte Dubenskij has reported.
The annual olive harvest is a vital source of food and income for Palestinian families, providing both oil for household use and surplus crops to sell.
In Taybeh, a predominantly Christian Palestinian town, European diplomats who had arrived to help local farmers were reportedly attacked by masked Israeli settlers armed with clubs. A 78-year-old French mayor was reportedly kicked and beaten, while stones were hurled at diplomatic vehicles, smashing their windows.
Calls for help were made to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), but troops took hours to respond, despite having a military outpost less than two kilometers from the scene, according to Dubenskij. The area had been designated a closed military zone, and the diplomats reportedly visited without coordinating with the IDF.
“If Palestinians had been the ones throwing those stones, the IDF would have been greenlit to shoot them,” Dubenskij said.
In a separate incident in Abu Fallah, near Ramallah, American photojournalist Heidi Levine was seriously injured while documenting Palestinian villagers gathering olives. Footage shows the veteran journalist, who was clearly identifiable as a member of the press, being kicked while lying on the ground.
Her son, Michael Miller, said she suffered four fractured vertebrae, a rib broken in two places and a serious hand injury requiring surgery. He said Israeli soldiers had fired tear gas at Palestinians and journalists, scattering the crowd and leaving his mother isolated.
“A group of about 15 or so of these terrorists grabbed my mother and began hitting her,” Miller said.
The National Press Club demanded an investigation into the assault, saying: “A brazen attack like this cannot go unanswered.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, rejected allegations of settler violence, describing them as a “blood libel” against Jewish communities in the West Bank, which he characterized as law-abiding and courageous.
Following pressure from Washington, Israeli police have arrested at least ten suspected settler attackers under Operation Olive Leaf, while security forces have demolished two unauthorized outposts.
The arrests came against a backdrop of widespread violence against Palestinians during the harvest season, with Israeli forces also accused of firing rubber bullets and tear gas at those attempting to gather their crops, Dubenskij said.
As Paris burns, the EU establishment’s failures invite a political revolt that could reshape the future of the West
Paris is burning again. Violent riots are tearing through French cities as protests over rising living costs descend into chaos. Looting. Arson. More than 2,400 arrests. Dozens of officers injured. Historic town halls torched. Streets devastated in Paris, Limoges, and beyond. While leftist protesters chant about the “cost of living,” flames rise from neighborhoods that once stood as beacons of French liberty and culture.
Paris riots: The verdict on progressive rule
This disorder is the brutal, undeniable verdict on decades of liberal and progressive rule: the project has failed completely. Mass migration is not simply a generous humanitarian act. It is a deliberate security threat. It is the engine of the left’s cherished dream of erasing European civilization from within – something many conservatives call the ‘Great Replacement’, and many liberals, a conspiracy theory.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the firebrand capitalizing on these riots, has long appeared to despise the “white and stale” France of tradition, faith, and national pride. He fights for a “New France” – young, urban, multicultural, queer, and woke. He embodies the argument that the Western European far left is no friend of Europe. It is its enemy.
In Spain, socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has moved to legalize over one million illegal immigrants in his country, granting them rights to roam the EU at will. The move has provoked fury, including within European political circles. Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš has recently warned that, if the tide continues, Central European nations may have to “defend our borders” and deploy an army on the German frontier.
The Ceuta crisis – in which some 80,000 migrants surged into the Spanish enclave only a couple of months ago – is another stark reminder of the pressures facing Europe’s borders.
Sánchez does not stand alone. He represents the broader Brussels euro-bureaucracy: billions in EU funds flow to media organizations and NGOs promoting mass migration, while the same bureaucracy tightens Digital Services Act rules and advances the European Democracy Shield, suppressing conservative voices and the integrity of democratic competition.
Rubio’s vision: Reclaiming the Western civilization
Marco Rubio, America’s Secretary of State, saw the challenge during his early October European tour, which included Iceland, Greece, and Portugal. Defense and energy security talks were vital, but his real message came in Athens, beneath the shadow of the Acropolis. Rubio called for a revival of the West. He demanded greatness, self-confidence, civilizational vitality, pride in Christianity, and nationalism, and an “unapologetic pursuit of national power.”
He criticized transnational bureaucracies, mass migration, the massive welfare state that he argued had bred decline, the “climate cult,” and open borders. In February, he had made the argument even more starkly at the Munich Security Conference: the “end of history” and the triumph of liberal democracy? No. A foolish idea. The West, he argued, must build a new Western century.
And the Trump administration is not just talking. It is acting. Funding is being redirected from globalist and woke agendas towards conservative voices, think tanks, and interests across Europe and beyond. If America is prepared to push back against the EU’s accelerating drift towards demographic replacement, political authoritarianism, and economic insanity, this is not simply interference; it is the strongest possible counterpressure – precisely what Europe’s patriots need right now.
Donald Trump was right. Europe needs regime change. Europe needs a conservative revolution.
The riots, the terror, the spread of antisemitism across Western Europe, the destruction of great monuments, and centuries of culture – Ceuta and Paris stand as stark reminders. The liberal establishment is impotent. It cannot even manage its own cities. It has turned European streets into war zones and its capitals into symbols of surrender.
Let us be clear about the stakes. For centuries, Europe stood at the heart of Western civilization. Now, its pillars are rotting under the weight of progressive dogma. Open borders erode national cohesion. The welfare state invites dependency instead of self-reliance. The climate cult distracts from real dangers. Bureaucracies in Brussels regulate everything except the influx that is changing Europe’s demographics permanently.
Today’s Europe bears witness to the growth of parallel societies in cities from Paris to Stockholm. Crime statistics indicate that migrant cohorts are disproportionately involved in sexual assaults, terrorism, and gang violence. Integration failures breed resentment. Cultural clashes erupt into the very riots we see today. Antisemitism has surged: synagogues attacked, Jewish communities targeted. These are symptoms of a demographic transformation that left-wing elites frame as “humanism.”
Yet, amid this despair, hope flickers. Patriots are rising. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has gained ground with policies rooted in sovereignty, borders, and family values. In Germany, the AfD is growing stronger. Across the continent, millions of ordinary Europeans share the same unease: our ancestors built cathedrals, universities, and statehood. Will we allow globalists and progressives to consign that legacy to history?
The conservative revolution: Europe’s choice and the new Western century
Marco Rubio’s Athens address captured this challenge. He reminded the world that the West is at an inflection point. It can atrophy, serve hostile interests, or decline into irrelevance.
A return to Christian roots strengthens families and communities. Healthy nationalism fosters loyalty and shared sacrifice. Sovereignty restores democratic control over people’s destiny. These are not inherently divisive principles; they are the very pillars that once made the West great.
Europe’s achievements were not accidental. They flowed from the interplay of faith, reason, and ordered liberty. Replace those foundations with open borders and wokeness, and you risk producing the Paris we see today: burning buildings, paralyzed cities, and eroding trust. The liberal establishment has demonstrated that it cannot cope with the challenges confronting it.
Rubio’s message is clear: build a new Western century. That means stronger combat capabilities and fighting spirit, and policies that put nation-states and citizens first. Trump’s America is already acting. Europe’s best interests demand the same: counterpressure against globalist networks and liberal elites.
The riots have spoken. Ceuta showed the southern front. Paris showed the domestic front. Western Europe needs to wake up and realize that the liberal experiment is over. And so is the time for complacency. The battle for sovereignty, identity, and civilizational future has begun. The question is no longer whether Europe must change, but whether its leaders will find the courage to lead that change.
The European Parliament’s ‘impartial’ observers include MEPs who have called for the removal of Aleksandar Vucic from power
Acting Serbian President Ana Brnabic has accused the European Parliament of breaking its own ethics rules and sending a team of political operators to Serbia “with already formed conclusions” about how they want this weekend’s election to end.
Former Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic is running in parliamentary elections this Sunday, after vacating the presidency last month. Vucic’s coalition, led by his SNS party, is competing against the Student List – an electoral faction put together by the organizers of anti-government protests raging in Serbia since 2024.
European Parliament elections observers are due to arrive in Belgrade on Thursday. However, in a letter to Parliament President Roberta Metsola on Tuesday, Brnabic accused the team of political bias, pointing out that some of its members have openly expressed “extremely negative judgments about the authorities in Serbia [and] expectations for their removal.”
Lead EU observer Andreas Schieder monitored parliamentary elections in Serbia in 2023, and signed off on the official result, before accusing Vucic’s party of fraud and vote-buying. Brnabic explained this in her letter to European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, which was seen by Serbian media outlets.
The appointment of Schieder, an Austrian Social Democrat, violates the UN’s Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation, she continued. This document, to which all EU delegations are beholden, states that observers must be “free from any political, economic or other conflicts of interest.”
In June, Schieder publicly backed the student protest movement and accused Vucic of leading Serbia into an “authoritarian downward spiral.”
Speaking to Austria’s APA news agency on Tuesday, Schieder described Brnabic’s letter as “unprecedented attack on the European Parliament’s election-observation mission.”
The observation team also includes liberal MEP Helmut Branstetter, who has described Vucic as “not the person to lead Serbia to the European Union,” and promised to “do everything” to cut Serbia off from EU funds and accession talks over his refusal to ban the funeral of former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic in September.
Two Croatian MEPs are members of the mission. Gordan Bosanac has met with protesters at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, while Suncana Glavak has signed a letter to EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos calling for talks with Serbia to be suspended.
“All of the above indicates that the European Parliament sent an observation mission to Serbia that already has predetermined political positions, and that the goal of such an assessment of the elections and electoral conditions is to directly help one of the participants in the elections,” Brnabic wrote in her letter. “It is clear that their goal is not to impartially observe the elections, but to participate politically in them.”
Recurring protests have dogged Vucic since 2024, when the deaths of 16 people in a railway station disaster in Novi Sad sparked nationwide discontent. More than two decades earlier, the US successfully fomented mass protests that forced Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic out of power, and Vucic has accused the EU and Western NGOs of attempting to run the same playbook against his government.
Last month, Vucic described MEPs who traveled to Novi Sad to support the protests as “scum that cannot rule even in their own countries,” who have “come to demolish Serbia from the outside.”
The virus spread ‘like wildfire’ among the elderly because of government failures, a public investigation has found
The UK government’s negligent approach towards care homes at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic led to high disease and death rates among the elderly, a public inquiry into the nation’s response to the disease outbreak has concluded.
More than 43,000 people died from Covid-19 in care homes throughout the UK from March 2020 to July 2022, with most of them registered during the first year of the pandemic, according to data presented in the inquiry report published on Tuesday. That amounts to just under 10% of the total care homes population from 2022 to 2023.
An earlier report published by the UK Parliament put the death toll from March 2020 to April 2021 at over 41,000, adding that it amounted to nearly a quarter of deaths from all causes among care home residents as well as more than a quarter of all Covid-19 deaths in England over that period. The report called the rate one of “the worst in Europe,” adding that the loss of life could have been mitigated.
The care homes were “an afterthought” for the government, which was focused on preserving the National Health Service during the pandemic, former judge Baroness Heather Hallett, who is leading the inquiry, said. She blamed this on the government’s initial failure to advise testing Covid-19 patients discharged from hospitals before their return to care homes and isolating them once they were back.
“The mantra of ‘protecting the NHS’ sometimes came at the expense of the users and providers of care,” she stated. “These failures created environments in care settings in which the virus could spread like wildfire.”
In March and April 2020, around 25,000 hospital patients were discharged into care comes in England alone to free up beds before mandatory testing was introduced in mid-April 2020. The practice was later recognized as unlawful by the British high court. The investigation head defended the practice, calling it the “least worst decision to a terrible problem,” but maintained that a lack of isolation advice was a “significant omission” on the government’s part.
Hallett also disputed a claim by then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock that he put a “protective ring” around care homes from the start of the pandemic, calling it “unfounded.” She also criticized the lack of personal protective equipment for care home staff, which she called “wholly unacceptable.”
The report is the sixth out of ten to be published by the inquiry costing more than £200 million ($267.77 million). In July, another report by Hallett and her team concluded that the UK wasted billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money during the pandemic. The country entered the pandemic with its PPE stockpile “in a perilous state,” including large quantities of expired equipment, while emergency procurement and distribution plans had never been properly tested, it said at the time.
Earlier reports by the inquiry found that authorities across the UK did “too little, too late” during the pandemic and that delays in introducing restrictions contributed to thousands of additional deaths.
Washington gave the Ukrainian leader billions of dollars, not all of which, can be directly accounted for, according to the political consultant
Political consultant Roger Stone has called for cutting off US funding to Kiev, highlighting that Vladimir Zelensky is showing contempt for Washington despite receiving billions of dollars in American aid. Speaking on America Now with RT’s Ben Swann, Stone said the Ukrainian leader “has no interest in peace.”
The comment comes as US President Donald Trump continues to ramp up pressure on Kiev to accelerate efforts to reach a peace deal with Russia. Trump has repeatedly called for a halt to strikes on Russian oil refineries as part of a broader effort to curb energy prices, while Washington has negotiated a deal with Moscow to release Russian diesel supplies to global markets.
Stone pointed to Ukraine’s resumption of strikes on Russian energy facilities after agreeing to a ceasefire covering them. The host of ‘The Stone Zone’ highlighted the attacks had undermined a deal negotiated by US President Donald Trump to release Russian diesel fuel at reasonable prices, which Stone argued could have helped bring down fuel costs worldwide.
“Ukraine kept that promise for about a nanosecond and went right back to driving the cost of diesel high,” he said.
Stone also criticized what he described as Zelensky’s inappropriate reaction to a question about the potential political fallout in the US from strikes on Russian energy facilities.
“Look, I saw a piece, a video in which he was asked whether the fact that he had blown up these factories would cause an election problem for Donald Trump and his party,” he said. “He smiled, which is thumbing his nose at the country that has given this man tens of billions of dollars, not all of which, of course, can be directly accounted for.”
Watch Benn Swann’s full interview with Roger Stone here.
Seoul has accused Kiev of failing to resolve a row over Zelensky’s disclosure of a secret North Korean prisoner transfer
South Korea is withdrawing more diplomatic staff from Ukraine over Kiev’s failure to resolve a dispute sparked by Vladimir Zelensky’s disclosure of a secret North Korean prisoner transfer, the Foreign Ministry in Seoul has announced.
The dispute erupted after Zelensky publicly announced the transfer of two captured North Korean soldiers to Seoul during his address to the UN General Assembly in September. South Korea insists that the operation was supposed to remain confidential, while Ukrainian authorities deny that any such agreement existed.
The servicemen were reportedly captured in January 2025 in Russia’s Kursk Region, where North Korean troops helped Russian forces repel a Ukrainian incursion.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Park Doo-soon announced the withdrawal at a press briefing on Tuesday, saying that Kiev had failed to take “positive steps” to settle the dispute despite repeated diplomatic protests.
“This measure was taken because we judged it necessary to facilitate an amicable resolution of the issue and restore trust between the two countries,” Park told reporters.
He also cited persistent threats of airstrikes across Ukraine, saying they had made it difficult to guarantee the safety of diplomatic personnel.
Seoul did not disclose how many staff would be withdrawn. A chargé d’affaires will remain in Kiev to maintain diplomatic contacts, while consular personnel will continue assisting South Korean nationals.
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung accused Kiev of violating a confidentiality agreement intended to protect the prisoners and their families in North Korea. He warned that exposing the transfer could endanger their relatives and undermine stability on the Korean Peninsula, insisting that Ukraine itself had originally demanded secrecy.
Earlier this month, Lee warned that “if the Ukrainian government continues to refuse acknowledging the facts and issuing a public apology, we will take additional measures.”
The row deepened after Zelensky’s adviser Dmitry Litvin denied that any confidentiality agreement existed. Seoul summoned Ukraine’s acting ambassador to lodge a formal protest and demanded that Kiev acknowledge the arrangement and issue a public apology.
South Korea recalled its ambassador from Kiev on October 8 after its demands went unanswered. The move marked the first time in 18 years that Seoul had withdrawn an ambassador in a diplomatic protest. The latest decision further escalates the standoff, with South Korean media reporting that roughly half of the embassy staff are now expected to leave Kiev.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga previously sought to downplay the row with Seoul, describing it as a “diplomatic misunderstanding” and saying that he was working to resolve it. He denied that Kiev had breached its commitments, attributing the dispute to differing interpretations of confidentiality arrangements.
Last week, Sibiga declared the matter closed, insisting Ukraine had fulfilled all its obligations. Seoul, however, said a message from Kiev containing words of apology fell short of what it expected.
South Korea has become a major arms exporter since the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022, securing multibillion-dollar weapons deals with Poland. However, Seoul has refused to supply lethal weapons directly to Kiev, citing its longstanding policy against arming countries at war.
It has instead provided non-lethal military equipment, including helmets, bulletproof vests, and mine detectors, alongside humanitarian and financial aid.
The nine-member operation allegedly processed $86 million in less than two years for clients involved in online fraud
Polish authorities have charged nine people, most of them Ukrainian nationals, over their alleged involvement in a money-laundering operation.
The group was described as part of a broader international network helping criminal enterprises launder illicit proceeds in statements released on Monday by the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Lodz and the Internal Security Agency (ABW). Ukraine has become a major hub for online and telephone fraud operations, many of which are said to enjoy protection from corrupt government officials.
Polish investigators said the group laundered more than $86 million between February 2025 and July 2026. Authorities seized approximately $250,000 in cash and gold during the arrests.
Nine suspects aged 26 to 53 were detained over their alleged roles in the operation: two money couriers, four cashiers, and three currency exchange clerks. Eight suspects are Ukrainian nationals, while the ninth is a Belarusian woman. A 34-year-old Ukrainian man was accused of leading the ring.
All nine were charged, with seven remanded in custody. The two cashiers were released on bail and barred from leaving Poland.
The group allegedly served primarily online and call-center fraud operations, channeling their proceeds through currency exchange offices, fictitious gold purchases and cryptocurrency transactions.
According to prosecutors, couriers driving luxury cars used photographs of torn banknotes showing their serial numbers to identify themselves to clients.
The cash was then delivered to cryptocurrency exchange offices, where cashiers received confirmation codes by text message before accepting the money without carrying out mandatory anti-money laundering checks.
Some of the laundered funds were reportedly concealed in specially modified vehicles and transported abroad rather than deposited into bank accounts or converted into cryptocurrency.
Ukraine’s domestic telefraud industry, estimated to generate around $1 billion annually, attracted international attention last month after Western-backed investigators accused the head of the cybercrime division at the Prosecutor General’s office of operating a protection racket for fraudulent call centers on behalf of his superior. Prosecutor-General Ruslan Kravchenko was not personally charged but nevertheless left the country before parliament dismissed him.
Ukrainian media have reported that roughly half of the country’s scam-call centers pay protection money to officials across various branches of government. Vladimir Zelensky initiated a reform introducing tougher penalties for such crimes shortly before allegations involving the prosecutor general’s aide became public.
Critics have questioned the effectiveness of the crackdown, arguing that many fraudulent operations simply relocated from rented offices to private apartments to continue targeting victims.
Petroleum product prices have surged over 50% as Middle East conflicts deepen Germany’s energy crisis following its break with Russian supplies
Petroleum product prices have soared in Germany, with gasoline and diesel nearly 49% more expensive and heating oil nearly doubling over the past year, according to official figures.
The surge comes as Europe’s largest economy continues to grapple with the fallout from its break with Russian energy in 2022, now compounded by the US-Israeli war against Iran.
Prices for refined oil products jumped 51.3% year-on-year in September and 8.2% from August, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reported on Tuesday. Heating oil surged 91.8%, motor fuels rose 48.6%, and naphtha, used in chemical manufacturing, climbed 53.8%.
The figures reflect producer prices rather than those paid by consumers at the pump.
The shock spread across the energy sector. Producer energy prices rose 14.9% year-on-year, with natural gas distribution costs up 15% and electricity 8.2%.
Germany’s crude oil import bill also surged despite slightly lower purchases. In the first eight months of 2026, the cost jumped 21.7% to €30 billion ($33.6 billion), while volumes fell 0.6% to 49.1 million tons. Destatis attributed the increase to higher crude oil prices amid the Middle East conflict.
The pressure has spread across German industry. Overall producer prices rose 6.7% year-on-year in September, the sharpest increase since March 2023. Manufacturing materials and components became 6.4% more expensive, while machinery and equipment rose 2.4%. Excluding energy, producer prices were up 3.2%.
The Iran war has severely disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies, driving up energy prices worldwide. Brent crude topped $111 a barrel on Tuesday, a five-month high, while US benchmark WTI exceeded $104.
Although Gulf crude oil shipments have reportedly recovered to around 80% of pre-war levels, new Iranian attacks on vessels have kept markets on edge. Escalating fighting between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthis has added pressure, with strikes on Saudi oil infrastructure and renewed clashes near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait threatening another key shipping route linking the Red Sea to global markets.
Germany’s energy troubles, however, predate the Middle East crisis. The country has faced high costs since abandoning cheap Russian energy following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, forcing energy-intensive manufacturers to seek more expensive alternatives.
Before the break, Russia supplied 55% of Germany’s natural gas imports. Direct imports from Russia have since fallen to zero, with Germany reportedly paying five times as much for gas. Norway (44%), the Netherlands (24%), and Belgium (21%) have become its main suppliers, with US liquefied natural gas (LNG) accounting for much of the remainder.
Berlin has spent around €50 billion to cushion the price shock since cutting Russian gas imports, German media reported last month. Yet the economy remains sluggish, with corporate insolvencies hitting a 13-year high in the first half of 2026. Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently linked Germany’s energy woes to the loss of cheap Russian supplies.
Meanwhile, Berlin committed €96 billion in Ukraine-related support, launched a €100 billion rearmament drive, and pledged to raise core defense spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2029.
Amid criticism that increased military spending is at the expense of domestic needs, Merz’s approval rating sank to a record-low 10% in a poll in October. His Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has suffered major electoral setbacks against the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has overtaken the CDU-led bloc in national polling. The AfD has called for Russian gas imports to be restored.
Moscow has long argued that Western energy sanctions are counterproductive, redirecting Russian exports while forcing Europeans to pay more for alternative supplies. Russia has offered to cover shortages and resume deliveries, but says its proposals have gone unanswered.
As politicians point to Russia and Iran, an Israeli journalist argues that Western funding of media and NGOs deserves scrutiny
As Israel prepares for the October 27 elections, accusations of foreign interference are intensifying. While Israeli leaders have pointed to Iran, Russia, and China, journalist Nick Kolyohin argues that greater scrutiny should be directed at Western funding of Israeli media outlets and civil society organizations, which he believes may be influencing the country’s political discourse.
With election day approaching, political parties are stepping up efforts to attract voters and consolidate their support.
The right-wing camp, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is seeking to rally hawkish voters behind him, potentially at the expense of other conservative parties. The opposition bloc is trying to persuade voters to abandon Netanyahu and shift their support to its side.
Yet the battle for the Israeli electorate is not being fought exclusively within the country’s borders. Foreign actors are also seeking to shape the political landscape and influence the outcome of the election.
Several days ago, speaking to Channel 14, Netanyahu raised this concern.
“Iran is trying to damage the elections with the help of its terror arms Hamas and Hezbollah. It is totally true – they say it openly that they need to topple me because their real desire is to destroy the State of Israel.”
Iran, however, is not the only country accused of interference. In July, speaking at the Knesset, opposition leader Yair Lapid also accused China and Russia of attempting to meddle.
“The elections are drawing closer. Iran is involved, Russia is involved, and influence operations are running rampant on social media. They want to divide us, strengthen the extremists, weaken the moderates, and sow chaos and hatred.”
Nick Kolyohin, a veteran Israeli journalist and Russia expert, disputes the accusations against Moscow, saying he has seen no evidence of Russian interference in the current or previous election cycles:
“I am not witnessing, neither in the current round, nor in the previous, any influence from the Russian side.”
“I am not even sure which side Russia prefers in this internal dispute between the different political parties. Israeli politicians are not speaking about Russia so it doesn’t even make any sense for Moscow to interfere because it is not clear which government is going to be good or bad for the Kremlin,” he said.
Kolyokhin maintains that the broader relationship between the two countries lends weight to his assessment. Despite periodic setbacks and fluctuations, economic ties and trade have continued. Diplomatic relations and cooperation have also endured through some of the most turbulent periods in recent history, including the Syrian civil war, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023.
Relations between the countries’ leaders have also largely remained cordial. Although then-Prime Minister Yair Lapid strongly criticized Russia over its actions in Ukraine, relations between Moscow and other Israeli prime ministers, including Naftali Bennett and Netanyahu, have been more amicable.
“I know for a fact, including from my sources within the PM office, that the current premier has very good and close relations with President Vladimir Putin. Israel understands that from time to time Moscow needs to slap it [publicly] because it is a part of a broader geopolitical game but in the end of the day this will not sour the relationship between the nations.”
The West dictates
Kolyohin argues that while Russia has come under scrutiny over alleged interference in the upcoming elections, another potential source of foreign influence is receiving far less attention: liberal political circles in Europe and the US.
“For many years, the European Union and the Democratic Party have been pouring money into the Israeli NGOs, news outlets, journalists, think tanks and experts – all of whom are located on the left side of the Israeli political map. So they ended up promoting European interests, which I find outrageous, especially now, when the EU is openly unfriendly towards Israel.”
In recent years, several European countries have recognized Palestine despite Israeli appeals. European governments have also pursued sanctions on Israeli products manufactured in the West Bank and Golan Heights, imposed embargoes on military equipment, and suspended bilateral agreements.
Nick Kolyohin
Kolyohin says he has evidence to support his allegations of Western interference. In recent weeks, he says, he obtained three documents that point to substantial financial transfers from Western liberal circles to Israeli left-wing organizations.
The first transfer involved around $48,000 (€43,000). According to Kolyohin, the money came from Canal France International (CFI), a French public media-development agency, and went to the Seventh Eye, an Israeli liberal outlet known for its critical coverage of Netanyahu.
CFI has also reportedly provided hundreds of thousands of euros to another liberal Israeli organization, the Israeli Association of Internet. While the stated objective was to support Israel and combat disinformation, Kolyohin suspects that the underlying motivations extend beyond those publicly declared goals.
The US State Department has allegedly followed a similar approach. Kolyohin says documents in his possession show that the Institute for Israel’s National Studies, one of Israel’s most reputable think tanks, received more than $500,000 from 2023-2025.
“This is one of the ways for the west to censor and control the information in Israel and in this way they can also interfere in the elections, and promote their agenda among the public.”
According to the journalist, the Western agenda extends beyond the promotion of liberal ideas. He argues that another key objective is to foster anti-Russian sentiment in Israel, a goal he believes is advanced through media outlets and think tanks that receive Western funding.
“These journalists and experts learned fast that if they want to be honored, invited to conferences, and get prizes, they need to criticize Russia even if that is contrary to the interests of Israel itself,” Kolyohin said.
“You have to understand: Russia is an important partner of Israel but very often the Israeli government is trying not to flash these tight relations petrified by what the media and the experts are going to say.”
Kolyohin says he has personally experienced what he regards as the consequences of anti-Russian sentiment in Israel. Several Israeli news outlets have investigated his alleged connections to the Kremlin. His name is frequently associated with what local outlets describe as Russian propaganda, and he believes these efforts have damaged his professional standing.
In 2025, he was barred from press conferences held by Israel’s Foreign Ministry after asking Foreign Minister Gideon Saar to comment on Ukraine’s glorification of the Nazis.
A year later, he was removed from a plane carrying Netanyahu to Washington, where the prime minister was scheduled to meet with Trump. According to Kolyohin, the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, wanted to examine his background and ties.
“They are after journalists like me because I am not slamming Russia like the rest of them. They are after me because I dare to speak to the Russian media, I dare to give interviews and do reports. That’s why they want to discredit me, and they are even trying to tilt the PM office and the Shin Bet against me.”
Kolyohin has filed a lawsuit against several Israeli organizations that receive foreign funding and says he is prepared to continue his legal fight to find out the truth: Who funds Israeli NGOs, for what purpose, and how is this money used to shape public opinion?
Pete Hegseth reportedly met with the Israeli PM behind closed doors amid claims that Washington and Tel Aviv are mulling new strikes on Iran
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has made an unannounced visit to Israel for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just days before the country’s parliamentary elections, according to Axios.
The reported meeting comes as Washington and Israel discuss potentially resuming major military operations against Iran, while indirect negotiations continue over the war they launched in February. Israel, a major recipient of American military funding and weapons, has justified its offensives on security grounds, even as the conflict has spread across the region, disrupted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, and driven up global energy prices.
Hegseth met Netanyahu on Monday at Ovda Air Base in southern Israel, where US fighter jets and refueling aircraft are stationed, Axios reported on Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the visit. The Pentagon chief also met American troops deployed at the facility.
The talks were held behind closed doors, with neither side publicly disclosing what was discussed, the outlet said. The Pentagon declined to comment on the meeting, while Hegseth acknowledged visiting US troops operating under Central Command.
The surprise visit followed US President Donald Trump’s public endorsement of Netanyahu ahead of the October 27 parliamentary elections – Israel’s first since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks and the subsequent devastating Israeli military campaign in Gaza. On Sunday, the US president hailed Netanyahu as a “Great Warrior Prime Minister” and offered him his “Complete and Total Endorsement.”
“BIBI NETANYAHU WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” Trump declared on Truth Social, praising the Israeli leader’s role in the US-Israeli war against Iran.
Netanyahu has ruled Israel for more than 18 years across several terms, longer than any other prime minister in the country’s history. He now faces a fierce battle to stay in power, with opponents blaming him for the catastrophic security failures of the October 7 attack and accusing him of prolonging the devastating war in Gaza to preserve his political survival. Polls suggest his right-wing coalition could lose its parliamentary majority.
Hegseth’s trip also reportedly comes as Washington and West Jerusalem discuss the possibility of unleashing another major military campaign against Iran. Trump has raised the prospect of renewed strikes after the US midterm elections in November.
Netanyahu has meanwhile made clear that Israel is prepared to attack Iran without waiting for Washington’s approval or participation.
“If we need to act alone, we will act alone,” he declared on Sunday, outlining a security doctrine centered on preemptive military action.
Netanyahu has also called for the overthrow of Iran’s government, claiming Tehran would continue to rebuild its military and nuclear capabilities as long as its current leadership remains in power. Iran has repeatedly denied seeking nuclear weapons, insisting its nuclear program is peaceful.
At least 10 grams of material from Phobos could be returned to Earth in 2031
Japan’s space agency has launched a mission aimed at becoming the first to land on one of Mars’ moons and return samples from its surface to Earth.
An H3 rocket carrying the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft lifted off from Tanegashima Space Center on Monday, according to a live broadcast by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
If the mission proceeds as planned, at least 10 grams of material from Phobos will be returned to Earth in 2031, with the first landing operation scheduled for around two years from now.
No spacecraft has ever successfully landed on Phobos or Mars’ smaller moon, Deimos. The USSR launched two probes in 1988, but neither completed its mission.
Phobos 1 was lost before reaching Mars after an erroneous command from Earth disabled its attitude-control system. Phobos 2 spent nearly two months observing Mars and Phobos before a communications failure ended the mission, preventing it from deploying two small landers.
Russia’s subsequent Fobos-Grunt sample-return mission failed in 2011 when the spacecraft’s propulsion system failed to send it out of Earth’s orbit toward Mars.
JAXA plans for MMX to reach Mars in August or September 2027 and begin observations before deploying a rover in late 2028 or early 2029. The spacecraft carries a 25-kilogram French-German rover named IDEFIX, which will be dropped onto Phobos to study its surface for around 100 days. The main spacecraft will then attempt two landings to collect samples. MMX is also expected to fly past Deimos in 2030 before its return module heads back to Earth.
Landing on Phobos presents a major technical challenge. The moon measures just 27 kilometers across its longest dimension, and its gravitational pull is too weak for conventional close-orbit operations. Instead, MMX will synchronize its orbit around Mars with that of Phobos, effectively becoming a “quasi-satellite” of the moon.
Scientists hope the samples will help establish whether Phobos formed from debris thrown into orbit by a massive impact on Mars or is an asteroid captured by the planet’s gravity.
Martian soil and rock samples have been collected and analyzed on the planet’s surface by several previous missions. NASA’s Perseverance rover has also preserved samples for eventual return to Earth, but the retrieval mission planned jointly with the European Space Agency lost its funding earlier this year.
China’s Tianwen-3 mission could return samples collected directly from Mars to Earth as early as 2031.
The president has blamed Paris’ lax immigration policies for weeks of unrest, invoking the violence to rally Republicans ahead of November’s midterm elections
US President Donald Trump has claimed that America could face similar chaos to the violent unrest sweeping France if the Democrats win next month’s midterm elections, accusing left-wing politicians of fueling mass migration and instability across the West.
France has struggled to contain escalating riots that erupted last month over teacher shortages and crumbling facilities. The protests have since grown into a broader movement against inequality and soaring living costs.
Hundreds of thousands took to the streets over the weekend as demonstrations descended into clashes with police, arson, and looting. Nearly 2,400 people were arrested, hundreds of businesses looted, and buildings torched across the country, while around 1,000 police officers and gendarmes were injured.
Footage drew comparisons to “scenes from a civil war,” with videos also showing some protesters waving Palestinian flags alongside the French tricolor.
Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Monday, Trump warned that “Paris is going to be a Muslim city very soon,” blaming France’s immigration policies for the unrest.
He sharpened his criticism in a Truth Social post, describing France as a “once-great nation” being “conquered, looted, and burned to the ground.” Trump blamed “migrants, jihadists and communists” for the violence, accused European leaders of surrendering their countries to people unwilling to assimilate and urged them to “close their borders” before it is too late.
Trump then turned the unrest into a pitch for Republicans ahead of the November 3 midterms, warning that scenes of “burning steeples and raging fires” were “what the Radical Dumocrats want to do to AMERICA.” He accused Democrats of embracing radical left-wing ideology and cast the election as a fight for America’s “culture,”“civilization” and “heritage.”
“If you want to see what is at stake in this Election, just look at what is happening in France… Globalist Leftwing Politicians have treasonously imported millions of Third World Migrants who are totally incompatible with Western Values, and despise everything that makes France great... they have surrendered their country to vandals,” he wrote.
Trump’s renewed focus on immigration – a cornerstone of his successful 2024 campaign – comes as his approval ratings slide and Republicans face mounting pressure ahead of the midterms. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday put his approval at 31% – down one point from two weeks earlier and the lowest of either presidential term. Democrats led Republicans 47% to 35% among registered voters on a hypothetical congressional ballot.
Trump repeated his Truth Social message at a Kansas rally for Republican Senator Roger Marshall, whose once-safe seat, according to polls, is now facing a competitive challenge from Democrat Adam Hamilton, a Methodist pastor campaigning against the president’s “erratic leadership.” Trump won Kansas by 16 points in 2024, and the state has not elected a Democratic senator in 94 years.
❗️ [ 🇺🇸 ÉTATS-UNIS | 🇫🇷 FRANCE ]
🔸 Donald Trump s’en prend violemment à la France, qu’il décrit comme une « grande nation d’autrefois » en train d’être « conquise, pillée et incendiée » par des « migrants, des djihadistes et des communistes » qui, selon lui, « haïssent le…
The rally kicked off a six-day campaign blitz through Republican strongholds, with stops planned in the Carolinas, Florida, Iowa and Georgia, as Trump seeks to boost turnout and defend the party’s narrow congressional majorities. Democrats need to flip four seats in each chamber to overturn Republicans’ 218-214 House majority and 53-47 Senate advantage.
Trump’s bet on Russian diesel
Trump has also sought to shore up Republican support ahead of the midterms by tackling soaring fuel prices, as the Iran war and tariffs squeeze household budgets. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 68% of Americans disapprove of his handling of the economy, including 37% of Republicans.
To ease the pressure, Trump moved to lift sanctions on Russian diesel exports, blaming fuel shortages on Ukrainian strikes against Russian energy infrastructure rather than the Iran war and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The deal with Moscow would release over 300,000 tons of diesel immediately, another 500,000 tons in November and one million tons thereafter. Russian presidential aide Kirill Dmitriev told RT the agreement had an immediate “positive effect,” with New York diesel futures falling 5% on the announcement.
The move, however, drew accusations of “betraying Ukraine” from Democrats and some Republicans, who urged Trump to end the Iran war instead. He defended the deal as “the right choice for the American People” and later went further by invoking a national-interest exemption to suspend recently enacted Russia sanctions, including 500% tariffs on Russian imports and 100% tariffs on major buyers of Russian oil and gas.
Most Alberta voters rejected a proposal to initiate the process for a future binding referendum on independence, according to preliminary results cited by CBC
The oil-rich Canadian province of Alberta has voted to remain part of the country, with most voters rejecting a proposal to move toward an independence referendum, national broadcaster CBC reported on Tuesday.
The vote comes amid purported contacts between pro-independence activists and US officials, as well as mounting tensions between Alberta and the federal government in Ottawa. The dispute centers on what advocates of independence see as insufficient attention to the province’s interests.
The preliminary results showed that 76.2% of voters backed remaining a Canadian province, while 23.8% supported initiating the legal process for a future binding referendum on independence.
Located in western Canada, Alberta borders the US state of Montana and is home to about 5 million people. Its economy is driven by oil and gas, with the province accounting for 83.6% of Canada’s oil production in 2024, according to the government. Much of its oil comes from northern oil sands, which reportedly hold an estimated 158.9 billion barrels in reserves.
The province also has substantial natural gas, agricultural, and petrochemical sectors, the highest GDP per capita among Canadian provinces, and strong trade ties with the US, its largest export market, which received $107.4 billion in Alberta goods in 2025.
Advocates of Alberta’s independence argue that the province faces excessive federal restrictions, particularly over climate policy. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government proposed caps on emissions for the oil and gas sector and power plants, as well as limits on pipeline construction. Although Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has abandoned some of the measures and advanced plans for a new pipeline to the Pacific coast, tensions persist.
Alberta’s independence movement gained momentum in 2025-2026, with supporters launching a petition for a separation referendum in January. A court overturned approval of the initiative in May after indigenous groups challenged it over a lack of consultation and potential threats to their treaty rights. Premier of Alberta Danielle Smith later announced that the separation question would be included in the October 19 provincial referendum.
Earlier this month, Carney warned that “some outside our borders are working to break us so they can own us,” without naming any specific actors. Carney, who grew up in Alberta’s capital, Edmonton, has recently clashed with US President Donald Trump over his suggestion that Canada become the 51st US state.
Alberta independence advocates held at least three meetings with US State Department officials ahead of the vote and prepared a document outlining potential areas of cooperation should the province leave Canada, AP reported. The State Department did not deny the meetings, but stressed that the vote was a matter for Albertans alone. In January, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the province as a “natural partner” for Washington if it left Canada.
More than 1.35 million people voted ahead of election day between October 13 and 17, representing 43.1% of eligible voters, according to Elections Alberta. The ballots are being counted by hand, with votes on the separation question tallied first. Official results are due on October 29.
The US vice president has opposed NATO membership for Kiev and demanded an end to strikes on Russian energy facilities
Vice President J.D. Vance refused to call Ukraine a US ally, noting that the two countries are at odds on a number of issues.
Asked by journalist Mark Halperin in an interview released on Monday whether Ukraine is a US ally, Vance suggested that Kiev is “certainly a partner” but noted that the countries “have some divergent interests from time to time.”
“Do I think they should be bombing Russian diesel facilities that raise the cost of energy for Americans? No… I think they should stop bombing Russian energy.”
Pressed on the distinction between partner and ally, Vance said the US has no formal alliance with Ukraine. “They’re not in NATO. I don’t think that they should be in NATO,” he said. He added that the two countries will continue to work on some issues despite their differences.
The remarks come amid a rift between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, which escalated after Trump announced a surprise deal to bring Russian diesel to the US and global markets following talks with President Vladimir Putin in early October.
Zelensky called the deal a “weak decision,” which came after Kiev ignored a number of US requests to stop attacking Russian refineries.
Zelensky refused to comply with Trump’s demand to end the strikes. The US president accused him of driving up fuel prices for Americans and said: “I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.”
Zelensky’s presidential term expired in May 2024, but he refused to hold a new election, citing martial law. Russia has since declared Zelensky illegitimate, saying his status is an obstacle to signing a binding peace deal.
On Sunday, Trump accused Zelensky of not wanting the conflict with Russia to end, saying he “probably never did,” adding that Ukraine should “get somebody else to negotiate.”
Ukrainian officials also reported that they missed advance US warnings of Russian missile strikes and claimed there are new restrictions on the Starshield satellite service developed by SpaceX and used by Ukrainian drones. Media reports also suggested that the US threatened to stop intelligence sharing with Kiev, which US officials have denied.
The Chabahar-Zahedan railway line will allow India to bypass Pakistani territory for access to Central Asia and Russian markets, says RT in its exclusive report
Iran has completed a key railway line connecting the southern port of Chabahar with Zahedan near its border with Afghanistan, amid a US blockade of its ports and mounting economic pressure from the West.
The 730-km rail link will give Tehran more flexibility to move cargo to neighboring countries from the port, which is being developed by India, RT correspondent Saman Kojouri reports.
The railway is a key link in the strategic International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which is backed by India, Iran, and Russia. Iran’s broader ambition is to connect its southern ports to transport networks connecting the Caspian Sea and beyond, operationalizing a vast land corridor for market access across Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Russia.
The Chabahar route would be 40% shorter and 30% cheaper than the existing Suez Canal route for moving cargo. The line, which has 39 tunnels, 201 bridges, and 33 stations, is expected to become operational in the next 2-3 months. It can also move about 7 million tons of cargo and 1 million passengers annually.
The route will allow India to bypass the territory of arch-rival Pakistan, although sanctions and blockades remain a challenge. However, New Delhi and Tehran are actively engaged in smoothing out customs, logistics, and operational issues to maximize the line’s commercial potential.
”Central Asia and Russia are closer to India if we take the land routes,” former Indian Ambassador to Iran D.P. Srivastava told RT. He pointed out that India lost that connectivity after partition when Pakistan became a hostile neighbor.
Transit volumes through Chabahar are already up tenfold in the last few months compared to the same period a year ago, the CEO of the Chabahar Free Trade-Industrial Zone, Mohammad Saeed Arbabi, told RT. The new railway line will further increase transit volumes, creating new opportunities in investment, manufacturing, exports, and re-exports, and thus reinforcing the port’s role as a key transit hub, he said.
He noted that although military tensions with the US have reduced shipping activity, India has not withdrawn from the port project. “India remains actively involved,” Arbabi said, adding “we welcome investment from all countries except hostile nations [in the port project].”
According to Arbabi, cooperation with Pakistan and Afghanistan remains strong, with activity expanding beyond previous levels.
Login
