Kiev is working to obtain patriarchate status for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), a schismatic entity propped up by the Ukrainian government, according to Vladimir Zelensky.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Zelensky revealed he had discussed the matter with a delegation of hierarchs from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in late August. The hierarchs already have a “vision of an action plan,” yet the matter is still pending discussions with the patriarch of Constantinople.

“I’ve said that our people, Ukrainians, would understand if our status was elevated to patriarchate. The exarchs accepted the information and will convey it to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, they will discuss it,” Zelensky stated.

Large protests took place across France on Saturday over the appointment earlier in the day of a right-leaning government. Thousands marched in Paris, denouncing President Emmanuel Macron and his new conservative prime minister, Michel Barnier, claiming they had disregarded the results of the July parliamentary election.

The vote left France deadlocked and with a hung parliament consisting of three roughly equal blocs – the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) alliance, the center, headed by Macron’s Renaissance party, and the far-right National Rally. Although no party won a majority, the NFP coalition secured the most seats, which was seen as providing a mandate to present its candidate for prime minister.

Boris Johnson has argued that Russia must be forced to accept defeat, even if doing so costs a trillion dollars

Russia must understand that “it’s over,”and that Ukraine will not concede any territory for peace, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has argued. For this goal to be achieved, however, Kiev will need long-range weapons, NATO membership, and half a trillion dollars, Johnson added. 

‘Africa must unite’: Why this man was feared by the US and Britain
Kwame Nkrumah’s insight into the true nature of neo-colonialism was ahead of his time and is still relevant today

By Maxwell Boamah Amofa

The EU is having a full-blown existential crisis. Someone has really screwed up its economy, and the culprit is conspicuously absent from a new report outlining the carnage. Are there no mirrors in Brussels?

Has the EU suddenly realized how much it has screwed itself over?
Mario Draghi’s ‘competitiveness report’ says the bloc’s economic situation is dire… but shies away from pointing out the culprit

Former European Central Bank president and Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, has published a new “economic competitiveness” report after a year of work at the request of unelected ‘Queen’ Ursula von der Leyen’s ‘Royal’ European Commission. And it’s a real page-turner, one of the great mysteries of our times.  

In the Intellectual Self-Defense Manual (special edition of Le Monde Diplomatique), the media philosopher MICHEL ONFRAY gets his ears rubbed by Benoît Bréville, director of Le Diplo.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced Wednesday that it will not endorse any candidate for president, amid polling which shows that its membership favors former President Donald Trump.

The decision comes as a blow to the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris; until this year, the influential 1.3 million–strong labor union had endorsed the Democratic nominee for president in every cycle since 1980. 

The Biden White House and the Democratic Party machine trying to advance Kamala Harris from No. 2 in the regime to No. 1 gets more interesting by the week, I have to say. 

The Harris campaign has at last, two months after the party’s elites and financiers railroaded her candidacy past any semblance of a democratic process, published a platform it calls A New Way Forward, and I will get to this in due course.

On March 7, 2022, two weeks after Moscow entered the civil war in Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CBS News from Moldova that the U.S. would give NATO-member Poland a “green light” to send Mig-29 fighter jets to Ukraine to enforce a no-fly zone against Russian aircraft. 

By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News

Sergei Kirienko, a former prime minister of Russia and currently the Number-2 man in charge of President Vladimir Putin’s staff, believes Russia can win the information war against the US and its allies.

In his meetings behind closed doors at the Kremlin, Kirienko has revealed that he thinks Americans are so trusting in their press like the Washington Post, CNN, and Fox News,  that if fake Post, CNN, Fox,  and other dummies of the US media can be created to report positive propaganda about Russia, instead of the negative propaganda these media usually run, Americans will be convinced to switch sides in the war to destroy the Russian army on the Ukrainian battlefield, and the war of US sanctions to destroy the Russian economy.

The weapons stockpile shortages will likely force Washington to delay the shipments of promised military aid to Ukraine, CNN reported on Friday, citing two US officials familiar with the matter.

The report comes as Kiev has been asking foreign backers to speed up the delivery of arms and to lift the remaining restrictions on the use of longer-range missiles for strikes deep into Russia territory.

According to the Pentagon, the US has $5.9 billion left in the special congressionally approved mechanism (PDA) aimed at fast-tracking aid for Kiev. However, the aid packages have been getting smaller in recent times as the weapons stocks are dwindling, CNN said.

A US intelligence source has said that the suspected Mossad “supply chain interdiction” operation behind this week’s explosive pager attacks in Lebanon took 15 years or longer to plan. Sputnik asked FSB counterterrorism vet Andrei Popov how the attack was pulled off, and what Hezbollah could do to prevent it from recurring.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has urged citizens not to be alarmed if they see German soldiers arriving in their towns as the country continues to deal with devastating floods. The deluge this week has wrought havoc across central Europe, reportedly killing at least 22 people and leaving a trail of destruction.  

Speaking on Thursday at a crisis meeting in the western city of Wroclaw, which has faced rising floodwaters, Tusk stated that US troops were already providing support to communities in southern Poland and that Türkiye and Germany had offered similar assistance.  

“If you see German soldiers, please do not panic. They are here to help,” Tusk said, apparently suggesting that the arrival of German troops could trigger associations with World War II.  

Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under fire after media revelations that he failed to disclose pricey gifts of clothing to his wife from longtime Labour megadonor Waheed Alli. Who is the mysterious businessman, and what’s behind his ‘generosity’ to the Starmers?

Born in Croydon, England to Indo-Trinidadian and Indo-Guyanese parents in 1964, 59-year-old Baron and Lord Waheed Alli was described in a gushing 2000 BBC profile as a member of a “new generation” of Blairite “New Labour working peers appointed to revolutionize the House of Lords,” the UK’s upper chamber of parliament – “young, Asian and from the world of media and entertainment.”

Hundreds of Russian researchers working at the particle physics laboratory CERN in Switzerland will have to leave the Alpine country later this year, the journal Nature reported on Wednesday.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) plans to end its cooperation agreement with Russia on December 1, banning all scientists affiliated with the nation from its premises, the journal said. The scientists will also be stripped of any French or Swiss residency permits they currently hold, according to the report.