“German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently said that America is being ‘humiliated’ by Iran: ‘The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skillful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result,’ he said. The only issue with this argument is that Donald Trump is such an erratic lunatic that arguably no real negotiation has ever taken place and may not actually be possible. Principally what Trump has done is post random nonsense online. Among Tuesday’s posts was one in which he claimed that ‘Iran has just informed us that they are in a ‘State of Collapse.’ They want us to ‘Open the Hormuz Strait,’ as soon as possible.’ This did not happen. It is what it is, and it’s not going to get better so long as Trump remains president.” (04/29/26)
“A superyacht linked to one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s key allies has sailed through the Strait of Hormuz, despite the ongoing blockade of the critical shipping channel. The 142m-long (465 ft) multi-deck luxury boat, named Nord, is linked to sanctioned Russian billionaire Alexei Mordashov. It travelled from Dubai to Muscat, Oman, over the weekend – one of few private vessels to transit through the strait in recent months. Iran held high-level talks with Russia this week as its standoff with the US over the strait’s re-opening continues. Approximately one-fifth of global crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies normally pass through the waterway. Mordashov, who has close ties to Putin, is not listed as the formal owner of the Russian-flagged boat. However, Nord’s records indicate it was registered to a firm owned by his wife in 2022.” (04/28/26)
“One mark of a maturing democracy is a high proportion of independent voters, unbeholden to organized factions and attuned to unifying a civic community on shared hopes. In the Middle East, such sentiments have risen in recent years, from Iraq to Lebanon and perhaps soon in a newly liberated Syria. But in Gaza? After two years of devastating war? On Saturday, in an election held for the first time anywhere in Gaza in nearly two decades, voters showed a surprising degree of autonomy from the two major Palestinian parties. Balloting was held in only one city, Deir al-Balah, with more than 70,000 people, due to every other city in Gaza being flattened during fighting after the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. And voting was only for 15 seats in the municipal council.” (04/27/26)
“America’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been receiving lots of scrutiny right now from journalists and ordinary citizens like me — and for good reason! Detaining people en route to their kids’ schools, in hospitals, or at work shouldn’t be the first thing that comes to mind these days when I think of ‘freedom,’ ‘civil rights’ or ‘America.’ Nor should spending tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to rebuild warehouses so that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, can hold people without charges in subhuman conditions. What do you think? In all of this mayhem, it’s easy to overlook new human rights violations because there are so many each day. Violations of the rule of law have become the air Americans breathe.” (04/28/26)
“In the week before the latest attempted assassination of President Trump, The New York Times conducted the softest of softball interviews with leftist pundit Hasan Piker. A typical line from Piker on his Twitch livestream: ‘Let the streets soak in [landlords’] red Capitalist blood.’ Talking to the Times, Piker refused to condemn Luigi Mangione for murdering a complete stranger, Brian Thompson — because, in Piker’s view, Thompson had committed ‘social murder’ by being the CEO of a health-insurance company. Piker isn’t ‘a fringe figure’ on the left [sic]. He has interviewed major Democrats and plans to sit down with California Gov. Gavin Newsom soon. New York Times journalists nod along with his ideas. If that’s fringe, what’s mainstream? The alleged White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooter also didn’t sound fringe in his manifesto.” (04/27/26)
“Mali’s junta leader met with Russia’s ambassador to Bamako on Tuesday, authorities said, his first public appearance since the West African nation saw a massive, coordinated attack by Islamic militants and separatists over the weekend. Russia, the junta’s key ally, called the attack a coup attempt. The office of the military leader, Assimi Goita, released photos showing him meeting a Russian delegation led by the Ambassador Igor Gromyko in what appeared to be the presidential palace in Bamako, the Malian capital. Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Mali issued a security alert, citing ‘possible terrorist movements within Bamako, including reports of forced school closures.’ In power since a 2020 coup, the junta suffered a major attack on Saturday after al-Qaida-linked militants and the separatist Azawad Liberation Front group staged coordinated attacks on at least four cities in a region considered a global hot spot for terror-related deaths.” (04/28/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“In the last few days I’ve seen three separate instances of generative AI being used to promote propaganda for US-Israeli war agendas which are worth paying attention to. Firstly, an Israel-based company called Generative AI for Good has been creating deepfakes of supposedly real women who say they were sexually assaulted by government forces in Iran. … The Canary notes that Generative AI for Good is staffed with Israelis who have very conspicuous agendas, including a creative director who pushes the discredited narrative about mass rapes on October 7, a marketing manager who served in the IDF’s ‘Psychotechnical Headquarter,’ and a founder who said in early 2024 that ‘Artificial intelligence is a secret weapon of ours’ in using the revolutionary technology to bolster the military’s efforts both online and on the ground in the information war being waged alongside the military battlefields in Gaza.” (04/28/26)
“Japan Airlines (JAL) will start using humanoid robots in ground handling tasks at Tokyo’s Haneda airport from May, in a two-year trial it said is aimed at easing employees’ workload. For a start, the Chinese-made robots will be deployed to load and unload cargo containers, JAL and GMO AI & Robotics, its partner in the project, said in a demonstration to the media on Monday. Japan’s aviation industry is wrestling with a labour crunch brought on by an increase in inbound tourism and a declining working-age population, said JAL, which employs some 4,000 ground handling staff. The carrier hopes that these robots can also be used to clean cabins and operate ground support equipment in future. Robots are already being used in some airports across Japan, including for security patrol and retail.” (04/28/26)
“‘Incredible, unstoppable titan of terror!’ Those words advertising the 1954 movie Godzilla could be the billing of a new freakish giant stretching across the sleeping farm fields of Virginia. Now in a court near you is The Lobster, a monster over 100 miles long. The only saving grace is that this creature only devours Republicans, leaving roughly half the state with virtually no representation in Congress. Virginia was a quiet, pastoral state before the creature’s appearance. It was considered the gold standard among states rejecting gerrymandering, with fairly divided districts in a state divided right down the middle. It then elected a governor, Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who assured voters that she was adamantly against gerrymandering and then immediately called for the most radical gerrymandered map in the nation after she was elected.” (04/28/26)
“A U.S. special forces soldier is due in federal court in New York on Tuesday on charges that he used classified information about the mission to capture former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro to win more than $400,000 on the prediction market Polymarket. Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, has been charged with the unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud and making an unlawful monetary transaction. The case comes during heavy scrutiny on prediction markets, which allow people to trade or wager on almost anything, as policymakers call for stricter regulation of the platforms amid concerns about insider trading.” (04/28/26)
