Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs has been given the political mandate to begin forming the country’s next government after his United List alliance secured 41 of the 100 seats in the Saeima. President Edgars Rinkēvičs backed Kulbergs to lead coalition negotiations on Tuesday following consultations with all six political forces elected to parliament.
Kulbergs will now negotiate the composition of the coalition, the division of ministerial responsibilities and the programme of the next government. The formal constitutional nomination cannot take place until the newly elected Saeima convenes on 3 November and the present government relinquishes its mandate.
Announcing the decision on 6 October, Rinkēvičs said consultations with the incoming parliamentary parties had shown broad support for United List and Kulbergs taking the initiative. The President described the party’s 41-seat showing as an unusually strong mandate and said he expected substantial progress in coalition negotiations before the beginning of November. The President’s full statement following the consultations.
Rinkēvičs said he would like to see a new Cabinet formed by Latvia’s national day on 18 November, although he stressed that there was no formal deadline. The government will also need to begin work rapidly on the 2027 budget.
Latvia First finished second with 13.08 per cent and 17 seats, while Sovereign Power/Alliance of Young Latvians took 11.71 per cent and 15 seats. The National Alliance won 10 seats with 8.90 per cent, the Progressives also secured 10 with 7.88 per cent, and New Unity took seven seats on 6.36 per cent.
The result represents a substantial change from the 2022 parliamentary election, when United List won 11.14 per cent and 15 seats. New Unity was then the largest party with 26 seats; it has now fallen to seven. The Union of Greens and Farmers, which won 16 seats in 2022 and joined Kulbergs’s government earlier this year, received just 4.40 per cent this time and failed to cross the five per cent threshold.
United List has indicated that its first choice is to negotiate with the National Alliance and New Unity. Together, the three parties would command 58 seats, providing Kulbergs with a clear parliamentary majority. A narrower United List–National Alliance coalition would have 51 seats.
The choice of prospective partners points towards continuity rather than a major change in Latvia’s foreign or security policy. United List, the National Alliance and New Unity have all backed continued support for Ukraine, membership of NATO and higher defence expenditure.
Kulbergs became prime minister only in May following the collapse of Evika Siliņa’s government during a political crisis over Latvia’s response to repeated drone incursions. The government he subsequently formed brought together United List, New Unity, the National Alliance and the Union of Greens and Farmers.
Latvia’s position on NATO’s north-eastern flank has given defence policy an unusually prominent place in domestic politics. The country borders both Russia and Belarus and has faced a series of drone incidents, border pressure and Russian information operations.
Defence spending is therefore unlikely to be substantially altered by the coalition negotiations. Latvia’s 2026 defence budget stands at €2.16 billion, currently calculated at 4.73 per cent of projected GDP, with the government moving towards expenditure equivalent to five per cent. Rinkēvičs said after Tuesday’s consultations that he had heard a clear commitment among the parliamentary parties to maintaining the country’s security, defence and foreign-policy course.
Turnout reaches record low
The size of United List’s parliamentary victory contrasts with a marked decline in electoral participation. The Central Election Commission recorded 806,641 voters from an electorate of 1.56 million, producing turnout of 51.79 per cent. Detailed election figures show that 793,846 valid ballots were ultimately counted.
Turnout in the 2022 parliamentary election was 59.41 per cent, meaning participation fell by more than seven percentage points.
The immediate question in Riga is therefore no longer who will lead the government-building process, but what form Kulbergs’s second administration will take. With 41 seats of his own and potential partners able to provide a comfortable majority, the election winner enters the negotiations from a considerably stronger position than any Latvian prime minister in recent years.
“Keep our city out of your reckless war talk,” said San Diego’s mayor, Todd Gloria, Monday night after President Donald Trump’s rambling speech at a rally in Nebraska included a particularly violent mention of the California city. Gloria was among several Democratic political leaders who were incensed after Trump – moments after predicted the Republican […]
Iran’s economic adaptation over decades, marked by domestic production, regional trade and Asian partnerships, is on course to thwart Washington’s economic terrorism.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s prediction that Iran’s economy would soon collapse underscores the depth of delusion within the current American leadership.
“Iran is absolutely not sanctionable,” Deputy Economy Minister Mortaza Zamanian said this week as Tehran worked to keep trade flowing despite Washington’s latest sanctions campaign.
Zamanian cited Iran’s extensive borders, established commercial routes and longstanding trading relationships, saying that they make it impossible for external pressure simply to switch off the country’s economy.
His remarks came as Washington intensified its economic terrorism against Iranian oil, shipping, aviation, finance, technology and foreign companies supporting those sectors.
The new American campaign has been accompanied by extraordinary predictions from senior American officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s claim that Iran could have “nothing left to trade” within two weeks.
Speaking on September 27, Bessent claimed that Iran would probably make its final oil deliveries to China within two weeks, after which, he asserted, “they will have nothing.”
That prediction deserves comparison with history, because American administrations have imposed increasingly severe sanctions on Iran since 1979 while repeatedly expecting economic pressure eventually to produce collapse.
Yet the economy did not disappear, and Iran instead developed domestic industries, expanded regional commerce, strengthened trade with Asian powers and accumulated extensive experience operating outside Western financial channels.
The proposition that an economy which has absorbed American sanctions for almost half a century will suddenly disintegrate within two weeks therefore indicates the depth of delusion among the current US leadership.
Iran enters this confrontation possessing a large domestic market, extensive productive capacity, enormous energy resources and deeply established commercial relationships across Eurasia.
These are not temporary sanctions evasions assembled during the present crisis, but economic capabilities developed over decades through investment, industrial learning, regional integration and repeated adaptation to external restrictions.
The most important fact about Iran’s economic structure is its size, because a country with more than ninety million people possesses a domestic market capable of supporting extensive production independently of Western consumers.
The World Bank describes Iran as relatively diversified for an oil-exporting economy, with a substantial domestic market, a large workforce and significant activity across manufacturing, agriculture and services.
That domestic market sustains production across food, pharmaceuticals, construction materials, steel, petrochemicals, machinery, transportation, consumer goods and numerous intermediate industrial sectors serving Iranian households and companies.
Iran is therefore not an economy that must export continuously merely to keep its factories operating, because a substantial portion of its production already serves domestic consumption, investment and infrastructure.
That distinction becomes particularly important when external restrictions are designed around the assumption that cutting foreign trade will automatically paralyze domestic economic activity.
A country whose productive system is centered on domestic demand possesses an economic engine that continues operating even when international transactions become more complicated.
Iran has also spent decades building industrial capabilities specifically suited to its own resource base, population, infrastructure requirements and energy-intensive economy.
Steel production, petrochemicals, cement, refining, power generation, construction, food processing and pharmaceuticals represent substantial industrial ecosystems involving domestic engineering, manufacturing, logistics and skilled employment.
These capabilities have repeatedly expanded during periods when access to Western investment and technology was severely restricted, demonstrating that Iranian industrial development does not depend upon continuous Western participation.
Iran’s long exposure to sanctions has produced another asset that cannot be imposed or removed through a Treasury designation, namely a large body of accumulated technical and commercial experience.
When foreign manufacturers withdraw, Iranian companies have learned to redesign equipment, substitute components, develop domestic suppliers and work with companies from countries willing to maintain commercial relationships.
Academic research has documented this process in Iranian industries, including evidence that sanctions simultaneously restricted access to foreign technology while encouraging the development of domestic technological capabilities.
The resulting industrial knowledge extends beyond individual companies, because engineers, technicians, procurement specialists and managers have accumulated practical experience with restricted supply chains over successive decades.
A manufacturer that has operated under sanctions for years does not design its procurement system around the assumption that every international supplier will remain available indefinitely.
It develops alternatives as part of ordinary business planning, creating a commercial culture in which substitution, regional sourcing and domestic production are integrated into industrial decision-making.
This is one of the strongest reasons the prediction of sudden economic emptiness looks disconnected from Iran’s actual economic structure.
There is no single foreign supplier whose disappearance can remove Iran’s entire industrial capacity, because Iranian production is distributed across thousands of domestic enterprises and numerous regional supply relationships.
The system has been shaped by scarcity for so long that adaptation has become embedded within the operating methods of Iranian companies themselves.
Iran’s geographical position provides another form of economic strength that cannot be erased by financial sanctions, because the country physically connects several of the world’s most important commercial regions.
Iran borders Turkey, Iraq, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, while its southern coastline provides direct access to the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.
Those borders connect Iranian commerce with the Caucasus, Central Asia, South Asia, the Persian Gulf, Turkey and Iraq, creating commercial possibilities extending in several directions simultaneously.
This geography gives Iran direct access to neighboring markets while also placing the country along important transportation corridors linking Russia, Central Asia and the Indian Ocean.
The significance of Zamanian’s argument is therefore practical rather than rhetorical, because no financial authority can relocate Iran away from its geographic position.
Goods can move through different borders, suppliers can be found in different countries and exporters can redirect shipments towards different markets when commercial conditions change.
Iran has consequently developed a regional trading system that does not depend upon one border, one port, one customer or one foreign economic relationship.
Its trade with Iraq, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Caucasus, Central Asia and China represents an extensive commercial geography developed through years of interaction.
The World Bank has documented precisely this shift, noting that Iranian trade has increasingly pivoted towards neighboring countries and China as sanctions have restricted conventional international economic relationships.
That transformation is now an established feature of Iran’s economy rather than an emergency measure invented after the latest American escalation.
China gives Iran’s economic system another dimension because it combines enormous industrial capacity with sustained demand for Iranian energy and other commodities.
In other words, Iran possesses access to a major global market even while facing comprehensive American restrictions on its oil industry.
China also supplies Iranian companies with machinery, manufactured products, electronics, industrial equipment and intermediate goods required across the domestic production system.
The relationship therefore operates in both directions, with Iran supplying commodities and China supplying industrial goods, creating a commercial relationship considerably broader than the simple sale of sanctioned oil.
Iran consequently does not need unrestricted access to every Western market when it possesses substantial trade relationships with China and numerous neighboring economies.
Iran’s energy resources provide perhaps the clearest demonstration of the country’s underlying economic strength.
It ranks second globally in proven natural-gas reserves and fourth in proven crude-oil reserves, giving the country extraordinary resource depth beneath its existing industrial economy.
These resources provide not merely potential export earnings but also abundant domestic energy and petrochemical feedstocks supporting Iran’s manufacturing, electricity generation, transportation and industrial production.
Iran has consequently developed an extensive downstream economy that converts hydrocarbons into refined products, petrochemicals and industrial inputs rather than relying exclusively upon crude-oil exports.
The World Bank has specifically noted that sanctions encouraged additional processing of crude oil and hydrocarbons into petrochemicals, illustrating how restrictions have contributed to changes within Iran’s economic structure.
The country’s resource base also gives it a durable position in Asian energy markets, where large industrial economies require reliable supplies of oil and petrochemical products.
That is why American attempts to eliminate Iranian oil revenue confront persistent commercial demand rather than an absence of buyers interested in Iranian resources.
The financial system represents another area where Iran has developed substantial independent capacity after decades of exclusion from conventional Western banking.
Iran’s economic ties span a broad network of foreign entities, reflecting its commercial reach across banking, shipping, logistics, commodities, and manufacturing.
Against this background, Bessent’s latest prediction appears less to be an independent economic forecast than an expectation based on what the American campaign is intended to achieve.
His claim that Iran will have nothing left to trade within two weeks assumes that removing one major source of oil revenue effectively removes the economic foundations supporting the entire Iranian system.
Iran’s actual economic structure is considerably broader, because oil exports represent one component of national economic activity alongside manufacturing, agriculture, services, domestic consumption and regional commerce.
The World Bank estimates that Iran’s economy contracted during the Iranian year ending March 2026, while simultaneously describing an economy that has adapted to sanctions through changing trade patterns and alternative payment mechanisms.
Those facts should not be confused with economic collapse, because contraction in a particular period is fundamentally different from the disappearance of productive capacity, markets and commercial institutions.
The historical record is even more significant, because American sanctions have been imposed repeatedly since 1979 and have been intensified dramatically during successive administrations.
The sanctions regime has targeted Iranian banking, oil exports, investment, technology, shipping and foreign companies, with especially severe measures introduced during the 2010s and after Washington abandoned the nuclear agreement.
Iran nevertheless retained its industrial base, rebuilt oil exports after earlier restrictions, expanded non-oil exports and redirected a growing share of trade towards neighboring countries and China.
The American expectation that economic pressure would eventually produce decisive Iranian economic capitulation has therefore been tested repeatedly against an economy that continued adapting.
Predicting that a strategy that failed to trigger economic collapse over half a century will suddenly achieve it within fourteen days merits no serious consideration, because it reveals the naivety of its proponents.
Washington now possesses powerful financial tools, but financial power does not eliminate Iran’s factories, oilfields, farms, engineers, consumers, borders, ports, regional markets or established commercial relationships.
Iran enters the current phase with an economic architecture extending from domestic manufacturing plants to Chinese refineries, from Persian Gulf shipping networks to northern Eurasian trade corridors.
Its domestic market provides magnitude and size, its industrial base provides production, its energy reserves provide commodities and its geography provides access to several major commercial regions.
In other words, Iran already possesses the domestic capabilities and international relationships required to keep its economy operating beyond the reach of any single American economic sabotage.
This infographic reveals the top U.S. states for hydroelectric power generation. Washington leads in total output, followed by Oregon and California. See where hydropower is strongest across the country.
Brazil’s presidential elections are approaching. And with them come controversies, debates, and different perspectives on what this event means for Brazil, for the BRICS, and for the future of the multipolar world.
In a recent article, respected Brazilian political analyst Valdir Bezerra argued that the 2026 elections represent a turning point in Brazilian history, potentially determining Brazil’s role in the world. According to Bezerra, the election pits, on the one hand, the “autonomist” tradition, represented by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, against, on the other hand, the “Westernist” one, represented by Flávio Bolsonaro.
With all due respect to Bezerra’s work, as one of the most highly regarded analysts in the Russian-Brazilian political debate, I would like to present a critical view of his position here. My intention is not to “refute” Bezerra’s argument, but merely to explain why I do not consider this opposition between autonomism and Westernism a valid premise for analyzing the current electoral dispute. Furthermore, I would also like to explain why I do not consider the 2026 election a decisive moment in determining Brazil’s international role.
Flávio is a Westernist, but Lula is not an autonomist
The umbrella terms used to define these two “traditions” of Brazilian foreign policy do not seem remotely applicable to the current reality. The terms through which many Brazilian thinkers once defined the opposition between those who support national sovereignty and development and those who advocate a subordinate position toward the Atlantic axis have long since become obsolete in the upper levels of Brazilian politics – where there is currently no figure worthy of the title of “autonomist.”
There is no need to comment here on the Westernist nature of Flávio Bolsonaro, who, like his father before him, advocates a foreign policy of total alignment with the United States and Israel, as well as an agenda hostile to the BRICS and multipolarist platforms. The central question, however, is to understand where Lula stands between Westernists and autonomists.
Brazil’s current president has governed the country on three occasions and played a leading role in some of the most significant events in international politics in the twenty-first century. He was a co-founder of the BRICS, built alliances with sovereigntist governments in the Americas – Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba – in the 2000s, maintained friendly ties with Iran, and, more recently, strengthened partnerships with Russia amid the Western-imposed sanctions regime, in addition to openly condemning the genocide in Gaza.
All of this is extremely admirable, but a fair analysis of Lula requires presenting the other side of his political profile: Lula has never been a “multipolarist,” but rather a skillful operator within the multilateralism of the Obama era in the 2000s. This is compounded by the fact that Lula was openly supported by the Democratic establishment in the 2022 elections. Indeed, Lula’s third government has been marked by controversies worthy of a classic “Westernist” leader: Lula did not recognize the Venezuelan elections, initiated tensions with Nicaragua, vetoed Venezuela’s accession to the BRICS, sidelined negotiations for a Mercosur-China agreement in order to prioritize a free-trade pact with Europe that is extremely detrimental to South American countries – an agreement that could even be described as neocolonial, turning Mercosur countries into commodity exporters and technology importers. This is without even mentioning the close, almost fully aligned relationship with the Macron regime in France.
Lula has certainly made several correct decisions, but if we go back a little in time, former President Jair Bolsonaro did as well: he refused to sanction Russia and to condemn the Special Military Operation – unlike Lula, who repeatedly condemned it -, strengthened partnerships with China, preserved the BRICS structure, and abandoned alignment with post-Trump U.S. foreign policy, becoming a target of Joe Biden.
In the end, weighing successes against successes and mistakes against mistakes, both sides appear very far from any “autonomist” ideal.
So, how should we define Lula and Flávio?
We can summarize this point in a single sentence: both Lula and Bolsonaro are, each in his own way, Westernists.
On several other occasions, I have commented in my column on how I view Brazil’s Sixth Republic – the current constitutional regime founded in 1988 – as a kind of “permanent color revolution.” On one side, an openly pro-U.S. and pro-Israel liberal right; on the other, an institutionalist liberal left, ideologically and financially connected to a major international lobby stretching from the U.S. Democrats to the European Union.
The current partial tensions between Lula and Trump are nothing new. Bolsonaro became an extremely troublesome figure in Brazil-U.S. relations as soon as Biden came to power. What many analysts fail to perceive is that Brazil-U.S. relations are defined by the dialectic between the left and right in Brazil and the Democrats and Republicans in the United States. Lula was Biden’s friend, just as Bolsonaro was Trump’s friend. If Lula wins the 2026 election, he will face many problems – at least until a possible Democratic return to power in the United States. If Flávio wins, Brazil and the United States will be in total alignment – but only as long as Trump remains in the White House.
It is this dynamic that allows the United States to keep Brazilian politics under stable control. Washington does not need to stage a Maidan in Brazil. Indeed, the formula of “coup + dictatorship” does not tend to work in large and diverse continental countries such as Brazil – and the greatest proof of this is Brazil’s own experience during its military regime, which was initially backed by the United States but later became an autonomous, non-aligned regime following an internal self-coup among the military. It is no coincidence that the United States endorsed Brazil’s democratization, helping to create precisely the political regime that exists today.
On one side, a right supported by the Republicans, Israel, and the transnational neoconservative lobby; on the other, a left that obeys the Democrats and the Europeans. Lula was a major multilateralist at a time when Washington, under Obama, encouraged precisely this kind of veneer over U.S. unipolarity; Bolsonaro was an open U.S. puppet at a time when Washington, under Trump, demanded precisely that. The difference is very small – or nonexistent.
And what does the 2026 election really represent?
At the international level, nothing or very little.
If he wins, Lula will come under pressure while Trump remains in power. And over the past four years, Lula has already shown that he compensates for American hostility by becoming even more closely aligned with the Europeans. On the other hand, if Flávio wins, we will have at least a period of total alignment with the United States, which could change following a possible Democratic victory in the next presidential elections. It is a very clear choice between Republicans-Israel and Democrats-EU. “Autonomism” is not part of the equation.
At the domestic level, however, many factors are at stake.
It is on the domestic front that the debate over the election should be concentrated. After all, no Brazilian will vote for one candidate or the other because of Palestine or the BRICS – which, although legitimate causes, are distant realities for the average citizen. Domestically, we have a Lula who is becoming increasingly weakened by the side effects of years of alliance with the Judiciary Branch – which is now being scrutinized and exposed in the context of the Banco Master corruption scandal. On the other side, Flávio is recovering ground that was once considered lost, and the two now appear statistically tied in the polls.
The Judiciary accumulated extraordinary powers under Lula, to the point of imprisoning peaceful protesters and elderly people on charges of “terrorism” simply because they participated in pro-Bolsonaro demonstrations. The hostility between the Judiciary and Bolsonarism cannot be reversed except through a victory by Flávio that culminates in the appointment of Bolsonarist judges to the Supreme Court – thereby reshaping the course of the Republic itself.
We can summarize the situation by saying that Lula would give the Sixth Republic a new lease on life, while Flávio would accelerate its collapse. As long as the Sixth Republic exists, no genuinely “autonomist” alternative will emerge in Brazil because the Brazilian constitutional system itself prevents such an alternative. But this does not mean that the imminent collapse of this system would result in a “multipolar dawn” in Brazil, since there is no political movement in the country – apart from the extremely “Westernist” Bolsonarist movement itself – with sufficient strength to establish a new state project.
The conclusion may be frustrating for the more optimistic and hopeful, but what appears to be about to happen in Brazil in 2026 is absolute nullity. With Lula or Flávio, little is likely to change. Brazil will remain a declining middle power, politically subordinate to the United States, but with a certain degree of freedom to engage multilaterally with the Eurasian powers – while domestically, the institutions of the Sixth Republic continue to destroy themselves.
Ian Proud’s arrest by secret police at a London airport marks a new low in how far the deep state can go to control a false narrative. But it also shows a new level of fear.
As mad as it sounds, it does appear that Western European nations at least are preparing themselves to go to war with Russia at some point in the not-too-distant future. What is particularly worrying is there seems to be a distinct vacuum in all areas of what we could broadly call ‘media’ in questioning this narrative. Thirty years ago it was considered normal for journalists to be the source of vexing questions towards state actors and to generally be a pain in the arse as they questioned every decision made and every idea presented. It was our job to be anti-establishment and to take a very cynical view of “policy”. There was nothing remarkable about this. It was what we did. Being despised by the greater powers was part of the job; working anti-social hours and having few friends also came with it.
Today there are no journalists in what we call ‘mainstream’ media doing this. They have been replaced by younger, more social-media-savvy ‘content creators’ who believe that journalism is more or less a grammatical role, where the raw material is handed to you with all the information therein, and the role of the journalist is simply to refine it to the style of the day for mass consumption.
The danger of this transition is that nearly all of what we are being presented with as news is actually fake, or at best heavily redacted to keep the masses where the elite want them to be: restrained, prepped and misinformed.
The Ukraine war is an excellent example. The main reason why people in the U.S. and UK are so fabulously biased against Russia and are so sympathetic towards the corrupt elite in Kiev is that for years they have been brainwashed with ‘news’ about Russia which has been negative and which cunningly feeds a racist bias – a prejudice which has been cultivated over at least a decade, if not more. The result is that now a number of lies have become established in newsrooms where journalists, even those who know, simply navigate around nuance and present a fairy-tale story, designed to be understood by the masses who have no other sources of information to even question it.
Just recently, Western news outlets reported a “plague” in Russia, with stories about a “lockdown”, following a case of a worker in a laboratory dying of pneumonia in circumstances which are still not certain. Western media, as part of their role to keep Russia-phobia at its peak, are so locked and loaded that their ‘hair-trigger’ reactions to bad news stories from Russia are understandable. They are also hungry for clickbait, and such stories feed a starved audience which has already had its first fix of such COVID hysteria stories and wants more. The truth is entirely immaterial. Hysteria and lies are what’s being fed at a feverish rate by ‘content creators’ red in tooth and claw, foaming at the mouth with their desire to serve the deep state and the elites who have invested so much in an agenda.
The contrast between Russia and the West is interesting, though, when we look at media. In Russia just recently, the BBC correspondent based in Moscow made the internet buzz on social media with his short interview with Russia’s foreign minister, who was kind enough to answer his loaded question about Russia’s war ideology with Ukraine. What absolutely no one noted was how Russia is happy to accommodate foreign journalists who have such a distinct agenda to feed the Russia-phobia back home, while Russian journalists have been banned in those EU capitals for years. Old Europe, which once held such values as a free press so dearly, has adopted the Soviet model, while Russia is actually more advanced when it comes to such tenets of what we expect in a democracy. Russia has no fear of the awkward questions, unlike the West.
We should be asking ourselves who really benefits from a war with Russia.
Is it too sceptical and ‘conspiracy theorising’ to assume that the industrial military complex has been successfully lobbying for such a war for AT LEAST a decade, and critically, it succeeded in convincing the intelligence and military establishment in the UK to use its leverage with media to provide journalists with the raw material which enhances a prejudice against Russia?
Normally such an idea could be dismissed as pure nonsense. But just consider how far the UK, for example, has gone to eradicate all media coverage which could be deemed as at least leaning towards Russia – or even simply just holding the UK government to account by asking the questions that British journalists have stopped asking. If the elite in the UK who control the loss-making newspapers (think about that) are so sure of their rationale that Russia is the enemy whom we must go to war with, why are they so terrified of journalists – or anyone, for that matter – simply holding a view which questions the narrative?
I can’t be the only Western pundit who believes that double agents Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were not poisoned with nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury in 2018, which was reported at the time as “sparking a huge diplomatic crisis between Britain and Russia”. Isn’t the real story that British security chiefs decided, upon discovering that Sergei Skripal was actually a triple agent who was feeding information back to Moscow, that he was dispensable? And what better way to supposedly teach the Russians a lesson, while blaming Moscow for his death, than to murder him and his daughter using a nerve agent which either was Novichok – which a British lab just down the road from where the Skripals lived had conveniently sitting in a fridge – or a similar poison? What’s important to note about Novichok is that the victims usually die instantly upon contact with it. What is likely is that the Skripals were not poisoned by the Russian drug but a British version of another nerve agent. It is a shocking example of how poor British journalism is that hacks in the UK simply report the Skripal incident of Novichok poisoning without a single shred of evidence to back it up. They don’t even add a note of scepticism in their reporting about the drug and who is “claiming” that it is Novichok.
We see the same shocking level of atrocious, biased reporting about the Ukraine war, which the British public were simply told through the media narrative was an “invasion” by Putin’s army. No background, no nuance, no glimpse of Russia’s perspective, as no one can cope, it would seem, with the story being clouded by facts.
And it’s the same with the Russia “plague” story, as it was with the RAF base “attack” story recently, which was probably just local thieves buying contraband gasoline from corrupt U.S./UK soldiers looking to make a quick buck at the UK base. Notice how quickly Trump used the story as a basis to move all U.S. bombers off the base and back to U.S. soil, where they are completely useless in his so-called Middle East war. For Trump it was an opportunity for another media stunt which keeps him on the front pages and everyone guessing. He was probably grateful to the British for being offered the raw material. Another problem of this new generation of journalists is how compliant they are to report “news” which isn’t news at all, but just material used as a distraction, one day at a time. Trump is a master at manipulating media with this game, usually saying something so stupid and so controversial, which draws journalists away from doing real journalism. If you can occupy journalists with writing up stories about the latest idiotic comment or statement by Trump, then you control them as you control their time.
Just look at how the Epstein story is not being reported and investigated. How Trump got off scot-free, as since February 28th journalists’ attention was diverted to the war with Iran – which is one of the reasons why Trump keeps this story alive with constant troop movements and talk of a massive attack after midterms. People have not made the link with the Epstein material being leaked and the war with Iran kicking off practically on the same day.
For the British, the “Russians are coming” story has no cynical write-up by journalists who are 100 percent compliant with its erroneous narrative. The fear of elites in London is palpable, though, that it will always be questioned by fringe actors taking up bandwidth on social media. In the past this was the RT correspondent in London, who was able to ask difficult questions and generally be a thorn in the side of the Westminster village which controlled journalists like rats held in a basket. The main reason why RT was kicked out of the UK was that it offered a style of reporting on UK politics which had since left us thirty years ago – such is the murky world of the deep state and how it saw how in Brussels journalists could be manipulated until they become stenographers for it.
Yet even with this new Stalinist style of media control in the UK, the state is wobbly. Even with the impressive set-up it has now of total media dominance, where journalists pump out total garbage about the Ukraine war or what they are told to write about the Middle East, still the fear is there.
The example of video blogger Ian Proud, a former UK diplomat once based in Moscow, is worrying but poignant. Simply going to Moscow to attend a conference where Putin was speaking was enough to have him get the full Stasi treatment at Heathrow airport – detained and all digital content seized.
Proud’s YouTube interviews, with his dowdy style of presenting, are proving to be popular as he simply offers a more sober view of both Russia and the UK Foreign Office, his former employer. These interviews are getting the attention of UK spooks, who are so nervous about the truth getting out about Russia and the shameful lies which are being packaged now for the British public, that they had to give Proud the American prison ‘shake down’ routine. Britain, a country which once was a beacon for the world with its view of liberty and in particular its passion for free speech, has fallen to a level which we can only compare to a West African country which has just had a new dictator installed, complete with black aviators and epaulettes. What the Proud Heathrow airport case shows is that this new regime in power will stop at nothing to control a narrative, and that the last bastion of free speech – YouTube podcasts – is the next target. The more successful Proud’s channel becomes, the more inevitable it is that he will be forced to leave the UK and settle in Russia to continue practising free speech. The shoulder tassels of Britain’s deep state will not sleep well until the country has a media narrative which would make Joe Stalin blush – and British journalists are helping them with this goal.
The legacy of the Iraqi occupation should be that land empires are the better option, especially in the 21st century, as games of colonization no longer work.
Around 5,000 American and NATO troops dead, countless thousands more injured, the bodies of at least 180,000 Iraqis with them in the sand, and this number could be over a million by some accounts, and anywhere up to 3 trillion dollars have gone into the abyss of national debt; this was the cost of the occupation of Iraq. Finally, the naïve and impetuous words of George Bush Jr. have become true, “Mission Accomplished” is now a fact as an ordered retreat continues to remove (almost) everything the American military had keeping Iraq under its heel. It’s over, and the question is why now, and is the American voter kind of getting what he wanted out of Trump?
Words and a quote from a Press TV article sum things up accurately and concisely regarding the nature of the end of the occupation:
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, who presided over the handover ceremony, described the withdrawal as the beginning of “a new phase” defined by Iraq’s sovereignty, stronger state institutions and “balanced partnerships with its friends.”
By ‘balanced partnerships’ he means to say the BRICS countries and the Multipolar World Order. There is often a mistake in public perception that vassal states are always obedient like employees in an office or fry cooks at McDonald’s, but this is not the case. You can’t keep a gun to someone’s head 24 hours a day and freewill will always start to creep its way into the actions of any vassal. Even during what one could call the heights of the occupation the local government was already gazing at the night sky hoping to one day get back some level of sovereignty all the while making deals with the Russians and Chinese.
Iraq had zero loyalty to Washington, why should we be surprised?
In 2025 the Iraqis made completely non-secret and public deals with the mega-sanctioned Russians in the areas of energy development. Working on energy deals with the Russians is the hot trend of the 21st century and shouldn’t be too surprising. What is unusual though is that they requested “to expand cooperation with Russia in a number of areas, including partnership and expertise in the field of artificial intelligence” according to the Prime Minister. Why they were making AI deals with Russia, who is in a proxy war against America and the West according to Marco Rubio, while still occupied by America makes one curious to say the least. The fact that the Russian Foreign Ministry declared that Iraq will “be able to respond (successfully) to any challenges” after U.S. occupation ends is also food for thought. Will “Operation Iraqi Freedom” be ultimately achieved in a much more literal sense by the Kremlin?
Even while Biden was still shaking hands with invisible men at the White House the Chinese made a deal with the Iraqis to build 1,000 schools, and potentially other structures, across their country. We have to remember that in the minds of Neocon sociopaths China is the ultimate final boss enemy, and yet even during occupation those red communists were making deals with occupied Iraq. It is also important to note that after the attacks on Iran, China and Russia can send ships not only to Iran but Iraq with zero consequences and the U.S. cannot. This makes the failed occupation of Mesopotamia even more ironic; trillions down the toilet just to lose access the Middle-East while Moscow and Beijing make whatever business deals they like in the region.
But the main point I am trying to make is that even during the middle of the occupation no robots in Baghdad truly did what they were told 100% of the time. God gave man free will and the Iraqi occupation showed that, vassals cane smile to Washington officials one day, then make calls to Beijing and Moscow with zero shame the next day.
The delicate dance of withdrawal
Just as the Iraqis did the dance of pseudo submission, so too can the occupier do the dance of incomplete withdrawal. This bit from the previously stated Press TV article shows how a cracking American empire is using the same playbook as the floundering British one of yesteryear.
A Pentagon official said that while the U.S. is ending official military operations, it will maintain regional capabilities such as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance that can be utilized in the Arab country.
That is to say, no one has yet put a wrecking ball to all of the structures in the Baghdad Green Zone, which is essentially the largest U.S. embassy in the world. The big base is staying. Just as the French still do their best to suck out money from their ‘former’ African colonies, the British keep their spies and influence in ‘the Commonwealth’ in India and beyond, Washington will surely keep some sort of abstract ‘reentry point’ and ‘local influence’ in Iraq just in case. This is something few want in America, but those Three-letter Organizations tend not to listen to us at the bottom, so perhaps this final beachhead or foothold is a fair enough compromise to end this massive waste of treasure and human life, as they say “so be it”.
One thing to also keep in mind is that right after the sloppy withdrawal from Afghanistan we did not see a global de-escalation, but instead a shift to and massive escalation in death on the upcoming Ukrainian front. It is important to note that Russian intelligence leaked twice to the media in 2021 that the big one was coming and that Ukraine would launch an offensive to slaughter everyone in the Donbass to the last. That is to say, the Russians saw themselves as having no option but to go in, all on the wake of the U.S. downsizing in the Middle-East, under Biden.
So if Washington has given up on Iraq, does that mean they may really try to take some of the islands around Iran? Will they keep the petrodollar on life support by saving the Saudis from the Houthis? Or shall they go full ‘monkey-with-a-hand-grenade’ mode and try to spice things up in Taiwan? Or is Trump really going to obey his personal version of the Monroe Doctrine and actually pull those forces back towards Fortress America? We all know which option sounds the best to the ears of U.S. taxpayers.
Donald Trump; an enigma wrapped in a mystery blown by a tornado of narratives
As mentioned above, the pullout from Afghanistan happened under Democrat Biden and the focus shifted to Russia the ultimate enemy of all Democrats for they hold the key to undoing their ideology. But the escape from Iraq has occurred under Trump, who is supposedly on a messianic quest to save America and not bring the world into one globalist ideology. It is important to note two narratives expressed by him multiple times way before his now bizarre second term.
1) Donald Trump was absolutely appalled at the chaotic Biden pullout of Afghanistan that left countless billions of military resources in the country and looked like a national humiliation ritual.
2) He expressed over-and-over a desire to get out of the Middle-East, be it Iraq, Syria or elsewhere as he saw American forces there as sitting ducks.
Well the war in Iran, that Trump either, enacted on his own, tolerated as a compromise position, or simply had no real power to stop, did indeed prove that U.S. forces are sitting ducks for the slaughter in the Middle-East. Military installations all over the region have been whacked by Iran and the casualties could be much higher than Fox News would admit to. About Iraq specifically, Trump stated in during his very first presidential campaign:
“Obviously the war in Iraq was a big fat mistake.” “We should have never been in Iraq.” “We have destabilized the middle east.” “We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about.”
Of course if there is any president who ‘says a lot of things’ it would be Donald Trump, but in a weird way he is actually keeping his campaign promises. The withdrawal from the Middle-East has started and in a surprisingly orderly manner; after countless bases and weapons systems were blown up by Iran. The removal of U.S. military might which probably never should have been there will quickly ‘restabilize’ the region for nations with high sovereignty tend to, more often than not, behave in non-suicidal ways. Some of the sitting ducks, sadly being violently taken off the game board by Iran, have been cause to basically remove all of them, which is what the masses ultimately wanted from his presidency.
Trump is egotistical and a media manipulator but he is not stupid, and at the very least on this issue he seems to be delivering what the public wanted; an end to Middle-East nation building adventures. There has been lots of speculation that Trump did try to get American troops out of Syria long ago but that his ordered were ignored or manipulated. Perhaps it took the seeming debacle in Iran to actually change things. The failed attempt to break Iran, proved that the Middle-East adventure is a failure, Israel is the deciding factor in U.S. foreign policy, and that the Navy has rusted out. Perhaps acquiescing to the Zionists got Trump the political will to finally change things overseas?
Furthermore, there has been a demand for U.S. energy independence for quite some time, and well now it looks like all of it is going to be coming from the Western hemisphere, how convenient. We all know that the oil in Venezuela is troublesome and will require a lot of effort just to really use, but if the Monroe Doctrine 2.0 is going to be the name of the game, then the next president can figure that out, or maybe his successor.
In closing, the legacy of the Iraqi occupation should be for all geopolitical wonks that land empires are indeed the better option, especially in the 21st century, as games of colonization no longer work. Vassals do not always behave and in many ways they are subtly pushed to resist. Now, by the grace of God, the USA can focus on the ‘Chiraq’ back home, just like the American voter asked of Donald Trump.
Originally published by Pacific Forum, this article is republished with permission. While operational planners in the United States, the Republic of Korea and Japan have made historic strides institutionalizing trilateral security cooperation, the credibility of deterrence ultimately hinges on a more punishing variable: wartime sustainment. Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo have expanded joint exercises, real-time missile […]
Washington is limiting the parts it licenses to the Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (Comac), the maker of the C919 passenger jet, triggering fears among Chinese pundits that it could ban the US-made engines the jet relies on. The Trump administration has been using China’s reliance on US aviation suppliers as leverage in trade talks, […]
Employees of Georgia’s largest healthcare system have until Nov. 1 to get the flu vaccine or an approved exemption, or they will be suspended without pay. If suspended employees don’t submit proof of vaccination by 4 p.m. Nov. 15, they will be fired.
According to the Emory Healthcare website, the vaccine mandate applies to all employees, including contractors and remote workers.
Employees suspended for missing the first deadline, Nov. 1, 11:59 p.m., will not be allowed to use their paid time off.
COVID-19shots are not mandated, but employees are “encouraged to engage in shared decision-making with their provider” on whether or not to get the vaccine.
A spokesperson for the healthcare system said the requirement is intended to protect patients and staff and to encourage everyone to get vaccinated.
Dr. Sherika Newman of Doctor in the Family, a physician-led patient advocacy and health consulting service in Atlanta, told CBS News that flu vaccine requirements are common in healthcare.
“Asking health care providers or people who interact with patients to take the flu vaccine early every year is what we always mandate so that we are protecting ourselves from spreading viruses to vulnerable populations,” Newman said.
She said everyone should get vaccinated, not just healthcare workers, although only healthcare workers will lose their jobs if they don’t get the vaccine.
Cleveland Clinic: 2024-2025 flu shot increased risk of getting the flu
Flu vaccine effectiveness can vary, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which cites studies since 2009-10 showing effectiveness between 19% and 60%. The major factors influencing vaccine effectiveness are a person’s age and health and how well the vaccines match the circulating virus strains.
It wasn’t the first study to find that flu vaccines could actually increase the risk of becoming ill.
A 2023 study co-authored by Dr. Anthony Fauci acknowledged that “viruses replicating in the respiratory mucosal environment continue to present a particular challenge for developing effective vaccines with strong protection.”
“The flu shot has never really prevented transmission of the flu and in some years (i.e., last year) the efficacy of preventing the flu is actually negative,” said Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer at Children’s Health Defense. “Flu would blow through a vaccinated population with nearly the same ease as it would an unvaccinated population.”
A 2012 peer-reviewed study published in Clinical Infectious Diseasesshowed that children who received the flu vaccine were at significantly increased risk of contracting non-flu respiratory virus infections.
Moderna’s mRNA flu shot added to the mix this year
According to the CDC’s FluView vaccination chart, as of Sept. 26, flu cases were at “minimal” levels across almost all 50 U.S. states, including Georgia.
Flu season typically begins in October and ends in May, with highest transmission rates in December and February.
The CDC recommends flu shots for people age 6 months and older, assuming they have no medical conditions that make vaccination risky.
Flu shot formulations differ each year based on information about which strains may circulate that year. The formulations aren’t tested for safety or efficacy before they’re distributed to the public.
In the past, most flu vaccines were made from a flu virus grown in eggs, and then inactivated and made into a vaccine. Or, they were made from recombinant protein vaccines, which have pieces of the flu pathogen that the immune system learns to recognize and fight.
Rates of U.S. healthcare workers who take the COVID-19 and flu shots have also been declining in recent years.
Numbers are lowest among health professionals who work in nursing homes. In the 2024-25 flu season, only about 42% of those workers got the shot, compared with about 81% of workers in acute care hospitals.
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