US Vice President JD Vance has landed in Budapest to bolster support for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose Fidesz Party faces its most difficult election in more than 10 years.

The Western alliance is fracturing in real time — and this week, it became impossible to hide. Turkey just declared a moral military obligation to respond to what Israel is doing. Italy's Giorgia Meloni, one of Europe's most pro-Israel leaders, publicly said Israel has crossed the line. Spain called for breaking the EU strategic partnership with Israel entirely.

France, Ireland, and Italy are all on record against the Israeli military campaign. And while all of this is happening inside NATO, China is confirmed to be supplying Iran with cruise missiles and advanced air defense systems, Russia is providing targeting intelligence, and the United States is responding with confused, contradictory statements that reveal an administration that has lost control of the narrative and the coalition simultaneously.

A visit seemingly fit for royalty is set to serve as a commercial experiment for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as their Australian tour enters its second day.

Prince Harry and Meghan have another busy day planned on Wednesday, meeting charity representatives at the headquarters of AFL team the Western Bulldogs in Melbourne before Harry flies to Canberra for events at the Australian War Memorial.

The four-day visit could be mistaken for an official royal tour with its charitable appearances, hospital visits, and fanfare, although the pair are no longer working royals and are visiting in a private capacity.

The visit is not unusual, according to University of Sydney history professor and monarchy expert Cindy McCreery, who told AAP it was likely for marketing purposes.

France has sold its 129 tonnes of gold being held in the New York Federal Reserve and purchased an equivalent amount now held in Paris’ La Souterraine underground vault. This represents 5 per cent of its total global gold holdings which is around 2,437 tonnes.

This happened in the last half of 2025.

As the joke goes, France has saved it from the communists in New York just in time for the Russians to steal it.

France’s central bank promised this decision has nothing to do with either the new mayor or the current president. The financial world isn’t sure if it should raise an eyebrow or shrug.

 

The first thing to remember is that France is in big financial trouble and the one-off movement of gold drew a profit of roughly 13 billion euros.

The whole planet is asking the same question: Will CENTCOM dare to go to war against China?

This is not a wild hypothetical anymore.

According to MarineTraffic data, the Chinese-owned Rich Starry tanker, sailing under the Malawi flag, linked to Shanghai Xianrun, and departing from Sharjah in the UAE carrying roughly 250,000 barrels of metanol, crossed the Strait of Hormuz this Tuesday, displaying the message “China Owner & Crew.”

 

 

Pepe Escobar: China Blockades the American Blockade of Iran

 

So the Rich Starry was the first tanker to transit and exit the Strait of Hormuz, on the way to China, since the Trump blockade-to-unblock-the-Strait is in effect.

German Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer was roundly heckled by protesters and victims’ relatives during a commemorative event at the Buchenwald concentration camp on Sunday.

Media magnate Weimar [sic], whose company is at the center of a pay-for-influence networking event controversy, has also imposed an anti-Palestinian censorship regime over the Berlin Film Festival and labeled left-wing bookshops “extremist.” He defied repeated demands/requests from left-wing groups and survivor organizations to steer clear of Sunday’s event over his hardline conservative views, which they described as “far-right.” 

There are good people who believe in the rainbow curve and polarised people who believe in Jesus Christ…. There are people who swear by Buddhism and those who go along with the “spiralization” of spirituality… There are people who pray to Vishnu and some who think Allah is great. There are some people who believe in a superior force or being, even if they are not religious... People who believe in the atom and others who think eternity is a gift of consciousness.

 

A SIMPLISTIC DISSERTATION BY GUS LEONISKY

 

Everyone’s belief is okay as long as we don’t kill each other in order to decree that the others are evil or bad people… 

US President Donald Trump has hit back at Pope Leo XIV, calling him “weak” and suggesting he should be “grateful” for becoming head of the Catholic Church, after the pontiff publicly criticised his policies.

The clash comes as Pope Leo has emerged as a vocal critic of the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran, launched in late February. He described Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization as “truly unacceptable,” warning it amounted to “a threat against an entire people.”

The pontiff has also broadened his criticism to domestic US policy, calling for “deep reflection” on the treatment of migrants.

On Sunday, The New York Times editorial board published a statement under the headline “Trump’s War Is Weakening America.”

 

The New York Times, the Democratic Party and the preparation of Phase 2 of the war against Iran

BY David North

 

It is a programmatic intervention, produced at a moment of acute strategic crisis for American imperialism, whose purpose is to define the political conditions—domestic and international—under which the war against Iran can and must be resumed, reorganized and prosecuted to a conclusion consistent with the fundamental objectives of the United States ruling class.

They may appear to be innocuous – even elegant – on the landscape as they collect power from the currents, but wind turbines have their own set of problems that environmentalists wish to ignore due to their eco-virtue-signaling.

As environmentalists look at a sprawling field of wind turbines as ‘good for the environment’ – unlike giant smokestacks on the horizon emitting noxious greenhouse gases into the air – the dangers inherent to wind energy are mostly invisible from a distance. Take a closer look, however, and it becomes quickly apparent that wind farms come with their own high cost to the environment and our health.

 

Wind power is not the harmless energy source liberals said it was

Illegal logging, huge decommissioning costs, and even ecological damage plague the supposedly ‘green’ generators

International Criminal Court correspondence shows prosecutor dropped the war crime probe into Australia’s generals while under investigation for sexual abuse. A Stuart McCarthy exclusive.

International Criminal Court correspondence obtained by Michael West Media reveals that the ICC declined requests to investigate high-level command responsibility for alleged Australian SAS war crimes in April last year.

The decision not to investigate detailed allegations of war crimes against Australia’s top generals during the war in Afghanistan was made by the ICC Prosecutor while he was under investigation for alleged sexual misconduct.

President Donald Trump has sent US Navy ships into the Strait of Hormuz to create a blockade - something experts warn could put American lives at risk.

Trump announced the move via Truth Social on Sunday, saying the naval assets would 'begin the process of blockading any all ships trying to enter' the Strait. 

US Central Command confirmed the blockade of 'all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports' will start on Monday at 10am ET.

Vessels using the strait to travel to and from non-Iranian ports will not be impeded, CENTCOM said in a statement. 

 

US President Donald Trump has declared that the US Navy will immediately begin a “blockade” of the Strait of Hormuz after talks with Iran in Islamabad ended without agreement. He accused Tehran of extortion, referring to the fees charged to vessels seeking to traverse the strategically vital waterway.

“I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas,” the US president stated on Truth Social. He went on to claim that “other Countries will be involved with this Blockade.”

Trump also said the US Navy will begin destroying Iranian mines in the strait, threatening that Tehran’s forces attempting to obstruct the effort “will be BLOWN TO HELL!”

Just as world events have forced him to update his famous thesis on “the end of history”, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama this week sought to backtrack on his later book that characterised the United States as a “high-trust society”.

 

Trump has an Achilles heel, and the Iran war has exposed it

America’s standing in the world is at a low ebb – not just because of the way Trump has prosecuted the war against Iran, but because of how he’s pursued foreign policy more broadly.

BY Michael Koziol