One time in Thailand, however many years ago, I was listening to a young lady complain about Chinese people. I had some sympathy to her complaints, as Chinese tourists can be overbearing. On the whole, they spend so much money, it is hardly fair to complain. And the thing about this is: China developed so rapidly that the average 30 year old has parents who grew up in a rice field.

I Support India Now. I’m All-In. I’ve Started Shitting in the Street to Show Solidarity.

ANDREW ANGLIN

The US military’s killing of 11 alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers traveling by boat in international waters in the Caribbean is an illegal use of war powers to address what should have been a situation of law enforcement. Unless this dangerous precedent is condemned and curtailed, it will enable US authorities to summarily shoot anyone they choose by simply declaring a “war” against them.

Trump’s killing of 11 alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers sets a dangerous precedent
Kenneth Roth

“Someone” could blow up Russia’s planned gas pipeline to China to derail the energy cooperation between the two countries, conservative Fox News host Jesse Watters has suggested.

Speaking on air on Thursday, Watters said Russian President Vladimir Putin had “lost his customers in Europe” after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 and unprecedented Western sanctions, and was now turning to Asia. He described the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline as a key element of that strategy.

“Putin’s putting down a big old pipeline to China. It’s supposed to be finished next decade and supply 15% of China’s energy. Russia and China are growing closer. Someone might have to bomb that pipeline like Nord Stream,” Watters told viewers. He did not elaborate on who could want to destroy the project.

Belgian Foreign Minister Maxim Prévot has stated that the transfer of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, the majority of which are held in his country, is unacceptable. According to the head of the foreign affairs department, such a confiscation would damage Belgium's reputation as a financial center, weaken confidence in the euro, and create risks for the entire European economy. Prévot also warned that this measure could raise concerns among other states holding their assets in Europe.

source: Boris Karpov via News Pravda

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed Vladimir Putin’s invitation for peace talks in Moscow Friday, countering that the Russian president should travel to Kyiv if he wants to meet.

Zelensky responded to Putin’s invitation with his own proposal. “He can come to Kyiv, ” said Zelensky in an interview with ABC News Friday evening. “I can’t go to Moscow when my country’s under missiles, under attack, each day. I can’t go to the capital of this terrorist,” the Ukrainian leader said.

There is only one treaty in the world that, despite its limitations, binds nations together: the United Nations Charter. Representatives of fifty nations wrote and ratified the UN Charter in 1945, with others joining in the years that followed. The charter itself only sets the terms for the behaviour of nations. It does not and cannot create a new world. It depends on individual nations to either live by the charter or die without it.

The United Nations Turns Eighty

By Vijay Prashad / Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Sputnik) - The volume of gold added to Russia's reserves in the first half of 2025 was 450 tonnes, compared to 313 tonnes for the same period last year, representing a growth rate of 43.8%, Russian Natural Resources Minister Alexander Kozlov tells Sputnik.

"In the first half of 2025, the country's gold reserves increased by almost 450 tonnes, compared to 313 tonnes for the same period last year," the minister said on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum.

By the end of 2025, the growth in gold reserves is expected to exceed 500 tonnes, the minister said. However, if large deposits are discovered and registered, this figure could be even higher, Kozlov added.

In early January, Russia's State Commission for Mineral Reserves told Sputnik that 2024 saw an increase in Russia's gold reserves, which amounted to almost 900 tonnes.

Historical anniversaries often provide the backdrop for diplomacy to become spectacle. This week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin was deliberately staged ahead of China’s grand parade marking 80 years since the end of World War II. Beijing, the host, made sure the symbolism landed. The timing also underscored the contrast with Washington: Donald Trump, who has long admired military parades, is already planning a lavish one next July for America’s 250th anniversary, after his low-key attempt last summer fell flat.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Russia and China anchor a new world order where the West is optional
The SCO summit shows how the world is shifting away from the West

Activist Greta Thunberg on Wednesday expressed her contempt for the international community for its continued inaction on ending the mass suffering being inflicted on Gaza by the Israeli government.

Thunberg, who is a passenger on the Global Sumud Flotilla attempting to break through the Israeli blockade of Gaza, told Middle East Eye that her decision to join the voyage was "the bare minimum" she could do as Palestinians are facing mass starvation.

Pope Leo XIV discussed the “tragic situation in Gaza” and urged a “permanent ceasefire” in the Palestinian territory during a private audience with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Thursday, the Vatican said in a press release.

Pope Leo XIV Hosts Israeli President, Urges ‘Permanent’ Gaza Ceasefire

by Dave DeCamp | September 4, 2025 at 6:26 pm ET

Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War, a callback to the department’s original name used from 1789 to 1947.

The directive will make Department of War the secondary title, and is a way to get around the need for congressional approval to formally rename a federal agency, an administration official said.

“We won the first world war, we won the second world war, we won everything before that and in between,” Trump said at the signing. “And then we decided to go woke and we changed the name to the Department of Defense.”

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - European army chiefs have drawn up a plan to potentially deploy more than 10,000 troops to Ukraine, with some US generals providing their input, the Wall Street Journal newspaper reported on Friday, citing a European diplomat.

On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that Europe's vision of security guarantees for Ukraine involves stationing troops away from the front lines for demonstration and training purposes.

According to the daily, European army chiefs produced a detailed deployment plan that would station an air component outside Ukraine to patrol its airspace. The diplomat said that the US head of NATO's Allied Command Operations was among the US top brass who contributed to the planning process.

Australian governments of all stripes have long maintained a commitment to secure borders and an orderly migration program.

Utilising the benefit of being an island nation-continent, our governments over the last 30 years have taken expensive steps to stop boatloads of asylum seekers reaching Australia and to remove those who do manage to arrive at our former colonies, Nauru and Papua New Guinea. Labor and Liberal are as good or as bad at it as each other, depending on your point of view.

Frank Brennan

The Ministry of Economy and Finance admits today: there has been no monitoring of the €211 billion of public money paid unconditionally and without compensation each year to companies. There has been no control, no monitoring of results, no traceability of the use of these astronomical sums. It is one of the greatest state scandals!

The French have reason to be angry!

Patrick CHAMPAGNAC

When Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on Friday, he issued a now-familiar warning: any foreign troops entering Ukraine during active fighting would be considered “legitimate targets.” Yet Western media ran with a drastically different narrative – suggesting he was threatening peacekeepers, not just combatants.

That framing missed a crucial distinction. In the same remarks, Putin separately addressed the idea of postwar peacekeeping forces, saying they would be unnecessary once a settlement was reached.

Within hours, Western headlines turned those words into something much starker – a supposed threat against European “peacekeepers.” By erasing the context that Putin had separated conflict intervention from postwar scenarios, much of the press presented a conditional statement as intimidating.