“The United Arab Emirates (UAE) shocked the world on Tuesday when it announced that it’d be leaving the world’s largest oil cartel this week. While there’s no immediate impact for the US, in the long run it’ll mean lower gasoline prices and much-needed relief for American consumers. For decades, the UAE has been part of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which has artificially limited global oil supplies and thereby put upward pressure on prices. … The idea behind the cartel was simple: gather all the major oil-producing countries into a room and agree to act like a monopoly, thereby maximizing profits at the expense of the rest of the world. But as other nations began discovering and pumping more oil of their own, it became increasingly difficult for a dozen or so countries to control global prices.” (04/29/26)
“A man in eastern India has said he was forced to carry his sister’s skeletal remains to a bank to prove her death after failing to withdraw her savings. A video from Odisha state of Jitu Munda, 52, taking the remains to the bank went viral this week, sparking outrage. He said he acted in frustration after repeated attempts to access the money without being able to show official proof of death. Police said he exhumed the woman’s remains to bring them to the bank. The bank denied asking for this, saying they only demanded legally required documents. It added that the incident appeared to stem from a lack of awareness of procedures, and that the money has since been handed over to the legal heirs.” (04/29/26)
“The Supreme Court will weigh arguments Wednesday over the Trump administration’s push to end legal protections for Haitians and Syrians as migrants fleeing war and natural disaster. Haitians and Syrians were among those from 17 countries with Temporary Protected Status, which allows migrants already in the U.S. to stay with work permits in 18-month increments, so long as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security deems their country of origin unsafe for return. Since President Donald Trump ’s second term began, Homeland Security has ended the protections for 13 countries, exposing their migrants to potential deportation. The case focuses on whether the administration properly weighed conditions in Haiti and Syria when it ended TPS and if it prejudiced non-white immigrants.” (04/29/26)
“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)
