By Larry C. Johnson | SONAR21 | October 4, 2026 

Once again Karl W. Miller has put numbers to a problem that most of the commentariat still treats as a temporary price spike. His latest forward outlook, “The Five-Year Global Energy Crisis,” dated October 3, makes an argument that should alarm every finance ministry from Berlin to Jakarta. The war’s damage to Gulf energy infrastructure is not a disruption that ends when the shooting stops. It is a reconstruction problem measured in years and trillions of dollars, and while it is solved, the world will be short of the fuels that run its economy.

A ceasefire is not a repair crew

Miller’s central insight is simple. A ceasefire can reopen a shipping lane overnight. It cannot manufacture a compressor, mobilize commissioning engineers, or pay a contractor. The next phase of this crisis, he writes, is a competition for cash, equipment, qualified contractors and finished fuel.

His cost model is sobering. In his aggressive case, rebuilding the damaged Gulf energy system requires $1.16 trillion in total program funding. Under prolonged stress, with scarce equipment, rising prices and delays, the bill reaches $2.53 trillion. Even his most favorable case runs to nearly half a trillion dollars. He is careful to say these are model outputs, not contractor quotes, and that the true extent of the damage is the largest unknown. An April assessment put energy-related repair costs at only $34-58 billion. But the direction of his argument doesn’t depend on the exact figure. Every month of delay makes the same repair more expensive, because the global market for specialized equipment and crews is already stretched by LNG expansions, refinery maintenance and power projects elsewhere.

The timeline is just as stark. Weighted by cost, the rebuild averages almost five years from today. Only 60% of the work finishes by 2031, and the longest-lead packages run to seven years.

The money problem comes first

The most original part of Miller’s analysis is about cash. A damaged refinery may be worth rebuilding and technically repairable, and still sit idle because the government that owns it has to pay for food imports, salaries, electricity and water first. Lost export revenue doesn’t stop those bills. When a state borrows to keep paying them, that money can’t also pay an engineering contractor.

Iraq shows the problem in practice. In July, it faced a monthly public salary obligation of about $5.96 billion with a funding shortfall of $2.52 billion. A government in that position rebuilds nothing. It pays its people, and the export capacity that would restore its revenue waits. Miller’s warning is that this trap can stop reconstruction before it starts: without engineering funds and vendor deposits, factory slots go to other customers and delivery dates slip.

The fuel gap is the global transmission belt

For the rest of the world, the damage arrives through diesel and jet fuel. The figures Miller cites are already severe. Gulf diesel net exports in August were just over a quarter of prewar levels. Combined Gulf and Russian diesel exports were 1.6 million barrels a day below February. Global oil stocks had fallen 507 million barrels since February, and global refinery throughput in August was 4.2 million barrels a day below a year earlier.

Looking forward, Miller’s severe case assumes a shortfall of at least 3 million barrels a day of diesel and jet fuel, every year for five years. That’s about 1.1 billion barrels a year and 5.5 billion barrels over the period. He is explicit that this is a deliberate stress test, not a forecast, and that a faster-recovery path closes the gap by the fourth year. But the stress case is a plausible one. Restored capacity can be absorbed by refinery outages, deferred maintenance, recovering demand and delivery bottlenecks. Damaged refineries don’t come back at full capacity on the first day.

Inventories cannot fill a gap of that size for that long. Five and a half billion barrels is far beyond any country’s emergency stocks, which is why drawing down Europe’s reserves now, under pressure from Washington, only buys weeks. Without enough new supply, the balance can close in only one way: by using less fuel.

How the shortage reprices everything

The economic damage extends well beyond the missing barrels. When supply falls short, buyers bid for the marginal cargo, and that bid sets the price for all the fuel still being bought. Miller’s illustration: a $40-a-barrel premium across 10 million barrels a day of purchases adds $146 billion a year to fuel bills. Applied only to the 3 million missing barrels, it would add $43.8 billion and badly understate the real cost.

Scarcity also reprices credit. At $150 a barrel, a buyer purchasing 1 million barrels a day needs $2.25 billion to hold 15 extra days of inventory, and $3 billion at $200. Longer voyages tie up more fuel and more money in transit. A supplier can have the barrels while its customer can’t get a letter of credit. And a cargo that wins a bidding war for one country leaves another short. Competition redistributes the shortage before it eliminates it.

Who absorbs the shock

Diesel carries the crisis into the real economy. It runs road freight, farm machinery, mines, construction fleets and backup generators, none of which can switch fuels quickly. Higher diesel costs pass straight into freight rates and food prices, and when diesel isn’t available at any price, activity simply stops. Jet fuel carries the shock into aviation: higher fares, fewer routes and higher air cargo surcharges. Kerosene hits the households with the least room to adjust, in countries where it is still used for heating, cooking and lighting.

Miller’s regional assessment follows the money:

• Europe competes for replacement diesel and jet cargoes while running its refineries close to their limits.
• South and Southeast Asia face higher import bills, currency pressure and greater need for trade credit.
• Africa and smaller importers are the most vulnerable. Tenders fail, credit lines run out, and small cargoes become uneconomic long before global stocks are exhausted.
• The United States and other Atlantic suppliers face export demand competing with their own diesel needs, with refineries running so hard they have little tolerance for outages.

The ultimate balancing mechanism is demand destruction: freight deferred, low-margin factories idled, flights cancelled, and poorer importers losing every bidding contest. Miller warns against mistaking that for recovery. Lower consumption caused by rationing through price or credit is not a repaired energy system.

Case study: Europe

Europe shows what Miller’s framework looks like in practice. The continent burns about 5 million barrels of diesel a day, fuel for the trucks that move its goods, the tractors that plant its crops and, as winter approaches, the boilers that heat millions of homes.

How much does Europe produce, and how much does it import? Running flat out, EU refineries can produce roughly 4.5 to 5 million barrels a day of diesel and gasoil, and they are already operating close to their maximum. That leaves Europe roughly 85-90% self-sufficient at best. The remaining 10-15% comes from imports, and that margin sets the price for the entire market. Kepler puts the EU’s diesel imports from outside the bloc at about 580,000 barrels a day this year. Britain, which lost much of its refining capacity over the past two decades, is far more exposed: it imports more than half the diesel it uses.

The origin of those imports has changed dramatically. Russia was long Europe’s largest outside supplier until the EU embargoed Russian diesel in 2023. The Gulf filled much of the gap, until the war cut it off. Since March, the United States has supplied more than half of Europe’s diesel imports, and more than two-thirds in August and September. Europe has traded dependence on Moscow for dependence on Washington, and Washington has just shown it is willing to use that leverage, threatening an export ban unless Europe released its emergency stocks.

Europe’s diesel depends on imported crude as well. Its refineries run almost entirely on foreign oil: the EU imports about 97% of the crude it consumes. But the Gulf was never Europe’s main crude supplier. In 2025, Gulf Cooperation Council states supplied only about 7% of EU crude imports, Iraq another 5.8%. Europe’s crude now comes chiefly from the United States, Norway and Kazakhstan, which together supplied nearly half of EU petroleum imports in the second quarter of 2026. The volume has held steady; the bill rose 56%. But the crude isn’t the crude Europe’s refineries were built for. Much of Europe’s refining capacity was designed around medium sour crudes such as Russia’s Urals, with conversion units that turn the heavier part of the barrel into diesel. American shale crude is light and sweet. It refines readily into gasoline and naphtha, but it yields proportionally less diesel and jet fuel, the very products Europe is short of. As Miller notes, sour crude isn’t uniquely required to make diesel; the replacement barrels work, but not at the same yield or cost. The Gulf supply Europe really lost was finished diesel from Gulf refineries, and that is what the United States has replaced. The result is a double dependence: Washington is now Europe’s largest supplier of both the crude its refineries run and the diesel they can’t make. Even the non-American barrels carry risk. Most Kazakh crude reaches Europe through a Black Sea terminal at Novorossiysk, on Russian soil, a route that has already been hit by Ukrainian drones.

How long can Europe store diesel? This is where Europe’s apparent cushion turns out to be thinner than it looks. Unlike crude oil, which can sit in salt caverns for decades, diesel degrades. Under ideal conditions, conventional ultra-low-sulfur diesel can typically be stored for six to twelve months. With stabilizers, biocides and well-managed tanks, that can be extended to 18 to 24 months. Oxidation forms gums and sediment, water collects, and microbes grow in the fuel.

European diesel has an added problem. The EU standard, EN 590, allows up to 7% biodiesel in road diesel, and biodiesel oxidizes faster than petroleum diesel. Concawe, the European refiners’ research association, recommends a maximum storage time of six months for biodiesel and current blends containing it. Strategic stockholders can extend that by holding biodiesel-free product, but even then the reserve has to be rotated, sold into the market and replaced with fresh fuel on a cycle of a year or two.

That changes what Europe’s reserve really is. EU countries and Britain held about 52 million tonnes of gasoil and diesel in June, including nearly 38 million tonnes of emergency reserves, roughly two months of consumption. But a diesel reserve is not a stockpile Europe can fill once and forget. It is a stock that must be continually turned over, which means continually bought, and bought in the same tight market Miller describes. Every barrel released now to satisfy Washington has to be replaced later, at a higher price, from suppliers who are already short. And because diesel degrades, Europe can’t solve the problem by buying extra while it’s cheap and holding it for years. A reserve with a shelf life of a year or two cannot cover a structural deficit that Miller’s severe case puts at five years.

The conclusion for Europe is stark. It produces most of its own diesel but has no spare refining capacity. It depends on imports for the margin that sets prices, and those imports now come mostly from a single supplier that has shown it will use them as leverage. And its emergency reserve is both perishable and finite. In Miller’s terms, Europe is one of the buyers most exposed to the marginal cargo, and the least able to wait out a five-year shortage.

The implications for the global economy

Put together, Miller’s analysis describes a world economy facing a prolonged supply shock, not a temporary one. Fuel costs feed into nearly everything, so central banks fighting the inflation this crisis has already produced will face pressure for longer than they expect. Emerging-market importers face a combination of high fuel bills, weak currencies and tighter credit that has historically produced debt crises and unrest. And the reconstruction itself will absorb capital, equipment and specialist labor that would otherwise build new energy supply elsewhere, so the shortage may delay the investment needed to end it.

Miller’s strategic conclusion is the one policymakers least want to hear. Ending the conflict removes one source of disruption. It does not repair the energy system, which requires a separate sequence of financing, engineering, manufacturing, construction and commissioning that will take years. Until that is done, reliable fuel and the cash to buy it will determine which economies absorb the burden. Neither will be distributed evenly.

Latest videos

By John J. Mearsheimer | October 4, 2026

The Trump administration and its supporters – including the Wall Street Journal editorial page – are working overtime these days to spin the news around the Iran war to make it appear that the US is winning and Tehran had better submit to Washington’s demands before it is wrecked, maybe even “annihilated.” Indeed, Trump is preparing the option of bringing the military hammer down on Iran after the midterm elections if Tehran has not surrendered by then.

In effect, Trump and his supporters are waging a “maximum pressure campaign” against Iran in the mainstream media.

This campaign is sure to fail. If anything, it reflects the Trump administration’s desperation. The president started a war the United States was bound to lose, and there is little he can do now to change that basic fact.

Trump’s propaganda campaign has two dimensions – one economic and the other military.

First, the administration argues that Iran is being economically strangled by the US naval blockade coupled with Operation Economic Outcast, the strategy announced by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on 24 August 2026. At the same time, it maintains that oil is once again flowing out of the Gulf at rates not far below those that prevailed on 27 February 2026. The implications are obvious: the economic punishment being inflicted on Iran will force it to capitulate soon, while the US economy – and the international community more generally – is well on its way to recovery.

Second, the US is now building up its military forces for a massive military strike after the mid-term elections, when Trump will be free of electoral constraints. This growing threat of a devastating US attack, coupled with the economic pain being inflicted on Iran, is designed to get Tehran to quit now, before its situation becomes even worse.

There are huge problems with this strategy. It sounds persuasive when the mainstream media dutifully purveys it, but it falls apart when one looks closely at what is actually happening.

Consider the military dimension. The headlines say the US is sending 10,000 additional troops and a third aircraft carrier – the USS Theodore Roosevelt – to the Persian Gulf region, creating the impression that Iran will soon be confronting three American carriers. Moreover, the additional troops – on top of the roughly 50,000 US troops already in the region – are portrayed as evidence that Trump is seriously considering putting boots on the ground.

The aircraft carrier story, however, is quite different from what the headlines suggest. The Roosevelt is reportedly being sent to replace the USS George Washington, while the supposed third carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush, has already left the Middle East and is now in Thailand. Thus, there is presently only one carrier in the region. Indeed, this is the first time during the war that the US has only one carrier in the Middle East, and it is difficult to imagine that there will be more than two – if even that many – after the midterm elections.

The larger problem is that the Iran war is severely straining the US Navy. Its senior leaders warn that the current operational tempo is not sustainable indefinitely. Carriers and other warships are being rotated through extremely long deployments, which cause significant maintenance and readiness problems that will have to be addressed at some point. This problem is compounded by the fact that US ships have lost access to nearby logistics facilities and increasingly depend on a supply chain that reaches back to Diego Garcia, which is about 2,500 miles from the Persian Gulf.

But even if three carriers are available to strike Iran, what could they accomplish in a renewed air campaign that the US and Israel could not accomplish together during the failed 40-day bombing campaign between 28 February and 8 April 2026? Some might argue that the US could finally destroy Iran’s oil infrastructure. The problem, however, is that Iran retains a second-strike capability and could retaliate by wreaking havoc on the oil infrastructure of the GCC states. One shudders to think what the consequences would be for the international economy.

On top of all this, the US faces a serious shortage of high-end weaponry, which is one of the main reasons it ended the 40-day bombing campaign and has shied away in recent weeks from engaging in tit-for-tat bombing exchanges with Iran. One would think that the shortage of critical munitions – both for striking Iran and defending against Iranian retaliation – would limit the scope and intensity of any renewed strategic bombing campaign, thereby reducing its chances of success.

Regarding ground forces, simply counting the number of U.S. military personnel in the Middle East is misleading when assessing the possibility of putting boots on the ground. What matters most in a ground war is the number of troops in actual ground-combat formations. I estimate that, of the roughly 50,000 U.S. military personnel already stationed in the region, about 5,000 belong to such formations: roughly 2,200 Marines and sailors in the 11th MEU, 2,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne, and possibly another 800 Army personnel in Kuwait associated with Task Force Spartan. Of the roughly 10,000 additional personnel now being sent to the region, another 2,200 belong to the 13th MEU. Most of the remainder are sailors assigned to the Theodore Roosevelt carrier and its supporting warships. Thus, given present deployment plans, I estimate that by late November the United States will have just under 7,500 personnel in ground-combat formations in the Gulf region—roughly 4,400 in the two MEUs and 2,800 Army personnel.

There is no way a ground force that small provides a promising option against a country with Iran’s population and geography. Even tripling that number to roughly 23,000—which is highly unlikely—would not fundamentally alter the problem. Retired Army General Barry McCaffrey estimates that securing the Strait of Hormuz would require roughly 150,000 troops and three to six months of fighting. For comparison, Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 with roughly 190,000 military personnel, and that force proved insufficient to hold much of the territory Russia initially captured. Iran has more than twice the population Ukraine had at the beginning of the Russian invasion, and its geography is considerably more forbidding for an invading army.

Simply put, the United States has not assembled anything remotely resembling the ground force required for a large-scale invasion of Iran. Indeed, from Tehran’s perspective, an American decision to launch such an offensive with anything resembling the forces presently available would present Iran with an opportunity to fight the United States under exceptionally favorable circumstances.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, two further points are in order. First, given how unpopular the Iran war is with the American public, there would almost certainly be a huge uproar if large numbers of US soldiers began coming home in body bags. Second, how are the Marines, who are aboard amphibious assault ships, supposed to land on Iranian territory if the missile and drone threat from Iran is forcing the US Navy to keep those large and vulnerable ships far from the Iranian coast?

Let’s turn to the economic dimension. There is no question that the US is doing great damage to Iran’s economy and inflicting enormous hardship on the Iranian people. But that has been true for a long time. The key question is whether that punishment can coerce Iran into surrendering to American demands.

There is no evidence that Iran is caving in to American pressure, and there are three reasons to doubt that it will. First, it is exceedingly difficult to find a case in the historical record in which an economic blockade by itself caused the target state to surrender. Second, Iran sees the US and Israel as existential threats to Iran – hardly surprising given the genocidal language Trump has used when talking about Iran – and states that believe their survival is at stake are exceptionally difficult to coerce. Third, Iran has a formidable escalation option if the economic pain becomes too great: it can attack the oil and gas infrastructure of the Gulf states and Israel, as well as their highly vulnerable desalination plants.

In short, it is difficult to see economic pressure alone forcing Iran to accept Trump’s terms. That is probably one reason the United States is once again talking about using military force. But, as I argued above, that option holds little promise of producing a favorable outcome.

Finally, there is no question that more oil is flowing out of the Gulf today than was the case in early September. But both Iran and the Houthis are working hard to reverse that trend. Iran is attacking US-escorted tankers on a daily basis, while the Houthis are targeting vital oil infrastructure inside Saudi Arabia. Moreover, despite the increased flow of oil out of the Gulf, gasoline prices remain very high, and a host of other economic problems show no signs of easing anytime soon, including high diesel prices, persistent inflation, elevated mortgage rates, and dangerously high bond yields across much of the West.

All of this is to say that the Trump administration has powerful economic incentives to shut this war down as soon as possible. Indeed, it would hardly be surprising if there were a growing sense of desperation behind closed doors among Trump and his advisers.

This, of course, helps explain why the Trump administration and its allies are waging a media campaign designed to persuade Iran that its days are numbered and that it had better concede to American demands before it is too late. The facts, however, tell a different story. The success of this strategy therefore depends on Trump being able to bamboozle the Iranians into believing that Godzilla is closing in on them. There is little reason to think Tehran will be hoodwinked.

RT | October 5, 2026

Swiss police are investigating a sprawling fraud operation with suspected links to Ukrainian scam call centers, an industry said to be worth billions to corrupt officials in Kiev, Neue Zurcher Zeitung (NZZ) has reported, citing law enforcement officials.

According to a report on Sunday, NEDIK, the police network coordinating Switzerland’s fight against digital crime, recently recorded an increase in fraud offenses suspected of having links to Ukraine. The network declined to provide nationwide figures “for tactical reasons,” but noted that at least four fraudulent call centers in Ukraine have been identified in international investigations involving Swiss authorities, with Swiss and German citizens among their main victims.

One investigation by Bern authorities, reportedly underway for years, concerns a man suspected of operating several call centers in Kiev. On just one platform allegedly linked to the operation, reported losses in Switzerland amounted to nearly 4 million Swiss francs ($4.8 million).

Several Ukrainian nationals have also recently been arrested in Swiss cantons for allegedly acting as cash collectors in telephone scams. In St. Gallen in early September, a person posing as a bank employee called a 93-year-old man and instructed him to withdraw and hand over a large sum of money. Police later arrested a 38-year-old Ukrainian who allegedly collected the cash.

Police in Aargau have similarly reported a growing number of suspected cash collectors holding Ukrainian citizenship. Authorities, however, have not established whether they are being directed by call centers in Ukraine or acting independently. NZZ noted that it remains unclear to what extent Ukraine-based operations are connected to fraud networks and cash collectors operating in Switzerland.

While Russians have long been portrayed as the main targets of Ukrainian scammers, sources cited by NZZ challenged that narrative. Brian Lee, head of the Eurasia Observatory at the Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), said Russians accounted for just 10%-15% of targets even at the height of the so-called “patriotic fraud” narrative, under which young Ukrainians were recruited into scam networks on the pretext of taking revenge for Moscow’s military operation against the Kiev regime. Victims have been identified in at least 29 countries, with scam centers increasingly targeting Europe and the US, according to a GI-TOC report published earlier this year.

Lee also reported that bribing Ukrainian officials for protection is central to the business model, saying GI-TOC investigations found that criminal elements “operate seamlessly and efficiently alongside law enforcement agencies, public officials and the private sector.” Such protection reportedly costs scam operators $10,000-$15,000 per month.

Scam networks and state structures

Corruption has long plagued Ukraine, with high-level scandals including last year’s $100 million Energoatom kickback scheme, reportedly led by Timur Mindich, a former business partner of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. Western-backed investigators have since uncovered further graft involving Ukrainian officials.

The scam call center network reentered the spotlight last month after Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko – a key pillar of Zelensky’s increasingly fragile governing structure – resigned amid the exposure of an industrial-scale network across the country with alleged links to senior figures in Kiev. Ukraine’s Western-backed National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) accused Sergey Kropiva, head of the cybercrime unit at the Prosecutor General’s Office, of leading a ring that collected protection payments from notorious Ukrainian scam call centers. NABU said it identified assets worth almost $1 million allegedly purchased with proceeds from the scheme.

The sums involved in Ukraine’s wider scam industry are reportedly far larger. Ukrainian media earlier estimated that roughly 2,000 scam offices were operating nationwide as of early August, about half paying protection money to corrupt officials. Such payments were estimated at $240 million annually, while the industry itself has been valued at up to $1 billion a month.

The scam industry has also been linked to powerful security structures under Zelensky’s government. In September, personnel from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and military intelligence (HUR) exchanged fire in Kiev in a confrontation that left three servicemen injured. The clash centered on Stepan Kaplunov, a member of an HUR-linked armed unit detained by the SBU. A law enforcement source cited by Ukrainian outlet Strana said Kaplunov may have been involved in operating scam call centers, pointing to a broader struggle between rival security agencies over the lucrative industry. Ukrainian journalists have also reported that proceeds from criminal operations help finance parts of the HUR’s activities.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has described phone scams as a key tactic employed by Kiev to extract money from Russian citizens, suggesting the practice has effectively become state policy. Moscow considers the industry a national security threat and claims Ukrainian scam networks operate in coordination with the country’s intelligence services.

Russian forces have recently intensified strikes on Ukrainian telecommunications infrastructure, mobile operators, and data centers in response to Kiev’s botched “pressure campaign” of drone attacks on civilian infrastructure deep inside Russia. The strikes have disrupted internet access, digital television, and other services, including by hitting data centers in Kiev that Moscow says were used by Ukrainian military and intelligence services. Media reports late last month also claimed a Russian strike hit one of the scam call centers in Dnepropetrovsk.

BND chief Martin Jaeger’s claim comes as his agency pushes for more funding and expanded powers

RT | October 5, 2026

Martin Jaeger arrives to speak in the annual open hearing of Germany’s three intelligence services at the Bundestag in Berlin, Germany, October 5, 2026 © Getty Images ; Sean Gallup

Germany could become “embroiled in a violent conflict with Russia,” the country’s foreign intelligence chief has warned, claiming that a mysterious drone incident at Leipzig airport is an example of the “real and imminent” threat posed by Moscow.

Speaking to lawmakers at a parliamentary hearing on Monday, Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) head Martin Jaeger declared that “the confrontation we are facing with Russia has taken on a new, more dangerous dimension.”

“Germany is in danger ​of becoming embroiled in a violent conflict with Russia – the attempted attack in Leipzig ⁠is just one example,” he continued, referring to the discovery of an explosive-laden drone next to a Ukrainian transport plane at the city’s airport in August.

German authorities have not released any evidence linking the incident to Russia, and Moscow has described the episode as a “hastily cobbled-together provocation” serving “exclusively the aims of Kiev and the militaristic wing of the European political class.” It is “obvious that Germany is pursuing a further course of escalation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month.

Nevertheless, Jaeger claimed that Russia is “waging a shadow war,” and that there is a “real and imminent” threat of attacks against targets in Germany. “No other country currently poses such a direct, comprehensive, and concrete threat to Germany,” he added.

Jaeger is one of dozens of Western political, military, and media figures to accuse Russia of waging a “hybrid war” or “shadow war” against Europe in recent weeks. The accusations are, by their nature, impossible to verify, and Moscow has written them off as pretexts to deepen Western involvement in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, justify military spending hikes, and expand surveillance and persecution of domestic opponents.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has explicitly and without evidence described the country’s most popular political party, the right-wing AfD, as “Russia-backed.” Martina Rosenberg, the head of Germany’s Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD), alluded to this claim during Monday’s briefing, telling lawmakers that the country is “threatened by diverse dangers from both outside and within.”

Jaeger, Rosenberg, and domestic intelligence (BfV) chief Sinan Selen all praised Merz’s recent efforts to grant the BND greater offensive powers, and called for further strengthening of the MAD and BfV’s capabilities.

Despite their allegations of “hybrid war,” European leaders have repeatedly stressed that they do not believe Russia to be planning any actual attacks on NATO territory. The BND has seen “no indication of an imminent large-scale Russian attack on NATO territory,” Jaeger added on Monday.

Amid an unprecedented escalation in the West’s rhetoric toward Russia, RT is tracking the statements, accusations, and threats in our ongoing ‘Escalation Watch’ special. Keep an eye on it here as we sort the facts from the propaganda and debunk the psyops in real time.

RT | October 5, 2026

Poland and Romania have refused to help Kiev move millions of tons of grain – which got stuck in Ukraine following Vladimir Zelensky’s war on exports – into the EU, Politico reports, citing officials in Warsaw and Bucharest. Zelensky’s 40-day campaign resulted in Russia implementing a de facto blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, with the wider consequences of the strikes estimated at 1.5% of the country’s collapsing GDP.

Last week, Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotsky appealed to the EU for a €1.1 billion ($1.23 billion) allocation to improve transit capacity, which would help free large quantities of grain – Ukraine’s key source of income – trapped in the country.

The request came after Zelensky’s 40-day PR ‘pressure campaign’ on Russia, which involved long-range strikes on oil refineries and civilian infrastructure. The effort backfired, as Russia ramped up strikes on Ukraine’s military-related logistics, including the key hub of Odessa, accounting for an overwhelming majority of Kiev’s agricultural exports.

Speaking to Politico, Vysotsky described the situation as “very, very critical,” after his ministry reported the export of 2.4 million tons of agricultural products in September, just 46% of what Kiev considers the required volume.

He added that export restrictions leave Ukrainian farmers without cash needed to plant seeds now for next year’s harvest. “If the situation stays like this till spring, it could mean the decrease of even 35-40% of the planted area,” he warned.

Last month, Ukrainian officials estimated damage to infrastructure from Russian strikes at nearly $10 billion, with wider consequences amounting to around 1.5% of GDP.

While the EU as a whole is yet to give a definitive answer to the €1.1 billion request, Poland and Romania – which are crucial to facilitating Ukraine’s exports – ruled out any significant assistance.

Romanian Agriculture Minister Barna Tanczos rejected the prospect of substantially expanding capacity, telling Politico that “the interest for our own farmers remains a priority.”

Ukrainian cargo and low Danube water levels are already straining Romanian ports, he said, adding: “Everybody knows we cannot double the number of trains, we cannot double the roads, railways and port capacity. It is what it is.”

The Polish Infrastructure Ministry spokesperson said, as cited by Politico, that Poland “has no plans to introduce any changes aimed at increasing the transit of Ukrainian agricultural products.”

Before the €1.1 billion plea, Ukraine requested €220 million from the EU in grants to support farmers affected by disrupted exports, but the bloc effectively turned it down, pointing instead to existing EU mechanisms.

Agricultural trade has long been a source of friction between Ukraine and its EU neighbors. After the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022, Brussels suspended duties and quotas on Ukrainian exports, which triggered massive protests from European farmers over what they saw as unfair competition. As a result, the EU introduced an ‘emergency brake’ system in 2024, allowing tariff quotas to return for sensitive products if imports exceed set thresholds.

In addition, many of Ukraine’s neighbors, including Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia, maintain significant restrictions on Ukrainian imports at the national level.

By Cam Wakefield | Reclaim The Net | October 3, 2026

So what does it take for a police force to stop using a “trial” deployment of live facial recognition (LFR) technology? Apparently, scanning the faces of more than half a million people and catching nobody is not it.

In fact, it gets you an extension of four months and an expanded area to “hunt” in.

The British Transport Police (BTP) has now revealed that its initial six-month LFR deployment at London railway stations produced one alert – that was false.

The trial cost £320,786 ($425k) to carry out. That was just the cost of equipment hire and police officers’ time, and the figure comes from a freedom of information document obtained by Liberty Investigates.

It ran from February to July across 18 deployments, which the BTP’s own register says resulted in 537,697 people having their faces scanned.

The single alert was raised on February 24 at Kings Cross, against a watchlist of 455 people. The alert was false, and the false alert rate was 0.00517 percent.

The story doesn’t end there, because the BTP’s own register doesn’t stop at the end of July. It goes on to September 24, and now includes 27 deployments – and a total of 926,912 people who have had their faces scanned.

This extension has produced alerts. On August 20 at Kings Cross St Pancras Underground, there was one true alert, unconfirmed. On September 4 at Waterloo, there was one true alert, confirmed, and the outcome was no action. And on September 24 at London Bridge, there were two true alerts, both confirmed, with the outcome again being no action.

The arrest column in the register still reads zero.

In other words, the machine has now correctly identified three people – but the police have not found any reason to arrest any of them.

The register also shows that the number of people on the watchlist has grown. On February 11, it was 381, and by September 14 at Victoria Underground, it had more than doubled, to 862.

This is where things get even better. The expansion was “welcomed” by Transport for London (TfL), who said the technology “will target and identify people on police watchlist at key stations chosen for maximum impact.”

TfL also justified the move by saying it would “specifically tackle violence against women and girls, whose travel behaviours are shaped by experiences of sexual harassment and sexual offences.”

Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy is not impressed. “Tackling violence against women and girls on public transport must be an urgent priority, but that means investing in what actually works; not spending more than £320,000 on a measure, which when piloted, resulted in zero arrests and a single false alert,” she said.

“Live facial recognition technologies are a serious invasion of our privacy. The government should be suspending their rollout until there are stronger safeguards in place, including a proper legal framework,” the MP added.

This is not one force experimenting on its own. We have reported London Mayor Sadiq Khan approving live facial recognition for Oxford Street, London police using it at a protest for the first time, the High Court clearing the way for police use of it, and Greater Manchester Police joining the rollout. Liberty Investigates found that more than half of police forces in England and Wales have now deployed it.

Meanwhile, biometric images that do not match those on the watchlist are deleted immediately, while those that do match are deleted within 24 hours, as is the watchlist itself, once a deployment is finished.

BTP’s own policy makes clear that the surveillance is not limited to the cameras that are part of the LFR system. Footage from the LFR camera masts will be kept for up to 31 days, “in line with general police retention periods for CCTV.”

It seems that no matter how many times these deployments are extended, and how many people are scanned, the watchlist will just keep growing.

The police will keep getting more money to throw at this tech, that has not yet proven itself as useful for anything but wasting public money.

By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | October 3, 2026

A new US bill, Ban Flock Act, has been introduced, with the aim of stopping the federal government from using automated license plate readers (ALPRs).

“Flock is eviscerating the very notion of privacy by installing tens of thousands of cameras in communities across America without their consent,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, who is planning a Senate version.

“Going to the doctor? Flock knows. Dropping your kid off at school? Flock is tracking you. Flock is always watching,” he continued.

According to the text of the House bill, H.R. 10691, federal agencies and officials are to be banned from acquiring, possessing, accessing or using ALPRs, or data collected by these devices, without an Act of Congress that explicitly authorizes it.

This would include data collected by private security networks, homeowners’ associations, commercial parking operators, and data brokers.

Any such authorization must set data retention at no more than 48 hours, and “rigorous protections for due process, privacy, free speech and association.”

State and local governments that have ALPRs would not be eligible for grants from the Justice, Transportation, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Homeland Security departments.

The bill, whose sponsors in the House are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and in the Senate Jeff Merkley, also seeks to make sure that no federal money is used to buy, lease, or operate ALPRs, while evidence obtained in violation of the proposed legislation would be inadmissible in federal court.

Individuals would be able to sue for actual and punitive damages, while state attorneys general would be able to sue to enforce the ban.

Toll systems would be exempt from the ban, but the data collected would have to be deleted within 48 hours of payment, and could not be checked against a law enforcement hot list.

“AI-powered cameras are keeping track of our every move and weaponizing this data against working people to make record profits,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Merkley noted that the right to privacy includes the freedom to move around the community without every move being monitored.

The Ban Flock Act is not the first attempt of its kind – in early September, Republicans Thomas Massie and Eric Burlison introduced the Flock-Off Act, H.R. 10221, that also seeks to cut federal funding to state and local governments that use ALPRs, as well as biometric surveillance cameras.

In August, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ordered Flock cameras to be removed from state highways within 30 days, a year after the state approved $4.6 million for 440 of these devices.

Earlier in the summer, Senator Josh Hawley launched an investigation into Flock, and later expanded it to include Axon, Motorola Solutions, and Verkada.

“Flock does not stand alone in this industry; you and others are building large camera networks, assisted by artificial intelligence, that intrude on the privacy of all Americans,” Hawley said at the time.

Hawley has his own anti-Flock bill that has been announced but the text of the bill has yet to be filed.

Republicans and Democrats are now going after the same cameras, and the bill cuts off the federal money and the data trade, not just the cameras.

Ten head-to-head clinical trials — pulled from the GreenMedInfo archive — in which honey, turmeric, saffron, ginger and a handful of other kitchen staples matched or outperformed prescription medications. Each one links to the full research write-up.

By Sayer Ji | October 4, 2026

For nearly two decades, GreenMedInfo has done one thing most health publishers never bother with: we go into the National Library of Medicine and pull out the studies where researchers put a natural substance directly against a drug — same condition, same patients, same scoring — and then publish what they found.

Those studies exist. There are thousands of them. They just don’t get press releases, because nobody holds a patent on honey.

Below are ten of the most striking. Every one is a human trial. Every one is indexed in our database. And every one links to the long-form article where you can read the methodology, the numbers and the citations for yourself.

A word before we start: this is research information, not medical advice. Several of these trials are small. Some are single studies that have not been replicated. I have flagged which ones have the strongest designs. Read them, bring them to your practitioner, and decide for yourself. That is the entire point of having the archive.

1. Honey + Coffee vs. Prednisolone — Persistent Cough

 

The trial: Randomized, double-blind, 97 adults with post-infectious cough lasting more than three weeks. One group got a paste of honey and instant coffee every eight hours. One got the steroid prednisolone. One got guaifenesin (the active ingredient in Mucinex). Primary Care Respiratory Journal, 2013.

The result: Cough scores in the honey-coffee group fell from 2.9 to 0.2 — a 93% reduction. Prednisolone managed 3.0 to 2.4, about 20%. Guaifenesin did essentially nothing. The study authors’ own conclusion: “Honey plus coffee was found to be the most effective treatment modality.”

A kitchen remedy outperformed a corticosteroid by a factor of roughly fourteen — with none of the steroid’s immune-suppressing, bone-thinning, blood-sugar-wrecking side effects.

→ Read the full article: A Spoonful of Honey and Coffee Did What Prednisone Couldn’t

2. Curcumin vs. Metformin — Stopping Prediabetes Cold

 

The trial: Randomized controlled trial in Thailand, published in the American Diabetes Association’s own journal, Diabetes Care, 2012. Prediabetic patients took either a curcumin extract (from turmeric) or placebo for nine months.

The result: Zero patients in the curcumin group progressed to type 2 diabetes. In the placebo group, 16.4% did. Curcumin also improved beta-cell function and reduced insulin resistance, with only minor side effects reported.

For context: metformin, the front-line drug given to high-risk patients, reduced progression to diabetes by just 31% over three years in the landmark Diabetes Prevention Program. No pharmaceutical has ever come close to a 100% prevention rate.

→ Read the full article: 100% Diabetes Prevention Achieved Naturally

3. Berberine vs. Metformin — Type 2 Diabetes

 

The trial: 36 adults with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes, three months, berberine versus metformin head-to-head. Metabolism, 2008.

The result: Berberine — a bitter alkaloid from goldenseal, barberry and Oregon grape — matched metformin on A1c, fasting glucose and post-meal glucose. Then it pulled ahead on lipids: by week 13, triglycerides and total cholesterol were significantly lower in the berberine group. In a second arm, 48 poorly-controlled diabetics on berberine saw A1c drop from 8.1% to 7.3% and fasting insulin fall 28%.

A later meta-analysis of 37 studies and 3,048 patients found berberine did not increase adverse events or the risk of hypoglycemia. Metformin, by contrast, carries a black-box risk of lactic acidosis.

→ Read the full article: Berberine Outshines Metformin for Diabetes

4. Saffron vs. Prozac and Lexapro — Depression, OCD, Postpartum Depression

The trials: Six separate head-to-head studies. In a 2016 double-blind trial, 30 mg/day of saffron matched 40 mg of fluoxetine for postpartum depression over six weeks. A 60-patient, 8-week trial found saffron equal to fluoxetine for OCD, with “many fewer” adverse effects. Additional trials found no difference against 60 mg fluoxetine for major depression and panic disorder.

The standout: A 2020 study of 54 patients found 15 mg of saffron produced significantly greater reductions in Hamilton Depression scores — and higher response and remission rates — than 10 mg of escitalopram (Lexapro).

A 2025 meta-analysis of eight RCTs confirmed it: saffron is as effective as SSRIs for depression, with fewer adverse events. The spice in your paella is running even with — and sometimes ahead of — the most prescribed class of psychiatric drugs on earth.

→ Read the full article: 6 Studies on Saffron Put Prozac to Shame

5. Honey vs. Dextromethorphan — Children’s Nighttime Cough

The trial: Children with upper respiratory infections were given buckwheat honey, honey-flavored dextromethorphan (the “DM” in Robitussin DM, Mucinex DM, Vicks Formula 44), or nothing before bed. Parents rated cough frequency, severity and sleep quality. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 2007.

The result: Honey scored best on every measure. Parents rated cough frequency 1.89 points better after honey, 1.39 after DM, and 0.92 with nothing. The quietly damning finding: dextromethorphan was not statistically better than no treatment on any outcome.

Even the CDC now advises honey for cough in anyone over one year old. The multi-billion-dollar cough syrup aisle has still not gotten the memo.

→ Read the full article: 5 Reasons Honey Should Be in Your Medicine Chest · Study abstract

6. Turmeric vs. Ibuprofen and Naproxen — Knee Osteoarthritis

 

The trials: A Thai study gave 367 knee osteoarthritis patients either 1,500 mg/day of turmeric extract or 1,200 mg/day of ibuprofen for four weeks. Separately, a 2022 double-blind RCT in Phytotherapy Research gave 60 patients either 500 mg naproxen twice daily or a capsule of turmeric extract, gingerols and piperine twice daily for a month.

The result: Turmeric matched ibuprofen for pain relief and function, with 96–97% patient satisfaction in both groups — but fewer gastrointestinal side effects. The turmeric-ginger-pepper formula relieved pain and inflammation on par with naproxen, with patients rating it equal or better on tolerability, and no adverse effects.

NSAIDs are linked to thousands of GI-bleed deaths a year. Turmeric has a 4,000-year safety record and over 900 documented health benefits in our database.

→ Read the full article: Spice-Based Relief for Aching Joints Beats Dangerous NSAID

7. Ginger vs. Mefenamic Acid and Ibuprofen — Menstrual Pain

 

The trials: 122 women with moderate-to-severe dysmenorrhea took either 250 mg of ginger every six hours or the NSAID mefenamic acid every eight hours, across two menstrual cycles. An earlier trial of 150 women compared 250 mg ginger four times daily against both mefenamic acid and ibuprofen for three days.

The result: Ginger reduced pain “significantly and equally” to the drug in the first trial — roughly half the women in each group went from moderate/severe to mild. In the second, the authors concluded flatly that ginger is as effective as the drugs.

The difference is what comes with it: NSAIDs raise the risk of ulcers, bleeding and cardiovascular events. Ginger raises the risk of nothing in particular.

→ Read the full article: Herbal Research Update for Women’s Health · Eight Unexpected Health Benefits of Ginger

8. Echinacea + Elderberry vs. Tamiflu — Influenza

 

The trial: Double-blind comparison of an Echinacea purpurea and elderberry blend against oseltamivir (Tamiflu), the world’s best-selling flu drug. Current Therapeutic Research, 2015.

The result: By day five, the herbal blend was already slightly ahead. By day ten, 90.1% of the herb group had recovered versus 84.8% on Tamiflu — with fewer complications and fewer side effects. Elderberry alone has repeatedly been shown to cut flu recovery from 7–8 days to 2–3.

Governments stockpiled billions of dollars of Tamiflu. A Cochrane review later found it shortened flu symptoms by about half a day. Elderberry costs twelve dollars.

→ Read the full article: What You Need to Know to Crush the Cold & Flu

9. Licorice (DGL) vs. Tagamet — Peptic Ulcers

 

The trial: Deglycyrrhizinated licorice (DGL) at 760 mg three times daily versus cimetidine (Tagamet), the first blockbuster acid-blocker, for peptic ulcer healing and relapse.

The result: DGL achieved 91% ulcer healing with an 8.2% relapse rate, versus 12.9% relapse with Tagamet. In the same research roundup, 3,000 mg/day of turmeric achieved 72% ulcer healing at eight weeks — comparable to omeprazole (Prilosec).

Acid-blockers are now linked to dementia, kidney disease, fractures and nutrient malabsorption with long-term use. Licorice root has been treating stomachs since Hippocrates.

→ Read the full article: The Mind Thieves — How 6 Common Medications Are Stealing Our Humanity

10. Colostrum vs. the Flu Shot — Influenza Prevention

 

The trial: Head-to-head comparison of oral colostrum against flu vaccination in both healthy adults and high-risk cardiovascular patients over two months. Clinical and Applied Thrombosis/Hemostasis, 2007.

The result: Healthy adults on colostrum alone averaged 0.33 flu episodes versus 1.1 in the vaccinated-only group — roughly three times more protective. Among the high-risk cardiac patients, the colostrum group had zero hospital admissions; the vaccinated group had multiple hospitalizations and one death. Flu-related costs in the colostrum group were about 30% of the vaccinated group’s. No significant side effects were reported.

Vitamin D, for the record, cut influenza A risk by 59% in children at 1,200 IU/day in a separate RCT. Neither appears in a single public health campaign.

→ Read the full article: Colostrum 3x More Effective Than Flu Vaccines

Honorable Mentions: When “Doing Something Else” Beat the Drug

Not every alternative comes in a capsule. From our long-running piece on non-pill interventions that outperformed pharmaceuticals in head-to-head trials:

• Sudarshan Kriya yoga breathing beat the antidepressant imipramine for depression (Journal of Affective Disorders, 2000).
• Acupuncture beat flunarizine for migraine prevention, with superior tolerability.
• Abdominal aromatherapy massage beat Tylenol for menstrual pain.
• Hypnosis matched Valium for anxiety during embryo transfer, with fewer side effects.
• Blue and red light therapy beat 5% benzoyl peroxide for acne, with no side effects.
• An elemental diet matched high-dose steroids for Crohn’s disease in children — and was superior for supporting their growth.

→ Read the full list: 11 Things Better than Drugs or Supplements for Healing

Why You Have Never Heard Most of This

Every study above is published in a peer-reviewed journal and sits in the National Library of Medicine. None of it is hidden. It is simply unfindable — buried in a haystack of tens of millions of papers, with no one paid to surface it, and, since 2021, no longer even filterable under PubMed’s complementary-and-alternative-medicine category, which was quietly removed.

That is why GreenMedInfo exists. We have spent seventeen years indexing this research — 1.4 million studies and counting, hand-mapped to over 16,000 substances, conditions and mechanisms — and keeping it free to search. In 2020 they tried to take it offline. It’s still here. It’s still yours.

If any of this was new to you, that is the whole problem — and the whole reason to search the archive, share this piece, and bring one of these studies to your next doctor’s appointment.

By Kamran Yeganegi | The Cradle | October 3, 2026

Saudi oil tankers are loading again at Yanbu, less than three weeks after drone strikes shut down the East–West Pipeline that supplies the Red Sea port. On 24 September, crude was reported to be flowing west again, although no ship had yet loaded a cargo.

By 29 September, trade sources and shipping data showed that loadings had resumed. The interruption and recovery have offered a costly demonstration of what an oil route around the Strait of Hormuz can, and cannot, do.

Yanbu, Ceyhan and Baniyas sit at three very different points on that spectrum.

Yanbu has a 1,200-kilometer pipeline in operation and an established export terminal. Ceyhan is already loading Iraqi crude, though current Iraqi flows are measured in hundreds of thousands–not millions–of barrels a day. Baniyas could eventually give Iraq a major Mediterranean outlet, but for now it remains a project that depends on new infrastructure and financing, political agreements, and protection across two fragile states.

The comparison begins with the oil that reaches ships during a crisis. Pipeline capacity matters only as much as the pumps, terminals, and security along the route allow.

Yanbu’s exposed lifeline

Saudi Arabia’s 1,200-kilometer East–West Pipeline has a nominal capacity of 7 million barrels per day (bpd). Before the September strikes, reported flows through the system were already below that capacity. Three pumping stations were damaged, and the shutdown halted crude loadings at Yanbu. Riyadh blamed Iraqi resistance factions; the Islamic Resistance in Iraq denied responsibility for the strike. Baghdad condemned the strike and opened an investigation.

Restarting the line on 22 September did not immediately restore exports. Crude had to reach Yanbu and replenish stocks before tankers could load. Two vessels scheduled for 23 September left without cargo, according to shipping data cited by Reuters. Loadings resumed days later, after a strike on pumping stations hundreds of kilometers inland had kept the port idle.

Yanbu was moving between 2 million and 2.65 million bpd when tankers returned. Traders expected flows to rise to 3 million to 4 million bpd, but a return to the pre-attack level of roughly 5.5 million bpd could take another month.

The voyage has become more expensive, too. Quoted war-risk premiums for Saudi-linked tankers calling at Yanbu have risen to around 3 percent of vessel value, up from below 1 percent in early July. For a $100 million tanker carrying two million barrels, a 3 percent premium adds roughly $1.50 to the cost of each barrel, before fuel or freight. Yanbu may bypass Hormuz, but insurers are charging heavily for the detour.

Yanbu still leaves Asia-bound cargoes exposed to the southern Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab. Attacks and warnings by Yemen’s Ansarallah-aligned army have made passage through those waters more costly and uncertain. Heidmar Maritime Holdings chief executive Pankaj Khanna has highlighted another problem for shipowners: the Red Sea lacks the US naval protection sometimes available around Hormuz.

Saudi Arabia has escaped one strait only to send its oil toward another. Cargoes bound for Europe can head north through the Red Sea, but Asian customers require the southern passage. That split limits how freely Riyadh can reroute shipments when risks around Bab al-Mandab rise.

Ceyhan’s southern supply problem

Ceyhan is already loading Iraqi crude, though its northern supply remains small compared with the volumes exported through the Gulf. Flows stood at roughly 200,000 bpd in mid-September, down from about 250,000 bpd before the war. Baghdad’s challenge is getting oil from its vast southern fields into that northern export system.

Iraq has begun moving southern oil north by road. A September trial sent 209 tanker trucks carrying about 38,000 barrels to Kirkuk over two days. Basra Oil Company later said around 250,000 bpd was being transported north for onward export through Ceyhan.

Truck convoys are useful during a crisis, but they cannot replace a high-capacity pipeline. The first trial averaged about 182 barrels per truck. Moving 250,000 barrels at that rate would require roughly 1,370 loaded truck trips, with vehicles returning south for the next run. Road conditions and loading points impose additional constraints. Expanding Ceyhan therefore depends less on the Turkish terminal than on a reliable south-to-north connection within Iraq.

Energy analyst Richard Bronze of Energy Aspects has warned against treating bypass infrastructure as a substitute for Hormuz altogether. “The idea that the strait will stop mattering or become worthless is pure rhetoric,” he told Arab News. For Iraq, the road to Ceyhan provides an outlet. It cannot yet carry southern crude at a scale that would loosen Baghdad’s reliance on the Gulf.

Baniyas across the war map

Baniyas is the most ambitious option because it could reshape Iraq’s export map. Iraq has approved preliminary studies comparing routes including Basra–Haditha–Kirkuk–Ceyhan and Basra–Haditha–Baniyas, with a consortium that includes Chevron, TI Capital, and Qatar’s UCC. Chatham House estimates the wider Iraq–Syria network at around $15 billion, with a proposed initial capacity of roughly 2 million bpd and construction potentially taking about four years.

Syrian officials have given a somewhat shorter timeframe. Syrian Petroleum Company chief Youssef Qablawi said in August that the Haditha–Baniyas project could take around 30 months to three years after final agreements and engineering work. Even the shorter timetable places Baniyas beyond the present shipping crisis, assuming agreements and funding are secured.

The route’s security problem is also more complex than a line drawn on a map. A pipeline from Haditha toward Syria would traverse western Iraq, including areas where ISIS cells remain a concern, before entering eastern Syria, where state authority remains uneven and armed groups continue to operate.

Chatham House noted in September that armed actors, including ISIS, have attacked oil wells and tanker trucks in eastern Syria, while Iraq’s fragmented security system leaves multiple actors capable of obstructing or extracting rents from infrastructure.

Israel’s strikes and military presence in Syria would loom over any pipeline to Baniyas. There is no evidence that Israel plans to attack the project, but a route through Syrian territory would depend on security guarantees Damascus cannot yet provide.

Baniyas itself is more functional than the word “reconstruction” sometimes suggests. Iraqi-origin fuel oil has already been trucked through Syria and handled at the terminal, demonstrating that a commercial logistics chain can operate.

The existing trade gives the project a foothold, but handling trucked fuel oil is far removed from loading 1–2 million bpd of pipeline crude. Storage, pumping systems, berths and terminal reliability would have to be scaled accordingly.

The old Kirkuk–Baniyas line was badly damaged, and the planned network may take a different route. Existing truck traffic therefore offers little indication of the cost or the construction work required to handle sustained crude flows.

Sanctions are another constraint, though less severe than under Bashar al-Assad. The EU lifted its broad economic sanctions on Syria in 2025 while retaining security-based and targeted measures, and the US rescinded Syria’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in August 2026. That lowers, but does not eliminate, banking, insurance, due-diligence and counterparty risk for a multi-billion-dollar project.

Iran’s leverage runs through Iraq

The geopolitical logic behind Iraq’s western routes is often framed as a means to reduce Iranian leverage over Hormuz. Iran’s influence in Iraq also extends through energy trade, political networks, and armed factions embedded in Iraq’s fragmented security order.

At the same time, Tehran does not treat Iraq exactly as it treats other Gulf states. Mostafa Khoshcheshm, a political commentator on Iranian television, told Al Jazeera in August that Iran viewed Iraq as a “friendly state” and had allowed some Iraqi oil tankers to pass Hormuz.

He said Baghdad had “always stood up to the United States.” His view is one Iranian reading of Baghdad’s position. An Iraqi move toward Gulf- and US-backed western export corridors would also alter the economic leverage surrounding it.

An expansion through Baniyas or Ceyhan would give Baghdad more room to negotiate export terms without severing its ties to Iran. Gulf investment would bring new transit partners and sources of capital, though it would not automatically shift Iraq’s political alignment.

The security question cuts both ways. Iran-aligned resistance factions could be a source of vulnerability if they viewed a corridor as threatening their strategic interests. ISIS remnants and local power brokers could also obstruct it, while transit-state disputes might halt flows without an attack. Yanbu’s damaged pumps are a warning about the vulnerability of a land corridor.

Iraq’s other proposed exits face obstacles of their own. Reviving the dormant Iraq Pipeline through Saudi Arabia (IPSA) would require Riyadh’s agreement and extensive repairs. The Basra–Aqaba route would have to be built across western Iraq and Jordan.

Egypt’s SUMED pipeline is already operating, but Baghdad has no direct way to feed Iraqi crude into it. For now, the southern Gulf terminals remain Iraq’s only outlet capable of handling exports at scale.

What reaches the tanker?

As of early October, Yanbu can move the largest potential volume because the pipeline and port already exist, but its 7 million bpd nameplate figure overstates the immediately exportable capacity, while Red Sea shipping costs and the Bab al-Mandab remain concerns.

Ceyhan can now load Iraqi crude, but expansion depends on resolving Iraq’s internal north–south logistics. Baniyas offers the largest geopolitical transformation, but it remains years, billions of dollars, and security agreements away from moving crude at scale.

Hormuz remains central to the region’s oil trade even as states invest in alternatives. Yanbu, Ceyhan and Baniyas each shift some exposure from the strait to pumping stations, desert corridors, insurers or transit governments. Their value will be measured by the barrels reaching ships when the Gulf route is under threat, not by the capacity listed in a project plan.

By Robert Inlakesh | MintPress News | October 2, 2026

Scrambling to halt the ongoing offensive of Yemen’s Armed Forces, Israel and Saudi Arabia have strengthened ties through a joint covert campaign aimed at salvaging what remains of their supremacy in the Red Sea region. Tel Aviv and Riyadh’s losses of key military strongholds in Yemen’s Western coast, has ushered in a new era of soft-normalisation.

Saudi Arabia has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Yemen, resulting in thousands of casualties since its renewed bombing campaign began this July. It now heavily relies on Israeli targeting intelligence backing in order to conduct dozens of strikes across Yemeni territory on a daily basis, including attacks on civilian market places and residential buildings.

Meanwhile, Israeli officials heaped praise on Riyadh this Wednesday for facilitating the first ever commercial flight between Israel and Saudi, following the Kingdom’s intervention to aid Israeli passengers on-board a Flydubai plane that was forced to undergo an emergency landing.

In contrast, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) initiated the renewal of the Saudi-Yemen war, by bombing the runway of Sana’a International Airport in order to prevent an Iranian civilian jetliner from landing inside the country. This measure was taken to enforce a long-standing aerial blockade on Yemen, while Israeli aircraft freely use Saudi airspace.

Press TV – October 4, 2026

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, warned on Sunday that any future use of regional countries’ territory to attack the Islamic Republic will provoke a different and decisive response, stressing that Tehran expects its neighbors to uphold the principle of good neighborliness.

Speaking at a press conference in Tehran, Baghaei said countries in the region—especially those that placed their facilities at the disposal of the United States and the Zionist regime during the recent war—must reconsider their actions.

“If in the future we witness another aggression by America and the Zionist regime and their soil is used to attack Iran, certainly the response will be different,” Baghaei said.

He emphasized that all countries in the region have had a bitter experience with US military presence and intervention, adding: “We are eternal neighbors.”

Baghaei said Iran has quickly and clearly conveyed its grievances to regional countries, particularly those that provided territory and facilities to the US and Israeli regime during the military aggression.

He stressed that these countries bear international responsibility for participating in aggressive actions.

He noted that on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Iranian officials held good meetings with almost all southern Persian Gulf countries.

The spokesman also addressed the presence of the Israeli prime minister in the UAE, warning that the Zionist regime is seeking to sow sedition in the region.

He called on neighboring states not to allow their facilities and territory to be abused by parties that have shown no regard for regional security and prosperity.

UNGA participation a success

Baghaei described Iran’s participation in the 81st UN General Assembly as one of the country’s most successful international appearances.

A small but highly productive delegation, led by President Masoud Pezeshkian, attended the summit. He said meetings with counterparts, think tanks, and media helped explain Iran’s positions and logic on regional and global issues.

Responding to a US media claim that two members of the Iranian delegation were expelled from the US, Baghaei dismissed it as “pure lies.”

He said Iran’s travel, entry, and exit were fully notified in advance. One diplomat left New York due to US pressure, while the others departed according to the pre-arranged schedule.

“This is an admission by the host government that it violated its obligations,” Baghaei said. “It proves they are not a worthy host for the United Nations.”

He added that the US, having failed to prevent Iran’s participation and isolate Tehran, resorted to such “cheap news-making.”

Seven-day plan

Baghaei said Iran’s seven-day plan was the latest initiative to keep the diplomatic path open, and the world witnessed Iran’s responsible and goodwill-based approach.

He noted that previous experiences show the American side is not committed to diplomacy and has always shirked its obligations.

“That is why, while we speak of diplomacy, we will decisively defend Iran’s national interests and security. Our armed forces are vigilant, powerful, and ready to repel any evil.”

On US proposals conveyed via the Qatari mediator, Baghaei said they largely reflect previous US positions and specifically concern nuclear issues.

“We explicitly announced that our focus at this stage is the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.

He added that restoring security to the Strait requires concrete US steps, including stopping disruption of Iran’s commercial shipping, lifting sanctions, and ending other interventionist measures.

He said all items previously included in the Islamabad understanding, plus new ones added in recent months, must be honored.

“Sanctions imposed by America during this period must be lifted.”

UK envoy summoned over accusations

Baghaei said the British ambassador was summoned on Thursday to receive Iran’s official protest over baseless accusations linking Tehran to an alleged incident at a British airbase.

He described UK accusations against Iran as a “forward escape” because London knows Iran has demanded accountability for Britain’s participation in the military aggression.

“There is no doubt that Britain directly participated in this illegal war by providing its military bases,” he said.

He cited NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s admission that bases in Europe were used during the US-Israeli aggression.

“The British government must be held accountable. It cannot escape responsibility with fabricated claims.”

US withdrawal from Iraq a ‘blessed’ step

Baghaei called the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq a very important and blessed development for consolidating Iraqi national sovereignty, and a sign of American failure.

He recalled the crimes committed during the 23-year occupation, including Abu Ghraib, and said Daesh and takfiri terrorism were products of the occupation.

“Foreign occupation creates the ground for violence, division, and insecurity,” he said. “We hope this step strengthens relations between the two countries and protects Iraq’s national sovereignty and independence.”

By Raphael Machado | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 4, 2026

The year 2026 is passing quickly. In fact, it won’t be long before it ends. Still, we remember very well how this year opened: on January 3, the U.S. carried out a military operation in Caracas, in which they abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Lícia Flores. During this operation, a large part of Maduro’s bodyguards lost their lives. Maduro was close to a bunker, but he couldn’t reach it and seal the door in time before being captured.

In his place, Delcy Rodríguez assumes power, supported by her brother Jorge Rodríguez, who presides over the National Assembly, by Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, and by Vladimir Padrino López, who controls the military. Far from betting on “free and democratic elections,” the U.S. endorsed the continuity of Bolivarian politics, keeping Delcy Rodríguez in power. Maria Corina Machado, Juan Guaidó’s successor in the Venezuelan “color revolution” project, has already fallen into oblivion.

What really happened during Maduro’s abduction? The circumstances were never sufficiently well explained, and we continue swimming amid rumors and hearsay. Occasionally, unverifiable information emerges that some elements of Maduro’s security team sold him out in exchange for financial compensation, never paid by the U.S. In fact, Venezuela’s interim government made several changes to the presidential guard after the abduction, even while denying that there was any betrayal.

But the big question is what happened to all the Russian and Chinese military equipment acquired by Venezuela. Why wasn’t it used on January 3? We are talking, for example, about Chinese JY-27A, JYL-1, and JY-11 radars, some of which have anti-stealth capability, as well as Russian Sukhoi Su-30 fighters and Russian anti-aircraft systems such as the S300 and Buk-M2. None of this appears to have been used during the U.S. attack. Lack of maintenance? Lack of readiness among Venezuelan soldiers? It is not known.

Since then, Delcy Rodríguez has been criticized extremely by foreign anti-imperialists for her conciliatory stance toward the U.S. Whenever news appears of a meeting between Venezuela’s interim president and some U.S. representative, such as Dan Caine of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marco Rubio, or, as recently, Donald Trump, criticism abounds. The same happens when the Venezuelan government issues its now-typical official notes celebrating “collaboration” with the U.S., the “improvement in relations,” “investment opportunities,” and so on.

Now, to some extent, it is quite easy to criticize Venezuela’s interim government while outside Venezuela and without having to deal with the same kind of pressure. In a practical and material sense, what options does Venezuela have today? To what extent can it directly and openly defy the U.S.?

The version offered by supporters of the current Venezuelan government is that Delcy Rodríguez’s priority is to preserve the Bolivarian political system and secure the return of Nicolás Maduro. Economic sovereignty can, to a certain extent, be sacrificed in the short term; the power structure cannot, since it is harder to rebuild or recover if it ceases to exist. In this sense, Delcy Rodríguez would be offering concessions to the U.S. in order to buy time, waiting until political changes within the U.S. – such as a Trump defeat in the midterms or, perhaps, in the next presidential elections – bring about a more favorable scenario.

The narrative is plausible and, frankly, in Delcy Rodríguez’s place I would do the same thing. There don’t seem to be many other options, at this moment, for Venezuela, besides damage control.

But how much is it possible to concede?

In just 1 year we have seen the return of the U.S. Embassy to Caracas, as well as the establishment of a CIA office in the country and the restoration of relations with the State of Israel.

On the economic front, the U.S. has come to approach the revenue from approximately 1 million barrels exported daily, whose value is only partially returned to the Venezuelan government for investments and spending authorized by the U.S. A good part of the value remains with the U.S. government, and Trump referred directly to this value as spoils of war.

Soon after, Venezuela granted the American company Trafigura the right to buy and export Venezuelan gold to be refined abroad, with approximately 400kg of gold per month being transferred to the U.S.

And more recently, Venezuela ceded to the U.S. majority control over unexplored Venezuelan reserves that would theoretically amount to 65 billion barrels of oil. These are areas in which the U.S. would make investments of 100 billion dollars to extract oil for 25 years, which would yield 200 billion dollars in revenue for Venezuela, but much more for the companies involved and for the U.S. government.

How much further is Delcy Rodríguez willing to go? That is the question.

Finally, it is reckless to believe that a change in the White House from a Republican government to a Democratic government would represent a turn of fortune for Venezuela. On strategic topics, there is a surprising continuity of foreign policy between different governments, which indicates to us that perhaps it is not the White House that dictates the real guidelines. Moreover, it costs nothing to remember that it was under Barack Obama that the siege against Venezuela really began, intensifying with each subsequent presidency, whether Republican or Democratic.

Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – October 3, 2026

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | October 2, 2026

If you are a British citizen and you criticize a government program online, that criticism can be collected and stored by a government-linked body.

At least that seems to be the upshot of the actions of the Prevent Standards and Compliance Unit (StaCU), “a body linked to the Home Office,” that has been keeping “observations” of those who speak against the government’s Prevent counter-extremism program on the internet.

The “evidence” of this comes from documents the group Rights & Security International (RSI) obtained under freedom of information law.

The group has now revealed that in the year from March 2024 to February 2025, StaCU made 77 “observations” of people who were critical of the program online – and that most of these “observations” came from X, with some from Reddit. Mainstream media articles were also included, as were posts from or about several organizations, including Hope Not Hate, Maslaha, and the Open Rights Group.

The “observations” are filed as “open-source complaints” and stored internally by StaCU. RSI is unsure what happens to this data next, and who the government may be sharing it with. What is known is that the process involves “attempting to independently verify claims.”

As RSI’s Freedom of Expression and Belief Team Leader Jacob Smith put it, “You should be able to criticize government policy without getting put on a list.”

Smith also noted that the fact that the government “has been trawling X and Reddit to find out who has been critiquing Prevent” should serve as “a stark reminder that, in the government’s eyes, anything you share online is fair game and could go into a file forever.”

The Home Office tried to keep this secret and refused to hand over the documents at first, but RSI won an appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office, and the documents were released.

As RSI noted, it is unclear if any automated tools were used to find the posts, and if not, how the unit “found” them, or what it does with the data it collects.

The case is not the first time Prevent has been in the news for its controversial nature and the way it is implemented, but it is a stark reminder that the British government has no problem treating criticism of its policies as potentially dangerous.

By Iqbal Jassat | Press TV | October 3, 2026

The departure of the final US military forces from Iraq marks a profound turning point in the modern history of West Asia.

For over two decades, the narrative of foreign intervention dictated that regional stability was impossible without Washington’s oversight. Today, that narrative lies broken.

The end of the US-led military mission is not the result of a benevolent diplomatic concession or a calculated policy shift by the Pentagon. It is, undeniably, a hard-fought victory achieved through the unyielding resolve of Iraq’s Islamic Resistance and the enduring steadfastness of its people.

Crucially, the withdrawal of American forces delivers a severe blow to the strategic calculations of the Zionist entity. For decades, Israel’s expansionist ambitions and its destabilising campaign of aggression across the region – from Palestine and Lebanon to Syria – have relied entirely on the foundational guarantee of US military backing.

Washington’s illegal military presence in Iraq served as a vital buffer and logistics corridor designed to fracture the Axis of Resistance and project power on Israel’s behalf. With the American shield removed from Iraq, the regional depth that Tel Aviv exploited to enforce its hegemony is rapidly collapsing.

The end of the US occupation severely limits the capability to isolate regional resistance factions, exposing the fundamental limits of Zionist expansionism when stripped of direct imperial protection.

The balance of power has fundamentally shifted, proving that the era of unpunished aggression across West Asia is coming to an end.

For 23 years, Iraq served as the central stage for a flawed experiment in imposed security. The 2003 invasion promised democracy and stability but instead delivered a legacy of institutional fragmentation, economic exploitation, and a vacuum that fueled regional terrorism.

In charting this path towards absolute liberation, none can deny the blueprint for true sovereignty remains Iran’s historic achievement of complete independence.

By expelling foreign military mandates and dismantling external control over its domestic wealth, Iran proved that a nation can cultivate formidable defensive and scientific capabilities entirely from within.

This self-reliant model stands as a direct contrast to the Arab Persian Gulf sheikdoms, which have long tethered their survival to American protection, effectively trading their strategic autonomy for a fragile security umbrella.

While these neighboring monarchies remain dependent on foreign bases and external guarantees, Iraq’s triumph demonstrates that genuine security cannot be imported or bought.

The reality of the past two decades, stretching from the sudden collapse in Kabul to the gradual eviction from Baghdad, proves that dependence on foreign superpowers is an inherently fragile strategy.

When foreign forces occupy bases under the guise of “protection,” they serve primary external geopolitical interests rather than the security of the host nation. The presence of these military installations frequently exacerbates regional polarization, turning host countries into potential flashpoints for broader wars they cannot control.

Iraq’s transition into a new era demonstrates a vital alternative: security is most durable when it is organically derived from national unity, localized defense capability, and regional cooperation. The resistance infrastructure that stood firm against occupation has demonstrated that an organized, highly motivated regional population can outlast the political will of an external superpower.

This moment serves as a stern warning to those Arab regimes tempted by the illusion of the Abraham Accords. Normalising ties with the Zionist entity under the pretext of economic benefit or strategic deterrence is a fatal miscalculation.

Entangling a nation’s destiny with a decaying occupation framework will neither guarantee security nor provide immunity from regional realities.

For the capitals still hosting US military bases or pursuing compromise with Tel Aviv, the message from Baghdad is clear: true stability is forged through regional integration, resistance to imperialism, and self-reliance—not through the permanent invitation of foreign militaries or treacherous pacts that betray the core causes of the Islamic world.

Most profoundly, this historic milestone radiates a powerful ray of hope to the people of Palestine, who have endured decades of devastating cruelty and brutal subjugation since the creation of Israel.

For a population resisting land theft, apartheid, and relentless military assault, the liberation of Iraq offers undeniable proof that even the most heavily funded occupation is not permanent. It demonstrates that when a people refuse to break, the architecture of oppression can be dismantled piece by piece.

The steadfastness of the Iraqi resistance serves as a direct message to the Palestinian struggle: the path of compromise is a dead end, but unyielding resistance eventually breaks the chains of tyranny.

---

Iqbal Jassat is an executive member of the Media Review Network, Johannesburg, South Africa.

By Ricardo Martins – New Eastern Outlook – October 2, 2026

It was common practice during the Cold War to exaggerate the threat from the Soviet Union. Nowadays, Russia has assumed that role. Although the circumstances have changed, some of the political methods employed to create a sense of insecurity are still remarkably similar.

Europe is not formally engaging in preparations for war since it desires one. Instead, the governments of Europe and the institutions of the EU describe their rapidly growing defence policies and war preparedness as being aimed at deterrence, on the basis that Europe has to become strong enough to avoid a bigger conflict.
NATO does likewise, presenting itself as a defensive alliance whose role is to deter aggression. Nevertheless, the extent and the terminology used in Europe’s present military transformation should be examined. If preparedness becomes a top political concern, if huge amounts of public money are channelled into defence industries, and if support for Ukraine becomes more and more tied to Europe’s own security, then a significant question arises: where does deterrence cease and the political preparation for war begin?

The question is especially relevant to the EU, which has throughout its history been based on reconciliation, economic interdependence and a rejection of war.

From a peace project to a defence project

The European Union is experiencing a deep change in the way it views security. This change is no illusion. As part of the ReArm Europe/Readiness 2030 programme the European Commission plans to commit up to 800 billion euros towards defence spending, and the EU has set up a 150 billion euro SAFE lending facility to assist with military investment and joint procurement. The various EU institutions have made it clear that the aim is to eliminate capability gaps, boost the European defence industry and enhance deterrence.

The language that goes with this transformation is just as important. European Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius has warned at the European Parliament that Russia could be ready for a confrontation with NATO “in five years or less”. He has also invoked Jean Monnet’s wartime “Victory Programme” analogy, arguing that Europe needs a comparable transformation of its defence industry.

The official view of the Commission is that the issue is one of deterrence and not about starting a war. However, a military system which is intended to deter war needs to have weapons, logistical support, industrial capacity, troops and operational plans. As these capabilities increase, so too does the institutional ability to conduct war.

A paradox arises since Europe claims it is arming itself and preparing its hospitals to receive 2,000 wounds per day – as it is the case in Germany — in order to maintain peace while at the same time setting up a more and more integrated belligerent European defence structure. The EU is considering not just an increase in weapons but also the creation of a European Defence Union, a European Security Council, common procurement, military mobility and a closer relationship between European institutions and NATO.

The fact that this might constitute a necessary adaptation to a new security situation also brings up a more general issue concerning European identity: is the European Union still mainly a peace project which happens to have military capabilities, or is it instead becoming a geopolitical and military actor for which readiness for confrontation is becoming increasingly important?

Is Russia a threat, an adversary, or a permanent enemy?

Here, there is a mixture of perceived threats, old ressentiments and Russophobia in play. The threat perceptions are not the same throughout Europe. Because of historical reasons, such as foreign occupation and Soviet domination, Poland has long viewed Russia differently from countries such as France and Germany, which after the Cold War initially placed greater emphasis on economic engagement and interdependence with Moscow. But that distinction has changed dramatically.

Germany, in particular, has moved from the Ostpolitik-era logic of engagement towards a confrontational security posture. Under Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Berlin has described Russia as a serious threat, committed to a major expansion of defence spending, and taken a leading role in sustaining military support for Ukraine. Germany has also intensified defence cooperation with France, including discussions on nuclear deterrence and European capabilities. Germany has also established a permanent military presence in the Baltic States, with a brigade of around 5,000 soldiers being stationed in Lithuania.

The military buildup that Poland has since carried out has depended largely on the United States and South Korea, highlighting a further weakness: even though the EU has aimed at setting up a European defence industry, European manufacturers have not always been able to provide weapons at the speed and on the scale required by countries that have been rearming since 2022.

A more serious issue is that those who question the military escalation are seen as showing a lack of strength, a state of naivety or a failure to have sufficient solidarity with Europe — what then becomes of democratic debate? French Socialist Ségolène Royal.

The danger of making war readiness a political culture

That is exactly the reason why Europe’s present-day transformation should be subject to democratic scrutiny.

Deterrence becomes a politically dangerous thing when preparedness itself comes to be the main idea of security, when military expenditure starts to compete with other public priorities, and when diplomacy and negotiation are regarded as being of less importance than the building up of military power.

The proper European question therefore isn’t whether Europe is “strong enough” to fight Russia. It is rather what kind of security arrangement the Europeans would like to establish.

The present danger is that, as a result of years of confrontation, rearmament and politics based on the use of threats, Europe might slowly create a political and institutional setting in which war seems ever more certain and peace ever more unrealistic.

Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson says that a wider conflict between Europe and Russia is becoming “inevitable” since, in his opinion, the rhetoric of Europe is increasingly being matched by actions which Russia could see as direct threats. He highlights Germany as especially important, stating that Berlin’s more confrontational rhetoric, its military preparations and its demands on Moscow are leading to a dangerous escalation.

Johnson also sees the capture of Russian ships as a key point of escalation. He maintains that Moscow might view any attempt by Europe to seize its ships as an act of war and could then retaliate against the ships or military assets in question. He also mentions the collapse of diplomatic relations, the rearmament of European forces, preparations for a possible future confrontation, and the increasing pressure surrounding Kaliningrad as factors which reduce the room for de-escalation. In his view, the real danger is not that Russia is seeking war but that European actions are gradually making a direct confrontation inevitable.

---

Ricardo Martins – Doctor of Sociology, specialist in European and international politics as well as geopolitics

Follow new articles on our Telegram channel

By Jill Erzen | The Defender | October 2, 2026

Tracy Beth Høeg, M.D., Ph.D., an epidemiologist and sports physician, said her decision to follow the data during the COVID-19 pandemic came at a steep professional price.

Her research challenged policies on school closures, masking and COVID-19 vaccines. She said the fallout included losing her position at the University of California, Davis, being dropped from an NPR interview and being fired from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Høeg said her experience exposed the unwillingness of universities, media and public health institutions to adapt when research conflicted with their accepted narratives.

In an interview this week with investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker on The DisInformation Chronicle, Høeg said institutions too often treated the accepted narrative as settled and then dismissed or attacked people who questioned it.

That approach did more than distort the public discussion about COVID-19, Høeg said. It also created a scientific and institutional culture that could affect how other medical questions are handled long after the pandemic.

For Høeg, the solution is simple: Scientists should follow the evidence wherever it leads.

“It’s a core belief of mine that you have to be objective when you’re doing scientific studies,” she said. “Otherwise, you just shouldn’t do them. It’s pointless if you’re not willing to be objective.”

‘I … didn’t realize the jeopardy that I was putting myself in’

During the pandemic, Høeg published 30 to 40 papers on COVID-19 transmission, masking, youth sports, vaccine risk-benefit, pregnancy, long COVID, visitor restrictions and testing.

Some of her research challenged widely accepted claims.

One study found little evidence of COVID-19 transmission among children in Wisconsin schools, which was consistent with data from Europe. Another examined myocarditis risk in boys after their second Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine dose and found the risks outweighed the benefits in boys who didn’t have underlying health conditions.

Høeg said she didn’t initially understand the professional risks she was taking by challenging the prevailing narrative.

“There was sort of a hesitancy to do this sort of research because I think people were afraid for their careers,” she said. “I actually was blessed with having recently moved from Denmark and didn’t realize the jeopardy that I was putting myself in by doing these sorts of studies.”

At the time, Høeg was conducting research at the University of California, Davis.

She said the university received calls, including from Nature magazine, complaining about her studies on pandemic policies. Eventually, the university asked her not to use her affiliation with the school.

Høeg said the university refused to renew her voluntary position in 2022, after the European Journal of Clinical Investigation published her study on myocarditis risks in boys who received the COVID-19 vaccine.

NPR also dropped an interview with Høeg for “All Things Considered” after she raised concerns about masking children during outdoor sports.

In a pre-interview discussion with NPR, she told the outlet, “We don’t have evidence that these masks work to prevent transmission. … Bottom line is, we shouldn’t be doing these unproven things to children that are harmful.”

Soon after, NPR told Høeg she was no longer needed for the interview.

“It does say a lot about our universities and institutions because it’s like they had been brainwashed to an extent to believe what the media was saying rather than actually look at the data,” Høeg said.

‘They repeated the same wording … even when the data didn’t back it up’

In 2022, Høeg and her colleagues conducted a follow-up analysis of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study on school mask mandates.

Høeg said their analysis used a larger dataset and a longer time period and reached the opposite conclusion about the relationship between mask mandates and COVID-19 transmission among children.

The team’s submission to the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) was rejected. Høeg said reviewers described the submission as “rife with polemics.”

“Well, maybe it’s polarizing if you disagree with it,” Høeg said.

The rejection unearthed an underlying problem at the CDC, according to Høeg.

“They have a scientific agenda,” she said. “And so as soon as you have a scientific agenda, science has been thrown out the window. Science doesn’t have an agenda other than to find the truth.”

A 2024 analysis by Høeg and colleagues examined 77 mask studies published in the MMWR beginning in 2020. According to Høeg, 75% of the studies said masks were effective, while only 14% reported statistically significant results and none were randomized studies.

One finding especially stood out to her: She said 5% of the studies found masks were connected to higher infection rates, yet “they still concluded that masks worked.”

“They repeated the same wording over and over again in each of the studies, that ‘masks are necessary to decrease the spread’ and ‘masks are critical in controlling the case rates of COVID-19,’” she said. “They use the same sort of wording even when the data didn’t back it up at all.”

‘Why are we demonizing people for looking into this?’

Those concerns followed Høeg into the FDA in late 2025 when she was named acting director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER).

A leaked memo from then-FDA official Dr. Vinay Prasad said career staff had linked at least 10 child deaths to the COVID-19 vaccine between 2021 and 2024.

Høeg said she reviewed the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports and found that investigations involving medical records and autopsies had already been conducted.

“My question at the time was … why are these not being made public?” Høeg told Thacker.

Høeg said news leaked that she would present information about the deaths and their possible association with COVID-19 vaccines. She said the media response focused on portraying her as an “anti-vaxxer” rather than asking why the deaths had been investigated but not publicly disclosed.

“If we have these sorts of deaths happening in children due to medical products of any kind, why are we sitting on them for years?” she asked. “That’s the take-home I want people to have from this.”

She also questioned why people who investigate potential safety problems are attacked for trying to expose the dangers.

“Why are we demonizing people for looking into this? … Isn’t that what the public wants?” she asked.

‘The deep state really is a thing’

In May, just days after FDA Commissioner Marty Makary resigned, Høeg said she arrived at work to find media reports claiming she had resigned — something she said she knew nothing about.

FDA lawyers later asked her to resign, but she refused to sign the letter. She was subsequently locked out of the agency’s systems and escorted from the building.

Høeg said she never received a performance-based explanation for her termination. She also said the person identified as the author of her termination memo later denied writing or seeing it.

According to Høeg, agency lawyers told her the order came from “way above their pay grade.”

The experience changed how she viewed other departures from the agency. “It opened my eyes to the fact that maybe a number of the people who I thought had resigned really had not resigned,” she said.

“The deep state really is a thing,” she added.

‘Women who want to get pregnant … should be told about these risks’

For Høeg, the concerns she encountered during the COVID-19 era are not limited to COVID-19.

In 2025, she helped organize an FDA panel examining potential risks associated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, during pregnancy.

The American Psychiatric Association criticized the panel for what it called “misinterpretation and unbalanced viewpoints.” Høeg said the media also portrayed any discussion of potential risks as “misinformation about SSRI use” and a signal that depression wasn’t being taken seriously.

According to Høeg, the panel discussed risks already addressed in FDA labeling and scientific research, including miscarriage, premature birth, postpartum hemorrhage, congenital heart defects and neonatal adaptation syndrome.

“This should not be controversial that women who want to get pregnant and who are pregnant should be told about these risks,” she said.

She also warned about the lack of ongoing monitoring of drug safety.

“The FDA is not actively investigating the safety of these products in pregnancy or at all after the initial trials are done,” she said.

Høeg said the discussion should not be interpreted as an argument against treating depression. “I don’t think that any of this should be synonymous with not taking depression seriously,” she said. “That’s just nonsense.”

‘There’s just no reporting on this. … People have died taking this drug’

Høeg also discussed Tavneos, the Amgen-manufactured brand name for avacopan, a drug approved to treat a type of blood-vessel inflammation.

While at CDER, Høeg said she raised concerns that the pivotal clinical trial used to approve the drug had included manipulated data.

According to Høeg, at least eight deaths had been attributed to the drug because of liver injury.

The New England Journal of Medicine later retracted the paper detailing the trial, and European regulators withdrew the drug’s authorization. While the FDA has proposed withdrawing Tavneos’ approval, it remains available in the U.S.

Yet, the media barely covered it.

“There’s just no reporting on this,” Høeg said. “People have died taking this drug. … We asked for them to withdraw it from the market, and the media is just totally silent.”

Thacker: ‘There was no real learning in the end. … If anything, we became dumber’

Høeg said it is troubling that some of the most disputed COVID-19 policies are still treated as settled questions.

“How is this still part of our collective conversation that people … are still saying school closures were necessary and mask mandates were necessary?” she asked.

Thacker said the failure to learn from those policies could have consequences during the next pandemic. People who developed a “false sense of safety from masks” during COVID-19 could mistakenly assume masks will protect them from a more dangerous virus in the future, he said.

Thacker also questioned whether the country understands anything about the COVID-19 vaccines. “There was no real learning in the end. … If anything, we became dumber,” he said.

Høeg said the problem stems from the widespread failure to reconsider policies when the evidence changed.

“Once the government decided this is what we have to do, they just kept digging in, even though the data didn’t support it,” she said.

“This is why I keep doing these interviews, because it’s important for people to know the truth.”

Watch Høeg on ‘The DisInformation Chronicle’ podcast here:

---

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 2, 2026

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Thursday sued Pfizer and its CEO, Albert Bourla, alleging that the drugmaker misled the public by marketing its COVID-19 vaccine as safe and effective while not disclosing the vaccine’s potential risks to pregnant women, children and teenagers.

The 49-page lawsuit alleges Pfizer violated Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act by deceptively marketing its vaccine to the public in turn for making billions of dollars in profit.

According to the complaint, Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine marketing campaign focused on two principal themes: that the shot “posed no material safety risks” and that “mass vaccination was necessary to stop the transmission of COVID-19” — even though Pfizer never tested the vaccine’s ability to stop the virus from spreading.

Pfizer possessed extensive evidence that its vaccine caused serious adverse events — including 1,223 reported deaths following vaccination as of February 2021 and 52 miscarriages among vaccinated pregnant women. However, the company assured the public the vaccine was safe.

“Today we sued Pfizer for deceptively marketing the products as safe — making billions — while pregnant women were miscarrying their babies and teenagers were having heart attacks,” Uthmeier said in a statement.

Florida AG says state has track record of success with similar lawsuits

In a statement, Pfizer said the allegations are baseless, and that the “representations made by Pfizer about its COVID-19 vaccine have been accurate and science-based” and that it “stands behind the safety and efficacy” of the product.

But Forrest B. Saunders, communications director for Uthmeier’s office, told The Defender “the complaint and comments by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier speak for themselves.”

Saunders said Florida has a track record of success with such lawsuits, having “recovered millions for Floridians through consumer protection efforts.”

Naomi Wolf, CEO of Daily Clout and author of “The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer’s Crimes Against Humanity,” helped release documents in 2023 and 2024 revealing serious adverse events among pregnant women and irreversible harms to reproductive health. She called the lawsuit “a glimmer of potential justice long overdue.”

Florida resident Haley Schwartz, who was seriously injured following her COVID-19 vaccination in 2021, also welcomed the suit. She said injuries caused by the vaccine “have received inadequate attention” for years.

“Finally seeing these issues examined through a formal legal process feels significant and creates an important opportunity for greater scrutiny, transparency, and accountability regarding what was communicated to the public,” Schwartz said.

The lawsuit seeks civil penalties of $10,000 for each violation of the state’s consumer protection law — and $15,000 for each violation involving an elderly or disabled person.

Florida seeks to force Pfizer to return some of its profits and is asking for a permanent injunction against further deceptive practices.

Pfizer’s deceptive marketing sought to ‘ensure windfall profits’

According to the complaint, Pfizer engaged in a deceptive and “wide-ranging marketing campaign” to “drive consumer demand” for its COVID-19 vaccine, overcome widespread public skepticism and “ensure windfall profits.”

“This emphasis on the purported safety of the vaccine directly responded to widespread public concerns about a pharmaceutical product that had been developed on an unusually accelerated timeline, with uniquely limited testing and oversight, and employing novel mRNA technology,” the complaint states.

Pfizer’s campaign included public statements by Bourla claiming the COVID-19 vaccine was safe. The complaint cites a January 2023 interview in which Bourla claimed that Pfizer had not detected “a single [safety] signal” linked to the vaccine.

The complaint suggests public skepticism was warranted:

“Pfizer knew that data showed its COVID-19 vaccine was connected to myocarditis and pericarditis among minors; had reason to believe its COVID-19 vaccine would cause adverse events for pregnant women and their unborn babies in the first trimester, including miscarriage [and] thousands of reports of other adverse events including stroke and even death, especially among the elderly.”

By Feb. 28, 2021, Pfizer’s internal adverse event database already contained 158,893 adverse event reports and reports of 1,223 deaths linked to its COVID-19 shot, according to the complaint.

Pfizer by then also “possessed reports for 458 pregnant women exposed to its COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy” — over half of whom sustained at least one adverse event. Of 52 miscarriages, most occurred during the first trimester, “many within days of vaccination.”

Pfizer ended its COVID-19 vaccine trial involving pregnant women early, due to low participation, particularly among women in the early stages of pregnancy. But the drugmaker didn’t disclose “material facts already in its possession showing the risks associated with its COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy.”

Pfizer official admitted vaccine not tested for stopping transmission

Pfizer promoted its COVID-19 vaccine as a means of “protecting … loved ones” through a “wide-ranging marketing campaign” which suggested that the vaccine would stop the spread of COVID-19, the suit alleges.

But Janine Small, Pfizer’s president of international developed markets, said the vaccine was not tested on stopping the virus, according to a 2021 statement cited in the lawsuit.

Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said the “assurances of safety the company gave required knowledge Pfizer simply did not have.”

He cited a February 2021 Pfizer “nonclinical overview” document listing an extensive range of safety studies Pfizer did not conduct.

“Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine may actually have been the least-studied approved product it has made this century,” Jablonowski said.

The lawsuit alleges that Pfizer’s misleading marketing claims translated into a financial windfall for Pfizer and Bourla. Between 2020 and 2023, Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine revenue exceeded $80 billion, and Bourla received nearly $102 million in compensation.

Legal liability shield may not protect Pfizer in Florida lawsuit

COVID-19 countermeasures, including vaccines, are protected by a legal liability shield under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) of 2005.

Attorney Ray Flores, CHD’s senior outside counsel, said these protections may not extend to state-level consumer protection cases.

“All states have consumer protection statutes that normally would allow individual consumers to bring suit for fraudulent practices. Under the PREP Act, however, only states have the potential for successful suits,” Flores said.

Kansas and Texas have active lawsuits against Pfizer in the 10th and 5th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals, respectively. The suits make similar claims to Florida’s — namely, that Pfizer violated state consumer protection laws by marketing its COVID-19 vaccine as safe and effective.

“All three cases are remarkably similar, as they are brought under parens patriae,” a legal principle that allows states to file lawsuits to protect state residents, Flores said.

However, he said Florida’s lawsuit may face obstacles, as Pfizer may seek to move the case from state to federal court “to invoke PREP Act protection” — similar to what the company did in the Kansas and Texas lawsuits.

Flores said other states may be waiting on the sidelines for the outcomes of the Texas and Kansas cases.

“I wish more attorneys general would take such legal action,” Flores said. “There was a rumor back in 2024 that Utah, Mississippi and Louisiana were also suing Pfizer. It sounded good, and got lots of press, but it was never true.”

Flores also said he would like to see state attorneys general pressure U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to “flex his muscles” by ending the PREP Act’s liability shield for COVID-19 vaccines.

Bourla defended the liability shield for vaccine makers in an interview last year.

---

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

RT | October 2, 2026

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has rewarded her personal communications adviser with a permanent job in the commission’s media department, in a move that reveals how the EU bureaucracy really works, and how von der Leyen has created a royal court in Brussels.

Von der Leyen’s College of Commissioners – the 27 unelected bureaucrats who run the EU’s executive branch – met on Wednesday and signed off on the appointment of Jens Flosdorff as the bloc’s new ‘Director for Citizens Communication’.

Flosdorff was given the role after a “merit based and very highly competitive selection procedure,” the commission said in a statement. According to the EU-focused Rapporteur news site, however, Flosdorff was parachuted into the role by von der Leyen, whom he served for more than two decades as ‘personal communications adviser’.

Flosdorff’s new position will net him a largely tax-free salary of €216,000 ($245,279) per year, plus expenses and benefits.

Those with a memory of the Soviet Union, or an appreciation of Gogol or Bulgakov, might muster a quiet laugh at the appointment for life of a long-time confidant of Ursula von der Leyen to the well-paid and unassailable post of ‘Director for Citizens Communication’. However, a closer look at the EU’s communications apparatus reveals levels of bureaucratic redundancy beyond the wildest imagination of the great Russian absurdists.

From Byzantium to Brussels 

In his new role, Flosdorff will lead “lead the Commission’s citizens communication actions

and the analysis of public opinion,” according to the job advertisement that the commission was legally required to post before handing the sinecure to von der Leyen’s man. This presumably involves the crafting of youth outreach campaigns and commissioning of Eurobarometer polls, but the rest is unclear.

Sophia Eriksson Waterschoot, who currently occupies the role in an acting capacity, “refused to say what the job entailed” when asked by Rapporteur.

Waterschoot stepped in when previous Director for Citizens Communication Stefan de Keersmaecker was named ‘Director for Political Communication’ late last year. The differences between these two roles are blurred, with both responsible for social media campaigns, both analyzing media and public opinion, and both pushing the commission’s message (one as a ‘rapid response’ outfit, and the other organizing longer-term campaigns).

Both directors lead separate departments within the commission’s ‘Directorate-General for Communication’ (DG-COMM), and together employ around 500 people. DG-COMM has a yearly budget – excluding salaries – of €116 million, and it’s not the only communications department on the commission’s books: most of the commission’s 41 directorates-general have their own in-house spin offices too, which sometimes collaborate with the ‘citizens’ and ‘political’ bureaus of DG-COMM.

If that wasn’t complicated enough, none of these departments write von der Leyen’s speeches. That task falls to her personal speechwriter, Lorenzo Biondi, who announced his retirement on Wednesday.

Biondi is leaving the commission for a job at the Institute of International Affairs, an Italian think tank. But it’s not a straightforward move from the public to the private sector. The Institute of International Affairs’ Europe-focused work is funded almost entirely by the European Commission. There is now just an extra middleman between him and his former employer.

Queen Ursula’s court

Atop this bureaucratic superstructure, von der Leyen has consolidated her power. Her efforts go beyond appointing her loyalists to lucrative lifetime gigs: von der Leyen began the year by appointing 26 commissioners without running the list past the European Parliament first, as well as deliberately withholding budget and internal market strategy documents from member states until hours before publication, making deliberation impossible.

Former European Council President Charles Michel has described her governance as “super authoritarian.” Surrounded by a “tight-knit” and “micromanaged” circle of mostly German advisers, including Flosdorff, von der Leyen has reduced her commissioners to little more than administrators, whose opinions and criticisms rarely make it past her advisers.

Von der Leyen is “obsessed with demonstrating that she’s in charge,” and “is constantly jumping into the middle of the latest crisis, even when it’s outside her remit,” unnamed EU diplomats complained to Bloomberg in May.

Some of the commission chief’s ambitions are grand – she has pushed for the creation of an intelligence agency answering to her office, and backed a Franco-German plan to strip some of chief diplomat Kaja Kallas’ foreign policy powers. Others are more petty. On the day of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration last year, every commissioner under von der Leyen reportedly received strict instructions from Flosdorff: their own communications teams were only allowed to repost von der Leyen’s message to Trump on social media, without adding any comments of their own.

All of this is to illustrate two characteristics of the European Commission under von der Leyen. Firstly, with its jobs for life, its three-dozen communications departments, and its web of interconnected think tanks, it is a bloated organism whose reform would be a generational undertaking.

Secondly, with its unelected president controlling everything from job appointments and social media posts to foreign policy and intelligence gathering, it is an autocracy so at odds with its democratic rhetoric that it requires 43 communications offices to explain away its contradictions to the public.

Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – October 3, 2026